Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX is expanding. After raising $10 million in Series B funding last month, the team is gearing up for its coming V3 launch. Founder Antonio Juliano sat down with The Scoop this week to talk about where the decentralized finance (DeFi) space is going in the coming year. They could be the answer to the traditional financial system's transparency and security problems. But first, they have to scale. Juliano told The Scoop how dYdX is handling scalability, includ...
Feb 19, 2021•50 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Michael Sonnenshein took the reigns of cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments earlier this year. At the helm of the more than $30 billion investment firm, Sonnenshein is charting a course for a broad expansion of the business, which is best known for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. "We brought in $5.7 billion last year," Sonnenshein said. "We are launching new products, we are investing in technology, we're building out the various teams, it's really about continuing to stay ahead of th...
Feb 16, 2021•41 min•Season 3Ep. 8
"It's been number one on the ask list for a long time." That's Tim McCourt, global head of equity products for CME Group. Speaking about the reception of the more than hundred-and-seventy-year-old exchange's latest product -- futures based on ETH, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network -- McCourt characterized the response as "overwhelming." "People have been really excited ... I think for a long time customers have really been demanding ether futures. They're really excited about the...
Feb 09, 2021•50 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Stock markets have seen unprecedented levels of trading in recent days, fueled by retail trading activity tied to Wall Street Bets. Robinhood — which became the key figure in this drama as the venue through which much of the publicly visible trading occurred — has been a focal point of this market backdrop after buckling under the pressure of heightened activity and temporarily limiting purchases of certain stocks, like GameStop and AMC. In response, Robinhood came forward and tied its response ...
Feb 05, 2021•47 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Cboe is a Wall Street powerhouse. On a typical trading day, the exchange operator handles about a third of U.S. equity volumes. In derivatives, major Wall Street products such as the VIX and S&P 500 options trade hands every day through its venue. Cboe is now trying its hand at the crypto market — again, that is. More than a year after it shuttered its bitcoin futures product, the exchange said that it would re-enter the market through a partnership with crypto data services provider CoinRou...
Feb 02, 2021•43 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Pantera Capital's CEO Dan Morehead says initial coin offerings (ICO) aren't dead, but the narrative is gearing towards a bitcoin and ethereum ruled world for investors. "Crypto as a market is so volatile that the narrative changes," said Morehead on this week's episode of The Scoop. That narrative lately has been all about bitcoin's growing adoption. From Microstrategy to Stone Ridge Holdings — and maybe soon the city of Miami — big players are allocating millions into the cryptocurrency. But as...
Jan 26, 2021•50 min•Season 3Ep. 5
"They start with bitcoin. It is the easiest to understand." In the most recent episode of The Scoop, Olaf Carlson-Wee said that recent headlines about institutional investors making waves in the bitcoin market aren't surprising to him. Since he launched Polychain Capital in 2016, he's become familiar with new market entrants who start by exploring bitcoin and then ultimately make their way to other ecosystems. "It isn't surprising that these big institutional investors are first getting involved...
Jan 22, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Count this as one of the first major acquisitions deals of 2021: Coinbase said on Wednesday that it is set to acquire crypto infrastructure services provider Bison Trails for an undisclosed sum. On this episode of The Scoop, Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee and Bison Trails CEO Joe Lallouz unpack the deal with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Ryan Todd. "Bison trails is going to serve as a foundational product within our product portfolio: what we call our ecosystem products," Cha...
Jan 19, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Bitcoin investment firm NYDIG raised $50 million in October, quadrupled its clients and life insurance company MassMutual purchased a minority stake in the firm. This came about because bitcoin is transitioning to a predominantly institution-owned asset, according to NYDIG CEO Robert Gutmann. MassMutual made a $5 million equity investment in NYDIG last December, as well as a $100 million bitcoin investment for its general investment account through NYDIG. On today's episode of The Scoop, Gutmann...
Jan 15, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 2
After bitcoin's price fell from its highs above $40,000 this past weekend, investors were left arguing about whether that drop to almost $30,000 was an inevitable market correction or a sign of something more sinister. Indeed, liquidations across futures venues soared to more than $3 billion as crypto exchange Coinbase reported persistent technical issues. But Galaxy Digital's Mike Novogratz isn't particularly worried. "I am positive this is not November 2017," he said on this week's episode of ...
