Volt Capital announced in May the launch of its second fund — with backing from the likes of Andreessen Howoritz's Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen — and despite the ongoing bear market for digital assets, founder Soona Amhaz says there's an opportunity to invest in a new wave of entrepreneurs. Following the launch of a wide range of marketplaces tied to non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance, Amhaz said she is setting her sights on projects and companies that solve the problems facing suc...
Oct 28, 2022•30 min•Season 4Ep. 104
In a market known for mantras such as "irresponsibly long," Joe McCann has been taking a more prudent approach to crypto venture capital investing. The former head of systematic and algorithmic trading at Passport Capital launched his latest venture, Asymmetric, in the spring of last year and started deploying capital this past summer in the wake of the Three Arrows Capital meltdown. On this episode of The Scoop, McCann explained that his firm's approach to venture capital investing in crypto me...
Oct 26, 2022•40 min•Season 4Ep. 103
In September, North Island Ventures launched a new $125 million fund to invest in emerging crypto and Web3 companies. In this episode of The Scoop, North Island Ventures Managing Partner Travis Scher unpacks the thesis behind the new fund and explains his firm’s vision for how the crypto industry will evolve over the next couple of decades. According to Scher, the tribalism that currently pits enthusiasts of competing blockchains against each other will fade over time: “I do not think there will...
Oct 21, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 102
Back in July, controversy broke out amongst Bitcoiners when Nic Carter — a long-time bitcoin proponent and Founding Partner of Castle Island Ventures — announced that his firm invested in a Web3 authentication company. Even though Castle Island recently launched a $250 million fund explicitly for Web3 investments, Carter’s announcement was met with staunch criticism from some members of the Bitcoin community. In this episode of The Scoop, Nic Carter and host Frank Chaparro discuss some of the ph...
Oct 19, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 101
After a tumultuous first half of the year, the crypto lending market is maturing, according to Ledn Co-Founder and CSO Mauricio Di Bartolomeo. In this episode of The Scoop, Bartolomeo shares his insider perspective on the state of crypto lending, including what types of lending he believes involves the least amount of risk. According to Bartolomeo, the liquidity crisis following the collapse of Three Arrows Capital earlier this year has the surviving lenders thinking more seriously about risk ma...
Oct 17, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 100
BlockTower yesterday unveiled a new $150 million fund, which has been operating in stealth since December of last year. BlockTower also announced a new venture arm, which complements the firm’s long-biased flagship fund, market-neutral fund and credit strategies. In this episode of The Scoop, Thomas Klocanas, BlockTower general partner and the new head of ventures, explains how BlockTower’s new venture fund synergizes with the firm’s existing strategies, and how this is advantageous for early-st...
Oct 14, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 99
In August, it was reported that asset management firm Brevan Howard raised over $1 billion to invest in the crypto industry. In this episode of The Scoop, Bevan Howard’s Co-Heads of Ventures Peter Johnson and Colleen Sullivan break down their investment thesis and explain what segments of the crypto market they believe are seeing the most interest from existing brands. While traditional financial institutions are slowly moving their way into the crypto ecosystem, Sullivan points out that many tr...
Oct 12, 2022•54 min•Season 4Ep. 98
The cameras have been rolling over at Coinbase, CEO Brian Armstrong revealed last Friday, when he announced the release of Coin: A Founder’s Story — a feature-length film over three years in the making. In this episode of The Scoop, Brian Armstrong sits down with host Frank Chaparro to share his thoughts on Coinbase’s new film, including his take on how some of the thornier moments of Coinbase’s history are portrayed. As Armstrong explains, he decided to produce the $2 million film because he wa...
Oct 10, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 97
In July, Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs partnered with Improbable — a British company building a network of virtual worlds — to bring to life Yuga’s metaverse project known as ‘Otherside.’ In this episode of The Scoop, Improbable’s Founders CEO Herman Narula and Chief Product Officer Rob Whitehead explain how they believe the metaverse creates value, and why developing entirely new experiences is crucial for success. According to Narula, nothing 'metaverse' related will be able to retain...
Oct 07, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 96
TBD, the crypto focused arm of Jack Dorsey’s Block, is partnering with Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, to unleash the power of stablecoin payments onto the next billion crypto users. In this episode of The Scoop, Circle’s Chief Revenue Officer Kash Razzaghi and TBD’s Chief Operating Officer Emily Chiu discuss their new partnership, and explain how their companies’ synergy is going to make it easier to move value back and forth between crypto and the real world economy. According ...
