Raoul Pal: The Journey Man

It's finally here: Coinbase NFT Marketplace has been released in beta mode for users who signed onto the waitlist. With more than 85 million users, the talk is it will shake up the whole NFT ecosystem. The Defiant’s Camila Russo and Robin Schmidt join Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to offer some perspective. This episode also includes an update on recent market action, a conversation about the Moonbird project, and a review of the Beanstalk Farms drama – a decentralized credit based stablecoin protocol that was attacked, resulting in a theft of $76 million dollars. All the hot takes on headlines only with The Defiant x Real Vision. Recorded on April 20, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do you distinguish trading signals amid all the noise financial markets create? Technical analyst Dean Carr from C The Light Trading joins Real Vision's Ash Bennington to explain how he spots trends in crypto price action using a wide range of indicators over multiple time frames. "As a technical analyst, I'm trying to smooth out the trend," says Carr, noting that to do so "you need to move on to larger time frames." Carr focuses on Bitcoin, Ethereum, layer 1 protocols, and privacy coins, highlighting the critical resistance levels they must overcome before their technical profiles turn bullish. Carr adds that failure to clear these levels "opens the door for lower prices." Recorded on April 18, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ever wondered what it’s like to manage a crypto investment firm? Leigh Drogen, the CEO of Starkiller Capital, is walking that walk, and he joins Corey Hoffstein, the CIO of Newfound Research, to describe his journey so far. Leigh explains to Corey how, in his experience, TradFi investment trading strategies such as momentum- and/or trend-following can lead to above-average performance in the crypto space as well. Their conversation highlights the importance of a healthy balance between consistency and flexibility, a requirement of those who’d like to successfully navigate any trading environment. Leigh and Corey share key lessons they’ve learned, including coping with high volatility, the importance of open-mindedness, and dealing with uncertainty. And Leigh describes the limitations of traditional investment valuation methods applied to crypto. Recorded on April 4, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brett Harrison is helping one of the world’s richest crypto billionaires, Sam Bankman-Fried, build one of the “most sophisticated derivative products in the world.” Harrison is president of FTX, the crypto exchange Bankman-Fried co-founded in May 2019 with daily trading volume of approximately $14 billion. Harrison joins Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to talk about FTX’s growth strategy, particularly its ambitions in the U.S. He shares his thoughts on how regulation will influence growth, and, yes, that Larry David ad is discussed. Recorded on April 4, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Real Vision senior editor Ash Bennington hosts Silvio Micali, founder of Algorand, to discuss Micali’s journey into crypto, the founding of Algorand, the power of randomness, zero knowledge proofs, and future of evolvability of blockchain protocols. When Micali discovered Bitcoin and Buterin’s blockchain dilemma—that no blockchain can all at once be decentralized, secure, and scalable—he knew there had to be way to solve this problem. He explains that in cryptographic systems, it’s easy to spread communication and messaging, but verifying if a message has been received or achieving common knowledge is difficult, which can prevent the achievement of security and trust in the system. For Bitcoin, Micali states that the blockchain has an ad hoc mechanism to reach agreement on a common block; on the other hand, Algorand uses a Byzantine Agreement on the block, utilizing the strongest form of consensus and mitigating the risk of “bad actors”. It also prevents the block from ever forking and, thereby, ensures that a block appearing on the chain will remain there forever, and this provides users the confidence to transact without worry of loss. Filmed April 16th, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rob Frasca, co-founder and managing partner of COSIMO Ventures, joins Ash Bennington to discuss how his experience in the Navy influenced is career in the tech and finance space and how his company, COSIMO X, is innovating the blockchain community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just how bad is Meta’s plan to take a nearly 50% cut of digital asset sales in its virtual world? Is Coinbase’s partnership for a film trilogy with Bored Ape Yacht Club a sign of things to come? Is Web3 living up to its decentralized and distributed promise, or have corporate influences already corrupted it? The Defiant’s Camila Russo and Robin Schmidt join Real Vision’s Elaine Ly to talk about a wild week of NFT, Web3, and metaverse news, including