Base Layer

Base Layer Episode 261 - Step Simpkin, Co-Founder of Squads, helping companies form in a web3 world Mar 11, 2024

Squads Labs is a core contributor to Squads Protocol, the leading multisig infrastructure on Solana. In addition to helping maintain the protocol, Squads Labs makes the Squads platform, an institutional-grade multisig platform for Solana-based teams. The Squads platform helps web3-native teams manage and secure digital assets on-chain. To learn more about Squads Labs, please visit https://www.sqds.io/.

About Squads Protocol

Squads is a multisig protocol that helps web3-native teams manage and secure digital assets on-chain. Squads Protocol v3 is the first formally verified program on Solana. Squads Protocol v4 introduces time locks, spending limits, roles, sub-accounts, fee relayers, multiple-party payments, support for SquadsX and more. Squads v4 has already been audited by Neodyme, OtterSec, and Trail of Bits. It is currently undergoing two formal verifications, one by OtterSec and the other by Certora. To learn more about Squads Protocol, please visit https://squads.so/protocol

Base Layer Episode 261 - Sergey Gorbunov, Founder of Axelar on building the connective tissue for Web3 Mar 11, 2024

Axelar is for Web3 what Stripe is for mobile and internet applications: it works on the back end, connecting various networks into one-click experiences for all users.

Come listen to co-founder Sergey Gurbunov on what purpose Axelar plays in an ever-expanding web3 world with various L1 & L2 blockchain ecosystems.

Base Layer Episode 260: Avery Ching, Co-Founder of Aptos; from days at Meta to building a state of the art blockchain Feb 16, 2024

What an episode! Avery joins us and tells us his story of helping to launch Aptos from the early innovations of Meta's former project, Diem and Libra. This is a technical deep dive into what makes Aptos different from other blockchains, like Ethereum or Solana. We discuss their choice not to slash (negative economic incentives others have used), sharded storage, the Quorom Store protocol, first class asset design, the choice not to use dynamic dispatch and more.

Learn more here: https://aptoslabs.com/

Base Layer Episode 259: Robert Leshner, CEO of Superstate on traditional finance modernized by blockchain Feb 14, 2024

Robert, a real OG legend and co-founder of Compound, joins us today on Base Layer for a special show, introducing his new company, Superstate. Superstate is an asset management firm modernizing the infrastructure of investment funds. They offer investment products that benefit from the speed, programmability, and compliance advantages of blockchain tokenization. We discuss Superstate, his thoughts on rates and the move from the fringes of DeFi in early 2019-2020 to his new company.

Base Layer Episode 258: Austin Federa, Solana Foundation on hardening the chain + the importance of Saga Feb 09, 2024

Austin Federa joined me for a great conversation about what Solana learned over the past year to harden their infrastructure as they see surges in interest in their NFT & DeFi ecosystem, plus how their phone, the Saga, has been doing in the market to redefine how blockchains can not just be software, but hardware running digital asset codebase.

More about Solana here: https://solana.com/

Base Layer Episode 257: Ben Jones, co-founder of Optimism, a masterclass on the role of the L2 and the OP Stack Feb 07, 2024

Built as a minimal extension to existing Ethereum software, OP Mainnet's EVM-equivalent architecture scales your Ethereum apps without surprises. If it works on Ethereum, it works on OP Mainnet at a fraction of the cost. How has Optimism jumped to become the infrastructure for new consumer apps like Farcaster? Hear from Ben in what I am calling a masterclass on why L2's exist and the function they play in a growing blockchain industry.

Learn more here: https://www.optimism.io/

Base Layer Episode 256: John Woods, CTO of Algorand on the Algorand Gambit - a new era for Algorand Feb 02, 2024

Algorand, a layer one blockchain first brought to market by esteemed cryptographer Silvio Micali, is going through rapid transformation, from the developer language it uses to mechanisms of incentivizing validator work and much more. All of this can be found in more detail here. John, Algorand CTO, joins us to talk through these points and the effect they could have on the ecosystem in 2024 and beyond.

Base Layer Episode 255: Andy Chatham, Co-Founder of DIMO, turning your cars data into an asset Jan 31, 2024

In 1908, Henry Ford unveiled the first Model T. In the span of 116 years, we have entered the next phase of the automobile -- car owners getting ownership of their automobile information and data. DIMO is a new company that aims to be empowering rather than confusing or limiting— stating that apps and connected devices should serve people first instead of corporations, and giving developers useful tools in the real world to build better products for us all. Come learn from Andy, co-founder of DIMO, on their journey. And YES!! You can try it out too!

Learn more here: https://dimo.zone/

Download app here: https://drivedimo.com/

Base Layer Episode 254: Michael Shaulov, Co-Founder of Fireblocks, securing the transfer of $4 Trillion in digital assets Jan 26, 2024

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform that delivers a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to scale digital asset operations securely through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves thousands of financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $4 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage and transit.

Learn more here: https://www.fireblocks.com/

Base Layer Episode 253: Rene Reinsberg, Co-Founder of Celo on being a mobile first, sustainably focused blockchain Jan 24, 2024

Rene, the co-founder of Celo joins me for a great conversation about all the happenings there. Recently, Celo has moved to become an L2, so we talk about the why and what that entails. We also discuss their partnership with Opera, a browser touting 500M monthly active users. With this partnership, we also discuss MiniPay, a new initiative to bring web3 tools like DeFi and mobile payments to the masses. Do you to better understand real-world cases and usage? Listen to this episode.

Base Layer Episode 252: Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo, Ava Labs on becoming the port of call for Gaming & Finance into blockchains Jan 19, 2024

I had such a great conversation with Luigi, who heads up business development & ecosystem at Ava Labs. We discussed everything from the initial design of Avalanche to the growth of Evergreen subnets, which could lead to companies like JP Morgan, Citi, and others directly connecting on the blockchain. We also discussed their work in Gaming, with upcoming releases from Gunzilla and Off the Grid, an AAA game that is due to be available on PS5, Xbox, and other consoles. So much good stuff in here; check it out!

Base Layer Episode 251: Illia Polosukhin, CEO Near Foundation on Chain Abstraction: simplifying the user experience Jan 17, 2024

What a show! Illia, co-founder of Near and CEO of Near Foundation joins us to talk about massive shifts in the way we think about blockchains. From their new Blockchain Operating System to FastAuth and more, we discuss in-depth about the new user experience coming to digital assets - taking away the backend complexities of blockchains from the everyday user to give them amazing, frictionless experiences.

You can learn more about Near here: https://near.org/

More about Blockchain Operating System here.

Base Layer Episode 250: Asta Li from Privy on helping the Web3 industry build delightful products Jan 12, 2024

Asta Li, co-founder at Privy, joins me for a fantastic talk about the movement happening in digital assets, focused on building delightful consumer-centric products.

Privy is the easiest way for developers to onboard all users to web3, regardless of whether they already have a wallet, across mobile and desktop. At Privy, the team spends a lot of time obsessing over how to help developers unlock better UX in web3 without sacrificing the ownership primitives that make the space special. Ownership is at the root of web3, but to this day, it has been reserved for only the most technical users. For web3 to go mainstream, the industry must make it easy to bake self-custody into products: web2-caliber UX with web3 ownership and consent.

More on Immutable here.

Base Layer Episode 246: Lucas from CatX; Insurance meets Digital Assets for coffee... Dec 11, 2023

In 2022, storms worldwide caused more than 130 billion U.S. dollars in damage. Cybercrime is predicted to cost the world USD 8 trillion in 2023. We are starting to see demand for insurance against these events outpace supply. The reinsurance market was valued at $560 billion as of 2022. A solution is needed to meet these new demands with new sources of supply and CatX has been building for that, leveraging the tools of AI and digital assets. Learn from their founder today on this great show. You can also earn more about CatX.

Base Layer Episode 245: Evan Cheng, Co-Founder of Mysten Labs. Can Sui + Move create the optimal digital ownership economy? Jun 21, 2023

What an episode! Evan Cheng, formerly working on Meta's Diem and digital asset infrastructure, is now Co-Founder of Mysten Labs, which has brought to the market Sui, an L1 blockchain. Evan sheds light on key differences in the architecture and design of Sui vs. Ethereum and other blockchains. What is an account vs. an object? Why is that important when discussing smart contracts? Can your ETH-based NFT really be dynamic and evolve in a game? Can NFTs using Sui and its native language, Move, create optimal, adaptable NFTs? Much more on this, feel free to learn more here.

Base Layer Episode 244: Sreeram Kannan, Founder of Eigenlayer on Restaking plus Founder Insights for future entrepreuers Jun 16, 2023

Sreeran Kannan, Founder of Eigenlayer, is an assistant professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he runs the information theory lab focussing on information theory and its applications in communication networks, machine learning, and blockchain systems. He was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting postdoc at Stanford University between 2012-2014, before which he received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

His team has built EigenLayer, a protocol built on Ethereum that introduces restaking, a new primitive in cryptoeconomic security. This primitive enables the reuse of ETH on the consensus layer. SUsers that stake ETH natively or with a liquid staking token (LST) can opt-in to EigenLayer smart contracts to restake their ETH or LST and extend cryptoeconomic security to additional applications on the network to earn additional rewards.

Join us to learn more about Eigenlayer and new systems being built in digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 243: Matt Galligan (Co-Founder, XMTP) on what a decentralized, interoperable world could look like Jun 07, 2023

“If Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp were built with XMTP, everyone could use their preferred app. You could use Messenger to message your dad on WhatsApp and to message your friend on Telegram. And one day, if you all decide to use the same app, you could do so seamlessly with all your messages and contacts available in your interoperable inboxes.” This is the future that Matt discusses with us today on Base Layer, one of the more important ideals that digital assets have pushed forth - interoperability and control of your messages, identity, finances, and more. This is an amazing conversation with a founder who has been around digital assets for many years. You can find out more about XMTP here.

Base Layer Episode 242: The future of compensation with digital assets, featuring Megan Knab, co-founder of Franklin Mar 29, 2023

Join me for a fantastic conversation with Megan Knab, co-founder of Franklin. The company was launched in 2022 to help Web3 founders manage their teams better. Franklin facilitates teams to be paid in USD, crypto, or a mix of both. For companies based in the US, Franklin manages the required tax compliance so that builders can focus on building. This was a timely discussion with Megan after some of the recent banking issues in the United States.

Base Layer Episode 241: Evan Varsamis, CEO & Founder of Mintify on creating the Bloomberg Terminal for NFT's Jan 17, 2023

Happy 2023! The show will be rolling out some phenomenal founders who are building, yes, in this "winter" or bear market...whatever you want to call it. Innovation is still happening! Evan, the CEO, and founder at Mintify, joins us to discuss how they have been building one of the best platforms to discover, analyze and trade NFT economies with a suite of powerful interfaces. Their all-in-one platform features historical and real-time data for both long-term holders and emerging NFT traders. They also have tools to check what’s trending at a glance based on real-time collection analytics. Mintify also has complete Historical & Real-time Blockchain data for over 100,000+ collections and the ability to help you manage your assets, list across multiple marketplaces, and see the ROI of your wallet. Check it out and learn more!

Base Layer Episode 240: Josh Katz, Founder of YellowHeart about the future of NFTs and live events Nov 21, 2022

Join us for a great show with Josh Katz, founder of YellowHeart, which aims to we harness Web3 to revitalize ticketing, and empower fans, artists, and sports teams. Utilizing the latest and greatest in Web3 technology, our team of industry experts works with you to build long-lasting and engaged fan communities, collect revenue on secondary sales of tickets & collectibles, and so much more. Josh has decades of experience in the music industry, launching the careers of many of today's biggest artists. Listen and learn.

Base Layer Episode 239: Amir Sarhangi & Craig DeWitt talk about SuperMojo, bringing financial sophistication to NFT's Oct 31, 2022

It's good to be back after a few months' hiatus! It's been busy on our side, but many new shows and content are coming out soon! Today we start with Amir and Craig from SuperMojo, a new investment from our early-stage fund that, at its core, is a financing platform designed to make digital assets more accessible for users. The platform facilitates point-of-sale financing, like layaway, to make NFT purchases easier and collateralized lending for improved post-sale liquidity. Supermojo’s initial focus is to partner with marketplaces and storefronts to offer these services. Come listen to a great chat about NFTs (beyond the collectible) and how companies like SuperMojo aim to be at the forefront.

Base Layer Episode 238: Rachel Black & Giel Detienne from GoodGhosting on the saving account of the future, now Aug 08, 2022

We are so excited to have Rachel and Giel, the co-founders of GoodGhosting, on with us for the show. A part of the Endeavor portfolio, GoodGhosting helps users to make saving easy, fun, and rewarding. They create social savings games that use blockchain technology to reward dedicated savers. They are about improving users' financial habits by helping them save and invest. They envision a world where building wealth is simple and safe, and everyone can enjoy it!

Base Layer Episode 237: Brooks Brown from NOR discusses building Web3 games for players Jun 06, 2022

What an amazing, fun, and thought-provoking chat I recorded with Brooks Brown, Creator at NOR. Brooks has an amazing history, ranging from working at Lucas Arts to the production team of Avatar. His team is world-class as well and they are building one of the best new games in Web3. What makes a great game? How do you build digital asset economic systems in the games of tomorrow? We cover this and much more. Not to be missed!

Base Layer Episode 236: Christian Dittmeier, Co-Founder of Evaluate Market on creating the an NFT Portfolio tool for the masses May 20, 2022

Christian from Evaluate Market joins me to discuss their work on building one of the best and easiest to use NFT Portfolio tracking tools in the world. Evaluate.Market allows NFT collectors to track and manage their portfolios and discover new projects across multiple NFT marketplaces and blockchains. Since March 2021, the website has had over 1 million unique visitors, primarily within the Flow blockchain ecosystem. Recently, the team announced the expansion of Evaluate.Market beyond Flow to include 700+ major Ethereum projects. Learn about how and why this platform could help reach hundreds of millions of users in the next few years.

Base Layer Episode 235: Ian McMilan, Chief Growth Officer @ Mojito on creating NFT strategies with iconic businesses and brands May 04, 2022

It's been a while, but the show is coming back more frequently! Ian joins us from Mojito, which grew to fame by building the Metaverse Marketplace for Sotheby's in 2021. We had a great conversation about how iconic businesses and brands are working with Mojito to think about and deploy their NFT and Metaverse strategies. Why? There are billions of people out there (gamers) who are already part of the economic world. Still, even more that are just starting to be a significant part of our global economic future - and they live in metaverses to some extent already. Why did Nike, Adidas, and fashion brands build here already? Learn more from Ian.

Base Layer Episode 234: Joao Borges & Matt Rutledge, founders of BAYZ on the future of Web3 Games & Guilds in Brazil Mar 07, 2022

So happy to have Joao and Matt on the show to talk all about BAYZ! We got to meet the team last year as they started to build one of the best play-to-earn gaming guilds in the world that helps members earn money by playing video games and being part of a global gaming community. We discuss their focus on e-sport influencers (some big news there) and what made Brazil such an amazing part of the world to focus on. Enjoy!

Base Layer Episode 233: Matty Taylor from Solana Labs on the evolution & importance of hackathons in Solana Mar 04, 2022

What a great show! Matty joins me to discuss how Solana has been able to grow with the use of some of the most exciting and involved hackathons in digital assets. We also discuss their use of "hacker houses" which aim to help developers learn key coding languages in Solana development. Lastly, we discuss Riptide, their newest hackathon that already has THOUSANDS of founders submitting their newest ideas.

Base Layer 232: Michael Kong, CEO of Fantom Foundation on what's been driving interest in this Layer 1 blockchain Feb 10, 2022

Michael joins us for a great dive in Fantom which, according to Michael, is a high-performance, scalable, and secure smart-contract platform. It is designed to overcome the limitations of previous-generation blockchain platforms. Lachesis, its revolutionary aBFT consensus mechanism, allows Fantom to be much faster and cheaper than older technologies, yet extremely secure. We learn why DeFi developers like Andre Cronje (known from Yearn Finance and other notable projects) have been spending time here building and much more.

Base Layer Episode 231: Brian Flynn, Co-Founder of Rabbithole on building the resume of Web3 Feb 02, 2022

Brian joins me on Base Layer to discuss one of the most interesting projects in the digital asset ecosystem currently, Rabbithole. In this portal, one learns how to use varying functions in digital assets, from staking digital assets on DeFi platforms to buying your first ENS (Ethereum Name Service). A user goes on "quests," and as they do, they essentially build a reputation badge that can be used for entry into DAO's to show they are knowledgeable and capable participants. A must listen!

Base Layer Episode 230: Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder of Chainlink on Web3's path to dominance Jan 28, 2022

Always great to have Sergey join me on the show to talk about Chainlink's role in various sectors, whether DeFi, Gaming, and in this case, Web3. This has been a topic of heated exchanges between those in digital assets and those defending Web2, such as the founder of Twitter. Sergey discusses how and why Web3 will evolve to become the dominant force, looking at historical perspectives as key indicators of future success. We also discuss the role out of CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol) and this concept of the "truth machine".

Base Layer Episode: 229 YGG SEA, the First sub-DAO of YGG, Bringing Players in Southeast Asia into the Metaverse Jan 20, 2022

Three leading YGG SEA executives - Evan Spytma, CEO & Co-Founder, Irene Umar, Co-Founder and Indonesian Country Manager, and Daniel Wang, Chief Investment Officer join me for a conversation about their mission of creating one of the largest and most sustainable P2E virtual economies in the world. YGG SEA provides a bridge between games and players who do not have the means to purchase NFTs. Their investment philosophy is focused on scholars – they invest in games that are suitable for scholars, providing them with the opportunity to play these games and earn a living wage. Learn more in the episode!

