Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Blockchain And Cryptocurrency

Marguerite deCourcelle is co-founder and CEO of Blockade Games, which is releasing the role-playing game game Neon District the day this episode comes out. She discusses her background in art, how her love of video games led her to discover Bitcoin in the early days of the cryptocurrency, and how she helps create the next phase of web 3.0 content creation and distribution. Topics include: how Marguerite became involved in crypto and what led her to co-found Blockade Games her work on Pineapple Arcade and Plasma Bears the problems she sees with gaming and how blockchain technology can solve them how Blockade Games is utilizing blockchain tech Neon District, a blockchain-based RPG game with active gameplay and animation that uses NFTs and farming the difference between ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens and how each is utilized in Neon District how they have been marrying NFTs with DeFi through the NIFTEX exchange how an open economy challenges the dynamics of gameplay and how they account for this in their g

Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot, Kusama, and Parity, discusses what he calls the "meta-protocol," Polkadot. In this episode, he talks about: his vision for Polkadot and the problems he set out to solve when conceiving it why he considers Polkadot a meta-protocol the implementation of parachains and parathreads, how they are defined and how they differ parachain auctions and candle auctions how DDoS attacks can be prevented on parachains initial parachain offerings and how they differ from initial coin offerings and avoid the regulatory problems that were so common with ICOs on-chain governance on Polkadot and how it works how immediate implementation of proposals that pass consensus will prevent forks his answer to those who point to Parity's history with security lapses as cause for concern about Polkadot's security how he sees Polkadot co-existing with Ethereum whether Polkadot is working toward composability how the Web3 Foundation and Parity plan to use their collective stake of DOTs within t

Ryan Watkins and Wilson Withiam, senior research analysts at Messari, explain the nuts and bolts of Ethereum 2.0, including how it will transform ETH as an asset and why they believe it will be Ethereum’s most ambitious upgrade yet. Topics include: the different phases of Ethereum 2.0 and the functions they serve the problems Ethereum hopes to solve with this upgrade the technical requirements needed to ensure the launch can happen the new proof of stake consensus and why Ethereum is leaving proof of work behind the requirements necessary to maintain a validator node on the Ethereum 2.0 network why users won’t be able to use their ETH once it is staked on Ethereum 2.0 the incentives and services that will allow users staking on Ethereum 2.0 to continue using their ETH on Ethereum 1.0 whether the appeal of DeFi is a threat to Ethereum 2.0 staking how Ethereum 2.0 incentivizes client diversity the monetary policy of “minimum necessary issuance” that supports Ethereum 2.0 how Ethereum 2.0 will allow

Christine Sandler, head of sales and marketing at Fidelity Digital Assets, talks about how 30 years in traditional finance and an early retirement led her to Coinbase, and, eventually, Fidelity Digital Assets. She discusses the history of Fidelity's involvement in crypto, how they became one of the first to enter the space, and what the future holds. Topics include: what Fidelity Digital Assets is and Christine's role there Christine's background in traditional finance, how she was drawn into the world of cryptocurrencies, eventually working at Coinbase, and how she found her way to Fidelity Digital Assets the role Fidelity sees itself playing in the digital asset space how the client base for digital assets has changed over time how Fidelity approaches the difficulties around explaining what bitcoin and crypto is, and the most common questions they receive how the pandemic has changed the conversation around digital currencies the types of services and products Fidelity is considering for the future

Jake Chervinsky, general counsel at Compound Labs, and Kristin Smith, executive director of The Blockchain Association, talk about the storm brewing in the cryptosphere involving self-custody and privacy. In this episode, they cover: the differences between hosted and self-hosted wallets and how transactions between them differ why the ability to transact from self-hosted wallets is so important compliance and regulation in the traditional financial world and how it could affect self-custody the “Swiss rule” and what it could mean for the rest of the world the proposal by FinCEN to lower the threshold for collecting data on transactions from $3,000 to $250 how regulators might achieve their goals without “dragnet” surveillance how the amount of crime and money laundering in the traditional financial system compares to that in the crypto world why OTC brokers are considered the most significant money laundering risk in crypto, and how that risk might be mitigated how different political environments

In this episode, Dan Tapiero, founder of 10T Holdings and Gold Bullion International, and Cathie Wood, CEO and CIO at ARK Invest, discuss the long election week in the U.S. and how they believe Bitcoin will behave in a post-election world. They also talk about: how a changeover from a Trump to a Biden administration could affect Bitcoin how the prospect of legal challenges from the Trump administration might affect Bitcoin whether they think the presidential election influenced Bitcoin’s precipitous price jump in the first week of November what it takes to change the mind of a Bitcoin skeptic in the investment world whether gold investors are becoming more resistant or more embracing of Bitcoin whether Democratic control of the Senate would affect Bitcoin how they expect the new wave of rising coronavirus cases and lockdowns to affect economies and Bitcoin the new inflation policy introduced by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell and how it will affect Bitcoin the recent Bitcoin halving and how t

In this seventh installment of the Why Bitcoin Now series, Meltem Demirors, the chief strategy officer at Coinshares, and Lyn Alden, the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, discuss the state of Bitcoin since June, amidst the presidential election – which takes place on the date of publication of the show -- and a global pandemic. Topics discussed include: the significance of bitcoin staying above $10k for over three months why the pandemic has created the conditions for which Bitcoin was designed how the markets may react to a Trump or Biden win why they believe, no matter which party wins, there will be massive deficits and a money-printing debt spiral why other countries see opportunities to erode the supremacy of the US dollar why Bitcoin has shown that it’s possible to have money without state how the current record unemployment and massive stimulus efforts during the pandemic have impacted Bitcoin the increasing interest in Bitcoin from traditional investors the IMF’s recent call for a “N

Brian Brooks got his start in traditional finance before joining Coinbase in 2018 and is currently the acting comptroller of the currency. In this episode, he discusses: how his background in traditional financial services led him to take a position at Coinbase whether the role blockchain and crypto will likely play in the financial future is being recognized at the federal level whether or not banks have always had the authority to custody crypto for their customers how he expects things to unfold in the coming years as banks begin to become more involved in crypto custody his thoughts on Kraken and others launching crypto banks and whether it will lead to the founding of other crypto banks how his office is pushing for a national fintech charter, and how it could affect less crypto-friendly states whether banks that work with crypto companies supporting unhosted wallets are prohibited from holding stablecoin reserves whether or not OCC regulations cover DeFi, and the regulatory challenges that open

Magistrate judge Zia Faruqui, and Jessi Brooks, assistant U.S. attorney in the national security section at the United States Attorney’s Office, have prosecuted several cryptocurrency-related cases, many of them amongst the most well-known. In this episode, they talk about: how they came to be involved in the prosecution of so many cases involving cryptocurrency the nature of civil forfeiture cases the Al-Qassam Brigades case, which led to the largest ever seizure of a terrorist organization’s cryptocurrency accounts, and the terrorist organization’s use of dynamic addresses in an attempt to elude detection by authorities. how Al Qaeda used Telegram to pursue cryptocurrency donations the case involving ISIS and counterfeit PPE for COVID the process of seizing funds from unhosted wallets the North Korean affiliated Lazarus Group, and how they were able to amass $2580 million worth of cryptocurrency the methods hackers will use to cash out stolen crypto funds to fiat how different government agencies

Hester Peirce, AKA “Crypto Mom,” was just confirmed to a second term as SEC Commissioner of the Securities Exchange Commission in August. In this episode, she talks about: the reasons for her dissent in the Unikrn Settlement and what she believes would have been a proper penalty the current status of her token safe harbor proposal her thoughts on fair launch projects as opposed to traditional VC-backed tokens her view on how the SEC should view airdrops her thoughts on whether existing securities laws could be tweaked as opposed to implementing a safe harbor whether she thinks DeFi governance tokens should be considered securities her thoughts on DeFi playing its own regulatory role her thoughts on the Securities Clarity Act introduced in Congress the chances of a Bitcoin ETF being approved by the SEC in the future the charges against BitMEX and the effect it may have on the industry in general stablecoins, and how they might raise securities issues and whether she thinks that all securities coul

Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX and Alameda Research,  and Anatoly Yakovenko,  the co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, discuss the Project Serum ecosystem that they are building on the Solana blockchain, and the unique approach to scaling the Solana blockchain is taking. In this episode, they talk about: their backgrounds, and how they became involved in crypto why Solana takes a different approach to scaling and how it is implemented why they think a relatively lower number of nodes is sufficient to protect from attacks or collusion what the vision for Solana is, who they see using it, and how Serum fits into that vision why they think there haven’t been more crypto projects migrating to Solana yet Solana’s proof-of-history algorithm and how it works how Solana plans to attract DeFi developers why Serum was made interoperable with Ethereum the types of traders they are hoping to attract with Serum, and what their experience will be like on the platform why Project Serum is an ecosystem and not j

Andreas M. Antonopoulos, speaker, educator, and the author of Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum, and The Internet of Money, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and Dan Held,  growth lead at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, discuss the core features of Bitcoin's monetary policy, including how it differs from traditional central bank monetary policy, what gives it value and yet how it seems to have derived value from thin air. Plus, we talk about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect Bitcoin. In this episode, we cover: how monetary policy in general is defined the core feature of Bitcoin’s monetary policy, and how it differs from previous forms of money the similarities and differences between Bitcoin and gold why the hard cap on Bitcoin is unique and so important the difficulties in analyzing and classifying Bitcoin whether or not transaction fees alone can sustain the network once all 21 million Bitcoin have been minted if Bitcoin will be able to fulfill its original vision of democratizing finance and serving

Matthew Leising, a reporter at Bloomberg who began covering crypto in 2015, is out with a new book Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All. In this episode, he discusses: the catalyst that led to him writing his new book, which covers the early history of Ethereum and the DAO attack of 2016 why he thought the story of the DAO hack was compelling enough to make a book, and how he went about reporting it the surprising things he learned about Ethereum’s early days and Vitalik the twists and turns during his quest to discover the identity of the DAO attacker why he thinks separate people were responsible for the two biggest DAO attacks his meeting in Tokyo with one of the prime suspects of a copycat DAO attack why he decided to end his story at the Ethereum hard fork and chose not to write about Ethereum Classic  what he feels the long-term significance of the DAO and the hard fork has been for Ethereum why he thinks the lessons of the DAO

Andre Cronje, the developer of yearn.finance, talks about all things DeFi and the past, present, and future of yEarn. In this episode, he discusses:   what Yearn Finance is, and what led him to develop it and eventually open it to the public his history and background, leading up to the development of Yearn the processes and mechanisms involved in yEarn v1 and yEarn v2 why he decided to do a "fair launch" of the YFI token, despite being in debt as a result of building Yearn why he felt that a Decrypt article about him in August was a "horrible hatchet job" why he disagrees with what he sees as the current anti-VC narrative his thoughts on the phenomenal rise in YFI's price and why the price of a YFI token still doesn't matter how and why he decided governance participation would be a requirement for earning tokens in the Balancer/yCurve/YFI pool the governance processes in Yearn and his thoughts on whether or not a Compound-style form of governance would be better how he might mitigate whales domin

Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, goes deep into yield farming, fair launches and how decentralization will upend the traditional notion of the corporation. In this episode, he talks about: when it makes sense for a team to introduce a liquidity mining scheme, and when it doesn't the difference between yield farming and ICOs when it comes to investing his thoughts on YFI, as well as YAM, and the pace at which unaudited DeFi projects are moving forward the three advantages he sees in automated market makers as opposed to centralizedexchanges his thoughts on Uniswap and SushiSwap and why he's not sure Uniswap will make a token his thoughts on fair launches and whether he thinks they will threaten traditional crypto VCs whether the CRV token launch really was instigated by someone unrelated to the team his thoughts on the yEarn yETH vault and what it says about where the DeFi space is going what he sees as the pros and cons of rebasing why he sees projects like YFI as a new

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, and Dan Robinson, research partner at Paradigm, discuss the explosion in decentralized exchange activity on automated market makers from $1 billion earlier this year to more than $10 billion in August.  Why trading in automated market makers has 8xed in a few months how automated market makers work, and how specific dexes can specialize for the assets being traded on them why traders would prefer to trade on a dex vs. a centralized exchange how incentivized pools have drawn traders and liquidity  why trading on a dex seems can be more appealing than on a centralized exchange why trading on dexes now mirrors trading on Binance in 2017 how "DeFi is the hottest coolest place where people are making a lot of money" the difference between the metrics of liquidity, trading volume and total value locked for a dex why AMMs are capital inefficient what it means that fees paid on Uniswap are about half of those paid on Bitcoin  what the purpose of liquid

Saifedean Ammous is an economist and the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, which has been translated into 20 languages. In this episode, he discusses: the basic tenets of Austrian economics and why it is the only school where Bitcoin is possible historical examples of currencies and how they lost their monetary value the stock-to-flow model and how Bitcoin fits into that model the three functions, or descriptive properties, of money and why Bitcoin fulfills these functions the concept of sound money the idea of time preference in economics and why he believes it is so important the distinction between debt and money, and why they are not the same the significance of difficulty adjustment and why he believes it is the crowning achievement of Bitcoin why he views Bitcoin as the best store of value humanity has ever invented the metrics he watches when assessing Bitcoin what he thinks is in store for Bitcoin in the future, and whether he still thinks ce

David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and CEO of xx network, and Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash and the cofounder and CEO of Blockstream, discuss their involvement in digital currency well before Bitcoin existed. In this episode, they discuss: how they each became enamored with the idea of digital currency years before such an idea was widely discussed the crypto wars of the 1990s and the U.S. government’s attempts to control access to advanced cryptography Digicash, the creation of eCash, and the difficulties of implementing the system with the technology available at the time the innovation of blind signatures used in eCash what caused the demise of Digicash, and David's role in that the development of Hashcash and the problems Adam was trying to solve by creating it their initial reactions to learning about Bitcoin for the first time how they think Bitcoin might improve in the future the stock-to-flow Model, and where they believe the Bitcoin price might go next why the Hashcash proof-of-work

Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine. Finn Brunton is the author of “Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.” In this episode, they tackle the history of digital currency. Topics include: the motivations behind the earliest attempts to create digital currencies, and who was behind those attempts the Extropian philosophy and how digital currency was born out of it how the cypherpunks came together and eventually began implementing tools that would lead to the creation of digital currencies the problems faced during the development of digital money, from double-spending to privacy, centralization, and spam the development of a public key protocol and why it was so significant the characteristics of earlier forms of digital currency like e-cash, hashcash, b-money, and bit gold, as well as their differences the original purpose of proof-of-work and how it was developed Hal Finney’s essential contributions to the

Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace, and Siân Jones, Senior Partner at XReg Consulting, give the lowdown on the Financial Action Task Force’s travel rule and how it applies to businesses in the crypto space. They discuss: their background and journey into crypto what the travel rule is the consequences for countries that are not compliant whether the regulation will apply to staking providers in the future the type of companies and transactions that will be covered under the travel rule the type of information that has to be provided  how banks comply with the travel rule and whether crypto companies can use the same system the different open standards available for sharing information how the information will get shared between entities who use different travel rule solution providers the “sunrise problem” in which different companies implement their compliance systems at different times the security of user data being shared between different entities how it applies to central bank digital currencie