QuantLayer Podcast

Bringing Traditional Tooling Services to Serverless Feb 11, 2020

As software teams begin to migrate to serverless, they will require more in the way of serverless specific tooling: cost tracking, alerting, monitoring, and so on. Here, we look at a number of serverless tooling providers and discuss what they bring and how they will compete with traditional tooling services.

Topics:

Installable versus Hosted Platform
On Hosted Platform
Tooling providers - CloudZero - Dashbird - Hasura GraphQL Engine - IOpipe - Iron.io - lumigo - Node Lambda - SCAR - Sigma - Stackery - Thundra
On framework
On security - Protego - Threat Stack
On Installable Platform

Links:

Hosted Platform - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=hosted-platform&format=card-mode&grouping=category Tools - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=tools&format=card-mode&grouping=category Framework - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=framework&format=card-mode&grouping=category Security - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=security&format=card-mode&grouping=category Installable Platform - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=installable-platform&format=card-mode&grouping=category

AWS, GCP, and Azure: The Tradeoffs of Serverless Architectures Jan 22, 2020

Serverless has caused a massive shift in approaches to application design. On this episode, we explore what serverless gives teams, and the tradeoffs involved in going the serverless route. We cover players like Amazon AWS, Google GCP, and Microsoft Azure, and what else is in store for the space.

Topics:

What Serverless is
On their benefits
Monolithic versus microservices architectures
How might development teams work on serverless applications versus traditional ones
On tradeoffs of Serverless
Business benefits of Serverless
The drawbacks

Links:

Serverless - https://serverless.com What is Serverless? - Squadex - https://squadex.com/insights/what-is-serverless/

Databases and NoSQL: MongoDB’s Approach to Companies with Scaling Data Requirements Dec 10, 2019

Relational databases versus NoSQL is of interest today given growing data requirements for businesses. Real-time, internet of things, storing geodata, financial data are examples where traditional relational databases don’t make the cut required for modern systems. We discuss the successes and failings of relational databases, and how MongoDB’s approach to NoSQL data structures allow them to serve specific customer problems with specialized solutions. We look at some customer case studies and finish up with their business model.

Topics:

What MongoDB is
Their database
Their overview
What are the benefits
Customer case studies
On their solution
Growth Strategy

Links:

Last 10K - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1441816/000144181619000067/mdb-013119x10k.htm Last 10Q - https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1441816/000144181619000187/mdb-073119x10q.htm Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1441816/000104746917006446/a2233574z424b4.htm Ycharts financials - https://ycharts.com/financials/MDB/income_statement/quarterly MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com/

Cloud Computing at the Edge: An Overview of Fastly (FSLY) Nov 25, 2019

Edge computing is a topic that isn’t getting enough coverage. We’ve covered CDNs like CloudFlare before, but we wanted to look at Fastly, an edge computing player that went public early in 2019. On this episode, we cover edge computing topics like rapidly purged caching. We run through a few case studies of the value edge computing brings some of Fastly’s customers. We discuss major risks that the company might face and postulate on why we think they’re trading at a discount compared to other SaaS companies like CloudFlare ($NET) and Elastic ($ESTC).

Topics:

QuantLayer Mission Statement Analysis
Case studies they mention in their prospectus
On their section called, "Our Solution: The Developer's Edge"
How they categorize their strenghts
Who are their competitors and how to they sit there
Major differences versus Cloudflare
On their sections called, "Factors Affecting Our Performance"
Faizaan's major concerns about Fastly

Links:

Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1517413/000119312519150526/d702138d424b4.htm
Latest 10Q - https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1517413/000151741319000022/fsly-10qx93019.htm
Fastly is An Under Appreciated Growth Story - https://www.cmlviz.com/2019/11/12/FSLY/fastly-nyse-fsly-is-an-under-appreciated-growth-story.html
Fastly Blog - https://www.fastly.com/blog/build-on-fastly-with-code-blocks-and-tutorials

Financial Services APIs and Silvergate Capital Nov 18, 2019

There has been a lot of interest around developer-first banking APIs recently. On this episode, we go over recent tech IPO Silvergate Capital (ticker $SI), which is a digital currency focused bank and settlement network. We discuss their business, particularly around digital currency initiatives and their Silvergate Exchange Network (or SEN). We get into the weeds of what it means to claim to be an API first financial services company.

Enjoy the episode.

Topics:

On Silvergate Capital
QuantLayer mission statement analysis
Overview of Silvergate Capital
Digital Currency Initiative
Silvergate Exchange Network
What their API offers
Growth strategy
Risk factors

Links:

Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312109/000119312519288512/d568616d424b4.htm
Silvergate Capital - https://www.silvergatebank.com/
Banking APIs - Open Banking Platform by Silvergate Bank - https://www.silvergatebank.com/api/developer-tools.html
Silvergate Sandbox API - https://silvergate.portal.azure-api.net/docs/services/5aec9e3121b53188f5be9853/operations/access-token

Chips, Chips, Chips: Canaan Mining, NVIDIA, AMD, ASICs, GPUs, AI and ML chipmakers Nov 13, 2019

Recently, there has been a lot of recent interest in customized semiconductors. Bitcoin mining has highlighted the interest in ASICs, or application specific chips, and as we move up the customized application layer stack, discussion of AI and ML chips becomes necessary. On this episode, we look at Canaan Mining, a chinese Bitcoin mining chip manufacturer. And we look at them in the context of growing trends in AI and ML chips. We compare and contrast AMD and NVIDIA and discuss the new growth in startups in the traditionally capital intensive space. We finish up with what you should be on the lookout for when considering investing in chip manufacturers.

Topics:

Canaan F1
On their mission statement
Quick overview on Canaan
Industry overview
Overview of bitcoin and blockchain mining economics
AI and ML chips
What CPU is
What GPU is
What ASIC is
What TPU is
On their risk factors

Links:

History and Corporate Structure - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1780652/000119312519276263/g773846g13c91.jpg Canaan.io - https://canaan.io/ IPO prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1780652/000119312519276263/d773846df1.htm#rom773846_1 Canaan Creative - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan_Creative SEC Form F-1 - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sec-form-f-1.asp Specialized AI Chips Hold Both Promise and Peril for Developers - https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/processors/specialized-ai-chips-hold-both-promise-and-peril-for-developers NVIDIA Gross Profit Margin - https://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA/gross_profit_margin

Discussing a Parallel Financial System with Barney Mannerings from Vega Protocol Nov 05, 2019

On this episode, we speak with Barney Mannerings, founder of Vega Protocol, which is a blockchain product initially focused on derivatives markets. Barney understands this space really well, and it was a pleasure talking to him about what he’s building at Vega. Broadly, we discuss the DeFi, or Parallel Financial System, space, and Barney talks to us about why he thinks this space is important. He explains how Vega, in many ways, augments and replaces some exchanges, and how it serves as an integration layer with other protocols. We finish up with some areas of tech that Barney is excited about outside of crypto.

Topics:

Barney's background
All about his company, Vega
Parallel Financial System
Why DeFi is important
Thoughts on building ETH versus BTC
Which derivatives does Vega support currently
Types of derivatives users could create
Market map
How ETH moving to ETH 2.0 would affect DeFi business
Upcoming product roadmap

Links:

Vega Protocol - https://vega.xyz/
Twitter - Vega Protocol - https://twitter.com/vegaprotocol
Twitter - Barney - https://twitter.com/barnabee?lang=en

Datadog: A Developer Friendly Monitoring and Analytics Product or Ecosystem? Oct 29, 2019

On this episode, we dig into Datadog’s (Ticker: DDOG) IPO prospectus. We discuss their approach to analytics and monitoring, and how companies can benefit from using them. We look at a few case studies of how companies derive value from their product, and one in particular, that can generate value from its use. We also run through their developer-friendly offering and how quickly the product can be incorporated into a system. We spend a little time with their financials and then discuss our view of thinking about them as a product versus an ecosystem.

Topics:

What Datadog is
Anecdotes of personal use with Elixir
On their IPO prospectus - Industry Background - Opportunity - Solution and Key Strengths - Key Benefits to Our Customers - Growth Strategies - Risk Factors

Links

Datadog - https://www.datadoghq.com/
IPO prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1561550/000119312519249577/d745413d424b4.htm
Chart - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1561550/000119312519249577/g745413g15v58.gif
#54: Content Delivery Networks, DDOS Protection and Bot Fighting: CloudFlare as a Web Performance and Security Company - https://quantlayer.libsyn.com/content-delivery-networks-ddos-protection-and-bot-fighting-cloudflare-as-a-web-performance-and-security-company
#38: A Look at CrowdStrike’s IPO Prospectus and Their Approach to Endpoint Security - https://quantlayer.libsyn.com/a-look-at-crowdstrikes-ipo-prospectus-and-their-approach-to-endpoint-security
#15: Open Source as Revenue Driver: How Elasticsearch Uses Open Source for Revenue Growth, Tech Investing and Crypto, a Cautionary Tale of Bad Crypto Trading Psychology and Flash Crashes - https://quantlayer.libsyn.com/15-open-source-as-revenue-driver-how-elasticsearch-uses-open-source-for-revenue-growth-tech-investing-and-crypto-a-cautionary-tale-of-bad-crypto-trading-psychology-and-flash-crashes

Content Delivery Networks, DDOS Protection and Bot Fighting: CloudFlare as a Web Performance and Security Company Oct 21, 2019

We go over the CloudFlare IPO prospectus, which calls itself a “Web Performance and Security Company.” We discuss their mission statement, their stated competitive advantages, risks they may face and a quick overview of their financials.

Topics:

The Web Performance and Security Company
Cloudflare's mission
Companies putting mission statements int their prospectuses
How would an early stage startup use Cloudflare versus a Fortune 500
On "Our Industry" section
On "Why We Win" section
Disruptive Business Model
Ease of Use
Efficient Go-to-Market Model
Product Innovation and Velocity
Integrated, Global Offering
Trust and Neutrality
On "Growth Strategy" section
List of concerns that the company and the company's lawyers have
Talking about the section title, "Key Business Metrics and Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Links:

Cloudfare.com - https://www.cloudflare.com/ Cloudflare IPO Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477333/000119312519244325/d735023d424b4.htm Yogababble | No Mercy / No Malice - https://www.profgalloway.com/yogababble Google prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504143377/d424b4.htm

How Ron Lichty Manages the Unmanageable: Topics on Software Management, Agile Processes, and Making Software Hum Oct 14, 2019

Software Consultant Ron Lichty joins us to talk about all things software management. Ron has a treasure trove of experience helping teams accelerate and amplify their software practices. We look at the history of waterfall-style projects transitioning to Agile projects. We talk about his time as a product manager at Apple and his work with Charles Schwab at the time they launched their electronic trading platform. Ron articulates his views on the different types of developers out there and how to motivate them. We finish up with a couple areas Ron is excited about: Blockchain and Virtual Reality.

Topics:

Ron's background
History of waterfall-style projects transitioning to Agile projects
Charles Schwab interactive tools
Talking about Extreme Programming
On Scrum
Software development is a team sport
Differences between this notion of "being agile" versus "doing agile"
Case of estimating
Talking about Brooke's law
On being a good managers
Motivators versus de-motivators
Effective management at different stages of companies
Some interesting technologies and trends that he's optimistic about

Links:

Ron Lichty's website - https://ronlichty.com/
Managing the Unmanageable: The Book - http://managingtheunmanageable.net/
Managing the Unmanageable: Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Unmanageable-Insights-Software-People-ebook/dp/B009CFV8BY
Waterfall Software Development - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model
Agile Software Development - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
RUP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Unified_Process
Harvard Business Review case study on motivating employees - https://hbr.org/2003/01/one-more-time-how-do-you-motivate-employees
Drive by Daniel H. Pink - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004P1JDJO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Interoperability in Cosmos’s IBC Protocol with Tendermint’s Zaki Manian Oct 07, 2019

On this episode, I speak to Zaki Manian from Tendermint. We get deep into the weeds of interoperability, his notions of interop between fast chains and fast and slow chains. We discuss the IBC protocol, which is a spec for adapters between different chains along with all the complexities when dealing with cross-chain communications. Moreover, we examine design and development principles when building product in this space, and the differences when building traditional software product. Zaki goes over some exciting projects that are building on Cosmos as well.

