The Crypto Conversation

The DeFi Liquidity Vortex

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Kyber Network - building the liquidity infrastructure for DeFi Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

Loi Luu is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kyber Network - one of the best used Defi protocols in the world. Kyber is an on-chain liquidity protocol that powers decentralized applications, exchanges, funds, and DeFi lending protocols.

Why you should listen:

Loi Luu has a PhD in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore, where he worked to improve the base technical layers of decentralization, scalability and security for the public blockchain infrastructure. His work benefits many blockchain companies and projects world wide and collectively these companies are worth tens of billions of US dollars.

The idea for Kyber Network came from Loi's belief that he could bring the benefits of decentralized technologies to a bigger audience and facilitate real-world use cases. When a project approached him to accept a different token in addition to Ethereum, Loi realized that there was no practical solution to this problem. He then began work on developing the liquidity infrastructure for what would become known as the decentralized finance ecosystem.

Key takeaway:

Kyber is the liquidity infrastructure for decentralized finance (DeFi). Kyber aggregates liquidity from diverse sources into a single pool, which provides the best rates for takers such as DApps, wallets, and DEXs. Kyber is a fully on-chain liquidity protocol that enables the decentralized exchange of crypto assets in any application. Liquidity providers are integrated into one single endpoint for takers and users. When a user requests a trade, the protocol will scan the entire network to find the reserve with the best price and take liquidity from that particular reserve.

Kyber was the most used project in DeFi in 2019. To date, more than 100 blockchain projects have integrated Kyber for their liquidity needs.

Supporting links:

Kyber Network

Loi Luuu on Twitter

Kyber on Twitter

The Crypto Conversation is sponsored by BNC Pro, the new digital wealth platform featuring an all-in-one suite of customizable, institutional-grade applications that help you manage your crypto investments. Research, chart, screen, analyze, optimize, report, and more. BNC Pro is the ultimate portfolio tool for individual or enterprise use. Streamline your workflow, manage your crypto and master this brave new asset class with BNC Pro. Go to BNC-Pro.com to create your free account.

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A DeFi Hedge - The people-powered alternative to insurance Jul 21, 2020

Show notes

Hugh Karp is the founder and CEO of Nexus Mutual - a people-powered alternative to insurance. Nexus Mutual uses the power of Ethereum so individuals can share risk together without the need for an insurance company.

Why you should listen:

Hugh is an insurance professional and actuary with 15 years of experience. An actuary is a business professional who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries are employed by insurance companies or risk management firms to calculate the "risks" associated with insuring individuals against downside events.

A mutual is simply a group of people coming together to share risk. Hugh says the only reason we've moved away from a mutual (in legacy systems) to shareholders is that it's a more efficient way of connecting capital with people. However, thanks to smart contracts, we can start to do that in a peer to peer fashion which optimizes for efficiency when it comes to capital pooling. When joining the mutual you become a legal member of a UK company. All members have legal rights to the pool of funds.

Key takeaway:

Hugh first became interested in blockchain technology in 2011. He became fascinated by the emergence of Ethereum. Hugh recognized that the traditional insurance industry wasn't yet prepared to provide any meaningful cover for crypto-related risks. Hugh watched the DAO being drained live and realized there was a need for a company like Nexus Mutual to provide cover against Smart Contract risks.

Smart Contract Cover is not an actual contract of insurance but rather an insurance like product. Members of the mutual vote to decide on claims. Claims payments are enforced by token economic incentives rather than placing trust in an insurance company.

In DeFi there are three primary risk categories; technical smart contract risk, external risk, and economic incentive failure risk. It's important to understand these risks are in addition to the normal use of the particular smart contract. For example, if you use a gambling app there is a risk you could lose all of your money through the normal usage of the system. Nexus Mutual is focused on the more severe risks, and provides cover against system failure.

Supporting links:

Nexus Mutual

Nexus Mutual on Twitter

Hugh Karp on Twitter

Australia's blockchain roadmap

The Crypto Conversation is sponsored by BNC Pro, the new digital wealth platform featuring an all-in-one suite of customizable, institutional-grade applications that help you manage your crypto investments. Research, chart, screen, analyze, optimize, report, and more. BNC Pro is the ultimate portfolio tool for individual or enterprise use. Streamline your workflow, manage your crypto and master this brave new asset class with BNC Pro. Go to BNC-Pro.com to create your free account.

