The Scoop

On this episode of The Scoop, Adam Carson, Operating Partner & Crypto Investment Lead at Point72 Ventures, joined host Frank Chaparro for the company's first public interview to discuss its investment strategy as well as Carson’s perspectives on the convergence of fintech, Web3 and the metaverse.Point72 Ventures, an offshoot of billionaire investor Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management Group, was launched in 2016 to initially focus on fintech investing but is increasingly ramping up its focus on the crypto space.In the interview, Carson said that the firm could invest in 5-10 crypto firms next year and might even make some token investments. "I hope that we will sort of evolve into doing more token investing," Carson said.On-ramp investmentsFor now, the firm is looking to invest in infrastructure "picks and shovels" companies that will help onboard incumbent institutions who can then in turn create on-ramps for future consumers to enter the crypto space, according to Carson. To date, Point72 Ventures has only publicly announced four crypto company investments: Messari, Zero Hash, 24 Exchange, and Massive. However, Carson announced on The Scoop that Point72 Ventures is soon to publicize its investment into a fifth company, which he mentioned was an established DeFi operation.When tokens?It's not clear exactly when Point72 will begin making token venture bets, but Carson said that the firm will have to rethink its existing investing approach to make such a move. "It's a different world and it's totally new and it's also exciting," he said, noting that such deals can close in a matter of days versus months, which is more typical in equity deals. "There's different operational and technology needs," he said. "You need to be able to custody these coins. You need to be able to move these coins."Episode 80 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Adam Carson, Operating Partner & Crypto Investment Lead at Point72 Ventures.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and KavaBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About KavaFor over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

“We’ll be back."This November, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected a proposal to list a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) from VanEck, only to approve VanEck's bitcoin futures-based fund a few days later.While VanEck may not have been able to launch a spot ETF at the time, the firm sees a silver lining in the reaction from policymakers in Congress. “For the SEC to have gotten a letter from both a Republican and a Democrat in favor of approval of the Bitcoin ETF was, to me was very positive in the absence of a lot of negative noise around the approval," VanEck CEO Jan van Eck said during the latest episode of The Scoop podcast.Van Eck also discussed why the firm remains undeterred in bringing more crypto funds to market, and what’s next for the ETF giant. He explained that while the SEC ruling on the spot ETF wasn't surprising, the firm expects to submit more bitcoin funds for approval.History repeating?But van Eck went on to note that the rejection of spot bitcoin ETfs may be similar to the initial pushback against gold bullion ETFs. He observed that the government initially also rejected gold bullion ETFs, while they were quick to approve gold futures funds.In this respect, van Eck contended that the SEC is exhibiting a double standard over bitcoin ETFs, with the agency wanting jurisdiction over crypto-cash markets. “It did not require that meaningfully for a gold ETF or a dry bulk shipping ETF," he said. From a macro perspective, however, van Eck acknowledged that while he believes governments view digital assets as “incredibly threatening” -- citing China’s ban on crypto trading and mining earlier this year -- he is encouraged by other regulatory movements in the space.... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 79 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and KavaBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About KavaFor over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

"It seems very much like the mania is just absolutely peaking right now."That's Pierce Crosby, general manager at TradingView. During this episode of The Scoop, Crosby joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the state of the retail market in crypto and stocks, the data firm's institutional ambitions and its bid to take trading charts global.“Deployment of TradingView not just across the US, but globally is really the next mission for us.”Crosby explained that to date TradingView currently has approximately 33 million users, and has had a virtually zero customer acquisition cost.Plans for retail and institutional clientsCrosby told Chaparro that he expects retail interest in crypto to continue to grow as exchanges "gamify" their platforms and move to meet the demand of consumers looking to capitalize on new products and token listings, such as dogecoin. "Infrastructure wise, things are just set up for retail to participate." However, TradingView is looking less to capture retail traders than it is to capture retail investors. Rather than competing with exchanges that use ICOs, products or fees to capitalize on margin, Crosby says the company has a longer-term view on this point."For us, it seems much more strategic to service investors than it is to service traders, just because volatility is volatility," he said. “I think most businesses that are set up for success, at least from what I've seen, are folks that are thinking more of the investor versus the actual trader."Of course, there's also the institutional side of things, and according to Crosby, TradingView is looking to deploy some of the $298 million it raised this fall by building out some of its internal offerings for institutional clients. “We have over one hundred and fifty engineers now focused on this tech. So we've done well to replace a lot of internal technology and not just charts, but order management, portfolio management, execution engines, really, everything from the front, front end and middle layer,” Crosby said.... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 78 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Pierce Crosby, General Manager at TradingView.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

“It makes a lot of sense for us to be a crypto first firm.” That’s Jess Turner, Executive Vice President of New Digital Infrastructure and Fintech at Mastercard. On this episode of the Scoop, Turner joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss how Mastercard is continuing to lean into crypto. More than ever, Mastercard and other traditional financial institutions are finding themselves involved with crypto, Turner said. “Whether traditional banks issue crypto in the way it's defined today or not, they're heavily involved today because many of their cards are being used to buy this cryptocurrency.”Mastercard's business includes providing companies with credit card infrastructure. But crypto has quickly become a strategic focus for the payments network giant. Mastercard is also testing how it can add stablecoins to its payment rails as evident in the news that it would serve as a bridge between consumers spending with USDC and merchants.CBDC and StablecoinsTurner thinks that stablecoins will serve as one financial rail among others.Said Turner: “If you think about what you're getting back for, whatever payment mechanism or money movement mechanism you're using, you want to use the one that's giving you the best value for what you're trying to do. And that's why you need kind of this multi-rail choice... Do I believe stablecoin will be part of those choices and continue to grow? I do.” Mastercard is also exploring how it can work with governments and central banks on launching central bank digital currencies.NFTsMastercard is currently working adding partnerships with NFT companies, including with marketplaces such as Mintable. The company is eyeing an opportunity in expanding consumer access to NFTs as they go mainstream. Turner went on to say that Mastercard is also exploring ways to work directly with the technology, focusing on how NFTs can better create provenance and validity as well as how they can be programmed for value exchange...For more visit theblockcrypto.com/https://www.theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 77 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jess Turner, EVP New Digital Infrastructure and Fintech at Mastercard.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

The crypto world has only just begun digesting the finalized crypto reporting requirements from the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF.The years-long process began in the summer of 2019 when the FATF made public its initial version that called for what it dubbed virtual asset service providers, or VASPs, to undertake an unprecedented degree of information-sharing about their customers and the transactions they conduct. Since then, the guidance has gone through numerous iterations and accounted for emerging use cases like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to name a few. At the heart of this framework is the so-called travel rule, requiring businesses that facilitate the movement to collect and share information about the parties to a transaction. How VASPs – like exchanges – will comply with this as FATF-supporting countries go live with the requirements is an active and evolving question. In this special episode of The Scoop, The Block reporter Aislinn Keely breaks down the implications of the FATF framework and how it might shape the evolving regulatory landscape in the United States.To unpack the questions at hand, Keely spoke with former FATF executive secretary and current ACAMS director Rick McDonell, Shyft co-founder Joseph Weinberg and Elliptic director of policy and affairs David Carlisle. This special episode takes a closer look at: What is FATF and why it matters The implications for less-easily-categorized decentralized finance (DeFi) entities The travel rule solutions being developed today How the FATF framework will impact enforcement efforts in the US Episode 76 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s reporter Aislinn Keely and Rick McDonell, Director of ACAMS & Former Executive Secretary of the FATF, Joseph Weinberg Co-Founder of Shyft, and David Carlisle, Director of Policy and Affairs at Elliptic.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

"It's really a matter of moving at the pace of the decisions of institutional players." That's Shaun Martinak, research and portfolio manager at One River Digital, the newly-launched arm of One River Asset Management that's working with clients to add crypto exposure to their portfolios. In an interview during the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Martinak observed that while institutional players have made headlines entering crypto, some of the largest investors--including pensions and endowments--account for only a small fraction of the crypto market. He believes that, in the future, there will be a place for such investments in the portfolios of these types of investors. "I think between 2 and 10 percent is a perfectly good number," he said, speaking to the penetration of pension funds and endowments into crypto. "And it's a matter of the timeline for education and the timeline for decision making." He said such firms are actively seeking exposure though One River as they actively pitch for their business. "I think the pitch is multifaceted, but it really boils down to: This is an area of fundamental growth at a time where fundamental growth is difficult to find."The metaverse While hesitant to make predictions on cryptocurrency portfolio allocation over the next 12 months, Martinak was enthusiastic about the growth and technological advancement he’s seen in the gaming segment. Ultimately, he sees the possibility of gaming and NFT assets sitting alongside traditional assets in an investor's portfolio. “When I think about the metaverse and I think about what digital assets and crypto primitives bring to existing in a space with other people in a digital environment, it just seems like it compounds how much time and attention we spend on our screens and in our information universe because your bank account is going to live in there with you, your value is going to live in there with you," he said.As Martinak posits: “What is this going to look like in its version of the Super Bowl?”Episode 75 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Shaun Martinak, Research and Portfolio Manager for Digital Assets at One River Digital.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

