Armani Ferrante is the founder and CEO of the crypto wallet company Backpack and the creator of the MadLads NFT collection. In this episode of The Scoop recorded live at Solana Breakpoint 2023, Ferrante unpacks Backpack's plans to launch a new exchange in Dubai. As Ferrante explains, the new exchange is both an opportunity to bring a regulated crypto exchange to market and to bolster the Solana ecosystem: "We very much see a big opportunity in the international market, not only in the context of...
Nov 08, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 95
Jupiter Zheng is Partner of Liquid Funds & Research for HashKey Capital — the investment arm of the Hong Kong crypto financial services firm HashKey Group. In this episode, Zheng explains how the crypto industry is gaining momentum in Asia — particularly in Hong Kong. Back in September, Hashkey announced it is raising up to $100 million for a new liquid fund with a heavy focus on altcoins. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal. Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started t...
Nov 03, 2023•40 min•Season 5Ep. 94
Juthica Chou is the head of OTC options trading at Kraken and the former president of LedgerX. In this episode, Chou explains how crypto's recent rally is being reflected in the options market, and what signals to pay attention to in the weeks ahead. According to Chou, volatility has returned to the market after months of relatively little activity: "The market's definitely pricing some big moves. And I always say, like if it can go up fast, it can go down faster." This episode is brought to you...
Oct 31, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 93
Pranav Kanade is a portfolio manager at VanEck. In this episode, Kanade analyzes some of the trends and opportunities that he sees playing out during the current crypto bear market. Kanade says that crypto builders should be focusing on building products that help onboard new users into the ecosystem: "If I were to criticize this space for something, it's that a lot of people are too focused on building things for the existing user base rather than building things for people that are not current...
Oct 18, 2023•39 min•Season 5Ep. 92
Kevin Johnson is Coinbase's VP of Institutional Sales and Trading. In this episode, Johnson shares the details behind Coinbase Prime's new web3 wallet designed to give institutional and enterprise clients secure and direct access to web3, DeFi, and various onchain operations. As Johnson explains, "It was always in our plans to take the great centralized tools that we had built with those multi user capabilities and eventually bring those on on chain for clients." The new non-custodial wallet off...
Oct 16, 2023•28 min•Season 5Ep. 91
Joesph Kelly is the CEO of Unchained — a bitcoin financial services company that offers services including trading, inheritance solutions, bitcoin-backed loans, and tax-advantaged bitcoin retirement accounts. In this episode, Kelly explains how his firm managed to become "the last lender standing in the US market for bitcoin-backed loans," and how Unchained has experienced growth despite rising federal interest rates. Earlier this year, Unchained raised $60 million in a Series B funding round le...
Oct 13, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 90
The Block's Weekend Editor Zack Abrams has been covering Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal trial live from the courtroom in New York. In this episode, Abrams provides a first hand account of what he has witnessed and explains why he thinks SBF's case is more complicated than the general public seems to believe. Zack's ongoing coverage of the trial can be found here. OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 04:32 Fraud or Failure? 10:23 SBF’s Defense 11:39 Crux of the Case 16:27 Alameda’s Backdoor 19:24 Campaign F...
Oct 11, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 89
WassieLawyer is a former restructuring lawyer and an active participant in the ongoing conversation surrounding FTX's bankruptcy proceedings. In this episode, WassieLawyer outlines how the prospects of FTX creditors have improved over the course of the past year, including what to expect in the coming months. FTX's investment in Anthropic made headlines recently following reports that the company's most recent valuation could be as high as $30 billion. OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 00:39 Anthropic...
Oct 09, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 88
Zane Tackett is the former head of institutional sales at FTX. In this episode, Tackett recounts his experience working with Sam Bankman-Fried at FTX and explains how the exchange's terms of service blow a hole in SBF's criminal defense. Although SBF claims he is not guilty of fraud, Tackett says "it's obvious that he knew what he was doing." OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 03:32 FTX's Business Model 06:56 FTX's Balance Sheet 10:06 Michael Lewis: Going Infinite 11:14 The Real SBF 16:02 FTX 2.0 17:14...
Oct 05, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 87
Travis Kling is the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Ikigai Asset Management — a crypto asset management startup that had a ' large majority ' of its assets stuck on FTX when the exchange declared for bankruptcy last year. In this episode, on the eve of former FTX boss Sam Bankman Fried's criminal trial, Kling recounts his story since last November when FTX imploded and explains why he remains optimistic about the potential for recovery. OUTLINE: 00:56 - Introduction 03:01 - Ikigai’s $6...
Oct 03, 2023•21 min•Season 5Ep. 86
Michael Cahill is the CEO of Douro Labs, where he oversees the development and acceleration of the Pyth Network — an oracle network for real-time financial market data delivery to smart contract applications. In this episode, Cahill unpacks the unique advantages of Pyth Network over other oracle providers and explains what obstacles currently stand in the way of replicating the centralized trading experience on-chain. According to Cahill, DeFi is "very close to feature parity with some of the ba...
