Dave Balter on Leadership, Humility and the Startup Journey (EP.97)

Dave Balter, the cofounder and CEO of Flipside Crypto, a business intelligence company focused on public blockchains, joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

  • Dave’s new book, The Humility Imperative, and the lessons he has learned from seven startups
  • His POV on leadership in an emerging market like cryptoassets/blockchain
  • Reflections on fundraising, remote working, personal relationships and more.

To learn more about Flipside Crypto visit their website and follow Dave @DaveBalter

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Pat Larsen on making taxes easy for cryptoassets (Ep.94)

Pat Larsen, cofounder and CEO of ZenLedger joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

  • Pat’s entrepreneurial journey and the path that led him to start Zenledger
  • The current state of cryptoasset tax regulation
  • Perspectives on emerging consumer use cases and new applications for cryptoassets

To learn more about ZenLedger visit their website and to receive a 15% discount on your tax prep this year use the coupon code “Castle15”

 

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Weekly News Roundup 6/26/20 (Paypal rumors, Telegram settles with the SEC, the Compound situation demystified) (EP.95)

Matt and Nic cover the top stories of the week. In this episode: 

  • More Proof of Reserve chatter
  • OmiseGo’s parent company raises $80m
  • Bitmex backs a new options exchange
  • Paypal plans to roll out crypto products
  • KPMG announces Chain Fusion
  • USDC goes multi-chain
  • We explain the COMP situation
  • Telegram finally settles with the SEC
  • Jay Clayton eyes the SNDY job
  • An explanation of Bitcoin as a synthetic commodity money
  • Our favorite and least favorite regional Fed branches
  • Why a US CBDC has troubling privacy implications
  • Our breakdown of the Compound situation

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Noah Buxton and Jeremy Nau (Armanino LLP) on Proof of Reserves: the view from the auditors (EP.93)

Noah Buxton, director and co-lead of Armanino’s blockchain practice and Jeremy Nau, senior manager of the practice join the show. Armanino LLP is an accounting and audit firm that has developed proof of reserve tools for exchanges and custodians, as well as real time attestation tools for stablecoins. In this episode, we cover: 

  • How Armanino came to engage with crypto financial companies
  • Why Proof of Reserve matters to the industry
  • How a modern Proof of Reserve process is mechanically carried out
  • Why exchanges are looking to adopt PoR today
  • Why the first round of PoR didn’t stick
  • Why the Liability side is so tricky
  • Why involve an auditor in a PoR process
  • Whether PoR inherently requires an audit or accounting firm
  • Proof of Reserve as a way to avoid onerous regulation
  • Armanino’s real time assurance tool for Trust Token

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Weekly News Roundup 6/19/20 (River Financial, Microsoft ION launches, a new Bitcoin ETF approach) (EP.92)

Matt and Nic cover the top stories of the week. In this episode: 

  • An update on our office plant
  • River Financial raises a seed round, and our thesis on Bitcoin financial institutions
  • Microsoft ION launches on mainnet
  • Private keys as private property
  • Wisdomtree’s commodity ETF… feat. Bitcoin
  • Another ICO bites the dust
  • Former CFTC chairman Giancarlo says Ripple isn’t a security
  • XRP… was it created or discovered?
  • What cryptodollars mean for utility tokens

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David Nage (Arca) on how family offices are engaging with cryptoassets (EP.91)

David Nage, Principal and Head of Strategic Relations at Arca joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

  • David’s experience in the family office channel and his path to the crypto industry
  • His upcoming FO256 family office virtual conference on June 24th
  • Podcasting and content creation as a complement to investing in the blockchain industry

To learn more about David check out his Base Layer podcast and follow him @DavidJNage

 

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Weekly News Roundup 6/05/20 (Avanti Bank, Hester Peirce re-nominated, Section 230 and digital property rights) (EP.86)

Matt and Nic review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. In today’s episode:

  • Avanti Bank’s raise and Wyoming’s Special Purpose Depository Institution regulation
  • GBTC eating up the new supply
  • Bloomberg’s commentary on Bitcoin
  • Hester Pierce is re-nominated to the SEC
  • The prospects for blockchain games
  • The Section 230 debate, and how that intersects with Web3
  • Social media and digital property rights
  • The continued normalization of Bitcoin as a global macro asset

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Ryan Rabaglia (OSL) – Cryptodollars: the view from Hong Kong (EP.90)

Ryan Rabaglia has had a colorful career trading forex, equity, and oil before making his way into the cryptocurrency markets. He’s witnessed crypto develop from a niche, uninvestable curiosity to a liquid and financialized global asset. Now Managing Director and Global Head of Trading at OSL, one of the largest digital asset brokerages in the world, Ryan has a unique view of crypto markets. We invited Ryan on the show to talk his personal journey to crypto, how he established himself at a leading digital asset platform in Hong Kong, and of course his market color on the dollarization of crypto markets, and how Tether is understood and used in Asia. In this episode: 

  • Ryan’s journey from commodity trading to Bitcoin
  • Ryan’s explanation for Tether’s explosive growth since March
  • How funds play the Tether arbitrage game
  • The compression of margins in OTC desks
  • Where Tether’s accumulated credibility derives from
  • Whether there is a perception that Tether would resist regulators if it came to a fight
  • Whether cryptodollars are forcing out BTC as reserve collateral
  • How March 12 was a catalyst for the growth of Tether
  • The growth of alternative use cases for Tether outside of inter-exchange settlement
  • Why traders prefer dollars, regardless of jurisdiction

Follow Ryan on Twitter.

About OSL: OSL is an Asia-based digital asset brokerage that provides a global counterpart network with a suite of institutional products and services. OSL’s capabilities include industry-leading over-the-counter trading with access to large pools of liquidity, systematic RFQ, exchange and custody services for institutions and professional investors. OSL is part of BC Group, which is publicly traded in Hong Kong. Learn more about OSL at osl.com.

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Weekly News Roundup 6/12/20 feat. Christine Sandler (Fidelity’s institutional survey, the GBTC premium trade, Coinbase at a crossroads) (EP.89)

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week, featuring special guest Christine Sandler, head of Sales and Marketing at Fidelity Digital assets. Christine joins the show to discuss Fidelity’s newly-released survey of institutional investor attitudes on digital assets. We talk about what FDAS is up to, client enthusiasm for the asset class, and how institutions are thinking about it today. Also covered in the episode: 

  • The Web3 dream – does it require blockchains?
  • Bank Frick adds support for USDC
  • Rebranding stablecoins to cryptodollars
  • Bitcoin Billionaires is greenlit for a movie
  • Other events in Bitcoin history which are movie worthy
  • Three Arrows owns 6.26% of GBTC
  • The fate of the GBTC ‘premium trade’ and the in-kind contribution
  • Stephanie Kelton’s NYT op-ed and unspoken constraints on MMT
  • Coinbase is at a crossroads

 

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Mark Casady on Financial Advice, Fintech and Cryptoassets

Mark Casady, cofounder and General Partner at Vestigo Ventures, and former Chairman and CEO of LPL Financial joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

  • Mark’s career in financial services and the path that led him to becoming CEO of the world’s largest independent broker-dealer
  • The evolution of the financial advice industry
  • Mark’s thesis on Fintech and founding Vestigo Ventures
  • Blockchain and cryptoassets in the broader world of fintech

To learn more about Vestigo Ventures visit their website, and follow Mark on Twitter @MSCasady

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Paolo Ardoino (Bitfinex/Tether) – Managing the growth of Tether (EP.87)

So far on the crypto-dollarization miniseries, we’ve covered Tether’s stability mechanics, we’ve heard from traders and OTC desks using the asset, but we haven’t heard from the issuers of the stablecoin itself. To give us insight into how they run the system, Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether and Bitfinex, joins the show. In this episode: 

  • The factors behind the outflow of BTC and inflow of ETH to Bitfinex
  • Fork futures for ETH 2.0?
  • Bitfinex’ policy on staking on behalf of users
  • The principal-agent problem inherent in exchange staking
  • Whether the growth of crypto dollars threatens native collateral like BTC and ETH
  • Paolo’s explanation for the growth of tether after March 12th 2020
  • The advantages of cryptodollars over the current financial system
  • Why Tether opted to list on 7 different blockchains (note: this was recorded before Tether listed on OmiseGo)
  • Paolo’s view on the claims that Tether is clogging Ethereum
  • How Tether Gold works
  • Could Tether go from $9b to $100b – what the constraints to scaling are
  • Tether’s ability and willingness to surveil transations
  • Tether’s business model in a negative rate world
  • How Paolo deals with the pressure of being the public figurehead for Tether

Stay up to date on the growth of Tether’s capitalization here.

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Dan Matuszewski (CMS Holdings) – What explains the growth of Tether? (EP.83)

Dan Matuszewski, Principal and Co-Founder of CMS Holdings joins the show once again. Since he last appeared, the market has been through some gut-wrenching turmoil, and Tether (one of the subjects of the first episode) has tacked on a casual $5B in market cap. Dan, alongside his colleagues at CMS, has also joined the Crypto Twitter fray.

In this episode:

  • Why Dan relented and started a twitter account
  • Dan’s explanation for the massive growth of Tether since March
  • Whether there is non-crypto business occuring in Tether
  • What we can expect for the Tether-denominated futures markets if it trades below par
  • How Dan thinks about using Tether on Omni versus Ethereum versus Tron
  • What Dan makes of the rise in CME open interest

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Weekly News Roundup feat. Matt Hougan 5/29/20 (Goldman’s Bitcoin note, Coinbase acquires Tagomi, the end of the CSW saga) (EP.84)

Matt and Nic review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry, featuring special guest Matt Hougan, global head of research at Bitwise. In today’s episode:

  • Tagomi is acquired by Coinbase
  • Matt Hougan’s response to Goldman’s bearish note
  • What wealth managers are saying about Bitcoin today
  • Light at the end of the tunnel in the CSW saga?
  • BitClave’s punishing SEC settlement
  • Calibra rebrands
  • A new paper on Bitcoin Vaults

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Apolline Blandin (Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance) – Estimating Bitcoin’s energy footprint (EP.85)

Apolline Blandin, cryptocurrency research lead at the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, joins the show. In this episode: 

  • The Cambridge AltFin research agenda
  • The motivation behind the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
  • How they determine Bitcoin’s electricity consumption
  • How Bitcoin’s energy usage can be understood in context
  • The genesis of their new geographical mining estimates
  • Why high granularity estimates of mining location are so important to determine its energy mix
  • How and why Bitcoin hashpower migrates on a seasonal basis
  • Why there is so much spare hydro capacity in Sichuan and Yunnan
  • Surprising country-level findings
  • The most defensible academic approaches Apolline has seen so far
  • Why the per-transaction cost estimates of Bitcoin are misleading
  • The prospects for wind, solar, and natural gas for bitcoin mining

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Tim Kelly (BitOoda) on Bitcoin hashrate derivatives (EP.81)

Tim Kelly, founder and CEO of BitOoda joins the show. BitOoda is a financial services firm that is innovating in the field of structured products based on Bitcoin hashrate and difficulty. In this show we discuss:

  • Tim’s career background and the similarities he sees with cryptoassets vs. other asset classes he has traded
  • The mining ecosystem and how derivative contracts solve real business needs
  • The evolving market structure for cryptoasset derivatives and Tim’s view on the regulatory landscape

 

To learn more about BitOoda visit: http://bitooda.io/

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Weekly News Roundup 5/22/20 (Bitcoin Pizza Day, old coins reawaken, the Great Bitcoin Energy Debate) (EP.82)

Matt and Nic review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. In this week’s episode:

  • The story behind bitcoin pizza day
  • The impact of hashrate futures
  • Genesis Capital’s acquisition of Vo1t and what that means for their business
  • Why the DTCC should get into crypto
  • Brian Brooks becoming acting Comptroller of the currency
  • Our analysis of the coins from feb. 2009 reawakening
  • Our theory for why those ancient coins might be moving now
  • The great Bitcoin energy consumption debate
  • Nic gets unblocked by CZ

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Matt Ahlborg (UsefulTulips.org) – Bitcoin as a Bridge Currency (EP.79)

Peer to peer marketplaces are a wealth of data on genuine demand for Bitcoin – but not in the way you might think. As it turns out, a large fraction of the volume in these markets relates to complex, multi-step trades designed to use Bitcoin as a bridge currency to move fiat-denominated remittances, especially into countries like Venezuela.

Matt Ahlborg, data scientist and creator of UsefulTulips.org, has done great work compiling this data and engaging with these traders to determine what exactly is happening on these opaque marketplaces, and what Bitcoin is being used for. In this episode we cover:

  • How Matt went from working in the Navy to pursuing a career in Bitcoin data science
  • Why p2p exchange volume is more reliable
  • What a massive blackout in Venezuela tells us about foreign exchange flows in Latin America
  • How exactly Bitcoin works as a bridge currency on p2p exchanges
  • The under-reported role of Chinese exporters in Venezuela on LocalBitcoins
  • Matt’s investigation into how Argentine capital controls are driving p2p Bitcoin volumes
  • Why Bitcoin still dominates in p2p markets rather than stablecoins
  • Why p2p volumes are likely significantly larger than the reported numbers

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Patrick Dugan (Tradelayer) – HyperCryptoDollarization (EP.78)

In this episode, we talk to Patrick Dugan, coiner of the term ‘crypto-dollarization’. Patrick has a wealth of knowledge regarding stablecoins and the prospects for public blockchains to carry fiat-denominated value. Covered in this episode: 

  • His formative experiences living under capital controls in Argentina
  • How Patrick’s time in LatAm taught him about dollarization
  • Political drivers of the dollar’s predominance in LATAM
  • How Patrick realized that crypto-dollarization would be important
  • Patrick’s experiences working for the Omni Layer Foundation
  • Patrick’s analysis of the earliest stablecoins like BitUSD, Nubits, and Tether (Omni)
  • Patrick’s analysis of the stablecoin models which are most likely to succeed long-term
  • Likely geopolitical effects of crypto-dollarization

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Weekly News Roundup 5/8/20 (Paul Tudor Jones, the stablecoin invasion, Cash App’s Q1) (EP.77)

Matt and Nic review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week’s topics include:

  • Renowned commodities investor Paul Tudor Jones announces his intent to trade Bitcoin and releases a Bitcoin thesis
  • NEAR protocol gets funded
  • Are fair launches dead?
  • The under-appreciated merit of PoW issuance
  • Libra’s new CEO hire
  • Wyoming’s Special-Purpose Depository Institution legislation
  • The privacy-auditability tradeoff in blockchains
  • Whether the growth of stablecoins threatens the security model of public blockchains
  • Thoughts on the imminent halving
  • Our guess of who the next high profile hedge fund investor will be to flip bullish on Bitcoin

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Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj (Warwick) – What Keeps Stablecoins Stable? (EP.76)

The question of Tether’s influence on crypto markets has long vexed practitioners and academics. In a widely-publicized 2018 paper, academics Griffin and Shams allege that Tether was being issued collusively, effectively increasing the price of Bitcoin beyond its natural level. 

To learn how Tether behaves like a currency board, and to assess the veracity of the Griffin & Shams hypothesis in light of new data, we brought Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj on to the show. Ganesh is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Warwick Business School, covering international finance and macroeconomics, with a focus on foreign exchange derivatives, market microstructure and cryptocurrencies.

Find the full text of the paper here, and follow Ganesh’s work on his personal website.

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