Podcasts about blocktower

Vikram Arun is the Co-Founder of Superform, an on-chain wealth app to grow your crypto portfolio. With a background in engineering and finance, Vikram has been building in the crypto space since 2017. Prior to Superform, he co-founded Ledger Capital, a crypto research firm, and worked on Wall Street conducting biotech equity research and analyzing high-growth technologies. At BlockTower Capital, Vikram co-led a $100m DeFi and Yield Fund, building scalable trading strategies across 15 chains with a focus on statistical arbitrage. Seeing the need for scalable DeFi products, he left BlockTower in 2021 to launch Superform. Vikram holds a Bachelor's in Engineering and a Master's in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis.In this conversation, we discuss:- Why the market is down right now- Current market cycle- The founding story of Superform- Stablecoin indexes- High-yield stablecoins are becoming crypto's killer app- Bringing users on-chain without the on-chain feeling- Superform V2 shows where DeFi is headed- DeFi is finally breaking past the power user bubble- Capital efficiency is the next frontier- What will bring DeFi to the masses?- Next wave of DeFi Applications- Are memecoins actually dead?SuperformWebsite: www.superform.xyzX: @superformxyzDiscord: discord.gg/superformVikram ArunX: @vik_runaLinkedIn: Vikram Arun ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This episode is brought to you by PrimeXBT.  PrimeXBT offers a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders that demand highly reliable market data and performance. Traders of all experience levels can easily design and customize layouts and widgets to best fit their trading style. PrimeXBT is always offering innovative products and professional trading conditions to all customers.   PrimeXBT is running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the podcast. After making your first deposit, 50% of that first deposit will be credited to your account as a bonus that can be used as additional collateral to open positions.  Code: CRYPTONEWS50  This promotion is available for a month after activation. Click the link below:  PrimeXBT x CRYPTONEWS50

Tune in to this episode of the Security Token Show where this week Herwig Konings covers the industry leading headlines and market movements, including the RWA chain wars and more tokenization market activity!   Special Announcement, STM will be revealing a special project on Tuesday at the Benzinga Future of Digital Assets conference, live in NYC and livestream: https://www.benzinga.com/digital-assets  Join the TokenizeThis 2025 waitlist at summit.stm.co!   Company of the Week - Herwig: BUIDL   The Market Movements Liquidity Products Go Multi-Chain: BUIDL and BENJI: https://securitize.io/learn/press/blackRock-launches-new-buidl-share-classes-across-multiple-blockchains https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-launches-benji-on-ethereum    First Tokenized Fund Rated by Moody's and Particula: Anemoy's LTF, Managed by Janus Henderson: https://centrifuge.mirror.xyz/6rlZ9ZD9OPRuFwVj5cRvguaqAEelyUMEnlgOyvphKOo   Tether Launches Hadron RWA Tokenization Platform: https://tether.io/news/hadron-by-tether-platform-brings-simplified-asset-tokenization-to-the-mass-market/   Arca and BlockTower to Merge for Growth in Digital Asset Space: https://www.ar.ca/blog/arca-and-blocktower-intend-to-merge-unlocking-synergies-and-growth-opportunities Tokenized Burgers: Furahaa Group's Issuance on INX, Live November 20th: https://www.coinspeaker.com/french-fast-food-chain-furahaa-group-enters-tokenization-market-inx-listing/  Avalon Labs Launches USDa: Bitcoin-Backed, Overcollateralized Stablecoin: https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/11/12/avalon-labs-launches-bitcoin-backed-usda-stablecoin/ ⏰ TABLE OF CONTENTS ⏰ 0:16 Introduction 0:52 Special Announcement: Project Reveal at Benzinga on Tuesday, TokenizeThis 2025 2:31 Market Movements 17:15 Company of The Week: BUIDL

Building the Access Control & Granular Governance Layer for web3, with Greg Jessner from Narval, Building the Platform and the Future of Digital Assets. I am really excited about this episode with ⁠⁠⁠⁠Greg Jessner⁠ Co-founder & CEO @ ⁠Narval⁠. --- This is free, 15min excerpt of the full-length episode published in our premium newsletter called Venture Notes (⁠⁠⁠⁠https://venturenotes.co⁠⁠⁠⁠). If you want to become a premium member and enjoy the full experience, grab until Dec 31, 2023 a special offer : 50% off, €45/year instead of €90/year, link to redeem ⁠https://upcomingvc.substack.com/narval⁠⁠ --- We've entered the third era of the internet, as Chris Dixon says, from a16z. An internet owned by the builders and the users. web3 that blockchain will create a true decentralized data layer, centered around three main characteristics, including organizations around digital assets. In the future, every organization will own and utilize digital assets, the same way that every organization owns and utilizes physical assets today. According to the crypto startup Narval, secure usage and access control is the game in the digital property era. Key storage is maturing, with significant advancements in MPC, smart wallets, and HSMs, resulting in multiple options for securing keys - via a custodian or self-custody or decentralized-custody - depending on an organization's needs and use-cases. As key generation & storage decouples from the rest of the wallet stack, ⁠Narval⁠'s core innovation is a granular governance and orchestration layer over any key storage and custody model, designed from the ground up to enable precise usage & access control over digital property. In this episode, we welcome ⁠Greg Jessner Co-founder & CEO @ Narval⁠. With a recent announcement of a $4 million seed round led by BlockTower, Narval is accelerating on its journey to build the wallet management platform for organizations. In this episode we explore the ethical considerations of such control, the philosophical implications of ownership in the web3 era, and the delicate balance between decentralization and control. We'll also examine Narval's core innovations, the technical intricacies behind their security measures, and how their platform addresses the challenges faced by organizations in securely using their digital assets. Let's get into the episode right now. - The podcasts Runway Series Originals, AMA VC, Human Factor, No-Code VC / Fit, Venture Talks & Solo-GP Series are produced by UPCOMINGVC® (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠upcoming.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠), created and hosted by Raphael Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠rapha.elgrie.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠).