Oct 02, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 85
Keone Hon is the founder and CEO of Monad Labs — the development team behind a new Layer-1 blockchain that aims to bring pipelined execution to the Ethereum Virtual Machine. In this episode, Keone shares how his background at various HFT firms led him to identify problems with existing blockchain infrastructure and ultimately inspired him to rebuild the EVM entirely to optimize it for high-performance trading activity. Monad has raised $19 million from investors including Dragonfly Capital, Nava...
Sep 27, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 84
Aaron Kaplan founded Prometheum to create a trading venue for digital assets that is compliant with federal securities laws. However, Kaplan's firm came under fire following the SEC's approval of Prometheum's special purpose broker-dealer license back in May of this year — the only such license issued by the SEC to date. In this episode, Kaplan lays out how Prometheum managed to secure the special purpose broker-dealer license and why he believes strict adherence to the federal securities laws i...
Sep 26, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 83
Mike Dudas has over a decade of experience investing in the crypto industry and is the managing partner at the VC firm 6th Man Ventures. In this episode, Dudas examines the state of the crypto venture market, which he claims is currently stuck in "the slowest pace of dealmaking" he has ever seen. According to Dudas, two of the main contributors to slowing crypto VC activity are the dwindling number of real users for blockchain based products, plus founder expectations that are still anchored to ...
Sep 19, 2023•37 min•Season 5Ep. 82
Li Jin is the co-founder and a general partner at the VC firm Variant and has written extensively about the benefits of web3 social platforms for creators. Stani Kulechov is the creator of Aave (one of the largest decentralized finance protocols) and has been key to the development of the web3 social network platform, Lens Protocol . In this episode, Li and Kulechov examine the problems with the existing social media landscape and explain the opportunities that exist for new web3 social media at...
Sep 07, 2023•52 min•Season 5Ep. 81
Kristin Smith is the CEO of Blockchain Association — one of the top crypto policy advocacy groups in the U.S. In this episode, Smith unpacks the intricacies of the pending market structure bill set to make its way through Congress this fall, highlighting its potential to bring crypto regulatory clarity in the U.S. once and for all. According to Smith, the bill could be what's needed to bring in greater institutional participation and mainstream adoption: "It's something that we think that if it ...
Aug 29, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 80
Rebecca Rettig serves as the Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Polygon Labs. In this episode, Rettig offers a comprehensive analysis of the SEC's ongoing legal proceedings against Coinbase and Ripple, including instances where the Court seems to be challenging the SEC's authority. Rettig explains, "I think what both the Ripple and the Coinbase motion for judgment on the pleadings is really trying to say is, 'We got to bring it back to the law. This may look like something, but it doesn't look li...
Aug 24, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 79
Francis Suarez is the Mayor of the City of Miami and a Republican candidate for the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. In this episode, Suarez explains how he stands out from the field of candidates and shares his plans to "encourage generational innovation" in the crypto industry if elected President. Outline: 1:04 - The Campaign Trail 2:25 - From Miami Mayor to Presidential Hopeful 5:50 - Campaign Headwinds 8:43 - “How Can I Help?” 13:22 - Conflict of Interest Allegations 16:28 - Republican Cand...
Aug 22, 2023•27 min•Season 5Ep. 78
Aubrey Strobel is the host of The Aubservation and the producer of " Lekker Feeling: A Bitcoin Ekasi Stor y." In this episode, Strobel explains how the combination of bitcoin and surfing is transforming a South African community and gives a behind the scenes look at the filmmaking process. Outline: 1:33 - Film Background 4:38 - Bitcoin in Africa 7:07 - Bitcoin Ekasi 9:18 - Merchant BTC Adoption 11:09 - Bitcoin vs. Banking in South Africa 13:15 - Lekker Feeling Highlights 16:20 - Surfing & Bi...
Aug 17, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 77
Mastercard EVP Raj Dhamodharan manages Mastercard's blockchain and digital asset strategy. In this episode, Dhamodharan unpacks Mastercard's vision for a future in which value can be transferred seamlessly between public and private blockchains, and explains how CBDCs and tokenized bank deposits could revolutionize global payments. Outline: 1:00 Mastercard's Multi Token Network 6:00 MTN Applications 10:13 KYC & Crypto Credential 12:46 Public/Private Transactions 14:09 Tokenized Bank Deposits...
