The Charlie Shrem Show

My guest today is my friend, Scott Melker, the Wolf of All Streets. Scott is a trader, investor, and the host of the popular “The Wolf of All Streets Podcast,” the author of “The Wolf Den” Newsletter, and prolific writer and thought leader in the crypto space. He has been featured on Fox Business, in the New York Times, Forbes, Businessweek, The Wall St. Journal, Coindesk, CoinTelegraph, CNN, and much more. Prior to jumping down the Crypto rabbit hole, Scott Melker, also known as The Melker Project, had a 20-year music career and was a world-renowned producer and DJ. He has played alongside legends from nearly every musical genre, including Enrique Iglesias, Future, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Crosby Stills & Nash, Neyo, Sheryl Crow, T.I., Jason Derulo, Public Enemy, Kanye West, DJ AM, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Steve Aoki, A-Trak, Lupe Fiasco, Prince Royce, J Balvin, Joey Montana and more. We discuss a variety of topics including Bitcoin, Crypto Markets, the Macro Environment, Recapping 2022, and look forward to 2023. We begin our conversation by discussing the increased institutional adoption that happened throughout 2022 and the fallout from the increased institutional adoption. We discuss how the immense amount of capital is still on the sidelines waiting to be deployed. We touch on the various crypto blowups that happened throughout the year and the impact that had on the crypto market. We also compare FTX to MT Gox and the similarities and differences. We pivot to discuss about the possible decoupling between crypto and the broader macro environment. We discuss the various signs to look for that could signal a changing in the sentiment around and within the crypto industry. We discuss why DeFi was the biggest winner of 2022. We discuss possible trades for 2023 and why the crypto market could have bottomed. Scott emphasizes the value of dollar cost averaging regardless of the price of the asset. He also notes that all financial assets, not just cryptocurrency, have decreased in value recently. Scott explains why the FTX fallout was so disastrous and can have dramatic second order consequences. We finish our conversation by discussing the beauty of free markets. Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Melker Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Justin Banon, co-founder of Boson Protocol, the decentralized network on which the future of commerce will run. Boson Protocol (BOSON) is a decentralized infrastructure for e-commerce transactions. The ecosystem enables the exchange of digital value for real-world products and services through the use of tokenized futures contracts. Сommitments to buy and sell physical assets are represented as stateful non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the platform. Together with its native utility token BOSON, the protocol aims to demonopolize commerce and allow buyers and merchants to interact with minimal intervention from intermediaries. Justin is a serial entrepreneur, he previously blitzscaled the Priority Pass Group to a $1Bn per annum revenue global rewards platform. With an academic background in physics, digital innovation and crypto, Justin applies first principles thinking to solve human problems with technology. By combining cool tech with deep tech, he imagines a future where commerce is open, fair and equitable. He has extensive blockchain experience where he consulted for MakerDao, Centrifuge, et. He got his degree in Physics from Imperial College London. We discuss a variety of topics including Boson, Web3, the future of commerce, property rights, and much more. In this conversation, we discuss how taking time off to relax can boost creativity and lead to better ideas. We also talk about Boson and the issues with the current Web2 paradigm. Justin explains that Boson's goal is to decentralize power and trust, and he sees it as a key part of the future of commerce and the exchange of physical goods. We discuss which sectors are most likely to adopt Boson and the potential impact of a web3-powered economy on society. Justin also shares his thoughts on digital assets, their appeal, and the importance of strong property rights. We also discuss the meaning behind the branding and naming of Boson. Our final episode topic centered around the future of Boson and the importance of the path to decentralization. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ingo Rübe is the founder and CEO of BOTLabs, a Berlin-based company providing Blockchain-powered solutions for Self-Sovereign Data. BOTLabs is the team behind KILT, a Blockchain protocol, enables the user to describe and attest any kind of characteristics of persons, organizations, and things in a standardized way. KILT is an open-source fat blockchain protocol for issuing claim-based verifiable, revocable, and anonymous credentials in the Web 3.0. It allows end users to claim arbitrary attributes about themselves, get them attested by trusted entities, and store the claims as self-sovereign credentials (certificates). As trusted entities can issue credentials in return for money, KILT aims to foster new business models for anyone who owns trust or wants to build up trust. Ingo has vast experience in tech and building startups, starting in 1995 Ingo founded his very first startup, Network Department, which in 2000 was merged with the IT Department of Fresenius AG to form today’s Fresenius Netcare GmbH. With subsequent experience as IT Project Director at Axel Springer, CTO of Burda Media (where he initiated the open-source Content Management System “Thunder”), and Board Member of the Drupal Association, he is well aware of the need for reliable and verifiable identity solutions in the business world and beyond. We discuss a variety of topics including KILT, Digital Identities, Polkadot, Privacy, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Ingo’s backstory and how he got interested in Crypto. Ingo touches on his experience working for the Drupal Association and the importance of giving back to open source projects. Ingo shares how he became fascinated by crypto and blockchain technology and why believed it would be a revolutionary step change for technology. We transition our conversation to focus on KILT. Ingo explains the importance of digital identities and how they will reshape the way society functions. We discuss applications for digital identities and how they can be used to provide more privacy protections. Our next conversation centered around Polkadot. Ingo explains how Polkadot works. Ingo also explains how KILT leverages Polkadot to scale and secure their blockchain. We also discuss data privacy. Ingo explains how blockchain technology can be leveraged for greater privacy We discuss the broader value proposition of Polkadot and what makes it standout in the broader Layer 1 landscape. Ingo discusses the biggest challenges in the identity landscape. Ingo explains how standardizing helps fosters better communication within an industry and field of study. We discuss the why building out proper infrastructure is necessary for an industry to grow. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Matthew Niemerg, a distributed ledger technology researcher. He advises and is integrated with various teams on multiple projects in the blockchain space. He provides technical expertise in a wide range of areas within this field: economic incentive of tokens, i.e. game theory design; security and consensus protocols; cryptographic schemes; business logic; and much more. He is currently the co-founder of Aleph Zero (https://www.alephzero.org) and is leading the team at Cardinal Cryptography (https://www.cardinals.cc). He is also an advisor for OneLedger (https://www.oneledger.io, Helix Cognitive Computing (https://www.hlx.ai, KardiaChain (https://www.kardiachain.io), and Ternio (https://www.ternio.io). Aleph Zero is a privacy-enhancing, Proof-of-Stake public blockckchain with instant finality. Its enterprise-ready, high-performance network is built on a novel, Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based consensus protocol that has been peer-reviewed and presented at an ACM conference. Aleph Zero uses the DAG as an intermedriary data structure, but can still be categorized as a blockchain. In 2023, Aleph Zero plans to enable privacy-enhancing features based on secure multi-party computation research (sMPC) and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP). We discuss a variety of different topics including Aleph Zero, Bitcoin, Privacy, Security, Consensus Mechanisms, and much more. We begin our conversation to discuss the differences between cryptography and DLT and how the two overlap in the crypto landscape. We discuss how crypto has the appeal for both consumer and enterprise. We discuss the various possible paths for crypto to become mainstream. We transition our discussion to focus on Aleph Zero. Matt discusses how Aleph is providing an infrastructure layer for the future of crypto that builds off the decades of research and advancement of decentralized systems theory and cryptography. Matt explains various different problems that arise when trying to construct a secure and decentralized network. We dive deep into the concept of true randomness. Matt explains how randomness is applied to security. We discuss the difference between privacy and anonymity. We discuss what kind of privacy features enterprise clients are looking for and crypto can fulfill those requirements. We also discuss privacy preserving technology and the importance of preserving privacy for a sovereign society. We transition our conversation to discuss consensus mechanisms. Matt explains the differences between the various different consensus mechanisms. Please enjoy my conversation with Matthew Niemerg. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I caught my friend Haseeb in a tough moment. He is getting ready to leave the Crypto community in Puerto Rico and move back to California. He seems frustrated with things. I started the show by asking him why?Today’s guest is Haseeb Awan, the founder and CEO of Efani. Efani is the most secure Telecommunication Service that guarantees protection against any kind of SIM port-out hacks, encrypts your personal information & backs it with a $5M Insurance coverage. Efani operates on America’s #1 5G Network that covers 99% of Americans. In addition, they also offer complimentary Wi-Fi calling so users can even make calls in spotty locations. They also provide military-grade verification, 24*7 support, and 5M insurance coverage per person.Haseeb is working on solving complicated financial & economical problems with the help of technology. He has a track record of two successful business exits, raising over 100M in venture capital & growing the customer base from 0-4 Million users & expanding the business globally into 15 countries across 4 continents within 18 months. He has been included among the top 100 influential people in FINTECH globally, won multiple international awards, wrote for and is mentioned on multiple international media & frequently speaks at international conferences & government committees. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management. He also has studied Financial Markets from Yale University & actively holds Project Management Professional (PMP) designation. He is also a Y-Combinator & Next Founder Alumni. He was an early Bitcoiner. His career in crypto started when he co-founded the Bitcoin ATM company 6 years ago & installed the first bitcoin ATM in Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Montreal Ottawa & 50 other major cities in 15 countries among 4 continents within 18 months. He has personally invested in 30+ companies & advising over 10 companies on branding, marketing & sales. We began our conversation by discussing the philosophical ethos of people who are in crypto. We discuss how some of the major narratives in crypto have been co-opted. Haseeb discusses the hypocrisy that permeates a lot of the crypto industry and why that frustrates him. Haseeb stresses the importance of the crypto industry to begin producing useful and needed products. We discuss the general shortcomings in the privacy and security industry. Haseeb explains the importance for startups to align incentives and offer an overwhelming amount of value to succeed. Haseeb stresses that people will always choose the path that is most convenient. We discuss how the crypto industry can find its way back to its core tenants. Our final conversation centered around advice for the listeners on how to improve their lives. Haseeb stresses the importance of not overly optimizing one's life. We discuss how to take full advantage of 2023. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What does it mean to be a Bitcoiner living in a Crypto World? Today’s guest is Mark Jeffery, an award-winning serial entrepreneur and author with Harper Collins. He is currently working on the Boolean Fund Previously, Mark co-founded the Guardian Circle emergency response network (NEWSWEEK Blockchain Impact Award Nominee (2019), One of FAST COMPANY’s 'World Changing Ideas' (2018); Partner: XPRIZE Foundation; Featured in TRUST MACHINE (2018), THE RISE OF BLOCKCHAIN (2019). He is also an early pioneer of blockchain technology, releasing BITCOIN EXPLAINED SIMPLY (2013) and THE CASE FOR BITCOIN (2015). His previous companies include The Palace metaverse (backed by Time Warner, Intel and SoftBank; sold with 10 million users), ZeroDegrees (a business social network sold to InterActiveCorp / IAC in 2004 with 1 million users) and ThisWeekIn (video network). He was the founding CTO of Mahalo / Inside.com (backed by Elon Musk, Sequoia and others). Mark is the author of seven books of fiction, published both traditionally and as audiobooks. His first novel, MAX QUICK: THE POCKET AND THE PENDANT is published by HarperCollins. Mark was one of the first three people ever to podcast a novel: MAX QUICK originally received over 2.5 million downloads in 2005. We discuss a variety of different topics including Bitcoin, the Venture Landscape, Crypto’s Killer App, The Bitcoiner Ethos, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the Mark’s backstory and journey to crypto. We dive deep into the topic of being a Bitcoiner in an increasingly crypto world. Mark explains the reality of being an entrepreneur in the Bitcoin space and the necessity of incorporating crypto to further Bitcoin’s mission. We discuss why Bitcoin is so special and what is the holy grail for Bitcoin. We discuss the philosophy surrounding Bitcoin and what it means to be Bitcoiner. We pivot our conversation to discuss the investing environment. Mark explains why it is currently the best time to invest and build in crypto by sharing some of the lessons he learned during the Dot Com Bubble. Mark shares the similarities between the post Dot Com Bubble venture landscape and the current Crypto venture landscape. We discuss various crypto sectors that could lead to Crypto’s killer application. We discuss how to avoid burnout and the importance of following your passion. Our last conversation topic centered around the various failures throughout Crypto over the last year and the lessons we can learn from them. Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Jeffrey Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Sakina Arsiwala, Co-Founder of Taki. We begin our conversation by discussing Sakina’s experience working at NextDoor. Sakina explains how NextDoor enabled trust by ensuring the users of the platform were verified and how that helped create a flywheel effect for getting users to use and trust the platform. We discuss the lessons blockchain startups can take from NextDoor’s success. We transitioned our discussion to focus on Taki. Taki is an engage-to-earn social network which aims to create a better community by rewarding users with a stake in the network itself. Traditional social networks have become stagnant and exploitative: bombarding users with advertisements, operant conditioning for engagement, and preventing free movement. These problems stem from a fundamental incentive misalignment between the users who create value and the platform that extracts it. The new tools and paradigms of web3 offer an opportunity to create a better system. Engage-to-earn rewards user contributions. Free-flowing tokens enable low-friction value transfer. User coins deepen creator-audience relationships and create new engagement vectors. Decentralized organizations grant users governance over their own platform. Composability on-chain unlocks the interoperable potential of the whole blockchain ecosystem. Taki promises a better social network, shifting focus from the social graph to the value graph. Sakina has held Product and Growth leadership positions at Nextdoor, YouTube (She took Youtube International, launched 22 countries, including India), was Product Lead on Google Search Internationally. She also co-founded a social startup that was acquired by Groupon, where she led Social Product Growth for Groupon. She loves building products that help level the playing field. We discuss Taki, Web3’s promise, the future of Social Networks, the Creator Economy, and much more. Sakina explains who is currently their core user base and how they imagine expanding their user base over time. Sakina goes on to explain Taki’s value proposition to content creators and how web3 enables them to have more control over their careers. We discuss why Taki is focusing on UX and why simplifying the user experience is how you onboard the next wave of crypto participants. Sakina explains engage-to-earn and why this model can be so powerful for both creators and their fans. We discuss the importance of thoughtful token economics and Taki’s approach to ensuring proper token dynamics. We discuss the future of advertising in web3 and how web3 can help create a better advertising experience. Sakina discusses the mission of web3 and the importance of building products and services that enable web3’s core ethos. Our final conversation topic centered around the importance of interoperability and synergy for the long term value proposition of web3 to come to fruition. Sakina stresses the importance for protocols to strive to be self-sustaining. Please enjoy my conversation with Sakina Arsiwala Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Get ready for this epic episode! We discuss a variety of topics including Ribbon Finance, CeFi’s Blowups, DeFi’s Future, Yield, and much more. We began our conversation by discussing Julian’s journey into the crypto-space. Julian shares how he got interested in crypto and how he was able to navigate the previous bear market to position himself for success in the recent bull market. Our next conversation topic centered around “Crypto Banks.” We discuss the current fallout from the failure of CeFi institutions and the importance of custodying your own crypto. We transitioned to discuss DeFi. We focus on DeFi innovation and DeFi’s unique value proposition. We discussed how CeFi institutions were leveraging DeFi in order to provide yield to their customers. We touch on the lack of oversight and controls that were present within the CeFi institutions which enabled funds to be mismanaged. Our next conversation topic centered around Ribbon Finance. Julian explains how Ribbon Finance works. Julian discusses Ribbon’s protocol design and growth strategy which focuses on responsible and sustainable growth. We discuss yield. Julian explains how yield is generated. We discuss what’s on the future roadmap for Ribbon Finance. Julian explains why he believes options trading is the next area of growth for DeFi. We finish our conversation by focusing on advice for the listeners. Please enjoy my convention with Julian Koh.Today’s guest is Julian Koh, the Co-Founder & CEO of Ribbon Finance. Ribbon Finance is a suite of DeFi protocols that help users access crypto structured products. By combining derivatives, lending and a proprietary on-chain options exchange (Aevo), Ribbon aims to be the one-stop solution for users who want to improve a portfolio's risk-return profile. Prior to co-founding Ribbon Finance, Julian was Software Engineering at Coinbase. He also worked at Metastable Capital as a Consultant. He studied Computer Science at Cornell University. He cares deeply about cryptocurrencies and the nature of information. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's guest is Alex Strześniewski is the Founder of AngelBlock. AngelBlock is a Crypto and FinTech investment platform connecting investors with noteworthy startups with a focus on early-stage investments. AngelBlock is on its way to creating the largest decentralised venture capital fund for the Crypto, FinTech, and Blockchain space. Their mission is to build a cohesive and synergistic community of investors, supporters and entrepreneurs developing innovation within the blockchain space. AngelBlock will allow Crypto, FinTech, and blockchain start-ups to raise funds and receive support from knowledgeable, experienced professionals solely via their online platform. Prior to founding AngelBlock, he was a former Exec at Coin Deal. He believes the future is decentralized and open source. Alex has focused on crypto and crypto-based startups for the last 6+ years. A former crypto-fiat exchange executive, Alex has years of managerial and operational experience and has helped companies navigate the ever-changing regulatory landscape. He has worked as a blockchain consultant for one of the largest FMCG companies in Europe, led various projects through obtaining regulatory licences in the crypto space, and has been an active advisor and investor in numerous crypto and FinTech projects. Most recently he has advised successful companies such as Gamerhash and Aleph Zero. We discuss various topics including AngelBlock, Bitcoin, Crypto Investing, the Path of Decentralization, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the state of the crypto space. We stress the importance of striving towards our North Star and staying true to crypto’s ethos. Alex shares why he believes it is important for the crypto industry to self-regulate to prevent over regulation by the government. We pivot our conversation to focus on AngelBlock. Alex shares AngelBlock’s backstory. We discuss the problems that exist in the current venture and fundraising ecosystem. Alex explains how AngelBlock’s is building crypto-native solutions to address these shortcomings. Alex shares AngelBlock’s vision to allow for non-custodial & on-chain fundraising, transparent vesting, and automated token distribution. Alex explains how they designed the protocol to incentivize proper governance. We discuss the differences between angel investing and being a VC. We also discuss the importance of apprenticeship and learning from experts. We transition our conversation to discuss what it means to be a bitcoiner in a crypto world. We discuss how we are all Bitcoiners. We discuss the importance of striving for decentralization and making it a priority. We discuss the dangers of maximalism and how it is the antithesis of Bitcoin's core ethos. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last episode of UntoldStories and the first episode of The Charlie Shrem ShowToday's guest is Jan Leitenbauer, the co-founder of MovieShots. MovieShots is an Austrian startup which enables film lovers to own a part of their favorite movie as a unique collector’s item. As a digital collectible, MovieShots aims to link the two worlds of film and NFT. Using software developed in-house, individual still images from iconic films transform and become originals. Using NFT technology, this content can be made ownable as unique digital items with guaranteed proof of ownership on the blockchain, for example as collectibles and for trading on various NFT marketplaces. Jan is a professional video editor, blockchain enthusiast, and NFT collector. He completed the MOOC "Introduction to digital currencies" at the University of Nicosia and received his Bachelor and Master in "MultiMediaArt - Video" at the Film University of Applied Sciences. Jan Leitenbauer is involved in directing, editing and writing short films as a filmmaker and is a founding member and artist of the crypto-collective CryptoWiener. We discuss a variety of topics including MovieShots, NFTs, Community, the Crypto Space, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Jan’s experience taking Blockchain classes at the University of Nicosia. Jan explains how the classes gave him the foundation to start MovieShots. We discuss what compelled Jan to co-found MovieShots and MovieShots’s backstory. Our next conversation topic centered around NFTs. We discuss the narrative around NFTs and dispel some of the misconceptions of NFTs. Jan explains the technology behind NFTs and why the technology is so disruptive. We discuss how NFTs digitize the cultural layer of society and the possible implications it will have on society. Jan explains how NFTs foster a sense of community within the holders. We discuss MovieShots’ minting process and how the community is involved in the governance process. We discuss how NFTs bring reputation to the internet and identity to the internet. We discussed the Cannes Film Festival. Jan shares his experience being on the only panel at Cannes dedicated to NFTs. Our final discussion topic centered around life advice. Jan explains how to be comfortable with uncomfortability. Please enjoy my conversation with Jan Leitenbauer. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Mario Stumpo, Founder and Director of the Yanda Protocol. Yanda is the all-in-one solution for cryptocurrency trading. Yanda allows you to manage all your funds from one terminal, and makes automated trading simple and accessible to all. Yanda platform allows you to create and customize your own trading bot, as well as helping optimize your trading through free forecasting and analytics tools. Additionally, Yanda services include: automated trading (PATS), portfolio management, arbitrage and social trading. Mario is an early Bitcoin investor. He has specialised in Law, Economics and Finance. We discuss various topics including Yanda, Hybrid Finance, Interoperability, Regulation and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the debate between decentralization and centralization. Mario stresses the importance of having trust worthy decentralized and centralized options. We discuss the idea of hybrid finance and how it could be the future. Our next conversation centered around anonymity and regulation. Mario explains how the relationship between anonymity and increased regulation. We discuss the importance of regulation and how proper regulation would help the industry grow. We discuss the growing need for different on and off ramp options to help facilitate the growth of the industry. Our next conversation topic centered around interoperability. Mario stresses that the future of protocol design will be agnostic. Mario explains why he believes Yanda is a layer zero. Mario goes into detail about what is a layer zero. Our final conversation topic centered around Yanda’s product offering. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar. Axelar is a universal interoperability platform that connects all blockchains through a decentralized network and an SDK of protocols and APIs. Using the network and SDK, developers can efficiently integrate their applications across all blockchain ecosystems creating greater access to users, assets, liquidity and other applications. Sergey is also an Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo (2016 - present). He is interested in building cryptographic primitives, protocols, and systems that enable new applications in untrusted and distributed environments. He received a Ph.D. from MIT, where he was a Microsoft Ph.D. fellow and MSc and BSc from UToronto. His Ph.D. dissertation was on designing cryptographic tools for the cloud using lattice-based cryptography for which he received the Sprowls Doctoral Thesis Award for best thesis in CS at MIT. He was on the founding team of Algorand where he was involved in various business and technical aspects of the company and led the cryptography group. He also spent some time at IBM T.J. Watson Research Centre. We discuss Axelar, Interoperability, Blockchain Design, DeFi, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Axelar. Sergey explains how Axelar enables interoperability. We discuss how Axelar is building the infrastructure needed to build a decentralized platform like Binance and Coinbase. Our next discussion topic focused on the proliferation of layer-1s. Sergey explains how the pursuit of scalability influences the development of new Layer-1s and other scalability solutions. Sergey further addresses scalability by explaining the relationship between scalability, application, and design. Sergey stresses the importance of understanding how use cases will continue dictating the design of blockchains. Our next conversation topic centered around the bear market. Sergey shares his experience leading a company through the bear market. Sergey stresses the importance of continuing to build through the bear market. We discuss the nuances of building products for the future and how to validate products in the crypto space. We discuss the products we would like to see be built. Our next conversation topic centered around Axelar’s upcoming roadmap.Sergey explains how we could have chain agnostic stable coins and the second order effects. Please enjoy my conversation with Sergey Gorbunov.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Adrian Brink, CEO at Heliax, Co-Founder of the Anoma project, and a member of the Anoma Foundation Council. Heliax is a blockchain research, development, & product company bringing financial sovereignty and privacy to the world. They are the team behind Anoma. Anoma is a sovereign, proof-of-stake blockchain protocol that enables private, asset-agnostic cash and private bartering among any number of parties. Prior to Heliax, Adrian co-founded, scaled and eventually sold Cryptium Labs, an infrastructure operator that provided PoS validation from bunkers in the Swiss Alps, while simultaneously building Metastate, an R&D company that upgraded layer-1 protocols valued at over $4bn. Adrian was formerly the 3rd core protocol engineer to work on building the Cosmos stack at Tendermint and completed a graduate thesis on censorship-resistant e-voting systems as a means of helping the Catalan people to gain their independence. We discuss Anoma, Blockchain Evolution, Interoperability, Decentralization, Blockchain Design, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Adrian's background and crypto journey. Adrian explains the thesis behind decentralization and the benefit it provides society when attempting to solve large overarching problems. Our next conversation topic centered around interoperability and the multi-chain world. We discuss the importance of having the correct architecture to make interoperability possible. Adrian stresses that we are headed for a multichain world and goes on to explain why. We discuss the evolution of blockchains and Adrian explains how Anoma is helping make 3rd generation blockchains a reality. We also discuss the importance of interoperability and the problem with rollups. Adrian shares possible alternatives to rollups that are safer and more efficient, Our next conversation topic centered round privacy. We discuss why better privacy controls are absolutely needed for the broader adoption of crypto. Adrian explains how we can implement better privacy persevering technology into blockchains. Our next topic centered around zero knowledge proofs. Adrian explains what zero knowledge proofs are and how they are used. We discuss the benefits of zk proofs and which blockchains can implement this technology. We discuss the importance of building the best blockchain architecture possible to make the systems as resilient as possible. We finish our conversation by discussing the current bear market and building through the bear market. Please enjoy my conversation with Adrian Brink.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Nick Rose Founder and CEO at Ethernity Chain, Chief Digital Officer at Global Wildlife Conservation, and Investor. Ethernal Labs is a premier Web3 creative and technology studio. Projects spun out of Ethernal Labs includes Ethernity Chain, Exorians, Fanable, Eyecandy, and more to come. Ethernity Chain is a community-oriented platform that produces limited edition authenticated NFTs (aNFTs) and trading cards created by your favorite artists and endorsed by notable figures. Users can get these exclusive aNFTs by auction or direct sales. Ethernity aims to build the most exclusive aNFT library and reward its creators and the community. The Exorians Universe, a new media franchise which aims to revolutionize how media is created, owned, and distributed. The Exorians community will influence the storyline of an upcoming comic series and the development of the subsequent AAA play-to-earn game. Nick invested a small amount of money in 500 Bitcoins in 2011, after discovering them during a conversation at a poker game in Las Vegas. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage and the meteoric rise on the price in 2014. Prior to that he founded multiple Hospitality projects in Greece such as Crystal Club,The Ritz Suites and The Loft. He started his first friends and family trading fund focused in Cryptocurrencies in 2016 called 10X Capital. He is now a seed/early stage investor in tech and Blockchain related projects. We discuss a various topics including Ethernity, Exorians, NFTs, Web3, innovation and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing how Nick got into crypto and how the industry has evolved in such a short amount of time. Our next conversation topic focused on the backstory of Ethernity. Nick explains how the idea for the company was seeded and how they developed the initial products. We discuss how Ethernity was one of the first projects to partner with mainstream celebrities, for example they partnered with Lionel Messi to do his first NFT drop. We discuss Ethernal Labs and what is included in the product suit. We discuss why GameFi will be a very big part of crypto going forward. Nick shares some inisght into their upcoming project, The Exorians. We discuss the balancing act that exists when trying to optimize for substance and Tokenomics. Nick explains how we can improve GameFi. We discuss how the Exorians universe will enable users to become creators, and what this means for the future of the creator economy. Nick discusses how he envisions the GameFi space evolving in the future and how he wants to help guide and build products that can empower people across the world. We discuss the legal challenges facing web 3 native companies trying to integrate crypto products and features without violating any laws or legal statutes. Nick shares why we are still so early and why regulatory clarity will help push the industry forward. We finish our conversation by discussing the future of the Metaverse. Please enjoy my conversation with Nick Rose.Exploring the Metaverse with Nick Rose, Founder of Ethernity Chain.