Building the Access Control & Granular Governance Layer for web3, with Greg Jessner from Narval, Building the Platform and the Future of Digital Assets. I am really excited about this episode with ⁠Greg Jessner Co-founder & CEO @ Narval. --- A free, 15min excerpt will be published on the main public streaming platforms (Apple Podcasts, Spotify..) in the next few days. --- Meanwhile, this is a trailer of the full-length episode to be published in our premium newsletter called Venture Notes (⁠⁠⁠https://venturenotes.co⁠⁠⁠). If you want to become a premium member and enjoy the full experience, grab until Dec 31, 2023 a special offer : 50% off, €45/year instead of €90/year, link to redeem https://upcomingvc.substack.com/narval⁠ --- We've entered the third era of the internet, as Chris Dixon says, from a16z. An internet owned by the builders and the users. web3 that blockchain will create a true decentralized data layer, centered around three main characteristics, including organizations around digital assets. In the future, every organization will own and utilize digital assets, the same way that every organization owns and utilizes physical assets today. According to the crypto startup Narval, secure usage and access control is the game in the digital property era. Key storage is maturing, with significant advancements in MPC, smart wallets, and HSMs, resulting in multiple options for securing keys - via a custodian or self-custody or decentralized-custody - depending on an organization's needs and use-cases. As key generation & storage decouples from the rest of the wallet stack, Narval's core innovation is a granular governance and orchestration layer over any key storage and custody model, designed from the ground up to enable precise usage & access control over digital property. In this episode, we welcome Greg Jessner Co-founder & CEO @ Narval. With a recent announcement of a $4 million seed round led by BlockTower, Narval is accelerating on its journey to build the wallet management platform for organizations. In this episode we explore the ethical considerations of such control, the philosophical implications of ownership in the web3 era, and the delicate balance between decentralization and control. We'll also examine Narval's core innovations, the technical intricacies behind their security measures, and how their platform addresses the challenges faced by organizations in securely using their digital assets. Let's get into the episode right now. - The podcasts Runway Series Originals, AMA VC, Human Factor, No-Code VC / Fit, Venture Talks & Solo-GP Series are produced by UPCOMINGVC® (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠upcoming.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠), created and hosted by Raphael Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠rapha.elgrie.co⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠).

This is Eric Golden and my guest this week is Kevin Miao, Partner and Head of Credit at BlockTower Capital. I've been excited for this conversation because while a lot of people in crypto seem to be focused on building a brand new financial system from scratch, this conversation focuses on how crypto rails can improve the traditional finance world. After nearly a decade at Citi, Kevin straddles both the TradFi and the DeFi world, and at BlockTower, he is working on bringing the multi-trillion dollar securitization market on-chain. We go deep into the weeds in this one, first getting into the nuts and bolts of how credit and securitization traditionally work, before diving into BlockTower's approach to transform this entire process, moving it on chain, which will reduce friction, errors. and consequently fees. Enjoy. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by OKX. You may have seen OKX on McLaren's Formula 1 race car or Manchester City's football kit. But what is OKX? OKX has over 730 spot trading pairs, 280 derivatives markets, and 1000 options markets. It processes 400,000 requests per second with 99.95% uptime. That's why over 20 million traders and institutions choose OKX when they want to trade. Visit okx.com to learn more. ----- Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag  Show Notes (00:04:00) - (First question) - The impact of TradFi shifting towards crypto infrastructure (00:14:00) - How crypto could drastically reduce friction in credit markets and mortgages (00:28:29) - Building crypto rails in parallel to legacy systems to prove their power and destabilize those traditional structures (00:37:15) - The gravity of competing with the most entrenched American industry and how Blocktower's system addresses this (00:45:22) - How they cooperate and compete with different TradFi and DeFi players (00:47:38) - Considerations for privacy and reversibility with crypto-based banking (00:55:41) - How blockchain in banking can eliminate much of the human error in the system (00:58:57) - What he's most excited to see built over the next six months and six years

Today's blockchain and cryptocurrency news  Bitcoin is up slightly at $24,696 Ethereum is down slightly at $1,697 Binance Coin is up slightly at $316 blockchain. com says it's an asset buyer, not a seller as rumors swirl about it selling pieces of business. Jdotcolumbo points out Yuga Labs' BAKC logo lifted from easy drawing guides tutorial Dexible exploited, BlockTower loses $1.5M. BlockSec calls back $2.4M from Platypus hacker MicroStrategy raises $46.6M through share sales. YGG raising for first VC fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Interview mit Kerstin Eismann und Daniel Höpfner In dieser Podcastfolge geht es weiter mit einer neuen Ausgabe der Rubrik “To Infinity and Beyond – der Podcast rund um Blockchain, Web 3.0, Krypto und NFT”. Gemeinsam mit den Kryptoenthusiasten Kerstin Eismann (Kee) und Daniel Höpfner spricht Jan heute über die neuesten Entwicklungen in der Krypto und Blockchain-Welt: Lissabon als Krypto-Hauptstadt Europas - ein Review der verschiedensten Web3-Events der letzten 10 Tage Centrifuge, DeFi-Marktplatz für Real-World Assets schließt eine strategischen Runde mit Coinbase Venture, Scytale Ventures und BlockTower über 4 Millionen US-Dollar ab die Bank J.P. Morgan führt erste cross-boarder DeFi-Transaktion über Polygon auf Aave durch Instagram (Muttergesellschaft Meta) unterstützt NFT-Marktplatz von Polygon und was das für die Nutzer bedeutet welche Rolle spielt Binance in der Übernahme von Twitter und was bedeutet das für das “Leitmedium” der web3-Szene die Blockchain Solana startet eigene Stores In New York City und Miami - Warum?

