DeFi Decoded: Recent Episodes
with Alex Tapscott & Andrew Young
Alex Tapscott, Andrew Young and guests break down the fundamentals of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and how this cutting edge technology enables individuals and institutions to transact, and create value, without the need for traditional financial intermediaries.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guests Aryan Sheikhalian, Investor and the Head of Research, and Matt Casto, Head of DeFi, of CMT Digital. Listen in as they discuss how CMT evolved from a proprietary trading firm into one of crypto's earliest institutional investors, why stablecoins and RWAs are becoming platforms rather than just products, and how vaults are emerging as a new institutional primitive. Aryan and Matt also break down what regulators still need to clarify around vaults and the CLARITY Act, why blockchains excel at coordinating capital and resources, and how crypto is uniquely positioned to price novel assets — from compute to perps — as stablecoins continue eating into the legacy payments market.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Alison Mangiero, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of U.S. Policy at the Crypto Council for Innovation. Listen in as they discuss the shifting regulatory landscape in Washington, why the GENIUS Act marked a turning point for digital assets, and what the CLARITY Act could mean for market structure, stablecoins, staking, and consumer protection. Alison breaks down how CCI works with lawmakers, why the banking lobby is pushing back, what still needs to happen before crypto legislation becomes law, and why tax policy may be the next major frontier for digital asset adoption.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Joshua Riezman, Chief Legal & Strategy Officer of GSR. Listen in as they discuss how crypto-native firms like GSR are evolving from market makers into full-service financial institutions, why liquidity remains essential as stablecoins, RWAs, and tokenized assets scale, and how regulation is reshaping the global digital asset landscape. Josh also explains GSR's expansion into advisory, venture, asset management, and capital markets, why tokenization could unlock new forms of global capital formation, and how on-chain markets may eventually compete with Wall Street's traditional investment banking model.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Nom, Core Contributor of BONK. Listen in as they discuss how BONK emerged from the depths of the post-FTX bear market to help revive energy and community across Solana, why culture and fun still matter in an industry increasingly focused on institutions, ETFs, and regulation, and how meme coins can become lasting consumer brands when paired with real products, utility, and community participation. Nom also shares how BONK's early airdrop strategy targeted Solana power users, why crypto's next wave may depend on making apps both useful and weird again, and how BONK is expanding into RWAs, prediction markets, AI, and neo-banking.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Michael Egorov, Founder of Curve Finance. Listen in as they discuss how Curve pioneered decentralized liquidity infrastructure, the evolution of stablecoins and liquid staking, and how programmable blockchains are enabling entirely new financial systems. Michael shares his journey from physics to crypto entrepreneurship, explaining how his scientific background shaped his approach to building financial protocols from first principles and why automated market makers represent new "laws of physics" for money. The conversation explores Curve's role in powering onchain liquidity, the challenges of impermanent loss, innovations in concentrated liquidity and decentralized lending, and why traditional finance has been slower to adopt DeFi. Alex and Michael also discuss smart contract security, the impact of AI on crypto, the future of autonomous financial systems, and Michael's latest venture, Yield Basis, which aims to solve one of DeFi's biggest challenges.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Mike Cagney, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Figure. Listen in as they discuss how Figure is using blockchain to rebuild capital markets from the ground up, why putting loans, ownership records, custody, and secondary trading onchain can make credit markets more efficient, and how DeFi capital can lower borrowing costs for real-world consumers. They also explore the limits of tokenization, what assets actually belong onchain, why L1 token value remains difficult to underwrite, how public equities and private credit could become blockchain-native, and why AI-native startups may force every financial company to rethink how it operates.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Macbrennan Peet, Founder of Project 0. Listen in as they discuss why DeFi remains one of crypto's most important experiments, how recent exploits like Drift and KelpDAO exposed both the risks and resilience of onchain finance, and why AI is increasing the urgency around security, auditing, and protocol design. They also explore how DeFi can become safer than traditional finance through transparency, circuit breakers, and open-source risk monitoring, why AI agents may become major users of crypto-native financial rails, and how Project 0 is building DeFi-native prime brokerage infrastructure on Solana to unify fragmented liquidity, margin, and risk across protocols.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Carlos Pereira, General Partner of BITKRAFT Ventures. Listen in as they discuss why gaming has always seemed like a natural on-ramp for crypto, why Web3 gaming has struggled to break through despite major investment, and how the broader gaming market's battle for active attention has made the category even harder. They also explore how AI agents, gamified consumer apps, and prediction markets are reshaping internet-native entertainment, why game mechanics like quests, rankings, rewards, and community can drive retention across non-gaming products, and where BITKRAFT sees opportunities emerging around prediction market infrastructure and applications built on top of new consumer finance platforms.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management. Listen in as they discuss why crypto adoption among financial advisors is accelerating, how Bitcoin ETFs have opened the door for mainstream portfolio allocations, and why advisor personal ownership often comes before client allocations. They also explore the growing disconnect between crypto fundamentals and price action, why stablecoins and tokenization are becoming the key institutional narratives, how the CLARITY Act could unlock the next wave of adoption, and why investors may increasingly look at crypto assets and crypto equities together as complementary ways to gain exposure to the digital asset economy.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Anthony Bassili, President of Coinbase Asset Management. Listen in as they discuss how digital assets have crossed the threshold into a true institutional asset class, why the conversation has shifted from if institutions adopt crypto to how, and how Coinbase is positioning itself at the center of this transition. They explore the role of Bitcoin as a macro asset, how institutions are thinking about portfolio construction and diversification, and why market structure upgrades—not just price—are driving adoption. The conversation also dives into tokenization as the next evolution of ETFs, the rise of onchain credit and stablecoin yield strategies like CUSHY, and how the future of asset management may converge across traditional finance, crypto, and even AI-driven investing.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guests Avichal Garg, Co-Founder and General Partner at Electric Capital, and Ken Deeter, General Partner at Electric Capital. Listen in as they discuss how crypto venture capital is evolving beyond capital into deep technical expertise, why the best investors are increasingly becoming engineers, and how firms like Electric Capital are building internal AI systems to gain an edge. They explore the intersection of AI and crypto, the rise of agentic software, and what it means to build "user-owned" technology in a world increasingly dominated by centralized platforms. The conversation also dives into how AI is reshaping company building—enabling smaller teams, new business models, and a wave of innovation across both software and real-world infrastructure. Finally, they unpack the current state of tokens, where real value is accruing today, and why global demand for dollar-denominated yield could be one of the most important drivers of crypto adoption going forward.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Ethan Buchman, CEO of Cycles Protocol. Listen in as they discuss Ethan's new venture Cycles and its mission to unlock the power of clearing by helping the most people settle the most debt with the least amount of money, why today's financial system ignores the graph of obligations that already exists between businesses and institutions, and how privacy-preserving onchain infrastructure could enable a more efficient, resilient, and less intermediary-dependent economy. They also explore how Cycles could bootstrap through crypto payments and trading firms, why trade credit and invoice networks represent a massive untapped source of liquidity, and how Ethan's work on trust in software and money connects Cycles, AI, and the long-term goal of building more sustainable economic systems.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Mike Belshe, Co-Founder and CEO of BitGo. Listen in as they discuss why quantum computing has re-emerged as a serious long-term risk for Bitcoin and other digital assets, what the industry can do to become quantum-resistant before the threat becomes practical, and why public market investors are increasingly asking tougher questions about crypto's technical foundations. They also explore BitGo's evolution from custody provider to full-stack digital asset infrastructure company, how tokenization and stablecoins are reshaping market structure, why vertically integrated crypto exchanges pose risks that traditional capital markets have long separated, and what the CLARITY debate could mean for custody, brokerage, retail protections, and the future of U.S. digital asset regulation.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Scott Melker, the Wolf of All Streets. Listen in as they discuss why Bitcoin has begun outperforming traditional safe-haven assets during rising geopolitical tension, how market cycles and technical levels around $60K–$70K may signal a broader bottoming process, and why unexpected macro shocks—like the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—have historically catalyzed major crypto rallies. They also explore whether upcoming U.S. legislation like the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act could reshape the industry, the growing tension between crypto firms and traditional banks over stablecoin regulation, and why Melker believes Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana remain the most compelling long-term bets while the broader altcoin market still lacks clear valuation frameworks.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest James Seyffart, Senior Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Listen in as they break down why ETF flows keep accelerating despite a choppy macro backdrop, how the "ETF wrapper" is expanding beyond plain-vanilla index exposure into active, options-based, and leveraged products, what the latest flow data is signaling about sector rotation (energy, materials, and industrials leading), why esoteric filings like prediction market ETFs are gaining momentum, and what's actually happening under the hood in crypto ETFs—outflows, inflows, basis trade dynamics, and the evolving debate around where Bitcoin's value accrues as stablecoins and other rails dominate payments.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Sid Powell, Co-Founder and CEO of Maple. Listen in as they discuss Maple's evolution from the 2022 credit crisis to over $4B in AUM, why overcollateralized onchain lending is attracting family offices, funds, and institutional capital seeking T-bill-beating yields with daily liquidity, and how Maple is expanding beyond crypto-native users through DeFi integrations, securitized products, and fintech distribution. They also explore the growing opportunity in tokenized collateral—from Bitcoin to gold, equities, and real-world assets—the role onchain credit could play in the broader tokenization supercycle, and how AI agents may become major users of stablecoins, onchain lending, and autonomous credit markets as machine-native economic activity emerges.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Rebecca Simmonds, Managing Executive of the Walrus Foundation. Listen in as they discuss why the next phase of AI won't just be about better models or smarter agents, but about trust, provenance, and ownership of the data those systems rely on. From decentralized storage and verifiable data markets to the rise of personal AI agents and new monetization models for user data, the conversation dives into how crypto infrastructure could become the economic and security layer for the AI economy. They also discuss the real-world path to adoption, from builders and DeFi use cases to enterprise experimentation, along with the challenges of competing with Big Tech, the role of tokens in decentralized data networks, and why the future of AI may depend on individuals reclaiming control of their digital lives. If AI runs on data, this episode asks the critical question: who controls it, and who captures the value?
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Leonard Dorlöchter, Co-Founder of peaq. Listen in as they discuss the rise of the machine economy and agentic commerce, why blockchain is emerging as the economic layer for AI agents, robots, and connected devices, how concepts like DePIN and machine RWAs enable community-owned, revenue-generating infrastructure, why machines are better suited than humans to transact onchain using stablecoins and DeFi, and how identity, reputation, and autonomous payments could unlock the largest product-market fit blockchain has ever seen.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with Bill Barhydt, Founder and CEO of Abra, and Perianne Boring, Chair of the Board of Directors of The Digital Chamber. Listen in as they discuss why crypto feels like it's at an inflection point, Bill's macro case for a liquidity-driven risk-on setup (and why gold may be leading while Bitcoin lags), how stablecoin legislation has shifted the policy battleground toward rewards and yield as banks push to protect deposits, why agencies (SEC/CFTC/Treasury) can move fast but market-structure laws are needed to future-proof regulatory clarity, how committee politics and "pathway" strategy can make or break a bill's progress (including the fallout from Coinbase stepping back), and what the Clarity debate could mean for exchanges, developers, and DeFi—ranging from new growth catalysts to potential constraints depending on how rules get written and enforced.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Bhau Kotecha, Co-Founder and Head of Paxos Labs. Listen in as they discuss why stablecoins are becoming the default onchain financial building block, how Paxos and Paxos Labs power major tokenization and crypto brokerage initiatives (including PYUSD and USDG) while making DeFi services like lending, borrowing, staking, and yield strategies safer and easier for institutions to embed, why the Washington policy fight is shifting toward rewards and yield as the key battleground after the GENIUS Act, how stablecoins could reshape bank deposit economics while strengthening global dollar adoption, and why issuer strategy often starts on Ethereum before expanding cross-chain due to liquidity bootstrapping, developer network effects, and security considerations.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Jillian Friedman, Chief Operating Officer at Symbiotic. Listen in as they discuss Jill's journey from founding a crypto-focused law firm in 2014 to helping pioneer Canada's early digital asset market infrastructure, why regulatory ambiguity has pushed talent and innovation out of Canada, how U.S. stablecoin policy is converging on the key battle over yield as the GENIUS Act is implemented and the proposed CLARITY Act takes shape, and how Symbiotic's "shared security" model aims to unlock capital efficiency by connecting onchain staked assets with networks and applications that need economic security and risk underwriting.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Eric Piscini, CEO of Hashgraph. Listen in as they discuss Eric's early work building Deloitte's blockchain practice, why enterprises initially leaned toward private and permissioned systems, how today's focus has shifted from "buying blockchain" to buying real solutions, what makes Hedera's 32-member Governing Council model distinctive (including governance, validators, and industry-spanning adoption), how regulatory clarity in the U.S. and Europe is shaping institutional engagement, and how interoperability, hybrid architectures (public + private), stablecoins, tokenization, and developer traction could define the next phase of enterprise blockchain adoption.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Thomas Uhm, Chief Commercial Officer at the Jito Foundation and Advisor to Jito Labs. Listen in as they discuss what Abu Dhabi Finance Week and Solana Breakpoint reveal about institutional crypto sentiment, why ADGM is emerging as a serious hub for digital asset regulation and capital formation (with major players spanning BlackRock, Circle, Tether and more), how Solana's market structure is evolving through Jito's block-building, priority-fee "tips," and the upcoming BAM framework for application-controlled execution, what MEV is and how networks can reduce harmful forms of it while still securing validators, why Solana's performance under large DDoS pressure reinforces the "internet capital markets" thesis, and what 2026 could bring—from JitoSOL liquid-staking ETFs (and an options-driven structured products wave) to Breakpoint landing in London.