Base Layer Episode 228: Krystal Yang Founder of Ignite Tournaments on the World's First Play-to-Earn Mobile Esports Tournament Organization Platform Dec 28, 2021

Krystal Yang joins me for a conversation about her journey to founding Ignite Tournaments, one of Arca Endeavor's investments. Ignite Tournaments is a tournament layer platform that sits above a native blockchain game deployed in mobile format. The platform combines esports tournament organization, streaming services with instantaneous payouts in crypto and NFTs, and provides play-to-earn functionality to any game. Come learn more about Ignite Tournaments and Krystal's accomplishments in the mobile gaming world!

Episode 227: Fvckrender, from Lebron to Dior, what it's like for one of the most sought after NFT artists Dec 10, 2021

It's been a while! A lot of shows coming out soon, so be on the lookout. Today we put out a show we recorded with Fvckrender, one of the most sought-after NFT artists today. Has worked with clients like Lil Nas X, Lebron James, Puma, Christian Dior, and Spotify, while being featured at Christie's and Sotheby's. We delve into his background as well, being self-taught, a high school dropout that used to be a waiter, and would work on digital art as a hobby to becoming iconic today. Enjoy!

Base Layer Episode 226: Peter Ing, Founder of BlockchainSpace on enabling payments in the Play-to-Earn Ecosystem Nov 11, 2021

Peter Ing joins me for a conversation about his past experiences and his journey to founding BlockchainSpace, one of Arca Endeavor’s investments. Blockchain Space is a gaming accounting and payments software firm that provides player management and in-game financing tools. Peter has 15 years of experience in FinTech and remittance firms, and has been a key ambassador of Axie Infinity for the last two years allowing him to build BlockchainSpace with key insights into the industry. Come learn more about it on the show!

Base Layer Episode 225: Nick Emmons, Co-Founder of Upshot on Decentralized Sources of Truth Oct 29, 2021

Nick joins me for a fascinating discussion on Upshot which is a question and answer protocol. It leverages a new field of mechanism design called peer prediction to incentivize people to answer questions honestly. Its purpose is to reliably and efficiently pair honest answers to questions. This enables and improves a number of exciting use cases such as efficient price discovery for esoteric assets, decentralized insurance, decentralized governance, content curation, and more. Find out more here.

Base Layer 224: Carson Cook, Founder of Lattice on creating the Bloomberg Terminal for Digital Assets Oct 15, 2021

Carson, a multi-time founder, joins us on Base Layer to discuss all the things they are building at Lattice, Arca Endeavor's second investment. Lattice brings the Bloomberg "RFQ" function (request for quote) to the world of digital asset trading, which is aiming to optimize price discovery and removal of human error. This should be a pivotal moment in the maturation of the asset class. Come learn more about it on the show!

Base Layer Episode 223: Michael Wagner, Co-Founder of Star Atlas on why this has become one of the most talked about play-to-earn games Oct 12, 2021

Michael joins us to discuss Star Atlas, one of the most talked-about P2E, blockchain-based games coming to market. Star Atlas is a virtual gaming metaverse based in the year 2620. The metaverse introduces a unique gaming experience through the combination of both traditional core game and blockchain mechanics, which Michael discusses along the journey of building the game. Building games is challenging in conventional markets; making a play-to-earn game is even more difficult. Learn why so many are talking about this.

Base Layer Episode 222: Pat White and Amy Kalnoki from Bitwave: Helping to Understand Tax in DeFi Oct 05, 2021

Pat White and Amy Kalnoki join me for a special Base Layer episode as we discuss Bitwave, a tax and accounting platform that digital asset projects are flocking to. Why? Bitwave has developed special tools to focus specifically on the implications of DeFi activity like staking, yield farming, and more. Bitwave is the first investment in our new venture fund, Endeavor, and we discuss why we invested in the team, the total addressable market, the tools they've built, and much more. To learn more about Bitwave you can go here.

Base Layer Episode 221: David Nage (me) and Rayne Steinberg (CEO of Arca) about big news Oct 05, 2021

Today, a big show highlights some work we have done at Arca, the firm I have helped build over the last three years. Rayne Steinberg, our CEO, joins me on the show today to navigate the news we are dropping and what it entails for the future. Fascinating stuff - I can't wait for you all to listen!

Base Layer Episode 220: Scott Lawin, CEO of Candy Digital on changing the world of Sports Collectibles Sep 29, 2021

Scott, the CEO of Candy Digital, recently came on Base Layer to talk about building one of the most interesting NFT based sports collections to date. The world learned about sports NFT's via NBA Top Shot, but what Candy is building is different - adding experiences like throwing out the first pitch or being able to meet the players of the team you love, all by buying a special NFT they create. Learn more about Scott and what they are doing at Candy - if you love sports as I do, this is one for you.

Base Layer Episode 219: Ahmed Al-Balaghi from Biconomy on making Web 3.0 frictionless & mainstream Sep 24, 2021

Ahmed joins me on the show for a great discussion on the build-out of Biconomy, a project I was lucky enough to know about in the earliest of days. Today, Biconomy seeks to accelerate web3.0 adoption by making all its components more composable, interoperable & usable. Tomorrow, Biconomy is the foundation of how transactions and chain interaction take place seamlessly and frictionlessly. Listen in on how they are doing this and learn about next-gen tooling for Web 3.0.

Base Layer Episode 218: Zach Burks, CEO of Mintable on running one of the first NFT marketplaces Sep 20, 2021

Zach joins me on the show to talk about his road to helping build Mintable, a marketplace where people can find, sell and mint their own NFT's. We talk about the "mom experiment" -- creating a user interface that eliminates some of the technical complexities so more people outside the box could enjoy participating in this new world. We also talk about gaming and the idea that all IP will eventually be an NFT. Super interesting conversation with what we call an OG.

Base Layer Episode 217: Sebastien Borget, Co-Founder of The Sandbox on the era of Blockchain Gaming Sep 09, 2021

Sebastien, the co-founder of The Sandbox, joins me for a must-listen on the state of blockchain-based gaming. Over the past two years, this industry has seen exponential growth, from daily active users (DAU's) of some games eclipsing 1 million players to new metaverses that should make any diehard Minecraft or Roblox player take a look. Listen to a pioneer in the space and hear what's happening here.

Base Layer Episode 216: Alex Svanenik, Founder of Nansen on analyzing 90M+ labeled Ethereum wallets Aug 02, 2021

Base Layer is back with Alex Svanenik from Nansen, a research platform used by professional investors in Digital Assets. With Nansen you can see where funds are moving to, identify new projects or tokens, and trace transactions down to the most granular level. Listen in on the three-year journey to build this platform and where it's going in the future.

Base Layer Episode 215: Derek Yoo, Founder of Moonbeam on creating interoperability for Web 3.0 and beyond Jul 09, 2021

Derek joins me on the show to talk all about Moonbeam which is a blockchain project built back in January 2020 as a way to tackle cross-chain interoperability challenges, it is an Ethereum compatible smart contract parachain (and we discuss what that means) on Polkadot. For those who are not familiar with Polkadot, it is a multi-blockchain platform where projects can have their own blockchain designed to meet their specific needs rather than use a general-purpose blockchain that might not have all they need.

Base Layer Episode 214: Pablo Gonzalez, Co-Founder of Bitso on building the onramp to Digital Assets for the LATAM region Jun 25, 2021

Founded in 2014, Bitso, the Mexico City-based company offers multiple cryptocurrency products and services to more than 2 million customers across Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. Pablo Gonzalez, the Co-Founder of Bitso joins me to discuss their offering which includes: the Bitso App which lets users buy, sell, send, or receive bitcoin and 8 other cryptocurrencies; Bitso Alpha, a professional-grade crypto trading platform; and Bitso Business, a suite of cross-border products for local enterprises. Recently the company raised a $250M Series C led by Coatue and Tiger Global, two prominent funds in the world; we learn why in this episode.

Base Layer Episode 213: Gabby Dizon, Co-Founder of Yield Guild Games on building the employment agency of the Metaverse Jun 18, 2021

Gabby joins me for one of the most inspiring conversations I've had on the show to date. In late 2020, Yield Guild Games set out on a mission to introduce as many people as possible to the concept of play-to-earn. Just eight months later, they have witnessed countless life-changing success stories as a result of the money earned by playing NFT games such as Axie Infinity. Come listen to the story and see how digital assets are changing people's lives for the better around the world.

Base Layer Episode 212: 0xMaki from SushiSwap on DEX's moment seen around the world Jun 14, 2021

What a special show with 0xMaki, a world-renown contributor to SushiSwap which is a decentralized exchange built on Ethereum that utilizes an automated market-making system rather than a traditional order-book. Instead of matching individual buy and sell orders, users can pool together two assets that are then traded against, with the price determined based on the ratio between the two. SushiSwap began as a fork of Uniswap; however, is growing into a more diversified, more grassroots alternative.

Base Layer Episode 211: Colin Evran from Protocol. Labs on the role of decentralized storage in Web 3.0 Jun 07, 2021

Colin from Protocol Labs joins me to discuss all the work they are doing there in enabling Web 3.0. Protocol Labs is an open-source research, development, and deployment laboratory. Their projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, and many more. They aim to make human existence orders of magnitude better through technology.

About our sponsors: Nexo and Paraswap

Nexo

Try Nexo, the only instant, efficient and complete crypto banking service, featuring: savings accounts with up to 12% interest on crypto, Stablecoins & fiat; flexible crypto-backed credit lines at just 5.9% APR; an exchange with 75+ crypto and fiat pairs and top prices. All of this and more wrapped up in a single Nexo Wallet. Start banking at nexo.io

Paraswap

Paraswap aggregates decentralized exchanges and other DeFi services in one comprehensive interface to streamline and facilitate users' interactions with Ethereum's decentralized finance. Learn more at paraswap.io

Base Layer Episode 210: Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder of Chainlink on Hybrid Smart Contracts & DeFi May 21, 2021

Sergey joins me on the show again to discuss their new 2.0 whitepaper in which they delve into hybrid smart contracts and how those go beyond smart contracts today. We talk about the technical advancements outlined in the paper and how Chainlink oracle networks abstract complexity away from existing enterprises that want to interact with smart contracts. We also discuss how Chainlink work not only within the Ethereum ecosystem but with others chains and L2's.

Base Layer Episode 209: Greg Osuri, Founder of Akash Network on Decentralizing Compute May 12, 2021

Greg joins us today for a fantastic episode of Base Layer discussing Akash Network. Akash is the world’s first decentralized cloud computing marketplace, leveraging 85% of underutilized cloud capacity in 8.4 million data centers. Akash enables anyone to buy and sell unused compute. Akash DeCloud greatly accelerates scale and price performance for DeFi, decentralized organizations, and high-growth industries like machine learning/AI.

About our sponsors:

Nexo: Try Next - the only instant, efficient and complete crypto banking service, featuring: Savings accounts with up to 12% interest on crypto, Stablecoins & fiat; flexible crypto-backed credit lines at just 5.9% APR; an exchange with 75+ crypto and fiat pairs and top prices. All of this and more wrapped up in a single Nexo Wallet. Start banking at nexo.io

Paraswap: ParaSwap aggregates decentralized exchanges and other DeFi services in one comprehensive interface to streamline and facilitate users' interactions with Ethereum's decentralized finance. Learn more about Paraswap at: https://paraswap.io

Base Layer Episode 208: Do Kwon, Founder of Terra Money on building one of the biggest new ecosystems in Digital Assets Apr 28, 2021

Do joins me on Base Layer for a epic chat. Terra is a permissionless blockchain network that is based on a suite of fiat-pegged stablecoins collateralized by the network’s native token LUNA. The idea at Terra is that the path to widespread adoption of Digital Assets is largely based on stability and composability of the underlying network, which is what Terra excels at -- providing a fast and secure settlement layer for building financial applications on top of. These applications can range from payments (Chai) to investing (Mirror) and savings (Anchor).

Base Layer Episode 207: Lucas Vogelsang, Founder at Centrifuge on real world assets bridging into Digital Assets Apr 22, 2021

Financial systems rarely connect to one another directly across company boundaries. Business networks are in competition for market share and thus, do not have incentives to share user profiles, build a robust and shareable reputation system within a network, or open their data silos to others. Lucas and his team at Centrifuge believe that the time of incremental optimization of archaic processes has to come to an end. Only by collectively shaping an entirely new system for the global financial supply chain can we foster widespread economic opportunity. This new system can only be established by dismantling the existing financial supply chain infrastructure, stripping it down to its essential components, and reassembling it for the 21st century. Come listen a fascinating episode that discusses bridging these divides.

Base Layer Episode 206: Ganesh Swami, Founder at Covalent on bringing visibility to billions of blockchain data points. Apr 14, 2021

Ganesh from Covalent joins me with a great discussion on Covalent which provides a unified API to bring full transparency and visibility to assets across all blockchain networks. Simply put, they have a single API which allows you to pull detailed, granular blockchain transaction data from multiple blockchains with no code.

About our sponsors:

Coinbase

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Nexo

Try Nexo - the only instant, efficient and complete crypto banking service, featuring:

Saving accounts with up to 12% interest in crypto, stablecoins & fiat
Flexible crypto-backed credit lines at just 5.9% APR
An exchange with 75+ crypto and fiat pairs and top prices

All this and more wrapped up in a single Nexo wallet.

Start banking at nexo.io

Base Layer Episode 205: Jesse Johnson from Aavegotchi on NFT's marrying DeFi Apr 08, 2021

Such a fun and interesting episode! Aavegotchis are rare crypto-collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain, backed by the ERC721 standard used in popular blockchain games such as Cryptokitties, Axie Infinity, and Cryptovoxels. We talk about the game play and what's under the hood which includes some very sophisticated DeFi tooling.

Base Layer Episode 204: Whit. Gibbs, Founder of Compass Mining on making Bitcoin mining available to the masses Apr 05, 2021

Compass is a bitcoin-first company on a mission to support the decentralized growth of hashrate and strengthen network security by helping more people, learn, explore and mine bitcoin. They have made it incredibly easy to start Bitcoin mining - something many have wanted to explore. We discuss this, the environmental fud that has been prominent lately and much more.

Base Layer Episode 203: Ryan Berkun, Founder & CEO of Teller Finance on creating the first DeFi protocol built to evaluate consumer credit risk. Mar 29, 2021

Teller Finance is a company I've been watching for almost a year; I think it could arguably become one of the most important DeFi platforms ever. Imagine something like a decentralized FICO score that is portable and universally accepted. That's kind of what Teller is up to. Listen and learn.

About our sponsor, Coinbase:

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 202: Stani Kulechov, Founder at Aave on getting the next 10 million users into DeFi Mar 24, 2021

Welcome back! After an unexpected hiatus from yours truly we are back! What better way to come back then talking with Stani from Aave who has been instrumental in DeFi massive growth in the last year. Aave is an open-source and non-custodial protocol to earn interest on deposits and borrow assets with a variable or stable interest rate. It also enables ultra-short duration, uncollateralized flash loans designed to be integrated into other products and services. We talk about how this all works, their new AMM (automated market maker), how their decentralized governance is working compared to others, NFT's and how we get the next 10 million users into DeFi.

About our sponsor, Coinbase:

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 201: Andrew Peel, Head of Digital Assets at Morgan Stanley on Institutions converging on Bitcoin, DeFi and more Feb 01, 2021

Did you know Morgan Stanley had a Head of Digital Assets? Well you do now! Such a great episode with Andrew who is incredibly knowledgeable about the space. We discuss the global macro narrative that has been the draw to Bitcoin for many institutions; going beyond Bitcoin and what DeFi's role could be in further growing; the role Corporations are playing in terms of buying Bitcoin and Digital Assets and much more.

Base Layer Episode 200: Meltem Demirors from Coinshares: "Nothing f'in matters anymore", Bitcoin Cathedrals and the world we live in now Jan 25, 2021

It's been a little over two years in the making but we have reached our 200th episode! What a special one with Meltem in which we have a no holds bar conversation about the world we live in and the role Bitcoin is playing in it. **Note: unlike in previous episodes, I do drop a few curses here; it was right after the attempted insurrection at the Capitol and I was heated** We talk about the role Bitcoin is playing; is it ok to spend your Bitcoin or should it be in the narrative of store of wealth? So much more; just listen!

Base Layer Episode 199: Raoul Pal on the World Burning, Bitcoin and how to apply Second Level thinking in Digital Assets Jan 11, 2021

The legendary Raoul Pal joins me for an absolutely epic conversation in which we touch on global macro issues, including last week's attempted insurrection in the United States, yields and the debt markets around the world, the continued narrative of Bitcoin among institutional investors and more. We also spend a lot of time discussing second level thinking (coined by investors like Howard Marks, Ray Dalio and others) in Digital Assets; how to look beyond the meme's and those who call digital assets derogatory names and more. Raoul and his team have been producing amazing content at Real Vision on traditional markets and now Digital Assets; check it out here: https://www.realvision.com/

About our sponsor, Coinbase:

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 197: Matt Cutler, CEO of Blocknative on the role mempools play Jan 06, 2021

Matt joins us to kick off 2021 with a great discussion on mempools; for those unfamiliar a mempool is a Digital Asset node’s mechanism for storing information on unconfirmed transactions. It acts as a sort of waiting room for transactions that have not yet been included in a block. One is able to gather very interesting observational data with this and Blocknative is at the forefront of it. Learn more about what they are doing here: https://www.blocknative.com/

About our sponsor: Coinbase

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 196: Peter Johnson (Jump Capital) on 2021 predictions including $50K Bitcoin and M&A "mania" Dec 21, 2020

Legendary recording! Peter is the Managing Director of Jump Capital, a highly seasoned investor in both traditional and digital assets. He and his team have been investing in Digital Assets for about 7 years now and he's seen it all. We talk about his 2021 predictions which include Bitcoin hitting $50,000 and why that is a more reachable target today than ever before. Additionally we talk about DeFi having a continuance of a breakout in 2021, stablecoins, will CBDC's take off and so much more. Time to take notes!