BlockTower yesterday unveiled a new $150 million fund, which has been operating in stealth since December of last year. BlockTower also announced a new venture arm, which complements the firm's long-biased flagship fund, market-neutral fund and credit strategies. In this episode of The Scoop, Thomas Klocanas, BlockTower general partner and the new head of ventures, explains how BlockTower's new venture fund synergizes with the firm's existing strategies, and how this is advantageous for early-stage crypto projects. According to Klocanas, BlockTower's four strategies collectively have more utility than a single specialized fund could have on its own: "If you're a DeFi protocol at seed stage, one of the first things you're calling your investors to solve for following your seed round is how do you bootstrap liquidity?… The benefit within BlockTower, our market-neutral fund, that's a big part of their mandate, that's a big part of how they generate yields — so there are obvious synergies where we can pipe that in.” Given this interoperability between the different facets of the business, Klocanas believes his new fund is more aptly referred to as a "strategic" fund: “We're not just a venture fund, we're a ‘strategic.' When folks say ‘strategic,' they typically think of Coinbase's investment arm or Gemini's investment arm, but really I think that category is a little wider, and BlockTower is strategic in that we have multiple funds and strategies that can not just be an investor, but a user of your platform.” For Klocanas, of all the crypto industry's subsectors, “the highest conviction theme right now is definitely credit.” Given the amount of re-hypothecation in crypto that was exposed earlier this year, Klocanas believes there are clear advantages to decentralized lending: “There is a benefit to lending through a smart contract in that in the pecking order, if you're lending with something that has claims on collateral with code, you're going to get paid.   Episode 99 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and BlockTower General Partner & Head of Venture, Thomas Klocanas. 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 Tron About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |

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/podcast 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.

Today, I am joined by Ari Paul, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of BlockTower; a crypto hedge fund started in 2017. Before founding BlockTower, Ari spent time at the University of Chicago Endowment and, before that, at Susquehanna as a derivatives trader. Ari has been an active voice in the crypto space for years now, including on the original Hash Power series. With BlockTower being one of the original crypto funds, Ari is an ideal guest to talk about the evolution of crypto markets and where we are today.    For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.     -----   This episode is brought to you by Coinbase Prime. Coinbase Prime combines advanced trading, battle-tested custody, financing, and prime services in a single solution. Clients have used our comprehensive investing platform to execute some of the largest trades in the industry because we are the only publicly-traded company with experience trading and custodying crypto assets at scale. Get started with Coinbase Prime today at coinbase.com/prime.   -----   Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag    Show Notes [00:01:50] - [First question] - How a political science major ended up in investing [00:05:06] - His perspective on how public opinion has shifted towards embracing crypto [00:09:58] - Whether or not owning crypto requires you to understand blockchains [00:13:34] - Setting a valuation for cryptocurrencies  [00:19:45] - How censorship-resistant currencies could empower bad actors [00:27:50] - BlockTower's scale and what kind of investments they make  [00:31:41] - Thoughts on separating alpha from beta at BlockTower [00:38:26] - Explaining the protocol risk of crypto to investors [00:42:38] - Endowment adoption of crypto via fund-to-fund models [00:45:36] - Differences between equities, tokens, and varying levels of ownership [00:48:55] - His perspectives on various blockchain asset classes  [00:54:30] - Parallels between the NFT and DeFi cycles [01:02:03] - Narrative driven correlations between traditional assets and crypto [01:05:44] - Defining the current cycle, where we are in it, and his allocations [01:13:41] - What he's most excited to see built over the next six months and six years

In today's episode of Crypto Daily, we discuss the recent dips and prediction for the market and share why we likely aren't in a Bear Winter, El Salvador's recent buy into the dip, Twitter adding actual NFT profile photos, and a bug on OpenSea making some people a lot of money. Be sure to follow me on: Instagram: @DustinKnouse https://www.instagram.com/dustinknouse/ Twitter: @DustinKnouse https://twitter.com/DustinKnouse Linkedin: @DustinKnouse https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinknouse/ Facebook: @DustinKnouse https://www.facebook.com/DustinKnouseOfficial/ TikTok: @DustinKnouse https://www.tiktok.com/@dustinknouse Resources: El Salvador buys the dip again, adds 410 BTC to its treasury, but experts raise alarm Bitcoin is in a ‘growth mode' despite sharp volatility, says BlockTower's Michael Bucella Twitter launched NFT profile pictures — people are hella mad NFT marketplace bug undervalues tokens, helps exploiter nab $750,000 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cryptodailyshow/message

Ari Paul is co-founder and CIO of BlockTower Capital. BlockTower is a crypto and blockchain investment firm, applying professional trading, investing and portfolio management to this digital asset class. It is funded by well-known investors such as A16z and Union Square Ventures. Before BlockTower, Ari was a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago's $8 billion endowment, and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader for Susquehanna International Group (SIG). In this podcast we discuss: How to value bitcoin Understanding drivers of crypto markets What flows have driven crypto in recent years? Business for exchanges like UniSwap The real benefit of crypto is co-ordination power Trends in layer one protocols like Ethereum and Solana Will switch to Proof of Stake make a difference? What stage of hype cycle are Metaverse and DeFi tokens? Risk is about sizing positions Books/articles that influenced Ari: Money, blockchains, and social scalability (Nick Szabo), Shelling Out: The Origin Of Money (Szabo), Debt: The First 5000 Years (Graeber)