the launch of Aku’s Akutars and the issue of refunds for digital art purchases. Recorded on April 13, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exponential Age Asset Management CIO Moritz Seibert welcomes co-founder and CIO Darius Sit for a deep dive into the investment management strategies employed at Singapore-based digital asset trading firm QCP Capital. Sit and Seibert cover a wide range of derivatives-related topics, including options market dynamics, volatility market depth, and cash-and-carry trades. Sit also assesses the crypto market in 2022 and shares his post-ETH 2.0 Ethereum forecast. Recorded on April 5, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's driving the crypto sell-off? Francis Hunt shifts from Market Sniper to Crypto Sniper to sort through the competing narratives on recent price action with Real Vision's Ash Bennington. Hunt emphasizes macroeconomic factors, noting the positive correlation between Bitcoin and tech stocks. "I can't give flagrant moon calls in this environment," says Hunt, adding "a caution to the downside" would be his stance. Hunt and Bennington also break down the DeFi market, highlighting Luna's outperformance versus other digital assets. Recorded on April 11, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What do the brightest minds in the space consider when they think about the design of a central bank digital currency (CBDC)? Anders Brownworth, Principal Software Architect at The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, joins Real Vision's Ash Bennington for a journey through Project Hamilton, a joint initiative between the Federal Reserve and MIT to investigate the technical feasibility of a general-purpose CBDC. One goal of this project is to make them faster than existing legacy systems and new blockchains, including Bitcoin. Visa averages around 1,700 transactions per second, Bitcoin five to 10. One of the transaction processors Project Hamilton tested processed 170,000 transactions per second. Project Hamilton found, however, that by eliminating a "chokepoint," it could reach up to and beyond 1.7 million transactions per second. Tune in to learn how these designs work, why transactions may change in the future, and what new findings are on the horizon. Click here to read Project Hamilton's executive summary and white paper: https://rvtv.io/3rjspV9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the digitization of “everything,” and, now, both consumers and investors are looking to gain more exposure to digital assets. Sunayna Tuteja, the Chief Innovation Officer of the Federal Reserve System, joins Colleen Sullivan of BH Digital to discuss her commitment to leading change at the nexus of finance, technology, and policy. Tuteja sheds some light on the Fed’s efforts to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC). And she offers an “insider’s insider” perspective on the growing importance of digital assets and technology within the broader financial system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Raoul Pal, CEO & co-founder of Real Vision, sits down with Dominic Williams, chief scientist & founder of DFINITY, to discuss DFINITY's progress towards constructing a scalable, secure, blockchain-based internet. DFINITY redefines what people think about blockchain. Williams describes novel concepts such as "Node Nervous System" and "Zero Knowledge Identity", which he believes to be pivotal stepping stones in constructing a new, decentralized internet. Filmed on June 16, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Steve Kurz, Global Head of Asset Management at Galaxy Digital, joins Ash Bennington on the first episode of Building Blocks to discuss when he first heard about Bitcoin, the composability of crypto, the current state of DeFi, and so much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exponential Age Asset Management CIO Moritz Seibert returns with a new episode in his asset management series where he explores techniques of top asset managers in the cryptoverse. Seibert welcomes Nickel Digital Portfolio Manager David Fauchier to explain the market-neutral approach behind the Diversified Alpha Fund he oversees. Investors in old-school financial markets have long cherished market-neutral strategies, which match leveraged long and short bets to protect returns against adverse moves. Fauchier notes that this product type is uncommon in crypto, where directional products dominate the market. He believes market-neutral strategies are a real value-add to investors in a volatile crypto market where it can take years for something to happen. Fauchier walks Seibert through the specifics of the firm's trading style, highlighting strategies based on the concept of market neutrality. Recorded on March 31, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The United Kingdom wants to become the next global hub for crypto, but is it too late for London to catch up to Miami, Beijing, and Singapore? What does Elon Musk’s stake in Twitter mean for Web2 and