In this conversation, conducted at the Oslo Freedom Forum, Vera Xavier, LocalBitcoins' Community Manager and Elena Tonoyan, Chief Customer Success Officer, describe what the Helsinki-based company does, how it got started, how its escrow system works and why the company typically keeps a low profile. We also cover who their typical users are (hint: it's a broad swath), how usage differs across geographically and types of economies, and how LocalBitcoins can be used in countries with authoritaria...
Jun 07, 2019•24 min•Ep. 76
At Ethereal, I spoke with Austin Griffiths, director of research at Gitcoin and founder of Burner Wallet, and Arjun Bhuptani, cofounder of Connext Network, about how they think about getting everyday usage. In this discussion, Austin talked about how he started Burner Wallet and how he did user testing at bars, and Arjun described Connext, how people are using it now. Plus, they both explain why they're using Dai, how they can compete when a company like Facebook has 2 billion users, and how the...
May 31, 2019•30 min•Ep. 75
How Polychain is faring during the crypto winter, where we are in the tech cycle, whether he thinks Ethereum 2.0 will deliver and how he views the competition in the smart contract space. We discuss the upcoming Facebook coin, what that might look like, and how his portfolio projects could compete against a token issued by a large company. We cover how regulatory uncertainty is affecting the development of crypto projects, what he thinks of the fact that some trends in the DeFi movement seem to ...
May 24, 2019•36 min•Ep. 74
Phil Chen, decentralized chief officer of HTC, discusses the upcoming model of the Exodus, why it will feature a full Bitcoin node, what's in it for the user, whether or not it will affect the performance of other apps on the phone and whether HTC would ever add mining capabilities for the phone. We cover how the phone also functions as a hardware wallet, how private keys are kept safe, and how they are recovered if the user loses their phone. Plus, he describes who the ideal user is and how hav...
May 17, 2019•28 min•Ep. 73
Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital discusses how hackers likely obtained $40 million worth of Bitcoin in a hack on Binance, how the leading crypto exchange could have incentivized miners to reorganize the blocks, and what the possibility says about the game theory of Bitcoin. We talk about why Binance ultimately decided against trying to go this route, and whether or not exchanges should, in the future, try to use reorgs immediately after exchange hacks in order to both undo the hack as well as de...
May 10, 2019•30 min•Ep. 72
Robert-Jan Den Haan, a contributor to the Block who has been researching the Bitfinex/Tether situation for over a year, talks about how Bitfinex found itself without access to $850 million of its own money, how the trouble crypto companies have maintaining banking relationships played into that, and the company — or, rather, group of related companies — that is the source of its woes. We also cover where at least a portion of the money is now, and why it likely won't be made available soon, how ...
May 03, 2019•28 min•Ep. 71
At the Subzero conference in Berlin, Ashley Tyson, the cofounder of the Web 3 Foundation, talks about how it plans to support the Polkadot protocol, plus bring together protocols to create a decentralized web, including other projects outside the Polkadot network. We discuss how the recent disaffection with Facebook and other social media platforms is affecting the movement toward decentralization, how they plan to get mainstream adoption of decentralized apps and whether or not enough people ca...
Apr 26, 2019•25 min•Ep. 70
Zachary Fallon, a former SEC staffer and author of the Reg A JOBS Act crowdfunding rules and a principal at Blakemore Fallon, discusses Blockstack's filing for a token offering under Reg A+, what that means for the security status of the tokens and what types of investors the company can raise from. We also talk about several of the particulars of the Blockstack filing, such as the time-lock on the tokens, the ability to raise money in bitcoin and ether, and the cap on the dollar amount of token...
Apr 19, 2019•30 min•Ep. 69
Sam McIngvale, head of product for Coinbase Custody, describes its new staking service. He explains how Coinbase Custody plans to allow its customers to participate in crypto networks while keeping those funds offline, what Coinbase had to build from an engineering and product perspective in order to keep funds secure and how insurance works for these assets. We also discuss its plans to enable its customers to participate in governance, whether or not Coinbase.com will move in the same directio...
Apr 12, 2019•23 min•Ep. 68
Marco Santori, the president and chief legal officer of Blockchain, discusses this week's big regulatory news — the SEC's guidance on initial coin offerings and its first no-action letter. We talk about what guidance actually means and how much weight it has in court, how much clarity this guidance actually brought, and how the framework could affect also future attempts at future fundraising/token distribution events and airdrops. We also cover the no-action letter and the ways in which the tok...
