The DIVI Crypto Podcast

Today on the DIVI podcast, Ryan and Steve discuss some of the changes over the past four or five years in crypto, and the divergence. In the beginning, there was a decentralized path. Now, there are huge custodial and DeFi plays happening. The different perspectives are leading to the maturity of the crypto industry. With the restructuring of not only the personnel of DIVI, but the legal framework, in order to be fully decentralized, to look good from a legal perspective, to be positioned for a Series A, and to start the larger partnerships, allowing for access to opportunities that had previously been out of reach. The DIVI wallet launched earlier in 2021, allowing for staking with just one DIVI from your cell phone. With more staking, DIVI is close to one billion coins. Upcoming features in 2022 include fiat on-ramp and crypto swaps. Crypto swaps will be a prerequisite for the DeFi initiative, swapping tokens in the wallet itself. With the rise of NFT projects, Crypto MoonBoys, and Darren Cullen, who is also behind Graffiti Kings. While he started out with graffiti as vandalism, he now devotes a lot of resources to helping kids in need get into various arts and crafts. There are a number of funds taking interest in Play To Earn, which has some subtle differences from Play And Earn. The collectible art toy world is crossing over into the Metaverse, with games being a natural part of it. This is just the start of the dominance of NFTs. With the Metaverse rising, not only will users be able to share text, as well as audio and video, but will be able to feel. The Sandbox may be a winner in the MetaVerse, and an ongoing virtual meetup, Sandstorm, is held for The Sandbox. Sandstorm aims to help promote the various unsung heroes who may not receive as much coverage. With the high gas on the Ethereum Blockchain, some are looking at Wax as an alternative for NFTs. Part of the problem on Ethereum is the Miner Extracted Value, where miners can front-run transactions, as well as use sandwich attacks, and steal the profits for themselves, or otherwise manipulate transactions. In many instances, the gas prices alone can raise the overall cost of a transaction by two or even three times. For example, a $100 NFT had a gas fee of $250. In order to address gas fees, alternatives like L2 or side-chains, like Polygon, are growing in demand. To learn more about some of the projects mentioned in this episode, visit: https://cryptomoonboys.com/ https://r2-graffitikings.io/ https://sandstormmeetup.com/ -- DIVI is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the DIVI Project blockchain serves as the core of the DIVI network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the DIVI team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. DIVI's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today on The DIVI Crypto Podcast we interview Kate Sills of Agoric. Agoric is an open-source development company unveiling an interoperable Proof-of-Stake chain and economy. Agoric’s JavaScript-native smart contract platform provides developers a safe, reusable library of DeFi components to rapidly build and deploy on-chain. Agoric lets you “Build Fast, Earn Fast,” by providing a Proof-of-Stake chain utilizing secure JavaScript smart contracts to rapidly build and deploy DeFi. This allows for composable DeFi, where developers choose your DeFi legos, compose your dapp, and deploy on the Agoric chain. In a few lines of code in JavaScript, one is able to reuse a smart contract component that your users know and trust. Each and every step of an application's journey has been considered in order to save you time and resources. From idea to deployment like never before: Choose components from our library to fit the project's requirements. Add your unique elements to the components to build your dapp. Use the deployment mechanisms to deploy on chain and create new contract instances. Agoric is built on a JavaScript library of reusable, composable components coded by experienced community members. Developers can connect to Ethereum, Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), and Chainlink. You can attract Ethereum users by providing them a dead simple on-ramp through the Gravity Bridge. Ethereum's assets can collateralize your contracts in seconds. The Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol ensures that Agoric can connect natively to any Cosmos chain and any chains which adopt it in the future. Agoric is integrated with Chainlink’s market-leading oracle network, letting your application launch in a data rich environment. There are a few ways for you to start earning with Agoric. In the Token Strategy, Blockchain projects often establish a native governance token, which may include protocol fee capture. Agoric’s framework makes designing and launching your token simple. Import our tested examples and make them your own. Under the upcoming Fiat On-Ramps, you can address users unfamiliar with blockchain. Agoric’s upcoming fiat on-ramp partnerships will make it easy to onboard users with a credit card or fiat-backed local currencies. Many projects want to monetize off of interest on balances in user accounts. Agoric provides block-level rate calculations, timing notifiers, and governance to manage it. Get paid directly by your users. Agoric’s local currency, RUN, is backed by the chain itself and supported through economic activity. Let your users buy in RUN and get paid immediately. RUN is a stable local currency pegged to the USD to facilitate economic growth and on-chain transactions. To learn more about Agoric, visit: https://agoric.com/ -- DIVI is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the DIVI Project blockchain serves as the core of the DIVI network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the DIVI team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. DIVI's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today on The DIVI Crypto Podcast we interview Barron Solomon of Solo Music. Solo Music is one platform for all of your digital music assets. For artists, you can connect with your fans and the music community through creative NFT drops, including both digital assets and real world items and experiences. The industry can utilize smart contracts and NFTs to expand revenue streams to the digital market and maintain an incredible fan experience. Fans can increase their pull by collecting digital assets, including privileged music, art, and experiences from your favorite artists and musicians. Solo Music is a web3 company with the focus of creating immediate possibilities and long-term goals for the music industry. Solo Music offers artists, agencies, labels, and publishing companies the resolution to maximize how blockchains will impact both the artists’ careers, and the overall industry. Solo Music showcase the power of NFTs for community building, fundraising, and as a digital asset distribution mechanism as our initial focus. The music industry will see a creative revolution as powerful as the impact of the internet as a direct result of blockchain technology allowing artists to take charge of their careers and give them access to their fans like never before. Solo Music believes in the future of NFTs in the industry and are bridging the accessibility gap for both the industry and the fans. The NFT collectibles are a membership in a digital community that are generally limited in available quantity and can offer perks to holders like inner content, behind the scenes videos, early access to new assets, airdrops, or access to digital and in person events. As with any other goods, the NFTs on Solo Music is bought by a purchaser has their own motivations for making a purchase of an asset – digital or not. An NFT of digital artwork can hold value for the holder solely based on their subjective appreciation of the artwork. When creators sell their content as NFTs, funds go directly to them. If the new owner then sells the NFT, the original creator can even automatically receive royalties from that sale from the contract that governs the NFT. In order for a person to buy NFTs on Solo Music, one may use the option to purchase with a credit card, using the Stripe payment gateway. The other option to purchase NFTs on Solo Music is to use Coinbase Pay. If you are an artist and wish to submit an application, you may do so on our site. To learn more about Solo Music, visit: https://www.solomusic.io/ -- DIVI is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the DIVI Project blockchain serves as the core of the DIVI network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the DIVI team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. DIVI's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today on The DIVI Crypto Podcast, we interview Jay Fraser of BSTX. BSTX is building the first blockchain-integrated national securities exchange. Taking a company public can be cumbersome. The benefits for small companies may not be able to outweigh the expenses that are traditionally associated in this process. Modern technological companies are still going public in the same ways companies did decades ago, through a burdensome and inefficient process. The solution that BSTX offers is using blockchain technology to make an easy exchange with price discovery, with the potential to encourage more issuers to go public in order to reach new investors. Investors benefit with access to previously closely held assets. BSTX offers potential to improve on all the current incumbent options and offer: price discovery corporate governance investor protection less complex path to an IPO This securities exchange is open to all participants and not limited to just accredited and institutional investors, which provides issuers exposure to a greater number and variety of investors. BSTX is building an innovative way to access capital markets aligned with traditional regulated exchange processes, improving the process for the smaller companies to access public markets. The joint venture of BSTX, is between BOX Digital, who provides executive leadership and regulatory expertise, and tZERO, who manages ongoing technology implementation, administration, maintenance, and support. Boston Security Token Exchange LLC (BSTX), a joint venture of BOX Digital Markets LLC and tZERO Group, Inc., has its updated proposed rulebook that has been published by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is open for public comment. This rule book is for establishing BSTX as a securities exchange. BSTX can offer potentially faster settlement, proprietary market data transmitted via blockchain, and better market quality for early stage companies. BSTX proposes the following benefits as an exchange: Allow participants to elect accelerated settlement for securities listed on BSTX. Using a private, permissioned blockchain that it maintains and controls, BSTX will make available to exchange participants certain proprietary market data related to trading activity occurring on BSTX. Finally, BSTX’s filing proposes suspending unlisted trading privileges (“UTP”) in securities that meet the proposed definition of a “thinly-traded security.” This would concentrate liquidity for securities in one national securities exchange, fashioning market making in such securities more attractive, while simultaneously providing earlier stage companies with more market liquidity and a broader pool of public investors. For more information on BSTX, visit: https://bstx.com/ -- DIVI is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the DIVI Project blockchain serves as the core of the DIVI network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the DIVI team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. DIVI's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today, on the DIVI Crypto, we have Brittany Laughlin of Stacks. Stacks, crypto symbol STX, enables DeFi, NFTs, apps, and smart contracts for Bitcoin. Hold and temporarily lock STX, Stacks’ native currency, and support the network’s security and consensus. As a reward, you’ll earn BTC. Stacks brings Bitcoin to DeFi. Stacks unlocks the hundreds of billions in capital in Bitcoin, giving those who hodl bitcoin new opportunities to use and earn BTC. In stacking STX tokens and participating in the PoX consensus, users can earn BTC while securing the Stacks chain. Clarity smart contracts have a built-in Simple Payment Verification (SPV) proofs for Bitcoin to make interacting with Bitcoin’s state simple for developers. Clarity contracts can fork with the original Bitcoin chain. Where Bitcoin forks, developers won’t have to worry about adjusting the deployment of their smart contracts. Bitcoin hasn’t been as productive an asset as other cryptocurrencies for DeFi without going through either centralized exchanges or separate blockchains in the form of wrapped BTC. Stacks changes this. Stacks is uniquely positioned to enable true Bitcoin DeFi, given Stacks contracts' visibility into the Bitcoin state as well as Stacks’ inherent ability to leverage Bitcoin’s security and settlement assurances. The Stacks chain is tethered to Bitcoin through its Proof of Transfer consensus mechanism, so all Stacks transactions settle on Bitcoin. This ensures that Stacks shares Bitcoin’s long-term, unparalleled security for transaction reorgs. Two of the most popular consensus methods in blockchain are proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. Stack uses Proof-of-transfer (PoX), an extension of the proof-of-burn mechanism. Proof-of-burn is where miners compete by ‘burning’ a proof-of-work cryptocurrency as a proxy for computing resources. PoX uses the proof-of-work cryptocurrency of an established blockchain to secure a new blockchain. Rather than burning the cryptocurrency, miners transfer the committed cryptocurrency to some other participants in the network. In addition, Stack brings Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to Bitcoin. The value of an NFT is derived from the assets that the NFT represents: digital art, collectibles, domain names, and representation of ownership of content rights. NFTs can be used as digital certificates that track the authenticity of real world items, or digitize the ownership rights to property. There are proposals for improvement of Stacks 2.1 that will voted on. They include: Continuous Stacking. Increasing lock-ups or ‘topping off’. Unlock unused STX automatically. Better Parsing and Type Conversion Primitives. Expose PoX reward set info. More Clarity Built-ins. And Much More. For more, visit https://www.stacks.co -- DIVI is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the DIVI Project blockchain serves as the core of the DIVI network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the DIVI team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. DIVI's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today on the DIVI Crypto Podcast we are talking with Marko Baricevic, a Developer Relations person of Interchain. Interchain GmbH is building the internet of blockchains. We are responsible for stewarding some of the most foundational infrastructure for blockchain ecosystems. Our work helps secure billions of dollars in value across a variety of major blockchain projects, including Cosmos, and we are pioneering new protocols for interoperability across the entire blockchain ecosystem. Our vision is to create a new interconnected ecosystem, a new internet of blockchains: The Interchain. Our products include Tendermint Core, a groundbreaking, Byzantine-fault tolerant consensus protocol; the Inter Blockchain Communication protocol, a reliable, ordered, authenticated cross-ledger data transport protocol; and Gaia, the software that powers the Cosmos Hub. Cosmos were chosen over other blockchains, like Ethereum, for Marko Baricevic because they have more of a community feel, and not as overcrowded as Ethereum. Many blockchains—Ethereum, Solona, Avalanche, etc.