About Coinbase, our partner:

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 195: Tim Ogilvie, Founder at Staked on helping to create the Fixed Income of Digital Assets Dec 18, 2020

Tim joins me back on the show to update everyone Staked which for the last few years has been facilitating what I call the emergence of fixed income in Digital Assets. Essentially Staked helps investors earn yield from staking and DeFi without taking custody of crypto assets; some of the yields on the platform are high 10's and 20's. We talk about the how this works, what goes into staking and the emergence of ETH2 and why this is potentially a watershed moment.

Base Layer Episode 194: Richard Craib, Founder of Numerai on what the future of Hedge Funds may look like Dec 14, 2020

Richard, the founder of Numerai, joins me for a great podcast to discuss how they are building a blockchain based hedge fund using crowdsourced predictions. Numerai, founded in Dec. 2015, is building a blockchain based hedge fund that utilizes artificial intelligence and crowdsourced stock market predictions. The platform relies on a monthly machine learning and data science “tournament” where users, primarily data scientists, can submit trading algorithms about the stock market. Numerai then employs artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze the predictions, and the best are included in Numerai’s “meta-model” which combines all the underlying inputs on which it will trade the stock market.

About Coinbase and Coinbase Prime, our sponsor:

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 193: Joe Lallouz, CEO of Bison Trails on building the Oracle of Digital Assets Dec 09, 2020

Joe Lallouz, the CEO of Bison Trails, comes back on Base Layer for an epic conversation about the role Bison Trails is playing in Digital Assets; prior I've equated them to being the Wix of 2006, bringing the ability of the non-technocrat to build websites/e-commerce sites and more. Upon reflection of this chat I am now equating them to Oracle, that infrastructure layer that has been so incredibly important to the build of internet 1 & 2 that not many people non-technocratic people understand what they do but they just know they may things work: that's what Bison Trails is becoming. We discuss ETH2 and their role and QT, a new release they put out a few weeks ago and much more. Find out more here: https://bisontrails.co/

About Coinbase & Coinbase Prime (Base Layer partner)

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 192: Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com on the last 10 years in Digital Assets Dec 07, 2020

Peter, the CEO of Blockchain.com joins me on Base Layer for a very interesting conversation about the role his company plays in the overall ecosystem as a wallet provider, a data analytic and a source of yield for those depositing their digital assets. Peter has been involved in this new emerging asset and asset class for almost 10 years - we talk about how it's changed, institutional investors, the importance of data and analytics that have matured and much more. You can find out more about the company at: https://www.blockchain.com/

Base Layer Episode 191: Jack O'Holleran, CEO of Skale Labs on helping scale Ethereum to billions of users Dec 02, 2020

Skale is a piece of infrastructure in the Ethereum ecosystem that is designed to enable higher throughput and performance, potentially assisting in ushering in billions of users on Ethereum based applications in the coming years. Jack comes back to discuss how Skale works in the various sub sectors of Ethereum such as DeFi & Gaming. We give new comers to Digital Assets lots of metaphors and imagery on how it works and it's value proposition. Skale also announced some massive news on Dec 1st - hear more about it here.

A note on our sponsor:

Coinbase Prime is one of the leading prime brokerages for digital assets. Coinbase provides the bridge to the crypto world for institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and financial institutions. Through their professional trading platform, deep and diversified liquidity, and Coinbase Custody, Coinbase Prime is built for institutions. Learn more at prime.coinbase.com.

Base Layer Episode 190: Sid Jha, Founder & CEO of Arbol on the intersection of Risk Markets & Smart Contracts Nov 25, 2020

Sid joins me from Arbol in what I think is one of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while. Arbol utilizes decentralized blockchain technology for parametric insurance. Parametric insurance pays out based on the value of predetermined metrics, instead of based on damages measured by physical inspections. Hence, blockchain technology is used to ensure that predetermined metrics are transmitted from a range of third-party data providers in an immutable, reliable and transparent manner to the insurance coverage enforcing smart contracts. With close to $200B in economic loses associated with natural disaster forecasted for 2020 industry's around the world are trying to get a handle on how to get ahead of the curve and Arbol could be leading the pack. More info on Arbol here

Base Layer Episode 189: Chris Wood, COO of Pixelmatic on the future of Bitcoin based gaming Nov 16, 2020

Chris, the COO of Pixelmatric, joins me for a great show to discuss the work this studio is doing to bring the future of Bitcoin gaming to the masses. We discuss the history of blockchain based gaming, the current phase and what the future holds. We also discuss an important split in gaming: the pay to play and the play to earn; Pixelmatic and there new MMO Infinite Fleet is an example of this powerful play to earn model.

Base Layer Episode 188: Kevin Chou, Founder at Rally on building the new Chain Economy Nov 09, 2020

Kevin joins me on Base Layer to discuss Rally, an emerging blockchain ecosystem focused on giving Creators new ways to build their businesses and achieve deeper engagement with their communities, with better fan alignment and more control than they have ever had before. The Rally Network is providing Creators with tools to build virtual economies that extend their brands while also providing community benefits and new economic incentives for fans to engage with their favorite Creators. We discuss the growth of influencers like Mr. Beast, Ninja and more and how this could pave a way for new economies for many of them.

Base Layer Episode 187: Fredrik Haga, Co-Founder of Dune Analytics on trends in Digital Asset analysis Nov 02, 2020

Fredrik, the co-founder of Dune Analytics joins me on Base Layer to discuss how they have become one of the key players in Digital Asset data analysis. With their boards that are created by community members they have been a flash point of analysis on DeFi and many of the sub sectors of Digital Assets. We discuss this and much more.

Base Layer Episode 186: Aleksander Larsen, Co-Founder of Axie Infinity on creating the Pokemon of Digital Assets Oct 30, 2020

Aleksander joins me on Base Layer for one of the most interesting conversations we've had about the intersection of digital collectibles, gaming and digital asset based ecosystems that are becoming incredibly mature. We discuss how Axie Infinity was born, how it's becoming the Pokemon of Digital Assets and what the future has in hold for the game and its community participants. Must listen to episode!!

Base Layer Episode 185: Diane Dai, Co-Founder of DODO on Proactive vs Automated Market Makers & more Oct 28, 2020

Diane joins me to discuss one of the most talked about new projects in DeFi: DODO. After raising a round led by some of the biggest investors in Digital Assets DODO is working to build upon their next generation on-chain liquidity provider platform which leverages the Proactive Market Maker algorithm (PMM) to provide pure on-chain and contract-fillable liquidity for everyone. Great conversation on what could be one of the key pieces to the future of DeFi.

Base Layer Episode 184: Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder of Chainlink on the role of Smart Contracts and connecting real world data to them Oct 26, 2020

Sergey, the Co-Founder of Chainlink, joins me again for a tremendous conversation about the role smart contracts are beginning to play in society, helping unbanked people become banked, helping those with identification become part of a larger technological society and much more. We also discuss the evolution of smart contracts and the need for real world data to make them work and the role Chainlink plays in that very important part of the equation.

Base Layer Episode 183: Mounir Benchemled, Founder of Paraswap on creating gateways to DeFi Oct 23, 2020

Mounir joins us to discuss Paraswap, a new platform that aggregates multiple decentralized exchanges into one place so that the rates often beat the market price. We discuss the role that aggregators are beginning to play in DeFi, how the incentive models work for liquidity providers and the underlying technology that makes this work. You can find more about Paraswap here: https://paraswap.io/#/

Base Layer Episode 182: Amrit Kumar, Co-Founder of Zilliqa on creating a high throughput blockchain Oct 21, 2020

Amrit joins me on Base Layer to provide insight into Zilliqa, a high-throughput public blockchain platform designed to scale to thousands of transactions per second. Zilliqa aims to drive the blockchain industry forward by developing the highest quality technology infrastructure which can create measurable and real-world impact. To that end, we have sought to establish partnerships across industry verticals that have emerged as clear beneficiaries to innovative, decentralised technologies, with participation across digital advertising, financial services, payments, gaming, as well as digital entertainment. More info here: https://www.zilliqa.com/

Base Layer Episode 181: Artur Sychov from Somnium Space going deep into the Metaverse Oct 19, 2020

Artur joins me on the show from Somnium Space, an open and social virtual reality world built on the Ethereum blockchain. You can buy land, build or import objects, and instantly enjoy or monetize assets. Somnium space is a universe shaped entirely by its community of users. This world continues to fascinate me as what our potential future may be (or is becoming already) so enjoy! Check it out here: https://somniumspace.com/

Base Layer Episode 180: Devin Finzer, Co-Founder of Opensea on building the Amazon of NFT's Oct 13, 2020

Devin, the co-founder of Opensea, joins me on Base Layer for a great review of how they are building what I am calling the Amazon of NFT's. OpenSea is a marketplace for digital goods, including collectibles, gaming items, digital art, and other digital assets that are backed by a blockchain like Ethereum. On OpenSea, you can buy, sell, and trade any of these items with anyone in the world. OpenSea is currently the largest general marketplace for user-owned digital goods, with the broadest set of categories (200 and growing), the most items (over 4 million), and the best prices for new categories of items. We discuss this massive growth and what the future looks like in this exciting sector of digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 179: Matthew Edwards, CEO of Dalpha Capital on the Institutionalization of Digital Assets Oct 08, 2020

Matthew joins me on Base Layer for a great conversation about the furthering of the institutionalization of Digital Assets. Matthew spent a large percentage of his career at GCM Grosvenor, a global alternative asset management firm started in 2971 that currently has around $55 billion in assets. We talk about his transition to Digital Assets, especially the 'why'. You will also hear a great conversation around: Active versus Passive investing, why a FOF approach makes sense for digital assets, the differences between traditional hedge fund due diligence & the digital asset version and much more.

Base Layer Episode 178: JP Baric, CEO of Aurum Ventures on the state of Bitcoin mining in the United States Oct 06, 2020

JP joins me for an excellent show in which we delve deep into the state of the state of Bitcoin mining, hitting on the health of mining here in the United States and also on the technological aspects associated with it. For those learning about digital assets, Bitcoin and this ecosystem we also give a primer on hash rate, discuss the use of renewal energy associated with mining and discuss where in the technology curve the equipment associated with mining is.

Base Layer Episode 177: Andrew Steinwold from Sfermion on the world of NFT's Sep 30, 2020

Andrew, the Managing Partner at Sfermion, joins me for a comprehensive discussion on the entire world of NFT's and the "Metaverse". There has been a shift from all things DeFi to the world of NFT's where art and gaming is taking a whole new shape. For anyone trying to understand what is happening in this sub sector of Ethereum based platforms this is a must listen. Also check out Andrew's blog: https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/people/1809735-andrew-steinwold

Base Layer Episode 176: Alex Salnikov, Co-Founder of Rarible with a master class in NFT's Sep 28, 2020

Alex joins me on Base Layer for what I can describe as a master class in NFT's. What is an NFT and why is everyone talking about it? Alex answers that and much more and tells us what Rarible is; one of the best marketplaces today for this world of art, gaming and more intersecting. It allows people with no experience create NFT's and really experience this world. Must listen to episode!

Base Layer Episode 175: Tor Bair from Secret on privacy's role in our Digital lives Sep 25, 2020

Tor rejoins us on Base Layer to discuss Secret Network, the first blockchain to allow privacy-preserving smart contracts. That means applications built on Secret can utilize encrypted data without revealing it to anyone, even the nodes in the network. By supporting encrypted inputs, encrypted outputs, and encrypted state for smart contracts, Secret Network allows for new kinds of powerful decentralized applications to be built. This can unlock substantial value across multiple verticals and industries, including the following: 1) Decentralized Finance: support for privacy-preserving asset transfers, lending, and more; 2) Data Sharing: sharing and monetizing data while keeping it secure, 3) Machine Learning: discovering powerful insights while protecting underlying data; 4) Healthcare: allowing research over encrypted data, driving innovation; 5) Gaming: enabling more open and more usable gaming experiences.

Base Layer Episode 174: Rich Rosenblum from GSR on narratives in the digital asset market during the summer Sep 21, 2020

Rich joins me on Base Layer for a great conversation about some of the macro trends in Digital Assets throughout the summer; we discussed Bitcoin and spent a good amount of time on DeFi, what's happening in that world and the opportunity set. We discussed some of the solutions GSR provides investors such as growing the size of your balance sheet with customized yield enhancing strategies such as lending and call overwriting. Great overview and discussion from a team with years of experience from traditional markets that crossed the chasm to digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 173: Tegan Kline from The Graph on their role in Web3 becoming a reality Sep 17, 2020

Tegan joins me for a great episode of Base Layer to discuss all the things The Graph are working on. The Graph Network is core infrastructure for Web3—a necessary component for delivering decentralized applications with consumer-grade performance. The Graph is a decentralized protocol for indexing and querying data from blockchains, starting with Ethereum. We discuss the complexity of completely re-inventing the web as we know it using distributed & decentralized layers and busting some of the myths that have delayed dApp/Web3 development.

Base Layer Episode 172: Nodar Janashia, Co-Founder of Zapper on abstracting away the complexities of DeFi Sep 14, 2020

Nodar joins me on Base Layer to talk about his exciting project, Zapper which aims to increase the GDP of DeFi by abstracting the complexities of accessing unique opportunities faced by retail investors, fund managers and builders around the world. We had a detailed conversation about how current DeFi works, yield farming and all the nuisances involved to participate. Zapper is a project a lot of people are talking about because it connect a lot of the disparate pieces in DeFi in one location. Great episode and you'll learn a lot.

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EQUOS

Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurrency exchange to be listed in the US. That exchange, EQUOS, has been built to institutional standards, but is available to everyone. You can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum spot, as well as Bitcoin perpetuals, and get a 5% discount on all fees, by signing up using equos.com/baselayer

Base Layer Episode 171: Sam Kazemian, from co-founder of Everipedia to looking to revolutionize Stablecoins Sep 11, 2020

Sam joins me on Base Layer and it's a really interesting chat! From his days at Everipedia all the way to Frax we discuss a full body of work in Digital Assets. Frax is the first stablecoin with an end goal of fully algorithmic mechanism that seeks to achieve this goal by beginning fully collateralized and slowly removing the collateral through on-chain smart contracts as long as the price remains stable at $1. According to Sam and the the team the Frax Protocol is the first ever stablecoin to change collateralization ratios dynamically to achieve an algorithmic stablecoin. Must listen!

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EQUOS

Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurrency exchange to be listed in the US. That exchange, EQUOS, has been built to institutional standards, but is available to everyone. You can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum spot, as well as Bitcoin perpetuals, and get a 5% discount on all fees, by signing up using equos.com/baselayer

Base Layer Episode 170: Richard Byworth, CEO of Diginex on their future Nasdaq Listing & building Institutional grade Capital Markets Infrastructure Sep 09, 2020

Richard joins us on Base Layer for a great show! During the later part of a 17 year career at Nomura, Richard began to see the potentiality of Digital Assets and pursued multiple venues to participate, including being an investor in Diginex. He saw the institutional grade infrastructure they were building and their focus on Compliance, Trust and having the best security available for custody that even garnered the highest rating that the Ministry of Defense provides to security companies. We spent time discussing

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EQUOS

Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurrency exchange to be listed in the US. That exchange, EQUOS, has been built to institutional standards, but is available to everyone. You can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum spot, as well as Bitcoin perpetuals, and get a 5% discount on all fees, by signing up using equos.com/baselayer

Base Layer Episode 169: Camila Russo from The Defiant on the cold hard facts of DeFi Sep 02, 2020

Camila joins me on the show for one of the most truthful and sometimes raw takes on what's happening in DeFi. We talk about everything from yield farming and some of the blow up's that have happened to metrics we should be using to evaluate success. We discuss some possible ways that the DeFi community could self govern and what happens if that doesn't happen. This was one of my favorite conversations - unscripted, raw and getting to the nitty gritty on DeFi.

Base Layer Episode 168: Jed McCaleb & Denelle Dixon on Stellar and it's role in the Digital Assets ecosystem Aug 30, 2020

Jed and Denelle join us for a full review of Stellar; an open-source payments network that serves as a distributed intermediary blockchain for global financial systems and circulates a native asset, Stellar Lumens (XLM). Before co-founding Stellar, Jed also co-found Ripple -- he has been an integral part of Digital Assets for nearly a decade. Before joining Stellar's Foundation, Denelle spent 8 years at Mozilla and has years of experience in the legal and regulatory landscape. We had a detailed conversation about Stellar and Lumens role in an evolving Digital Asset ecosystem, including how the asset was built to assist in the creation of synthetics and compostable digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 167: Garry Tan from Initialized Capital on Paradigm shifts in Tech & Digital Assets role in a new world Aug 27, 2020

Garry Tan is a legend...end of story. Listen why here.

