The Scoop

In this episode of The Scoop, Frank Chaparro and former Deutsche Bank payment analyst Ryan Todd delve into Coinbase's financial performance for the fourth quarter.Todd, a former payments analyst at Deutsche Bank, offers an in-depth analysis of why Wall Street regularly underestimates Coinbase's earnings. He sheds light on the structural factors leading to consistent earnings outperformance, not only by Coinbase but also by major tech companies overall.

Colosseum is an online platform that runs hackathons, accelerates founders, and invests in breakout startups on Solana.In this episode, Colosseum co-founders Matty Taylor and Clay Robbins discuss how they are establishing Colosseum as an entry point into crypto, and their personal journeys in building Colosseum.According to Robbins, maintaining a supportive culture around developer activity is vital for any crypto ecosystem's success:"The lifeblood of growth in the ecosystem is a function of the independent developer ecosystem's health. And so we want to make sure that's our primary remit and service that we're providing. And candidly, that's what we want the Colosseum brand associated with first and foremost."

Matthew Hougan is the Chief Investment Officer for Bitwise — one of several asset managers to recently launch a spot Bitcoin ETF.In this episode, Hougan shares his inside perspective on how market participants are reacting to the new spot Bitcoin ETFs, and why he believes we're not yet at the "sweet spot of demand" for the new products.OUTLINE00:00 Introduction05:46 Crypto & Wall Street09:55 BTC ETF Launch Analysis13:26 ETF Provider Competition19:51 ETF Trading Mechanics23:55 RIA BTC Sales Pitch28:18 Portfolio Construction30:15 Looking Forward32:32 Exotic Crypto ETFs

Dr. Friederike Ernst is the co-founder of Gnosis and Gnosis Pay.In this episode, Dr. Ernst shares how Gnosis Pay is working to bridge the gap between on-chain and off-chain payments, and how the upcoming Gnosis Card will allow users to spend their crypto at over 80 million VISA merchants worldwide.Although crypto payments for everyday transactions have yet to penetrate the consumer market, Dr. Ernst says it's only a matter of time before traditional financial services move onchain:"In 5 to 10 years, I am pretty certain that most financial rails were run on blockchain technology just because it's much, much more efficient than the current stack."

Chris Dixon is a managing partner at a16z and the founder of a16z crypto.In this episode, Dixon gives an overview of his new book, Read Write Own: Building the Next Generation of the Internet, and explains how blockchains have the potential to create more equatable online experiences.OUTLINE00:00 Background08:04 New Book11:13 Crypto Skeptics14:56 Tech Centralization19:53 Web2 vs Web324:11 Networks vs Tokens31:12 Platform Ownership33:49 Platform Take Rates37:49 Consumer Crypto40:49 Regulatory Uncertainty47:29 Venture Landscape

Jelena Djuric is the co-founder of Noble and Sam Hart is the co-founder of Timewave Labs and the Head of Strategy at Skip Protocol.In this episode, Djuric and Hart — both seasoned Cosmos veterans — breakdown the recent advancements that have helped the Cosmos ecosystem enter into a new era of innovation and expansion.Djuric also announces Noble's partnership with Hashnote to bring the USYC token to the Cosmos, making USYC the first cross chain real-world asset (RWA) in the Cosmos ecosystem that is liquid, compliant, interoperable and seamless to use.

Scott Fletcher co-founded Intersection Growth Partners — one of the crypto industry's leading executive search firms.In this episode, Fletcher overviews how the crypto job market has changed since the market bottom in 2022 and explains what it takes to land an executive position at a top crypto company.According to Fletcher, CEO hires have more than doubled as a percentage of overall executive hires since the collapse of FTX, the number of new executive hires amongst centralized exchanges has more than halved, and the number of executives hired by infrastructure companies has nearly tripled.