Mark is taking some well deserved family time for this episode SO we have a special guest filling in, Avil Felman of BlockTower. Avi is deep in the crypto ecosystem and a born trader, this episode was a blast. We covered Thanksgiving's sell off, whether or not we are in a supercycle, the hype around the metaverse, and what he sees happening in the NFT market. Not an episode to miss, hope you all enjoy. -- Ledger: This episode is brought to you by Ledger, your secure gateway to buy, exchange and grow your crypto. Combine a Ledger hardware wallet with the Ledger Live app to access all your favorite crypto services & DApps from one place. All that with the best security. Visit https://onthemargin.link/ledger and make your crypto journey easier and safer. -- Coinbase Prime: On The Margin is supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information go to https://onthemargin.link/coinbase --- On the Margin is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/

Today we are re-sharing our Hash Power documentary. This series was originally released in September 2017 when 1 Bitcoin hovered around $4000 US Dollars. While so much has changed in the years since - these episodes are a great introduction into the technology, the power of decentralization, Bitcoin, Ethereum, ICO's, cryptography, and hashing. You will hear from a variety of industry experts throughout these episodes - please enjoy.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.    ----   Original Intro (10.10.17)   In episodes one and two of Hash Power, we explored blockchain technology and cryptocurrency investing. In this episode, we discuss the current and potential future states of the crypto world. We cover new forms of cooperation, regulation, security and storage, and why blockchains allow systems to evolve at such a rapid pace.    Be sure to listen until the end, where we close with some advice about conducting ourselves in a new world where creativity reigns and repetitive jobs disappear—a trend that may only accelerate thanks to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.   -----   Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes: [00:00:05] – Intro to episode 3 and what to expect [00:04:00] – Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of Polychain, on how the funding and investing in cryptocurrencies could easily get out of hand [00:05:00] – How people are creating holding companies to fund cryptocurrencies protocols [00:06:45] – Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and how they will replace the aforementioned holding companies [00:08:32] – Could fully decentralized organizations replace other more traditional organizational structures, even outside of cryptocurrency [00:09:59] – How can DAO's impact everyday lives [00:12:39] – Why your skills and accomplishments will become more important than who you are or where you are from [00:16:09] – Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, on the way humans cooperate and build new entities [00:17:51] – When people will demand oversight and regulation over cryptocurrency [00:20:42] – Peter Van Valkenburg, Director of Research at Coincenter on the current state of regulation [00:26:06] – Jameson Lopp on security needed to protect your cryptocurrency [00:27:51] – Ari Paul, co-founder of Blocktower, on how nail polish is used to protect their crypto wallet [00:30:03] – Juan Benet explains the Filecoin Protocol [00:35:52] – Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Blockstack, on how his team is planning to provide basic tools that will allow the broader developer community to build apps that the cryptocurrency population will use [00:38:01] – Comparing blockstack to the analogy of creating a city [00:40:17] – How the blockstack token fits into everything [00:43:15] – Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, on forking in blockchains [00:47:52] – Naval Ravikant on how the idea of work will change in the future, and how that change helped to produce the idea of a blockchain in the first place [00:49:31] – Why curiosity should govern what you do in life [00:53:22] – Naval's framework for making money

Today we are re-sharing our Hash Power documentary. This series was originally released in September 2017 when 1 Bitcoin hovered around $4000 US Dollars. While so much has changed in the years since - these episodes are a great introduction to the technology, the power of decentralization, Bitcoin, Ethereum, ICO's, cryptography, and hashing. You will hear from a variety of industry experts throughout these episodes - please enjoy.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.    ----   Original Intro (10.03.17)   In episode 1 of Hash Power, we explored blockchains as a technology—how they work, why tokens (also known as cryptocurrencies) are an integral part of any blockchain, and how these new networks might change the world. In episode two, we spend time with the leading investors in the field. Like any frenzied asset class, there are countless cryptocurrency hedge funds popping up everywhere. But founders from three of the original firms—Polychain, Metastable, and Blocktower Capital—are our primary guides this week.   As I speak, the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies is $136B. There are hundreds of tokens currently available, but bitcoin and Ethereum represent 75% of the total market cap. $136B sounds like a big number, but its tiny relative to any other asset class—and I use that term with hesitation. To put it in perspective, that's exactly the same size as the market cap of IBM. But IBM had more than $10B of earnings in 2016. Tokens have none. As you will hear, valuing tokens is a very hard exercise.   In such a nascent world, we are seeing investing strategies take hold. Olaf Carlson-Wee, Josh Seims, and Ari Paul walk us through different takes on cryptocurrency investing, be it early stage, long term buy and hold, or more hedge fund style strategies.   -----   Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes: [00:00:05] – Recap of part 1 and introduction to part 2 of Hash Power [00:02:58] – Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower explains how he got involved in cryptocurrencies [00:05:23] – Why do we need bitcoin [00:07:23] – Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee on why the value of tokens accrue [00:09:23] – How mainstream money is getting into this space [00:12:26] – Useful comparisons when talking about ICOs when compared to IPOs [00:15:01] – Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, is asked to explain the protocols of cryptocurrencies to platform businesses like Uber or Airbnb [00:17:43] – Naval's interest in investing in cryptocurrencies [00:18:42] – Why average folks should avoid it before they dive thoroughly into the topic [00:20:25] – What are the most compelling counter-arguments to using cryptocurrencies [00:23:07] – Olaf Carlson Wee on the lifecycle of a token [00:25:31] – What is the earliest stage that edge is most present for investors in cryptocurrency protocols [00:28:12] – How do you mitigate the volatility that is present in blockchain [00:31:18] – Jeremiah Lowin, a risk and statistics expert, who runs risk management for a large private family office, talks about why he no longer owns cryptocurrencies [00:34:19] – Jordan Cooper, a venture capital investor, is optimistic about blockchains in general, but thinks there may be some overvaluations in current currencies [00:37:02] – How Jordan would value a single cryptocurrency [00:43:52] – Josh Seims, of Metastable, the value investor in blockchain? [00:51:15] – Ari Paul on the equivalent of listed stocks in the cryptocurrency world [00:52:33] – Understanding the concept of a coin in blockchain and how people are getting access to them [00:55:07] – The fairground analogy to understand cryptocurrencies [00:57:57] – What lessons from traditional markets can you apply to investing in cryptocurrencies [01:02:48] – Where do family offices stand when it comes to jumping into this space [01:06:51] – Ari is asked to discuss some of the alternative cryptocurrencies

LinksTwitterShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesIntroduction– Ari bought first Bitcoin in 2014– Really dove into crypto 2016– Friend emailed him in 2011 asking to check out crypto, Ari said it won't retain value, not backed by guns like fiat– Ari: “For crypto you kinda gotta know a little bit about a lot of things”– Got involved with crypto through crypto twitter– Cunningham's Law – “The fastest way to get an answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to state something wrong”Ari's Headspace– Long term mostly thinking about the future of crypto– BlockTower bets on where the world will be in 1-3 years, not 10-20 years– Fascinated by the big picture– Huge believer in giving people defensive tools for overbearing statesVC Stuff– BlockTower is a trading firm by nature, so they invest in projects that they can actually be power users in– Ari: “Evaluating seed stage teams is its own skillsets, very different from evaluating something like Microsoft”– Cobie skeptical of a16z's success in crypto, followed like 4 deals they did and got crushed– A lot of the time, timing is much more important than vetting skill– Ari: “If you were trading NFTs 2 years ago, it almost doesn't matter if you were good it just matters that you were doing it”Privacy– Ari: “There's a whole tech stack for privacy that's missing”– Countries can control the internet very easily– People think the internet is super hard to control – there is literally a bundle of wires that delivers the internet to an entire country– Ari: “zk-rollup chains where you can shield the mempool… there is some super cool math we're building into the system now that could change everything”– You could fork Ethereum and add it as a rollup chain to Bitcoin– Ledger: “Is there really a market for that?”– Ari: “It seems likely in the next 2 years that we'll get a soft fork to implement this”– Ari: “There are bitcoiners who are pitching this as humanitarian technology but against adding privacy technology that exists…borderline unethical”Making ETH Maxis Mad– Ethereum is a risky startup competing on tech– The odds it is a market leader in 10 years is under 20%– Facebook didn't need a single Friendster user or dev– If you have an industry that's going to 20x, you don't need to take existing users– Ari: “Solana has something like more than 10,000 active developers now”– Ethereum does not have much of a moat, it has a little bit of brand recognition, a little bit of regulatory head start, some dev moat, but largely the moat is very small– Ethereum cannot move as fast, cannot take as much risk. It's hard to maintain its lead– Cobie: “Do you think Ethereum should have a canary network, kind of like Kusama?”– Ari: “(pause) I actually haven't thought about that”– Seems to be a real, good ideaSolana– Ari has been recommending Solana for the last 2 years– Well intentioned team, real project, very cool innovation at the communication layer– *Ari still has a long Solana position to be clear*– It's quite centralized, depends on the team to stay up, has a real path to decentralization– It's a highly speculative early stage betBNB– Exchange coins are basically sold as equities– There are tons of regulatory actions which could likely be negative for $BNB– Would not hold the coinCardano– Ari: “Cardano I actually know very little about”– The only thing he really believed would stick around for 5 years was Bitcoin, DeFi and NFTs– Ari: “I worry that in 5-10 years the winning metaverse will be Facebook or Fortnite, some centralized entity, which scares me because I want a decentralized world”– Ledger: “so Cardano” lol– Ari: “I am deeply skeptical of Cardano”– Ledger: “Dump it”2017 Bull Market– Ari bought $50k calls in 2017– Did it to maintain upside exposure while not keeping material risk on– Went onto CNBC to talk about it, they mid-curved his thinking– Ari: “Options are a bet on volatility, not the direction, because you can always hedge the direction with the underlying”– Ari: “If you can't define skew and kurtosis then you probably shouldn't be trading options”Crypto Investing– Ari: “If you're investing with a lot of small bets in alts, it almost acts as a call option”– Ari thinks vol is about fair today– Basically every time Bitcoin vol gets below 60, Ari buys it– Ari: “The crazier the bull market the crazier the retrace”– Ari: “My basic thesis now is DeFi 5-10x's here and then retraces 80-90%”– Ari: “The biggest value add from crypto over the next 12-18 months is connecting DeFi to real world lending”FINAL ALPHA– Ari: “It doesn't matter how much money you make, if you don't keep yourself healthy you won't enjoy it”– Focus on your health!Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

Strap in for the deepest of deep dives into all things DeFi. Blake Richardson, investor at BlockTower Capital, enlightens viewers with his expert perspective as an investor in the space. Decentralized finance is a relatively new industry, but the number of subtopics continues to grow. A helpful discussion for beginners and experts, Richardson educates viewers on a wide range of material including synthetics, stablecoins, DeFi in the insurance industry, smart contracts, bonding curves, and more. He also shares insight into the due diligence process undergone by his team at BlockTower when assessing the ever-increasing number of DeFi companies emerging today. Interviewed by Ash Bennington on July 16, 2021.

