The Blockcrunch Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Why 2023 Is the Year for Ronin - Aleksander Larsen, Sky Mavis, Ep. 237 Apr 11, 2023

Show notes

In 2021, Axie Infinity took the world by storm as the world's most popular Play-to-Earn game with 2.7 million concurrent users at its peak.

It also shocked the world a 2nd time in March 2022, albeit for a negative reason as its Ronin bridge suffered the largest bridge exploit of all time with $600M lost, Though users were made whole, confidence levels are inadvertently impacted

Despite everything and the current lull period for crypto-gaming, Sky Mavis has been diligently building behind the scenes and recently launched a few critical updates that could kickstart the next wave of crypto-games.

Today on Blockcrunch, Aleksander, Co-Founder of Sky Mavis shares with us

Making users whole after the $600M exploit
Decentralization of Ronin
Future of Ronin & crypto gaming

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Ronin

(00:03:32) – Recent Games Developer Conference

(00:05:18) – $600 million Ronin bridge exploit

(00:10:48) – Making users whole

(00:13:41) – Partnership with 5 new game studios

(00:17:39) – Onboarding millions of users into GameFi

(00:21:29) – Ronin's strategy for the 1st cohort

(00:31:08) – Structure of Ronin & game studio partnership

(00:35:41) – Allocating resources across Axie Infinity, Ronin & partners

(00:38:31) – Ronin vs other gaming chains

(00:44:23) – The future of crypto gaming

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Aleksander's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Psycheout86

Sky Mavis' Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkyMavisHQ

Axie Infinity's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AxieInfinity

Ronin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ronin_Network

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

The Blockcrunch Podcast ("Blockcrunch") is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch's guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch's podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

Contrarian Crypto Theses for the Next 20 Years - Anirudh Pai, Dragonfly Capital, Ep. 236 Apr 05, 2023

Show notes

Crypto has been always been likened to an echo chamber, where crypto-natives reinforce their beliefs over and over again with others on Twitter

Contrarian and long-term thinkers are rare, and today on Blockcrunch we have just the guest to talk about investing in frontiers that most crypto-natives have yet to pick up

Anirudh Pai, Partner at Dragonfly, shares with us:

What it means to invest at the frontier
Building an actual city with Praxis
2 overlooked verticals that are likely to take off in the future

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Ani

(00:05:28) – Investing happens at the frontier

(00:10:28) – Decentralized Science

(00:19:29) – Ani's thesis on metaverses

(00:25:26) – Building a physical crypto city with Praxis

(00:40:17) – The next big crypto verticals

(00:44:47) – Successful founders are polymaths

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Anirudh Pai's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ani_pai

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

How Does Storage in Web 3 Work and Why It Is Important? - David Choi, Protocol Labs, Ep. 235 Mar 30, 2023

Show notes

Web 3 champions the ethos of decentralization, wherein users own their data, and services are trustless and permissionless. But ironically, much of Web 3 is built on centralized infrastructure.

Today we have David Choi, Product Manager at Protocol Labs, to share with us how Web3Storage and NFT.Storage allows developers to build on Filecoin to achieve higher levels of decentralization, amongst other benefits over centralized providers.

Watch this episode to learn:

Web 2 vs Web 3 storage
Why Filecoin should be the go-to-choice for developers
Exciting updates and projects utilizing Filecoin

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Web3Storage

(00:03:24) – Storage in Web 2 vs Web 3

(00:10:02) – Why is Filecoin better for data storage

(00:13:58) – Web3Storage's role

(00:19:35) – Examples of projects utilizing Web3Storage

(00:27:36) – Web3Link and Web3Name

(00:31:43) – Truly Decentralized NFTs with NFT.Storage

(00:36:36) – Why Filecoin is more suitable than Arweave for NFTs

(00:41:50) – Improved services with FVM

(00:44:09) – Upcoming exciting updates

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest Web3Storage's Website: https://web3.storage/

NFT.Storage's Website: https://nft.storage/

Filecoin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Filecoin

Filecoin's Website: https://linktr.ee/filecoinio

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast ("Blockcrunch") is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch's guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch's podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

What Silvergate & SVB Crisis Means for Crypto, According to Crypto Bank Insider - with Ram Ahluwalia, Lumida, Ep. 234 Mar 29, 2023

Show notes

In the past month, the banking sector experienced its most turbulent period since 2008. Major crypto-friendly banks, including Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature, have gone under, while the 170-year-old Credit Suisse stands on the brink of being absorbed by its main competitor, UBS.

