Gil Luria, director of research at D.A. Davidson, talks about the upcoming Coinbase direct listing and his recent research note, “Introducing Crypto’s Amazon Moment.” In this episode, Gil discusses: his crypto background, including his experience as the first Wall Street analyst to cover Bitcoin back in 2013 (1:27) why the Coinbase IPO is going to be an inflection point for the crypto industry (3:02) why he gave Coinbase's upcoming stock a “buy” rating (4:14) who Coinbase's biggest competitors a...
Mar 05, 2021•34 min•Ep. 217
Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Avanti Financial Group, talks about the issues plaguing the current state of technology in traditional finance and how her background as a 22-year Wall Street veteran, gubernatorial appointee to the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force, and crypto pioneer is helping her shape Avanti into a bridge between conventional banking and crypto. Tune in to hear Caitlin discuss: the current state of crypto adoption on Wall Street (1:09) how her entrepreneurial spirit galvanized a...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 216
Jeff Roberts, executive editor at Decrypt and author of “King of Crypto: One Startup’s Quest to take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street” talks about Coinbase going public. In this episode we discuss: Jeff's biggest takeaways from Coinbase’s S-1 filing (0:56) why institutions are choosing Coinbase (2:42) how Coinbase going public feels like validation for bitcoiners (4:37) issues Coinbase may face as a business that currently generates 96% of revenue through transaction fee...
Feb 26, 2021•35 min•Ep. 215
In this episode of Unchained, Charles Cascarilla, CEO and cofounder of Paxos, explains how the 2008 financial crisis led him to crypto, what financial plumbing has to do with GameStop, and how Paxos is leveraging blockchain technology to change financial services. In this episode Charles discusses: his work experience prior to Paxos and how the financial crisis in 2008 opened his eyes to Bitcoin and blockchain (01:07) what it was like to work in Bitcoin during the early days compared to now (4:0...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 214
Lea Thompson, aka Girl Gone Crypto, talks about what goes into producing her popular “The Crypto Minute” vlog, what initially got her into crypto, and her recent decision to quit her day job and go full time crypto. In this episode we discuss: what “The Crypto Minute” is all about, and all the crypto video content she produces (2:37) how Lea comes up with creative content such as wearing a whale costume to portray Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor (5:04) how long it actually takes to create “The ...
Feb 19, 2021•40 min•Ep. 213
Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, comes onto the show to discuss the lending protocol and second-biggest DeFi project by total value locked. Here are some of the highlights: How Stani’s background studying law and his passion for fintech led him to the world of smart contracts (1:53) Why he decided to transition ETHLend to Aave, and how that eliminated the “meme” narrative (5:55) How Stani would explain Aave to a five-year-old, or your normie friend (9:04) What new features were released ...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 212
Lyn Alden, CEO and founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategies, and Raoul Pal, CEO & cofounder of Real Vision Group & Global Macro Investor, explain their thinking about Ethereum and its native token, and talk about their perspective on GameStop. In this episode, we discuss: why Raoul views ether as similar to bitcoin at a macro level (1:25) why Lyn decided ETH was not currently investable (5:06) an analysis of utility protocols (John Pfeffer’s paper) (6:55) counterarguments to John Pfeff...
Feb 09, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 211
In this episode, Shehan Chandrasekara, head of strategy at CoinTracker, and Dan Hannum COO at Zen Ledger, take a deep dive into the world of crypto taxes. Over an hour and fifteen minutes they tackle a bevy of topics ranging from why the IRS is asking about your crypto history to explaining the proper way of reporting yield farming income. Shehan and Dan give up their hard-earned tax secrets and tips learned through building their respective cutting-edge crypto tax software. Here is a list of ta...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 210
Michael Saylor, CEO and founder of Microstrategy, explains how he decided the publicly traded business data firm needed to put its excess cash in bitcoin and what happened afterward. In this episode, we discuss: why Microstrategy decided to buy Bitcoin, and how the pandemic spurred that whether his previous experience with Microstrategy stock imploding after accounting irregularities were revealed had any bearing on the company's decision to buy bitcoin the reactions of the officers and board me...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 209
Stephen Palley, partner at Anderson Kill. and Gabriel Shapiro, partner at BSV Law, discuss the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple and two executives, Chris Larsen and Bard Garlinghouse. In this episode, they explain: what was so "egregious" that the SEC went after two executives, Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse, were charged why their sales showed an information asymmetry, and why that matters why the complaint comes close to being a fraud case, but why the SEC didn't charge them with fraud why the...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 208
Willy Woo, a prominent on-chain Bitcoin analyst and author of the “The Bitcoin Forecast,” a market intelligence newsletter, explains the parabolic activity of Bitcoin in the past month. We cover: why he thinks Bitcoin has more than doubled in the last month what the "double pump" market is and why Bitcoin may see two rallies this cycle what stage of the Bitcoin bull market we are currently in who is buying, and how they've differed from previous investors who still is yet to buy this cycle why B...