Dan Tapiero is the founder and managing partner of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners — two growth equity funds operating across the digital asset ecosystem.In this episode, Tapiero gives an overview of how the recent market rally has impacted deal flow on the secondary market, and explains why he remains strongly bullish on the future growth trajectory of the industry.According to Tapiero, valuations in crypto's secondary market have yet to see a marked uptick in Q4 partially due to the lack of private equity firms that stuck with the space in the wake of the FTX meltdown."There were a lot of blow ups and I think the people who got out of over their skis are kind of gone," says Tapiero.However, Tapiero does not believe his relative lack of competition in crypto's secondary market will exist for long — he's currently raising a fourth growth equity fund to invest in digital assets in part because he's "worried that prices are going to start to move up."

George Calle is the VP of Research at The Block.In this episode, Calle gives an overview of the key themes from The Block's 2024 Digital Assets Outlook Report.The full report can be downloaded here.OUTLINE0:00 - Introduction04:36 - 2023 Overview08:08 - Blockchain Scaling14:02 - DeFi Usage Trends17:43 - 2023 Macro Impact20:41 - Regulatory Landscape27:39 - Binance36:09 - 2023 Winners40:26 - 2023 Losers

Tzvi Wiesel is the founder and CEO of Baxus, a startup in the wine and spirits industry attempting to revolutionize the way these products are traded, authenticated and valued globally.In this episode, Wiesel explains how his company leverages blockchain technology for ownership proof, authentication and secure storage — and how Baxus aims to address challenges like opaque pricing and legal complexities in the alcoholic beverage market.

James Seyffart is an ETF Research Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.In this episode, Seyffart shares why he believes a spot bitcoin ETF approval is on the way and how the market might react to the news.Grayscale Investments’ win against the SEC in August over its application to convert its flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) product into a spot bitcoin ETF is another major factor in the SEC’s potential approval, Seyffart said.“I think the SEC has kind of been backed into a corner here by the judges basically throwing out every decision and reasoning it's used to deny an ETF in the past,” he added. “I think the SEC and Chair Gary Gensler know that they were overplaying their hand a bit and are kind of forced into a corner right now.”OUTLINE:00:00 - Bitcoin ETFs Overview04:30 - Bitcoin ETF Decision Timelines07:47 - Spot Ethereum ETF Odds09:54 - Spot Bitcoin ETF Odds18:09 - Grayscale vs. SEC24:35 - Crypto ETF Nuances27:03 - Institutional BTC Demand33:29 - Closing Thoughts

This is the opening installment of the miniseries 'Web3 will fail unless...', sponsored by Axelar and featuring co-host Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar.In this episode, EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan lays out the vision for EigenLayer and explains how the increasing modularization of blockchain infrastructure and services will enable the next wave of crypto innovation.OUTLINE:00:00 Introduction03:54 Web3 Adoption Curve12:37 Monolithic vs. Modularity20:20 Developer Complexity25:38 Celestia DA vs. EigenLayer31:27 Real World AssetsThis episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Axelar.Axelar is scaling interoperability to connect hundreds of new blockchains anticipated in the Ethereum L2 ecosystem. Find out more at axelar.network/layer2

Charles d'Haussy is the CEO of the dYdX Foundation.In this episode, d'Haussy discusses the launch of dYdX v4, and the potential tailwinds that could help decentralized derivative products gain market share in the years ahead.According to d'Haussy, the decision to launch dYdX v4 as a standalone appchain in the Cosmos ecosystem was made to optimize the experience of dYdX users."If you need to upgrade to a new [tech] stack, you should be agnostic, and just think of the users, the experience, and the potential of the markets you've been working on." OUTLINE:00:00 - Introduction03:04 - dYdX v4 Cosmos Chain06:31 - Onchain Perpetual Swaps12:00 - dYdX Trading Experience17:21 - DeFi Adoption Rate20:18 - Regulatory Head/Tailwinds22:47 - Institutional Interest in DeFi26:58 - Closing Thoughts