Web3? And does Ledger’s partnership with Sandbox mean a whole new slew of metaverse users is on the horizon? The Defiant’s Robin Schmidt and Camila Russo join Real Vision’s Elaine Ly to break down all that and more. Recorded on April 6, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Co-founder Valeria Benitez Florez is building the Pocket Network around the idea that "more people need to come into the space across all fields, as everyone brings more to the table.” Pocket Network is a system where the community can stake nodes on a decentralized network. Expanding on that in conversation with Wendy Diamond, founder and CEO of LDP Ventures and the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, she says "there is an infinite amount of knowledge to be explored" as her community expands. Recorded on March 14, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Haouk Lee started his investing career in real estate and emerging markets. A fiat currency bear with an eye for new trends, the digital asset value proposition came naturally to him when he first engaged with crypto in 2016. Lee, the founder and CIO of Trinity Digital Assets, an offshoot of his family office Trinity Investment Holdings, talks to Leslie Lamb, the founder and host of the Crypto Unstacked Podcast, about his experience and what it says about broader market trends. Lee notes that an increasing number of family offices are including crypto in their portfolios. Lee and Lamb explore a generational shift taking place in the investment community, including its implications for how asset prices may move in the future. One key to Lee’s strategy is to let the young lead the way, as they’re the most engaged with digital assets and metaverses in their day-to-day lives. Recorded on March 18, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Building a Bitcoin mining rig can be complex. Compass Mining is here to simplify it to the point that literally anyone can participate in the decentralized computational process and add new blocks of transactions to the world’s No. 1 blockchain, whether at home or through one of 23 collaborating data centers in five different countries. As co-founder and CEO Whit Gibbs explains to Real Vision’s Elaine Ly, Compass Mining’s service enables those who don’t want to host a machine in their house to connect to a collaborating data center and receive mined Bitcoin directly into their wallets. Gibbs notes that Intel’s new mining machines could break up ASICS’s quasi-monopoly. He’s also bullish about the impact of President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on the ecosystem. Recorded on March 22, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gabby Dizon, CEO and co-founder of Yield Guild Games, envisions a Metaverse where individuals have ownership over their digital identity and the associated data and revenue. Dizon joins Rolf Hoefer, co-founder of Cultur3 Capital, to talk about the digital revolution taking place within community tokens and people’s newfound sense of online identity. According to them, Web 3.0 presents a unique opportunity to empower users to gain a sense of virtual autonomy, and Dizon argues that this is what we should imagine when we discuss the "Metaverse". Tune in to see how Yield Guild Games is working to realize a more equitable online economy. Recorded on December 9, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike Green, chief strategist and portfolio manager at Logica Capital, and Anthony Pompliano, investor at Pomp Investments, join Ash Bennington, Real Vision senior editor, to discuss their opposing views on Bitcoin. They each explain their views on Bitcoin—Pompliano makes the case for Bitcoin being a store of value that should be widely adopted and encouraged by the United States in order to stay competitive globally while Green asserts that Bitcoin is used primarily for nefarious activity and is mainly controlled by entities that are oppositional to the United States. Green believes that Bitcoin is the perfect example of markets indicating that something is incredibly successful, even when in actuality it is failing (or will fail), and that its price appreciation does mean that it is a robust system. Filmed on February 1, 2021. Key Learnings: Pompliano believes that there are many non-trivial indicators that suggest Bitcoin is robust and becoming widely adopted including the number of wallets, transactions, and hash rate. He believes there is a significant chance that Bitcoin will be adopted by a significant amount of the S&P 500 companies and nation-states. On the other hand, Green thinks it is extremely unlikely to see major adoption from the largest companies and nation-states, explaining that this could even harm the U.S. He believes that Bitcoin can be trivially attacked and taken down by a nation-state and that the system is not as secure as many people claim it to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In its most basic terms, the digital dollar debate is about a public option versus a private option. According to Rohan Grey, assistant professor at Willamette University College of Law, there is a middle ground that happens to be the best option. Grey, who advised the authors of the bill, joins Real Vision’s Ash Bennington and Santiago Velez, co-founder and division lead of R&D at Block Digital, to talk about the ECASH Act recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The “Electronic Currency And Secure Hardware Act” would make the U.S. Treasury, rather than the Federal Reserve, the issuer of what would be “a true digital analogue to the U.S. dollar.” According to Grey, it would function similarly to physical cash in that it would be "public money with privacy characteristics" and use "no ledger at all." Grey walks Bennington and Velez through the bill’s particulars, noting its emphasis on preserving privacy. Recorded on March 29, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is the crypto bull market back on track? What should we make of the massive Ronin bridge hack? And how is Elaine’s field trip to NFT LA shaping up? The Defiant’s Camila Russo and Robin Schmidt join Real Vision’s Elaine Ly to dig into all that and more. The trio explains how Ethereum’s merge and Terra’s Do Kwon buying Bitcoin as a reserve are driving price action. That’s on top of everything Elaine’s learned from NFT LA, including Jiho’s response to the $600 million Ronin bridge hack. Recorded on March 30, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Randi Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, is particularly interested in female-led NFT projects. But the entrepreneur knows “that won’t be enough going forward.” Her latest venture, “The Hug,” offers mentorship to up-and-coming founders from a network of industry leaders in technology and the arts. Zuckerberg’s tenure at Meta (formerly known as Facebook) provides her unique insight on America’s big tech boom. Now, she’s at the forefront of a new tech shakeup, taking what she’s learned to lift up innovators and artists using blockchain technology and principles of decentralization to defy the power of big tech. Recorded on March 21, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greg Isenberg is co-founder and CEO of Late Checkout, a product studio and agency that designs, creates, and acquires community-first tech businesses. “Community first” means the community is the product or the community is built around the product. Isenberg advises on community design and community management as opportunities to reduce risk. He emphasizes the role tokenization plays in communities today, from NFTs to DAOs to social tokens. Isenberg joins Kevin Kelly of Delphi Digital to discuss the Web3 strategy that companies are focusing on as the importance of community becomes more significant in the retention and engagement of a brand. Recorded on March 16, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do the world's most successful crypto hedge funds think about trading? Exponential Age Asset Management CIO Moritz Seibert is hosting a series of interviews with top asset managers about their approach. In the first episode, Edward Chin and Thejas Nalval of Parataxis Capital join Seibert to share their views on the most investable assets in the space. Their focus is on liquidity. "When I say [we focus on the] top five, it's more of a play on liquidity,” notes Nalval. “The largest market-cap names may not necessarily mean they're the most liquid." Chin explains Parataxis' method of determining the fundamental value of each digital asset and how it helps the firm stay grounded despite immense price volatility for the broader market. Recorded on March 21, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most people agree Ethereum is too expensive. Many different tokens and companies have formed around the hype of being the next “Ethereum killer”. However, scaling solutions and the accompanied trade-offs differ from project to project. Solana utilizes the more traditional blockchain model while StarkWare exploits the process of “Zero-Knowledge Proofs” to boost efficiency. Kyle Davies, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital, and Real Vision’s Ash Bennington moderate a healthy discussion between Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO and co-founder of Solana, and his competitors, Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and president of StarkWare, and Avihu Levy, head of product at StarkWare, to discuss varying solutions to scalability issues fundamental to DeFi. Join them for a technical discussion into the world of DeFi from some of the top experts in the space. Recorded on November 29, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Fabian Schär, Professor for Distributed Ledger Technologies and Fintech and the Managing Director of the Center for Innovative Finance at the University of Basel, is a heavyweight when it comes to the academic study of cryptocurrency. His research has been published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, among other