Aug 15, 2023•33 min•Season 5Ep. 76
Andre Cronje is the Director of the Fantom Foundation and Michael Kong is the CEO of the Fantom Foundation — the lead development team behind the Fantom Layer 1 blockchain. In this episode, Cronje and Kong break down the sequence of events that led Chinese authorities to detain the Multichain CEO and seemingly take control of its network, and how Fantom developers are exploring optimistic rollups to connect to Ethereum. Outline: 00:35 - China's Multichain Crackdown 03:10 - Multichain Rumors &...
Aug 09, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 75
Laura Vidiella serves as the head of business development and strategy for a company that is currently operating under stealth. In this episode, Vidiella takes a deep dive into the intricate world of crypto's options market and breaks down the present dynamics, unraveling complex market behavior that might hint at the existence of a 'ghost' whale. Although crypto spot volumes have been in decline, the volume in the options market has remaining consistent according to The Block's data dashboard....
Aug 07, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 74
Alex Blania is the co-founder of Worldcoin and CEO of Tools for Humanity — Worldcoin's lead development company. In this episode, Blania discusses decentralized orb production, Worldcoin's token launch and what comes next for the Worldcoin project. Outline: 01:01 - Why an Orb? 04:52 - Worldcoin & Quantum Resistance 05:44 - What's Next for Worldcoin 07:44 - Worldcoin's Core Product 13:21 - Is Worldcoin Cypherpunk? 16:41 - Decentralizing Orb Production 18:37 - Worldcoin Orb Manufacturing 20:23...
Aug 03, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 73
Mika Honkasalo is a DeFi researcher and the creator of Access Protocol. In this episode, Honkasalo provides analysis on whether or not the $BALD memecoin saga could have ties to Alameda Research , and how a handshake deal prevented a near on-chain catastrophe in the DeFi lending market. Outline: 01:16 - $BALD debacle on Base 04:51 - $BALD deployer's ties to Alameda 08:14 - What's next for Coinbase's Base 09:16 - Crypto rugpulls 10:39 - Leetswap exploit 11:37 - Curve DeFi leverage 14:38 - Viper e...
Aug 02, 2023•23 min•Season 5Ep. 72
Alok Vasudev is the co-founder of Standard Crypto, a VC firm that has been investing across various blockchain verticals since 2019. In this episode, Vasudev explains why he believes the crypto industry is in a better position now than ever before, and how to spot the best opportunities during bear markets. Outline: 00:12 - Are we back? 02:23 - Crypto market maturity 06:41 - Alpha 09:45 - Crypto's application layer 14:25 - Web3 social 18:50 - Blockchain gaming 25:00 - Standard Crypto's thesis 26...
Jul 31, 2023•40 min•Season 5Ep. 71
This episode of The Scoop was recorded live from the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris with Marek Olszewski, Chief Technology officer for cLabs — the core development team behind the Celo platform. In this episode, Olszewski unpacks cLabs recent proposal to transition Celo to an Eth Layer 2, and explains why he thinks one day "hundreds if not thousands of chains will all be rolling up to Ethereum."...
Jul 26, 2023•21 min•Season 6Ep. 70
This episode of The Scoop was recorded with Jesse Pollak, the creator Coinbase's Base network, live from the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris. Outline: 00:44 Crypto 'builder energy' 03:09 The L1 trade 05:07 Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 06:45 Maturing beyond speculation 11:03 Technical obstacles to building 15:16 ZK vs. OP scaling solutions...
Jul 25, 2023•17 min•Season 5Ep. 69
This episode of The Scoop was recorded with Wildcat protocol creator Laurence Day live from the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris. Outline: 00:10 Intro 03:03 Laurence & law school 04:53 Wildcat protocol 09:29 Balancing proprietary data and transparency 12:31 Collapsed crypto lenders 14:55 EthCC Paris 16:52 Wormhole hack 20:01 Grey hat hackers 24:22 Closing thoughts...
Jul 25, 2023•27 min•Season 5Ep. 68
Brian Quintenz is the Global Head of Policy at a16z crypto and a former commissioner at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In this episode, Quintenz explains how the SEC's failure to issue updated guidance for the crypto industry has created a legislative opportunity for clarity. According to Quintenz, "Congress needs to show the way by creating the framework that the SEC is refusing to contemplate." Outline: 0:36 Policy & regulation overview 2:43 Securities v. commodities 06:37 ...
Jul 21, 2023•36 min•Season 5Ep. 67
Moritz Baier-Lentz is a partner and head of gaming at Lightspeed, and Sam Harrison is the managing partner of Faction. In this episode, Baier-Lentz and Harrison unpack their thesis behind investing in the nascent Web3 gaming industry. While Web3 gaming has yet to reach mainstream appeal, Baier-Lentz and Harrison believe that a combination of technological advancements and veteran game developers embracing blockchain rails will help facilitate breakout Web3 games in the near future. Outline: 1:13...
Jul 17, 2023•43 min•Season 5Ep. 66