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Rachel Mayer, VP of Product at Arc. Listen in as they discuss Circle's launch of Arc as a USDC-centric layer one network designed for predictable gas fees, instant finality, and compliant privacy, the rapid shift in stablecoin regulation and the impact of the GENIUS Act, the rise of non-USD stablecoins and tokenized FX markets, how RWAs, Morpho-style vault structures, and tokenized treasuries could reshape global capital flows, and why Arc's architecture, interoperability strategy, and potential transition to delegated proof-of-stake position it as a core platform for the next wave of institutional onchain finance.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto with special guest Federico Brokate, Global Head of Business Development at 21Shares. Listen in as they discuss the rapid rise of Bitcoin ETFs from IBIT's record-breaking launch to today's shifting mix of retail and institutional holders, the tension and interplay between DATs and ETFs as vehicles for crypto exposure, how new SEC generic listing standards have opened the door to products on Solana, Ethereum, XRP, Doge and even staked assets, the case for index and basket strategies such as top-10 ex-Bitcoin products and future active and factor-based crypto ETFs, why this cycle's "Bitcoin up, everything else lagging" dynamic is reshaping how investors think about diversification and power-law outcomes in digital assets, and how jurisdictions from Brazil and South Korea to Saudi Arabia are building regulated ETF frameworks that could broaden global access to the asset class.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto. Listen in as they discuss the recent selloff in AI-led equity markets and how shifts in Fed cut expectations and data-center-driven capex are rippling into Bitcoin and crypto, the White House's AI "Genesis" push and the emergence of AI as systemically important infrastructure, the rise of AI-generated "slop" content and hyper-personalized ads versus a potential backlash toward tech detoxing, why Bitcoin still looks structurally attractive amid ongoing fiscal debasement and generational rotation from gold, and how improving fundamentals in Ethereum and DeFi, mispriced app tokens, and the evolution of DATs and ETF-like structures could create asymmetric opportunities for institutional investors.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Seamus Rocca, Executive Director and CEO of Xapo Bank. Listen in as they discuss Xapo's evolution from the original Bitcoin cold-storage pioneer to a fully regulated private bank, its focus on serving emerging market clients seeking safety in Bitcoin and U.S. dollars, the integration of stablecoins and yield-bearing accounts as a bridge between crypto and traditional banking, the implications of Bitcoin ETFs and digital asset treasuries for institutional adoption, and how Xapo's conservative, Bitcoin-first model is redefining what private banking looks like in the digital age.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto. Listen in as they discuss the flash crash earlier this month and record liquidation cascade triggered by sudden macro headlines, what it revealed about leverage and thin liquidity in crypto versus public markets, the continued divergence between Bitcoin/ETH strength and persistent altcoin weakness, structural issues in token economics and CEX listing dynamics that are driving project buybacks and decentralization pushes under the GENIUS Act, the rise of onchain venues like Hyperliquid and increasing TradFi integration, and shifting dynamics in the digital-asset-treasury market including DATs moving from issuance at premiums to buybacks at discounts, as well as the significance of new Solana, HBAR, and Litecoin ETFs for institutional crypto access.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto with special guest Nick Cannon, VP of Growth at Gauntlet. Listen in as they discuss the rapid institutionalization of DeFi and the rise of onchain asset management, Gauntlet's evolution from a risk modeling firm to a leading vault curator overseeing $1.6B in capital, the convergence of tokenized real-world assets through partnerships with Securitize and Apollo, shifting risk dynamics and security trends across DeFi protocols, the implications of the U.S. Genius Act for stablecoins and yield-bearing assets, and how Solana and other emerging ecosystems are driving the next phase of onchain growth and institutional participation.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto with special guest Tim Draper, Founder and Managing Partner of Draper Associates. Listen in as they discuss the forces reshaping our world. Tim shares why he views Bitcoin as a hedge against bad governance, how founders should diversify their treasuries after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, and why stablecoins are accelerating crypto adoption. Tim explores the next frontiers of innovation, from healthcare and finance to space and transportation, and how AI, gene editing, and blockchain are driving a new wave of entrepreneurship. They also dive into liquid democracy, prediction markets, and the rise of decentralized networks in a multipolar world. The episode closes on a hopeful note: with blockchain's "perfect trust," the future of global commerce looks faster, fairer, and more open than ever.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto. Listen in as they discuss the fading premiums and potential consolidation wave in DATs following the Strive-Semler merger this past week, the liquidity and centralization risks emerging in altcoin DATs, the evolving debate over stablecoin regulation from the GENIUS Act to the CLARITY Act as bank lobbying intensifies, how banks might fit into a stablecoin-driven financial system, the surge of crypto IPOs with Circle, Gemini and BitGo, the custody economics underpinning institutional adoption, Coinbase’s forthcoming Base token and what it could mean for valuation, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto. Listen in as they discuss Google’s launch of its AI Agent Payments Protocol with stablecoin support, how AI agents could become the next interface for the Internet and even decentralize crypto governance, the soaring valuations of prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi and the forces behind them, Forward Industries’ $1.65 billion financing to establish the largest Solana DAT to date, the broader trajectory of DATs and whether the momentum is sustainable, how strong fundamentals are colliding with bearish sentiment to fuel what many are calling the most hated rally ever, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of crypto. Listen in as they discuss the accelerating convergence of crypto and Wall Street, the big opportunities and implementation challenges with onchain finance, Solana’s outsized rally following large SOL DAT announcements with ETFs on the horizon, a few of the inefficiencies that still exist in today’s crypto market, the widening disconnect between all-time high prices and deteriorating sentiment, whether looming rate cuts could meaningfully move the market, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Jim Hiltner, Co-Founder and Head of Business Development at Superstate. Listen in as they discuss the accelerating adoption of tokenized real-world assets by issuers and investors worldwide, the Superstate origin story and its evolution, how tokenization democratizes access to U.S. dollar investment accounts, Superstate’s USTB and USCC onchain investment funds, the Opening Bell platform that enables public companies to tokenize their shares and why it stands out from other market offerings, Galaxy Digital’s launch of GLXY shares on Solana through Opening Bell this past week, the future of capital markets and the role of blockchains in reshaping access to capital and financial infrastructure, how Superstate evaluates which networks to issue on such as Solana versus Ethereum, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo, Chief Strategy Officer of Ava Labs. Listen in as they discuss Avalanche’s evolution since its inception, enterprise blockchain preferences between L1s versus L2s, the rapid growth of Avalanche’s tokenized real-world asset ecosystem, how stablecoins are acting as a Trojan horse for tokenization, some of the most exciting yet overlooked onchain use cases to watch, the future of stablecoins at scale as institutions and fintechs launch and integrate them into their businesses, a crypto market outlook reviewing recent trends and looking ahead to the year to come, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest David Tse, Co-Founder of Babylon. Listen in as they discuss the ongoing evolution of Bitcoin from a store of value and medium of exchange into a productive asset, how Babylon is leading the way with trustless Bitcoin staking and positioning it as a collateral superpower, the mechanics of Bitcoin staking, the launch of Babylon’s Genesis and the incoming wave of chains set to be powered by Bitcoin security, the risks of wrapped tokens and why Babylon’s trustless model matters, the potential symbiotic relationship between Bitcoin and Ethereum, the yields available to Bitcoin stakers, the accelerating institutional interest in Bitcoin staking, DeFi’s missing piece that could unlocks trillions in value across the ecosystem, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss the resurgence of Ethereum, Tom Lee’s efforts in educating Wall Street, how crypto’s reflexivity and flywheel effects are fueling today’s market rally, what could happen if DATs begin trading below mNAV, key lessons from the rapid rise of DATs and how long the trend might continue, Circle and Stripe launching their own EVM-compatible L1 networks and the implications for Ethereum, whether $10K ETH or $200K BTC comes first, and more.
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 with special guest Nick White, Vice President of Celestia Labs. Listen in as they discuss Nick’s background and journey into crypto, how to think about modularity and data availability in blockchain architecture, the future of decentralized applications and the use cases unlocked by Celestia’s scalable infrastructure, why Celestia is focused on growth over revenue right now, the economics of decentralized compute, whether modularity is the final evolution of blockchain design, the role Celestia fulfills within the Web3 ecosystem, the evolution of tokenomics and lessons from past models, and more.
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 with special guest Ben Jacobs, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Scenius Capital. Listen in as they discuss Ben’s background and crypto journey, the current state of the liquid crypto hedge fund universe, the rise of digital asset treasury companies and how they compare to traditional fund strategies, what’s going on in the crypto venture environment, how leading crypto fund managers are thinking about this phase of the market cycle, key crypto use cases on the horizon, how the industry will evolve over the next five years, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management. Listen in as they discuss how the crypto market has matured to the point where companies are turning to public markets to raise capital and reach new investors, the paradigm shift in TradFi’s understanding of blockchains and tokenization this year, the primary drivers behind Ethereum’s recent rally and where it could reach by year-end, frameworks for valuing cryptoassets, the rise of digital asset treasury companies and their net impact on the market, how Bitwise sets itself apart, whether boom-bust cycles are a thing of the past, the ongoing alt season playing out in the stock market with crypto-related public equities, overlooked opportunities across the altcoin ecosystem, the potential for a Bitwise IPO, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest James Smith, Co-Founder of Elliptic. Listen in as they discuss the genesis of Elliptic in 2013 and how it’s evolved since, its scaling strategy to support the explosion of new blockchain networks, the current state of onchain crime and whether the claim that only criminals use crypto holds any weight, the rise of geopolitical crypto cyberwarfare following the $90M Nobitex hack, how chain tracing has matured from a simple compliance tool to a form of defense tech, the company’s experience educating traditional financial institutions during the onboarding process, how the intersection of crypto and AI is reshaping threat vectors, predictions for the year ahead, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss the growing bifurcation between cryptoassets and crypto equities following the GENIUS Act’s Senate approval, what’s happening in the altcoin market, whether a crypto IPO season is on the horizon, how equities and tokens compare, the accelerating convergence between TradFi and crypto, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Jeff Feng, Co-Founder of Sei Labs. Listen in as they discuss the rise of next-generation layer 1 networks built for scale, Sei’s origin story, its evolution since inception, the exciting breakout potential of the onchain gaming and AI agent subsectors, why the Sei Foundation considered acquiring 23andMe, how blockchain can redefine data ownership, what’s ahead for Sei over the next year, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss takeaways from Circle’s red-hot IPO, the powerful economics behind stablecoin issuers, Plasma’s $500 million raise in under ten minutes, the sharp contrast between Circle’s TradFi and Plasma’s onchain capital-raising approaches, the current dynamics in the crypto public equity landscape, how regulatory headwinds have flipped to tailwinds, what makes this market cycle unlike any before, Pump.Fun’s $1 billion raise at a $4 billion valuation, where we are in the cycle, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 live from Consensus 2025 in Toronto. Listen in as he leads two powerhouse panels with top founders and leaders in the industry. The first, on May 15, explored the fast-moving convergence of AI and blockchain, while the second, on May 16, examined what Canada must do to reclaim its place as a global leader in Web3.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss the accelerating institutionalization of crypto, several emerging crypto treasury strategies, current market dynamics and the case for alternatives like cryptoassets, Andrew’s big news, the growing convergence between TradFi and DeFi, and more.
In this episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young dig into the "most quiet and ignored crypto rally ever." Bitcoin is well over $100,000 and within striking distance of an all-time high, yet this market lacks the fervor and excitement of past bull runs. They dig into the reasons this, namely the growing bifurcation between the "hard money" narrative typified by Bitcoin maximalism and the 'tech accelerationism' narrative of Web3. The proliferation of new tokens has made it harder for speciic projects to stand out. Meanwhile, many people in 'crypto' particularly newcomers are underweight Bitcoin. Next, they talk about the rumours Ripple might buy Circle, issuer of stablecoin USDT and finish on a wrap-up of the Consensus Conference, highlighting the Canadian crypto ecosystem and how DePin (decentralized physical infrastructure) projects were a big standout.
In this episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young speak with Vijay Chetty, CEO of Eclipse Labs about Eclipse's unique modular approach to building a scalable layer two network by combining the best of Solana, Ethereum and Celestia, and the implications for web3 and beyond. Eclipse is designed for decentralized application developers building category-leading DeFi, NFT, gaming, and consumer apps that leverage Ethereum’s liquidity and network effects. They also explore Vijay's journey from traditional finance to crypto, the early days of Ripple, his work at Uniswap and dydx and the current state of decentralized finance (DeFi). Eclipse's innovative TurboTap game, user growth metrics, and the long-term vision for value accrual within the network. The discussion also touches on the role of Ethereum, developer strategies, and the future of layer two solutions in the crypto ecosystem.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. In this episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew discuss the current state of the crypto market, focusing on the role of stablecoins, particularly Tether, in the treasury market. They explore the implications of Tether's growth and its potential to act as a significant buyer of U.S. government debt. The conversation also delves into Ethereum's upcoming upgrade, market valuations of private vs. public companies, and the future of crypto narratives.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 with special guest Vincent Kadar, CEO of Polymath. Listen in as they explore Vincent’s journey into crypto, the future of tokenized assets beyond dollars, some of the challenges of asset tokenization, a few exciting projects at Polymath, its purpose-built Polymesh blockchain for regulated assets, why some asset managers have chosen to build on public networks like Ethereum, what’s next for Polymath, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Scott Melker, AKA the Wolf of All Streets. Listen in as they discuss Bitcoin’s decoupling and whether that theory holds any weight, the severe underperformance of altcoins, the impact of additional crypto ETFs and public equities on the markets, predictions for the second half of 2025, the broad implications of Trump’s tariffs on the U.S. economy, what’s going on with Ethereum, exciting sectors within the crypto asset class, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss the current macroeconomic environment and its implications for the crypto market, four of the most positive fundamental trends in crypto, how stablecoins are creating new source of demand for U.S. government debt, the onchain gold and FX markets setting record highs in activity last week, the underlying economics for stablecoin issuers and their experience back in the zero-interest rate (ZRIP) era, the launch of the world’s first Solana ETFs in Canada, an update on the SX Network following its best month in history, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest James Seyffart, ETF Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Listen in as they discuss what’s happened with ETFs amid this past week’s market turmoil, the meaning of terms like ‘bearish but long’ and ‘Vanguard put,’ and how they relate to current investing trends, where most ETF flows are going, ETF trading volumes by asset class, key indicators to watch for gauging market sentiment, whether James sees any signs of market strain from the ETF lens, thoughts on new products that short leveraged ETFs, the influx of crypto ETF filings, whether the SEC will greenlight staking for crypto ETFs, the pros and cons of gaining crypto exposure through public corporation vehicles versus ETFs, the collapse in Grayscale’s Solana Trust premium and what it signals for SOL ETFs, how institutional investors are thinking about Bitcoin, the crypto market outlook for the second half of the year, the recent divergence between Bitcoin and crypto equities, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Daniel Lynch, Lead of MetaMask Card at Consensys. Listen in as they discuss the origin story of MetaMask Card, its evolution into Daniel’s full-time role, Argentina’s vibrant crypto developer ecosystem, his ambitious vision for self-custodial neobanking, innovative use cases for bringing offchain commerce onchain, how MetaMask Card enhances identity attestation, key corporate benefits it unlocks, their go-to-market strategy, the regions with the strongest adoption, their international expansion plans, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Michael Sonnenshein, Chief Operating Officer of Securitize. Listen in as they discuss the evolution of crypto regulations, Wall Street’s perception of public versus private blockchain networks, how Securitize selects blockchains to launch RWAs, the recently announced Converge blockchain by Securitize and Ethena, the key benefits of tokenization, why private equity firms are interested in tokenization, Sky’s $500 million allocation into BlackRock’s tokenized USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), emerging RWA sectors with high growth potential, the impact tokenization will have on financial markets, tokenized investment accounts, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Anthony Day, Head of Strategy & Marketing of Midnight. Listen in as they discuss Anthony’s background and journey into the space, Portugal’s crypto scene, Midnight’s launch strategy and long-term vision, how Midnight works, its focus on building its own L1 ecosystem versus serving as a middleware layer for other chains, the three generations of smart contract platforms and where Midnight stands, why Midnight chose Cardano to be its partner network over others, the future of onchain privacy, the U.S. government’s evolving stance on crypto, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Tom Dunleavy, Partner of MV Global. Listen in as they discuss what’s happening in the world and its impact on traditional and crypto markets, the implications of Trump’s tariffs on the U.S. and its global trading partners, whether Trump is attempting to play 4D chess with the Fed to lower rates, the macro effects on the crypto market in the year ahead, which cryptoassets might perform well in the next leg of the bull market, how crypto fundamentals differ between layer 1 networks and applications, what DePIN is and the exciting projects leading this sector, the intersection of crypto and AI, Tom’s initial 2025 price targets for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana and whether he still stands by them, a potential return to fair token launches, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Jelena Djuric, CEO and Co-Founder of Noble. Listen in as they discuss key takeaways from ETHDenver 2025, the fastest-growing sectors in crypto, Noble’s achievements over the past year, the launch of Noble Dollar (USDN) and how it differs from traditional stablecoins, the concept of composable yield and its significance, the potential for a synthetic digital dollar backed by a basket of currencies, the future of DeFi, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss why Andrew remains bullish despite the recent brutal sell-off, a crash course on crypto fundamentals, the three key advantages of fundamental crypto investing over TradFi, valuable resources for analyzing standardized crypto metrics, the opportunity to invest in long-term compounders that return capital to tokenholders, a spotlight on Celestia and whether growth or economics should be the primary focus, the SEC’s dismissal of its lawsuit against Uniswap and its implications for the future of DeFi, current crypto market sentiment data, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Leah Wald, President & CEO, and Max Kaplan, CTO & Head of Staking, of Sol Strategies. Listen in as they discuss their excitement for Solana, Leah’s background and crypto journey, the origin and business overview of Sol Strategies, their growth strategy, the sustainability of staking yields, their perspective on so-called "Solana Killer" competition, their thoughts on appchains and the Solana network extension roadmap, Sol Strategies' long-term mission and vision, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Brian Mahoney, Co-Founder of Mezo. Listen in as they discuss Brian’s background and his work with Mezo and Thesis, why he proudly identifies as a Bitcoin Stoic, new Bitcoin use cases that have been unlocked by major technological breakthroughs, the various ways to earn yield onchain, the likely dominant yield product for the Bitcoin network, Bitcoin’s role in a multichain future, Mezo’s mUSD Bitcoin-backed stablecoin and its significance, the network’s biggest growth driver moving forward, Brian’s BTC price target for year-end, the positive impacts of Bitcoin’s onchain economy on network longevity, the latest on the civil war between innovators and maxis within the Bitcoin community, key differences in how Bitcoin miners operate in the East versus the West, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss the current macroeconomic landscape and its impact on crypto, recent regulatory updates from Washington, the potential establishment of a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, Ethereum's loss of Ultra-Sound Money status after the Dencun network upgrade, the current market structure dynamics and where we go from here, and more.
