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Girl Gone Crypto: How These Wildly Entertaining Crypto Videos Get Made - Ep.165

Lea Thompson, aka Girl Gone Crypto, talks about what goes into producing her popular “The Crypto Minute” vlog, what initially got her into crypto, and her recent decision to quit her day job and go full time crypto. In this episode we discuss: what “The Crypto Minute” is all about, and all the crypto video content she produces (2:37) how Lea comes up with creative content such as wearing a whale costume to portray Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor (5:04) how long it actually takes to creat...

Michael Moro on Tesla's BTC Buy and the New Genesis Treasury - Ep.164

Michael Moro, CEO of Genesis Global, discusses Tesla’s purchase of $1.5 billion in bitcoin and Genesis’s new unit: Genesis Treasury. He also talks about how demand has shaped Genesis’ bitcoin and crypto offerings over the years, which events have acted as catalysts for institutional demand, and what Genesis is expecting in 2021. In this episode Michael covers: The significance of Tesla allocating $1.5 billion to BTC (1:08) How Tesla’s purchase is a result of the evolution of the asset cl...

Why Asia Is So Important to Crypto - Ep.163

Mira Christanto, research analyst at Messari, recently wrote a comprehensive report on the crypto scene in Asia. In this episode, she covers cultural differences in crypto trading between East and West, plus gives us the latest on the diverse regulatory landscape within this large region. Some topics covered in this show include: why Asia is an important geography in crypto why Asia dominates the crypto futures trading markets why DeFi fits better with Western culture, and centralized ser...

Why the GameStop Insanity Is So Similar to Crypto - Ep.162

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO and founder of FTX, describes what happened between the Subreddit Wall Street Bets and hedge funds around the stock of GameStop this week. In this episode, he covers: what happened with the stock of video game retailer GameStop this week what that says about how to value a stock how the traditional financial establishment reacted how the events in GameStop this week are similar to the way crypto markets operate how a crypto financial system could affect the abilit...

Is Tether a Fraud? Its Bank Says It's Not - Ep.161

Gregory Pepin, deputy CEO of Deltec Bank and Trust, responds to allegations in a blog post by the pseudonymous Crypto Anonymous, that Tether is a "highly probably fraud." In this episode, he covers: how Deltec accounts for its reserves, and why they didn't show up on Crypto Anonymous's blog post where the dollars backing Tethers are held how Tethers get created where Tether Ltd. keeps its cash equivalents why there's more demand for trading with USDT than with USD partially because of t...

What You Need to Know About Bitcoin Layer 2s - Ep.160

Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at Coinshares, and Nic Carter, general partner at Castle Island Ventures, join me at the Stacks conference to discuss Bitcoin layer 2s. In this episode, they cover:  why layers 2s exist how layer 2s, such as payment channels like Lightning, work what kind of throughput layer 2s have  how moving Bitcoin to layer 2 affects the price why people having moved $5 billion worth of Bitcoin to Ethereum how Bitcoin moving to Ethereum affects the price the...

2021 in Crypto: What to Expect in the Year Ahead - Ep.159

Frank Chaparro, director of news at The Block, gives his predictions for what will happen in crypto in 2021. In this episode, we discuss: the big stories in crypto in 2020 how the market has changed in 2020 how the market differs from the 2017-2018 bubble what big traditional financial services firms and investment banks will do in crypto in 2021 how crypto exchanges will experiment with their fee structures how regulatory actions, such as the lawsuit against Ripple, will affect exchan...

Laura's New Year's 2021 AMA: Your Questions About Privacy, the STABLE Act, Diem and More - Ep.158

For the holidays, I'm doing two AMAs. In the second of two, I cover: privacy blockchains my thoughts on the STABLE Act whether or not Facebook's Diem will have a positive or negative impact on crypto what I miss from pre-COVID about the crypto community how we can use blockchain and crypto to weed our propaganda and fake news the best pick and shovel plays in crypto what distinguishes a journalist from an entertainer my thoughts on the state of media and journalism in the US   Tha...

