Professor J.W. Verret teaches corporate and securities law and financial accounting at George Mason Law School. In this episode, Verret analyzes the recent verdict on Ripple's XRP token which concludes that "Ripple’s Programmatic Sales of XRP did not constitute the offer and sale of investment contracts." In addition to providing a degree of regulatory clarity for crypto assets, Verret also argues that the court's decision in the XRP case will greatly improve Coinbase's chances in their court ca...
Jul 15, 2023•26 min•Season 5Ep. 65
Carlos Domingo is the founder and CEO of Securitize — a compliance platform for trading security tokens or digital securities on the blockchain used by the likes of KKR and Hamilton Lane . In this episode, Domingo explains how blockchain technology can be used to unlock broader access to alternative investments and how regulatory clarity in the U.S. could help trillions of dollars of real world assets be tokenized on-chain. Outline: 1:17 - About Securitize 2:32 - Market Evolution 7:22 - Tokeniza...
Jul 11, 2023•33 min•Season 5Ep. 64
Mike Belshe is the co-founder and CEO of BitGo — a leading digital asset custody and security platform. In this episode, Belshe shares his thoughts on last year's collapse of the crypto credit market and explains what it will take to restore confidence in the sector. Outline: 0:52 - Market musings 3:12 - Crypto conspiracies 5:54 - Business at BitGo 8:39 - Crypto prime brokerage 14:24 - Lending market cooldown 15:55 - Crypto’s opaque transparency 21:22 - Crypto market recovery 32:47 - BitGo x Gal...
Jul 07, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 63
Michael Saylor is the Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy. Since 2020, MicroStrategy has amassed an eye-catching bitcoin reserve , making it one of the largest corporate holders of bitcoin in the world. Critics have been vocal, but Saylor and his company have stood firm in their belief and commitment. In this episode, Saylor explains why bitcoin's performance over the last two years relative to other asset classes is indicative of relative strength, and gives his opinion on recent bitcoin develo...
Jun 30, 2023•58 min•Season 5Ep. 62
David Marcus is a renowned entrepreneur and executive in the tech industry known for his leadership roles at PayPal and Meta. In this episode, Marcus unpacks how his latest venture, Lightspark , is helping transform Bitcoin's Lightning Network into a real-time global settlement layer for the internet. Lightspark raised about $173 million last year at a valuation of almost $1 billion at the time, as reported by The Block. Outline: 2:33 - David Marcus' Bitcoin journey 5:29 - Lightspark & Bitco...
Jun 27, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 61
James Seyffart is an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode, Seyffart analyzes BlackRock's recently announced spot bitcoin ETF application and the impact it would have on the crypto market if approved. While bitcoin futures ETFs exist, Seyffart says that BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF application is the "holy grail of bitcoin exposure in the TradFi markets." In the wake of BlackRock's filling, Wisdom Tree, Invesco , and Valkyrie also put their hats back in the race for a spot bitco...
Jun 23, 2023•33 min•Season 5Ep. 60
Previously on The Scoop, Professor J.W. Verret explained how the ‘ major questions doctrine ’ could put an end to SEC Chair Gensler’s regulation by enforcement. In this episode, Verret continues his analysis of the SEC's recent enforcement actions against Coinbase and Binance, and examines the ways in which U.S. regulation of the crypto industry might be able to strike a balance between innovation and consumer protection. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark . Abo...
Jun 20, 2023•38 min•Season 5Ep. 59
Professor J.W. Verret teaches corporate and securities law and financial accounting at George Mason Law School. From May 2018 to March 2022, Professor Verret served as an Advisory Committee Member to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission where he represented the interests of investors in making recommendations to SEC Chair Gensler and other Commissioners. In part one of this two part interview, Verret explains how a principle of administrative law in the United States known as the 'major q...
Jun 19, 2023•43 min•Season 5Ep. 58
Robert Alcorn is the CEO of decentralized credit marketplace, Clearpool. In this episode, Alcorn examines the state of the crypto credit market in the wake of a tumultuous 2022 for crypto lenders, and explains what is needed for the sector to mature. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark . About PayPal Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.co...
Jun 18, 2023•23 min•Season 5Ep. 57
Adam Cochran has over a decade of experience in the crypto industry and is the Managing Partner of Cinneamhain Ventures. In this episode, Cochran examines how recent enforcement actions by the US Securities and Exchange Commission is driving crypto innovation outside of the United States. "This is an absolute fumble for the U.S. government and U.S. industry at large," he told The Block's Frank Chaparro Outline of the discussion: 2:12 - Crypto and Congress 4:30 - SEC Enforcement Actions 7:16 - Co...