Topics:

Who Zaki is
Talking about interoperability
Two classes of blockchains
What is Cosmos trying to do
Main issues when getting different chains to talk to one another
Main design principles when setting out to design the Cosmos network
Interesting projects he see people building with Cosmos
Talking about consensus system and incentive system
Minimal Viable Ecosystem Acceleration talk

Links:

Cosmos Network - https://cosmos.network/ Twitter - Cosmos Network - https://twitter.com/cosmos Telegram - Cosmos Network - https://t.me/Cosmos_Network Zaki's Twitter - https://twitter.com/zmanian Minimal Viable Ecosystem Acceleration talk at MIT - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqopwqXyURw Cosmos SDK Tutorial - https://github.com/cosmos/sdk-application-tutorial Cosmos Game of Stakes - https://blog.cosmos.network/game-of-stakes-closing-ceremonies-eddb71d3b114

A Tour of Blockstack’s Decentralized Computing Network With Aaron Blankstein Sep 30, 2019

We chatted with Aaron Blankstein, Core Engineer from Blockstack. Blockstack is a decentralized computing network, which makes it simple for developers to build blockchain-based applications. We learn about Blockstack’s incentive system, and what will be changing from v1 to v2. We discuss a few use cases of Blockstack, like the Blockstack Naming Service, or BNS. We also go over Blockstack’s smart contract language Clarity, and the broad tooling that will exist for developers working on the platform. We finish up learning about Aaaron’s fascination with augmented Reality and adversarial machine learning.

Topics:

Who Aaron is
How he describe Blockstack
Centralized versus decentralized application architecture
What is Blockstack's relationship with Bitcoin
How does consensus work in Blockstack
What is Blockstack naming system
On Clarity smart contracts language
Decentralized storage system called Gaia
On authentication and how it works
JavaScript tools
Radiks
Blockstack.js

Links:

Clarity - https://docs.blockstack.org/core/smart/overview.html
Blockstack forums - https://forum.blockstack.org
Blockstack - https://blockstack.org/
White Paper - https://blockstack.org/whitepaper.pdf
Papers - Blockstack - https://blockstack.org/papers
Blackstack Docs - https://docs.blockstack.org/
Aaron Blankstein Website - https://aaron.blankstein.com/
App.co - https://app.co/
The Blackstack Javascript - https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack.js/

Building Scalable Derivatives Trading Platforms with Charles Phan of Interdax Sep 23, 2019

We chatted with Charles Phan, Chief Technology Officer from Interdax. Interdax is a next generation digital assets exchange with strong engineering roots in High Frequency Trading firms, traditional exchanges, hedge funds, investment banks, market data and liquidity providers. This episode was a lot of fun. We talked about Charles’ background in traditional finance and a prior life as a derivatives trader. We then compare and contrast traditional and crypto derivatives markets. We also talk technical details of perpetual swaps and how they differ from other derivative products. Finally, we discuss the engineering underpinnings of the interdax platform and UX and UI considerations when building the product. We finish up discussing technologies Charles is excited about. Hope you enjoy this one.

Topics:

Charles Phan's background
On derivatives markets and trading
Differences between derivatives markets in traditional finance versus crypto
On Interdax
What his role is at Interdax
Building the Interdax

Book:

Dynamic Hedging by Nassim Taleb

Links:

Interdax - https://www.interdax.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/interdax

A Tale of New Digital Primitives with Ben DiFrancesco Sep 16, 2019

Ben DiFrancesco, software consultant and founder of scopelift, joins us on this one. Two things we really respect about Ben are his ability to break down complex technical topics and also his ability to be honest about what crypto and blockchain offer us. He’s at heart, a technologist, and his passion for and dedication to crypto is palpable. This conversation contains a bit of philosophy around Bitcoin and Ethereum, particularly around how polarized the two spaces have become. We get into Bitcoin and Ethereum’s respective reasons for existing and how they can work together, how developers can use these new digital primitives to build applications, and business opportunities in the space. We also cover DeFi, and how smart contracts enable Maker and Dai.

Always enjoy talking to Ben, and I hope you enjoy this one.

Topics:

Smart Contracts & use cases that excite him
BTC + ETH working together
DeFi movement
Crypto Primitives
Quality of Web Dev versus Crypto tooling
ETH and “rich statefulness” and what that means
Some techs outside of blockchain and crypto that he is excited about

Links:

Ben’s twitter: https://twitter.com/BenDiFrancesco
Ben’s consultancy ScopeLift: https://www.scopelift.co/
Newsletter: https://www.buildblockchain.tech/newsletter
Podcast #1: http://quantlayer.libsyn.com/4-a-discussion-with-software-consultant-ben-difrancesco-on-building-great-blockchain-software - https://medium.com/@QuantLayer/building-great-blockchain-software-smart-contract-scaling-and-elixir-ae94687e34dd - https://usedai.org - https://github.com/apbendi/use-dai
Philly Blockchain Tech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Philly-Blockchain-Tech/
Austin Griffith: https://twitter.com/austingriffith
Mastering Bitcoin: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Programming-Open-Blockchain/dp/1491954388/
Mastering Ethereum: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Ethereum-Building-Smart-Contracts/dp/1491971940

A Recap of Blockchain Training Conference 2019 Sep 09, 2019

We recap our attendance at the Blockchain Training Conference last week. We cover the CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium (C4)’s new certifications and their conference’s emphasis on developer and professional education. We also look at the slew of great talks on The Lightning Network, bitcoin privacy, and smart contracts.

Topics:

What does C4 stands for
Keynote w/ Pamela Morgan and Andreas M. Antonopoulos
Announcement: Mastering the Lightning Network
C4 and it's Purpose
CBP Prep Course w/ Andreas
Lightning Network Payment Channels Update w/ Renee Pickhardt
Crypto for Creatives w/ Stephanie Murphy
Clash of Expectations - UX and usability
Bitcoin Privacy On and Offchain w/ Janine Römer
Blockchain Analysis versus Surveillance
Wyoming’s blockchain laws
Law and the Lightning network - Peter van Valkenburg, Coin Center
Joining the Lightning Network w/ Beatrice Leung, Project Manager at Radar
Advanced Lightning Applications w/ Olaoluwa Osuntokun, CTO at lightning labs aka roasbeef

Links:

CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium (C4) - https://cryptoconsortium.org/
Standards | CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium (C4) - https://cryptoconsortium.org/standards/
Blockchain Training Conference - https://blockchaintraining.org/home/home/
Mastering Lightning Network Book on Github - https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook
PrivacyTools.io - https://www.privacytools.io/
That One Privacy Site - https://thatoneprivacysite.net/
Developer Tools - Radar ION - radar.tech - https://ion.radar.tech/dev-tools
Onboarding - Radar ION - radar.tech - https://ion.radar.tech/onboarding

Dr. Ed Felten and Offchain Labs: Second Layer Solutions for Smart Contracts Sep 03, 2019

Dr. Ed Felten is a professor of Computer Science at Princeton, he’s served as Chief Technologist at the FTC and Deputy CTO at the White House. He’s also the cofounder of Offchain Labs, a Princeton-based startup that’s focusing on 2nd layer smart contract solutions to improve scalability. This was one of our favorite conversations to date. We discuss smart contracts and their current problems. We discuss Arbitrum, Offchain Labs’ solution to the smart contract scaling problem which uses a system of validators to provide a guarantee to smart contract participants. Moreover, we discuss at length how their AnyTrust guarantee works, and why only a single validator is needed to maintain a working system. We also go through how an existing dApp can get ported over to Arbitrum. Finally, we talk high level tech themes: How technology and public policy are becoming more and more interconnected, how technology advising will become more and more important over time, and other technologies he’s really optimistic about. It’s a really packed episode. Enjoy.

Topics:

On the idea of "Bitcoin works in practice, but not in theory" Smart contracts Primary problems with smart contracts Real world applications of smart contracts What Offchain Labs is doing with smart contracts Arbitrum & Validators Porting Existing dApp to Arbitrum Offchain business model On blockchain Academia to Industry Advisor to Obama Administraion On his co-authored paper titled, "A Cryptographic Escrow for Treaty Declarations and Step-by-Step Verification" Optimistic technologies people don't know about

Links:

Coursera course: - https://www.coursera.org/learn/cryptocurrency - http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs27philippe.pdf Github: https://github.com/OffchainLabs Whitepaper: https://offchainlabs.com/arbitrum.pdf Twitter: https://twitter.com/EdFelten Princeton website: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~felten/

Domain Driven Design, Language and DevOps for Distributed Systems with CircleCI’s Rob Zuber Aug 27, 2019

We have Rob Zuber, CTO from CircleCI on. A lot of the projects we work on implement CircleCI, so we were super excited to speak to Rob. We talk about his background and how he became part of CircleCI through an acquisition. We also get into one of his favorite topics: language. Particularly the words that are used in projects, and how important they are for workflow. We also discuss “Domain Driven Design,” or the idea that when creating a layer of functionality, to keep it bounded within its domain so other layers don’t creep into it. This was an engineering heavy episode that was a lot of fun. Hope you enjoy this one.

But before we get to the conversation, here’s a word from a sponsor, Blockchain Training Conference, that I’m really excited about. What if there was an educational industry conference, where all of the sessions were focused on teaching you something instead of selling you something? There is and it’s Blockchain Training Conference 2019. It’s going to be hosted August 28th to the 30th in Denver, Colorado. BTC2019 offers every attendee the chance to leave certified and confident in their understanding of blockchain technology. Move past the jargon to gain a robust understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with master classes taught by industry luminaries like Andreas M. Antonopoulos, René Pickhardt, Jameson Lopp, Pamela Morgan, and many others. Register today and learn more at blockchaintraining.org.

We also have a coupon code for our listeners that you can use to get a 10% discount for the conference: quantlayer10

Go to https://blockchaintraining.org/attend/ and hit buy on your ticket, and put in the coupon code quantlayer10 (that’s Q U A N T L A Y E R and the number 10).

We are going to be at this conference in August, so reach out if you will be there as well. Would love to meet in meatspace.

Topics:

Rob's background & early time at CircleCI
Other technical problems they had to deal with
On his favorite topics: Language
Concepts he highlighted on his talked, "Words Matter: Ubiquitous Language and Throughput"
Domain Driven Design
On developer tools and product development around those tools
On his blog: Predictions for 2018 from Rob Zuber, CTO at CircleCI

Books:

Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans Implementing Domain Driven Design by Vaughn Vernon The Lean Startup by Eric Ries Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object Oriented Software by Erich Gamma

Links:

CircleCI: https://circleci.com/ Rob’s twitter: https://twitter.com/z00b Predictions for 2018 from Rob Zuber, CTO at CircleCI: https://circleci.com/blog/predictions-for-2018-from-rob-zuber-cto-at-circleci/ “Words Matter: Ubiquitous Language and Throughput”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4LNezYjLLM What it means to be remote-first vs. remote-friendly - https://circleci.com/blog/what-it-means-to-be-remote-first-vs-remote-friendly/ High performing engineering teams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E3f6v7zHP8 Devops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdxj5O-a58E 10 ways you’re doing devops wrong: https://circleci.com/blog/10-ways-you-re-doing-devops-wrong/

Opening Up the Black Box of Insurance: Wunderite and Programmatic Data Aggregation Aug 19, 2019

On this episode, we have Peter MacDonald and Joe Schnare from Wunderite, an insurance startup based in Boston. This was a really interesting conversation around how they are improving insurance workflows for agencies around the country through programmatic data aggregation. We talk about their backgrounds, get into the details of the black box industry known as insurance, and how they work with customers on product development. I learned a lot from this conversation. Enjoy.

But before we get to the conversation, here’s a word from a sponsor, Blockchain Training Conference, that I’m really excited about. What if there was an educational industry conference, where all of the sessions were focused on teaching you something instead of selling you something? There is and it’s Blockchain Training Conference 2019. It’s going to be hosted August 28th to the 30th in Denver, Colorado. BTC2019 offers every attendee the chance to leave certified and confident in their understanding of blockchain technology. Move past the jargon to gain a robust understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with master classes taught by industry luminaries like Andreas M. Antonopoulos, René Pickhardt, Jameson Lopp, Pamela Morgan, and many others. Register today and learn more at blockchaintraining.org.