Laura's Christmas 2020 AMA: Your Questions About Crypto Media and More - Ep.157

For the holidays, I'm doing two AMAs. In this first of two, I cover: how my book is going tips for aspiring podcasters what it's like being an independent journalist how I spent my time outside crypto if I send bitcoin to North Korea whether I own any crypto if I expect bitcoin will lose its weirdness as it becomes more widely adopted how much blockchain technology can disintermediate banks what black swans I see on the horizon for 2021 what trends I see for 2021   Thank you to ...

Beeple on How and Why He Raked In $3.5 Million - Ep.156

Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist also known as Beeple who has made an artwork every day for over 13 years, talks about the NFT auctions he held last weekend, after learning about crypto two months ago. In the show, he discusses: how he got into crypto two months ago, and made $3.5 million in NFT auctions last weekend how the objects on sale were more than just jpegs and what physical objects came with the NFTs what types of auctions he had, and why some pieces were available for $1 api...

Why Rohan Grey Believes Stablecoin Issuers Need to Be Banks - Ep.155

Rohan Grey, assistant professor at Willamette Law, talks about the STABLE Act, which would require stable coin issuers to obtain a banking charter, require approval from the Federal Reserve and require issuers to have FDIC insurance. In this episode, Grey, an advisor to the bill, discusses: how the past history of financial innovation and events that have posed systemic risks necessitates the STABLE Act how he, not being a staff member of Congress, became involved in the bill  how the bil...

How to Get Your ETH2 Yield and Take Out a Loan on It - Ep.154

James Slazas, founder and CEO of LiquidStake and DARMA Capital, describes their retail and institutional offerings for customers who want to stake on Ethereum 2.0 but still access the locked-up capital. In this episode, we discuss:  what problem LiquidStake solves and how  what happens if the dollar value of someone’s stake drops below the amount that they’ve borrowed who keeps the ETH in a liquidation  how LiquidStake makes money  how they determine the price of ETH to make the loan an...

Crypto on Every Corner: Driving Adoption With Jeremy Allaire and Meltem Demirors - Ep.153

This episode is a discussion from Stellar's Meridian conference, in which I moderated the panel, Crypto on Every Corner: Driving Adoption, featuring Jeremy Allaire, cofounder, chairman and CEO of Circle, and Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares. In this discussion, we cover: what adoption means and looks like  why cryptocurrency is at a particularly interesting inflection point how central bank digital currencies could affect that how blockchains will recede into the bac...

9 Ways Bitcoin Is at an All-Time High - Ep.152

Nic Carter, general partner at Castle Island Ventures, and cofounder and chairman of Coin Metrics, explains  why the Bitcoin price has been rising without the retail bubble seen in 2017-2018. In this episode he covers: how this Bitcoin rally differs from the ones in 2017-2018 and why the market is much more mature how much the pandemic and other macro forces this year have helped propel Bitcoin what it says that the number of Bitcoin addresses with $10 or more worth of bitcoin are is at 1...

Chad Cascarilla on Paxos's Partnership With PayPal - Ep.151

Paxos CEO and cofounder Chad Cascarilla discusses his company's partnership with PayPal, which just opened up its crypto purchase and selling product to all its US customers. In this episode, he covers: how Paxos enables PayPal's crypto product the regulatory steps Paxos took to make this happen why $200 billion company like PayPal would partner with a small company like Paxos how Paxos Crypto Brokerage works  how Paxos provides the regulatory cover that PayPal needs for this offering, ...

What the Crypto Industry Could See Under a Biden Administration - Ep.150

Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association and a board member of HODLpac, discusses how advocating for crypto will change under what is likely to be a new presidential administration. In this episode she talks about: what crypto advocacy typically entails how the approach will change under a Biden administration compared to what it was under Trump what appointments by Biden could most affect the crypto industry which issues are at the top of the agendas for both the ...

