The Crypto Conversation

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The Identity Dilemma - Selfkey is empowering individuals to take back ownership of their identity data Jan 19, 2021

Show notes

Edmund Lowell is the CEO of KYC-chain and the Selfkey network - a blockchain startup developing digital identity solutions that empower individuals to take back ownership of their identity data.

Guest:

Edmund Lowell

Why you should listen:

Everyone's data is concentrated in the hands of a few large institutions. They store information about your browsing history, shopping habits, location data, bank statements, medical history, and more. With the growing threat of data breaches, and the loss of privacy - our information is increasingly at risk. One of the reasons for this is because rather than the individual controlling their data, it is instead tech companies and government databases that store data. This is at risk of being hacked and leaked. For example, last year hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger was data hacked. The data consisted of a list of one million email addresses, as well as a list of 272,000 individual customers, containing emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses. Those customers have since been targeted with phishing attempts by scammers sending fraudulent emails claiming that their "cryptocurrency assets are at risk", prompting them to download a fake version of Ledger Live that would then ask for the user's seed phrase.

Key takeaway:

Current identity systems have failed to deliver the most basic requirements for a successful identity system: security, privacy, ownership, access, protection, interoperability, or linked data portability to identity owners.

SelfKey's mission is to empower individuals to own, control, and manage their personal data; and to help businesses protect personal data entrusted to them by users, and stay compliant with privacy regulators. SelfKey envisions a safer world where individuals are freer because their personal data and privacy is protected and under their control.

Supporting links:

Selfkey

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Axie Infinity & the blockchain gaming play to earn revolution Jan 12, 2021

Show notes

Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-inspired blockchain-based digital pet universe where players can earn tokens through gaming. Players can battle, collect, breed, and build a kingdom for their pets. Like CryptoKitties, Axies are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represented as cryptographically unique characters that can't be replicated. And like Pokémon, they are born to battle. While Axie can be just a game, it has built a strong social network, passionate community, and emerging jobs platform due to the play to earn opportunities it is generating.

Guest:

Jeff Zirlin

Why you should listen:

Jeff grew up playing games like Neopets, Pokémon, and World of Warcraft. "I played so much WOW that my parents sent me to boarding school," he says. "I've always been a collector. As I kid my dad and I would collect fossils and insects. And as a lifelong gamer, I'm a digital collector as well, so I was predisposed to be interested in blockchain gaming."

The blockchain gaming play to earn revolution started to gain traction after it emerged that a large community of players in the Philippines was earning money playing Axie Infinity.

Jeff says "Most game companies sell in-game resources, items, and upgrades. With Axie there's an in-game resource that you need to create more Axies and it's called the love potion. So most game developers would sell this love potion, and people would pay for it. In Axie we don't sell it ourselves, the only way that love potions can be created is by people playing the game. Players who have big Axie collections need the love potion to breed Axies and have to buy the token from a liquidity pool on UniSwap or from Binance. So players can earn a basic income and we've seen that with the rise in value of ETH, this can appreciate significantly."

Key takeaway:

The power of blockchain games is that they're becoming more than games. They're becoming places that we can live, work, and play. The eventual vision is to create a Metaverse similar to Ready Player One where people spend the majority of their time.

"We believe in a future where work and play become one," says Jeff. "And we believe in empowering our players and giving them economic opportunities."

To do this the Axie team is committed to aligning the incentives of the Axie community. Players can earn the AXS governance token. The token economics were designed by Delphi Digital. Delphi Digital has invested a significant amount of capital in buying several extremely rare Mystic Axies. If Axie Infinity continues to gain traction Mystic Axies will grow in value in the future.

Jeff says "We're seeing the rise of Mystic Axies and other NFTs as a true asset class. This trend accelerated when Delphi Digital picked up some of the rarest Axies in the game, like quadruple Mystics, triple Mystics. You can think of Mystics as rare and valuable skins. It makes sense that there's a lot of interest around NFTs and it makes sense because we live in a digital world."

Supporting links:

Axie Infinity

Delphi Digital on Axie

Jeff on Twitter

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Andreas Antonopoulos - Why decentralized protocols are a force for good Jan 06, 2021

Show notes

The legendary Bitcoin evangelist, educator, and advocate Andreas M. Antonopoulos returns for his second appearance on the Crypto Conversation. Topics of discussion include the Ledger data breach, crypto security, the proposed new FinCEN regulations, techno-optimism, and why decentralized blockchains are a source of hope.

Why you should listen:

"I'm a techno-optimist," says Antonopoulos. "I believe that technology has freed people from the constraints of the past. It has empowered individuals and improved the lives of billions. The world is a more equitable place as a result. Technology itself is a neutral tool that we can use for good or evil. You have to take the base assumption that the vast majority of human beings are good. There are exceptions, of course, but the exceptions validate this truth. Technologies that are truly decentralized and go directly into the hands of empowering individuals, they will be used by those individuals to do good. And so when I look at a technology that can be used at scale by lots of people and based on my understanding of human nature, I see immense hope. I see immense hope that if you allow people to act on their own impulses and give them power in the form of technology, the outcomes are massive good on a massive scale."

Key takeaway:

Antonopoulos, never one to mince words, says the proposed FinCEN regulations are an attempt to extend a totalitarian financial surveillance structure over the entire world. "They are acting with complete disregard for the consequences and side effects on billions of innocent people," he says. "This is wrapped up in the self-righteous and easy to sell idea that this prevents crime. Of course, they bundled in all of the worst kinds of crimes, such as terrorism and child pornography. The truth is, however, that for decades now, every study that has ever looked at the effectiveness of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing, these kinds of customer regulations prevent a vanishingly small amount of those activities."

Supporting links:

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Best of 2020 - Why LEVERJ is the next big thing in DeFi Jan 04, 2021

Show notes

We're revisiting some of the best Crypto Conversation podcast episodes of 2020. In this episode, we talk to Bharath Rao and Swapman from LEVERJ, the world's first scalable decentralized derivatives exchange. LEVERJ is a trading platform created to perform like traditional financial exchanges while maintaining the critical function of security. Built on Gluon, a Plasma sidechain, LEVERJ is self-custodial by design, meaning that users always control their private keys and funds. Gluon is the first fully operational Ethereum Layer 2 chain, giving LEVERJ the high-transaction throughput to work as fast as centralized exchanges.

Why you should listen:

LEVERJ is a self-custodial decentralized derivatives exchange that provides up to 100x leverage. High speed, decentralized spot trading went live on mainnet in 2019 while futures trading went live in September. The first tradable futures products are ETH-USD and BTC-USD perpetual swaps with many more products in the pipeline.

LEVERJ has partnered with Brave New Coin to roll out a pipeline of innovative exchange traded products. Some examples of these are sub-sector specific tradable products such as a DeFi index, a privacy coin index, volatility indices and more. "Most exchanges self-index, which introduces unnecessary risk," says LEVERJ CEO Bharath Rao. "By partnering with Brave New Coin, we give our users more transparency in the benchmark methodology and instrument design process as well as a greatly expedited product roadmap. It's our goal to bring the best practices of capital markets into the DeFi space, thus attracting new institutions."

Key takeaway:

Interest in DeFi exploded in 2020. To cater to this demand, LEVERJ has built a high-frequency, multi-currency spot and futures trading platform.

The explosion of DeFi in 2020 has seen Ethereum gas prices rise significantly. The huge spike in demand for transaction space on the Ethereum chain has put a strain on the Ethereum and DeFi ecosystems. Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have faced challenges with security and performance, often falling short of the standards set by traditional financial exchanges.

LEVERJ solves these challenges with the Gluon sidechain, a mathematically rigorous protocol preventing fraud, compromise, and collusion to provide the benefits of blockchain without the limitations. Gluon is an advanced, fully operational Ethereum Layer 2 chain, giving LEVERJ high-transaction, low-latency throughput similar to centralized exchanges.

Other developers can also build decentralized applications using Gluon, including their own decentralized exchanges.

Gluon has been in development for over three years and is currently the only Layer 2 solution purpose-built for high-capacity trading, that has instant-finality, strong composability, and conventional APIs for sophisticated traders to feel like they are using a regular centralized exchange without counterparty risk.

Supporting links:

LEVERJ

LEVERJ on Twitter

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Best of 2020 - Sound Money - A hip-hop story about Bitcoin Dec 26, 2020

Show notes

We're revisiting some of the best Crypto Conversation podcast episodes of 2020. In this episode, we talk to DJ J-SCRILLA, a critically acclaimed hip-hop producer from Washington DC. DJ J-SCRILLA has released a new hip-hop album called Sound Money that tells the story of Bitcoin. Here it is, the official hip-hop edition of the Crypto Conversation…. Yeah boi!

Why you should listen:

Sound Money by DJ J-SCRILLA is a body of Bitcoin art combining audio clips, samples, dirty drums and some of the hip-hop underground's best rappers. The album serves as a soundtrack for Bitcoiners and serves up audio inspiration for no-coiners interested in the future of decentralized money. This podcast features music highlights from the album including the new crypto anthem 'Faith In My Money (Money Printer Go Brrr)'.

Key takeaway:

On the hip-hop edition of the Crypto Conversation podcast, we discuss the lockdown trend that has seen top rappers engage in Instagram battles, such as the recent soundclash between DJ Premier and RZA.

DJ J-SCRILLA says "the album is not a foolishly positive take on Bitcoin. It's a rational angle that condemns the abuses of central banking and portrays Satoshi Nakamoto's currency as an alternative."

Following the Crypto Conversation hot take round, DJ J-SCRILLA shares his top 5 hip-hop albums. Sound Money is available on major streaming services.

Supporting links:

Rarescrilla.com

Money Printer Go Brrr

DJ J-Scrilla on Twitter

Sound Money on Spotify

The Number Zero and Bitcoin

LEVERJ

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Best of 2020 - Zero to One - Why Bitcoin is an unstoppable idea Dec 23, 2020

Show notes

We're revisiting some of the best Crypto Conversation podcast episodes of 2020. In this episode, we talk to Robert Breedlove, one of the deepest and most insightful thinkers on Bitcoin. Robert is the author of The Number Zero and Bitcoin. Robert says Satoshi gave the world Bitcoin, a true "something for nothing." This discovery of absolute scarcity for money is an unstoppable idea that is changing the world tremendously, just like its digital ancestor: the number zero.

Guest:

Robert Breedlove

Why you should listen:

Robert says that Satoshi gave the world Bitcoin, a true "something for nothing." This discovery of absolute scarcity for money is an unstoppable idea that is changing the world tremendously, just like its digital ancestor: the number zero.

Like the invention of zero, which led to the discovery of "nothing as something" in mathematics and other domains, Bitcoin is the catalyst of a worldwide paradigmatic phase change. What numeral is to number, and zero is to the void for mathematics, Bitcoin is to absolute scarcity for money: each is a symbol that allows mankind to apprehend a latent reality (in the case of money, time). More than just a new monetary technology, Bitcoin is an entirely new economic paradigm: an uncompromisable base money protocol for a global, digital, non-state economy.

Key takeaway:

Robert says that many believe that Bitcoin is "just one of thousands of crypto assets"—this is true in the same way that the number zero is just one of an infinite series of numbers. In reality, Bitcoin is special, and so is zero: each is an invention which led to a discovery that fundamentally reshaped its overarching system—for Bitcoin, that system is money, and for zero, it is mathematics. Since money and math are mankind's two universal languages, both Bitcoin and zero are critical constructs for civilization.

Zero and Bitcoin are unstoppable ideas gifted to mankind; gestures made in the spirit of "something for nothing." In a world run by central banks with zero accountability, a cabal that uses the specious prospects of "infinite cash" to promise us everything (thereby raising the specter of hyperinflation), nothingness may prove to be the greatest gift we could ever receive…

Supporting links:

An Open Letter to Ray Dalio

Robert's Tweet Storm

Sapiens

Interstellar

The Sovereign Individual

Best of 2020 - Cryptopia the movie - Bitcoin, Blockchains & the Future of the Internet Dec 21, 2020

Show notes

We're revisiting some of the best Crypto Conversation podcast episodes of 2020. In this episode, we talk with Torsten Hoffmann a documentary filmmaker. His new film Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet is now available online.

Why you should listen:

After writing a research paper on alternative currencies as part of his MBA at Oxford University, Torsten was intrigued by Bitcoin. In 2014 he started working on Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know it, his first documentary. Hoffmann's award-winning first film looks at Bitcoin in the context of the history of money. His new film, Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet is a bigger budget, ambitious follow up that takes a 360 wide-angle approach to the technology that may define Web 3.0.

"Since the release of the first film, the industry has grown by a factor of 100. Bitcoin has been called one of the most disruptive technologies of our time. However, media coverage is often misinformed and the general public is still confused about the technology and its implications," says Hoffmann. "Can this technology, designed to operate independent of trust and within a decentralized network, really provide a robust alternative? Or are cryptocurrencies just as unfairly distributed, easily manipulated, and dangerous as our current systems? That was my starting point."

Key takeaway:

Filmed over two years Torsten says the new documentary has three arcs. "First we look at Bitcoin, then we look at the ecosystem, public / private blockchains and ICOs, and then we look forward at the potential of blockchain to unlock Web 3.0."

He interviewed some of the ecosystem's biggest brains and biggest egos including Andreas Antonopoulos, Roger Ver, Charlie Lee, Samson Mow, Craig Wright, Preethi Kasireddy, and Wences Casares.

While the film has a global feel, with filming taking place on four continents in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Berlin, Switzerland, and Melbourne, Hoffmann says the highlight of the filming schedule was being granted access to the Xapo vault located in a top secret location buried deep in the Swiss mountains.

Founded by Bitcoin entrepreneur Wences Casares, the Xapo vault is a decommissioned military bunker dug into the mountainside in a remote part of Switzerland. Its exact location is secret, and access is protected by a complex series of security measures.

"The bunker scene was a highlight and we are the only film crew to be allowed inside. Allegedly up to 10% of all Bitcoin private keys are stored in the Xapo vault. It was a James Bond style adventure to get clearance and film inside the bunker," said Hoffmann.

Supporting links:

Cryptopia Film

Torsten on Twitter

Bitcoin is above $20k - Bull market price discovery mode activated Dec 16, 2020

Show notes

Bitcoin achieved a new all-time high today of USD $20,800. Bitcoin is now in full price discovery mode and looks set to continue as the bull market heats up. With a reduction in supply following May's halving, increasing demand from institutions, and a strong narrative that Bitcoin is a store of value, Bitcoin's future has never looked brighter.

Why you should listen:

Josh says "I think that $33k by July 2021 is more viable and possible than ever. I don't think it is likely we'll see a bear market any time soon, we're now in possible multi-year bull market territory. This is good for BTC, this is good for ETH, this is good for all of crypto."

Key takeaway:

If you're reading this, you are probably a bitcoiner - good for you. Give yourself a pat on the back for believing in and participating in the birth of a brand new asset class, this is just the beginning. Andy and Josh also discuss ETH, DeFi and the growing NFT and collectible digital art scene.

Supporting links:

Josh on Twitter

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Sim Swap Attacks - Why it's time to review your crypto security Dec 09, 2020

Show notes

Haseeb Awan is a cellphone security expert and the CEO of efani - America's most secure & private cellphone service. Haseeb was the creator of the 1st Bitcoin ATM in the U.S.

Why you should listen:

Haseeb has a background in Telecom Engineering. After being targeted by a sim swapper he looked at the weaknesses in existing mobile operators. He then designed a secure solution for his personal use. After growing interest from his network, Haseen founded efani, the most secure, private mobile operator in the U.S.

The potential ROI for sim-swap attackers is massive. Crypto is an attractive target that can be turned into dollars. The sim-swap attack is easy to execute and doesn't require coding skills.

Once an attacker has control of a phone account, they are often able to gain access to a victim's email account, Google Drive, passwords, and more.

Key takeaway:

With crypto prices tracking up, it's an excellent time to review your security practices. If prices continue to rise more bad actors will be incentivized to target crypto holders.

Mobile phone support staff are underpaid and overworked and are not well trained against sophisticated social engineering attacks. All of the information an attacker needs to know to begin a social engineering attack can be purchased on the dark web.

efani will transfer your existing number to efani and separate your personal information from your telephone number. Efani enforces 11-layers of military-grade client-side integrity, privacy and authentication protection.

Efani is not for everyone, the company is a boutique solution for those who understand the value of privacy and security.

Supporting links:

Efani

Haseeb on Twitter