Best Solana podcasts for developers (2026 listening stack)

If you write Solana programs for a living, most podcasts are the wrong medium. Too many recaps of candles, too few conversations about why a transaction landed (or did not), how a team structured CPI, or what broke after mainnet. The good news: the Foundation's directory at solana.com/podcasts now surfaces a real split between Solana Broadcast Network (SBN) shows and Community Voices, and a few of those are built for engineers. Everything below is ranked for developer signal, not for alpha hunting.

Note on sol.new/pod: as of July 2026 that path returns 404 (sol.new itself is live as a token/NFT surface). Use solana.com/podcasts plus Spotify / Apple for discovery until that short link is restored.

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How this list is ranked

• Architecture over narrative — guests who ship code or design protocol mechanics beat panel vibes.
• Solana-native or Solana-heavy — multi-chain crypto radio only if it regularly hits SVM topics hard.
• Actually subscribeable — Spotify, Apple, or RSS from the official listing (not a dead YouTube playlist).
• Cadence — weekly or better so the queue stays warm.

Tier 1: pure developer signal

1. The Stack with Ilan Gitter

Tagged Developers on the SBN grid for a reason. Hosted by Ilan Gitter, Head of Ecosystem Engineering at the Solana Foundation. Format is blunt: how it was built, what broke, why an architectural decision stuck. Recent episodes dig into Blueshift cryptography tooling, Anza P-Token / Pinocchio, Squads, Helium migration details, Orca engineering, Crossmint smart wallets, x402 with Coinbase, and the Solana changelog with ReadyLayerOne.

• Listen: Spotify · Apple · show page
• Best for: mid-to-senior engineers, protocol PMs who need postmortems without hype.

2. Solfate Podcast

Hosted by two people who actually build on Solana: Nick Frostbutter and James Pacheco. Long-form founder interviews with notes and timestamps; topics skew infrastructure and product engineering (Raiku inclusion, Step Finance data pipelines, Termina / network extensions, mobile on DRiP, Shadow Drive). ~76 episodes, weekly when active. Site: solfate.com/podcast.

• Listen: Spotify · Apple
• Best for: founders and full-stack Solana builders who want peer conversations, not investor panels.

3. Validated (Austin Federa)

The long-running technical interview show (170+ episodes). Austin Federa sits with researchers, core engineers, and ecosystem leads on staking, MEV, privacy, market structure, mobile, and institutional rails. Episodes like Constellation debates with Anza / Temporal, Mert on privacy, Ellipsis market-making, and Solana Mobile go deep enough that you can take notes for design docs.

• Listen: Spotify · Apple · show page
• Best for: protocol design, research, and "what is the network actually optimizing for" context.

Tier 2: ecosystem product + builder adjacency

4. Lightspeed (Blockworks)

Not a pure engineering show, but the highest-cadence Solana-heavy product and market-structure podcast in the ecosystem (~300 episodes). Useful for understanding prop AMMs, LST politics, and what apps are actually shipping. Listed under Community Voices on solana.com; also tracked on devrels.xyz/channels.

• Listen: Apple · Blockworks · Spotify via search "Lightspeed Blockworks"

5. The Index Podcast (Alex Kehaya)

Weekly conversations with founders, developers, and investors across crypto, blockchain, and open-source AI (~164 episodes). Broader than Solana-only, but regularly useful when guests are shipping on SVM or adjacent infra.

• Page: solana.com/podcasts/the-index

6. Pirates Parley

Steve (Happy Pirate) interviews builders across DeFi, wallets, oracles, and infrastructure. Less "changelog" than The Stack, more founder operating-system talk. Good commute companion when you want protocol product context without trading desks.

• Page: solana.com/podcasts/pirates-parley

Tier 3: weekly pulse (keep the feed short)

• SOL BROTHERS (Eno + Simon) — apps shipping, ecosystem developments, founder perspectives. Spotify.
• Solana Weekly News (SolanaFloor) — high-signal weekly recap of builders, apps, infra, culture. Use when you skipped Timeline for a week.
• Logan Jastremski Podcast — long-form interviews that often go deep on Solana infra and research guests (~150+ episodes on Apple/Spotify). Not Foundation-listed, but frequently lands engineer- relevant guests.

SBN specialty shows (pick by beat)

The Solana Broadcast Network also runs vertical shows that are not general "best for all devs" but are excellent if that is your product surface:

• Mint Condition (Maya Caddle) — payments and crypto / TradFi rails.
• Bits to Bricks (Amira Valliani) — fintech, stablecoins, policy-adjacent infrastructure.
• On The Road (Nick Ducoff) — capital markets and internet-native finance on Solana.
• Open Intelligence (Rishin Sharma) — AI × blockchain on Solana.
• Billions (Pedro Miranda) — consumer product founders.
• Solana is Global (Alex Scott) — regional adoption stories for builders expanding outside the US.
• Talking Tokens (Jacquelyn Melinek) — dense founder / market participant interviews (Tue/Thu). More industry than engineering, still useful for GTM context.

A practical subscribe stack

You do not need all of them. A sane builder queue looks like this:

1. Always on: The Stack + Solfate (or Validated if you prefer research depth over shipping stories).
2. Weekly context: Lightspeed or Solana Weekly News (pick one, not both, or you will drown).
3. On demand: SBN specialty shows when your current project matches the beat (payments, AI agents, consumer).

Prefer RSS or Spotify/Apple downloads over live Twitter Spaces for deep work: searchable archives, offline trains, and no FOMO UI. The Foundation pages link Apple + Spotify + RSS for SBN shows; community shows list the same on their solana.com entries.

Where to browse

• Official directory: https://solana.com/podcasts
• Spotify: search show names above, or open the Spotify links from each Foundation show page.
• Apple Podcasts: same; IDs verified for The Stack (id1887897373), Solfate (id1663919657), Validated (id1476353378), Lightspeed (id1697548240).
• devrels channels: https://devrels.xyz/channels (podcast kind filter; Lightspeed already listed).

TL;DR

• For engineers first: The Stack, Solfate, Validated.
• For product / ecosystem weekly: Lightspeed, then SOL BROTHERS or Solana Weekly News.
• Directory of record: solana.com/podcasts. sol.new/pod is not live yet.
• Subscribe on Spotify or Apple, keep the queue short, skip anything that sounds like a trading desk.