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Jamie Burke, Founder and CEO of Outlier Ventures, Europe’s 1st venture fund and platform dedicated to blockchain and Web 3. Outlier Ventures is a leading Web3 accelerator and founder community. They fund and help over 100 web3 startups a year, supporting projects across DeFi, NFTs, blockchain infrastructure, and more. Jamie has built a portfolio that includes industry-defining projects such as Brave Browser, Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol, DIA Data, and Enigma / Secret Network and developed an award-winning Web 3 accelerator. He is also the host of the Founders of Web 3 Podcast, where he interviews the people that are creating and building the next phase of the internet. Before founding Outlier Ventures, Jamie founded 90:10, a pioneering Web 2.0 Open Business consultancy that helped clients open business processes directly and indirectly to external stakeholders through social media, its data, and technologies for engagement, insight, and Innovation. We discuss various topics, including the early days of Crypto, Crypto’s evolution, the state of venture in Web3, advice for founders, and so much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Jamie’s background and what led him down the crypto rabbit hole almost a decade ago. Jamie shares how his background working in Web2 allowed him to witness firsthand how hard it was for large companies to adopt innovative technology. We discuss how the early days of crypto were solely focused on Bitcoin and fintech. We discuss how in the early days, it was clear that building infrastructure was the area that the crypto industry needed to address first. We discuss the evolution of space and how web3 emerged slowly. We discuss the nature of crypto cycles and how every cycle is centered around experimentation and innovation. Jamie discusses how Outlier developed over time and how they developed their thesis at the center of their investment framework. Jamie shares Outlier’s current investment portfolio and how they are helping build the promise of web3. We discuss how much the industry has evolved in such a short time and the exponential growth of interest in the space. Jamie explains why he believes we are in a bear market, not a crypto winter, and what that means for the space. We discuss how the venture landscape has completely changed for web3 and why this is a positive for the industry. We discuss the differing mentalities during a bull vs. bear market. Jamie stresses that the most important thing for any start-up is to focus on the product and never to get complacent. We discuss the importance of striving for sustainable growth and having prudent financial planning to weather market volatility. Please enjoy my conversation with Jamie Burke.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Phil Fogel, the co-founder and Chief Blockchain Officer at FlowCarbon. Flowcarbon is a pioneering climate technology company that brings carbon credits onto the blockchain. Its mission is to make carbon markets accessible and transparent, enabling the efficient and early flow of capital to be invested directly into projects that combat climate change. FlowCarbon is committed to driving real impact for people, biodiversity, and the planet. Phil has deep expertise in finance and market research. Phil is also currently the managing partner at Corner3 Ventures, a seed and early-stage angel investing firm. Previously he was head of strategy at Bitgreen, COO of Datavore, he has started a financial services company, and a blockchain startup. We discuss FlowCarbon, Carbon Credits, ReFi, Climate Change, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing carbon credits. Phil explains at a high level the role of carbon credits and how it benefits the environment. We discuss how by providing an economic incentive to decarbonize, we will help push society toward renewable energy. We discuss the changing narrative around climate change and the push for ESG. Phil explains why the current carbon credit marketplace is so complex. We discuss how FlowCarbon is bringing the carbon credit market on-chain. Phil explains the benefits of putting carbon credits on a blockchain. We discuss an emerging crypto sector called “ReFi,” or Regenerative Finance. Phil explains the movement behind ReFi. We discuss the importance of providing an economic incentive to solve climate change. We pivot our conversation to discuss how Phil fell down the crypto rabbit hole and how he concluded that blockchain technology can be used to construct new economic paradigms. We transitioned our conversation to discuss why FlowCarbon decided to build on top of Celo. Phil explains how decentralizing the carbon credit market opens the market up to a new set of participants who would’ve never had access to it in the traditional system. We discuss the second-order effects of making the carbon credit market more efficient and transparent. We discuss how blockchains are investing a portion of their block rewards to help fight climate change. We also discuss the positive impact of having non-financial use cases for blockchain as a positive for regulators. Our final discussion topic centered around FlowCarbon’s future roadmap. Please enjoy my conversation with Phil Fogel.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Tara Fung, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Co:Create. Co:Create provides the foundational infrastructure for decentralized brands of the future. It enables projects to mint NFTs and launch their own DAOs and fungible tokens associated with their collections. These services expand individual communities, incentivize dApp ecosystems' growth, and decentralize project governance. The Co:Create protocol will provide the tooling to support these communities in achieving their full potential. She previously served as chief revenue officer of Alto, a cryptoIRA and digital asset IRA custodian, and chief commercial officer of CommonBond. She graduated from Harvard Business School and the University of South Carolina. We discuss various topics, including Co:Create, Web3, tokenomics, NFTs, branding, and much more. We began our conversation by focusing on how Tara got introduced to crypto and fell down the crypto rabbit hole. We discuss the role of crypto in someone’s broader portfolio and what is preventing institutional investors from jumping into crypto. Tara discusses the explosion of interest in the alternative investment sector from individuals who are not accredited investors. Tara shares how the legal designation of crypto as property has allowed retail investors to gain access to the crypto space. We transition to discuss Co:Create. Tara shares what excites her about NFTs and how Co:Create is helping facilitate Web3 brands engage with their community by providing them with the necessary infrastructure to build their brands. Tara explains how loyalty programs can be transformed with tokens. Our next conversation topic centered around what are the significant reasons preventing traditional brands from embracing web3. Tara explains what is token-gated-commerce and how that will disrupt the brand and consumer relationship. Tara also discusses some best practices for tokenonomics. We also touch on the power of DAOs and how we can improve the governance process for DAOs. Our final topic centered around Gaming and Web3. Tara explains the importance of game design and the role of tokens within web3 native games. Please enjoy my conversation with Tara Fung.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Viktor Fischer, the Managing Partner at Rockaway Blockchain Fund. Rockaway Blockchain Fund is a venture capital firm backing leading Web3 founders. Based in Europe and boasting a portfolio of industry-leading decentralized projects, they focus on long-term value creation by providing engineering, liquidity, and community support. At Rockaway, Viktor oversees the onboarding and growth of early-stage blockchain startups. Previously, Viktor worked at McKinsey & Company, focusing on corporate finance and M&A. Viktor previously co-founded Innovatrics, a biometric identification start-up that received multiple awards, including ‘Leading Technology Company in Central Europe’ from the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. Viktor holds a Master's degree from HEC Paris and INSEAD and teaches corporate finance and valuation at Charles University, University Paris XI, and various startup accelerators. We discuss various topics, including Rockaway, Venture Investing, Freedom and Crypto, Decentralization, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the growing positive sentiment towards crypto throughout Europe. Viktor shares how their team is dispersed throughout Europe and how excited he is about the future of crypto in Europe. We pivot our conversation to discuss Rockaway’s, Blockchain Fund. Viktor breaks down how the fund operates and its investment divisions. Viktor discusses his journey to crypto and Rockaway’s backstory to the crypto space. Viktor discusses his insights from investing in projects and what makes a project successful. Viktor stresses the importance of a talented founder as a significant determining factor for the success of a project. We pivot our conversation to discuss the crypto venture investing landscape. Viktor explains the current cultural gap between crypto and traditional venture investors. We discuss why crypto needs to be simpler and easier to use. We discuss some compelling use cases for Web3 and the future of Web3. We have a very important conversation about freedom and liberty. We discuss the fragility of freedom and how having freedoms and rights are something to be cherished. We transition to discuss yield. Viktor explains why yield will continue to be crypto’s driving force. Our final discussion topic centered on the importance of validators becoming more dynamic in their recruitment of stakers. We discuss ways to incentivize decentralization within staking.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Mark Lurie, the CEO & Co-Founder of Shipyard Software. Shipyard Software builds decentralized exchanges (DEX) for specific types of trades, traders, and instruments, starting with Clipper, a DEX with the best prices anywhere on retail trades. Mark is an entrepreneur and investor who founded two venture-backed startups, Codex Protocol and Lofty. He is currently a Venture Partner at FJLabs, a board member of GMO Trust (issuer of GYEN, the first Yen-backed stablecoin), and a board member of the Foundation for Art and Blockchain (a 501c3 nonprofit). He is also the host of the podcast, WTF, Crypto, where he chats with experts in the industry about how the most significant developments in crypto affect traders. Previously, he was an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where his investments included Twilio (NYSE: TWLO). He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Harvard College. We discuss various things, including Shipyard Software, DeFi, DEXs, Compliance, Venture Investing, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the importance of Twilio in connecting Web1 and Web2. Mark discusses his investment thesis behind investing in Twilio. We transitioned to discussing Shipyard. Mark shares why he pivoted from being a VC to founding Shipyard. Mark discusses the concept of shared prosperity and how that guides his understanding and thesis around DeFi. Mark goes on to share how he believes DeFi will develop. We discuss how Clipper has been optimized for retail traders and why specialized DEXs with individual use cases will be the future of DEXs. Mark explains how Clipper is the most profitable DEX. We discuss competitive differentiation. We pivot our conversation to focus on OFAC Compliance. Mark explains why it is essential to be OFAC compliant and how to integrate OFAC sanctions into the crypto space. We stress the importance of tradeoffs and differentiation and how this applies to the DEX space and compliance. Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Lurie. Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Ahmed Al-Balaghi, co-founder of Biconomy. Biconomy is a multichain relayer protocol that aims to improve the user onboarding and transaction experience on decentralized applications (DApps). The project’s declared goal is to make web3 products as intuitive and easy to use as web2 products. In short, Biconomy focuses on transaction management and gas optimization and can reduce gas costs by up to 40%. For several reasons, interactions with decentralized applications are nowhere near as seamless as for web2 applications. For instance, web3 applications require gas fees, but there is no equivalent of paying a usage fee for web2 applications. Gas fees on the Ethereum network are always paid in ETH, although users may not want to spend their Eth. Before starting Biconomy, Ahmed spent over 3 years within the blockchain industry in China, the U.K., and the UAE. He has developed deep industry expertise and regularly delivers talks and workshops. Ahmed previously worked for Viewfin, a leading Chinese blockchain company, by heading up their Middle Eastern expansion through office setup, deal sourcing, government, and investor relations. He advised and consulted clients building projects in this space before co-founding Biconomy. We discuss a variety of different topics, including Biconomy, Crypto Infrastructure, Web3 adoption, the early days of Crypto, and much more. We began our conversation by discussing how we met and Ahmed’s background. We discuss the crazy early days of crypto in China. We transition our discussion to focus on how Ahmed and his co-founders started Biconomy. Ahmed shares how hacking and tinkering around crypto eventually led them to start Biconomy. We transition our conversation to discuss the various ecosystems Biconomy supports on its platform and their strengths and weaknesses. We discuss why yield may not be crypto’s killer app. Ahmed explains why other crypto sectors are gaining more traction than DeFi, like GameFi and NFTs. Our following conversation focused on the institutional adoption of crypto. Ahmed teases a big announcement for Biconomy and also discusses some of the pain points for institutional clients as they try to enter the crypto space. We also discuss the continued adoption of Web3 by traditional industry companies and the appeal of incorporating Web3 technology into their products. We discuss how the biggest hurdles facing mass adoption are being addressed. Ahmed explains the role of Biconomy within the Web3 tech stack. Please enjoy my conversation with Ahmed Al-Balaghi.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Rene Reinsberg, the President of the Celo Foundation. Celo is a mobile-first, open-source ecosystem of technologies, organizations, and individuals that all share a common mission of building a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity for everyone. Celo is a blockchain ecosystem focused on increasing cryptocurrency adoption among smartphone users. By using phone numbers as public keys, Celo hopes to introduce the world’s billions of smartphone owners, including those without banking access, to transact in cryptocurrency. The company argues that the number of smartphone owners is increasing exponentially, but the number of people using cryptocurrency is rising much slower. Bridging the gap between the two technologies is what Celo aims to do. Before working on Celo, Rene was an EIR at General Catalyst after serving as GoDaddy's Vice President of Emerging Products. He co-founded venture-backed Locu and served as CEO until Locu's acquisition by GoDaddy in August 2013. We began our conversation with Rene sharing his experience being an entrepreneur and getting his MBA at MIT. He explains how this eventually brought him to crypto and co-founding Celo. We discuss various topics, including Celo, crypto adoption, the beauty of Web3, advice for founders, and much more. We pivot our conversation to discuss Celo. Rene explains why the optimized Celo is a smart-phone centric blockchain. We discuss why Rene and his team decided to go to market by targeting micro-transactions. Rene shares a fantastic story about how they were able to bootstrap the Celo ecosystem by sharing their vision and showcasing their Beta during the previous bear market. Rene stresses this is one of the major benefits of web3 and the open source movement. We transition our discussion to focus on the current bear market. Rene explains what makes this market different from previous bear markets and possible second-order consequences from the turmoil. Rene advises founders and teams building through the bear market. We discuss how the next evolution for crypto will focus on utility and abstracting away the complexities away from the user. Another fascinating conversation topic centered around the future of tokens. We discuss why tokens may become less common as crypto becomes more mainstream. Our final discussion topic centered on the fracturing of the global economy and the explosion of crypto adoption across the globe. Rene stresses that crypto needs to be global to reach its true potential. Please enjoy my conversation with Rene Reinsberg.