The Scoop

How data ownership redefines the relationship between artists and fans Aug 12, 2022

Over the course of the past two decades, Grammy Award-winning DJ, André Allen Anjos (also known as RAC) has noticed a growing trend.

"There's been a trend since 2005 in the MySpace era, and all of that has been a trend towards sovereignty of an artist, of putting the artists on top," he says.

RAC is an advisor to Audius — a decentralized music streaming platform that raised $5 million last September from big names including Coinbase Ventures and Pantera Capital, along with popular artists such as Jason Derulo and Katy Perry.

In this episode of The Scoop, RAC and Audius Co-Founder and CEO Roneil Rumburg examine the limitations of centralized music streaming platforms and explain how data ownership in web3 allows artists to redefine their relationship to their fans.

Rumburg argues that centralized streaming platforms prevent artists from establishing a direct connection with their fanbase.

"There shouldn't be this sense of 'platform lock-in' that we have today on Spotify or places like that where, as a creator, you don't really know who your fans are, and you don't have the ability to port that fan base between experiences."

RAC has first-hand experience with this problem: while the DJ has 5.5 million followers on SoundCloud, his fanbase is "locked" into the platform. Artists "don't own that connection in any way," he says.

Audius is designed to avoid that, according to Rumburg.

"Our company could go away tomorrow, and all of this would keep working… From the artist's perspective, there's no lock in here. You can take your following and your data that you have here and use it anywhere else."

Episode 76 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro, Audius Co-Founder Roneil Rumburg and Grammy award winning DJ and Audius Advisor, RAC.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Crypto markets still have an 'opacity' problem says CoinShares CEO Aug 10, 2022

CoinShares — a London-based crypto firm whose operations include asset management, venture capital, and proprietary trading — had exposure to Terra's "algorithmic" stablecoin UST, the collapse of which resulted in a loss of $21 million for the firm's trading unit of the business.

In this episode of The Scoop, CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti provides an inside look at how CoinShares navigated Terra's collapse, and why crypto's "private company environment" leads to marketplace uncertainty.

According to Mognetti, a lack of standardized disclosure requirements for crypto firms makes it difficult to verify balance sheet details.

"The opacity despite all the progress we're doing is quite intense, so you don't have as much information as you want."

While Mognetti points to Voyager Digital as an example of a crypto company that has fully disclosed the state of its book, he acknowledges this is likely due to Voyager's status as a publicly traded company — for private companies, the disclosure requirements aren't nearly as robust and largely vary by jurisdiction.

This leads to uncertainty, Mognetti argued.

"Even if they tell you they're good, you don't know what they have in the book and against whom they are exposed."

Episode 75 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and CoinShares Co-Founder and CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Block’s Mike Brock on 'Web5' and the role of digital identities Aug 08, 2022

Block CEO Jack Dorsey has called 'Web5,' a decentralized identity platform under development by TBD, the Block's blockchain arm, "likely our most important contribution to the internet."

In this episode of The Scoop, TBD lead Mike Brock explains how Web5, whose name is a play on the idea of connecting Web2 and Web3, aims to reimagine the way trust is established and maintained, and how digital identity can connect the emerging decentralized financial system to the existing real-world economy.

Hardcore crypto proponents dream of creating a fully decentralized, trustless system. But Brock says there are some practical problems with transacting in such a world:

"Are you going to go and buy a gold watch from an anonymous online merchant and then send them a non-reversible payment for $10,000 and just hope that it gets drop-shipped to you?... We can't build an economy around that. We have to have a way to authenticate with the real world."

That's where the Web5 platform comes in. Brock describes it as a "messaging layer that ultimately allows you to establish secure transactions, with negotiated social trust."

Users of Web5 are in control of both their identities and their data — something Brock believes will facilitate a new way for the developing decentralized economy to connect with known, verifiable actors in the real world:

"We're trying to build on-ramps and off-ramps from the real world — fundamentally, that's what digital identity ultimately gets you."

Episode 74 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live at The Block headquarters with The Block's Frank Chaparro and TBD Lead at Block, Mike Brock.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

How Solana is bridging the gap between web3 and the physical world Aug 05, 2022

In this episode of The Scoop, Solana Labs co-founder and COO Raj Gokal discusses his early impression of Solana Spaces, as well as the innovation and experimentation that is occurring across the Solana ecosystem at a "breakneck pace."

As Gokal explains, some people who visit Solana Spaces' first location in Manhattan are discovering that web3 might not be as daunting as it seems:

"There's hundreds of people coming through — just starting their first Phantom wallet, sending their first USDC, and learning, 'okay, using crypto is like not that complicated.'"

In addition to the inroads Solana is making in the physical world, Solana is currently hosting a virtual hackathon called 'Summer Camp' — the largest Solana hackathon to date, according to Gokal:

"The hackathon that's going right now has almost 14,000 developers. This is the most participation from a hackathon that we've ever seen… and it's now — in the depths of the bear market."

Although the price of SOL has fallen approximately 85% since last November's highs, the Solana Network has seen accelerated adoption over the same period, as data from The Block shows.

Episode 72 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Solana Labs Co-Founder and COO, Raj Gokal.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

CBDCs are 'anti-democratic' says Circle's Dante Disparte Aug 03, 2022

Circle's USDC stablecoin is the second largest by market capitalization, and has steadily grown in dominance over the last couple of years.

In this episode of The Scoop, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle, Dante Disparte, joins host Frank Chaparro to share his take on what a responsible approach to stablecoin regulation might look like and why he believes central bank digital currencies are "anti-democratic."

According to Disparte, the separation between the central banks and citizens' pockets is important to maintain:

"The gap between the central bank, the banking system, your wallet and how you spend money is a powerful feature and not a bug."

Furthermore, Dante believes that central bank digital currencies ignore the fundamental peer-to-peer potential of digital assets:

"A central bank digital currency would be the equivalent of building a high speed train engine, but not caring about the rail network, nor the station stops. And the real powerful breakthrough of blockchain based finance is that the infrastructure has networked peer to peer station stops."

During this episode, Chaparro and Disparte also discuss:

The difference between 'risk' and 'uncertainty'
Stablecoin standards
Non-USD denominated stablecoins

Episode 72 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro, and Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle, Dante Disparte.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Talos co-founders believe crypto will bounce back stronger than ever Aug 01, 2022

Earlier this year, crypto infrastructure provider Talos closed a $105 million Series B for a valuation of $1.25 billion.

In this episode of The Scoop, Talos cofounders Ethan Feldman and Anton Katz provide insider perspectives on how institutions have been positioning themselves during the crypto market’s recent upheaval, and why they believe the industry will rebound stronger than ever before.

As Katz points out during the interview, the more market participants think about risk, the more stable the industry will become:

“I think a lot of people are revising how they're thinking about risk… So overall, I think what we're going to see is actually we're going to see a much more robust, much safer credit market emerge as a result of this.”

In addition to firms beefing up internal risk management, the Talos co-founders also believe regulation will also play a major role in helping the crypto ecosystem grow.

According to Feldman:

“Regulation is an enabler to some extent, right? This is what's going to enable the bigger institutions in the world to actually trade spot crypto.”

Episode 71 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro, and Talos Co-Founders Ethan Feldman and Anton Katz.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

A crypto fund that just raised $450 million offers bull case for web3 Jul 28, 2022

Variant — a venture capital firm founded on the idea that the next iteration of the internet is going to be defined by decentralized, user-owned networks — has raised $450 million to be deployed across two new funds.

In this episode of The Scoop, Variant co-founders Jesse Walden and Spencer Noon reveal how they plan on allocating the capital — and why Variant remains bullish on the long-term future of web3.

According to Walden, the technology powering the emerging web3 industry will only improve from here:

“In the history of technology, technology doesn't get worse and disappear — it gets better and more pervasive. And that's happening at an exponential rate in Web3, because this is all software, it's all open source, and there's just tons of talent jumping in... So the tech is working, and again, I think that means it's only going to be more pervasive.”

Although web3 is still in its infancy, the Variant co-founders believe elements of it are already disrupting their centralized equivalents. For example, Walden describes how certain distressed lenders recently prioritized paying back loans to DeFi protocols over other counterparties:

“DeFi protocols were the only protocols that got paid back by some of these institutions that blew up … the transparency and sort of enforcement of these smart contracts can actually have better outcomes than the alternative, which is opacity and sort of trust in the wrong parties.”

Episode 70 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro, and Variant Co-Founders Jesse Walden and Spencer Noon.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

The Mining Report with Wolfie Zhao: When miner capitulation? Jul 27, 2022

Following the crypto market crash in May and June, several institutional bitcoin mining companies have liquidated large portions of their bitcoin reserves, adding more fuel to the selling pressure.

In this episode, we discussed the impact of the shrinking hash price and the profitability of bitcoin mining at the moment. The network's hash price has reached the lowest point since late 2020 due to bitcoin's price decline and only moderate difficulty correction. Even though the network has had three difficulty declines in a row over the past month, the competition level is still up by about 10% year-to-date.

Meanwhile, the global energy price surge and inflation are pushing mining firms' production costs even higher – not to mention that a lot of them also have growing interest expenses on outstanding loans they took since last year. If bitcoin's price drops below the critical $15,000 level, we may start to see miner capitulation. Listen to more of our discussions below.

In this episode of The Scoop Mining Report, The Block Research's mining analyst Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro take a further look at the pressures facing miners in today's market environment and how recent heatwaves have affected mining operations today.

Episode 69 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and The Block Research Analyst Wolfie Zhao.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

NFT Scoop with MK Manoylov: A Brief History of NFTs Jul 25, 2022

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the blockchain-based method to verify and transfer ownership of a digital asset, exploded in popularity in 2021.

Though some collections such as NBA Top Shot and CryptoPunks had existed before last year’s climb in popularity, NFTs largely did not enter mainstream consciousness until the arrival of Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 algorithmically assembled images of languid monkeys.

The success of Bored Ape Yacht Club in the spring of 2021 sparked an influx of large-scale NFT collections such as Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Meebits, Doodles, Cool Cats and Azuki. What followed was the scramble in the crypto community to buy in early to the next popular project, and the rush for non-crypto natives to understand what these types of tokens even are.

Around the same time as so-called profile-picture projects emerged, NFTs also expanded into the gaming sector through play-to-earn (P2E) mechanics. The P2E game Axie Infinity particularly emerged as a giant in the blockchain-based gaming space in the late summer and early fall of 2021 before losing traction.

In all, NFTs surpassed $13 billion in trading volume in 2021. NFT trading volume cooled in concert with the broader crypto bear market in 2022. With high-profile parties like Coinbase and GameStop entering the space, this technology doesn’t seem to be going away. And with them, so too are pertinent questions around copyright and ownership.

In this debut episode of The Block's NFT Scoop, reporter MK Manoylov speaks with The Block Research's Thomas Bialek about the history of NFTs, where they came from, and what lead to their explosion in popularity in 2021.

Episode 68 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's MK Manoylov and The Block Research's Thomas Bialek.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Abra CEO reveals how his lending firm weathered the Three Arrows Capital storm, and why other lenders failed Jul 22, 2022

As head of a retail crypto platform with lending exposure to Three Arrows Capital (‘3AC’), Abra CEO Bill Barhydt has personal insight into what led similar platforms to go bust in the wake of 3AC defaulting on $3.5 billion in loans across 27 different counterparties.

In this episode of The Scoop, Barhydt reveals how Abra has been able to remain operational despite 3AC exposure, and where other lenders who incurred severe losses from 3AC went wrong.

Adequately accounting for ‘concentration risk’ for example, which Barhydt describes simply as not putting “all your eggs in one basket,” has been key to Abra’s survival. This meant Abra was able to write-off a relatively small loss resulting from the collapse of 3AC without it having an impact on their broader operations.

Yet, while Barhydt believes concentration risk is “by far the easiest thing to manage for in lending,” firms like Voyager have been forced into bankruptcy from over-exposure to 3AC, with court documents suggesting Voyager has claims of over $650 million against 3AC compared to the $1.3 billion in crypto assets the broker currently has on its platform.

When lenders take a hit from failing to adequately account for concentration risk, Barhydt believes it is usually out of complacency:

“Usually it’s a function of laziness because: hey, the rates are good, nobody’s asking any questions, markets going up and to the right… It is pure laziness. And unfortunately, there were a couple of firms that were in that situation for different reasons.”

Episode 67 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Ethereum will define web3's 'benchmark interest rate' post-merge, according to Raoul Paul Jul 20, 2022

Last time Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal came on The Scoop podcast back in 2020, the investment strategist cautioned that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy was simply “papering up the cracks” in the economic crunch caused by Covid-19.

Over two years later, Pal’s predictions seem to have come true, as the global economy struggles to keep pace with rampant inflation, which reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in the US in June.

Although the crypto markets have been hit especially hard in recent months, Pal feels “that the forced selling participants are out of the market,” adding that “we’re definitely close to the low.”

In this episode of The Scoop, Pal forecasts where he believes the economy is headed in the coming months, and shares why Ethereum’s upcoming merge could represent a defining moment for the web3 industry.

After Ethereum’s merge to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, users who "stake" ether to secure the network will earn yield in ether — something Pal thinks will have a standardizing effect on the inflation rate of protocols around the industry:

“We are going to end up creating a benchmark web3 interest rate of which we can assess other risks against, so that makes risk management slightly more transparent.”

For example, Pal hypothesizes that if Ethereum offered 4.8% yield after its upcoming merge, then 4.8% would become the benchmark yield for other crypto projects as well. Furthermore, the risk from investing in protocols offering yields higher than Ethereum’s could be assessed relative to Ethereum's hypothetical risk-free 4.8% yield.

In addition to creating a benchmark yield for the industry, Pal thinks the decrease in the Ethereum blockchain’s energy consumption after the merge could result in it becoming an institutional favorite compared to the more energy-intensive, proof-of-work consensus mechanism used by the Bitcoin blockchain. As Pal explains:

“To have a benchmark yield in the second largest cryptocurrency, when everybody wants to allocate over time to web3 as a theme, that is not counter to the 'FUD' of the ESG narrative that Bitcoin has to battle with — it becomes incredibly attractive for institutions to allocate.”

Additionally, Pal claims he has personally been adding the most crypto to his portfolio since November of 2020, stating “the risk-reward is now becoming super ludicrous, so it dwarfs anything else.”

Episode 66 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Raoul Pal, Co-Founder and CEO of Real Vision.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden on how Algorand is going to distinguish itself in the bear market Jul 18, 2022

Although Algorand may not be the most popular blockchain ecosystem, its underlying technology is arguably among the most cutting edge.

Founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, MIT professor and Turing Award recipient for his pioneering work in the fields of cryptography and computer science, Algorand uses a highly efficient consensus mechanism it calls pure proof of stake, and is one of the most energy-efficient blockchains in the industry.

While Silvio Micali oversees the research and development of Algorand's technology, the Algorand Foundation is responsible for helping the surrounding community flourish.

In this episode of The Scoop, Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden detailed recent developments in the Algorand ecosystem that she hopes will harness the power of Algorand's technology for global good.

"We have the best tech in crypto, and I think a lot of people would acknowledge that," Warden says. She cites Algorand's roughly 1,000 transactions per second and 4.5 second settlement time — which the development team hopes to increase to 10,000 transactions per second and 2.5 second settlement time by the end of the year.

Given these performance indicators, Warden believes Algorand is equipped to handle problems at scale. As she explains,

"When you've got a machine like that, of course you start thinking big — and so we think in terms of very big global problems."

One of these problems is financial inclusion, which the Algorand Foundation is looking to address through an upcoming partnership with an organization that is planning to make 4G mobile phones preloaded with Algorand's tech available to people in Africa who might otherwise be unable to access traditional financial services.

Algorand also has a growing decentralized finance ecosystem, largely due to an ecosystem fund launched last September that today is worth approximately $50 million.

Episode 65 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Staci Warden, CEO of the Algorand Foundation.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Domain Money CEO on responsible crypto asset management and where failed lenders went wrong Jul 15, 2022

As the industry continues to cope with fallout from the implosion of Three Arrows Capital, July has been a brutal month for crypto lenders, with both Voyager Digital and Celsius declaring bankruptcy, and other prominent lenders including Genesis, BlockFi and Blockchain.com incurring severe losses.

In the case of Celsius — which is now reporting a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet — retail investors have a long road to recovering any of the crypto they deposited in the platform.

In this episode of The Scoop, Domain Money founder and CEO Adam Dell walks through some of the fatal mistakes made by the recently collapsed crypto lenders and explains what a responsible approach to portfolio management looks like in the digital asset space.

In contrast to the way Celsius allegedly deployed users' funds into levered strategies, Dell says it is important that Domain Money remains market neutral:

"We don't take balance sheet risk. And so many of the entities you mentioned were using their clients' funds to basically take levered positions in the market."

Domain Money is also looking to differentiate itself through quality portfolio managers. Dell has brought in teams from Goldman Sachs and Bridgewater to help construct and manage portfolios in the hope that veterans from traditional finance will be able to use their experience to manage the volatility of the crypto market.

While the contagion stemming from Three Arrows Capital and rampant global inflation have caused crypto prices to plummet, Dell says this is healthy in the long-run:

"I'm a little bit conflicted in that I certainly want all of our investors to have positive returns in any timeframe, but I also think this is, in the long-term, a very good thing for this industry to go through to weed out the bad actors, to weed out the momentum and meme-focused investors, and have a set of investments thrive and grow over time that are solving real world problems."

Episode 64 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Adam Dell, founder and CEO of Domain Money.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Inside the Avalanche ecosystem with Ava Labs' COO Kevin Sekniqi Jul 13, 2022

No matter the blockchain, individual blocks are limited in the amount of information they can hold; so when blockspace becomes limited, transaction fees increase.

As Ava Labs COO Kevin Sekniqi puts it: “Chains are only cheap as long as the blockspace has not been filled up completely — once blockspace gets filled up completely, it becomes expensive.”

In this episode of the Scoop, Sekniqi explains how Avalanche — the proof-of-stake blockchain Ava Labs launched back in September 2020 — utilizes ‘subnets’ to tackle the problem of blockchain scalability, and how subnets compare to other scaling solutions.

As Sekniqi explains, existing validators of the Avalanche blockchain are able to deploy new subnets, and choose the rules of how they operate:

“The simplest way to describe subnets… is a subset of the Avalanche validators coming together and agreeing to do something.”

For example, the validators of a new subnet could choose to optimize the specifications of the new chain for a specific application, or validators could choose to require users to undergo KYC before interacting with the new subnet.

Whereas an Avalanche subnet could theoretically be run with just a single validator, popular scaling solutions on Ethereum rely on the entire validator set of the base chain to process transactions.

Sekniqi argues that this approach is likely unnecessary, and creates “extreme overhead that you don’t really want.”

Instead, Sekniqi believes the number of validators securing a chain should scale organically alongside its value:

“If there's a lot of activity and it truly is a very valuable chain, more and more people will start validating that chain because there are incentives… and so [security] scales up as the value is built upon it.”

Episode 63 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live at The Block headquarters in New York with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Kevin Seqniki, COO of Ava Labs.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: Former SDNY prosecutor breaks down crypto's first insider trading case Jul 08, 2022

Last month, a grand jury indicted OpenSea's former head of product in what amounts to the first insider trading enforcement in crypto.

Nathaniel Chastain allegedly purchased and sold non-fungible tokens (NFTs) he knew would be listed on OpenSea's homepage at a considerable profit. This alleged activity looks a lot like front running or insider trading, in which someone profits off of non-public information.

But insider trading is a securities violation, and NFTs are not currently classified as securities. For that reason, the Department of Justice is arguing a creative case theory that doesn't include securities violations. Instead, the DOJ is seeking to stick Chastain with wire fraud and money laundering charges.

In this month's episode of Policy Scoop, Aislinn Keely sits down with Ian McGinley, former co-chief of the complex frauds and cybercrime unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and current partner at Akin Gump’s white-collar defense and government investigations practice, to take a closer look at the case. McGinley breaks down:

Implications for the enforcement of insider trading in crypto
What wire fraud means in this context and how it's been used in the past
How the DOJ's case theory could be used in future enforcements

Episode 62 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Aislinn Keely, Policy Reporter.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Bitcoin is the 'Holy Grail' of accounting, says Core Scientific founder Jul 06, 2022

With bitcoin’s market cap hovering around $380 billion — down from over $1.25 trillion last November — lately much attention has been paid to bitcoin’s price action in the mainstream media.

Although headlines often focus on bitcoin’s economic component, they are missing the most important aspect of the technology, according to Darin Feinstein, founder of bitcoin mining company Core Scientific. According to Feinstein, “The root of what this technology is, it's a new accounting technology — that's the base.”

In a new episode of The Scoop, Feinstein explains the significance of the technology underlying the bitcoin blockchain, and why he thinks it represents the first innovation in the field of accounting in over 700 years.

Feinstein says his background in accounting helped him see bitcoin’s potential back in 2011,

“I read somewhere about the immutability of the ledger, and as an accountant, it caught my eye. Then I said, ‘That's impossible, there's no such thing as an immutable ledger,' — that's the holy grail of accounting.”

The ledger is the technology responsible for fundamentally organizing society, he says.

“There's nothing more important to your life, in terms of how you function every day, then all of the ledgers that exist that people rely on to know where you are, and what you're doing, and what you own.”

After spending months researching bitcoin, Feinstein concluded that not only is it an immutable ledger, but one that removes human risk from the equation:

“It disrupts the world because you now have a permanent accounting ledger that nobody can manipulate, you can't commit fraud on it, you can't alter it, you can't claim human error — the records are the records. It's the first time in human history you have truth on-chain ever.”

Episode 61 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Darin Feinstein, founder of Core Scientific.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

The Solana phone is the leap that Google and Apple won't take, says Anatoly Yakovenko Jul 01, 2022

Many Web3 platforms require users to connect their crypto wallets before engaging with the platform in any meaningful way.

Consequently, the Web3 experience on mobile devices is tedious at best, given current devices are not designed with such functionalities in mind.

Solana Mobile — a subsidiary of the development team behind Solana — hopes to address the difficulties that surround the Web3 mobile user experience with its new Android phone called ‘Saga,’ which is slated for release in early 2023.

Last week, Solana Labs co-founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko announced the new mobile device, which will run a ‘Solana Mobile Stack’ (SMS) operating system and will feature a marketplace for decentralized Web3 applications.

In this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko said he believes Saga’s early success will be linked to its ability to significantly enhance the mobile crypto user experience:

“The theory is that crypto users might be crazy enough to switch from iOS to Android because of crypto. It might be so important to have that experience, that they're willing to change their habits.”

If Solana Mobile is successfully able to prove there is consumer demand for crypto-forward mobile products, Yakovenko believes it will inspire major tech companies to integrate crypto infrastructure into their own mobile devices moving forward:

“You need Google and Apple to do it, but they're not going to do it until there is proven demand that people need it — and so somebody has to kind of make that leap…”

Episode 60 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live at The Block headquarters in New York with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Let’s get ‘phygital’ — how NFTs are changing the retail game according to MoonPay’s CEO Jun 29, 2022

Web3 can be daunting for new users and brands looking to enter the space.

But MoonPay — the crypto payment infrastructure company that raised $555 million at a valuation of $3.4 billion just last year — has spent the last few months building out a suite of NFT related products in an attempt to simplify the process of introducing new users to Web3.

So far this year, MoonPay has enabled NFT purchases via credit cards, built out its white-glove NFT concierge service for celebrities, and launched an NFT minting service aimed at brands and content creators.

In this episode of The Scoop recorded live at the NFT.NYC conference, MoonPay co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright sits down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss the inroads MoonPay has made into the burgeoning NFT industry, and to explain some of the ways he envisions the space evolving over the coming months.

One potential use case for NFTs that Soto-Wright is excited about is their potential to act as redeemable tokens for real-world items. According to Soto-Wright:

“‘Phygital’ — or ‘digital twinning’ — is the idea that you can take something that exists physically and create a digital pair of that as an NFT, and then you can hold on to that and redeem it for the physical…”

In addition to helping brands combat counterfeiting, Soto-Wright explains how brands could use ‘phygital’ items to pitch products directly to consumers:

“Let's say Gucci has a special line of shoes that they want to sell on their website, and maybe the shoes haven't actually been released yet — they could release them digitally and they could actually start to engage with the audience and see whether there's actually demand for that asset before it actually is created.”

Big brands are part of the audience MoonPay hopes to attract with its new HyperMint NFT utility service, announced at the start of NFT.NYC last week, which allows brands and creators to mint millions of NFTs at a time.

Episode 59 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live at NFT.NYC with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Ivan Soto-Wright, co-founder and CEO of MoonPay.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Vibe Bio CEO explains how this DAO plans to revolutionize the trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry Jun 27, 2022

One biotech startup is trying to use blockchain technology to revolutionize the way potential treatments for rare diseases are identified for funding and development.

According to Vibe Bio CEO Alok Tayi:

“Vibe is a community of patients, scientists and partners that help identify promising treatments for rare diseases and other overlooked diseases, and fund them in innovative ways.”

In this episode of The Scoop, Tayi shares his vision for how Vibe Bio aims to disrupt the centralized control of big pharma, and explains why a decentralized autonomous organization (or ‘DAO’) is the optimal solution for organizing the members of the Vibe community.

According to Tayi, the biology of rare diseases is often understood, but biotech companies do not have enough incentive to fund research given the limited financial upside. As Tayi notes:

“There actually ends up being a myriad of different candidate medicines with promise that are sitting on shelves today, but simply lack the capital and the focus to be able to develop them.”

This is the problem Tayi hopes to address through Vibe Bio. By using a DAO structure, Vibe Bio is able to put forward governance proposals to identify promising treatment options. $VIBE token holders can then vote on which treatments will get funded via the proceeds of the DAO's token sale.

As Tayi explains, this decentralized approach empowers patients who would otherwise be unable to get assistance from centralized biotech companies:

“When you start to move away from a traditional sort of financing model to one that's community led, patients can now be in the driver's seat of deciding what medicines to pursue, what disease areas we should try to treat, not profit or politics.”

Earlier this week, Vibe announced it received $12 million in a funding round led by Initialized Capital, which also included participation from prominent angel investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan, as well as 6th Man Ventures — the venture firm helmed by The Block Co-Founder Mike Dudas — amongst others.

Episode 58 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Alok Tayi, Co-Founder & CEO of Vibe Bio.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Inside crypto's 'biggest deleveraging event' and the Three Arrows Capital fallout Jun 24, 2022

Earlier this week, the apparent insolvency of Three Arrows Capital (or '3AC' for short) caught many in the crypto world by surprise, including Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy who commented:

“Everyone kind of assumed those guys just made billions over the years… but now it seems like we were just all horribly wrong.”

In this episode of The Scoop, Evgeny Gaevoy joins The Block’s Frank Chaparro and guest co-host Larry Cermak to analyze the fallout from the 3AC situation, and to explain the wide-scale deleveraging that is occurring in the crypto markets.

According to Cermak, not only was 3AC liquidated by top-tier exchanges, but the firm has outstanding debts with multiple counterparties,

“The impact isn't completely clear when it comes to size… the number I've heard is roughly around $1.5 to $2.5 billion in terms of actual debt that 3AC has — and in terms of the firms affected, it’s almost everyone.”

While the extent of 3AC’s obligations is unclear, Voyager Digital has publicly announced its intent to pursue legal action against 3AC, if the firm defaults on a loan worth over $650 million.

Given the widespread uncertainty regarding balance sheets in the wake of 3AC’s insolvency, crypto lenders have begun recalling loans to large counterparties, including Gaevoy’s Wintermute.

“[Wintermute] basically got recalled pretty much on all open loans that we had with all the lenders,” Gaevoy said, “our balance sheet decreased more than half basically.”

As Gaevoy explains, recalling loans allows crypto lenders to check counterparties for solvency:

“The reason is everyone just wants to see who is solvent in this market. That’s basically the best way to check it, because once you recall all the loans and you give all the firms like one or two weeks… you probably will see some of them fail and collapse and that's it.”

Episode 57 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Larry Cermak, and Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of Wintermute.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Magic Eden's Zedd talks expansion plans after the NFT marketplace raises $130 million Jun 21, 2022

Magic Eden, Solana’s largest NFT marketplace, is eyeing an ambitious growth plan after raising a $130 million funding round co-led by Greylock and Electric Capital.

While the broader crypto market struggles to find its footing, Magic Eden is coming off its best month ever, with just over 5 million SOL in volume transacted during May.

In this episode of The Scoop, Magic Eden co-founder and COO Zhuoxun 'Zedd' Yin, talks through the project’s funding efforts and unpacks some of the reasons why he believes Magic Eden has room to grow into more than just an NFT marketplace.

As Zedd explains during the interview, both Magic Eden’s founders and its investors share a broad time horizon for the future:

“I think despite the ridiculous and amazing traction that I think we've had in the first nine months, it's still very early days for us and we have a lot more we want to build — and I think hopefully that plan and that outlook resonated with a lot of investors. And for us, we were lucky to be able to bring on the partners that we were really excited about.”

Instead of limiting itself to running a marketplace, Magic Eden hopes to establish itself as a hub for all NFT-related activity.

According to Zedd:

“We would love to be the place where there's actually many layers on top of the marketplace — so not only is this the place where you perform the execution of the transaction, but really all of the discovery, all of the community based interaction, all the fun social elements that come with NFTs is also happened on Magic Eden.”

Magic Eden also plans to branch out beyond the Solana blockchain

"As, you know... very intentional decision to start on Solana. But I really do think that if developers and users are going to be in other ecosystems, it's almost like if you're a traditional company starting in Australia. But then there's a lot of users in New Zealand or like whatever, like Singapore. You want to be there too. Right?"

Episode 56 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded in-person with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Magic Eden Co-Founder & COO, Zedd.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

NFT.NYC organizers talk NFT adoption as conference gets under way Jun 20, 2022

This week approximately 15,000 non-fungible token (NFT) enthusiasts from around the world descend on New York City for the fourth annual NFT.NYC conference, which features more than 1,500 speakers over four days.

In this episode of The Scoop, NFT.NYC conference founders Jodee Rich and Cameron Bale sit down with host Frank Chaparro to share details of the upcoming conference and its origins — and to analyze the boom and cultural adoption that NFTs have witnessed over the last few years.

As Jodee Rich explains during the show, although he has worked with multiple forms of emerging technologies over the years, he has never seen a new technology embraced as readily as NFTs have been:

“I was very early in the social media boom, very early in telephony, mobile telephony, very, very early in microcomputers… I've never seen a particular technology being adopted so quickly — and it's way beyond trading, which is the very interesting thing.”

As data from The Block shows, NFT sales have grown exponentially over the last two years.

For this year’s NFT.NYC, the organizers specially partnered with NFT intelligence platform Mnemonic to analyze the crypto wallet addresses provided by attendees. As Cameron Bale explains, Mnemonic’s findings showed that most attendees acquired their first NFT within the last two years:

“Something super interesting is that 68% of our attendees got their first NFT in 2021 and 22% of them got their first NFT in 2022, and that's from a survey of 15,000 attendees.”

Episode 55 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and NFT.NYC Founders Jodee Rich and Cameron Bale.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Institutional appetite for digital assets "has not slowed," according to PolySign and MG Stover CEOs Jun 17, 2022

Back in April, digital asset infrastructure provider PolySign acquired top fund administration firm MG Stover as reported by CoinDesk. At the time of acquisition, MG Stover had more than $40 billion in digital assets under administration.

This move coincided with PolySign completing its Series C fundraise, which included new powerhouse investors such as Soros Fund Management, Brevan Howard and GSR, along with former investors including Cowen Digital, who led PolySign’s $54 million Series B last year.

In this episode of The Scoop, Jack McDonald, chair and CEO of Polysign, and Matt Stover, CEO of MG Stover, sit down with host Frank Chaparro to record their first-ever podcast together, and to discuss the unwavering demand for digital asset-related products they are seeing from their clients.

As Stover explained, while crypto prices may be down, there is still plenty of private funding flowing toward building out digital asset infrastructure:

“We get to see both the liquid and illiquid on the investment side and there's so much capital still flowing into the private companies building infrastructure around this new asset class.”

Although the recent market downturn has many market participants on edge, McDonald says the long-term view institutions from traditional finance have when it comes to digital assets make short-term market movements irrelevant.

As McDonald said during the interview:

“The long-term view that these traditional asset managers make in investing in this sort of way is really unaffected by the recent market downturns. They're taking a long-term view and they've done the work to make these decisions.”

Episode 54 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro, Jack McDonald, Chair & CEO of PolySign, and Matt Stover, CEO of MG Stover.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

The importance of risk management, according to the CEO of a leading crypto quant trading firm Jun 15, 2022

Panic and fear gripped the crypto market this week as falling prices and market pressure caused two industry titans — hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and lending platform Celsius Network — to face potential insolvency.

While the extended crypto market downturn has caught many market participants offside, one high-frequency trading firm managed to not only survive recent conditions but concluded trading for the month of May up 3.7%.

In this episode of The Scoop, Martin Green, Co-CIO & CEO of Cambrian Asset Management, explains why proper risk management is key to his firm’s success, and why he believes there is still a bright future ahead for the crypto industry.

According to Green, Cambrian’s risk management systems are designed to take the human element out of the equation:

“Humans aren't designed to make great analytical judgments when their brains are filled with cortisol, serotonin or dopamine. They're just not. So our systems are designed to take risk off, like sell along, or buy to cover a short if the market goes against us. So if we're long, the market goes against us to some pre-programed amount… the systems will take risk off so that if the market becomes more extreme, we've protected our investors capital.”

Although nearly $500 billion dollars has been wiped from the total crypto market cap so far in June, Green believes the severity of this correction has likely been exacerbated by crypto’s reflexive nature.

While crypto’s volatility often draws the ire of critics who do not believe it to be a viable alternative to the current financial system, Green thinks it is important to remember is still a new technology:

“I think we have to remember — and we all do in the industry — but people outside the industry have to remember that [crypto] fundamentally… is an early stage technology. Early stage in an eventual possible adoption curve.”

Episode 53 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Martin Green, Co-CIO & CEO at Cambrian Asset Management.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

F9 Research's Jim Greco explains why crypto prices are cratering Jun 14, 2022

As persistent inflation strikes fear in the market ahead of Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, the total crypto market cap has plunged below $1 trillion dollars for the first time since January 2021, as data from The Block shows:

In this special episode of The Scoop, financial veteran Jim Greco — a general partner at crypto high-frequency trading firm F9 Research — examines some of the causes of the recent market meltdown, and explains why only the strongest crypto companies will survive.

According to Greco, this sell off was driven primarily by macro concerns regarding persistent inflation:

“On the actual market structure component of what the sell off has been about, I think it's largely a macroeconomic story — and really ever since the end of last year, we've been dealing with a huge inflation story.”

Last Friday, the US Labor Department reported May’s consumer price index to be up 8.6% compared to May of 2021, signaling the highest levels of inflation since the 1980s.

In addition to cratering crypto prices, Greco also believes the bear market will help bring last year’s inflated crypto valuations back to reality:

“Were these companies ever worth $10 billion or whatever the valuation was? Probably not. I think this was just investors looking at the direction of volumes and volatility last year, projecting out as if that wouldn’t stop into 2025, but now we've had a huge correction and it's pretty clear what those projections into 2025 look like now, and they're not anywhere close.”

Indeed, crypto financial services firm BlockFi, which reportedly raised funds at over a $5 billion valuation just last year, announced recently that it was in the process of finalizing a down round that would bring BlockFi’s valuation to just $1 billion.

Episode 52 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jim Greco general partner at F9 Research.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Wall Street’s largest banks are tapping into the crypto market through derivatives Jun 10, 2022

Elwood Technologies — an Alan Howard backed digital asset platform that is building trading infrastructure for institutional investors — closed a $70 million Series A last month co-led by Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital.

In this episode of The Scoop, Elwood CEO James Stickland sits down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss Elwood’s recent fundraise, and to provide a closer look at the institutional activity that is occurring in the crypto market.

According to Stickland, institutional exposure to crypto “is more on the derivatives end of the market,” largely because of the lucrative spreads:

“Crypto derivative specialists are still able to make spreads they can drive buses through. Which is fantastic for them, which is obviously therefore creating FOMO, and with the synthetic nature and capability of it, is driving that real appetite.”

While derivatives are, for now, the extent of many institutions’ crypto exposure, Stickland claims that regulatory clarity regarding digital assets will “really allow engagement on spot and holding on balance sheet.”

Stickland views the combination of coming regulatory clarity along with more robust market infrastructure as having a powerful impact on the market in the long run:

“Getting great prime, getting great credit approved facilities, and the regulator making a call — that plus having some real stable infrastructure, that lights this thing up beyond all belief.”

Episode 51 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and James Stickland, CEO of Elwood Technologies.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Marathon CEO explains the 3 key factors that make or break a bitcoin mining company Jun 08, 2022

Marathon Digital produced a “record” 1,259 bitcoins during the first three months of 2022. Yet the US-based bitcoin mining firm reported a Q1 net loss of $13 million, largely due to the decline in bitcoin’s price since last year’s highs.

Despite falling short on revenue estimates, Marathon CEO Fred Thiel claims that the current cost for his company to produce one bitcoin via mining is “about $6,250,” giving the firm plenty of margin before they would need to consider scaling down their operation.

In this episode of The Scoop, Fred Thiel sits down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss the intricacies of effectively managing a bitcoin mining company, along with Marathon’s growth over the years.

As Thiel explains during the interview, there are three main considerations when it comes to operating a bitcoin mining company:

“There are really three things we worry about: the price of Bitcoin, the cost of power, and our ability to deploy and then access hardware. Capital is important, too, but those are the three KPIs we look at all day long.”

While the price of bitcoin will always be prone to fluctuation, the energy cost for bitcoin miners is typically predictable since it is purchased on long-term contracts. As Thiel explains:

“Just like the airline industry will hedge their fuel purchases by buying futures on fuel, when we write a hosting agreement, we are locking in a fixed price for five years. So our cost of hosting, which is energy hosting, services, etc., is locked in a little over $0.04 a kilowatt hour for five years. And our energy provider has to take out the hedges to make sure that they're not upside down on the energy cost.”

The third consideration — the ability to deploy and access hardware — is often a bottleneck for Marathon, because the company has to wait on government bodies to approve operational permits.

Episode 50 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Fred Thiel, Chair and CEO at Marathon Digital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Why Coinbase is undervalued, according to a top Wall Street analyst Jun 03, 2022

Coinbase shares are down over 70% on the year, a state of affairs compounded by a rough Q1, but one leading Wall Street analyst believes Coinbase may be undervalued.

In this episode of The Scoop, Mark Palmer — managing director and fintech analyst at global financial services firm BTIG — shares why his firm is bullish on a narrative shift on Wall Street regarding Coinbase stock in the coming months.

As Palmer contended during the show:

“Coinbase has developed itself over the last ten years, largely via acquisition… and over time, this is going to become much less of a retail trading story and much more about a sort of crypto supermarket that's going to have an awful lot of different revenue drivers.”

Palmer points to the 2021 acquisition of Bison Trails as an example of Coinbase’s horizontal expansion. As Coinbase CPO Surojit Chatterjee and Bison Trails founder Joe Lallouz argued during an episode of The Scoop, the deal enhanced Coinbase’s crypto infrastructure services products, including institutional staking support.

Although Coinbase offers a wide range of crypto services, Palmer believes many Wall Street analysts tend to view Coinbase first and foremost through the lens of an exchange:

“There are a lot of folks who are covering some of the crypto exchanges and platforms that really aren't as focused on crypto — maybe they're focused on exchanges at large — and some of those distinctions and nuances, which are crucially important, get missed.”

Editor's Note: While Coinbase is a sponsor of The Scoop podcast, this episode is not an endorsement of Coinbase stock or products, nor was it produced with involvement from Coinbase. All opinions expressed by host and podcast guest are solely their own opinions and not necessarily those of The Block. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Episode 48 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mark Palmer, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at BTIG.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Founder of largest decentralized derivatives exchange believes DeFi may soon see millions in new users Jun 01, 2022

In his last appearance on The Scoop, Antonio Juliano — founder and CEO of decentralized derivatives platform dYdX — was preparing to integrate StarkWare’s layer-2 scaling technology into the third iteration of the dYdX protocol.

Just over a year later, dYdX has grown to dominate the decentralized derivatives space, with the majority of decentralized perpetual swap trading volume occurring on the platform, according to data from The Block.

In this episode of The Scoop, Antonio Juliano explains why his team remains undeterred by the global market drawdown as they work towards the upcoming dYdX v4 release, which will fully decentralize governance of the protocol.

As Juliano said on the show, his long-term vision extends past market cyclicality:

“It's really important for us to maintain that mentality of: the markets may go down, people may write us off to some level, but really what we're building for is five years from now.”

While most “blue chip” DeFi tokens have fallen significantly from last year’s all-time highs, Juliano believes the recent trend of centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Robinhood providing users with streamlined access to Web3 platforms will provide an influx of new market participants to DeFi protocols.

As Juliano explained during the interview,

“It's just going to be a huge magnifier and multiplier in terms of the types of people and the number of people that can interact with DeFi. I'm really excited about this — I've been excited about this narrative playing out for a while now. I thought it would probably take a little bit longer, to be honest than it did... but it's something that that I'm really excited about and I think will be a huge multiplier for DeFi."

Episode 48 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Antonio Juliano, Founder & CEO of dYdX.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Anthony Scaramucci says institutions "ready to pounce" on spot bitcoin ETF May 30, 2022

As Anthony Scaramucci explained during his last appearance on The Scoop, his firm SkyBridge Capital began investing in bitcoin near the end of 2020.

Just under two years later, Scaramucci is positioned near the center of the burgeoning crypto industry, largely due to his role as Chair of finance conference business SALT, which partnered with FTX to host the first annual Crypto Bahamas conference in April of this year.

In this episode of The Scoop, Scaramucci tells the story of how he first met FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and explains why upcoming regulatory clarity could signify “a floodgate opening” for bitcoin.

Out of the multiple structural tailwinds Scaramucci covers during the interview, he believes his prediction that a “cash bitcoin ETF will happen sometime this year” would likely have the biggest impact on the market, if it turns out to be true.

As Scaramucci hinted at during the show, “Buddies of mine have very large institutions, that unfortunately for right now have to remain nameless due to confidentiality, that are gearing up and ready to pounce on the Bitcoin cash ETF.”

According to a Nasdaq survey conducted in April, 72% of financial advisors polled indicated they would be more likely to invest client assets into crypto if there was spot ETF product available. Although the SEC has either rejected or delayed bitcoin spot ETF applications for years, Scaramucci believes that could all change soon, “given the saturation and the maturity of the market.”

In addition to a potential bitcoin spot ETF approval, Scaramucci also points to Fidelity’s recent announcement that it will allow clients to gain bitcoin exposure through their 401k accounts as another structural tailwind for bitcoin in the long run.

“Fidelity is about to do for bitcoin what it did for the mutual fund and the U.S. equity markets when the 401k programs came into existence in the 1980s."

Episode 47 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Anthony Scaramucci, Founder of SkyBridge Capital and Chair of SALT.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

StarkWare founders talk through $100 million Series D fundraise, mass adoption May 27, 2022

Fresh off the heels of a $50M Series C round last November, StarkWare Industries closed a $100M Series D round on Wednesday, giving the Israeli-based startup a valuation of $8 billion. The fundraise was led by Greenoaks Capital and Coatue, and included Tiger Global amongst others.

StarkWare aims to bring efficient, affordable blockchain transactions to the masses through its ZK-rollup technology, which addresses blockchain congestion by compressing multiple transactions into ‘STARK proofs’ that are then passed on to the underlying blockchain.

In this episode of The Scoop, StarkWare co-founders Eli Ben-Sasson and Uri Kolodny sit down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss what their firm has been building, and how their technology will allow blockchains to scale.

According to Kolodny, the trustless computational integrity enabled by StarkWare technology will be very useful to society:

“It delivers something that is dearly missing and dearly needed in modern societies and the way they’re doing their computation. That is something very simple: it is integrity — the ability to know that something was done the right way, even when you weren’t watching.”

Despite bearish sentiment across markets, StarkWare’s recent fundraise shows VCs are excited about the opportunities unlocked through StarkWare’s scaling technology, and are willing to continue providing the developer with capital.

StarkWare’s two products, StarkEx and StarkNet, both serve as Ethereum scaling solutions, with the former being "scaling as a service," while the latter is permissionless. StarkNet completed its launch earlier this year, allowing any developer to integrate the platform into their application.

... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 46 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and StarkWare Co-Founders Uri Kolodny and Eli Ben-Sasson.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: Crypto meets real world concerns in mining policy discussion May 25, 2022

Much of the policy conversation surrounding crypto is concerned with Wall Street-minded issues that mostly take place in the digital world – investor protection, cybersecurity, licensure to provide online financial services. But the policy conversation surrounding proof-of-work mining is asking crypto to contend with real-world issues. Mining firms are answering to environmental narratives, concerns of noise pollution and questions as to how a data center can better a community.

This episode of Policy Scoop takes a deep dive into the policy dialogues around mining, from the federal level down to local communities. Host Aislinn Keely sits down with Taras Kulyk, Senior VP of Growth at mining firm Core Scientific, to talk about regulators' and lawmakers' views on proof-of-work mining and how the industry is meeting those concerns.

"It all boils down to the executive order from the Biden administration that's dealing with a wide swath of things. But the environmental impact kind of became the key rallying mark for digital asset miners in the United States," said Kulyk. "The good thing is, is it seems like there's a lot of misinformation that can be very easily quelled and dealt with within Washington, specifically that for some reason, legislators think that digital miners produce CO2."

New York Assembly Member Clyde Vanel also joins the show to talk about the proposed mining moratorium in the state, and why he thinks it's not the answer to environmental concerns. Vanel shares how he's seen mining firms positively shape some of New York's communities, and why he's hopeful for its role in the state.

Episode 45 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Aislinn Keely and Core Scientific SVP of Growth Taras Kulyk & NYS Assemblyman Clyde Vanel.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Digital collateral "changes everything," says Abra CEO Bill Barhydt May 20, 2022

As the crypto market matures, owners of “pristine” digital assets will increasingly be able to use their holdings as collateral for an array of financial services, according to Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra.

Founded in 2014, crypto wealth management platform Abra closed a $55 million Series C last September led by IGNIA and Blockchain Capital.

In this episode of The Scoop, Barhydt explains why the recent Terra blow-up has no impact on crypto’s disruptive potential, and how a new wave of crypto-backed financial products promises to unlock more utility for long-term holders.

As Barhydt explains,

“Most banks won't recognize crypto — I don't even know any that will recognize crypto when they're trying to figure out your financial status, when you're trying to qualify for a mortgage…”

Just last month, Abra announced a partnership with Propy — the company who sold a Florida home for $650,000 using an NFT — allowing crypto holders to apply for loans using their crypto as collateral.

While Abra is “not financing homes yet,” allowing long-term crypto holders to use their digital assets as collateral for down payments on property is a sign of maturity for the asset class, according to Barhydt.

If crypto can become pristine digital collateral like Barhydt imagines, he believes the implications will be felt around the world:

“The banking system knows that I have this much bitcoin, it lends me this amount of money to complete my payments, and that's debited later — that's a much more efficient way to process credit transactions in countries where there is no credit scoring system, which is most countries, so having a kind of digital collateral changes everything.”

Episode 44 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Wintermute's CEO on why Terra's blow up was inevitable, and what happens next May 18, 2022

The demise of the Terra blockchain sent a ripple effect throughout the crypto ecosystem last week, as the market absorbed over 80,000 BTC deployed in a failed attempt to keep the UST "stablecoin" pegged 1:1 with the US dollar.

“If you’re a market maker and you don’t make money in those kinds of days, then yeah — you’re doing something wrong,” said Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of Wintermute — an algorithmic crypto market maker with nearly $2 trillion in cumulative volume, according to the firm’s website.

In this episode of The Scoop, Evgeny Gaevoy recounts the Terra meltdown from a market maker’s perspective, and explains how future decentralized yield-bearing stablecoins can innovate where Terra's UST failed.

According to Gaevoy, the 20% annualized yield promised to users who deposited UST into Terra’s Anchor Protocol was more debt than could be paid by the protocol’s revenue:

“What was really wrong about LUNA is they had that 20% yield which was coming out of nowhere,” he said. “It was backed by future growth of the protocol, which could have happened, but didn’t.”

Although UST has proven to be a failure, Gaevoy thinks an interest-bearing stablecoin is possible, as long as the promised yield is equivalent to the issuing protocol’s revenue.

To illustrate, Gaevoy proposed a hypothetical protocol that brings in $500,000 a year in revenue and seeks to raise $5 million through offering interest-bearing stablecoins:

“Let's say they have cash flows of $500,000 per year — they can issue $5 million worth of stablecoins with 10% yield, and then suddenly they have $5 million and they can pay this yield because they actually generate this income. So they can offset these interest payments with what they generate from their own protocol — that model can work, and that model I think is really interesting to explore for a lot of protocols.”

Wintermute is in the process of launching its own stablecoin, according to Gaevoy, who said the firm “just needs to iron out the regulatory details.”

Episode 43 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of Wintermute.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

FTX Digital Markets chief recaps the Crypto Bahamas conference May 13, 2022

The Bahamas has turned into an attractive destination for crypto companies looking to set up shop in a jurisdiction with a clear regulatory framework for digital assets — a movement spearheaded by crypto exchange FTX’s announcement to relocate its headquarters to the island nation late last year.

The Bahamas' emerging crypto scene was on full display during the last week of April, which saw approximately 2,000 industry leaders, public figures and celebrities, such as Bill Clinton and Tom Brady, converge for ‘Crypto Bahamas’ — a four day conference hosted by FTX and finance conference company SALT.

In this episode of The Scoop, Ryan Salame, Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets (FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary), explains why he believes the conference was “an incredible success,” and why he thinks the Bahamas is positioned to become a global hub for the crypto industry.

The conference helped to highlight the crypto-friendly nature of the Bahamas, as Salame explains during the interview,

“Some of my objectives were to show off the Bahamas as a jurisdiction, to show why we were there, allow the opportunity for companies to send people to see that this is a great place to do business. So that objective was easily hit.”

Salame told The Block’s Frank Chaparro that over 20 companies are in conversation with FTX about moving their headquarters to the Bahamas.

While the US has yet to solidify its regulatory approach to digital assets, clear legislation in the Bahamas removes the structural uncertainty.

As Salame explains, “All of crypto sits under one regulatory body, versus in the US, you're seeing the CFTC and FCC debate.”

Salame’s sentiment is shared by former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo, who gave the regulatory structure for digital assets in the U.S. a “zero” on a scale of 1 to 10 during a panel at the conference.

Episode 42 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Ryan Salame, Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Crypto researcher unpacks why UST broke down and what happens next May 10, 2022

Bitcoin traded below $30,000 on Monday, amid market uncertainty brought about by the ‘depegging' of UST—an algorithmic stablecoin whose value is supposed to remain equivalent to $1.

At publication, UST is trading at $0.92, although the ‘stablecoin’ saw lows of $0.6050 on the Binance UST/USDT trading pair.

In this breaking episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro spoke with crypto researcher Mika Honkasalo, who appeared on the podcast to provide a detailed look at how the UST drama is unfolding.

As Honkasalo explained, while UST has experienced depegging before, this time around is structurally different:

“I think people at first didn't really realize that it would be a real thing, because they had seen something similar before and they didn't realize that the structure of the market had become a lot more averse to UST than it previously had. And I think what you're seeing today is sort of that just escalating or going further.”

Although the Luna Foundation Guard announced plans yesterday to support the UST peg with $1.5 billion worth of assets, whether or not UST returns to its peg will likely come down to whether the buyers or sellers win out.

As Honkasalo noted during the interview,

“Whether or not it maintains the peg today is very much a question of: if the sellers sort of run out of tokens and the buyers have more, the buyers will live to fight another day here in the mid-term.”

As for the future fate of Luna and UST, Honkasalo thinks much of its success will rest on macro forces outside of its control.

“I think that if the market turns positive, it will be much easier to keep the whole Luna ecosystem going. But if it continues to be more negative than this, the next wave of sells could be even much worse.”

Episode 41 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mika Honkasalo, Crypto Researcher.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire breaks down mystery of stablecoin yield May 09, 2022

This special bonus episode of The Scoop was recorded live at the Crypto Bahamas conference with Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, the digital payments and infrastructure company behind the popular stablecoin USDC.

As data from The Block shows, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, and its share of the total stablecoin supply has been steadily on the rise.

According to Allaire, a primary driver of demand for stablecoins comes from crypto native businesses:

“Basically any business that operates in the crypto economy wants to use stablecoins as working capital. Well, these are businesses that also have borrowing needs, these are businesses that want to borrow, and so you want to borrow stablecoins — so there's inherent demand to borrow in that medium of exchange.”

It is this demand for stablecoins that creates lucrative yield opportunities for stablecoin lenders in crypto, in the same way that lenders in the world of traditional finance profit from the interest on the money they lend.

As Allaire explains, stablecoin borrowers are willing to pay to borrow capital:

“Banks get 17 or 20% from consumers for lending the money for credit cards, right? So people pay an interest rate to borrow. Working capital of crypto is stablecoins, there's businesses that want to borrow it, and there you go.”

Episode 40 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder & CEO of Circle.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith talks Dallas Cowboys sponsorship, IPO rumors May 06, 2022

Founded back in 2011, Blockchain.com recently closed a Series D funding round in March at a valuation of $14 billion, making the crypto company both one of the longest-operating exchanges as well as one of the highest valued in the industry.

After spending effectively “zero” on marketing for over a decade, Blockchain.com recently announced a sponsorship deal with the Dallas Cowboys, becoming the first crypto company to ink a deal with an NFL team approved by the league.

In this episode of The Scoop, Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com, discusses his company’s upcoming strategy, including IPO rumors and the rationale behind their Cowboys partnership.

As he explains during the interview, Smith wants “to work with the biggest and the best,” making the Cowboys the ideal choice for Blockchain.com’s first sports partnership:

“When you really study these marketing deals, you're basically looking for who has the biggest fan base, the demographics of the fan base, and then the TV side of it,” Smith said. “We really wanted to work with them because of the fan base and the TV exposure.”

Blockchain.com was also in the news in April, when a Bloomberg report circulated suggesting the company is planning an IPO for some time this year. However, when asked about the report, Smith commented that it must have been “a slow news day at Bloomberg.”

While Smith believes Blockchain.com “will be a public company someday – and probably sooner than later,” he clarified: “We haven't done anything in the last 60 days that's different than what we've been doing for the last nine months preparing to someday be a public company.”

Episode 39 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

FTX markets guru explains why macro uncertainty strengthens crypto's 'supercycle thesis' May 04, 2022

Before Jon Cheesman became the global head of FTX Access — a new division of the crypto exchange founded by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried which caters to institutional clients – the seasoned market-veteran served as head of forex sales to banks and hedge funds in London at HSBC, spent time as a partner at crypto venture firm Distributed Global and was a VP at Goldman Sachs.

Despite having over a decade of professional experience with global financial markets, Cheesman thinks we are currently living through “the most uncertain macro period” he’s ever seen.

In this episode of The Scoop, Cheesman discusses the various macro headwinds which have hit the crypto market so far in 2022, and explains why he believes “a good tailwind is often an end of a headwind.”

Cheesman contended that tightening monetary policy hurts crypto in the short-term, but it doesn’t affect the value proposition behind crypto:

“There's no question that inflation and what that means for central bank policy is a significant headwind for crypto assets in the near term. But, I think people are comfortable to separate temporary cyclicality with longer term structural tailwinds.”

Some of the “structural tailwinds” Cheesman thinks are gaining traction include the idea of “the death of fiat currencies” because of central bank activity, and also the recent focus amongst “high net-worth individuals” on being able to lay claim to one’s assets in light of the removal of some Russian banks from the SWIFT payment messaging network.

As data from The Block shows, total daily volume rose for BTC/RUB pairs in March.

In addition to, “the more structural tailwinds of the supercycle thesis,” Cheesman also believes both extremely high, and low inflation bode well for crypto.

Episode 38 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jon Cheesman, Global Head of FTX Access.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Crypto lobbying is becoming 'incredibly powerful,' according to Blockchain Association's Kristin Smith May 02, 2022

The Blockchain Association — a trade association that lobbies US politicians on behalf of the crypto industry — saw explosive growth in 2021, thanks in part to the controversy surrounding the crypto tax reporting provisions that were included as part of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that went through Congress last year.

In this episode of The Scoop, Kristin Smith, Executive Director of the Blockchain Association, appears on the show for a record-breaking fifth appearance (pulling ahead of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried by one) to explain the crypto-friendly momentum that she sees building among American politicians.

According to Smith, there are three main reasons why the crypto lobbying industry is gaining influence in Washington:

“Between the professionals on the ground, the political giving, and the people back at home that care about this space, the crypto industry is in a much, much better position than we've ever been to date.”

Although total US crypto trade association lobbying decreased from $1,034,663 in Q4 of last year to $917,406 in Q1 of 2022, the Blockchain Association increased their Q1 lobbying efforts from $540,000 to $590,000 — over 60% of the industry total for the quarter.

Relative to the total crypto market cap — which peaked at just over $3 trillion last November — the amount of money being directed towards crypto lobbying may seem low. But according to Smith, “the amount of money it takes to influence Washington is laughably small.”

In the US, direct donations to candidates are limited to $2,900 per election, or $5,800 per cycle.

Although they are limited in size, direct donations carry weight with politicians because the funds go directly to the campaign, says Smith.

Episode 37 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kristin Smith, Executive Director at The Blockchain Association

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

CoinFund executives explain why crypto is the ‘obvious’ choice for ambitious fintech pioneers Apr 29, 2022

Founded in 2015, crypto-native VC firm CoinFund has spent the past year bolstering its leadership with talent from the world of traditional finance, including Chris Perkins — a former executive at Citigroup — and Christopher Giancarlo, the former CFTC chair.

CoinFund’s hiring of Chris Perkins as the firm’s new President is part of a larger exodus of talent from Citi towards digital asset companies, as reported by The Block.

In this episode of The Scoop, CoinFund’s President Chris Perkins and CEO Jake Brukhman break down the recent personnel updates at CoinFund, and explain why the combination of crypto-natives and experienced executives from traditional finance are key to pushing blockchain technology to the point of mass adoption.

While Brukhman and Perkins believe outsiders from traditional finance can help crypto projects scale, that is not to say that all crypto projects are eager for VC firms to get involved.

As Perkins mentioned during the interview: “Crypto is all about community, and you really have to work to navigate that community to understand the founders and to help them grow.”

While the crypto community can be nuanced compared to the world of traditional finance, Perkins believes the allure of working with the burgeoning digital asset industry is strong enough to continue to draw in talent:

“We're effectively in the process of giving birth to a brand new asset class. And it's just so incredibly exciting being a pioneer, being on the cutting edge. For those of us who are wired like that, it's kind of obvious why you'd want to transition into this space.”

Episode 36 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Senior Fintech Reporter Lucy Harley-McKeown, and Chris Perkins, President and Jake Brukhman, CEO & Founder of CoinFund.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Framework co-founders unpack their $400 million gaming fund's investment thesis Apr 27, 2022

In this episode of The Scoop, Framework co-founders Michael Anderson and Vance Spencer sat down with host Frank Chaparro to explain their new fund’s investment thesis which centers around the idea that blockchain gaming is “getting to the point of mass-market appeal.”

As Anderson explained during the interview, the combination of AAA quality game design and in-game ‘play-to-earn’ economies is the key to mass adoption:

“That combinatorial effect is the transition that we predict will move from ‘play-to-earn’ into ‘play-and-earn’ where it’s more that you want to be playing the game because it’s a really fun and engaging game. You get to compete at the highest levels, and you get to play in the economy in the same ways that you get to with Axie.”

Despite surging in popularity in 2021, the ‘play-to-earn’ game Axie Infinity has recently seen declining activity, something exacerbated by a $600 million hack earlier this year.

According to the Framework co-founders, the remedy to the complexities and risks of blockchain gaming is in custodial solutions — another big theme of their new fund which the two co-founders hope will lead to mass adoption.

As Spencer explained:

“All of the game loops, all of the things that are super important to these game developers, break without these custodial experiences. And so this is going to be the kind of paradigm through which all of the people will initially come in.”

Framework Ventures isn’t the only VC firm that sees blockchain gaming as crypto’s next major development: South Korean VC firm Hashed also shared with The Scoop how they are betting big on gaming with their own $200 million fund deployed last December.

Episode 35 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Michael Anderson & Vance Spencer, cofounders of Framework Ventures.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

The Scoop Mining Report with Wolfie Zhao: Hodlers offload some mined bitcoin Apr 25, 2022

In the last episode of the Mining Report, The Block's Wolfie Zhao discussed the unprecedented growth of North American bitcoin mining companies in 2021 with massive equipment pre-orders and power capacity build-outs.

Over the past few months, there have been several interesting developments in the crypto mining industry. The prices of graphic unit processors, commonly used for mining on Ethereum and other proof-of-working networks, have continued to slump, thanks in part to the overall crypto market downturn. Although Ethereum's hashrate remains steadily at the 1,000 TH/s level, its growth has largely slowed amid anticipation the switch to proof-of-stake will take place later this year.