Alex Felix is the Chief Investment Officer at CoinFund.Back in July, CoinFund announced the raise of $158 million for a new early-stage crypto startup investment fund. In this episode, Felix explains how his firm is thinking about allocating the capital, and breaks down the institutional interest in early-stage crypto investing.According to Felix, the market is still discounting web'3 full potential:"Almost everyone universally has under-appreciated, the size of the market opportunity for web3. It's open source, it's open competition — when we make this transition to web3 rails, it will be very hard to compete against for any web2 or other business model."This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital.In this episode, Scaramucci reflects on the lessons he learned in the depths of last year's bear market, and explains why he believes the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. will lead to hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into bitcoin in the near future.OUTLINE:00:00 - Introduction05:28 - SkyBridge Strategy10:15 - Conviction14:49 - FTX Takeaways18:39 - 2024 Projections29:03 - Warren & Gensler vs. Crypto33:57 - Spot Bitcoin ETF39:15 - Market Tailwinds45:13 - Closing ThoughtsThis episode is brought to you by our sponsor, PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Justin Slaughter is the Policy Director at Paradigm.In this episode, Slaughter explains why crypto regulation in the U.S. is likely stuck "in a holding pattern" until after the 2024 election cycle, and how policymakers on both sides of the aisle are beginning to see past crypto's volatility to appreciate the underlying technological innovation.OUTLINE:00:00 - Introduction07:16 - Crypto Policy Overview11:04 - Political Perceptions of Crypto15:52 - Bipartisan Crypto Support19:37 - FIT Act & Stablecoins Bill23:02 - Global Crypto Regulation25:29 - US Regulatory Uncertainty28:01 - BlackRock’s Impact on Crypto30:58 - 2024 Policy Outlook37:30 - Paradigm’s Policy PrioritiesThis episode is brought to you by our sponsor, PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Superphiz is a long-time Ethereum community member and a became a vocal advocate for staking decentralization following the Ethereum 'Merge' to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism last year.In this episode of The Scoop, Superphiz unpacks how Ethereum's merge to proof-of-stake has caused liquid staking derivatives to pose a potential threat to Ethereum's credible neutrality, as well as the best pathways to mitigate the potential for staking centralization.OUTLINE:00:00 - Introduction2:55 - Success of ‘The Merge’5:28 - Ethereum Centralization Concerns13:34 - Lido’s LSD Dominance20:54 - Scaling Ethereum25:33 - New Use Cases27:37 - Closing ThoughtsThis episode is brought to you by our sponsor PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Kavita Gupta is the founder and CEO of Delta Blockchain Fund.Gupta — a former executive at ConsenSys — launched the fund in September 2021 and it currently sits at $125 million AUM.In this episode of The Scoop, Gupta discusses how the recent surge in crypto prices has impacted the venture landscape, and shares what sectors of the market she is paying the most attention to.According to Gupta, most early-stage crypto valuations are still fairly reasonable — which is leading to a steady stream of activity amongst veteran VCs in the space."Smarter, seasoned VCs have actually been more active in this market because it's the right valuation — it's also told you which founders are here to stay."This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Leo Mizuhara is the founder and CEO of Hashnote — a digital asset management platform that aims to provide institutions with a regulated gateway to DeFi.In this episode of The Scoop, Mizuhara explores the recent hype around tokenized real-world assets and examines some of the hidden risks under pinning this sector of the digital assets