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Darius Tabai, Co-Founder and CEO of Vertex Protocol. Listen in as they discuss Darius' background and crypto journey, what perp exchanges are and how the cash-and-carry trade works, the role Vertex fulfills within the crypto ecosystem and its key differentiators, the evolution of Vertex's products, Hyperliquid, whether every app needs its own chain, the future of Vertex and DeFi, Ethereum versus Solana, 2025 predictions, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Dr. Friederike Ernst, Co-Founder of Gnosis. Listen in as they discuss how Friederike first got into crypto ten years ago and her journey in the space since then, what Gnosis is building and why the team views it as middleware, Gnosis’ transformation over the years and the vision behind Gnosis Chain, the current crossroads Ethereum faces and what Friederike believes needs to change, the process of spinning out both Cowswap and Safe, how they’ve developed, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Eric Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Injective Labs. Listen in as they discuss the convergence of crypto and AI, Eric’s background and journey into the space, Injective’s inception and its current status, the emerging decentralized finance artificial intelligence (DeFAI) sector, the step-by-step process of how Injective’s iAgent works, whether DeFAI is just hype or has actual substance, whether the number of AI agents onchain has already surpassed that of real humans, Injective’s role in the AI agent ecosystem, whether the movie Her could become a reality this year, Injective’s focus in 2025, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss their eight 2025 crypto predictions, covering the stablecoin market, decentralized perpetual derivative exchange volumes, onchain trading relative to CEXs, total Ethereum layer two revenue, a potential Ethereum revenge rally, the tokenized gold market, crypto IPOs and ETFs with the incoming administration, the first no-person unicorn with AI agents, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Carlos Domingo, Founder and CEO of Securitize. Listen in as they discuss Carlos' background and journey into the space, his experience launching SPiCE VC in 2017, the conversations he's had over the years with traditional financial giants like BlackRock and Hamilton Lane and how those discussions have evolved, Securitize's process compared to its peers over the past few cycles, the bifurcation idea that has emerged among DeFi protocols in the past year, the real utility that RWAs bring to the table, whether Securitize might launch its own layer two, what's next for the growth of the RWA market, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guests Deven Soni, CEO and Chairman, and Sunny Ray, President, of Matador Technologies. Listen in as they discuss gold’s characterization as “dad’s asset” and how blockchain could make it cool again, Matador’s strategy to unite Bitcoin and gold, ongoing development on the Bitcoin network to transform it into a platform for applications, Sunny’s background and key learnings from his experience, Matador’s business plan and strategic approach, their philosophy behind going public versus pursuing more experimental options, the nature of their partnership with UTXO, emerging growth areas for the Bitcoin network, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss the core drivers behind XRP’s flippening of Solana this week, Ethereum’s sudden outperformance relative to Bitcoin and the strengthening ETH-to-BTC ratio, the "hot ball of money" in crypto and where it may rotate next, the rise of dino coins and what it signals about the current cycle phase, the recent influx of onchain AI agents with platforms like Virtuals Protocols that have emerged, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss the arguments fueling bearishness on Ethereum, key reasons to be bullish, Solana and which network could be the 'Solana Killer' this cycle, why the PumpFun memecoin launchpad received so much backlash this past week, their willingness to die on ETH MAXI hill, MicroStrategy’s aggressive Bitcoin buying as part of its treasury program, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with Andrew Young, Co-Founder and CEO of SX Network. Listen in as they explore Andrew’s background and journey into crypto, the inefficiencies in traditional sports betting that inspired him to start SX, the advantages of SX over centralized betting exchanges, its revenue model, its narrow focus on sports markets, the two phases of SX's development, the SX token, its underlying technology and scalability, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest John Wu, President of Ava Labs. Listen in as they discuss John’s journey from traditional finance to crypto, the potential for tokenization in financial services and accelerating stablecoin adoption worldwide, the next big assets that will be brought onchain, Avalanche’s classification and uniqueness, its subnets and how they contrast to Ethereum L2s, its dual mission of targeting both crypto native and enterprise users, key Web3 adoption milestones that have helped pave the way for more firms to join, the roadmap for the next twelve months, and more.
Listen in as Alex and Andrew discuss the U.S. presidential election outcome and its market impact, the repricing of legacy DeFi protocols, the contrast between markets and polls this election cycle, achievable crypto initiatives with the new administration, the election’s role in advancing Web3 compared to other factors, exciting subsectors in the ecosystem, enterprise crypto adoption and associated onchain friction points, how Web3 gaming can drive mainstream adoption, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Matt Bartlett, Head of Web3 at VanEck and CEO of SegMint. Listen in as they discuss Matt's background and journey into the space, VanEck's suite of crypto products and Web3 initiatives, including the fractionalized NFT marketplace SegMint and tokenized collectibles, the potential for tokens to drive the next wave of financial innovation, VanEck's focus areas in Web3, SegMint's Lock and Key Model, VanEck's crypto predictions, NFT’s growing traction but waning sentiment, key catalysts for the NFT market, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Chris Yin, Founder & CEO of Plume. Listen in as they discuss the real-world asset (RWA) thesis, the benefits of bringing assets onchain and the exciting new possibilities it unlocks, the various subsets within the RWA market and how they work behind the scenes, bootstrapping liquidity for emerging asset classes, verifying the authenticity of assets not on blockchain networks, Plume’s role within the RWA space and its ecosystem metrics, key growth drivers for the RWA market in the year ahead, and more!
Alex and Andrew discuss the recent surge in the crypto market, particularly in Bitcoin, and how it could be attributed to a shift in market sentiment and more favorable regulatory conditions. Trump's improved election odds and Kamala Harris's interest in crypto are also seen as positive influences. The FTX bankruptcy case concluded with a favorable outcome for users, with creditors set to receive 118% of their funds. The introduction of options on ETFs early next year is expected to boost investor interest and demand for crypto. Although a bull run is anticipated, cautious sentiment remains due to previous market cycles, and experts recommend setting preset sell prices to avoid potential losses. The market may see a rise in alternative layer twos, Solana competitors, meme coins, decentralized AI, and DeFi projects, while Bitcoin and Ethereum are expected to underperform mid-cycle but recover towards the end. This recovery could be a warning sign of market dynamics shifting, especially with the growing competition from meme coins drawing attention away from projects with strong fundamentals.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss a crypto market roundup, major catalysts that could ignite the next leg of the bull market, potential risks that could counter these catalysts, the actual impact the U.S. election outcome will have on the industry, the memecoin supercycle thesis, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Yannik Schrade, CEO and Co-Founder of Arcium. Listen in as they discuss what Arcium is building and its importance for public blockchain networks, how it compares to traditional L1s, its relationship to zero-knowledge proofs, the new use cases it unlocks for decentralized AI, how it works from a technical perspective, value capture within the decentralized infrastructure stack, enabling specialized uses of DePIN, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Alfred Tom, Executive Director and Board Member of OMA3. Listen in as they discuss the core differences between an open and closed metaverse, Alfred’s journey into the space, OMA3’s 100+ members and their reasons for joining the consortium, the complexities involved in building metaverse standards, the value and benefits of interoperability, the future liquidity hub of the metaverse, best practices for collaborating on standards, Wivity's relationship with OMA3, the best-equipped network for the metaverse, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss the impact of rate cuts on the crypto market in the near and long term, the current phase of the unwinding of the Yen carry trade, Arthur Hayes’ thesis on an imminent market collapse, the potential liquidity effect if China distributes a fresh stimulus package, the deteriorating ETH/BTC ratio, the current state of Ethereum and reasons for its poor performance and sentiment, the role reflexivity plays in cryptoasset valuations, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Andrei Poliakov, Founder of APX Lending. Listen in as they discuss the state of the crypto market and what’s next, the extreme bearish sentiment that has emerged, the level of demand for crypto-backed loans, an overview of APX Lending and its various offerings, its key counterparties and liquidity providers, how it’s managing risk to grow sustainably, where leverage will come from and its potential impact moving forward, how APX Lending is future-proofing its business, its long-term vision, and more!
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Fabian Gompf, CEO of the Web3 Foundation. Tune in as they discuss Fabian’s journey into the space and his current role, the Web3 Foundation's various functions, Polkadot’s evolution since its inception and long-term vision, the significance of Polkadot’s JAM chain, the current DeFi landscape on Polkadot, the functionalities of the DOT token within the Polkadot ecosystem, the areas Fabian is most excited about in the year ahead, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Yorke Rhodes III, Co-Founder of Blockchain at Microsoft. Listen in as they discuss Yorke’s journey at Microsoft and in blockchain, leadership’s thoughts on embracing new technologies and whether an internal consensus exists, whether public blockchain networks are ready to handle enterprise-grade applications and workloads, how institutions consider L1s versus L2s, the current degree of enterprise adoption, key catalysts that could drive Web3 into the mainstream, the potential for Bitcoin to evolve into a platform for applications, the impact that the election outcome will have, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Brett Winton, Chief Futurist of ARK. Listen in as they discuss ARK’s evolution of thinking on disruptive technologies since their inception in 2014, their initial thesis on Tesla in the early days and how it’s coming to fruition, current issues with the automotive sector and its potential future transformation, how the convergence of these disruptive technologies will impact GDP and productivity growth, Cathie Wood’s prediction of Bitcoin surpassing over $1 million by 2030, the varying investment cases for Bitcoin and ARK’s primary belief, how Brett and ARK maintain expert thought leadership on so many emerging technologies, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Roneil Rumburg, Co-Founder and CEO of Audius. Listen in as they discuss the current state of play for creators, issues with today’s streaming business models, the future of music content monetization, the underlying economics of Audius and creators’ take rate versus Web2 alternatives, the Audius’ ownership and AUDIO’s functions, token distribution and how they’ve deterred bad actors from the ecosystem, onboarding non-crypto-native artists and fans to the platform, Audius’ blockchain infrastructure, and more!
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Joey Vidi, VP of Sales and Trading at FRNT Financial. Listen in as they discuss Joey’s background and journey into the space, the primary drivers of the global market sell off earlier this week and its impact on crypto, the next few months and what might follow, an analysis of the Ethereum ETF launch and flows throughout these volatility spikes, the impact the changing election odds have had on the crypto market, the hourglass bull market structure and whether it will continue on this cycle, a comparison of crypto interest rates versus products within traditional markets, areas that institutional investors are most interested in, which sector Joey is most excited about in the year ahead, an evaluation of Bitcoin’s post-halving performance relative to past ones, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Susannah Evans, IBC Product Lead, of the Interchain Foundation. Listen in as they discuss Susannah’s journey from attaining a Ph.D in Manufacturing Engineering to working within the blockchain space, her experience working at Zero-Knowledge Validator, the Interchain Foundation’s core mission and structure, exciting initiatives on the roadmap to help integrate more chains into the Interchain, the long-term vision and future of IBC, the elevator pitch to developers for why IBC vs alternatives, and more!
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guests Terry Chung, Head of Strategy, and Ren Yu Kong, Growth Marketer, of Eclipse. Listen in as they discuss their backgrounds and journeys into the space, Eclipse in simple terms and how it stands out from other layer 2 networks, a comparison of the Solana Virtual Machine and the Ethereum Virtual Machine, Eclipse’s approach to community building and its scaling strategy, SX Network’s decision to move to its own chain, Eclipse’s business model and potential unique incentive plans, key trends and exciting sectors to watch in the year ahead, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss the “Trump Pump” in the crypto markets this past week following the assassination attempt last weekend, the authenticity of Trump’s promises to support and embrace the crypto industry in America, the differing views that Democrats and Republicans have on big and little tech, how successful the imminent ETH ETF launch in the U.S. could be, the recent strength and influx of net flows into the BTC ETFs, Grayscale’s new Decentralized AI Fund, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Tom Dunleavy, Managing Partner at MV Capital. Listen in as they discuss the impact of BTC selling from Mt. Gox and the German government, the potential buying pressure when FTX claim holders are repaid in Q4, the current market dynamics and future outlook, MV Capital and Tom’s management of their VC Web3 fund, Tom’s focus areas within Web3 and what he’s excited about, the state of DeFi, Tom’s fund positioning throughout various market phases and cycles, the soon launch of ETH ETFs and their potential inflows, Tom’s reasoning for believing Solana would outperform Bitcoin and Ethereum this year, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss the large disparity in U.S. presidential election odds between general pundits in the mainstream media and peer-to-peer prediction markets, its connection to James Surowiecki’s ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ novel, SX Network’s recent quarterly report and major updates, USDC’s official compliance with the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework and its implications for the broader stablecoin landscape, Circle Internet Financial’s comeback story and potential IPO on the horizon, the overlooked value of Coinbase Ventures’ investment portfolio, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Kendall Cole, Founder of Proximity Labs. Listen in as they discuss Kendall’s journey into the space, his key learnings from working at Consensys, Proximity Labs' purpose and mission, NEAR's unique value proposition and its main types of dApps, creating an open internet of value, the state of DeFi in the NEAR ecosystem, Kendall's conversations with institutions interested in coming onchain, the future of NEAR and its scaling roadmap, the evolution of the NEAR Virtual Machine, breaking through to the next stage of Web3 adoption, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Alex’s key takeaways from Coinbase’s Institutional Summit in New York last week, the evolution of Wall Street’s thinking on Web3, the early days of crypto versus airdrops today, whether an institutional L2 frenzy is on the horizon as Coinbase’s Base continues to shine, the idea of altcoin dispersion and its relevance to the current market environment, the emergence of politifi memecoins ahead of the upcoming U.S. election in November, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss what’s going on in the broader market, NVIDIA’s ever-growing dominance and its comparison to Cisco Systems during the dot com era, the pendulum moving from infrastructure to applications with all these newly announced grant programs, which adoption phase we're likely in, Telegram's TON layer 1 blockchain, the latest on crypto's increasing spotlight in U.S. politics, Alex's Toronto Star article on Canada's once global lead in Web3, the current innovation problem in Canada and why startups are moving elsewhere, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss the growing political spotlight on crypto ahead of the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November, how this may influence Canada’s approach on the industry, the net impact that the Ethereum ETFs might have, the strong fundamentals of the Ethereum network, whether layer 2s are good or bad for Ethereum, why ETH has underperformed and its potential revenge rally, the value capture of infrastructure versus applications throughout the history of the internet, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Molly Mackinlay, Head of Engineering, Product, & Research Development at Protocol Labs. Listen in as they discuss Molly’s journey from working at Google to in Web3, Filecoin’s origin and where it stands today, core reasons why projects are using it, the provenance of data within artificial intelligence models, the structure of data DAOs and how they work, some consumer use cases, the importance of Filecoin Virtual Machine and its future, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Hunter Horsley, Co-Founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management. Listen in as they discuss Hunter’s busy week with the Ethereum ETF decision deadline, the accelerating momentum of developing policy around digital assets, the broad bipartisan support for the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, embracing an opportunity mindset on innovative and emerging technologies, Hunter’s experience at Facebook and journey to founding Bitwise, incorporating digital asset exposure into traditional portfolios, Bitwise’s decision to disclose the Bitcoin holding addresses of its BITB Bitcoin ETF, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Jacquelyn Melinek, Co-Founder and CEO of Token Relations. Listen in as they discuss Jacquelyn’s experience as a crypto reporter, the craziest story she ever covered, why she left the world of journalism to become a founder, the current problem with projects' communications, how Token Relations help enhance relationships with token holders, how they are approaching business development and partnerships, the rise of key opinion leaders, the value arbitrage opportunity for great tech with lacking communication, the current best practices and what the future will look like, learning resources, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Sarah Milby, Head of Policy at the Blockchain Association. Listen in as they discuss the Blockchain Association’s origin and the progress they’ve made, what good Web3 policy looks like, the current state of stablecoin legislation in the United States, crypto on the ballot with the upcoming election, whether this can become bipartisan again, the global Web3 regulatory situation, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss a crypto market roundup with this past month being the worst since the FTX collapse, simple explanations of staking and restaking, EigenLayer and its airdrop controversy, the evolution of token distribution models, ideas on how these could look in the future, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Bitcoin’s fourth-ever halving that occurred last Friday, gold’s considerable uptick in recent weeks, the geopolitical neutrality of Bitcoin and whether central banks will adopt it as a reserve asset, the impact of Bitcoin Runes and BRC-20 tokens on the network, the potential of ‘remining’ to launch applications leveraging Bitcoin’s hashing power, the prospect of a Bitcoin collateralized stablecoin, Coinbase’s upcoming earnings next week and how its layer 2 Base may surprise investors, the New York Stock Exchange’s poll on 24/7 trading, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Daniel Lynch, Head of MetaMask Institutional Partnerships at Consensys. Listen in as they discuss Daniel’s journey from working at SWIFT to Consensys, MetaMask at its core and the role it fulfills, its future integrated functionalities, their strategy and supports to bring institutions on chain, the understanding and thoughts that banks have on blockchain technology, whether the future will be multi-chain, all-things MetaMask Snaps, Daniel’s role and the state of Web3 in Latin America, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss Monad Labs’ $225 million fundraising round led by Paradigm, why developers are excited about Monad, what EVM-compatible blockchains are and how they work, the current chain ecosystem dynamics and how things might look in the future, the FTX estate selling $1.9 billion worth of locked-up Solana, Genesis liquidating GBTC shares to buy Bitcoin to distribute to Gemini Earn creditors, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3. Listen in as they discuss a crypto market recap, which phase of the cycle we’re likely in, whether the recent multi-month memecoin madness could finally be coming to an end, where investors may rotate into next, the series of big raises by crypto VC firms in past weeks, the state of Ethereum post-Dencun upgrade and its sustainability compared to other chains, Coinbase’s layer 2 Base and valuing the network, Ethena Labs’ new ENA token, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guests Avichal Garg, Co-Founder and General Partner, and Ken Deeter, General Partner, of Electric Capital. Listen in as they discuss the different phases of crypto adoption, how they think about investing in the space and key areas they’re monitoring, what the future of decentralized finance might look like, the evolution of staking and yield-bearing assets, whether applications will go cross-chain or build out their own appchains, the net result of DeFi ecosystems between different chains, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guest Tim Beiko, Protocol Support of the Ethereum Foundation. Listen in as they discuss a simple explanation of Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade, the sustainability of lower layer two transaction fees, whether there’s still a need for several different layer two chains, what’s next on Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, considerations on raising the data throughout on Ethereum, timeline on stateless Ethereum and full sharding efforts, the Ethereum Foundation team and how they operate, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 with special guest Christopher Giancarlo, the thirteenth Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Senior Counsel of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Listen in as they discuss whether Web3 will be an important agenda topic in upcoming presidential elections, the industry’s ideal regulatory framework they want in the United States, the global race of emerging Web3 hubs, why the CFTC’s work with Bitcoin futures was instrumental for Bitcoin ETF approvals, the origin and meaning behind Chris’ “money is too important to be left to the central bankers” quote, important considerations and odds of Ethereum ETF approvals, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Sidney Powell, Co-Founder and CEO of Maple Finance. Listen in as they discuss key takeaways from the ETHDenver 2024 conference, the different types of stablecoins, potential lending opportunities that exist with restaking, Maple’s next growth areas, the size of the on-chain institutional market, the benefits and challenges with lending to protocols, lending with locked tokens of early investors or token treasuries, real-world asset tokenization versus crypto-native lending yields, attractive horizontal and vertical future opportunities, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss this past week’s Bitcoin-led market rally, their current takes on the crypto market and what’s next, gaining digital asset exposure through MicroStrategy vs. Bitcoin ETFs, the potential for SEC approval on Ethereum ETFs, the emergence of Bitcoin layer 2s and some exciting projects, Uniswap Foundation’s proposal to distribute protocol revenue to token holders, Coinbase’s app store ranking and significance, Andrew’s Bitcoin story, Bitcoin reflexivity, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest James Seyffart, ETF Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Listen in as they discuss James’ methodology behind the Bitcoin ETF approval odds he set last year, reading between the lines of GBTC and ETHE’s discounts to NAV, the likelihood of Ethereum ETF approvals, how the SEC differs from other nations’ regulators, the historic flows into Bitcoin ETFs, next cryptoasset to get ETF beyond BTC and ETH, Canadian Bitcoin ETF outflows following U.S. approvals, GBTC’s high 1.50% fee, whether Ethereum staking and leveraged Bitcoin ETFs will come, key dates and deadlines for Ethereum ETF approvals, Bloomberg Intelligence and James’ story, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Rebecca Liao, Co-Founder and CEO at Saga. Listen in as they discuss an update of the past year for Saga, their upcoming $SAGA community genesis airdrop to five different ecosystems, thoughts on crypto loyalty ‘points’ with projects like Blur, the thesis behind modular blockchains and its relevance to Saga, their recent $6.5 million raise plans for the year ahead, if the space is finally ready for consumer crypto applications, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss Tether’s 2023 Attestation Report, GoDaddy’s partnership with Ethereum Name Service to bridge domain names with crypto wallets, FTX’s desire to sell 8% Anthropic stake as part of its liquidation process to help make customers “whole,” Farcaster’s frenzy of activity following its frames launch last, the prospect of Twitter as a Web3 protocol, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss an update on Bitcoin ETF flows after their first two official trading weeks, Bitcoin’s fast-approaching halving in less than 75 days, Bitwise’s decision to publicly disclose their Bitcoin wallet address, Bitcoin ETF issuers’ fee competition and pledge differentiators, our Bitcoin beard commitment, Noble’s $100 million milestone, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Jelena Djuric, Founder and CEO of Noble. Listen in as they discuss an update following Noble’s launch of bringing USDC to Cosmos, key metrics they use to measure their success, dYdX’s impact on the ecosystem, exciting upcoming projects within Cosmos, some fun facts encompassing demand for the U.S. dollar, Noble’s new partnership with Hashnote, their decision to transition to Interchain Security, what’s next for Noble, Jelena’s Bad Kid NFT, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss a roundup of the current crypto market post-ETF approval, the potential for a revenge rally from original alternative layer-1 chains, possible attention shift from underlying fundamentals toward growth, the chance of Ethereum ETFs taking longer than expected, how the stablecoin market could amass to $200 billion by year-end, why enterprise adoption of public blockchains could accelerate in 2024, whether a ‘D Everything’ market will occur this year, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 and DeFi with special guest Sunny Aggarwal, Co-Founder of Osmosis. Listen in as they discuss the Bitcoin ETF approvals and their potential implications, the state of Web3 and Osmosis’ role within it, the impact of having native USDC on Cosmos, exciting narratives circulating within the ecosystem, Osmosis’ DEX market share, the prospect of a successful crypto native stablecoin, and more.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Charles d’Haussy, CEO of the dYdX Foundation. Listen in as they discuss Charles’ journey into crypto, the history of dYdX, the thought process behind and decision to migrate, the reasoning for Cosmos SDK selection, their rare situation and chance at becoming a profitable protocol, experience moving exchange and users from one network to another, dYdX builders’ product focus moving forward, future growth opportunities for dYdX, Cosmos USD liquidity, some fantastic blockchain analogies, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of Web3 and gaming with special guest Justin Swart, Principal, Investment Team of BITKRAFT Ventures. Listen in as they discuss BITKRAFT’s discovery of Web3 gaming’s potential, the significance of property rights in gameplay and gaming economics, the gaming market’s biggest opportunity moving forward, the ‘third place’ and its relevance to an increasingly immersive shared internet reality for humanity, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Leo Mindyuk, Co-Founder and CEO of ML Tech. Listen in as they discuss an overview of ML Tech, Leo’s trading experience and journey into the crypto space, differentiating features from first-generation firms within the decentralized quant trading movement, potential opportunity to become a software provider, popular crypto trading strategies and key differences to those in traditional finance (tradFi), how ML Tech thinks about and manages counterparty risk, which types of investors they’ve had the most traction with, current challenges with deploying institutional capital in DeFi protocols, growth drivers in 2024, interchangeability of strategies, the crypto market’s efficiency moving forward, asset tokenization future market size, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss Bitcoin’s ‘silent’ rally beyond $44,000 and its driving forces, crypto market trajectory predictions based on past cycle experiences, interesting metrics regarding retail investor sentiment and Bitcoin supply, the intersection of AI and blockchain as seen in Alex’s AI stack, the growing popularity of Web3 social, how decentralized exchanges’ on-chain trading volumes could surpass CEXs, sustainable growth models, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss the crypto market rally following Binance’s $4B settlement last week, key signals of growing confidence in Bitcoin ETF approvals, the controversy encompassing Ethereum layer-2 (L2) Blast, the potential upcoming Cosmos fork, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss OpenAI’s history and structure, Sam Altman’s firing, the importance of decentralized artificial intelligence, Binance’s $4 billion settlement and CZ resignation, NVIDIA’s impact on the crypto space, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss the approaching ‘three horsemen’ crypto catalysts, the potential magnitude of inflows in the event of SEC-approved BTC ETFs, investors' cryptoasset rotation from bitcoin into ethereum and solana, 3iQ’s new Ether Staking ETF, Coinbase’s positioning for the next cycle, builders’ blockchain architecture preferences, Noble's upcoming launch of Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol for USDC, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guests Jules Urbach, CEO of OTOY and Founder of the Render Network, and Trevor Harries-Jones, COO of OTOY and on the Board of Directors for the Render Network Foundation. Listen in as they discuss the Render Network’s origin story, customer preferences on using OTOY versus the decentralized cloud, OTOY’s toolkit compatibility on the Render Network, how it ensures security and privacy for projects, its proof-of-reputation mechanism, having a hash of the rendered visual NFT, performance gap in chips, the Render Network’s thesis encompassing provenance, reasoning for Solana migration and vision, its trajectory in the next five years, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Mehdi Farooq, Senior Tokenomics Analyst of Animoca Brands. Listen in as they discuss Mehdi’s day-to-day role, past projects he’s worked on, the intersection of in-game assets with governance models, ApeCoin’s evolution toward ApeChain, exciting ecosystems for developers to build on, token standards’ impact on interoperability, NFTs’ potential for a comeback, leveraging NFTs as collateral for DeFi, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Listen in as they discuss the Human Rights Foundation’s purpose, the initial bridging of the HRF and Bitcoin in 2017, the number of charitable organizations leveraging it, reasoning for the lopsided mainstream media narrative surrounding Bitcoin, similarities and differences between Bitcoin and stablecoins, Bitcoin’s future mass adoption, Alex’s 2021 Time Magazine op-ed, resources to learn more about Alex and the HRF, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss Cointelegraph’s false U.S. Bitcoin ETF approval report, Grayscale Investments’ cryptoasset trusts’ narrowing spreads, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s interview on the genuine demand for Bitcoin, Marc Andreessen’s recent “The Techno-Optimist,” and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss an update on the FTX trial after week one in court, the influx of VC funding toward AI-based businesses, a macroeconomic crypto market analysis and potential upcoming catalysts, current enterprise interest and sentiment surrounding public blockchains, which chains these businesses are opting to build upon and why, impressive best seller accolades for Alex’s new Web3 book, a news headline roundup, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3. Listen in as they discuss Michael Lewis’ new book on FTX’s collapse, his controversial comments regarding Sam Bankman-Fried, Grayscale’s official application to convert its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) into an ETF, Ethereum’s post-Merge performance, outcomes of Bitcoin ETF approvals in the U.S., the hidden significance of Ether futures on its classification, Microsoft’s potential roadmap to include crypto wallet in its next-gen Xbox, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi on center stage at the Canada Fintech Forum 2023 in Montréal. Listen in as they discuss Andrew’s journey into Web3, Uniswap’s revolution, DAO’s incentivization model, use cases for decentralization, SX Network’s role within the ecosystem, importance of smart contracts, balancing technological innovation with inherent risks, Andrew’s optimism for future of crypto, tokenization of U.S. dollar in stablecoins, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Dean Skurka, President and CEO of WonderFi. Listen in as they discuss Dean’s crypto journey, WonderFi’s institutional and retail customer breakdown, its regulatory moat, ease of gaining approval on futures versus perps, CeFi exchanges integrating DeFi components, the role of centralized exchanges (CEXs) with evolving decentralized exchanges (DEXs), Canada’s crypto regulatory approach, balancing staking support for various chains with risk mitigation, potential for a CAD-denominated stablecoin, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Ledn. Listen in as they discuss Mauricio’s incredible background and journey into crypto, moving to Canada and Ledn’s development, its core business offerings, its supported cryptoassets for lending, role within the ecosystem, its Bitcoin price exposure risk, competitive environment of yield-paying products, customer base regional breakdown, CeFi vs DeFi future, expanding loan structures to incorporate reputation, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Grayscale Investments’ victory in its Bitcoin ETF conversion case, first-mover advantage versus reputation among ETF filers, their underlying subscription and redemption processes, crypto market arbitrage trading strategies, friend.tech’s design and early growth, Digital Currency Group’s deal with Genesis creditors, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest Mark Greenberg, Managing Director of Canada at Kraken. Listen in as they discuss Mark’s incredible journey, experience at Scotiabank, biggest surprises upon starting work at Kraken, balancing business growth pace with regulations, the pre-registration undertaking process within Canada, pre-registered limitations, restricted versus broker-dealer comparisons, Kraken’s business size metrics, its strategy to address intensified market competition, WonderFi’s full broker-dealer license, countries’ crypto regulatory approaches, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Coinbase receiving approval to list crypto futures in the United States, their official launch in the Canadian market, the current cryptoexchange ecosystem within Canada, BitGo’s $100M raise, Zynga’s first-ever Web3 game, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Andrew’s recent trip to Paris and his on-the-ground key takeaways from EthCC, Tether’s Q2 2023 attestation report, Curve Finance’s exploit and its potentially seismic implications for the DeFi ecosystem and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Dr. Cédric Jeannot, Co-Founder and CEO of Be Mobile Africa. Listen in as they discuss Cédric’s journey into the blockchain space, Be Mobile Africa’s mission and role, addressing off-ramp implementation challenges, back-end liquidity structure, determining which blockchain to build on, neobank design and functionalities, imperative regulatory considerations, the firm’s long-term vision, market size and growth metrics, Cédric’s experiences with central banks and the existing educational gap, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Michael Hainsworth as they engage in an in-depth conversation that explores what using Web3 technology will look like, early enterprise adopters, the impact of decentralization on government and governance, whether lawmakers will get regulation right, examples of successful first-mover companies, gaining exposure to the Web3 asset class, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Charlie Morris, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of CMCC Global. Listen in as they discuss the current crypto market cycle phase and next catalyst, the importance of intent-centric designs for Web3 transactions, improving wallets with account abstraction, channels to gain exposure to the user experience adoption thesis, dYdX’s testnet launch on Cosmos, defining MEV, an analogy to the Sovereign Individual, embracing a mobile-first approach, Charlie’s Solana cellphone, thesis area developer activity, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Michael Hainsworth as they engage in a high-level, beginner-friendly, and educational episode that breaks down Web3 in simple terms, discusses its applications and disruptive potential on financial markets, introduces the Ninepoint Web3 Innovators Fund (TSX: TKN; TKN.U), and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Alex’s big announcement on his new book, “Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier,” its structure and focal points, concepts from Niall Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World,” asset types that hold the greatest disruptive power in a Web3 world, an FTX customer fund recovery update, evaluating innovation within the DeFi space, insuring decentralized protocols, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guests Jack Zampolin of Strangelove and Jelena Djuric of Noble. Listen in as they discuss Noble’s emerging role in the Cosmos ecosystem onboarding USDC, how they pitched themselves to Circle and won the partner role for Cosmos, the chain’s underlying business model, tokenizing other real-world assets (RWAs) beyond stablecoins, exciting DeFi trends to monitor this upcoming year, the sustainability of different chains’ reward incentives, earning yield by holding stablecoins, and more!