No seriously, Garry is a designer, engineer, and investor in early stage startups. Cofounder and managing partner of Initialized Capital, an early stage venture capital fund that was earliest in Coinbase and Instacart. They are a team of 6 investing partners with over $770M in assets under management and our startups have created more than $40 billion in market value in the past 8 years. They focus on pre-product-market-fit seed and seek to be the investor of record at that stage. We spoke about everything from investing in a covid world to Digital Assets, DAO's and much more.

Base Layer Episode 166: Nate Maddrey from Coin Metrics on the Rise of Stablecoins Aug 23, 2020

Nate joins us for a great conversation on the work he took part in to analyze the stablecoin market (report found here). In this podcast we discuss the rise of stablecoins, their purpose in digital assets, the velocity and growth of them in 2020 as a function of global economic issues and the rise of DeFi and much more. If you're learning about stablecoins or just want to make sure you're up to date on great analysis check this one out!

Base Layer Episode 165: Hart Lambur, Co-Founder at UMA; Can you create Synthetic Tokens that can Track Anything? Aug 20, 2020

Hart joins me on Base Layer to discuss his journey from Goldman to start his company, UMA which is designed to power the financial innovations made possible by permissionless, public blockchains, like Ethereum. Using concepts borrowed from fiat financial derivatives, UMA defines an open-source protocol that allows any two counterparties to design and create their own financial contracts. But unlike traditional derivatives, UMA contracts are secured with economic incentives alone, making them self-enforcing and universally accessible. We learn how this is done, what you can do with it and much more.

Base Layer Episode 164: Anton Bukov, Co-Founder of 1inch on what DEX aggregation is and it's importance in DeFi's explosion Aug 17, 2020

Anton joins me for a great episode of Base Layer as we learn all about 1inch after news of the $2.8M investment round closure with some significant investors in Digital Assets. For those unfamiliar, DEX's are Decentralized Exchanges vs what we call CEX's (Centralized: Coinbase, Kraken, etc). 1inch has recently surpassed the landmark figure of one billion USD! Real-time stats are available here: http://duneanalytics.com/1inch. We talk about how the team met and colloborated at hackathon's and put together the code for 1inch in ~48 hours (unreal!) 1inch is now a leading decentralized exchange aggregator that sources liquidity from various exchanges. Using smart contract technology to split a single trade transaction across multiple DEXs, they enable users to optimize and customize trades.

Base Layer Episode 163: Tom Trowbridge on transitioning from traditional finance to the early day of Hedera Hashgraph Aug 13, 2020

Tom Trowbridge is former President of Hedera Hashgraph, a public distributed ledger based on the Hashgraph consensus algorithm. Mr. Trowbridge has been advising and investing in technology companies since 1996. He started his career in 1996 as an investment banker in the telecom group at Bear Stearns & Co., and subsequently spent three and a half years at the telecom and media private equity firm Alta Communications, where he executed ten deals in technology, telecom, and media and served on two boards. Prior to Hedera, he started and ran the New York office for UK-based Odey Asset Management. Before Odey, he held various positions at Lombard Odier, Atticus Capital, and Goldman Sachs.

Base Layer Episode 162: Fernando Martinelli, CEO & Co-Founder of Balancer; is it an inverse ETF, what are Smart Pools & their role in DeFi Aug 10, 2020

Fernando joins me on Base Layer at such an amazing time in the growth of DeFi, where the total value locked (TVL) was $830M end of April 2020 to almost $5B as this podcast gets released. Balancer is a n-dimensional automated market-maker built on Ethereum so we learn what that means, what's being done via Balancer in platforms such as Smart Pools, what their native token BAL provides participants and how some out there believe Balancer eliminates "“impermanent loss". So much in this one -- check it out! For more about Balancer check out their blog here.

Base Layer Episode 161: Kain Warwick, Founder @ Synthetix on Aug 05, 2020

Kain joins me on Base Layer for an amazing chat about Synthetix: a decentralised synthetic asset issuance protocol built on Ethereum. These synthetic assets are collateralized by the Synthetix Network Token (SNX) which when locked in the contract enables the issuance of synthetic assets (Synths). The creation of synthetic assets is not new in the world of finance but the way Kain and his team have forged ahead with the creation of synths leveraging decentralized architecture and governance is highly innovative. For one of the fastest growing projects in Digital Assets in 2020 we learn a lot about what's under the hood here. Must listen!

Base Layer Episode 160: Jesse Powell, CEO & Co-Founder of Kraken on strategic vision, M&A in Digital Assets and what the future for Kraken may be Aug 03, 2020

Jesse joins me on Base Layer for an epic conversation from the Co-Founder and CEO of one of the biggest Digital Asset exchanges in the world. We discuss how it evolved and more importantly, what the future entails for Kraken in terms of retail v institutional, new tools coming out, etc. We also spend time talking about M&A as Kraken as been one of the most acquisitive companies in Digital Assets. Lastly we discuss what recent rules like what the OCC proclaimed about banks & custody throughout the US could do for pre-existing companies in this asset class.

Base Layer Episode 159: Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Socios & Chiliz on giving sports fans a way to participate in their favorite teams like never before Jul 29, 2020

Alex joins me on Base Layer for an amazing episode discussing Socios and Chiliz; Socios.com, powered by chiliZ ($CHZ), is a Fintech Platform for Fan Engagement & Fan Monetization of Sports teams. It is a Consumer-Facing product using blockchain technology. They have announced some major teams that have already announced partnerships: FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, West Ham, AS Roma, Atletico Madrid. We learn about Fan Token and what it enable fans to do such as voting on team jerseys, intro music and much more. We learn about some of the technology behind this and the relationship between Socios and CHZ; "Socios.com is powered by the Chiliz token ($CHZ), both an ERC20 utility token on the Ethereum blockchain and BEP-2 token on Binance Chain. Fan Tokens are specific to a team or a club, and are a finite, digital asset that provides access to an encrypted, immutable ledger of voting and membership rights ownership. Lastly we discuss something I think could be massive: Proof of Immunity; using this platform with a fans COVID-19 test to allow them entry into stadiums. MUST LISTEN.

Base Layer Episode 158: Robert Leshner, Founder of Compound on Yield Farming & making Digital Assets more productive Jul 27, 2020

Robert joins us on Base Layer for a great conversation to learn about everything Compound is doing. For those unaware, Compound it is a decentralized protocol which establishes money markets with algorithmically set interest rates based on supply and demand, allowing users to frictionlessly exchange the time value of Ethereum assets. We talk about a wide range of topics, starting more 101 for those unfamiliar with DeFi to more intricate discussions on a new narrative, yield farming. We also discuss Compound's role in a cambrian explosion in DeFi, growing from $830M in total value locked (TVL) at the end of April 2020 to over $3B today.

Base Layer Episode 156: Alex Leishman, Founder of River Financial on building one of the best new onramps to Bitcoin Jul 22, 2020

Alex joins us for a powerhouse episode to discuss the work he and his team have done to build River Financial, a premier Bitcoin financial institution. River's focus is on helping clients accumulate, sell, and manage their Bitcoin holdings. We discuss the UI/UX of competitors, why the focus is just on Bitcoin when other competitors are opening up to other Digital Assets, the "human touch/white glove" service they are getting renown for and much more.

Base Layer Episode 155: Max Boonen founder at B2C2 discusses going from Goldman to creating a dominant Digital Asset company Jul 20, 2020

Max joins me on Base Layer to discuss what he and his team have built at B2C2; a leading cryptocurrency market maker. Brokers, banks, exchanges, hedge funds and family offices around the world have begun to trust B2C2 to deliver seamless execution in the major cryptocurrencies and fiat currency pairs. Max came from Goldman where he was a Trader on the Global Liquidity Products desk as well as a Swaps trader on the Interest Rates Products desk. He discusses the reason why he left and why so many others in the traditional Institutional side have over the years to pursue Digital Assets. We learn about some of the trends Max and his team are seeing from their unique perspective.

Base Layer Episode 154: Michael Shaulov, Co-Founder of Fireblocks on building security solutions in the Digital Asset landscape Jul 17, 2020

Michael joins us on Base Layer for a very timely conversation about the maturing security solutions Fireblocks is creating in the Digital Asset ecosystem. From his days at Check Point Software Technologies to Fireblocks, we discuss what his company is working on: an enterprise-grade platform for financial institutions that need to streamline digital asset operations – without sacrificing security. They help financial organizations and other enterprise customers that trade and handle blockchain based assets to move them without being hacked. Their product allows clients to set up a secure network of all their accounts and counterparties to transfer cryptocurrencies or other tokenized assets at a click of a button, while meeting enterprise-grade security and regulatory requirements.

Base Layer Episode 153: Corey Petty from Status on striving to be a secure communication tool that upholds human rights. Jul 15, 2020

Corey joins me on Base Layer to discuss Status which has a mission to "to be a secure communication tool that upholds human rights. Designed to enable the free flow of information, protect the right to private, secure conversations, and promote the sovereignty of individuals." We also discuss "Waku" which is their peer-to-peer (p2p) messaging protocol that removes centralized choke points from your messages. By removing centralized third parties, your messages are your own and more private and secure. We learn how this is different than some P2P messaging platforms like Telegram. We also discuss secure browsing: "When browsing Web3, end user data and browsing information is not accessible by any third parties without consent. Any transactions made while using the Status browser implement the same security standards and best practices used in the Status wallet." In relation to Brave we had a great chat here.

Base Layer Episode 152: Dave Hendricks, CEO of Vertalo on the state of tokenizing the world & the future of Digital Assets Jul 08, 2020

Dave Hendricks, the CEO of Vertalo stops by Base Layer to discuss the work they are doing to better optimize cap tables, help tokenize assets such as real estate and give us a overview of the state of the state of "tokenizing the world" - there's a tremendous amount of infrastructure needed to get that done and Dave gives a thorough overview of where we are in this.

Base Layer Episode 151: Mati Greenspan from Quantum Economics discusses USD as reserve currency, CBCD's, Bitcoin and COVID Jul 06, 2020

Mati, formerly the Senior Market Analyst at eToro joins me on Base Layer to talk about a multitude of issues in the global markets right now. First, based on some questions from Institutional Investors we discussed USD as reserve currency and if there any issues with that with that in the future. We also discuss role of CBCD's right now like China's DCEP; do they infringe on Bitcoin and other Digital Assets or do they promote their use? We rounded it out with thoughts on how COVID is affecting the market/s around the world. Unreal thoughts from Mati...not to be missed!

Base Layer Episode 150: Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO & Co-Founder at FalconX discusses "State of the Union" in Institutional Digital Asset trading Jul 01, 2020

Raghu joins me on Base Layer and it's a fantastic overview of the infrastructure of the capital markets in Digital Assets. Raghu tells a story of his beginnings which include being brought in by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet to help with Chrome OS and more. He then found his way into Digital Assets and experienced the pitfalls of Digital Asset market fragmentation firsthand while trading his own strategies. His new team identified market structure issues including complex inventory management, price discovery, and unreliable market data. You learn how they are doing what they are doing, the different aspects like Prime Brokerage, Lending and the maturation of Digital Asset capital markets. So much to learn here!

Base Layer Episode 149: Alex Wilson from the Giving Block on raising millions for non-profits with Bitcoin Jun 26, 2020

Alex, the Co-Founder of The Giving Block joins me for a special Base Layer. The Giving Block was founded in 2018 after seeing hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin being donated to the few nonprofits that were equipped to accept those donations. Early investors in Digital Assets have done very well for themselves, but a question loomed: how could they donate digital assets to help those in need? Because the IRS treats cryptocurrency as property, these investors had a huge tax incentive to donate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies directly to nonprofits, but were nonprofits ready, willing and able to take those donations? A great conversation about the complexity and size of charitable donations of Digital Assets with Alex.

Base Layer Episode 148: Muneeb Ali from Blockstack and Steve Kokinos from Algorand join to discuss their joint project "Clarity" Jun 24, 2020

Muneeb and Steve join me back on Base Layer to talk about a big joint venture. Blockstack and Algorand, have jointly announced an independent open-source project to support a first-of-its-kind smart contract language, Clarity. Recognizing the need for smart contract languages that are more safe, secure, and predictable in order to mature the industry beyond its current state, teams run by Blockstack Founder Dr. Muneeb Ali, a Princeton Ph.D in computer science, and Algorand Founder Dr. Silvio Micali, a computer science professor at MIT, will collaborate on Clarity design and development. We talk about the why, what and how and dig deeper into how Clarity uses a "decidable" language, meaning, according to the team, developers can know, with mathematical certainty, what a program will and will not do ahead of time. This shift addresses a key obstacle currently preventing large-scale, serious use in their opinion.

Base Layer Episode 147: Josh Wolfe (Lux Capital) on learning from history, Robotics/AR post COVID, Digital Assets & more Jun 22, 2020

Josh Wolfe, co-founder Lux Capital which is one of the most inspiring venture capitalists firms supporting scientists and entrepreneurs who "pursue counter-conventional solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time" came on my show and it was an absolute honor! Josh and I have a similar upbringing which drives us in different ways and having him talk about his drive & inspiration was amazing. We talk about all the work being done at Lux to make this world a better place for our kids and their future kids. One for the ages!

Base Layer Episode 146: Jenny Q Ta discussing transition from traditional finance to Digital Assets & her new venture Coinlinked Jun 18, 2020

Jenny Q. Ta joins me on Base Layer for a great conversation! Jenny is a seasoned entrepreneur with two highly successful early ventures to her credit. As Founder and CEO of Titan Securities, a full-service broker-dealer and investment banking firm, Prior to that venture, Jenny had filled the role of Founder, CEO, and driving force behind Vantage Investments, another full-service broker-dealer and investment banking firm that she started while still in her twenties and quickly grew to a-third-of-a-billion dollars in assets. We discuss her new venture, Coinlinked which is an online social commerce platform powered by a decentralized Blockchain solution to connect the traditional marketplaces of today with the digital assets of tomorrow. This powerful platform provides a brand-new concept in crypto-marketplace for users and consumers to purchase any product from any website in the world paying with digital assets like Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) or stablecoins such as Tether ($USDT).

Base Layer Episode 145: Adam Jackson, Founder & CEO of Braintrust: From founder of one of the first Telemedicine co's to helping reinvent talent networks Jun 17, 2020

Adam joins me on the show to delve into his very successful past, from co-founding Doctor on Demand which ushered in a whole new world of telemedicine to looking at talent networks like Toptal & Upwork and applying distributed & decentralized architecture to truly empower those in the network in Braintrust Network. We discuss the intricacies of how Braintrust is empowering this new network that just came out of stealth and the parts that are needed to make it work, like a reputation system. Such an interesting chat and a new company to keep an eye on!

Base Layer Episode 144: Jesse Proudman from Strix Leviathan Jun 16, 2020

Jesse from Strix Leviathan joins me for a great conversation about the use of technology and systematic approaches to in investing in digital assets. Jesse has over 20 years of experience as a technical entrepreneur. Prior to Strix Leviathan, Jesse founded Blue Box, a cloud computing startup. Jesse raised $22M in venture capital for Blue Box and subsequently sold the company to IBM where Jesse was named as an IBM Distinguished Engineer. At IBM, Jesse spent time researching blockchain and digital assets. Jesse is an active member of the Seattle startup community.

Base Layer Episode 143: Jeff Morris Jr (ChapterOne) drops in to talk about his predictions on Face ID post COVID, Student Debt, Social 2.0 with Face Checking, Bitcoin and more Jun 15, 2020

Jeff joins the show and my goodness is it a good one! Every year Jeff releases about 10 "predictions" in tech that based off his vast experience he feels are close to coming and without fail he has been spot on. We talk about his 2020 predictions which have included the rise of Face ID and biometrics esp in a post COVID/contactless world, Student Debt and the rise of anger among parents and students that are locked out of school and paying hundreds of thousands for MOOC's, Web 2.0 and the recent "fact checking" debate, WFH and how long that may last and lastly, Bitcoin, and it's role and maturation. This is too good not to share!

Base Layer Episode 142 with Cody Willard Jun 12, 2020

Cody Willard, Hedge Fund Manager and writer, joins me on Base Layer to discuss the equity markets and Digital Asset Landscape. His analysis has been featured on CBS News, ABC’s 20/20, in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine and many other places. We discuss the recent Robinhood phenomenon in which retail traders have picked up shares of companies like Hertz and outperformed legendary investors like Icahn and Buffett. We also discuss about the Fed's intervention and printing - how this effects Bitcoin and digital assets. Must listen!

Base Layer Episode 142: CEO of Atari, Fred Chesnais on bringing Atari back from bankruptcy: new vision, new console & their new Litecoin partnership May 27, 2020

The CEO of Atari, Fred Chesnais joins me on Base Layer for an amazing episode from such an iconic brand that inspired me and many others into the world of technology. We discuss Fred and Atari's past - the hard work bringing it back from the brinks of bankruptcy and the new visions he has for it's growth. We discuss the recent news of their partnership with Litecoin and their new console that aims to ship out later this year. Don't miss this!

Base Layer Episode 141: Andy Edstrom on A Century of Debt, Inflation Storms and Bitcoin's role May 22, 2020

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and a member of the investment committee at WESCAP Group, where he manages wealth and provides financial advice to clients.Andy is the author of the book Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on regulation of the Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist.Before joining WESCAP Group, Andy was a professional investor at a private equity fund and a hedge fund. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs.

Base Layer Episode 141: Andy Edstrom on A Century of Debt, the Gathering Inflation Storm & Bitcoin's role May 22, 2020

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and a member of the investment committee at WESCAP Group, where he manages wealth and provides financial advice to clients.Andy is the author of the book Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on regulation of the Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist.Before joining WESCAP Group, Andy was a professional investor at a private equity fund and a hedge fund. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs.

