Unchained
658 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsCrypto assets and blockchain technology are about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity to the Internet of Things. In this podcast, host Laura Shin, an independent journalist covering all things crypto, talks with industry pioneers about how crypto assets and blockchains will change the way we earn, spend and invest our money. Tune in to find out how Web 3.0, the decentralized web, will revolutionize our world. Disclosure: I'm a nocoiner.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
RERUN: Xapo's Wences Casares on How Bitcoin Makes a Fairer World - Ep.99
December 25, 2018 08:30 - 55 minutesGrowing up in Argentina, Wences Casares saw his family lose all their money three times due to actions by the government. The so-called "patient zero" of Bitcoin in Silicon Valley explains why he believes that experience predisposed him to seeing the potential in Bitcoin earlier than most people, why it's so hard to explain Bitcoin to Americans and why the company he founded, Xapo, isn't just a Bitcoin vault and wallet company but his best effort at helping to ensure that Bitcoin succeeds. He...
Mike Novogratz on Why Bitcoin, "a Big FU to the System," Needs Institutions - Ep.98
December 18, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourMike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings, describes the company's services and products, why it's launching a credit offering, and why he pivoted from his original intention to launch a crypto hedge fund and then pivoted again from working with ICOs to serving institutional players. He talks about why, if he had the chance to go public again, he wouldn't do it, why Galaxy's stock fell so precipitously one day that trading was halted, and why he thinks the SEC has made it cle...
How Crypto and Blockchain Technology Could Change Financial Services - Ep.97
December 16, 2018 08:30 - 48 minutesThis is a special episode of Unchained from the CME Global Leadership Conference in Naples, Florida. There, I spoke with Arthur Hayes, CoFounder and CEO of Bitmex, Dan O’Prey, chief marketing officer of Digital Asset, and Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Reddit and Co-Founder of Initialized Capital. We cover how public and permissioned chains will compete or complement each other, how blockchain technology will affect incumbent financial services, and how it has already proven...
Coinbase's Listing Process: Why It's Adding Many More Coins and How It Decides - Ep.96
December 11, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourCoinbase has departed from its conservative roots and begun adding many more coins. Dan Romero, vice president of Coinbase, explains how its listing process works, how it tries to prevent insider trading, and why it's listed coins that had ICOs, even though the SEC has indicated all coins that were offered in ICOs at least started off as securities. He also talks about Coinbase's international expansion, how regulations around crypto differ in Japan vs. the U.S., and the importance of banking...
Ari Paul on Why Bitcoin Is a Good Value Buy Today - Ep.95
December 04, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourAri Paul, CIO of BlockTower Capital, explains why he likes how short-term trades concentrate risk in investment, why, "no matter what," he thinks Bitcoin is a good-value buy today, and how big university endowments investing in crypto now could eventually lead institutions to go from having a fear-of-loss attitude about crypto to having FOMO. He also dives into why he's not as excited about generalized mining as some of BlockTower's crypto fund peers and who he thinks is really well-poised in...
How Donating Crypto Can Help You Save on Taxes - Ep.94
November 27, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourConnie Gallippi, the founder and executive director for BitGive, and Joe Waltman, the executive director of GiveCrypto.org, discuss charitable giving in crypto -- what problems in philanthropy it solves, what level of transparency they can achieve and how they measure impact. Connie explains why she has chosen to work with existing non-profits and Joe, why GiveCrypto is working on its own initiatives, and why its working thesis is that crypto will be especially helpful in places with broken m...
Monero's Riccardo Spagni, aka Fluffypony, on How He Feels About Monero Being Used for Crime - Ep.93
November 20, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourRiccardo Spagni, the lead maintainer for Monero, describes the four pillars of Monero's privacy, makes the case for why it would still be valuable even if BItcoin were to adopt privacy, and explains the ways in which its privacy is stronger and weaker than Zcash's. He also discusses his new project, Tari, and how it could enable a new world of natively digital assets such as tickets, loyalty points and in-game assets, and how it will relate to Monero. He also explains his view on the fact tha...
CoinFund's Jake Brukhman and Multicoin's Tushar Jain on Generalized Mining - Ep.92
November 13, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourJake Brukhman of CoinFund and Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital discuss a new trend among crypto funds: generalized mining, also called mining 2.0, in which investors participate in the networks in order to seed activity on them. For instance, an investor might offer disk space on a file storage network or provide capital on a decentralized lending network. They explain why it makes more sense to do this in the early days of a network than when it's matured, whether this will lead away from a ...