On this episode in our Crowdcreate insights series, I'm joined by Beryl Li, one of the founders of Yield Guild Games. She was also the founding CEO of an asset token platform called CapchainX and a founding team member at Coins.ph, a crypto exchange and blockchain payments startup in Asia recently acquired by GoJek. She graduated from Cambridge University where she sat as President of the Cambridge University Cryptocurrency Society. Yield Guild Games have been making headlines around the world. So unless you've been under an NFT rock (pun intended), you have heard of this project. In July 2021, Yield Guild Games launched their IDO on SushiSwap's Miso Platform raising roughly $12.5 million in 31 seconds. They have attracted the world's top gaming and crypto investors including Bitkraft, IDEO, ParaFi, Animoca Brands, Delphi, BlockTower, and Scalar.  If you've been following our channel, you'll recognize the project from our previous guest Miko Matsumura, who shared YGG as one of the most innovative projects today. https://yieldguild.io/ Beryl Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beryl-chavez-li-832baa4b The goal is to share wisdom and insights from the smartest people in the room with you, so you can make more informed decisions in your business. Also, check out our website crowdcreate.us for the business insights we've learned along the way. As a reminder, nothing said on this podcast is a solicitation to buy or sell any security or token, or to make any financial decisions. -- Crowdcreate is a one-of-a-kind growth marketing service used by businesses to accelerate their investor funding and influencer sales. What makes us different? Our track record of raising over $130 million dollars across 80+ successful client projects. We're always on the cutting edge of marketing techniques and have experience in multiple industries from technology and real estate, to blockchain and consumer products. We've built a network of investors, influencers, and strategic partnerships over the past 5 years to help businesses grow. Book a call to learn more about what we can do for your business - https://www.crowdcreate.us/

LinksAvi Felman TwitterWebsiteShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX (formerly Blockfolio). Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow Notes*Cobie is coping HARD today, very hungover and may leave at any time to be sickIntro– Co-PM of BlockTower investment fund along with Ari Paul– Anything in crypto they'll touch it or flip it if it can make money– Providing access to the crypto space for investors– Cobie: “So you provide punks for institutions”– Avi: “No comment.” lmao SER WE KNOW U DOAvi Background– Worked at a bank for 6 months before realizing he needed to get out. Brought up crypto to them, they literally said in a decade..– Started out in 2017, then ran his own fund for a while, then another crypto company (check this again), then on to BlockTower– Ari trades over longer periods with conviction. Avi changes his mind every few minutes. Was hard to find a balance for such different trading approaches– Unlikely to trade meme coins over 5% of portfolio but they do trade them! Need to be willing to be flexible– Currently watching Grayscale, thinks we need premium to go positive again for BTC to go to 6 figures– Reasonable that it will go positive again, no shares created since it was locked down in March so should get pushed to at least parLearning Options– Cobie: “What learning tools or process would you recommend for learning options?”– Avi: Gap between retail and professional options traders. Not really worth it for retail to learn, but get comfortable with the idea of implied and realized volatility. Beyond that in this market there's not much needed because things are frequently mispriced– A lot of people over-estimate the effects of gamma on the options market– It exists but it takes a lot more money to move this market than most people imagine – you could buy $100M with only a few hundred dollars of slippage over an hour or two– Right now the most edge on large moves is trying to monitor option flows– Book rec: Option Volatility & Pricing by Sheldon NatenbergNFT Boom– Avi: “I'll preface this as I know very little about NFTs in general”– “This is the one area of crypto that all of my friends that aren't in crypto are hitting me up about”– Just super easy to understand– CL was right!– “I would assume that 98% of these collectibles go to zero at some point”– Cobie: “NFTs are just like DOGE coin where its a meme and people just ponzi it up”– Super illiquid but that also means they can just skyrocket– Avi: “They're probably not securities too”Complacency Bounce?– Avi: “I think they bottom has been printed”– This is a completely different set of market participants– There are $100M checks being written for crypto every week now– Avi: “From my perspective $30k will be the bottom”– “The patient buyers waiting to buy $35k will become very impatient if we don't trade there for 2 weeks”– No one knows where to park their money – Bitcoin and crypto is a great place to park your money– You wanna bet asset prices are going up and you wanna bet on the fastest horseBTC vs. Shitcoins– Ethereum is gaining market share in peoples minds– Once people are in, they start moving down the risk curveCOIN vs MSTR– People are still trying to bet directly on BTC– They (huge institutions) aren't really trying to bet on other cryptos– MSTR == BTC, so people use MSTR as equities crypto exposure– People might start to park in COIN on a longer timeline– Even based trading is the last horizon of alpha in the crypto industry– Pick 15-20 DeFi assets, read their medium posts and just play their events– Wow it really is that easyNew Retail– Retail this time got onboarded through like TikTok straight to BSC– If stuff comes back, do you think they choose value? or same as last time?– Avi wants to make sure we know – he is the most bullest bull– We are going to 144kDeFi– Avi: “I think it'll outperform a little bit”– The large caps likely won't return huge huge multiples– DeFi actually has cashflows… which is a detriment LOL– You can actually value these things, prevents mega moon pumps– There are other shitcoins which will 15-20x, DeFi just likely won't– DeFi will be a huge industry that will morph a ton in ways that we probably don't understand yet– But if you want to trade euphoria, you want to trade this market… its other assets– In the next 3-4 months, we're going to see a huge battle between a multi-chain universe and a single chain universe– THIS BATTLE SOUNDS INSANE ITS SOLANA COSMOS POLKADOT ALL THESE CHAINS VS ETH AS MASTER CHAIN LFG– Lido is something that could get stupid euphoriaFINAL ALPHA– From Ted Lasso – “Have the memory of a goldfish” lmao lfg– If something goes wrong, don't dwell on your mistakesNotes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle 

Ari Paul is the co-founder and chief investment officer of BlockTower Capital, a crypto and blockchain investment firm he started alongside Matthew Goetz in 2017 with backing from Andreesen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. He started his career as a trader at Susquehanna International Group, and later found his way to the University of Chicago endowment as a portfolio manager, overseeing an internal hedge fund portfolio and assessing risk for the university’s $8 billion endowment.   Our conversation covers Ari’s early lessons in trading, discovery of crypto while at University of Chicago endowment, obstacles for institutional participation, and launch of BlockTower in 2017 as a result.  We discuss active management in the crypto markets, research and trading, portfolio construction, opportunities in NFTs and gaming, risks, and the exciting landscape over the coming years.   While this episode concludes our current mini-series, we’ve just scratched the surface on crypto, blockchain protocols, and institutional engagement in the space. In the coming months, we’ll dive deeper into the evolving ecosystem with more key participants and ideas. Learn More Subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe Monthly Mailing List Read the Transcript