Base Layer Episode 141: Andy Edstrom on A Century of Debt, the Gathering Inflation Storm & Bitcoin's role May 22, 2020

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and a member of the investment committee at WESCAP Group, where he manages wealth and provides financial advice to clients.Andy is the author of the book Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on regulation of the Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist.Before joining WESCAP Group, Andy was a professional investor at a private equity fund and a hedge fund. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs.

Base Layer Episode 140: Jeff Booth on Technology being Deflationary, Global Inequality, Central Bankers response to COVID, Bitcoin and more May 20, 2020

Jeff joins me for an amazing chat that covers a wide array of topics. Jeff is the co-founder of BuildDirect, an online marketplace for heavyweight home improvement products that connects buyers with sellers. He has been at the forefront of technology for over 20 years since the dot-com era. Jeff also wrote an amazing book: "The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future. In a sweeping analysis that draws upon economics, science, innovation, politics, psychology, sociology, and business, Jeff offers an intriguing thesis predicated on the deflationary impact of technological advances. We also spend time discussing COVID-19 and the central bankers response and a very strong case for review of Bitcoin.

Base Layer Episode 138: Yan Pritzker from Swan Bitcoin discusses his book "Inventing Bitcoin" & working on a new onramp to Bitcoin May 18, 2020

Yan joins us to discuss his great book "Inventing Bitcoin" which friend of the show Nic Carter from Castle Island Ventures was quoted as saying: "Having read virtually every Bitcoin explainer, I believe it’s the best from-scratch introduction to Bitcoin, requiring no prior knowledge at all." We also discuss his work at Swan Bitcoin which allows weekly, paycheck, or monthly savings options steadily converting your dollars to Bitcoin savings. According to data provided by Swan Bitcoin, Dollars have lost 90% of their purchasing power since 1950 as central bankers printed more of them. According to Yan and the team: "Bitcoin’s fixed supply makes it the best way to save your money."

Base Layer Episode 137: Adam Pokornicky, COO of DAIM: What has delayed Wall Street from reviewing Bitcoin, the importance of Paul Tudor Jones & Bitcoin and more May 14, 2020

Adam joins me on Base Layer for a straight up fire episode of Base Layer! Adam has spent years in the traditional finance world and has a wealth of experience seeing the sausage made in '08-'09 and throughout. We talk about why PM's/Analysts in Wall Street haven't reviewed Bitcoin to date and why Paul Tudor Jones public announcement and investor letter is about to change all that. We talk about the role of Bitcoin in a professional portfolio when public pensions are underperforming and so much more.

Base Layer Episode 136: Kosala Hemachandra & Brian Norton from MEW May 13, 2020

Kosala Hemachandra & Brian Norton from MEW joins Base Layer for a great chat. MEW offers a nexus point for transacting in the Ethereum ecosystem, providing unprecedented access, a secure wallet, and comprehensive education that allows anyone to quickly take advantage of all the benefits of crypto has to offer since 2015. Kosala built the first version of MEW just weeks after Ethereum’s launch in 2015 to help non-coders gain access to Ethereum at a time when only command line code instructions were available, making it difficult even for seasoned developers to transact in ETH. Since then, MEW has continued a steady stream of updates to its web and mobile versions, allowing users to buy, sell, and swap ETH and ERC20s, as well as participate in DeFi and use Dapps built on the Ethereum ecosystem. In March 2020, released MEW wallet, a full-featured mobile wallet app for Samsung, Android, and iPhone with all the features of MEW online accessible by phone.

Base Layer Episode 135: Brian Kelly (BKCM) on the Global Macro backdrop, States Reopening, the role of Bitcoin & Digital Assets in Portfolio's and more May 11, 2020

Brian Kelly joins me on Base Layer for a great, comprehensive chat about the global macro investing backdrop and the role Bitcoin and Digital Assets play in modern day, post COVID-19 portfolio construction. Brian, as many know him, has been a trader for ~30 years and has experienced many of the downturns markets have gone through. He is frequently on CNBC discussing the market and digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 134 - Tyrone Ross from Altruist: How Financial Advisors can & will review Bitcoin & Digital Assets, how FA's roles have changed and more May 05, 2020

Tyrone Ross Jr, Director of Community at Altruist and Financial Consultant with 401 comes to Base Layer and it's epic. Tyrone is an incredibly lively and passionate person who I've become friends with; we discuss how Gen Z's are changing the Financial Advisor role, how COVID is changing risk & portfolio's and most importantly how and when Bitcoin will be (or not be) adopted by Financial Advisors -- hint: Tyrone drops some news on the episode!

Base Layer Episode 133 - Michael Anderson, Framework Ventures: DeFi becoming $3B Industry by end of 2020 & how they invest in it May 03, 2020

Michael joins us on Base Layer from Framework Ventures; venture capital fund Framework Ventures is investing heavily in the decentralized finance industry, also known as DeFi. The San Francisco-based firm believes that the industry is going to become a $3 billion-plus industry shortly, and will bring major financial institutions on board. The firm was built by Michael Anderson, 29, who grew up in the Bay area, and has spent his career working for major tech companies such as Dropbox and Snapchat, along with his co-founder, Vance Spencer, 28, who’s worked for Netflix.

Base Layer Episode 132 - Piers Ridyard, CEO of Radix: On Cerberus, a sharded Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) solution and more Apr 30, 2020

Piers joins us on Base Layer to give a full rundown on Radix and Cerberus, a sharded Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) solution to the state machine replication (SMR) problem. While classical SMR protocols ensure global ordering of commands, Cerberus introducesa partial ordering regime that enables a novel state sharding approach. With this approach, the consensus process for commands may be massively and safely parallelized across many nodes while retaining optimistic responsiveness and linear message complexity. Cerberus is designed as a suitable core for Radix, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform intended for a variety of deployments including global-scale decentralized public networks.

Base Layer Episode 131 - Dion Rabouin from Axios: How COVID-19 is affecting Farmers, Dissecting Bankrate Data, Oil and more. Apr 29, 2020

Dion joins me on Base Layer to discuss the many narratives affecting our markets and society today.Dion Rabouin is the Axios Markets Editor and author of the Axios Markets newsletter. Prior to Axios, Dion was the anchor of Yahoo Finance's "Midday Movers" and a global financial reporter, coving the bond, equity, and currency markets. He previously covered Treasuries, FX, and emerging markets for Reuters. He is also a regular contributor to Marketplace, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox Business and more.

Base Layer Episode 130: Stephanie Link from TIAA Investments Discusses Big Market Narratives like Re-Opening, Curve of Recovery, Oil and more. Apr 26, 2020

Stephanie Link, known for her regular appearances on CNBC joins us on Base Layer to talk about the multitude of macro issues affecting the broad based markets today. Stephanie is a managing director and head of active equities research for TIAA Investments. Prior to joining TIAA Investments in 2016, she spent 7 years at The Street as Chief Investment Officer and was the co-portfolio manager and director of Research of Action Alerts Plus, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust. She was responsible for all premium content at The Street and the daily management of the charitable trust which included macro strategy, portfolio construction and stock selection. Prior to this role, she spent 10 years at Prudential Equity Group as managing director of institutional sales and as director of research. Stephanie began her career at Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. in the institutional sales department.

Base Layer Episode 129 - Billy Bailey (Saltstone Capital Management) Apr 23, 2020

Billy joins us for an epic conversation about the oil markets and breaks down the last few weeks of unprecedented activity.Billy spent over six years analyzing energy companies and commodities for the legendary late T. Boone Pickens’ investment manager, BP Capital. Prior to founding Saltstone, he served as Portfolio Manager & Senior Research Analyst for the private hedge fund and the BP Capital fund advisors family of mutual funds. We discuss oil prices going negative, Russian and Saudi's in a Oil "Cold War" and what potential cascading effects in the market this could all take.

Base Layer Episode 128: Thibaud Favre, CEO of Fairmint on the Continuous Securities Offering & a new model for Founders and Investors Apr 20, 2020

Thibauld Favre joins us on Base Layer to discuss Fairmint and the CSO; what it means for Founders and Investors. A Continuous Securities Offering (CSO) is a new, updated way for companies to raise funding. The CSO democratizes investing and modernizes it for the digital era. It expands the pool of potential investors, allowing all stakeholders — not just a small group of privileged, wealthy investors — to share in the value created by a company’s success.

Base Layer Episode 127: Nick Neuman & Jameson Lopp discussing Key Management, Bitcoin for Institutional Investors, the Halving and more. Apr 15, 2020

What a show! Nick Neuman, CEO of Casa Inc and the legendary OG Jameson Lopp, CTO at Casa, join Base Layer to discuss the innovations they are working on for key management of Bitcoin, some of the historical issues that have hindered the adoption of Bitcoin ownership and topics such as the halving as it relates to the macro discussions around the asset. Not to miss!

Base Layer Episode 126 CEO of LGO, Hugo Renaudin: what has been learned from working with Institutional Investors around the world, "Black Thursday" and European vs American views on Digital Assets Apr 13, 2020

Hugo Renaudin, the CEO of LGO, a leading digital asset exchange that works with over 40 Institutional Investors around 15 countries, comes on to discuss the problems they are working to address in digital assets, how COVID-19 has been impacting review of Bitcoin and other digital assets, "Black Thursday" and what lessons were learned and much more.

Base Layer Episode 125 - Mike Maples Jr (Floodgate) Apr 08, 2020

The legendary investor Mike Maples Jr joins me on Base Layer. Some of Mike’s investments include being one of the first investors in Twitter & Twitch.tv as well as early investor in Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Okta, and Demandforce. Mike comes on to talk about a whole spectrum of issues relating to pre and post COVID19 world as it relates to venture investing; we also talk extensively about Bitcoin and its role in a world where governments are flooded the economy with liquidity. This is a very special episode and one to send around!

Base Layer Episode 124 - Reuben Yap (Zcoin) Apr 03, 2020

Reuben joins me on Base Layer and we discuss privacy in the time of corona: how is contact tracking, surveillance of those under quarantine, and even the proposed digital dollar impacting privacy? Is the trade-off of individual privacy worthwhile for greater good? How COVID-19 is affecting crypto - While the Feds are "printing money" and considering a “digital dollar” stimulus package, what's happening in crypto? How his life changed due to COVID-19. Reuben's wife is a doctor working at the state hospital, closed down his Airbnb due to a ban on tourists, and closed his Aikido dojo. Has been self-quarantined for some time now. Additionally we discuss what's new with Zcoin: latest developments such as their new wallet, Lelantus protocol, and Elysium tokenization platform.

Base Layer Episode 123 - Marco Streng (Genesis Group) Mar 31, 2020

Marco joins us on Base Layer and it's a great episode! He started Genesis Group 7 years ago to focus on Bitcoin mining and has seen the evolution through very unique perspective. We discuss some big topics including the recent hash rate decline and why that happened (and provide some great analogies for people to understand it) and also discussed the halving which is happening in about 40 days; what the implications are for the entire space. We also discussed COVID19 and Bitcoin and what it means to be working in this industry during a global pandemic.

Base Layer Episode 122 - Rene Reinsberg (Celo) Mar 30, 2020

Rene, the co-founder of Celo joins me on Base Layer to discuss a multitude of topics including: plans to create finance solutions for the 5.6 billion smartphone owners around the world; the importance of Celo to be utilized for cross border payments and the Alliance for Prosperity and how it’s different from Libra. We also had a significant conversation about how the digital dollar can be used to distribute the government’s stimulus and the effect that COVID-19 is having on Celo.

Base Layer Episode 121 - Dan Tapiero (DTAP Capital) Mar 25, 2020

Dan joins us on Base Layer to give an amazing overview of the global macro environment as it relates to COVID-19, $2T economic packages, $1T in daily repo markets, Bitcoin, Gold and much more. Dan is a veteran Global Macro investor and a co-founder of GBI. In his 20 year career, he has worked as a portfolio manager and analyst with a number of well-known investors such as Stan Druckenmiller (Duquesne Capital), Michael Steinhardt (Steinhardt Capital), Julian Robertson (Tiger Management), Steve Cohen (SAC Capital), and Lord Rothschild (RIT Capital). Dan shares his thoughts daily on Twitter @DTAPCAP

Base Layer Episode 120 - Mark Yusko (Morgan Creek) Mar 12, 2020

An incredibly important episode with Mark Yusko, CEO and CIO at Morgan Creek about the current macro market landscape on what has shown to be a historic day. With the VIX near 2008 levels, with WTI around $30/barrel, with new travel restrictions and a global pandemic causing havoc on the supply chains of the world and now the demand side, this is stuff you'll be reading about in textbooks in a decade. Listen & pay attention.

Base Layer Episode 119 - Catherine Coley (Binance US) Mar 11, 2020

The amazing Catherine Coley joins me on Base Layer to discuss the move from traditional finance, being on an fx trading desk and seeing the carnage in traditional markets, and relating it to the growth of digital assets. We also talk about International Women's Month, her experience as a woman and CEO and the work we all need to do to exponentially increase the financial inclusion of others into digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 118 - Matt Luongo (Thesis) Mar 06, 2020

Matt joins me back on Base Layer to do a thorough explanation of tBTC. The goal of TBTC is to create a trustless system for using Bitcoin on Ethereum-based systems and could be seen as critical infrastructure for the success of the broader ecosystem. The goal of tBTC is the creation an ERC-20 token that maintains the most important property of Bitcoin — its status as “hard money” … The ability to trade scrip for its backing deposit freely is what distinguishes a backed currency from fiat money. The supply of tBTC is always backed by an equal number of reserved BTC. This means for every token in circulation, 1 BTC has been removed from circulation.” This is such an interesting project - one to listen to!

Base Layer Episode 117 - Rebecca Rettig (Fisher Broyles) Mar 04, 2020

Rebecca joins me on Base Layer for one of my first discussions on the legal landscape of digital assets. We discuss a range of current cases and issues revolving around Ripple, Telegram and Kik. We also discuss the recent issues with the Wilshire ETF proposal which was denied by the SEC and the ongoing case surrounding Ifinex / Tether. Rebecca is an amazing practitioner and someone who I've had speak on legal issues in digital assets at my FO256 summits prior. Not to be missed!

Base Layer Episode 116 - Dan Gunsberg (HXRO) Mar 02, 2020

Dan from HXRO joins Base Layer and it's a great one! Hxro is a cryptocurrency platform that offers perpetual, time-based digital derivatives products. Hxro offers a simplified way to interact with the market, giving traders an alternative way to express a view on price, hedge risk and trade digital assets. Hxro has taken inspiration from legacy financial markets and merged it with social gaming layers to provide users with an innovative alternative to trading crypto assets. One of Hxro’s unique attributes is that its core products are parimutuel - a system that aggregates all positions into a liquidity pool with in-the-money positions sharing the pool at expiration. This creates a new dimension of fairness and payoff possibilities for our user base. Check it out and pass it around!

Base Layer Episode 114 - Evan Kuo (Ampleforth) Feb 26, 2020

Evan joins us to discuss Ampleforth and the Ample; the Ample is a commodity-money, like Bitcoin or gold, but with near-perfect supply elasticity, like fiat. It is the first sound money with elastic supply. Evan discusses their opinion that scarce commodity-monies like gold and silver are naturally fair and independent. They are immune to runaway inflation, but cannot efficiently respond to changes in demand—making them vulnerable to economic shocks and runaway deflation. To address this shortcoming, the project's founders designed a synthetic commodity-money that propagates price-information into supply, much like how thermal expansion propagates nearby kinetic energy into a material’s volume in the natural world.

Base Layer Episode 113 - Sam Bankman Fried (FTX) Feb 24, 2020

Sam joins us on Base Layer to tell us what FTX is and why many people are talking about it. A piece of news that came out after the show recording was that FTX was in the middle of a raise at unicorn status valuation, so for those trying to understand more about FTX and what it does this is a good initial primer. We talk about their three tiered liquidation model, how it's similar in some ways to the '08-'09 financial crisis idea of a "bad bank", we talk about the "Trump token" and how this new market on FTX is different than prediction markets like Augur and much more.

Base Layer Episode 112 - Simon Chamorro (Valiu) Feb 21, 2020

Simon joins us on Base Layer to discuss the very important work he and Valiu are doing creating opportunities for people to send and receive money internationally, especially in areas hit by hyperinflation like Venezuela. A lot of people talk about Bitcoin and crypto in Venezuela but executing effective platforms to really help haven't been seen, until now. Their goal is to build trust with their customers through a simple and transparent remittances platform designed for their customer’s financial needs. Utilizing a blockchain platform and an expansive network of locations for customers to deposit and receive cash, Valiu is disrupting the international currency transfer market in Latin America. This is one to definitely listen in to!

Base Layer Episode 111 - Muneeb Ali (Blockstack) Feb 19, 2020

Muneeb comes back to Base Layer to talk all about version 2.0 of Blockstack's Stacks blockchain coming out because there's a significant change: miners on the network will need to post BTC to mine a block. That BTC will then get shared with nodes maintaining a copy of the ledger. Muneeb and I talk about how the team acknowledges bitcoin as the most secure blockchain in the world and why. Come listen and learn all about Proof of Transfer and what the implications are.

