Austin Reid is the global head of revenue and business at FalconX. In this episode of The Scoop, Reid discusses why we are still at the 'early stages' of institutional adoption of crypto, and the role retail traders have played in the market's current rally. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 04:12 Market Overview 08:06 FalconX Volume 12:03 Crypto Derivatives 15:55 Interest Rates 19:19 Institutional Adoption 22:10 ETF Flows 26:49 Retail Flows 32:51 Market Maturation 35:06 Exchange Improvements 39:25 Clo...
Apr 03, 2024•42 min•Season 6Ep. 17
Haseeb Qureshi is a managing partner at the crypto VC firm Dragonfly. In this episode of The Scoop, Qureshi explains how the crypto VC landscape has changed during his five years at Dragonfly and why he believes 'points' are a more useful mechanism than airdrops for incentivizing user behavior. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 05:41 Dragonfly Early Days 09:45 Early Crypto VC 13:14 Competing in Layer-1s 26:11 Old Blockchains 29:26 Points 31:47 Airdrop Mechanism Design 37:38 Closing Thoughts...
Apr 02, 2024•40 min•Season 6Ep. 16
Craig Burel is a partner at Reciprocal Ventures. In this episode of The Scoop, Burel explains how the recent market rally caused sidelined venture capitalists to return to the crypto industry in earnest. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 07:38 Nuances of Crypto VC 10:05 Crypto Venture Maturation 13:12 Valuations in the Bull 19:15 Solana Conviction 23:15 Navigating Market Cycles 28:17 Consumer Crypto Apps 32:22 Improving Tokenomics 38:00 Closing Thoughts...
Mar 28, 2024•40 min•Season 6Ep. 15
Mike Belshe is the co-founder and CEO of BitGo. In this episode of The Scoop, Belshe discusses the growth and challenges of the custody market in the crypto industry, and explains what it will take to make crypto's market structure more robust. OUTLINE 00:00 BitGo Background 05:15 Institutional Crypto Custodians 10:41 New Market Participants 14:36 Market Structure 24:09 Bullish Catalysts 32:08 Crypto Robustness 41:58 Closing Thoughts...
Mar 21, 2024•44 min•Season 6Ep. 14
Muneeb Ali is the CEO of Trust Machines and the co-creators of Stacks — a layer-2 that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to utilize bitcoin for base-layer security. In this episode of The Scoop, Ali discusses the growth and importance of Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions. He emphasizes the need for BTC capital to be deployed in L2s and the potential for Bitcoin L2s to become a significant category in the crypto industry. According to Ali, creating more on-chain uses for bitcoin will...
Mar 18, 2024•38 min•Season 6Ep. 13
This episode of The Scoop explores the technical headwinds and security challenges faced by the crypto industry. Blockaid co-founder Raz Niv discusses common scams and phishing attacks in the crypto space, and emphasizes the importance of good on-chain hygiene and best practices for engaging with different protocols. Just last month, Metamask integrated Blockaid-powered security alerts by default across multiple chains....
Mar 13, 2024•28 min•Season 6Ep. 12
In this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana, explains how a Bonk airdrop caused the Solana Saga mobile phone to sell out and discusses the importance of community and meme culture for bootstrapping crypto networks. OUTLINE 00:00 Disrupting App Store Duopoly 06:10 Bonk Saga Airdrop 09:19 Memes & Community 14:51 Solana Saga 22:29 Saga Developer Experience 24:19 Solana Ecosystem Entrepreneurs 28:48 Solana's Roadmap 34:31 Real Wold Adoption...
Mar 12, 2024•41 min•Season 6Ep. 11
Brian Rudick is a senior strategist at GSR. In this episode of The Scoop, GSR senior strategist Brian Rudick examines the differences between the forces driving the crypto markets and those affecting stocks. He also offers insights into the market dynamics supporting the current rally in the crypto market. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 04:47 Crypto vs. Equities 06:56 Memetics in Crypto 11:26 Macro Factors 14:11 Retail Participation 17:02 Crypto Tailwinds 22:03 Bitcoin Halving 26:03 Closing Thoughts...
Mar 11, 2024•31 min•Season 6Ep. 10
Reed Werbitt is the CEO of the crypto market-making firm Flowdesk, and Greg Guttas is Flowdesk's Head of OTC. In this episode, Werbitt and Guttas share their insider perspectives on how the new spot bitcoin ETFs are altering market structures across different facets of the global bitcoin market, and why they believe these products will continue to see inflows for many years to come. Earlier this year, Flowdesk raised a $50 million Series B round at a valuation of $250 million....
Mar 06, 2024•36 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Luuk Strijers is the Chief Commercial Officer at Deribit. In this episode, Chaparro and Strijers delve into the technological edge and institutional focus as helped position Deribit as the dominant player in the crypto options space, as well as the surge in options trading volumes driven by ETF excitement and macroeconomic factors. Deribit recently reached a record $4 billion in client assets on exchange, as well as a new all-time high for the exchange’s 24-hour trading volume of $12.4 billion....
