Making Sense of Crypto

We sit down with John Reynolds, a Product Manager at privacy-focused developer platform Aleo, to discuss leveraging zero-knowledge cryptographic solutions to help secure information while also providing privacy. John explains how his experiences at the Air Force Academy first got him invested in personal information and privacy concepts, how ZK proofs work, how CBDCs relate to privacy, and more.  

In this episode, Reserve Protocol Co-founder, Nevin Freeman joins us to discuss algorithmic stablecoins. Reserve is a permissionless platform for launching and governing 1:1 asset-backed stable currencies. Nevin explains the initial idea behind algorithmic stablecoins and goes into why the flaws in the Terra stablecoin’s design, leading to its crash, should have been obvious from the design stage. We also discuss the future of the dollar and why designing a sound stablecoin requires some compromise. 

In this episode, Balancer Co-founder & CEO, Fernando Martinelli joins us to talk DEXs! Mark and Fernando discuss DEX aggregators from a DEX builders’ perspective, liquidity migration from L1s to L2s, how the new risk-free rate for Ethereum might affect DEX liquidity, and why Fernando believes in the future most of the TVL for AMMs will be on L2s. 

In this episode, Sanjay Raghavan from Roofstock onChain joins us to discuss bringing real-world assets (RWAs) onto the blockchain. Sanjay explains how Roofstock enables buying and selling of tokenized houses (real ones, not digital), discusses the legal considerations of bringing real estate, and other RWAs, on-chain, and digs into the securities debate surrounding cryptoassets. 

In this episode, Kevin Owocki, Founder of Web3 crowdfunding platform Gitcoin (and now supermodular) joins us to discuss regenerative finance and regenerative funding. Kevin explains what regenerative finance is, why being a degen isn't all that, and why he believes the future of crypto and Web3 lies in "regen" projects (things where resource capacity goes up over time). We also discuss quadratic funding and why it matters, the idea of retroactive public goods funding, and other potentially exciting novel funding mechanisms. 

Another episode recorded live from ETHDenver! In this episode, we’re joined by Yitong and Charlie from Agora, a project that works with organizations like Nouns DAO and Optimism to build public governance tooling and infrastructure. Governance is so important to crypto, which is why we’re discussing it today. How does distributed/community governance actually happen? To what degree is it happening? And what do all these governance tokens that have experienced a “Cambrian explosion” actually do? Yitong and Charlie fill us in. 

Recorded live from ETHDenver, we're joined by Raleon's Head of Product, Jay Jenkins. Raleon is a Web3 marketing analytics and engagement platform. Mark and Jay discuss how marketing automation works in crypto, why performance marketing doesn't work in Web3, and why incorporating hard data in Web3 marketing tends to be harder. Mark and Jay also chat about the conference and how much reach having a booth at a conference really gets you. ‍

In this episode, we’re joined by Megan Knab, CEO of Franklin Payroll–a crypto-native full service payroll company. Megan and Mark discuss the gap in the market for crypto-native payroll solutions, the upsides and downsides of getting paid in crypto, and how more web3 workers opting for compensation in crypto will affect the crypto/web3 economy. Megan also discusses compliance and tax considerations for getting paid in crypto, why stablecoins are a popular choice, and the infrastructure needed for wider adoption. ‍

We've talked a lot about DAOs on this podcast, but we regularly receive questions about what they are and why they matter. So today's episode is a bit of a different format. It's a talk I recently gave at a conference about the importance of DAOs in the context of the history of human organization. In a hundred years, historians may look back on DAOs, rather than money, as the most game-changing innovation to come out of blockchain.But DAOs probably won't evolve in the way most people think today. So let's jump in.

We've talked a lot about DAOs on this podcast, but we still regularly receive questions about what they are and why they matter. In this episode, Mark shares a talk he recently gave on the importance of DAOs, why they’re likely the most game-changing innovation to come out of blockchain, and why they probably won't evolve in the way most people are expecting.