Base Layer Episode 110 - Jack O'Holleran (Skale) Feb 17, 2020

What an episode with Jack from Skale! The SKALE Network has been designed with the goal of resolving the technical scalability, user experience, and cost issues affiliated with decentralized networks such as Ethereum. We discuss transactions per second and the appropriate measures for evaluating throughput; we talk technicals in terms of using side chains, sharding and much more. We talk about the 35 dApp's in their Innovator program, from DeFi to real estate and much in between. And in terms of important news we talk about this headline: "Blockchain scaling network SKALE chosen as launch partner for ConsenSys Codefi's Activate token platform", why that happened and the implications for Skale. Amazing episode!

Base Layer Episode 109 - Leighton Cusack (PoolTogether) Feb 14, 2020

Leighton joins Base Layer to discuss one of the most talked about projects, PoolTogether which is a no loss lottery built on Ethereum. Their mission is to create financial security by offering a healthy alternative to lotteries. PoolTogether is based on the proven concept known as “No Loss Lotteries” or “Prize Linked Savings Accounts”. These products have been shown to divert money from traditional lotteries and increase savings. We talk about how this all works, from using smart contracts to stablecoins and the dramatic growth Leighton and the PoolTogether team have seen in the last few months.

Base Layer Episode 108 - Loi Luu (Kyber Network) Feb 11, 2020

Loi joins us on Base Layer for a full breakdown on Kyber Network and it's a really good one! Kyber is an on-chain liquidity protocol that aggregates liquidity from a wide range of reserves, powering instant and secure token exchange in any decentralized application. We make some analogies to traditional finance like the power of what Bloomberg Terminals would provide, we talk a lot about atomicity, wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and a host of other narratives. Not one to miss!

Base Layer Episode 107 - Joe Lallouz (Bison Trails) Feb 10, 2020

Joe joins us on Base Layer and it's an amazing episode which highlights how important I think Bison Trails is in the overall development and maturation of digital assets and distributed & decentralized platforms. Joe talks about his past before BT and then we launch into how they are creating an interoperability platform that allows one to plug & plug different protocols for file storage, video, search and much more into a more unified operator. We talk about how Bison Trails is also working to minimize slashing of stake in PoS systems and their work with Libra. Don't miss this and pass it around!!

Base Layer Episode 106 - Jeremy Allaire (Circle) Feb 05, 2020

Jeremy joins us on Base Layer and it's a great conversation about everything from his early days in technology and seeing the diffusion of innovation and the curve of adoption; we talk about Web 1.0 to Web 3.0, about stablecoins and USDC, his work with policy makers and politicians to educate them on digital assets, especially during the Libra testimony and so much more.

Base Layer Episode 105 - Kevin Sekniqi (Ava Labs) Feb 03, 2020

Kevin joins us on Base Layer to give us a great breakdown on Ava Labs! AVA's mission is to democratize financial markets and bridges all blockchain platforms together into one interoperable ecosystem; they provide the ability to build your own custom blockchains or to digitize any assets with arbitrarily complex rulesets. Kevin discusses the different consensus algo's from Nakamoto, Classical to Avalanche, their own consensus algo. They tout the ability to get to 5000 transactions per second (TPS) so we discuss how, the use of DAG's and how they could fit in the climate focused investors toolkit these days.

Base Layer Episode 104 - Stani Kulechov (Aave) Jan 29, 2020

Stani joins us on Base Layer to discuss Aave - a project that everyone seems to be talking about right now. Aave is an Open Source and Non-Custodial protocol to earn interest on deposits & borrow assets and has emerged in the DeFi space as a player. We discuss this move from matching lenders & borrowers in digital assets to pooling assets; we discuss the collateral and different digital asset Aave is working with. More importantly we also discuss the underwriting of those different digital assets, the scoring methodologies and why they are working with Chainlink with their smart contract and oracles who main the lending pools. So much in this one...

Base Layer Episode 103 - Jalak Jobanputra (Future Perfect Ventures) Jan 27, 2020

Jalak joins us on Base Layer and it's an amazing discussion with an investor who has been active in the digital asset/blockchain world for over 6 years. We discuss the changing narratives from the early days to now, the geographic niche's of certain projects like Bitpesa vs what it takes for global adoption, Libra and DCEP as big stories of 2019 and the work she's doing with local politicians in NYC to make a "public Venmo" and much more.

Base Layer Episode 102 - Alex Gluchowski (Matter Labs) Jan 22, 2020

Alex joins us on Base Layer to talk more about zero knowledge proofs and what they are doing at Matter Labs. Initially found by a tweet from Ari @ BlockTower, Matter Labs recently revealed their vision for ZK Sync: a trustless scaling and privacy solution for Ethereum based on ZK Rollup". We discussed that in heavy detail, including tx receipts but also addressed Matter Labs mission which they discussed in their blog: "A successful solution to the scaling problem in public blockchains is not only a matter of high transaction throughput. It must also be defined as the ability of the system to meet the demands of millions of users without sacrificing decentralization. The prerequisites of mass crypto adoption include high speed, low cost, smooth UX, and privacy." All this and more with Alex from Matter Labs.

Base Layer Episode 101 - Zhuoxun Yin (dydx) Jan 20, 2020

Zhuoxun joins us on Base Layer to tell us all about dydx. dydx is building a decentralized exchange for margin trading and eventually derivatives. With dYdX users can trade, borrow, and lend any supported asset. dYdX is powered by smart contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain, which eliminates the need to trust a central exchange while trading. We discuss the overall maturation of DEX's and also spend time discussing how smart contracts & oracles factor in this very exciting aspect of DeFi. Capital markets are also maturing in digital assets; powerful financial products like margin and derivatives are essential. They empower traders to better manage risk, more efficiently allocate capital, and express more complex opinions on price and volatility.

Base Layer Episode 100 - Bart Stephens (Blockchain Capital) Jan 15, 2020

Bart joins us for the 100th episode of Base Layer and it's truly an amazing conversation to listen to. Bart has a storied career following early stage technology and he talks about how he and his brother, both gamers, found themselves in Bitcoin and blockchains about 7 years ago. Via their family office they wanted to invest via funds that were following the technology but when they couldn't find the right one they started Blockchain Capital. After 80+ investments in the space we had a detailed conversation about the change in narratives, the technology, the people coming in, valuation and much more. Also we discussed Blockchain Capital's 2020 predictions which include the beginnings of what could be some sizable M&A. The predictions can be found here

Base Layer Episode 099 - Alan Curtis (Radar) Jan 12, 2020

Alan joins us on Base Layer to give us a great in-depth overview of the happenings at Radar; going from Relay which the team believes is the most secure way to trade ERC20 tokens directly from your Ethereum wallet; to Ion and Redshift which allows users to trustlessly swap assets between chains to Deploy which the team says is the easiest way to spin up and maintain blockchain infrastructure so you can ship faster with less. This was a great chat about the entire ecosystem Radar and the team are working on and you'll learn a lot!

Base Layer Episode 098 - Angela Dalton (Signum Growth Capital) Jan 09, 2020

Angela joins us on Base Layer today and it's one not to miss! We talk a lot about gaming, esports and this thesis about how over 2B people who play games could be the next wave of adopters of digital assets. We discuss the current state of the state of blockchain games, what they are working to build and why it's an important narrative.

Base Layer Episode 097 - Sergey Nazarov (Chainlink) & Tom Gonser (Docusign) Jan 06, 2020

What a show! The founder of Docusign, Tom Gonser, joins Sergey Nazarov for a follow up to our podcast about 2 months ago to further discuss smart contracts, the oracle problem and how Chainlink is addressing it, how enterprises large and small are looking at distributed & decentralized networks and so much more. This is a very special show - hearing from Tom who is an Advisor to Chainlink was amazing.

Base Layer Episode 096 - Harry Sudock (Griid) Dec 30, 2019

Harry joins us on Base Layer for a fun and interesting conversation about everything relating to Bitcoin mining and the work they are doing at Griid; we talk about next generation equipment, valuation and modeling, energy consumption and prices and most importantly the Bitcoin halving and what effect it could have on the mining community.

Base Layer Episode 095 - Eli Ben Sasson & Uri Kolodny (Starkware) Dec 23, 2019

A great episode with Eli and Uri from Starkware! This is a special project focusing on cryptographic proofs using zero-knowledge, succinct, transparent and post-quantum secure processes. We had a really interesting conversation about zk's -- furthering helping listeners understand their impact. We also discussed quantum -- in light of Google's recent announcement - the cause and effect of quantum on encryption in blockchains. Lastly we discussed StarkPay vs Lightning. Must listen!

Base Layer Episode 094 - Max Demyan & Vadym Nesterenko (Geo Protocol) Dec 18, 2019

Max and Vadym join us from Geo Protocol who's mission is to empower the Internet of Value by creating a universal value transfer ecosystem. GEO Protocol is an open-source base layer protocol for cost-efficient, lightweight and infinitely scalable value transfer, merging blockchain and traditional finance worlds together. We talked about this notion of merging blockchain based assets with non-blockchain based assets, atomic swaps and this ability to coordinate among different exchanges in a new way without a lot of the friction from the past iterations. This one gets a bit technical but the team is creating some tech that is very exciting.

Base Layer Episode 093 - Benny Giang & Brian Flynn (Dapper Labs) Dec 16, 2019

Benny & Brian stop by Base Layer to have a great discussion on gaming to digital collectibles in the blockchain space. We touch on the popular rise of Cryptokitties to some digital collectibles going for $1M. Dapper Labs is building out some news games, one especially with the NBA that looks very exciting, so we talked extensively about gaming as it relates to blockchains and how it could be the portal to broad based adoption of digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 092 - Dave Balter (Flipside Crypto) Dec 11, 2019

Dave, the CEO of Flipside Crypto, joins us on Base Layer to tell us all about what Flipside Crypto does. For those not familiar, Flipside provides analysis on project health (on protocols like Ethereum, Tezos, etc) and created a rating system called FCAS. We also discuss how behavioral analysis goes into something called Chainwalkers and much more. Dave has done 7 different start up's and has successfully sold some of them - amazing hearing such a successful founder talk about his entry into digital assets and build key infrastructure in it.

Base Layer Episode 091 - Luis Cuende (Aragon) Dec 09, 2019

Luis, the co-founder of Aragon, joins us on Base Layer to talk all about Governance. Aragon is a project that many in the digital asset ecosystem are starting to look at for their unique governance tools -- a subject area that has show itself to be very difficult for some protocols to see through successfully. We also discussed the ability to create your own organization in 5 minutes and 2020 being the year of the DAO (question mark there). So much good stuff in this chat - def check it out!

Base Layer Episode 090 - Will Warren (0x) Dec 04, 2019

Will joins us on Base Layer to give you great overview of 0x. When I began thinking about starting Base Layer over a year ago 0x was one of the projects that inspired me - helping build key infrastructure for blockchains to interoperate, exchange value and much more. We discuss the 4 product lines they've embarked on esp Governance which is a key feature we will be highlighting on Base Layer going into 2020. We also find interesting metaphors between traditional markets & the world we live in to explain how some of the functionality in 0x works. Must listen!!

Base Layer Episode 089 - Roneil Rumburg Part II (Audius) Dec 02, 2019

Roneil joins us again to bring us up to speed on the beta launch of Audius over the last two months and the numbers they are seeing are very exciting! Thousands of artists joining the platform like Deadmau5 and others; tens of thousands of users on the platform - real usage and adoption!! We talk about that all and also sprinkle in some chats about Taylor Swift and some of the recent narratives of artists and their labels.

Base Layer Episode 088 - Guido Molinari (Prysm Group) Nov 27, 2019

Guido joined us on Base Layer during San Francisco Blockchain Week to discuss the confluence of economics and differing models and blockchains. We discuss token economics and the differing socioeconomic theories associated with the adoption of different blockchains and protocols. Super interesting conversations with someone with such an amazing background in econ.

Base Layer Episode 087 - Tomer Afek (Spacemesh) Nov 25, 2019

Tomer from Spacemesh joins us today to give a great overview of the project. There are 3 problems Spacemesh is trying to solve:to be a fairly mined, permissionless and race free open source" programmable cryptocurrency that has a low barrier to entry. We also discuss what Proof of Space is and how is it different than what people are becoming more familiar with like Proof of Work or Proof of Stake? Additionally we also unpack this: "Spacemesh is designed to be run by home desktop PC owners from around the world. There are tens of millions of such people with sufficient system and internet connectivity who can join the platform, form a global decentralized computer and cryptocurrency and provide security for it." A great chat and one not to miss!

Base Layer Episode 086 - Jake Yocom Piatt (Decred) Nov 22, 2019

Jake, project lead for community directed digital asset Decred, joins us for a special Friday episode to discuss why the crypto ecosystem was afire this past week with privacy talk in the wake of the massive exposure on Grin’s Mimblewimble privacy implementation. According to an investor in the ecosystem who performed some testing, a group of users can be identified with a $60/wk spend on AWS, thus there’s no privacy guarantee. The crypto space needs a renewed approach to privacy to avoid this exposure of user addresses. We discuss this and how Decred is addressing the issue of privacy. Check out Jake's writing about privacy projects & there differences here

Base Layer Episode 085 - Galen Danziger (Mousebelt) Nov 20, 2019

Galen from Mousebelt joins us on Base Layer on a live recording during San Francisco Blockchain Week. MouseBelt is the world’s first full-service blockchain accelerator that goes beyond just seed capital, connections, and mentorship. The accelerator is uniquely equipped with more than 25 experienced blockchain developers, project managers, business developers, marketers, and lawyers. We had a great conversation about the world of early stage development and funding of projects and what themes they see prevalent in the space right now.

Base Layer Episode 084 - Pascal Gauthier (CEO, Ledger) Nov 18, 2019

The CEO of Ledger, Pascal Gauthier, joins us on Base Layer to discuss some breaking news and a general overview of the last 5 years of their existence. Pascal discusses the news that the Ledger Vault platform now has a customized crime insurance program insuring crypto assets for up to USD 150 million that was obtained with working with two financial institutions. We also discuss Ledger's 5 year anniversary, the evolution of wallets and how investors custody their assets. A great discussion for those aware of Ledger and not in addition to the big news they discuss.

Base Layer Episode 083 - Haseeb Qureshi (Dragonfly Capital) Nov 15, 2019

An honor to have Haseeb, recorded live from San Francisco Blockchain Week; Haseeb is a highly respected investor in digital assets - we hone in on his past as a professional poker player, how his ability to discern risk and reward from those experiences and the ability to find "tells"; how his experience as AirBnB furthered his interest in distributed and decentralized systems and much more. We delve into what Dragonfly is doing in the space as an investor and what the future looks like in the "protocol wars" and much more.

Base Layer Episode 082 - Sergey Nazarov (Chainlink) Nov 11, 2019

Sergey, the co-founder of Chainlink joins us on Base Layer for an amazing episode from a project that has garnered a lot of attention this year after Google announced a partnership with them. Sergey has many years of experience in blockchains and we spend a lot of time discussing Oracles and the "Oracle problem" as it relates to the efficiency and execution of smart contracts. We talk about some integrations they made this past year and what the future holds for Chainlink in public and enterprise level blockchain development. Amazing episode -- one not to miss!

Base Layer Episode 081 - Mariano Conti (Maker Foundation) Nov 07, 2019

Mariano joins us on Base Layer to give a fantastic overview of MakerDao and it’s stablecoin Dai. We discuss the evolution of stablecoins and their purpose in the digital asset ecosystem. Additionally, as Mariano lives in Argentina we discuss how digital assets are becoming in more focus with inflationary issues.

Base Layer Episode 080 - Bill Laggner (Bearing Asset Management) Nov 03, 2019

Bill joins us on Base Layer during my recent visit to Dallas for the Digital Asset Strategy Summit (DASS) to discuss his time in traditional finance over the last few decades and his most recent focus on Bitcoin and the revolution associated with distributed and decentralized systems. We discuss the what led up to the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and how that effected his opinion in finding an asset that was deflationary and censorship resistant. This is a great chat from an investor to understand how he views this new emerging asset class and technological revolution.

Base Layer Episode 079 - Claire Belmont (Celo) Oct 31, 2019

Claire from Celo joins us on Base Layer to give a great overview of Celo: driven by purpose -- to solve real-world problems such as lack of access to sound currency, or friction for cash-transfer programs aimed to alleviate poverty. Their mission is to build a monetary system that creates the conditions for prosperity for all. We talk about what that means, how they are doing it and much more.

Base Layer Episode 078 - Tuur Demeester & Dhruv Bansal Oct 25, 2019

Tuur and Dhruv join Base Layer live from the Digital Asset Strategy Summit (DASS) that was recently hosted in Dallas, bringing together Institutional Investors, Family Offices and many great investors and founders in digital assets together to share what they are learning about Bitcoin and other digital assets. Tuur and Dhruv gave a great presentation on Bitcoin and its potential for societal change so we extended that chat about adoption, BIP's and all the things happening in the Bitcoin camp. Enjoy!!

Base Layer Episode 077 - Zac Prince (BlockFi) Oct 21, 2019

Zac joins us on Base Layer today to bring us up to speed on BlockFi, a project I've mentioned many times on the show when I discuss the emergence of Open Finance or #defi. Many participants in digital assets have been shut out of traditional finance (loans, business banking, etc) while they maintain assets like Bitcoin & Ethereum. One of BlockFi's mantra's is "don't sell your crypto if you don't have to" - they have created mechanisms to give participants access to loans by acknowledging that these are assets and have value. We talk about the modeling (LTV, yields, etc) and just how they do that and the success they've had, while also discussing the future...hint, credit card?? One not to miss!

Base Layer Episode 076 - Thomas Chippas (ErisX) Oct 14, 2019

Tom, the CEO of ErisX, joins us on Base Layer to discuss key milestones at ErisX and what role & function it plays in digital assets. This is one not to miss; ErisX has operated a designated contract market for seven years and have used that expertise and applied it to digital assets. We discuss working with the CTFC, how and why it takes some time to get things approved and then all the way to discussions on the processes of listing a new coin or contract to stablecoins and much more. Again, do not miss this one...great conversation with Tom and you'll learn a lot about ErisX and the derivative market in digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 075 - Stephane Gosselin (Numerai) Oct 10, 2019

Stephane joins us in another live recording from Voices of Blockchain hosted in Chicago a few weeks back to talk to us about Numerai; a project in existence for a few years working to essentially re-invent the hedge fund. We talk about the tournaments they are hosting with some of the brightest mathematicians and minds of the world, working to create data that can be used to hopefully make exceptional investment decisions. This was a fascinating conversation about governance & how how blockchains can continue to further the evolution of finance.

Base Layer Episode 074 - Sunayna Tuteja (TD Ameritrade) Oct 05, 2019

Come join us for a live recording from Voice of Blockchain this past week in Chicago when I to sit with Sunayna from TD Ameritrade. The "Institutions are Coming"!! Remember that? Yes, Sunayna and her team are reviewing ways to provide access to digital assets and leveraging blockchains for their millions of clients - and they've already made progress with work with ErisX. Sunayna and I discuss how large institutions like there's are reviewing the technology and why it's so important to provide the best education possible. One not to miss!

Base Layer Episode 073 - Gavin Gillas (YGC) Oct 01, 2019

Gavin joins us on Base Layer today to talk family offices and crypto! Gavin and YGC spun out of Yeoman's Capital - a 100% crypto focused family office down in Texas -- that's right folks...they do exist! We talk about their focus on hybrid blockchains - finding opportunities to address enterprise blockchain use and much more. We also talk about deal origination, valuation and how to navigate this world as a family office investor.

Base Layer Episode 072 - Jordan Clifford (Scalar Capital) Sep 26, 2019

Jordan joins us today on Base Layer for a heavy Bitcoin talk! We discuss everything from the new BIP's such as Schnorr signatures, MAST, Taproot and more to the new Institutional infrastructure being provided by Bakkt which went live this week...how futures help with price discovery and much more.

Base Layer Episode 071 - Jutta Steiner (Parity Technologies) Sep 23, 2019

Jutta joins us on Base Layer to break down all that is happening at Parity and especially Polkadot; it's an amazing episode! Jutta is the co-founder and CEO of Parity Technologies. Parity Technologies has developed the most advanced Ethereum client and has recently started a new blockchain network protocol called Polkadot—a pioneering work to address governance, interoperability, and scalability of blockchain technology and a fundamental building block of the future decentral Web 3. She previously served as Chief of Security for the Ethereum Foundation, overseeing security audit and integration prior to the launch of the public blockchain in 2015. Heavy discussion on interoperability and it's importance as well as Substrate - a way to speed up develop in blockchain applications.

Base Layer Episode 070 - Itamar Lesuisse (Argent) Sep 19, 2019

Itamar joins us on Base Layer and it's a very exciting discussion with a founder of a project a lot of people are talking about. Argent has arguably built one of the simplest crypto wallets out there and has really taken the notion of creating simple user experiences to heart. With concepts like Guardians and the ability to freeze funds, you will learn how they are doing this and why there is such a buzz.

Base Layer Episode 069 - Seth Rubin (Market Protocol) Sep 17, 2019

Seth joins us on Base Layer to tell us what Market Protocol is and why people are getting excited about it. MARKET Protocol, using Ethereum, allows users to trade the price of anything while leveraging the benefits of the blockchain. Market Protocol enables people to trade stocks, cryptocurrencies, and traditional assets -- we discuss position tokens, reference assets and much more as it relates to the who, what and how. With Seth's background in traditional finance, starting as a derivatives trader in 2005, we discuss the emergence of #defi and also get into a discussion about systemic risk.

Base Layer Episode 068 - Ed Felten (OffChain Labs) Sep 12, 2019

Ed joins us on Base Layer and it's a great episode -- not often have we had the chance to talk with people who have advised the President of the United States and our government on technology like Ed has in his not to recent past! Ed and I discuss Artbitrum - a L2 solution to make Ethereum scale which also has features to add privacy and a layer of "guaranty" that smart contracts will be abided by. Really enjoyed this episode and so will you!

Base Layer Episode 067 - Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto and Brian Kim Johnson (Gemini) Sep 10, 2019

Jeanine and Brian from Gemini Trust Co join us on Base Layer to discuss some of the recent work Gemini is doing to offer Institutional Investors more professional services to buy & sell digital assets in the most secure and compliant way possible. This episode Jeanine and Brian have some breaking news to discuss on an important new offering they will be providing to clients. A must listen!

Base Layer Episode 066 - Mike Alfred (Digital Assets Data) Aug 26, 2019

Base Layer Episode 061 - Dean Tribble (Agoric) Aug 20, 2019

Dean joins us on Base Layer for an in-depth discussion on Agoric and it's not to be missed. Dean designed the negotiation process and contract for the first smart contracting system, AMiX which dates back to the 1980's. As a Principal Architect at Microsoft, he designed the Midori distributed object-capability operating system. While most smart contract platforms currently use an identity-based security architecture where access is granted based on the sender of a transaction, it has been shown that identity-based security architectures have issues. In contrast, Agoric uses an object capacity security architecture, in which access to a programming object itself is the authority to use the object. We discuss all these differences and why companies like Google and Salesforce are currently using these designs as well.

Base Layer Episode 060 - Roneil Rumburg (Audius) Aug 18, 2019

Roneil from Audius joins us on Base Layer for episode 60 and it's really a fun one! Aside from an exceptional career that has had stops at places like Kleiner and being early to the blockchain party, Roneil and team are focusing on a use case of blockchains - getting people who create content paid and removing a lot of excesses paid to the "middleman". We discuss how Audius is doing that for content creators and the technology stack involved in decentralizing what has been a legacy centralized system.

Base Layer Episode 059 - Akin Sawyerr (Decred) Aug 15, 2019

Akin from Decred joins us on Base Layer for a great overview of the project. Decred forked from the Bitcoin codebase when a proposal for new suite of features to be added to Bitcoin from Company 0 was rejected by the Bitcoin core team. Named btcsuite, these features became the core of the Decred project. Decred’s governance and consensus mechanism relies on a PoW/Proof-of-Stake (PoS) hybrid, which the project regards as a sort of “second authentication factor for consensus” by enabling coin holders to curb potential miner centralization, Decred employs a governance body called the Politeia to guide the project’s direction and fund operations from its treasury. We learn all about their special governance mechanisms and why people are talking about Decred.

Base Layer Episode 058 - Mike Belshe (BitGo) Aug 12, 2019

Mike Belshe, the CEO and co-founder of BitGo, joins us for the next episode of Base Layer. BitGo, is one of the market leaders in institutional-grade cryptocurrency investment services. Mike is the driving force behind BitGo’s product and business strategy for delivering security, compliance, and custodial solutions for blockchain-based currencies. Prior to founding BitGo, Mike was one of the first engineers dedicated to building Chrome at Google. He is creator of the SPDY protocol and lead author of HTTP/2.0, the internet protocol responsible for loading web pages today. In 2003, Mike co-founded Lookout Software, an email search company acquired by Microsoft, and has held management positions at several startups including Netscape, Good Technology, and Critical Path. Mike and I talk the current state of custody and what the future has for it, insurance and custody and much more.

Base Layer Episode 057 - Alexander Zaidelson (Beam) Aug 07, 2019

Alexander Zaidelson from Beam joins us on Base Layer for what I'm now calling "Privacy Week" after we had Monero on the episode prior. BEAM is a next generation confidential cryptocurrency based on an elegant and innovative Mimblewimble protocol. Users have complete control over privacy; user decides which information will be available and to which parties, having complete control over his/her personal data in accordance to his/her will and applicable laws. No addresses are stored in the blockchain; no information whatsoever about either the sender or the receiver of a transaction is stored in the blockchain. We discuss all of this, how it’s done (under the hood), discuss Pedersen commitments and much more.

Base Layer Episode 056 - Riccardo Spagni (Monero) Aug 04, 2019

Riccardo Spagni, the man, myth and legend at Monero joins us on Base Layer and it's a massive show! Not only is this a crash course in what Monero is for beginners it's also got updates and some great detail into what's happening at Monero. In addition this was a really important conversation as we've seen yet another massive data hack at a bank, with 100m records stolen. We discuss the tech that is involved in Monero (Ring signatures, RingCT and stealth addresses), commitments and much more. Also a great discussion for those trying to understand the differences in privacy coins like Monero to Bitcoin and Ethereum, among others. Listen and learn!

Base Layer Episode 055 - Jamie Burke (Outlier Ventures) Jul 31, 2019

Jamie Burke, CEO of Outlier Ventures, joins us on Base Layer for an amazing chat about Web 3.0 and much more. OV is an early stage investment firm who also advises some very early projects, having developed a thesis called the Convergence Stack which, in my opinion, dissects the decentralized/distributed stack the best out of anyone so far. We talk about that, about a world that exists in addition to Bitcoin and much more.

Base Layer Episode 054 - Doug Petkanics (Livepeer) Jul 29, 2019

Doug Petkanics joins us on Base Layer for a great overview of Livepeer which ~3/4th's of my guests have brought up a project to pay attention to! Doug is a multi-time Founder with Wildcard and Hyperpublic and has been focusing his attention for the last few years on Livepeer; live streaming services, such as YouTube and Twitch have seen tremendous growth in popularity in recent years. Broadcasting or building a streaming application however can be very expensive, as a result of payments to centralized transcoding and distribution companies. Livepeer aims to provide the infrastructure service layer for decentralized live video broadcasting. In doing so, it hopes to provide a cheaper, more scalable, censorship resistant solution that is more resilient without single points of failure. We talked about everything from the unplugging generation to their consensus methodologies and governance systems. Truly a great overview of a really important project.

Base Layer Episode 053 - Patrick Dai (Qtum) Jul 25, 2019

Patrick, the Founder of Qtum ($300M Market Cap), joins us on Base Layer and there's a lot to unpack on this one. Qtum wants to harness the best attributes of the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains to create a decentralized, well-governed smart contracts platform with the potential to iterate on existing consensus mechanisms and other protocol parameters. Qtum believes proof-of-work blockchain protocols like suffer from categorical scaling limitations such that proof-of-stake is if only by default a viable consensus model. Qtum plans to build the first robust proof-of-stake UTXO-based smart-contract network. They also have a Decentralized Governance Protocol which we discussed in addition to their full node count and more insight into their x86 Virtual Machine which aims to support C, C++, Rust, Python and other widely used programming languages, facilitating mainstream adoption of smart contract development.

Base Layer Episode 052 - Dan Elitzer & Ian Lee (IDEO CoLab) Jul 22, 2019

We welcome Dan and Ian on Base Layer to discuss the work they are doing at IDEO CoLab and their new Start-Up Studio. IDEO CoLab works very closely with their startups and projects; from 4-day sprints to multi-week projects, they start with an organization's hard problems and create experience prototypes that look 12+ months ahead of market. They also have some powerful corporate names behind them now including Fidelity, Deloitte and Amazon in addition to 50 new mentors they announced that range from some of the best investors in crypto to some of the best founders. In addition we also caught up with Dan to discuss #defi and his thesis around Superfluid Collateral. Not one to miss!

Base Layer Episode 051 - Kyle Davies (Three Arrows) Jul 17, 2019

Kyle Davies joins Base Layer to discuss the work being done at Three Arrows Capital, a Singapore-based fund specializing in emerging markets and crypto. Kyle used to work at Credit Suisse on the exotic derivatives equity desk before founding Three Arrows in 2012 in San Francisco with a partner, Su Zhu. They met at high school at Phillips Academy, studied math and economics together at Columbia University, and then worked together in Hong Kong. We discussed the broader market and what they are seeing in crypto today.

Base Layer Episode 050 - Hugh Karp (Nexus Mutual) Jul 15, 2019

Hugh from Nexus Mutual joins Base Layer for it's 50th episode! Nexus Mutual is building a decentralized alternative to insurance. They are using blockchain (Ethereum) to build a mutual (a risk sharing pool) to return the power of insurance to the people. It will allow anyone to become a member and buy cover. It replaces the idea of a traditional insurance company, because it is wholly owned by the members. We spoke about Nexus Mutual help users be covered for events like The DAO hack or Parity multi-sig wallet issues. This is a super interesting space evolving - one to listen to!

Base Layer Episode 049 - Xiaohan Zhu (Meter) Jul 10, 2019

Xiaohan joins us on Base Layer to discuss Meter and the state of stablecoins. Xiaohan has years of experience in tech from Microsoft, Sony to Motorola, and he brings those years of experience to work on "Reinventing Money for DeFi. Permissionless, Low Volatility, Fast, No Oracles; Enable Bitcoin to Achieve Its Original Vision". We discuss different stablecoins like Tether, Dai, Basis and more. Great conversation and one to learn from!

Base Layer Episode 048 - Brooke Pollack (Hutt Capital) Jul 08, 2019

Brooke joins us on Base Layer to discuss the Fund of Fund landscape as it relates to venture capital focused funds. Brooke is the Founder & Managing Partner of Hutt Capital, a blockchain venture capital fund of funds based in Portland, OR. Prior to Hutt, Brooke spent ten years across private fund, secondary and direct investing, most recently 4+ years with Greenspring Associates, a venture platform with >$8 billion under management where he spearheaded their blockchain and crypto efforts. Earlier in his career, Brooke held roles with Hamilton Lane and CTC Consulting.

Base Layer Episode 047 - Mike Dudas (TheBlock) Jul 03, 2019

Mike Dudas joins Base Layer to talk about the early days of TheBlock to now becoming one of the "go-to" resources for news and research on crypto. We talk about the narratives that are currently discussed, from geofencing to Libra. We spend a good amount of time also discussing their work on Libra which was exceptional, learn more about their reporters who are breaking stories in the space better than main stream outlets and much more.

Base Layer Episode 046 - Tom Jessop (Fidelity Digital Assets) Jul 01, 2019

Tom Jessop, the head of Fidelity Digital Assets, joins us on Base Layer for a special episode to discuss the over 5 year history of Fidelity's interest and experimentation in crypto and blockchain, leading to their entry into digital assets with their current platform; in addition we also discuss their potential future roadmap. Fidelity's entry into the space is a pinnacle moment; an institution such as there's, with approximately $7T in assets under administration and their history & brand among Institutional Investors is so incredibly important. Tom came to Fidelity after 16+ years at Goldman Sachs with time spent at Chain prior to making his current move. We discuss their recent study which shows Institutional Investor adoption and gaining interest in the asset class. This is one NOT to miss and one to send to everyone you know.

Base Layer Episode 045 - Tor Bair (Enigma) Jun 28, 2019

Tor Bair joins us on Base Layer to discuss Enigma; Enigma is building a privacy layer for the decentralized web. First researched at MIT, Enigma’s network of “secret nodes” can perform computations over encrypted data at scale without ever exposing the raw data itself. By finally enabling decentralized applications to use private and sensitive data, smart contracts built with Enigma become “secret contracts”, allowing developers to create thousands of new, valuable solutions.

Base Layer Episode 044 - Richard Muirhead & Max Mersch (Fabric Ventures) Jun 24, 2019

Richard Muirhead & Max Mersch from Fabric Ventures join us on Base Layer. Richard is an accomplished founder and investor as well as Max; Fabric Ventures invest in Web 3.0 powering the shift towards human-centric computing. We talk about what that means and the new models of Web 3.0 including the tokenomics, where value accrues/valuation and more. A bunch of FV companies have already been on Base Layer like Casa, Blockstack, Keep and others. This is a great chat with really experienced investors in early stage infrastructure of digital assets.

Base Layer Episode 043 - Michael Zochowski (Logos Network) Jun 21, 2019

Michael Zochowski from Logos Network joins Base Layer to discuss how they building a novel transaction network designed for high scalability while maintaining decentralization and trustlessness by using innovations such as DAG's, "an efficient, post-blockchain data architecture built to accommodate the Internet of tomorrow", delegated proof of stake of (DPoS), ensuring optimal throughput while guaranteeing safety and sharding schemes, adding a second dimension of parallelism to transaction validation. Michael has years of experience in traditional finance and is bringing his knowledge of markets and computer science to blockchain.

Base Layer Episode 042 - Pierre Rochard (Bitcoin Advisory) Jun 19, 2019

Pierre Rochard joins Base Layer for an in-depth conversation about the state of Bitcoin. Pierre has researched and written about Bitcoin since February 2013. He co-founded the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute in 2014 to curate the best primary source literature. In addition to developing Bitcoin software, Pierre is an outspoken advocate for Bitcoin's decentralized governance. In 2017 he began co-hosting the Noded Bitcoin Podcast. Pierre is widely recognized as an authority on the investment case for Bitcoin.

Base Layer Episode 041 - Matt Luongo (Keep) Jun 17, 2019

Matt Luongo from Keep joins Base Layer for our next episode and it's a great one! As Matt and the folks at Keep say: "Privacy and scalability are the two biggest hurdles to mainstream adoption of public blockchains. We’re tackling privacy by building a bridge between public blockchains and private data. We use keeps, or small off-chain containers, to secure and store this data. Keeps enables entirely new ways to work with private data." We learn about the implications there and how they are using zero knowledge proofs -- we also get one of the best analogies to understand zk proofs. This is a great one! Enjoy.