Mar 01, 2024•37 min•Season 6Ep. 8
In this episode of The Scoop, Frank Chaparro and former Deutsche Bank payment analyst Ryan Todd delve into Coinbase's financial performance for the fourth quarter. Todd, a former payments analyst at Deutsche Bank, offers an in-depth analysis of why Wall Street regularly underestimates Coinbase's earnings. He sheds light on the structural factors leading to consistent earnings outperformance, not only by Coinbase but also by major tech companies overall.
Feb 28, 2024•32 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Colosseum is an online platform that runs hackathons, accelerates founders, and invests in breakout startups on Solana. In this episode, Colosseum co-founders Matty Taylor and Clay Robbins discuss how they are establishing Colosseum as an entry point into crypto, and their personal journeys in building Colosseum. According to Robbins, maintaining a supportive culture around developer activity is vital for any crypto ecosystem's success: "The lifeblood of growth in the ecosystem is a function of ...
Feb 27, 2024•43 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Matthew Hougan is the Chief Investment Officer for Bitwise — one of several asset managers to recently launch a spot Bitcoin ETF. In this episode, Hougan shares his inside perspective on how market participants are reacting to the new spot Bitcoin ETFs, and why he believes we're not yet at the "sweet spot of demand" for the new products. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 05:46 Crypto & Wall Street 09:55 BTC ETF Launch Analysis 13:26 ETF Provider Competition 19:51 ETF Trading Mechanics 23:55 RIA BTC...
Feb 22, 2024•36 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Dr. Friederike Ernst is the co-founder of Gnosis and Gnosis Pay. In this episode, Dr. Ernst shares how Gnosis Pay is working to bridge the gap between on-chain and off-chain payments, and how the upcoming Gnosis Card will allow users to spend their crypto at over 80 million VISA merchants worldwide. Although crypto payments for everyday transactions have yet to penetrate the consumer market, Dr. Ernst says it's only a matter of time before traditional financial services move onchain: "In 5 to 10...
Feb 02, 2024•30 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Chris Dixon is a managing partner at a16z and the founder of a16z crypto. In this episode, Dixon gives an overview of his new book , Read Write Own: Building the Next Generation of the Internet, and explains how blockchains have the potential to create more equatable online experiences. OUTLINE 00:00 Background 08:04 New Book 11:13 Crypto Skeptics 14:56 Tech Centralization 19:53 Web2 vs Web3 24:11 Networks vs Tokens 31:12 Platform Ownership 33:49 Platform Take Rates 37:49 Consumer Crypto 40:49 R...
Jan 30, 2024•51 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Jelena Djuric is the co-founder of Noble and Sam Hart is the co-founder of Timewave Labs and the Head of Strategy at Skip Protocol. In this episode, Djuric and Hart — both seasoned Cosmos veterans — breakdown the recent advancements that have helped the Cosmos ecosystem enter into a new era of innovation and expansion. Djuric also announces Noble's partnership with Hashnote to bring the USYC token to the Cosmos, making USYC the first cross chain real-world asset (RWA) in the Cosmos ecosystem tha...
Jan 24, 2024•45 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Scott Fletcher co-founded Intersection Growth Partners — one of the crypto industry's leading executive search firms. In this episode, Fletcher overviews how the crypto job market has changed since the market bottom in 2022 and explains what it takes to land an executive position at a top crypto company. According to Fletcher, CEO hires have more than doubled as a percentage of overall executive hires since the collapse of FTX, the number of new executive hires amongst centralized exchanges has ...
Jan 23, 2024•41 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Dan Tapiero is the founder and managing partner of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners — two growth equity funds operating across the digital asset ecosystem. In this episode, Tapiero gives an overview of how the recent market rally has impacted deal flow on the secondary market, and explains why he remains strongly bullish on the future growth trajectory of the industry. According to Tapiero, valuations in crypto's secondary market have yet to see a marked uptick in Q4 partially due to the la...
Dec 29, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 108
George Calle is the VP of Research at The Block. In this episode, Calle gives an overview of the key themes from The Block's 2024 Digital Assets Outlook Report. The full report can be downloaded here. OUTLINE 0:00 - Introduction 04:36 - 2023 Overview 08:08 - Blockchain Scaling 14:02 - DeFi Usage Trends 17:43 - 2023 Macro Impact 20:41 - Regulatory Landscape 27:39 - Binance 36:09 - 2023 Winners 40:26 - 2023 Losers...
Dec 22, 2023•45 min•Season 5Ep. 107
Tzvi Wiesel is the founder and CEO of Baxus, a startup in the wine and spirits industry attempting to revolutionize the way these products are traded, authenticated and valued globally. In this episode, Wiesel explains how his company leverages blockchain technology for ownership proof, authentication and secure storage — and how Baxus aims to address challenges like opaque pricing and legal complexities in the alcoholic beverage market.