GSR is building out a space for itself at the intersection of traditional and decentralized finance worlds, according to its newly-minted head of DeFi, Jake Dwyer. During the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Dwyer explained that the firm is building out the capacity to both create new trading products as well as provide liquidity to DeFi protocols in a way that's more familiar to the traditional finance players who want to become more closely involved. With these plans in hand, GSR expects to contribute more than $1 billion in total value locked over the next year — fueled in no small part by the increase in interest from traditional finance sources. "People are sitting on pretty substantial positions just by being early users in these protocols,” said Dwyer.DeFi vs CeFiIn the last six months, GSR has expanded its venture investment activity in DeFi as a more central component of the business, with an eye on fixed income protocols and credit."You've got things like Aave and Compound and others on other chains for borrow and lend. But we've seen numerous innovations around the second-order derivatives of Swivel and Tempest on the fixed and floating rate interest side of things," Dwyer explained.Dwyer is excited about the collateral and interest rate segment of the market, which he sees as innovating at a fast pace. "I think that a lot of these different sorts of fixed income derivatives protocols that are out there are going to evolve in really exciting ways over the next the next couple of months."He believes that DeFi will eventually match more centralized activities as the market will see increased innovation.Eyeing a multi-chain futureLooking to the future, Dwyer said he believes that it will be one marked by a variety of networks that serve different purposes — and in the background, in some cases."We believe that in the future you're not going to know what chain you're interacting with necessarily or care," he said....For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 74 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jake Dwyer, Head of DeFi at GSR.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

“We're not art investors. We're investing in things that have communities”On this episode of The Scoop, Adam Goldberg co-founder of Standard Crypto joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss his work as a crypto VC and how his company is looking at the DeFi market in an unconventional way.Standard Crypto is $1 billion in size, according to a source familiar with the fund.Today, their investment team is primarily focused on projects in three areas: infrastructure, networks and apps. Thus far, Standard Crypto has made investments in major companies like OpenSea, Axie Infinity, Matrixport, Aave and Telegram, among others. The firm also has stakes in projects such as Audius, BitClout/Deso and Instadapp.Goldberg framed Standard Crypto's focus on the types of investments that have an ability to execute on and build a community."When you have a network that's owned by its participants, the rules can't change without the community being on board. And that's what makes us feel like crypto networks are the hardest thing to disrupt that we've ever seen in humanity, in that they evolve with their communities as things change and shift over time," said Goldberg.Gaming and the Metaverse in focusGoldberg told Chaparro that Standard Crypto is actively looking at companies advancing social and gaming projects in crypto. He sees the metaverse convergence of games and in-game economies as a new kind of development that's different from gameplay itself. "You know, Axie is not just a game, it's a new movement. It's sort of like a new generation of Pokemon or of of Angry Birds. And it's possible that we'll see, you know, movies or other types of experiences built around that IP." Said Goldberg.NFTsStandard Crypto is also looking closely at NFT’s, of which Goldberg said he sees a lot of opportunities to capture value as “new types of productive assets”. Standard Crypto are current investors in NFT marketplaces OpenSea and Foundation....For most visit theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 73 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Adam Goldberg, Co-Founder at Standard Crypto.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

“When I started to read about smart contracts… my mind exploded.”That's Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, who joined host Frank Chaparro for the latest episode of The Scoop podcast to discuss his entry into the world of decentralized finance (DeFi) and offer a deep dive into Aave's ecosystem. Among the topics: Aave Arc, the project's institutional product. During the conversation, Kulechov said that he believes smaller banks and private firms will be among the institutional world's early adopters of DeFi.“I think the biggest banks are more in the state of actually learning and getting education on the fly, and they will not be the early movers," he said. "But the early movers will be the banks that are smaller banks, private banks, and are exposed one way into the crypto space."'MetaFi'As one might expect, the interview with Kulechov swung toward a popular one in the crypto space today: virtual worlds, gaming and the so-called Metaverse, the latter being a catch-all phrase for the different platforms and services that compromise an immersive digital experience.Kulechov likened the way users spend time playing games in the Metaverse to the way people log time in a physical space like a cafe or workspace.“Games becomes more of an economy the same way as we're spending times sitting in a cafe, workspaces or having dinners or meeting friends.” He also related the use of finance tools in DeFi protocols to playing games and shopping in a brand’s store in the metaverse. For Aave in particular, this area is being explored via the launch of Aavegotchi, which began its first land auctions this October. “It's just like a completely new world that can be not just an experiment, but it could become reality," said Kulechov.Beyond DeFiWhile DeFi remains the focus of Aave, Kulechov sees a range of possibilities for similar architectures outside of DeFi.Kulechov discovered that while DeFi protocols applied nicely to finance, a similar architecture could be created to build a social platform.....For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 72 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Stani Kulechov, founder & CEO at Aave.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

"I noticed it has a big connection to electronic music and that is my biggest passion."On this episode of The Scoop, multi-platinum and Grammy-nominated DJ Alesso and Lin Dai CEO of OneOf joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss why prominent artists are getting into NFTs and how this is signaling a cultural shift for how tastemakers are engaging with their fans today.Alesso explained that electronic artists in particular have taken notice of recent advancements in technology like NFTs and the metaverse as a new means of connecting fans to music and visuals. "I saw the possibility of combining art with music and that made me very interested," Alesso said.OneOf, which is an NFT platform and marketplace built on the Tezos blockchain network, raised $63 million in its seed round of funding from backers such as Quincy Jones to launch this year. The company is focusing on building partnerships in the music industry and hopes to bridge artists like Alesso, Doja Cat, John Legend and others with their fans by producing NFTs with a lower minting cost."We can offer artists like Alesso a great blank canvas to bring their vision to life without considering how much they have to charge [fans].” Said Dai. OneOf further aims to differentiate their business by connecting their NFT tokens to entries for prizes centered on real fan experiences, such as access to special Discord channels or backstage passes at concerts.Alesso and Dai announced on The Scoop that the Cosmic Genesis NFT will come in four "chapters" with chances to win such tiered prizes, culminating in a one-of-one NFT auction with a ticket for a potential trip to space.Alesso will debut new music attached to the Cosmic Genesis NFT at the Dreamverse launch event at New York's Terminal 5 concert hall on November 4th to coincide with the NFT's launch....For more go to Theblockcyrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 71 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and multi-platinum and Grammy nominated DJ Alesso and Lin Dai, CEO of OneOf.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and MasterworksBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About MasterworksMasterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

The latest data from Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows that the U.S. has taken over China as the country with the biggest share of Bitcoin's hash rate.The backdrop of this data shift: the near-complete exodus of bitcoin miners from China, once the undisputed powerhouse for this particular sector of the crypto economy.This historic reversal took place over the course of mere months after China ordered its initial crackdown on the crypto mining space in May. China's government escalated the crackdown even further last month, and major companies like Bitmain have been forced to react. With the effects of China's mining crackdown still lingering, this special episode of The Scoop -- the Mining Report -- features The Block editor Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro as they discuss the state of mining on an international level as well as the current state of affairs in China today.Some of the topics covered include: What China's "banned" in 2013, 2017, and 2021 and why this time was different. The different situation in China for Ethereum miners who rely on GPUs. Why Chinese miners who owned mining equipment had options in the wake of the crackdown but those invested in mining firms faced tough choices. Why a comeback in China is unlikely -- and why the U.S. hashrate share is set to keep growing. Episode 69 of Season 3 of The Scoop Mining Report was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Wolfie Zhao, Asia Editor.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Robinhood was hit by a slowdown in its crypto business during the third quarter, but the business unit's chief operating officer, Christine Brown, is optimistic.On this episode of The Scoop, Brown told host Frank Chaparro that "business is good" at the brokerage company. "More than 60 percent of Robinhood funded accounts traded crypto in Q2, and now everyone, everyone listening should know that retail is very cyclical," she said, foreshadowing the firm's earnings drop on Tuesday. "There's ebbs and flows."Robinhood reported a decline in crypto activity from its levels in the previous quarter, "leading to considerably fewer new funded accounts."Yet Robinhood hasn't moved as fast on launching new products and listing new coins, allowing rivals like Coinbase to take advantage of hype cycles around cryptocurrencies like Solana and Shiba Inu. And Robinhood's long-asked-for crypto wallet, announced in September, may not launch until next year."We are actively rolling out the alpha and we have a small group of customers, about five to 10 people, who are going to be actively working with us through the last pieces of the customer experience," Brown said.As for new listings, Brown said the firm is taking a "safety-first approach," indicating the firm won't add new coins anytime soon."We only have seven coins on our platform. That's an incredibly curated set of assets, especially if you think of other exchanges out there where there might be hundreds," she said. "We want to make sure that what we list makes sense, that we are working with our regulators in the proper way."Robinhood's slow and steady approach to listing new coins was further emphasized by the firm's CEO Vlad Tenev, who said during Tuesday's earnings call that "[t]he regulatory environment, in terms of new coins and lending products in crypto, is uncertain and evolving."...For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 69 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Christine Brown, COO at Robinhood Crypto.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