In this episode of CRYPTO 101, brought to you by StopSIMSwaps.com, we talk to the legend Avi Felman, Head of Trading at Blocktower. This might be the most informative 101-level conversation we've ever had. Avi broke down some common trading strategies people can use in crypto markets. He taught us how many coins are too many to hold, and great tips on portfolio construction. We learned new terms that smart money uses to define different methods of profit, like Alpha, Gamma, and Delta, and also, what a Gamma squeeze is. We also got some great commentary on when and how to take profit, which is one of the most difficult things to do actually. Lastly, Avi gives us his best guess on where we are in this bull run, how much longer we have left, and how to tell when the top is finally in. He also shares with us some amazing tools he uses to determine a loose fundamental valuation of a crypto project, in a way even we had never heard before. Sponsored link: https://stopsimswaps.com Guest Links: https://twitter.com/AviFelman Show Links: https://CRYPTO101podcast.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=8429526 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Crypto101Pod https://twitter.com/BrycePaul101 https://twitter.com/PizzaMind https://instagram.com/crypto_101 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/101Crypto https://www.facebook.com/CRYPTO101Podcast **THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL OR LEGAL ADVICE** © Copyright 2021 Boardwalk Flock, LLC All Rights Reserved ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Fog by DIZARO https://soundcloud.com/dizarofr Creative Commons — Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported — CC BY-ND 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/Fog-DIZARO Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/lAfbjt_rmE8 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode of CRYPTO 101, brought to you by StopSIMSwaps.com, we talk to the legend Avi Felman, Head of Trading at Blocktower. This might be the most informative 101-level conversation we’ve ever had. Avi broke down some common trading strategies people can use in crypto markets. He taught us how many coins are too many to hold, and great tips on portfolio construction. We learned new terms that smart money uses to define different methods of profit, like Alpha, Gamma, and Delta, and also, what a Gamma squeeze is. We also got some great commentary on when and how to take profit, which is one of the most difficult things to do actually. Lastly, Avi gives us his best guess on where we are in this bull run, how much longer we have left, and how to tell when the top is finally in. He also shares with us some amazing tools he uses to determine a loose fundamental valuation of a crypto project, in a way even we had never heard before. Sponsored link: https://stopsimswaps.com Guest Links: https://twitter.com/AviFelman Show Links: https://CRYPTO101podcast.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=8429526 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Crypto101Pod https://twitter.com/BrycePaul101 https://twitter.com/PizzaMind https://instagram.com/crypto_101 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/101Crypto https://www.facebook.com/CRYPTO101Podcast **THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL OR LEGAL ADVICE** © Copyright 2021 Boardwalk Flock, LLC All Rights Reserved ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Fog by DIZARO https://soundcloud.com/dizarofr Creative Commons — Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported — CC BY-ND 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/Fog-DIZARO Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/lAfbjt_rmE8 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Host Piers Kicks sits down for Episode 07 of Metaverse Musings with Steve Lee, who is the Head of Asia and an Investment Director at BlockTower—one of the older funds on the block. With roots in traditional finance after a long international investment banking career, Steve now bridges the East/West corridor for BlockTower across a variety of areas. Most recently, the firm has announced plans to triple down on their NFT investment thesis and expects to allocate significantly more capital to the theme in the near future.Every Delphi Podcast is dropped first as a video interview for Delphi Digital Subscribers. Join today to get our interviews, first.- Resources:Guest’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/xxsteveleePiers' Twitter: https://twitter.com/pierskicksBlockTower’s Website: https://www.blocktower.com/ Delphi Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/PodcastDelphiMoreOur Video interviews Can Be Viewed Here: https://tinyurl.com/ycvsp75hAccess Delphi's Research Here: https://www.delphidigital.io/Kubera lets you monitor your crypto and traditional portfolios in a single place. Think Coinbase and Fidelity on the same dashboard. All major banks, brokerages, crypto exchanges and wallets supported. https://www.kubera.com/Disclosures: This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host may personally own tokens that are mentioned on the podcast. Lets Talk Bitcoin is a distribution partner for The Delphi Podcast, and our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product or service. 

On this episode of BlockChannel, McKie and Dr. Petty sit down with the crypto twitter famous, Ari Paul. Ari is the head honcho at BlockTower capital, and comes from a background of endowment management at the University of Chicago; Ari is a traditional finance nerd turned crypto nerds. We have a solid discussion on some of his perspectives on investing, and Petty and McKie pick his brain for some new insights you might not have heard elsewhere. Show Links: BlockTower Site: https://www.blocktower.com Intro/Outro Music "Learnt Some Jazz Today" by Tesselated: https://soundcloud.com/tessellated/jazz Show Sponsor(s): Amentum: http://amentum.org Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, it is an engaged discussion on new technology; BlockChannel reminds you to always do your own due diligence before investing in any crypto-related project in the industry.