market.According to Mizuhara, many purported 'tokenized' T-Bills are not actually providing direct exposure."I think it's a giant misnomer — it's really dumb that people are calling them tokenized treasuries... People are tokenizing ETFs, people are tokenizing SPVs, they're tokenizing funds — I've literally seen nobody actually tokenizing the Treasuries or the T-Bills themselves."This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Austin Federa is Head of Strategy at the Solana Foundation.In this episode of The Scoop recorded live at Solana Breakpoint 2023, Federa unpacks some of Breakpoint's biggest announcements and explains how Solana builders persevered through the depths of the bear market to continue enhancing Solana's tech.According to Federa, Solana's recent performance enhancements have rectified many of the problems that plagued Solana's performance throughout the 2021 bull run. "I think you saw a lot of 'thinkfluencers' tweeting 18 months ago that Solana's architecture was somehow fundamentally flawed and they could never get this thing stable because of 'original sins' in the code base — and like most most radical statements on Twitter, it turns out to really not be substantively true."This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Armani Ferrante is the founder and CEO of the crypto wallet company Backpack and the creator of the MadLads NFT collection.In this episode of The Scoop recorded live at Solana Breakpoint 2023, Ferrante unpacks Backpack's plans to launch a new exchange in Dubai.As Ferrante explains, the new exchange is both an opportunity to bring a regulated crypto exchange to market and to bolster the Solana ecosystem:"We very much see a big opportunity in the international market, not only in the context of building a next generation exchange that embraces a lot of the technological innovations that blockchains and crypto at large has brought to the world, but also an opportunity to embrace the Solana ecosystem and kind of be that shepherd that bridges those two worlds."OUTLINE:00:00 - Introduction03:27 - Go to Market Strategy05:26 - Exchange Custody Transparency08:57 - Attracting Liquidity14:35 - Product Offering15:37 - Setting Up in Dubai20:03 - State of Solana EcosystemThis episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Jupiter Zheng is Partner of Liquid Funds & Research for HashKey Capital — the investment arm of the Hong Kong crypto financial services firm HashKey Group.In this episode, Zheng explains how the crypto industry is gaining momentum in Asia — particularly in Hong Kong.Back in September, Hashkey announced it is raising up to $100 million for a new liquid fund with a heavy focus on altcoins.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Juthica Chou is the head of OTC options trading at Kraken and the former president of LedgerX.In this episode, Chou explains how crypto's recent rally is being reflected in the options market, and what signals to pay attention to in the weeks ahead.According to Chou, volatility has returned to the market after months of relatively little activity:"The market's definitely pricing some big moves. And I always say, like if it can go up fast, it can go down faster."This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal.Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Pranav Kanade is a portfolio manager at VanEck.In this episode, Kanade analyzes some of the trends and opportunities that he sees playing out during the current crypto bear market.Kanade says that crypto builders should be focusing on building products that help onboard new users into the ecosystem:"If I were to criticize this space for something, it's that a lot of people are too focused on building things for the existing user base rather than building things for people that are not current users... I'd love to see more of that.The VanEck Ethereum Strategy ETF launched in early October as one of the first ETFs ever to launch based on ether futures.

Kevin Johnson is Coinbase's VP of Institutional Sales and Trading.In this episode, Johnson shares the details behind Coinbase Prime's new web3 wallet designed to give institutional and enterprise clients secure and direct access to web3, DeFi, and various onchain operations.As Johnson explains, "It was always in our plans to take the great centralized tools that we had built with those multi user capabilities and eventually bring those on on chain for clients."The new non-custodial wallet offers features such as storing any tokens, DEX aggregation, intuitive risk controls and customizable workflows — all integrated with Coinbase Prime's battle-tested security measures.

Joesph Kelly is the CEO of Unchained — a bitcoin financial services company that offers services including trading, inheritance solutions, bitcoin-backed loans, and tax-advantaged bitcoin retirement accounts.In this episode, Kelly explains how his firm managed to become "the last lender standing in the US market for bitcoin-backed loans," and how Unchained has experienced growth despite rising federal interest rates.Earlier this year, Unchained raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by Valor Equity Partners.

The Block's Weekend Editor Zack Abrams has been covering Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal trial live from the courtroom in New York.In this episode, Abrams provides a first hand account of what he has witnessed and explains why he thinks SBF's case is more complicated than the general public seems to believe.Zack's ongoing coverage of the trial can be found here.OUTLINE:00:00 Introduction04:32 Fraud or Failure?10:23 SBF’s Defense11:39 Crux of the Case16:27 Alameda’s Backdoor19:24 Campaign Funding Violations20:47 Caroline Ellison26:56 Collateral Risk28:34 Total Fraud?32:54 Effective Altruism

WassieLawyer is a former restructuring lawyer and an active participant in the ongoing conversation surrounding FTX's bankruptcy proceedings.In this episode, WassieLawyer outlines how the prospects of FTX creditors have improved over the course of the past year, including what to expect in the coming months.FTX's investment in Anthropic made headlines recently following reports that the company's most recent valuation could be as high as $30 billion.OUTLINE:00:00 Introduction00:39 Anthropic Investment05:00 FTX Ventures07:14 The FTX Estate11:02 Unsecured Creditors Committee15:26 What’s Next for FTX Bankruptcy17:20 FTX 2.020:20 FTX’s Business Model22:10 Clawbacks25:24 Bidding for FTX28:21 Closing Thoughts

Zane Tackett is the former head of institutional sales at FTX.In this episode, Tackett recounts his experience working with Sam Bankman-Fried at FTX and explains how the exchange's terms of service blow a hole in SBF's criminal defense.Although SBF claims he is not guilty of fraud, Tackett says "it's obvious that he knew what he was doing."OUTLINE:00:00 Introduction03:32 FTX's Business Model06:56 FTX's Balance Sheet10:06 Michael Lewis: Going Infinite11:14 The Real SBF16:02 FTX 2.017:14 FTX Estate Asset Recovery17:50 FTX Hacked Funds19:06 Crypto’s Capital Markets20:54 CeFi vs. DeFI23:07 Effective Altruism26:04 SBF Trial32:57 Closing Thoughts

Travis Kling is the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Ikigai Asset Management — a crypto asset management startup that had a 'large majority' of its assets stuck on FTX when the exchange declared for bankruptcy last year.In this episode, on the eve of former FTX boss Sam Bankman Fried's criminal trial, Kling recounts his story since last November when FTX imploded and explains why he remains optimistic about the potential for recovery.OUTLINE:00:56 - Introduction03:01 - Ikigai’s $65 Million FTX Disaster05:10 - FTX Estate’s Balance Sheet08:01 - FTX 2.012:01 - Problems with Binance15:41 - Rebuilding Trust with Exchanges18:03 - SBF Trial19:14 - Closing Thoughts

Michael Cahill is the CEO of Douro Labs, where he oversees the development and acceleration of the Pyth Network — an oracle network for real-time financial market data delivery to smart contract applications.In this episode, Cahill unpacks the unique advantages of Pyth Network over other oracle providers and explains what obstacles currently stand in the way of replicating the centralized trading experience on-chain.According to Cahill, DeFi is "very close to feature parity with some of the backend elements of derivatives trading on centralized exchanges — what we haven't yet cracked is the user experience."Pyth Network was incubated by Jump Trading before going live on Solana mainnet back in August of 2021.

Keone Hon is the founder and CEO of Monad Labs — the development team behind a new Layer-1 blockchain that aims to bring pipelined execution to the Ethereum Virtual Machine.In this episode, Keone shares how his background at various HFT firms led him to identify problems with existing blockchain infrastructure and ultimately inspired him to rebuild the EVM entirely to optimize it for high-performance trading activity.Monad has raised $19 million from investors including Dragonfly Capital, Naval Ravikant, Cobie, Hasu and others.OUTLINE:03:33 - Monad Overview05:17 - Another Layer-1?06:26 - ‘Pipelining’08:32 - Web3 Social11:38 - Bridges to Monad12:11 - High Performance DeFi13:34 - DeFi Summer 2.0?16:01 - Monad’s Funding16:49 - Onchain HFT19:05 - The Future of Trading22:55 - Onchain Sports Betting23:19 - Surviving Crypto Winter28:30 - Closing Thoughts

Aaron Kaplan founded Prometheum to create a trading venue for digital assets that is compliant with federal securities laws. However, Kaplan's firm came under fire following the SEC's approval of Prometheum's special purpose broker-dealer license back in May of this year — the only such license issued by the SEC to date.In this episode, Kaplan lays out how Prometheum managed to secure the special purpose broker-dealer license and why he believes strict adherence to the federal securities laws is the key to increased institutional participation in the digital asset industry.While companies like Coinbase claim regulatory ambiguities exist surrounding digital assets, Kaplan firmly believes that existing federal securities laws can be applied to digital assets without alterations.As Kaplan explains, "Our approval shows that if you put your head down, you work hard, you focus on how the regulators have laid out the rules and regulations, that you can be compliant."

Mike Dudas has over a decade of experience investing in the crypto industry and is the managing partner at the VC firm 6th Man Ventures.In this episode, Dudas examines the state of the crypto venture market, which he claims is currently stuck in "the slowest pace of dealmaking" he has ever seen.According to Dudas, two of the main contributors to slowing crypto VC activity are the dwindling number of real users for blockchain based products, plus founder expectations that are still anchored to unrealistic bull market valuations from days past.However, despite slowing user growth and lackluster price action, Dudas points to the uptick in developer activity as a beacon of hope that promises better experiences and products to the next wave of new crypto users.

Li Jin is the co-founder and a general partner at the VC firm Variant and has written extensively about the benefits of web3 social platforms for creators. Stani Kulechov is the creator of Aave (one of the largest decentralized finance protocols) and has been key to the development of the web3 social network platform, Lens Protocol.In this episode, Li and Kulechov examine the problems with the existing social media landscape and explain the opportunities that exist for new web3 social media attempts such as Lens Protocol.As Jin explains, one of the key benefits of web3 social is that "every element of the business model is totally in the creator's control."Outline:01:15 - Existing Social Media Landscape08:18 - Opportunities for Web3 Social12:35 - 'Socioeconomic Graph'14:20 - Lens Protocol17:44 - Financialization of Social Media25:30 - Monetization on X (Twitter)31:00 - Community Ownership34:46 - 'Liquid Citizen'38:26 - Investing in Web3 Social40:09 - Tokens & Web3 Social45:17 - Lens Protocol v2

Kristin Smith is the CEO of Blockchain Association — one of the top crypto policy advocacy groups in the U.S.In this episode, Smith unpacks the intricacies of the pending market structure bill set to make its way through Congress this fall, highlighting its potential to bring crypto regulatory clarity in the U.S. once and for all.According to Smith, the bill could be what's needed to bring in greater institutional participation and mainstream adoption:"It's something that we think that if it were to move forward, would give a lot of confidence to institutional investors, to traditional tech companies and other players to enter this space because they know there is a clear and workable regulatory framework in place."Outline:00:40 - Current State of Crypto in DC05:00 - Token Taxonomy Act (2018)07:24 - 2023 Congressional Crypto Outlook09:02 - Stablecoin Legislation13:20 - Market Structure Legislation16:24 - XRP Ruling24:46 - Treasury Department & Crypto28:07 - Anti-Crypto Congressional Sentiment29:48 - Aliens31:55 - 2024 Presidential Candidates & Crypto

Rebecca Rettig serves as the Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Polygon Labs.In this episode, Rettig offers a comprehensive analysis of the SEC's ongoing legal proceedings against Coinbase and Ripple, including instances where the Court seems to be challenging the SEC's authority.Rettig explains, "I think what both the Ripple and the Coinbase motion for judgment on the pleadings is really trying to say is, 'We got to bring it back to the law. This may look like something, but it doesn't look like anything you've seen before.' So we can't import these other ideas where an investment contract means there's some implied contract."Additionally, she touches on the Court's perspective regarding the SEC's prior actions towards Coinbase: "The judge that [the Coinbase case] is in front of expressed a lot of skepticism about the case because she said to the SEC, 'Didn't you guys let this one go through and allow them to IPO?'"During this episode Chaparro and Rettig also discuss: Regulatory frameworks for digital assets outside the U.S. The Value Prop and how blockchain is being used for good Why this has been a "bullish" bear market

Francis Suarez is the Mayor of the City of Miami and a Republican candidate for the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election.In this episode, Suarez explains how he stands out from the field of candidates and shares his plans to "encourage generational innovation" in the crypto industry if elected President. Outline:1:04 - The Campaign Trail2:25 - From Miami Mayor to Presidential Hopeful5:50 - Campaign Headwinds8:43 - “How Can I Help?”13:22 - Conflict of Interest Allegations16:28 - Republican Candidates19:04 - Presidential Priorities21:41 - Fiscal Policy23:53 - Partisan Crypto Support

Aubrey Strobel is the host of The Aubservation and the producer of "Lekker Feeling: A Bitcoin Ekasi Story."In this episode, Strobel explains how the combination of bitcoin and surfing is transforming a South African community and gives a behind the scenes look at the filmmaking process.Outline:1:33 - Film Background4:38 - Bitcoin in Africa7:07 - Bitcoin Ekasi9:18 - Merchant BTC Adoption11:09 - Bitcoin vs. Banking in South Africa13:15 - Lekker Feeling Highlights16:20 - Surfing & Bitcoin17:58 - Filmmaking18:27 - Global Perceptions of Bitcoin22:19 - Bitcoin Culture24:20 - Crypto Fundraising Difficulties27:48 - What’s Next?29:23 - Building on Bitcoin

Mastercard EVP Raj Dhamodharan manages Mastercard's blockchain and digital asset strategy.In this episode, Dhamodharan unpacks Mastercard's vision for a future in which value can be transferred seamlessly between public and private blockchains, and explains how CBDCs and tokenized bank deposits could revolutionize global payments. Outline:1:00 Mastercard's Multi Token Network6:00 MTN Applications10:13 KYC & Crypto Credential12:46 Public/Private Transactions14:09 Tokenized Bank Deposits21:20 The Multichain Future24:25 Central Bank Digital Currencies29:16 Closing Thoughts

Andre Cronje is the Director of the Fantom Foundation and Michael Kong is the CEO of the Fantom Foundation — the lead development team behind the Fantom Layer 1 blockchain.In this episode, Cronje and Kong break down the sequence of events that led Chinese authorities to detain the Multichain CEO and seemingly take control of its network, and how Fantom developers are exploring optimistic rollups to connect to Ethereum.Outline:00:35 - China's Multichain Crackdown03:10 - Multichain Rumors & Speculation08:21 - Fantom x Multichain14:08 - $65M Frozen USDC + USDT17:56 - Chinese Government or Hacker?20:12 - Crypto's Trust Problem27:47 - Multichain's Impact on Fantom's Ecosystem33:45 - Active Investigation35:38 - Fantom as an Ethereum Layer-2?38:29 - Layer-2s vs. Bridges46:45 - Andre Cronje's Role at the Fantom Foundation47:35 - Closing Thoughts

Laura Vidiella serves as the head of business development and strategy for a company that is currently operating under stealth. In this episode, Vidiella takes a deep dive into the intricate world of crypto's options market and breaks down the present dynamics, unraveling complex market behavior that might hint at the existence of a 'ghost' whale.Although crypto spot volumes have been in decline, the volume in the options market has remaining consistent according to The Block's data dashboard.