Are we witnessing a reenactment of the 2008 financial crisis? Will the BTFP Fed program ignite another bull run? Or, could we be entering a phase of hyperinflation where Bitcoin's value surges to $1 million within 90 days, as predicted by Balajis, the former CTO of Coinbase?

Today on Blockcrunch, we have Ram, CEO of Lumida who was also previously the Head of Crypto at Cross River, one of the remaining crypto-focused banks, and also the Vice President at Merril Lynch to help us separate signal from noise:

Overview of the entire banking situation
Will BTFP introduce liquidity into the market
What will happen to the crypto markets

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Ram

(00:04:14) – Why are banks falling?

(00:08:55) – Deliberate crypto crackdown

(00:15:59) – Is BTFP actually Quantitative Easing

(00:24:18) – FED's ability to continue rate hikes

(00:29:21) – Can Bitcoin hit $1m in 90 days

(00:32:29) – What is going on with Credit Suisse

(00:38:57) – Tying everything back to crypto

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Ram Ahluwalia's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

Navigating Chaos as a Crypto Trader - Hal Press, North Rock Digital, Ep. 233 Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

These few weeks have been turbulent for the markets to say the least, with 3 of the largest banks that support crypto winding down, USDC stablecoin de-pegging and more developments happening in real time.

Is this the end for crypto, or are we on the cusp of another bull-run?

Today we have Hal Press, founder of North Rock Digital who is known on Twitter for his timely and accurate calls, such as the ETH Merge trade and more recently, his thesis on why USDC will return to peg. In this episode, he shares with us:

Thoughts & how to navigate the recent market situation
Outlook for BTC vs ETH
Thesis on Stacks
How to identity and assess narratives like a pro

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to the US banking situation

(00:09:13) – Is Bitcoin a credible Store-of-Value?

(00:15:59) – Balaji's prophecy of $1M BTC in 90 days

(00:20:25) – Thoughts on BTFP

(00:23:49) – Will Bitcoin de-correlate from equities?

(00:27:05) – Outlook for BTC vs ETH

(00:31:17) – Impacts of upcoming BTC Halving

(00:33:38) – Thesis on Stacks

(00:44:19) – Tips on identifying narratives early

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Hal Press' Twitter: https://twitter.com/NorthRockLP

North Rock Digital's Website: https://northrockdigital.com/

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

Why We're Investing $20M into DAOs - Anthony & Timour, Seed Club Ventures, Ep. 232 Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Opinion on DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations is split between 2 camps - those that don't believe that decentralized organizations can be effective, and those that swear its the business model of the future

To end the debate, there's no one better to ask than DAO experts Anthony and Timour, who operate and invest in DAOs at the same time on:

Why and when a DAO structure is better than traditional organizations
Lessons learned in operating & investing in DAOs
2 promising up and coming DAOs

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Stacks

(00:03:36) – 2 Favourite DAOs

(00:07:16) – Why invest in DAOs

(00:17:24) – Landscape of DAOs

(00:23:46) – DAOs over conventional organizations

(00:30:13) – Nouns DAO

(00:33:11) – Examples where DAOs wouldn't work

(00:37:13) – 2 promising up-and-coming DAOs

(00:40:49) – Lessons learned in DAO investing

(00:46:06) – Hallmarks of good DAO tooling

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Seed Club's Twitter: https://twitter.com/seedclubvc

Anthony's Twitter: https://twitter.com/antavedissian

Timour's Twitter: https://twitter.com/timourxyz

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

"This is the Most Important Thing on Bitcoin in the Past 5 Years" - Stack's Muneeb Ali on Bitcoin Ordinals, Ep. 231 Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

Recently, a new phenomenon called Ordinals, known as NFTs on Bitcoin reignited interest in Bitcoin and got people wondering - what else is possible and is this the start of something bigger?

At the center of this discussion is Stacks, a smart-contract layer built on Bitcoin that is working to unlock the $500 billion Bitcoin capital via DeFi, NFTs, and more.

In this Blockcrunch episode, Muneeb, co-creator of Stacks shares with us:

How Stacks is going to unlock the potential of Bitcoin
Why build on Bitcoin over other ecosystems
Stack's upcoming upgrades

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Stacks

(00:03:24) – Stacks over the years

(00:07:28) – Path to becoming 1st SEC-approved token offering

(00:11:48) – History of Bitcoin and blockchains

(00:18:53) – Ordinals drawing attention back to Bitcoin

(00:30:37) – Why some Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals

(00:36:38) – Ordinal's use-cases

(00:40:49) – What exactly is Stacks

(00:47:58) – Use-case of Stacks token

(00:51:26) – Why build on Bitcoin over other ecosystems

(00:57:08) – How Ordinals benefits Stacks

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Stacks's Website: https://www.stacks.co/

Stacks's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Stacks

Muneebs's Twitter: https://twitter.com/muneeb

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

Arbitrum: Everything You Need To Know About The Top Layer 2 - A.J. Warner, Offchain Labs, Ep. 230 Feb 23, 2023

Show notes

Over the past few months, there has been a steady uptick in activity on Arbitrum, an Optimistic Layer 2 scaling solution on Ethereum.

Today, Arbitrum is home to popular DeFi dApps and GameFi projects like GMX and Treasure and owns more than 50% of the market share against other Layer 2s like Optimism and Metis.

In this Blockcrunch episode, A.J Warner, Chief Strategy Officer at Offchain Labs shares with us:

How the rollup landscape has evolved
Difference between Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova and Optimism
How Arbitrum became the top Layer 2
Path towards decentralization

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Arbitrum

(00:03:19) – Rollup landscape NOW vs a year ago

(00:06:34) – Arbitrum One gas fees vs Ethereum

(00:09:16) – Arbitrum Nova; Arbitrum chain for social and games

(00:14:19) – Trade-off of Arbitrum One vs Nova

(00:17:43) – Apps verticalizing into their own app roll-ups

(00:20:53) – Partnership with Reddit & social use-cases

(00:25:17) – Arbitrum latest upgrade - Stylus

(00:29:26) – Arbitrum vs Optimism

(00:32:03) – Value accrual across different blockchain layers

(00:35:34) – Path toward decentralization

(00:38:26) – Changing from Optimistic to ZK rollup

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Arbitrum's Website: https://arbitrum.io/

Arbitrum's Twitter: https://twitter.com/arbitrum

A.J. Warner's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajwarner90

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

How This Project Built "Zoom for Web 3" - Ayush Ranjan, Huddle01, Ep. 229 Feb 15, 2023

Show notes

This is a sponsored episode from our collaboration with Filecoin

Huddle01 is a decentralized video-meeting platform built to be scalable and secure from the get-go and features web 3 functions such as NFT-gated meetings and decentralized storage for meeting recordings.

In 2022, it hosted over 30,000 meetings that lasted over 500,000 minutes on its platform.

Today on Blockcrunch, Huddle01's Co-Founder Ayush shares with us:

Huddle01's 3-pronged approach to decentralizing communication
Problems with existing video-conferencing platforms
How Huddle01 uses Filecoin as its backend
Path to decentralizing real-time communication worldwide

Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) – Introduction to Huddle01

(00:03:21) – 3-pronged approach to decentralizing communication

(00:07:22) – Problems with Zoom & Google Meets

(00:14:49) – Infrastructure behind Huddle01

(00:17:22) – Importance of decentralized file storage

(00:19:01) – Huddle's moat over existing offerings

(00:21:07) – What Filecoin Virtual Machine unlocks for dApps & users

(00:27:29) – Path to decentralizing real-time communication

(00:30:50) – Huddle01's go-to-market strategy

Sponsor message:

Filecoin is enabling open services for data, built on top of IPFS.

Today, Filecoin focuses primarily on storage as an open service, but looks to build the infrastructure to store, distribute and transform data.

Join the Space Warp program (Live until March 2023) to be among the first to build on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) https://spacewarp.fvm.dev/

More Resources:

Guest

Huddle01's Website: https://www.huddle01.com/

Huddle01's Twitter: https://twitter.com/huddle01com

Ayush's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ranjan3118

Blockcrunch

Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/

Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch

Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi

Disclaimer:

Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

28-Year-Old Billionaire Launches DAO to Fund Health Research - Ryan Breslow, Love, Ep. 228 Feb 09, 2023

Show notes

Ryan Breslow dropped out of Stanford to found payment startup Bolt, which later on raised $1.3 billion dollars at an $11 billion valuation - making Ryan one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires (according to Forbes)

Now, Ryan is on the mission of improving the health and wellness of the world with alternative medicine like natural remedies, by making them more accessible to all and giving them the credibility they need via clinical trials.

Today on Blockcrunch, Ryan shares with us: