The latest data from Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows that the U.S. has taken over China as the country with the biggest share of Bitcoin's hash rate. The backdrop of this data shift: the near-complete exodus of bitcoin miners from China, once the undisputed powerhouse for this particular sector of the crypto economy. This historic reversal took place over the course of mere months after China ordered its initial crackdown on the crypto mining space in May. China's government escal...
Oct 29, 2021•20 min•Season 3Ep. 68
Robinhood was hit by a slowdown in its crypto business during the third quarter, but the business unit's chief operating officer, Christine Brown, is optimistic. On this episode of The Scoop, Brown told host Frank Chaparro that "business is good" at the brokerage company. "More than 60 percent of Robinhood funded accounts traded crypto in Q2, and now everyone, everyone listening should know that retail is very cyclical," she said, foreshadowing the firm's earnings drop on Tuesday. "There's ebbs ...
Oct 27, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 69
"We're stepping more and more into an almost bigger focus in the building in crypto." On this episode of The Scoop, Kanav Kariya, President of Jump Crypto joined host Frank Chaparro for a rare interview to discuss Kariya’s vision for its 100-person large digital assets division. Launched in the late 1990s, Jump is one of the most active trading firms across equities and crypto markets. Kariya spoke about his path from an internship in 2017 at Jump to becoming the president of the firm's crypto w...
Oct 25, 2021•41 min•Season 3Ep. 68
On this episode of The Scoop, founder Ari Rubenstein and founder & CEO Ryan Sheftel joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the launch of their new crypto firm, called Radkl. Radkl, which was born out of trading firm and New York Stock Exchange market maker GTS, is a new digital asset trading business. GTS currently trades hundreds of thousands of financial instruments algorithmically, which according to GTS accounts for some “five percent of the entire US equity markets by volume.” Radkl’s fo...
Oct 20, 2021•43 min•Season 3Ep. 67
“For us it’s almost like having a store on 5th avenue”. Atari is gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and appropriately enough the company is kicking off its half-century birthday not in the physical world, but in the metaverse. Specifically, it is hoping to capitalize off of the "land" it owns in virtual worlds built by Decentraland and The Sandbox. Atari's Head of Blockchain Manfred Mantschev told host Frank Chaparro on The Scoop: “When these plots came up the value of the adjacent pl...
Oct 18, 2021•48 min•Season 3Ep. 66
“It’s a global development.” On this episode of The Scoop, 10T Founder and CEO Dan Tapiero joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss his insights into the globalization of crypto markets and how his macro investing strategy has seen his fund 10T pour hundreds of millions into crypto unicorns. To date, Tapiero has already allocated the majority of some of his funds to companies such as Kraken, Deribit, and Ledger. “We have a portfolio of about 10 to 15 companies that are our targets." Tapiero mention...
Oct 15, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 64
Sygnum is one of the few cryptocurrency banks operating in Europe. On this episode of The Scoop, Mathias Imbach Co-Founder and Group CEO of Sygnum joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the country's crypto ecosystem and how large wealth channels are opening up to bitcoin and other digital assets. “Nowadays, the conversation goes very different," said Imbach. "There's very few banks in Switzerland which have not made it a strategic priority to really think [supporting digital assets] through. Som...
Oct 13, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 64
DARMA Capital's Andrew Keys is a believer in the disruptive power of Ethereum, but he's also concerned that regulators may stand in the way of it. Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors, or DARMA for short, is an investment firm with more than $1 billion of assets under management. DARMA currently holds over 10,000 validators at over 320,000 Ether, Keys told host Frank Chaparro on this episode of The Scoop. “And that's staking kind of an institutional-grade, generating tremendous yield,” said Ke...
Oct 08, 2021•45 min•Season 3Ep. 63
“We are heavily moving into DeFi.” Pantera Capital, the longest operating US based bitcoin investment firm, now manages 5Bn worth of assets. But when it comes to decentralized finance, Pantera’s Franklin Bi still sees the space as undervalued. “As long as we're still looking at the fundamentals and drawing out what the multiples are there, we're still not at the point where you know, you're really starting to see the speculative mania.” On this episode of The Scoop, Franklin Bi Director of Portf...
Oct 06, 2021•28 min•Season 3Ep. 62
On this episode of The Scoop, Sky Mavis Games Co-Founder and Growth Lead Jeff ‘Jiho’ Zirlin joined Frank Chaparro at the 2021 Mainnet Conference to discuss their game Axie Infinity. Chaparro and Zirlin cover Axie’s recent growth in popularity, kicking off the ‘Play-To-Earn’ trend in gaming, and how Axie Infinity players in the Philippines and other emerging economies are playing the game to supplement their incomes. To be sure, the project's concentration in the Philippines speaks to how much wo...