"We're stepping more and more into an almost bigger focus in the building in crypto."On this episode of The Scoop, Kanav Kariya, President of Jump Crypto joined host Frank Chaparro for a rare interview to discuss Kariya’s vision for its 100-person large digital assets division.Launched in the late 1990s, Jump is one of the most active trading firms across equities and crypto markets. Kariya spoke about his path from an internship in 2017 at Jump to becoming the president of the firm's crypto wing."The way things work at Jump is you naturally assume positions and then you're kind of handed the role after," Kariya explained.In addition to market-making and trading, Kariya outlined how the firm is also interested in building new projects. “The possibilities for the space are just far greater than DeFi and financial stuff,” Kariya said.He went on to explain that a big part of the firm’s strategy has been to participate in governance and build on different networks, highlighting projects like Pyth, Oasis and Wormhole. Jump Crypto also has a dedicated staff building on Solana. “A lot of that is in translating the engineering work that we've done on building trading systems and bridging that over the building, tooling and contributing to these open crypto repositories," said Kariya. In fact, he announced that Jump Crypto is focused on putting healthcare networks on-chain via the Oasis Network.Kariya also expressed optimism about non-fungible tokens or NFTs, saying that Jump Crypto is watching the evolution of NFTs as an asset class.“There's no reason that those resources as an asset class couldn't evolve to be like any other tokens or financial products,” Kariya commented.Episode 68 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kanav Kariya, President at Jump Crypto.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

On this episode of The Scoop, founder Ari Rubenstein and founder & CEO Ryan Sheftel joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the launch of their new crypto firm, called Radkl.Radkl, which was born out of trading firm and New York Stock Exchange market maker GTS, is a new digital asset trading business. GTS currently trades hundreds of thousands of financial instruments algorithmically, which according to GTS accounts for some “five percent of the entire US equity markets by volume.”Radkl’s focus on crypto today means providing liquidity and eventually getting into decentralized finance protocols like staking, among other services it expects to offer for its clients. “Being involved in the liquidity provision, in the AMM protocols, and DeFi is an obvious first start” Said Sheftel. The CEO said that he expects traditional CeFi order books to merge with AMM liquidity, and to have Radkl serve that sector of the market.Meanwhile, Rubenstein sees the beginnings of crypto firms as a similar kind of disruption and growth potential for traditional businesses to when capital markets went electronic and online.Rubenstein believes they are early entrants into a growing market, “I think we're going to see a world very soon, Frank, that we see an explosion in a secondary markets for things that formerly didn't have secondary markets that now are made by this digitization of of industries that- I don't mean just financial instruments or digital pictures like entities- I mean lots of other things that could ride the backbone of CeFi and decentralized finance.”Hedge fund investor and owner of the Mets Steve Cohen also announced he will be backing Radkl. Though as of yet, the exact sum of that investment has not been disclosed.Episode 67 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Ari Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Ryan Sheftel, Co-Founder & CEO at Radkl.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

“For us it’s almost like having a store on 5th avenue”.Atari is gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and appropriately enough the company is kicking off its half-century birthday not in the physical world, but in the metaverse. Specifically, it is hoping to capitalize off of the "land" it owns in virtual worlds built by Decentraland and The Sandbox.Atari's Head of Blockchain Manfred Mantschev told host Frank Chaparro on The Scoop: “When these plots came up the value of the adjacent plots would go up because people recognized the Atari brand, and that image would basically drive people, drive interest to the whole project. So that's kind of how we got started.” Real estate in the metaverse continues to sell for record breaking amounts.With early hits such as Pac Man, Pong, and Centipede, Atari is known as a landmark maker of arcade games of the 70s and 80s. Today, Atari’s familiar brand is often seen in nostalgia plays for consumers. By appearing in productions like Stranger Things, Ready Player One and Blade Runner the company has found new relevance.Atari is hoping to onboard a wider audience into the metaverse in the same way that big brand storefronts attract shoppers to enter a shopping mall. Its mission now, Mantschev explained, is is to convince users to enter the metaverse, where Atari hopes to be a familiar face in a new virtual world. "The same way a mall wants to have a flagship store in the mall and smaller stores next to it are prepared to pay higher rents just because there is a sought-after anchor tenant in the mall." ... Read more on Theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 66 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Manfred Mantschev, Head of Blockchain at Atari.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

“It’s a global development.”On this episode of The Scoop, 10T Founder and CEO Dan Tapiero joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss his insights into the globalization of crypto markets and how his macro investing strategy has seen his fund 10T pour hundreds of millions into crypto unicorns.To date, Tapiero has already allocated the majority of some of his funds to companies such as Kraken, Deribit, and Ledger. “We have a portfolio of about 10 to 15 companies that are our targets." Tapiero mentioned how 10T has been helping investors adopt a macro crypto strategy, saying that he’s rejected some 50 plus deals in favor of a more careful approach with a closer guarantee to 5-10x returns. In spite of bear swings, Tapiero remains bullish. "I don't think the valuations of things that we're looking at are high to begin with."Tapiero also observed an "asymmetry" that he credits to the market's resilience. He said he's noticed that as bitcoin upside drives valuations up, any market downsides simply cause bitcoin company valuations to remain relatively neutral. He had this to say:"I saw that you can have a productive portfolio of assets withstand an unbelievable bear market without even having a negative mark. And so in 2018, what brought me to this idea to some degree, was in '18 bitcoin was down 80 percent, Ethereum 95 percent, but a basket of companies that we looked at broadly maintained their value. So to me, that's like mind blowing. I can build a portfolio that has access to all of the upside, not just of Bitcoin and Ethereum, but the entire space without having to suffer, hopefully, much on the downside... For institutions, especially, this is a very attractive type of portfolio."...Episode 64 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dan Tapiero, Founder & CEO at 10T Holdings.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Sygnum is one of the few cryptocurrency banks operating in Europe.On this episode of The Scoop, Mathias Imbach Co-Founder and Group CEO of Sygnum joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the country's crypto ecosystem and how large wealth channels are opening up to bitcoin and other digital assets.“Nowadays, the conversation goes very different," said Imbach. "There's very few banks in Switzerland which have not made it a strategic priority to really think [supporting digital assets] through. Some would still say, 'right now we want to not touch it for x, y, z reasons,' but there needs to be a strategic rationale. They need to have an answer to clients, why they do it or why they don't do it."Sygnum's clients aren't just interested in crypto assets, but all real-world assets that are traded on a blockchain.“It's about creating a more direct link between what we own and how we transfer it,” he said.For that reason, Sygnum is currently exploring the tokenization of wines and other pieces of art for clients who also want to own fractionalized shares of such assets.“If you accumulate 100 percent equivalent of a wine bottle, you can also then burn the tokens and take physical delivery of the wine. So basically, you're creating this digital, but at the same time still a real asset, kind of convergence, where you can take it, use it as an investment opportunity, as a financial gains opportunity, with liquidity along the way.”Episode 64 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mathias Imbach, co-founder & Group CEO at Sygnum.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

DARMA Capital's Andrew Keys is a believer in the disruptive power of Ethereum, but he's also concerned that regulators may stand in the way of it.Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors, or DARMA for short, is an investment firm with more than $1 billion of assets under management. DARMA currently holds over 10,000 validators at over 320,000 Ether, Keys told host Frank Chaparro on this episode of The Scoop.“And that's staking kind of an institutional-grade, generating tremendous yield,” said Keys.Keys talked about the firm's journey since launching with just $100 million under management in 2019. He also looked forward, saying that despite the potential use cases of Ethereum and decentralized finance, regulatory headwinds might make it difficult for institutions to engage directly with the market. “I think we are about to witness a regulatory environment that is excruciatingly painful and that is a result of being able to go create a wallet, go on to a decentralized exchange, have a million dollars of X and trade it for a million dollars of Y with no KYC, no accreditation at investor accreditation. And I think that until we start solving some of those problems and self-regulating and complying, the decentralized nature of blockchain is under imminent threat.”In this episode Keys also discusses: Why the cryptocurrency market is impacted by global market events such as the Evergrande meltdown How the market has evolved since Keys' early days at Ethereum development studio ConsenSys Tailwinds for Ethereum and headwinds for Bitcoin What's behind the market success of competitive Layer-One protocols The growth of the market for non-fungible tokens Episode 63 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Andrew Keys, co-founder & managing director at DARMA Capital.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

“We are heavily moving into DeFi.” Pantera Capital, the longest operating US based bitcoin investment firm, now manages 5Bn worth of assets. But when it comes to decentralized finance, Pantera’s Franklin Bi still sees the space as undervalued.“As long as we're still looking at the fundamentals and drawing out what the multiples are there, we're still not at the point where you know, you're really starting to see the speculative mania.”On this episode of The Scoop, Franklin Bi Director of Portfolio Development at Pantera Capital joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the current state of venture capital investment into crypto and how he’s finding value in an increasingly crowding ecosystem.“There's the crypto native side, which I think a lot of new investors coming into the space don't recognize yet. Things like staking, participating in the network, focusing on decentralized governance and how we play a role there. That's all stuff that looks super different from, you know, just showing up at a board meeting once a quarter to review the financials.”Pantera has been investing heavily into DeFi since 2017, and is continuing their ramp up as more investors begin to move away from simply an interest in novel technologies to searching for sustainable yield. Bi observed this shift in investor sentiment as traditional investors are slowly beginning to comprehend the margins of DeFi products. He expressed that certain digital assets companies are still relatively undervalued when compared to public market counterparts.“They're getting valued like traditional financial institutions, which to me, sounds like they're undervalued because the rate at which a DeFi project can grow is on a totally different scale. The profitability margins. totally different scale.” Bi went on to add, “It tells me that they're actually undervalued rather than overvalued.”Episode 62 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Franklin Bi, Director of Portfolio Development at Pantera Capital.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