The 2 Types of Investors Driving Interest in Crypto - Ep.149

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management, discusses a milestone Bitwise reached this week -- hitting $100 million in assets under management. He also covered what has been driving interest in Bitwise products the two types of customers who have been especially interested in purchasing crypto assets this year and why what this says about the maturation of the industry compared to during the 2017 bubble how conversations with Bitwise customers have changed since the...

Willy Woo on Why It's 'an Extremely Great Time to Buy Bitcoin' - Ep.148

Willy Woo, on-chain Bitcoin analyst and writer of “The Bitcoin Forecast,” a market intelligence newsletter, discusses how the Bitcoin markets have been changing amidst what may be a forthcoming ebbing of derivatives exchanges and a revival of the importance of spot exchanges. In this episode, he covers: what the PayPal news means when there are currently only 23.4 million holders on chain, and only 101 million active unique accounts at centralized exchanges why "old hands" in Bitcoin have ...

What You Need to Know About the DOJ's Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework - Ep.147

Jessie Liu, partner at Skadden and the former US attorney for the District of Columbia, headed up the team that has prosecuted what some believe is the greatest number of cryptocurrency crimes worldwide — Welcome to Video, Dark Scandals, Helix, North Korea, Hamas/Al Qaeda and ISIS. In this episode, she discusses: how she came to create a Threat Finance Unit that focuses on the intersection of cybercrime that threatened national security what the DOJ's new cryptocurrency enforcement framewo...

Abuse and Ethical Lapses: What Happened When Justin Sun Acquired BitTorrent - Ep.146

Freelance reporter and audio producer Chris Harland-Dunaway speaks about his long investigative story on Tron founder Justin Sun after his acquisition of BitTorrent. In this episode, Harland-Dunaway describes: how after his acquisition of peer-to-peer file sharing protocol BitTorrent Justin Sun straddled the China-West divide  Sun's background, his early success and how he got into cryptocurrency how he treated the US-based employees differently from those based in China how Sun made a t...

Coinbase in Turmoil: Why Employees Walked Out - Ep.145

Frank Chaparro, director of news at The Block, discusses a controversial blog post by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong about how the company intends to take an apolitical stance, the pushback it received afterward, and the company's offer of generous exit packages for employees who disagree: why CEO Brian Armstrong wrote the blog post stating it would be taking an apolitical stance during these socially and politically tumultuous times why the company then offered a generous exit package to em...

Why NFTs Are Attracting Everyday People to Crypto - Ep.144

Jake Brukhman, cofounder and CEO of CoinFund, explains why people are excited about non-fungible tokens, how they can be used, and what new behaviors and businesses they might enable. He discusses: what a NFT or non-fungible token is how they can be "liquid intellectual property" what kinds of digital assets can be turned into NFTs what new types of behaviors and new products and services can be created based off NFTs why consumers would prefer to use an NFT photo or song vs. one from S...

The First Crypto Bank: What Kraken Financial Will Do and How - Ep.143

David Kinitsky, CEO of Kraken Financial, talks about Kraken's news that it is launching a bank, after receiving approval to form a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) from the state of Wyoming. He discusses: why Kraken decided to become a crypto bank, and what it will be able to do with this status how this status will affect the consumer experience for crypto users  what kinds of crypto assets it will be able to deal with  how quickly it will list coins, such as those DeFi coi...

How SushiSwap Proved That Liquidity Is Not a Moat - Ep.142

0xMaki, a cofounder of SushiSwap explains how and why he got involved in this project forked from SushiSwap, why he thinks his view of decentralization differs from that of many centralized teams that being such projects, and what the benefits of the SushiSwap vampire mining scheme have been. He discusses:  how and why he got involved in SushiSwap why he feels his view of decentralization differs from that of teams such as Uniswap who he believes the other cofounders are, demographically ...

SushiSwap Takes On Uniswap: Which Should Win and Why? - Ep.141

Nadav Hollander, cofounder and CEO of Dharma, discusses the war currently being waged between Uniswap and SushiSwap, how this is driving up fees on Ethereum, and how Dharma's product can get around them. In this episode we discuss: why he conceptually supports SushiSwap and fair launch coins whether or not fair launch coins really are fair why SushiSwap makes him nervous why the battle between SushiSwap and Uniswap is a so-called "vampire attack," which is actually driving up the total v...