Jun 13, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 56
Dr. Lisa Cameron is a UK Member of Parliament and is the Chairperson of the Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group. Ian Taylor is a Board Advisor to CryptoUK — the trade association for the UK's crypto industry. In this episode, Dr. Cameron and Taylor share how the UK is taking steps to become a global hub for crypto and web3. According to Dr. Cameron, the crypto industry could play an important part of the UK's economy in the years to come: "I can see the potential of the techn...
Jun 12, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 55
Paul Grewal is the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase — the crypto exchange that recently found itself in the crosshairs of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In this episode, Grewal shares Coinbase's perspective on the SEC's recent enforcement actions, and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the efforts Coinbase has made over the years to comply with regulators. Outline of the discussion: 1:48 - Coinbase Tried to Work with the SEC 🕊 6:23 - The SEC & Alternative Investments 🧑⚖️ 9:06 ...
Jun 08, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 54
Jamie Burke is the Founder and CEO of Outlier Ventures — a Web3 accelerator program for projects that align with Outlier's vision for an open metaverse. Despite adverse market conditions, Outlier Ventures assisted 89 Web3 startups in 2022. In this episode, Burke examines the state of the metaverse today and explains how Web3 infrastructure can enhance AI's development and scale. Outline of the discussion: 1:59 - Is the Metaverse Dead? ☠️ 7:11 - The Metaverse Under Attack 💥 14:36 - Regulation an...
Jun 05, 2023•45 min•Season 5Ep. 53
Jason Choi is the co-founder of Tangent Ventures and the host of Blockcrunch podcast. In this episode, Choi shares why Hong Kong's new Virtual Asset Service Provider ('VASP') licensing regime represents an "unapologetically bullish" shift in tone from regulators. Although the new laws effectively lift Hong Kong's prior ban on retail crypto trading, Choi still thinks it will take some time for Hong Kong to become a dominant hub for crypto: "A lot of crypto startups are effectively unbanked, espec...
Jun 03, 2023•26 min•Season 5Ep. 52
Cyril Mathew is the President and COO of Zero Hash, a B2B digital-asset-as-a-service provide that closed a $105 million Series D raise — that included Bain Capital and Point72 Ventures among others — in January of 2022. In this episode, Mathew shares his personal story of helping convince Stripe's leadership into supporting crypto and explains why he recently decided to join Zero Hash. According to Mathews, he discovered Zero Hash while working at Stripe and was impressed by the company's infras...
May 29, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 51
Paolo Ardoino is the Chief Technology Officer for Tether and Bitfinex. In this episode, Ardoino talks through Tether's treasury management strategy, including the firm's recently announced bitcoin purchases and how the firm is planning to use the $1.5 billion in profit generated during Q1 of this year. According to Ardoino, Tether's recent profitability is prompting the firm to diversify: “The beauty of our next period plan is that we can start diversifying ourselves from the pure stablecoin off...
May 25, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 50
Alex Gladstein is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Human Rights Foundation and a frequent contributor to Bitcoin Magazine. In this episode, Gladstein talks through his newly released book, Hidden Repression: How the IMF and World Bank Sell Exploitation as Development . According to Gladstein, Western prosperity has come mainly at the expense of developing nations: "We should be proud of the American Revolution and we should be proud of our Bill of Rights and we should be proud of democracy — i...
May 24, 2023•39 min•Season 5Ep. 49
In this episode, Justin Sun reveals Huobi's and Poloniex's procedure for listing new memecoins and explains why the crypto market has grown too big for any single exchange to service effectively. Sun claims that Binance may be the biggest exchange by market share, but it is not the best venue for trading smaller memecoins: "Binance these days has a very high standard of listing crypto assets. [A coin] needs to be at least $100 million or even $1 billion to get listed on Binance in the first plac...
May 19, 2023•22 min•Season 5Ep. 48
Loomdart, a veteran member of the crypto community and the co-founder of eGirl Capital, is advocating for an FTX reboot. In this episode, Loomdart explains why 'FTX 2.0' could represent an opportunity for over a million FTX creditors to be made whole in a unique way. As Loomdart explains, "My quickest pitch for FTX 2.0 is you effectively get to 'airdrop' an exchange to over a million people who have a big vested interest in using this exchange." Last month, a potential reboot plan for FTX report...
May 15, 2023•26 min•Season 5Ep. 47
Launched in July 2021, World of Women ('WoW') began its journey as a distinctive collection of 10,000 generative portraits that aimed to carve out a community in the web3 environment with a focus on equality, representation, and inclusivity. WoW has attracted high-profile support from celebrities, including Reese Witherspoon and Eva Longoria. While WoW originated as an NFT collection, it is evolving into a global branded business, including plans to release a custom WoW Monopoly board. It's also...