We are celebrating our 100th Episode! Thanks to our listeners and fans for your loyalty, feedback and support. It's been quite a ride, but just like the industry we cover, the future for DeFi Decoded is bright and we're only getting started!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss an insightful macro roundup and its implications for crypto, Bitcoin’s newfound divergence from traditional asset classes, current venture capital cheque sizes into Web3 projects, institutional investor sentiment, how the SEC lawsuits last week are affecting altcoins, a16z’s international expansion to the United Kingdom, all-things crypto regulation in the United States, what market phase we may be at, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest FarmerJoe, an OG Bitcoin Ordinal Whale. Listen in as they discuss the definition of a Bitcoin Ordinal, their growth and evolution, their impact on the Bitcoin network, how they take on those that critique them, the sustainability of their demand, whether the network has the capabilities to support them at greater scale, whether Ordinals can bring value and serve as a price catalyst for Bitcoin, the SEC’s recent lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Beijing’s recently released “Internet 3.0 Innovation and Development White Paper,” the current standpoint of China’s crypto ecosystem, Circle launching Euro Coin (EUROC) on the Avalanche blockchain, a macroeconomic roundup, predicting the next big crypto market catalyst, assessing Web3 project economics and cost structures, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Elena Nadolinski, Founder and CEO of Iron Fish. Listen in as they discuss Elena’s incredible journey from working at Microsoft and Airbnb to Web3, private yet compliant-friendly protocol designs, exciting types of potential new use cases and applications, Iron Fish’s asset issuance functionality and tokenomics, $IRON utility, the network’s node running sustainability, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss a roundup of current macroeconomic themes, the looming debt ceiling situation in the United States, potential Bitcoin selling pressure resulting from the U.S. government’s Silk Road seizure, newfound popularity of Bitcoin ordinals, and all things OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s crypto project, WorldCoin!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation. Listen in as they discuss Sheila’s Web3 origin story, experience spearheading blockchain at the World Economic Forum, day-to-day work at the Crypto Council for Innovation and its source of funding, root causes of the banking crisis, the big geopolitical picture in the race to establish clear legislation governing crypto, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi. Listen in as they discuss Alex’s insights from the Consensus 2023 conference, the state of venture capital funding, a macroeconomic market analysis, factors that may impact crypto moving forward, Bitcoin’s halving less than a year away, Coinbase’s international perps exchange, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest Chjango Unchained, Host of Interchain.FM. Listen in as they discuss Chjango’s incredible journey into Web3, experience working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the importance of an ecosystem development role, what’s happening in Web3, exciting projects in Cosmos, Interchain.FM’s audience, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Aleksander Larsen, COO and Co-Founder of Sky Mavis. Listen in as they discuss Aleksander’s intersection of gaming and Web3, experience with and learning lessons from Axie Infinity, exciting blockchain-based gaming applications, the response from large traditional gaming studios, the future outlook for Web3 gaming adoption, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Gregory Landua, CEO and Co-Founder of the Regen Network. Listen in as they discuss Gregory’s discovery of Web3 as a potential solution for ecological and social regeneration, overcoming critiques surrounding blockchain energy consumption, addressing counterparty risk with tokenized assets, monitoring to ensure standards of on-chain credits, liquidity formations, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest pplpleasr, a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on Web3, NFTs, crypto, DAOs, and philanthropy. Listen in as they discuss pplpleasr’s fascinating Web3 origin, Shibuya’s story, the evolving IP model landscape, their recent $6.9 million funding round, next steps for the studio and platform, generative AI and art opportunities, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest Sishir Varghese, CEO and Founder at Spectral. Listen in as they discuss Sishir’s journey into crypto, Spectral Finance’s founding, how the Spectral protocol works, its different customer use cases, reactions from traditional credit bureaus, the future of Spectral, and more!
Sishir has been an active supporter and investor in the cryptocurrency space since 2014, having previously founded and managed venture firm Alphachain Capital, working closely with entrepreneurs and builders. Founded in 2020 by Sishir in New York, Spectral Finance is a protocol designed to evaluate on-chain creditworthiness, allowing users to monitor their credit scores and risk insights. Users can review high-risk loan activity through the platform, view current positions, and receive low health warnings across different DeFi protocols. The MACRO Score is the world's first-ever Web3 credit score that is a numerical representation of an individual's on-chain creditworthiness; Spectral has generated over 50,000 MACRO scores for its users. Spectral's partners gain valuable access to credit risk insights for business decisions and offerings by leveraging on-chain data while users gain exposure to new financial opportunities. Spectral raised $23 million in August 2022, led by Circle Ventures and nine other investors.
Tune in to the 89th DeFi Decoded episode to hear Alex and Sishir discuss all things Spectral Finance. What lured Sishir into crypto in 2014, and what ultimately led to his founding of Spectral? How does Spectral’s MACRO credit score work, and which traditional themes were leveraged in its design? What is the competition like for Web3 credit scores, and how have legacy credit bureaus reacted to Spectral’s success?
TIMESTAMPS
[0:00] Introduction [3:32] Crypto Origin Story [4:49] Life Before Spectral [7:40] Spectral Founding [11:01] How Spectral Works [12:21] User Personas and Uses [15:22] Tracking Users With Multiple Addresses [17:30] Growth in Different Global Regions [21:40] Reactions from Legacy Businesses [24:15] MACRO Score Design Rationale [25:40] Web3 Competition Outlook For Credit Score [29:00] Future of Spectral [32:09] Conclusion
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Beryl Li, Co-Founder at Yield Guild Games (YGG). Listen in as they discuss Beryl’s journey into Web3, YGG’s inception, the community’s rebranding, Web3 gaming genres, game development trends, the open metaverse, the future of YGG, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Roneil Rumburg, CEO and Co-Founder at Audius. Listen in as they discuss Roneil’s ride to founding Audius, how music consumption has evolved from traditional forms, $AUDIO’s tokenomics, critical considerations for Audius’ three-sided marketplace, what’s in store for Audius’s future, and more!
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Tim Beiko, a core developer and key figure in the Ethereum Foundation. Listen in as they discuss Tim’s Web3 origin story, events leading up to and after The Merge, the significance of the Shanghai Fork, and more!
Tune in to the 85th DeFi Decoded episode to hear Alex, Andrew, and Ariel discuss all things Hivemapper and how they are revolutionizing map creation via ownership. How did non-crypto native Ariel find himself at the epicentre of a decentralized mapping platform? What noteworthy aspects from Helium and Waze does Hivemapper leverage? Which global regions are the most active, and how do their contributor counts affect overall reward capture? Tune in!
Tune in to the 84th DeFi Decoded episode to hear Alex and Andrew discuss all things DeFi and learn more about the crypto landscape in Africa. What is going on in South Africa? Why might Africa play a leading role in Web3? How can Africa potentially leap frog its legacy financial infrastructure to tap into Web3?
Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of DeFi with special guest Jake Hannah, Co-Founder of SX Bet. Listen in as they discuss the NFT regulatory environment, exciting perpetual future projects, layer-2 blockchains, EVM-compatible chains, Polygon’s financial health, and the overall value capture of many of the top projects.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Hamzah Khan, Head of DeFi at Polygon Technologies. Listen in as they discuss Polygon, the future of DeFi, app chain trends, and more!
Polygon is a layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution that enables developers to build scalable, user-friendly, and secure decentralized applications (dApps) by “bringing the world to Ethereum.” As the Head of Defi, Hamzah remains committed to developing Polygon’s cutting-edge technology to grow further the 37,000+ Web3 applications utilizing Polygon. Hamzah is also an angel investor who personally invests in various DeFi and Web3 infrastructure companies.
Tune in to the 82nd DeFi Decoded episode to hear Alex, Andrew, and Hamzah discuss all things DeFi and learn more about Polygon. How have Hamzah’s two years at Polygon been? What is it that has allowed Polygon to be so successful with business development execution? What does the future of Polygon and DeFi look like?
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi with special guest Rebecca Liao, Co-Founder and CEO at Saga. Listen in as they discuss Saga, Rebecca’s incredible past leading into Web3, Web3 Gaming and Entertainment ecosystems, and more! Rebecca Liao is the CEO of Saga, a Web3 protocol for launching dedicated blockchains. Saga allows developers to create their own blockchains with just a single click. It provides dedicated runtime environments for high performance and low, predictable gas fees. Users can freely transfer assets between ecosystems using Saga's dedicated chains, which are IBC+ enabled. Rebecca was previously a Co-Founder and COO at Skuchain, a top blockchain company in trade and supply chain finance, reaching $5 billion in annual volume under her leadership. Rebecca is an Advisor to Sommelier Protocol, a Fellow at Stanford Law, Science, and Technology, and has a background in law, writing, and advising presidential campaigns with the Biden and Clinton administrations. Tune in to the 81st DeFi Decoded episode to hear Alex, Andrew, and Rebecca discuss all things Web3 Gaming and learn more about Saga. What led Rebecca to dive into the world of Web3, and what is her experience with presidential campaigning? How does Saga work for users? Which ecosystems should we be most excited about?
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of DeFi and Web3 with special guest Sasha Ivanov, Waves Ecosystem Founder. Today’s topic: algorithmic stablecoins. Will they ever work? Waves is a global open-source platform for decentralized applications launched in 2016, based on proof-of-stake consensus and a community-driven technology stack. Ivanov has announced plans to launch a new stablecoin after their current USDN algorithmic stablecoin in the Waves ecosystem depegged, angering many in the Waves ecosystem. Tune in to the 80th DeFi Decoded episode to hear Alex, Andrew, and Sasha discuss all things stablecoins and learn more about Waves.
On today’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew sit down with crypto researcher Sam Andrew. Sam cut his teeth as an equity and fixed income analyst at a prominent New York-based hedge fund before turning his attention to Web3. His training on Wall Street has helped him bring a rigour and discipline to analyzing this new asset class. But it also forced him to re-train his brain to rethink valuation methodology and come up with some new ways to understand this technology. We discuss: does “value” exist in Web3? What are the top metrics we can use to measure it? Which assets does Sam think are undervalued, and which are overvalued based on his reasoning? Tune in to find out!
On today’s episode, Andrew and Alex talk about crypto’s stellar start to 2023. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin and Ethereum are up more than 20% while some smaller names like Solana have fared even better. Is this a dead cat bounce? Short covering? A macro-driven rally lifting all risk-on boats? Or is this the start of a new bull market? Next they talk about how Ethereum is becoming ‘ultra-sound’ meaning net new-issuance of tokens is flat or declining. How does Ethereum compare to other big profitable enterprises like Apple who use excess profit to buy back stock much in the same way the Ethereum network uses excess network fees to retire ETH (a process known as ‘burning’). As always, a little knowledge of traditional finance is helpful to understanding Web3!
On this episode, Alex and Andrew briefly summarize the situation with Solana. It turns out reports of the death of the once-ascendant Layer 1 blockchain were premature. Then, Alex shares his four Web3 predictions for 2023. First, enterprise adoption of Web3 will accelerate rather than slow down. Second, DeFi will grow beyond the insular crypto community because of better reputation scoring and the integration of real assets. Third, Web3 gaming will drive the next wave of digital asset adoption. New Web3 games will make earning and owning a nice to have rather than the point of the game. Fourth, the U.S. will pass a major law around crypto. Alex is cautiously optimistic the blockchain caucus in the U.S. congress and the Web3 lobby can steward this towards a reasonable outcome, but it comes with plenty of risks. Tune in to hear more!
Happy New Year! On today’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex discuss the situation with Solana. The prominent Layer 1 blockchain was heavily backed by disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankamn Fried. Solana was once dubbed an Ethereum killer and at its zenith had a market capitalization of $70 billion. Today it is fighting for its survival. Andrew explains why the current collapse, while painful, could set up Solana for a new era of more sustainable growth, so long as it can survive in the short term. Then, Andrew gives us his top three predictions for 2023. What are they? Tune in to find out.