Jan 12, 2021•44 min•Season 3Ep. 1
On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's research team speak with Dinwiddie about his crypto journey, what originally got him excited about the space, what made him buy bitcoin, the investments that have made him excited about DeFi, Calaxy, and the NBA.
Dec 28, 2020•35 min•Season 2Ep. 47
Despite the uncertainty of the global economy in 2020, the New York Stock Exchange has had a strong year, helping companies raise more than $66 billion. In many respects, it has been the year of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), according to vice chairman John Tuttle. This year, firms have raised billions through the acquisition-style mechanism. During this episode of The Scoop, Tuttle — who previously led NYSE's global listings business — explained why the fundraising method has ta...
Nov 20, 2020•32 min•Season 2Ep. 46
CEO Brad Garlinghouse says in what was poised to be a challenging year, Ripple exceeded his expectations for 2020. "We aren’t going to grow as fast this year as we thought. However, we’re still getting two production financial contracts a week," he said. Indeed, the digital asset and payment system has seen some days this year in which XRP liquidity on Bitso exceeded BTC. But still, an opaque regulatory atmosphere has kept Ripple from reaching its potential, Garlinghouse argued in an interview w...
Nov 13, 2020•51 min•Season 2Ep. 45
Shayne Coplan thinks information markets are the future, and with the recent influx in volume to his platform Polymarket, it seems they are rapidly becoming the present. In recent weeks, the prediction market platform has done millions in volume with its various election markets, which span from the U.S. presidential election to state calls. The platform's "Will Trump win market" has surpassed $8 million in volume. As the U.S. presidential election grew ever-tighter on November 3 and 4, many cry...
Nov 04, 2020•43 min•Season 2Ep. 44
The ban will take effect in January of next year, affecting crypto brokers, investment platforms, financial advisers and, of course, derivatives exchanges. But, David Mercer, CEO of LMAX Group, said what the ban really does is effectively halve the leverage. The FCA had already limited leverage to retail customers to two to one, now it's one to one. "You've banned derivatives, but actually you've just halved leverage. It's one to one rather than two to one. That's all that's really happened," sa...
Oct 22, 2020•45 min•Season 2Ep. 43
HODLpac is seeking to put the benefits of crypto protocols on display, borrowing from the industry in its governance and voting structure to apportion collected funds to candidates. Though it doesn't accept donations in crypto yet, it does follow a token-based voting structure to determine who the PAC will support and how much a candidate might receive. Its first Community Ballot will occur tomorrow, meaning those who are interested in donating and voting on candidates still can. For more inform...
Oct 20, 2020•52 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Yassine Elmandjra, crypto asset analyst at ARK Invest, published a white paper recently that argues Bitcoin could reach three trillion dollars in market cap by 2025. On this week's episode of The Scoop, he broke down how he arrived at that conclusion. ARK began looking into digital assets in 2015, when BTC was trading around $250. At that time, the firm published a white paper arguing BTC was unique and didn't fall into a traditional asset class. Now, it's published a part two to that early pape...
Oct 14, 2020•45 min•Season 2Ep. 41
Last Thursday, BitMEX found itself embroiled in both a civil and criminal case with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), respectively. BitMEX was hit by twin lawsuits. The CFTC accused the derivative exchange and its operators, including CEO Arthur Hayes and co-founders Ben Delo and Samuel Reed, of running an unregistered trading platform and violating anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations. The DOJ filed a criminal indictment a...
Oct 05, 2020•36 min•Season 2Ep. 40
"We knew that DeFi was going to be big and important about sometime last year." CoinGecko co-founder TM Lee has been keeping a pulse on the space since starting the platform as a project with his co-founder in 2014. The initial coin offering (ICO) boom of 2017 multiplied the traffic tens of times over, cementing CoinGecko as a popular crypto metrics provider. Now, CoinGecko is in the midst of another boom — the decentralized finance (DeFi) explosion. The platform has gained even more popularity ...
Sep 30, 2020•36 min•Season 2Ep. 39
In the fast-paced world of decentralized finance, the people behind the protocols are sometimes just as captivating as the protocols themselves. That's certainly the case for yearn.finance's Andre Cronje, the former banking developer who seemingly built out both a cult following and billion dollar protocol over night. Indeed, the governance token tied to the protocol, YFI, has surged beyond $30,000 since its inception at the beginning of the summer. If it was up to Andre, however, he wouldn't be...