May 11, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 46
In this episode, veteran crypto journalist Brady Dale unpacks his new book, SBF: How The FTX Bankruptcy Unwound Crypto's Very Bad Good Guy. The book explores Bankman-Fried's worldview and his quest to make FTX the number one crypto exchange in the world, no matter the cost. Despite FTX's bankruptcy last year, Dale believes the exchange was not necessarily doomed to fail and that Bankman-Fried's need for absolute control was a critical factor. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor CleanSp...
May 09, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 45
Ray Youssef is the co-founder and former CEO of Paxful — a once-prominent peer-to-peer ('P2P') Bitcoin marketplace that shut down in April after operating globally for nearly a decade. Shortly after Paxful closed shop, Youssef released the Civ Kit white paper outlining a P2P electronic market system combining Nostr architecture and Bitcoin's Lightning Network to resist censorship and promote permissionless trading. In this episode, Youssef lays out his ambitions for how the Civ Kit will lead to ...
May 05, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 44
Ethereum's transition to proof of stake brought significant changes to the network, including a more predictable yield for investors. Unlike proof of work, which relies on miners to validate transactions and secure the network, proof of stake involves validators holding a stake in the network and earning yield in ether for their support. CoinFund, a crypto investment firm, is attempting to standardize the yield model to create a new benchmark yield rate for Web3. In this episode, CoinFund Presid...
May 03, 2023•23 min•Season 5Ep. 43
NFT floor prices and trading volume are in decline. However, for NFT projects with strong communities, now is the time to stand out from the pack, according to Floor co-founders Christine Brown and Chris Maddern. Floor, which aims to be an ' everything app ' for NFTs, raised $8 million from a Series A funding round in June of 2022. In this episode, Brown and Maddern discuss how increased liquidity in NFT markets is accelerating price discovery and where value is accumulating in this new paradigm...
May 01, 2023•29 min•Season 5Ep. 42
Usman Ahmad is the CEO of Zodia Markets, a crypto trading firm that partners with institutions and corporations. Zodia Markets is already registered by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and is in late stage conversations with the central bank of Ireland, which with new EU regulation means a passport to Europe. But given demand from the U.S., the firm has accelerated its strategy . In this episode, Ahmad talks about Zodia, its evolution and the division of custody. During this episode, Chaparr...
Apr 28, 2023•28 min•Season 5Ep. 41
Despite Argentina grappling with an annual inflation rate surpassing 100% and enduring strict capital controls, many citizens still opt to trade currency via illicit "cuevas" and maintain bundles of near-worthless cash, rather than embracing the potential benefits of cryptocurrencies. In this episode, The Block's Nathan Crooks breaks down his research into why crypto adoption in Argentina is not more pervasive, and The Block editor and Argentinian resident Christiana Sciaudone shares her local p...
Apr 26, 2023•22 min•Season 5Ep. 40
Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, an alternative asset manager with more than $2.2 billion in AUM, including $800 million in digital asset-related investments. In this episode, Scaramucci explains how Elizabeth Warren's 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden positioned her as "de facto president for financial services and banking," and why he believes her "sidekick," SEC Chair Gary Gensler, is an "ambitious, single-minded politician, not focused on serving the p...
Apr 24, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 39
Web3 development team Coral raised $20 million in a round co-led by FTX Ventures just weeks before the exchange's collapse. Coral developers hunkered down and continued building. In this episode, Coral co-founder Armani Ferrante tells the story of how the fallout from FTX forced Coral into "cockroach mode" ' and how the startup has managed to stay afloat despite being forced to cut costs. Backpack & xNFTs Coral's first product, Backpack, is a web3 wallet that lets users store and access xNFT...
Apr 20, 2023•29 min•Season 5Ep. 38
Adam Moskowitz is the managing partner of Moskowitz Law Firm and one of the attorneys spearheading a class action lawsuit against 16 different FTX celebrity ambassadors . In this episode, Moskowitz breaks down the legal argument underpinning the class action lawsuit and explains why he thinks FTX's various celebrity ambassadors could be on the hook for billions of dollars. During this episode, Chaparro, Murrary and Moskowitz also discuss: Trying to serve Shaquille O'Neal How Taylor Swift did due...
Apr 19, 2023•26 min•Season 5Ep. 37
In this episode, The Block's Tim Copeland explains how protocol changes introduced during Ethereum's recent Shapella upgrade are leading to a more liquid and harmonious Ethereum. During this episode, Chaparro and Copeland also discuss: What's next for Ethereum The convergence of AI and journalism Rethinking DeFi bug bounties This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle and CleanSpark . About Circle Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our...
Apr 15, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 36