Oct 05, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 95
The Blockchain Association recently launched a new political action committee (PAC) designed to build relationships with pro-crypto Congressional candidates. In this episode of The Scoop, the Blockchain Association’s Executive Director Kristin Smith shares the objectives of the new Blockchain Association PAC, and why she believes Congress is the appropriate authority to design a regulatory framework for the crypto industry. As Smith explains, the Blockchain Association PAC is intended to promote...
Oct 03, 2022•23 min•Season 4Ep. 94
For the final installment of this three-part Ethereum Merge special edition of The Scoop, we take a closer look at zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups — technology that could enable Ethereum to scale to millions of transactions per second. There are four main teams working on ZK-rollups: Polygon, Scroll, Starkware, and Matter Labs. In this episode of The Scoop, Matter Labs Chief Product Officer Steve Newcomb shares what he believes to be the key ingredients of a good ZK-rollup, and why he believes scali...
Sep 30, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 93
Last year, Sky Mavis’ Axie Infinity inspired an entire genre of ‘play-to-earn’ crypto games. In recent months however, the volume of in-game NFT sales has been in decline as data from The Block shows: In this episode of The Scoop, Sky Mavis Co-Founder and Growth Lead Jeff Zirlin explains why he believes the core Axie community is stronger than ever, and how Axie Infinity’s in-game economy will become less reliant on speculative activity. According to Zirlin, the key to developing Axie’s in-game ...
Sep 28, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 92
In the crypto world, MEV (‘Maximal Extractable Value’) refers to block producers’ ability to reorganize the sequence of transactions in any given block to extract a premium. While MEV can be used nefariously in instances such as front-running large transactions, it can also be used for arbitrage opportunities that do not directly impact other market participants. In this episode of The Scoop, we take a closer look at the world of MEV with Viktor Bunin, a protocol specialist at Coinbase, and Step...
Sep 26, 2022•51 min•Season 4Ep. 91
In the last episode of The Scoop, we explored why some venture capitalists are becoming reluctant to invest in token models. However, not all VCs in the crypto space share this sentiment. Multicoin Capital — a VC whose combined crypto funds total nearly $550 million — is “primarily token investors,” according to managing partner Kyle Samani. In this episode of The Scoop, Kyle Samani talks through some of Multicoin’s recent investments and lays out when the token model can be an effective value c...
Sep 23, 2022•35 min•Season 4Ep. 90
Last year’s bull market exuberance is a distant memory, as are the wildly inflated crypto funding rounds that attracted an unprecedented amount of venture capital to the space. In this episode of The Scoop, CoinShare’s Chief Strategy Officer Meltem Demirors and Aglaé Ventures Managing Partner Vanessa Grellet unpack how the crypto VC landscape has changed since last year’s bull market, and particularly why venture capitalists are becoming more reluctant to invest in early token rounds. As Demiror...
Sep 21, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 89
Unstoppable Domains allows users to register domain names via non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which can then be used to receive crypto payments, and as digital identity markers around Web3. In July, the company raised $65 million in a Series A, successfully clinching ‘unicorn’ status at a $1 billion valuation. In this episode of The Scoop, Unstoppable Domains’ Founder and CEO Matt Gould explains why NFT domain names are likely the future identity system for Web3, and how persistent digital identities...
Sep 19, 2022•39 min•Season 4Ep. 88
Back in July, the SEC launched an investigation into Coinbase for allegedly listing several tokens that should have been listed as securities. Yesterday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler made comments that indicate he believes more crypto exchanges and broker-dealers are still in violation of guidelines put in place under former SEC Chair Clayton in 2017. In this episode of The Scoop, FTX President Brett Harrison shares how FTX US is striving to avoid regulatory issues, and why regulatory clarity in the d...
Sep 16, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 87
Since going public last October, the digital asset management platform Bakkt has been working towards enabling more businesses to provide crypto services to their customers. For example, in April of this year, Bakkt closed a deal with American Bank which allows the bank’s customers to buy and sell both bitcoin and ether. In this episode of The Scoop, Bakkt’s Chief Product Officer Dan O'Prey lays out Bakkt’s ambitions for the future and breaks down his company’s strategy to help banks grow their ...
Sep 14, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 86
In part one of this three-part Ethereum Merge special edition of The Scoop, Lex Sokolin — head economist at Consensys — examined how The Merge will improve web3’s reputation outside of the crypto space. In this episode of The Scoop, Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan provides a technical overview of The Merge, and explains why it took longer than expected to prepare the network for its transition to proof of stake. According to Ryan, changing the consensus mechanism of an active blockchai...