Sep 17, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Sep 16, 2020•37 min•Season 2Ep. 37
This year has been unprecedented in many respects, with the coronavirus pandemic rocking markets and driving volatility in ways many couldn't predict. Quant trading firms — or firms that base their trading strategies on statistic models — were seemingly left at a disadvantage as firms like Winton and others lacked the data for such unprecedented events. On this week's episode of The Scoop, Martin Green, co-CIO and CEO of quant trading firm Cambrian Asset Management, broke down what it's like to ...
Sep 10, 2020•46 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Last week, FTX announced it would acquire crypto data tracking app Blockfolio for $150 million. In this episode of The Scoop, Blockfolio co-founder Ed Moncada and FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried talk about the logic behind the deal and what the firms plan to build together. We also talk about the burgeoning decentralized finance space and how Jump Trading is going to play a big part in FTX's upcoming DEX, Serum.
Sep 03, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 36
When Bitcoin emerged, its white paper touted a myriad of use cases that had the potential to rock the traditional finance world. But the idea of using an asset that could severely fluctuate in value as a medium of exchange doesn't quite make sense to some. This, says senior Coin Metrics analyst Nate Maddrey, is why we have stablecoins. On a previous episode of The Scoop, Martin Chavez said Bitcoin doesn't qualify as money in his book — it's a commodity. On this week's episode, Nate Maddrey break...
Sep 02, 2020•45 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Chris Hehmeyer has long been a big player in the U.S. futures and commodities industry, but now he's all in on crypto. On this week's episode of The Scoop, Hehmeyer explained why. Hehmeyer began its push into crypto during the 2017 bull run. Competitive pressures in its traditional futures business led to the firm's pivot earlier this year full-time into crypto. Hehmeyer said he wanted to signal to clients that the firm was ready to commit to the growing crypto market. That commitment coincided ...
Aug 27, 2020•54 min•Season 2Ep. 34
In the episode, Justin Sun broke down how Poloniex fits into Tron's plans to capitalize on the DeFi mania. He also discussed: Why increased network effects will keep Tron from being left behind as more protocols emerge The strategy that brought in enough Tether to grow the number of stablecoins on the Tron blockchain to 3.7 billion His response to those who argue Tron is more centralized and those concerned the network has its roots in plagiarism His story behind the Poloniex deal Why memes are ...
Aug 20, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 33
The age of the new day trader has come about at an uncertain time for the world and the markets, meaning downturns and upturns are fleeting. Sven Henrich, founder of NorthmanTrader, is an expert at reading the macro signs of the market. On this week's episode of The Scoop, he cautioned against continued interventions by the Federal Reserve that have kept the new generation of traders from a prolonged bear market. Henrich's firm provides macro views and technical analysis to its subscribers, and ...
Aug 14, 2020•56 min•Season 2Ep. 32
The cost of market data is an ongoing debate in the traditional finance world, but in crypto, not so much. But during this week's episode of The Scoop, Ronan Ryan, head of IEX, the Investor's Exchange, said that's going to change. Ryan broke down the market data discussion from both the traditional and crypto viewpoints on this week's episode. He also explored: What it's like to host a podcast and what value he hopes it adds Why crypto exchanges aren't charging for market data...yet Why traditio...
Aug 12, 2020•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 32
Bitcoin and gold have both climbed higher in recent weeks, but any correlation between the two is still too slight to take seriously, according to CoinMetrics. Fundstrat managing partner Tom Lee offered a different explanation on this week's episode of The Scoop — that boomers and Millenials are taking sides. Lee pointed out that it's likely an older generation piling into gold with huge cash positions. For those who missed the market rally, gold likely became a more attractive position as infla...
Aug 06, 2020•41 min•Season 2Ep. 31
During this week's episode of The Scoop, Ehrlich broke down what he shares on those calls. Voyager conducted its initial public offering (IPO) through a reverse merger, listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange and trading in over-the-counter (OTC) markets. While an IPO calls for extensive regulatory filings and investment bank backing, a reverse merger sees private company investors acquire shares of a public but inactive corporation. In Voyager's case, it acquired the shell company UC Resour...
Jul 31, 2020•43 min•Season 2Ep. 30