Dec 20, 2023•29 min•Season 5Ep. 106
James Seyffart is an ETF Research Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode, Seyffart shares why he believes a spot bitcoin ETF approval is on the way and how the market might react to the news. Grayscale Investments’ win against the SEC in August over its application to convert its flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) product into a spot bitcoin ETF is another major factor in the SEC’s potential approval, Seyffart said. “I think the SEC has kind of been backed into a corner here by...
Dec 15, 2023•36 min•Season 5Ep. 105
This is the opening installment of the miniseries ' Web3 will fail unless... ', sponsored by Axelar and featuring co-host Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar. In this episode, EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan lays out the vision for EigenLayer and explains how the increasing modularization of blockchain infrastructure and services will enable the next wave of crypto innovation. OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 03:54 Web3 Adoption Curve 12:37 Monolithic vs. Modularity 20:20 Developer Complexity 25:...
Dec 14, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 104
Charles d'Haussy is the CEO of the dYdX Foundation. In this episode, d'Haussy discusses the launch of dYdX v4, and the potential tailwinds that could help decentralized derivative products gain market share in the years ahead. According to d'Haussy, the decision to launch dYdX v4 as a standalone appchain in the Cosmos ecosystem was made to optimize the experience of dYdX users. "If you need to upgrade to a new [tech] stack, you should be agnostic, and just think of the users, the experience, and...
Dec 13, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 103
Alex Felix is the Chief Investment Officer at CoinFund. Back in July, CoinFund announced the raise of $158 million for a new early-stage crypto startup investment fund. In this episode, Felix explains how his firm is thinking about allocating the capital, and breaks down the institutional interest in early-stage crypto investing. According to Felix, the market is still discounting web'3 full potential: " Almost everyone universally has under-appreciated, the size of the market opportunity for we...
Dec 06, 2023•37 min•Season 5Ep. 102
Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital. In this episode, Scaramucci reflects on the lessons he learned in the depths of last year's bear market, and explains why he believes the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. will lead to hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into bitcoin in the near future. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction 05:28 - SkyBridge Strategy 10:15 - Conviction 14:49 - FTX Takeaways 18:39 - 2024 Projections 29:03 - Warren & Gensler vs. ...
Dec 01, 2023•54 min•Season 5Ep. 101
Justin Slaughter is the Policy Director at Paradigm. In this episode, Slaughter explains why crypto regulation in the U.S. is likely stuck "in a holding pattern" until after the 2024 election cycle, and how policymakers on both sides of the aisle are beginning to see past crypto's volatility to appreciate the underlying technological innovation. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction 07:16 - Crypto Policy Overview 11:04 - Political Perceptions of Crypto 15:52 - Bipartisan Crypto Support 19:37 - FIT Act &...
Nov 27, 2023•39 min•Season 5Ep. 100
Superphiz is a long-time Ethereum community member and a became a vocal advocate for staking decentralization following the Ethereum 'Merge' to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism last year. In this episode of The Scoop, Superphiz unpacks how Ethereum's merge to proof-of-stake has caused liquid staking derivatives to pose a potential threat to Ethereum's credible neutrality, as well as the best pathways to mitigate the potential for staking centralization. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction 2:55 - S...
Nov 21, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 99
Kavita Gupta is the founder and CEO of Delta Blockchain Fund. Gupta — a former executive at ConsenSys — launched the fund in September 2021 and it currently sits at $125 million AUM. In this episode of The Scoop, Gupta discusses how the recent surge in crypto prices has impacted the venture landscape, and shares what sectors of the market she is paying the most attention to. According to Gupta, most early-stage crypto valuations are still fairly reasonable — which is leading to a steady stream o...
Nov 16, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 97
Leo Mizuhara is the founder and CEO of Hashnote — a digital asset management platform that aims to provide institutions with a regulated gateway to DeFi. In this episode of The Scoop, Mizuhara explores the recent hype around tokenized real-world assets and examines some of the hidden risks under pinning this sector of the digital assets market. According to Mizuhara, many purported 'tokenized' T-Bills are not actually providing direct exposure. "I think it's a giant misnomer — it's really dumb t...
Nov 15, 2023•49 min•Season 5Ep. 97
Austin Federa is Head of Strategy at the Solana Foundation. In this episode of The Scoop recorded live at Solana Breakpoint 2023, Federa unpacks some of Breakpoint's biggest announcements and explains how Solana builders persevered through the depths of the bear market to continue enhancing Solana's tech. According to Federa, Solana's recent performance enhancements have rectified many of the problems that plagued Solana's performance throughout the 2021 bull run. "I think you saw a lot of 'thin...
Nov 12, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 96