In the bitcoin ASIC arena, Canaan, Bitmain and MicroBT have all rolled out liquid-cooled miners, bringing changes to the market where air-cooling has been the dominant and default setting since the start of the bitcoin ASIC era. It is a sign that bitcoin's mining chip efficiency growth is starting to plateau while equipment designers and manufacturers increase their efforts on other hardware engineering solutions to maximize mining chip performance.

Meanwhile, with the massive expansion plans executed in 2021, mining companies face mounting pressure for cash in 2022. Some long-time mining hodlers, who choose not to sell mined bitcoins to cover OpEx or CapEx, have finally started to offload parts of their bitcoin reserves. On the other hand, the demand for private loans in bitcoin mining appears to continue.

In this episode of The Scoop Mining Report, The Block Research's mining analyst Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro take a further look at the changing dynamics in the mining hardware and financing space.

Episode 34 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Research Mining Analyst Wolfie Zhao.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: A roundup of the policy discussion at Miami's Bitcoin 2022 Apr 22, 2022

An estimated 25,000 people descended on Miami, Florida earlier this month for Bitcoin 2022, the world's largest Bitcoin-focused conference. That's more than double the attendance the conference saw last year.

The annual Bitcoin conference is known for its fanfare, including some anti-government and anti-regulatory sentiment. That was still on display at Bitcoin 2022, with incidents like billionaire Ricardo Salinas including a slide titled "The Devils" depicting regulators and a Braveheart-style freedom chant from the crowd. But the tone seems to be shifting.

In this episode of Policy Scoop, The Block's Aislinn Keely delves into that change in tone, particularly the way this year's conference put a much greater emphasis on policy. The anti-government sentiment that pervaded Bitcoin 2021 turned into a neutral and perhaps even friendly stance toward policymakers at the 2022 event. This may be because most Bitcoiners have accepted that mass adoption won't come without regulation.

Keely covered the conference on the ground in Miami, and in this week's episode, she chats with The Block Managing Editor Michael McSweeney about the key takeaways from the policy-related discussions at Bitcoin 2022.

Episode 33 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Aislinn Keely and The Block's Managing Editor Michael McSweeney.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Gauntlet's Tarun Chitra explains the keys to building a successful DeFi project Apr 20, 2022

Gauntlet Network — a platform that provides risk modeling and performance optimization solutions for DeFi protocols — recently raised $23.8 million for a valuation of $1 billion.

On June 24, 2020, when Gauntlet Network’s CEO Tarun Chitra first came on The Scoop, the total value locked across all DeFi verticals was just over $1.5 billion. Today, less than two years later, that number has grown exponentially to over $211 billion.

In this episode, Chitra describes his company’s rise to unicorn status and explains how a project in DeFi can be successful. In his view, it's not just replicating what exists in centralized finance and putting it on the blockchain:

“The products that do really well in DeFi are not just straight up, ‘take a centralized finance thing, make the closest clone you can, and then try to get people to use it…’ that pretty much never works in DeFi. It's always something that's somewhat adapted to the nuances of crypto systems and how people interact with crypto systems in a way that's very different than traditional finance or even centralized crypto.”

Successful DeFi projects must handle what Chitra describes as the "degen ape," referring to crypto power users. These market participants erratically move large sums of money into decentralized protocols without researching the protocol’s underlying fundamentals.

DeFi protocols with billions in TVL currently rely on Gauntlet’s risk modeling for their operations, including Aave, a lending protocol whose founder and CEO Stani Kulechov recently shared with The Scoop how the protocol’s V3 upgrade is mitigating risk.

In time, Chitra believes increasingly more forms of contracts will fall under the purview of DeFi:

“I don't think DeFi really revolutionizes finance per se. I think it revolutionizes lawyers. You just get rid of lawyers for a lot of transactions… Somehow in DeFi, you're able to make these things like - the tokenization means that you can turn these things that were legal contracts into like exchange tradable assets.”

Episode 32 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Tarun Chitra, Founder and CEO of Gauntlet Network.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Mastercard’s global head of crypto explains how the company is embracing NFTs and more Apr 18, 2022

During an episode of The Scoop from last November, Mastercard EVP Jess Turner explained how Mastercard was pivoting to become a ‘crypto first’ company.

Mastercard has since made significant progress on this decision, including the filing of over a dozen metaverse and crypto-related trademarks.

During this latest episode of The Scoop -- recorded at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami -- Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s EVP of Blockchain/Digital Asset Products & Digital Partnerships, shared the progress the payments company has made since entering the crypto industry, and how the move is a natural extension of Mastercard’s core business.

As Dhamodharan explained:

“We are a payment company that enables commerce. That’s what we are about. The reason we got into crypto is this is about providing choice and making sure people can exercise that choice safely and securely. That’s what our network always stood for: enabling safe commerce experiences across multiple rails.”

Mastercard has also made progress on the NFT front, including a partnership with Coinbase and an OpenSea integration. These decisions form part of Mastercard’s broader efforts to simplify the crypto experience for end-users.

As Dhamodharan commented during the interview:

“This is not about a crypto native going and buying an NFT… it’s really about enabling every artist and every creator to be able to have a large market for them to sell their artwork, and it’s really powering the creator economy. And how can we do that if we don’t enable common consumers to be able to purchase and hold the NFT using a simple consumer experience?”

Episode 31 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Raj Dhamodharan EVP of Blockchain/Digital Asset Products & Digital Partnerships at Mastercard.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Co-founders of 21Shares and Amun share why crypto index products are signs of a maturing industry Apr 15, 2022

Amun Holdings Limited - owner of both 21Shares and Amun, Inc. - introduced the first crypto exchange traded product (ETP) to market back in 2018.

Although the collaborative ARK Investments and 21Shares bitcoin spot ETF was recently rejected in the US, 21Shares remains the world’s largest provider of crypto ETPs with 30 unique products currently trading across exchanges.

In this episode of The Scoop, recorded at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, 21Shares and Amun co-founders Hany Rashwan and Ophelia Snyder sat down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss the current landscape of crypto ETPs, and explain why they believe the rise of crypto index tokens and crypto basket ETPs are signs of a maturing industry.

As Snyder commented during the interview:

"'Is bitcoin going to zero this year?' is no longer a continuing ongoing narrative. That changes things. It means that people are starting to look at crypto as an asset class, as an industry, as a theme… It's not, 'ok, will bitcoin now exist?' It’s now: ‘Ok, well crypto is definitely going to exist, so what is the S&P 500 of crypto?’

While 21Shares has the most ETP offerings on the market, other firms are also developing crypto basket products such as Bitwise’s recently announced NFT index fund (though this fund is only available to accredited investors).

Given their positions in the market, both Rashwan and Snyder are very aware of the institutional funds flowing into the crypto: something the two have continued to witness despite the market’s drawdown over the last few months.

As Snyder explained:

“I had a very interesting conversation with one of our lead market makers about a week ago talking about what’s going on in this market actually, and what are they seeing on the trading side, and one of the key takeaways is this: the institutions are actually forming thesis based investment philosophies. So they look at fundamentals… they develop a thesis and they invest.”

Episode 30 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and 21Shares and Amun co-founders, Hany Rashwan and Ophelia Snyder.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung explains the ‘open’ metaverse Apr 13, 2022

Animoca Brands, the Hong-Kong based digital entertainment startup behind the popular blockchain metaverse platform The Sandbox, raised $358.88 million in January at a valuation of over $5 billion in a funding round led by Liberty City Ventures.

In this episode of The Scoop, CEO of Animoca Brands Robby Yung discusses his company’s growth and shares his philosophy on what it means to build an ‘open’ metaverse platform.

As Yung explained during the interview:

"Our job is very much more like a government from an economics standpoint because we levy what’s akin to a tax on the ecosystem for providing the ecosystem… Our focus is on encouraging economic activity, it doesn’t have to be us selling things to customers, it can be customers selling amongst themselves."

Whereas web2 game designers rely on a "storefront model" in which users purchase content directly, web3 metaverse projects such as The Sandbox reap revenue from users’ transaction fees generated from in-game interactions.

As Yung commented:

"...In an open metaverse we’re providing a public service, but at the same time we need to be mindful that we need to make a profit for our shareholders. You need to balance those two things and not put one at the expense of the other."

The Sandbox is an "open" virtual world meaning it provides the basic infrastructure for users to build their own customized experiences. This is something that is central to Yung’s vision for how an open metaverse should operate:

"I’m actually most excited about the stuff that I can’t imagine happening with my products, because other people are going to innovate those things."

Besides The Sandbox, Animoca Brands has over 150 investments in other NFT and metaverse projects. The studio recently announced its acquisition of racing game developer Eden Games.

Episode 29 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Robby Yung CEO at Animoca Brands.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Orlando Bravo explains $100bn private equity giant Thoma Bravo's move into crypto Apr 08, 2022

After decades of experience working with software companies, Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm with over $100 billion in assets under management, announced its plans to move into crypto last fall.

In this episode of The Scoop, Thoma Bravo founder of Orlando Bravo unpacked the similarities between early software companies and today's crypto landscape, and discussed the thought process behind Thoma Bravo's decision to begin investing in the crypto ecosystem.

As Bravo shared during the interview:

“At Thoma Bravo, the way to think about how we make strategic decisions is actually quite simple: we’re very ‘micro.’ We focus on what are the best deals that are right in front of us that fit our strategy. Our strategy, if you had to define it very briefly, would be: how do you turn great innovators into great companies, and how do you do that while working and empowering existing management teams?”

While Bravo cited many similarities between the software industry from the early 2000s and the crypto industry today, he also thinks crypto companies have an edge.

Crypto companies have “better business models,” Bravo notes. "You can build a huge business here with very little capital.”

Indeed, Thoma Bravo isn’t the only private equity firm from traditional finance to recognize the fact that crypto founders have unique needs. Sequoia Capital and Bain Capital have recently launched their own crypto-specific funds catered toward crypto-native founders.

Episode 28 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Greg Lim, Company Intelligence Research Director, and Orlando Bravo, founder and managing partner at Thoma Bravo.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Sequoia Capital explains what crypto founders want from VCs Apr 06, 2022

Sequoia Capital has been invested in crypto since 2015, but the VC firm recently raised the stakes by announcing its first sector-specific fund: a $500 million Sequoia Crypto Fund focused on liquid tokens and digital assets.

In this episode of The Scoop, Sequoia partners Shaun Maguire and Michelle Bailhe sit down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss Sequoia’s new fund and explain how the power dynamic between venture firms and crypto native founders has evolved.

So what are these crypto-native founders looking for when it comes to selecting VC firms? Maguire believes they are looking for funds that can keep pace with the fast-paced crypto industry:

“Crypto moves so fast, crypto founders want to work with funds that can move incredibly fast, they want to work with funds that deeply understand their problems, deeply understand the landscape. Those properties are primarily going to live within crypto specific funds rather than in generalist funds.”

The crypto-specific fund structure certainly seems to be working well for Sequoia, which recently led a $135 million Series A+ investment in LayerZero Labs, along with FTX Ventures and A16Z.

In fact, Bailhe believes that this is why Sequoia’s technical knowledge and understanding of the problems in cross-chain interoperability that LayerZero Labs is attempting to solve made such an impact on co-founder Bryan Pellegrino.

“I remember him saying, ‘You really tried to engage on the way that we had constructed LayerZero and how it was working, versus focusing on kind of the easy questions…’” Bailhe recalled. “They felt like they would get people who were deeply committed to crypto.”

Episode 27 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro, and Shaun Maguire & Michelle Bailhe, Partners at Sequoia.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Inside IreneDAO's plan to help shape the web3 creator economy Apr 01, 2022

Before IreneDAO went viral last year, Irene Zhao only had a few hundred followers on Instagram. Today, the influencer from Singapore has nearly half a million followers on the social platform.

In this episode of The Scoop, Irene Zhao and Ben Tang share why IreneDAO is a proof-of-concept for their web3 startup named So-Col or 'Social Collectables', and how web3 could empower both content creators and fan communities alike.

As Zhao commented during the interview,

“IreneDAO kind of revolutionized the way the creator is able to interact with their fans… the relationship between creator and fans tends to be very transactional, because the creator just gives them exclusive content and then the fans just pay money in return… because of DAOs, all the fans are able to unite together, to come together, and come up with something that really aligns with the creator's vision.”

Zhao and Tang believe 'fan club DAOs' will allow fans to organize themselves in a way not currently possible outside of web3.

Zhao and Tang believe the problem with the current ownership economy in web2 is twofold: fans have a hard time organizing themselves and creators often rely on advertisements to monetize their content.

As Tang explained:

“If you look at monetization, there’s not a lot of ways to monetize apart from like selling out, doing a lot of advertisements, or doing like an OnlyFans, or things that people might not really be very keen to kind of do.”

This is something they believe will change with web3.

“The keyword here is ownership,” Tang explains, “In web2, you cannot own a stake in the creator’s fan club. Here, you can actually own a stake in it through NFTs.”

Tang and Zhao are not the only ones who see the potential of web3 to disrupt the ownership economy: digital ownership and DAO services are two topics that web3 VC funds have been paying close attention to.

Episode 26 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro, and Irene Zhao and Ben Tang, Co-Founders of So-Col.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

How bitcoin is becoming the new decentralized ‘gold standard,’ according to Terraform Labs' Do Kwon Mar 30, 2022

Do Kwon, Founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, recently made headlines with an announcement to purchase billions of dollars worth of bitcoin in order to establish “decentralized forex reserves” for UST, Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin.

In this episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro and Kwon discuss the details of Terra’s bitcoin reserves and unpack Terra's plans for unlocking bitcoin’s potential as the new gold standard for digital currency.

While the move could enhance the stability of UST’s peg to the dollar, Kwon also believes it speaks to how the future of crypto could operate multi-chain.

In such a future, Kwon hopes utilizing bitcoin as a sort of gold standard will help facilitate adoption of UST across various blockchains.

With a market cap of over $16 billion, UST is the largest decentralized stablecoin. However, data from Terra Bridge shows that only just over $1 billion UST has been moved into other ecosystems.

This is something Kwon would like to change. As Kwon explained:

“We believe that Terra UST has the chance to be the largest stablecoin across multiple different blockchains,” Kwon said. “Not just the largest stablecoin on the Terra blockchain.”

While tribalistic attitudes frequently pit community members of competing smart contract ecosystems against each other, Kwon believes this is something that the new ‘bitcoin standard’ for UST can transcend:

The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) — the non-profit entity responsible for maintaining UST’s peg to the dollar — has already purchased over $1 billion in bitcoin, and plans to continue purchasing bitcoin as UST grows.

As Kwon mentions during the interview, “The future model of Terra $UST is that a certain percentage of new UST that is being minted goes to buy bitcoin all the time to build up reserves."

Episode 25 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Do Kwon, Founder & CEO of Terraform Labs.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: Legal and crypto exchange experts weigh in on how to navigate sanctions Mar 28, 2022

In the weeks since the invasion of Ukraine, the US and others have levied heavy sanctions against Russia. Financial businesses, including crypto firms, are now expected to comply with regulations by blocking a growing number of sanctioned entities.

Some businesses, like PayPal and Revolut, have chosen to block Russian users altogether, despite this not being a requirement under the current sanctions regime.

Others, like Kraken, have made it clear that while they block all sanctioned entities, they will continue to serve Russian users until political forces definitively direct them to stop. And still others, like FTX, have chosen to cut off some Russian accounts that aren't on the sanction list in addition to the sanctioned entities but continue to serve most Russian users.

The varying approaches to sanctions compliance have left some wondering where the lines are, both legally and ethically.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers are floating proposals to empower the Treasury to bar crypto services providers from transacting with any addresses associated with Russia.

In this week's episode of Policy Scoop, The Block's Aislinn Keely sits down with a sanctions expert and the legal chiefs from Kraken and FTX to parse out the complexities around Russian sanctions and the impact on the crypto industry as it stands today.

Episode 24 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Aislinn Keely and Marco Santori, CLO at Kraken, Caroline Brown, former attorney at the U.S. Departments of Justice and the Treasury and current partner at Crowell & Moring, & Mark Wetjen, Head of Policy and Regulatory Strategy at FTX.US.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Are funds SAFU? Mitigating DeFi risk with AAVE founder Stani Kulechov Mar 25, 2022

With nearly $13 billion in total value locked, Aave is certainly one of the dominant players in the DeFi lending space. However, as the protocol grows, so too does its risk factor.

In this episode of The Scoop, founder and CEO of Aave Stani Kulechov discusses the innovation brought on by the recent Aave V3 upgrade, and shares what is being done to mitigate risk.

While parameter adjustments through community governance may be sufficient to adjust a DeFi protocol’s risk curve during times of fluctuating market conditions, there are deeper, systematic risks that can still lead to devastating losses.

For example, a fork of the Aave protocol on the Gnosis blockchain named Agave recently had its smart contracts exploited by a malicious attacker, draining $8 million from the protocol.

At the moment, one of the only ways to mitigate smart contract risk at the protocol level is to submit the smart contracts to a third party for security audits. Not only does this leave potential security vulnerabilities if an attack vector is overlooked, but also given the sheer number of new protocols and their underlying smart contracts, security scaling has become a major bottleneck for the industry.

As Stani explained, “More and more smart contracts are deployed into the internet of smart contracts, and the challenge here is we need to somehow figure out a scalable way of applying security.”

Aave V3 has implemented certain design features such as “isolation mode” which mitigates risk by isolating newly listed tokens from the rest of the protocol’s liquidity.

“We understand that the stakes are getting higher and higher,” Stani said, “so we have to become more risk averse.”

Episode 23 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

David Woo on why an American CBDC could be big trouble for Bitcoin Mar 23, 2022

David Woo, a former top Bank of America executive, is famous for his 2013 prediction that Bitcoin would prove to be a viable alternative to traditional money transfer providers.

Nearly a decade later, Woo is still prognosticating about the future of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, though given the current macro backdrop, his outlook is significantly bleaker.

In the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Woo joins host Frank Chaparro to explain why Bitcoin may not be spared from the economic and geopolitical issues he sees potentially forming on the horizon:

“I think the most important story that we could be transitioning into is basically Cold War II," he said. "Cold War II that pits the US and its allies against China and Russia... That’s not going to be fun.”

US efforts to potentially develop its own central bank digital currency in such an environment also spells trouble, though the Fed itself hasn't given the official green-light on this front.

To illustrate his point, Woo pointed to China, where the launch of a CBDC resulted in a harsh crackdown on services facilitating the exchange of fiat currencies and crypto assets.

Earlier this month the Biden Administration issued an executive order which, among other things, “places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC.”

Woo suggests that it is this particular event that will have a profound impact on Bitcoin: “Once you have a CBCC, do you not think the attitude towards Bitcoin is going to change completely?”

Episode 22 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and David Woo, Founder and CEO of David Woo Unbound.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

How Anchorage is helping hedge funds custody hundreds of millions of dollars in NFTs Mar 21, 2022

As the market for non-fungible tokens continues to court interest from mainstream corporates, investors, and celebrities, Anchorage co-founder Diogo Mónica reveals how his firm is managing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these assets.

As Mónica explained during an interview on The Scoop with host Frank Chaparro, there are two main reasons he believes institutions are expressing interest in NFTs:

“The first one is that it’s free marketing. You buy an NFT or you do something in crypto and for a few hundred thousand dollars you get tens of millions of dollars of mainstream press. The second reason, which is probably the major reason for the ones who want to build products, is they want to try it out… if you’re going to build a product in NFTs, you have to own one.”

Indeed, institutional interest in developing NFT products is accelerating. This month alone, Softbank, Gamestop, and Instagram all announced NFT products slated for release in the near future.

Still, Mónica noted that NFTs only represent a small portion of the digital assets of which Anchorage holds custody. “I would say it probably maps in the hundreds of millions. But the business is obviously measured in the tens of billions which makes it not significant enough yet." The core of Anchorage's business is its institutional custodian services, which have been growing since its inception in 2017. Last year, Anchorage became the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the US and has now expanded its operations to lending and trading services.

One particularly interesting NFT play that aligns with this narrative was Visa's acquisition of a CryptoPunk NFT last summer, which Anchorage Digital helped to facilitate.

Episode 21 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Diogo Monica, Co-Founder and President of Anchorage Digital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

The crypto-native advantage, according to CL from eGirl Capital Mar 18, 2022

For those unfamiliar with the term “anon”, it refers to the prolific but anonymous identities that many veteran crypto investors use to discuss projects and express views on the market without revealing details of their personal lives.

Out of the legion of such popular anon accounts on Twitter, the members of a syndicate known as “eGirl Capital” have established large followings due to their commentary, research and investment in cryptocurrency.

In this episode of The Scoop, CL, an anon from eGirl Capital joins host Frank Chaparro to discuss how the group formed and why they are able to operate so cohesively.What started out in 2020 as a simple group chat between friends became reality when one of the group’s members registered eGirl Capital as a legal entity.

While not a VC firm in the traditional sense, the establishment of a legal entity paved the way for eGirl Capital to participate in deals together. At a time when established firms such as Bain Capital are entering the crypto space, CL believes the crypto native anons of eGirl Capital have an edge in terms of spotting quality projects.

While being crypto-native gives the group much more experience and knowledge than the traditional financial institutions who are trying to enter the space, eGirl Capital also benefits from their lack of traditional corporate structure.

“There is no founder, no head trader...and none of us are getting paid, except for a few interns,” CL said.

In regards to potential deals, the decision must be unanimous: “If one person is very firmly ‘no’ then it’s a no.”/

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

How a VC firm that turned $700K into $4B is betting on the future of crypto gaming Mar 16, 2022

VC firm Hashed was founded in 2017 when a group of founders and engineers from South Korea pooled $700,000.

Fast-forward five years and more than 500 investments later, and Hashed’s treasury now totals over $4 billion and it is still 100% owned by the firm.

Crypto gaming is one of the main pillars of Hashed’s investment thesis, serving as the focal point of a $200 million fund announced in December. While Hashed is actively investing in the emerging Web3 gaming ecosystem, their ambitions don't stop there.

In this episode of The Scoop, Baek Kim, general partner at Hashed, joins host Frank Chaparro to explain how Hashed has taken additional steps to help shape the future of crypto gaming.

According to Kim, one of the main problems currently facing crypto gaming is sustainability. Indeed, existing crypto gaming projects are fading in popularity, according to data collected by The Block Research.

While projects such as Axie Infinity have tried to poach outside talent to reverse shrinking user bases, Hashed has created its own "metaverse ventures studio" with a team of over 80 people in order to help talented game developers incubate more sustainable Web3 games.

While existing crypto games largely rely on financial incentives instead of sustainable content to retain their users, Kim notes that games like Axie Infinity are “fun enough to hang out in the Discord channel.”

In fact, Kim suggests that interacting with crypto gaming communities outside of the game can be even more fun than actually "playing games." This is a phenomenon that Kim believes is “quite unique about crypto gaming.”

Episode 19 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Baek Kim, General Parnter at Hashed.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Mike Dudas explains why most DAOs are neither decentralized nor autonomous Mar 11, 2022

LinksDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization aspiring to reimagine the idea of the golf country club through global membership, illustrates the complexity that can underpin the red-hot acronym.

While holding a LinksDAO NFT gives users membership rights, there has been some confusion amongst holders as to the extent of what those rights entail. Mike Dudas, co-founder of LinksDAO and 6th Man Ventures, recently discussed the current landscape in an interview on The Scoop.

As Dudas explained during the interview:

“Today we're in this in-between world where many things that call themselves DAOs are really corporations but have a participatory governance mechanism. So it looks different than a corporation, but it's not truly decentralized and autonomous in the spirit of what I believe these organizations can become over the coming decade.”

In the case of LinksDAO, a corporation named LinksDAO Inc. is responsible for fundraising and business development.

While owners of LinksDAO NFTs are given membership rights to LinksDAO, they do not receive ownership rights to LinksDAO Inc.

“The community is more of an advisory board, so we wouldn't be definitionally a DAO. We would be like a group of members who act as an advisory board to a C-corp.” This division is a necessary reality because, as Dudas puts it, “in America in 2022 you can't sell an NFT to the public using Ethereum self-custody wallets without KYC that gives somebody ownership of an asset.”

Still, regardless of the structure of a DAO, projects are cropping up to serve them with tools, Dudas noted.

“Right now there are a number of what are called ‘point solutions.’ Early on in the evolution of any ecosystem, what happens is you have solutions that service the most important and critical functions for a DAO.”

Funds like Bain Capital Crypto are eyeing this opportunity, with DAO service providers being one of the focus points of their recently announced $560 million fund.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Spartan Group announces $200 million metaverse fund with an emphasis on 'digital ownership' Mar 09, 2022

Spartan Group — an Asia-based consultancy and venture capital firm — is set to close a new $200 million fund aimed at the metaverse, according to Jason Choi, a general partner at the firm.

The new fund, which will close less than a year after Spartan announced its $110 million DeFi fund, will focus on projects building in the metaverse, specifically virtual worlds that support “digital ownership" as Choi described in an exclusive interview on The Scoop.

To be sure, Spartan is far from alone. A series of big-name investors have recently raised and deployed capital in this space, including a $100 million fund backed by Alan Howard and the Winklevoss twins.

The latest market entrance represents a shift for Choi, who was not always as focused on digital ownership. As a self-described fundamentalist investor, Choi wasn’t interested in metaverse projects until the fees generated by Axie Infinity caught his eye in late 2020.

“We were pretty skeptical of the sustainability of the game itself,” Choi said. "But the numbers were proving us wrong. And from that experience, it kind of taught us that there's clearly a different type of user in this kind of NFT-metaverse gaming vertical versus the DeFi projects that we're very used to.”

Building off its experience with Axie Infinity, Spartan Group’s new fund focuses on three different layers of the metaverse: the infrastructure layer, the experience layer, and the ‘value add layer,’ the latter of which Choi describes as “things that are outside of the metaverse” like guilds and NFT marketplaces.

Since Spartan Group’s new fund is designed to capture the value of a fully developed, populated metaverse, Choi believes it will take “at least five or ten years to play out.”

Episode 17 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jason Choi, General Partner at The Spartan Group & Host of The Blockcrunch Podcast.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Here’s the next big thing in NFTs, according to Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Samani Mar 04, 2022

Multicoin Capital co-founder & managing partner Kyle Samani, an early investor in both Solana and FTX, is turning his attention today towards the NFT space.

In this episode of the Scoop, Samani shared his strategy and investment thesis on where he sees NFTs going in the coming months. Samani believes that NFTs will evolve from their current form of mostly static jpegs and become more dynamic, similar to how Web pages evolved since the early days of the internet.

"So far in NFTs we don’t really have a lot of ‘pieces of state’ that have a relationship to one another," he said. "You vaguely have this in the notion that there are 10,000 apes in a collection, but beyond the fact that they all have the ‘ape tag’ on them, they actually don’t really have a relationship to one another.”

Samani used Beeple’s 5000 Days, a collection of 5,000 small NFTs in a 2x2 grid as, an example:

“[MetaKovan] who bought it should introduce some sort of game and say, ‘if you can assemble 9 of the 5,000 in a square, you unlock something.’ Now you can start to say that these NFTs have relationships to each other in some sort of unique way.”

While Samani sees a lot of potential for innovation in the NFT design space, he believes that it is “unlikely” that Multicoin Capital will hold even a 1% position in NFTs. Instead of buying in NFTs directly, Multicoin Capital is investing in the underlying technology.

“There are three major layers of the stack to think about, and we are investing in two of them,” Kyle said. Those two layers are the 'primitives or infrastructure layer,’ and the second is in NFT exchanges or marketplaces directly. The third layer, outright ownership of NFTs, Samani doesn't currently see as being viable enough for Multicoin Capital to invest in at scale.

Episode 16 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kyle Samani, Founder & Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Bitcoin mining exec explains how crypto is converging with the oil and gas industry Mar 02, 2022

Bitcoin is converging with one of the largest industries in the world: oil and gas.

In this episode of The Scoop, Justin Ballard, co-founder of Jai Energy, joined The Block's Frank Chaparro to discuss how his Wyoming-based firm is working with producers of oil and gas to help them put excess energy to work by mining bitcoin.

"Every single of one them that calls us, typically are calling us about a flare gas situation," Ballard, who worked for more than a decade as an attorney and operator in the oil industry prior to founding Jai, said of new entrants to bitcoin mining from the oil and gas world.

"The oil and gas industry and bitcoin mining can work together," he said.

Jai uses the excess energy or 'run-off' owned by oil companies to power bitcoin mining, which offers a new revenue stream for gas companies and energy for Jai's bitcoin mining operation. Ballard explained how the synergies between these groups will expand:

"There's a variety of areas where oil and gas companies have megawatts of excess capacity that they've so capital into building out, but they're not utilizing on a daily basis. And we've had some success showing them those areas and where it's like, Look, you can go build a very nice bitcoin mine on this facility."

Ballard also explained how the business models of oil and gas firms and bitcoin mining companies are nearly identical, with the main difference being the change in difficulty built into the bitcoin network.

For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 15 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Justin Ballard, CEO & Founder at Jai Energy.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Crypto VC Darren Lau says the era of 'spray and pray' investing is cooling down Feb 28, 2022

For crypto venture investors, 2021 was a landmark year.

The flood of capital that poured more than $28.65 billion into crypto firms last year was propped up by new billion-dollar fund launches, a ramp-up in venture investing among crypto firms, and investor appetite for a general risk-on environment, giving way to a new class of angel investors in the market.

But 2022 has been more risk-off, with the crypto market shedding billions of market cap on news that inflation could lead to a hike in interest rates, plus the addition of geo-political uncertainty, which has caused its own price gyrations across markets.

This pullback has begun seeping into the private crypto market, according to venture capital investor Darren Lau, who founded crypto educational resource The Daily Ape and runs VC firm Not3Lau Capital. Lau has backed projects including Nansen, Trader Joe, and Mixmob. He was also an early Solana investor.

“I talked to a few projects recently, like just this week, and they were telling me like how even though these VC’s were committing to the round a month ago, two months ago, they’re pulling out of the deals based on how the market looks right now," Lau said on the most recent episode of The Scoop.

They're also being much more selective compared to previously. "So back then a lot more VC’s were spraying and praying," added Lau. The "spray and pray" approach — which involves an investor making a bunch of bets on the hope that one will deliver a massive upside — appears to be becoming less of a darling strategy in today's market.

Says Lau: "People are being more careful with their capital."

Episode 14 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Darren Lau of The Daily Ape and Not3Lau Capital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Jump Trading's Dave Olsen on the key building blocks for a crypto market maker Feb 25, 2022

Jump Trading is one of the deepest-pocketed firms operating in the crypto market.

