In this episode of The Blockopedia podcast, Pharos Network’s DevRel lead Janesh sat down with The Blockopedia’s C0-founder Mohammad Ahmad Khan to talk about what actually separates successful blockchain ecosystems from the ones quietly fading out, and why hackathons alone are not the developer growth strategy most chains think they are.
Janesh‘s entry into Web3 traces back to a small 100 page book called Blockchain Blueprint of New Economy. Coming from a cybersecurity and infrastructure engineering background, with a long personal history exploring open networks and Tor, the idea of decentralized systems clicked almost instantly. His first real step in was the Solana India hackathon, where he did not win, but the experience pulled him into a string of hackathons across multiple ecosystems, several of which he did win, eventually opening doors into infrastructure engineering roles building blockchains and bridges back in 2020 and 2021.
His strategic communication style eventually pushed him toward developer relations and solutions engineering, a path that has taken him across more than twenty Web3 ecosystems. He now leads DevRel at Pharos Network, a role he has held for over a year and a half.
What Separates Thriving Ecosystems From Dying Ones
Janesh was direct about the pattern he sees repeatedly. Successful ecosystems obsess over concrete metrics like KPIs, OKRs and return on investment from day one, while struggling ones treat revenue generation as a problem to solve later. He pointed to the wave of layer two chains that disappeared once they could not demonstrate real economic value, and warned that projects relying purely on governance tokens without genuine utility are especially fragile, sometimes vulnerable to a single actor accumulating enough holdings to seize control.
What Pharos Network Is Building
Asked to explain Pharos simply, Janesh described a layer one blockchain built from scratch rather than forked, with its own virtual machine and a Byzantine fault tolerant proof of stake consensus that allows parallel execution instead of the rigid epoch based systems many chains still rely on. He cited throughput figures in the thousands of transactions per second today, with a theoretical ceiling far higher, alongside sub second transaction finality. Beyond raw speed, Pharos has focused heavily on keeping gas fees low and building institutional grade infrastructure, with partners like Chainlink and native Circle USDC support already integrated.
A Day in the Life of DevRel
Janesh gave a candid look at what developer relations actually involves day to day: coordinating across internal teams, unblocking integration issues for ecosystem partners and asset issuers, and staying available across Asian, European and US time zones so developers never feel ignored regardless of where they are based.
Why Hackathons Alone Do Not Work
This was perhaps his strongest opinion. Janesh argues most ecosystems collapse their developer funnel right after hackathon prizes are handed out, with nothing in place to retain builders afterward. His framework rests on three pillars: onboarding, engagement and retention, with retention being where most chains quietly fail. Drawing on his earlier experience with Reef Chain, he emphasized building gamified, ongoing developer programs rather than one off events, so ecosystems become genuine extended teams for builders rather than a single hackathon weekend.
The Bigger Vision Behind the Conversation
Much of the conversation circled back to a single idea: chains that survive long term are the ones that treat developers as long term partners in generating real on chain revenue, not just participants competing for prize money. Janesh sees the current AI wave as an accelerant for this, particularly through tools like Pharos’s AI skill agent, which lets users execute on chain transactions directly through natural language rather than navigating wallets and gas mechanics.
Advice for Builders and Ecosystems
Asked what he would change about the industry, Janesh circled back to the same theme: founders need a revenue first mindset from day one, not an assumption that funding alone sustains a project indefinitely. His advice to newer developers was to focus on one ecosystem and one idea deeply, prioritizing incubation over chasing grants, and to treat hackathons as a starting point rather than a repeatable income strategy.
When asked which Web3 figure is worth following closely, he pointed to Balaji Srinivasan, citing his long arc across Web2, Web3 and now AI as a rare, sustained vantage point on the industry’s cycles.
Watch the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDn8CUUPU3E