We also have a coupon code for our listeners that you can use to get a 10% discount for the conference: quantlayer10

Go to https://blockchaintraining.org/attend/ and hit buy on your ticket, and put in the coupon code quantlayer10 (that’s Q U A N T L A Y E R and the number 10).

We are going to be at this conference in August, so reach out if you will be there as well. Would love to meet in meatspace.

Topics:

Peter and Joe’s background
The reason why they are interested in insurance
Broad problems overall with the insurance industry that Wunderite is solving
Industry verticals that they're focusing on
Couple case studies on insurance workflow before Wunderite, and how that changed after
On their sales process and how they decide who to reach out to
Some big wins they’re happy about and some learning lessons they would have approached differently
On regulatory concerns
On their business model
Are they looking to raising capital
What they're looking forward to next

Links Wunderite - https://www.wunderite.com/ Wunderite Blog - https://blog.wunderite.com/ BNT presentation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H12tIa0EDY8

Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Blockchain Teaching Pedagogy: The CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium and Blockchain Training Conference Aug 12, 2019

We speak with Andreas Antonopoulos, author of Mastering Bitcoin, The Internet of Money, and Mastering Ethereum, and also board member at the CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium, known as C4. C4 will be hosting the Blockchain Training Conference in Denver, Colorado at the end of August. In this conversation, we learn about the conference, how Andreas thinks about blockchain teaching pedagogy, and the certifications that C4 is offering now: the Certified Bitcoin Professional (or CBP) certification and the CryptoCurrency Security Standard (or CCSS) certification. We learn all about the certifications and what they allow the holder to do. Always a pleasure to talk with Andreas. If you enjoyed this one, please rate and review us on iTunes. It would help us out a lot. Thanks for listening to the episode.

But before we get to the conversation, here’s a word from a sponsor, Blockchain Training Conference, that I’m really excited about. What if there was an educational industry conference, where all of the sessions were focused on teaching you something instead of selling you something? There is and it’s Blockchain Training Conference 2019. It’s going to be hosted August 28th to the 30th in Denver, Colorado. BTC2019 offers every attendee the chance to leave certified and confident in their understanding of blockchain technology. Move past the jargon to gain a robust understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with master classes taught by industry luminaries like Andreas M. Antonopoulos, René Pickhardt, Jameson Lopp, Pamela Morgan, and many others. Register today and learn more at blockchaintraining.org.

We also have a coupon code for our listeners that you can use to get a 10% discount for the conference: quantlayer10

Go to https://blockchaintraining.org/attend/ and hit buy on your ticket, and put in the coupon code quantlayer10.

We are going to be at this conference in August, so reach out if you will be there as well. Would love to meet in meatspace.

Topics

How they decided to do the Blockchain Training conference
What a Blockchain Training conference is
What are they focusing more on 2019 conference versus 2016 conference
How they produce keys
Talking about the workshops
How they figured out the programming
Pedagogical philosphy
On certifications
Certified Bitcoin Professional
CryptoCurrency Security Standard
What do the certifications get you
Topics they would have liked to see
On their long term goals

Links

Blockchain training conf: https://blockchaintraining.org/schedule/ Certification Information: https://cryptoconsortium.org/ Andreas Antonopoulos twitter: https://twitter.com/aantonop Our last Podcast with Andreas: http://quantlayer.libsyn.com/andreas-m-antonopoulos-and-the-state-of-cryptocurrency-ten-years-in Mastering Bitcoin: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Programming-Open-Blockchain-ebook/dp/B071K7FCD4/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?crid=ELNFUIRYNC1D&keywords=andrea%27s+antonopoulos&qid=1565103889&s=gateway&sprefix=andrea%27s+antonopoulos%2Caps%2C370&sr=8-1-fkmr0 The Internet of Money: https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Money-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos-ebook/dp/B01L9WM0H8/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?crid=ELNFUIRYNC1D&keywords=andrea%27s+antonopoulos&qid=1565103889&s=gateway&sprefix=andrea%27s+antonopoulos%2Caps%2C370&sr=8-2-fkmr0 The Internet of Money Volume 2: https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Money-Two-Andreas-Antonopoulos-ebook/dp/B075VB7LVG/ref=sr_1_2?crid=ELNFUIRYNC1D&keywords=andrea%27s+antonopoulos&qid=1565103889&s=gateway&sprefix=andrea%27s+antonopoulos%2Caps%2C370&sr=8-2 Mastering Ethereum: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Ethereum-Building-Smart-Contracts-ebook/dp/B07KGLNL76/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=mastering+ethereum&qid=1565103907&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Chainweb, Pact, and Hybrid Blockchains with Kadena’s Stuart Popejoy Aug 05, 2019

We speak with Stuart Popejoy co-founder from Kadena. This was a really great technical conversation around the hybrid public-private blockchain that Kadena is building with their Chainweb platform and LISP inspired smart contract language Pact. We cover how traditional finance firms incorporate new technologies into their workflow, real world use cases of Kadena, and what’s happening in the Enterprise. We also get into the technical details of Chainweb’s Proof-of-Work consensus system and the importance of writing safe code, which is an underpinning of the Pact language.

Topics:

What Kadena is
His background, genesis story/interest in blockchain
Given his experience at JPM, how do large banks approach using new technologies
What is the vetting process at a bank like to incorporate a new tech
Real world use cases of Kadena
How he thinks about keeping things simple, designing a language for non-developers
High level overview of Kadena
All the key components of Kadena
TPS vs. predictable availability
Private vs. Public blockchain vs. Hybrid blockchains
What are the things that are being built in Enterprise
Your decentralized vision / pie in the sky type of thoughts around what things will look like
For developers who want to work with Kadena, what steps would your recommend they take

Links:

GH Repo: https://github.com/kadena-io
Deal w/ USCF: https://prn.to/2MnC7Cp
Pact Language
- Tutorial: https://pactlang.org/
- REPL: https://pact.kadena.io/
- Key features: https://bit.ly/2K2LF44
The EVM Is Fundamentally Unsafe - https://medium.com/kadena-io/the-evm-is-fundamentally-unsafe-ba486cb17f1f
Kadena - Medium - https://medium.com/kadena-io

A word from a sponsor we’re really excited about. What if there was an educational industry conference, where all of the sessions were focused on teaching you something instead of selling you something? There is and it’s Blockchain Training Conference 2019. Hosted August 28-30 in Denver, CO, BTC2019 offers every attendee the chance to leave certified and confident in their understanding of blockchain technology. Move past the jargon to gain a robust understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with master classes taught by industry luminaries like Andreas M. Antonopoulos, René Pickhardt, Jameson Lopp, Pamela Morgan, and many others. Register today and learn more at blockchaintraining.org.

The Father Time IPO and the Nuts and Bolts of Building Software Applications From Scratch Jun 26, 2019

On this episode, we look at a recently filed IPO, Father Time. This isn’t a hot IPO. In fact, no bankers are underwriting this. What’s interesting about this one is that it’s entirely self-underwritten by the company founder. They are planning to build a coupon system from scratch, so we talk through how that would look from a technical perspective. We consider their business model and the budget in their S-1.

Topics:

On Father Time IPO
What a blank check type deal is
How to work with a client like Father Time in order to build the software application
Description of business
Challenges of this industry faces
On using paper coupons
Father Time’s future products
LoyaltyExpress
CouponExpress
StoreFront Central
Revenue Model

Link:

Father Time IPO -https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1702388/000149315219008478/forms-1.htm

The SEC and the Sundance Kik or How Alternative Fundraising Schemes Get Squashed Jun 11, 2019

We look at the SEC’s charging of Kik Interactive’s unregulated securities offering. We recap the SEC complaint, outlining their argument that Kik was a deeply underfunded, low-revenue, high-expense company that attempted a “hail mary” by circumventing securities law by running the Kin ICO. Finally, we step through the pieces of evidence the SEC presents.

Topics:

SEC put out a press release along with a complaint on Kik Interactive - SEC Charges Issuer With Conducting $100 Million Unregistered ICO

Links: Press release: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2019-87 Complaint: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2019/comp-pr2019-87.pdf Fireside #8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irlVLDKKlr4

High Quality Software Is Worth the Cost Jun 03, 2019

We look at Martin Fowler’s article titled “Is High Quality Software Worth the Cost?” We discuss the gives and takes of writing good software and managing technical debt. We look at misconceptions around software quality and cost, and how planning and blueprinting (architecting) up front can save teams money in the future. Moreover, we look at how good software offers teams a competitive advantage over others due to the ability to ship new features quickly and confidently.

Topics:

Who Martin Fowler is
On Martin Fowler's article titled, "Is High Quality Software Worth the Cost?" - Are we used to a trade-off between quality and cost - Software quality means many things - Internal quality does not matter to customers - Internal quality makes it easier to enhance software - Customers do care that new features come quickly - Visualizing the impact of internal quality - Even the best teams create cruft - High quality software is cheaper to produce

Links: Is High Quality Software Worth the Cost? - Martin Fowler - https://martinfowler.com/articles/is-quality-worth-cost.html Martin Fowler - https://martinfowler.com/ Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

SIM Port Attacks + 2FA Security or How Not To Lose All Your Crypto and a Empex 4 Recap May 29, 2019

We look at a recent SIM port hack where a crypto professional lost $100k worth of crypto from his Coinbase account. We discuss in detail how he was attacked and how you can safeguard your crypto assets better. We then do a recap of the one-day Elixir conference, Empex, where topics ranged from OTP to LiveView to functional programming more broadly.

Topics:

What a SIM port attack is
How people can be careful
Their experience at Empex
Their thoughts on Elixir

Links:

The Most Expensive Lesson Of My Life: Details of SIM port hack - https://medium.com/coinmonks/the-most-expensive-lesson-of-my-life-details-of-sim-port-hack-35de11517124
Monero’s Fluffy Pony - https://twitter.com/fluffypony/status/1130555634330554368?s=21
EMPEX - https://empex.co/nyc.html
Erlang Ecosystem Foundation - https://erlef.org/
SimpleBet - https://simplebet.io/
Frame.io - https://frame.io/
Manning - https://www.manning.com/
The Pragmatic Bookshelf - https://pragprog.com/
How to use Mint - https://scoutapm.com/blog/how-to-use-mint-an-awesome-http-library-for-elixir-part-01

A Look at CrowdStrike’s IPO Prospectus and Their Approach to Endpoint Security May 22, 2019

We explore the CrowdStrike IPO by delving into its SEC Prospectus: An examination of their technology, and in particular their approach to endpoint security. By wading through the buzzword ocean, we bring you the key areas to focus on in this S-1. We consider their network effects, notably how signing up more customers to their platform improves security of all their customers. We go through a few case studies of their Falcon product line. Finally, we look at their stated risks.

Topics:

On CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc
Security Cloud
On Falcon platform
Single intelligent lightweight agent
Threat Graph
Low friction land-and-expand sales strategy
Cybersecurity threats are greater than ever
Proliferation of workloads expanding the attack surface
On-premise security architectures are constrained
Other existing security products have limitations
Creation of the Security Cloud
Growth Strategy

Links:

Form S-1 - CrowdStrike Holding's, Inc. - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1535527/000104746919003095/a2238800zs-1.htm
CrowdStrike - Falcon Platform - https://www.crowdstrike.com/endpoint-security-products/falcon-platform/
CrowdStrike Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrowdStrike#Russian_hacking_investigations

On-chain Analysis with TokenAnalyst’s Sid Shekhar: The Valuable Open Ledger Apr 16, 2019

TokenAnalyst’s founder Sid Shekhar joins us on this one to talk about the on-chain analysis tools they’re building for the crypto industry. Particularly, we spoke about the delineation of on-chain versus off-chain and why on-chain data hosts a treasure trove of valuable information. We also talk about how funds can benefit their investors by investigating open ledgers. Lots of really good stuff in here like analogies to dark pools, exchange liquidity analysis and more.

