Jackson Palmer, the creator of Dogecoin and the website Are We Decentralized Yet, explains why he thinks the markets suddenly took a nosedive, why it's hard for him to get data on these crypto assets for the Are We Decentralized Yet website -- unless there's a centralized company behind them -- and how Ripple and Initiative Q are somewhat similar. We also covered the perpetual question of how much of Ripple's social media support is real vs. bots, what "fair distribution" of coins means, why min...
Nov 30, 2018•30 min•Ep. 48
In lieu of a regular episode during this (U.S.) holiday, I'm releasing the audio from my TEDx San Francisco Talk. Thank you to our sponsors! Abra: Click this special link for a free $25 in Bitcoin! https://www.abra.com/unconfirmed WeTrust: Donate in crypto and have your donation matched by WeTrust through Giving Tuesday, November 27! http://wetrust.io/unconfirmed Links: TEDx San Francisco: https://www.tedxsanfrancisco.com Video of the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Ew7PW4LCo My Unconfir...
Nov 23, 2018•21 min•Ep. 47
Bitcoin Magazine technical editor Aaron Van Wirdum breaks down what is going on with the Bitcoin Cash contentious hard fork: who is fighting, over what, and how this could play out, including the nuclear option of a proof of work algorithm change. We discuss whether the battle could deliver a verdict on the question of whether hash power follows price or vice versa, what this says about the strength of proof of work as an algorithm over proof of stake, and what Bitcoin Cash holders should do. Th...
Nov 16, 2018•26 min•Ep. 46
Emin Gun Sirer, Cornell professor, co-director at the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts (IC3) and the founder of Ava, talks about the settlement the SEC reached with the founder of EtherDelta, and what that could mean for the coders of decentralized systems. He also puts this action in the context of the history of peer-to-peer sharing and how the government used to prohibit encryption. We also discuss his main takeaway from DevCon4 last week -- hint, maximalism is probably not...
Nov 09, 2018•34 min•Ep. 45
To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the publication of the Bitcoin white paper, Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, asks how Bitcoin can go from a speculative asset to real money (hint: the Lightning Network plays a role) and explains what he thinks is the significance of Fidelity getting into crypto and Bakkt launching. He also tells the story of how Poker Black Friday, when the government shut down online poker sites, demonstrates the need for Bitcoin, which leads us to discuss whether o...
Nov 02, 2018•26 min•Ep. 44
Fidelity Digital Asset Services president Tom Jessop explains why its new crypto offering for institutional clients is focused on custody and trade execution, why it's decided not to launch its own exchange, and what kinds of trading capabilities from traditional financial services they plan to build out in the space. He also describes Fidelity's journey to this point -- how it started mining Bitcoin in 2015, had employees buy what must now be some of the world's most expensive bagels in the com...
Oct 26, 2018•23 min•Ep. 43
Dan McArdle, cofounder of Messari and the creator of OnChainFX, discusses why tether lost its dollar peg, how the Gemini USD traded at above $1, and how this was similar to the time before Mt. Gox imploded. We also discuss the significance of the Fidelity news, plus McArdle's thesis on how Bitcoin would behave in a recession -- which isn't the conventional wisdom. Thank you to our sponsors! Blockdaemon: http://blockdaemon.com/unchained/ OnRamp: http://www.thinkonramp.com Episode links: Dan McArd...
Oct 19, 2018•23 min•Ep. 42
Soona Amhaz of Token Daily talks about how we've misused the word decentralization and stretched it to the point of meaninglessness. She discusses how certain companies misrepresent being decentralized and walks us through some misleading graphs put out by Ripple and EOS. She also explains why, when a good metric becomes a target, people will then game it, and why we should be open to projects becoming decentralized over time. We also talk about tribalism, and why it's bad in only some instances...
Oct 12, 2018•27 min•Ep. 41
Bill Barhydt, founder and CEO of Abra, describes its new product, the BIT10, which it created in partnership with Bitwise Asset Management (full disclosure: Bitwise previously sponsored my podcasts). He outlines the way the token is similar to an ETF -- for instance, it rebalances monthly -- and the ways in which it differs. We also compare and contrast it to similar offerings announced by Coinbase and Circle. Bill also explains Abra's overall strategy and recent pivot, why it is built on Bitcoi...
Oct 05, 2018•27 min•Ep. 40
Rune Christensen, founder and CEO of MakerDao, explains what Andreessen Horowitz's $15 million investment in its Maker token means for the ecosystem and why they chose to work with a16z and its general partner Kathryn Haun. He also responds to criticism that the process took place behind closed doors despite the fact that MakerDao has a notably open, transparent system otherwise, and concerns about the seeming discount of 40% that the a16z team got. He also talks about whether or not MakerDao co...