On this episode of The Scoop, Sky Mavis Games Co-Founder and Growth Lead Jeff ‘Jiho’ Zirlin joined Frank Chaparro at the 2021 Mainnet Conference to discuss their game Axie Infinity. Chaparro and Zirlin cover Axie’s recent growth in popularity, kicking off the ‘Play-To-Earn’ trend in gaming, and how Axie Infinity players in the Philippines and other emerging economies are playing the game to supplement their incomes.To be sure, the project's concentration in the Philippines speaks to how much work the project has ahead of it in making it truly global. Zirlin told Chaparro that Axie's user base has grown from some 38K active users in April to around 1.7 Million active users in August. Interest in the project has since waned given a wider rout in the gaming NFT market, down roughly 45% as per data from The Block, with a weekly volume has decline of about $220M from peak to around $130M.But even Zirlin admitted that interest can wane as quickly as it has built up: "So the cool thing about NFT games or even crypto in general is like we have these very powerful feedback loops that cause over decades or over years, huge network effects. But any positive feedback loop that creates a negative creates a network effect can also run in reverse." Like the emerging markets Axie is popular in, Zirlin noted that the game also shows characteristics of an emerging market economy where "you have hot inflows of money and then also withdrawals." Zirlin announced on The Scoop that Axie is creating their own DEX for the game. Instead of moving funds to wallets and then to an exchange to convert cryptocurrency, players will be able to convert their funds directly to the currency of their choosing through the DEX."We're also working on an in-house decentralized exchange or a Dex which will be native to our Ethereum-side chain called Ronin." Zirlin said, adding, "I think we really saw the future of the gaming industry and rightly, we've kind of seen the emergence of this metaverse emerging market worker." Axie Infinity recently completed a $7.6 million funding round that included among its investors billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban.Episode 61 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jeff Zirlin, Co-Founder & Growth Lead at Sky Mavis.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

This week, the world's largest auction house cracked $100 million in NFT sales. Christie’s Noah Davis says they’re just getting started. On this episode of The Scoop, Davis, an associate vice president and head of digital sales at the auction house, joined Frank Chaparro to discuss Christie’s view of the 2021 rise in NFT sales and how the traditional art market and this brave new one are converging and bolstering adoption of a possible blockchain future.“It's incredible that it continues to gather speed and that interest continues to pour in from new corners of the world,” said Davis, a Specialist in post-war and contemporary art. He highlighted a recent uptick in interest in NFT sales with buyers in Asia. Still, that is running up against what could be described as a lull in the NFT market. As per data from The Block, weekly NFT transactions have fallen from highs near 2 million to 315,000 last week. Davis even observed an inverse correlation to NFTs and Ethereum’s price movements. “A lot of people will panic, sell their NFT’s when ETH is mooning and then they collect when ETH is kind of in a lull," he remarked. NFT sales are just the first taste for auction houses like Christie's to possibly one day also move onto the blockchain, which Davis believes could have specific applications for the company. “It would solve for authenticity testing, keeping track of exhibition history, literature references, title disputes, restoration, you name it.” Said Davis, “As far as financials are concerned and deals are concerned, it just is such a better, more democratic way to do business.” Christie’s recently announced that on October 1st they will auction off an NFT set of CurioCards that it is putting up in what will be the world’s first major auction with live bids taken in the form of ETH.Episode 60 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Noah Davis, Associate Vice President & Head of Digital Sales at Christie's.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Okcoin, which was founded in 2013, is doing something different in a crowded field of crypto exchanges: it's going to allow clients to denominate trades in bitcoin in units of satoshi, rather than BTC. On this episode of The Scoop, Okcoin CEO Hong Fang joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Okcoin's rapid retail product launches and the hiring growth they've undergone in an effort to compete in the space. She also explained the reasoning for the launch of Satoshi dominated trades. “Our focus and area of kind of innovation driven product efforts on the retail side continue to drive our product offerings. Some of those will also evolve into institutional offerings.” Said Fang.Okcoin announced on The Scoop that they will be launching a “SATs Mode” in an effort to cater to retail client demand for Bitcoin. That SATs mode will mean an ability to package and sell Satoshis, or 1,000th of a bitcoin. Since bitcoin holders often hold only a portion of a bitcoin in decimals, Okcoin wants to make clients feel comfortable with Sats in order to make transactions easier to understand. This announcement comes on the heels of Okcoin's integration of Lightning, the layer 2 micropayment protocol used for for sending small amounts of Bitcoin. Okcoin is expecting to use this retail lead offering as an opportunity to test the waters for such a product for institutional grade clients.In an attempt to capture more DeFi exposure for institutional clients, Okcoin recently also launched an Earn APY offering for institutions following their retail offering. In their view, Okcoin is focusing its business on participating in a decentralized future, though they acknowledge that as DeFi adoption grows the business could still evolve into something very different than an exchange, such as a DAO. “Ultimately everyone will own their own data,” Said Fang.Episode 59 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Hong Fang, CEO of Okcoin.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Digital artist Pplpleasr believes that the production and dissemination of art represent just the first phase of NFT technology adoption.This week on The Scoop, PplPleasr joined host Frank Chaparro to break down how she created Fortune Magazine's DeFi cover and the role of NFTs in Web3 and the broader art space.Earlier this year, Pplpleasr was commissioned by Fortune to create its first NFT cover. That cover image is a tribute to the NFT community, featuring a number of different well-known avatars. The cover's depiction represents a stark contrast to the often gloomy imagery one typically associates with Wall Street, juxtaposed instead with the colorful, dynamic universe of the online crypto community.Pplpleasr remarked:"The Fortune magazine was something that I think is a special moment for all of us because it sort of represents one of these pivotal moments of traditional media representing the entire community."Still, PplPleasr admits that it's early days for NFT's and platforms on which they can trade — they're are often clunky and have complicated user interfaces. "The technology doesn't even exist yet for us to trade, let's say, assets between different games," said Pplpleasr. "Like, if I wanted to trade an asset from a Riot game to a Blizzard game, that just is not possible. But I do obviously imagine a future with NFT's where that is possible."Today, Pplpleasr sees an opportunity to unlock the power of NFT's in her own way by making it easier for women and people outside the art world to launch their own careers.She recently announced a partnership with the Grammy-nominated musician Steve Aoki to create NFT artworks to be offered at auction at Sotheby's. A portion of the auction proceeds will go to support the careers of women NFT artists. Episode 58 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded in studio with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Digital Artist Pplpleasr.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Mike Belshe founded BitGo—the crypto financial services and custody firm—in 2013 with the original intention to help solve a pinpoint he identified when entering the bitcoin market early on: how to store crypto holdings safely."We forget about how easy loss is", said Belshe.Today BitGo is more wide-spanning than just storage and custody, also covering lending, trading, and prime-related financial services. The firm is expected to complete its acquisition by Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital by end of 2021, creating an operation the two Mikes hope will bridge the crypto world with Wall Street.On this episode of The Scoop, Mike Belshe CEO of BitGo joined host Frank Chaparro to talk about that deal between BitGo and Galaxy, BitGo's origin story, and why regulators should embrace the openness of the blockchain. In Belshe's view, regulators—including Gary Gensler of the Securities and Exchange Commission—should actually lean into using blockchain to identify nefarious behavior, and say "wait a minute we have this huge tool, let's use that."In the event that the agency deems most cryptocurrencies as securities—a scenario Belshe said was unlikely—Belshe noted that regulators would lock out the US from the market's innovation.Episode 57 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mike Belshe, CEO at BitGo.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

On this episode of The Scoop, Bittrex Global CEO Stephen Stonberg joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Bittrex’s US and global businesses, his outlook on security tokens, and how the company is tackling regulatory tightening in an effort to safely enter markets across the world.In its global business, Stonberg said that Bittrex is testing out lending and staking products as well as dipping its toes into STOs or Security Token Offerings, such as in real estate, stocks, cars, etc. Bittrex test-launched a limited number of what Stonberg termed ‘unsolicited ETFs’ like "Google tokenized and Tesla tokenized" which they are currently only selling to a small subset of clients via their Bermuda license.As the market matures and investors eventually look for yield in alternative products outside of utility tokens, Bittrex is positioning itself to capture that market share.“I would expect that as utility tokens become a more mature market, that you won't see those types of returns," said Stonberg.Stonberg views real estate on the blockchain as one of the use cases that will reshape the industry. In fact, Bittrex is exploring the potential of STO-based tokens, such as in real estate as well as possibly art and IPOs, as Stonberg suggested. “I really think that you're going to see everything being tokenized. Why should we not have real estate tokenized? Like, why should if you're IPOing a company, why does it have to be an IPO? Why can't it be in the venture stage?”As for where competitors are in the adoption cycle, Stonberg added: "Right now, we're in the fund build phase where the regulators haven't caught on yet." However, he did not comment on whether Bittrex has plans at this time to fundraise or enter public markets.Episode 56 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Stephen Stonberg, CEO at Bittrex Global.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

It has been a wild summer for blockchain project Solana. From the meteoric rise in the price of its native token to technical problems facing NFTs launched on the blockchain, the project has entered the forefront. On this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko Founder & CEO of Solana Labs joins host Frank Chaparro for a deep dive into Solana, which some believe can compete with Ethereum despite being less decentralized. As for price specifically, Yakovenko admitted it doesn't always make sense. "This is just mind-boggling that if the price of Solana doesn't make any sense, then I have no clue why Ethereum has anything in terms of its value," he said, adding:"I don't pay attention to the price so much because I have no control over it and I'm an engineer. So, like, if I can't change it, then it's just like one of these variables."Solana Labs completed a $314.2 million fundraise back in June 2021 (that amount raised is a play on the number Pi). Investors included Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, FTX via Alameda Research and CoinShares. But as of yet, Yakovenko said much of their capital raise has not been deployed. It is also known for powering Serum, the decentralized exchange launched by Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX. Solana recently launched its Metaplex NFT marketplace, which Yakovenko acknowledged experienced server issues.Still, DeFi comes to the top of Yakovenko's mind as a core use case.“I've really felt that finance was a place where blockchain makes sense," he said.In Yakovenko's view, users could even one day use their own hardware to tap into the network in order to access financial market data as quickly as professional trading firms with access to exchange data."The network guarantees as close as possible to an impossible problem, which is that information propagates equally to everybody at the same speed," he said.Episode 55 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder & CEO @ Solana Labs.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Hundreds of institutions are looking to Coinbase as a trusted, publicly-traded exchange to create tailored crypto solutions for them. Now, as traditional finance firms begin to deploy capital into crypto services, Coinbase sees itself at the forefront of facilitating that institutional adoption.“I think we're moving away from the designation of Coinbase as an exchange to being a much more complex organization,” said Coinbase's Greg Tusar, whose crypto brokerage startup Tagomi was acquired last year.On this episode of The Scoop, Coinbase head of institutional sales Brett Tejpaul and head of institutional product Greg Tusar join for a discussion on Coinbase’s pace of growth to meet client demand and how the company is building itself into a full-scale prime broker.“We're focused more on the future of finance and DeFi,” said Tejpaul of Coinbase's goal to combine its custodianship, exchange, brokerage and DeFi services for institutional clients. He went on to say that they have filled out some 250 requests for proposals from clients to build crypto products for their firms. The longest such RFP is a whopping 800 questions long, according to Tejpaul. The execs also touched on Coinbase's role in growing retail interest in stablecoins and altcoins, citing how some 75% of clients own more than Bitcoin, 80% own some Ethereum and Tejpaul estimated that 50% of that group also own at least 5 or more cryptocurrencies.The company is also focusing on growing its product base by creating a variety of familiar instruments for traditional finance institutions, which include providing means for institutions to gain sub-custody, tap into stablecoin utility to leverage DeFi protocols, and by creating capabilities for DeFi, smart contracts, and NFTs for broad institutional participation.Episode 54 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Brett Tejpaul, Head of Institutional Sales, and Greg Tusar, Head of Institutional Product, at Coinbase.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and ExodusBakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more informationAbout KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

FTX.US President Brett Harrison wants the company to be the next Robinhood, and he says they’re listening to every customer's comments to expand their user base and untangle the complexities of building an exchange.“The retail user base wants to be heard," said Harrison.On this episode of The Scoop, Brett Harrison took a break from coding FTX.US to join host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how the company is expanding its user base and the company's planned entrance into crypto derivatives.Unlike FTX, which is a global business and closed its Series A round of funding in July to the tune of an $18 billion valuation, FTX.US is focused exclusively on the US market. FTX.US, however, stands to benefit from its namesake’s most recent round of funding, of which Harrison said FTX will be allocating an undisclosed portion toward the US business.FTX.US is also focusing on M&A, with an eye to expand its suite of products next year and prepare to go head-to-head with the likes of publicly traded companies like Coinbase and Robinhood. As Harrison put it: "It needs to have all the things that they want to trade." This includes the recent inroads FTX.US has made to unlocking derivatives, which Harrison explained its US arm cannot offer without a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) license.But the company has never shied from pushing the needle on regulation and wants to keep lines of direct communication with regulatory bodies, according to Harrison."We need to engage [regulatory bodies] in an ongoing way, and so in the cases that we've done that been doing that we've had very positive experiences." Earlier this week, FTX.US announced the acquisition of the long-running crypto derivatives exchange LedgerX and the firm has previously held meetings with CFTC leaders.Episode 53 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Brett Harrison, President at FTX.US.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

"The market filled your sail with wind and now you're doing a good job of sailing. But are you ready to survive the next time the wind drops?"Blockchain.com, one of the longest operating firms in the crypto space, has been successful at taking the long road. Now the U.K.-based company is building out its stockpile of cash reserves to prepare for a possible ‘Crypto Winter’ on the horizon -- that is, a prolonged downturn in the market."I think when I look out over the space right now, there's going to be a lot of folks who are unprepared for that," CEO and co-founder Peter Smith told The Scoop host Frank Chaparro.Blockchain.com recently obtained a $5.2 billion valuation following several rounds of funding in 2021, including a $300 million round of funding most recently in March.Chaparro and Smith also discussed some of the on-chain innovations that Smith is looking out for in the immediate future. One such example that Smith believes could invigorate public interest in the space is the launch of on-chain consumer apps, which Smith predicts could begin as soon as later this year.“It's going to lead to an explosion of innovation, probably something like when Apple created the App Store“. He likened the advent of such on-chain crypto apps to the rise of Web apps most are familiar with on their phones or tablets. “You’re on the phone 24hrs a day, the same thing will happen in crypto.” Smith noted that he hopes Blockchain.com could one day become one of the builders of such apps.Smith also highlighted the public interest in whether Blockchain.com may follow other industry companies in going public. He affirmed the company's appetite to one day tap public markets but cautioned that the team is waiting for the right time to take that step. Smith said that the company is currently focused on M&A, with four deals in progress as Blockchain.com looks to step up its market share.Episode 52 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Peter Smith, Co-founder & CEO at Blockchain.comListen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty, sees the commodification of culture as the future of the internet.Indeed, Fitch believes that a well executed NFT strategy could very well be a make-or-break opportunity for legacy brands as well as for the brands of the future:“When you start to connect physical events, digital signaling, memes and collectibles all into one, I think you create this really superpowered sort of wave of commodification of culture and commodification of status and commodification of membership. And also combine that with all the crypto native benefits of global payment rates, easy ability to transact and send peer-to-peer so it becomes really liquid and moves quickly.”As household name companies (such as Visa or Coca-Cola) begin to explore NFTs, Fitch sees an opportunity forming for brands to commodify "what culture is" for their brand and community. He related the growth in NFTs to luxury watches and their collectors, both of which are dependent on a community of buyers to maintain their value. With NFT’s, he argues, the marketplace is built into the ecosystem of NFTs and he believes its ease of access will help to maintain a product's liquidity.Much like the way watches are collected to connote social status, NFT's can actually be built to have additional use cases to unlock VIP access within the Metaverse. Fitch observed how NFT's are being used as a means to unlock experiences within online communities and in the Metaverse:"Now we have ways to codify, financialize, commodify artifacts of culture, and we have ways to communicate them peer-to-peer, socially, signal with them, unlock experiences with them."Episode 51 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

OpenSea's Devin Finzer is just as surprised as anyone to see non-fungible tokens (NFTs) taking off this summer.“None of us expected to hit a billion in transaction volume this month,” said Finzer, describing what he views as "the biggest economy in the history of the internet."During this episode of The Scoop, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on NFT’s, the metaverse, and OpenSea’s most recent completed fundraise.OpenSea recently raised $100 million from VC majors such as A16z as well as angel investors like Michael Ovitz and Ashton Kutcher, setting the NFT marketplace valuation at a $1.5 billion value.The company's focus on building a marketplace appeared to bear fruit based on the NFT volume in August for OpenSea. With fresh capital in hand, OpenSea is planning on retooling its systems to make it easier for the public to gain access to the marketplace.Finzer spoke with The Scoop about how OpenSea is improving gateways for the public to purchase NFT’s with a credit card and how the team is working with partners to lower fees for minting, selling and buying. He also touched on how this also includes expanding their blockchain partnerships with layer-1 and layer-2 scaling solutions, such as their recent Polygon integration. Finzer further discussed the Metaverse application of NFT’s as brands begin to buy into virtual worlds, such as Decentraland, in what the startup believes will become the stage for this new economy.“Long term we think NFT’s will be used for all sorts of creative things, across gaming, art collectibles, event tickets, real world items," said Finzer.Episode 50 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Devin Finzer, co-founder & CEO at OpenSea.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

ConsenSys wants major financial groups to jump into the world of decentralized finance -- and believes MetaMask Institutional can serve as a gateway for such firms. While most listeners are likely familiar with MetaMask, the DeFi wallet that boasts millions of monthly users, MetaMask Institutional (MMI) is a new initiative within ConsenSys focused on providing institutional access to DeFi. Already, the firm counts several large multi-billion dollar crypto-native and traditional funds among its clients, according to Johann Bornman, the initiative's product lead. For bigger investment firms, interest in DeFi centers around exposure to higher yields from lending protocols like Aave or Compound. “Some of them are very active in terms of their yield fund strategies and their yield farming strategies,” Bornman explained during a new episode of The Scoop podcast. “But on average, if you're talking about these larger hedge funds and pension funds that you mentioned and also some of the larger crypto funds, on average, you're seeing them sort of dip their toe into the space.”Bornman added:“And this might entail minting assets or lending assets on Compound and Aave or using some of the most well-known protocols in the space."Episode 48 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Johann Bornman, product lead for MetaMask Institutional at Consensys. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Dave Weisberger is a Wall Street vet who saw market structure develop and go electronic. On this episode of The Scoop, the co-founder and CEO of CoinRoutes joined host Frank Chaparro for a walk-through on how far trading in crypto has evolved and why regulators are ignoring these improvements.He remarked:“Firms that are domiciled and regulated out of the United States are at such a massive disadvantage in the growing digital asset world to the point where, as a startup, we had to make a choice to become software only.”Weisberger views the slow regulatory work by the SEC as being harmful to investors, which among factors, is causing exchanges and custodians to put fees and premiums on crypto in order for investors to enter the market.But as the market grows and becomes more differentiated from traditional markets, the crypto “market is getting more efficient," Weisberger said.While the current sentiment sees larger players continuing to find themselves subject to arbitrage fees and the headaches of legal battles, Weisberger believes it won’t last forever:"The settlement costs and the financing costs of doing certain esoteric strategies will ultimately go down dramatically as DeFi finds its sea legs and matures. We're nowhere near that point yet, but the application of that technology is going to be profound as it grows."During this episode, Weisberger and Chaparro also discuss: Regulatory risks in the US Rich valuations in private crypto markets Outweigh benefits to firms headquartered overseas The completion of CoinRoutes’ Series B round of funding Episode 48 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dave Weisberger, Co-founder & CEO of CoinRoutes.This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

A high-wire fight in Washington, DC over crypto tax reporting provisions included in a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill drew widespread attention and impassioned remarks from supporters, opponents and powerful members of Congress.And while Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, admits that the legislation's current language is not perfect, the collective show of force from advocacy groups, business leaders and think tanks was "like no other thing I have experienced in my 20 years in Washington, D.C.”On this episode of The Scoop, Smith joined host Frank Chaparro and senior reporter Kollen Post to discuss the legislation live during the podcast as senators conducted their last vote before sending the bill out of the chamber. According to Smith, the fight over the crypto tax reporting requirements — which opponents say puts undue burdens on businesses that aren't clearly defined as "brokers" of digital assets and at one point risked choosing technological winners and losers — is far from over. In the end, Smith concedes that there ultimately may not be an opportunity to add amendments to the bill. However, the fight put the crypto industry front-and-center in Washington for the first time, with Smith saying: "We went from zero to 60 overnight, and we have caught the attention of the entire policymaking class in Washington."The bill now makes its move into the House which will reconvene in September for next steps.This episode of The Scoop also focused on: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s position on crypto The players in the DC crypto scene today Which policymakers and politicians favor amendments to the bill. Episode 47 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kristin Smith, Executive Director at Blockchain Association.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

As new networks are tapping into Polkadot, its co-founder sees a high-stakes battleground forming over privacy and security."You want to create a system which is upgradable which can adapt to new technologies if you want to be able to stay one step ahead of the curve," says Rob Habermeier, who joins The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how exactly DeFi fits into Polkadot, where he sees privacy and security headed, and the hurdles that Polkadot's so-called 'parachains' face in 2022.Polkadot is still in “very early days”, said Habermeier, in terms of the interoperability of the network’s recently launched parachain functions.“A lot of this interoperability stuff that's been talked about for a very long time is just coming to fruition now. We're seeing the first parachains, we're seeing the first bridges between ecosystems," he says.Polkadot's parachains operate by allowing multiple blockchains to branch off their network. Polkadot deployed its first six parachain partnerships via the Kusama network on July 20. “And those are focusing on, for example, DeFi, on smart contracts, on layer 2 scaling, and on identity secure compute using some secure hardware," Habermeier continues.Habermeier also outlined how Polkadot’s Substrate platform works, on which Compound Labs recently launched a product called Gateway. Substrate works by reordering transactions in a block to suit the needs of DeFi institutions.“You're not going to have your profits constantly cut into by some aggressive miner who's reordering your transactions or sandwiching them,” Habermeier explained. “What that's going to do is essentially make it more difficult to exploit users who are using DeFi systems.”During this episode Habermeier and Chaparro also discuss: Why Habermeier dropped out of college to build Polkadot Where security and privacy is headed with blockchain The challenges of finding and procuring talent in the digital asset industry Episode 46 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Rob Habermeier, Co-Founder at Polkadot.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Genesis Global Trading—the New York-based crypto firm that bills itself as a prime brokerage—turned over more than $8 billion worth of derivatives last quarter. Joshua Lim is the man behind those billions as the firm's Head of Derivatives. Lim joined The Scoop this week to unpack Genesis' second quarter report, explaining how new preferences among investors and traders have shaped the make up of derivatives. He told The Block's Frank Chaparro that the growth of crypto-native hedge funds have increased their need for derivatives, including options and futures, to hedge their positions. "I think it's mostly crypto negative hedge funds that we deal with that were more willing to engage with us on hedging strategies," he said. As bitcoin was approaching $55,000, he said many were "looking for attractive pricing on the implied volatility across two different strikes such that they could buy some cheap sort of protection for their portfolio."That desire to hedge among crypto players was echoed in Genesis' report, which was released Wednesday:"As BTC/USD marched to new highs in April, a number of our forward-thinking crypto-native hedge fund and corporate treasury counterparties meaningfully stepped up their systematic put-hedging programs."As for the second-quarter specifically, Lim pointed out a number of trends that played out, including the tightening of the spread between spot and futures and a reversal of the popular basis trade that aims to profit from that spread. In this episode Lim also unpacks: How the derivatives market in crypto evolved from linear products to a wide-range of products How the spread between spot and futures can indicate how frothy the market is The big takeaways from Genesis' second quarter report What needs to happen in the NFT market for it to support derivatives The emergence of market neutral strategies in crypto Episode 45 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Genesis Global Trading's Head of Derivatives Joshua Lim.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Signs point to the looming specter of regulation slowly bringing the days of bitcoin and crypto's "Wild West" to an end. The only question, perhaps, is if not now, then when?"We’re getting to a boiling point," The Block's Aislinn Keely told The Scoop.On this policy report episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro is joined by The Block’s policy and regulatory reporters — Editor of Wonk Talk Aislinn Keely and Senior Politics Reporter Kollen Post — for an update on where the United States currently sits on the digital asset policy front.Keely and Post covered what a Gensler-led SEC looks like, citing Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the SEC questioning how the US plans to regulate exchanges. Keely and Post noted the potentially risky domino effect of agency mandates on policies such as those that targeted crypto startup BlockFi, particularly in instances for which crypto products mimic savings accounts and securities and don’t have the provision of FDIC backing. Post noted that if the NY investigation of Tether becomes a federal case, it could change the narrative of the White House’s coverage of digital assets in terms of how much cash the Senate wants to monitor the ecosystem. As of this podcast’s publication, The Block received new details stating that an upcoming infrastructure bill in the U.S. Senate will in fact be partially paid for by enhanced tax enforcement of cryptocurrency. Keely also clarified where the US currently stands on Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC. Keely said that the US is still on the perceived “losing side” relative to countries like China, which is in the process of developing a digitized version of the yuan. The US government has not made any final decisions on whether it will issue a digital dollar.Episode 44 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Aislinn Keely, Editor of Wonk Talk & Kollen Post, Senior Politics Report at The Block.This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Access to bitcoin was once a case where “no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second”.Now, New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, won’t stop until it’s able to put bitcoin within reach of every American.Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG, explained during the most recent episode of The Scoop how the firm has been amping up its partnerships in order to roll out their bitcoin products now that there is interest being expressed from regional banks.To that end, NYDIG has teamed up with banking service providers, including NCR, Alkami, Fiserv, Allied Payment, Q2, First Foundation, and others.“I think if we kind of pause today and you fast forward to 12 months, you would see over a thousand institutions rolling out NYDIG products," he said, referring to the results these partnerships will yield. "I think we'll see that number grow as we move forward through the next 12 months.”Much of what NYDIG has offered to banks is centered around bitcoin purchases, but the ambitions appear to be broader.Sells discussed NYDIG’s ability to offer credit card solutions and retail lending. Sells said they could offer a service that converts unused hotel points into bitcoin “allowing people to have points and convert those to Bitcoin, that's in some ways the lowest friction path possible from an entry point standpoint or from allowing gift cards to be converted into Bitcoin."NYDIG is also working on providing a way to make it easier for clients to leverage their bitcoin holdings to get approved for loans, according to Sells. Today, most lenders don't consider bitcoin as collateral or a traditional asset. As Sells put it: "Any type of fiat financing for a home, a car, a line of credit, whatever, credit underwriting doesn't take into account your bitcoin, right?" Episode 43 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