Down 94% Since Winter, What Has Happened to ICOs? - Ep.91
November 06, 2018 08:30 - 1 hourAfter the ICO craze of 2017, such offerings have raised extremely little so far this fall, with total sales in October down 94% since February, according to Token Data. Why? And where to next? Andy Bromberg, president of CoinList, and Marco Santori, president and chief legal officer of Blockchain, discuss the changing nature of token sales. Andy reveals how the projects approaching CoinList have changed over the last year, how investors are changing their approach to due diligence in the spac...
Reflections on the 10-Year Anniversary of the Bitcoin White Paper - Ep.90
October 30, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourFor this episode on the eve of the Bitcoin white paper's 10-year anniversary, Nathaniel Popper and Paul Vigna, reporters who cover Bitcoin and crypto for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, respectively, and who have written books about it, discuss wide-ranging questions regarding the first cryptocurrency. We explore why it succeeded where previous digital currencies failed, what role the financial crisis and Satoshi's disappearance played in its success and how it compares to the...
Numerai's Richard Craib on How to Crowdsource Good Predictions - Ep.89
October 23, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourWhile many companies like to use buzzwords like crypto, blockchain, AI and encryption, Numerai actually combines all these technologies in a novel way. Founder Richard Craib discusses how his hedge fund started off crowdsourcing good financial models from data scientists to optimize its trading strategies in global equities. He then explains how it airdropped a token, the Numeraire, to those data scientists, giving them the option to stake some Numeraire for models they were especially confid...
Listener Mail: Laura Answers Your Questions on the Markets, Velocity, Privacy and More! - Ep.88
October 16, 2018 02:30 - 1 hourThis week, because I was busy with my TEDx talk and my book, I decided to do an episode in which I answer your questions. Thank you to everyone who submitted one, and I'm so sorry I didn't get to all your questions. In this episode, I talk about what's necessary to gain wider adoption, how I think the next bull run will manifest and how Bitcoin would behave in a serious financial crisis. Plus, I reveal which areas of the industry I think will blossom, and which areas I'm less optimistic about...
Barry Silbert on What Wall Street Says Privately About Crypto Vs. What It Says Publicly - Ep.87
October 09, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourBarry Silbert, founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, which has invested in 130 crypto ventures worldwide, describes his company, its strategy for investing in the crypto space, and how his perspective on the development of the space has changed since he first launched in 2014. He also explains why he's not a big believer in decentralization, like many others in the space, why he's not bullish on ICOs, and why he also is a bigger proponent of Ethereum Classic than Ethereum. We also touch ...
How dYdX Allows You to Take a Short Position in One Token - Ep.86
October 02, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourAntonio Juliano, founder of dYdX, explains how this protocol for derivatives will enable you to take a short position in a single token, why they are starting with protocols shorting and margin lending and how these protocols work vs. how shorting and margin lending work today. The former employee of Coinbase also discusses how the protocol determines the prices of the assets involved, how low liquidity affects the trading of the derivatives and who dYdX's users will be. He also talks about h...
The Oslo Freedom Forum in New York: Why Decentralization Matters - Ep.85
September 28, 2018 07:30 - 58 minutesIn this fascinating and compelling panel on Why Decentralization Matters at the Oslo Freedom Forum in New York, I spoke with Alejandro Machado, a researcher at Zcash; Amber Baldet, founder and CEO of Clovyr, a decentralized software and developer tools company; Andy Bromberg, cofounder and president of CoinList, a compliant token offering platform; and Megha Rajagopalan, correspondent for Buzzfeed and former China bureau chief. In this discussion, we cover what is happening in authoritarian ...
How Binance Became the Most Popular Crypto Exchange in 5 Months - Ep.84
September 25, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourIn this fast-paced and exhilarating conversation, Changpeng Zhao, aka "CZ," tells the pivotal business decisions that led users to flock to the brand-new Binance in the summer and fall of 2017, catapulting it from obscurity to become the world's most popular crypto exchange within five months. He also describes his regulatory stance, why he focuses on small jurisdictions and why he lets token teams hire their own lawyers to determine whether their coins are securities or not. He explains the...
