Village Global Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Crypto Stories: "Explain Generalized Mining Like I'm Five" with Andrew Cronk (Follow-Up Bonus Episode) Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment, joins Erik again for this bonus episode going into generalized mining. Andrew contrasts sending someone money via PayPal with sending someone money via a decentralized network.
He talks about whether firms with different approaches in the space can co-exist and what it means to be a validator. He discusses why it's important for a firm to be an active participant in a network.
Andrew also explains how and why they've set up Figment to be itself a decentralized firm with no office and individuals working around the world.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Consensus Protocols with Aparna Krishnan and Haseeb Qureshi Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

In this episode Erik talks to Aparna Krishnan (@aparnalocked), co-founder of Mechanism Labs and Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), GP at MetaStable Capital.
They discuss a number of themes around Aparna's research paper, talk about what it means to find consensus, and they go through the various protocols that exist now to try and do that. They also talk about what kinds of applications these various protocols could have.
They explain what a block is, what proof of work and proof of stake mean, and why the longest chain rule could be a potential pitfall for Bitcoin.
Reading List For This Episode:
Non- Technical:
- MultiChain's blog
- Ashley Lannquist’s blog
- https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/centres/alternative-finance/downloads/2018-08-20-conceptualising-dlt-systems.pdf
- https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/375.pdf
Technical (new to the space):
- cryptoeconomics.study
- Vitalik’s blog posts
- Mechanism Labs blog, GitHub
- Blockchain at Berkeley blog and educational content
Looking to get into research:
- Consensus: https://github.com/Mechanism-Labs/MetaAnalysis-of-Alternative-Consensus-Protocols/blob/master/MetaAnalysis.pdf, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.03936.pdf
- Privacy/ Security: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.00916.pdf
- Smart Contracts: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/192.pdf
- IC3!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Valuing Crypto Assets with Arianna Simpson and Travis Kling Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Arianna Simpson (@AriannaSimpson), VC and managing director at Autonomous Partners and Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) of Ikigai Asset Management join Erik on this episode.
Arianna starts by explaining her post about false precision and why you don't want to be "very precisely wrong." They talk various models and calculations and how to value different crypto assets.
They also talk about Bitcoin maximalists, what the landscape of crypto networks looks like, and whether the huge trades made in the past few years on crypto merit the creation of a fund to try to replicate those returns in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Distributed Computing with Dani Grant, Dan Desjardins, Chandler Song and Greg Osuri Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

This episode of Venture Stories is co-hosted by Dani Grant (@thedanigrant), analyst at USV.
She talks with three leaders in the distributed computing space:
- Dan Desjardins, CEO of Distributed Compute Labs
- Chandler Song (@chandlersyf), founder and CEO of Ankr Network
- Greg Osuri (@GregOsuri), founder of Akash Network and CEO of Overclock Labs
They talk about what distributed computing is, why it has so much potential and why this is an exciting time to be involved in the space.
The guests talk about what kinds of applications are enabled by distributed computing and how for example, a hospital can leverage the computing power of all of its computers that are sitting idle at night to do medical research.
They discuss the different ways to compensate users for the use of their computer resources and the different approaches to distributing problems and tasks to distributed resources.
They also discuss the challenges facing their companies and how to think about competing or not competing with incumbents like Amazon and Google.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Bitcoin For Beginners with Michael Goldstein Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Michael Goldstein (@bitstein), president of the Nakamoto Institute and co-host of the Noded Podcast, joins Erik on this episode. Between him and Erik they break down some of the basic concepts around Bitcoin and explain why it's important in general.
Michael explains why he's keen to feast on the tears of nocoiners and breaks down a number of the common misconceptions about Bitcoin. He also talks Austrian economics and potential roadblocks for Bitcoin.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Identity on the Blockchain with Dandelion Mane Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Dandelion Mane (@decentralion), founder of SourceCred, joins Erik on this mind-expanding episode about identity. Dandelion explains how they came upon the idea for a decentralized reputation system and how it could change how people live — both online and in the real world.
Dandelion explains some potential improvements that could be made to online communities to improve the level of discourse and avoid the outrage mobs that are currently too prevalent in those communities.
They also talk about a number of other topics around identity in general, like how one's name affects how you think, the many sides of any given person, and why you should choose your own name.
Mentioned In This Episode:
- Seeing Like A State by James Scott
- Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1: Nosedive
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
- Homesteading in the Noosphere by Eric Raymond
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Generalized Mining with Nicholas Chirls and Joe Lallouz Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Erik is joined by Nicholas Chirls (@nchirls), partner at Notation Capital, and Joe Lallouz (@JoeLallouz), entrepreneur, angel, and founder of Grand St.
They explain how they got their start in the space and the genesis of their respective firms. They talk about generalized mining and how a firm might get into mining.
They discuss the various crypto networks and talk about how the way an investment firm provides value to a crypto company has changed. Nicholas and Joe also talk about traditional VC firms and how theymight get into the mining space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Token-Curated Registries with Ameen Soleimani and Jehan Tremback Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

In this episode Erik and co-host Miles Snyder of Multicoin Capital talk to Ameen Soleimani (@ameensol), CEO at SpankChain, and Jehan Tremback (@JTremback), founder of Althea Mesh.
Ameen is one of the inventors of a token-curated registry. He discusses what a token-curated registry is, what the current use cases for them are and what they could possibly be in the future.
They talk about AdChain and the problem of advertising fraud online. The three of them discuss the "chicken and egg" problem that TCRs face. They also get into what kinds of uses Jehan could have for TCRs for the physical world at his company, Althea.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Privacy Coins with Elena Nadolinski and Avichal Garg Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Avichal Garg (@avichal), Managing Partner at Electric Capital, join Erik on this episode to discuss privacy coins. They break down what a privacy coin is and why privacy is important in crypto.
They talk about the three main privacy coins: Monero, Zcash and Grin — and discuss why it's important or not to have an auditable record of transactions, whether people will pay taxes, and whether the government will be able to penetrate a privacy coin.
They discuss whether people will care about privacy given that less than 3% of all cryptocurrency transactions are done with a privacy coin. Avichal points out that perhaps not a lot of people will care about privacy but a large amount of dollars will.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Crypto-Native Funds with Andrew Cronk, Jake Brukhman and Meher Roy Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Erik's guests for this episode are:
- Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment
- Meher Roy (@MeherRoy), co-founder of Chorus One
- Jake Brukhman (@jbrukh), founder of CoinFund
They talk about a number of interesting topics, including the unique way that an investment firm participates in the growth of a company in the crypto world and why it's more important to be a network participant than just a funder.
The four of them go through what a validator is and what being one entails. They talk about the big differences in people composition of a crypto fund versus a typical VC fund and they explain what kind of expertise the people at a crypto fund need to have.
The group also discusses evaluating crypto networks, the relative importance of "user experience" vs. "developer experience" and what it means to have LPs and institutional investors paying attention to the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

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