—are essentially isolated. Interchain is working on building on a communication layer for these blockchains across the entire ecosystem, working with IVC (Imperial Valley College), to use the blockchain as seamlessly as one uses the internet today. We participate in research, development, product, community, and social good initiatives which align with our vision and mandate, as well as providing funding towards these projects. In the near to intermediate future, there can be competitions to see which protocols and which designs are used the most, without the average user giving much thought, accessing it as one accesses the internet now. In Tendermint, with Proof of Stake, one must control two-thirds of the network, or more, as opposed to one-half of the network, as is used in Proof of Work, to convince the network something has happened. This is a guard against events such as double spending. Tendermint itself doesn’t have a coin for staking. Instead, if one wants to stake, one would use ATOM on the Cosmos network, or Luna on the Terra network, as examples. As the internet uses TCP/IP to communicate between severs and to communicate between the end users, ICP is used as the TCP/IP of blockchain, in that if one develops a blockchain or smart contract, one simply pulls in that module to communicate with another chain. This protocol passes token transfers, NFT transfers, do cross-chain transactions. ICP is a trustless way to communicate between the chains. It is as secure as the chains that the communications are between. More information at https://www.interchain.berlin/ -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

In this episode of The DIVI Crypto Podcast, we are talking with Paulo Rodrigues, the COO of Public Mint. Public Mint offers a powerful, simple payment system and access to the best opportunities in decentralized finance (DeFi), with no bank account required. The Earn program allows everyone to tap into the high yields available in modern decentralized finance (DeFi), with reduced risks and none of the complexity when you migrate your MINT tokens to the Public Mint network for daily rewards starting at 20% APY in the run-up to EARN governance. Public mint allows users to program their money, as many people are financially excluded. They don’t have access to financial services. Startups, especially in the blockchain industry, struggle to have a bank account. The idea is to be a fiat blockchain. Public mint works with both sides. On the fiat, Public Mint works with public regulated companies, like banks and trust companies, that are entitled to hold money. Then, a synthetic version of that money held is created. This allows all the benefits of an ERC-20 Token, along with the benefit of fiat, such as FDIC insured. Having multiple custodians adds robustness to the network and guarantees no single point of failure. This structure also makes the system much more scalable and able to expand into many geographies and currencies. Using Public Mint, you have fixed low fees at USD $0.05 per transaction and transaction times under 5 seconds with immediate finality. The fees primarily exists to protect the system from denial of service attacks. Unlike main net Ethereum transactions, which have high gas fees for the transactions. The business model of Public Mint isn’t built on top of the fees of the network, but on other revenue streams that will come down the line. You can take advantage of full Ethereum compatibility to deploy unmodified smart contracts that immediately operate with USD. Leverage the power of Public Mint from other services and blockchains, soon to include Polkadot. The goal is for regular users to have interesting use case scenarios that currently only exist in the crypto world. A regular person with no prior knowledge of blockchain can simply click a button, and gain access to what is happening in the DeFi space. Public Mint has no access to funds held by the custodial structure, and cannot generate earnings on its own. Instead, users earn via DeFi methods, like staking. For more information go to: https://publicmint.com/ -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today on the DIVI Crypto Podcast, we are talking with Alex Pruden from Aleo. Aleo Modular and compliant. The ultimate toolkit for building private applications is finally here; Zero-Knowledge is finally here. Aleo is an end to end developer platform and tool kit for building and deploying private applications that users can interact with. The whole thing is powered by zero-knowledge cryptography, allowing you to prove something is true, without revealing why. At the bottom stack of Aleo is the blockchain, “Snark OS,” or Synced Non-interactive Augmented Knowledge, the Zero Knowledge Proof. The purpose of the blockchain is to persist records to represent the state of a program at any given time, and to host transactions that are verified by miners. With Zero Knowledge Proofs, miners only have to verify the correctness of the transactions. This also helps to manage consensus for the system. The next layer is Snark, where transactions happen inside of Zero Knowledge Proof. This layer is followed by LEO, that switches smart contract language for writing high-level application logic. This bridges the gap between cryptograpy and the layman user. This allows other programming languages to be used to interact with the Zero Knowledge Proof. The last stack is the front end interface, the wallet, the explorer, and the studio to write Leo applications. This allows one to write a package which can then be added to a registry for others. The first benefit of this is privacy. A practical application of this is the issue of the various decentralized exchanges known as front-running. All transactions are public in the ledger, and each miner can look at it before it is added to a block. Miner Extractable Value is where a miner can see a transaction, and if there is value in a user’s transaction, the miner can take it for themselves. The miner can copy your transaction, take it for themselves, and thus, take your profit. With Aleo and Zero Knowledge Proof, miners have no way to extract the information, as miners look at each transaction as being valid, without knowing the contents of the transaction. If you would like to know more, visit: https://www.aleo.org -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

DIVI Crypto podcast presents Block Bank's COO, Darren Franceschini. Block Bank is a one-stop solution that combines the power of decentralized and centralized technology in a simple and secure Mobile & Web application. BlockBank is powered by our platform's utility token called BBANK. Users are able to gain access to our credit card rewards program, use our advanced AI assistant, increase their APY % and earn interest on their tokens by staking BBANK in their non-custodial BlockBank cryptocurrency wallet. We aim to combine the best of DeFi and CeFi worlds in one place, and incorporate AI technology to assist users in decision-making. Initially, Block Bank’s AI will be informational. As Block Bank moves forward, it will be more actionable. The goal will be based on experience in the industry, their risk profile, and what they’re willing to do. It gives them a full experience: a capacity to understand their overall expenses, what they can afford to invest, when they need to pull out, etc. This will not only focus on the crypto, but a user’s overall portfolio. In addition to bitcoin, Block Bank aims to work with a multitude of crypto currency. Block Bank will have a centralized custodial wallet, and a non-custodial web 3 wallet. Custody is fully insured, with purchase and exit via fiat. While there are multiple bank-ends for the respective legal regulations, for the user, it is essentially all one application. The custodial wallet will be used for staking, trading through APIs into CEXes, Insuring assets, Borrowing, Fiat on and off ramp, Off chain / on chain solution, Complete KYC verification. DeFi will serve a host of functions such as: Multi asset chain support (ERC,BSC, HECO, etc), Gift Card purchases. BBANK token is BlockBank’s native. BBANK is developed on the ETH blockchain and follows the ERC20token standard, as well as BEP-20. BBANK is used to access Block Bank services, boost user APY, and earn interest on their tokens. By using BBANK tokens, users gain access to premium features, higher APYs and in-app offers. The BBANK tokens are listed on UniSwap, PancakeSwap, 1Inch, Gate.io, with more being added all the time. Block Bank will allow users to have access to their assets via Prepaid Debit card, with the initially launching of the card being in Europe, with more jurisdictions to follow, based on regulations. There will be five tiers for staking, from 1 to +500,000 BBank, with APY from 2% to 20% APY. You can find more information at https://blockbank.ai/ -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Barbara Gonzalez Briseno, the CFO of Bitso, the largest and fastest growing crypto exchange in Latin America. Barbara has a background in traditional finance and was an investment banker for many years. A few years ago, Barbara was on a quest to get outside her comfort zone and figure out the best avenue to have an impact when she was introduced to Daniel Vogel, the now CEO and founder of Bitso. She says Daniel introduced her to the crypto space, and she knew instantly that this technology had the power to transform human interaction with the financial system. Barbara knew she had to be a part of the industry, and she has been now for the last four years. She says she’s proud to be a part of the evolution of the industry and can’t envision herself doing anything else. As the largest and fastest growing crypto platform in Latin America, they now have over 2.7 million users. Their mission is to make crypto useful. Barbara believes the technology has the potential to power an entire region that had been forgotten by the traditional finance system. Bitso is trying to build products and services on top of the technology that will allow an alternative to what people have seen before. As they try to figure out all the new features they can add, there has been a proven appetite for more use cases. While Bitso does offer exchange services, Barbara says they never wanted to be like a casino where people are trying to make money really fast. She says they offer tokens that can or may have a potential use case in the future. They do also feature a nice set of products for p2p payments. Barbara says just four years ago, there was still a lot of resistance to what they were trying to build. She says people thought they were crazy for coming into this space, and it was hard to acquire customers who weren’t crypto savvy users. Fast-forward to today and there are institutional players and the market has grown significantly. Barbara says people have realized that crypto is here to stay and can’t be disregarded. She’s enjoyed getting calls from people that three years ago wanted nothing to do with crypto and now are wanting to get involved. If you’d like to learn more about Bitso, visit www.bitso.com. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we are talking with Jacobo Toll-Messia, the founder and CEO of Nahmii, a layer two protocols on top of Ethereum that promises scalability and predictability of fees. Jacobo has a background in engineering and has worked in various fields such as banking, oil and gas, and media. When he started looking into blockchain, he realized that scalability was a must. Jacobo says when he looked under the hood of the technology, he realized that it needed more for commercial adoption, and so he started working on a layer two. Jacobo says Nahmii’s approach to scaling is more than just a performance system, as they’ve decided to take a more holistic approach. They’ve been able to achieve fee predictability and want to see minting a token come down to a dollar. Beyond that, they hope to see performing a payment come down to ten cents. Jacobo says that while it does require a bit of complex mathematics, they have full control in layer two. Jacobo says they’re set to launch Nahmii 2.0, which is a result of having gathered feedback from over one hundred institutions. From that feedback, they learned that they needed more flexibility when it comes to deploying more powerful solutions. Nahmii 2.0 is EVM compatible and will allow any developer to deploy their smart contracts directly on Nahmii cheaper, faster, and more secure. When you want to withdraw from Nahmii, there is a period of time when fraud can be detected and this is done through a Nahmii token. Nahmii is working with big names like Microsoft and have explored several ways they can be involved in adding an extra layer of security. Jacobo says Ethereum has an advantage over other platforms with the most advanced and matured tool set for developers. He says it also has the highest number of developers and the most powerful community. He says Ethereum is here to stay. If you’d like to learn more about Nahmii, visit www.nahmii.io. Jacobo also encourages everyone to find them on Telegram. He says while they are a small community of about two thousand members, they have some original members who are a wealth of knowledge. They will be moving towards Discord in the next couple of months, with a lot of really cool news coming up. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we are talking to the owner of Graffiti Kings, Darren Cullen. Darren got into graffiti at the age of ten and describes himself as a terror. Later on down the road, he started to use his craft for good when he got an opportunity to run workshops aimed at keeping kids out of trouble. This was all sponsored by the local government and within a year was picked up by the British government. Darren helped many youths to divert their problems into something creative. A year after that, in 1998, Darren set up Graffiti Kings. What started out as painting trains and walls for free to build his reputation, has turned into Hollywood movies paying them to paint murals and high-end fashion brands paying them to create exclusive products. Darren says with last year's market crash, he immediately went out and bought gold and silver. Soon after, he discovered crypto and decided that was the thing of the future. He ended up selling all of his gold, silver, his house, and his car to purchase crypto. He was especially interested in NFT’s. When he stumbled into the NFT space, he started pitching to various crypto brands and has since gone on to create a few cool collections of crypto toys. The physical toys are free with the purchase of an NFT. Darren says you see a lot of NFT’s dropping, but not many have anything behind them. He’s recently linked up with Invasion Toys and brainstormed on vinyl versions of designs. They now have a collection called Crypto MoonBoys, which are like digital Pokémon cards with health and powers. The Crypto MoonBoys consist of 3 “clans” who battle over the state of the crypto market. With a Facebook community of 2.4 million followers, Darren has become excellent at keeping the community engaged. Anyone can put an NFT drop out, but bringing true value to it is what sets it apart. If you’d like to learn more about Darren, find him on Twitter @graffitikings. There you will also find a link to their Discord channel where they document all of their happenings. Also check out Cryptomoonboys.com, where 60-70% of mints are still left and available for purchase. -- The Exit - Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/ -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we are talking with Sasa Milic, the cofounder and coauthor of API3. Sasa studied computer science and statistics at University of Toronto, earning her Masters. She was most interested in theoretical computer science and AI. She went on to work as a software engineer as she moved on to New York in 2019. Being new to the area, she was looking for meetup groups. Also thinking about what to do with her finances, she decided to join a crypto group that discussed white papers every week. She found the technical details to be fascinating, especially when it came to consensus algorithms. She became increasingly interested in Oracle projects and the problems facing them. Not only that, but she looked into existing Oracle solutions and wasn’t completely satisfied with them. Sasa reached out to a group that was working on Oracle solutions about the problems she found, and they invited her to help them write the API3 paper. Sasa describes Oracle as typically some piece of software that brings data onto the blockchain. The data that natively exists is who owns what, and you can trade coins with that data. But you also need trust to bring in data from the outside world. For anyone who’s truly interested in the technical aspects of an Oracle, there’s a great paper that came out, search SOK. It’s Concordia’s interpretation of it, really broken down. When it comes to API3’s solution, Sasa uses the PigeonHole Principle. This can be described as if you had 9 holes and 10 pigeons, and you put a pigeon in every hole, one hole would have more than one pigeon. That principle is used to prove really complicated mathematical things. While sometimes redundancy is good, it’s not in this case. Having an extra pigeon in a hole just adds cost and weakens security. API3’s solution is the idea of a third-party Oracle. Sasa says getting data is easier and cheaper from the source instead of a third party relayer. Sasa thinks the fascinating applications for API3 will come from hackathons. She says the best apps happen organically. If you’d like to learn more about API3, visit API3.org. They also have a Telegram channel, but suggest if people are really interested, to join their Discord channel where every Friday they have a community event where Sasa recommends some reading material, and then they have an open discussion about it. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Michael Sena, founder of 3Box Labs. Michael's crypto story started in early 2016 when he was working as a product management consultant in California. He started thinking about what applications could really help us fight back against the techno monopoly of Google, Apple, and Facebook. That’s when he came across Ethereum, and all the ideas he had just clicked into place. Michael couldn’t shake the itch, and so he moved to New York, where he joined the company ConsenSys. There he found a place in the identity working group, which would go on to create uPort, the first platform for decentralized identity and self-sovereign data. They delivered decentralized identity solutions to various governments and institutions around the world using the Ethereum blockchain. This is when Michael saw an emerging need for Web3 developers. 3Box Labs was the original inventors of the Ceramic Network, which is a decentralized protocol for mutable real-time data. In other words, they give database-like capabilities in a completely decentralized way. Michael says a lot goes into designing a system like that. The 3Box Labs team is only 13 people, but they’re in the process of scaling up dramatically. Michael says they have a bunch of teams building on the Ceramic Network. Ceramic can be used on all applications built of real, live data. They’re seeing the most traction in core Web3 decentralized apps such as DeFi, NFT’s, and DAO’s. A few months back, Ceramic went live with an early version of Main Net, and they’ve started to onboard projects that developed on Test Net and want to be on Main Net. Eventually, Main Net will be fully open to everyone. One main focus of 3Box Labs is to continue building out the features and functionality to drive more use and adoption. They hope to continue optimizing to make Ceramic more broadly usable. Another focus is shoring up some of the peer to peer architecture of the system under the hood, potentially introducing some crypto economic incentives. If you would like to learn more about 3Box Labs, they can be found at www.3boxlabs.com. They are very active on Discord, which can be found at www.chat.ceramic.network. For anyone interested in working for 3Box Labs, Michael says they’re currently scaling the team and to please visit www.jobs.level.co/3box. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Rene Reinsberg, the co-founder of Celo. Rene describes Celo as a global payment's infrastructure. Before starting Celo, Rene was working on helping small businesses to better market themselves and compete with the bigger companies. He says he had a real passion for developing tools for the underdogs. He was excited to learn about bitcoin and how it could change access to financial services. All of this led Rene to start Celo so that he could help to create conditions for prosperity for everyone. Rene realized that in most parts of the world, it was difficult to make a payment system on a mobile phone. In other parts of the world, people often still resort to sending checks in the mail, which comes with a lot of risk. Rene knew they had the ability to build a better infrastructure for delivering payments. Celo started off building a prototype on Ethereum. He found it was hard to explain high gas fees when trying to make payments to the average user, and so they dug deeper to solve this problem. Celo is a proof of stake network that has been carbon negative since their launch. Celo is decentralized and run by independent validators all around the world. They also support all Ethereum applications. On Celo you can simply send funds to a phone number if it is associated with the network, and it shows up in your digital wallet in about 5 seconds. Celo really aims to make cryptocurrency easier to use and access. As far as adoption goes, Rene is excited to see the ecosystem that's forming around the core protocol. He says that today they have over 1000 developers and projects building on Celo. Rene is excited to see people leveraging this technology for real-world use cases. He does think we’re still in the very early days of DeFi being used in the real world. One thing they’re focused on is security as hacks are somewhat common in the DeFi world with a recent $611million hack on the PolyNetwork. If you are interested in learning more about Celo you can find them at celo.org. They’re also very active on Discord, which can be accessed via chat.celo.org. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Robert Materazzi, the CEO of Lukka. Before getting into crypto, Robert was a management consultant, working heavily in technology and risk transformations. He also worked in incident response with data companies and that’s where he was introduced to Lukka. In 2018 Robert didn’t know much about crypto, and it was explained to him that Lukka was building institutional solutions for fund admin in the crypto space. Robert started doing his research and was shocked at how the ecosystem was working around the world. In particular, the prospect of real estate being tokenized was big. After more conversations, Robert joined Lukka in a sales capacity. He helped to close some massive names before trying on a few other roles and then being asked to be the new CEO. Robert is excited to have refined software and data products to help big companies take crypto data and turn it into usable information. Robert says they combine their customers' transaction data with their own data products and sometimes third-party products if needed. With this, they’re able to sort out portfolios with institutional quality. Robert says they knew when mainstream industries started adopting crypto in a more serious manner that it would be very important to have those standards in place. He’s excited to see that adoption that’s been taking place, especially in this last calendar year. Lukka was founded in 2014 and started off as a retail tax calculator. It’s evolved a ton since then, with a big milestone being in 2017 when their series A was focused on building more institutional focused products. In total, Lukka has raised a little over $100,000,000 in capital to date. Robert says they’re far past the early stages of a startup and have a little over 90 people today. They’re excited about some of their recent partners, including State Street. Robert says part of the financial services industry that's gaining exposure to crypto is the fund ecosystem. Companies are looking to add capabilities from partners like Lukka because the underlying data and infrastructure is unique and has to be custom-built for crypto assets. Robert says they have a lot of exciting press releases coming up, and they’re releasing new data products very regularly. He recommends anyone that wants to stay on top of these updates follow them on LinkedIn or visit www.lukka.tech. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with the co-founder and CEO of Decentralized Pictures, Leo Matchett. Leo was all set to go into investment banking when a friend of his needed help with his thesis film for film school. Leo says it was such a rewarding experience that he changed plans and went to film school. He moved to LA in 2005 and in 2008 when the iPhone launched he got into mobile app development. He would win a technical Emmy for the app a few years later. While working at a studio in Burbank, they had free space that they were coming up with ideas on how to use. Film studios had great power grids, and Leo suggested buying chips from China and mining bitcoin. Leo says this was the entrance to their film and crypto mesh. By 2018 the coins they had mined were very valuable, and they started theorizing how they could use that to make the film industry more efficient. A main goal was to help the independent film industry and thus, Decentralized Pictures was born. As a 501c3 charitable nonprofit, they aim to support the arts. They plan to do so through a blockchain called TalentChain. They want it to be decentralized in nature and are currently building a virtual studio. People will be able to submit ideas into the application, and people from the rest of the world can vote on ideas that are most deserving of money from the fund. Beyond funding for the winner, they try to help runners-up to get their foot in the door somewhere. Leo says they’re mostly about talent discovery and launching careers. All major agencies and most production companies have agreed to look at the talent that comes through our site. They’re currently doing a beta test which should be completed soon. Leo says they’re doing everything they can to get their first app out the door. For TalentChain they’re getting ready to allow people to get in and start running nodes and start mining on it. Leo says they’re only selling a specific amount of film credits and that everyone that wants to participate will start with the same amount of stake. To learn more, go to www.dencentralized.pictures or tlnt.net. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Tushar Aggarwal from Persistence, a company that aims to define a robust technology strategy across data, cloud, security, and blockchain for its customers. Tushar was investing in real estate with his parents and working as a management consultant for the banking industry when he started looking to invest in traditional startups. Instead, he came across crypto which was super hot in Singapore in 2016. Tushar started investing in crypto and by the end of 2017 he had made enough to quit his job. Next he started a podcast that led some traditional venture capitalists to get in touch with him. He met them casually but asked for a job right away. He was on-boarded a week later and helped with everything from funding and fundraising to structuring, both on the equity and token side. By this time he wanted to buy into the India crypto ecosystem and also wanted to become a developer not just an investor. Persistence is in the business of creating financial applications for both retail and institutional folks. They’re focused on three different asset classes: proof of stake mining, synthetic assets, and anything and everything to do with NFT’s. Their primary focus is on proof of staking assets because of the opportunity it provides. Where Ethereum is a very general purpose blockchain, Persistence has multiple applications. The difference between Ethereum and PolkaDot is that PolkaDot believes in application specific chains. From a technology viewpoint, Persistence is a layer one. They’re more focused on actual use cases and what the chain itself can do than on innovating at the protocol level itself. When staking tokens you get some sort of reward. When staking POS coins you’re taking part in consensus; that’s where the yield is coming from. The problem with staking is that now you can’t use that asset to do anything else, you’ve lost liquidity. Liquid staking issues you a representative coin that gives you ownership rights and can be used to supply liquidity. XPRT is a POS coin that secures the Persistence chain. The users take part in consensus and get part of the proceeds from the cash flow that is being generated from the applications in the Persistence ecosystem. In essence, it’s a work token. To learn more visit pstake.finance or persistence.one where all social media accounts are linked. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Sergey Gorbunov, the co-founder and CEO of Axelar Network. With a background in the tech space Sergey went on to grad school where he studied formal cryptography. By the end of his studies it was 2014, and he got hooked into the blockchain space. He started to collaborate with one of the faculty members at MIT on how to make blockchains more scalable. He says everyone has networks that have been built out, people are building up the community, but in reality the communication between the networks is what's important. Axelar Network is a set of infrastructure, protocols, and API’s that allow the connection of various blockchain ecosystems, applications, and users. At the end of the day the goal is to empower two types of participants. First, for application builders they want to be able to build on the best platforms. For users, they want to empower them to interact with any application and asset that they own no matter what platform it resides on. Say you have an asset on one existing blockchain network. By itself those assets live within those networks only. Suppose there is an application that is built on another platform, as a user there’s a lot of friction you have to go through to use your asset in those applications. One of their first use case targets is to build a decentralized application that will allow the user to move their asset to one of the chains that they want to use an application at. Sergey says they have integrations with bitcoin, Ethereum, and other platforms. Users will be able to move assets from different ecosystems. The company has been working on the project for a little over a year. They did a seed fund in early fall and just last week announced their series A fundraiser. There is currently a team of 15 people working on protocol. Sergey says they're in a test environment, going through various exercises, learning how to send requests back and forth, giving feedback, and thinking about various tools needed for the network. The goal over the next month is to get through the test network, make sure it’s bulletproof, and sign up more ecosystem participants. They’ll also be scaling the team around engineering, business operations, and community development. Then they’ll launch their platform from there. For more information check out axelar.network. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Andrew Kessler, CEO of Zenotta, a company that aims to create a peer-to-peer electronic trade system that gives users full control over their data. Andrew says when he was a young man he heard the expression ‘a man's wealth is a product of his ability to think’. He says he always wanted to be involved in something where he could make a real contribution. He says crypto is a new frontier with a refreshing opportunity to have a clean slate and not be too overrun by other people’s thinking. Andrew says when he met his now co-founder, he was introduced to the idea of cryptocurrency but was cynical of the idea. At the insistence of his friend he read the white paper on it. This is when he realized there was something fundamental there. He says he has a strange method of doing developments. He advises that once the bug is caught, don’t read up on how others have approached the problem, start discovering from scratch. They spent months figuring out what a blockchain should look like. They wanted to move away from worrying about tokens and they don’t just record the transfer of tokens between two parties, they record the transfer of rights as well. Andrew says that’s very important economically. In trying to get away from a token only universe, they didn’t realize the impact their technology would have. Andrew says they quickly discovered that you can’t just upload one MB of data onto blockchain, that's a bad approach. A typical entry is about 500 bytes. The blessing of being self funded for the first 4-5 years meant they had no stakeholders that they had to take a win to. That gave them time to be rigorous, methodical, and learn from their failures. The Zenotta team is currently expanding and has a newly formed legal team. They created a framework of law that people can opt in to and out of to get legal protection. Andrew says the Swiss jurisdiction reflects the sentiments of the technology very nicely. With the main net having just gone live a month ago, Zenotta is ready to engage the community. To learn more visit zenotta.xyz where you will also find the links to their social media outlets. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Jack McDonald, CEO of PolySign, a company that aims to develop state of the art, secure, scalable infrastructure for financial institutions to fully leverage their digital assets. As crypto goes more on the institutional side it’s great to see projects like PolySign. They have an extensive list of people in the banking space that are coming into crypto. Jack says it’s awesome to see this level of institutional adoption. Having grown up in the traditional finance capital market's arena, after law school Jack went right into the stock market. He says he then became involved in other aspects of traditional finance, most recently running Conifer, a securities and commodity contracts intermediation and brokerage company. There he ran middle and back office accounting and reporting. That company went on to be sold and Jack got another opportunity when he met the co-founder of Ripple Labs, Arthur Britto. Arthur had an idea for a new company and Jack jumped on board to help him create PolySign. PolySign is focused on building enterprise grade infrastructure for the digital asset ecosystem, specifically focused on custody and settlement by leveraging proprietary blockchain technology that they’ve designed and built. Their main focus is on institutions. Jack thinks the market will consolidate over time in terms of the number of exchanges out there. He also thinks we will see the price volatility dampen as more institutions come in. One risk in the market is regulatory shift that could be adverse to different jurisdictions. One of the blessings and curses of the digital asset marketplace is the 24/7 global nature of it. Managers and investors can own an asset that can be traded around the world on any given day at any given time. Jack agrees that we see a lot of anti cryptocurrency news in the United States from the treasury, FCC, congress, etc. At PolySign they have a unique organizational structure based out of one of the most oppositional states for crypto, New York. They have a parent company, PolySign Inc. that does all the software development. Jack says they could’ve gone to other jurisdictions, but they wanted the most stringent jurisdiction because that would accrue our benefit and attract the type of clients they want to attract. To learn more, find Jack on Twitter or visit polysign.io. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Senshi Masa of Secured Finance. In his line of work, he covers clients from private banks to insurance companies. When Masa was a banker, he found there was a huge gap between finance and technology. He decided to go back to school and learn to program and study computer science. He says when he first saw smart contracts, he was shocked by their potential. He says essentially it allows anyone to become a structurer. It was at a 2018 bitcoin expo that he became a big fan of the decentralized space. By 2019 he was hosting workshops in the blockchain and crypto space. Masa describes the regulatory landscape of Japan as conservative. He says recently the financial services agency started talking to engineers with the idea of meeting together and discussing topics to set a better standard. Secured Finance brings maturity and best practices into the defy space. They open up interbank markets for everyone. There’s a huge gap between traditional finance and crypto finance, like water and oil. Masa says someone has to bridge the gap. He says the DeFi project looks successful, and they don’t want to spend a lot of time on legal things, therefore they need a master agreement. A standard protocol doesn’t yet exist in the defy space. The Secured Finance platform offers peer to peer lending. Masa says the biggest issue in defy is the yield curve lasts 90 days if you’re lucky. They leverage an established framework in order to collateralize peer to peer lending. They aim to build a capital market of more than one year. Their platform also has a currency swap and an interest rate market. If the interest rate for USD is low, you can borrow USD and invest in bitcoin. There’s also a cross chain fx trading tool on their platform. They aim to solve the problem of interoperability. Currently, there’s a lot of cross chain solutions like wrapping. Without those solution's money can’t move across chain, but the biggest problem with wrapping is losing utility. The platform is currently in demo mode and aims to roll out late summer. They have nearly 300 signups already, and anyone that’s interested in early access can sign up at securedfinance.com by filling out a simple survey. While there you will also find all links to Twitter, Discord, and Telegram. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Peter DePaulo from NEAR protocol. Peter was working on a collective in Santa Cruz when Ethereum first launched. People started talking about DAO’s and Peter was very interested. He decided to go his separate way and got involved in Ethereum in 2016. He ended up leaving because he was frustrated by people wanting to run ICO’s. Then the market crashed. That was when a friend pulled him into NEAR. Peter describes NEAR as a fast and easy to use blockchain. He says it’s especially easy for developers. The last three years have been spent working on a developer tool stack that works really well. They integrate with Ethereum and act like a layer two. Fundamentally though they are fast like a layer one. Peter says there should be a hack-a-thon coming up soon and that getting started is easy. To get started, it depends on which language you like. Peter says there are also a lot of templates you can use and that the team has put out a lot of examples. The least amount of time will be spent on the contract, with most of the time being spent writing the front end. Peter talks about how you can give access to an application and then delete the access keys, so you no longer have to sacrifice privacy for levels of convenience. He encourages those that are interested to check out NEAR protocol on YouTube. If you’d like to read more, there are the white papers you can do a deep dive on. Currently, Peter says they can benchmark at a thousand transactions per second and while there are some physical limitations, there’s plenty of room to grow. Say you have a hundred thousand shards, that would be a hundred thousand transactions per second. Peter says he’s nervous at how fast they’re growing and that new accounts are growing exponentially. They’re just about to pass twelve million transactions. Right now their peak transactions are three hundred to five hundred per second, but they expect to at least double that by the end of the Summer. Peter has an open inbox, [email protected], if you have an idea that you need to talk through. Or tweet him @potatodepaulo. Check out near.org or find them on discord. For examples of successful projects, check out skyward.finance, ref.finance, or NFT.hiphop. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Maria Shaikh, a founding member of the first ever women’s DAO. Maria is also a data scientist at ZebPay, one of the world’s most secure trading platforms. Maria says she was always a finance person. She watched her parents' involvement in the stock market and majored in finance. She says when she was first exposed to bitcoin, it was seen only as a tool to make a quick buck. It was later that she would be introduced to crypto and blockchain, which is essentially decentralized finance. She was impressed with the technology that went along with it. When she was finishing up her major in finance, she took an internship at ZebPay. She says it wasn’t her plan to stay, she was all set to study further, but it was too good to leave. Maria works on the research and development team at ZebPay. She says it’s the first and leading cryptocurrency trading platform. When ZebPay was first launched, cryptocurrency became banned in India. Luckily, that decision was reversed in March 2020. Maria says it’s been uphill since then. However, she says they still don’t have clear guidelines in place. They’re optimistically looking forward to that because some people are still scared to opt in because of the lack of guidelines. ZebPay is now based in India, Singapore, and Australia, with plans for expansion across the world. Their growth in terms of number of traders and product offerings has been great. Maria says they just want people to have easy access and that their new app Zeb is meant for people new to the space. The DAO was launched on Women’s Day and is the first ever women’s only DAO. The idea was created by the VP of research and development because women are underrepresented in both tech and crypto. Maria and her team don’t want women to miss out because of lack of knowledge or access. Maria says they envision an organization that’s owned and operated by women, where they take ideas and lock them into a smart contract, so they can’t be ignored or disobeyed. The DAO is currently only open to female employees of ZebPay, but they intend to make it open to any female investor of ZebPay. If you’re interested in learning more about ZebPay visit zebpay.com. They should also have a website coming up soon for the DAO. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we are talking with the CEO and co-founder of EQIbank, Jason Blick. Jason has been involved in crypto since 2014 and launched EQIbank in 2015. Jason says a large percentage of their clients are in the crypto and defi space. They serve bank clients in more than 100 countries around the world. They do everything from lending, wealth management, and credit cards to holding treasuries and bonds. Furthermore, they offer banking as a service, where others can partner with us and offer banking services with our licenses to their client base. It’s been a huge area of interest. A lot of their clients are new users of crypto, and EQIbank gives a lot of sense of security. They provide the client with an option to open a bank account with them, where they can then do OTC transactions for them. Jason says it’s seamless. They can also provide OTC services for clients that don’t hold bank accounts with them. It only takes 15-20 minutes to start buying and selling crypto. Jason says they deal with a lot of hedge funds and work closely with wealth managers. More frequently, they’ve been trying to look at treasury management functions. Jason says 4-6% of a financial portfolio should be in crypto, which is why they’re trying to open the crypto market to corporations. EQIfi is a licensed and regulated bank that's working in defi. Jason says many experienced bankers know they're not giving the very best service and options to clients because interest rates are dictated by national fiscal policies. That limits how much you can provide clients in terms of ROI. People are seeing that stable goins can get up to 10% interest. This is why in 2018 they decided to be the first bank to go into the defi space, and they did so using EQIfi. It’s an alternative to traditional lending and has been voted number one defi platform 7 times. Jason says this has the biggest single disruptive opportunity of any financial product. People don’t appreciate how big this is going to be. Jason says the things holding it back are accessibility and interoperability. Many platforms have been launched by very skilled technicians and coders but may not have too much exposure into traditional banking, so there’s a disconnect there. They hope to resolve some of those issues. Jason believes defi will be a major accelerator for the industrial revolution. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Dan Edelback, CEO of Exidio. Dan didn’t have the most traditional route in discovering the crypto space. He says he’s always been intrigued by emerging tech and tinkering with it. He’s also passionate about helping others and trying to make an impact, so he started working at a non-profit that helps Chicago’s homeless to get and keep employment. It was here that he met his now wife. The two quit their jobs and went to Costa Rica to serve in the Peace Corps. Dan and his wife worked with small business owners there to help in growing a small ecotourism collective. When Dan was ready to check another thing off his bucket list, he decided to go with learning more about personal finance. This is when he ended up going down some rabbit holes. He found communities on Reddit and started learning about crypto, and it’s ability to upend the financial industry. That was in 2017, and he’s been full time crypto ever since. In 2017 Dan wasn’t part of the forming group for the Sentinal project, but he kept close attention to it. Sentinel is a peer to peer marketplace for people offering bandwidth or looking for bandwidth. It’s essentially a decentralized VPN protocol. Sentinal was created because people were looking for opportunities to connect securely online with privacy routing their traffic. Often central VPNs will claim they are secure, but we see them get hacked a lot. In 2018 Sentinal launched its first application. People would use the app to post all the details around a node on the blockchain. When you connect to the app, all the nodes you see are pinging the blockchain and displaying that information for you. Up until March 2021 DeFiChain was on testnet on Ethereum. Sentinal knew from early on that Ethereum wouldn’t be a good solution. They’re now on the mainnet on Cosmos. With Sentinal however, no one is in control of it and anyone can opt in. As the network grows, Dan says more and more companies can leverage this network as their base layer infrastructure for their own VPN. This means they don’t have to run all their own servers, as they’d be leveraging a global, decentralized network. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with U-Zyn Chua, CTO and Lead Researcher for DeFiChain. U-Zyn was a software engineer in the early days of bitcoin, and it caught his attention right away. In 2010, he dove in, started mining, and started checking out wallets. U-Zyn went on to launch one of the earliest crypto exchanges in Asia in 2011. He ran that for a couple of years while investing in bitcoin. Over the years he continued to work on crypto and blockchain projects. In 2019, he would reconnect with an old colleague to found a company together. They would then go on to launch DeFiChain together as a totally decentralized blockchain. U-Zyn says ethereum allows anyone to build anything on it. For DeFiChain, creating native defi transactions have to have a native consensus on a blockchain to get verified. He says it makes it really safe and secure. U-Zyn and his co-founder think that defi will be the next step in the crypto space, and they want to make it really tight and secure When it comes to wrapping tokens, the Ethereum side has a really mature system with tokens readily available. On DeFiChain they have to start wrapping tokens, so they have them to trade. Currently, tokens are wrapped and backed by native tokens. They’re backed one to one on a publicly verified address. U-Zyn says it’s only a stepping stone, and they hope to head towards all tokens being created in a totally decentralized manner. A bitcoin token that’s created on DeFiChain to be swapped in a totally trustless manner allows tokens to move freely. Defi has many use cases. U-Zyn says that defi today brings about a whole different game on how crypto assets can be traded, which brings about a whole new way these can be transacted. On DeFiChain they launched a decentralized exchange back in November 2020 and already have close to three hundred and fifty million assets that are being locked up to use for trading. U-Zyn says their next vision is that defi shouldn’t be limited to crypto trading. He says we need to bring real world use cases to DeFiChain and one way to do so is to bring decentralized commodities and stocks on. They would be created by over-collaterizing assets on DeFiChain to allow it to be traded freely based on blockchain consensus. U-Zyn says they’re close to launching it in a few months. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with the co-founder of PowerLoom, Swaroop Hegde. Swaroop has been an entrepreneur for the last two decades and knows nothing else. After he sold his first company, he got into dabbling in the blockchain space in 2017 during the ICO hype. It was using it as a protocol that really caught Swaroop’s attention. As a coder, he found a niche of missing developer tools and wanted to create them for the mainstream. Swaroop started building infrastructure tools and became a bootstrap company. The challenge from a developer perspective is you have to write a lot of code and get end users to trust what's being shown to them. Swaroop says just because it’s on blockchain doesn’t mean what's being shown to you is what it is. The idea behind PowerLoom is to aggregate all the data in a verifiable way. With every snapshot that comes out there’s a way to verify information. Swaroop says they plan to build it to be fully decentralized and become a DAO. He says DAO’s are how the future is evolving. The downside of DAO’s is it complicates a process, which is easier when you have fewer people involved. As it grows bigger, it becomes a problem. With DAO, from day one, any change is monitored and is truly being built in the open. In fact, the creator of the internet predicted that all data would aggregate into a couple mega powers. The blame is also on the consumers who want convenience. PowerLoom is only six months old, but a lot of the work for it was done over the prior three years. They got their initial backing in October and decided to give the idea six months to see where it goes. They’ve just closed their first seed round. Not only that, but they first started with snapshot data every few minutes, but it wasn’t enough, people wanted data in real time. PowerLoom is adapting and focusing more on building something bigger. With the team still composed of just the two founders, Swaroop says they are looking to build their team soon, and anyone interested can look for job listings at powerloom.io. Swaroop says there are a lot of projects coming in with more mainstream people paying attention. To learn more about PowerLoom visit powerloom.io; Swaroop says they’re always putting out more information. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Robbie Heeger, president and CEO of Endaoment. In 2013 Robbie was living in a house with a bunch of roommates and one happened to be a recruiter that got placed at Ripple Labs. His friend came home from work and told Robbie he just doesn’t understand what the company does and could use his help. Robbie was working at Apple at the time, so he knew tech. They sat down with the Ripple documents and started reading about decentralized finance. Robbie says his mind was blown, and he just continued to fall down the rabbit hole. It wasn’t until 2017 that Robbie felt like the crypto scene could be a full-time job replacement. In 2018, he decided to pursue full time and in 2019 he started Endaoment. Robbie says there is a lot of exciting movement in this space, including Endaoment’s being the first on-chain community foundation. Robbie says it was while reading about financial primitives that the seed was planted. Defy says if something exists in the traditional ecosystem in a centralized manner in traditional finance, then it should exist in a decentralized manner. Robbie says the concept of porting over financial primitives from traditional finance to defy really clicked for him. He decided he wanted to create a Donor Advised Fund in the crypto space. A DAF is where you can take property, stocks, or bonds and give it to a charity to sell, then advise on how money is spent. The upside to this is, since you don’t have to sell your charitable donation and give cash to the organization, you aren’t liable for capital gains tax. Last month, Endaoment just passed a million dollars granted and distributed and also raised 2.5 million for their technology development company that powers their software. Robbie says right now they’re in the stage of trying to get the word out about what DAF’s are and how they work. Other similar ventures on-board all million and a half nonprofits one by one into the crypto ecosystem. Robbie says they use a publicly available API which scrapes the IRS database and takes organization provided data, surfacing all million and a half nonprofits. When someone makes the first recommendation to an organization, that organization is contacted and simply has to ob-board onto Endaoment and then the money is released to them. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to the CEO of Centrifuge, Lucas Vogelsang. Back in 2012 everyone seemed to be pitching him on Coinbase and while he loved the idea he decided not to get involved. Lucas says he thought it would only ever be a fringe thing. Lucas had been working in startups and techs for twelve years when he decided to take some time off. He told himself that when he came back he wanted to do something harder, possibly in crypto or AI. It was 2017 when he decided to start with crypto and got sucked in. He loved the idea of money having more functionality, and so he started Centrifuge. Lucas says that before he got into crypto, he was working for a fintech startup and saw over and over how convenient and cheap access to capital was for global2000 companies. It gives them an advantage over smaller companies that have to use a bank and deal with a lot of middle men. Centrifuge wants to create a market that's open to anyone, with no middle man to put you at a disadvantage. They’re trying to open up defy to easy users, a several trillion dollar market. Lucas says most people don’t own crypto yet, they have houses, cars, and student debt. What if they could collateralize their assets, providing liquidity? It would restructure how finance works. As a business, you need money to grow, and you would usually go to a bank to get it. With the current tech, you would deal with an asset originator to essentially turn loans into a credit fund, and it’s all done on chain. The loans are secure and all priced correctly on chain. Small borrowers have a new advantage when they can go wherever the cheapest liquidity is; money just flows in defy. No more going to the bank, finding out the rate, applying, jumping through hoops, hoping they accept you. Lucas says they launched their live version on centrifuge.io in November and grew to ten million in assets. As of yesterday, Maker has on-boarded the first of these pools as collateral. Investors can now deposit some directly into Maker and get a loan. Centrifuge should be able to start on-boarding real world soon. If you're interested in learning more, visit centrifuge.io. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Sam Kim, founding partner of Umbrella Network. In 2013 Sam started a mobile ad tech company called Gimbal where he had a brilliant employee that stopped being productive. All he wanted to talk about was bitcoin. Sam was curious to know about what was drawing his employee away from work, and so he attended a meet-up to learn more. Everyone there was so passionate that Sam went home and immediately did more research. Sam says he loved the idea of decentralization but didn’t see a career in it for himself, especially with Gimbal doing so well, so he put it in the back of his mind. In 2017 Ethereum came on the scene and a friend introduced him to how smart contracts work. Sam realized it could solve a lot of problems in the digital advertising space. He thought they could create a shared ledger and so Lucidity was started. Lucidity is blockchain-audited media for greater transparency. Fast-forward to his newest endeavor, Umbrella Network, which collects data from multiple sources to calculate the most accurate price in the market. Umbrella Network is a community owned decentralized oracle. Blockchain apps can’t pull data directly from API’s like traditional apps. Oracle provides that tool of on-boarding data from traditional sources and making that available on blockchain, securely. Sam says it needs to be scalable and data needs to be current and accurate. They anchor data on the chain, and you can be confident the data is what was agreed on during consensus. By doing this, they drastically lower the cost of on-chain data. For one blockchain transaction, instead of a one to one, they’re doing thousands to one. With low-cost data they’re also able to update more frequently, getting the most accurate, current, and secure data. Outside of Umbrella, Sam says he’s excited about the progression of technology. He says it’s like in 2012 when mobile was all 3g, data was limited, and band length was slow, then came LTE. Data was made much cheaper, it was an explosion of innovation. More and more apps took advantage of LTE and the cheaper data. Sam says we’re in a similar time frame today when it comes to blockchain. He’s excited to see what app developers come up with. To learn more, visit www.umb.network. They can also be found on Telegram and Twitter.

Today we’re talking with the CEO and President of Lisk, Max Kordek. Lisk is a blockchain application platform with an SDK providing developers with a set of tools making the process of creating blockchain applications easy. Max says he’s always been fascinated by technology and finance, so the crypto industry caught his eye in 2012. While studying electro-engineering he asked the best student in class what he thought about bitcoin and blockchain. That student told Max that it was too late, and he’d never make any money, so Max dropped it for a few months. When he read about it again, he knew he had to get involved. While working for a design agency inside the crypto space, he knew he wanted to be a part of a team that pushes a blockchain project forward. Two years into working on a project they ran out of money, but Max wasn’t ready to give up. He went on to continue the vision with his own company, Lisk. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today Steve talks to Peter Wall CEO of Argo Blockchain, a publicly-traded blockchain technology company focused on large-scale cryptocurrency mining. Peter first was introduced to crypto when he was in Indonesia running a coworking space. A guy came in talking about bitcoin, how he had quit his job in the US, and had moved to Bali. He started weekly meet ups at Paul’s co-working space to learn about bitcoin. Peter says his company was actually the first business in Bali to accept bitcoin payments. Down the road Paul would get in touch with the co-founders of Argo who were trying to bring crypto to the UK. They asked Paul if he wanted to be one of their first employees and Paul jumped on the opportunity. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with CEO and Co-founder of DSTOQ, Craig McGregor. DSTOQ is an app that helps you get unrestricted access to stocks, bonds, or ETF’s with zero fees. Before DSTOQ Craig was working in finance in South Africa, investing in companies all over the world. He was first introduced to cryptocurrency when some of his poker friends were using bitcoin to make deposits and withdrawals for online casinos. It was some of those same friends that would introduce Craig to the man that would become his co-founder, Christian. Christian was trying to move money down to South Africa and was getting charged big fee’s by traditional banks. With Craig’s background in financing, his understanding of crypto, and being from an emerging market, he realized a lot of finance in emerging markets is broken. This is when Craig realized cross border transactions were one of the best use cases for cryptocurrency and DSTOQ was born. DSTOQ is a decentralized trading platform for people to invest from emerging markets to developed markets. The company is focused on first time investors with an app that makes it as user-friendly as possible to buy shares of companies like Apple and Tesla. With DSTOQ the settlement time takes just five seconds instead of five days. A settlement is when legal ownership of what you bought is transferred, and a lot of bad things can happen in five days. Craig says that’s why settlement time is so important. One side of DSTOQ is the traditional infrastructure with traditional banks. DSTOQ will buy all shares of a company and then create a token on Stellar blockchain with a one to one link. It’s then possible to trade those tokens on the Stellar blockchain. It allows transactions peer to peer without the middle man. Craig says they’re mostly based in Europe but have the most users from Brazil and Nigeria. The DSTOQ team is rather small with a core team of just three people. The team has created an e-learning course for people that don’t know where to start with investing. Craig says education is needed especially in emerging markets and that education is the ultimate equalizer. The e-learning can be found directly on the app. To learn more about DSTOQ, visit dstoq.com or find them on Twitter and Instagram. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to the Chief Customer Success Officer at Core Scientific, Russell Cann. With a background in tech, Russell began his career at a consulting firm where he spent 20 years in startups and growing them towards an exit. In 2017 someone approached Russell about a data center he owned, asking if they could use it to mine crypto. Russell then went down the rabbit hole and was hooked. They did a lot of GPU mining with Ethereum. While they do some hosting they’re mostly focused on self mining. Russell says it’s an exciting environment to work in where things move quickly. When it comes to sustainability and energy, Russell is watching the space mature in North America. Where bitcoin uses more energy than Switzerland, clean energy will begin to accelerate. Part of inexpensive power is taking abandoned power infrastructures for use as data centers. In a town of 300 people in North Carolina, an old denim plant was turned into a massive data center. Russell reminds that a lot of the affordable power is green, such as solar or hydropower. Core Scientific is already 50% carbon-neutral and Russell says as bitcoin network matures, green energy is where it will go. Also, every year bitcoin machines become more efficient. At Core, it used to take 350,000 machines to power 450 megawatts, and now takes 150,000 machines. Core uses software to be more efficient as well. They currently have 75 patents with a majority around software. While Core doesn’t really cater to individuals, a year ago they were serving mostly family offices and now are seeing a tremendous move by hedge funds and public companies. A lot of people are looking for diversification in digital assets. With clients all over the place they have 10’s of thousands of GPU’s. Right now they’re BTC heavy, but they will bounce between coins to make the most revenue, making them very competitive. Russell expects to see bigger payment processing companies like PayPal and Facebook Pay get involved. He says we’ll see tokenization of payment systems with an easier user interface. Where it’s still a pain to set up a wallet and transfer money, things need to be easier for everyday use. If you’d like to learn more about Core Scientific, visit their website at corescientific.com. They’re also active on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Telegram. --

Today we’re talking to COO of Dan Holdings, Anthony Lauriola. Dan Holdings is an investment firm focused on ventures, tokens, and projects related to blockchain technology, digital currency, and digital assets. Anthony first was introduced to crypto by a childhood friend in early 2013 right before the major crash. At the time he didn’t really understand it and moved on. A year or two later he started working with that childhood friend and started learning all that he could about the crypto space. By 2017 Anthony was heavily involved. He saw the space go through an ICO boom and all fall down, but he stuck with it because he believed in it. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we have special guests Justin Woodward and Michelle O’Connor from TaxBit, a company looking to make taxes as easy as possible in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Justin says he was first introduced to crypto when, as a tax attorney, he had a Fortune 500 client asked how they could accept crypto on their platform. Michelle joined BitReserve in 2015 and watched it slowly become more mainstream, especially in the last six to eighteen months. Justin says you shouldn’t have to be a tax attorney to understand or trade cryptocurrency. One thing to consider is that the IRS doesn’t see crypto as currency but rather as property. Just the same, all that property needs to be tracked from a tax perspective. Cryptocurrency is still relatively new and the regulations are changing all the time. TaxBit aims to automate all the regulatory hurdles. Michelle believes that the world will be a better place once we have widespread adoption because of the power it gives consumers. With more and more industrial corporations accepting and facilitating crypto it’s wise to know the tax implications. If a brokerage just sends you a 10-99 at the end of the year and that’s the first you know what you owe, that doesn’t work. People may not know the impact of trading in this space when it comes to taxes. TaxBit would let them see it’s effects on taxes in real time. That in turn would give them more opportunity to maximize trade. Justin says trading can have a positive or negative impact on taxes, so it’s important to know. When staking assets and appreciating wealth, that’s taxable. When you receive an asset that’s income and when you sell if you have a gain you're taxed on income and gain. In the ideal situation you would gain losses and defer gains to get a tax refund at the end of the year. The worst trap you can fall into is figuring out taxes at the end of the year. TaxBit allows you to think about it year round as you make your trades. To learn more about TaxBit you can visit taxbit.com or find them on Twitter @taxbit. Michelle says they’re also active on LinkedIn and Reddit. They love to engage with the community and encourage anyone with any questions about their circumstances to reach out. Justin also suggests everyone try the free trial of TaxBit. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we have Jonas Simanavicius, the CEO of Syntropy. Jonas started off in the investment banking world after graduating with a software engineering degree. He ended up teaming with some individuals that were very excited about blockchain and knew how life changing it could be. They weren’t exactly sure how they were going to change the world with it yet, but they knew the possibilities were there. What started as a content delivery network called NOIA would soon become what is known now as Syntropy. Jonas and his colleagues continued to find more and more problems with the internet and thought how those could be solved using decentralized technology. Jonas knew that Syntropy and blockchain technology could make the internet decentralized. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Li Jun, founder of Ontology and SAGA. Starting out in the financial industry, Jun was tasked with researching blockchain. Once Jun saw how much blockchain could really do, he quit his job at the financial institution and started working on Ontology. Ontology is a protocol that operates as a decentralized identity framework that helps users manage their own data and enables blockchain-based authentication by global verifiers. Once they had the infrastructure and the protocol, they needed a project. SAGA became that project. SAGA is a decentralized data marketplace meant to allow individuals and organizations to monetize and acquire data in a trusted, standardized, and cost-effective way. Data is said to be the oil of this century, and it’s as important as ever to own your own data. With data trading, you can confirm your own data and exchange it peer to peer. For example, you could share your e-commerce history by linking different data sources to your wallet, it would then be verified on blockchain and then after usage, the data would not be stored. This is a technology that a car insurance company could utilize. Your car has all sorts of data on your driving that you could choose to share with an insurance company to get a more custom product. This is why the decentralized protocol is a good solution to protect privacy and data. Another example of usage would be a job search platform wanting to verify information found on a user's resume. They could use decentralized data protocol to verify work experience and blockchain would confirm if the history is true or not. Jun believes the next phase of this technology will allow every resume to be verified automatically. When an organization wants information you would get a notification on your data wallet and the data will be sent to them peer to peer. The bank will use this data to verify all information and output a result; everything would be recorded by blockchain. Jun is most excited to see other use scenarios, with new products and protocols. He says crypto is still an asset industry, and he looks forward to it moving beyond that. If you’re interested to learn more about Ontology or SAGA, visit ont.io, saga.io or download the data wallet at onto.app where you can start managing your decentralized identity and digital assets. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Mark Anstead, co-founder of Numio, a project that aims to simplify and fast-track blockchain adoption. Numio is a cryptocurrency payments app that gives you more control over your identity and money. Mark first got into crypto in 2014 when he bought his first bitcoin. However, he didn’t know much about it and soon sold it all off. It wasn’t until 2017 that he really entered the crypto scene. He began working with a few different firms, and since then has started two companies, with Numio being the most recent. Numio aims to give more control over identity and money. For identity control, they’re building out a layer 2 focused application. For identity, they’ve developed a few management solutions that can get you either KYC verified or can prove yourself to third parties without exposing personal data or information. In these current times, gas fees are through the roof. Numio aims to combat this in two manners, one being a gasless transaction. This can be done on the Ethereum base layer using meta transaction. This allows you to have an app that interacts with a relayer. When someone wants to make a transaction, the app will interact with Ethereum on their behalf. For a gasless transaction, you don’t actually have to have ETH in your wallet. There are a variety of ways you can scale, but there are pros and cons with whatever solution you use. Whether it’s with scalability, finality, security, or supporting smart contracts, each method has its drawbacks. Without smart contracts, a lot of solutions wouldn’t be able to function. Numio uses implementation using a ZK (zero-knowledge) rollup. While some platforms can do two thousand to three thousand transactions per second, ours does about three hundred per second but has more security, can interact with smart contracts, and can scale with Ethereum. Mark says they’re still about eighteen to twenty-four months away from ETH 2.0. The next six to twelve months we’ll see every Ethereum project migrate to some form of scaling solution. Mark says there are a lot of solutions to look into and explore with every project boiling down to what fits. To learn more go to numio.one, find them on Telegram, or follow them on Twitter @getnumio. To follow Mark on Twitter @thesharp7. Mark encourages anyone that’s interested to get involved in the ecosystem. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Kurt Nielsen, Co-founder and President of Partisia Blockchain, a public blockchain built for trust, transparency, privacy, and scalability. Starting In Cryptography Kurt’s background is in economics, the field in which he earned his PhD, looking at game theory and auction design. While in this space he first heard about MPC which is a distributor technology that they are bringing together with blockchain. They learned that if you could actually have an institution that’s doing the same as MPC you could improve any decision in the economy. After four years of R&D they did their first MPC back in 2008, a year before bitcoin was announced. Kurt says that was the beginning of his collaboration with experts in cryptography. They had a successful beginning of bringing MPC into use and did so with the largest company in Denmark. That company wanted to use the solution they had come up with in that project and so Partisia was born. Partisia is a commercial platform used to bring MPC into all kinds of use cases. For anyone not familiar, MPC is distributed cryptography that solves for privacy, so it’s a nice compliment to blockchain. Many Use Cases When using the technology, it is a generic distributed computer that solves for privacy and can be used in any use case where you want to control private information. One example would be in institutions, like an auction where you have an auctioneer, you could remove the auctioneer with a distributed cryptography, so a piece of software. It can also be used where competitors are collaborating, such as competing banks that are collaborating around how to detect fraud in financial systems. Another use is in key management which is very important. Back in 2013 they started using MPC to make key management. What’s Next? When asked what’s next, Kurt says there is so much to innovate on, but they’re mostly looking into new types of businesses, exchanging data differently, and collaborating in a different way. Current regulations almost prevent people from collaborating, and they’ve been working with these types of solutions for some time. Kurt expects to see the boundaries continue to move on what you are allowed to do. He looks forward to getting regulators to approve of new types of collaboration. To Learn More Check out partisiablockchain.com or find them on all social media platforms. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking with Rachid Ajaja, Co-founder and CEO of AllianceBlock, the world’s first globally compliant decentralized capital market. Rachid originally worked in investment banking for ten years before moving to Paris where he worked for a leading research team in AI. At this time, in 2017, he began to learn about cryptocurrency and dabbled in investing. After losing a little bit of money and not understanding why, he dove further into the markets and learned more about the technology. After making many investments he began to notice the many discrepancies. This was when he had the idea to build a decentralized investment platform that would protect investors. He brought on his friend Amber Ghaddar as an advisor but she quickly fell in love with the project and so they co-founded AllianceBlock. Many Use Cases AllianceBlock spent one year incubating their idea and understanding the power of decentralized finance. With banks and other forms of traditional finance becoming more interested, they realized the problem was with regulations and compliance. AllianceBlock has many use cases including simplifying cross border activity, regulated digital asset offerings, compliant decentralized open finance solutions, and compliant P2P lending for institutional clients. Data is one of the most important aspects now and they’re seeing more interest in regulated digitized derivatives and fund distribution. Bridging The Gap AllianceBlock aims to bridge the gap between traditional and decentralized finance. The OCC has recently come out to say that federally chartered banks can have institutional nodes and AllianceBlock offers staking for those institutional nodes. Rachid says the difference is in holding assets vs putting into liquidity. Liquidity mining is so important for projects that want to raise money or have liquid assets. The community plays an important role in providing liquidity. The AllianceBlock protocol has three important layers of communication. Those layers are a cross-border regulatory compliance layer, a data governance and privacy layer, and a transactions and workflow layer. Exciting Things On The Horizon Rachid is most excited about decentralized finance technology and the pace at which new technologies are coming to the space. He’s also excited to see the flow of money coming from traditional finance to decentralized finance. The potential is huge and Rachid can’t wait to see the full impact. To Learn More To learn more about AllianceBlock, go to allianceblock.io and also allianceblock.medium.com. They can also be found on Twitter @allianceblock. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Ray Chiapuzio, head of ecosystem at Rally, a blockchain-based creator company. As a creative person as a kid, Ray was led towards video games and ended up going into game design school. He went on to work at a game engine company and then worked at Disney building social and mobile games. Platforms and economics were changing fast and Ray was learning to design economics inside of games. This led him to get interested in blockchain in 2016. He was intrigued by crypto as programmable money, and how you could engineer rules into currency itself. The Need For Rally Rally was spawned out of blockchain creators needing more tooling. Rally aims to take virtual economy to the next phase, allowing creators to engage with fans using cryptocurrency. Rally helps creators span all challenges and networks. Their goal is to get 100 million people using crypto by building a network for ideas and tools. Rally gives creators the building blocks and protocol tools to create their own tokens. A creator must first apply and put up a proposal asking for funding within Rally and then the community votes on which creators to add. This is followed by general on boarding, announcements and PR. Once they’ve had a launch event the economy is set and ready to use. This is followed by a lot of experimentation on what a coin can do within a community. Successful Creators As Rally rounds out their experimentation phase, they’re looking towards developing playbook ideas and ways to think about a new creator economy. Right now they’re seeing trends with musicians being very successful in the space. Their success is driven a lot by already having a dedicated community of fans that they can easily plug into. They’re also seeing success with organization of people such as esports, commentators, etc. Exciting Things To Come Ray is most excited about the growth outside of Rally and providing ways for anyone to build tools for creators. Now that they have a strong foundation, the media is starting to pay attention. Ray is excited to see creators succeed, causing people to get interested in why they’re succeeding. If you’d like more information on what Rally is about or what they’re up to, visit rally.io where you’ll also find the link to their Discord community. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Justin Banon, CEO and co-founder of Boson Protocol, which enables smart contracts to execute real-world commerce transactions and input commerce data, reliably and autonomously. Justin started out with a physics degree and then went on to a master's in digital business. His first major project was building out a digital voucher program. As a self-proclaimed business model geek, he started to understand how tokenized networks affect business models. He was excited about the potential to have business models that had equitability baked in. He would soon leave his well-paying job to begin the journey of building a blockchain version of his voucher system, and thus Boson Protocol was born. Boson Protocol introduced a new way to enable commerce between a buyer and seller in a remote way. Justin says to think of them as a black box that goes in the middle and replaces the intermediary governed by a human arbitrator and instead has it governed by a game-theoretic. Their game is the same sort of class, except there are two deposits (buyer and seller), and more complex rules that result in both parties being interested in going through with the transaction to the agreed level of quality. Justin says they have built the market leader in certain domains in representing products and services of things. He says their main advantage is the people they have on their team, where they are building out the strongest token and ecosystem design teams. Justin says it’s easier to have the team centered in Europe as they’re in the middle of all time zones, but a remote team still takes a huge amount of coordination and communication. Software helps a lot with this, but Justin still likes the team to get together every 3-4 months. The Boson Protocol implements NFT on both sides of the transaction and has recently updated their architecture to leverage ocean protocols. They use NFT’s as a unique digital object encoded with a game. NFT holds deposits, and the game manages the behaviors of buyers and sellers. Having raised about 3.5 million in the last couple of months, Boson Protocol is about to do a public sale and will be announcing the platform soon. If you would like to learn more, visit bosonprotocol.io or find them on Twitter and Telegram @bosonprotocol. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

