Village Global Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Zero-Knowledge Proofs with Elena Nadolinski and Howard Wu Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Howard Wu (@1HowardWu), co-founder of Dekrypt Capital, talk to Erik on this episode about zero-knowledge proofs and privacy.
They talk about why privacy is important in general and the benefits of privacy in the crypto world. They explain what a zero-knowledge proof is and Howard talks about some of the more recent developments in cryptography.
They get into how ZKPs are being used today and the promise they hold for future applications.
Elena and Howard also get into the differences between privacy coins.
Quotable lines from this episode:
"Privacy is one of those things where people don’t appreciate it until they don’t have it."
-HW
"Just because a friend of mine and I shared a coffee, doesn’t mean I get to have the right to see all of their transactions. If we were to live in a world where all we used were cryptocurrency blockchains to do all our computations, I would basically be able to see all the transactions of all time from all the people I’ve ever interacted with." -EN
"How do you ensure the integrity of a computation, especially one you outsource to a server elsewhere?" - HW
"Zero-knowledge proofs basically allow you to say 'I can’t tell you the secret but I can prove to you that I know the secret.'" - HW
"Scalability is like the offense on a football team and privacy is like the defense on the football team. They’re both equally important but the quarterback is much more sexy than the defense." -HW
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 the Layers of BTC and Lightning with Nik Bhatia Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

Nik Bhatia (@timevalueofbtc), writer and Bitcoin thinker, joins Erik and co-host Myles Snider of Multicoin Capital on this episode to talk layers of Bitcoin and the Lightning network.
Nik explains how he got his start in the Bitcoin world from traditional finance. They explain the various layers of money and Bitcoin.
They also talk about whether there will be fractional reserve ownership of Bitcoin, whether Bitcoin banks might exist someday and when a Bitcoin ETF might make an appearance.
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 Stablecoins with Haseeb Qureshi and Myles Snider Aug 29, 2018

Show notes

Erik's co-host for this episode is Myles Snider (@myles_snider), research associate at Multicoin Capital. They talk to Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb) who is a GP at MetaStable Capital.
They discuss where stablecoins are now and envision what they could be in the future. They compare and contrast stablecoins and fiat and explain why someone would hold a stablecoin that's indexed to fiat.
They talk about some of the applications for stablecoins and the different kinds of stablecoins. The trio also discuss why you would want to invest in a stablecoin, what the Oracle Problem is and how it could be solved, as well as what kinds of hurdles stand in the way of widespread usage of stablecoins.
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: The Bitcoin Standard and Beyond with Saifedean Ammous Aug 27, 2018

Show notes

Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean), the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, joins Erik for a very interesting and highly quotable interview.
He expands on a number of topics from his book but also gets into a lot that isn’t in the book. He recounts the story of money from an Austrian perspective and describes why the world never really had a complete gold standard. Saif explains how government became addicted to printing money, how Bitcoin could turn out to be a better version of gold and how it might replace central banks entirely.
Saif talks about why Silicon Valley has been and may still be mistaken about Bitcoin and blockchain, and why the analogies of the early days of the internet don’t really apply. He also talks about why the blockchain as a concept has been overhyped and why Bitcoin won’t be as instantaneous and low-fee as you might think.
He also talks about what kinds of threats Bitcoin might face, how the world will change when Bitcoin becomes the new standard, and how personal finance and capitalism might evolve in a Bitcoin world.
(Murray Rothbard is the economist that Saif references early in the episode).
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You can’t omit the fact that you took a sledgehammer to the laptop before complaining that it doesn’t work.”
“Ever since then it’s been a wild ride of governments having discovered this addiction to printing money to finance themselves to do everything.”
“It’s a choice for people to opt-out of the modern nation state with all of its hefty bill that it sends you every year in the form of inflation.”
“Gold’s emergence as a money happens on the market, not because of government decree.”
“You can’t systematize human action and behavior into mathematical equations that allow you do calculations to predict an outcome.”
“The real problem is the fascination with all the buzzwords around all these projects that hang around Bitcoin pretending to be the next big thing, which we’ve been seeing since the beginning of Bitcoin. It’s the same story always and always ends in the same sad way.”
“Everybody wants everything to do everything they’ve ever read in a sci-fi novel.”
“Everybody is not capable of reasoning just beyond an analogy.”
“People think of Bitcoin as a brand… and it’s only natural to think that if it’s Pepsi, it’s going to have its Coca-Cola — but we have the internet, and we don’t have another competitor, because it’s a protocol.”
“All of these other uses that people want to attach to blockchain, I humbly submit the thesis that none of them actually matter.”
“I don’t conduct criminal activity but if I did I would definitely make sure I would not record it on a ledger accessible to millions of people instantaneously around the world.”
“Without a lender of last resort, fractional reserve banking is not going to work.”
“Every cent of investment will have to come from a cent of saving and people think that’s a horrible thing, but that’s a great thing, it’s how any society thrives.”
“The laws of economics don’t stop functioning just because government just said they should stop functioning in that sector.”
“Capital is just a market good like any other, there’s supply and there’s demand.”
“The amount of gold today that is held in global central banks is many times larger than what was held in central banks during the time of the gold standard.”
“If governments want to kill Bitcoin I think the best strategy would be to return to the gold standard and to offer everybody free markets in banking.”
“I know it’s cool to go around on college campuses and talk about destroying capitalism and all of that stuff but really it makes no sense. It’s an insane kind of suicidal death wish.”
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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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Vijay Boyapati on Austrian Economics, Bitcoin and Monetary Policy Aug 24, 2018