Topics:

His background and how he got interested in crypto
On TokenAnalyst
His delineation of on-chain versus off-chain data
The reason on-chain data is important
Things we can learn from on-chain data
Where he thinks on-chain data is going and the things he thinks will play into price prediction
On running a crypto-focused company
What the next hot coin is
Something he's really proud about recently that keeps him going
Something he wishes he learned earlier

Links: TokenAnalyst - https://www.tokenanalyst.io/ TokenAnalyst – Medium - https://medium.com/tokenanalyst Under the hood of the world computer – TokenAnalyst – Medium - https://medium.com/tokenanalyst/under-the-hood-of-the-world-computer-caf957fb8a4c Dissecting Blocks – TokenAnalyst – Medium - https://medium.com/tokenanalyst/dissecting-blocks-bf218cdff39d

Zilliqa With Edison Lim: Formal Verification of Smart Contracts, Byzantine Fault Tolerance, and Smart Contract Composition. Apr 09, 2019

We spoke with Edison Lim, Application Lead at Zilliqa about their protocol. We consider Zilliqa’s approach to scaling and energy usage. We discuss their proof of work consensus model for miner verification, and their approach to sharded consensus groups. We take a technical look at their smart contract language Scilla and its roots in OCaml, and why formal verification is important.

Topics:

What Zilliqa is
On smart contract language
Different consensus mechanism
What problems are they solving
Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance
What their consensus model is
Types of business or markets that benefit from their solution

Links:

Zilliqa - https://zilliqa.com/ For Developers - Zilliqa - https://zilliqa.com/for-developers.html Scilla Overview Paper - https://ilyasergey.net/papers/scilla-overview.pdf What is Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance? - https://blockonomi.com/practical-byzantine-fault-tolerance/ Ecosystem Partners - Zilliqa - https://zilliqa.com/ecosystem-partners.html

Capital Management with David Baker: Mercadyne Fund’s Founder on Public and Private Investing, Generating Alpha, and Management Team Red Flags Apr 02, 2019

We spoke to David Baker from Mercadyne Funds, my first Portfolio Manager at Vikram’s first Hedge Fund analyst job many years ago. David is a really smart guy and he takes a unique approach to generating alpha by investing in micro and small-cap companies. He joins us to talk about all things investing. We cover a slew of topics: How he started investing and his first call with a management team at age thirteen, how he parlayed his experience as a broker to starting his first micro and small-cap fund, how he runs his current fund, risk management, and his current investment philosophy. We go over factors that make attractive investment opportunities (huge TAM, compelling biz model, accelerating sales growth, high insider ownership) and also red flags that he sees on a regular basis. He also talks about his experience investing in turnaround self storage units and finally, we finish up discussing his views on the current economy and what sectors he likes right now.

Topics:

How he got into investing
How law school helped mold his interest in investing
On raising capital
Types of stocks he invested in
Investment thesis for small and micro capital
What a multiple expansion is and how it works
What he likes about the ZAG story
Assessing management
On trading psychology
On private investing
Self-storage investment profile

Link: FactSet Insight - https://insight.factset.com/

Profiles: Mercadyne - https://www.mercadyne.com Newsletters – Mercadyne - https://www.mercadyne.com/newsletters/

Crypto SaaS Spotlight: Santiago Roel Santos from EON, Proof of Stake and Staking as a Service Mar 18, 2019

Hey everyone, this is Vikram from QuantLayer and thanks for listening to our 34th podcast. On this episode, Santiago Roel Santos from EON joins us to talk about proof of stake and staking. We speak about Santiago’s investing background, how he entered crypto, and the Staking as a Service business he’s building now at EON. The discussion covers a lot of great topics for crypto entrepreneurs: UX considerations when building crypto products, how EON manages technical and security issues when staking on the behalf of others, and EON’s business model. This is a must listen for anyone building crypto products for consumers.

Topics:

Santiago's background
His thoughts at the time when he's analysing companies
When margin changes
How he got interested in crypto
His peer's responses as an analyst
What staking is
Proof of work and proof of stake
Who/how does a transaction get validated
His background on investing
What they're up to at EON
A scenario how staking works
What happens if the server goes down
On customer service
How they handle availability and security
The worst thing that can happen if people are staking with them (EON)
Their qualification criteria for what comes on for their platform
What gets him excited of what they're doing at EON
How they compare and contrast with others
His thoughts on exchanges could offer a staking service to their customers

Links: J.P. Morgan - https://www.jpmorgan.com/global/jpmorgan Sageview - http://www.sageviewcapital.com/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ Microsoft - https://www.microsoft.com/ BitMain - https://www.bitmain.com/ Horizon - https://www.horizen.global/ Cosmos - https://cosmos.network/ Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/ Staked - https://staked.us/

Profile: Medium - https://medium.com/@eon_staking EON - https://eon.capital/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/eon_staking

Oracles, Doug von Kohorn and Jeff Rosen from Rhombus Mar 11, 2019

We speak about the problem around connecting smart contracts to real world data, how oracles solve that problem and the gives and takes around oracles. We walk through some example oracles in gold pricing data and prediction markets. We finally wrap up with an interview with Jeff Rosen and Doug von Kohorn, founders at Rhombus, where we discuss their approach and solution to the oracle problem.

Topics:

Faizaan's thoughts on the ETHDenver event
How we should think about oracles
The oracle problem
What decentralization is from the oracle perspective
Centralized oracles
Cryptographic annotations
What TLSnotary and Town Crier does
Astraea by consensus
Manipulation resistance
What Rhombus is
What makes them different from other oracle providers in the Ethereum ecosystem
Examples of the kind of enterprise use-cases they see
On providing the right price / data
How prices of assets completely delisted affects what happens to smart contracts / things
Underwriting insurance policies
Some areas they're interested in that they think might require more transparency
Their thoughts around working with prediction markets
Difference between Chainlink and Rhombus
How they're doing sales right now
Their background
What got them interested in the oracle space
How they're funded right now
What they're excited about for the rest of the year
What the lighthouse oracle is and its use

Links: Rhombus - https://rhombus.network/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/ r/progresspics - https://www.reddit.com/r/progresspics/ myfitnesspal - https://www.myfitnesspal.com/ Strava - https://www.strava.com/ The State of Decentralized Oracles - https://media.consensys.net/the-state-of-decentralized-oracles-df45bf0dc51d TLSnotary - https://tlsnotary.org/TLSNotary.pdf Town Crier - https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/168.pdf Astraea: A Decentralized Blockchain Oracle - https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.00528 OpenLaw - https://openlaw.io/ Ethereum - https://www.ethereum.org/ Chicago Mercantile Exchange - https://www.cmegroup.com/ Coinbase - https://pro.coinbase.com/ Gemini - https://gemini.com/ Chainlink - https://chain.link/ ConsenSys - https://consensys.net/ Getcoin - https://getcoin.site/

Andreas M. Antonopoulos and the State of Cryptocurrency Ten Years In Mar 04, 2019

We have Andreas M. Antonopoulos on, who we were really excited to talk to. With his books The Internet of Money, Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Ethereum, Andreas has been an amazing ambassador for the cryptocurrency space. On this episode, we get into a lot of interesting topics: What’s changed and surprised him since he published The Internet of Money, how Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrency project teams can learn from one another, fighting back against oppressive regimes with cryptography, opsec, how he sees 2nd layer solutions play out, and a host of other topics.

Topics:

On his books
What surprised him since he published his book, The Internet of Money
How resilience technologies are
Interesting capabilities of a 2nd layer technology
How cryptocurrency project teams can learn from one another
Difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum

Links:

Andreas Twitter: https://twitter.com/aantonop Andreas Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aantonop Mastering Bitcoin: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Programming-Open-Blockchain/dp/1491954388/ The Internet of Money Volume 1: https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Money-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos/dp/1537000454/ The Internet of Money Volume 2: https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Money-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos/dp/194791006X/ Mastering Ethereum: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Ethereum-Building-Smart-Contracts/dp/1491971940/

#31: Crypto SaaS Spotlight: TokenTax’s Zac McClure and All About Crypto Taxes Feb 11, 2019

Zac McClure joins us from TokenTax. I was really excited to talk to Zac because it’s great to learn about the kinds of professional SaaS tools that crypto entrepreneurs are building. This was a fun conversation. Zac has had an eclectic career prior to crypto. He’s been an investment banker, taught financial literacy to high school students, and worked on social investing platforms. He’s been heavily invested in getting people to understand finance and investing, giving them the knowledge to own their own path towards financial freedom. TokenTax is an extension of this by helping people, funds and other institutions easily manage their crypto taxes. We go over how the US and UK treat crypto taxes, wash sales and a whole bunch of other tax specific topics. With tax season looming around the corner, you will definitely want to listen to this one.

Topics:

Zac's background and his work experiences
How he would love to have crypto taxes be a gateway to financial health
How he got people interested in crypto
How 1031 Exchange works
How wash sales work
How he recommends crypto taxes be treated
What fork means in cryptocurrency
On being conservative and consistent
How he established a meaningful fork
The solution TokenTax provides
How TokenTax is different from others
How they generate revenue on a business model side
On their vision
How they decided which feature to build first when they first started TokenTax
A feature that did not go as expected Seeing interest in the security token side

Links:

TokenTax Twitter - TokenTax Twitter - Zac McClure

#30: Security Researcher Gets Attacked After Vulnerability Disclosure Feb 08, 2019

What happens when a vendor attacks a security researcher who points out security flaws in their software? On this episode, we talk about two white-hat security researchers who discover multiple vulnerabilities in a vendor’s software system. The vendor initially ignores their concerns until the FBI gets involved. It culminates in a physical attack by the vendor’s COO on one of the researchers. We look at all the details around the vulnerabilities, discuss common disclosure concerns and how the FBI has opened up a “Cyber Fusion” unit to act as a liaison between security teams and at-risk vendors.

Topics:

Atrient has assaulted the security researcher who disclosed the vulnerability
On reporting the vulnerability
How the FBI got involved
Vendor call with the FBI and the security researchers
The Bug Bounty call
The ICE Conference assault
An email from Jessie Gill (Atrient COO)

Links:

Researcher Assaulted By A Vendor After Disclosing A Vulnerability Shodan Shodan wikipedia Dylan on Twitter Shodan Safari, where hackers heckle the worst devices put on the internet

#29: NVIDIA’s Pre-announces Terrible Results, Huawei and Political Risk, and Bitcoin’s Predecessors Feb 01, 2019

We look at NVIDIA’s negative pre-announce, how they stopped blaming crypto and are seeing weakness across the board, especially on the datacenter side. We take a tangent on political risk associated with Huawei, and finally finish up by looking at the slew of predecessors of Bitcoin so the next time someone thinks they’re being clever by calling Bitcoin the Myspace of Crypto, you can list off the hundred or so predecessors and attempts at payment systems before Bitcoin.

Topics:

NVIDIA's negative pre-announce
Vikram and Faizan's thought on these articles: - Cramer on Nvidia warning: ‘If you wanted to issue a call for why you should sell stocks, this is it’ - Long-Term Investors, Ignore the Noise in Nvidia Stock - Why NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) Stock is a Buy - NVIDIA's Margin Guidance Isn't As Bad As It Looks
On political risk associated with Huawei
Teaser about the slew of predecessors of Bitcoin

Links:

NVIDIA Updates Financial Guidance for Fourth Quarter of Fiscal Year 2019 Shareholder Letter Cramer on Nvidia warning: ‘If you wanted to issue a call for why you should sell stocks, this is it’ Long-Term Investors, Ignore the Noise in Nvidia Stock Why NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) Stock is a Buy NVIDIA's Margin Guidance Isn't As Bad As It Looks Princeton Bitcoin Book

#28: DevOps and GitHub Opening Up Private Repos Jan 21, 2019

We look at GitHub’s recent move to give non-paying users unlimited private repositories, and GitLab’s subsequent response. Additionally, we discuss DevOps and how teams can save money and improve deployment processes by implementing DevOps best practices.