State Street made headlines last month, announcing a brand new division covering crypto, digital assets, and tokenization.State Street VP and Head of Global Markets, Nadine Chakar, is leading that charge. Despite the recent price slump in crypto-assets, interest has not abated, she noted in an interview for the latest episode of The Scoop:“The price depreciation has not impacted demand and interest at all. I think we're still seeing a lot of people enthusiastically embracing digital in general, crypto in certain cases. And there's not a day that goes by that you don't see some large hedge fund or some large investor, you know, outlining their support for digital.”To meet that demand, State Street is working with clients on developing solutions that help them allocate to bitcoin and other crypto-assets. It is also a partner to several fund managers looking to offer exchange-traded funds–although, it’s not clear when financial regulators will approve such a product. Still, Chakar said the bank isn’t ready to dive into the market with a custody offering: “We're not going to rush into this unless we can feel very comfortable that we could support the new digital assets with the same rigor that we support the old ones where we're going to continue to work on fine-tuning our models.”Chakar also does not believe that a decentralized banking ecosystem will be built to replace banks or traditional finance institutions. Chakar mentioned pensions plans as an example of a traditional finance structure that DeFi may not be able to execute on. Though it's not an impossibility one day, she noted:“I hate to disappoint people that think the banks are just going to up and disappear and be totally replaced by blockchain.”Nadine sees the balance between the integration of DeFi traditional finance as that “sweet spot” but sees the industry as still at a starting point.Episode 42 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Nadine Chakar, Head of State Street Digital at State Street. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

GSR’s Rich Rosenblum doesn’t seem to mind the volatility. On this week’s episode of The Scoop, GSR Markets co-founder and President Rich Rosenblum, joined The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on the state of the bitcoin market. The price of the cryptocurrency has been gyrating over the course of the last several weeks, even dropping below $30,000 on Tuesday. That bearish price activity, however, is happening against a backdrop of crypto firms raising hundreds of millions in equity financing. Rosenblum cut his teeth as an oil trader at Goldman Sachs before launching the crypto trading firm and market maker GSR in 2013. Today, GSR trades billions of dollars worth of crypto. He said what we are seeing is not a bear market.“I'd say we're in more of a stasis. I think that the market is getting more iterated, more complex than ‘do I buy it and hold it for this rampant bear market or do I get short?’ I think we're a bit in between here.”Indeed, the private market in crypto startups is heating up, with FTX announcing its own $900 million Series B raise this week. In total, data from The Block Research shows companies have raised $6.2 billion this year. Rosenblum added:“So, certainly the private equity companies that are coming to the space and looking there, they've got more firepower than the VC’s and they're not afraid to spend. So there's a lot of building, but the price of a token dropping by 50 percent in two or three months, I think it's pushed away not only in retail, but some of the institutional investors. So the token landscape is a little bit quieter. But as say, it's down but not out.” We also discuss: The growth of GSR’s team and business operations Why market makers matter in DeFi How GSR could make markets in the NFT space Where Rich is seeing bigger opportunities in crypto trading today China’s mining ban Episode 41 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Rich Rosenblum, Co-founder and CEO of GSR Markets. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Imagine a world with not just a few thousand cryptocurrencies, but billions of them.That's Rally CEO Kevin Chou’s vision. The founder of mobile gaming heavyweight Kabam joined The Scoop's Frank Chaparro to talk about the development of creator coins, which are blockchain-based tokens that are tied to the social capital of a person.“We thought about… if you have instead of just thousands of tokens in the world, but you have millions of tokens, tens of millions of tokens, a billion tokens at some future point in time, how do you create a world where people can easily exchange that value?”To be sure, it’s early days for Rally. The firm has onboarded approximately 160 creators, and that number is growing, with a community that spans athletics, art, and music.Rally is currently working with musicians like Portugal. The Man, as well as streamers, gamers, celebrities, athletes, and others to create their own fungible tokens via their network.According to Rally, the decentralized $RLY Community has raised $108 million to date for its community treasury. The project is offering a platform for creators to issue their own 'creator coins' that allow them to engage directly with fans and offer bespoke incentives — thereby giving them the power to “own their economic destiny," as Chou puts it.But the vision is much broader, according to Chou, who said in the interview:“How do we eventually think about a world where more and more people choose to create their online identity, reputation and financial wherewithal all on a blockchain. And that's kind of the world that we're trying to solve here on Rally.”Chou also discusses: Rally's plan to create network rewards for creators How creators are earning significant income already with Rally How Rally aims to work with regulatory commissions across the globe Episode 40 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kevin Chou, CEO of Rally. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Tom Farley, in many respects, was early to crypto. The 45-year-old — who is best known for his time as the head of the New York Stock Exchange — vividly recalls a conversation with early Coinbase employee Dan Romero, who connected him Coinbase co-founder and fellow Duke alumnus, Fred Ersham. "So I met with Fred and was blown away by what they were doing and agreed to put ten million dollars on behalf of the New York Stock Exchange into Coinbase," Farley said on the most recent episode of The Scoop. He made that investment in 2013. Fast forward to 2021: Farley has officially gone full crypto, announcing last week that he would join EOS-backed crypto exchange Bullish as its CEO following the completion of a SPAC deal that would merge the company with Far Peak, the SPAC company Farley joined after his tenure at NYSE.On this episode of The Scoop, Farley joins The Scoop's Frank Chaparro to discuss the deal, which is expected to be valued at a whopping $9 billion. Farley will enter a crowded market with well-placed competitors like Coinbase, which recently went public at a valuation above $50 billion. Bullish aims to win over clients with a blended market structure that borrows from the DeFi world and centralized exchange space, Farley explained. “Bullish is really tipping our hat to the successful use of liquidity pools and automated market makers, and it's combining them with a CeFi market structure," Farley said.Farley also unpacks: His journey into the crypto Rabbit hole The inside story on how the Far Peak/Bullish deal executed The benefits and drawbacks of going public via a SPAC How SPAC projections can be problematic for investors Bullish's blended market structure and the benefits automated market makers add to an exchange platform Episode 39 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Former NYSE President and Incoming CEO of Bullish, Tom Farley. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

China banning bitcoin has happened so many times it’s become a meme at this point.But with this latest crackdown on China-based miners, there might be no coming back, says The Block’s Wolfie Zhao.“I think the crackdown on bitcoin mining has never been serious. There were a lot of talks in 2018-2019 but there wasn't anything seriously enforced. But this time it seems like there's no way to go back.”On the most recent episode of The Scoop, Wolfie Zhao, Asia Editor at The Block, explained to host Frank Chaparro how the most recent ban is tied to sustainability concerns within the government. As Zhao put it:“So there is the financial side that is cracking down: Banks are cutting funding channels for OTC desks. The other side is the energy angle, which is cracking down on bitcoin miners. That’s why we see Shenzhen shutting down power supplies to bitcoin mining farms… So obviously when the state council made the comment about cracking down on Bitcoin mining, they didn't say we're just going to crackdown on big companies that are using fossil fuel power.""They just said we want to crackdown," Zhao continued. Zhao and Chaparro also explore: The impact of the Chinese miner exodus on the bitcoin network How one region tried to buck the broader crackdown Why the US now has a better business environment for bitcoin miners The biggest misconceptions about bitcoin mining in China Why the mining crackdown is not just an ESG issue For a detailed timeline of China’s crackdown on mining, check out Zhao's full report. Episode 38 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and The Block's Asia Editor Wolfie Zhao. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