Show notes

Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay), software engineer, crypto thinker and proponent of Austrian economics, joins Erik on this episode to talk about a number of interesting topics.
They start with a primer on Austrian economics, what makes it different from other schools of economics, and why economics is a unique science with different schools of thought — “there isn’t a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”
Vijay speculates on why Austrian economics has become a niche school of economics and analyzes Bitcoin and current economic policy through the lens of Austrian economics. He gives his opinion on the fed, fractional reserve banking and debunks some misconceptions that people have about Bitcoin.
They finish with a lightning round discussing what famous economists like Hayek or Friedman would think about Bitcoin. Vijay also discusses the Bitmain IPO and what Facebook entering the cryptocurrency space might mean for the “incumbents.”
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You look at academia and there’s probably 10 Keynesian economists for every Chicago economist and there’s probably 10 Chicago economists for every Austrian economist.”
“It’s sad that political expediency has trumped the pursuit of truth.”
“There isn’t like a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”
“Austrians really believe that an economy grows through investment, capital formation and entrepreneurial activities [rather than through consumption].”
“The monetary premium is the value and purchasing power that it has that isn’t explained by its use value.”
“All monies throughout history are bubbles and the bubbles don’t necessarily need to pop.”
“I think it’s [Bitcoin] the most important innovation in money in a thousand years.”
“The thing that’s exciting about Bitcoin is that it gives you a property right but doesn’t require anyone to enforce that property right.”
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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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Bill Tai and Derek Hsue on Mining, Exchanges and the History and Future of Money Aug 22, 2018

Show notes

Erik is joined by two very exciting guests for this episode — Bill Tai, venture capitalist and director at Bitfury, and Derek Hsue (@derek_hsue), investor at Blockchain Capital.
The three have a very engaging discussion about the mining landscape in cryptocurrencies, the similarities and differences between now and the early growth of the semiconductor industry, as well as the issues, obstacles and misconceptions standing in the way of new entrants to the mining sector.
They get into the details on mining operations, how the architecture of certain coins impacts the equipment that mining can be done on, and how the underlying math is different between Ethereum and Bitcoin.
There are also a number of impromptu history lessons courtesy of Bill, including how Wall Street got its name and went from a place to trade furs to the NYSE of today.
They also discuss the future of exchanges, why buying into an ICO means buying into a community and a belief rather than something immediately valuable, and why we are headed for a massive reset of capitalism.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“In the start it’s kind of like riding a little bicycle and you see a pothole, you just go around it, but pretty soon you’re driving a freight train on a track and you can’t get off.” - BT
“You’re going to have to come up with a check for 50-100 million dollars to be noticed by a semiconductor fab.” - BT
“An upstart two years from now is probably going to have to take down 1000 megawatts just to start.” - BT
“It’s really hard to get a venture type return from a mining operation, unless you’re really early on in a chain, or just extremely, much better than everyone else at producing hardware.” - DH
“It all boiled down to, can you bribe a politician with an empty city in China to give you his power plant for a bit of money every month? …It turns out that Ethereum is a more concentrated mining ecosystem than Bitcoin.” - BT
“Programming in Bitcoin is a bit like programming in assembly or DOS, where Ethereum is like programming in a high-level language that anyone that has done an iPhone app can work with.” - BT
“If you look at the largest asset managers in the world, they don’t have a huge incentive to trade in a peer-to-peer manner.” - DH
“It’s not about creating a product that is tailored to the world’s current behavior, it’s about providing that option for non-custodial and a trustless financial interaction.” - DH
“We’re at that point today where we’re all standing under that buttonwood tree with our virtual assets, trying to figure out where to go.” - BT
“The total of all debt in the world is 275 trillion, which is 3.18 times world GDP, it’s growing at 25 trillion a year, and is growing way faster than world GDP is growing.” - BT
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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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Nic Carter on Governance, Bitcoin Narratives, and Ethereum Aug 20, 2018