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andew sit down with Tom Dunleavy, Senior Research Analyst at Messari. 2022 was crypto’s annus horribilis so they start with post-mortem for a challenging year. There were some huge setbacks, notably the collapse of FTX and other centralized exchanges and lending platforms, but also several major breakthroughs, such as the Ethereum Merge. Next, they discuss the outlook for 2023 and talk about core themes for investors, users, and builders in 2023, including the rise of app-chains, Web3 gaming, enterprise adoption, distributed physical infrastructure (DE-PIN), the future of layer 2’s and competing layer 1’s, and preview Messari’s Crypto Theses report, which will be released before year-end.
Hollywood screenwriter Jesse Nickson-Lopez has brought some of modern TV’s most indelible characters to life. As a founding member of the writing team on Stranger Things, she developed the storyline for the character Eleven and has written for The Outsiders, Narcos: Mexico, and other hit shows. Her next project, Lucia, will be directed by Damian Chazelle, the Academy Award-winning director of La La Land and Whiplash. At age 35, she has a résumé most writers aspire to. Despite her success, she considers screenwriting her day job. By night, she is the co-ounder of Web3 startup MV3. At the intersection of storytelling and technology, MV3 promises to disrupt TV, film, and the Hollywood business model itself. In this episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew chat with Jesse and MV3 co-founder Torey Kohara about how Web3 can reimagine storytelling and the business of entertainment.
On this week’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew talk about OpenAI’s smash hit Chat GTP and how Andrew is using it to unlock new capabilities, debug software and accelerate the growth of SX Network. On the topic of SX, Andrew gives us a sneak peek into the roadmap for the SX Network Merge, and shares his vision for how prediction markets can help solve big problems, manage risk and support new governance models. But before all that, Alex tells us about his recent trip to Turkey where he was the keynote speaker at the Turkish Capital Markets Congress. Plagued by inflation many in Turkey have chosen crypto as an off-ramp. Alex was very impressed by the working knowledge of Web3 in many of the country’s leading financial firms. The future of Web3 in Turkey looks bright!
WBTC and WETH have both been in the news recently. Though they have similar sounding names, they are different in both composition and utility. WBTC is an Ethereum-based token (known as ERC-20) issues by BitGo, backed by Bitcoin. It allows users to use Bitcoin on the Ethereum network. Frequent listeners will recall that Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, joined us on a previous episode where he told us about BitGo’s custody business. WETH is also an ERC-20 token, but in this case, it is backed by ETH rather than Bitcoin. Also, unlike WBTC, the collateral for wETH is held in a smart contract, not with a company. wETH allows users to use ETH more easily in DeFi and other Web3 applications. On this episode Andrew and Alex discuss the origins, use-cases and risks of these products and what they tell us about where Web3 is today.
On today’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew discuss some of the steps centralized exchanges (CEXes) can take to restore user trust. These solutions split into the “fiat variety” such as better governance, stronger regulation and regular audits and “on-chain variety” such as proof-of-reserves and proof-of-solvency. They also discuss the ongoing fallout from FTX which has engulfed crypto lender Genesis and had a knock-on effect with the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and discuss how asset management giants Apollo and Hamilton are embracing tokenized securities.
On this week’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew sit down with Mike Belshe, Founder and CEO of BitGo, one of the world’s leading firms in institutional staking, custody and trading firms, holding over $20 billion for some of the world’s largest cryptoasset investors and many companies. Mike gives his perspective on the collapse of FTX, adding a few sensible recommendations for what industry leaders can do to prevent the “next FTX.” He tells us why he’s super bullish on DeFi but also why we will still need trusted third parties like BitGo in the future. Andrew and Alex mostly just listen as Mike gives a masterclass on how to run a digital asset business safely, sustainably and with an eye for future growth.
FTX, a top global exchange that counts supermodel Giselle Bundchen as a spokesperson, and was once valued at over $30 billion USD, is on the brink of collapse following a historic liquidity and solvency crisis that left the company scrambling to raise capital or sell itself to rivals. Founder SBF, who we once compared to J. Pierpont Morgan for his role as lender of last resort during the Summer 2022 lending crisis, has himself succumbed to the hubris and poor risk management that sent the industry into turmoil this year. Today, we stand on the brink of a long, bleak crypto winter. Will crypto emerge from FTX's collapse with a renewed commitment to trustless, decentralized tools? Or will we end up with an effective monopoly with one too-big-to-fail business in Binance dominating the market? Andrew and Alex give their best shot at predicting where we go from here.
On this week’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew sit down with Jack Zampolin, Co-founder of Sommelier, and former Product Manager at Tendermint. He’s no Doctor, but the Strangelove Ventures founder has breathed life into several Cosmos’s most well-known applications such as Akash Network, where he was also product manager. This “Jack of all trades” now has his sights set on cross-chain implementation of IBC, starting with Polkadot. Jack tells us about his investment thesis for Cosmos, why a portfolio approach is best, and why he thinks most of the killer apps on Cosmos and in Web3 generally are yet to be built. He may try to build them all!
Cosmos is highly regarded in the Web3 world for its novel and robust design, which allows developers to launch application specific chains while benefiting from the shared architecture of the Cosmos “Hub.” For example, dYdX, the popular DeFi derivatives platform, recently migrated from Ethereum to Cosmos, citing a desire to be masters of their own fate. However, ATOM, the token most people associate with Cosmos, has never properly gotten its due, languishing outside the Top 20 cryptoassets behind Litecoin and Shibu Inu. The Team at the Cosmos Hub want to change that by making ATOM a key rallying point for the ecosystem, which they hope will lead to greater value capture at the token level and improve the overall state of Cosmos. On this episode, Alex and Andrew speak to Sam Hart, Strategy lead of the Cosmos Hub and the lead author of the ATOM 2.0 whitepaper on this vision for an ATOM-centric future.
On today’s episode, Alex and Andrew speak with Aryan Sheikhalian, Head of Research at CMT Digital, one of the world’s leading digital asset venture capital firms. Aryan walks through CMT Digital’s investment philosophy, its core focus areas within crypto, and he makes a few predictions for 2023. Aryan is interested first and foremost in infrastructure - ways to make Web3 work better. For example, he talks about the need for better sources of off-chain data (so-called “Oracles”) to input into smart contracts and how to invest in it as a theme. You won’t want to miss it!
On this week’s episode, Andrew and Alex start by discussing recent exploit of the Binance chain’s most popular bridge, which led to the theft of nearly $600 million of BNB, the chain’s native token, before the network was paused and much of the theft reversed. Binance chain is more centralized than Ethereum and others, and the swift pause, though effective, was controversial. Some argued that any blockchain that can be paused and reversed is no blockchain at all – just another centralized system. Others argued that the pause was sensible considering the potential loss. After dipping on the news, BNB again traded in line with the market, suggesting investors and holders didn’t penalize them for the decision to pause (and may have even rewarded them for it). The Binance Chain situation exposed a philosophical rift in the industry between “decentralization maxis” who believe decentralization should be put ahead of all other considerations, and “adoption maxis” who believe trade-offs must be made to scale Web3. Who is right? Alex wrote up the discussion for Ninepoint’s weekly newsletter, Digital Asset Digest. Subscribe here: www.digital.ninepoint.com
On this week’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew talk about how the Twitter take-over battle has illuminated how the world’s richest people think about blockchains and Web3. In some revealing text exchanges made public because of the civil suit, Elon Musk is seen considering the value of turning Twitter into a protocol, with the urging of billionaires like Jack Dorsey and Sam-Bankman-Fried before concluding, in essence, the technology is not ready for prime time. But is there value in reimagining traditional businesses like social media as web3 protocols with token-holders rather than stockholders? Would that lead to better network health or more of the same? Tune in to find out.
On today’s episode, Alex and Andrew dig into the current macro situation and debate the ‘Milkshake Theory” that the US dollar sucks all liquidity from other currencies (Cue Daniel Day Lewis: “I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”). Right now, global currencies are collapsing as the US dollar steamrolls its way across the globe. Financial conditions are as tight now as in March 2020. In U.S. dollar terms Bitcoin is down but for global traders pricing in their local currency, the situation looks better. Still storm clouds are raging and the water level is rising. Will the levy break? Also, they dig into how enterprise adoption of public blockchains is likely to accelerate post-Ethereum merge, and how that will impact the investment case for Ethereum and others.
On today’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew speak to Anthony Di Iorio, co-founder of Ethereum and Founder of Jaxx and Decentral. Anthony dedicates much of his time to helping Ethereum and other blockchains become more decentralized, resilient, and widely used. He’s also a passionate advocate for Canada and his hometown of Toronto. It’s a little-known fact but Ethereum is a made-in-Canada story, with key founders including Vitalik Buterin, from Toronto. Anthony talks with Andrew and Alex about how Canada missed an opportunity to be the centre for Web3 and what it can do to be a leader again.
On September 15th, 2022, Ethereum became a proof-of-stake network. On today's episode Andrew and Alex break down what happened, how it changes the investment case for Ethereum and what it means for the future of Web3. The significance is hard to overstate: by some estimates this will reduce Ethereum's carbon footprint by 99%. It will clear the deck for future upgrades to make Ethereum more scalable and useful. It will radically alter the supply and demand dynamics and may make Ethereum a high-yielding deflationary asset, attracting new kinds of financial investors. It will provide clarity to enterprises who want to build on public Web3 infrastructure. It could even improve the image of blockchain technology, easing pressure from policymakers. They also discuss the impact on cryptoassets as a whole, how it could impact Bitcoin and what it means for alt-L1s.
On this week’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew sit down with Zaki Manian, a veteran crypto entrepreneur and co-founder of Sommelier Finance. DeFi is moving at such a rapid clip, it is difficult for most investors to stay on top of the latest trends and even more challenging to make educated investment decisions. Sommelier Finance aims to solve this problem by providing access to proven strategies supported by on-chain data in a fully decentralized way, essentially acting as a ‘guide’ to the bewildering world, similar to a wine sommelier. Sommelier is an Ethereum application built with Cosmos technology. But really, this is a stepping stone to a future state. Zaki believes by next year, Cosmos will be so advanced that most of the DeFi mind-share will be in that ecosystem, rather than Ethereum. In the spirit (ahem) of viniculture, if Ethereum is France (home to wine making for many years) than Cosmos is California – still undeveloped but with the potential for better terroir!
"Dogecoin is sponsoring the Jamaican bobsled team." This is the first time Sunny Aggarwal first heard about crypto, back when he was a high school student in California. The friend might as well have been speaking Klingon, because the sentence made no sense to Sunny, so he went home and googled Dogecoin which led him down the Bitcoin rabbit-hole. He was hooked, or shall we say "doge-pilled."
Fast forward to today and Sunny is one of Web3's most creative entrepreneurs, having co-founded Osmosis, the most popular decentralized exchange in the Interchain ecosystem. He's also a fan favourite here at DeFi Decoded. When we last had Sunny on the show, Osmosis had just closed a major financing and its TVL was nearing $1 billion. Bitcoin was nearing an all-time high and crypto markets were close to topping $3 trillion. While market conditions have changed, the case for DeFi has never been stronger. On this episode, Alex and Sunny talk about the core value proposition for DeFi, which is "privacy for the individual, transparency for the system," why DeFi fared far better in the crisis than CeFi, what it will take to onboard the masses to Osmosis, why the recent crypto slump hasn't impacted funding for good projects, how Osmosis became a refuge for Terra Luna developers following that platform's collapse.
How do blockchain networks like Ethereum, supporting thousands of applications, billions in capital and millions of users, actually work? What is the essential infrastructure supporting cryptopunks, DeFi smart contracts, GameFi guilds, stablecoins, and other Web3 innovations? To the average user, the inner workings of blockchains are mysterious. In many ways, this reflects the technology's growing maturity and ubiquity. After all, most people are blissfully unaware of how their laptop, car and microwave functions. But sometimes, the technology gets thrust to the forefront of the conversation. The upcoming Ethereum Merge and the Tornado Cash situation have focused the spotlight on node operators, largely unseen but critical infrastructure providers. On today's episode, Alex and Andrew sit down with Sharon Byrne-Cotter of Infura, to look under Ethereum's hood at the engine parts that keep the Web3 car chugging along. Tune in!
Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin recently and now sits at 50% of Bitcoin's market capitalization. This has some observers suggesting the "flippening," where Ethereum surpasses Bitcoin in market value, is in grasp. Ethereum has gotten close to Bitcoin's market capitalization before, namely in Summer 2017 at the beginning of the ICO craze, hitting 80% of Bitcoin's value, only to crater to 10% at the bottom of the bear market. Is this time different? On this episode of DeFI Decoded, Andrew and Alex get into it. Plus, they discuss the fallout in crypto from the Tornado Cash crackdown, including a 'dusting attack' that sent celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal crypto from a Tornado Cash wallet, making them unwittingly in violation of OFAC...and what it all could mean for the future of decentralization.
This week, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on Tornado Cash, a popular 'mixer' that allows individuals to do crypto transactions anonymously. Typically, sanctions are placed on individuals and institutions. In this case, the government was sanctioning an open-source software project and a neutral tool used by many. This sets a potentially dangerous precedent, which Alex and Andrew discuss on this week's episode. Plus the guys talk about the better than expected CPI print and the impact on crypto before finally giving an update on the status of the Merge.
On today's episode, Alex and Andrew discuss the latest DeFi exploit - a hack of the Nomad "bridge." But first, what's a bridge? What problem does it solve? Do these exploits prove bridges are unfeasible or are they simply implementation challenges to overcome. DeFi boosters talk about dApps and digital assets as being composable, like interlocking LEGO pieces. But we're not dealing with one uniform form factor - DeFi isn't a box of Lego but a mixed bag of Lego, Duplo, Mechanix, and others. How do we figure out a way to get these pieces to click together? Plus we dig into the Ethereum Merge and do a quick macro update.
Solana (SOL) typified the explosive growth of crypto and blockchain in 2021. A new blockchain protocol with a novel and ingenious design, Solana was able to attract thousands of developers and millions of users to an application ecosystem that started with DeFi but diversified into NFTs, Gamefi and beyond. At its peak, Solana was worth $90 billion USD. And while crypto prices have cooled, the thesis for Web3 remains intact and the future of Web3 on Solana looks bright.
On this week’s episode, Anatoly explains how Solana’s birth in the bear market of 2018-2019 helps explain its success today. He talks about how a relentless focus on developers has set the protocol up for success. He also tells us how despite the dip in prices, developer activity has been higher recently than during the bull market. Finally we talk about how Solana’s smart phone might be the key to unlocking a crypto-native app store and bringing hundreds of millions of people into Web3.
This episode ended up running 45 minutes and we could have gone much longer. Strongly encourage you to check it out!
On this week's episode of DeFi Decoded, Jake Hannah of SX Network steps in to help SX co-founder Andrew co-host the podcast while Alex is out fishing in Northern Canada. Jake and Andrew cover everything, starting with what the betting markets are saying about the Fed interest rate decision. They also cover the current betting market's view on the probability that Ethereum's highly anticipated "Merge" will actually happen in September. Jake shares what he thinks the best sector of the crypto asset economy will be, how the crypto market will perform over the next 12 months, and how Ethereum's "merge" will affect its tokenomics. Jake and Andrew cover a number of other issues such as whether there's any spillover left from 3AC's collapse, and whether USDC will usurp Tether as the largest stablecoin. Check it out, as you won't want to miss two crypto experts give their takes on the future of crypto.