It’s no secret that investors find themselves in a low-yield environment. And that backdrop is forcing investors to explore DeFi.That’s part of the logic behind the recently announced Compound Treasury, a new company that allows investors and firms to access the yields on Compound without engaging directly with the blockchain.On this episode of The Scoop, Compound Labs’ Founder Robert Leshner unpacks how institutional flows hunting for yield are finding their way to DeFi — and how he sees Compound Treasury playing a role facilitating that migration.“Compound Treasury is what we hope is an embodiment of this, where we can source the yields from the compound protocol and pass it to institutional customers and abstract away all of the nuance of interacting with smart contracts and managing the flow of funds." Leshner predicted that over time, DeFi and traditional finance will become more intertwined.“I think over time, yields will converge,” he noted. Until then, fintechs will look to services like Compound Treasury to juice yields which have been on a downward spiral. Wealthfront — which at one point offered a return of 2.5% APY for cash accounts — currently offers 0.10% APY. Robinhood offers 0.30%.There are a number of factors that are playing into high DeFi yields, including the existence of “natural risk premiums” in DeFi compared to traditional technical risks in legacy finance. He posited how DeFi could prove to be more resilient against risk relative to traditional financial systems in the long run:“You have what I would call ‘natural risk premiums’ that exist in DeFi that don't exist in traditional markets. The best being technical risk. So technical risk is the risk that the protocol itself just breaks in an unexpected way. Now, longterm, DeFi is safer infrastructure than anything in traditional markets. The reason being a smart contract when it's immutable, if it works, it'll work forever.”Episode 37 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Compound Labs' Founder Robert LeshnerListen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Anthony Scaramucci — the New York financier and former White House official — first jumped into the crypto fray at the end of last year. Now, Scaramucci is going all in. During the latest episode of The Scoop, the Skybridge Capital founder walks listeners through his journey to bitcoin. Skybridge first began investing in BTC at the end of last year. "We have a full commitment to crypto," he remarked.Since then, Skybridge has thrown its hat in the bitcoin exchange-traded product ring and also plans to launch an ETF that has exposure to publicly traded cryptocurrency companies.Indeed, Skybridge is one of a number of U.S. companies vying to go to market with a bitcoin ETF. But the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to give the nod to such a product, and the proposed ETF that's furthest along in the process — put forward by asset management company VanEck — is now the subject of an additional comment period. Other companies, like NYDIG, Fidelity and Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, are among those pursuing bitcoin ETF launches.Skybridge also has plans to launch a private Ethereum fund."July 1st, we're launching a private Ethereum fund. We’ll then file for an ETF for Ethereum. Again, it is anybody's guess when those things will be going," he said.Scaramucci went on to say:"I can say — which is public information — that we did file for an ETF related to Bitcoin. We also have a UIT with a company out of Wheaton, Illinois, called First Trust… as we're speaking, we're making an announcement on an ETF for a digital innovation fund that has some great publicly traded assets that we think are geared related to [Ethereum], related to Bitcoin, but also the other coins."Scaramucci believes he can lean on his Wall Street chops for product adoption. He cited Morgan Stanley’s buy-in to SkyBridge’s digital asset portfolio as another example of Wall Street’s appetite for Bitcoin. “Morgan Stanley is a very big part of our business."Episode 36 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Crypto venture investing is heating up. In 2021, VCs poured $3.18 billion into crypto startups in Q1 2021, an increase from $1.1 billion in Q1 2020. On this episode of The Scoop, Vanessa Grellet, CoinFund’s newly joined Head of Portfolio Growth, joins the show for a discussion on the current state of the crypto venture capital market.“If you compare the deal flow of crypto compared to private equity and hedge funds and the general space, it's still small. And I think there's a few cycles right now. We see the products getting product markets, trade and adoption with consumers. So you see a big deal flow of the more mature series coming up and institutional investors really getting interested here. And then innovation continues at a very rapid pace in the space,” she told The Scoop's Frank Chaparro.Grellet, who previously led strategic initiatives for Ethereum at Consensys, also walked us through some of the investment opportunities CoinFund is eyeing. She touched specifically on NFTs and the metaverse — referring to a convergence of physical and digital lives in a digital space. Grellet is bullish that certain groups will begin spending more time in the digital world, buying up digital land, collectibles, and other NFTs. “[We’re] having digital first generations who are going to live in the Metaverse, who are buying land, who are buying clothes, who are buying experiences there, it creates almost like a second huge market for consumer goods and experience,” she said.(CoinFund is known for its presence in the NFT market, having previously invested in Genies, Upshot, and other NFT groups.)Grellet also teased an upcoming announcement from CoinFund on their new vehicle “Metaversal,” which will help capture consumer interest in NFTs in the metaverse. Episode 35 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CoinFund's Head of Portfolio Growth Vanessa Grellet. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected] episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Bitcoin mining continues to make headlines this week as China ramps up its clampdown on the long-running — and once-dominant — sector.In the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Amanda Fabiano — who leads Galaxy Digital’s mining business — explained exactly what is happening in China, noting that authorities there recently ordered bitcoin mining projects to close in the southwest province of Sichuan.However, this could provide a bull case for North American mining, as miners are pushed out of China in search of areas with cheaper sources of energy like Kazhakstan.“A lot of people have built lives there on Bitcoin mining. They were the first people who dove into how to set up these large mining facilities. They have been holding the Bitcoin network up and running it forever. So I genuinely feel for the groups that have been working on that... On the other side, I think it's really bullish for North American mining. And I also think it's a testament to how the Bitcoin network is so resilient. An entire country just banned Bitcoin mining that is supposedly accounting for the largest hash distribution in the world. And yet the Bitcoin network continues on.”Rising concerns about curbing the energy consumption in bitcoin mining in China have also lead to ESG initiatives in the hopes of producing sustainable mining solutions.But the promise of a sustainable coin seems like one too good to be true. Fabiano dispels some of the misconceptions around bitcoin mining and what it really looks like for a coin to be mined with renewable energy.“So when we think about the amounts of electricity, for example, that's lost in energy end transmission and distribution it's 19 times that of the Bitcoin network. And the energy footprint of always-on electrical devices in America is 12.1 times that of the Bitcoin network," Fabiano said, adding:"But what we always hear is how Bitcoin is ruining the world. We don't care about how your toaster being left on is ruining the world because people don't care that much about it. I think it's really easy to pick on bitcoin’s energy consumption because it is so transparent." This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

The slump in prices across the cryptocurrency market has hit DeFi hard. On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Mika Honkasalo walked us through The Block's Data Dashboard to illustrate the impact of the decline in retail interest across non-custodial trading venues. The most notable area of weakness is demand for trading with leverage on decentralized derivatives venues such as Perpetual Protocol, which are "more reflexive versions of DEX's themselves," according to Honkasalo. "And this is where the trade volumes have really dropped off—almost 80 to 90 percent."DEX volumes on venues like Uniswap and Sushiswap have held up a bit better, but are down around 50%, according to Honkasalo. Still, there are some areas of growth despite the overall market doldrums. Lending protocols, for instance, have seen growth recently. Outstanding Aave debt has surged and clocked in fresh all-time highs earlier this month. Honkasalo ties this to a thirst for dollars in the market. Yearn is another example "of where the money is going," Honkasalo added. According to the Data Dashboard, total value locked in Yearn vaults hit an all-time high above $5 billion this month. Looking to the future, Honkasalo said that it will be interesting to watch how technical improvements in DeFi help sustain future periods of price appreciation, noting that the most recent cycle was stunted by scaling limitations."Ethereum ran into this problem where no one could really use Ethereum when it was really really popular, and now that we have these layer two solutions coming up like Arbitrum and Optimism, it may be that the last time was really the last time where as soon as activity picks up it becomes immediately way too expensive for users, and that's the path to the excitement dying down," he said. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Bitwise, the $1 billion-plus crypto asset management firm, announced a Series B funding round to further advance its index and fund products on Wall Street.With the raise, Bitwise became the latest startup in the digital asset industry to raise fresh capital amid a period of heightened interest from institutions and their clients.In this episode of The Scoop, Bitwise co-founder and CEO Hunter Horsley explained how the industry is creating access for new classes of investors. In Horsley’s view, traditional portfolio managers and financial advisors remain an untapped market for the nascent crypto asset management industry. In terms of the volatility, Hunter sees this as a positive. For Bitwise, volatility means the opportunity for financial advisors to enter the cryptocurrency market by adopting crypto as another asset class in a client or portfolio’s diversification strategy.“The volatility of crypto is a magical gift for a financial advisor. What do I mean by that? If you're an individual who downloads one of the incredible apps that you have today, you see this jagged price chart, this twenty-four-hour price chart. Right. It's very scary, prone to emotional trading. And that's the scary version of volatility. If you're a financial advisor constructing a portfolio that you want to have certain low correlations, you want to have a certain Sharpe ratio, you want to balance across different asset classes. Well, in that case, crypto volatility is actually very useful.”Looking back to Bitwise's latest round, the startup managed to attract notable backers. Indeed, some of the investors involved in raising the Series B round were industry heavy-hitters.As Horsley put it:“[The Series B Funding was] collected by Elad Gil, one of the most accomplished technology investors, Electric Capital, one of the leading crypto venture capital firms and some renowned Wall Street investors; Dan Loeb's Third Point, Daniel Ochs Willoughby, Louis Bacon’s Moore Strategic Ventures, Henry Kravis, Stanley Druckenmiller and [Bridgewater CEO] Dave McCormick.” This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation, is excited about the implications of El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin.Last week, Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, sparked shockwaves across the bitcoin community with his Miami conference announcement of a proposed bill to declare bitcoin as legal tender in the country and mandate its acceptance as a means of payment. Earlier this week, the bill was formally introduced and then signed into law. During a new episode of The Scoop, Gladstein explained what's happening in El Salvador and the ramifications from a domestic and international human rights perspective. Gladstein pointed out that it's significant that El Salvador opted for bitcoin versus building a digital currency the government could have more control over. Gladstein also unpacked what the move means for bitcoin’s role as a form of money. While major Wall Street firms have invested in bitcoin over the last year in part for its use case as digital gold — an inflation hedge — Gladstein says that bitcoin’s role as a quick, borderless payments vehicle is becoming increasingly important. Developments like El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender and advancements in the build-out of Lightning, a bitcoin scaling project, are fueling that shift, according to Gladstein. “Most people don't think bitcoin is money, but what if it was actually turning into money? What would that look like? What would that seem like?... And that's literally what we're watching unfold," he said during the interview, noting:“[Bitcoin] has these remarkable properties that allow it to enable connections between people in different places in the world. So I guess my argument is that we're kind of entering this next narrative phase of Bitcoin, what we perceive it to be, and it being enacted or adopted by a country not as an asset necessarily on the central bank balance sheet, but as legal tender.”As for what this means for the people of El Salvador, specifically, Gladstein said that it will help bank many unbanked citizens. “70 percent of the country doesn't have a bank account, but more than 50 percent of the country has Internet access. So there is a significant overlap there of people whose lives are being changed as a result of this.”This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.