Topics:

GitHub offers free private repos
What GitHub is
How it was acquired by Microsoft
On DevOps
What DevOps is
How companies do DevOps now
On being good at DevOps
What the goals are
The techniques they used

Links:

GitLab - GitHub now offers free private repos for up to three collaborators New year, new GitHub: Announcing unlimited free private repos and unified Enterprise offering There are 3 public clouds left and we'll use all of them - Medium Multi-cloud maturity model – GitLab Magazine – Medium Twitter - Peter Todd

#27: Whose Fault Is It Anyways?: On Writing Illegal Smart Contracts Jan 14, 2019

We discuss comments from the CFTC about developer responsibilities and liabilities. The CFTC posits that there are a few primary groups of users of blockchain networks: (1) core developers of the underlying software; (2) developers of smart contracts on top of the underlying blockchain; (3) miners who validate transactions; and (4) users who transact with the chain’s smart contracts. Their focus is primarily around (2), or the developers of smart contracts, and what responsibilities those developers have when writing contracts that fall in the jurisdiction of the CFTC. Is a smart contract developer who writes options contracts or futures contracts or prediction market contracts - those that the CFTC would call financial products - liable for the code they write? This was a really interesting conversation because it touched on notions of developer responsibilities and law. As the world moves more and more in the direction of software, how do we ensure that code that’s being written isn’t bad?

Topics:

On Brian Quintenz's speech at a technology event
Responsibilities of a core developers
Miners that validate transactions
Smart contracts
Applications of smart contracts
Applying old law to new products
General analytical framework of prediction market

Link:

CFTC speech: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opaquintenz16

#26: The New York Nasdaq CTO Summit: How to Manage and Scale Tech Teams Jan 07, 2019

We discuss our time at the CTO Summit at the NASDAQ Marketsite from a couple weeks back. This was a great conference, because technology leaders from startups to larger companies congregated to talk about managing and scaling tech teams. We talk about software process, distributed teams, how deployment is the main cause of all software failures, and a whole bunch of other interesting software development topics. Just as a warning, there isn’t a lot of crypto content on this one, but we thought our learnings from the conference were worth highlighting.

Topics:

On the CTO Event
Recaps - Eliot Horowitz of MongoDB Inc.: The Right Amount of Process to Scale Your Engineering Team - Maria Belousova of Grubhub: Building Highly Distributed Teams - Michael Boufford of Greenhouse: Establishing a Management Cadence - Bjorn Freeman Benson of Fresnel Research: Seventeen Things that Have Bitten Us But Shouldn’t Have - Yvette Pasqua of Meetup: Engineering Leadership Through High Growth and High Change - Angie Ruan of Nasdaq: The Nasdaq Financial Framework Transformation - Rebecca Miller-Webster of DevMynd: Refactoring Trust on Your Team - Johnny Ray Austin of Mapbox: Setting Your Team Up For Failure - Mona Soni of Dow Jones: Is Your Team Built to Be Effective? - Edith Harbaugh of LaunchDarkly: What I learned From Not Running 100 Miles - Lena Reinhard of CircleCI: Better Communication for Stronger Teams - Michael Ellison of CodePath.org: Improving Diversity in Tech by Transforming CS Education at Colleges - Stacy Gorelick of Flatiron: Growing a Platform Team - Jean Barmash of Komodo Health: How to Receive Feedback - Ushashi Chakraborty of Mode Analytics: Run Engineering Meetings Using Improve Skills -Kwame Thomison of Magnetic Inc.: Your Hiring Pipeline is a Product - Debbie Madden of Stride Consulting: How to Retain Developers. And When To Let Them Go - James Kenigsberg of 2U: Standing on the Shoulder of Giants - Adapting Existing Technologies for Speed and Credibility - Andrew Montalenti of Parse.ly: Fully Distributed & Asynchronous: Building Eventually-Coordinated Teams That Ship - Randy Shoup of WeWork: Breaking Codes, Designing Jets, and Building Teams

Links:

Bjorn Freeman Benson - https://twitter.com/bjorn_fb Johnny Ray Austin - https://twitter.com/recursivefunk Lena Reinhard - https://twitter.com/lrnrd Why we re-designed our engineering career paths at CircleCI - bit.ly/circleci-matrix Debbie Madden - https://twitter.com/debbiemadden200 Andrew Montalenti - https://twitter.com/amontalenti Randy Shoup - https://twitter.com/randyshoup

#25: Why We Moved Our Search Infrastructure to Elasticsearch ($ESTC) and a Look-back at Our Podcast Episodes of 2018 Dec 31, 2018

On this episode, we do a recap of our podcast episodes of 2018. We look at how the crypto market has changed since we launched our first episode (things other than just prices being lower) and also all the things that haven’t changed. This was a fun review of half a year of recording with a few glimpses of times ahead.

Topics:

Reflecting on our podcast this past year Episode 1 - The QuantLayer Genesis Story, Crypto and Stock Market Comparisons, and Why Crypto Needs Reg FD https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/1-quantlayer-genesis-story-crypto-stock-market-comparisons/id1402142700?i=1000414325483&mt=2 Episode 2 - What’s a Crypto Investment Bank? A Conversation About Crypto Due Diligence With Crypto Launchpad CEO Adiraj Gupta https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/2-whats-crypto-investment-bank-conversation-about-crypto/id1402142700?i=1000414325484&mt=2 Episode 3 Crypto’s ICO Legal Landscape, the Attack on Verge, M&A in Crypto, and Better Treasury Management for Crypto Teams https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/3-cryptos-ico-legal-landscape-attack-on-verge-m-in/id1402142700?i=1000414357284&mt=2 Episode 4 A Discussion with Software Consultant Ben DiFrancesco on Building Great Blockchain Software https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/4-discussion-software-consultant-ben-difrancesco-on/id1402142700?i=1000415065447&mt=2 Episode 5 Crypto Teams Need to Communicate Better, and a New Segment: Big Drama in Smallcap Land (Zoin and Sumokoin) https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/5-crypto-teams-need-to-communicate-better-new-segment/id1402142700?i=1000415464516&mt=2 Episode 6 Digital Ocean Versus Google Cloud, Polychain’s $1Bn Fund, a16z’s $300mm Fund, How to be a Shady Hedge Fund Manager, and 2nd Layer Solutions for Ethereum and Bitcoin https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/6-digital-ocean-versus-google-cloud-polychains-%241bn/id1402142700?i=1000415910825&mt=2 Episode 7 Bitcoin ETF & Alternative Energy ETFs, ZCash Incentive Structure, and How To Spot Bad Code in Your Crypto Investments https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/7-bitcoin-etf-alternative-energy-etfs-zcash-incentive/id1402142700?i=1000416414528&mt=2 Episode 8 Short Selling Explained, Tesla and How Controversial Shorts Work, and Nvidia and Bitmain https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/8-short-selling-explained-tesla-how-controversial-shorts/id1402142700?i=1000416862421&mt=2 Episode 9 Custody Solutions and Infrastructure, Family Offices, and How Funds Should Educate Their Analysts on Crypto https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/9-custody-solutions-infrastructure-family-offices-how/id1402142700?i=1000417280581&mt=2 Episode 10 More About Tesla (This Time About Going Private), Software Developer Personalities and Getting Tangled in IOTA https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/10-more-about-tesla-this-time-about-going-private-software/id1402142700?i=1000417715415&mt=2 Episode 11 Boston’s Growing Fintech & Crypto Scene, Telegram as a Crypto Platform and P2P Lending https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/11-bostons-growing-crypto-scene-mailbag-1-how-to-say/id1402142700?i=1000418146792&mt=2 Episode 12 Tesla Staying Public, How Amazon and AWS Made Angry Shorts Give Up and Why Rejection of the Bitcoin ETF is a Good Thing https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/12-tesla-staying-public-how-amazon-aws-made-angry-shorts/id1402142700?i=1000418644761&mt=2 Episode 13 An Alert Blitzkrieg: Cheap ETH Mining, MANA Land Estate Bug, EOS RAM Vulnerability, Stratis Node Vulnerability, Etherscan Vulnerability, Bitcoin Cash Vulnerability, and How Wall Streeters and Technologists Can Be More Lay-language Friendly https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/13-alert-blitzkrieg-cheap-eth-mining-mana-land-estate/id1402142700?i=1000419016588&mt=2 Episode 14 Turning A Bug Into A Feature: Bugsnag, Why You Shouldn’t Violate Open Source Copyrights (Hint: Your Coin Will Be Down 90% If You Do), The Bitcoin-Dev Mailing List, And Why Crypto UX Is So Bad https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/quantlayer-crypto-podcast/id1402142700?ls=1 Episode 15 Open Source as Revenue Driver: How Elasticsearch Uses Open Source for Revenue Growth, Tech Investing and Crypto, a Cautionary Tale of Bad Crypto Trading Psychology and Flash Crashes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/15-open-source-as-revenue-driver-how-elasticsearch/id1402142700?i=1000419883506&mt=2 Episode 16 Zaif Exchange Hack and How We Called It Two Months Ago and the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/16-zaif-exchange-hack-how-we-called-it-two-months-ago/id1402142700?i=1000420329661&mt=2 Episode 17 Crypto Legal Landscape with Kurt Watkins of MG Miller Intellectual Property Law: Securitized Real Assets and Intellectual Goods, Crypto Patents, Hard Forks and “Derivative Works,” Decentralized Exchanges and Alternative Trading Systems https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/17-crypto-legal-landscape-kurt-watkins-mg-miller-intellectual/id1402142700?i=1000420807788&mt=2 Episode 18 Crypto SaaS Spotlight: John Young With Ledj.io and Building Professional Crypto Research Tools https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/18-crypto-saas-spotlight-john-young-ledj-io-building/id1402142700?i=1000421326288&mt=2 Episode 19 Crypto SaaS Spotlight: Amy Wan, Founder and CEO of Sagewise and Building Crypto LegalTech Solutions https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/19-crypto-saas-spotlight-amy-wan-founder-ceo-sagewise/id1402142700?i=1000421924166&mt=2 Episode 20 ZRX & ESTC: A Tale of Exchange Listing Pops, the State of Crypto Reporting (It Sucks) and How You Can Make Money Being Contrarian, and How Monero (XMR) Sliced Up Transaction Fees With Bulletproofs https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/20-zrx-estc-tale-exchange-listing-pops-state-crypto/id1402142700?i=1000422824609&mt=2 QuantLayer - Episode 21 A look at Stablecoins, Tether and PwC https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/21-a-look-at-stablecoins-tether-and-pwc/id1402142700?i=1000423666435&mt=2 QuantLayer - Episode 22 Everything is Ded (Bitcoin, “Blockchain,” ICOs, Volatility) and Amazon Takes Over New York City https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/22-everything-is-ded-bitcoin-blockchain-icos-volatility/id1402142700?i=1000424132491&mt=2 Episode 23 Crypto Hangover and Market Downturn?: A Look At Semiconductor Market Cycles, NVIDIA Throwing Crypto Under The Bus, And What Nathaniel Popper Got Wrong In His Recent New York Times Article https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/23-crypto-hangover-market-downturn-look-at-semiconductor/id1402142700?i=1000424844720&mt=2 Episode 24 The Attack of the Attack Vectors: a 51% Attack on Vertcoin & the Demise of ASIC Resistance + a Social Engineering Attack on ETCDEV and npm Libraries. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/24-attack-attack-vectors-51-attack-on-vertcoin-demise/id1402142700?i=1000425249491&mt=2

Other links:

Substratum to trade ICO funds in order to maintain capital as ETH price drops - https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/6005/substratum-to-trade-ico-funds-in-order-to-maintain-funds-as-eth-price-drops.html Newsletter — Build Blockchain Tech - https://www.buildblockchain.tech/newsletter/ Samson Mow on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Excellion/status/1077717355159900160

#24: The Attack of the Attack Vectors: a 51% Attack on Vertcoin & the Demise of ASIC Resistance + a Social Engineering Attack on ETCDEV and npm Libraries Dec 06, 2018

This episode is all about attack vectors in crypto. We look at a 51% attack on Vertcoin, and how ASIC resistance is turning out to be a massive security bug, not a feature. We also look at Ethereum Classic and a social engineering attack on the ETCDEV team. Finally, we discuss the event-stream attack which robbed crypto wallets that used that npm library, and what that means for open source governance.