Sep 28, 2018•26 min•Ep. 39
Linda Xie, cofounder at Scalar Capital, talks about what she saw at ETHBerlin, why it made her think Ethereum's first-mover advantage may be hard for other smart contract platforms to overcome and how the crypto community in Berlin differed from that of Silicon Valley. She also talked about why Scalar Capital is focused on privacy coins, how her experience at Coinbase informed that, and what impact it would have on her investments if a more widely used coin like Bitcoin adopted privacy features....
Sep 21, 2018•26 min•Ep. 38
Alex Sunnarborg, founding partner of Tetras Capital, describes the three core buckets his fund is investing in, how they're investing during this bear market, and why the firm has decided to short ether. He also describes why he thinks dapps could take off, but the value of ether may not rise anyway, and gives us some insight into how he thinks psychology plays into market rhythms. Plus, he explains why he's long Ethereum but short ETH. Alex Sunnarborg: https://twitter.com/alexsunnarborg Tetras ...
Sep 14, 2018•25 min•Ep. 37
Katherine Wu, director of business development and community at Messari, talks about the news that everyone on crypto Twitter was discussing this week: Shapeshift's decision to require customer accounts. The well-known crypto-to-crypto exchange has long been known for enabling anonymous transactions, and CEO Erik Voorhees is a noted libertarian who prefers less rather than more regulation, so the reversal was surprising to many in the crypto community. Katherine explains her theory as to why Sha...
Sep 07, 2018•24 min•Ep. 36
Pamela Morgan, a lawyer in the blockchain space and the author of Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning, explains how you can pass on your crypto assets to your heirs without them or anyone else getting ahold of them beforehand. Surprisingly, the first step begins with a letter. She explains what information to put in that letter, how to choose helpers, and how to protect your private keys. We also discuss what you should do legally to help the process along and what kind of tax prep you should follo...
Aug 31, 2018•23 min•Ep. 35
Joe Lubin, cofounder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys, and Jimmy Song, partner at Blockchain Capital and founder of Programming Blockchain, pick up the bet they started at the Consensus conference in May. The challenge was on whether or not we would see several decentralized apps with real user traction five years from now, with Joe taking the yes side of the bet and Jimmy taking the no side. However, the terms of the agreement were still to be worked out. On Unchained, Jimmy proposed that J...
Aug 24, 2018•42 min•Ep. 34
Silicon Valley capitalist and longtime crypto investor Bill Tai discusses some interesting theories about how crypto is changing money and work. He starts by talking about the shift from oil- to electron-based currencies. He also describes how people have worked flexibly, as individuals, for most of human history and only recently have they become cogs in a wheel, beholden to one employer. Crypto, he believes, will shift us back to more flexible work models. We also talked about a new project he...
Aug 17, 2018•24 min•Ep. 33
Caitlin Long, who’s working on a book about Wall Street and crypto assets and is the cofounder of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, discusses the significance of the creation of Bakkt, a new federally regulated market for Bitcoin, by ICE, Microsoft, Starbucks and investment firms Fortress Investment Group, Eagle Seven, and Susquehanna International Group. She explains why she thinks the price of bitcoin didn't jump after the news, what this move could mean for institutional players getting into ...
Aug 10, 2018•26 min•Ep. 32
Tricia Martinez, director of the Dala Foundation and founder and CEO of Wala, describes how cryptocurrency Dala is being used in Africa and how it hit 100,000 new wallets and 2.5 million in transactions in two months, with an average transaction size of around $0.27. She talks about how 94% of transactions in Africa are still being done in cash, why the problem she's trying to solve needs its own cryptocurrency and can't use bitcoin or ether, and how Wala's users are using Dala. Plus, she explai...
Aug 03, 2018•25 min•Ep. 31
CoinList founder and president Andy Bromberg talks about why the ICO services firm has worked with only five out of 2,500 token projects, how tokenomic models are changing to ensure the viability of the network and also avoid incurring regulatory action, and why one of the biggest regulatory questions remaining is when a token shifts from being a security to a non-security. We also discuss why there's such a race in the stablecoin space, why there's been a shift toward building infrastructure, a...
Jul 27, 2018•26 min•Ep. 30
In this wide-ranging conversation, the Token Economy newsletter coauthor Stefano Bernardi talks about fully digital security tokens -- security tokens with no relation to real world securities like companies and real estate, but that represent securities from DAOs and other purely crypto entities. He also discusses a new evolution in cryptoeconomics -- multiple-token economies that utilize different tokens to incentivize various behaviors on a network. For instance, one system might have a secur...