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Kieren James-Lubin, the Founder, President & CEO of BlockApps, an enterprise blockchain platform company whose mission is to connect individuals, businesses, and industries through global cooperation and trust. BlockApps is a blockchain-as-a-service company that develops enterprise blockchain platforms with customers ranging from startups to Fortune 500 organizations. The company's mission is to drive the adoption of blockchain technology through its platform, BlockApps STRATO. BlockApps was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Before founding BlockApps, Kieren was instrumental in working on Ethereum prior to its launch. He used this knowledge to help build BlockApps' initial product, STRATO. Kieren is responsible for architecting and implementing BlockApps RESTful API and surrounding products & components, including the authorization framework, peer-to-peer networking code, Node.js client, and third-party integrations. Leveraging his extensive background in technology, Kieren is now responsible for maintaining and growing BlockApps’ business. We discuss various topics, including BlockApps, Blockchain Technology, The Early Days of Ethereum, Digitizing Real-World Assets, Regulatory Compliance, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Kieren’s background and what led him to the crypto industry. Kieren shares his experience working in crypto during the early days of Ethereum. We discuss how we are still in the early days of crypto. Kieren shares insights into how he and his team think about hiring talent and what they look for in a prospect. Our conversation transitions to focus on enterprise clients in the blockchain space. Kieren explains the common ways these enterprise clients were looking to leverage blockchain technology within their business. We discuss various use cases of blockchain technology in-depth, including real estate, venture investing, and luxury products. We discuss the tug and pull between geopolitics and global trade. We discuss how the crypto industry can work with regulators and regulatory bodies. We also discuss how blockchain technology can streamline cross-border trade. Our final discussion topic centered around how we can continue to onboard real-world use cases onto blockchain rails. Please enjoy my conversation with Kieren James-Lubin.--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Frederik Gregaard, the CEO of the Cardano Foundation. The Cardano Foundation acts as a custodian for the Cardano protocol; the Cardano Foundation is a Swiss nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering innovators and changemakers within the blockchain industry. The Cardano Foundation strives towards enabling a blockchain future based on inclusiveness and transparency. An independent entity, the Foundation’s ambition is to empower the architects of the decentralized era, set the direction for governance as a service, and enable economic empowerment. He brings his vast experience in professional services and financial industries to the Foundation, where he will build partnerships with institutions and enterprises. Frederik is a certified currency trader and digital asset management expert. He advises Regulators, Banks, and Asset Managers on how digital business models will impact their sector and how technology such as Blockchain, DLT, Big Data, and AI will affect their businesses in the short and medium term. We discuss Cardano, the Cardano Foundation, power dynamics, crypto adoption, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Frederik’s financial background. We have a fascinating discussion centered around the opaqueness of capital markets leading up to the financial crisis of 2008 and the fallout from the collapse. We pivot our conversation to focus on how the fallout from the financial crisis eventually led him to the crypto industry. Frederik shares his journey in the crypto industry and how he became the CEO of the Cardano Foundation. Frederik discusses a fascinating insight that the biggest roadblock to crypto adoption was the cultural barrier between crypto and traditional finance. Our conversation transitions to focus on why traditional institutions are pivoting their blockchain efforts from focusing on private permissioned blockchains to public permissionless blockchains. Frederik shares examples of this growing adoption of public blockchains. Frederik explains how Georgian Wine exploded in popularity when they began using the Cardano blockchain as an authentication layer. Frederik discusses how this technology shifts the power dynamics between large and small players creating an equal playing field between the two parties. Frederik emphasizes that one of the main goals of the Cardano Foundation is to lower the barrier of entry to the Cardano Ecosystem. We discuss the various real-world projects Cardano is involved in to implement blockchain technology across multiple countries. Frederik explains Cardano’s consensus algorithm and the game theory behind it. We discuss how Cardano’s academic approach is one of the main guiding principles of the project. Frederik explains the difference between blockchains and open-source projects. Please enjoy my conversation with Frederik Gregaard.--AngelBlock is a DeFi protocol aimed at solving the issues of fundraising for digital assets and making the process crypto native. More info at https://untoldstories.link/AngelBlock--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Derek Barrera, Founder and CEO of Steer Protocol. Steer Protocol is a platform for cross-chain automated strategies with secure on-chain executions with minimal fees to users, providing maximal yield on earned fees for participating in the protocol. Steer enables users to create/use/upload yield-generating models called Strategies from complex algorithms to recurring tasks with zero computation cost and on any blockchain. Steer infrastructure offers endless possibilities like Automated Liquidity Management, Loan Payments, Asset Management, Data Availability Marketplace, Automated Governance, Oracles, etc. Users can write in any programming language and execute on any chain. Steer currently supports Ethereum, Bitcoin, Optimism, Polygon (Matic), and BSC. Derek has 14 years of software experience. He is a highly-skilled, energetic professional with a strong software engineering and developer operations background and extensive hands-on experience with many programming disciplines, including MEAN and LAMP stacks, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, Java EE, C++, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Derek has worked in the Blockchain industry since 2016, leading various projects to a combined valuation of over $3.6 Billion. He has built cryptographic cross-chain libraries and enterprise custody solutions for exchanges/brokers. He has worked with over eight different chains and over 500 supported assets. His experience also includes spearheading the creation of an L2 EVM and deploying various cross-chain DeFi protocols. We discuss various topics, including the Steer Protocol, yield generation, the macroeconomic landscape, advice for aspiring founders, and much more. We began our conversation by discussing the benefits of the bear market. Derek explains how founders can take advantage of the bear market. Our next conversation topic centered around Steer Protocol and how it works. Derek describes how Steer’s is optimizing yield strategy and execution. Derek shares how Steer helps users optimize yield strategies on Uniswap V3. We discuss in depth how yield works in crypto. We discuss the state of the macroeconomic outlook and how people are beginning to understand the value proposition of an asset like Bitcoin. We discuss the current Credit Suisse situation and the possible contagion fallout if they default. We discuss why insurance and yield could be the killer apps for crypto and potential avenues for the next growth phase of crypto. Our next topic centered around cross-chain and the possibility of a multi-chain world. Derek explains the problems that cross-chain yield products are facing. But Derek stresses that a multi-chain world is inevitable. We discuss how chains will probably proliferate around use cases and focus on solving specific market needs. Our final discussion centered around regulation. Derek explains why sensible regulation is needed. Please enjoy my conversation with Derek Barrera.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guests are a few of the stars of the upcoming movie, Ask Me To Dance, Tom Malloy, David Josh Lawrence, and Courtney Warner. Tom is a critically acclaimed Actor/Writer/Producer/Director. David is an actor and writer known for writing, acting, and producing Trauma Therapy. Courtney is an actor whose break-out role is Ask Me To Dance. We discuss various topics, including Ask Me To Dance, the importance of movies, how to break into entertainment, mastering your craft, and much more. We discuss the backstory of how Ask Me To Dance was made. Tom shares his love for dancing and what drove him to make a romantic comedy centered around dancing. Courtney shares her story of becoming an actor and how she was able to break into the industry. Courtney stresses the importance of making your own opportunities. We talk about the purpose of movies, and the critical role of movies play within our society. The group shares insights into the film industry that isn’t very well known. David stresses the care and dedication the filmmakers and crew have meticulously crafted every moment in a film or television show. Tom explains how acting is challenging work, and David elaborates by discussing how acting is actually a blue-collar job. Courtney stresses that if you don’t have the passion for the craft of acting, it’s not going to work. The group discusses how the director shapes the movie. Tom shares how he is dialog driven director and how that influenced the making of the film. David shares his unique backstory on how he went from being a firefighter to becoming an actor. We discuss the philosophical debate on the importance of purpose and the fragility of life. David discusses the importance of living life to the fullest and one’s experiences shape our worldview and understanding of life. We discuss the power of storytelling and how stories shape our world. David explains his journey to becoming Head of Acquisitions for Glass House Distribution. We discuss the importance of mastering your craft and being a lifelong learner. David describes how actors and artists should approach their industry’s business side. David stresses why faking it ‘till you make it no longer works. We finish our conversation by discussing the variety of jobs on a film set and how there are many ways to break into entertainment. Please enjoy my conversation with Tom Malloy, David Josh Lawrence, and Courtney Warner.--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alona Shevchenko is the Co-founder & Operational Lead of Ukraine DAO. The UkraineDAO is a DAO organized to help Ukrainian organizations and people to fight the war against Russia. The UkraineDAO has donated over $7 million, including to the Ukrainian government and NGOs. They have organized both online and offline to serve Ukraine, showing how charity, war relief, and evacuation efforts can be organized through DAOs. The Ukrainian flag NFT auctioned by Ukraine DAO is the tenth most expensive NFT ever sold, showing how non-fungible tokens can solve real-life problems. Ukraine DAO has been featured in many major publications, including Forbes, Fortune, ABC, Billboard, Coindesk, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Economist, the Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Alona is a qualified translator (Diploma in Translation), Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. She is fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, English, and French. Before co-founding the Ukraine DAO, she participated in various crypto projects and DAOs, including the Free Ross DAO, where she was a regular contributor, and Grwth Lbs, where she focused on community and partnerships. We begin our conversation by discussing the current state of Ukraine and why Ukraine will win the war with Russia. We discuss a variety of topics including UkraineDAO, the realities of the war, DAO governance, the power of web3 and crypto in times of war, and much more. We discuss how leading up to the War with Russia, Ukrainians were negatively portrayed by Russian media and propaganda. Alona expresses that Western governments and intelligence organizations purposely ignored these signs for political reasons. Alona explains why people should refer to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia as a war and not a crisis. We discuss how the failure of the traditional banking system has impacted ordinary Ukrainian citizens and how crypto provided financial rails to many Ukrainian citizens. Our next conversation topic centered around how and why she got involved with the Free Ross DAO. Alona shares the backstory of founding UkraineDAO. We discuss how the DAO formed organically and was a grassroots movement. Alona discusses her relationship with Dmitriy Buterin and Vitalik Buterin and how they have helped her build UkraineDAO. We discuss what is unique about the UkraineDAO. We discuss the governance dynamics of DAOs and ways to improve the current governance structure of DAOs. Alona explains how Holacracy works and why the UkraineDAO has implemented it in their governance model. We also discuss why UkraineDAO does not have a token. Alona discusses how UkraineDAO is the first DAO to be accepted at a state level and is widely seen as a fantastic thing by noncrypto native people. Our final discussion topic centered around the importance of cultural fit in an organization and how this is the guiding principle for UkraineDAO.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's guests are Alan Silbert, North America CEO of INX, and Itai Avneri, COO of INX. INX aims to offer a fully-licensed and regulated cryptocurrency, security token, and derivatives trading platform. They also endeavor to be a leader in the regulated security token platform space. INX announced in January 2018 its submission of a confidentially-filed draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering of the INX Token. INX is one of the leading platforms from a regulatory and compliance perspective; they are a broker-dealer, have various alternative trading system licenses, and a cash fund to safeguard platform capital. Alan Silbert, CEO North America of INX. He joined the Company in March 2018 as Executive Managing Director. Since joining INX, Alan has been responsible for facilitating the build-out of the director and advisor team, raising capital, growing operations and infrastructure for North American operations, and leading the regulatory processes for broker-dealers and money transmitter licenses. Alan's career in finance spans almost 25 years, where he has held executive positions in various large banks. He also founded, in 2013, Bitcoin luxury marketplace BitPremier, which in 2014 brokered one of the first bitcoin real estate transactions in history. Itai has launched multiple financial services and products in Europe and South Africa, among other regulated jurisdictions. He designed and built advanced information systems specializing in trading, BI & CRM solutions, marketing, KYC automation, and payments and integration hubs. We discuss various topics, including INX, Security Tokens, Regulation, and much more. We began our conversation by discussing how INX started and how the organization has been leading the charge in pushing regulation forward and regulatory clarity since the company’s inception. Alan and Itai describe the current state of the INX platform and the various functionalities open to accredited investors. Our following conversation topic centers around the benefits of security tokens and why security tokens will revolutionize how capital markets are structured. We discuss the views of various regulatory jurisdictions on digital assets. We discuss how regulators could distinguish between security tokens and cryptocurrencies. We discuss the crypto industry’s positive progress within American society from a regulatory and cultural perspective. Our final discussion topic centered around how INX is helping companies navigate the regulatory waters by advising them and publishing a book that will share the best practices for navigating the regulatory hurdles that crypto companies face. Please enjoy my conversation with Alan Silbert and Itai Avneri.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guests are Geoffrey Thompson, Roofstock’s Chief Blockchain Officer, and Sanjay Raghavan, Head of Web3 Initiatives at Roofstock. Roofstock is an online marketplace for investing in leased single-family rental homes in a transparent and low-friction way. The company provides its clients with research, analytics, and insights to evaluate and purchase independently certified properties at set prices. Roofstock onChain is building an Ethereum-based web3 platform to simplify how single-family residential properties are bought and sold radically. Geoff has nearly 15 years of experience in corporate and finance law; Geoff advises Roofstock on partnerships, product innovation, fundraising, deal structuring, real estate matters, securities law, international expansion, and all other legal and compliance matters. Sanjay currently works as Head of web3 Initiatives at Roofstock. He was a part of Wharton School's Cypher Blockchain Accelerator Genesis Block cohort. We discuss various topics, including Roofstock, Real Estate Investing, tokenizing Real Estate, navigating regulation, the future of Real Estate, and much more. We began our discussion by focusing on the regulatory hurdles crypto companies need to overcome and why having legal counsel is very important to help navigate the legal and regulatory landscape. We discuss the backstory of Roofstock and why it went down the crypto and web3 rabbit hole. Our next conversation topic focused on how Rootstock creates a permissioned system on top of a permissionless infrastructure to comply with the regulation. We discuss how new users are onboarded to their Web3 real-estate platform using soul-bound NFTs. We discuss Roofstock’s mission to democratize access to real estate investing by removing the preexisting sources of prejudices that inhibit people from investing in real estate. We discuss how Roofstock ensures everything is legally compliant, from KYC’ing the buyers and sellers to providing the property accurately represented. We discuss the platform’s various features that users can use to screen and filter to find the homes they would like to invest in. We discuss Roofstock’s commitment to transparency and equal access to information. A fascinating topic we discussed was the second-order consequences of putting Real-Estate onChain, like what happens to title insurance and property insurance. Our conversation discusses the impact of increased liquidity on the Real-Estate Market. We discuss how home loans can be reimagined onChain and the positive consequences this can bring to society. We discuss the unique properties of the tokens that allow for more consumer protection than standard crypto tokens. We discuss the possibilities of collaboration and partnership opportunities that being a web3 native brings. Our final discussion topic centered around how Roofstock is committed to staying true to the Web3 principles and why they believe so strongly in the web3 ethos.