"It's faster to drive money from Nigeria to Ghana than it is to send a wire transfer because with a wire, the money must first go to New York, and then London before coming back to Africa" says Dickson Nsofor, identifying one of many absurd examples of how the global financial system fails African countries, businesses and individuals. This is the problem and opportunity Dickson identified four years ago when he launched Korapay, a Pan-African payment infrastructure company using APIs for payment collections, disbursements, and conversions for businesses anywhere in Africa. Underneath it all are cryptoasset payment rails like Bitcoin and USDC. For him, blockchain is like electricity, unseen but essential to everything. On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Dickson discuss how blockchain is connecting Africa to the world.
On this week's episode of DeFi Decoded,Alex and Andrew try to put the crypto correction in the context of an increasingly complex and muddled global macro picture. Bitcoin failed its test as an inflation hedge, but will the spectre of global recession push it lower, or can it catch a bid and resume its status as uncorrelated asset in a secular bull market? Plus, they discuss (hopefully for the last time) the enduring fallout from 3 Arrows Capital blowing up. Finally, they talk about the new book The Networked Stateand its rooting in the cypherpunk classic The Sovereign Individual. Will crypto sweep away old industrial age models for governance and economic coordination and usher in a new era of organizations and even nations? Tune in to find out!
Centralized, custodial, opaque, and laden with risk. This describes some of the crypto lending outfits currently teetering on the brink of insolvency. By contrast, most DeFi protocols, which automatically connect willing market participants peer to peer using smart contracts, have continued to operate smoothly through the crisis, though they have seen their assets (known as total value locked or TVL) and user activity drop quite precipitously. As Andrew and Alex discuss on this week's podcast, DeFi will survive this crisis, but centralized crypto banks and other shadow lenders may not.
On today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew discuss the efforts of Sam Bankman Fried, or SBF, who has swooped in to stabilize the industry, ask whether its ok that all these firms fail and ponder the question of what the industry will look like when this rout is over.
In honor of DeFi Decoded joining Tik Tok, we bring you this special Gen-Z titled episode (clearly written by Alex, an old millennial, aka Boomer, hence the cringe). Check us out on Tik Tok at @defidecoded.
On this week's episode Alex and Andrew talk about the recent weakness in crypto markets and try to untangle how much of it is caused by the general weakness in financial markets and how much of it is a self-inflicted wound unique to crypto. Specifically, they discuss Celsius, the crypto lending platform, and their decision to gate withdrawals until they've shored up their capital and how that might be affecting investor confidence in the ecosystem. They also talk some bear market predictions, why the best projects get built when nobody is looking and where to find 'value plays' in a down market.
On this week’s DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex sit down with Tim Copeland, News Editor at The Block, one of the industry’s leading news outlets. In this wide-ranging chat, Tim talks about how his experience reading and synthesizing dense philosophy books helps him do the same for crypto white papers and other esoteric ideas. He also shares his thoughts on the upcoming ETH merge, the growing pre-eminence of staking over proof of work mining, how in a bear market, projects will thrive (or die) based on their treasury management, and why he wants to help people find signal in the crypto noise. Tune in!
On this week's episode, Alex sits down with Eric Turner, VP of Market Intelligence at Messari. Eric describes Messari's role as the leading provider of market intelligence for crypto and why in an ocean of data and content, it's the context, insight and analysis that matters. "Separating the signal from the noise is what we do," Eric says. Alex and Eric then talk about the future of crypto, why Eric thinks DeFi is still underrated as the financial layer for the Web3 economy, and why he believes the first $1 trillion protocol will be a DeFi project.
On today's DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew sit down with Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra. Bill's a seasoned crypto entrepreneur and industry leader who has been building businesses in this industry for the better part of a decade. With Abra, Bill has created one of the most popular consumer-facing crypto applications in the world. Bill shares his perspective on the state of global macro, explains how the market may have done the Fed's job for it, and describes his vision for an economically sustainable algorithmic stablecoin. Earlier in the show, Alex and Andrew talk about how UST's collapse has unwound a lot of DeFi TVL and how builders can create more economically sustainable models for growth. You won't want to miss it!
On Today's episode, Alex and Andrew sit down with Rodney Yesep, partner at Hack VC. Hack VC is a venture capital firm that invests in the cryptocurrency, fintech, and marketplaces sectors. Hack VC is a crypto native investment firm that specializes in identifying early-stage companies to invest in.
Rodney talks about the strategy of Hack VC and how they identify opportunities and early-stage companies to invest in. Andrew and Rodney chat about the recent crash in crypto prices, with a particular focus on the Terra Luna/UST collapse last week. Rodney also talks about some of the opportunities he's seeing in the space and emerging areas that crypto investors should look out for. This is a great listen for crypto investors looking to better understand how one of the most sophisticated crypto investors in the world identifies opportunities and invests.
On this week’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dive into the recent collapse of UST, which failed to hold its value to the US Dollar (the "de-pegging") and discuss the knock-on effects in the rest of the crypto market. Andrew talks about how stablecoins are like the Wildcat Banking days of yore. Alex draws an analogy to the Panic of 1907, where J.Pierpont Morgan (The man, not the company) swooped in to stabilise the financial system, and today, where influential crypto moguls are trying to architect their own bail out of UST. Then the two muse on what the long-term ramifications will be for the market, stablecoins, crypto policy and more.
On today's episode Alex and Andrew dig into prediction markets and focus in the recent success of SX Network, creator of the world's largest blockchain prediction market, and the most popular decentralized prediction market application, SX.bet. SX Bet has processed $175 million in trades across ~900,000 bets since its launch. With over $100 million of these trades taking place in the last six months, SX.Bet is the largest blockchain-based prediction market in the world. SX just closed a $9.5 Million funding round to fuel the next stage of its growth as a fully-fledged blockchain for prediction market applications.
On Today's episode, Alex and Andrew sit down with Maxim Galash, CEO of Coinchange. Coinchange is a fintech company providing simple and frictionless access to DeFi for institutional and retail investors. Coinchange currently has over 20 institutional clients using their services for treasury management, and has ambitious plans to roll out to other customers and markets.
Max talks about the origins of Coinchange and how he identified an opportunity to simplify and democratize the complex but lucrative DeFi industry. He explains why it's important for DeFi's long term success that it be an equal opportunity market, not one where Wall Street and industry insiders exploit all the best opportunities. Max tells us about the process of becoming a regulated DeFi provider, why he thinks "RegDeFi" is the place to be, and how he plans to rapidly scale his model. This is a great listen for traditional finance and DeFi folks alike who want to better understand the convergence of retail fintech, traditional finance and DeFi, told through the story of one start-up.
On this episode, Andrew and Alex discuss the stunning growth of UST, a so-called algorithmic stablecoin. Stablecoins are cryptoassets pegged to the US dollar. Historically, stablecoins have been centralized, that is issued by a corporation and backed by deposits in a bank. However, the fastest area of growth today is in decentralized stablecoins or "algorithmic stablecoins," which are collateralized by cryptoassets held in smart contracts. UST leads this pack. The stakes of this race are significant: UST's ascent has caused the layer 1 protocol on which it runs- Terra- to 100x in value in a year. Other layer 1s are now playing g catch-up with NEAR and Tron announcing their own copycat stablecoins. Other protocols like Avanche are content to let their coins be used as collateral for UST, rather than create their own. Cosmos ATOMs are being used as collateral for UST, but that's more complicated. Andrew and Alex dig into all of this and more. Buckle up!
On this week's episode Alex and Andrew talk about the historically high inflation roiling markets, and its implications on the crypto asset class. Plus, they discuss the recent update on the Ronin Bridge hack where over $600 million was stolen. Later, Andrew sits down with the CEO of FRNT Financial, Stephane Ouellette, to discuss the global macro environment, institutional investor adoption of crypto, and the competing perspectives on DeFi vs. CeFi. We also discuss FRNT's upcoming IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).
On this week's episode Alex and Andrew sit down with trader, investor, and host of the popular "The Wolf of All Streets" podcast Scott Melker to discuss ETH, Global Macros, Bonds and more.
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex speak to Adrian Brink, founder of Anoma Labs, which is a truly novel blockchain design. Anoma is a set of protocols for private human coordination with as much privacy as possible. Essentially, Anoma allows any digital asset to function as means of exchange or payment, which all things being equal can create greater liquidity, less slippage, and more privacy in transactions.
Bitcoin and other cryptoassets like Ether are proving their worth as frictionless peer-to-peer money and playing a key role in funding the Ukrainian war effort with over $100 million USD in crypto donations raised. Alex and Andrew cut through the fog and talk the truth about what's happening.
In this episode, Andrew and Alex sit down with Ben Lee, CEO and co-founder of Blowfish Studios. Blowfish is a games developer and publisher that has successfully launched a myriad of games across standard gaming consoles. Now,Blowfish Studios is now taking the leap forward in the blockchain through its soon-to-be-released Phantom Galaxies. Phantom Galaxies, likely the first playable AAA blockchain game, is expected to shake up the industry by integrating NFTs, P2E and other blockchain concepts into an immersive, fun and engaging game for all kinds of gamers. The game is expected to be released in Q2 2022 with the developers releasing Starfighter NFT drops and generative avatars in Q1 2022. The studio distributed NFTs in the form of an airdrop to its early adopters and will host a public sale of in-game planets also known as “PGToken”. With a strong history of delivering high caliber games ambitions to revolutionize blockchain gaming, Blowfish and Phantom Galaxies should be on all gamers' radars.
The crypto bull market is back on as investors weigh the long-term implications of the Ukrainian conflict. On this episode, Charlie shares his perspective on current events and how they illustrate the value of censorship resistant money. What makes Charlie really bullish long-term, though, are Developers, Developers, Developers! Charlie recently attended ETH Denver, a giant global con-fab of crypto programmers, entrepreneurs and influencers. Over 12,000 people attended the event, representing all the major cryptoasset ecosystems such as Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche and more. Charlie describes how the event was brimming with talent, new ideas and concepts. One example from the episode: At one point while queuing for a COVID test, he met two young entrepeneurs who were there with their dad and who have 100k twitter followers and a new DAO! Lots of great morsels from this one. Check it out!
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex break down these major news events and discuss the long term implications for Bitcoin, DeFi and the broader cryptoasset market.
On this episode, Andrew and Alex ask Dean what problems Agoric solves, how it seeks to onboard millions of developers, where it's seeing the most developer growth, how the tokenomics of its native BND token work, what the roadmap looks like for 2022 and beyond…and much more! Pour a cup of java (sorry, dad joke)…you’re in for a quite a ride!
On this week's DeFi Decoded, Andrew Young is joined by Hart Lambur, the co-founder of UMA, a decentralized financial contracts platform built to enable Universal Market Access. Hart studied computer science before working as an interest rate trader at Goldman Sachs through the financial crisis. In 2013 he co-founded Openfolio, a personal finance tracking platform that was acquired in 2017 by a financial planning firm. He now leads a team of financial contract and oracle design researchers at UMA.
Andrew and Hart discuss the founding origins of UMA and its mission, looking at both the core UMA protocol and UMA's so-called optimistic oracle design. They also dive deep into the DeFi ecosystem, getting Hart's predictions on what the next big DeFi narratives will be in 2022. They analyze and discuss the ongoing L1 wars and share their thoughts on how the application and blockchain space will develop in the future.
Wall Street’s biggest institutions seem to love investing in crypto companies. The week we recorded, FTX, the centralized exchange, closed a $400 million financing led by Temasek, Paradigm, Softbank Vision Fund 2, and including Wall Street names like Tiger Global and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. At $32 billion, FTX is worth more than NASDAQ or Credit Suisse.
Yet, these investors and big banks have been slower to embrace DeFi, despite it being a $250 billion market. Why? How will DeFi create financial products on-chain that will appeal to traditional financial players? What regulatory and technology hurdles must be overcome? What’s a “permissioned pool and how does it work?” Does it matter that Wall Street embrace DeFi? After all isn’t DeFi eatingWall Street?
These are just some of the questions we pose to our guest Lex Sokolin, Global Fintech Co-Head and Chief Economist at ConsenSys. ConsenSys’ mission is threefold: populate Ethereum with things that work; act as a distribution channel for institutions; and help people use Web3. MetaMask, the most popular ETH wallet in the world, is a ConsenSys creation. Previously, Lex has held various senior roles in both traditional finance, fintech and crypto. He earned a JD/MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in Economics and Law from Amherst College. His writing is publicly available at https://lex.substack.com.
On this week's DeFi Decoded episode, Andrew and Alex sit down with seasoned trader, cryptoasset expert and the host of the popular “The Wolf Of All Streets Podcast” Scott Melker. Scott explains on the podcast how “fortunes are made in bear markets.” Buckle up, this is a good one!
On this DeFi Decoded episode, Andrew and Alex sit down with Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra, one of the leading wealth management platforms for cryptoassets. Abra’s mission is to create a simple and honest platform to help the next billion crypto holders maximize the potential of their crypto assets.
On this episode, Andrew and Alex break down their top narratives, trends, and predictions for 2022. Listen in to hear all the predictions and understand why we've made them.
As we say, the future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved. Ninepoint and Prophecy DeFi are working to achieve that better future.
On this very special final (DOUBLE) episode of 2021, Alex and Andrew sit down with Ryan Selkis (@twobitidiot), co-founder, and CEO of Messari, the leading crypto asset data and research company, to talk about the big trends that emerged in 2021 and share some eye-opening predictions for 2022 - from DeFi to stablecoins, NFTs, regulations, and more.
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex ask Greg some important questions, including: What problems does a decentralized cloud solve? Who are the biggest users? Can decentralized clouds scale? How long until Fortune 50 companies are migrating to decentralized cloud? What are the implementation challenges? And much more.
On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew sit down with Peng Zhong, CEO of Tendermint. Peng leads a world-class team that builds applications to improve the usability, accessibility, and safety of blockchain for developers and end-users. Tendermint is a core contributor to the Cosmos ecosystem, which houses more than 250 blockchain projects and secures over $100B in digital assets. Projects on the Cosmos ecosystem include Binance Chain, Terra, Crypto.com, ThorChain, Osmosis, Kava, Fetch.ai, Injective Protocol, Persistence, Akash, Regen, and many more. Peng shares his vision for a more accesible and open version of DeFi, how airdrops drive value creation to Cosmos and why Interchain security is the next big thing for ATOM.
On today's podcast, Alex and Andrew are joined by Jake Hannah, the COO and co-founder of SX Network, to discuss Polygon and the SX Network project. SX Network is the first project to build a blockchain using the Polygon SDK. Like how Polygon inherits its security from Ethereum, SX Network inherits its security from Polygon making SX the first unofficial "layer 3" blockchain. In today's episode, we'll be talking about the future of blockchain scalability, focusing on Polygon and SX Network. We also cover the blockchain prediction market space, and a variety of topics across the DeFi and broader crypto space!
Up and coming blockchain 'Layer 2' platform Polygon, with its unique blend of scalability solutions, has been gaining in popularity as a solution to Ethereum's scalability problems. In about a year, Polygon has built the largest and most dominant Ethereum layer 2 network in the world, but it faces competition from insurgent Layer 1 projects like Avalanche and Solana for developer mindshare. To combat this, Polygon is attracting talent with their Polygon SDK (software developer kit), which enables projects to build their own Ethereum compatible blockchains with Polygon serving as the base security layer.
DeFi Fan Favorite Charlie Morris, GP of CMCC Global, is back! This time he joins to discuss his views on the Layer 1 wars which have been lighting up crypto twitter recently.