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Blockchain Australia - Steve Vallas is Australia's Mr. Blockchain Jul 15, 2020

Show notes

Why you should listen:

Vallas says "the promise of the Blockchain industry is extraordinarily expansive. Before we build out that capability we need a renewed focus on establishing confidence. Confidence in our vision, confidence in the regulatory frameworks that underpin this emergent technology, and confidence in the people and organizations that will drive the uptake in this space."

Key takeaway:

As the new CEO of Blockchain Australia, Vallas says he is focused on building confidence in blockchain and improving the image of blockchain technology among businesses and governments.

He says Blockchain Australia's success will be judged by its ability to educate (grassroots to the boardroom), elevate (drive innovation), and leverage partnerships (with industry leaders across the economy).

In February, the Australian government released a National blockchain roadmap titled "Progressing towards a blockchain-empowered future." The report projects that Blockchain technology will generate an annual business value of over US$175 billion by 2025 and in excess of US$3 trillion by 2030.

The roadmap identifies three key areas where blockchain technology can provide solutions. These are in supply chains, trusted credentials in the university sector, and transferable customer checks in the finance sector.

Steve says his personal vision is for Australian stakeholders to gain confidence in blockchain tech. He wants developers to keep building, and for industry and investors to get buy-in.

Supporting links:

Blockchain Australia

Steve on Twitter

Conflux Network on Twitter

The Crypto Conversation is sponsored by BNC Pro, the new digital wealth platform featuring an all-in-one suite of customizable, institutional-grade applications that help you manage your crypto investments. Research, chart, screen, analyze, optimize, report, and more. BNC Pro is the ultimate portfolio tool for individual or enterprise use. Streamline your workflow, manage your crypto and master this brave new asset class with BNC Pro. Go to BNC-Pro.com to create your free account.

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Building Web 3.0 - Why Conflux Network is endorsed by China Jul 08, 2020

Show notes

Eden Dhaliwal is the Global Managing Director at Conflux Network, a high-performance, layer-1 blockchain protocol designed for scalability, security, and extensibility for the next generation of open commerce, decentralized applications, and Web 3.0. Conflux is the most endorsed DLT project in China.

Why you should listen:

Conflux Network is an open protocol for a new world of Dapps, finance, and Web 3.0. As a fast and secure public blockchain, Conflux Network combines Proof of Work and a Tree-Graph structure to power a new generation of decentralized commerce.

Prior to joining Conflux, Eden was a Partner at Outlier Ventures, where he worked on crypto tokenomics. Eden helped develop Outlier's Convergence Thesis - the Convergence Stack is a set of privacy-protecting, peer-to-peer, open-source technologies that will decentralize the cloud and unbundle internet platforms to build Web 3.0.

Key takeaway:

Founded in 2018, Conflux Network raised $35 million in capital from investors including Sequoia China, Metastable, Baidu Ventures, F2Pool, Huobi, IMO Ventures. Conflux Network has backing from the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

Currently in Testnet, Conflux Network seeks to provide the security of a POW network with transaction speeds an order of magnitude faster. The key enabler technique is a novel DAG-based ledger structure together with an optimistic concurrency control to achieve a consistent order of transactions among all the nodes in the network. In Conflux, the throughput bottleneck is no longer at consensus layer. Unlike other scalability solutions such as DPOS and hybrid consensus, the Conflux consensus algorithm is decentralized and permissionless without any hierarchy.

Supporting links:

Conflux Network

Eden on Twitter

Techemy Capital on Twitter

The Crypto Conversation is sponsored by BNC Pro, the new digital wealth platform featuring an all-in-one suite of customizable, institutional-grade applications that help you manage your crypto investments. Research, chart, screen, analyze, optimize, report, and more. BNC Pro is the ultimate portfolio tool for individual or enterprise use. Streamline your workflow, manage your crypto and master this brave new asset class with BNC Pro. Go to BNC-Pro.com to create your free account.