On today’s show, Nick is answering community questions and providing a road map for what’s to come. Here are those questions and a summarized answer to each. What are the advantages of the new wallet? The ability to launch master or staking nodes will be available at the launch. It’s different from other wallets because it is 100% decentralized. With current FCC drama, what assurances can you give that there won’t be similar issues? They’ve tried to be compliant as possible from the beginning. The regulations were less clear in the beginning and some are still not clear; it’s a daily task to stay compliant. Will the new mobile wallet have the option to configure master nodes in one click? Yes, and it’s even easier than the desktop version already. They’ve pushed blockchain to the background to give the users what they want. What marketing and PR are you planning? Marketing is minimal right now but will be ramping up with concentrated bursts of activity around the release of new features. Nick says they’ll use everything from influencers, competitions, referral programs, to paid media and big media like CNBC. Are there any exciting partnerships? They like to be as transparent as possible but often have to sign NDA’s during the negotiation phase. However, he can mention a partnership with Divi, and says many others are to come. Are you concerned about the crack down on privacy coins? No, they don’t aim to be a privacy coin and they saw this regulation coming. Which feature on Divi wallet will make it most accessible to people that have never used crypto before? On-boarding and initial account creation will lead to pretty high conversion rates. What are the advantages of a staking vault? It’s not a traditional pool, you get to retain your keys and coins, sort of like master nodes. Will Divi participate in a defi project? Yes, they already have a large amount of liquidity, which will cascade into a ton of new partnerships. How could they lead the 4th industrial revolution? There are a lot of potential users and potential for mass adoption. What is most needed are products that are usable by every day, ordinary people and that’s when it will take off. What can we do as a community to support the developing team? Simply support and trust the team. When you have thoughts, feedback, or questions, reach out. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Konstantin Richter of Blockdaemon, a blockchain deployment facilitator. Konstantin’s first real career after school was with T-Mobile, building out network infrastructures. Here he learned how to distribute content and how to trade and package metadata. Like any technology there were issues and Konstantin knew then he wanted to become an entrepreneur and help solve those problems. Once in the entrepreneurial world, Konstantin got excited about blockchain in 2012. In 2015 he became an advisor to a few companies working to build a more holistic solution around decentralized ledgers. Some of this technology was ahead of the times, but Konstantin was now involved in the production ecosystem. Making his exit in 2017, Konstantin knew that his next entrepreneurial project would be with blockchain. Working with a team, Konstantin aimed to bridge the gap between what blockchain could do and what people thought it could do. Working with companies like Amazon and Google, they were automating the deployment and management of bitcoin nodes across a hybrid cloud structure. Today Blockdaemon has 75 note types and 30 protocols fully automated. Konstantin says it’s as easy as pulling out your credit card and pushing a few buttons to get your own fully synced node. Konstantin says that 2018-2019 was a time of building and learning. On a technical capability level, they had a lot of work to do. Blockdaemon is available to anyone that wants to connect to blockchain networks with security, consistency, and privacy. In the beginning, it was more about physically employing nodes that was hard. Now the focus is on assurances of consistency for their clients. Konstantin says their focus is ultimately the liquidity cycle of networks. Blockdaemon has an enterprise option but is still at the institutional adoption stage, being one step too early for widespread usage. Blockdaemon was one of the first to focus on nodes and is still the only place you can deploy a wide range of POW, Top 10, and POS tokens. Being in a good position to satisfy demand, Blockdaemon has a wide cohort of customer and use cases. Going into 2021-2022, Konstantin says he’s most excited about payment networks, transaction systems, and the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. To learn more about Blockdaemon or nodes, visit blockdaemon.com and sign up for their newsletter. Blockdaemon can also be found on Twitter, and Konstantin himself can be reached at [email protected]. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

While working at one of the largest marketing companies in 2012, David Wachsman was given the advice to join a small boutique agency. David took this advice and soon took over day-to-day operations in his new position. He says it was here that he learned all the ins and outs of making an agency run well. It was in the early days of bitcoin that David would first learn of it. He didn’t know much about it other than what he read, but he reached out to a bitcoin CEO and was convinced it was the real deal. David would go on to begin work with the CEO of Coin Setter. It was here he further fell down the rabbit hole. Eventually, the Coin Setter CEO would convince David to start his own firm in mid-2015. That was the beginning of Wachsmans, which is now known internationally. There was a lot of building to be done in the space before you could effectively reach people, but Wachsmans has been instrumental in the adoption of bitcoin. David started off his company with a bitcoin conference After Party. It was here that he met many of his clients, including the CEO of what is now called Edge Wallet. Having more bitcoin clients than anyone and his connections with the media, David was becoming the go-to guy for bitcoin marketing. Luckily, building a PR agency doesn’t require much startup, but you need to spend money on labor to scale well. Wachsman's appealed to founders because PR is the first marketing a company should do with brand-related marketing. Next, you would need targeted advertising to help grow adoption. With both working in tandem, you can begin to build up a community. In 2016 crypto grew from 6 billion to 8 billion and from 18 billion to 850 billion in 2017. It would seem crypto isn’t going anywhere, but David would like to see institutional adoption to really send that message that crypto is here to stay. David is also excited to see regulations for security tokens, which brings transparency that didn’t exist before. Processes for automatic payments and remittances are on the incline as well. David is incredibly excited to see people using bitcoin to diversify their portfolios. David urges any listeners that are communication professionals to check out their website, wachsman.com, and apply. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking to Nicholas from the NEM group. NEM has been around a long time and even predates ether cryptocurrency. Having run six years now, NEM boasts no hacks to their decentralized community. With a large base in Japan, across Europe, and in the US, NEM is launching its 2.0 version called Symbol. The launch of Symbol will effectively mean that 1 XEM token will equal 1 XEM + 1 XYM (new token). With 300 supernodes distributed worldwide, you currently need 3 million XYM to run one node, but Symbol will look to remove entry barriers by lowering this threshold. One feature of Symbol is that it will be the first blockchain to have multi-signature accounts, which can be quite useful for businesses. New to the NEM ecosystem is STXEM, or a staked XEM. Effectively you can buy one STXEM, and you will get a supernode reward at about 4%. NEM can also interact in the defy system. Nicholas shares his strategy for investing is to look at emerging technologies and what the utility value of the asset is. For example, the value of the internet is in its applications. Next, you can start to build in supply and demand functions. The utility value increases because of network effects. With the evolution of tokens on exchanges, defy is a great disruptor and all major exchanges are afraid of defy. Nicholas predicts defy will end up in a bubble, and there will be a lot of spammy products, but that the cream will rise to the top and will be the base layer for the next cycle. Nicholas says he’s most excited about the launch of Symbol. Beyond that, Nicholas says they’re in talks with different governments about issuing central bank digital currency. Lithuania was the first to launch CBDC, and Nicholas thinks it’s a trend that will continue to grow. As head of trading, Nicholas has to be aware of the market dynamics. He touches on enduring a bear market but says when the market is as bullish as now, it’s all hands on deck. It’s an exhausting period, but one he’s thoroughly enjoying. Another part of the NEM blockchain ecosystem is NEM Ventures, which specializes in high-tech investments. NEM Ventures was started a few years back and invests in projects that are building on top of, or using, NEM technologies in some fashion. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re speaking with the head of ecosystem at the Stellar Development Foundation, Justin Rice. He’ll walk us through the Stellar ecosystem and what role the foundation plays in it all. What Is Stellar? Stellar is a platform that connects all the world's currencies. Any currency or asset can be represented and easily connected to it’s underlying value. Stellar is open source as well as open participation, meaning anyone can easily create, send, or trade digital currency. Programs, products, and entrepreneurs are all represented in the ecosystem. The native token of Stellar are lumens and each account is required to hold a few lumens at all times to participate. In addition, a small per-transaction fee is used to discourage any large-scale bad behavior. What is the Role of the Foundation? Stellar Development Foundation is a non-profit that exists to support the development and growth of the Stellar network. The foundation is able to help maintain the codebase as well as the people building on it. The foundation supports technical and business communities, as well as representing Stellar to regulators and institutions. What is an Anchor? Think of an anchor as a local on/off-ramp. They connect traditional banking to the Stellar network so that all the world’s currencies can interoperate on a single platform and in a seamless manner. We know that conventional banking systems are old school and have a lot of friction when it comes to converting certain assets, especially those that aren’t as liquid. Stellar Development aims to solve the inequality created by financial institutes while making things easier for its users. Therefore, building on Stellar is just good business. The Stellar Team With Stellar being open source, there are hundreds of companies and thousands of people in the ecosystem. In terms of Stellar’s actual team, they sit at about 80 members, up from only about 15 a year and a half ago. Stellar has an array of goals and outlined areas they are focused on, all which can be found at stellar.org/foundation/mandates. Some of these include direct developments, ecosystem support, and user acquisition. Each focus area has different initiatives to support it, with lumens distributed to achieve these goals. To learn more about Stellar, please visit stellar.org and explore the ‘Learn’ and ‘Ecosystem’ sections. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.

Today we’re talking about all things DeFi, also known as decentralized finance, with PlasmaPay CEO Ilia Maksimenka. Ilia will discuss how he got into the cryptocurrency space, where his company fits in, and how the average user can succeed in this space. -- Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.