Topics:

ASIC resistance is a massive security bug, not a feature
What ASIC resistance is
Vertcoin is currently being 51% attacked
What NiceHash is
ETCDEV shutdown
What ETC is
Who ETCDEV is
Event-stream situation

Links:

Vertcoin - MIT Digital Currency Initiative - https://dci.mit.edu/video-gallery/?tag=vertcoin About NiceHash - https://www.nicehash.com/about About Crypto51 - https://www.crypto51.app/about.html Vertcoin is currently being 51% attacked - https://medium.com/coinmonks/vertcoin-vtc-is-currently-being-51-attacked-53ab633c08a4 On Dec 3, Igor put out the following statement - https://twitter.com/etcdev/status/1069625401515872256/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1069625401515872256&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsbtc.com%2F2018%2F12%2F04%2Fcrypto-bear-market-strikes-ethereum-classic-etc-development-group-folds%2F Event-stream situation Synopsis: - https://github.com/dominictarr/event-stream/issues/116#issuecomment-441759047 - https://github.com/dominictarr/event-stream/issues/116#issuecomment-441749105 Dominic Tarr’s response: - https://gist.github.com/dominictarr/9fd9c1024c94592bc7268d36b8d83b3a Kate Sills - https://twitter.com/kate_sills/status/1067202990690291712

#23: Crypto Hangover and Market Downturn?: A Look At Semiconductor Market Cycles, NVIDIA Throwing Crypto Under The Bus, And What Nathaniel Popper Got Wrong In His Recent New York Times Article Nov 30, 2018

A look at the semiconductor market cycle, and how recent results from NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, and AMD have spooked the tech market. We look at NVIDIA’s most recent conference call where they place all the blame on what they call a “crypto hangover.” We then look at two distinct predictions about this latest semi cycle, one from JAG capital, who got it completely wrong, and another from a Supply Chain magazine that got it completely right. We finish up with a teardown of a New York Times article by Nathaniel Popper titled “5 Reasons Cryptocurrency Prices Are Plunging Again” and what he got wrong. If you enjoy our podcast, please rate and review us on iTunes. Thanks.

Topics:

Market downturn
What NVIDIA is
How earnings call work
Examples of good non-street analyse questions
Crypto hangover
Semiconductor market cycle
How slowing down of Nvidia, Texas Instruments, or AMD can affect the rest of the space
A teardown of a New York Times article by Nathaniel Popper

Book:

Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D8KFX9Q/

Links:

Earnings call transcript - https://seekingalpha.com/article/4222728-nvidia-corp-nvda-ceo-jen-hsun-huang-q3-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript Where Are We in the Semiconductor Cycle? - JAG Capital Management - https://jagcapm.com/where-are-we-in-the-semiconductor-cycle/ For Semiconductor Sales Cycles, Winter is Coming - EPSNews - https://epsnews.com/2018/10/04/for-semiconductor-sales-cycle-winter-is-coming/ 5 Reasons Cryptocurrency Prices Are Plunging Again - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/technology/cryptocurrency-price-drop.html Estimated USD Transaction Value - Blockchain - https://www.blockchain.com/en/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd

#22: Everything is Ded (Bitcoin, “Blockchain,” ICOs, Volatility) and Amazon Takes Over New York City Nov 19, 2018

We review the latest proclamations of Bitcoin’s apparent demise: (1) Axios’s report that Corporate blockchain and bitcoin interest is waning; (2) Galaxy Digital dumping their ICO advisory business; and (3) volatility drying up forcing traders to look for alpha elsewhere. We also look at Amazon’s expansion into New York City, right into our backyard.

Topics:

Bitcoin is ded note - Blockchain is ded - ICO Advisory is ded - Volatility is ded
What Axios is
Galaxy digital
Who Galaxy is and what happened
What a high watermark is
How a reverse merger works
Types of shells that exist
What a Friday night news dump is
Amazon takes over New York City

Links:

Bitcoin Obituaries - https://99bitcoins.com/obituary-stats/ Bitcoin Obituary Generator - https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituary-generator/ Corporate America's blockchain and bitcoin fever is over - https://www.axios.com/corporate-america-blockchain-bitcoin-fervor-over-fb13bc5c-81fd-4c12-8a7b-07ad107817ca.html Galaxy Digital Announces Strategic Operational and Organizational Changes - https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/galaxy-digital-announces-strategic-operational-and-organizational-changes-700167182.html Novogratz says BTC going to $20k again next year - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/44d49f15-5617-4a1b-82d9-2f279e2051d4?search=novogratz&searchType=default Digital Ocean Versus Google Cloud, Polychain’s $1Bn Fund, a16z’s $300mm Fund, How to be a Shady Hedge Fund Manager, and 2nd Layer Solutions for Ethereum and Bitcoin - https://medium.com/@QuantLayer/digital-ocean-versus-google-cloud-polychains-1bn-fund-a16z-s-300mm-fund-how-to-be-a-shady-326bab0d29fd Pitfalls of Reverse Mergers Into Public Shell Companies - https://www.clm.com/publication.cfm?ID=24 Galaxy Digital LP Management's Discussion and Analysis - https://assets.ctfassets.net/rbgwch8v5pod/1Zvd5REU0sq8KQwM6i2I6a/09b2b567a7224e9d5f5b2eba2aa322f8/Second_Quarter_2018_Management_s_Discussion___Analysis__Galaxy_Digital_LP_.pdf Streisand effect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect Bitcoin’s volatility is hitting its lowest level in two years, and it is forcing traders to shakeup their strategy - https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/13/bitcoins-volatility-is-hitting-its-lowest-level-in-two-years-and-it-is-forcing-traders-to-shakeup-their-strategy/ QuantLayer Crypto Podcast Episode 20 - http://quantlayer.libsyn.com/20-zrx-estc-a-tale-of-exchange-listing-pops-the-state-of-crypto-reporting-it-sucks-and-how-you-can-make-money-being-contrarian-and-how-monero-xmr-sliced-up-transaction-fees-with-bulletproofs Amazon takes over NYC - https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/4d/db/a54a9d6c4312bb171598d0b2134c/new-york-agreement.pdf Bezos’ helipad comic - https://i.redd.it/7734crgsk6y11.jpg

#21: A look at Stablecoins, Tether and PwC Nov 12, 2018

A look at Stablecoins, centralized ones, decentralized ones, what they’re going to be used for and what kinds of risks might arise from them. We discuss exchange listings again, this time with Basic Attention Token getting listed by Coinbase, and finish up with a discussion on Tether.

Topics:

What Stablecoin is
Centralized Stablecoins - What Fiat backed is and it's disadvantages - What Exchange Traded Commodities backed is
Decentralized Stablecoins - What Crypto backed is - Algorithmic
Counterparty risk
Non-crypto examples of things going bad due to counterparty risk
Alerts - Tether’s bank claims to be holding $1.8B backing Tether, the first such confirmation - PwC advising on issuance of CRED, not just auditing

Links:

Alerts: - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/7ddd0158-5dac-43b9-99d5-13ad91979a81 - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/33f56e0e-74fb-412b-8a73-5f764e3b93b6?search=stablecoin&searchType=default - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/41128557-5804-4f7b-bdca-4d645485aaaa?search=stablecoin&searchType=default Coin Insider: https://www.coininsider.com/stablecoin-research/ A deeper look at stablecoins and USCDC: https://medium.com/circle-blog/a-deeper-look-at-stablecoins-and-usdc-dd27f48ba5a4 Stablecoins: Understanding Counterparty Risk: https://medium.com/gemini/stablecoins-understanding-counterparty-risk-241d55f0b392

#20: ZRX & ESTC: A Tale of Exchange Listing Pops, the State of Crypto Reporting (It Sucks) and How You Can Make Money Being Contrarian, and How Monero (XMR) Sliced Up Transaction Fees With Bulletproofs Oct 30, 2018

We do a victory lap for alerting our users to the ZRX add to Coinbase before everyone else. We then get into a discussion of how exchange additions are similar to public market IPO first day trading pops, like what we saw in Elastic Search recently. We then talk about the state of crypto reporting, and how it has created a mix of pay-to-play bad actors, mainstream media outlets offering 10 year old FUD over and over, and well-meaning actors who create consensus views that smart, contrarian thinkers can profit on by taking the other side. We then do a deep dive on Monero and its recent success in transaction fee reduction from their implementation of bulletproofs.

Topics:

Alert indicating symbol $ZRX (the 0x project) has been added to Coinbase
Delisting that occurred in early January relating to Mysterium
What the Mysterium Network is
How MYST went down 25% over the course of 1 hour
Why coins that get delisted get hit
On doing delisting
Why Coinbase is a big player
Giving positive guidance when it comes to the roadshow
Issues they see in mainstream and crypto-focused media
Major reasons alternative energy did so well
Why crypto media sometimes feels like an echo chamber
What Monero is
How Monero transactions work
What zero knowledge proof is
What range proof is

Links:

Mysterium Network: https://mysterium.network/faq/general-questions/
Geoff Golberg’s research: - https://medium.com/@geoffgolberg/i-made-a-bet-with-ripples-cto-david-schwartz-1536b92a22fd - https://medium.com/@geoffgolberg/when-bots-attack-af7f9f87b612 - https://medium.com/@geoffgolberg/when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-fake-bot-accounts-twitter-is-still-failing-a79d9ece5b5d
Bitcoin Coursera course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/cryptocurrency
Monero Becomes Bulletproof: https://medium.com/digitalassetresearch/monero-becomes-bulletproof-f98c6408babf?__s=tgxgnsfkgdriwzmaykfn
Ben DiFrancesco’s site: https://www.buildblockchain.tech/blog/
Link to ben’s newsletter: https://www.buildblockchain.tech/newsletter/
QuantLayer's Twitter: https://twitter.com/quantlayer
QuantLayer's Website: https://quantlayer.com
QuantLayer Episode 15: http://quantlayer.libsyn.com/15-open-source-as-revenue-driver-how-elasticsearch-uses-open-source-for-revenue-growth-tech-investing-and-crypto-a-cautionary-tale-of-bad-crypto-trading-psychology-and-flash-crashes

#19: Crypto SaaS Spotlight: Amy Wan, Founder and CEO of Sagewise and Building Crypto LegalTech Solutions Oct 16, 2018

Amy Wan, Sagewise Founder and CEO joins us to discuss the smart contract LegalTech solutions they’re building at Sagewise. We go over her background, how she moved from the traditional legal space and into LegalTech, what smart contracts are, dispute resolution, and the tools they’re building at Sagewise to handle dispute resolution. Another episode of people building usable tools in this space.

Topics:

Amy's controversial tweet
Amy's background
What Blockchain brings to the legal profession
What Sagewise is
Fundraising environment for Blockchain/smart contract entrepreneurs
What Blokusign is
The Blockchain platform Blokusign is built on
The EOS project
What a smart contract is
How real estate tokenization works

Links:

Sagewise: https://www.sagewise.io/
Blokusign: https://www.blokusign.com/
Amy’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyywan/status/1042627228863889410
Sagewise Releases Alpha Version of Blokusign: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180917005156/en/Sagewise-Releases-Alpha-Version-Blokusign-Gmail-Integrated-Blockchain-Powered

#18: Crypto SaaS Spotlight: John Young With Ledj.io and Building Professional Crypto Research Tools Oct 08, 2018

John Young joins me from ledj.io. John worked at Capital One before starting his first two crypto Software-as-a-Service (or SaaS) businesses in early 2017: Spreadstreet and Cryptosheets. Both these services let users work with crypto pricing data in Google Sheets and Excel. Install a plugin, and you are good to go. Definitely worth checking out. I was excited to speak with John since he is running a crypto SaaS business for crypto research like us. We talk how he has been finding customers, who his customers are, other SaaS tools he uses for his business, and what kinds of data analysis tools he’s building at Ledj. His product is much needed in this space, and it was awesome to get his perspective on it. If you are a trader, investor, or researcher, this episode is worth listening to.