Jump put its full scale on display earlier this month when the firm stepped up to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in losses after Wormhole—a DeFi project to which Jump contributes code—was hacked. In this episode of The Scoop, Jump president and CIO Dave Olsen explained how the firm reacted to the hack and market-bought more than $300 million in ETH to cover the losses.

"This was not a syndicate or a group of folks that pool resources to go out and purchase 120,000 ether," he said, explaining:

"We did debate that but what led to such a swift conclusion was what we felt that we would have a bigger impact on the community by immediately being able to tell everything that their assets were backed one-to-one and step up and kind of lead the community."

Once a secretive equities trading operation, Jump Trading has become more public-facing in a bid to grow its presence in the crypto market.

During this episode, Olsen dove into details that have not been historically talked about publicly—including Olsen's view on what is important in market making in both crypto and traditional markets.

In Olsen's view, connectivity to as many venues as possible is one of the three "building blocks" for being successful as a market maker.

"You've got to be involved and connected to and able to trade pretty much everywhere that instrument trades," he said.

In addition to connectivity, you also need ample capital, he said. "So connectivity, scale, and then the ability to analyze all the information you're getting and translate that into your best prediction of what should the price be for that asset at that moment in time? Those are really the three building blocks.”

Episode 13 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dave Olsen, President & Chief Investment Officer at Jump Trading Group.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: Key takeaways from the stablecoin hearings in Washington Feb 23, 2022

The United States Congress turned its attention to stablecoins this month, with senior Treasury official Nellie Liang fielding a range of questions during twin hearings in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The hearings centered on a recent report on stablecoins penned by members of the President's Working Group, which Liang oversaw. That report urged Congress to create "rules of the road" for stablecoin issuers, mainly by restricting stablecoin issuance to insured depository institutions (IDIs).

The Treasury has already designated stablecoins a "systemic risk" for the Financial Stability Oversight Council, meaning that if Congress fails to act, the council can step in. Liang told the House and the Senate that she believes in flexibility for any charter standards related to stablecoin issuers. In the meantime, proposals are beginning to float around the Hill.

During this month's Policy Scoop, The Block's Aislinn Keely sits down with The Block's senior policy reporter, Kollen Post. Post was in attendance for both hearings and has been on the ground tracking the stablecoin regulation landscape from report to proposals.

... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 12 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Aislinn Keely and senior policy reporter Kollen Post.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

The Scoop Mining Report with Wolfie Zhao: How Bitcoin mining companies have initiated new power capacities in 2022 Feb 18, 2022

After a year of exponential growth, North American Bitcoin mining companies have raised billions of dollars in 2021 through equity and debt instruments to invest in both new top-of-the-line equipment and additional power capacities.

The latest special episode of The Scoop – the Mining Report – features The Block Research's mining analyst Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro as they discuss the state of mining in North America, which is steadily growing its market dominance with the state of Texas rising to be the new biggest hub for Bitcoin mining.

Some of the topics covered in the episode include:

The potential growth of the network's hashrate in 2022
The current power capacity supply crunch
The rise of traditional energy companies that are increasing their market shares in Bitcoin mining

Episode 11 of Season 4 of The Scoop's Mining Report was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Research Mining Analyst Wolfie Zhao.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Here's how the multi-trillion dollar wealth management industry is opening up to bitcoin Feb 17, 2022

Wealth and financial advisors oversee trillions of dollars in assets.

While a wide range of financial services, from trading firms to exchanges to hedge funds, have warmed up to the crypto market, wealth and financial advisors have largely remained on the sidelines.

During the latest episode of The Scoop, Michael Batnick, director of research at Ritholtz Wealth Management, and Jeremy Schwartz, EVP and global chief investment officer at Wisdom Tree Asset Management, walked listeners through the RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index and the state of crypto wealth management today.

Ritholtz Wealth Management and Wisdom Tree Asset Management recently announced the launch of a new diversified crypto index for financial advisors in December 2021. Through a partnership with Onramp Invest, the index can be offered by financial advisors via separately managed accounts (SMAs).

"The US regulators still can't get their heads wrapped around a bitcoin spot ETF, which we think is the best structure for a 100 percent allocation," noted Wisdom Tree's Jeremy Schwartz.

In Batnick's view, the crypto market hasn't done a good job marketing itself to advisors.

A report released earlier this year by asset management firm Bitwise suggests that 16% of financial advisors have allocated to crypto in their clients' accounts — an increase from 9% in 2021.

Batnick suspects that number might be far lower.

"An informal survey, I'd say we're under 1 percent," he contended. "The reason why is because I think that the products that were available to financial advisers have not been suitable or at least had difficulties getting advisers comfortable wrapping their arms around the solution."

Episode 10 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Michael Batnick, Director of Research at Ritholtz Wealth Management and Jeremy Schwartz, EVP & Global Chief Investment Officer at Wisdom Tree Asset Management.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Avi Felman explains his decision-making process for trading headlines in crypto Feb 14, 2022

Avi Felman's eyes are glued to his trading screen, waiting for market-moving headlines that could be prime opportunities to put on a multi-million crypto trade.

These past few weeks have been especially active for the portfolio manager, who joined crypto investment firm BlockTower in November 2019. Felman, who co-leads the firm's flagship fund, navigated price gyrations stemming from macro and industry news, ranging from headlines that government officials recovered funds from Bitfinex's 2016 hack to more recent news that Russia could invade neighbor Ukraine.

On this episode of The Scoop, Felman explained the decision-making process that goes into making a trade on headlines, using reports that Russia was on the verge of invading Ukraine as one case study example.

"I know that the context is that the Biden administration has been warning about Russia for quite some time," he said. "I know that bitcoin doesn't like uncertainty. I read the headline as being extremely uncertain."

Whether a certain news event adds uncertainty is just one factor Felman considers. Timing is equally important.

"Okay, I want to make a trade and this all happens in the span of, you have to think, about 15 to 30 seconds," he explained. "You need to make those connections. Then I need to start de-risking a little bit."

In some instances, Felman takes a cue from the S&P 500, which has been moving very closely with bitcoin despite the crypto's reputation as a hedge asset.

"The vast majority of time the bitcoin decouples from the S&P, it's because of a delayed reaction," he said. "It's because bitcoin has some idiosyncratic crypto native bidder that isn't paying attention to broader risk."

...For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 9 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Avi Felman, Co-Portfolio Manager at Blocktower Capital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Here's how the crypto market shifted last year, according to an exec trading billions of dollars Feb 11, 2022

2021 was a landmark year for Genesis Global.

The trading firm — which operates a wide-range of businesses spanning lending and prime services — clocked in more than $100 billion in spot crypto volumes in 2021. On the lending side of the house, cumulative loan originations stood at more than $130 billion.

On this episode of The Scoop, head of derivatives at Genesis Joshua Lim helped unpack the dynamics shaping the market behind its headline Q4 numbers.

In addition to a compression in the popular, and once very juicy, basis trade, Lim explained that the market became more dynamic with big new hedge funds entering the fold. At the same time, existing participants become more engaged with the market – holding crypto on their balance sheet for not just investment purposes, but for operational use as well.

“It could be linked to receiving payments denominated in tokens from projects that they had executed for other firms. It could be related to running nodes on a blockchain,” Lim said. “It could be more traditional kind of crypto native use cases like receiving a percentage of whatever assets under custody as sort of a revenue stream.”

“We saw those types of firms really engaging on derivative hedges that would, you know, protect them on the downside, which was actually kind of useful.”

Lim added that as more firms enter the space through the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), demand for such hedging tools could extend beyond the crypto native investors that Genesis is used to dealing with. The firm has already started accepting NFTs as collateral for certain loans. Still, it’s early days for NFT-related lending.

“It's not something that we do on a regular basis,” Lim said. “I think from a business perspective, it's still, let's say, less than 50 basis points of our overall lending business in terms of the magnitude of the collateral value.

Episode 8 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Joshua Lim, Head of Derivatives at Genesis Global Trading.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

Standard Crypto co-founder on leaning into the 'weirdness' of crypto Feb 09, 2022

For some, a landscape of colorful NFTs and crypto anons can be daunting — yet for traditional investors, it can present an array of new challenges that require near-constant adjustment or reinvention. But as novel use cases evolve under the twin banners of "Web3" and "the metaverse," business interests such as VC firm Standard Crypto are eyeing the opportunity to leap into such a world.

During this episode of The Scoop, Alok Vasudev, co-founder at Standard Crypto, joined The Block's Frank Chaparro to discuss the future of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and NFTs, when a project "merits" a DAO, and how Vasudev learned to stop worrying and embrace the 'weirdness' of crypto.

Vasudev contends that, unlike other venture firms, Standard Crypto doesn't follow themes but rather operates first as fans of the innovations technology can present.

This broad investment approach has recently included DAOs, which Vasudev said he believes could one day potentially function like companies in the future, with the added benefit of on-chain governance. "One thing that we talk about is whether DAOs in how they're structured are actually going to evolve to look a little bit more like companies than they have in the past, but with radically different accountability structures because of token holder governance."

Vasudev also believes NFTs and projects being built for Web3 may likely serve as the proving ground for the future iterations of internet success stories like Angry Birds or Facebook: "I think I remember the first time I was kind of stunned that they were actually making an Angry Birds movie... So this idea that kind of internet culture is just going to become mainstream culture, I think is already proven out. And now I think NFTs are the next chapter in that story."

Episode 7 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Alok Vasudev, co-founder at Standard Crypto.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

How MobileCoin aims to be the 'global CashApp' Feb 04, 2022

Tucked away in Signal’s app is a new “Beta” feature that allows users to send payments between each-other seamlessly.

It’s powered by a crypto project called MobileCoin.

On this episode of The Scoop, MobileCoin founder and CEO Josh Goldbard joined Frank Chaparro to explain how MobileCoin is trying to blend encrypted messaging and payments to make global money transfers easy. Goldbard and Chaparro explore the increasingly dynamic environment for payments, which has diverse firms from Walmart to Facebook to Jack Dorsey’s Cash App competing for mindshare and transactions.

“What we're building is the global Cash App, the global Cash App that allows you to move money in and out at the velocity of the internet,” Goldbard described of the project.

“What we want to make here is the last payment rail,” he added. “What makes it the last payment rail is that it is the lowest friction, highest priority, easiest to use payment technology ever made.”

In this episode we also explore:

What raising venture capital is like in a frothy venture environment
Goldbard’s game-plan to recruit top engineers
Why Signal decided to partner with MobileCoin
How Goldbard poached Cash App’s founding CTO Bob Lee

Episode 6 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Josh Goldbard, founder and CEO of MobileCoin.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

NFT creators explain why this technology has ‘so much more depth’ than a profile picture Jan 28, 2022

Since volumes skyrocketed in 2021 across marketplaces, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have seemed to become a focal point of the art and gaming world. Love them or hate them, NFT enthusiasts argue that the medium is in the infancy of its evolution. Adopters are beginning to appreciate not only the aesthetics of NFTs, but their potential usefulness.

On this episode of The Scoop, Head of Growth at Parallel NFT Franklin Fitch and artist Dave Krugman joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss how NFTs are radically transforming the relationship between creators and the art market, as well as the gaming industry.

Krugman compared the current state of NFTs to the early days of Instagram, when early adopters had to learn to become comfortable with sharing content without monetizing it. As the network effect of users and creators grew, eventually Instagram gave creators a way to make money on their efforts -- with certain caveats, like follower milestones. According to Krugman, adapting NFTs comes with an even steeper learning curve.

"This is a technology that is fundamentally going to change the way that we connect and operate with each other -- it's a lot," said Krugman, when referencing artists who are anti-NFT.

Fitch noted that NFTs would be particularly disruptive for the video game industry in the realm of creating incentives for gamers such as loot boxes, which are tethered to their ecosystems and have no external value. Unlike traditional in-game assets, NFTs fundamentally allow an asset to be exchangeable, tied to a marketplace, and to allow for social signaling between players.

As Fitch noted, "It adds new levels of competitiveness, new levels of participation, re-imaginings of incentives, right? New social layers. I think it's fantastic. And this is the power games."

... For more visit the theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 5 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Head of Growth Franklin Fitch at Parallel NFT & Photographer & Digital Artist Dave Krugman.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Retail traders are here to stay, says eToro's US CEO Jan 26, 2022

At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the daily lives of virtually everyone around the world radically changed. Commutes to the office ceased. Concerts and dining outings were canceled.

For some, punting stocks and cryptocurrencies on online brokerages filled the void. That fundamental shift reshaped US equity markets, ushering in an era dominated by Wall Street Bets, meme stocks, and cryptocurrency. Indeed, retail trading has yet to subside even as economies reopen. Monthly net purchases of US equities by individual investors have stabilized at around $20 billion—a surge from the pre-pandemic norm of about $5 billion.

On this episode of The Scoop, eToro's newly-appointed US lead Lule Demmissie explained why she doesn't see retail's newfound presence in the market subsiding anytime soon, and how eToro plans to capitalize on growing its business related to cryptocurrencies and stock trading.

"What you're seeing is the sustainability of that user base staying engaged, waiting for dips, getting in the markets when necessary," said Demmissie, former Ally Invest president and TD Ameritrade managing director.

"Ultimately they're sticking around and they're engaging every time there's volatility," she added. Demmissie said that the collective mind of the retail crowd could have more insight than institutions previously may have thought.

"I'm originally from Ethiopia, right? So I grew up in the throes of a revolution. So the idea of mob rule is something that is like embedded in my DNA as to be averse to it," said Demmissie. "There is a self-made mechanism, a self-clearing mechanism that is happening in social, where there is a balance that takes place within the crowd, where the crowd gets smarter and smarter, and the synthesis of it afterwards becomes something that is really interesting to listen to."

Episode 4 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CEO Lule Demmissie of eToroUS.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Inside the Cardano ecosystem with Charles Hoskinson Jan 21, 2022

ADA — the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano network — is among the myriad of cryptocurrencies that saw their price soar in 2021.

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Frank Chaparro sat down with Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global, to unpack the ecosystem underpinning the price headlines.

While Cardano's ADA has surged over the course of 2021, the blockchain that underpins the token is yet to play host to a large decentralized exchange, of the kind that have sprung up on Solana or Ethereum. There have also been questions about the number of successful decentralized applications or 'DApps' in the ecosystem, when compared to others.

Hoskinson says that this sentiment reflects a misunderstanding about what is being developed on Cardano.

"There's almost 200 DApps that are under construction right now," he noted. "SundaeSwap is one of the most prominent, it's launching tomorrow," referring to the DEX that launched Thursday — albeit with congestion issues that resulted in some transactions taking longer than expected to complete.

"There are several already running on the ecosystem," Hoskinson clarified.

In the future, Cardano could even continue to exist without the participation of the Wyoming-resident. As Hoskinson opined, "the founders are important because they get the party started and they set the initial state of the system." He went on to add, "I think that you have to plan for obsolescence, you have to plan to fire yourself. And that's what Satoshi did."

Episode 3 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: Crypto tax experts dig into the infrastructure bill's impact Jan 19, 2022

Last year, cryptocurrency concerns took center stage in an ongoing debate over the US government's trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act proposed a variety of ways to pay for its intended projects, including a heightened focus on crypto tax reporting. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has long teased unified broker reporting for exchanges, meaning entities that fall under the broker definition will be required to report information and send tax forms to the IRS. The infrastructure bill made it official: broker reporting is coming in 2023.

But some are worried the bill's definition of a "broker" is too broad and could encompass entities that can't reasonably report to the IRS, like miners or decentralized finance (DeFi) entities. Key amendments to clarify that definition failed to pass, and it's now all on the to clarify "broker" in its upcoming guidance.

In this week's Policy Scoop, The Block's Aislinn Keely dives into the current landscape of crypto tax reporting and how the coming guidance might affect taxpayers.

Keely spoke with Justin Woodward, tax attorney and co-founder of TaxBit, and Seth Wilks, Senior Director of SME and Government Relations at TaxBit about:

The historical context of the long-awaited broker reporting guidance and why it matters.
What will likely be in the guidance and why it's likely to affect centralized exchanges first.
When it will take effect and what that might look like.
How the IRS is thinking about DeFi and non-fungible tokens.

Episode 2 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Aislinn Keely and Justin Woodward, tax attorney & co-founder of TaxBit and Seth Wilks, Senior Director of SME & Government Relations, at TaxBit

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Emilie Choi explains what Wall Street doesn’t understand about Coinbase Jan 17, 2022

2021 was a watershed year for crypto exchange Coinbase.

In addition to becoming the biggest cryptocurrency company to tap the public markets via a direct listing, the firm grew its total assets-on-platform to more than $255 billion, hired more than 3,000 people, and clocked in quarterly revenues above $1 billion during both the second and third quarters.

Still, the company’s stock price has slid since its market debut in April, down by more than 31% since its first day of trading. The bearish sentiment is likely tied to the lack of predictability in Coinbase’s revenues, which are volatile and heavily dependent on trading fees.

During the latest episode of The Scoop, Coinbase president Emilie Choi said that Wall Street is focused too much on the predictability of short-term revenue rather than the much broader gameplan the company has for becoming a foundation for the emerging crypto-economy.

“We have obviously our flagship brokerage, and then we have the exchange and those are reinventing what a financial system can mean,” she said. “And then the final part of this strategy is about crypto as a new form of App Store, and there’s so much to tap into there.”

That shift could help diversify its revenue model, she added.

“We have largely a trading model that generates a ton of revenue for us, and we love that model and we’re totally OK with the volatility of it. And at the same time, we’re investing very heavily in the subscription and services model, and you’re seeing a lot of growth from that because it’s the thing that helps us control our own destiny.”

To that end, Choi said the firm plans to pour more resources into its Coinbase Wallet. It is also expanding its subscription businesses — like Coinbase Cloud — as a means to grow its non-transaction-based revenue.

....For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 1 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and President & COO Emilie Choi of Coinbase.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Chainalysis

Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

What made Sam Bankman-Fried launch FTX — and what he now thinks about the world - Part 2 Dec 22, 2021

Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange FTX, joins The Scoop to close out 2021 in a two-part episode that explores the origin story of the increasingly ubiquitous trading venue, Bankman-Fried's worldview, and what he expects for the digital asset market in the year to come.

In Part 2 of this episode, Bankman-Fried and Chaparro also explore:

Whether a crackdown on stablecoins is a possible concern for FTX’s business
The ramifications of the government’s “really extreme fiscal” reaction to Covid-19 and its impact on the monetary supply
Why the Fed should have seen hot inflation coming
Product leverage in the cryptocurrency market and cascading liquidations
How the amount of capital sitting on the sidelines is “absolutely massive” and could fend off a big crypto bear market

Episode 86 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

What made Sam Bankman-Fried launch FTX — and what he now thinks about the world - Part 1 Dec 20, 2021

Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange FTX, joins The Scoop to close out 2021 in a two-part episode that explores the origin story of the increasingly ubiquitous trading venue, Bankman-Fried's worldview, and what he expects for the digital asset market in the year to come.

We begin with Part 1, during which the former Jane Street trader and Stanford graduate harkens back to the precious beginnings of FTX, spun out of Alameda Research, a trading firm he also founded.

Bankman-Fried also explained why the firm was launched in the first place back in 2019.

“What it really was, was saying, OK here’s a business [that’s] making $1 billion-plus a year collectively at the time, which we understand deeply,” he said. “They were just not well built. The number of problems they had were enormous. Losing millions of dollars a day in customer funds ... the risk engines just didn’t work. And you could see why.”

As Bankman-Fried recalled, some back-of-envelope math played a role in the decision-making process. He said he considered what the expected value of an exchange could be and figured that the odds of success were non-trivial:

"I don’t know exactly how high, but definitely not close to zero, so fuck, it let’s do it. That was basically the chain of logic there. Eighty percent chance we fail to ever get a user. If we do get users then there is a 50% chance that it goes pretty well.”

During this episode, Bankman-Fried and Chaparro also explore:

FTX’s marketing campaigns and the underpinning ethos of its advertising strategy
How memes differentiate FTX from its competitors
Why FTX wants to take a very different approach to public relations than most companies
The regulatory environment in crypto and why Bankman-Fried doesn’t think the conversation is partisan

Episode 85 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

The Block's VP of Research Larry Cermak on what to expect in 2022 Dec 17, 2021

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's VP of Research Larry Cermak joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion in which he broke down his predictions for the top crypto trends to come in 2022.

For the year ahead, Cermak expects that market appetite for established projects will continue, and that exchanges and data businesses in particular stand to benefit most.

“If there is already an established exchange or established data business and it just needs a little bit of cash to raise, they're never going to have issues," Cermak remarked.

Layer-2's in focus

Cermak also outlined why he believes layer-2 networks — protocols that enable faster and cheaper transactions on top of blockchains — will be a central theme of 2022, with a particular focus on zero-knowledge rollups.

“I do think that there's going to be a big development in layer-2's next year," said Cermak, adding:

“You have the first proper decentralized applications launching on these chains not just built for Ethereum, but built already for the layer-2’s. So I think that will be the main theme of next year when it comes to this perspective.”

The next NFT wave?

Despite recent reductions in attention on NFTs as a whole, Cermak believes there's going to be a shift in demand for certain kinds of NFTs and gaming tokens.

Indeed, he expects the NFT market to continue to grow and become more sophisticated in its next wave. “I think, you know, maybe some of the profile NFTs are not going to be as hot next year," Cermak told Chaparro, "But I think some of the more creative ones and in-game assets of proper games… I think we’re going to see some of that next year.”

For an overview of The Block's 2022 Digital Asset Outlook, you can download the free, public report from The Block Research team here.

Episode 84 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Larry Cermak, VP of Research at The Block.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

Copper's Fadi Aboualfa and The Block's Larry Cermak unpack crypto markets in 2022 Dec 16, 2021

As 2021 comes to a close, Copper's head of research Fadi Aboualfa joined The Block's VP of Research Larry Cermak and host Frank Chaparro to unpack the trends that shaped the crypto market this year as well as the future dynamics that might be on the horizon for 2022.

Aboualfa highlighted the ascent of so-called meme cryptocurrencies like dogecoin and shiba inu, which surged in value this year. Aboualfa said their rise is tied to strong social and community elements.

"There's a social aspect to that price appreciation," he said. "Bitcoin started by a couple of people who really believe in it and started becoming very vocal about it."

Another trend unpacked by Aboualfa was the race to become the next Ethereum killer. Projects like Avalanche and Solana are among the layer-1s that have seen their price surge as investors appear to believe that these blockchains might be superior to Ethereum.

Ultimately, Aboualfa and Cermak both agreed that the crypto markets won't face a prolonged bear market akin to the one that occurred in 2018, but markets will face volatility and short-term setbacks. Cermak outlined two major risks in 2022 that markets face:

"One is that, you know, central banks are now starting to hint at tapering measures, starting to hint at being less aggressive when it comes to just responding to Covid and responding to the situation. That, I think, can have a very negative effect when the market starts pricing in that the central banks are going to be way more conservative."

"Second risk that I think is pretty real, but I think it's now smaller after what I've seen yesterday at the hearing, is the regulatory risk in the US," he added, referring to the recent hearing on crypto hosted by the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.

Episode 83 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Larry Cermak, VP of Research at The Block, and Fadi Aboualfa, Head of Research at Copper.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

'This isn't 2017:' Loomdart explains why crypto markets won't see a big bear market Dec 10, 2021

A lot has changed since the sluggish days of the crypto bear market in 2019, according to infamous Twitter personality “Loomdart.”

The investor at Egirl Capital—an anonymous group of crypto traders—joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion about how the market has matured since 2019's doldrums and why he believes it will only continue to mature in the years ahead. In Loomdart's view, cryptocurrencies are no longer as correlated with one other as they once were. However, he also acknowledged that today the recent Metaverse and NFT headlines have temporarily “hijacked” momentum in the $2 trillion market.

“Ever since this kind of metaverse narrative started and Facebook did the whole 'Meta' brand takeover, there has been this gigantic influx of capital,” he said.

To be sure, Loomdart is also talking about his own book as the founder of MetaDrop, which recently helped Alien-themed shooting game VAIL raise money through an NFT drop. But the anonymous UK-native has data to back up his investment thesis. Over the past month, NFT gaming firm Sandbox raised $93 million, while Solana Ventures, FTX, and Lightspeed Venture Partners has raised $100 million for a blockchain gaming fund.

Loomdart told Chaparro that this VC interest in the metaverse and NFTs will ultimately feed back into the broader crypto market, thereby making it more dynamic.

“This isn't 2017, 2018's crypto anymore,” Said Loomdart. “Everything was just one market, but like crypto has evolved so far beyond that.”

In this episode, Chaparro and Loomdart discuss:

How Ether's "flippening" of bitcoin could open up a Pandora’s box
Why Loomdart believes crypto prices will likely “slowly go up forever”
The impact of the macro backdrop on crypto prices
Why the metaverse will only take off if crypto is in the background

Episode 82 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Loomdart, Co-Founder of MetaDrop.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

Lightspeed Venture Partners' top gaming VC explains how NFTs will revolutionize gaming Dec 08, 2021

“The evolution is inevitable.”

On this episode of The Scoop, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures Amy Wu joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss Lighstpeed's investments in the intersection of crypto and gaming as well as the problems participants in that corner of the market face. Specifically, Wu says that game developers in crypto have to worry about not only building a good game but creating financial incentives to support a robust in-game economy. "Opening up a game economy and allowing a lot of really creative incentivization of both player and creator alike can actually deeply add to a game environment," she said.

The rise of in-game economies

As for blockchain-focused companies, specifically, Wu said that such projects will have to abstract away the complexities of blockchain to allow for a superior gaming experience. "The primary reason for some of these games with the longest longevity is not going to be around NFT speculation at all. It ultimately will actually just be about gameplay in my opinion...it cannot be the main driver of play." Turning in-game assets into NFTs solves a big problem for game developers and players, allowing holders of in-game assets to tap into their value. “Gamers have been buying digital assets in games for decades, so this is essentially just the next step towards that evolution… I think that having the ability to invest the time, actually put money into the game to buy these assets, and then sort of have some guarantee that there will be some value coming out of the assets as well is pretty attractive”.

... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 81 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Amy Wu, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

Point72 Venture's crypto lead Adam Carson says the firm is gearing up to do token deals Dec 03, 2021

On this episode of The Scoop, Adam Carson, Operating Partner & Crypto Investment Lead at Point72 Ventures, joined host Frank Chaparro for the company's first public interview to discuss its investment strategy as well as Carson’s perspectives on the convergence of fintech, Web3 and the metaverse.

Point72 Ventures, an offshoot of billionaire investor Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management Group, was launched in 2016 to initially focus on fintech investing but is increasingly ramping up its focus on the crypto space.

In the interview, Carson said that the firm could invest in 5-10 crypto firms next year and might even make some token investments. "I hope that we will sort of evolve into doing more token investing," Carson said.

On-ramp investments

For now, the firm is looking to invest in infrastructure "picks and shovels" companies that will help onboard incumbent institutions who can then in turn create on-ramps for future consumers to enter the crypto space, according to Carson. To date, Point72 Ventures has only publicly announced four crypto company investments: Messari, Zero Hash, 24 Exchange, and Massive. However, Carson announced on The Scoop that Point72 Ventures is soon to publicize its investment into a fifth company, which he mentioned was an established DeFi operation.

When tokens?

It's not clear exactly when Point72 will begin making token venture bets, but Carson said that the firm will have to rethink its existing investing approach to make such a move. "It's a different world and it's totally new and it's also exciting," he said, noting that such deals can close in a matter of days versus months, which is more typical in equity deals. "There's different operational and technology needs," he said. "You need to be able to custody these coins. You need to be able to move these coins."

Episode 80 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Adam Carson, Operating Partner & Crypto Investment Lead at Point72 Ventures.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

'We'll be back': VanEck's CEO says they will keep pushing for a spot bitcoin ETF Dec 01, 2021

“We’ll be back."

This November, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected a proposal to list a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) from VanEck, only to approve VanEck's bitcoin futures-based fund a few days later.

While VanEck may not have been able to launch a spot ETF at the time, the firm sees a silver lining in the reaction from policymakers in Congress. “For the SEC to have gotten a letter from both a Republican and a Democrat in favor of approval of the Bitcoin ETF was, to me was very positive in the absence of a lot of negative noise around the approval," VanEck CEO Jan van Eck said during the latest episode of The Scoop podcast.

Van Eck also discussed why the firm remains undeterred in bringing more crypto funds to market, and what’s next for the ETF giant. He explained that while the SEC ruling on the spot ETF wasn't surprising, the firm expects to submit more bitcoin funds for approval.

History repeating?

But van Eck went on to note that the rejection of spot bitcoin ETfs may be similar to the initial pushback against gold bullion ETFs. He observed that the government initially also rejected gold bullion ETFs, while they were quick to approve gold futures funds.

In this respect, van Eck contended that the SEC is exhibiting a double standard over bitcoin ETFs, with the agency wanting jurisdiction over crypto-cash markets. “It did not require that meaningfully for a gold ETF or a dry bulk shipping ETF," he said. From a macro perspective, however, van Eck acknowledged that while he believes governments view digital assets as “incredibly threatening” -- citing China’s ban on crypto trading and mining earlier this year -- he is encouraged by other regulatory movements in the space.

... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 79 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Kava

For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

'Mania is just absolutely peaking right now': TradingView's Pierce Crosby Nov 24, 2021

"It seems very much like the mania is just absolutely peaking right now."

That's Pierce Crosby, general manager at TradingView. During this episode of The Scoop, Crosby joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the state of the retail market in crypto and stocks, the data firm's institutional ambitions and its bid to take trading charts global.

“Deployment of TradingView not just across the US, but globally is really the next mission for us.”

Crosby explained that to date TradingView currently has approximately 33 million users, and has had a virtually zero customer acquisition cost.

Plans for retail and institutional clients

Crosby told Chaparro that he expects retail interest in crypto to continue to grow as exchanges "gamify" their platforms and move to meet the demand of consumers looking to capitalize on new products and token listings, such as dogecoin. "Infrastructure wise, things are just set up for retail to participate."

However, TradingView is looking less to capture retail traders than it is to capture retail investors. Rather than competing with exchanges that use ICOs, products or fees to capitalize on margin, Crosby says the company has a longer-term view on this point.

"For us, it seems much more strategic to service investors than it is to service traders, just because volatility is volatility," he said. “I think most businesses that are set up for success, at least from what I've seen, are folks that are thinking more of the investor versus the actual trader."

Of course, there's also the institutional side of things, and according to Crosby, TradingView is looking to deploy some of the $298 million it raised this fall by building out some of its internal offerings for institutional clients.

“We have over one hundred and fifty engineers now focused on this tech. So we've done well to replace a lot of internal technology and not just charts, but order management, portfolio management, execution engines, really, everything from the front, front end and middle layer,” Crosby said.

... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 78 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Pierce Crosby, General Manager at TradingView.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

Mastercard EVP Jess Turner on becoming a 'crypto first' company Nov 19, 2021

“It makes a lot of sense for us to be a crypto first firm.” That’s Jess Turner, Executive Vice President of New Digital Infrastructure and Fintech at Mastercard. On this episode of the Scoop, Turner joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss how Mastercard is continuing to lean into crypto. More than ever, Mastercard and other traditional financial institutions are finding themselves involved with crypto, Turner said. “Whether traditional banks issue crypto in the way it's defined today or not, they're heavily involved today because many of their cards are being used to buy this cryptocurrency.”

Mastercard's business includes providing companies with credit card infrastructure. But crypto has quickly become a strategic focus for the payments network giant. Mastercard is also testing how it can add stablecoins to its payment rails as evident in the news that it would serve as a bridge between consumers spending with USDC and merchants.

CBDC and Stablecoins

Turner thinks that stablecoins will serve as one financial rail among others.

Said Turner: “If you think about what you're getting back for, whatever payment mechanism or money movement mechanism you're using, you want to use the one that's giving you the best value for what you're trying to do. And that's why you need kind of this multi-rail choice... Do I believe stablecoin will be part of those choices and continue to grow? I do.” Mastercard is also exploring how it can work with governments and central banks on launching central bank digital currencies.

NFTs

Mastercard is currently working adding partnerships with NFT companies, including with marketplaces such as Mintable. The company is eyeing an opportunity in expanding consumer access to NFTs as they go mainstream. Turner went on to say that Mastercard is also exploring ways to work directly with the technology, focusing on how NFTs can better create provenance and validity as well as how they can be programmed for value exchange

...

For more visit theblockcrypto.com/https://www.theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 77 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jess Turner, EVP New Digital Infrastructure and Fintech at Mastercard.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: Unpacking the FATF's guidance and its impact on the global crypto landscape Nov 17, 2021

The crypto world has only just begun digesting the finalized crypto reporting requirements from the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF.

The years-long process began in the summer of 2019 when the FATF made public its initial version that called for what it dubbed virtual asset service providers, or VASPs, to undertake an unprecedented degree of information-sharing about their customers and the transactions they conduct. Since then, the guidance has gone through numerous iterations and accounted for emerging use cases like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to name a few.

At the heart of this framework is the so-called travel rule, requiring businesses that facilitate the movement to collect and share information about the parties to a transaction. How VASPs – like exchanges – will comply with this as FATF-supporting countries go live with the requirements is an active and evolving question.

In this special episode of The Scoop, The Block reporter Aislinn Keely breaks down the implications of the FATF framework and how it might shape the evolving regulatory landscape in the United States.

To unpack the questions at hand, Keely spoke with former FATF executive secretary and current ACAMS director Rick McDonell, Shyft co-founder Joseph Weinberg and Elliptic director of policy and affairs David Carlisle.

This special episode takes a closer look at:

What is FATF and why it matters
The implications for less-easily-categorized decentralized finance (DeFi) entities
The travel rule solutions being developed today
How the FATF framework will impact enforcement efforts in the US

Episode 76 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s reporter Aislinn Keely and Rick McDonell, Director of ACAMS & Former Executive Secretary of the FATF, Joseph Weinberg Co-Founder of Shyft, and David Carlisle, Director of Policy and Affairs at Elliptic.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

Here's One River's crypto pitch to multi-billion dollar pension funds and endowments Nov 12, 2021

"It's really a matter of moving at the pace of the decisions of institutional players." That's Shaun Martinak, research and portfolio manager at One River Digital, the newly-launched arm of One River Asset Management that's working with clients to add crypto exposure to their portfolios.

In an interview during the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Martinak observed that while institutional players have made headlines entering crypto, some of the largest investors--including pensions and endowments--account for only a small fraction of the crypto market. He believes that, in the future, there will be a place for such investments in the portfolios of these types of investors.

"I think between 2 and 10 percent is a perfectly good number," he said, speaking to the penetration of pension funds and endowments into crypto. "And it's a matter of the timeline for education and the timeline for decision making." He said such firms are actively seeking exposure though One River as they actively pitch for their business. "I think the pitch is multifaceted, but it really boils down to: This is an area of fundamental growth at a time where fundamental growth is difficult to find."

The metaverse

While hesitant to make predictions on cryptocurrency portfolio allocation over the next 12 months, Martinak was enthusiastic about the growth and technological advancement he’s seen in the gaming segment. Ultimately, he sees the possibility of gaming and NFT assets sitting alongside traditional assets in an investor's portfolio.

“When I think about the metaverse and I think about what digital assets and crypto primitives bring to existing in a space with other people in a digital environment, it just seems like it compounds how much time and attention we spend on our screens and in our information universe because your bank account is going to live in there with you, your value is going to live in there with you," he said.

As Martinak posits: “What is this going to look like in its version of the Super Bowl?”

Episode 75 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Shaun Martinak, Research and Portfolio Manager for Digital Assets at One River Digital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

One of crypto's biggest trading firms is betting DeFi will be as large as the centralized crypto market Nov 10, 2021

GSR is building out a space for itself at the intersection of traditional and decentralized finance worlds, according to its newly-minted head of DeFi, Jake Dwyer.

During the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Dwyer explained that the firm is building out the capacity to both create new trading products as well as provide liquidity to DeFi protocols in a way that's more familiar to the traditional finance players who want to become more closely involved.

With these plans in hand, GSR expects to contribute more than $1 billion in total value locked over the next year — fueled in no small part by the increase in interest from traditional finance sources.

"People are sitting on pretty substantial positions just by being early users in these protocols,” said Dwyer.

DeFi vs CeFi

In the last six months, GSR has expanded its venture investment activity in DeFi as a more central component of the business, with an eye on fixed income protocols and credit.

"You've got things like Aave and Compound and others on other chains for borrow and lend. But we've seen numerous innovations around the second-order derivatives of Swivel and Tempest on the fixed and floating rate interest side of things," Dwyer explained.

Dwyer is excited about the collateral and interest rate segment of the market, which he sees as innovating at a fast pace. "I think that a lot of these different sorts of fixed income derivatives protocols that are out there are going to evolve in really exciting ways over the next the next couple of months."

He believes that DeFi will eventually match more centralized activities as the market will see increased innovation.

Eyeing a multi-chain future

Looking to the future, Dwyer said he believes that it will be one marked by a variety of networks that serve different purposes — and in the background, in some cases.

"We believe that in the future you're not going to know what chain you're interacting with necessarily or care," he said.

...

For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 74 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jake Dwyer, Head of DeFi at GSR.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

What this billion-dollar crypto VC thinks about blockchain gaming and the Metaverse Nov 05, 2021

“We're not art investors. We're investing in things that have communities”

On this episode of The Scoop, Adam Goldberg co-founder of Standard Crypto joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss his work as a crypto VC and how his company is looking at the DeFi market in an unconventional way.

Standard Crypto is $1 billion in size, according to a source familiar with the fund.

Today, their investment team is primarily focused on projects in three areas: infrastructure, networks and apps. Thus far, Standard Crypto has made investments in major companies like OpenSea, Axie Infinity, Matrixport, Aave and Telegram, among others. The firm also has stakes in projects such as Audius, BitClout/Deso and Instadapp.

Goldberg framed Standard Crypto's focus on the types of investments that have an ability to execute on and build a community.

"When you have a network that's owned by its participants, the rules can't change without the community being on board. And that's what makes us feel like crypto networks are the hardest thing to disrupt that we've ever seen in humanity, in that they evolve with their communities as things change and shift over time," said Goldberg.

Gaming and the Metaverse in focus

Goldberg told Chaparro that Standard Crypto is actively looking at companies advancing social and gaming projects in crypto. He sees the metaverse convergence of games and in-game economies as a new kind of development that's different from gameplay itself.

"You know, Axie is not just a game, it's a new movement. It's sort of like a new generation of Pokemon or of of Angry Birds. And it's possible that we'll see, you know, movies or other types of experiences built around that IP." Said Goldberg.

NFTs

Standard Crypto is also looking closely at NFT’s, of which Goldberg said he sees a lot of opportunities to capture value as “new types of productive assets”. Standard Crypto are current investors in NFT marketplaces OpenSea and Foundation.

...

For most visit theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 73 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Adam Goldberg, Co-Founder at Standard Crypto.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

A deep dive into Aave's DeFi ecosystem with founder Stani Kulechov Nov 03, 2021

“When I started to read about smart contracts… my mind exploded.”

That's Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, who joined host Frank Chaparro for the latest episode of The Scoop podcast to discuss his entry into the world of decentralized finance (DeFi) and offer a deep dive into Aave's ecosystem.

Among the topics: Aave Arc, the project's institutional product. During the conversation, Kulechov said that he believes smaller banks and private firms will be among the institutional world's early adopters of DeFi.

“I think the biggest banks are more in the state of actually learning and getting education on the fly, and they will not be the early movers," he said. "But the early movers will be the banks that are smaller banks, private banks, and are exposed one way into the crypto space."

'MetaFi'

As one might expect, the interview with Kulechov swung toward a popular one in the crypto space today: virtual worlds, gaming and the so-called Metaverse, the latter being a catch-all phrase for the different platforms and services that compromise an immersive digital experience.

Kulechov likened the way users spend time playing games in the Metaverse to the way people log time in a physical space like a cafe or workspace.

“Games becomes more of an economy the same way as we're spending times sitting in a cafe, workspaces or having dinners or meeting friends.” He also related the use of finance tools in DeFi protocols to playing games and shopping in a brand’s store in the metaverse.

For Aave in particular, this area is being explored via the launch of Aavegotchi, which began its first land auctions this October. “It's just like a completely new world that can be not just an experiment, but it could become reality," said Kulechov.

Beyond DeFi

While DeFi remains the focus of Aave, Kulechov sees a range of possibilities for similar architectures outside of DeFi.

Kulechov discovered that while DeFi protocols applied nicely to finance, a similar architecture could be created to build a social platform.

....

For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 72 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Stani Kulechov, founder & CEO at Aave.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

Multi-platinum, Grammy nominated DJ Alesso and Lin Dai, CEO of OneOf, explain why artists are getting into NFTs Nov 01, 2021

"I noticed it has a big connection to electronic music and that is my biggest passion."

On this episode of The Scoop, multi-platinum and Grammy-nominated DJ Alesso and Lin Dai CEO of OneOf joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss why prominent artists are getting into NFTs and how this is signaling a cultural shift for how tastemakers are engaging with their fans today.

Alesso explained that electronic artists in particular have taken notice of recent advancements in technology like NFTs and the metaverse as a new means of connecting fans to music and visuals. "I saw the possibility of combining art with music and that made me very interested," Alesso said.

OneOf, which is an NFT platform and marketplace built on the Tezos blockchain network, raised $63 million in its seed round of funding from backers such as Quincy Jones to launch this year. The company is focusing on building partnerships in the music industry and hopes to bridge artists like Alesso, Doja Cat, John Legend and others with their fans by producing NFTs with a lower minting cost.

"We can offer artists like Alesso a great blank canvas to bring their vision to life without considering how much they have to charge [fans].” Said Dai. OneOf further aims to differentiate their business by connecting their NFT tokens to entries for prizes centered on real fan experiences, such as access to special Discord channels or backstage passes at concerts.

Alesso and Dai announced on The Scoop that the Cosmic Genesis NFT will come in four "chapters" with chances to win such tiered prizes, culminating in a one-of-one NFT auction with a ticket for a potential trip to space.

Alesso will debut new music attached to the Cosmic Genesis NFT at the Dreamverse launch event at New York's Terminal 5 concert hall on November 4th to coincide with the NFT's launch.

...

For more go to Theblockcyrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 71 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and multi-platinum and Grammy nominated DJ Alesso and Lin Dai, CEO of OneOf.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Masterworks

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Masterworks

Masterworks is democratizing the exclusive multi-trillion-dollar art world. Instead of needing to write a $10 million dollar check to buy one Picasso painting, you can buy shares of masterpiece paintings. Masterworks has securitized over $250 million worth of art for their 235,000 members and was recently valued at over $1 billion, making them the first and only unicorn in the alternative investing space. Invest like a billionaire today with a few easy clicks at masterworks.io/scoop

The Scoop Mining Report with Wolfie Zhao: The end of China's bitcoin mining powerhouse Oct 29, 2021

The latest data from Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows that the U.S. has taken over China as the country with the biggest share of Bitcoin's hash rate.

The backdrop of this data shift: the near-complete exodus of bitcoin miners from China, once the undisputed powerhouse for this particular sector of the crypto economy.

This historic reversal took place over the course of mere months after China ordered its initial crackdown on the crypto mining space in May. China's government escalated the crackdown even further last month, and major companies like Bitmain have been forced to react.

With the effects of China's mining crackdown still lingering, this special episode of The Scoop -- the Mining Report -- features The Block editor Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro as they discuss the state of mining on an international level as well as the current state of affairs in China today.

Some of the topics covered include:

What China's "banned" in 2013, 2017, and 2021 and why this time was different.
The different situation in China for Ethereum miners who rely on GPUs.
Why Chinese miners who owned mining equipment had options in the wake of the crackdown but those invested in mining firms faced tough choices.
Why a comeback in China is unlikely -- and why the U.S. hashrate share is set to keep growing.

Episode 69 of Season 3 of The Scoop Mining Report was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Wolfie Zhao, Asia Editor.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Robinhood's crypto COO on retail 'ebbs and flows,' NFTs, and new coin listings Oct 27, 2021

Robinhood was hit by a slowdown in its crypto business during the third quarter, but the business unit's chief operating officer, Christine Brown, is optimistic.

On this episode of The Scoop, Brown told host Frank Chaparro that "business is good" at the brokerage company.

"More than 60 percent of Robinhood funded accounts traded crypto in Q2, and now everyone, everyone listening should know that retail is very cyclical," she said, foreshadowing the firm's earnings drop on Tuesday. "There's ebbs and flows."

Robinhood reported a decline in crypto activity from its levels in the previous quarter, "leading to considerably fewer new funded accounts."

Yet Robinhood hasn't moved as fast on launching new products and listing new coins, allowing rivals like Coinbase to take advantage of hype cycles around cryptocurrencies like Solana and Shiba Inu. And Robinhood's long-asked-for crypto wallet, announced in September, may not launch until next year.

"We are actively rolling out the alpha and we have a small group of customers, about five to 10 people, who are going to be actively working with us through the last pieces of the customer experience," Brown said.

As for new listings, Brown said the firm is taking a "safety-first approach," indicating the firm won't add new coins anytime soon.

"We only have seven coins on our platform. That's an incredibly curated set of assets, especially if you think of other exchanges out there where there might be hundreds," she said. "We want to make sure that what we list makes sense, that we are working with our regulators in the proper way."

Robinhood's slow and steady approach to listing new coins was further emphasized by the firm's CEO Vlad Tenev, who said during Tuesday's earnings call that "[t]he regulatory environment, in terms of new coins and lending products in crypto, is uncertain and evolving."

...

For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 69 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Christine Brown, COO at Robinhood Crypto.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Jump's Kanav Kariya details the firm's growing footprint in Solana, governance, and blockchain use cases Oct 25, 2021

"We're stepping more and more into an almost bigger focus in the building in crypto."

On this episode of The Scoop, Kanav Kariya, President of Jump Crypto joined host Frank Chaparro for a rare interview to discuss Kariya’s vision for its 100-person large digital assets division.

Launched in the late 1990s, Jump is one of the most active trading firms across equities and crypto markets. Kariya spoke about his path from an internship in 2017 at Jump to becoming the president of the firm's crypto wing.

"The way things work at Jump is you naturally assume positions and then you're kind of handed the role after," Kariya explained.

In addition to market-making and trading, Kariya outlined how the firm is also interested in building new projects. “The possibilities for the space are just far greater than DeFi and financial stuff,” Kariya said.

He went on to explain that a big part of the firm’s strategy has been to participate in governance and build on different networks, highlighting projects like Pyth, Oasis and Wormhole. Jump Crypto also has a dedicated staff building on Solana.

“A lot of that is in translating the engineering work that we've done on building trading systems and bridging that over the building, tooling and contributing to these open crypto repositories," said Kariya. In fact, he announced that Jump Crypto is focused on putting healthcare networks on-chain via the Oasis Network.

Kariya also expressed optimism about non-fungible tokens or NFTs, saying that Jump Crypto is watching the evolution of NFTs as an asset class.

“There's no reason that those resources as an asset class couldn't evolve to be like any other tokens or financial products,” Kariya commented.

Episode 68 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kanav Kariya, President at Jump Crypto.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Here's how one of NYSE's largest market makers is breaking into DeFi Oct 20, 2021

On this episode of The Scoop, founder Ari Rubenstein and founder & CEO Ryan Sheftel joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the launch of their new crypto firm, called Radkl.

Radkl, which was born out of trading firm and New York Stock Exchange market maker GTS, is a new digital asset trading business. GTS currently trades hundreds of thousands of financial instruments algorithmically, which according to GTS accounts for some “five percent of the entire US equity markets by volume.”

Radkl’s focus on crypto today means providing liquidity and eventually getting into decentralized finance protocols like staking, among other services it expects to offer for its clients.

“Being involved in the liquidity provision, in the AMM protocols, and DeFi is an obvious first start” Said Sheftel. The CEO said that he expects traditional CeFi order books to merge with AMM liquidity, and to have Radkl serve that sector of the market.

Meanwhile, Rubenstein sees the beginnings of crypto firms as a similar kind of disruption and growth potential for traditional businesses to when capital markets went electronic and online.

Rubenstein believes they are early entrants into a growing market, “I think we're going to see a world very soon, Frank, that we see an explosion in a secondary markets for things that formerly didn't have secondary markets that now are made by this digitization of of industries that- I don't mean just financial instruments or digital pictures like entities- I mean lots of other things that could ride the backbone of CeFi and decentralized finance.”

Hedge fund investor and owner of the Mets Steve Cohen also announced he will be backing Radkl. Though as of yet, the exact sum of that investment has not been disclosed.

Episode 67 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Ari Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Ryan Sheftel, Co-Founder & CEO at Radkl.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Atari wants to be a real estate whale in the Metaverse Oct 18, 2021

“For us it’s almost like having a store on 5th avenue”.

Atari is gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and appropriately enough the company is kicking off its half-century birthday not in the physical world, but in the metaverse. Specifically, it is hoping to capitalize off of the "land" it owns in virtual worlds built by Decentraland and The Sandbox.

Atari's Head of Blockchain Manfred Mantschev told host Frank Chaparro on The Scoop: “When these plots came up the value of the adjacent plots would go up because people recognized the Atari brand, and that image would basically drive people, drive interest to the whole project. So that's kind of how we got started.” Real estate in the metaverse continues to sell for record breaking amounts.

With early hits such as Pac Man, Pong, and Centipede, Atari is known as a landmark maker of arcade games of the 70s and 80s. Today, Atari’s familiar brand is often seen in nostalgia plays for consumers. By appearing in productions like Stranger Things, Ready Player One and Blade Runner the company has found new relevance.

Atari is hoping to onboard a wider audience into the metaverse in the same way that big brand storefronts attract shoppers to enter a shopping mall. Its mission now, Mantschev explained, is is to convince users to enter the metaverse, where Atari hopes to be a familiar face in a new virtual world. "The same way a mall wants to have a flagship store in the mall and smaller stores next to it are prepared to pay higher rents just because there is a sought-after anchor tenant in the mall."

... Read more on Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts

Episode 66 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Manfred Mantschev, Head of Blockchain at Atari.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Macro investor Dan Tapiero on why his fund is pouring hundreds of millions into crypto unicorns Oct 15, 2021

“It’s a global development.”

On this episode of The Scoop, 10T Founder and CEO Dan Tapiero joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss his insights into the globalization of crypto markets and how his macro investing strategy has seen his fund 10T pour hundreds of millions into crypto unicorns.

To date, Tapiero has already allocated the majority of some of his funds to companies such as Kraken, Deribit, and Ledger. “We have a portfolio of about 10 to 15 companies that are our targets."

Tapiero mentioned how 10T has been helping investors adopt a macro crypto strategy, saying that he’s rejected some 50 plus deals in favor of a more careful approach with a closer guarantee to 5-10x returns. In spite of bear swings, Tapiero remains bullish. "I don't think the valuations of things that we're looking at are high to begin with."

Tapiero also observed an "asymmetry" that he credits to the market's resilience. He said he's noticed that as bitcoin upside drives valuations up, any market downsides simply cause bitcoin company valuations to remain relatively neutral. He had this to say:

"I saw that you can have a productive portfolio of assets withstand an unbelievable bear market without even having a negative mark. And so in 2018, what brought me to this idea to some degree, was in '18 bitcoin was down 80 percent, Ethereum 95 percent, but a basket of companies that we looked at broadly maintained their value. So to me, that's like mind blowing. I can build a portfolio that has access to all of the upside, not just of Bitcoin and Ethereum, but the entire space without having to suffer, hopefully, much on the downside... For institutions, especially, this is a very attractive type of portfolio."

...

Episode 64 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dan Tapiero, Founder & CEO at 10T Holdings.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Bank exec explains how Switzerland’s massive wealth channels are opening up to crypto Oct 13, 2021

Sygnum is one of the few cryptocurrency banks operating in Europe.

On this episode of The Scoop, Mathias Imbach Co-Founder and Group CEO of Sygnum joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the country's crypto ecosystem and how large wealth channels are opening up to bitcoin and other digital assets.

“Nowadays, the conversation goes very different," said Imbach. "There's very few banks in Switzerland which have not made it a strategic priority to really think [supporting digital assets] through. Some would still say, 'right now we want to not touch it for x, y, z reasons,' but there needs to be a strategic rationale. They need to have an answer to clients, why they do it or why they don't do it."

Sygnum's clients aren't just interested in crypto assets, but all real-world assets that are traded on a blockchain.

“It's about creating a more direct link between what we own and how we transfer it,” he said.

For that reason, Sygnum is currently exploring the tokenization of wines and other pieces of art for clients who also want to own fractionalized shares of such assets.

“If you accumulate 100 percent equivalent of a wine bottle, you can also then burn the tokens and take physical delivery of the wine. So basically, you're creating this digital, but at the same time still a real asset, kind of convergence, where you can take it, use it as an investment opportunity, as a financial gains opportunity, with liquidity along the way.”

Episode 64 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mathias Imbach, co-founder & Group CEO at Sygnum.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Ether whale Andrew Keys on building products in an uncertain regulatory environment Oct 08, 2021

DARMA Capital's Andrew Keys is a believer in the disruptive power of Ethereum, but he's also concerned that regulators may stand in the way of it.

Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors, or DARMA for short, is an investment firm with more than $1 billion of assets under management. DARMA currently holds over 10,000 validators at over 320,000 Ether, Keys told host Frank Chaparro on this episode of The Scoop.

“And that's staking kind of an institutional-grade, generating tremendous yield,” said Keys.

Keys talked about the firm's journey since launching with just $100 million under management in 2019. He also looked forward, saying that despite the potential use cases of Ethereum and decentralized finance, regulatory headwinds might make it difficult for institutions to engage directly with the market.

“I think we are about to witness a regulatory environment that is excruciatingly painful and that is a result of being able to go create a wallet, go on to a decentralized exchange, have a million dollars of X and trade it for a million dollars of Y with no KYC, no accreditation at investor accreditation. And I think that until we start solving some of those problems and self-regulating and complying, the decentralized nature of blockchain is under imminent threat.”

In this episode Keys also discusses:

Why the cryptocurrency market is impacted by global market events such as the Evergrande meltdown
How the market has evolved since Keys' early days at Ethereum development studio ConsenSys
Tailwinds for Ethereum and headwinds for Bitcoin
What's behind the market success of competitive Layer-One protocols
The growth of the market for non-fungible tokens

Episode 63 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Andrew Keys, co-founder & managing director at DARMA Capital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Portfolio Director of $5 billion fund Pantera Capital believes DeFi market is undervalued Oct 06, 2021

“We are heavily moving into DeFi.”

Pantera Capital, the longest operating US based bitcoin investment firm, now manages 5Bn worth of assets. But when it comes to decentralized finance, Pantera’s Franklin Bi still sees the space as undervalued.

“As long as we're still looking at the fundamentals and drawing out what the multiples are there, we're still not at the point where you know, you're really starting to see the speculative mania.”

On this episode of The Scoop, Franklin Bi Director of Portfolio Development at Pantera Capital joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss the current state of venture capital investment into crypto and how he’s finding value in an increasingly crowding ecosystem.

“There's the crypto native side, which I think a lot of new investors coming into the space don't recognize yet. Things like staking, participating in the network, focusing on decentralized governance and how we play a role there. That's all stuff that looks super different from, you know, just showing up at a board meeting once a quarter to review the financials.”

Pantera has been investing heavily into DeFi since 2017, and is continuing their ramp up as more investors begin to move away from simply an interest in novel technologies to searching for sustainable yield. Bi observed this shift in investor sentiment as traditional investors are slowly beginning to comprehend the margins of DeFi products. He expressed that certain digital assets companies are still relatively undervalued when compared to public market counterparts.

“They're getting valued like traditional financial institutions, which to me, sounds like they're undervalued because the rate at which a DeFi project can grow is on a totally different scale. The profitability margins. totally different scale.” Bi went on to add, “It tells me that they're actually undervalued rather than overvalued.”

Episode 62 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Franklin Bi, Director of Portfolio Development at Pantera Capital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Here’s how Axie Infinity is bridging the divide between blockchain gaming and DeFi Oct 01, 2021

On this episode of The Scoop, Sky Mavis Games Co-Founder and Growth Lead Jeff ‘Jiho’ Zirlin joined Frank Chaparro at the 2021 Mainnet Conference to discuss their game Axie Infinity. Chaparro and Zirlin cover Axie’s recent growth in popularity, kicking off the ‘Play-To-Earn’ trend in gaming, and how Axie Infinity players in the Philippines and other emerging economies are playing the game to supplement their incomes.

To be sure, the project's concentration in the Philippines speaks to how much work the project has ahead of it in making it truly global. Zirlin told Chaparro that Axie's user base has grown from some 38K active users in April to around 1.7 Million active users in August. Interest in the project has since waned given a wider rout in the gaming NFT market, down roughly 45% as per data from The Block, with a weekly volume has decline of about $220M from peak to around $130M.

But even Zirlin admitted that interest can wane as quickly as it has built up: "So the cool thing about NFT games or even crypto in general is like we have these very powerful feedback loops that cause over decades or over years, huge network effects. But any positive feedback loop that creates a negative creates a network effect can also run in reverse." Like the emerging markets Axie is popular in, Zirlin noted that the game also shows characteristics of an emerging market economy where "you have hot inflows of money and then also withdrawals." Zirlin announced on The Scoop that Axie is creating their own DEX for the game. Instead of moving funds to wallets and then to an exchange to convert cryptocurrency, players will be able to convert their funds directly to the currency of their choosing through the DEX.

"We're also working on an in-house decentralized exchange or a Dex which will be native to our Ethereum-side chain called Ronin." Zirlin said, adding, "I think we really saw the future of the gaming industry and rightly, we've kind of seen the emergence of this metaverse emerging market worker." Axie Infinity recently completed a $7.6 million funding round that included among its investors billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Episode 61 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Jeff Zirlin, Co-Founder & Growth Lead at Sky Mavis.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Christie's NFT business is booming despite a market lull Sep 29, 2021

This week, the world's largest auction house cracked $100 million in NFT sales. Christie’s Noah Davis says they’re just getting started. On this episode of The Scoop, Davis, an associate vice president and head of digital sales at the auction house, joined Frank Chaparro to discuss Christie’s view of the 2021 rise in NFT sales and how the traditional art market and this brave new one are converging and bolstering adoption of a possible blockchain future.

“It's incredible that it continues to gather speed and that interest continues to pour in from new corners of the world,” said Davis, a Specialist in post-war and contemporary art. He highlighted a recent uptick in interest in NFT sales with buyers in Asia. Still, that is running up against what could be described as a lull in the NFT market. As per data from The Block, weekly NFT transactions have fallen from highs near 2 million to 315,000 last week. Davis even observed an inverse correlation to NFTs and Ethereum’s price movements. “A lot of people will panic, sell their NFT’s when ETH is mooning and then they collect when ETH is kind of in a lull," he remarked. NFT sales are just the first taste for auction houses like Christie's to possibly one day also move onto the blockchain, which Davis believes could have specific applications for the company. “It would solve for authenticity testing, keeping track of exhibition history, literature references, title disputes, restoration, you name it.” Said Davis, “As far as financials are concerned and deals are concerned, it just is such a better, more democratic way to do business.” Christie’s recently announced that on October 1st they will auction off an NFT set of CurioCards that it is putting up in what will be the world’s first major auction with live bids taken in the form of ETH.

Episode 60 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Noah Davis, Associate Vice President & Head of Digital Sales at Christie's.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Okcoin is launching SATs mode as part of wider retail push Sep 27, 2021

Okcoin, which was founded in 2013, is doing something different in a crowded field of crypto exchanges: it's going to allow clients to denominate trades in bitcoin in units of satoshi, rather than BTC.

On this episode of The Scoop, Okcoin CEO Hong Fang joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Okcoin's rapid retail product launches and the hiring growth they've undergone in an effort to compete in the space. She also explained the reasoning for the launch of Satoshi dominated trades.

“Our focus and area of kind of innovation driven product efforts on the retail side continue to drive our product offerings. Some of those will also evolve into institutional offerings.” Said Fang.

Okcoin announced on The Scoop that they will be launching a “SATs Mode” in an effort to cater to retail client demand for Bitcoin. That SATs mode will mean an ability to package and sell Satoshis, or 1,000th of a bitcoin. Since bitcoin holders often hold only a portion of a bitcoin in decimals, Okcoin wants to make clients feel comfortable with Sats in order to make transactions easier to understand. This announcement comes on the heels of Okcoin's integration of Lightning, the layer 2 micropayment protocol used for for sending small amounts of Bitcoin. Okcoin is expecting to use this retail lead offering as an opportunity to test the waters for such a product for institutional grade clients.

In an attempt to capture more DeFi exposure for institutional clients, Okcoin recently also launched an Earn APY offering for institutions following their retail offering. In their view, Okcoin is focusing its business on participating in a decentralized future, though they acknowledge that as DeFi adoption grows the business could still evolve into something very different than an exchange, such as a DAO. “Ultimately everyone will own their own data,” Said Fang.

Episode 59 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Hong Fang, CEO of Okcoin.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Digital Artist Pplpleasr explains the meaning of Fortune's DeFi cover and the future of NFTs Sep 24, 2021

Digital artist Pplpleasr believes that the production and dissemination of art represent just the first phase of NFT technology adoption.

This week on The Scoop, PplPleasr joined host Frank Chaparro to break down how she created Fortune Magazine's DeFi cover and the role of NFTs in Web3 and the broader art space.

Earlier this year, Pplpleasr was commissioned by Fortune to create its first NFT cover. That cover image is a tribute to the NFT community, featuring a number of different well-known avatars. The cover's depiction represents a stark contrast to the often gloomy imagery one typically associates with Wall Street, juxtaposed instead with the colorful, dynamic universe of the online crypto community.

Pplpleasr remarked:

"The Fortune magazine was something that I think is a special moment for all of us because it sort of represents one of these pivotal moments of traditional media representing the entire community."

Still, PplPleasr admits that it's early days for NFT's and platforms on which they can trade — they're are often clunky and have complicated user interfaces.

"The technology doesn't even exist yet for us to trade, let's say, assets between different games," said Pplpleasr. "Like, if I wanted to trade an asset from a Riot game to a Blizzard game, that just is not possible. But I do obviously imagine a future with NFT's where that is possible."

Today, Pplpleasr sees an opportunity to unlock the power of NFT's in her own way by making it easier for women and people outside the art world to launch their own careers.

She recently announced a partnership with the Grammy-nominated musician Steve Aoki to create NFT artworks to be offered at auction at Sotheby's. A portion of the auction proceeds will go to support the careers of women NFT artists.

Episode 58 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded in studio with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Digital Artist Pplpleasr.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

BitGo's Mike Belshe explains why regulators should embrace the openness of the blockchain Sep 22, 2021

Mike Belshe founded BitGo—the crypto financial services and custody firm—in 2013 with the original intention to help solve a pinpoint he identified when entering the bitcoin market early on: how to store crypto holdings safely.

"We forget about how easy loss is", said Belshe.

Today BitGo is more wide-spanning than just storage and custody, also covering lending, trading, and prime-related financial services. The firm is expected to complete its acquisition by Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital by end of 2021, creating an operation the two Mikes hope will bridge the crypto world with Wall Street.

On this episode of The Scoop, Mike Belshe CEO of BitGo joined host Frank Chaparro to talk about that deal between BitGo and Galaxy, BitGo's origin story, and why regulators should embrace the openness of the blockchain.

In Belshe's view, regulators—including Gary Gensler of the Securities and Exchange Commission—should actually lean into using blockchain to identify nefarious behavior, and say "wait a minute we have this huge tool, let's use that."

In the event that the agency deems most cryptocurrencies as securities—a scenario Belshe said was unlikely—Belshe noted that regulators would lock out the US from the market's innovation.

Episode 57 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mike Belshe, CEO at BitGo.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Bittrex Global's CEO says the exchange company is exploring safe havens in light of regulatory tightening Sep 15, 2021

On this episode of The Scoop, Bittrex Global CEO Stephen Stonberg joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on Bittrex’s US and global businesses, his outlook on security tokens, and how the company is tackling regulatory tightening in an effort to safely enter markets across the world.

In its global business, Stonberg said that Bittrex is testing out lending and staking products as well as dipping its toes into STOs or Security Token Offerings, such as in real estate, stocks, cars, etc. Bittrex test-launched a limited number of what Stonberg termed ‘unsolicited ETFs’ like "Google tokenized and Tesla tokenized" which they are currently only selling to a small subset of clients via their Bermuda license.

As the market matures and investors eventually look for yield in alternative products outside of utility tokens, Bittrex is positioning itself to capture that market share.

“I would expect that as utility tokens become a more mature market, that you won't see those types of returns," said Stonberg.

Stonberg views real estate on the blockchain as one of the use cases that will reshape the industry. In fact, Bittrex is exploring the potential of STO-based tokens, such as in real estate as well as possibly art and IPOs, as Stonberg suggested. “I really think that you're going to see everything being tokenized. Why should we not have real estate tokenized? Like, why should if you're IPOing a company, why does it have to be an IPO? Why can't it be in the venture stage?”

As for where competitors are in the adoption cycle, Stonberg added: "Right now, we're in the fund build phase where the regulators haven't caught on yet." However, he did not comment on whether Bittrex has plans at this time to fundraise or enter public markets.

Episode 56 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Stephen Stonberg, CEO at Bittrex Global.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Anatoly Yakovenko unpacks Solana's rise, memes, and NFT snafus Sep 10, 2021

It has been a wild summer for blockchain project Solana.

From the meteoric rise in the price of its native token to technical problems facing NFTs launched on the blockchain, the project has entered the forefront. On this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko Founder & CEO of Solana Labs joins host Frank Chaparro for a deep dive into Solana, which some believe can compete with Ethereum despite being less decentralized.

As for price specifically, Yakovenko admitted it doesn't always make sense.

"This is just mind-boggling that if the price of Solana doesn't make any sense, then I have no clue why Ethereum has anything in terms of its value," he said, adding:

"I don't pay attention to the price so much because I have no control over it and I'm an engineer. So, like, if I can't change it, then it's just like one of these variables."

Solana Labs completed a $314.2 million fundraise back in June 2021 (that amount raised is a play on the number Pi). Investors included Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, FTX via Alameda Research and CoinShares. But as of yet, Yakovenko said much of their capital raise has not been deployed. It is also known for powering Serum, the decentralized exchange launched by Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX. Solana recently launched its Metaplex NFT marketplace, which Yakovenko acknowledged experienced server issues.

Still, DeFi comes to the top of Yakovenko's mind as a core use case.

“I've really felt that finance was a place where blockchain makes sense," he said.

In Yakovenko's view, users could even one day use their own hardware to tap into the network in order to access financial market data as quickly as professional trading firms with access to exchange data.

"The network guarantees as close as possible to an impossible problem, which is that information propagates equally to everybody at the same speed," he said.

Episode 55 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder & CEO @ Solana Labs.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Inside Coinbase's game plan to be a one-stop shop for Wall Street's biggest investors Sep 08, 2021

Hundreds of institutions are looking to Coinbase as a trusted, publicly-traded exchange to create tailored crypto solutions for them. Now, as traditional finance firms begin to deploy capital into crypto services, Coinbase sees itself at the forefront of facilitating that institutional adoption.

“I think we're moving away from the designation of Coinbase as an exchange to being a much more complex organization,” said Coinbase's Greg Tusar, whose crypto brokerage startup Tagomi was acquired last year.

On this episode of The Scoop, Coinbase head of institutional sales Brett Tejpaul and head of institutional product Greg Tusar join for a discussion on Coinbase’s pace of growth to meet client demand and how the company is building itself into a full-scale prime broker.

“We're focused more on the future of finance and DeFi,” said Tejpaul of Coinbase's goal to combine its custodianship, exchange, brokerage and DeFi services for institutional clients. He went on to say that they have filled out some 250 requests for proposals from clients to build crypto products for their firms. The longest such RFP is a whopping 800 questions long, according to Tejpaul.

The execs also touched on Coinbase's role in growing retail interest in stablecoins and altcoins, citing how some 75% of clients own more than Bitcoin, 80% own some Ethereum and Tejpaul estimated that 50% of that group also own at least 5 or more cryptocurrencies.

The company is also focusing on growing its product base by creating a variety of familiar instruments for traditional finance institutions, which include providing means for institutions to gain sub-custody, tap into stablecoin utility to leverage DeFi protocols, and by creating capabilities for DeFi, smart contracts, and NFTs for broad institutional participation.

Episode 54 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Brett Tejpaul, Head of Institutional Sales, and Greg Tusar, Head of Institutional Product, at Coinbase.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Brett Harrison of FTX.US on challenging Robinhood and Coinbase while reshaping market structure Sep 03, 2021

FTX.US President Brett Harrison wants the company to be the next Robinhood, and he says they’re listening to every customer's comments to expand their user base and untangle the complexities of building an exchange.

“The retail user base wants to be heard," said Harrison.

On this episode of The Scoop, Brett Harrison took a break from coding FTX.US to join host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how the company is expanding its user base and the company's planned entrance into crypto derivatives.

Unlike FTX, which is a global business and closed its Series A round of funding in July to the tune of an $18 billion valuation, FTX.US is focused exclusively on the US market. FTX.US, however, stands to benefit from its namesake’s most recent round of funding, of which Harrison said FTX will be allocating an undisclosed portion toward the US business.

FTX.US is also focusing on M&A, with an eye to expand its suite of products next year and prepare to go head-to-head with the likes of publicly traded companies like Coinbase and Robinhood. As Harrison put it: "It needs to have all the things that they want to trade." This includes the recent inroads FTX.US has made to unlocking derivatives, which Harrison explained its US arm cannot offer without a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) license.

But the company has never shied from pushing the needle on regulation and wants to keep lines of direct communication with regulatory bodies, according to Harrison.

"We need to engage [regulatory bodies] in an ongoing way, and so in the cases that we've done that been doing that we've had very positive experiences." Earlier this week, FTX.US announced the acquisition of the long-running crypto derivatives exchange LedgerX and the firm has previously held meetings with CFTC leaders.

Episode 53 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Brett Harrison, President at FTX.US.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Blockchain.com's Peter Smith sees innovation but thinks some will be unprepared for a ‘Crypto Winter’ Sep 01, 2021

"The market filled your sail with wind and now you're doing a good job of sailing. But are you ready to survive the next time the wind drops?"

Blockchain.com, one of the longest operating firms in the crypto space, has been successful at taking the long road. Now the U.K.-based company is building out its stockpile of cash reserves to prepare for a possible ‘Crypto Winter’ on the horizon -- that is, a prolonged downturn in the market.

"I think when I look out over the space right now, there's going to be a lot of folks who are unprepared for that," CEO and co-founder Peter Smith told The Scoop host Frank Chaparro.

Blockchain.com recently obtained a $5.2 billion valuation following several rounds of funding in 2021, including a $300 million round of funding most recently in March.

Chaparro and Smith also discussed some of the on-chain innovations that Smith is looking out for in the immediate future. One such example that Smith believes could invigorate public interest in the space is the launch of on-chain consumer apps, which Smith predicts could begin as soon as later this year.

“It's going to lead to an explosion of innovation, probably something like when Apple created the App Store“. He likened the advent of such on-chain crypto apps to the rise of Web apps most are familiar with on their phones or tablets. “You’re on the phone 24hrs a day, the same thing will happen in crypto.” Smith noted that he hopes Blockchain.com could one day become one of the builders of such apps.

Smith also highlighted the public interest in whether Blockchain.com may follow other industry companies in going public. He affirmed the company's appetite to one day tap public markets but cautioned that the team is waiting for the right time to take that step. Smith said that the company is currently focused on M&A, with four deals in progress as Blockchain.com looks to step up its market share.

Episode 52 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Peter Smith, Co-founder & CEO at Blockchain.com

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

This NFT expert explains how digital goods may have more use cases than luxury watches Aug 25, 2021

Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty, sees the commodification of culture as the future of the internet.

Indeed, Fitch believes that a well executed NFT strategy could very well be a make-or-break opportunity for legacy brands as well as for the brands of the future:

“When you start to connect physical events, digital signaling, memes and collectibles all into one, I think you create this really superpowered sort of wave of commodification of culture and commodification of status and commodification of membership. And also combine that with all the crypto native benefits of global payment rates, easy ability to transact and send peer-to-peer so it becomes really liquid and moves quickly.”

As household name companies (such as Visa or Coca-Cola) begin to explore NFTs, Fitch sees an opportunity forming for brands to commodify "what culture is" for their brand and community. He related the growth in NFTs to luxury watches and their collectors, both of which are dependent on a community of buyers to maintain their value. With NFT’s, he argues, the marketplace is built into the ecosystem of NFTs and he believes its ease of access will help to maintain a product's liquidity.

Much like the way watches are collected to connote social status, NFT's can actually be built to have additional use cases to unlock VIP access within the Metaverse. Fitch observed how NFT's are being used as a means to unlock experiences within online communities and in the Metaverse:

"Now we have ways to codify, financialize, commodify artifacts of culture, and we have ways to communicate them peer-to-peer, socially, signal with them, unlock experiences with them."

Episode 51 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

NFT unicorn OpenSea sets sights on improving customer experience with $100 million war chest Aug 23, 2021

OpenSea's Devin Finzer is just as surprised as anyone to see non-fungible tokens (NFTs) taking off this summer.

“None of us expected to hit a billion in transaction volume this month,” said Finzer, describing what he views as "the biggest economy in the history of the internet."

During this episode of The Scoop, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on NFT’s, the metaverse, and OpenSea’s most recent completed fundraise.

OpenSea recently raised $100 million from VC majors such as A16z as well as angel investors like Michael Ovitz and Ashton Kutcher, setting the NFT marketplace valuation at a $1.5 billion value.

The company's focus on building a marketplace appeared to bear fruit based on the NFT volume in August for OpenSea.

With fresh capital in hand, OpenSea is planning on retooling its systems to make it easier for the public to gain access to the marketplace.

Finzer spoke with The Scoop about how OpenSea is improving gateways for the public to purchase NFT’s with a credit card and how the team is working with partners to lower fees for minting, selling and buying. He also touched on how this also includes expanding their blockchain partnerships with layer-1 and layer-2 scaling solutions, such as their recent Polygon integration.

Finzer further discussed the Metaverse application of NFT’s as brands begin to buy into virtual worlds, such as Decentraland, in what the startup believes will become the stage for this new economy.

“Long term we think NFT’s will be used for all sorts of creative things, across gaming, art collectibles, event tickets, real world items," said Finzer.

Episode 50 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Devin Finzer, co-founder & CEO at OpenSea.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Multi-billion dollar hedge funds are tapping into DeFi with MetaMask's institutional product Aug 18, 2021

ConsenSys wants major financial groups to jump into the world of decentralized finance -- and believes MetaMask Institutional can serve as a gateway for such firms.

While most listeners are likely familiar with MetaMask, the DeFi wallet that boasts millions of monthly users, MetaMask Institutional (MMI) is a new initiative within ConsenSys focused on providing institutional access to DeFi. Already, the firm counts several large multi-billion dollar crypto-native and traditional funds among its clients, according to Johann Bornman, the initiative's product lead.

For bigger investment firms, interest in DeFi centers around exposure to higher yields from lending protocols like Aave or Compound.

“Some of them are very active in terms of their yield fund strategies and their yield farming strategies,” Bornman explained during a new episode of The Scoop podcast. “But on average, if you're talking about these larger hedge funds and pension funds that you mentioned and also some of the larger crypto funds, on average, you're seeing them sort of dip their toe into the space.”

Bornman added:

“And this might entail minting assets or lending assets on Compound and Aave or using some of the most well-known protocols in the space."

Episode 48 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Johann Bornman, product lead for MetaMask Institutional at Consensys.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Wall Street vet explains the Bitcoin trading improvements regulators are ignoring Aug 16, 2021

Dave Weisberger is a Wall Street vet who saw market structure develop and go electronic. On this episode of The Scoop, the co-founder and CEO of CoinRoutes joined host Frank Chaparro for a walk-through on how far trading in crypto has evolved and why regulators are ignoring these improvements.

He remarked:

“Firms that are domiciled and regulated out of the United States are at such a massive disadvantage in the growing digital asset world to the point where, as a startup, we had to make a choice to become software only.”

Weisberger views the slow regulatory work by the SEC as being harmful to investors, which among factors, is causing exchanges and custodians to put fees and premiums on crypto in order for investors to enter the market.

But as the market grows and becomes more differentiated from traditional markets, the crypto “market is getting more efficient," Weisberger said.

While the current sentiment sees larger players continuing to find themselves subject to arbitrage fees and the headaches of legal battles, Weisberger believes it won’t last forever:

"The settlement costs and the financing costs of doing certain esoteric strategies will ultimately go down dramatically as DeFi finds its sea legs and matures. We're nowhere near that point yet, but the application of that technology is going to be profound as it grows."

During this episode, Weisberger and Chaparro also discuss:

Regulatory risks in the US
Rich valuations in private crypto markets
Outweigh benefits to firms headquartered overseas
The completion of CoinRoutes’ Series B round of funding

Episode 48 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dave Weisberger, Co-founder & CEO of CoinRoutes.

This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

The Blockchain Association's Kristin Smith breaks down what's next in Washington's bitcoin policy fight Aug 11, 2021

A high-wire fight in Washington, DC over crypto tax reporting provisions included in a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill drew widespread attention and impassioned remarks from supporters, opponents and powerful members of Congress.

And while Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, admits that the legislation's current language is not perfect, the collective show of force from advocacy groups, business leaders and think tanks was "like no other thing I have experienced in my 20 years in Washington, D.C.”

On this episode of The Scoop, Smith joined host Frank Chaparro and senior reporter Kollen Post to discuss the legislation live during the podcast as senators conducted their last vote before sending the bill out of the chamber.

According to Smith, the fight over the crypto tax reporting requirements — which opponents say puts undue burdens on businesses that aren't clearly defined as "brokers" of digital assets and at one point risked choosing technological winners and losers — is far from over.

In the end, Smith concedes that there ultimately may not be an opportunity to add amendments to the bill. However, the fight put the crypto industry front-and-center in Washington for the first time, with Smith saying: "We went from zero to 60 overnight, and we have caught the attention of the entire policymaking class in Washington."

The bill now makes its move into the House which will reconvene in September for next steps.

This episode of The Scoop also focused on:

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s position on crypto
The players in the DC crypto scene today
Which policymakers and politicians favor amendments to the bill.

Episode 47 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kristin Smith, Executive Director at Blockchain Association.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Inside the Polkadot network and ecosystem with Rob Habermeier Aug 06, 2021

As new networks are tapping into Polkadot, its co-founder sees a high-stakes battleground forming over privacy and security.

"You want to create a system which is upgradable which can adapt to new technologies if you want to be able to stay one step ahead of the curve," says Rob Habermeier, who joins The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how exactly DeFi fits into Polkadot, where he sees privacy and security headed, and the hurdles that Polkadot's so-called 'parachains' face in 2022.

Polkadot is still in “very early days”, said Habermeier, in terms of the interoperability of the network’s recently launched parachain functions.

“A lot of this interoperability stuff that's been talked about for a very long time is just coming to fruition now. We're seeing the first parachains, we're seeing the first bridges between ecosystems," he says.

Polkadot's parachains operate by allowing multiple blockchains to branch off their network. Polkadot deployed its first six parachain partnerships via the Kusama network on July 20. “And those are focusing on, for example, DeFi, on smart contracts, on layer 2 scaling, and on identity secure compute using some secure hardware," Habermeier continues.

Habermeier also outlined how Polkadot’s Substrate platform works, on which Compound Labs recently launched a product called Gateway. Substrate works by reordering transactions in a block to suit the needs of DeFi institutions.

“You're not going to have your profits constantly cut into by some aggressive miner who's reordering your transactions or sandwiching them,” Habermeier explained. “What that's going to do is essentially make it more difficult to exploit users who are using DeFi systems.”

During this episode Habermeier and Chaparro also discuss:

Why Habermeier dropped out of college to build Polkadot
Where security and privacy is headed with blockchain
The challenges of finding and procuring talent in the digital asset industry

Episode 46 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Rob Habermeier, Co-Founder at Polkadot.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Billion dollar bitcoin funds are reshaping the crypto derivatives market Aug 04, 2021

Genesis Global Trading—the New York-based crypto firm that bills itself as a prime brokerage—turned over more than $8 billion worth of derivatives last quarter.

Joshua Lim is the man behind those billions as the firm's Head of Derivatives. Lim joined The Scoop this week to unpack Genesis' second quarter report, explaining how new preferences among investors and traders have shaped the make up of derivatives. He told The Block's Frank Chaparro that the growth of crypto-native hedge funds have increased their need for derivatives, including options and futures, to hedge their positions.

"I think it's mostly crypto negative hedge funds that we deal with that were more willing to engage with us on hedging strategies," he said. As bitcoin was approaching $55,000, he said many were "looking for attractive pricing on the implied volatility across two different strikes such that they could buy some cheap sort of protection for their portfolio."

That desire to hedge among crypto players was echoed in Genesis' report, which was released Wednesday:

"As BTC/USD marched to new highs in April, a number of our forward-thinking crypto-native hedge fund and corporate treasury counterparties meaningfully stepped up their systematic put-hedging programs."

As for the second-quarter specifically, Lim pointed out a number of trends that played out, including the tightening of the spread between spot and futures and a reversal of the popular basis trade that aims to profit from that spread.

In this episode Lim also unpacks:

How the derivatives market in crypto evolved from linear products to a wide-range of products
How the spread between spot and futures can indicate how frothy the market is
The big takeaways from Genesis' second quarter report
What needs to happen in the NFT market for it to support derivatives
The emergence of market neutral strategies in crypto

Episode 45 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Genesis Global Trading's Head of Derivatives Joshua Lim.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Policy Scoop - Are looming regulations putting an end to bitcoin's 'Wild West' days? Jul 30, 2021

Signs point to the looming specter of regulation slowly bringing the days of bitcoin and crypto's "Wild West" to an end. The only question, perhaps, is if not now, then when?

"We’re getting to a boiling point," The Block's Aislinn Keely told The Scoop.

On this policy report episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro is joined by The Block’s policy and regulatory reporters — Editor of Wonk Talk Aislinn Keely and Senior Politics Reporter Kollen Post — for an update on where the United States currently sits on the digital asset policy front.

Keely and Post covered what a Gensler-led SEC looks like, citing Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the SEC questioning how the US plans to regulate exchanges.

Keely and Post noted the potentially risky domino effect of agency mandates on policies such as those that targeted crypto startup BlockFi, particularly in instances for which crypto products mimic savings accounts and securities and don’t have the provision of FDIC backing.

Post noted that if the NY investigation of Tether becomes a federal case, it could change the narrative of the White House’s coverage of digital assets in terms of how much cash the Senate wants to monitor the ecosystem. As of this podcast’s publication, The Block received new details stating that an upcoming infrastructure bill in the U.S. Senate will in fact be partially paid for by enhanced tax enforcement of cryptocurrency.

Keely also clarified where the US currently stands on Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC. Keely said that the US is still on the perceived “losing side” relative to countries like China, which is in the process of developing a digitized version of the yuan. The US government has not made any final decisions on whether it will issue a digital dollar.

Episode 44 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Aislinn Keely, Editor of Wonk Talk & Kollen Post, Senior Politics Report at The Block.

This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

NYDIG is unleashing bitcoin financial products onto thousands of regional banks Jul 28, 2021

Access to bitcoin was once a case where “no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second”.

Now, New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, won’t stop until it’s able to put bitcoin within reach of every American.

Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG, explained during the most recent episode of The Scoop how the firm has been amping up its partnerships in order to roll out their bitcoin products now that there is interest being expressed from regional banks.

To that end, NYDIG has teamed up with banking service providers, including NCR, Alkami, Fiserv, Allied Payment, Q2, First Foundation, and others.

“I think if we kind of pause today and you fast forward to 12 months, you would see over a thousand institutions rolling out NYDIG products," he said, referring to the results these partnerships will yield. "I think we'll see that number grow as we move forward through the next 12 months.”

Much of what NYDIG has offered to banks is centered around bitcoin purchases, but the ambitions appear to be broader.

Sells discussed NYDIG’s ability to offer credit card solutions and retail lending. Sells said they could offer a service that converts unused hotel points into bitcoin “allowing people to have points and convert those to Bitcoin, that's in some ways the lowest friction path possible from an entry point standpoint or from allowing gift cards to be converted into Bitcoin."

NYDIG is also working on providing a way to make it easier for clients to leverage their bitcoin holdings to get approved for loans, according to Sells. Today, most lenders don't consider bitcoin as collateral or a traditional asset.

As Sells put it: "Any type of fiat financing for a home, a car, a line of credit, whatever, credit underwriting doesn't take into account your bitcoin, right?"

Episode 43 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

‘They’re readying themselves:’ Exec at multi-trillion dollar bank explains why clients are warming up to bitcoin Jul 23, 2021

State Street made headlines last month, announcing a brand new division covering crypto, digital assets, and tokenization.

State Street VP and Head of Global Markets, Nadine Chakar, is leading that charge. Despite the recent price slump in crypto-assets, interest has not abated, she noted in an interview for the latest episode of The Scoop:

“The price depreciation has not impacted demand and interest at all. I think we're still seeing a lot of people enthusiastically embracing digital in general, crypto in certain cases. And there's not a day that goes by that you don't see some large hedge fund or some large investor, you know, outlining their support for digital.”

To meet that demand, State Street is working with clients on developing solutions that help them allocate to bitcoin and other crypto-assets. It is also a partner to several fund managers looking to offer exchange-traded funds–although, it’s not clear when financial regulators will approve such a product.

Still, Chakar said the bank isn’t ready to dive into the market with a custody offering:

“We're not going to rush into this unless we can feel very comfortable that we could support the new digital assets with the same rigor that we support the old ones where we're going to continue to work on fine-tuning our models.”

Chakar also does not believe that a decentralized banking ecosystem will be built to replace banks or traditional finance institutions. Chakar mentioned pensions plans as an example of a traditional finance structure that DeFi may not be able to execute on. Though it's not an impossibility one day, she noted:

“I hate to disappoint people that think the banks are just going to up and disappear and be totally replaced by blockchain.”

Nadine sees the balance between the integration of DeFi traditional finance as that “sweet spot” but sees the industry as still at a starting point.

Episode 42 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Nadine Chakar, Head of State Street Digital at State Street.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Bitcoin bear market? GSR's Rich Rosenblum says crypto is in 'a stasis' Jul 21, 2021

GSR’s Rich Rosenblum doesn’t seem to mind the volatility.

On this week’s episode of The Scoop, GSR Markets co-founder and President Rich Rosenblum, joined The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on the state of the bitcoin market.

The price of the cryptocurrency has been gyrating over the course of the last several weeks, even dropping below $30,000 on Tuesday. That bearish price activity, however, is happening against a backdrop of crypto firms raising hundreds of millions in equity financing.

Rosenblum cut his teeth as an oil trader at Goldman Sachs before launching the crypto trading firm and market maker GSR in 2013. Today, GSR trades billions of dollars worth of crypto. He said what we are seeing is not a bear market.

“I'd say we're in more of a stasis. I think that the market is getting more iterated, more complex than ‘do I buy it and hold it for this rampant bear market or do I get short?’ I think we're a bit in between here.”

Indeed, the private market in crypto startups is heating up, with FTX announcing its own $900 million Series B raise this week. In total, data from The Block Research shows companies have raised $6.2 billion this year. Rosenblum added:

“So, certainly the private equity companies that are coming to the space and looking there, they've got more firepower than the VC’s and they're not afraid to spend. So there's a lot of building, but the price of a token dropping by 50 percent in two or three months, I think it's pushed away not only in retail, but some of the institutional investors. So the token landscape is a little bit quieter. But as say, it's down but not out.”

We also discuss:

The growth of GSR’s team and business operations
Why market makers matter in DeFi
How GSR could make markets in the NFT space
Where Rich is seeing bigger opportunities in crypto trading today
China’s mining ban

Episode 41 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Rich Rosenblum, Co-founder and CEO of GSR Markets.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Rally CEO explains why he wants millions of people to have their own 'creator coins' Jul 16, 2021

Imagine a world with not just a few thousand cryptocurrencies, but billions of them.

That's Rally CEO Kevin Chou’s vision. The founder of mobile gaming heavyweight Kabam joined The Scoop's Frank Chaparro to talk about the development of creator coins, which are blockchain-based tokens that are tied to the social capital of a person.

“We thought about… if you have instead of just thousands of tokens in the world, but you have millions of tokens, tens of millions of tokens, a billion tokens at some future point in time, how do you create a world where people can easily exchange that value?”

To be sure, it’s early days for Rally. The firm has onboarded approximately 160 creators, and that number is growing, with a community that spans athletics, art, and music.

Rally is currently working with musicians like Portugal. The Man, as well as streamers, gamers, celebrities, athletes, and others to create their own fungible tokens via their network.

According to Rally, the decentralized $RLY Community has raised $108 million to date for its community treasury. The project is offering a platform for creators to issue their own 'creator coins' that allow them to engage directly with fans and offer bespoke incentives — thereby giving them the power to “own their economic destiny," as Chou puts it.

But the vision is much broader, according to Chou, who said in the interview:

“How do we eventually think about a world where more and more people choose to create their online identity, reputation and financial wherewithal all on a blockchain. And that's kind of the world that we're trying to solve here on Rally.”

Chou also discusses:

Rally's plan to create network rewards for creators
How creators are earning significant income already with Rally
How Rally aims to work with regulatory commissions across the globe

Episode 40 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kevin Chou, CEO of Rally.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Former NYSE president gives the inside story behind Bullish's $9 billion SPAC deal Jul 14, 2021

Tom Farley, in many respects, was early to crypto.

The 45-year-old — who is best known for his time as the head of the New York Stock Exchange — vividly recalls a conversation with early Coinbase employee Dan Romero, who connected him Coinbase co-founder and fellow Duke alumnus, Fred Ersham.

"So I met with Fred and was blown away by what they were doing and agreed to put ten million dollars on behalf of the New York Stock Exchange into Coinbase," Farley said on the most recent episode of The Scoop. He made that investment in 2013.

Fast forward to 2021: Farley has officially gone full crypto, announcing last week that he would join EOS-backed crypto exchange Bullish as its CEO following the completion of a SPAC deal that would merge the company with Far Peak, the SPAC company Farley joined after his tenure at NYSE.

On this episode of The Scoop, Farley joins The Scoop's Frank Chaparro to discuss the deal, which is expected to be valued at a whopping $9 billion. Farley will enter a crowded market with well-placed competitors like Coinbase, which recently went public at a valuation above $50 billion. Bullish aims to win over clients with a blended market structure that borrows from the DeFi world and centralized exchange space, Farley explained.

“Bullish is really tipping our hat to the successful use of liquidity pools and automated market makers, and it's combining them with a CeFi market structure," Farley said.

Farley also unpacks:

His journey into the crypto Rabbit hole
The inside story on how the Far Peak/Bullish deal executed
The benefits and drawbacks of going public via a SPAC
How SPAC projections can be problematic for investors
Bullish's blended market structure and the benefits automated market makers add to an exchange platform

Episode 39 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Former NYSE President and Incoming CEO of Bullish, Tom Farley.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

'No way back' from China's bitcoin mining clampdown, says The Block's Wolfie Zhao Jul 09, 2021

China banning bitcoin has happened so many times it’s become a meme at this point.

But with this latest crackdown on China-based miners, there might be no coming back, says The Block’s Wolfie Zhao.

“I think the crackdown on bitcoin mining has never been serious. There were a lot of talks in 2018-2019 but there wasn't anything seriously enforced. But this time it seems like there's no way to go back.”

On the most recent episode of The Scoop, Wolfie Zhao, Asia Editor at The Block, explained to host Frank Chaparro how the most recent ban is tied to sustainability concerns within the government.