Sep 12, 2022•53 min•Season 4Ep. 85
After years of anticipation and development, the Ethereum blockchain is finally on the verge of transitioning its consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to a more energy-efficient mechanism known as proof-of-stake. According to a blog post from The Ethereum Foundation, switching the consensus mechanism of the blockchain is like changing the engine of a spaceship, and in just a few days, it will be “time to hot-swap the new engine for the old mid-flight.” In this special Ethereum Merge edition of...
Sep 09, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 84
Hxro Network (pronounced “hero”) raised $34 million in a token round in November to help advance the platform’s vision of building a decentralized derivative platform on Solana. Now, Hxro is on the cusp of launching USDC collateralized markets, which will mark the first time users are able to trade derivatives products using collateral with real value. In this episode of The Scoop, Hxro co-founder and CEO Dan Gunsberg joins host Frank Chaparro to unpack the idea behind the Hxro protocol and to e...
Sep 07, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 83
Last time Paolo Ardoino came on The Scoop podcast back in 2019, the USDT stablecoin had a market cap of less than $5 billion. Today, that number has risen to more than $66 billion, according to data from The Block's Data Dashboard. While Ardoino serves as both the CTO of Tether (the issuing company behind USDT), as well as CTO of the crypto exchange Bitfinex, recently he has been focusing much of his attention on developing Holepunch — a fully encrypted platform for peer-to-peer applications. In...
Sep 02, 2022•51 min•Season 4Ep. 82
Earlier this summer, the collapse of Three Arrows Capital (3AC) sent the crypto lending world into chaos. Many lenders suffered heavy losses due to 3AC exposure and some were forced into bankruptcy. BlockFi — a prominent crypto lender that was valued at nearly $5 billion during the height of the bull market — was one of the firms that took a big hit when 3AC collapsed, prompting the company's shareholders to approve a $680 million deal with FTX US that outlines a path to a potential acquisition ...
Aug 31, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 81
While NFT projects grew in popularity, so too did brand recognition — and the interest of talent representatives to sign them on. United Talent Agency (UTA) was among the first in August of 2021, when it signed CryptoPunks and Meebits creators Larva Labs , followed by Deadfellaz in April of this year. Other talent representatives got into web3 as well, such as Creative Artists Agency (CAA) signing on the NFT collector 0xb1 in October 2021 and even hiring a Chief Metaverse Officer in August of th...
Aug 26, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 80
Plaid, a fintech infrastructure and payments provider aiming to simplify the digital financial ecosystem through a single API, recently announced big crypto players such as Gemini and Binance.US are joining its network of financial institutions. The move is part of Plaid's broader effort to integrate both legacy institutions and crypto service providers into its platform, which was valued at more than $13 billion last year after a $425 million fundraise. In this episode of The Scoop, Plaid's hea...
Aug 24, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 79
The US has yet to see a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) reach the market, but when a futures-based product got the green light from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last year, issuers were hopeful. Some thought it signified the regulator becoming more comfortable with crypto products and a spot ETF could be on the horizon. But since then, the SEC continued to shoot down application after application on the basis that there aren't sufficient mechanisms to prevent price manipul...
Aug 19, 2022•31 min•Season 4Ep. 78
Fractional — a crypto startup whose tech allows individual non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to be locked in a smart contract, and then 'fractionalized' into fungible digital pieces — is changing its name to 'Tessera.' In addition to the name change, Tessera announced they closed a $20 million Series A earlier this summer in a funding round led by Paradigm. In this episode of The Scoop, Tessera co-founder and CEO Andy Chorlian explains how fractionalized NFTs foster new digital communities, and why 'Te...
Aug 17, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 77
Over the course of the past two decades, Grammy Award-winning DJ, André Allen Anjos (also known as RAC) has noticed a growing trend. "There's been a trend since 2005 in the MySpace era, and all of that has been a trend towards sovereignty of an artist, of putting the artists on top," he says. RAC is an advisor to Audius — a decentralized music streaming platform that raised $5 million last September from big names including Coinbase Ventures and Pantera Capital, along with popular artists such a...
Aug 12, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 76
CoinShares — a London-based crypto firm whose operations include asset management, venture capital, and proprietary trading — had exposure to Terra's "algorithmic" stablecoin UST, the collapse of which resulted in a loss of $21 million for the firm's trading unit of the business. In this episode of The Scoop, CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti provides an inside look at how CoinShares navigated Terra's collapse, and why crypto's "private company environment" leads to marketplace uncertainty. Acc...
Aug 10, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 75