Charlie and the guys talk about the concept of so-called "Ethereum killers," new protocols like Solana, Terra and Avalanche which are capturing DeFi market share from Ethereum.
They debate whether 'Ethereum killer' is the correct framing, whether one chain will rule them all and how many of these new protocols will stand the test of time.
Charlie also shares some thoughts on his recent trip to Lisbon to attend the Solana Breakpoint event. One big take-away was the rise of gaming, social media and other Web3 applications taking greater prominence. I guess crypto really is eating the world.
On today’s episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex sits down with Ethan Buchman, co-founder of Cosmos and inventor of Tendermint, the consensus algorithm which powers a huge chunk of the blockchain economy. Ethan is a true polymath, versed in biology, philosophy, and political economy, which informs his view on how blockchain can bring about a more sustainable and just world and a new kind of financial system called Regenerative Finance (ReFi).
Ethan is also an enormously successful entrepreneur: In less than three years, Cosmos has grown into a nearly $10 billion protocol that supports hundreds of different blockchains and over $100 billion in value. Investors in the original token offering for Cosmos ($ATOM) are up approximately 300x their money. As the “internet of blockchains” Cosmos is knitting together different platforms into one interoperable network. In addition, the DeFi ecosystem on Cosmos is growing fast, with Osmosis nearing in on $1 billion in TVL since launch.
On today's DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex speak to Luigi DeMeo, reformed Wall Street trader turned DeFi entrepreneur, evangelist, and community builder. Luigi currently oversees DeFi for Ava Labs, the software development company that supports the Avalanche ecosystem. Luigi tells the guys about his personal journey, which started on the Citigroup trading floor and how he fell down the Ethereum rabbit hole and ended up going full-crypto. He explains what makes Avalanche different, what problems it solves, who is building on the protocol, how it could be adopted by traditional financial players, and where DeFi on Avalanche is headed next. This is a must-listen for newbies and veteran DeFi traders.
In this episode, Andrew and Alex sit down with DeFi pioneer Galia Benartzi, co-founder of Bancor and inventor of the Automated Market Maker, now a building block of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Galia is also a member of the advisory council of Prophecy DeFi (PDFI-CSE).
Galia has appeared on BloombergTV and CNBC, and has spoken at the United Nations. Previously, she was a Venture Partner at Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund, a founding member of Summit Powder Mountain, and the organizer of Bretton Woods 75, a commemoration event evaluating the historic monetary accords.
Galia provides her perspective on the origins of DeFi, why DeFi matters, the most exciting areas of growth and more.
On today's episode, Andrew and Alex are joined by Sunny Aggarwal, Co-founder of Osmosis ($OSMO), a Decentralized Exchange (DEX) on the Cosmos blockchain network which, in only nine months, has soared to US$600 million in Total Value Locked. Osmosis is attracting capital from across the industry including from some of the most influential investors: On the day we recorded the podcast, Paradigm, the multi-billion crypto VC firm, announced a major investment of $21 million to help Osmosis accelerate its growth. It was the first DEX investment Paradigm made outside of the Ethereum ecosystem, evidence of Osmosis' growing important to the future of DeFi. Sunny tells us about the origin of Osmosis, his vision for blockchain interoperability and composability, the innovative feature set of Osmosis, the importance of privacy in blockchain transactions, why traditional finance people should be paying attention to DeFi and much more.
On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew is joined by Kevin Zhang. Kevin is the co-Founder of PayTrie and DFX Finance. PayTrie is one of Canada's largest fiat on-boarding ramps, helping Canadians buy crypto stablecoins with their bank account. DFX Finance is the leading decentralized foreign exchange protocol that is optimized for stablecoins. DFX is the category leader in the rapidly emerging DeFi FX sub-sector, garnering over $15m in assets to the protocol and attracting millions of dollars in trading volume.
In this episode, Andrew and Kevin do a deep-dive into both PayTrie and DFX and how they are complementary to each other. They discuss emerging trends in stablecoins, looking into market flows and where investor demand is. Finally, we get Kevin's views on where DeFi is today, and how he views the space evolving over time.
On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex are joined by Jon Lister, co-Founder and President of Satstreet, one of Canada's fastest growing digital asset brokerages. Jon has executed over $500 million in digital currency trades for institutions and high net worth clients. He previously co-founded BlockEQ, a leading platform for the Stellar Network, which was acquired by Coinsquare for $12 million in December 2018. Jon also gained experience at BMO Capital Markets, Blackhawk Network and earned an HBA from Ivey Business School.
On this episode, Andrew and Alex get Jon's outlook on the macro-environment and what it means for cryptoassets and defi. They also discuss some DeFi trends he's watching, and learn more about how SatStreet works and how it's helping broaden access to DeFi opportunities for institutional investors. They discuss which projects are being picked up by the market, and point out some exciting ones that are flying under the radar. They also get Jon's take on the recent regulatory news out of both China and the US and what it means for crypto and defi.
On this epside of DeFi Decoded, in light of the Facebook outage, Alex and Andrew dig into the promise and peril of Web3 - Can it actually solve these problems, or does it threaten to create a system that's just as fragile but more fragmented and thus harder to control.
For ten perilous (or blissful, depending on who you ask) hours on Monday October 4th, Facebook and all the Facebook branded apps went offline, exposing the centralized and surprisingly fragile nature of the Web. Despite the broadly positive innovations of the internet, we still rely on middlemen to perform many essential functions, such as maintaining internet infrastructure, moving, and storing value and data, verifying identities, and performing basic business logic like databasing, contracting and so forth.
This is problematic for several reasons. Intermediaries are vulnerable to hacking or failure (as we saw with Facebook). Banks, social media companies and other intermediaries are gatekeepers that exclude many people. They also capture all the data and much of the value created online. That’s bad because it could violate our privacy but also because we don’t get to fully participate in what we create online.
Blockchain promises a new era of the internet, dubbed Web3, which could solve many of these problems by giving us a way to move and store assets digitally and peer to peer. Blockchain gives us the tools, incentives and mechanisms to create value and organize capability though DAOs or decentralized autonomous organizations, rather than centralized companies.
Web3 promises a fairer, more resilient, more transparent, more private, and more decentralized internet, financial services industry, and economy.
On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex are joined by our first special guest, Charlie Morris, Managing Partner of CMCC Global, a US $300 million asset management company focused exclusively on digital assets and blockchain technology. Charlie is also an independent board member of Prophecy Defi (PDFI-CSE). CMCC Global was founded in 2016, making Charlie one of the longest tenured VC investors in this entire industry. CMCC research on DeFi and other emerging areas of blockchain innovation are required reading for anyone trying to understand the future of this industry. With offices in Asia and North America, CMCC has a truly global footprint. On this episode, Andrew and Alex ask about Charlie's main crypto theses, and discuss some of the emerging DeFi trends he is keeping an eye out for. They dig into what makes a good project- from the core team to the tech to the target market. And get Charlie's take on some emerging protocols or L1s that are starting to chip away at Ethereum's market share. We also get Charlie's take on the recent news that China is cracking down on crypto and what that means for the industry.
On today's episode we review the key transformations and ask what's next? As Robert Leshner co-founder of Compound Labs says, DeFi is not going to be called DeFi in the next 5 years. It's just going to be called finance. And all finance is going to run on blockchains; most assets will make their way onto a blockchain."
Financial services is more than an industry—it is the cardiovascular system of the global economy, the lifeline of all other industries. DeFi is reimagining its anatomy and physiology from banking and trading to risk management and more.
Through the first few weeks of DeFi decoded, we have covered all the key functions of the financial service industry and how it's being disrupted. They are:
- Storing value: DAO treasuries for institutions, cryptoasset/token wallets for individuals. These are the new crypto-native bank accounts
- Moving value: Stablecoins such as USDC and MakerDAO’s DAI route around banks
- Lending value: Pooled lending such as Compound and AAVE augment savings accounts at banks and other financial intermediaries and have better yields to boot.
- Funding and investing: Investment aggregators such as YFI and Rari could ultimately disintermediate investment advisors, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and robo-advisors.
- Exchanging value: Decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, Sushiswap, and QuickSwap could replace or enhance stock exchanges and centralized cryptoasset exchanges
- Insuring value and managing risk (i.e., derivatives): On-chain insurance such as NexusMutual and derivatives platforms such as SX, Perpetual protocol, and dYdX could supplement or replace insurance policies and over-the-counter derivatives.
- Analyzing value: Contract auditors such as Zeppelin and DeFi Score could augment or perhaps even perform the work of the Big Five accounting firms.
- Accounting for value: Block explorers such as Etherscan and PolygonScan track asset movements in real time; perhaps eventually eliminating periodic audits by accounting firms.
- Authenticating identity: Formal verification is no longer required to access open-source DeFi protocols. Pseudonymous or anonymous identities are common.
DAOs are increasingly governing larger and larger DeFi protocols and their respective treasuries. On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the rapidly emerging DAO boom and discuss how they've helped accelerate DeFi ecosystem growth.
While Decentralized Finance has the potential to revolutionize the financial system, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) threaten to disrupt the very way humans organize, socialize, and coordinate. DAOs are on-chain entities that facilitate the governance and economic coordination of decentralized protocols. The typical DeFi protocol often collects a fee, which is then diverted to an on-chain treasury. Rather than having the core founders control this treasury, DAOs enable DeFi protocols to put tokens in control of them. Token holders vote on how to disburse funds, allocate budgets, and how to hire/fire contributors.
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the rapidly emerging DeFi Index fund movement and discuss how they're different from traditional ETF providers.
Many of the largest asset managers in the traditional financial world are passive ETFs and Index funds; the decentralized financial system is no different! Smart contract-based index funds have been one of the fastest growing areas within the DeFi ecosystem. Like traditional ETFs, they create value for investors by packaging multiple different crypto assets into a basket or index, enabling investors to get passive exposure to an entire sector with one click of a button. They come with a twist though; these index funds are entirely blockchain-based and rather than having a centralized asset manager in charge, there is simply an open-source software protocol and decentralized governance system.
Pumpkin Spice Lattes may be back in stock at Starbucks, portending fall's arrival, but it's still very much NFT SUMMER in crypto land. August smashed all records for transaction value in this new breed of digital assets. There are no signs things are slowing down in September. OpenSea, a leading NFT platform, tallied volumes of more than $1 billion in a month, more than eBay's sales volume in the same period. Crypto art connoisseurs (or are they just speculators?) are now routinely spending thousands and sometimes millions of dollars on the rights to own the rights to certain rare images. The dam has broken and NFT culture is flooding into the mainstream. Tom Brady has an NFT platform called Autograph, and Steph Curry has changed his twitter avatar to an NFT he owns in his crypto wallet, and paid $180,000 for to boot. So what exactly are NFTs and why have they captured the zeitgeist? What does their stunning rise tell us about the viral power of crypto. Art is a big market- $67.4 billion in 2018- and growing, but that pales in comparison to the financial services industry, the prize DeFi is targeting. NFT's have taken the art world by storm. Even Damien Hirst is jumping on the band wagon. Will Wall Street be turned on its head when DeFi has its own "NFT Summer" moment? How do NFTs intersect with DeFi - art is an investible asset class and thanks to fractionalization, anyone can own a slice of an NFT or invest in an NFT fund. Could this democratize access to art as an investible asset class? Is this all positive, or is the speculative mania of NFTs going to cause a hangover across the asset class if (and perhaps inevitably when) the music stops? On this episode of DeFi decoded, Andrew and Alex pull out their provervbial easel and palette to paint a clearer picture of just what the heck is going on. Tune in!
Yield aggregators play a key role in the DeFi ecosystem by hooking into many different DeFi protocols for users in order to optimize yield. Yield aggregators work by having users stake tokens into their platform and allowing the platform to manage their assets for them. You can think of them as almost a robo advisor for DeFi.
These yield platforms have grown tremendously alongside the growth in DeFi, with over $20b in total value locked. On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the yield aggregator boom and discuss how they've helped accelerate DeFi ecosystem growth.
Insurance and risk management is a $6 trillion market worldwide, but so far is underrepresented in the DeFi space. Decentralized insurance platforms and prediction markets enable the trading of so-called 'event risk' between participants. These platforms upend the traditional model by allowing anyone to transact with each other through smart contracts, with no intermediaries, like insurance companies (for traditional insurance) or investment banks (for derivatives) sitting in the middle.
We have seen DeFi protocols like Uniswap and Aave tackle and disrupt markets like trading and lending. Will decentralized insurance see the same kind of growth? What impact will these emerging decentralized models for insurance have on legacy institutions and business models?
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the insurance and prediction market space and discuss how these platforms have the power to transform risk management. They compare the decentralized DeFi insurance platforms like NexusMutual and SX Protocol to their established centralized peers.
Tucked away in the infrastructure bill before congress is a 'pay-for' provision that claims it will raise $28 billion in new revenue from the cryptocurrency industry by requiring brokers to provide information on their users. To be sure, traditional exchanges and brokers such as Gemini, Coinbase and others should be regulated and comply with any new tax laws approved by congress. However, as originally written, the provision would have potentially included virtually every kind of participant in the industry, from miners to software developers, lightning nodes (Bitcoin) and others. If passed in its original form, it would have a chilling effect on innovation in DeFi, and throw the whole industry into a state of confusion and uncertainty.
This is a pivotal moment in this trajectory of digital assets, DeFi and blockchain. At the time of recording, there is a compromise amendment that would clarify these rules and would exempt many of those non-broker entities, still no vote has been cast one way or the other and anything could happen.
Regardless of a positive outcome, this is no way to make policy and the whole event should serve as a cautionary tale in future debates on this issue. The fight itself reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how DeFi works. Governments are used to traditional custodial financial intermediaries, but DeFi is non-custodial. Regulators are used to overseeing companies and individuals whereas DeFi is built on clever code and math. By failing to understand how the technology works, governments could inadvertently de-rail one of the fastest growing and most promising sectors in the economy today.
On this episode of DeFi decoded, Andrew and Alex will dig into this topic, discussing how we got here, what's at stake and what the future holds. You won't want to miss it!
Derivatives are the single largest asset class in the world, with an estimated notional value estimated to be over a quadrillion dollars. However, decentralized derivative platforms haven't yet taken off in constrast to the other high flying sectors of DeFi - why is that? These decentralized derivative platforms enable users to create their own derivatives and transact them with others, in a completely permissionless and decentralized fashion. On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the decentralized derivatives space and discuss why derivative platforms have yet to experience the rapid growth that many are projecting. They compare the decentralized crypto derivative platforms like dYdX and Perpetual Protocol to their established centralized peers like BitMex and FTX.
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the lending boom and discuss how lending platforms have become the dominant hub of DeFi. They compare the decentralized crypto lending platforms like AAVE to their established centralized peers like BlockFi.
On this episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex dig into the stablecoin boom and discuss how stablecoins have helped fueled the rise of DeFi. They discuss the the two kinds of stablecoins, centralized and decentralized. Centralized stablecoins such as USDC are issued by companies and backed by reserves.
On this edition of DeFi Decoded, Alex and Andrew start with a simple question; "What's a Decentralized Exchange anyway?" and from there discuss Uniswap and its significant role in reimagining financial services.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they discuss the fundamentals of Decentralized Finance and how this bleeding edge technology enables individuals and institutions to transact, and create value, without the need for traditional financial intermediaries.