As Zhao put it:

“So there is the financial side that is cracking down: Banks are cutting funding channels for OTC desks. The other side is the energy angle, which is cracking down on bitcoin miners. That’s why we see Shenzhen shutting down power supplies to bitcoin mining farms… So obviously when the state council made the comment about cracking down on Bitcoin mining, they didn't say we're just going to crackdown on big companies that are using fossil fuel power."

"They just said we want to crackdown," Zhao continued.

Zhao and Chaparro also explore:

The impact of the Chinese miner exodus on the bitcoin network
How one region tried to buck the broader crackdown
Why the US now has a better business environment for bitcoin miners
The biggest misconceptions about bitcoin mining in China
Why the mining crackdown is not just an ESG issue

For a detailed timeline of China’s crackdown on mining, check out Zhao's full report.

Episode 38 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and The Block's Asia Editor Wolfie Zhao.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Fintechs are hungry for DeFi yields, says Compound’s Robert Leshner Jul 06, 2021

It’s no secret that investors find themselves in a low-yield environment. And that backdrop is forcing investors to explore DeFi.

That’s part of the logic behind the recently announced Compound Treasury, a new company that allows investors and firms to access the yields on Compound without engaging directly with the blockchain.

On this episode of The Scoop, Compound Labs’ Founder Robert Leshner unpacks how institutional flows hunting for yield are finding their way to DeFi — and how he sees Compound Treasury playing a role facilitating that migration.

“Compound Treasury is what we hope is an embodiment of this, where we can source the yields from the compound protocol and pass it to institutional customers and abstract away all of the nuance of interacting with smart contracts and managing the flow of funds." Leshner predicted that over time, DeFi and traditional finance will become more intertwined.

“I think over time, yields will converge,” he noted. Until then, fintechs will look to services like Compound Treasury to juice yields which have been on a downward spiral. Wealthfront — which at one point offered a return of 2.5% APY for cash accounts — currently offers 0.10% APY. Robinhood offers 0.30%.

There are a number of factors that are playing into high DeFi yields, including the existence of “natural risk premiums” in DeFi compared to traditional technical risks in legacy finance. He posited how DeFi could prove to be more resilient against risk relative to traditional financial systems in the long run:

“You have what I would call ‘natural risk premiums’ that exist in DeFi that don't exist in traditional markets. The best being technical risk. So technical risk is the risk that the protocol itself just breaks in an unexpected way. Now, longterm, DeFi is safer infrastructure than anything in traditional markets. The reason being a smart contract when it's immutable, if it works, it'll work forever.”

Episode 37 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Compound Labs' Founder Robert Leshner

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Inside Anthony Scaramucci's bitcoin and ether ETF game plan Jun 29, 2021

Anthony Scaramucci — the New York financier and former White House official — first jumped into the crypto fray at the end of last year.

Now, Scaramucci is going all in.

During the latest episode of The Scoop, the Skybridge Capital founder walks listeners through his journey to bitcoin. Skybridge first began investing in BTC at the end of last year.

"We have a full commitment to crypto," he remarked.

Since then, Skybridge has thrown its hat in the bitcoin exchange-traded product ring and also plans to launch an ETF that has exposure to publicly traded cryptocurrency companies.

Indeed, Skybridge is one of a number of U.S. companies vying to go to market with a bitcoin ETF. But the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to give the nod to such a product, and the proposed ETF that's furthest along in the process — put forward by asset management company VanEck — is now the subject of an additional comment period. Other companies, like NYDIG, Fidelity and Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, are among those pursuing bitcoin ETF launches.

Skybridge also has plans to launch a private Ethereum fund.

"July 1st, we're launching a private Ethereum fund. We’ll then file for an ETF for Ethereum. Again, it is anybody's guess when those things will be going," he said.

Scaramucci went on to say:

"I can say — which is public information — that we did file for an ETF related to Bitcoin. We also have a UIT with a company out of Wheaton, Illinois, called First Trust… as we're speaking, we're making an announcement on an ETF for a digital innovation fund that has some great publicly traded assets that we think are geared related to [Ethereum], related to Bitcoin, but also the other coins."

Scaramucci believes he can lean on his Wall Street chops for product adoption. He cited Morgan Stanley’s buy-in to SkyBridge’s digital asset portfolio as another example of Wall Street’s appetite for Bitcoin. “Morgan Stanley is a very big part of our business."

Episode 36 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

VC exec makes the bull case for NFT's and the 'metaverse' Jun 25, 2021

Crypto venture investing is heating up.

In 2021, VCs poured $3.18 billion into crypto startups in Q1 2021, an increase from $1.1 billion in Q1 2020.

On this episode of The Scoop, Vanessa Grellet, CoinFund’s newly joined Head of Portfolio Growth, joins the show for a discussion on the current state of the crypto venture capital market.

“If you compare the deal flow of crypto compared to private equity and hedge funds and the general space, it's still small. And I think there's a few cycles right now. We see the products getting product markets, trade and adoption with consumers. So you see a big deal flow of the more mature series coming up and institutional investors really getting interested here. And then innovation continues at a very rapid pace in the space,” she told The Scoop's Frank Chaparro.

Grellet, who previously led strategic initiatives for Ethereum at Consensys, also walked us through some of the investment opportunities CoinFund is eyeing. She touched specifically on NFTs and the metaverse — referring to a convergence of physical and digital lives in a digital space. Grellet is bullish that certain groups will begin spending more time in the digital world, buying up digital land, collectibles, and other NFTs.

“[We’re] having digital first generations who are going to live in the Metaverse, who are buying land, who are buying clothes, who are buying experiences there, it creates almost like a second huge market for consumer goods and experience,” she said.

(CoinFund is known for its presence in the NFT market, having previously invested in Genies, Upshot, and other NFT groups.)

Grellet also teased an upcoming announcement from CoinFund on their new vehicle “Metaversal,” which will help capture consumer interest in NFTs in the metaverse.

Episode 35 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CoinFund's Head of Portfolio Growth Vanessa Grellet.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Galaxy Digital's bitcoin mining lead breaks down China and bitcoin's energy footprint Jun 23, 2021

Bitcoin mining continues to make headlines this week as China ramps up its clampdown on the long-running — and once-dominant — sector.

In the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Amanda Fabiano — who leads Galaxy Digital’s mining business — explained exactly what is happening in China, noting that authorities there recently ordered bitcoin mining projects to close in the southwest province of Sichuan.

However, this could provide a bull case for North American mining, as miners are pushed out of China in search of areas with cheaper sources of energy like Kazhakstan.

“A lot of people have built lives there on Bitcoin mining. They were the first people who dove into how to set up these large mining facilities. They have been holding the Bitcoin network up and running it forever. So I genuinely feel for the groups that have been working on that... On the other side, I think it's really bullish for North American mining. And I also think it's a testament to how the Bitcoin network is so resilient. An entire country just banned Bitcoin mining that is supposedly accounting for the largest hash distribution in the world. And yet the Bitcoin network continues on.”

Rising concerns about curbing the energy consumption in bitcoin mining in China have also lead to ESG initiatives in the hopes of producing sustainable mining solutions.

But the promise of a sustainable coin seems like one too good to be true. Fabiano dispels some of the misconceptions around bitcoin mining and what it really looks like for a coin to be mined with renewable energy.

“So when we think about the amounts of electricity, for example, that's lost in energy end transmission and distribution it's 19 times that of the Bitcoin network. And the energy footprint of always-on electrical devices in America is 12.1 times that of the Bitcoin network," Fabiano said, adding:

"But what we always hear is how Bitcoin is ruining the world. We don't care about how your toaster being left on is ruining the world because people don't care that much about it. I think it's really easy to pick on bitcoin’s energy consumption because it is so transparent."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

The two signs of strength in DeFi today, according to The Block's Mika Honkasalo Jun 18, 2021

The slump in prices across the cryptocurrency market has hit DeFi hard.

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Mika Honkasalo walked us through The Block's Data Dashboard to illustrate the impact of the decline in retail interest across non-custodial trading venues.

The most notable area of weakness is demand for trading with leverage on decentralized derivatives venues such as Perpetual Protocol, which are "more reflexive versions of DEX's themselves," according to Honkasalo. "And this is where the trade volumes have really dropped off—almost 80 to 90 percent."

DEX volumes on venues like Uniswap and Sushiswap have held up a bit better, but are down around 50%, according to Honkasalo.

Still, there are some areas of growth despite the overall market doldrums.

Lending protocols, for instance, have seen growth recently. Outstanding Aave debt has surged and clocked in fresh all-time highs earlier this month. Honkasalo ties this to a thirst for dollars in the market.

Yearn is another example "of where the money is going," Honkasalo added. According to the Data Dashboard, total value locked in Yearn vaults hit an all-time high above $5 billion this month.

Looking to the future, Honkasalo said that it will be interesting to watch how technical improvements in DeFi help sustain future periods of price appreciation, noting that the most recent cycle was stunted by scaling limitations.

"Ethereum ran into this problem where no one could really use Ethereum when it was really really popular, and now that we have these layer two solutions coming up like Arbitrum and Optimism, it may be that the last time was really the last time where as soon as activity picks up it becomes immediately way too expensive for users, and that's the path to the excitement dying down," he said.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Bitwise CEO explains how bitcoin’s “magical” volatility will woo Wall Street firms Jun 16, 2021

Bitwise, the $1 billion-plus crypto asset management firm, announced a Series B funding round to further advance its index and fund products on Wall Street.

With the raise, Bitwise became the latest startup in the digital asset industry to raise fresh capital amid a period of heightened interest from institutions and their clients.

In this episode of The Scoop, Bitwise co-founder and CEO Hunter Horsley explained how the industry is creating access for new classes of investors. In Horsley’s view, traditional portfolio managers and financial advisors remain an untapped market for the nascent crypto asset management industry.

In terms of the volatility, Hunter sees this as a positive. For Bitwise, volatility means the opportunity for financial advisors to enter the cryptocurrency market by adopting crypto as another asset class in a client or portfolio’s diversification strategy.

“The volatility of crypto is a magical gift for a financial advisor. What do I mean by that? If you're an individual who downloads one of the incredible apps that you have today, you see this jagged price chart, this twenty-four-hour price chart. Right. It's very scary, prone to emotional trading. And that's the scary version of volatility. If you're a financial advisor constructing a portfolio that you want to have certain low correlations, you want to have a certain Sharpe ratio, you want to balance across different asset classes. Well, in that case, crypto volatility is actually very useful.”

Looking back to Bitwise's latest round, the startup managed to attract notable backers. Indeed, some of the investors involved in raising the Series B round were industry heavy-hitters.As Horsley put it:

“[The Series B Funding was] collected by Elad Gil, one of the most accomplished technology investors, Electric Capital, one of the leading crypto venture capital firms and some renowned Wall Street investors; Dan Loeb's Third Point, Daniel Ochs Willoughby, Louis Bacon’s Moore Strategic Ventures, Henry Kravis, Stanley Druckenmiller and [Bridgewater CEO] Dave McCormick.”

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Alex Gladstein on the significance of El Salvador's bitcoin moves Jun 11, 2021

Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation, is excited about the implications of El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin.

Last week, Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, sparked shockwaves across the bitcoin community with his Miami conference announcement of a proposed bill to declare bitcoin as legal tender in the country and mandate its acceptance as a means of payment. Earlier this week, the bill was formally introduced and then signed into law.

During a new episode of The Scoop, Gladstein explained what's happening in El Salvador and the ramifications from a domestic and international human rights perspective. Gladstein pointed out that it's significant that El Salvador opted for bitcoin versus building a digital currency the government could have more control over.

Gladstein also unpacked what the move means for bitcoin’s role as a form of money. While major Wall Street firms have invested in bitcoin over the last year in part for its use case as digital gold — an inflation hedge — Gladstein says that bitcoin’s role as a quick, borderless payments vehicle is becoming increasingly important. Developments like El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender and advancements in the build-out of Lightning, a bitcoin scaling project, are fueling that shift, according to Gladstein.

“Most people don't think bitcoin is money, but what if it was actually turning into money? What would that look like? What would that seem like?... And that's literally what we're watching unfold," he said during the interview, noting:

“[Bitcoin] has these remarkable properties that allow it to enable connections between people in different places in the world. So I guess my argument is that we're kind of entering this next narrative phase of Bitcoin, what we perceive it to be, and it being enacted or adopted by a country not as an asset necessarily on the central bank balance sheet, but as legal tender.”

As for what this means for the people of El Salvador, specifically, Gladstein said that it will help bank many unbanked citizens.

“70 percent of the country doesn't have a bank account, but more than 50 percent of the country has Internet access. So there is a significant overlap there of people whose lives are being changed as a result of this.”

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

FalconX's Aya Kantorovich explains what's been behind bitcoin's latest price gyrations Jun 03, 2021

Aya Kantorovich, head of institutional coverage at FalconX, has been experiencing a bit of déjà vu.

Kantorovich, a former associate at crypto hedge fund Pantera, joined The Scoop to unpack the crypto market's recent bouts of volatility and how the market is stuck in a cycle of retail-led drawdowns. FalconX — an aggregator of crypto trading flows — has a window into both the retail and institutional market.

According to Kantorovich, liquidations across off-shore market venues, cascading liquidations, and the inability for traders to access crypto exchange platforms drive prices down. When money can't move around, price drawdowns are amplified.

"We saw $2 billion worth of liquidations happening across BTC," she said. "Retail liquidations was a large portion of this ... and then a cascading effect."

"When you have this level of heightened volatility you see some exchanges begin to shut down their trading capabilities and when these centralized trading platforms shut down those capabilities then traders don't have the ability to top off on their margin so you see a continued cascade," she added.

Kantorovich doesn't think this is a cycle that will break because many new institutions have to sell when the price reaches a certain threshold. Unlike crypto native whales, which have driven the buying at the dip, large billion-dollar plus asset managers "have a completely different level of drawdowns that they're allowed to maintain."

"Let's say the market falls down by 30%, they have a fiduciary obligation to take money off the table," she said. "These aren't the momentum diamond hands that we're so used to seeing in crypto."

"I think the reason for that is we are going to continue to see institutions that do not have a momentum-long venture persona ... and that could be both good or bad for the space."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus

Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Crypto quant hedge fund CIO explains the impact of Elon Musk's tweets on the bitcoin market May 25, 2021

Elon Musk's trigger-happy Twitter fingers have left the bitcoin world in a tizzy in recent days.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent piece, Musk has become bitcoin's "biggest influencer" — much to the dismay of many evangelists. Since he first tweeted that Tesla would stop accepting bitcoin as payment because of environmental concerns, bitcoin has fallen about 40% from its all-time highs.

More recent tweets about Musk working with North American miners on addressing environmental concerns have pushed the crypto from lows near $30,000.

On this most recent episode of The Scoop, Martin Green, who leads quant investment firm Cambrian Asset Management, explained why Musk's tweets are having such an outsized impact on the crypto market. In Green's view, it's not so much Musk's tweets that matter but the environment into which he is tweeting.

"Often the news itself, like Elon's tweet, would have a different consequence in a different situation," he said. "You can light a match in the middle of my driveway... you can take that match and drop it on the floor in an open space. Monstrous difference in the consequences. Still the same match."

Green said that the crypto market has been primed to overreact to market news thanks to the amount of leverage in the system, which creates "a cascading of selling pressure."

The lack of institutional spot buying recently has added fuel to the fire.

Still, Green said there are a number of tailwinds for the industry. He said that there are macro forces that indicate that institutions are under-allocated to the crypto market, noting specifically that Ethereum is "quite under-owned."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

'Nowhere near a top': Framework's Vance Spencer on institutional adoption and the memecoin mania May 14, 2021

In Vance Spencer's view, the market is completely undercounting the amount of capital that's about to move into the crypto world from institutional investor circles.

The co-founder of the $1 billion-plus investment firm Framework Ventures would have a good sense of that trajectory, considering how Framework wrapped up a $100 million fundraise for a new fund in the decentralized finance market.

Announced Friday, backers of the new fund include the $40 billion investment firm Hall Capital Partners and unnamed endowments, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Spencer joined The Scoop (prior to the raise being made public) to unpack the case for Ethereum, which powers much of the DeFi market, the impact of Dogecoin mania, and institutional adoption of crypto.

"The resounding sense that I get is that people are underestimating the amount of capital that's coming off the sidelines by probably 1 to 2 orders of magnitude," Spencer said.

Spencer said that Ethereum and Bitcoin are the two cryptos that are "on the menu" for the large investors and are both "nowhere near a top."

Still, he added that the story of Ethereum "has a lot more to be told in a world where there is not hyperinflation or there's not all these crazy things happening than [bitcoin's story]."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Downtown Josh Brown on bitcoin, wealth management, and the big risk in the market May 07, 2021

Wall Street is embracing crypto one headline-driving development at a time.

From Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley, major banks are moving from exploring the digital asset world to fully operating in it.

Goldman, for instance, announced Friday it would restart its market for non-deliverable forwards tied to bitcoin. Both Morgan Stanley and Goldman have said they will offer their wealthiest clients exposure to bitcoin. But one channel that has yet to fully embrace crypto is the independent wealth management market.

Josh Brown — the brains behind the well-followed Reformed Broker blog — is among the legion of wealth managers who have yet to start advising their clients to buy crypto.

The CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management joined The Scoop to talk about how financial advisors are examining the fast-growing $2 trillion market, why he is skeptical of non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance, and how Covid-19 turned the idea of risk on its head.

Here's a blurb from the show:

"The most concerning is that what we’ve just witnessed completely flipped the entire concept of risk on its head because we’ve just had the biggest risk in 100 years. We had Spanish Flu 2.0 in the modern era, like traveling three times faster than the 1918 version, right? Like the biggest risk you could think of, millions of people suddenly dropping dead from a global pandemic. It turned out to be one of the biggest opportunities. And you didn’t have to wait three years or eight years like the Great Depression to figure that out. Literally. The stock market fell for 16 days and stopped. Think about that. So what even is risk anymore? What if I tell you the next thing is a nuclear bomb going off somewhere? Dow Jones might go up 50%."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried breaks down the Solana and Serum ecoystems May 03, 2021

It's been an impressive month for the digital assets tied to billionaire crypto exchange executive Sam Bankman-Fried.

Solana, the layer-1 blockchain competitor to Ethereum, has seen its price surge 47.8% over the last month, according to CoinGecko. Bankman-Fried is one of Solana's most prominent supporters. Meanwhile, Serum, the Solana-based DEX, has seen its native token Serum increase by nearly 62% over the last seven days, Coin Gecko data shows.

During this episode of The Scoop, we dive deep into the Solana and Serum eco-systems. Sam Bankman-Fried explains why FTX decided to launch a decentralized exchange on Solana versus Ethereum, which supports the vast majority of non-custodial protocols.

"Any products that we tried to build or that even that we tried to scope out — we originally were just definitely going to build on Ethereum because that's where everything was — product after product got into the same death dial which was 10 transactions a second for the network was just not enough," Bankman-Fried said.

Solana's blockchain promises more scalability through a new consensus mechanism known as Proof of History. It appears to be favorable among traders. Serum, which FTX announced in July, has seen its trading volumes top $1 billion last month, as per The Block's data dashboard.

Of course, the benefits of a more scalable blockchain raises questions about decentralization. He said that there are limitations relative to Ethereum, but it is possible to get a lot more participation than other more scalable blockchains.

"Solana has gone down in the direction of saying, hey, look we want the performance of blockchain to be an important criteria of it and we care a lot about the efficiency and scaling and economics of it," he said. "While also wanting there to be a sufficiently big group of nodes. Now, what does sufficiently mean? I don't know. Different people have different thresholds. Right now, they're about 600 active nodes on Solana."

"At that level, you're certainly going to be in the position where everyone in the world is running a Solana node, but you could be in the position where 5% of the world is running one," Bankman-Fried added. "You can't get the same number as you can with Ethereum."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

'The threat right now is not Yellen': Kristin Smith on crypto rumors and DC policy Apr 30, 2021

It was a tweet heard 'round the crypto world.

A breaking news account fired off, in all caps, an unsubstantiated headline that the U.S. Treasury Department was set to crack down on a number of unknown banks for their activity in the crypto market. Soon after the tweet's release, several industry insiders — including the Blockchain Association's Kristin Smith — threw cold water on its key claim.

"There's a lot of rumors going around that don't have any truth of foundation," Smith said.

In this episode of The Scoop, Smith unpacked the erroneous rumor, why U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen isn't making bitcoin a priority right now, how crypto policy works, and why crypto market participants should be concerned about the Financial Action Task Force decision coming this June.

As Smith put it during the interview:

"The thing that we do have to worry about at Treasury isn't coming from the top people as I said but Treasury's interaction with the Financial Action Task Force or the FATF. The FATF has proposed something that is fairly scary ... if adopted would require a lot of different entities in the U.S. to register as money services businesses."

Smith went on to add: "The threat right now is not Yellen."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.

Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.

Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

CEO of a fintech that powers hundreds of stock apps unpacks why it offers dogecoin services Apr 21, 2021

Apex Clearing facilitates more than 1.7 million trades a day as the clearing and custody firm behind hundreds of fintech trading platforms.

The firm, which entered the crypto market in 2019, provides more than 200 companies, including the likes of Stash, Public.com, and WeBull, with the technology to clear stock trades. At one point Apex also powered Robinhood's platform before the California-based firm launched its own clearing solution.

On the crypto side, Apex Crypto helps brokers create their own crypto trading products. That business touches more than 1 million retail clients today.

This past weekend, Apex began supporting Dogecoin, unleashing the meme-coin on more than 13 million end-clients. It was good timing considering the price of the coin has whipsawed as retail traders turned their attention toward that particular cryptocurrency market.

In this episode of The Scoop, Apex Clearing CEO Bill Capuzzi talks about the growth of its crypto business, what drew it to the dogecoin market, and why stockbrokers will ultimately break into the non-fungible token (NFT) space.

"We opened close to 150,000 accounts since we announced and launched Dogecoin from Saturday until today," Capuzzi said, adding:

"They’re hearing it from their end customers. Right. So the end customers are raising their hands and saying, hey, we’d like access to Dogecoin through WeBull, and WeBull is leveraging Apex on the backend."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

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Here’s how big brokerage firms are breaking into bitcoin trading Apr 16, 2021

Crypto brokers are making money hand over fist.

The direct listing of Coinbase put on display just how much money such firms are making, with the exchange reporting nearly $2 billion in revenues during the first quarter of 2021. Much of those revenues were transactional and from trades made on its retail brokerage platform.

Other large brokerages want in on the action, according to Edward Woodford, CEO of crypto firm ZeroHash. The Chicago-based firm works with brokers to jumpstart their own solutions to serve retail clients. On this episode of The Scoop, Woodford joins options brokerage industry trailblazer Tom Sosnoff to discuss why brokers want to create one-stop shops for their clients by incorporating crypto trading as well as the revenue opportunities crypto presents.

Sosnoff founded tastyworks, which began offering crypto through a partnership with ZeroHash announced at the end of last year.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

An executive at Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund, unpacks bitcoin's role in the macro picture Apr 08, 2021

Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund, isn't convinced by the bitcoin narrative yet, but it's listening.

On this week's episode of The Scoop, Bridgewater's director of portfolio strategy Jim Haskel said he's not surprised by the growing institutional interest.

Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio previously said he didn't see bitcoin's merits as a currency, but he amended his statements in a newsletter published earlier this year.

"I believe Bitcoin is one hell of an invention," Dalio wrote at the time.

Haskel said Bridgewater remains skeptical but also recognizes bitcoin's "fantastic" attributes. Though the cryptocurrency's price remains volatile and lacks some of the characteristics of traditional wealth from Bridgewater's point of view, Haskel says he sees potential.

"What I would say is that we certainly have not rejected it as a potential store hold of wealth," Haskel remarked. "We just wouldn’t use it in big size yet."

On this week's episode, Haskell talked about Bridgewater's unfolding bitcoin strategy as well as:

If it's still possible for funds to have access to unsustainable levels of leverage
Whether the inflation alarmists are justified
What the impact of continued recovery will be on assets and how that affects alternative allocations
How Bridgewater started considering bitcoin as an inflation hedge.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken.

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

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Miami is collaborating with Ethereum developers to put city services on the blockchain Apr 06, 2021

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez turned heads earlier this year when he said he wanted the Florida city to add bitcoin to its treasury.

Now, Suarez is pushing a commitment for the city to explore crypto by turning his attention to Ethereum. According to a new episode of The Scoop, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and Suarez announced that they have embarked on a new collaborative project focused on city services.

To be sure, it's early days for the initiative, but the two have met on two occasions now and talks about the scope of the initiative continue.

"We're trying to come up with a project that goes through the foundation and directly with Ethereum that we can do with the city," said Suarez. "We want the city directly involved in a way that demonstrates the applicability of the software so that we can continue to provide better services for our residents."

There's a bit of history underpinning the developments: it was in Miami that Buterin, in 2014, first unveiled Ethereum to the world during a presentation at the Bitcoin Miami conference.

According to Suarez, decentralized information systems are becoming a priority for Miami, especially with looming security concerns like the upcoming hurricane season.

During this week's episode, Suarez and Buterin, along with Cryptex founders Preston Van Loon and Joe Sticco, also discussed:

How the Ethereum ecosystem can help create jobs in Miami
The ways in which decentralized systems would benefit the city, like the transfer of title records for real estate
Why now is the time to start building a project like this despite Ethereum's scalability issues
How Florida is trying to join Wyoming in becoming the next regulatory bastion for crypto.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken.

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

A Washington DC insider lays out her vision for the bitcoin market's first self-regulatory organization Mar 31, 2021

Michelle Bond has been focused on financial regulation for decades, and a turn to crypto policy a few years ago led her to take the helm at the Association for Digital Assets Markets by the end of 2020.

ADAM is a trade association for crypto markets, featuring a code of conduct that requires its members to commit to operating with certain requirements of transparency and speed.

"ADAM is 100% a standards-setting body," Bond said during the most recent episode of The Scoop.

ADAM's membership includes such industry players as Anchorage, Paxos and Genesis and the group functions as a collective voice for its members. The group's ultimate goal is to provide for the crypto market what FINRA is to securities brokerages: an industry-spearheading body for self-regulation.

"We would like to, one day, become a self-regulatory organization. We believe that that is not something that is decreed, that is earned. At the current moment, we're setting the standards," said Bond.

Among major issues of the day, Bond noted that industry participants are awaiting a response from the Treasury's FinCEN office on the recently closed comments on its proposal to monitor rules.

Less publicized but still critical is custody. Financial regulators in Washington, Bond said, "are 1,000% asking questions and grappling with custody."

As always, writing up such policies for crypto finance entails a combination of technological and legal savvy. This is where self-regulation comes in. Though Bond, like much of the industry, lamented the lack of coherent frameworks from financial watchdogs like her former workplace, the SEC, she identified the situation as fairly standard:

"Regulators will never come right out and endorse anything. That will never happen. And that makes sense; that's not their job."

But by presenting a code for how to operate in today's fast-moving crypto market, ADAM aims to accomplish what regulators have not.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken.

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

A deep dive into Uniswap v3 with The Block's Mika Honkasalo Mar 26, 2021

After much anticipation, Uniswap v3 — the latest upgrade to the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange — was announced Tuesday.

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block Research's Mika Honkasalo walked through the designed upgrade, explaining the significance of Uniswap's adoption of "concentrated liquidity" which aims to make trading on the platform more capital efficient.

In Honkasalo's view, this move will help with the adoption of Uniswap among traders and perhaps serve as a tailwind for the broader DeFi market.

"I think this is why Uniswap really had nowhere to go in their design except move towards this sort of active liquidity provision because that’s something that works with traditional markets,” he said, adding:

"I think what this unlocks next is the possibility to support just more volumes, especially in combination with the L2 launch, which hopefully comes very quickly after the L1 launch is to really start competing against centralized exchanges."

Uniswap v3 — set to be implemented in May — will also include Uniswap's adoption of scaling solution Optimism, which aims to reduce gas fees.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

This NFT artist is exploring what a real-world gallery would look like for digital art Mar 22, 2021

Digital artist Beeple sold his collection of 5000 daily works for a whopping $69 million in a Christie's auction last week. That's the third-highest auction price on record for a living artist, but the sale was record breaking for another reason — it was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT).

In recent weeks, NFTs have soared in popularity, and that's created opportunities for big and small artists alike to generate value for their work. The Block's Saniya More sat down with Cory Van Lew, an artist who's been tokenizing his work on SuperRare, with some pieces going for tens of thousands of dollars.

He's taken a lot of that profit and reinvested it in the NFT market by supporting other artists, but he has even bigger aspirations — he's just started the process of creating his own NFT gallery in the physical world. On this week's episode of The Scoop, he talked about what a merged digital and reality gallery would look like, as well as:

How Van Lew began his career as an artist and how that led him to tokenizing his work.
The nuts and bolts of turning a creation into an NFT.
Why holding NFTs creates different value than say holding a print of an artwork.
His take on the energy use conversations surrounding NFTs.
Why the NFT community is a supportive space for creators and collectors.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

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Bitcoin is drawing in the banking world's core customers, Fidelity exec says Mar 16, 2021

Fidelity Digital Assets — the cryptocurrency division of multi-trillion asset manager Fidelity — is among the several firms riding the institutional bitcoin wave.

FDA, which launched amid a bitcoin bear market in 2018, offers trading and custody services to a wide range of institutional firms. On this episode of The Scoop, Fidelity's Christine Sandler — a veteran of the trading world — walked through the breakneck growth of the crypto market in the past six months and explained how Fidelity has positioned itself during this period.

Sandler, who previously held positions at Coinbase, New York Stock Exchange, and Barclays, said Fidelity's crypto unit experienced 4x growth during 2020 and is currently working with hedge funds, corporates, family offices, and registered investment advisers.

"Our overall account growth was absolutely phenomenal," Sandler said. "We saw participation across all segments. So whether it was corporations adopting it and putting assets on their balance sheet, or hedge funds beginning to approach this from a strategic perspective, registered investment advisors, family offices, ultra-high net worth individuals."

Fidelity also works with large banks on sub-custody, according to Sandler. She said that these banks have sought out partners as they look to enter the market.

"They’re starting to see more of their core customers adopt either strategies or maybe think about launching an asset management business in the space and perhaps this creates this opportunity that it’s not this fledgling business anymore," she said. "It is potentially much more viable."

Sandler also discusses the growth of the crypto credit market, women in the crypto market, and rich crypto valuations during this episode of The Scoop.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

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Artist who tokenized album for $11M explains why the NFT boom isn't like the ICO craze Mar 12, 2021

The market for non-fungible tokens, digital collectibles, and tokenized music is hitting the mainstream. On Thursday, Beeple's NFT-powered suite of 5,000 images sold for a staggering $69 million, making it the third-highest figure paid for work by a living artist. Indeed, the sale sent shockwaves across the broader press, cementing NFT's place in the mainstream consciousness.