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Money Lego - Techemy Capital launches investable DeFi portfolios on TokenSets Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

Techemy Capital and TokenSets have collaborated to launch a suite of DeFi-based investable products to help investors tap into the open finance ecosystem. Hosted on the TokenSets automated asset management platform, Techemy has created two actively managed investment portfolios that allow investors to gain exposure to BTC and ETH price action. Investors can take advantage of the crypto market's price moves without having to trade themselves - and because the products are non-custodial - without having to release control of their crypto assets to a third party.

Guests:

Fran Strajnar and Anthony Sassano

Why you should listen:

Anthony Sassano, Product Marketing Manager at TokenSets, says "Holding is no longer enough. If you want to get outsized returns in crypto, you can play in the altcoin market, which is basically like a casino. Trying to pick the ones that will do well, and knowing when to sell is extremely difficult. Most users don't want the stress and pressure of having to make trading decisions themselves. They want to make a return, and they want someone else or an algorithm to do the trading for them. That's where TokenSets comes in."

Key takeaway:

DeFi refers to the interconnected crypto assets, smart contracts, protocols, and decentralized applications built on the Ethereum blockchain. Run by programmable code, DeFi reduces friction and capital inefficiency and offers the possibility of higher yields.

Fran Strajnar, CEO at Techemy Capital says, "We've been talking about DeFi being a game-changer since 2014. It has taken until now for the infrastructure to mature enough for innovative investable products that can scale globally. Money and value are now woven into the fabric of the internet. Liquidity is abundant and risk is manageable. This has created an environment that is appealing to many investor classes."

Hosted on the TokenSets automated asset management platform, Techemy's new offering consists of two actively managed investment portfolios that allow investors to gain exposure to BTC and ETH price action. Investors are now able to take advantage of the crypto market's price moves without having to trade themselves - and because Techemy's new products are non-custodial - without having to release control of their crypto assets to a third party.

Techemy Capital's BTC and ETH portfolios are actively traded using strategies designed to generate capital gains. Trades are executed by Techemy Capital's professional in-house trading team, led by Rob Brewis and Josh Olszewicz.

A third portfolio that Techemy will launch soon on TokenSets is a passive yield portfolio based on the yield-bearing cDAI/cUSDC stablecoin pair. This portfolio protects against price volatility and offers other benefits including the ability to earn interest through the Compound Finance network.

Techemy's new portfolio products are aimed at investors already familiar with digital assets and those entering the market for the first time. While the former can interact with the new portfolios with ease due to the seamless user experience, for users needing additional support Techemy offers personalized services - from custody to OTC and wallet management.

Supporting links:

Techemy Capital

TokenSets

The Crypto Conversation is sponsored by BNC Pro, the new digital wealth platform featuring an all-in-one suite of customizable, institutional-grade applications that help you manage your crypto investments. Research, chart, screen, analyze, optimize, report, and more. BNC Pro is the ultimate portfolio tool for individual or enterprise use. Streamline your workflow, manage your crypto and master this brave new asset class with BNC Pro. Go to BNC-Pro.com to create your free account.

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Cryptopia the movie - Bitcoin, Blockchains & the Future of the Internet Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

Torsten Hoffmann is a documentary filmmaker who has completed two full length blockchain films. Bitcoin: The End Of Money As We Know It from 2015, and his new film Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet which 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 Hoffmann 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

The Crypto Conversation is sponsored by BNC Pro, the new digital wealth platform featuring an all-in-one suite of customizable, institutional-grade applications that help you manage your crypto investments. Research, chart, screen, analyze, optimize, report, and more. BNC Pro is the ultimate portfolio tool for individual or enterprise use. Streamline your workflow, manage your crypto and master this brave new asset class with BNC Pro. Go to BNC-Pro.com to create your free account.

If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Stack Sats - How Vimba makes it easy to Dollar Cost Average into Bitcoin Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

A New Zealand software engineer, Sam Blackmore is the CEO and co-founder of Vimba, a platform that makes it easy for users to save Bitcoin using an automated dollar cost average strategy.

Why you should listen:

After growing up as a surf photographer, Sam moved to Bristol in the early 2000s where he documented the street art culture popularized by Banksy. As a software engineer, Sam became fascinated by open source technology such as Linux. He first discovered Bitcoin when he saw a headline on a Linux magazine that described Bitcoin as the most powerful open-source technology ever created. Intrigued, Sam became fascinated by Bitcoin's philosophy and potential. He created Vimba to make it possible for friends and family to easily accumulate Bitcoin without having to join an exchange. Vimba is now available in over thirty countries, making it easy for anyone to save in Bitcoin using an automated dollar cost average strategy.