Topics:

His background and what he did before Bitcoin
How Spreadstreet came about
The products he's building
What made him decide to incorporate Cryptosheets
Issues encountered by traders and investors with respect to pricing data
Type of customer he has
How customers find him and how he finds them
Taking a year’s worth of payment upfront in crypto
On Excel as a powerful program
What they are currently doing on the web app side
On Tech Stack hiring a development team
Recommendations when hiring or looking for a team member in general
Billing they use in SaaS Stack
Other areas of research lacking in crypto now
The reason they built Ledj

Links:

#17: Crypto Legal Landscape with Kurt Watkins of MG Miller Intellectual Property Law: Securitized Real Assets and Intellectual Goods, Crypto Patents, Hard Forks and “Derivative Works,” Decentralized Exchanges and Alternative Trading Systems Oct 01, 2018

We talk with Kurt Watkins of MG Miller Intellectual Property Law. Kurt is a lawyer who works with startups and is heavily involved in the crypto space here in New York. We’re glad we were able to talk to Kurt because some of the most interesting things being done in this space are by lawyers. We talk about how he got into crypto, the Reg D offerings he’s working on (securitized real assets and intellectual goods), a utility token client he’s working with (a sort of “Ripple 2.0” project), how patents in this space work and why they aren’t so bad, hard forks and “derivative works”, and how cartographers back in the day put fake towns in maps and how that’s related to crypto. We also get into the differences between utility and security tokens, how founders can structure their offerings better, and the differences between Reg D and Reg A offerings. We also cover decentralized exchanges and alternative trading systems. If you are an entrepreneur or a lawyer interested in this space, you will find this action packed episode interesting.

Topics:

How Kurt got interested in the Bitcoin/Blockchain space
His role at MG Miller
What a General Counsel does
Types of projects he's working on
Utility versus security tokens
What a utility token is
What a security token is
The differences between Reg D and Reg A offerings
Serious problems that stems from security tokens
Decentralised exchanges and alternative trading systems

Links:

Kurt’s email: kwatkins@mgmillerllc.com Kurt's firm: https://mgmiller.legal/

#16: Zaif Exchange Hack and How We Called It Two Months Ago and the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) Sep 24, 2018

On this episode, Faizaan and I do a victory lap for calling the Zaif exchange hack over 2 months ago. We also a deep dive into IPFS - what it is, what problem it solves, how it works and how Cloudflare is getting involved in the space. We finally look at some alerts that came through our dashboard.

Topics:

A victory lap for calling the Zaif exchange hack over 2 months ago
Cloudflare IPFS
The purpose of IPFS and how does it works
What IPNS is
Where data is stored
Why interplanetary
What Cloudflare do
Alerts: -Scam alert: Betvibe makes false claims -TKeyCoin scam -Transaction lost bugfix -Bitcoin hedge fund records 10,000% returns -India fighting fake drugs

Links:

Podcast transcript for episode 5 - https://medium.com/@QuantLayer/crypto-teams-need-to-communicate-better-and-a-new-segment-big-drama-in-smallcap-land-zoin-and-8c36a624da6b
Coindesk: Crypto Exchange Zaif Hacked In $60 Million Bitcoin Theft - https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchange-zaif-hacked-in-60-million-6000-bitcoin-theft/
Zaif - https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000093.000012906.html
Cloudflare goes InterPlanetary - https://blog.cloudflare.com/distributed-web-gateway/
Alerts: - Betvibe - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/86ad01c4-dd7e-3d8b-8a04-1e79e1c413e6 - TKeyCoins scam - https://medium.com/@ICOEthics/tkeycoin-scam-fake-team-bfb635fea486 - Transaction lost bugfix - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/f3b0144e-2524-42db-a647-75ebf93784fc?search=lost&searchType=default - Bitcoin hedge fund records 10,000% returns - https://cryptobriefing.com/crypto-hedge-fund-records-10000-returns/ - India fighting fake drugs - https://app-alpha.quantlayer.com/dashboard/alert/07aa95fd-7100-45a3-97db-001546f23fdb?search=oracle&searchType=default - Non Tesla Elon news - https://coinidol.com/elon-musk-calls-for-help/

#15: Open Source as Revenue Driver: How Elasticsearch Uses Open Source for Revenue Growth, Tech Investing and Crypto, a Cautionary Tale of Bad Crypto Trading Psychology and Flash Crashes Sep 17, 2018

We explore the Elastic IPO by doing a deep dive into its SEC Prospectus. We look at their business model and risks, and how open source software has been a giant revenue growth driver for them. We then get into an interesting discussion around tech investing and how it’s related to crypto. We look at some alerts that came through our platform: a cautionary tale of a trader who lost his life savings by investing at the peak and trying to recover losses with Bitcoin Cash and Ripple, and how to avoid doing that by looking at trading psychology. We also look at a crypto flash crash and compare it with flash crashes in public markets.

Topics:

Exploring the Elastic IPO
Prospectus summary
The "search" and the concept of "search"
What "Net Expansion Rate" is
Tech investing and how it relates to crypto
Uber versus Magna
Alerts: - Bitcoin crash - Attempt at fixing wallet syncing crash - Crypto flash crash

Links:

#14: Turning A Bug Into A Feature: Bugsnag, Why You Shouldn’t Violate Open Source Copyrights (Hint: Your Coin Will Be Down 90% If You Do), The Bitcoin-Dev Mailing List, And Why Crypto UX Is So Bad Sep 10, 2018

How do you turn a bug into a feature? On this episode, we talk about how we used Bugsnag to do just that. We then get into an interesting discussion around using 3rd party software applications to move software projects more quickly with less risk. We also highlight just how useful the bitcoin-dev mailing list is for learning about how the Bitcoin core team thinks about the protocol, and how their discussions underpin important considerations around scaling and network growth. We also look at a terrible case of UX in VeChain, how Google is adding Ethereum to BigQuery, how $800mm worth of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash moved out of a Silk Road wallet, and a very suspicious Bitmex short squeeze.

Topics:

How great Bugsnag is
How to use Bugsnag to find a feature
Getting to the roots of a crypto projects
Bitcoin-dev mailing list
What testnet is
VeChain alert
CertiK AutoScan Engine
Google adding Ethereum to BigQuery
How $800mm worth of bitcoin and bitcoin cash moved from silk road wallet
How does short squeeze work

Links:

#13: An Alert Blitzkrieg: Cheap ETH Mining, MANA Land Estate Bug, EOS RAM Vulnerability, Stratis Node Vulnerability, Etherscan Vulnerability, Bitcoin Cash Vulnerability, and How Wall Streeters and Technologists Can Be More Lay-language Friendly Sep 03, 2018

We discuss the alerting platform we’re building for crypto investors and traders. We then cover how Ethereum miners are rolling in dough, and the gives and takes of Proof of Work. We talk about a few really interesting alerts that hit this week: a Land Estate Bug we found in Decentraland ($MANA), an $EOS Vulnerability that exploits RAM, a Stratis node vulnerability ($STRAT) that’s been around for almost all year, and a Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) vulnerability. We also talk about how the crypto space has really gotten a new wave of people interested in learning about how finance works, and what crypto teams will have to do to keep that interest going.

Topics:

Major issue they have with the crypto market
ZEC Sapling news
Lightning Network updates
Cheap ETH mining
MANA land estate bug
New EOS vulnerability allows to steal RAM resources directly from users
Stratis node vulnerabilty
Etherscan security vulnerability exposed by hackers
Bitcoin core developer could have wiped bitcoin cash from existence
How crypto has opened up people's eyes to how markets work

Links:

#12: Tesla Staying Public, How Amazon and AWS Made Angry Shorts Give Up and Why Rejection of the Bitcoin ETF is a Good Thing Aug 28, 2018

We re-examine the drama around Tesla, and discuss its similarities and differences with Amazon. We also look at ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood’s open letter to Elon Musk asking him to keep the company public. We cover why we think the Bitcoin ETF rejections are a good thing, and the additional activity we are seeing on our alerting platform.

Topics:

Some thoughts on planning software projects up front, deploying early, and handling third party integrations early
Is "deploy early, deploy often" a thing?
Tesla drama returns
Describing AWS and how AWS benefits its users Catherine Wood's open letter of why Tesla should remain public
Bitcoin ETFs rejected
Going through SEC logic
Interesting alerts - Seeing multiple chats calling for no price discussion - VeChain token swap - NANO launches charges, first prototype of IoT economy - Lisk Mainnet launch imminent - GitHub activity from Raiden

Links:

#11: Boston’s Growing Crypto Scene, Mailbag #1, and How to Say No to a Client Aug 20, 2018

We attended the Boston New Technology Fintech & Blockchain group event where we got to present our alerting platform to a couple hundred attendees. We discuss some of the other crypto projects we saw, including Button Wallet, which is a Telegram bot that lets users buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. We also discuss p2p lending, and go through our first Mailbag, which covers answers to questions you all have, from crypto market questions to how to say no to a client. Enjoy.

Topics:

On their presentation at Boston New Technology
Their take on other companies who also presented
Indeco Union: Social Capital - Funding platform for anyone to invest, and any company to raise capital, using security token
Button Blockchain Technologies: Button Wallet - Multi-currency wallet and exchange in Telegram
Adjoint - Empowers enterprises to achieve new levels of efficiency and control by delivering blockchain technology built for the financial industry
Fasdraft - Combines transparency and intuitive field tools for banks and real estate professionals
Wunderite - Collaboration tool for business insurance and risk
OrbitCoin - Decentralized P2P Lending platform and credit network
QuantLayer - Real-time streaming cryptocurrency market intelligence platform for investor and traders
List of questions listeners have been asking: - What are some of the headwinds against crypto right now? - Can you use fundamental analysis to value Bitcoin or is it mostly just directional? - How long does it take to add a new source to your paltform? - Are you going to be doing ratings for coins/tokens? like Moodys or S&P? - How is this different from the other crypto news tools out there? - I'm a web developer. How is crypto development different from web development? - What are the common mistakes you see founder/management teams make when working on their MVP?

Links:

Boston New Technology - Meetup
Boston New Technology - Twitter
Chris Requena - Twitter
Indeco Union: Social Capital
Indeco - Twitter
Button Blockchain Technologies: Button Wallet
Adjoint
Adjoint - Twitter
Fasdraft
Wunderite
Wunderite - Twitter
Peter Macdonald - Twitter
QuantLayer - Twitter
Vikram Ramakrishnan - Twitter
Email: podcast@quantlayer.com

#10: More About Tesla (This Time About Going Private), Software Developer Personalities and Getting Tangled in IOTA Aug 13, 2018

In this episode, we discuss a range of topics from Elon Musk’s recent tweets about taking Tesla private for $420 per share to the wide range of personalities amongst software developers. We also take a deep dive into the web known as the Tangle, where we look at its underlying technology to figure out what exactly is going on with IOTA.

Topics:

Elon Musk's tweet on privatising Tesla
How all current investors can remain with Tesla
"Taking Tesla Private" blog
How he arrived at the $420 number
The SpaceX comment
Coinbase scaling issues
Thoughts on scaling
Recommendations on scaling
Talking about IOTA
Some major issues with IOTA
What IOTA can give you
How IOTA transactions work
Coordinator (centralisation)
Tip selection attacks
Unstable wallet
Addressing reuse attack
Developer personalities

Links:

Elon Musk's tweet on taking Tesla private: - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776 - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026890900885184514
Taking Tesla Private (from Tesla's website)
Quoth the Raven tweet
Financial Times article
Tesla finally put out press release
Coinbase blog post
IOTA
Tweet about taking people's funds which were at risk into temporary custody through a snapshot
IOTA lead dev attacking Sarah
Newsletter with the updates
QuantLayer Spotify
iTunes
QuantLayer Google Play
QuantLayer Stitcher
QuantLayer Libsyn
Email
Augur

#9: Custody Solutions and Infrastructure, Family Offices, and How Funds Should Educate Their Analysts on Crypto Aug 06, 2018

In this episode, we talk about our experience at the Crypto Hedge Fund Summit in New York, and what we learned about custody solutions and infrastructure being built for institutional investors. We go over what a family office is and how they differ from institutional investors. We discuss how important custody is and why. We also break out a multi-point thesis for how funds should think about educating their managers and analysts on the crypto space.