The market has been growing at a fast clip, with weekly users on NFT platforms soaring from around 20,000 at the beginning of the year to nearly 200,000 this week, according to data from The Block.

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Frank Chaparro and Ryan Todd unpack the market's recent headlines with DJ and music producer 3Lau.

Performing artist 3Lau has long been focused on the intersection of music and crypto. Recently, he tokenized an album in a move that netted the Long Island native more than $11 million.

In this episode of The Scoop, the group discusses how tokenization will usurp record labels and put more money in the pockets of artists, his plans for helping more artists get involved in NFTs, and what makes this current crypto boom cycle different from the initial coin offering rally.

"You have these middlemen that have capitalized on artists' emotions and their lack of financial savviness," he said, describing the record labels and managing companies that capture much of the value from a musician's work.

Through NFTs, artists can now engage directly with their audiences.

"Beeple is an example of that as someone who makes amazing stuff. Will there be speculation in the short term? Yes. Will there be innovation in the long term? Yes," he said, adding:

"But in the end, just like with any market, there is a period of price discovery and that's what we're going through right now. The difference between this and what happened with the ICO boom in 2017: back then, people were buying ideas that could barely be delivered upon. Now people are buying things that give them emotions."

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

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Angel investor Gary Vaynerchuk explains the disruptive power behind NFTs Mar 09, 2021

The market for non-fungible tokens and digital collectibles has been growing at a breakneck pace, with projects like Dapper Lab's NBA Top Shot seeing user activity and transaction volumes soar.

Since the beginning of the year, the burgeoning market — which runs the gamut of sports collectibles to digital cats — has seen more than half a billion in weekly trade volumes, according to data compiled by The Block.

On this episode of The Scoop, Gary Vaynerchuk — the Internet personality, entrepreneur, and CEO of VaynerMedia—broke down what's taking place beyond the hype and why he thinks NFTs are going to be the internet's next big thing after the development of social media.

Vaynerchuk is best known for his angel investments in tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, Venmo, and Uber.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

ARK's research lead breaksdown the firm's rise, recent market jitters, and bitcoin Mar 05, 2021

ARK Invest has had quite the 2021.

Since the beginning of the year—underpinned by unprecedented trading volumes and retail activity—ARK has seen its assets under management soar, buoyed by its bets high-growth tech stocks. Many of the names ARK has backed overlap with the stocks that have become darlings among the Wall Street Bets crowd. Indeed, ARK has grown into a heavy-hitter on Wall Street, with the Wall Street Journal referring to founder Cathie Wood as having on of "Wall Street's hottest hands."

The latest few trading sessions, whoever, the firm has experienced a reckoning. The firm's Ark Innovation fund—which includes Tesla, Square, and Silvergate—has fallen sharply past the overall market, as The Journal noted. The $23 billion fund is down more than 30% off its highs.

On this episode of The Scoop, Brett Winton—the firm's head of research—breaks down the firm's insurmountable rise, the recent market volatility and macro backdrop, Wall Street Bets and the explosion in retail trading, and the big ideas within the crypto and bitcoin that ARK finds interesting.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

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Deep dive into Eth 2.0, scaling and a project that lets users buy the entire crypto market Mar 02, 2021

Led by Ethereum 2.0 developer and Prysmatic Labs founder Preston Van Loon and Joe Sticco, Cryptex is set to launch the mainnet of its token TCAP in the next few weeks. Already, the firm has lined up 500 users for its testnet, including a number of liquidity providers in the US.

On this episode of The Scoop, Sticco and Van Loon breakdown the launch of their token, which offers investors a way to buy the entire crypto market, how DeFi can offer an alternative to indexes popular on Wall Street, and the scaling solutions being explored in Ethereum.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken

Bakkt

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

Bloomberg's ETF whisperer says the SEC could approve a BTC ETF Feb 26, 2021

Regulators in Canada approved two bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in recent days, marking the first approvals of their kind for North America.

Since launch, the products have seen considerable inflows. With the demand for a bitcoin ETF now proven, many wonder what a Canadian approval could mean for a U.S. offering.

The Scoop spoke with Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, about what an approved bitcoin ETF means for the landscape. During this week's episode Balchunas broke down the winding road to approval and why Canada was always likely to be a first.

Now that Canada has its BTC ETFs, he argued that an approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is just around the corner.

"I think it's just a matter of the SEC coming around, and then once they come around mentally, I imagine it will happen pretty quickly," he said. "But again, I'm not in that bubble. I'm not a regulatory analyst. That's just my sense from talking to people."

How Canada has historically been a proving ground for novel financial products.
The differences and similarities in the Canadian and U.S. approval processes.
Why Balchunas thinks 2021 will be the year of a U.S. BTC ETF approval.
Why it's only a matter of time before a meme ETF launches.

This episode is brought to you by Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

Breaking down Coinbase's S-1 filing and what it means for the bitcoin market Feb 25, 2021

Thursday morning, Coinbase's S-1 filing went public, revealing for the first time details about its financials, cap table, and its pitch to the investment world ahead of a planned direct listing on Nasdaq.

In this episode of The Scoop, The Block's director of news Frank Chaparro and director of research Larry Cermak unpack the S-1 filing's headline-grabbing sections and the broader implications of Coinbase's plan on the broader bitcoin market.

Coinbase has been preparing to go public for several months. For the past several weeks, the firm's shares have been changing hands on Nasdaq Private Market, with the most recent secondary shares clearing at an average of $373 — implying a valuation of $100 billion.

In this episode of The Scoop, Chaparro and Cermak explore Coinbase's revenues, how the firm's institutional business has surged in lockstep with bitcoin's price run-up, and how Coinbase's position as a public company will impact the firm and wider market.

DyDx founder unpacks ethereum scaling and DeFi derivatives Feb 19, 2021

Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX is expanding. After raising $10 million in Series B funding last month, the team is gearing up for its coming V3 launch.

Founder Antonio Juliano sat down with The Scoop this week to talk about where the decentralized finance (DeFi) space is going in the coming year. They could be the answer to the traditional financial system's transparency and security problems. But first, they have to scale.

Juliano told The Scoop how dYdX is handling scalability, including mitigating high gas fees. They're using ZK-Rollups, or zero knowledge proofs. These proofs take information and create a "constant sized data object" which means no matter how much data is input, the information remains the same size. The idea is that thousands of trades can be compressed into a small size to run on Ethereum, circumventing the high fees.

They're planning on launching their scaling solution in partnership with StarkWare in the next two weeks, according to Juliano. Juliano broke down dYdX's path to ZK-Rollups in this week's episode of The Scoop, along with:

Where dYdX's origins began and why it was long before the boom of DeFi.
How its flagship product, the perpetual swap, works.
Why Ethereum layer 2 scaling solutions help projects like dYdX build out their market and which solutions dYdX almost went with.
When the DeFi market might collide with the centralized markets, and how interoperability and scaling will lead the way.

This episode is brought to you by Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

Grayscale's CEO details hiring plans, the long-term goal of a bitcoin ETF Feb 16, 2021

Michael Sonnenshein took the reigns of cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments earlier this year.

At the helm of the more than $30 billion investment firm, Sonnenshein is charting a course for a broad expansion of the business, which is best known for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

"We brought in $5.7 billion last year," Sonnenshein said. "We are launching new products, we are investing in technology, we're building out the various teams, it's really about continuing to stay ahead of the growth we are experiencing at really an unprecedented rate."

New inflows into the firm helped push Grayscale's assets under management (AUM) to new highs, while also lining its pockets with fee-based revenue. Estimates by The Block Research suggest Grayscale has brought in more than $109 million year-to-date.

In addition to new hires, the firm has a plan for upgrading its GBTC product to an exchange-traded fund should the regulators ultimately approve such a product.

"We spent the better part of 2017 in SEC registration for Grayscale Bitcoin Trust," Sonnenshein told The Block. "And we made a lot of progress with the commission and ultimately realized the regulatory environment wasn't ready for a bitcoin ETF and we pulled out of that process."

He added:

"But we hope in the future, like we were planning to in 2017, to register and uplift GBTC onto a national securities exchange as a bonafide ETF."

Still, competition is mounting, with BlockFi and Osprey recently rolling out new funds. There's also Bitwise, which has seen its assets under management climb towards $1 billion in recent months.

In this episode of The Scoop, Sonnenshein breaks down its hiring goals for 2021 as well as the following:

What a bitcoin ETF approval means for Grayscale's GBTC
Why mounting competition will result in fees "absolutely" coming down
Why he wants to convince a nation-state to buy GBTC
The firm's #DropGold campaign and plans for future marketing campaigns
The technology investments Grayscale is making in its platform to make the investing process more seamless

This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

Inside CME Group's journey to launch an ETH futures product Feb 09, 2021

"It's been number one on the ask list for a long time."

That's Tim McCourt, global head of equity products for CME Group. Speaking about the reception of the more than hundred-and-seventy-year-old exchange's latest product -- futures based on ETH, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network -- McCourt characterized the response as "overwhelming."

"People have been really excited ... I think for a long time customers have really been demanding ether futures. They're really excited about the bitcoin futures and the success they've had," he said on the most recent episode of The Scoop.

CME Group saw 388 contracts traded on the first full day of trading for the product, which was announced at the end of last year.

That's about 19,000 ETH, or $33 million. The launch of ether futures followed the launch of bitcoin options at the end of 2019 and its bitcoin futures product in 2017.

At last check, open interest in CME's bitcoin futures product stood above $2 billion.

McCourt said that unlike products trading on other venues, CME's crypto products trade on a venue to which professional market participants are already connected.

The firm's crypto products "widgets through the machine” in the same way as its thousands of other contracts, he said. "Your brokers are familiar. Your clearing members are familiar. So you don't have some of those barriers to enter that you have on the spot side."

In this episode of The Scoop, McCourt unpacks the growth of CME's crypto products, the development of the overall crypto trading ecosystem, and what might come next for his company's crypto offerings.

Episode 7 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Tim McCourt of CME Group.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by our sponsors Blockset and Kraken.

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Former Citadel Securities director explains what happened with Robinhood and GameStop last week Feb 05, 2021

Stock markets have seen unprecedented levels of trading in recent days, fueled by retail trading activity tied to Wall Street Bets. Robinhood — which became the key figure in this drama as the venue through which much of the publicly visible trading occurred — has been a focal point of this market backdrop after buckling under the pressure of heightened activity and temporarily limiting purchases of certain stocks, like GameStop and AMC.

In response, Robinhood came forward and tied its response to the underlying settlement infrastructure. Robinhood said in a blog post that the limits on trading were connected to soaring clearinghouse deposit requirements. The firm later said that a move to real-time trade settlement would remedy f the issues that faced not only Robinhood but other brokers. Here's from the blog:

"The clearinghouse deposit requirements are designed to mitigate risk, but last week’s wild market activity showed that these requirements, coupled with an unnecessarily long settlement cycle, can have unintended consequences that introduce new risks."

Shane Swanson of Greenwich Associates — a market structure wonk and former director at Citadel Securities — breaks down exactly what happened to the markets last week and why things stopped trading on a new episode of The Scoop podcast.

Here's Swanson:

"I like to use examples because I am a simple guy and examples seem to help. If I am a broker and I have $10,000 worth of capital and these aren't the accurate numbers, but say that allows me to trade $100,000 worth in the market because I have some leverage capabilities. And I am going to let somebody trade with me and I am to give them margin which means I'm going to lend them money and they're going to trade, and I am exposed to that lending risk. And they trade all the way up and they use all my $100,000 that I am allowed to expose myself to, once I hit that $100,000 I can't trade anymore. I can't expose myself to any more risk. I have used up the bucket of capital of which I am allowed to trade now."

As for what happens next, Swanson told The Scoop that "it's always hard to go backwards on cost," referring to the ramifications of moving from T+2 to a more instant settlement process.

"It all depends. If the costs are egregious enough that the industry has to absorb commissions could come back. Movement from T-plus 2 to T-plus 1 settlement would be over a long enough time horizon I believe that would not be something that ends up impacting the retail investors in terms of cost," Swanson explained.

The path to a bitcoin ETF, according to a data exec from one of the world's biggest stock exchanges Feb 02, 2021

Cboe is a Wall Street powerhouse.

On a typical trading day, the exchange operator handles about a third of U.S. equity volumes. In derivatives, major Wall Street products such as the VIX and S&P 500 options trade hands every day through its venue.

Cboe is now trying its hand at the crypto market — again, that is. More than a year after it shuttered its bitcoin futures product, the exchange said that it would re-enter the market through a partnership with crypto data services provider CoinRoutes.

On today's episode of The Scoop, Cboe global head of information solutions Catherine Clay lays out the firm's ambitions to build out a business in crypto market data. Clay also touches on how Cboe's plans set the stage for a wide range of tradable products, including a bitcoin VIX-like product to an exchange-traded fund.

"You can even think about creative indices that reflect portfolio allocations with digital assets as a component," Clay said. "Bringing this real price data in for the creation and calculation of indexes falls very much in line with how we think about educating the investment sphere and giving people some idea about how to construct portfolios for crypto."

For Clay, the relatively undeveloped state of the crypto data ecosystem harkens back to her time trading internet stock derivatives in the 1990s.

"It really reminds me of when I was a derivatives trader back in the late 90s trading the internet stock back then that were really volatility," she said. "I remember standing in the pit where I was the lead market maker for Netscape and Double Click and you could imagine back then there was very little data available to understand where the derivatives—the options— listed on those underlying should be priced and traded."

In this episode of The Scoop, Clay also discusses

Her background as a derivatives market maker and how that history informs her view on the crypto world
The use case of the real price data it is now distributing through CoinRoutes
The importance of data and analytics for a robust crypto market
The pent-up demand from issuers looking to create crypto products
What Cboe's next steps might be if the SEC approves a bitcoin ETF

Pantera Capital CEO says institutional bitcoin adoption is changing the crypto narrative Jan 26, 2021

Pantera Capital's CEO Dan Morehead says initial coin offerings (ICO) aren't dead, but the narrative is gearing towards a bitcoin and ethereum ruled world for investors.

"Crypto as a market is so volatile that the narrative changes," said Morehead on this week's episode of The Scoop.

That narrative lately has been all about bitcoin's growing adoption. From Microstrategy to Stone Ridge Holdings — and maybe soon the city of Miami — big players are allocating millions into the cryptocurrency.

But as the money flows towards bitcoin adoption, ICO's aren't over, according to Morehead. Pantera is still pitched one every two to four months, and the firm's initial coin offering (ICO) fund ended 2020 up more than 500%.

Still, that's a sharp decline from the 50 pitches a week Pantera sifted through in 2017, and its bitcoin fund closed 2020 up nearly 300%. The crypto narrative for investors is trending towards bitcoin amid institutional adoption, Morehead told The Scoop.

"We’re really seeing an inflection point with more coming into the market over the last couple of months....I think the reality is they’re looking for managers that manage multi asset funds sometimes both tokens and venture and they ultimately want that all to be within a handful of managers," he said.

Lately, he's getting calls from many endowments, putting the industry at an inflection point with so many entering the space. Driving the interest in bitcoin is the current macro backdrop as well as bitcoin's spring halving last year—which the firm said could play a role in bringing its price to $115,000.

He broke down what that means for the coming year on this week's episode, along with:

Why the market is so focused on BTC and ETH this time around compared to the focus on initial coin offerings in 2017.
What institutional investors want out of a bitcoin or crypto fund manager
Why Coinbase's initial public offering will kick off a wave of crypto companies going public.
How the industry is going to consolidate in the coming years, and why many exchanges are in a prime position to get rolled up.
Why Pantera is "much more bullish on Ethereum" than other parts of the space.

'They start with bitcoin:' Polychain's Olaf Carlson-Wee believes big investors will turn their attention to DeFi Jan 22, 2021

"They start with bitcoin. It is the easiest to understand."

In the most recent episode of The Scoop, Olaf Carlson-Wee said that recent headlines about institutional investors making waves in the bitcoin market aren't surprising to him. Since he launched Polychain Capital in 2016, he's become familiar with new market entrants who start by exploring bitcoin and then ultimately make their way to other ecosystems.

"It isn't surprising that these big institutional investors are first getting involved with bitcoin," he said. "This is effectively electronic gold. Everyone can reason about gold and the value of gold in an easy way."

From Anthony Scaramucci to Paul Tudor Jones, the bull case for bitcoin as digital gold has been all but cemented as a Wall Street talking point. Yet his interest in bitcoin will find its way to DeFi, Carlson-Wee argues.

"Once you have $100 million of bitcoin, you might start to think how I could get yield on this bitcoin for example," he said. "A lot of the time the answer there is through on-chain financial contracts."

Carlson-Wee also believes that interest in DeFi products and services will buck the example of the 2017 ICO bubble and be more long-lasting.

As he put it during the interview:

"The summer of ICOs was a summer, the summer of DeFi was just the beginning of multi-years of compounding growth. The financial engineering in DeFi, I think, at this point is inarguably moving faster than the financial engineering anywhere else in the world. The capital coordination is faster than anywhere else in the world. A lot of these DeFi protocols are bigger than IPOs—regularly. Despite that go regularly unnoticed and are hard to interact with. The user experience barriers here are very high and despite that we see significant traction in terms of volumes."

Still, Olaf-Carlson Wee said DeFi market participants need to work out the UI problems that make platforms difficult to use. In this episode of The Scoop, Olaf Carlson-Wee digs into:

The differences between the ICO boom and the current market rally
How DEXs went from being irrelevant to facilitating billions of dollars in volumes
Where DeFi goes next
What he thinks about the upcoming Coinbase IPO
YFI's recent proposal to increase inflation
Polychain's lessons learned from the previous 2017 cycle

A deep dive into Coinbase's acquisition of Bison Trails Jan 19, 2021

Count this as one of the first major acquisitions deals of 2021: Coinbase said on Wednesday that it is set to acquire crypto infrastructure services provider Bison Trails for an undisclosed sum.

On this episode of The Scoop, Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee and Bison Trails CEO Joe Lallouz unpack the deal with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Ryan Todd.

"Bison trails is going to serve as a foundational product within our product portfolio: what we call our ecosystem products," Chatterjee, a former executive at Google, said.

"So staking infra services is a start point, but we are going to look at other potential services that we can externalize, that we can create as a service."

The deal represents a bigger push by Coinbase to offer its internal solutions to new client segments, Chatterjee said.

"Over time you will see we will extend additional infrastructure and API services, many of which have actually been developed to power our internal Coinbase product," he added. "We want to externalize them make them services for the entire crypto ecosystem."

In this episode of The Scoop, we explore various aspects of the deal, including:

What it could mean for Coinbase's existing staking offering
How it improves Coinbase's standing as an infrastructure as a service provider in the crypto market
How the Bison Trail's team could lead to new external API services for big ticket clients and help improve existing services
Chatterjee's product philosophy for Coinbase
Recent moves by rivals to snag banking licenses from the OCC

Meet the CEO trying to convince every multi-billion dollar insurance fund to buy bitcoin Jan 15, 2021

Bitcoin investment firm NYDIG raised $50 million in October, quadrupled its clients and life insurance company MassMutual purchased a minority stake in the firm.

This came about because bitcoin is transitioning to a predominantly institution-owned asset, according to NYDIG CEO Robert Gutmann.

MassMutual made a $5 million equity investment in NYDIG last December, as well as a $100 million bitcoin investment for its general investment account through NYDIG. On today's episode of The Scoop, Gutmann said this event could open the floodgates for insurance giants to get in on bitcoin.

“You are going to see a lot of dominoes fall after this," he said.

Based on the set of macro circumstances 2020 presented, insurance companies are starting to question whether they can go forward only buying corporate credit to make good on policies, according to Gutmann.

"Over some number of years, it's hard for me to imagine it is not all of them [investing in bitcoin]," he said. "If MassMutual can get there from a diligence perspective so can the next one...It's definitely coming."

He also sees publicly-traded companies following in the footsteps of Square and MicroStrategy. Both firms allocated a portion of their balance sheets to bitcoin.

In Gutmann's view, these companies have a "fiduciary duty to consider whether holding 100% of your assets in dollars is in the best interest of your shareholders."

"Reasonable people can have different opinions about that, but I personally don’t think only Jack and only Michael and no one else is going to do a cold analysis of that and not come to that conclusion," he said.

On today's episode of the Scoop, Gutmann also touched on:

Why he expects more insurance companies will enter the crypto space over time
How the MassMutual deal came to be
Why public companies are interested in bitcoin and how the adoption narrative for public companies is similar to that of insurance firms
Why his institutional clients are only interested in bitcoin
NYDIG's M&A strategy.

Listen to today's episode on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.

'This is not November 2017' says Mike Novogratz on bitcoin's price gyrations Jan 12, 2021

After bitcoin's price fell from its highs above $40,000 this past weekend, investors were left arguing about whether that drop to almost $30,000 was an inevitable market correction or a sign of something more sinister.

Indeed, liquidations across futures venues soared to more than $3 billion as crypto exchange Coinbase reported persistent technical issues. But Galaxy Digital's Mike Novogratz isn't particularly worried.

"I am positive this is not November 2017," he said on this week's episode of The Scoop. "Listen, the market got way, way overbought. It was overbought by every statistic, every metric you can look."

In spite of a fallen price, Novogratz said the real thesis of the past few months was adoption. More people have heard the bitcoin story, according to Novogratz, and a price correction won't meaningfully undercut that progress. There are still institutions waiting to buy, he said.

"The bitcoin-as-a-hard-asset story remains intact," Novogratz added. "This is a wash-out, a position wash-out. I don't think it will be long-term damaging. $30,000 should hold."

He went on to highlight institutional firms that "haven't filled their coffers yet that continue to want to buy."

"Insurance companies, asset managers, big institutions haven't bought bitcoin yet and they want to," said Novogratz.

During this week's episode, Novogratz explains how he and Galaxy Digital are navigating the market correction, as well as:

Why this price drop won't scare off institutional investors
The impact of the macro background and fiscal spending under a Joe Biden-led administration
The businesses he's most excited about, particularly in the decentralized finance space
How he's viewing Bakkt and Coinbase's plans to go public
His advice for new market entrants.

This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by Blockset. With Blockset, companies gain access to tools such as:

1. A highly scalable API that supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and other top chains

2. AML/KYC data expediting time to market by complying with legal requirements

3. Leading custody solutions using modern multi-party compute (MPC) technology

Learn more and start building today.

The inside story of NBA star Spencer Dinwiddie's crypto journey Dec 28, 2020

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's research team speak with Dinwiddie about his crypto journey, what originally got him excited about the space, what made him buy bitcoin, the investments that have made him excited about DeFi, Calaxy, and the NBA.

NYSE vice chairman: Talks are 'accelerating' with crypto firms that want to go public Nov 20, 2020

Despite the uncertainty of the global economy in 2020, the New York Stock Exchange has had a strong year, helping companies raise more than $66 billion.

In many respects, it has been the year of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), according to vice chairman John Tuttle. This year, firms have raised billions through the acquisition-style mechanism.

During this episode of The Scoop, Tuttle — who previously led NYSE's global listings business — explained why the fundraising method has taken the markets by storm and how they've evolved from a lackluster funding mechanism to a red-hot fad on Wall Street.

"Let's look back ten years or so, SPACs were a four letter word, they didn't have the best reputation, the sponsors didn't necessarily have the best interest in mind of investors in the market place," Tuttle said.

He went on to explain:

"And they largely fell out of favor. Several years ago you started seeing some rule changes around SPACs to address some of those challenges that SPACs had a decade or so ago and you started seeing higher qualities sponsors come into market.What do I mean by that? Folks that—whether it be the Goldman Sachs or the Gores Groups of the world. Folks that had very well-respected reputations in the marketplace both as financial partners but business partners as well too. You started seeing deals be larger in size. You started see well respected names launch SPACs and partner with SPACs and partner with SPACs, and that's what gave credibility to the product."

Indeed, some crypto firms have been considering SPAC-centric strategies, including BlockFi and Ripple. There's also firms like Coinbase, which is said to be in the process of going public in the near-term, as previously reported by Reuters.

Tuttle says that the exchange group is talking with crypto firms about tapping into public markets.

"It has been a space that's been of interest for quite some time," he said. "We've had discussion with companies that have been thinking about accessing the public market, from that space, crypto blockchain digital assets."

"Those conversations continue, they're accelerating," he added. "And I also think that digital assets, crypto are going to play somehow somewhere some way an important role in the market of the future."

_________________________________

This episode was brought to you by Polkadot Decoded, the Polkadot community conference on December the 3rd. Don’t miss this opportunity to tap into the latest developments and discover what lies ahead in the Polkadot ecosystem, including Gavin Wood in conversation with Laura Shin and a panel moderated by The Defiant founder Camila Russo. . Save your spot today!

Brad Garlinghouse explains how regulatory uncertainty around XRP has affected Ripple Nov 13, 2020

CEO Brad Garlinghouse says in what was poised to be a challenging year, Ripple exceeded his expectations for 2020.

"We aren’t going to grow as fast this year as we thought. However, we’re still getting two production financial contracts a week," he said.

Indeed, the digital asset and payment system has seen some days this year in which XRP liquidity on Bitso exceeded BTC. But still, an opaque regulatory atmosphere has kept Ripple from reaching its potential, Garlinghouse argued in an interview with The Scoop's Frank Chaparro.

According to Garlinghouse, there isn't a "level playing field" for all digital assets in this regulatory climate.

"Bitcoin was the only one with the hall pass," he said.

This creates an atmosphere in which assets without clarity underperform, according to Garlinghouse.

On this week's episode, Garlinghouse discussed how Ripple is "fighting with one hand tied behind our back," as well as:

Why big banks aren't partnering with Ripple, but smaller banks are interested
The ways regulatory clarity has benefited bitcoin but not other digital assets, and why the lack of clarity impedes Ripple's growth
Why Ripple is currently not planning a blockchain initial public offering (IPO)
How central banks are looking into XRP-based ledgers.

As Polymarket's profile rises with the U.S. election cycle, founder Shayne Coplan says it's just the beginning for prediction markets Nov 04, 2020

Shayne Coplan thinks information markets are the future, and with the recent influx in volume to his platform Polymarket, it seems they are rapidly becoming the present.

In recent weeks, the prediction market platform has done millions in volume with its various election markets, which span from the U.S. presidential election to state calls. The platform's "Will Trump win market" has surpassed $8 million in volume.

As the U.S. presidential election grew ever-tighter on November 3 and 4, many crypto minds noted that Polymarket's odds more accurately reflected the outcomes compared to traditional models like Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.

Coplan says he has no doubt in the growing future of prediction markets, and on this week's episode of The Scoop, he laid out why he believes markets are the most reliable source of sentiment data. He also touched on:

How he went from early ethereum adopter to founder of a company
Why he believes markets are superior to polls, and how prediction platforms can change the way information is interpreted
Where Polymarket sits on the sliding scale of decentralization and what that means for compliance
How Polymarket's second version is lowering the barrier to entry and what tools are making adoption easier
What's next for Polymarket after the U.S. presidential election resolves.

LMAX's CEO breaks down the real impact of the U.K. crypto derivatives ban Oct 22, 2020

The ban will take effect in January of next year, affecting crypto brokers, investment platforms, financial advisers and, of course, derivatives exchanges. But, David Mercer, CEO of LMAX Group, said what the ban really does is effectively halve the leverage. The FCA had already limited leverage to retail customers to two to one, now it's one to one.

"You've banned derivatives, but actually you've just halved leverage. It's one to one rather than two to one. That's all that's really happened," said Mercer. "What they're saying to everyone, you can own crypto assets you just can't own it on leverage. "

Still, Mercer said there is a duty in capital markets to protect retail investors and firms have a duty of care. LMAX Group is a regulated broker in the U.K. trading mostly spot, but clients still pass suitability tests indicating their understanding of the product. Working with regulators, even when you disagree with them — and Mercer said he does disagree with the ban — is key.

Mercer laid out why he thinks the FCA took such an aggressive approach on this issue as well as its implications on this episode of The Scoop. He also touched on:

Why normal corporate firms are beginning to set aside part of their balance sheets to bitcoin, and why Mercer says it's inevitable that bigger traditional funds begin allocating portions of their portfolio to bitcoin
How the market responded to regulator cases against Bitmex
The implications of the FCA ban and how the regulator's influence might change by ignoring crypto stakeholders
Why he thinks a significant bank will move into the marketplace in 2021 and what that will do for crypto.

DC veterans say money is key for crypto issues to be heard. So, they formed a PAC Oct 20, 2020

HODLpac is seeking to put the benefits of crypto protocols on display, borrowing from the industry in its governance and voting structure to apportion collected funds to candidates. Though it doesn't accept donations in crypto yet, it does follow a token-based voting structure to determine who the PAC will support and how much a candidate might receive.

Its first Community Ballot will occur tomorrow, meaning those who are interested in donating and voting on candidates still can. For more information, Whirty and Smith broke down the structure and purpose of the project on this week's episode on The Scoop.

Whirty and Smith also discussed the opportunities of a blockchain-based PAC and where they see the project going, as well as:

How a crypto-focused hybrid PAC operates and why it's needed in Washington
The PAC's quadratic voting structure and how quadratic voting can lessen the disparity between hyper-wealthy and average donators
The road to more decentralized governance and a grassroots base
An inside look at the way money talks in Washington — and why a PAC or donation-based opportunity may be a faster way to get an issue on the floor
What the different 2020 election outcomes might mean for crypto.

ARK Invest's crypto analyst says bitcoin market cap could hit $3 trillion by 2025 Oct 14, 2020

Yassine Elmandjra, crypto asset analyst at ARK Invest, published a white paper recently that argues Bitcoin could reach three trillion dollars in market cap by 2025. On this week's episode of The Scoop, he broke down how he arrived at that conclusion.

ARK began looking into digital assets in 2015, when BTC was trading around $250. At that time, the firm published a white paper arguing BTC was unique and didn't fall into a traditional asset class. Now, it's published a part two to that early paper aimed at institutions.

"In addition to sizing that opportunity for institutions, we really tried to look at what the liquidity and volume profile of Bitcoin are relative to other asset classes and whether or not we're at we're at a place where Bitcoin can support the institutional flow that we so desire," he said. "With that...indeed, we think that over the next five years, Bitcoin presents a multi trillion dollar opportunity."

Elmandjra detailed the path to the moon on this week's episode, as well as:

The relationship between Bitcoin, the S&P and gold and what that means for strategic allocation
What increasing volumes means for Bitcoin's maturity as an institutional asset
What the main pain points are for institutional adoption of Bitcoin, like the lack of primer brokerage firms and large custodians
What it would take for Ark to gain spot exposure of bitcoin in the future

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