In this episode, we’re joined by Chainlink Labs’ Chief Ecosystem Growth Officer, Adelyn Zhou. Adelyn helps demystify developer marketing and advises on how projects can grow their ecosystems and attract developers, and other parts of the Web3 stack, to their communities. Along the way, we discuss what defines an ecosystem, the best metrics for judging an ecosystem's health, and projects with particularly impressive developer ecosystems + why. 

In this episode, we chat with Matt Deible, Research & Product Lead at Semiotic Labs, about DEX Aggregators. Over a trillion dollars have been traded through DEXs this year alone. The FTX catastrophe served as a reminder of the important role DEXs play as many experienced firsthand the old adage: not your keys, not your crypto. Join us as we take a deep dive into what traders need to know to stay safe and informed.

Today I'm talking Matthew Leising about the role the media plays in crypto. And the sole that sources and incentives play in the stories told in the media.Matthew Leising worked for Bloomberg News for 17 years and started covering crypto in 2015. In 2020, he published “Out of the Ether,” a history of Ethereum and the people who created it. Earlier this year he co-founded DeCential Media which is dedicated to telling stories of the founders, builders and visionaries of the new decentralized world.

In this episode I chat with Angie Malltezi about Decentralized Exchanges (better known as DEXs) and how traders can get the most out of them. 

Today we're talking about usability and access control. One of the most important issues in crypto is usability and its affect on crypto's long term value.

Today we're talking about derivatives with Barney Mannerings of Vega Protocol. Trading volume for derivatives in the traditional markets are an order of magnitude more than trading everyday spot prices.  But in crypto, derivatives trading volume are an order of magnitude LESS than spot volume for any given asset.That's really a big difference. And in this episode, I want to find out what's holding it back.

Today we're talking about fractionalizing NFTs with Andy Chorlian.Consider this:  1040 artists have sold a hundred thousand dollars of more or more of NFTs. That's an amazing number and  it's important because traders don't just want to trade projects and tokens, they also want to trade and collect NFTs. But in the traditional art market, the most reliable returns come from blue chip artists--which are so expensive that only the wealthiest collectors can buy in.In this episode, we look at the dynamics going on here. 

Today we're talking about bringing real world assets on chain. This is really important for traders and crypto holders because whereas the crypto market is $1.2 trillion today, the largest market in the world is actually the mortgage market which is $13 trillion in the U.S. alone.For comparison,  the U.S. stock market is $95 trillion so the assets in the world dwarf the crypto market cap.But real world assets have been surprisingly slow in coming on chain.  I'd love to understand why.

Today, we're talking about the mempool and MEV with Matt Cutler of Blocknative.Matt told me that any given block has 150 to 250 transactions. For context, block times range from,  a few  seconds on Ethereum to 10 minutes on Bitcoin. At any time, there's actually 80,000 to 250,000 pending transactions to get into that block with only about 200. That is insane competition for block space. How does this actually work? How does it affect the gas prices? Which tax every trade? What does MEV mean? And how does it affect traders today? We're gonna find out.And if you want to learn even more about MEV and how it will be impacted by the upcoming Ethereum Merge? Check out Blocknative's blog.

Today, we're talking about stablecoins with Patrick Murk. Stablecoins are one of the most popular crypto utilities in terms of use cases. Today, the two largest stablecoins account for over a hundred billion dollars of market cap.That's a really big amount. They're both part of the top five coins and in a lot of ways, stablecoins might fulfill a lot of the promise that Bitcoin was initially proposed, which is payments.We'll start by establishing the lay of the land and identifying the approaches for stablecoins today. 

In the month of May, NFT sales were $3.7B. That's down from $6B in January but we're still talking about huge numbers.  Where do these NFTs get their prices; why are they valuable? And how does the smart money trade them?

Today I'm talking to Jessica Houlgrave of Checkout.com. At the core of the crypto narrative has always been payments. The narrative that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the future of how we'll pay for things.  And yet the reality is that very few people actually pay for things in crypto. In this episode, we dig into the promise, the hype, and the reality of how crypto will be used for payments in the future. 