Jul 20, 2018•29 min•Ep. 29
In this special episode I hosted with CNBC Crypto Trader, Ran Neu Ner and I talk with Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder and CEO of crypto hedge fund Polychain Capital. We discuss his early career, what sets this crypto downturn apart from previous ones and why we see hardcore tribalism in the crypto space. He also explains what types of investments and technologies he looks for, why we won't see one dominant breakthrough and why "no one cares about incrementally faster bank settlement but paradigm shift...
Jul 16, 2018•44 min•Ep. 28
Independent crypto analyst Willy Woo, who blogs at Woobull.com, talks about where he sees the price of Bitcoin going over the next six months. (Hint: He uses the word "sideways.") He also describes his concept of NVT Ratio, the Bitcoin equivalent of price-to-earnings ratio, and how that helps determine whether bitcoin and certain other coins are over- or undervalued. We also discuss his 10,000-year view of cryptocurrency, and why he believes we're only nine years away from half of the world usin...
Jul 13, 2018•27 min•Ep. 27
Demian Brener, the cofounder and CEO of Zeppelin discusses a dilemma he's seeing investors be concerned about: whether blockchains should be immutable forever or whether it should be possible to upgrade smart contracts over time. He explains why he doesn't see it as a dilemma, how it could be possible to have an upgradeable, immutable blockchain. We also cover another trend he's seeing: would-be ICO issuers instead turning to airdrops as a way to avoid some regulatory issues. Now that Tezos Beta...
Jul 06, 2018•25 min•Ep. 26
Kyle Samani, managing partner of Multicoin Capital, talks about what got him really excited at this week's Zcon0 conference for Zcash -- primarily, technologies that could make possible a future of massively scalable blockchains featuring default private transactions that would still make possible selective viewing to, say, auditors. He also recaps the major incidents around EOS's launch and how the community plans to change its governance, by trying out a new ethos of "intent of code" is law. W...
Jun 29, 2018•26 min•Ep. 25
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, a contributing writer at Wired, came out with a cover story in the magazine earlier this week that investigated the actions of both sides in the Tezos boardroom battle. Lewis-Kraus walks us through the accusations on both sides and explains how the balance of the blame seems to lie with foundation head, Johann Gevers, who had numerous conflicts of interest, proposed an unjustified payment for himself and appears to have tried to revive his faltering company Monetas by riding ...
Jun 22, 2018•24 min•Ep. 24
Adam White, vice president and general manager of Coinbase, explains why he believes the SEC's statement Thursday that ether, in its current form, is not a security, is a historic moment in crypto. Also, from his vantage point of being steeped in the industry but interacting regularly with institutional investors and regulators, he describes where crypto is right now and why he believes it will be moving from an investment phase to a utility phase. He also discusses Coinbase's many recent announ...
Jun 15, 2018•24 min•Ep. 23
Joey Krug, cofounder of Augur and chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, talks about the upcoming Augur launch, and why we haven't yet seen a regular, non-deflationary, non-stablecoin cryptocurrency -- and how to create one. For instance, he says, an inflationary currency could distribute the inflation to particular groups. He also explains what the "impossible trinity" is and how an independent monetary policy in crypto might work. We also discuss new ways crypto projects are trying to so...
Jun 08, 2018•24 min•Ep. 22
Think Bitcoin and crypto assets are just vehicles for speculation? They're already having both a positive impact and negative impact when it comes to human rights, says Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation. Gladstein talks about how he first became enamored with Bitcoin because of its potential to solve hyperinflation, and why he believes Venezuela is the site of the world's first crypto war. He also covers why repressive governments are excited by centralized c...
Jun 01, 2018•25 min•Ep. 21
Blockchain consultant, Jill Carlson, who has worked with 0x, dydx, Algorand, Tezos, O1 Labs, and the IMF, discusses why Blockchain Week to her seemed to be too much about Lambos and how crypto has reached its "illogical conclusion" and is replicating Wall Street's misbehaviors. Hence, the Department of Justice's investigation into the price manipulation of Bitcoin. However, she sees a bright spot in decentralized exchange, but believes blockchain-based credit is an area that needs further develo...
May 25, 2018•26 min•Ep. 20
Mike Novogratz, the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital Capital Management, talks about the recently announced Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index, why it's limited to just 12 cryptos, how traditional financial players know more about crypto than people believe they do, and how "the herd" is coming. He discusses the biggest obstacles to institutional money entering the space, how their entry will affect trading opportunities and and which types of stablecoins he believes are most promising. He also talk...
May 18, 2018•29 min•Ep. 19