Topics:

QuantLayer's top three most popular podcast episodes
AAPL hit a trillion dollar market cap
Recap of Crypto Hedge Fund Summit - Definition of a family offices into family member - Family offices doing OTC trading of Bitcoin - Crypto custody and infrastructure - State of Blockchain Q2 report - Traditional investing versus crypto - Kinds of buckets people should care about - Things you should do when running a crypto fund
Real time auction versus high usage ETH contracts - MobileGo in freefall after team member fraud - Alexander Vinnik extradition request to Russia from Greece approved - Top US banks have paid $243 billion in fines since 2008 - Wallet bug causes theft at Altex - GH PRs referenced - Scam wallets

Links:

#8: Short Selling Explained, Tesla and How Controversial Shorts Work, and Nvidia and Bitmain Jul 30, 2018

We take a deep dive into shorting, what it is, how it works, why it works, why people short, what the psychology of shorters is and when shorting can go horribly wrong. We also talk about the bull and bear cases around Tesla, and how that’s tied to controversy and short selling. We also look at Nvidia, its IPO and the company’s gross margins and how that relates to recent news of a Bitmain IPO filing. We also consider the current browser wars as they relate to crypto and continue our discussion around some benefits of the Bitcoin 2nd Layer Lightning Network.

Topics:

Short selling Bitcoin
Mechanics around shorting
What shorting is
How shorting works
Key things to get out from all the mechanics talk
The reason people are bullish and bearish about Tesla
Discussing a highly controversial stock
The mindset of shorting
Benefits of shorting in psychology
Types of shorters and its examples
Downsides of shorting
How Nvidia trades
How Nvidia relates to recent news of a Bitmain IPO filing
Crypto browser wars: Opera versus Brave
Reviewing some alerts - Lightning network steady growth - Fed chairman says cryptos have no intrinsic value - Live congressional hearing on crypto - $1B entered market in 1 hour

Links:

#7: Bitcoin ETF & Alternative Energy ETFs, ZCash Incentive Structure, and How To Spot Bad Code in Your Crypto Investments Jul 23, 2018

Vikram and Faizaan discuss the recent Bitcoin ETF filing by SolidX and VanEck, how it is reminiscent of the alternative energy ETF boom of the mid to late 2000s and also talk about what an actively managed ETF in crypto might look like. They also talk about ZCash’s incentive structure and founders reward, and developer incentives more broadly. They also discuss how crypto teams are leaking secret keys to Github, a missing deposit on Golem Network’s mainnet, and how to investigate bad code for your crypto investments.

Topics:

What they've added to QuantLayer's platform - Seven new exchanges for listening when they add and remove trading pairs - Telegram client side filtering
Bitcoin ETF filing with the SEC - What a SEC filing is all about - Investment objective - The section on Bitcoin: It's history and how Bitcoin network works - Specific industries that are useful in blockchain-focused applications - OTC market in Bitcoin - The section titled "Bitcoin Security and Storage for the Trust" - The insurance they have on their Bitcoin - Less interested in price tracking ETF funds and more interested in participating directly in the network - Primary and other major issues with an ETF
Coinbase announced they added 10 customers to their custody service
Zcash and the founders reward
What Eric Meltzer posted on the Zcash forum
Arjun Balaji wrote a great piece on Zcash and incentives and the current debate
Good incentives systems and bad incentives systems
Ledger Live launch
Reviewed some alerts that came in and talked about them - $GNT (golem network) - $REP AWS creds - Less than half of ICOs survive 4 months - Bancor hack - Crypto price insurance - Bittrex hack, even with 2FA enabled - VeChain wallet released early - Chinese hackers infect 1M computers to mine bitcoin, arrested - Assassination plots on Vinnik & McAfee - Algolia credentials

Links:

SEC Filing
List to all the comments
Comment on accredited vs retail
Someone commenting on Abraham Lincoln
Someone who wants an SEC bailout of retail investors
Someone on crypto being the future and bad grammar
Bunch of these feel like “when moon, when lambo” type of comments: - https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/cboebzx2018040-167176.htm - https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/cboebzx2018040-167233.htm - Angry post: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/cboebzx2018040-3958028-167098.htm
Think Bitwise
Coinbase Custody
ZClassic by Rhett Creighton
ZCash Forum
Eric Meltzer
Proposal to create a Zcash Ecosystem Fund directly funded by the Founder’s Reward
Arjun Balaji
Zcash and the Founder Incentive Trilemma
Matthew Green
Zcash Team

#6: Digital Ocean Versus Google Cloud, Polychain’s $1Bn Fund, a16z’s $300mm Fund, How to be a Shady Hedge Fund Manager, and 2nd Layer Solutions for Ethereum and Bitcoin Jul 16, 2018

It’s been an action packed week of investor heavy news. Vikram and Faizaan discuss Polychain Capital’s one billion dollar SEC filing, and how you need one million dollars to invest in them. They also look at Andreessen Horowitz’s 300 million dollar fund launch and how they are thinking about good crypto projects. They go over the shady techniques that hedge funds engage in in order to juice their returns and what a high watermark is. They also cover some alerts that QuantLayer’s platform picked up, and get into a really interesting discussion around 2nd layer solutions for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Topics:

Google Cloud migration to Digital Ocean
Their bad experience with Google Cloud
The reason they decided to move to Digital Ocean
Investor market news in crypto
Polychain Capital's one billion dollar SEC filing
Andreessen Horowitz launched their $300MM investment fund
An open letter from Chris Dixon
Spencer Bogart talking about bitcoin/crypto prices being depressed due to forced selling by hedge funds
What a high watermark is
Some alerts that QuanLayer's platform picked up -Crypto banned in India -Increase in exchanged hacks (over $700 million) -Bitcoin removes alert key -Catching telegram announcements for VeChain token swap support -The ‘official serious discussion’ that VeChain has
How ETH network has been taken up by 3 contracts
First layer scaling solutions: Sharding
Second layer scaling solutions: State Channel, Plasma, and Truebit
What Lightning Network is
Lightning network application

Links:

#5: Crypto Teams Need to Communicate Better, and a New Segment: Big Drama in Smallcap Land (Zoin and Sumokoin) Jul 09, 2018

Communication between crypto teams and their customers is often non-existent or lacking. Vikram and Faizaan talk about the current bearish sentiment of the market, and how exchanges and coin teams can better communicate with their customers. They discuss how exchanges can add predictability to their platforms through API versioning and how coin teams can flag important news they need to share with their coin holders. They also start a new segment called “Big Drama in Smallcap Land” where they dissect the persistent drama in the world of smallcap crypto coins. This segment’s drama surrounds Zoin’s newest lead developer not having development experience and Sumokoin, a strange tale of missed opportunity. Between market and technical talk, this episode is a good mix of all the things you love about crypto.

Topics:

State of the market since the last podcast
The SEC commentary on Ethereum and Bitcoin
General crypto sentiments on Twitter
The case moving beyond some of the big currencies (ICO and token markets)
Trepidation around what is legitimate versus non legitimate ICO
The big deal about Jack Dorsey's Square getting a BitLicense
Adding Ethereum Classic to Coinbase
Political ramifications of having both Ethereum and Ethereum Classic
What they noticed about Zaif and Cryptopia's API
Standardization of API formats
Their thoughts on API versioning
Open-source projects that do versioning: Ember
Airdropping free NIX tokens to Zin coin holders
Their thoughts on Zoin having a lead developer without development experience
Vikram's experience in the Sumokoin chatroom

Links:

#4: A Discussion with Software Consultant Ben DiFrancesco on Building Great Blockchain Software Jul 02, 2018

Vikram and Faizaan are joined by Ben DiFrancesco of Scopelift, a software consultancy based in Philly. They talk about the Elixir programming language, how he finds clients and what software is like at bigger vs smaller companies. They also discuss the current state of crypto with the early internet, get Ben’s thoughts on the current scaling debate for smart contract platforms, and how big companies might benefit from wide crypto adoption. This was a great mix of topics and if you have any interest in software development or crypto.

Topics:

Ben DiFrancesco's background
The difference between a huge software company versus a small one
Things he learned as a consultant
How they met
How he came up with daily crypto report
The idea behind the product
Additional features he's currently working on
His personal opinion on Crypto World
How he got involved in the crypto market
Why he finds bitcoin fascinating
His thoughts on the blockchain ecosystem
Where he sees things heading in 3 to 5 years
Component of coin recap: Elixir
Their take on Elixir compared to Ruby and Rose's ecosystem
Elixir's use cases in crypto
On Scopelift and how he manages it
His duties as a consultant
How he started
How he looks for clients
His plans for Build Blockchain Tech

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bendifrancesco?lang=en
Scopelift: https://www.scopelift.co/
Daily Newsletter: https://coinrecap.io/
Build Blockchain Tech: https://www.buildblockchain.tech/
E-mail: ben@scopelift.co
QuantLayer: https://twitter.com/quantlayer
E-mail: vikram@quantlayer.com

#1: The QuantLayer Genesis Story, Crypto and Stock Market Comparisons, and Why Crypto Needs Reg FD Jun 25, 2018

QuantLayer founders Vikram and Faizaan cover how they got into crypto, how crypto markets compare with traditional stock markets, fraud in the ICO space, cross border capital formation, and more.

Topics

Vikram’s background
Faizaan’s background
Advice for non-technical founders
Why they decided to start a consultancy business
What makes the cryptocurrency space interesting
What a 10-K is
What are companies obligated to report
What are some steps that should be taken to communicate meaningfully with investors
What’s cool about the cryptocurrency platform they are launching
Risks in the cryptocurrency market
What are some major problems when it comes to cryptocurrency
Analogy as far as utility tokens go
What one of the most powerful applications of cryptocurrency is
What are other applications of cryptocurrency outside of finance
Handful of questions that often gets asked when it comes to cryptocurrency
How bitcoins are bought and stored

#3: Crypto’s ICO Legal Landscape, the Attack on Verge, M&A in Crypto, and Better Treasury Management for Crypto Teams Jun 25, 2018

Vikram and Faizaan talk about their experience at Consensus, what they heard about the ICO space from the horse’s mouth - silicon valley lawyers themselves. They also cover the recent Verge hack, their thoughts around how coin teams can secure their treasury better, how background checks would be a great use case for blockchain, M&A in the crypto space and more.

Topics

Their experience attending one of the Consensus events
The current status of utility tokens
The two types of Reg D
The importance of talking to a law firm when doing ICO (Initial Coin Offering)
Their thoughts on OnChain FX
What happened to Verge
What one needs to know about Verge
The attack on Verge (time warp)
How the time warp attack works
Controversies surrounding Verge
The concept behind the 5 algorithms
Coin network hackings
The importance of having a design for how funds are managed and how fraud is mitigated
The rationale behind storing funds in a single wallet
What a multi-sig is
What Paradex is and how it works
How confidential information should be privatized
Cryptocurrency and how it is portrayed in the media

Links

#2: What’s a Crypto Investment Bank? A Conversation About Crypto Due Diligence With Crypto Launchpad CEO Adiraj Gupta Jun 25, 2018

Vikram and Faizaan talk with Adiraj Gupta, of the Crypto Launchpad, a crypto investment bank. We learn what exactly a crypto investment bank is and how they built $20 million in management in just 6 months. We also discuss how friendly New Zealand regulators are towards crypto, how family offices are getting into crypto, and what the OTC or over-the-counter market looks like for Bitcoin.

Topics

What the Family Office Conference is all about
What Crypto Launchpad is and how it works
Their internal diligent process when taking a client on
His background and how he got involved in the space
Where he sees the whole capital formation idea heading
Countries they are operating in right now
Their current state of diligence research
Exchanges they are working with
Challenges they are currently experiencing
What their scaling plans are
Key factors involved when analysing an ICO (initial coin offering)
Risks they are taking on from a legal standpoint
How much is structural versus technical in terms of diligence
How he thinks the diligent process will change as schemes get more sophisticated
How he sees his business progressing
His thoughts on the OTC (over-the-counter) market
Other projects he’s looking into
How people can get in touch with him

Links

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