--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Ian Lee, the Co-Founder of Syndicate. Syndicate is a decentralized asset management platform and social network. It creates an investing syndicate for 1000x less time and money. Syndicate is a decentralized investing protocol and social network transforming how the world creates value. Previously, Ian was Managing Partner of IDEO CoLab Ventures, a crypto venture fund backed by IDEO focused on web3, crypto, and blockchain startups. From 2017-2021, Ian led investments and helped incubate 80+ crypto startups in the areas of DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and more. From 2014-2017, Ian was the Head of Crypto at Citigroup and Citi Ventures globally. We discuss various topics, including Syndicate, Investing’s role in society, the ETH merge, the dynamics of angel investing, and much more. We began our conversation by discussing Ian’s background and what brought him to the crypto space. Ian shares how when he understood that Bitcoin and Crypto were an open Fintech stack, everything clicked for him, and he fell down the crypto rabbit hole. Ian explains why the investing industry is ripe for disruption. He breaks down how the tech stack is archaic, how bloated and slow the industry is, and how crypto can disrupt the investing sector. Ian also explains why investing is so important to society. Ian stresses that investing shapes our society by helping allocate monetary and human capital. Ian discusses how the venture capital infrastructure is incredibly inaccessible for many people because of the expenses required to start and participate in a fund. We discuss how Syndicate enables a new paradigm of capital formation by removing these barriers and eliminating the unnecessary overhead needed to create a venture fund. Our following conversation focused on how angel investors were the initial driving force that powered the Bitcoin and crypto industry. We discuss how they fueled the first startups of the space by being their primary source of capital for these early companies. We discuss the importance of DOAs and syndicates will empower more angel investing from a wider pool of people. Our next conversation topic centered around investing clubs. Ian shares that most investing clubs result from preexisting social connections and relationships. He explains how the main value these angels provide founders is not monetary but mentorship and guidance. Another fascinating topic of our conversation was reimagining the utility of ERC-721s and how they can be applied to different verticals. Ian explains how NFTs can be considered social networks and their possible applications. We discuss how Syndicate is enabling the formation of guilds. Ian describes how people with a unique set of skills are forming guilds to leverage their skills and help organizations that need these various skills. A fascinating topic we discussed centered around the ETH merge. We discuss the possible unintended consequences of the merge and how the move to POS will impact regulated organizations. Our final discussion topic centered around how Syndicate enables a swath of investing organizations to be built using Web3 tools. Please enjoy my conversation with Ian Lee.--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers CFDs, futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Andrey Nayman, Founder, and CEO of the Magic Store. Magic Square is a unified, integrated, interoperable space for users to discover and experience community-vetted crypto apps, NFTs, DeFi, and GameFi, and for app creators to market and monetize quality crypto apps. Magic Square is a multifaceted system that covers all UX bases: The Magic Store guides users to discover community-vetted crypto apps with built-in integrated DeFi. Users sign in to all their apps with one SSI-secured Magic Connect leading to their personalized dashboard to organize, use, and track their crypto activity. Users and creators discuss and collaborate in a dedicated Magic Community space. Andrey Nayman is an Entrepreneur, Mathematician, Quant & Professional Investor, an early adopter of Crypto (2013), and has successfully led multiple technical ventures. He is an Executive Product Owner and Proven Company Leader with a deep background in Algo-Trading, Startups, and Scaling Tech oriented Companies. He began his professional career at Final, one of the world's biggest Algo-Trading companies, where he worked for 7.5 years. He served as the CEO of Vidmid, a technology leader in the OTT space. He then worked as the Managing Director at Radical Ventures – one of the most active VCs in Israel, for five years. He is currently the CEO and Founder of Magic Square, a financial infrastructure company. We discuss Magic Square, the importance of decentralization, the Ethereum Merge, the Magic ID, and much more. We begin our discussion about why there is a need for a crypto-native App Store. Andrey discusses how a lot of the value created by Web2 marketplaces centered around discoverability and how this is a missing component within Web3. We transition to discuss the state of Magic Square. Andrey discusses the listing process and how Magic Square empowers its community to spearhead the listing process. Andrey stresses that Magic Store is a community-first company, and he does not want to be a gatekeeper. We dive deep into the actual mechanics of the listing and vetting process. We discuss encryption and our mutual admiration for the beauty of encryption. We transition to discuss Magic ID. Andrey shares what he loves about Web3 identities and why it is the future. Our next conversation topic focused on the Ethereum Merge. We discuss the various arguments surrounding PoW vs. PoS. We also discuss the technical challenges that apps will face when the merge happens and the possible implications of the merge. We pivot our conversation to confer the benefit of launching during a bear market. Our final conversation topic centered on Andrey’s decision to jump from VC to founder/operator. Andrey shares that one of his main drivers in building Magic Square is to leave a positive impact on the world. Please enjoy my conversation with Andrey Nayman.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-h...Download the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Amanda Cassatt, Founder and CEO of Serotonin. Serotonin is the leading crypto marketing practice, with over 40 employees worldwide, supporting the top teams pushing the decentralization movement forward. With expertise spanning DeFi, DAOs, and NFTs, Serotonin supports premier projects like IPFS, major brands like Sotheby's, and everything in between. Serotonin is the leading web3 marketing firm specializing in companies both native and new to web3. Their services take products and brands to market with brand positioning, visual design, content, PR, community, growth, events, and more. In addition to marketing services, Serotonin has invested in creating an in-house product and engineering team that builds and spins out software companies. The first such spinout is Mojito, the NFT commerce suite that is the top choice by major brands and rights holders for engaging in d-commerce on web3. Amanda is an explorer of technology, economics, and culture. An early crypto entrepreneur, Amanda brought Ethereum to market as ConsenSys' Chief Marketing Officer from 2016 through 2019. During that time, Amanda also created Ethereal, the crypto cultural event series that hosted some of the first NFT galleries and popularized Ethereum from SXSW to Davos. After working on Ethereum through its initial growth period, she co-founded Serotonin. Amanda currently serves as CEO of Serotonin and President of Mojito. We discuss various topics, including Marketing within Web3, Building Decentralized Brands, ConsenSys, Crypto Twitter, Community, and more. We begin our conversation by discussing what content someone new to the space should consume. Amanda stresses the importance of immersing yourself in Crypto Twitter and how Twitter is the best place to learn about recent trends and concepts at the forefront of crypto. We discuss the value proposition of web3 social networks and the benefits from a censorship-resistant and audience portability standpoint. Amanda explains the platform risks that persist throughout traditional social networks and how web3 allows creators to have more autonomy. Our next conversation topic was centered around Amanda’s time working at ConsenSys. She shares how while at ConsenSys was able to spearhead many of the marketing practices now widely used throughout the crypto industry. Amanda explains how Serotonin is helping many Web 3 companies go to market and figure out the best way to grow their brand, engage with their audience and navigate web 3. We discuss the importance of community and how the strength of a crypto project’s community is vital for its success. Amanda shares nuances to help evaluate the value of a project’s community better to assess the project’s long-term viability. Our final conversation topic focused on the role of marketing within Web 3. Amanda explains why there will always be a need for marketing in Web 3. She also details how as a project matures, the need for marketing becomes less critical because of the incentives that exist within crypto innately. Please enjoy my conversation with Amanda Cassatt.--BingX is a crypto social trading exchange with over 3M users. BingX offers futures, spot, derivatives, and copy trading services to more than 100 countries worldwide and connects users with expert traders on the platform in a safe, simple, and transparent way through social trading networks.For Charlie’s listeners only, register using this link for a 155 USDT Welcome Gift: https://untoldstories.link/bingx --This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's guest is my friend Adam B. Levine, the founder and CEO of Tokenly and 330 AI. Tokenly is a leading innovator and developer of turnkey blockchain and token solutions. They have launched five blockchain applications, including turnkey solutions for blockchain eCommerce, auctions, secure multi-sig wallets, token creation, token crowd sales, and more. 330 AI Innovations is a technology company that creates unique text-to-image generator products utilizing a vast tool kit of artificial intelligence to fulfill the artist's vision for individual users and businesses. Adam is an entrepreneur, a frequent collaborator, an asymmetrical strategist, and a tangential thinker. Adam’s other interests include additive manufacturing tech, autonomous systems, new interfaces, open source hardware, and improbable solutions to impossible problems that could change everything. Adam is also the editor of CoinDes’s audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos. Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. BTC, Inc. acquired the LTBN in January 2017. With the network launched and growing in late 2014, Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. He led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com, and media with Token.fm. We discuss various topics, including 330 AI, Bitcoin, Crypto Culture, individual liberties, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the dynamics of the early Bitcoin community. Adam explains why he believes Bitcoin has already won and the monetary movement spurred by Bitcoin is inevitable. We transition to discuss the importance of Crypto-Twitter to the fabric of the culture of crypto. Adam explains the progression of crypto discourse from IRC to Twitter. We discuss the importance of the origins of Bitcoin IRC to Bitcoin’s history. Our conversation transitioned to discuss Adam’s backstory and how he found bitcoin. We touch on why Adam has been adamant about refraining from talking about the price of Bitcoin on his podcasts. We discuss why permission blockchains will not be the future. We discuss the importance of innovation competition. Our next conversation topic focused on individual liberties. We discuss how Bitcoin preserves personal freedoms and the problem with regulatory capture and disincentives. We have a fascinating conversation about why El Salvador is important and what it represents. Our final discussion topic centered around 330ai. We discuss the future of gaming and generative art. Adam shares possible applications for generative art and how groundbreaking this technology can be. Please enjoy my conversation with Adam B. Levine.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-hardware-wallet.htmlDownload the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Lacey Kaelani, the founder of Metaintro. Metaintro is a professional resume wallet for web3. Utilising the Flow Blockchain and NFT technology, users can access their wallets through a browser extension, which can then be used to interact with web3 job applications. The wallet holds certifications, proof of work, and credentials, reducing the hiring time. Lacey is a two-time founder, previously co-founding a professional network for media & entertainment called Casting Depot. Currently, she’s the founder of Metaintro. Before founding her own company, she worked in casting departments at various studios in the Entertainment industry, including MTV, Nickelodeon, and A+E Network. We discuss various topics in the episode, including Metaintro, the crypto job market, advice for joining the crypto space, the entertainment industry, and much more. We begin our conversation with Lacey sharing her experience starting a casting company for the entertainment industry and how that information helped her in her current startup, Metaintro. Lacey explains the various outdated practices that plague the entertainment industry and how some of these issues mirror the issues people face when trying to hire someone in the crypto space. We discuss how she initially became involved in crypto and what attracted her to Web3. Our following conversation focused on Metaintro. Lacey outlines the thesis behind it and their North Star, guiding how they develop the project, explaining why their goal is to replace PDF resumes with wallet-based resumes. We discuss the most popular jobs in Web3 and how the nontechnical side is exploding with opportunities. Lacey shares tips for people looking to hire talent and advice for people looking to join the crypto space. We had an exciting conversation discussing why headhunters and recruiters are antithetical to crypto’s ethos and why they will eventually fall out of fashion within crypto. We also discuss the incredible growth of Metaintro’s community and the stickiness of their community. Metaintro is a community-first company, and it is exciting to hear how powerful a resource is for a crypto-native company. We also discuss the dynamics within the web3 job market that empowers employees and employers in a mutually beneficial way. We also had a fascinating discussion about the future of web3 native worker unions and the possible implications this would have on the space by creating a standard of best practices for crypto-native companies. We also touch on the continued growth of the crypto job market even through the bear market. Bear markets are for building, so it is no surprise that companies and protocols are still hungry for talent. One of our final topics focuses on the debate around privacy and the degree of access to someone’s credentials. We discuss how Web3 can enable a more privacy-centric approach for job seekers without compromising their ability to share their work history and portfolio with prospective employers. Our final discussion topic centered around the future of web3 and the nomenclature used to describe the space. This was a great discussion; anyone interested in understanding the job market dynamics of web3 or looking to join the space must listen. Please enjoy my conversation with Lacey Kaelani.