Kayvon Tehranian

CEO & Founder, Foundation

Search every verified Kayvon Tehranian interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Kayvon Tehranian, CEO and co-founder of Foundation and Rodeo, has been discussing the structural challenges facing the digital art market after the 2021 NFT boom. In a February 2026 podcast, he stated that Foundation was recently sold to Blackdove and noted that platforms including Rodeo have shut down or dissolved departments because growth models built on crypto speculation proved unsustainable. He said that "most of that money was speculative in nature and came from the crypto industry, not traditional collectors" and that once that demand collapsed, many actors were left without sustainable business models. Tehranian has also been promoting Rodeo, a social network he designed as a response to what he described as a stagnant, insular Web3 community. He said that after attending a conference in Paris, he "really felt stuck" because "there weren't enough new people" and it "felt like a reunion." He described Rodeo as a platform for sharing process and behind-the-scenes content rather than selling work, with a 24-hour posting limit and no secondary marketplace. He stated that the goal is to introduce new behaviors and bring people into on-chain experiences without lecturing them, adding that "digital ownership is the gateway" to higher-value digital art.