Jan 12, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 207
This panel, from a panel for the fifth anniversary of Hyperledger, features Rob Palatnick, managing director of global head of technology research and innovation at the DTCC and chairman of the Hyperledger board, Matthieu Saint Olive, Codefi payments product manager and CBDC advisor at ConsenSys, and Robert Bench, assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In this discussion on the current outlook on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), they cover: what main problems CBD...
Jan 05, 2021•58 min•Ep. 206
Host Laura Shin recaps the biggest stories of the year in crypto, with clips from shows throughout the year. In this episode, we cover how the pandemic drove Bitcoin to new all-time highs, how regulation began to come for the crypto space in a big way, plus new trends in DeFi, corporate structures, and how ETH will change as an asset. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com : http://crypto.com 1inch: https://1inch.exchange Episode links: Meltem Demirors on Bitcoin’s behavior during the recession h...
Dec 29, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 205
Jeremy Allaire of Circle Pay and Kristin Smith of the Blockchain Association explain the impact of and motivation behind Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s proposed FinCEN rule that targets “unhosted” wallets. In this episode, they cover: what the new FinCEN rule says, and how it would impact unhosted or self-hosted wallets, as well as crypto businesses why they believe this is really politically motivated and unilateral midnight rule making by Secretary Mnuchin what other bureaucrats and policy...
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr
Marguerite deCourcelle is co-founder and CEO of Blockade Games, which is releasing the role-playing game game Neon District the day this episode comes out. She discusses her background in art, how her love of video games led her to discover Bitcoin in the early days of the cryptocurrency, and how she helps create the next phase of web 3.0 content creation and distribution. Topics include: how Marguerite became involved in crypto and what led her to co-found Blockade Games her work on Pineapple A...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 203
Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot, Kusama, and Parity, discusses what he calls the "meta-protocol," Polkadot. In this episode, he talks about: his vision for Polkadot and the problems he set out to solve when conceiving it why he considers Polkadot a meta-protocol the implementation of parachains and parathreads, how they are defined and how they differ parachain auctions and candle auctions how DDoS attacks can be prevented on parachains initial parachain offerings and how they differ from initia...
Dec 08, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 202
Ryan Watkins and Wilson Withiam, senior research analysts at Messari, explain the nuts and bolts of Ethereum 2.0, including how it will transform ETH as an asset and why they believe it will be Ethereum’s most ambitious upgrade yet. Topics include: the different phases of Ethereum 2.0 and the functions they serve the problems Ethereum hopes to solve with this upgrade the technical requirements needed to ensure the launch can happen the new proof of stake consensus and why Ethereum is leaving pro...
Dec 01, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 201
Christine Sandler, head of sales and marketing at Fidelity Digital Assets, talks about how 30 years in traditional finance and an early retirement led her to Coinbase, and, eventually, Fidelity Digital Assets. She discusses the history of Fidelity's involvement in crypto, how they became one of the first to enter the space, and what the future holds. Topics include: what Fidelity Digital Assets is and Christine's role there Christine's background in traditional finance, how she was drawn into th...
Nov 24, 2020•55 min•Ep. 200
Jake Chervinsky, general counsel at Compound Labs, and Kristin Smith, executive director of The Blockchain Association, talk about the storm brewing in the cryptosphere involving self-custody and privacy. In this episode, they cover: the differences between hosted and self-hosted wallets and how transactions between them differ why the ability to transact from self-hosted wallets is so important compliance and regulation in the traditional financial world and how it could affect self-custody the...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 199
In this episode, Dan Tapiero, founder of 10T Holdings and Gold Bullion International, and Cathie Wood, CEO and CIO at ARK Invest, discuss the long election week in the U.S. and how they believe Bitcoin will behave in a post-election world. They also talk about: how a changeover from a Trump to a Biden administration could affect Bitcoin how the prospect of legal challenges from the Trump administration might affect Bitcoin whether they think the presidential election influenced Bitcoin’s precipi...