Joseph Lubin on How JPMorgan's Quorum Will Fit In at ConsenSys - Ep.140

Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and cofounder of Ethereum, discusses ConsenSys's acquisition this week of JPMorgan's blockchain solution, Quorum. In this episode, he talks about: why JPMorgan sold Quorum to ConsenSys, and how that fits into ConsenSys's larger enterprise offerings who Quorum's clients are and what it is used for whether or not ConsenSys is also acquiring the Quorum team  how the acquisition fits in with the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and its standards-based approach ...

AMA With Laura: The Greatest Innovation in the Industry Right Now - Ep.139

In this episode, I answer some questions submitted to me via Twitter. I take the audience behind the scenes at Unconfirmed and Unchained to discuss: how I started learning about crypto my pre-interview ritual and how I prepare for interviews the toughest interview I have done so far what I dislike about being a crypto journalist my interests outside of crypto what my recording setup and environment are like the storyline to my upcoming book who I consider to be the top five leaders i...

Andreas Antonopoulos on Why the ETH Supply Debate Is 'Silly' - Ep.138

Andreas Antonopoulos, speaker, educator and author of "Mastering Bitcoin" and "Mastering Ethereum," dives into the ETH supply debate that raged over the last week. In this episode, he talks about: why the question about the ETH supply is a "silly gotcha" what technical features of the Ethereum blockchain make it less straightforward to calculate the supply of ether how the shift to Ethereum 2.0 and a proof of stake system will affect the value of ETH as money why Bitcoin and Ethereum are...

$5 Billion in AUM: Why Growth at Grayscale Exploded in the Last Quarter - Ep.137

Michael Sonnenshein, managing director of Grayscale Investments, talks about the strong growth in investment in its products, with inflows in Q2 totaling more than $900 million, bringing assets under management to over $5 billion. He discusses how Grayscale: saw more than $900 million in investment in Q2, up from $500 million in Q1 why the macro environment is causing investors to focus on crypto why investors are expressing growing interest in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust how 80% of Gra...

Dmitry Buterin, Vitalik's Father, on Ethereum at 5 Years Old - Ep.136

Dmitry Buterin, father of Vitalik Buterin and cofounder of BlockGeeks, discusses Ethereum at 5 years old. In this episode, he talks about: how he feels upon Ethereum's 5th birthday how he introduced Vitalik to Bitcoin what he thought when Vitalik dropped out of college to explore Bitcoin more his thoughts on Vitalik's initial idea and white paper for Ethereum what he thought of the ICO craze whether or not he worried about the SEC charging Ethereum or Vitalik with securities violations...

'Twitter Will Be Fun Today': The College-Age Kids Who Hacked Into Twitter - Ep.135

Haseeb Awan, CEO of Efani, a secure and private cell phone service, talks about how he became acquainted with hackers who took over prominent accounts on Twitter last week. He describes: the underground industry that steals cell phone numbers and why who the main players, Kirk, lol and "ever so anxious" are what the hackers did when they took hold of prominent accounts, such as those of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and those of crypto companies such as Binance and Coinb...

'Twitter Will Be Fun Today': The College Kids Who Hacked Into Twitter - Ep.135

Haseeb Awan, CEO of Efani, a secure and private cell phone service, talks about how he became acquainted with hackers who took over prominent accounts on Twitter last week. He describes: the underground industry that steals cell phone numbers and why who the main players, Kirk, lol and "ever so anxious" are what the hackers did when they took hold of prominent accounts, such as those of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and those of crypto companies such as Binance and Coi...

Why Stablecoin Growth Over 5 Years Doubled in 4 Months - Ep.134

Nate Maddrey, senior research analyst at Coin Metrics, discusses a report on the rise of stablecoins over the last few months that Coin Metrics published in conjunction with Bitstamp. He covers:  why a stablecoin supply that grew over five years has doubled in the last four months  why demand has grown, specifically for Tether, especially after Black Thursday why that demand caused Tether's price to rise above $1 post-Black Thursday why Tether is the most dominant stablecoin how traders...

Will Coinbase Do a Token Offering When It Goes Public? - Ep.133

Jeff Roberts, senior reporter at Fortune and author of "King of Crypto: One Startup’s Quest to take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street" talks about the news this week that Coinbase may go public later this year. We talk about: how Coinbase may offer an additional token offering in addition to a traditional listing how the firm has been laying the legal groundwork for an innovative offering Coinbase's new chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, who is a former federal judg...

How This New Supply Metric Makes Buy Signals Clearer - Ep.132

Ben Celermajer, index manager at Coin Metrics, talks about a new metric Coin Metrics introduced this week, called free float supply. In this episode, he explains:   what problems in general Coin Metrics is trying to resolve with its various new metrics when it comes to blockchain-based tokens what other new metrics it has introduced what free float supply is what types of tokens and token holders it excludes from the free float how market caps change for some of the biggest coins when ...

How You Can Double Your Money -- Or Lose Everything - Ep.131

Angel investor and writer Tony Sheng explains what yield farming is, why it's been such a craze, and whether or not the trend is sustainable. We discuss: how yield farming works how people could potentially earn 100% in annual percentage yields from it why people can earn more from lending or borrowing certain tokens vs. others how people can earn from borrowing at all how much leverage people are playing with the three ways people can lose their money while trying to yield farm and w...

Why COMP 5xed on Day 1 and What This Means for a DeFi Bull Market - Ep.130

Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, discusses the launch of the COMP token this week, including: why the price of COMP tokens popped how this now meant that the governance of the Compound protocol was now in the hands of the community whether liquidity mining in DeFi is similar to or different from transaction mining on centralized exchanges what the price jump in COMP on day 1 means for a future DeFi bull market why Kain believes he is already seeing Bitcoin flowing into alts and DeFi ...

Why 'Cryptocurrency Would Not Exist Without Black People' - Ep.129

Robby Greenfield, the CEO of Emerging Impact and the former head of social impact and diversity programming at ConsenSys, talks about how the crypto community handles issues of diversity and inclusion. We discuss: why he thinks many in the community want to change everything but systemic racism why many in the community turned a blind eye to racist posts retweeted by cryptographer Nick Szabo how people in the crypto community responded to his recent essay on racism why cryptocurrency wou...

'Look for Opportunities' to Increase Diversity in Crypto - Ep.128

Steven McKie, CEO and founding partner at Amentum Capital, discusses the incidents involving Amy Cooper and George Floyd and the resulting protests, and how systemic racism affects black entrepreneurs in crypto. In this episode we discuss: His personal story from a childhood in poverty to running a crypto hedge fund How companies that want to hire from underrepresented groups have to change their habits to reach out to those communities Why underrepresented communities can be easily left ...

What Patoshi Is and How It Affects Craig Wright - Ep.127

Sergio Lerner, the head of innovation of IOV Labs and the creator of the Rootstock side chain, describes a pattern he discovered in early Bitcoin mining that he called Patoshi and why people are talking about it now. In this episode he explains: what the Patoshi pattern is what connection it has to Satoshi why the pattern exists how the pattern is being used now in a current court case in which Craig Wright is claiming he is Satoshi Nakamoto how the Patoshi pattern was used this week to...

The 'Brilliant Asshole' Who Almost Blew Up Coinbase - Ep.126

Jeff Roberts, staff writer at Fortune and author of the recent Audible book, “Kings of Crypto: Coinbase and the Coming Disruption of Finance,” discusses Coinbase's past, present and future. In this episode, we cover:  when Coinbase duped Apple with its app and eventually got kicked out of the App Store when Coinbase's hot wallet got hacked how CEO Brian Armstrong handled challenges like the Bitcoin block size debate and an IRS summons on all its customers' activities for years how it han...

Bitcoin at the 3rd Halving: What We See From On-Chain Data - Ep.125

Yan Liberman, cofounder at Delphi Digital, breaks down all kinds of data from the Bitcoin blockchain to give a snapshot of where Bitcoin is at this point in its development and glean where it might go in its future. We discuss:  Bitcoin's wealth distribution and how that has changed over time what whales have been up to recently and how that compares with their behavior in previous bull and bear markets what data on multi-sig transactions tells us what companies serving the institutional...

A Bitcoin Price of $115,000 Next Year? - Ep.124

Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, talks about the coronavirus and its impact on the economy and on Bitcoin. We discuss:  why he thinks the US won't have a V-shaped recession how the government's monetary and fiscal policy will affect the recovery how this looks similar to what he saw when he traded in Japan in the early 1990s why tokens are outperforming venture whether or not Bitcoin is uncorrelated or if that narrative is changing where he thinks Bitcoin will go — and whether the...

Why 2020 Will Be the Year Bitcoin Becomes a Mature Asset - Ep.123

Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, explains why he believes Bitcoin is revolutionary, has begun to cement its status as a digital version of gold and is becoming less of a risky investment and more of a way to lower one's risk in a portfolio — but why he doesn't view it as a payment system. He describes how he expects the halving to affect the price of Bitcoin, why the on-chain metrics vs. price seem to him strong signs of adoption and why he views Ethereum ...

Haseeb Qureshi on the Unbelievable Story of the $25 Million Lendf.me Hack - Ep.122

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner of Dragonfly Capital, describes how the Lendf.me attack happened, why imBTC was involved in that hack and a $300,000 hack involving Uniswap the day before, and how the ERC-777 token standard was involved. He also recounts what happened after the attack, including messages sent to and from the hacker, how the Chinese and Western DeFi communities had different responses, and how the hacker ended up returning the funds. Plus, he goes into the details of what he k...

12 Big Class-Action Lawsuits in Crypto: What, Who, How and Why - Ep.121

Stephen Palley, partner at Anderson Kill and chair of the firm’s technology, media and distributed systems practice group, explains what the 11 recent class-action lawsuits against ICO issuers from 2017 and exchanges were about, who brought them, who the defendants are, and what hurdles they face, especially regarding jurisdiction. He also discusses why some prominent individuals in crypto, such as Changepeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, Brendan Blumer, CEO of Block.One, Arthur Hayes, CEO and co...

China's Crypto Industry and DCEP in the Time of Coronavirus - Ep.120

Matthew Graham, the CEO of Sino Global Capital, describes how the economy has changed in China due to the coronavirus, how it is affected as business opens back up and how the government is managing it. He explains why the DCEP project is continuing apace and described how he thinks the coronavirus will impact the crypto industry, how it will affect entrepreneurship, and how he thinks startups should approach this time. We also cover the Bitcoin halving and why he thinks that miners in China ...

Coronavirus Relief and Its Impact on the Crypto Markets - Ep.119

Kevin Kelly, macro strategist at Delphi Digital, discusses how the coronavirus's impact on the economy will affect Bitcoin and the crypto markets, including the ripple effects of the US fiscal stimulus package and historically high jobless claims. He explains how Bitcoin compares to traditional financial assets, what the recent Bitcoin price action says about the theory that Bitcoin serves as a macro hedge, and why it looks like newer buyers, rather than long-term holders, have been selling B...

What Happened on BitMEX During Black Thursday - Ep.118

Antoine Le Calvez, blockchain data engineer at Coin Metrics, explains what happened during the Bitcoin liquidation spiral on March 12, why it was so significant for the Bitcoin markets, and how a DDOS attack affected trading on BitMEX and the Bitcoin price during a period of high liquidations. We also discuss how Bitcoin liquidity has changed since Black Thursday, why that might be, and also what the coronavirus is showing us about Bitcoin's correlation to traditional financial assets.  Than...