Base Layer Episode 040 - Tal Kol (Orbs) Jun 14, 2019

Tal joins Base Layer today to discuss what Orbs is building in terms of a hybrid blockchain that could get enterprises big and small using public blockchains. We discuss Virtual Chains, Randomized Proof of Stake (RPoS) and much more. Tal has years of experience as an engineer at places like Wix and Kin/Kik, also serving in the Israeli military.

Base Layer Episode 039 - Michael Dunworth (Wyre) Jun 12, 2019

Michael Dunworth, Wyre Co-Founder and CEO joins Base Layer to discuss what their 6 year old company is up to these days. For both individuals and enterprises alike, transferring money internationally serves as one of the most practical use cases for blockchain technology. By accelerating the speed and reducing the cost of international payments, blockchain can help businesses at every scale operate more efficiently and drive substantial spikes in revenue. Wyre uses proprietary blockchain technology to complete cross-border payments, cutting the time and expenses traditionally tied to banks and other financial institutions. While banks take up to 3 days and charge between 4-6% for international money transfers, Wyre completes transactions in less than six hours, charging less than 1%.

Base Layer Episode 038 - Muneeb Ali (Blockstack) Jun 10, 2019

Muneeb Ali joins us on Base Layer to break down why Internet 1.0 is "broken", how we got to where we are, what Blockstack is, how it can scale and be performant and much more. Muneeb earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from Lahore University of Management Sciences in 2003. He then went on to pursue graduate studies at Princeton University, from which he obtained a Master of Arts in Computer science in 2011, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science in 2017. Muneeb co-founded Blockstack with Ryan Shea in 2013 while enrolled at Princeton, and the company partook in the Y Combinator Summer 2014 cohort.

Base Layer Episode 037 - Silvio Micali & Steven Kokinos (Algorand) Jun 07, 2019

A special episode of Base Layer with Silvio Micali and Steven Kokinos from Algorand. Algorand removes the technical barriers that for years undermined mainstream blockchain adoption: decentralization, scale, and security. Their consensus mechanism is permissionless and pure proof-of-stake. It ensures full participation, protection, and speed within a truly decentralized network. Silvio, on the faculty at MIT, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, since 1983, is the co-inventor of probabilistic encryption, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Verifiable Random Functions and many of the protocols that are the foundations of modern cryptography. Steven, a serial entrepreneur, most recently co-founder and Executive Charmain of Fuze, where he was responsible for corporate strategy. This is one not to miss!

Base Layer Episode 036 - Marcos Veremis (Cambridge Associates) Jun 05, 2019

In one of the most important episodes on Base Layer to date we speak with Marcos Veremis, Managing Director at Cambridge Associates. CA, as of 2018, had $389 billion in assets under advisement of some of the largest endowments, family offices and pensions. They are considered in many ways the gold standard for investment consulting, outsourced portfolio solutions, research services and tools and performance monitoring across various asset classes. In Q1 of 2019 Marcos and his team published Cryptoassets: Venture into the Unknown; a paper detailing "although the crypto industry remains in its infancy, we think institutional investors should begin exploring it" - an amazing statement from the likes of CA. We discuss the paper, the work that went into it, why they wrote it and what the future may look like in the space.

Base Layer Episode 035 - Tim Ogilvie (Staked) Jun 03, 2019

Tim joins Base Layer to discuss Staked and the state of the state of cryptoasset staking. Tim has spent 20 years starting and operating technology companies. Most recently, Tim founded Y-Combinator-backed Think Gaming, a SaaS data platform focused on mobile games. Staked operates the most secure, performant, and cost-effective block production nodes for decentralized PoS protocols on behalf of institutional investors. We learn about the competition in Staking as a Service, the yields, margins and much more.

Base Layer Episode 034 - Joey Krug (Augur & Pantera) May 29, 2019

A 2-1 episode with one of the most sought after founders and investors in crypto - Joey Krug. We discuss Augur first, the prediction marketplace he helped found that is providing a new way for people to use the Wisdom of the Crowd to predict outcomes of political events, event hedges, weather forecasts and much more. We then delve into what investment themes Joey and the team at Pantera and working this year into 2020 - focusing more on scalability issues to make blockchains run more optimally.

Base Layer Episode 033 - Uri Klarman (bloxRoute) May 27, 2019

Base Layer Episode 032 - Alexander Skidanov (NEAR) May 22, 2019

Alexander Skidanov from NEAR Protocol joins us on Base Layer for a not to miss episode. NEAR is a scalable smart contract platform that supports decentralized applications of almost any kind. Alexander is a highly accomplished developer starting at Microsoft and became Engineer #1 at memSQL. We discuss what NEAR is building in relation to language type, sharding, consensus methodologies and much more. Do not miss this one!

Base Layer Episode 031 - Sky Guo (Cypherium) May 20, 2019

Sky Guo joins us on Base Layer to discuss how Cypherium is a highly scalable and robust smart contract platform. Their hybrid design features a joint Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus mechanism that can achieve thousands of transactions per second without sacrificing decentralization. We discuss enterprise adoption of blockchain and much more.

Base Layer Episode 030 - Tyler Spalding (Flexa) & Lasse Clausen (1KX) May 13, 2019

On the 30th episode of Base Layer we have Tyler Spalding, Co-Founder of Flexa which aims to enable retailers to take control of their own payments by reducing costs, overhead, and fraud through frictionless, instantaneous, and reliable blockchain-based settlement; and Lasse Clausen, Founding Partner at 1KX, a token angel fund with the thesis of extrapolating Bitcoin's success to embed cryptoeconomic incentives into everything; transactions, computation, storage, prediction, power.

Base Layer Episode 029 - Daniel Kim (SFOX) May 11, 2019

Daniel Kim of SFOX joins Base Layer; SFOX, San Francisco Open Exchange, is the easiest way to access the digital currency market. There solution provides access to high liquidity and the ability to trade large volumes. We discuss the current liquid market, when "Institutional Investors" are coming in, if they haven't already; we also talk a-lot about the research they produce. Great discussion!

Base Layer Episode 028 - Zaki Manian (SkuChain, Cosmos, Tendermint) May 06, 2019

Zaki Manian, founder of SkuChain, Head of Tendermint Labs and too many other things to put in notes here joins Base Layer today to discuss the state of the state of Cosmos and Tendermint and why they are so important to the growth of the crypto ecosystem; in addition to we discuss why he got into the space in the first place. We discuss why he founded SkuChain after spending lots of time reviewing the legacy financial system and seeing sophistication but cracks in the system (i.e. people still needing to use fax machines). Great deep conversation. Listen and enjoy!

Base Layer Episode 027 - Steven McKie (Founding Partner, Amentum) May 02, 2019

Steven McKie joins Base Layer to discuss the early days of crypto; making his own future via crypto and Bitcoin; starting his own fund Amentum which is investing in the new iterations of "the internet" via Handshake and Namebase and new models to incentivize content providers like you and I produce daily via Cent. A great, thorough review from someone who has seen it all!

Base Layer Episode 026 - Diogo Monica (Co - Founder, Anchorage) Apr 30, 2019

Diogo Monica, Co-Founder of Anchorage joins Base Layer to discuss their custody solution that has a lot of people in the ecosystem buzzing. Diogo spent years at Square before founding Anchorage, leading the platform security team that was used to move over $80B in annualized volume. He has a BSc, MSc and Ph.D in Computer Science and has built a solution marrying the best of hot and cold storage technology. One not to miss!!

Base Layer Episode 025 - Alex Adelman (Co - Founder, Lolli) Apr 24, 2019

Alex Adelman, Co-Founder of Lolli joins us on Base Layer -- Lolli is an amazing on-ramp for the non-technical/finance folks; it's a rewards program with over 750 retailers like Walmart, Gap, CVS and more. We talk to Alex about building this company, why create this on-ramp to Bitcoin; what inspired him and his team after selling their company to Ebates/Rakuten and much more. Not to be missed!

Base Layer Episode 024 - David Sønstebø & Dominik Schiener (Founders Of IOTA) Apr 22, 2019

David and Dominik, the founders of IOTA, join Base Layer to discuss IOTA, a cryptocurrency they designed for use in the internet of things, enabling secure sales and trading data streams, with no need of transaction fees and miners to maintain operations. We discuss the differences of the Bitcoin blockchain to IOTA, scalability issues and much more.

Base Layer Episode 023 - Paul Veradittakit (Partner, Pantera Capital) Apr 17, 2019

Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital joins Base Layer today to discuss the history and evolution of crypto infrastructure - from wallets and exchanges to much more robust financial tooling projects. We also discuss new marketplaces being created, void of the middleman and how mini-Coinbase's could pop up, servicing their local geographies, working with their local regulators. Great episode!!

Base Layer Episode 022 - Jeremy Welch (Founder; Casa, Inc) Apr 15, 2019

Jeremy Welch, the founder of Casa Inc joins us on Base Layer to discuss his companies growth, building and shipping nodes during "crypto winter", why he built Casa in the first place, "being your own bank" narrative and much more. Additionally we do our weekly Signal to Noise discussing some recent deals in the space and what he listens to -- Jeremy takes the cake for most original choice there! Enjoy!

Base Layer Episode 021 - Monica Quaintance (Kadena) Apr 09, 2019

Monica joins us from Kadena today to give a master class (unintended) on the difference between public and private blockchains; her journey from aspiring opera singer to investment banking and then working as one of the key engineers at Kadena which is working with Fortune 100 companies to implement their hybrid blockchain solutions. A great conversation, not to be missed!

Base Layer Episode 020 - Avichal Garg (Electric Capital) Apr 03, 2019

Avichal Garg joins us on Base Layer for Episode 20!! Avichal has so much experience in technology, coming from Google, Spool (a startup he co-founded) and Facebook. Recently he launched Electric Capital to invest in Programmable Money; we discussed the blockchain not bitcoin narrative, their massive Dev Report, on the talent continuing to come into crypto and much more.

Base Layer Episode 019 - Lily Liu (Co - Founder, Earn.com) Apr 01, 2019

Lily Liu, the Co-Founder of Earn.com joins us on Base Layer. Lily's past experience in traditional finance at firms like McKinsey & KKR-Capstone were discussed, her work helping build a hospital in China to her involvement in Earn.com which eventually got acquired by Coinbase, her views of Bitcoin and much more were topics of our chat.

Base Layer Episode 018 - Linda Xie (Scalar Capital) Mar 27, 2019

Linda Xie, Co-Founder of Scalar Capital joins Base Layer. We discuss her roles in traditional finance at AIG in risk management, moving to Coinbase in the "early days" to starting Scalar Capital. Linda is one of the most sought after investors and thought providers in crypto and this is one NOT to miss. We additionally talk about her focus on privacy in crypto and her new focus on "play" after reading the book Play.

Base Layer Episode 017 - Ryan John King (Co - Founder, FOAM) Mar 25, 2019

Ryan joins us on Base Layer to discuss his company, FOAM, a project we've been watching for some time. The team created the Proof of Location protocol which empowers a permissionless and autonomous network of radio beacons, offering secure location services independent of external centralized sources such as GPS. We discuss their roll-out, their ability to work with other protocols and much more.

Base Layer Episode 016 - Dan Held (Interchange) Mar 19, 2019

Dan Held from Interchange joins us on Base Layer for our "Bitcoin Classic" edition. Dan has years of experience with Bitcoin and talks at length about it's history, it's evolution and it's importance. If you're trying to learn more about Bitcoin this one is a good one to listen to. We also hit on Signal to Noise, talking to Dan about the news of the day. Great conversation!

Base Layer Episode 015 - Ryan Selkis (Founder & CEO, Messari) Mar 12, 2019

Ryan Selkis joins us on Base Layer, an investor and builder in cryptoassets for the last 5 years. Ryan founded Messari which aims to provide Institutional Investors research, transparency and tools to better understand crypto from a fundamental standpoint. This was a great chat and also introduced our Signal to Noise segment addressing the news of the week to see what's "signal" and what's "noise".

Base Layer Episode 014 - Sharon Goldberg (Co - Founder, Arwen) Mar 04, 2019

Sharon brings over a decade of expertise in network security and cryptography. She is also an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Boston University, where her research focuses on securing the protocols that provide many of the global internet’s core functions. In light of the Quadriga scandal this conversation is incredibly important since Arwen's technology would have potentially prevented coin loss. This is sometimes a technical conversation, especially about atomic swaps, but Sharon breaks down complex issues brilliantly.

Base Layer Episode 013 - Jake Brukhman (Founder, Coinfund) Feb 18, 2019

Jake Brukhman, Founder at Coinfund joins us on Base Layer for our twelfth episode to discuss generalized mining, the scalability issues in blockchain, what a future Facebook on blockchain could look like and the infrastructure needed, staking as a service and much more.

Base Layer Episode 012 - Arianna Simpson (Autonomous Partners) Feb 11, 2019

Arianna Simpson joins us on Base Layer today; formerly at Facebook and BitGo, Arianna is a powerhouse in crypto. She is incredibly sought after as someone with knowledge of networks and the technology as well as an investor who's been focusing on crypto infrastructure before it became a narrative. This episode is one not to miss.

Base Layer Episode 011 - Andy Bromberg (President, CoinList) Feb 08, 2019

Andy Bromberg, President of CoinList, drops by Base Layer in this episode to discuss the state of token sales, governance, the evolution of private deals that look more like traditional venture but also have tokeneconomics cooked in, STO's, his matrix for Taxonomy of cryptoassets, what he's reading and why and much more.

Base Layer Episode 010 - Craig Burel (Reciprocal Ventures) Feb 05, 2019

Craig Burel from Reciprocal Ventures joins us for a conversation around the early days of investing in crypto infrastructure (0x, Radar Relay, Augur and much more) to STO's. He also shares with our listeners his thoughts on valuation, a topic many people in the ecosystem are grappling with daily. Craig has experience from Wall Street to start up's and now crypto - a lot to learn from this one!

Base Layer Episode 009 - Marc Bhargava And Kevin Johnson (Tagomi) Jan 31, 2019

Marc & Kevin joined us on Base Layer, the founding team over at Tagomi which is building key infrastructure for the trading of digital assets. The team is incredibly strong which backgrounds from Union Square Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Virtu and more. We discussed why they built Tagomi, how they are helping clients "get off zero", M&A activity in the space and much more.

Base Layer Episode 008 - Spencer Noon (DTC Capital) Jan 25, 2019

Join us for Episode 8 with Spencer Noon, an investor at Doggie Tail Capital, a fund backed by a family office. Spencer is an impressive investor in crypto, highly knowledgeable about the technology and especially Ethereum. We discuss ETH's current role, it's innovation with Serenity, smart contracts, scaling, zero knowledge proof and much more.

Base Layer Episode 007 - Matthew Walsh (Partner, Castle Island Ventures) Jan 11, 2019

Guest Matthew Walsh joins Base Layer on Episode 007. Matthew and his partner Nic Carter spent the last 4 years at Fidelity before launching Castle Island on a team tasked with doing scenario planning, looking at what future technologies could do to the financial sector and beyond. You'll hear the phrases like frictonless capital markets, how they tested bitcoin and wallets in realtime at Fidelity and much. We discuss STO's, the current crypto markets and crypto infrastructure.

Base Layer Episode 006 - Matt Galligan (CEO & Co-founder, Picks & Shovels) Jan 07, 2019

On Episode 6 of Base Layer we have Matt Galligan, CEO & Co-founder, Picks & Shovels which is building critical infrastructure in portfolio management of cryptoassets. We discuss data quality in crypto, M&A activity and what the future of crypto infrastructure looks like in 2019.

Base Layer Episode 005 - Nathaniel Whittemore Jan 03, 2019

Every Sunday folks in crypto are treated to the work of someone part man, part machine who curates all the weeks top news, research and thoughts from the cryptosphere - his name: Nathaniel Whittemore. Nathaniel's work has become a crucial part of crypto's information infrastructure - we had a wide ranging conversation on narratives at play, Web 1.0 to 3.0 and much more. Enjoy!

Base Layer Episode 004 - Will Peets Dec 20, 2018

Episode 4 has Will Peets, CIO of Passport Digital, join Base Layer to discuss a host of topics including, but not limited to: portfolio risk management in the context of crypto, the global economy as it relates to the crypto markets, valuations and much more.

Base Layer Episode 003 - Anatoly Yakovenko (Founder/CEO of Solana) Dec 12, 2018

On episode 3 of Base Layer we had a great conversation with Anatoly Yakovenko, founder & CEO of Solana which is addressing the transactions per second issue in blockchain. Anatoly has an impressive career from Qualcomm where he and his team built the CDMA of the flip phones we all used to spending time at Dropbox. What Solana is building could be critical infrastructure for blockchain to scale.

Base Layer Ep 002 - Arianna Simpson, David Grider, Meltem Demirors, Nikhil Kalghatgi & Travis Kling Dec 07, 2018

In our second episode we are lucky enough to air a special one hour discussion with some of the best investors and practitioners in crypto today. We discussed capitulation, macro trends, the regulatory landscape and some thoughts on 2019. Not to be missed!

Base Layer Episode 001 - Shawn Wilkinson (Founder of Storj) Nov 30, 2018

Base Layer is a new podcast aimed at providing education to Family Offices/HNW and investors who are trying to understand cryptoassets and the underlying technology. We will be bringing founders who are creating the building blocks of the asset class and technology, from file storage to interoperability and more. In addition you'll hear from other family offices and investors who are active in the asset class to get a peer perspective.

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