This week we're doing something new. I'm interviewing members of our own team. In this episode I'm talking with Angie Malltezi, Shipyard's Chief of Staff. She's worked with large public organizations and now she's jumped into the ice bath of Crypto--she's here to tell us about the differences from the inside. 

This week we're doing something new. I'm interviewing members of our own team. In this episode I'm talking with Drew Tozer, Shipyard's Head of Design.

This week we're doing something new. I'm interviewing members of our own team. In this episode I'm talking with Ben Klein, Shipyard's Head of Community.

In this episode we sit down with Krishna Sriram, the Managing Director of Quantstamp, to discuss insurance in crypto.Why? Because over the past year, billions of dollars have been locked in DeFi protocols. Yet more and more hacks seem to be occurring, and in the first four months of 2022 alone $1.3 billion was stolen. That's an enormous number and it's critically relevant to traders and LPs who might lose money. That’s why this episode seeks to break down common vulnerabilities within the crypto space, how insurance works within the crypto industry, and how traders can protect themselves with existing crypto insurance solutions.

The largest DAOs currently account for $12B in treasury funds, managed by roughly 1.7m voters – and that’s only what’s being recorded on-chain. These decentralized organizations are becoming increasingly consequential, yet the true size of the rapidly growing DAO ecosystem is difficult to measure.Why? Because most DAOs are burgeoning communities that have not yet shifted their treasuries, governance processes, and other activities onto a blockchain network. And yet DAOs are increasingly changing everything about how we organize people and resources, from high school and chess clubs to international governments and everything in between. Anyone who wants to organize people and resources in the future will be asking themselves whether they want to do it the old way or through a DAO, so if you want to know which way the wind is blowing then tune in today.

This conversation with Nikita Ovchinnik of the 1inch Network is a great listen for anyone who’s interested in how crypto projects approach business development. Why? Because crypto biz dev is unlike that of other industries, in that multi-million dollar deals are often executed without a formal contract or completed between fully decentralized projects that don't even have a leader. But because projects come out with partnerships and announcements all the time, and it's often very difficult for ordinary users or community members to understand what's important to a project’s long-term success versus what's just for show. To that end, this episode is an expansive conversation that covers what’s truly important for business development in the crypto space – whether you’re interested in raising funds, teaming up for a new product launch, or expanding your project onto an entirely new chain.

Today we're talking about international payment systems, especially with respect to what it means for crypto. My guest is Peter Dittus, the former Secretary General of the Bank for International Settlements.

Today we're talking about taxes in crypto with Patrick Larsen of ZenLedger, a leading provider of crypto tax software. Trust me, you're going to want to listen to this episode. 

Today we're talking about sourcing, hiring, and retaining talent in crypto with Paul Veradittakit of Pantera Capital, one of the oldest and largest crypto investment funds.

Decentralized Exchanges have started processing an enormous volume on the order of $100 billion per month. There's on chain, peer to peer, and peer to pool decentralized exchanges and traders really need to know about these different options so they can get the best price.Decentralized Exchanges are the core to doing things with crypto. So in this episode, we'll dig into the different types of decentralized exchanges, the risks and opportunities and how they compare to centralized exchanges. 

It seems from the headlines like entrepreneurs are raising at insane valuations--sometimes just off a deck or as first-time founders. I invited Regan Bozman to walk me through what's really going on here and what traders need to know.  Episode details here. 

Today we're talking about in-person events in the crypto space. How do they manufacture FOMO? And as a crypto trader, how important is it that you attend? Episode details here. 

Today we're talking about being a good actor in the crypto and the surprising ways in which you can accidentally act poorly. In this episode, we find out how you can keep yourself safe and avoid harming the ecosystem. Episode details here.  

Today we're talking about regulators. What are they doing, how is the crypto community engaging with them, and what lessons can we draw from other industries who engaged with regulators in the past. Episode details here. 

There are billions of dollars entrusted in products built by completely anonymous and pseudonymous developers. What do everyday crypto investors need to know about projects with anonymous team? Episode details here. 

Today, we're talking about yields in crypto. They are really high, but where do they come from and what are pools? Episode details here.