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-hardware-wallet.htmlDownload the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is George Harrap, co-founder of Step Finance, the front page of Solana, whose mission is to take the currently disjointed and hard-to-understand Solana DeFi ecosystem and distill it into a single platform. Step Finance is a portfolio visualization platform aggregating all LPs, tokens, farms, and positions a user may have associated with their wallet and displays them on a seamless dashboard. Step aims to be the page that DeFi users have open perpetually, with all the functions and information they need to make informed decisions. George is also an advisor at YAP Global. George is a veteran crypto entrepreneur and former CEO and Co-founder of Bitspark. He started in the crypto world almost a decade ago as an early miner, and brings a wealth of experience, having built the first crypto remittance startup in the world, built six cryptocurrency exchanges, both centralized and decentralized, and launched 12 stablecoins, raising millions from VC and corporate investors along the way. We discuss various topics, including Solana, Crypto Adoption, the future of DeFi, the industry's early days, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing how George began his crypto journey. George shares how he first got into crypto by mining bitcoin. We also discuss how we learned finance and financial literacy by trying to understand crypto and the principles behind it. George also discusses his first crypto-startup, Bitspark, and the various roadblocks he faced. We discuss the exponential growth of crypto adoption over the last few years and how that has enabled more crypto-native businesses to start. We pivot our conversation to discuss Solana. We begin our conversation by discussing how to evaluate coins based on their philosophy and the unique problem they're optimizing for. George explains how Solana is optimizing for transaction speed and low cost. George also discusses the importance of hitting a critical mass of users for the ecosystem to become valuable, which Solana has over the last year. George explains the consensus mechanism that powers Solana and how it differs from Proof-of-Stake. We discuss the different approaches various chains take to scale their transaction output. George explains the security risks and user experience problems associated with Layer-2 solutions. We transition our conversation to discuss how crypto impacts emerging market societies where their financial systems are less robust and trusted than their first-world counterparts. Our next discussion topic centered around the merge. We discuss the various probable outcomes of the merge and the second-order consequences of the merge. Our final discussion topic centered around Solana’s go-to-market strategy. George explains Solana’s unique approach to user acquisition and its marketing philosophy. Please enjoy my conversation with George Harrap.--SafePal is a Singapore-based Binance labs backed company that provides secure and easy-to-use wallet solutions for the crypto masses. With the mission to make crypto secure and simple for everyone, SafePal has built comprehensive crypto asset management solutions, including hardware wallet, mobile wallet, extension wallet, cross-chain swap, trading service, and more. SafePal has supports 48 blockchains and 15 languages, and serves more than 6 million users global-wide.Use code charlie for 10% off SafePal’s S1 wallet at https://store.safepal.io/safepal-s1-hardware-wallet.htmlDownload the SafePal App and SafePal extension wallet at https://untoldstories.link/safepal--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Sarah Figueroa, CEO, and co-founder of Geojam. Geojam is a social engagement platform that generates meaningful and passion-fueled engagement between fans and creators. Their vision is to build the creator economy of the future that redirects the flow of incentives back into the hands of the creators and users themselves. Geojam has been a bridge for fans to engage directly with artists, athletes, and influencers such as Mariah Carey, Machine Gun Kelly, and Nyjah Huston. With the inception of their token, $JAM, they combine the technological advancements of decentralized finance with real-world experiences while interweaving the ethos of autonomous decentralized communities and mainstream social networking. Sarah Figueroa is the CEO and co-founder of Geojam. Sarah is a serial entrepreneur with ten years of experience building and designing consumer tech companies centered around social media, entertainment, and the community. She has been recognized in the New York Times for Geojam’s pivot during the pandemic and is a Rolling Stone Culture Council member. Sarah is extremely passionate about community governance and decentralization; as an early adopter of Ethereum, she has been mining crypto since 2016. At Geojam, she leads a fifteen-person team on product, marketing, and token utility. Before founding Geojam, Sarah founded One Box Agency, a creative agency for Brands, Events, and Talent. They produced groundbreaking 360˚ marketing experiences that ignited consumers to turn up the volume on a brand's story. We discuss various topics, including Geojam, the future of the creator economy, Web3 and NFTs, tokenomics, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing how Sarah found her way to crypto. We discussed our passion for the crypto community and what compelled her to start a crypto-based social media company. We discuss how Geojam evolved and transitioned to become a fully crypto-native company. We transition our conversation to discuss how Geojam is a community-first platform. Sarah explains how Geojam enables creators and their fans to further engage by helping creators design their merch line, where they should go on tour, organizing events together, and much more. Sarah details how Geojam is a decentralized mobile first governance tool. Sarah explains how these creators and the community can participate in governance by proposing ideas seamlessly and frictionlessly. We pivot to discuss Geojam’s collaboration with Mariah Carey, where a fan had the opportunity to go on her private jet with Mariah. Sarah explains why creators are incentivized to use Geojam and the insights they gain from their audience using the platform. We transition to discuss the process of designing Geojam’s tokenomics and the benefit of creating a token to engage with your community. Sarah explains Geojam’s goal to become the hub for communities by building tools and a decentralized hub for community members to engage with each other. We discuss how Web3 can help emerging artists develop their community and fanbase. We discuss the power of superfans and how Geojam enables them to be as involved as possible. Our final discussion topic centered around utility. We discuss the importance of utility to tokens and more potential applications for NFTs and how the use of NFTs may evolve. Please enjoy my conversation with Sarah Figueroa.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guests are Chad Barraford and Erik Voorhees. Chad Barraford is the technical lead at Thorchain, a decentralized liquidity network. Before this, he served as Chief Technology Officer at the Skyy Network, where he designed and built air traffic management on a blockchain. Barraford was also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cryptocades, an online gaming site that utilizes a device’s spare computing to mine Monero. THORChain is a decentralized liquidity protocol that allows users to easily exchange cryptocurrency assets across a range of networks without losing full custody of their investments in the process. Erik Voorhees is the founder of the startup ShapeShift.io, a Bitcoin and altcoin exchange. He is a dedicated supporter of Bitcoin and frequently is a speaker at related conferences and meetings. Voorhees believes the national monetary system has essential problems, and he, being an opponent of taxation, is actively involved in the creation of cryptocurrency regulation. He is also advocating for the use of smart contracts. We discuss various topics, including Thorchain, ShapeShift, open source systems, the permissionless revolution, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing ShapeShift’s transition to becoming a DAO. Erik discusses where the idea started and what compelled the company to transition to DAO. Erik explains the various reasons that influenced the company's decision to become a DAO. We transitioned to discuss ThorChain. We begin our conversation about ThorChain by discussing THORChain's origins and how it garnered so much interest. We discuss the ambition of the project. Chad explains why Thorchain is against the use of bridges and wrapped assets. We discuss how wrapped assets and bridges are not decentralized and how they limit the full potential of crypto. Erik discusses what attracted him to Thorchain and how his experience running ShapeShift informed him of the need for infrastructure that enabled trustless swapping of assets. Erik goes on to explain how Thorchain is able to allow decentralized swapping. We transition to discuss Thorchain’s commitment to creating a permissionless system. Chad and Erik explain how the system derives its security and how this is enabled by how Thorchain was designed and engineered. We transition to discuss how anyone can get involved with the projects because they are open source and why this leads to more innovation over time. We discuss how tokenomics incentives users and builders by giving them a vested interest in these protocols. Our next conversation topic centered around why value will accrue to the protocols that are open and permissionless. The final topic we discussed was where the yield is derived from on THORChain. Erik explains how the yield on THORChain is directly coming from the fee revenue generated. Erik also touches on the nuances of being an LP on THORChain by describing how all the pools are denominated in RUNE and why that makes the system more stable.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we have a special episode where I am sharing my conversation on Sarasota Stories hosted by Bob Williams. Bob hosts me to discuss the early days of Bitcoin, my love for Sarasota, how to navigate the crypto winter, my passion for film production, and much more. In each episode, Bob conducts in-depth interviews with a local Sarasota business owner, civic leader, entrepreneur, artist, or philanthropist to find out who they are, what they're doing now, and the impact they hope to make on the Sarasota community. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in learning more about me, the early days of Bitcoin, what makes Sarasota unique, and the disruptive potential of crypto in the film industry. We begin our conversation by discussing something people might not know about me: I am an avid guitarist. We discuss my broad range of taste in music and especially my love for bluegrass. We touch on the beauty of music and the ability to connect with people through playing music Our first major conversation topic centered around my backstory and upbringing. We discussed my very traditional Jewish upbringing and how that informed my understanding of the importance of community. We transition to how I first learned about Bitcoin by stumbling into an early Bitcoin chat forum. The forum was full of early bitcoin developers, and even Satoshi frequented and communicated to discuss Bitcoin. Our next conversation topic focused on my foray into Bitcoin. We discuss how I eventually started my bitcoin-focused startup, BitInstant, which became the first venture-backed Bitcoin startup. We discuss the craziness of the early Bitcoin days and how Bitinstant grew to encompass 30% of total Bitcoin transaction volume. We discussed how starting BitInstant propelled me to the world stage; I traveled all over the world to give talks about Bitcoin and the future possibilities this new technology could bring to the world. We discuss how one of the primary reasons why I was attracted to the Bitcoin space was because I found a family in the Bitcoin community. We discussed how I realized the disruptive potential of Bitcoin and why I knew the space was still in its infancy. We touch on how the initial experience using Bitcoin. Our conversation transitions to focus on how we ended up in sunny Sarasota. We discussed what attracted me to Sarasota. Another Sarasota conversation topic centered around how Sarasota is a burgeoning crypto hub. We discuss how Sarasota has birthed a wave of very successful crypto entrepreneurs. We also discuss what makes a city a crypto hub. We dive deep into the qualities of the city that attract and birth innovative leaders. Our next conversation topic centered around government and the importance of freedom. We discuss the necessary tradeoffs for a government to run effectively while preserving the rights of its citizens. We pivot our conversation to discuss the volatility and market turmoil currently impacting crypto. We discuss how bear markets are the perfect time to invest. We discuss the importance of doing due diligence and investing in projects with solid fundamentals. We stress the importance of dollar cost averaging and building conviction through the bear market. Our final conversation topic centered on my recent Cannes Film Festival trip. We discuss my experience of being a part of the festival and the overall vibe of the festival. We discuss the various problems with the business of making films and how DeFi and crypto can help address these inequities.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Jesse Berger, serial Entrepreneur/technologist. Jesse is a Founding PKT community member and has raised over $300 million for films that generated over $850m in global revenue. PKT is a decentralized high-speed data network that enables anyone to monetize their unused internet bandwidth. Powered by PacketCrypt, the world’s first bandwidth-hard proof-of-work, people who connect to the PKT Network are paid in PKT Cash (PKT) every 60 seconds. PKT provides an economic incentive for people to grow internet connectivity and infrastructure with minimal technical knowledge. PKT Pal is a technology company building turnkey hardware and software solutions that support the open source PKT blockchain project. PKT Pal’s first product is the PKT Cube, a plug-and-play mining device with innovative features that allows people with minimal technical knowledge to monetize their unused internet bandwidth. PKT Cube features include a PKT hardware wallet and the ability to earn PKT Cash every 60 seconds and send and receive PKT payments using a mobile device. Future functionality includes connecting to a user’s home network from anywhere in the world via VPN, being paid to share wifi access with neighbors securely, and access to a variety of DApps for streaming, gaming, and more. We discuss various topics, including PKT, Decentralized Networks, Internet Infrastructure, the Film/Entertainment Industry, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Jesse’s background in the film and entertainment industry. We discuss how a lot of the success of a movie comes down to luck. Jesse explains how many moving parts go into making a successful movie and how everything needs to go just right for a film to be a commercial success. Jesse discusses how the entertainment industry's inequity and lack of transparency opened his eyes to the need for an alternative system. Jesse explains the business of films. We discuss the process of selling a movie to a studio and the various hurdles and problems filmmakers and actors face during the process. This eventually brought him to crypto and web3. We transitioned our conversation to discuss the PKT network and the PKT cube. Jesse explains how the PKT network works and the origins of how the PKT network was developed. We discuss the enormous TAM for internet infrastructure and the need for a censorship-resistant way to access the internet. We discuss how our internet bandwidth is a commodity that isn’t fully utilized to its full potential and how PKT helps unlock this potential. We transitioned to discuss the PKT cube. Jesse explains how the PKT cube enables an easy on-ramp to the PKT network for people looking for a dedicated device that can be used to participate in the network. But Jesse stresses that unlike many of their competitors, the Cube is not necessary to participate in the network. Jesse explains how a user can elect to use a regular computer instead of the Cube. Another fascinating topic we discussed was how the tech protects the users from the liability of the actions of the people using PKT. We transitioned to discuss the use of NFTs in entertainment. We discuss how NFTs are the perfect medium for facilitating content rights ownership. Jesse explains how NFTs can be used to disrupt the monetization of various content mediums. Our final discussion topic centered around the future of the PKT network. Jesse discusses how they are thinking about scaling the infrastructure by building layers on top of PKT to enable more functionality. We discuss how PKT could bring smart contracts and NFTs to the PKT ecosystem and much more. Please enjoy my conversation with Jesse Berger.