Oct 01, 2021•33 min•Season 3Ep. 61
This week, the world's largest auction house cracked $100 million in NFT sales. Christie’s Noah Davis says they’re just getting started. On this episode of The Scoop, Davis, an associate vice president and head of digital sales at the auction house, joined Frank Chaparro to discuss Christie’s view of the 2021 rise in NFT sales and how the traditional art market and this brave new one are converging and bolstering adoption of a possible blockchain future. “It's incredible that it continues to gat...
Sep 29, 2021•45 min•Season 3Ep. 60
Okcoin, which was founded in 2013, is doing something different in a crowded field of crypto exchanges: it's going to allow clients to denominate trades in bitcoin in units of satoshi, rather than BTC. On this episode of The Scoop, Okcoin CEO Hong Fang joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Okcoin's rapid retail product launches and the hiring growth they've undergone in an effort to compete in the space. She also explained the reasoning for the launch of Satoshi dominated trades. “Our f...
Sep 27, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 59
Digital artist Pplpleasr believes that the production and dissemination of art represent just the first phase of NFT technology adoption. This week on The Scoop, PplPleasr joined host Frank Chaparro to break down how she created Fortune Magazine's DeFi cover and the role of NFTs in Web3 and the broader art space. Earlier this year, Pplpleasr was commissioned by Fortune to create its first NFT cover. That cover image is a tribute to the NFT community, featuring a number of different well-known av...
Sep 24, 2021•30 min•Season 3Ep. 58
Mike Belshe founded BitGo—the crypto financial services and custody firm—in 2013 with the original intention to help solve a pinpoint he identified when entering the bitcoin market early on: how to store crypto holdings safely. "We forget about how easy loss is", said Belshe. Today BitGo is more wide-spanning than just storage and custody, also covering lending, trading, and prime-related financial services. The firm is expected to complete its acquisition by Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital by e...
Sep 22, 2021•38 min•Ep. 4
On this episode of The Scoop, Bittrex Global CEO Stephen Stonberg joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Bittrex’s US and global businesses, his outlook on security tokens, and how the company is tackling regulatory tightening in an effort to safely enter markets across the world. In its global business, Stonberg said that Bittrex is testing out lending and staking products as well as dipping its toes into STOs or Security Token Offerings, such as in real estate, stocks, cars, etc. Bittr...
Sep 15, 2021•37 min•Season 56Ep. 3
It has been a wild summer for blockchain project Solana. From the meteoric rise in the price of its native token to technical problems facing NFTs launched on the blockchain, the project has entered the forefront. On this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko Founder & CEO of Solana Labs joins host Frank Chaparro for a deep dive into Solana, which some believe can compete with Ethereum despite being less decentralized. As for price specifically, Yakovenko admitted it doesn't always make se...
Sep 10, 2021•45 min•Season 3Ep. 55
Hundreds of institutions are looking to Coinbase as a trusted, publicly-traded exchange to create tailored crypto solutions for them. Now, as traditional finance firms begin to deploy capital into crypto services, Coinbase sees itself at the forefront of facilitating that institutional adoption. “I think we're moving away from the designation of Coinbase as an exchange to being a much more complex organization,” said Coinbase's Greg Tusar, whose crypto brokerage startup Tagomi was acquired last ...
Sep 08, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 54
FTX.US President Brett Harrison wants the company to be the next Robinhood, and he says they’re listening to every customer's comments to expand their user base and untangle the complexities of building an exchange. “The retail user base wants to be heard," said Harrison. On this episode of The Scoop, Brett Harrison took a break from coding FTX.US to join host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how the company is expanding its user base and the company's planned entrance into crypto derivatives....
Sep 03, 2021•47 min•Season 3Ep. 53
"The market filled your sail with wind and now you're doing a good job of sailing. But are you ready to survive the next time the wind drops?" Blockchain.com, one of the longest operating firms in the crypto space, has been successful at taking the long road. Now the U.K.-based company is building out its stockpile of cash reserves to prepare for a possible ‘Crypto Winter’ on the horizon -- that is, a prolonged downturn in the market. "I think when I look out over the space right now, there's go...
Sep 01, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 52
Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty, sees the commodification of culture as the future of the internet. Indeed, Fitch believes that a well executed NFT strategy could very well be a make-or-break opportunity for legacy brands as well as for the brands of the future: “When you start to connect physical events, digital signaling, memes and collectibles all into one, I think you create this really superpowered sort of wave of commodification of culture and commodification of status and com...
Aug 25, 2021•36 min•Season 3Ep. 51
OpenSea's Devin Finzer is just as surprised as anyone to see non-fungible tokens (NFTs) taking off this summer. “None of us expected to hit a billion in transaction volume this month,” said Finzer, describing what he views as "the biggest economy in the history of the internet." During this episode of The Scoop, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on NFT’s, the metaverse, and OpenSea’s most recent completed fundraise. OpenSea recently raised $100 m...
Aug 23, 2021•22 min•Ep. 46
ConsenSys wants major financial groups to jump into the world of decentralized finance -- and believes MetaMask Institutional can serve as a gateway for such firms. While most listeners are likely familiar with MetaMask, the DeFi wallet that boasts millions of monthly users, MetaMask Institutional (MMI) is a new initiative within ConsenSys focused on providing institutional access to DeFi. Already, the firm counts several large multi-billion dollar crypto-native and traditional funds among its c...
Aug 18, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 49
Dave Weisberger is a Wall Street vet who saw market structure develop and go electronic. On this episode of The Scoop, the co-founder and CEO of CoinRoutes joined host Frank Chaparro for a walk-through on how far trading in crypto has evolved and why regulators are ignoring these improvements. He remarked: “Firms that are domiciled and regulated out of the United States are at such a massive disadvantage in the growing digital asset world to the point where, as a startup, we had to make a choice...
Aug 16, 2021•47 min•Season 3Ep. 48
A high-wire fight in Washington, DC over crypto tax reporting provisions included in a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill drew widespread attention and impassioned remarks from supporters, opponents and powerful members of Congress. And while Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, admits that the legislation's current language is not perfect, the collective show of force from advocacy groups, business leaders and think tanks was "like no other thing I have experienced in...
Aug 11, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 47
As new networks are tapping into Polkadot, its co-founder sees a high-stakes battleground forming over privacy and security. "You want to create a system which is upgradable which can adapt to new technologies if you want to be able to stay one step ahead of the curve," says Rob Habermeier, who joins The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how exactly DeFi fits into Polkadot, where he sees privacy and security headed, and the hurdles that Polkadot's so-called 'parachains' face in 2022....
Aug 06, 2021•38 min•Season 3Ep. 46
Genesis Global Trading—the New York-based crypto firm that bills itself as a prime brokerage—turned over more than $8 billion worth of derivatives last quarter. Joshua Lim is the man behind those billions as the firm's Head of Derivatives. Lim joined The Scoop this week to unpack Genesis' second quarter report, explaining how new preferences among investors and traders have shaped the make up of derivatives. He told The Block's Frank Chaparro that the growth of crypto-native hedge funds have inc...
Aug 04, 2021•37 min•Season 4Ep. 45
Signs point to the looming specter of regulation slowly bringing the days of bitcoin and crypto's "Wild West" to an end. The only question, perhaps, is if not now, then when? "We’re getting to a boiling point," The Block's Aislinn Keely told The Scoop. On this policy report episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro is joined by The Block’s policy and regulatory reporters — Editor of Wonk Talk Aislinn Keely and Senior Politics Reporter Kollen Post — for an update on where the United States curren...
Jul 30, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 44
Access to bitcoin was once a case where “no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second”. Now, New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, won’t stop until it’s able to put bitcoin within reach of every American. Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG, explained during the most recent episode of The Scoop how the firm has been amping up its partnerships in order to roll out their bitcoin products now that there is interest being expressed from regional banks. To that end, NYD...
Jul 28, 2021•39 min•Season 3Ep. 43
State Street made headlines last month, announcing a brand new division covering crypto, digital assets, and tokenization. State Street VP and Head of Global Markets, Nadine Chakar, is leading that charge. Despite the recent price slump in crypto-assets, interest has not abated, she noted in an interview for the latest episode of The Scoop: “The price depreciation has not impacted demand and interest at all. I think we're still seeing a lot of people enthusiastically embracing digital in general...
Jul 23, 2021•39 min•Season 3Ep. 42
GSR’s Rich Rosenblum doesn’t seem to mind the volatility. On this week’s episode of The Scoop, GSR Markets co-founder and President Rich Rosenblum, joined The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on the state of the bitcoin market. The price of the cryptocurrency has been gyrating over the course of the last several weeks, even dropping below $30,000 on Tuesday. That bearish price activity, however, is happening against a backdrop of crypto firms raising hundreds of millions in equity fina...
Jul 21, 2021•41 min•Season 3Ep. 41