Apr 05, 2019•25 min•Ep. 67
Ryan Todd and Matteo Leibowitz, research analysts at The Block, discuss why Dai has fallen below $1 in price, how the community has attempted to keep it pegged to $1 and how well that's been working. They also describe what the governance system looks like, how high participation is, and whether or not that's decentralized. And since 2% of al, ETH is locked up in Maker CDPs and Dai is the fuel behind the DeFi movement, we look at what type of role and risk it plays in Ethereum and the overall De...
Mar 29, 2019•22 min•Ep. 66
Delphi Digital recently released a report on Ethereum's short- and long-term prospects. It showed why there's been such high selling pressure on Ethereum, plus dived deeply into the economics of Ethereum 2.0, concluding that the current proposal leaves Ethereum with a shaky future. Medio Demarco and Yan Liberman, cofounders of Delphi, discuss how they think Ethereum could change its issuance in order to ensure the security of the network from the start and why the current plan will make validati...
Mar 22, 2019•27 min•Ep. 65
Hayden Adams, founder of the new decentralized exchange Uniswap, discusses how Uniswap differs from a traditional exchange based on order books, how market the contract determines the price of the tokens, and how market making on Uniswap is similar, in terms of payment, to participating in a mining pool. He covers under which conditions it is that a market maker will earn profit, what fees go toward in Uniswap, and how the contract functions as the dollar values of each token in a liquidity pair...
Mar 15, 2019•28 min•Ep. 64
Get your tickets now for Unchained Live with Vitalik Buterin! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unchained-live-with-vitalik-buterin-tickets-56189456176 It will take place March 20th at 6pm at Columbia Journalism School in the Joseph D. Jamail Lecture Hall. Hope to see you there!
Mar 10, 2019•3 min
Dan Elitzer, investor at IDEO CoLab Ventures, describes a concept he describes as superfluid collateral made possible in the decentralized finance space. We talk about which DeFi projects make this possible, how one can make collateral liquid so that interest can be earned from it, and what kinds of tokens could both serve as debt and earn interest. (Surprisingly, even trading pairs, particularly on the Uniswap decentralized exchange, which exist as tokens, can do so!) Based on the growth of Uni...
Mar 08, 2019•26 min•Ep. 63
Blockstream chief strategy officer Samson Mow, who used to work at a competitor to Bitmain, discusses the recent news that the crypto mining manufacturer suffered a $500 million loss in the third quarter of 2018. He talks about possible reasons, including difficulties in selling its most recent miner and its stockpile of Bitcoin Cash, which has dropped more precipitously than Bitcoin during the last year. We also cover the extensive layoffs that the company has undergone in recent months, the sh...
Mar 01, 2019•23 min•Ep. 62
Ruben Galindo Steckel, cofounder and CEO of AirTM, describes how his companies enables everyday Venezuelans the ability to escape the hyperinflation in their currency, the bolivar, to save in U.S. dollar accounts. He also describes how the company creates its own exchange rate, and why that got them in trouble with the Venezuelan government. He also describes a campaign the company is waging, AirdropVenezuela, an attempt to raise $1 million in cryptocurrency to give to everyday Venezuelans for e...
Feb 22, 2019•31 min•Ep. 61
In case you haven’t heard, I’m doing a live podcast recording with Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum. What is a live podcast recording? It's a podcast performed by me and the guest on a stage, in front of an audience. Vitalik and I will be discussing Ethereum 2.0, Polka Dot, Substrate, what happened with Afri this week and more. And you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions. It’ll be in New York City the evening of March 20th, which is one month from today. The doors open at 6, the show...
Feb 20, 2019•3 min
Joyce Yang, founder of Global Coin Research, discusses the crypto scene in Korea today. An epicenter of the crypto craze in 2017, Korea still has a number of young people pinning their hopes and dreams on crypto, as described in an article in The New York Times this week. Yang talks about the societal factors that have led to this trend, as well as the common practices in investing that make Korean VCs less shrewd investors, which, in turn, makes Korean crypto projects less competitive. However,...
Feb 15, 2019•26 min•Ep. 60
To hear that a 29-year-old died of complications from Crohn's disease is shocking enough. But it's practically unbelievable when the person in question was in charge of a crypto exchange that held an estimated $150 million of customer funds and that he was the only person with access to the reserves. That's what many in the crypto community thought last week when news of the death of Gerald Cotten, the CEO of Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, spread. Taylor Monahan, the CEO of MyCrypto, looke...