Alex Blania is the co-founder of Worldcoin and CEO of Tools for Humanity — Worldcoin's lead development company.In this episode, Blania discusses decentralized orb production, Worldcoin's token launch and what comes next for the Worldcoin project.Outline:01:01 - Why an Orb?04:52 - Worldcoin & Quantum Resistance05:44 - What's Next for Worldcoin07:44 - Worldcoin's Core Product13:21 - Is Worldcoin Cypherpunk?16:41 - Decentralizing Orb Production18:37 - Worldcoin Orb Manufacturing20:23 - $WLD Token Launch22:33 - Token Launch Criticisms27:30 - AI Will Change the Internet30:18 - Worldcoin and the Metaverse31:40 - Closing Thoughts

Mika Honkasalo is a DeFi researcher and the creator of Access Protocol.In this episode, Honkasalo provides analysis on whether or not the $BALD memecoin saga could have ties to Alameda Research, and how a handshake deal prevented a near on-chain catastrophe in the DeFi lending market. Outline:01:16 - $BALD debacle on Base04:51 - $BALD deployer's ties to Alameda08:14 - What's next for Coinbase's Base09:16 - Crypto rugpulls10:39 - Leetswap exploit11:37 - Curve DeFi leverage14:38 - Viper exploit15:44 - OTC Curve buyers17:37 - What's next for Curve?19:06 - What's next for DeFi?21:35 - Closing thoughts

Alok Vasudev is the co-founder of Standard Crypto, a VC firm that has been investing across various blockchain verticals since 2019.In this episode, Vasudev explains why he believes the crypto industry is in a better position now than ever before, and how to spot the best opportunities during bear markets.Outline:00:12 - Are we back?02:23 - Crypto market maturity06:41 - Alpha09:45 - Crypto's application layer14:25 - Web3 social18:50 - Blockchain gaming25:00 - Standard Crypto's thesis26:13 - Tech advancements31:10 - Higher lows34:53 - Closing thoughts

This episode of The Scoop was recorded live from the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris with Marek Olszewski, Chief Technology officer for cLabs — the core development team behind the Celo platform.In this episode, Olszewski unpacks cLabs recent proposal to transition Celo to an Eth Layer 2, and explains why he thinks one day "hundreds if not thousands of chains will all be rolling up to Ethereum."

This episode of The Scoop was recorded with Jesse Pollak, the creator Coinbase's Base network, live from the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris.Outline:00:44 Crypto 'builder energy'03:09 The L1 trade05:07 Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 206:45 Maturing beyond speculation11:03 Technical obstacles to building15:16 ZK vs. OP scaling solutions

This episode of The Scoop was recorded with Wildcat protocol creator Laurence Day live from the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris.Outline:00:10 Intro03:03 Laurence & law school04:53 Wildcat protocol09:29 Balancing proprietary data and transparency12:31 Collapsed crypto lenders14:55 EthCC Paris 16:52 Wormhole hack 20:01 Grey hat hackers24:22 Closing thoughts

Brian Quintenz is the Global Head of Policy at a16z crypto and a former commissioner at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.In this episode, Quintenz explains how the SEC's failure to issue updated guidance for the crypto industry has created a legislative opportunity for clarity.According to Quintenz, "Congress needs to show the way by creating the framework that the SEC is refusing to contemplate."Outline:0:36 Policy & regulation overview2:43 Securities v. commodities06:37 Registered securities11:58 Special Purpose Broker-Dealers14:49 a16z’s policy uutlook18:34 Ponzi schemes21:31 CeFi regulation27:16 Lummis x Gillibrand’s crypto bill30:30 Token decentralization32:32 Legislative hurdles

Moritz Baier-Lentz is a partner and head of gaming at Lightspeed, and Sam Harrison is the managing partner of Faction. In this episode, Baier-Lentz and Harrison unpack their thesis behind investing in the nascent Web3 gaming industry. While Web3 gaming has yet to reach mainstream appeal, Baier-Lentz and Harrison believe that a combination of technological advancements and veteran game developers embracing blockchain rails will help facilitate breakout Web3 games in the near future.Outline:1:13 Web3 VC Update4:41 Lightspeed + Faction8:46 Market Cycles14:04 Web3 vs. Web2 Gaming20:40 Gaming Metrics for VC23:38 Tokenomics & Gaming33:50 AI & Gaming38:41 Closing Thoughts