Show notes

Erik and his co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) of Decentraland interview Nic Carter (@nic__carter), partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coinmetrics.io.
Nic explains why Bitcoin might end up like gold, where everyday people have little day-to-day interaction with it but it has a big influence on the monetary system, and how Bitcoin can be a check on the behavior of central banks.
He explains why he started Castle Island Ventures, explains its philosophy and how they plan to invest. He also explains his take on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and whether any of the altcoins will turn out to be worth anything.
He explains why he is bearish on DAOs in the short-term but in the long-term is very bullish. Nic also talks about how projects can improve their governance structures and how users can spot potential governance problems within projects.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You don’t need the ‘gold standard’ to be the day to day currency, just like in the era of the gold standard people didn’t transact in units of gold.”
“I eventually think we’ll get to this world where we have the advantages of the cryptocurrency capital raise mechanisms together with the guarantees of equity — we just need to marry those concepts.”
“I’m kind of heretical in that I think there is a really big role for financial institutions to play in the crypto asset story.”
“I think that voting makes people feel more comfortable being governed because they think they have buy-in into the governance system.”
“The highest ROI on these projects is transparency — to be so transparent that it hurts.”
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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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: The Intersection of Blockchain and AI with Trent McConaghy Aug 17, 2018

Show notes

Trent McConaghy (@trentmc0) returns for another interview with Erik. He’s the founder of Ocean Protocol and BigchainDB.
In this episode, he starts by explaining Ocean Protocol’s mission and gives us a history of how the overall philosophy of the web has changed over the years, going from what could be called Web 1 to Web 2.0 to the yet-to-be-written story of Web 3. He explains how the web started out as a tool for democratizing access and how Web 2.0 created some undesirable effects when it comes to the siloing of information, questions about privacy, and the prevalence of advertising. Trent is hopeful though that Web 3 will be a return to the roots of Web 1.
He lays out a compelling case for why several of the web’s biggest names should be tokenized and how that will remedy the current case of misaligned incentives between company and users.
Trent also helps us imagine a world where AI and blockchain are working to amplify each other and what kinds of changes for society that might portend. He explains a number of scenarios related to digitally autonomous organizations, self-driving cars, road infrastructure, medicine and art.
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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories Live: Balaji Srinivasan and Erik Torenberg on Crypto in a Borderless World Aug 15, 2018

Show notes

Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), CTO of Coinbase, joined Erik on stage in San Francisco at the Founders Embassy Borderless Summit in June 2018 for a fascinating conversation about the coming impact of blockchain technology. They discuss how the world will change as work and entertainment — but especially finance — become virtual. Balaji explains why governments will need to compete for the best individuals and explains the new role of government in a “borderless” world.
He also discusses his recent exits and his new role as CTO of Coinbase. Balaji gives his surprising advice for new grads looking to start a company and explains why your “personal burn rate” is one of the most important metrics to track. Erik talks to Balaji about Balaji's lesser known history buff side and they discuss world finance, world history, and China.
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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Jimmy Song on Bitcoin, Hard Money, and Decentralization Aug 13, 2018

Show notes

Today’s guest is Jimmy Song (@jimmysong), crypto developer and teacher. He is a venture partner at Blockchain Capital and creator of the Programming Blockchain course.
Jimmy has been a crypto developer for a long time now (in crypto terms), teaches programming blockchain, and has written a number of influential posts on crypto. He talks about how he got into crypto and what about it was so appealing to him. He explains how an economic lens, rather than a technical lens, is what brought him to blockchain.
Jimmy and Erik discuss the merits of Bitcoin versus other coins, why Jimmy believes Bitcoin will win, and what misconceptions VCs have about blockchain. They discuss what makes a good store of value, the biological impulse humans have to hoard that which is scarce and the potential impact of Bitcoin 30 years from now. They also discuss a good amount of economic history, what makes a true “hard money” as well as why war led to the gold standard going away.
To apply for a scholarship for Jimmy’s Programming Blockchain course, visit www.programmingblockchain.com.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“Money is strengthened when it doesn’t change whereas tech is strengthened when you iterate and try different things and see what works for the market.”
“The big thing that Bitcoin brings to the market is hard money, which is what disappeared when Roosevelt seized gold and all that other stuff.”
“It’s not just armies against armies, it’s entire countries against entire countries now, very literally speaking, because the government can take away all the money and wealth away from the populace and use that for their war effort.”
“You don’t have to believe that it has value, it’s enough that other people value it. I might not value Bitcoin but as long as other people value Bitcoin I will value Bitcoin.”
“The things that make it a good medium of exchange are totally different than what makes it a store of value.”
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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. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

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