Feb 08, 2019•30 min•Ep. 59
Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, explains why this crypto bear market is different from the previous one his firm endured, what he believes will give institutional money the confidence to enter the space, and how Pantera's investing approach has changed in this downturn. We also discuss what types of projects and companies Pantera is investing in, how regulatory uncertainty is affecting development of the space, and where innovation is happening. The answer may surprise you. Thank you to ou...
Feb 01, 2019•23 min•Ep. 58
Chandan Lodha, cofounder and CEO of CoinTracker, explains why reports from crypto exchanges could be insufficient for filing accurate tax returns to the IRS, how one should track one's crypto transactions in order to not over- or under-pay, and who can use the service. We also discuss how users should treat airdropped coins, new, comprehensive rules on crypto taxation for UK taxpayers and correlations in coin ownership that CoinTracker sees amongst its users. Thank you to our sponsor! CipherTrac...
Jan 25, 2019•24 min•Ep. 57
The newly formed Blockchain Association recently released a post outlining what it calls the Hinman Token Standard based on a speech given last summer by Bill Hinman, director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. The Blockchain Association's director of external affairs, Kristin Smith, breaks down what factors are part of the standard, how much weight should be given to remarks he gave at a conference and how decentralization can square with leadership. We also discuss the Token Taxonom...
Jan 18, 2019•24 min•Ep. 56
Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, discusses this week's 51% attack on the Ethereum Classic blockchain. He describes how the attacker was able to gain control of more than 51% of the network, why it was inexpensive for them to do so, how they profited from their attack and who loses money in such an attack. We talk about what types of blockchains are susceptible to these types of attacks, whether or not Coinbase or other exchange will de-list ETC and why the price of ETC hasn't dropped -- and...
Jan 11, 2019•27 min•Ep. 55
On the 10th birthday of the Bitcoin network, Arjun Balaji, founder and managing partner at Shomei Capital, explains why doesn't worry too much about potential bugs in the code such as there was last fall, why we'll see improved scalability, privacy and fungibility in the top cryptocurrency in 2019, and why he believes the Lightning Network will foster more developer activity on Bitcoin. He also explains his view that governance tokens and token curated registries will be less popular than they w...
Jan 04, 2019•28 min•Ep. 54
Jemma Green, cofounder and chairman of PowerLedger, describes how the company, which won the 2018 Extreme Tech Challenge, spearheaded by Sir Richard Branson and CES, is using tokens to solve various energy problems. One is the principal-agent problem in which the landlords of residential buildings don't have an incentive to install renewables because the tenants are the ones who would recoup the savings. Another is that, as more people install renewables, the grid is becoming less robust and mor...
Dec 28, 2018•25 min•Ep. 53
Bloomberg reporter Matt Leising, who obtained bank statements from Tether's bank, Noble Bank in Puerto Rico, found that for those months, the number of dollars in the bank matched the amount of Tether outstanding. He talks about what this means, whether it matters that both Tether and Noble Bank were founded by Brock Pierce, and whether it matters that the statements are not the most recent. We also touch on other investigations involving Tether, including the CFTC's investigation into whether T...
Dec 21, 2018•32 min•Ep. 52
This special episode is a recording of the closing fireside chat I had at Consensus: Invest, titled “Financial Products: 2019 and Beyond,” with Jan Van Eck, president and CEO of the Van Eck Securities Corporation, and Mike Belshe, cofounder and CEO of BitGo. During the talk, we discuss SEC chairman Jay Clayton’s comments earlier that day that the main barrier to a Bitcoin ETF was market manipulation. We dive into how well the problem of custody has been solved for potential financial products, a...
Dec 19, 2018•21 min•Ep. 51
ConsenSys's Andrew Keys talks about the company's recent pivot, called "ConsenSys 2.0," toward greater efficiency, accountability and focus on revenue, why it laid off about 150 people, and what areas it plans to generate revenue from. He explains what the company's mission and goals were in ConsenSys 1.0, how its new priorities will resemble those of more traditional companies, and whether it will retain its flat, unhierarchical structure. Plus, he reveals that the company has "years" of runway...
Dec 14, 2018•23 min•Ep. 50
Despite having Joe Lubin's billions at its back, and despite having 1,200 employees to build apparently anything they wanted in the Ethereum ecosystem, ConsenSys has accomplished very little and has little revenue -- so it's finally facing the music and laying off 13% of its employees. Jeff Kauflin, staff writer at Forbes, who wrote a great story on how ConsenSys is flailing, discusses how the company got to this place. (Hint: asteroid mining and college diplomas on a blockchain are part of the ...
Dec 07, 2018•24 min•Ep. 49