Singularity University Global Summit: How Do We Get Consumer Adoption? - Ep.83
September 21, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourThis is a recording of the full "blockchain block" of the Singularity University Global Summit in late August. It features a talk by me on the power of decentralization, Abra CEO Bill Barhydt on the evolution of Bitcoin, and Atlas Holdings Group CEO Mickey Costa on distributed autonomous organizations. Following are two panels. The first is on where we are in the development of crypto and how we get consumer adoption with Bill and Galia Benartzi of Bancor. The second is on blockchain for good...
How You'll Earn Interest on Your Crypto With Compound - Ep.82
September 18, 2018 07:30 - 59 minutesRobert Leshner, founder of Compound, describes how its protocol will enable people to earn interest on crypto assets, and why he thinks this will be crucial to crypto becoming mainstream. He also describes how the company is currently building an interest rate model -- a task so difficult that an early version "blew up" the Ethereum virtual machine -- and why using one of its smart contract-based money markets is both riskier and less risky than using an exchange. We talk about who will use C...
Tuur Demeester on Why He's a Bitcoin Maximalist and Bearish on Ethereum - Ep.81
September 11, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourFounder and CEO of Adamant Capital Tuur Demeester explains what factors he considers when valuing crypto assets, why this has led him to become a Bitcoin maximalist, and why he doesn't think Ethereum can scale. We also discuss why he doesn't have much faith in any of the smart contract platforms that are vying in this space. He also describes why he believes proof of work is superior to proof of stake, and why he's excited about the Lightning Network and the apps being built on top. Thank yo...
Nadav Hollander on How Dharma Could Create New Forms of Debt - Ep.80
September 04, 2018 07:30 - 59 minutesNadav, founder of Dharma protocol, explains how it enables the borrowing and lending of crypto assets, what would happen in the case of default, and why it would make sense to do it in a decentralized fashion rather than using one of the many fintech companies in the lending space. He talks about what effect he thinks decentralized credit markets could have on the market capitalization of all debt, why it will likely enable forms of debt currently unimaginable, and who could benefit most from...
Joey Krug on How Augur Is Like Any Other Tool - Ep.79
August 28, 2018 07:30 - 53 minutesJoey Krug, cofounder of Augur and co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, talks about what Augur is and is not, why it’s difficult to create new financial markets today and whether or not Augur markets could curb fake news. He explains why the teams burned its escape hatch key and whether he’s worried that Augur’s crowdsale would be considered an unregistered securities offering, plus answers whether he would benefit financially if assassination markets pop up on Augur. We also discus...
Dfinity's Dominic Williams on How Its Blockchain Nervous System Is Not an AI - Ep.78
August 21, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourDfinity's Dominic Williams talks about how Dfinity is an internet computer that can host our software and data, instead of it being held by centralized services. He describes the consensus algorithm, threshold relay, and why he believes Dfinity will be much more secure than Bitcoin. We also dive into Dfinity's governance mechanism, the "blockchain nervous system." Williams, who has written about the "AI-managed environment provided by the blockchain nervous system" and talked about how Dfinit...
Harbor and TrustToken on Why They Don't Mind Being Unsexy - Ep.77
August 14, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourJosh Stein, CEO of Harbor, and Danny An, cofounder and CEO of TrustToken, talk about security tokens and tokens backed by real-world assets, often called an unsexy area of crypto. They explain the strategies their teams are using to tackle the tokenization of what currently constitute $250 trillion in assets, what kinds of new behaviors and business opportunities "faster, cheaper, more liquid" assets could open up, and how they'll comply with regulations across all jurisdictions for markets t...
Live From Distributed: Amber Baldet, Matthew Roszak and Lily Liu on 'Innovate or Reinvent?' - Ep.76
August 08, 2018 07:30 - 30 minutesIn July in San Francisco, I moderated a panel at "Distributed 2018: Unlocking the Global Power of Decentralized Business." The title of our discussion was "Innovate or Reinvent?" and the panelists were Amber Baldet, cofounder and CEO of Clovyr, Matt Roszak, cofounder and chairman of Bloq, and Lily Liu, cofounder of Earn.com. We had a wide-ranging discussion, which included topics such as how the "Crypto 50" combined have more budget for blockchain development services than Fortune 50 companie...
What Makes a CryptoKitty Worth $140,000? - Ep.75
August 07, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourRoham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties, and Benny Giang, Dapper Labs’ head of Asia, describe how employees at venture studio AxiomZen came up with the idea for CryptoKitties, what problems it exposed in crypto (beyond scaling!), and how CryptoKitties can teach people the value of decentralization. They also defend the $140,000 price tag on one kitty, explain how they plan to grow from the current 300 users per day that the blockchain is logging, and surmise th...
Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson on the Sh*tcoin Waterfall - Ep.74
July 31, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourIn this hilarious skeptics' episode, Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of CoinShares, and Jill Carlson, an independent consultant, explain why they think crypto needs fewer moral arguments and more empirical evidence, and how there's too much focus on financial engineering, but not enough focus on winning hearts and minds. They also explain why people are not machines where "you put in a token and get out an action," what the "sh*tcoin waterfall" is, and why cryptoeconomics isn't anythi...
Kathleen Breitman and Ryan Jesperson of Tezos on Why They Wouldn't Do Its Token Sale Differently - Ep.73
July 24, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourKathleen Breitman, CEO of Dynamic Ledger Solutions, the company behind the Tezos protocol, and Ryan Jesperson, president of the foundation, discuss the Tezos initial coin offering, which was the largest ICO at the time of sale. Kathleen explains why she wouldn't do anything differently, except for the choice of foundation head, Johann Gevers, with whom Kathleen and her co-creator and husband, Arthur Breitman, ended up in multiple disputes. She muses as to why many people initially praised Gev...
How Widespread Is Money Laundering in Crypto? - Ep.72
July 17, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourYaya Fanusie, director of analysis at the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Tom Robinson, chief data officer and cofounder of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, discuss how common money laundering is in crypto, how jihadist groups are using it, and how privacy coins (really Monero) affect their work. (The reason why the dark markets haven't much used Zcash surprised me.) We also discuss bad state actors using cryptocurrency, such as Ven...
Circle's Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville on Why Crypto Will Be Bigger Than the Web - Ep.71
July 10, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourJeremy Allaire, cofounder and CEO of Circle, and Sean Neville, cofounder and president, discuss why they think the internet of value will be even bigger than the internet of information and how all assets will be tokenized. They also talk about why they're launching a stable coin, how their services in payments, exchange and investing will compete against decentralized versions of the same, and how they chose the assets for Circle Invest -- and why XRP didn't make the cut. They also address t...
Chris Dixon on How Trust Is the Best Lego Block - Ep.70
July 03, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourChris Dixon, partner at Andreessen Horowitz, talks about the new $300 million crypto fund he is leading with Kathryn Haun, the new general partner of Andreessen, and how a16z came to hire its first female GP. The long-time crypto entrepreneur also discusses his theory of how crypto will grow -- and why Cryptokitties was one example of how that might happen -- his nights-and-weekend theory of technological change, and his view that writing software and smart contracts is similar to writing a n...
Jimmy Song on Why Bitcoin Will Be the Winning Cryptocurrency - Ep.69
June 26, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourIn an episode of strong positions, Blockchain Capital partner and Bitcoin educator Jimmy Song explains why private blockchains will never work, why smart contracts will never work, and why Bitcoin will be the one and only valuable cryptocurrency. He also gives his definition sound money, describes why Bitcoin is sound money, and talks about how he finds new companies to invest in if he believes Bitcoin is already the winner. Plus, he recounts the story of his buzz-generating debate with Cons...
Live From the World Economic Forum Industry Strategy Meeting: Breaking the Blockchain Hype - Ep.68
June 20, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourThis is a live recording from a panel I moderated at the World Economic Forum Industry Strategy Meeting. The speakers included Shwetha Shetty Senior Director, Corporate Strategy Group, of SAP, Adam Ludwin, CEO of Chain, Brian Behlendorf, executive director of HyperLedger the Linux Foundation and Sheila Warren, project head of blockchain and distributed ledger technology at the World Economic Forum.We dive into the pros and cons of using blockchains for elections. which types of problems are b...
Why ASICs May Be Better Than GPUs Even if They Tend Toward Mining Centralization - Ep.67
June 19, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourDavid Vorick, CEO of Nebulous, which operates Siacoin and a new subsidiary, Obelisk, describes what he's discovered in his exploration of the mining industry, including why he's decided that specialized chips like ASICs are preferable to generalized chips like GPUs, even if they tend to bring out mining centralization. He also describes Obelisk's new service, Launchpad,which secures exclusive deals to create a custom proof-of-work algorithm for a coin and also the mining equipment for it, in ...