distinguished outlets. Dr. Schär shares with Mathias Imbach, co-founder and CEO of Sygnum Bank, his deep knowledge derived from exhaustive research into blockchain technology and DeFi protocols. Dr. Schär sees a major migration of DeFi protocols to Layer 2 blockchains on the horizon as well as an expansion of the current utilization of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure. Although NFTs and the metaverse are in a price bubble, Dr. Schär believes their potential is just beginning to be unlocked. A consultant for several financial regulatory bodies, Dr. Schär also offers compelling insight on potential hiccups with regard to coming legislation. Recorded on March 17, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the few women in crypto, Medha Parlikar, co-founder and CTO of CasperLabs, joins Wendy Diamond, founder and CEO of LDP Ventures and Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization, to talk about her exciting journey in a game-changing industry. Parlikar dissects the dynamics of being among the small number of female leaders in tech and shares advice with other women hoping to follow her path. Parlikar sees big things on the horizon for CasperLabs in its mission to help scale enterprise-level private blockchains solutions. As many of its clients are realizing, there are numerous potential use cases for immutable ledgers and information within a corporate structure. CasperLabs was able to mint an NFT in space as a proof-of-concept for transmitting and verifying vital data about container ships while they’re in the middle of the ocean. Diamond and Parlikar also discuss how blockchain can help disabled persons thrive in today’s world. Tune in for a wide-ranging conversation about blockchain. Recorded on March 14, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With confirmation that Raoul Pal finally bought himself a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, The Defiant’s Robin Schmidt sits down with Real Vision’s founder and CEO to talk about his decision. Raoul and Robin discuss both the good and the (possible) bad of Yuga Labs’ and Bored Ape Yacht Club’s expansion, the recent ApeCoin airdrop, and how NFTs (and social tokens) can democratize the space. Tune in for a fascinating debate on the future of the metaverse. Recorded on March 23, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All cryptocurrency trading and investing activity is available on a public ledger. And all that activity can be extracted and studied. This is what’s called “on-chain analysis.” Indeed, one of the remarkable things about trading and investing in crypto is the easy availability of rich data streams that allow traders and investors to see things traditional technical analysis does not make visible. Benjamin Cowen, CEO of Into The Cryptoverse, joins Real Vision's Ash Bennington to talk about new ways of understanding price action using on-chain data to analyze consumer behavior through indicators like "HODL Waves." Cowen also describes how social metrics complement on-chain data to complete the macro picture. These new methods, combined with traditional technical analysis, can help traders make sense of market cycles, prevailing risks, and future price direction. Recorded on March 18, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Clinical trials are a crucial part of the development of new medicines. But existing processes are antiquated, and it can take as many as 10 years before a new drug is approved. As demonstrated during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, efficient influx of vaccines and other innovative solutions is critical for society’s current and future medical needs. Triall is leading the deployment of blockchain-integrated software solutions to accelerate delivery of new drugs to patients. Triall co-founder and CEO Hadil Es-Sbai and co-founder and head of marketing Raymond van der Waal join Santiago Velez, co-founder and division lead of R&D at Block Digital, to talk about the world’s first digital ecosystem for clinical trials and how it will improve reliability and efficiency in the drug-development process. Recorded on March 7, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Persistent deflationary forces in Japan have puzzled economists for decades. Takaaki Kato, the Japan-based executive director and head of sales/trading for BitFlyer, doesn’know how long into the future present conditions will sustain. But he does see potential instability for the Japanese yen. Also a fiat currency bear, Kato perceives in Japan’s set of problems major tailwinds for crypto adoption. Kato tells Real Vision’s Ash Bennington that President Joe Biden’s executive order directing a “whole of government” approach to U.S. crypto policy will usher in a bifurcated era of the regulated and the unregulated. Those crypto platforms that navigate uncertainty and earn sanction by the U.S. government will have a head start on success in this new era. Recorded on March 9, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Interest