Key takeaway:

To scale Vimba, Sam moved to the UK to leverage the UK's open banking framework and FinTech friendly regulations. The 2018 open banking legislation forced banks to open up their APIs so that users can share their data with other services. This has allowed a wave of innovative new financial products. Vimba will integrate with these products allowing users to easily purchase Bitcoin or use it as collateral. Vimba's mission is to make it as normal to accumulate BTC as it is to save dollars. A recent survey suggests that 42% of millennials are planning to buy BTC in the next 5 years.

Banksy is anonymous. Satoshi Nakamoto is anonymous. This anonymity allows Banky's artwork and Satoshi's Bitcoin to be judged on their own merits without being tainted by the individual creator and their beliefs or flaws.

Supporting links:

Vimba

Vimba on Twitter

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Crypto Oceania - Why Bittrex and Dasset have joined forces Jun 09, 2020

Show notes

An OG Bitcoiner from Colorado with a background in precious metals, Stephen Macaskill is the co-founder and CEO of the Dasset digital asset exchange. Based in New Zealand, Dasset has announced a strategic partnership with the U.S. based Bittrex exchange. The new partnership will give Dasset users access to deeper liquidity.

Why you should listen:

Stephen says the impetus for Dasset came from the realization that there was a gap in the local crypto market. "When we looked at the New Zealand market four years ago, there was a 20% premium over the global spot prices of crypto assets in New Zealand due to a lack of liquidity, and a lack of local exchanges," he said. "Dasset has helped that situation, so the spread has dropped by around 80%. That means that compared to global spot prices, New Zealanders can now access rates that are within 1-3% of those prices."

Key takeaway:

Dasset provides the ability for New Zealanders and Australians to buy, sell, and trade over thirty different crypto assets. Stephen says that Dasset provides the on-ramps and off-ramps between the legacy financial system and the digital asset financial system.

Stephen is a Bitcoiner who pays his bills in crypto. He says he has opted out of the legacy financial system and uses crypto for all of his financial transactions. While Stephen is a passionate supporter of Bitcoin as the world's largest decentralized digital currency, he says ultimately it is up to the market to decide which digital asset will win the future.

Supporting links:

Devs

The Sovereign Individual

Bitcoin Billionaires

Dasset on Twitter

The next big thing will start out looking like a toy

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The DeFi bull case for Chainlink and Synthetix May 28, 2020

Show notes

Framework Ventures is a San Francisco based venture firm with a strong DeFi thesis. Framework believes a new age of venture capital is upon us, known as 'Network Capital.' Rather than just hold onto the asset, this type of investing aims to be more holistic.

"If you're going to be investing in decentralized networks, this requires a new hybrid model where the stakeholders can participate in market-making, staking, and governance."

Framework is a major holder of Chainlink's LINK token.

Why you should listen:

Framework Ventures is a thesis-driven venture firm that partners with founders and teams to build token-based networks and develop the requisite cryptoeconomics, governance, and community to scale. Framework are very bullish on the DeFi space in general, and particularly on Chainlink and Synthetix. Vance Spencer, a co-founder at Framework, spent time as head of strategy for Netflix Japan. His co-founder Michael Anderson spent time at Snapchat and Dropbox. This gives Framework unique insight into digital products and networks which they apply to DeFi.

Key takeaway:

Vance says DeFi is still early and just needs time to mature. Chris Dixon said that most new disruptive technology starts out looking like a toy. This is a good analogy for DeFi right now. As DeFi building blocks start to be put together in new and increasingly useful ways, exciting new use cases will be unlocked.

Framework doesn't invest in Bitcoin and it doesn't invest in Ethereum killers. Framework is long Ether as a core position. Ethereum built liquidity for Ether, it built tooling for Solidity, and it built a passionate dev community. These are significant achievements. 2000 ETH devs dancing on stage at Devcon is not something you can easily replicate. The ETH community is hard to disrupt.

Supporting links:

Framework Ventures

Aggregation Theory

Donnie Darko

Framework Ventures on Twitter

Vance on Twitter