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Jesse Pollak, Senior Director of Engineering at Coinbase. Coinbase is the premier platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing cryptocurrency. Jesse is currently working on protocols, public goods, cities, and currencies at Coinbase. Jesse previously led all Retail engineering at Coinbase, including building Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Wallet. We discuss various topics, including Ethereum, the Merge, Smart Scaling, the gravity of Decentralization, Public Key Infrastructure, building in Bear Market, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing how Jesse got into crypto. Jesse shares how he started a startup focusing on identity and security software. The company leveraged public key infrastructure to enable companies to scale their identity and security needs. Most of his clients were crypto companies; this is how he fell down the crypto rabbit hole. The company was eventually acqui-hired by Coinbase in 2016. Jesse explains how public key infrastructure works and how it is widely used in crypto and throughout the internet. We pivot our conversation to discuss why now is the best time to build in Crypto. We discuss how the tools for building in crypto have become more accessible and more robust. We also discuss why this bear market feels different than previous bear markets. We focus on discussing how the number of people building something exciting and innovative is ten times bigger than there was in the last bear market. The number of real-world use cases is an order of magnitude bigger than in previous cycles. This leads us to discuss what sector of crypto excites us the most. Jesse shares that the trend that excites him the most is the increased adoption of users and businesses. Jesse predicts that this trend will eventually culminate in the large migration of a large portion of our society being on-chain. We discuss how we are seeing legacy companies beginning to embrace crypto and integrating crypto into their business Our next conversation topic centered around the rise of alternative L1s and the importance of smart scaling. Jesse discusses how the emergence of alternative L1s has impacted Ethereum and its developer base. Jesse also addresses the design trade-offs these alternative L1s are making to achieve higher transaction throughput. We also discuss how the Ethereum developers have approached scaling Ethereum while prioritizing decentralization and security. Jesse outlines why he is excited about EIP-4844. Jesse explains how EIP-4844 will help scale Ethereum by reducing the cost of Layer2s on Ethereum. Jesse explains how L2s work and how they help Ethereum scale without compromising Ethereum’s decentralization. We discuss the trilemma problem that all blockchains face or will eventually face. Jesse shares his thesis in the ideal way. Blockchains will tackle this problem. A fascinating topic we discussed centered around how decentralization is a new form of gravity within crypto. Jesse explains how everything tended to gravitate towards the most centralized outcome in the legacy world and how crypto is inverting that paradigm. We discuss how decentralization enables people to have sovereignty and autonomy. Our final discussion topic centered around how the future will be layer-specific blockchains. Jesse explains how he believes that as crypto matures, DApps will converge onto layer-specific use cases on a few blockchains instead of having hundreds of different blockchains. Please enjoy my conversion with Jesse Pollak.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we have a very special episode; we are celebrating our 300th episode. I am joined by my lovely wife, Courtney Warner Shrem. Thank you so much to everyone who has been on this incredible journey with me, from the listeners to our team that make this amazing show possible; thank you from the bottom of my heart. We discuss various topics and stories, including how we met, the early days of Bitcoin, advice for people pursuing a career in the arts, our love for Bitcoin and crypto, persevering through tough times, the origin of Untold Stories, and much more. We begin this iconic episode by discussing the EVR days. Our conversation started by discussing how we first met. Courtney shares how she became a cocktail waitress at EVR and helped facilitate the first payment of Bitcoin for a physical good in NYC. We discussed how in 2013, NYC was one of the few Bitcoin hubs and how, at the time, the community mainly existed in forums on cyberspace. We discuss the various legendary personalities who hung out at EVR. We share a charming story of how we were set up on a blind date by our friends who frequented the club. Our next conversation topic centered around traveling to our first Bitcoin Conference as a couple. Courtney shares her experience at the San Jose Bitcoin Conference and how small the community was at the time when compared to today’s conferences. An entertaining story we shared on the episode was the time I sold Fred Wilson his very first Bitcoin at Satoshi Square. Courtney explains the atmosphere and the electricity you felt when you would visit Satoshi Square. Another fun story we shared was about my and Vitalik’s first experience eating lobster. We pivot the conversation to discuss Courtney’s journey to Bitcoin and her passion for acting. Courtney discusses her experience pursuing acting and other artistic pursuits. Courtney shares her experience of her breakout role on set and the camaraderie that develops from being a part of the cast and crew on a movie set. We discuss how difficult it is to become a working actor and the grind it takes to break into the industry. She stresses the importance of creating opportunities for yourself in any artistic pursuit. Our next conversation topic centered around our various travels. We discuss our experience attending to La BitConf. We share memorable stories of our experience visiting Buenos Aires and the craziness of the conference. We pivot to discuss Stacy Herbert officiated our wedding and how we almost codified our marriage on the blockchain. We discuss the iconic Proof-of-Steak, which started the tradition of Bitcoin Steak Dinners. We discuss our various challenges during our relationship and how we have used them as springboards to further our relationship and lives to bigger and better places. We discussed how I used Steem as a way to reintroduce myself to the crypto community by sharing my thoughts on blog posts and hanging out in the Steem community. We discuss how incredible the crypto community is and how the crypto community is filled with so much love and support. Our final conversation was discussing how Untold Stories was started. Please enjoy my conversation with Courtney Warner Shrem. Thank you to everyone who supports the show and the fantastic team that makes this show possible. Love you guys.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Wil Barnes, CEO, and Co-founder of Jet Protocol. Jet is a borrowing and lending protocol built on the Solana blockchain focused on innovative lending products and cross-chain interest rate arbitrage. Most of the widely used DeFi protocols used up until this point have been built on top of and supported by the Ethereum ecosystem. Jet is ready to take borrowing and lending to the next level using Solana’s bleeding edge tech, low transaction costs, speed, and scalability. Users can also look forward to Jet's innovative interest-bearing products, which will be used to create markets on Serum DEX. The goal of Jet is to build a borrowing and lending protocol with market-driven interest rates, instead of the utilization curve-based interest rate models currently seen on Ethereum and Solana. Solana’s low fees and high throughput network gives Jet an opportunity to create an interest rate market-making experience that not only matches, but improves upon the centralized experience that everyone is familiar with. Wil is a Blockchain developer, Distributed systems software engineer with years of blockchain and software development experience before Jet at MakerDAO, ConsenSys, Kauri, PwC, and Booz Allen Hamilton; Wil brings immense engineering management and financial expertise to his broader team at Jet. Wil’s interests include open finance & geopolitics. We discuss various topics, including Jet, Solana, Ethereum, Maker DAO, the dynamics of debt markets, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Wil’s background and how he fell down the crypto rabbit hole. Wil shares how it is tough to break into traditional finance, especially when you want to work in the debt markets. He explains without a degree from a prestigious university or having a preexisting relationship; it is virtually impossible to get a job in traditional debt capital markets. He goes on to discuss how this is antithetical to crypto’s ethos and how in crypto, he was able to get various opportunities through hard work and merit. We transition and focus our discussion on his time at ConsenSys and Maker. Wil explains how Maker works and how it evolved over time. We discuss the DIA peg mechanism and address the various misconceptions about DAI. Another major conversation topic was bear markets. We discuss how to survive a bear market and how bear markets are for builders. We discussed his journey from working on Ethereum to eventually launching a project on Solana. We discuss the challenges he felt prevented him from building what he envisioned on Ethereum and why Solana was the ideal place to build Jet. We discuss the path to decentralization and the issues blockchains face when scaling. Our final discussion topic centered around Jet. Wil explains the importance of fixed interest rates for debt markets. We touch on the perils of CeFi. We discuss Jet’s mission and the future of DeFi. Please enjoy my conversation with Wil Barnes.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

My guest today is Simon Dixon, CEO & Co-Founder of the online investment platform BnkToTheFuture.com who has invested over $1.7 billion in FinTech companies. Bnk To The Future is a global online investment platform that allows qualifying investors to invest in financial innovation, including fintech (Financial Technology) companies, funds, and other new alternative financial products. He is also the Fund Manager of Bitcoin Capital & author of the book 'Bank to the Future.' An active FinTech & Bitcoin angel investor with investments in BitPay, Kraken, BitPesa, and over 20 others. An ex-director of the UK Digital Currency Association & UK CrowdFunding Association. He regularly speaks on the future of finance to governments, businesses, investors, and financial institutions. An ex-investment banker that left corporate in 2006 to work on his book on the future of banking. Simon has been regularly quoted & appeared in major press & media outlets, including BBC, FT, CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Wall Street Journal. We discuss various topics, including Bitcoin, the Celsius Collapse, an Overview of Crypto Crash, Monetary Cycles, the Fight for the Free Market, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the various collapses throughout Crypto’s history. We begin our discussion by examining the Luna death spiral. Simon explains how Mt Gox unraveled and how they handled the situation. We discuss Bitfinex’s hack. Simon describes how the team behind Bitfinex used the lessons learned from Mt Gox and how they navigated the crisis better. We finish our conversation about crypto collapses by comparing and contrasting Celsius and Voyager. Simon explains how Voyager has been more transparent and adept at handling their crisis, while Celsius has done everything they can to obfuscate blame and act in bad faith. Simon discusses in detail how Celsius management did not have proper risk management and conducted themselves as an unregistered hedge fund. Our next major conversation topic centered around monetary cycles and the fight for the free market. We discuss the fourth turning and the ending of the debt cycle. Simon explains how financial instability and economic inequality lead to societal unrest. We discuss how we are currently living through a fourth turning and what that means for society. We also touch on the fight for free markets. Simon explains how the rise of CBDCs could lead to the rise of communism. We discuss how Bitcoin is the best tool to fight to protect capitalism and liberty from the evils of communism. We stress the importance of a complex money standard and the benefits hard money provides society. Our final discussion topic centered around investing frameworks. Simon shares how he structures his portfolio to hedge against a multitude of outcomes. We finish by discussing the proper frameworks to build and maintain wealth. Please enjoy my conversation with Simon Dixon.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

My guest today is Shiv Malik, CEO, and Co-Founder of the Pool Foundation. The Pool Foundation is the company behind Pool Data, a platform and associated services to support Data Unions to develop, scale, and monetize. They have studied existing Data Union frameworks in the Web3 space, seeking to simplify the complex technology required to scale. The pool is not only generating products and a technology offering for Data Unions but also the fabric by which the entities are connected to aggregate data and data buyers. To do this, the ecosystem must become more mature by enabling new Data Union companies and integrating existing businesses into the Data Union model of governance and payment. They aim to accelerate this process by creating the materials, education, and mentorship necessary to establish Data Unions, grow their user bases, and sell their data through our real-time marketplace. Shiv Malik is a technologist, award-nominated broadcaster, author of two books, former Guardian investigative journalist, and co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation think tank. He joined the Web3 space in mid-2017 as an adviser to the Golem project and subsequently as Head of Growth for Streamr and co-creator of their Data Unions framework. In 2021 he co-founded Pool and currently leads the organization on its mission to bring Data Unions to the world and ensure that people have control of their data and a genuine stake in the digital economy. We discuss various topics in our conversation, including the importance of Data, Data-opolies, Data Unions, Data Emancipation, and much more. We begin our discussion by discussing Shiv’s background before joining the Web3 space. Shiv shares how he was an investigative journalist and war correspondent. Shiv explains how his experiences helped prepare him for founding a startup. We transition our conversation to discuss why Data emancipation is essential. We discuss how the current surveillance capitalist model works and how tech companies can profit from our data. We define the term data-opolies and how Web3 offers an alternative system to the status quo. Shiv explains why he is so passionate about Data and Data Emancipation. We transition our conversation to discuss Pool and Data Unions. Shiv explains how Pool is building the infrastructure for Data Unions. We discuss in detail what data unions are and why they are essential in the quest to disrupt these Data-opolies. We transition to discuss advertising. Shiv explains how Data is used in advertising and how things need to change because of public sentiments toward data collection and government and corporate regulation. We discuss how Data Unions can help power the next revolution in marketing and advertising. Our final topic centered around the Intergenerational Foundation think tank. We discuss how we can reimagine the future and the importance of optimizing for time preference. Please enjoy my conversation with Shiv Malik.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we have a special episode where I am sharing my conversation on the Pod of Jake. Jake hosts me to discuss various topics, including Bitcoin, the early days of Bitcoin, the evolution of the Bitcoin and crypto space, and much more. Pod of Jake is an excellent podcast where Jake brings on guests from various industries to discuss technology, innovation, big ideas, and much more. This podcast is a must-listen-to anyone interested in learning more about myself, the early days of Bitcoin, and the future of Bitcoin and Crypto. We begin our conversation by discussing the early Bitcoin community. We touch on how the early Bitcoin community was composed of mainly young people and free staters. We transition to discuss how Bitcoin teaches financial literacy. We have a deep discussion about the issues of financial literacy and inclusion and how Bitcoin is a vehicle to learn about how the financial system works and why we need sound money. We discuss how I initially understood Bitcoin and how my understanding of Bitcoin evolved. We discuss how Bitcoin is a very deep subject matter and requires one to be curious and open-minded. We pivot our conversation to discuss how Bitcoin grew from word of mouth and the legend of Satoshi. Our next major conversation topic centered around Bitcoin being a lifeline. We discuss how Bitcoin and crypto are seen as an investment in first-world countries, but in most of the world, Bitcoin and crypto are seen as lifelines to the financial world. We discuss how the Bitcoin and Crypto industry is still very early, but the revolutionary technology is powering them. We discuss how we are our own worst enemy when trying to stomach the volatility of this emerging asset class. Our conversation transitions to focus on Bitcoin Maximalism. I share my thoughts on the subject and stress that I am a decentralization maximalist and what that means. We discuss the importance of permissionless systems as one of the core innovations of the blockchain and should be the North Star all crypto projects strive for. We pivot to discuss my experience building Bitinstant. We discuss my experience building an early Bitcoin company and the roadblocks I faced when trying to scale a crypto startup in the industry's early days. One of our last topics centered around crypto innovations and Bitcoin. We discuss how much of the innovation we see in the broader crypto ecosystem has its roots in Bitcoin, and how looking back at the industry's early days, we can see where the industry may be headed. Our last topic centered around what initially attracted me to the Bitcoin community. Please enjoy my conversation with Jake.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's guest is my friend, Kyle Kemper, a self-starting entrepreneur, bitcoin, crypto evangelist, and author. He is currently Chief Alchemist at Raze. The RAZE fintech platform enables users to tokenize and fractionalize shares, royalties, and distributions empowering you to self-fundraise quickly and safely using our flagship Dynamic Security Tokens (DSTs). He is also the co-host of the Miami Crypto Experience. He is known to be intellectually curious with a strong understanding of the crypto industry, decentralization, and transformation. Kyle has a long history working with Executives, Investors, Marketing, Compliance & Product teams. He prides himself on being an open communicator, storyteller, speaker, and presenter. He has over nine years of experience in business development, marketing, and communication with crypto & high-growth consumer-facing tech companies. We discuss various topics, including Bitcoin, the Crypto Community, Crypto’s Cultural Impact, Disrupting Corporate Governance, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the importance of incorporating joy and happiness into our daily lives—Kyle shares how he is able to not take himself too seriously. We discuss how crypto has finally pierced the cultural zeitgeist of mainstream culture. We discuss how everyday people are excited about crypto and how it permeates general conversation. Our following conversation topic was Kyle’s journey down the crypto rabbit hole. Kyle shares what attracted him to crypto and how various life experiences led him to crypto. We go on to discuss what makes Bitcoin such a revolutionary idea. Our next conversation topic centered around network participation. We discuss how the Doge community is one of the most vibrant communities in crypto. Kyle shares why Doge is an excellent introductory crypto for people looking to understand the basic principles of crypto. We transition to discuss the topic of self-custody and not your keys and not your crypto. We discuss the improvement of crypto wallets. Kyle also shares why he believes improving the UX/UI of wallets will help unlock crypto’s true potential. We discuss the impact of a universal unified crypto wallet. Our next conversation topic centered around product development. Kyle advises when you are launching a product to have the least amount of features possible and once you have a large enough user base, begin adding features slowly. Kyle shares why this is vital for gaining traction as an early company. We pivot our conversation to discuss UX/UI design. We discuss how designers and product people are only just entering the space. Kyle discusses how these people will drive adoption by making crypto more user-friendly and intuitive. We pivot to discuss self-actualization. Kyle stresses the need for a solid community to help oneself to self-actualize. One of the benefits of crypto is the strong community associated with being a part of the space. Our next conversation topic centered around the Kempler Clifford Formula. Kyle explains how anyone can use this simple formula to determine how much Bitcoin you need to own to protect yourself if you experience hyperbitcoinization. We finish our conversation to discuss how blockchain will help create direct democracy and fight against centralized tyranny. Please enjoy my conversation with Kyle Kemper.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we have a special episode; I am sharing the panel that I was a part of at Consensus 2022, titled: 10 Years Later: Bitcoin's Commercial Beginnings from Those Who were There. The panel included Jered Kenna, Jonathan Mohan, and Adam B. Levine. Jered Kenna was the Founding CEO of the first US Bitcoin exchange, Tradehill / Bitcoin.com. Jered is an investor and former Marine. Jered Kenna is currently the Founder and CEO of 20mission Co-living / 20mission Cerveza, an investor specializing in start-ups and an entrepreneur at heart. Jonathan Mohan, Kickstarted the New York Blockchain community in early 2013, leading to one of the longest-running and one of the largest Blockchain-related meetup groups in the world. He is currently the Head of Partnerships at DLTx, a public company expanding web3 by deploying blockchain infrastructure at scale across major global industries. Adam B. Levine has been exploring, chronicling, and inspiring the world of Bitcoin and non-currency tokens since 2011. He’s a serial entrepreneur, the founding managing editor of Podcasts at CoinDesk(2019), founder and host of Speaking of Bitcoin(2013) and CoinDesks’ Markets Daily podcast. Adam is also the founder of Tokenly, Inc.(2014). Adam currently spends his time building state-of-the-art creativity-enhancing AI tools as the founder and CEO of 330.ai (2021). We discuss various topics, including our journey down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, the Early Bitcoin community, wild stories from the early days, how the space has evolved, and much more. We begin the conversation by sharing how we got into Bitcoin and the initial community that formed around Bitcoin in the early years. We highlight the iconic Crypto Castle in San Francisco, where many projects were incubated. Our next conversation topic centered around the experience of living through and being a part of Bitcoin’s infancy. We discuss why we believed Bitcoin had the potential to change the world. We discuss how the community was very cooperative and not competitive in the early days of the industry. We also touch on how pseudonymity permeated the early online community of Bitcoin. We had a funny conversation about the first Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, Bitcoin Savings and Trust, run by Pirate@40. Another fascinating conversation topic was the watershed moment in 2013 when a Congressional Hearing publicly declared being a Bitcoiner is not a felony. Our next major conversation topic centered on how Bitcoin and the Crypto Industry have changed over the last decade. We touch on how archaic regulation has stifled US innovation and has forced entrepreneurs and builders who want to pursue careers in crypto abroad. We also discuss why we are still so early in crypto and Bitcoin’s journey. We finish our conversation by discussing our craziest early Bitcoin stories. Please enjoy my conversation with myself and my friends, some of the most iconic Bitcoin OGs.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s guest is Bobby Zagotta, the Chief Executive Officer of BitStamp. Bitstamp is a cryptocurrency exchange based in Luxembourg. It allows trading between fiat currency, bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies. Bitstamp is the world’s longest-running cryptocurrency exchange, continuously supporting the Bitcoin economy since 2011. With a proven track record and mature approach to the industry, Bitstamp provides a secure and transparent venue to over four million customers and enables partners to access emerging crypto markets through time-proven infrastructure. The company was founded as a European-focused alternative to then-dominant bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. While the company trades in US dollars, it accepts fiat money deposits for free only via the European Union's Single Euro Payments Area, a mechanism for transferring money between European bank accounts. Bobby has demonstrated success in building and growing businesses in established and emerging markets, including significant experience in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. He’s proven to have the ability to develop and lead business lines, product development, global marketing and sales, international business development, and M&A/VC investing. He has significant experience building and leading winning teams, strategy and M&A, big data analytics, operations, lean principles, planning/forecasting, and leadership team facilitation and execution. Before joining Bitstamp, Bobby was the Chief Commercial Officer at Kraken Digital, where he was a member of the senior leadership team accountable for Business Operations & Strategy, Global Business Development, Corporate Development/M&A, Intelligence & Analytics, Banking & Payments, as well as two business line P&Ls, CF Benchmarks and OTC Trading. We discuss various topics, including Bitstamp, crypto adoption, surviving a crypto crash, regulatory clarity, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing how TradFi institutions are being forced to understand the crypto space and what kind of product offerings they should build to give their clients access to crypto. We transition to discuss how in emerging markets, crypto is viewed. Bobby explains how in a survey conducted by Bitstamp, emerging markets trust crypto more than the traditional financial system. We discuss how crypto, for a large part of the world, is not an investment but a lifeline to the financial world. We move on to discuss Bitstamp. We discuss Bitstamp’s rich history and its commitment to customer success. We stress the need for crypto companies to focus on customer support and success to continue growing adoption and trust. We pivot our conversation to discuss the politicization of finance and how the Fed has grown in importance within the general public’s mindshare. We discuss the growing desire of the general public to understand how economic policy is made and its implications. This leads us to discuss the current economic fallout and its impact on the crypto markets. We focus on discussing various ways to survive the crypto winter. We also touch on the need to build through the bear market and how every successful company was started during a bear market. Our next conversation topic centered around regulatory clarity. We discuss the regulation of the broader crypto market, stable coins, and the need for Spot Bitcoin ETF. Please enjoy my conversation with Bobby Zagotta.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

My guest today is 0xDorsal, Co-founder and core contributor of Integral. Integral is a new DeFi primitive that efficiently executes large orders. It is the only such primitive with a functional product to date and is poised to capture the exact segment of large client trading volume for DeFi. Integral is the pioneer in executing large orders in DeFi. It works smart by executing an order according to an oracle’s average price over time (currently, it’s Uniswap’s 5-min TWAP). To offer a competitive price with nearly 0% price impact, Integral mirrors order-book and AMM from some of the best centralized and decentralized exchanges and create a highly liquidity-rich environment for these large orders to execute. This technology mimics how the centralized exchanges process large orders: split and execute them over a period of time. This is made possible with the OB-AMM. The innovative AMM design unbundles the concept of liquidity to depth (order book depth, AMM shape) and capital (the actual amount of LP asset in the order book or AMM). By mirroring order books from exchanges like Binance and Uniswap, Integral can achieve the same depth with much less capital. 0xDorsal is the pseudonymous co-founder of Integral, the world’s first DeFi primitive for large orders. Dorsal’s background as a hedge fund manager positioned him well to help drive the migration from TradFi to DeFi. Dorsal has extensive experience as a business development lead within DeFi. In addition to his work at Integral, Dorsal is especially interested in market design, liquidity, DAOs, and coordination. We discuss various topics, including Integral, the evolution of DEXs, building a crypto project, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing 0xDorsal’s Tradfi background. 0xDorsal discusses how his TradFi background prepared him to understand the current crypto landscape and gave him context to how the crypto trading industry is headed. We transition to discuss the evolution of Dex’s. We discuss the original DEXs like Etherdelta and IDEX and the significant shortcomings they experienced. And how these original DEXs gave rise to the next evolution of decentralized exchanges like Uniswap. 0xDorsal discusses why Uniswap v2 was a watershed moment in crypto’s history. We discuss the various problems plaguing the current DEX space, like front-running, MEVs, and flashbots. We dive deep into the various issues and how they impact a trader’s PNL. Our next conversation topic centered around Integral and how the project is tackling these various problems to create a better experience for large and small traders. 0xDorsal explains how Integral has innovated the AMM model. 0xDorsal explains how TWAMM works and why it’s so innovative. We transition to discuss the future of Integral. We touch on Integral’s possible future product offerings and their road map. 0xDorsal explains how they plan on building a decentralized OTC desk and the possibility of building atomic swaps into the project to enable cross-chain compatibility. We also discuss why they have decided to build a pseudonymous team and the benefits of pseudonymity. Our final discussion topic centered around the future of the crypto industry and where the crypto is headed. Please enjoy my conversation with 0xDorsal.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, my guest is Eric Tung, Founder and CEO of Themelio Labs, the company behind Themelio, a public blockchain that enables open, secure, and resilient decentralized apps. Themelio is pitched as a radically simple, stable, and long-term foundation that can power a vast and diverse ecosystem. Themelio plans to play a fundamental and ubiquitous role in the security infrastructure of a new and decentralized Internet, much like how IP, “immutable” since 1983, still underpins Internet communication. Themelio’s design is firmly centered around decoupling the blockchain from user-facing applications. Themelio does one thing — provide robust low-level functionality critical to secure decentralized apps — and strives to do it very well. An example is Mel, an independent, stable-value cryptocurrency that anyone can freely use. Inspired by previous blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, Themelio nonetheless takes a very different design approach: radical immutability inspired by the Internet's architecture. Eric spent parts of his childhood in Canada and China, where he was born. His mother home-schooled him while they lived in Beijing to keep the Chinese Communist Party propaganda to a minimum. Yet as China ramped up its Great Firewall to block outside Internet from coming into the country, Eric rebelled and built Geph, a virtual private network that could get around the Chinese firewall. He did this when he was 12, and Geph is still used today in China and Iran. At 14, Tung was accepted into the University of Waterloo, where Ethereum inventor Vitalik Buterin was also a student and creator of Themelio. This new blockchain protocol strips out higher-level functionality to focus on the shared trusted layer of truth. We discuss various topics, including the internet protocol stack, rethinking blockchain, the importance of endogenous trust, paradigm shifts, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing Eric’s background and what led him down the crypto rabbit hole. Eric explains how he started Geph and became interested in cryptography. We discuss why freedom tools and privacy-preserving protocols may be even more critical in the future. Our conversation transitions to discussing how the internet is structured and the various protocols that make up the internet. We pivot to discuss Themelio. We discuss how Eric and his team have reimagined how a blockchain should work by modeling it after the internet. We discuss how they created revolutionary non-fiat stablecoin. We also touch on how the killer feature of blockchains has always been endogenous trust and why that is important. We finish our conversation by discussing how to unlock the true potential of blockchain technology and what applications will drive mass adoption of blockchain technology. Please enjoy my conversation with Eric Tung.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, my guest is Michael Shaulov, the CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, a secure digital asset infrastructure company. Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 1,200 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $2.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. Some of the biggest trading desks have switched to Fireblocks because it's the only solution that CISOs and Ops Teams love. Before Fireblocks, he co-founded Lacoon Mobile Security, which was acquired by Check Point, and was then appointed the Head of Products, Mobile, and Cloud Security for Check Point. Michael is a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur and investor. He is also a recognized industry speaker, delivering talks at RSA Conference, BlackHat, and Infosec. Michael Shaulov received his B.Sc. in Computer Sciences and Physics from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, in 2009. We discuss various topics, including the importance of infrastructure, ensuring crypto’s mission, TradFi’s role in crypto, Premissioned DeFi, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the state of infrastructure in crypto. Michael shares how we can continue evolving and improving the infrastructure so that power crypto becomes better. We discuss the future of infrastructure in crypto and the importance of infrastructure in delivering crypto’s ethos. We also touch on preserving crypto’s ethos of equality and liberation. Our next topic focused on the role of TradFi and other incumbents. Michael shares how these incumbents can help crypto cross the chasm and bring the next wave of adoption to crypto. We also touch on crypto's regulatory hurdles and how these incumbents can help the industry navigate the regulatory waters. We transitioned to discuss permissioned DeFi. We discuss how we can build crypto-native tools to enable better consumer protection and the balancing act between DeFi and regulatory compliance. Michael very eloquently explains the advantages of building on-chain metadata and how this unlocks new markets for crypto. We end our conversation by discussing how companies can partner with Fireblocks to give their project the best in class infrastructure and backend capabilities to scale their project as efficiently and securely. Please enjoy my conversation with Michael Shaoluv.--This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.