rates on DeFi platforms are often as opaque as they are impressive, to the point where they seem too good to be true, especially in a world of near-zero TradFi yields. Sudhu Arumugam, co-founder of crypto derivatives exchange and yield platform CoinFLEX, offers a peek behind the curtain of his firm’s operations. Arumugam walks Real Vision’s Ash Bennington through the arbitrage strategies deployed by CoinFLEX, noting that his team’s edge comes from working with large pools of capital and enjoying privileged international access. Arumugam also discusses the evolving regulatory environment in light of the Biden administration’s new “whole of government” approach to crypto. Ultimately, as Arumugam sees it, regulation is bullish because it will catalyze institutional adoption like nothing else before it. Recorded on March 9, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back, just in time to talk about the biggest NFT news of 2022: Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, has acquired the brands, copyrights in the art, and other intellectual property of the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from Larva Labs. BAYC is the most valuable NFT collection; CryptoPunks is the second-most valuable. So, what’s next now that these crown jewels have become one? Real Vision’s Ash Bennington joins The Defiant’s Camila Russo to talk about the deal. Camila and Ash also discuss how the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening cycle will impact digital assets and what President Joe Biden’s executive order means for the crypto space. Recorded on March 16, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Marcello Mari is the CEO of SingularityDAO and an expert on the emerging business structure that’s opening new frontiers to individual investors. Mari joins Santiago Velez, co-founder and division lead of R&D at Block Digital, to explain what a decentralized autonomous organization is and to share what he learned when he created his DAO. The DAO governance structure has been criticized as too slow to operate effectively. Mari counters that DAOs afford individuals opportunities to pool capital at levels previously possible only for institutions. Combined with risk-hedging algorithms, this suggests that there’s vast unrealized potential for DAOs as viable structures for individual investors. Mari and Velez dig into the technical aspects of DAOs and their underlying anatomy. This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to learn more about DAOs. Recorded on February 25, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ray Dalio, founder, co-chairman, and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, famously noted that global reserve currencies typically last for 100 years or so. If that trend holds, the US dollar is nearing the end of the privileged status it inherited from the British pound. So, what comes next? Greg Foss and Seb Bunney believe it’s Bitcoin. Foss, a strategist at VPC, and Bunney, who advocates at The Looking Glass, argue that the world’s No. 1 cryptocurrency features characteristics necessary to the task. Foss stresses the importance to humanity of a hard asset immune to censorship and manipulation. Inflation, he says, is crippling poor families on fixed incomes, leading them down a dangerous path of debt accumulation. Bitcoin, as Foss sees it, is the way out of the fiat-driven leverage spiral the entire Western world has fallen into. Recorded on March 1, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What problem does DeFi solve? Jamis Johnson and Ali Hassan, founding partners of Perceptive Capital, attempt to answer that question. As two early Bitcoin adopters, Johnson, a computer scientist, and Hassan, a former TradFi fund manager, were convinced of the original cryptocurrency’s promise almost from its very beginning. But they each saw opportunities to expand on that promise. And they were particularly excited by decentralized finance. Johnson and Hassan have combined their expertise to create a cutting-edge investment fund focused on crypto and crypto-adjacent ventures. They talk to Real Vision’s Ash Bennington about the need for greater decentralization and a shift away from the “regulatory monopolistic banks,” as Hassan calls them. Tune in to share in the knowledge they’ve accumulated along their journey into the DeFi space. Recorded on February 24, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We promised Bill Tai would be back soon, and the day has come. In this special follow-up to their talk at Real Vision/MGM’s The Takeover, Bill shares with Raoul an update on the OnChain Monkey project, holding it up as an example of how NFTs and their communities can be incentivized to do good in the world. Bill also leads essentially a master class on Reed’s Law and how the concept is paramount for anyone who wants to understand today’s crypto ecosystem. Curious why everything is evolving even more rapidly than one can imagine? Your answers are here. It’s always magic when Bill and Raoul get together, and this episode is no exception. Recorded on February 28, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Almost overnight Ukraine’s largest crypto exchange has turned into a pool worth tens of millions of dollars that’s poured in from around the world to help the besieged country mitigate the everyday consequences of Russian aggression. Michael Chobanian, the founder of KUNA Exchange, speaks to Real Vision Managing Editor Samuel Burke about how he’s distributing the contributions and why he isn’t worried about Russia co-opting Ukraine’s crypto playbook. Recorded on March 8, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

André Allen Anjos is a musician and digital artist better known by his pseudonym, RAC. Years ago, he “went down the rabbit hole” of Napster. He emerged to found the Remix Artist Collective. In 2020, he was among the first artists to connect his work with blockchain technology. In the process, Anjos has shown artists how to overcome the many hurdles that confront them in the Web 2.0 world, including lack of artistic freedom, low royalties, and a broader denial of autonomy. Anjos, a longtime student of computer science, joins Sergio Silva, an NFT collector and a sales associate at FireBlocks, to break down how he’s capitalized on the advantages created by Web 3.0. Beyond launching his social token $RAC on Ethereum, Anjos has used the network to more directly engage with his audience and to give fans an incentive to “invest” in him rather than a large record label. Recorded on February 24, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“What is the future of money?” is a question more and more about the future of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. The rise of Web 3.0, as Chris Perkins and Chris Giancarlo describe it, will disrupt legacy financial business models and the regulatory infrastructure around it like nothing we’ve ever seen. Perkins, managing partner of CoinFund and a former U.S. Marine, and Giancarlo, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, strategic advisor at CoinFund, and author of “Crypto Dad: The Fight for the Future of Money,” join Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to talk about the benefits of decentralization for financial markets, including greater access, lower costs, and more inclusion, as well as the evolution of an activity-based regulatory structure. Recorded on March 3, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The first employee at Coinbase, Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder and CIO of Polychain Capital, went on to create one of the first crypto investment funds in 2016. While it may be a new buzzword to many, Carlson-Wee has been talking about Web 3.0 since early 2017. He describes the tensions that exist between content creators and social media platforms rooted in the Web 2.0 business model, which is largely driven by ad revenue. This arrangement is not always ideal for content creators, depriving many of brand ownership. Polychain, an investment fund that has been at the forefront of many trends, is betting on a revolution in the content creation and online community space. Tune in for Carlson-Wee’s perspectives on where crypto and Web 3.0 are headed in 2022. Interviewed by Ash Bennington on December 6, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yassine Elmandjra, analyst at Ark Investment, and Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal come at the digital asset space with different perspectives. To be honest, almost everyone in the digital asset space has a unique perspective that resonates for them. In this absolutely incredible discussion, Yassine and Raoul demonstrate how people with different perspectives can learn from each other, leveraging those different perspectives to create entirely new ideas and understandings that make the whole immensely more valuable than the sum of the parts. Watch as Yassine and Raoul brainstorm and build on one another’s perspectives to take us to an entirely new place of understanding. This is a Masterclass in bringing an open mind, thinking “big picture,” and creating fresh value for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1955, during the post-World War II global economic boom, John van Eck set out to create an international broker to give US citizens access to foreign markets and connect the world through investment. The company he founded, VanEck, established its reputation by providing investors exposure to emerging industries, asset classes, and markets. Now, John’s son Jan van Eck is taking similarly innovative steps with Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets. Last November, VanEck launched a Bitcoin futures ETF, establishing a reputable avenue into the space for institutions. Jan, now the CEO of VanEck, talks to Real Vision’s Ash Bennington about new ideas in the money-management industry and shares his thoughts on NFTs, stablecoins, and the future of digital assets. Recorded on February 24, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The recent $320 million Ethereum-Solana cross-chain hack – the second-biggest exploit ever, behind the $600 million Poly Network theft – is only the beginning, according to Corby Pryor, venture partner at HOF Capital. A former academic who studied quantum physics and designed neural networks, Pryor went all in after dabbling in crypto investing in 2017. A talented computer scientist, Pryor has identified a key vulnerability in the DeFi ecosystem, particularly in cross-chain interoperability. He discusses potential solutions, his unique perspective on venture capital based on his experience in physics, and a fascinating concept he calls “decentralized time” with Real Vision’s Ash Bennington. Recorded on February 14, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quantitative traders Moritz Heiden and Moritz Seibert, chief technology officer and chief investment officer, respectively, at the Exponential Age Digital Asset Management Fund, developed a bot to help Real Vision better understand market sentiment by studying topics covered and emotions expressed in video interviews on our platform. This research project has grown to include building an algorithm to create NFTs, among them “Affe mit Waffe” (ape with gun). Now, Heiden and Seibert – together known as “twoquants” – are co-heads of digital innovation strategy at Real Vision. Senior Crypto Editor Ash Bennington speaks with twoquants about the Real Vision bot, community building, and the present and future of digital assets. Recorded on February 23, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The virality of CryptoPunks has spawned a series of new projects, one of which is led by a former punk himself: @punk4156, co-founder of Nouns.wtf DAO. He joins Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Delphi Digital, who has been on a mission to explore the world of DAOs, social tokens, and Web 3.0. The anonymous @punk4156, originally an active member of the CryptoPunks community, saw an opportunity in the NFT space, given that many of the dominant trends had originated in 2017 with new projects simply copying the old model. Built upon the Ethereum chain, Nouns algorithmically mints one NFT every 24 hours, completely detached from founder control. Thus far, around 150 nouns have been minted and the DAO has accrued over $60 million in capital. Tune in to find out where Kelly and @punk4156 believe the NFT will be in a few years. Recorded on December 20, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Within a week of announcing it would accept cryptocurrency donations, Ukraine raised nearly $40 million. The Ukrainian government even announced an airdrop for donors. Does this prominent deployment as an instrument of geopolitics mark a new stage in crypto’s development? Robin Schmidt and Camila Russo of The Defiant join Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to assess what Kyiv’s current crypto-reliance means for widespread adoption. Robin, Camila, and Ash also dig into the Pixelmon drama and how it fits within the broader safety and traceability issues in the digital asset space. The NFT project raised more than $70 million, and buyers thought they were purchasing high-quality pieces to use in a metaverse game. But when Pixelmon revealed the artwork, users took to Twitter to express their frustration at the terrible quality. Recorded on March 2, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two major players in the crypto industry, BitGo and Galaxy Digital, have come together to advance a shared vision of what comes next for digital assets on the path to widespread deployment and use among the general public. Of key importance, according to BitGo CEO Mike Belshe, is crypto establishing a strong voice in the developing conversation about regulation. Belshe is concerned about the potential impact of multiple bureaucracies trying to assert some sort of control at the same time. Another pivotal piece of the mass adoption puzzle is building software tools that make decentralized financial transactions more seamless, like people are used to in the Web 2.0 world. Belshe talks to Real Vision’s Ash Bennington about BitGo’s and Galaxy Digital’s partnership and its impact on the future of crypto. Recorded on February 10, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ever wanted to know more about Raoul’s story? Interested in how he approaches not only his investments but life generally? Curious about what made it possible for him to retire for the first time at 36? In this special crossover episode, Raoul finds himself in the guest seat as My First Million host Shaan Puri probes Raoul’s background, his life philosophy, and the facts behind his first million. Shaan and Raoul also explore Raoul's Bitcoin-versus-ethereum "bet" as well how NFTs are commodifying culture for the first time in history. For more information on My First Million, please visit: https://www.mfmpod.com. Recorded on February 24, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices