Block CEO Jack Dorsey has called ' Web5,' a decentralized identity platform under development by TBD, the Block's blockchain arm, "likely our most important contribution to the internet." In this episode of The Scoop, TBD lead Mike Brock explains how Web5, whose name is a play on the idea of connecting Web2 and Web3, aims to reimagine the way trust is established and maintained, and how digital identity can connect the emerging decentralized financial system to the existing real-world economy. H...
Aug 08, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 74
In this episode of The Scoop, Solana Labs co-founder and COO Raj Gokal discusses his early impression of Solana Spaces, as well as the innovation and experimentation that is occurring across the Solana ecosystem at a "breakneck pace." As Gokal explains, some people who visit Solana Spaces' first location in Manhattan are discovering that web3 might not be as daunting as it seems: "There's hundreds of people coming through — just starting their first Phantom wallet, sending their first USDC, and ...
Aug 05, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 73
Circle's USDC stablecoin is the second largest by market capitalization, and has steadily grown in dominance over the last couple of years. In this episode of The Scoop, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle, Dante Disparte, joins host Frank Chaparro to share his take on what a responsible approach to stablecoin regulation might look like and why he believes central bank digital currencies are "anti-democratic." According to Disparte, the separation between the central banks...
Aug 03, 2022•40 min•Season 4Ep. 72
Earlier this year, crypto infrastructure provider Talos closed a $105 million Series B for a valuation of $1.25 billion. In this episode of The Scoop, Talos cofounders Ethan Feldman and Anton Katz provide insider perspectives on how institutions have been positioning themselves during the crypto market’s recent upheaval, and why they believe the industry will rebound stronger than ever before. As Katz points out during the interview, the more market participants think about risk, the more stable...
Aug 01, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 71
Variant — a venture capital firm founded on the idea that the next iteration of the internet is going to be defined by decentralized, user-owned networks — has raised $450 million to be deployed across two new funds. In this episode of The Scoop, Variant co-founders Jesse Walden and Spencer Noon reveal how they plan on allocating the capital — and why Variant remains bullish on the long-term future of web3. According to Walden, the technology powering the emerging web3 industry will only improve...
Jul 28, 2022•52 min•Season 4Ep. 70
Following the crypto market crash in May and June, several institutional bitcoin mining companies have liquidated large portions of their bitcoin reserves, adding more fuel to the selling pressure. In this episode, we discussed the impact of the shrinking hash price and the profitability of bitcoin mining at the moment. The network's hash price has reached the lowest point since late 2020 due to bitcoin's price decline and only moderate difficulty correction. Even though the network has had thre...
Jul 27, 2022•30 min•Season 4Ep. 69
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the blockchain-based method to verify and transfer ownership of a digital asset, exploded in popularity in 2021. Though some collections such as NBA Top Shot and CryptoPunks had existed before last year’s climb in popularity, NFTs largely did not enter mainstream consciousness until the arrival of Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 algorithmically assembled images of languid monkeys. The success of Bored Ape Yacht Club in the spring of 2021 sparked an influx...
Jul 25, 2022•35 min•Season 4Ep. 68
As head of a retail crypto platform with lending exposure to Three Arrows Capital (‘3AC’), Abra CEO Bill Barhydt has personal insight into what led similar platforms to go bust in the wake of 3AC defaulting on $3.5 billion in loans across 27 different counterparties. In this episode of The Scoop, Barhydt reveals how Abra has been able to remain operational despite 3AC exposure, and where other lenders who incurred severe losses from 3AC went wrong. Adequately accounting for ‘concentration risk’ ...
Jul 22, 2022•52 min•Season 6Ep. 67
Last time Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal came on The Scoop podcast back in 2020, the investment strategist cautioned that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy was simply “papering up the cracks” in the economic crunch caused by Covid-19. Over two years later, Pal’s predictions seem to have come true, as the global economy struggles to keep pace with rampant inflation, which reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in the US in June. Although the crypto markets have been hit especially hard in recent months, P...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 66
Although Algorand may not be the most popular blockchain ecosystem, its underlying technology is arguably among the most cutting edge. Founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, MIT professor and Turing Award recipient for his pioneering work in the fields of cryptography and computer science, Algorand uses a highly efficient consensus mechanism it calls pure proof of stake , and is one of the most energy-efficient blockchains in the industry. While Silvio Micali oversees the research and development of ...
Jul 18, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 65
As the industry continues to cope with fallout from the implosion of Three Arrows Capital, July has been a brutal month for crypto lenders, with both Voyager Digital and Celsius declaring bankruptcy, and other prominent lenders including Genesis, BlockFi and Blockchain.com incurring severe losses. In the case of Celsius — which is now reporting a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet — retail investors have a long road to recovering any of the crypto they deposited in the platform. In this epis...
Jul 15, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 64
No matter the blockchain, individual blocks are limited in the amount of information they can hold; so when blockspace becomes limited, transaction fees increase. As Ava Labs COO Kevin Sekniqi puts it: “Chains are only cheap as long as the blockspace has not been filled up completely — once blockspace gets filled up completely, it becomes expensive.” In this episode of the Scoop, Sekniqi explains how Avalanche — the proof-of-stake blockchain Ava Labs launched back in September 2020 — utilizes ‘s...
Jul 13, 2022•37 min•Season 5Ep. 63
Last month, a grand jury indicted OpenSea's former head of product in what amounts to the first insider trading enforcement in crypto. Nathaniel Chastain allegedly purchased and sold non-fungible tokens (NFTs) he knew would be listed on OpenSea's homepage at a considerable profit. This alleged activity looks a lot like front running or insider trading, in which someone profits off of non-public information. But insider trading is a securities violation, and NFTs are not currently classified as s...
Jul 08, 2022•22 min•Season 5Ep. 62
With bitcoin’s market cap hovering around $380 billion — down from over $1.25 trillion last November — lately much attention has been paid to bitcoin’s price action in the mainstream media . Although headlines often focus on bitcoin’s economic component, they are missing the most important aspect of the technology, according to Darin Feinstein, founder of bitcoin mining company Core Scientific. According to Feinstein, “The root of what this technology is, it's a new accounting technology — that'...
Jul 06, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 61
Many Web3 platforms require users to connect their crypto wallets before engaging with the platform in any meaningful way. Consequently, the Web3 experience on mobile devices is tedious at best, given current devices are not designed with such functionalities in mind. Solana Mobile — a subsidiary of the development team behind Solana — hopes to address the difficulties that surround the Web3 mobile user experience with its new Android phone called ‘Saga,’ which is slated for release in early 202...
Jul 01, 2022•40 min•Season 4Ep. 60
Web3 can be daunting for new users and brands looking to enter the space. But MoonPay — the crypto payment infrastructure company that raised $555 million at a valuation of $3.4 billion just last year — has spent the last few months building out a suite of NFT related products in an attempt to simplify the process of introducing new users to Web3. So far this year, MoonPay has enabled NFT purchases via credit cards , built out its white-glove NFT concierge service for celebrities, and launched a...
Jun 29, 2022•46 min•Season 4Ep. 59
One biotech startup is trying to use blockchain technology to revolutionize the way potential treatments for rare diseases are identified for funding and development. According to Vibe Bio CEO Alok Tayi: “Vibe is a community of patients, scientists and partners that help identify promising treatments for rare diseases and other overlooked diseases, and fund them in innovative ways.” In this episode of The Scoop, Tayi shares his vision for how Vibe Bio aims to disrupt the centralized control of b...
Jun 27, 2022•39 min•Season 4Ep. 58
Earlier this week, the apparent insolvency of Three Arrows Capital (or '3AC' for short) caught many in the crypto world by surprise, including Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy who commented: “Everyone kind of assumed those guys just made billions over the years… but now it seems like we were just all horribly wrong.” In this episode of The Scoop, Evgeny Gaevoy joins The Block’s Frank Chaparro and guest co-host Larry Cermak to analyze the fallout from the 3AC situation, and to explain the wide-scale ...
Jun 24, 2022•39 min•Season 4Ep. 57
Magic Eden , Solana’s largest NFT marketplace, is eyeing an ambitious growth plan after raising a $130 million funding round co-led by Greylock and Electric Capital. While the broader crypto market struggles to find its footing, Magic Eden is coming off its best month ever, with just over 5 million SOL in volume transacted during May. In this episode of The Scoop, Magic Eden co-founder and COO Zhuoxun 'Zedd' Yin, talks through the project’s funding efforts and unpacks some of the reasons why he ...
Jun 21, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 56
This week approximately 15,000 non-fungible token (NFT) enthusiasts from around the world descend on New York City for the fourth annual NFT.NYC conference, which features more than 1,500 speakers over four days. In this episode of The Scoop, NFT.NYC conference founders Jodee Rich and Cameron Bale sit down with host Frank Chaparro to share details of the upcoming conference and its origins — and to analyze the boom and cultural adoption that NFTs have witnessed over the last few years. As Jodee ...
Jun 20, 2022•35 min•Season 4Ep. 55
Back in April, digital asset infrastructure provider PolySign acquired top fund administration firm MG Stover as reported by CoinDesk . At the time of acquisition, MG Stover had more than $40 billion in digital assets under administration. This move coincided with PolySign completing its Series C fundraise, which included new powerhouse investors such as Soros Fund Management, Brevan Howard and GSR, along with former investors including Cowen Digital, who led PolySign’s $54 million Series B last...
Jun 17, 2022•38 min•Season 5Ep. 54
Panic and fear gripped the crypto market this week as falling prices and market pressure caused two industry titans — hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and lending platform Celsius Network — to face potential insolvency. While the extended crypto market downturn has caught many market participants offside, one high-frequency trading firm managed to not only survive recent conditions but concluded trading for the month of May up 3.7%. In this episode of The Scoop, Martin Green, Co-CIO & CEO of ...
Jun 15, 2022•40 min•Season 4Ep. 53
As persistent inflation strikes fear in the market ahead of Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, the total crypto market cap has plunged below $1 trillion dollars for the first time since January 2021, as data from The Block shows: In this special episode of The Scoop, financial veteran Jim Greco — a general partner at crypto high-frequency trading firm F9 Research — examines some of the causes of the recent market meltdown, and explains why only the strongest crypto companies will survive. According to Gr...
Jun 14, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 52
Elwood Technologies — an Alan Howard backed digital asset platform that is building trading infrastructure for institutional investors — closed a $70 million Series A last month co-led by Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital. In this episode of The Scoop, Elwood CEO James Stickland sits down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss Elwood’s recent fundraise, and to provide a closer look at the institutional activity that is occurring in the crypto market. According to Stickland, institutional exposure to c...
Jun 10, 2022•41 min•Season 4Ep. 51
Marathon Digital produced a “record” 1,259 bitcoins during the first three months of 2022. Yet the US-based bitcoin mining firm reported a Q1 net loss of $13 million, largely due to the decline in bitcoin’s price since last year’s highs. Despite falling short on revenue estimates, Marathon CEO Fred Thiel claims that the current cost for his company to produce one bitcoin via mining is “about $6,250,” giving the firm plenty of margin before they would need to consider scaling down their operation...
Jun 08, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 50
Coinbase shares are down over 70% on the year, a state of affairs compounded by a rough Q1 , but one leading Wall Street analyst believes Coinbase may be undervalued. In this episode of The Scoop, Mark Palmer — managing director and fintech analyst at global financial services firm BTIG — shares why his firm is bullish on a narrative shift on Wall Street regarding Coinbase stock in the coming months. As Palmer contended during the show: “Coinbase has developed itself over the last ten years, lar...
Jun 03, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 49
In his last appearance on The Scoop, Antonio Juliano — founder and CEO of decentralized derivatives platform dYdX — was preparing to integrate StarkWare’s layer-2 scaling technology into the third iteration of the dYdX protocol. Just over a year later, dYdX has grown to dominate the decentralized derivatives space, with the majority of decentralized perpetual swap trading volume occurring on the platform, according to data from The Block. In this episode of The Scoop, Antonio Juliano explains wh...
Jun 01, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 48
As Anthony Scaramucci explained during his last appearance on The Scoop, his firm SkyBridge Capital began investing in bitcoin near the end of 2020. Just under two years later, Scaramucci is positioned near the center of the burgeoning crypto industry, largely due to his role as Chair of finance conference business SALT, which partnered with FTX to host the first annual Crypto Bahamas conference in April of this year. In this episode of The Scoop, Scaramucci tells the story of how he first met F...
May 30, 2022•56 min•Season 4Ep. 47
Fresh off the heels of a $50M Series C round last November, StarkWare Industries closed a $100M Series D round on Wednesday, giving the Israeli-based startup a valuation of $8 billion. The fundraise was led by Greenoaks Capital and Coatue, and included Tiger Global amongst others. StarkWare aims to bring efficient, affordable blockchain transactions to the masses through its ZK-rollup technology, which addresses blockchain congestion by compressing multiple transactions into ‘STARK proofs’ that ...
May 27, 2022•46 min•Season 4Ep. 46
Much of the policy conversation surrounding crypto is concerned with Wall Street-minded issues that mostly take place in the digital world – investor protection, cybersecurity, licensure to provide online financial services. But the policy conversation surrounding proof-of-work mining is asking crypto to contend with real-world issues. Mining firms are answering to environmental narratives, concerns of noise pollution and questions as to how a data center can better a community. This episode of ...
May 25, 2022•28 min•Season 4Ep. 45
