The Crypto Conversation

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Delos Digital - Providing Access to Bitcoin Mining Sep 17, 2023

Show notes

Lodewyck Berghuijs is the CEO and co-founder of Delos Digital, the parent company to Kodoma and Pantheon Mining. Lodewyck shares his personal journey into bitcoin mining after facing challenges in the music industry due to COVID-19.

Why you should listen

The narrative around Bitcoin's energy consumption is evolving, with a shift towards recognizing its positive impact on driving sustainable energy sources.

Pantheon's focus is on catering to high-net-worth individuals, while Kodoma offers fractionalized Bitcoin mining for retail investors. The conversation touches on the challenges faced by individual home miners due to energy costs and technological advancements. Lodewyck stresses the importance of decentralization and encourages more people to participate in Bitcoin mining through the options provided by Pantheon and Kadoma. He highlights the profitability potential of bitcoin mining compared to simply buying and holding bitcoin, especially when considering long-term strategies aligned with halving cycles.

Supporting links

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Everlasting - Securing Timeless Value On-chain Sep 13, 2023

Show notes

Paul Salisbury is the co-founder of Everlasting, a digital currency hybrid custody initiative founded in New Zealand. Everlasting provides users with sovereignty over their assets while mitigating risks such as hacks or loss of funds. The goal is to offer a robust solution that can cater to individual investors, asset managers, and high-net-worth individuals.

Why you should listen

Paul Salisbury discusses the need for a more secure and flexible approach to on-chain finance. He mentions the challenges of estate planning and inheritance in crypto, where lawyers are hesitant to handle digital assets stored in hardware wallets or seed phrases. To address these issues, Paul introduces a technology approach that allows non-technical users to securely participate in asset signing and approval workflows. The goal is to create an environment where users have control over their assets and transactions are auditable. Paul emphasizes the importance of decentralization and avoiding centralized risks. He also mentions the potential for hybrid custody options that provide more choices for individuals entering the crypto market.

Paul Salisbury discusses the challenges faced by the current exchange custody industry and emphasizes the need for hybrid models to accommodate different user cases. He highlights the importance of providing a comfortable way for non-technical users to access tokenized financial products without compromising security. He believes that simplifying complexity for users and enhancing privacy is critical for future advancements in the crypto space.

Supporting links

Bitget

Everlasting

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Dolomite - A next-gen Money Market on Arbitrum Sep 12, 2023

Show notes

Corey Caplan and Adam Knuckey are the co-founders of Dolomite, a next-generation money market and margin trading protocol built on Arbitrum.

Why you should listen

The decision to build Dolomite on Arbitrum was driven by the need for faster transactions and lower gas fees compared to Ethereum mainnet. Dolomite aims to provide a better decentralized exchange experience by addressing the limitations of existing decentralized exchanges.

Adam Knuckey explains that the goal of building Dolomite was to enable lending platforms for modern DeFi, incorporating features like voting, staking, vesting, and rewards. They aim to create a platform that offers decentralized exchange capabilities and maximizes yield earning potential through efficient asset utilization. Corey Caplan further discusses how Dolomite's infrastructure can solve liquidity crunch scenarios and retain control over assets during stressful situations. He highlights the ability to earn swap fees and lending yield simultaneously as a key advantage. The team tracks metrics like TVL and borrow activity while focusing on shipping utility through the platform. Despite market fluctuations, Dolomite has retained its TVL without any incentive programs due to its usefulness for users.

They also mention their collaboration with OffChain Labs and Chainlink, highlighting how Dolomite relies on these teams for securing its network and valuing user collateral. The conversation shifts to broader perspectives on DeFi, with Corey discussing the analogy between the early internet and the current state of DeFi, while Adam mentions the challenges posed by unclear regulations in the industry.

Adam Knuckey emphasizes the importance of approaching projects in a secure and proper manner, rather than treating legal matters as an afterthought. He acknowledges that overcoming this challenge can be difficult, but making the best efforts is crucial.

Supporting links

Bitget

Dolomite

Marathon Digital Holdings

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Proof of Work - Marathon Digital Holdings Sep 05, 2023

Show notes

Fred Thiel is the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies on the planet. The company holds 13,000 BTC in its corporate treasury.

Why you should listen

Fred Thiel discusses the role of Bitcoin mining in balancing the grid and incentivizing renewable energy. He explains how miners can use stranded energy from solar and wind farms, benefiting both the operators and consumers. Fred also addresses the narrative shift towards recognizing Bitcoin's positive impact on renewable energy sources. The conversation then shifts to the potential approval of Bitcoin ETFs by institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Vanguard. Fred shares his perspective on the likelihood of these approvals happening and highlights the growing separation between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in terms of narrative and risk profiles.

Fred emphasizes Marathon's preparedness for the upcoming Bitcoin halving, regardless of whether prices go up or down, due to their reserves and efficient mining operations.

Supporting links

Coinsbee

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Space and Time - the Decentralized Data Warehouse Sep 04, 2023

Show notes

Jay White is the co-founder of Space and Time, a decentralized data warehouse. Space and Time can be understood as a web3 native database platform with applications in gaming and DeFi.

Why you should listen

Space and Time is (SxT) is a decentralized data warehouse that comes preloaded with indexed blockchain data from major chains. You can join tamperproof on-chain data with your own off-chain datasets in a simple SQL format and publish the result to smart contracts, dapps, dashboards, BI tools, and ML models. Proof of SQL is a novel zk cryptography that proves that queries run in SxT are verifiably tamperproof. SxT revolutionizes data for Web3, powering sub-second queries and enterprise-scale analytics in a tamperproof and blockchain-anchored way. The development process is ongoing with an alpha launch recently completed. Space and time investors include Chainlink, Microsoft, Samsung Next, among others.

Supporting links

Coinsbee

Space and Time

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Spacemesh - Fairness through Proof of Space and Time Aug 31, 2023

Show notes

Tomer Afek is the CEO and Co-founder of Spacemesh, a layer 1 Proof of Space Time (PoST) protocol. Following mainnet launch on the 14th of July 2023 they have created the "People's Coin" magic internet money, that anyone can mine from home, no special mining gear required.

Why you should listen

Spacemesh is a decentralized smart contract platform that uses Proof of Space-Time (PoST) as its consensus protocol. It has a mesh structure to order transactions. SpaceMesh relies on PoST due to the team's belief that it is less resource intensive, more easily decentralized, and better secured compared to Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.

Spacemesh intends to build a decentralized, secure, and scalable cryptocurrency and smart contracts platform that can be used by anyone with excess hard drive space.

Spacemesh want to reinvent "Magic internet money everyone can join via mining from home", to keep the cryptocurrency money system always open, dynamic, fair, and decentralized.

They believe that it will pave the way for a world that is more equitable, facilitating more and better cooperation regionally, nationally, and globally.

Supporting links

Coinsbee

Spacemesh