Live From Consensus: What the Media Really Thinks About Crypto - Ep.66
June 13, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourThis is a recording of a panel discussion I participated in with a couple other reporters and crypto PR people at Consensus. (It was at the same time as Jack's talk, so it's totally understandable if you missed it. Also, the room was freezing. I was shivering the entire time.) The other panelists were Leigh Cuen of CoinDesk, Avi Salzman of Barron's (and my old classmate from grad school!), Jill Richmond of Spark PR, Trey Ditto of Ditto PR, and the discussion was moderated by Frank Chaparro of...
Placeholder's Joel Monegro on the Fat Protocols Thesis Today - Ep.65
June 12, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourJoel Monegro, partner at crypto VC firm Placeholder Ventures, describes how well his seminal blog post, "Fat Protocols," is holding up, why he and his partner Chris Burniske opted to found a crypto VC firm as opposed to a hedge fund, and what main factors they think will determine the success of a blockchain. He also describes how crypto and blockchains fit into the evolution of technology, how the business models in the crypto space will be built, and why their first publicly known investmen...
From the Oslo Freedom Forum: Blockchain vs. the Surveillance State - Ep.64
June 06, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourThis recording is of Blockchain vs. the Surveillance State, a series of talks and a panel from the Oslo Freedom Forum put on by the Human Rights Foundation. In this session, hear presentations from Ryan Shea of decentralized technology platform Blockstack; Galia Benartzi of smart token platform Bancor; Steve Waterhouse of surveillance-free internet project Orchid; and Arthur Breitman from smart contract platform Tezos. Afterward, I moderate a panel among the four speakers that touches on the ...
Arthur Hayes of Bitmex on Why Countries Will Turn to Digital Cash - Ep.63
June 05, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourArthur Hayes, CEO of Bitmex, describes how traders on his platform can make great gains but experience limited losses, how Asia's crypto markets differ from those in the U.S., and why he makes money whether or not crypto prices go up or down. He also describes why ICOs are crap now but why he fully supports the idea in theory and how they should get back to their roots. He also explains why he believes governments will issue digital cash, and why he believes everyday people will be surveilled...
How Chainalysis Helps Solve Crimes: Jonathan Levin Tells All - Ep.62
May 29, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourJonathan Levin, cofounder and chief operating officer for blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, describes how the company was born out of questions he had while a grad student, how they began mapping the Bitcoin blockchain to certain entities, and how their customers, which include government agencies such as the FBI, DEA, IRS, Europol and others, use Chainalysis to help solve Bitcoin crimes. He also reveals what level of detail the software tracks, how privacy coins could affect their wo...
Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken, on Drawing a Line With Regulators - Ep.61
May 22, 2018 07:30 - 58 minutesJesse Powell, CEO of crypto asset exchange Kraken, explains why he publicly rejected then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's request for information from crypto exchanges, why he felt it was a publicity stunt and why Kraken, which stopped serving New York customers after New York's Bitlicense was introduced, doesn't see the market as a top priority. He also talks about why Kraken decided to stop operations in Japan after further regulations were imposed and discusses Kraken's $1 million don...
Live From Ethereal: Eep! How Should Ethereum Be Governed? - Ep.60
May 20, 2018 20:14 - 1 hourThis recording of a panel I moderated at Ethereal with Ethereum researcher Vlad Zamfir and GovernX founder Nick Dodson covered the topic that it seems everyone in crypto is discussing these days: governance. We talk about how the community should decide whether or not to unlock the funds frozen by bugs, on-chain governance, what role the Ethereum Foundation plays and what it means that nearly all the people who write Ethereum's code are men. Nick Dodson: https://twitter.com/iamnickdodson Vl...
Aya Miyaguchi, of the Ethereum Foundation, on Who Makes the Final Call - Ep.59
May 15, 2018 07:30 - 59 minutesThe newly appointed head of the Ethereum Foundation, Aya Miyaguchi, talks about her background as a teacher, at Kraken, helping the Mt. Gox trustee unwind that mess, and the closed process by which she was plucked for her current role. She also describes her goals with the Ethereum Foundation, how the EF believes the Ethereum community should make decisions, how it defines community and more. She also talks about how she hopes to push more financial inclusion with Ethereum, and what she think...
Ripple's XRP: Why Its Chances of Success Are Low - Ep.58
May 08, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourIn this show, recorded without the participation of Ripple (explanation included in the show), Ryan Selkis, CEO and founder of Messari and Matt Leising, Bloomberg reporter, discuss Ripple's XRP, the third-largest coin by market cap. We go over whether or not it plays an essential role in Ripple's products, why banks are unlikely to adopt it, and why it's centralized. We also discuss whether or not it's an unregistered security (although the class-action lawsuit alleging XRP is an unregistered...
How Institutional Investors Can Do Due Diligence in the Crypto Space - Ep.57
May 06, 2018 21:00 - 35 minutesHere is the second special episode from the Time Summit, a Bridge Alternatives event, on how institutional investors can do operational due diligence. Suna Said, founder and CEO of family office Nima Capital, Eddie Duszlak of Texas Children's Hospital, and Joel Gantcher of Gantcher Family Partners discuss how they invest in the nascent Web 3.0. They discuss why a year of experience in crypto is so valuable, how they determine who the serious players are in the space and why the speed of disru...
What Will Make Institutional Players Comfortable Entering Crypto? - Ep.56
May 05, 2018 22:42 - 58 minutesThis talk is from a panel I led on infrastructure in the crypto space at the Time Summit, by Bridge Alternatives, featuring Kayvon Pirestani of director of institutional sales at GDAX, Tim McCourt, CME Group’s managing director and global head of equity products and alternative investments, Michael Moro, CEO of Genesis Trading and Genesis Capital, and Hu Liang, founder and CEO of Omniex. We discussed what infrastructure tools need to be built to get institutional players comfortable with the ...
Multicoin on the 1 Thing Crypto Teams Miss in Their Quests for Success
May 01, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourKyle Samani and Tushar Jain, cofounders of Multicoin Capital, dive deeply into their sometimes controversial and unpopular opinions on how the crypto revolution will play out. They describe why they don't think the technology that a team develops early on will play nearly as big a role as some think, why there will be a spectrum of blockchains offering different features with different tradeoffs, and why they're bearish on stablecoins. They discuss why they disagree on whether or not the Ligh...
Paul Walsh of MetaCert on How Not to Get Scammed Out of Your Crypto
April 24, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourPaul Walsh had long ago predicted that internet scams would migrate from email to private messaging platforms, but it wasn't until crypto mania took off that his thesis was proved right -- in a big way. In the summer of 2017, the founder and CEO of MetaCert discovered many crypto Slack channels were being overrun by scammers capitalizing on FOMO to get people to inadvertently give them their ether and other tokens. Now, the company has several products to help prevent crypto enthusiasts from ...
Trends in Crypto: Marco Santori, Michael Sonnenshein and Barbara Minuzzi on 2017 and What's Next
April 22, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourIn this live recording of a panel discussion at the CoinAlts Fund Symposium, Marco Santori, president and chief legal officer of Blockchain, managing director at Grayscale Investments, and Barbara Minuzzi, cofounder and managing partner of Ausum Ventures take stock of the 2017 year and discuss a range of trends they're seeing in the industry. Santori describes what the ICO wave was like from his seat as one of the most in-demand lawyers for ICOs, and why he doesn't actually think that securit...
The Chamber of Digital Commerce's Perianne Boring and Amy Kim on Why U.S. Crypto Regulation Is Complicated and Confusing
April 17, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourIf U.S. crypto regulation seems incredibly convoluted, this is the episode for you. Perianne Boring, the founder and president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, and its global policy director and general counsel Amy Kim, discuss why U.S. regulation calls crypto assets currency, property, commodities and securities, and how that results in agencies enforcing their own laws without a higher level understanding of the technology. They also discuss what they call the "failure" of the regulatory...
Live From Inforum at the Commonwealth Club: Blockchain and Cryptocurrency: The Basics, With Kathryn Haun
April 15, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourThrough Inforum at the Commonwealth Club, I recently moderated a sold-out discussion on the basics of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. My guest was Kathryn Haun, a former federal prosecutor who is now teaching a class on cryptocurrency at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and serves on the boards of Coinbase and Hacker One. We go through all the elementary questions most newbies have: what is bitcoin, what is a blockchain, what is Ethereum, what is mining, etc., and give real ...
Bitfury on the Ways It Collaborates With Governments and Why It's Partnered With a Public Company
April 10, 2018 07:30 - 1 hourValery Vavilov and George Kikvadze of Bitcoin mining and blockchain software company Bitfury discuss why the firm has partnered with the publicly traded Hut 8, how it plans to branch out into mining other crypto assets, and how it chooses where to open mining operations. They also explain how low the bitcoin price can go before mining will be unprofitable for them, what their new blockchain analytics tools Crystal can do, and why they often choose people outside the blockchain/crypto industry...