Nov 10, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 198
In this seventh installment of the Why Bitcoin Now series, Meltem Demirors, the chief strategy officer at Coinshares, and Lyn Alden, the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, discuss the state of Bitcoin since June, amidst the presidential election – which takes place on the date of publication of the show -- and a global pandemic. Topics discussed include: the significance of bitcoin staying above $10k for over three months why the pandemic has created the conditions for which Bitcoin was d...
Nov 03, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 197
Brian Brooks got his start in traditional finance before joining Coinbase in 2018 and is currently the acting comptroller of the currency. In this episode, he discusses: how his background in traditional financial services led him to take a position at Coinbase whether the role blockchain and crypto will likely play in the financial future is being recognized at the federal level whether or not banks have always had the authority to custody crypto for their customers how he expects things to unf...
Oct 27, 2020•51 min•Ep. 196
Magistrate judge Zia Faruqui, and Jessi Brooks, assistant U.S. attorney in the national security section at the United States Attorney’s Office, have prosecuted several cryptocurrency-related cases, many of them amongst the most well-known. In this episode, they talk about: how they came to be involved in the prosecution of so many cases involving cryptocurrency the nature of civil forfeiture cases the Al-Qassam Brigades case, which led to the largest ever seizure of a terrorist organization’s c...
Oct 20, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 195
Hester Peirce, AKA “Crypto Mom,” was just confirmed to a second term as SEC Commissioner of the Securities Exchange Commission in August. In this episode, she talks about: the reasons for her dissent in the Unikrn Settlement and what she believes would have been a proper penalty the current status of her token safe harbor proposal her thoughts on fair launch projects as opposed to traditional VC-backed tokens her view on how the SEC should view airdrops her thoughts on whether existing securitie...
Oct 13, 2020•30 min•Ep. 194
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX and Alameda Research, and Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, discuss the Project Serum ecosystem that they are building on the Solana blockchain, and the unique approach to scaling the Solana blockchain is taking. In this episode, they talk about: their backgrounds, and how they became involved in crypto why Solana takes a different approach to scaling and how it is implemented why they think a relatively lower number of nodes is sufficien...
Oct 06, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 193
Andreas M. Antonopoulos, speaker, educator, and the author of Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum, and The Internet of Money, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and Dan Held, growth lead at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, discuss the core features of Bitcoin's monetary policy, including how it differs from traditional central bank monetary policy, what gives it value and yet how it seems to have derived value from thin air. Plus, we talk about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect Bitcoin. In this episode...
Sep 29, 2020•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 192
Matthew Leising, a reporter at Bloomberg who began covering crypto in 2015, is out with a new book Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All. In this episode, he discusses: the catalyst that led to him writing his new book, which covers the early history of Ethereum and the DAO attack of 2016 why he thought the story of the DAO hack was compelling enough to make a book, and how he went about reporting it the surprising things he learne...
Sep 22, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 191
Andre Cronje, the developer of yearn.finance, talks about all things DeFi and the past, present, and future of yEarn. In this episode, he discusses: what Yearn Finance is, and what led him to develop it and eventually open it to the public his history and background, leading up to the development of Yearn the processes and mechanisms involved in yEarn v1 and yEarn v2 why he decided to do a "fair launch" of the YFI token, despite being in debt as a result of building Yearn why he felt that a Decr...
Sep 15, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 190
Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, goes deep into yield farming, fair launches and how decentralization will upend the traditional notion of the corporation. In this episode, he talks about: when it makes sense for a team to introduce a liquidity mining scheme, and when it doesn't the difference between yield farming and ICOs when it comes to investing his thoughts on YFI, as well as YAM, and the pace at which unaudited DeFi projects are moving forward the three advantag...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 189
Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, and Dan Robinson, research partner at Paradigm, discuss the explosion in decentralized exchange activity on automated market makers from $1 billion earlier this year to more than $10 billion in August. Why trading in automated market makers has 8xed in a few months how automated market makers work, and how specific dexes can specialize for the assets being traded on them why traders would prefer to trade on a dex vs. a centralized exchange h...
Sep 01, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 188