What would the three branches of the government look like...on the blockchain? This week, we continue our discussion on crypto governance with Storecoin, backed by Blocktower and Arrington XRP Capital, to find out. Founder Chris McCoy and I touch on: Why 1-coin-1-vote doesn't work How to creates a p2p democracy and its tradeoffs Whether a system of checks and balances makes sense Host: Jason Choi (@MrJasonChoi) Not finance advice. Spartan Capital and/or Jason may or may not have positions in assets discussed on the show.  ****** Resources: Relay node newsletter (Asia crypto events) Libsyn link Apple Podcast Stitcher Spotify ****** Intro music by Phortissimo. Disclaimer: Jason Choi is an investor at Spartan Capital, the hedge fund arm of The Spartan Group. All opinions expressed by Jason and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of The Spartan Group and any of its subsidiaries and personnel. This podcast is for information purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Spartan Group and its clients may hold positions in assets described in the episode. Detailed disclaimers available at jasonchoi.me and spartangroup.io/disclaimer

Ari Paul is the CIO of BlockTower, one of the best known crypto investment firms. In this conversation, Paul and Anthony Pompliano discuss his previous work at a university endowment, what Ari thinks about the current state of crypto, and how he sees digital assets performing during a global financial crisis. ----- Join the Off the Chain newsletter. Pomp's daily email analyzes the crypto market for institutional investors. Simply, it’s the best crypto newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. No frills. No bullsh*t. Just everything you need to know in a 3-minute read. https://offthechain.substack.com/ ----- BlockFi BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Ari Paul, CIO of BlockTower Capital, explains why he likes how short-term trades concentrate risk in investment, why, "no matter what," he thinks Bitcoin is a good-value buy today, and how big university endowments investing in crypto now could eventually lead institutions to go from having a fear-of-loss attitude about crypto to having FOMO. He also dives into why he's not as excited about generalized mining as some of BlockTower's crypto fund peers and who he thinks is really well-poised in that space. We also discuss why Bitcoin futures didn't have a positive impact on the price and what effect Bakkt and Fidelity launching their crypto products could have. Plus, he responds to people who accused him of insider trading when a private conversation in which he mentioned Stellar was acquiring enterprise blockchain startup Chain was released. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained Altlending: https://altlending.com Episode links: Ari Paul: https://twitter.com/AriDavidPaul BlockTower Capital: https://www.blocktower.com Harvard, Stanford, MIT endowments invest in crypto: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/harvard-stanford-mit-endowments-invest-in-crypto-funds Yale endowment invests in a16z and Paradigm: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/05/yale-investment-chief-david-swensen-jumps-into-crypto-with-bets-on-two-silicon-valley-funds.html Bitcoin Cash hard fork recap: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/week-2-how-bitcoin-cash-hash-war-came-and-went-and-not-much-happened/ Unconfirmed episode on Bitcoin Cash hard fork with Aaron Van Wirdum: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/the-bitcoin-cash-hard-fork-bitcoin-abc-vs-bitcoin-sv-ep046 Unchained episode with Riccardo Spagni of Monero: http://unchainedpodcast.co/coinfunds-jake-brukhman-and-multicoins-tushar-jain-on-generalized-mining-ep92 Unchained episode with Jake Brukhman and Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital: http://unchainedpodcast.co/coinfunds-jake-brukhman-and-multicoins-tushar-jain-on-generalized-mining-ep92 Unconfirmed episode with Fidelity's Tom Jessop: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/fidelity-digital-asset-services-tom-jessop-on-why-its-serving-institutional-clients-first-ep043 Ari's private conversation in which he mentioned Stellar was acquiring Chain: https://hackernoon.com/ten-questions-for-ari-david-paul-of-blocktower-capital-dcd8d81ef27e IMF managing director Christine Lagarde's talk on the case for central bank digital currencies: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/11/13/sp111418-winds-of-change-the-case-for-new-digital-currency

Ari Paul, CIO of BlockTower Capital, explains why he likes how short-term trades concentrate risk in investment, why, "no matter what," he thinks Bitcoin is a good-value buy today, and how big university endowments investing in crypto now could eventually lead institutions to go from having a fear-of-loss attitude about crypto to having FOMO. He also dives into why he's not as excited about generalized mining as some of BlockTower's crypto fund peers and who he thinks is really well-poised in that space. We also discuss why Bitcoin futures didn't have a positive impact on the price and what effect Bakkt and Fidelity launching their crypto products could have. Plus, he responds to people who accused him of insider trading when a private conversation in which he mentioned Stellar was acquiring enterprise blockchain startup Chain was released. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained Altlending: https://altlending.com Episode links: Ari Paul: https://twitter.com/AriDavidPaul BlockTower Capital: https://www.blocktower.com Harvard, Stanford, MIT endowments invest in crypto: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/harvard-stanford-mit-endowments-invest-in-crypto-funds Yale endowment invests in a16z and Paradigm: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/05/yale-investment-chief-david-swensen-jumps-into-crypto-with-bets-on-two-silicon-valley-funds.html Bitcoin Cash hard fork recap: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/week-2-how-bitcoin-cash-hash-war-came-and-went-and-not-much-happened/ Unconfirmed episode on Bitcoin Cash hard fork with Aaron Van Wirdum: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/the-bitcoin-cash-hard-fork-bitcoin-abc-vs-bitcoin-sv-ep046 Unchained episode with Riccardo Spagni of Monero: http://unchainedpodcast.co/coinfunds-jake-brukhman-and-multicoins-tushar-jain-on-generalized-mining-ep92 Unchained episode with Jake Brukhman and Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital: http://unchainedpodcast.co/coinfunds-jake-brukhman-and-multicoins-tushar-jain-on-generalized-mining-ep92 Unconfirmed episode with Fidelity's Tom Jessop: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/fidelity-digital-asset-services-tom-jessop-on-why-its-serving-institutional-clients-first-ep043 Ari's private conversation in which he mentioned Stellar was acquiring Chain: https://hackernoon.com/ten-questions-for-ari-david-paul-of-blocktower-capital-dcd8d81ef27e IMF managing director Christine Lagarde's talk on the case for central bank digital currencies: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/11/13/sp111418-winds-of-change-the-case-for-new-digital-currency

Hosted by Enigma's Head of Growth Tor Bair, our tenth episode features Ari Paul. Ari is a managing partner and CIO at BlockTower Capital, which is one of the leading cryptoasset investment firms. He has a fairly traditional finance background, having worked previously as a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago as well as a derivatives marketmaker and trader, and he holds an MBA from the University of Chicago. However, Ari has fully embraced the potential of cryptoassets and you’ll often hear him advocating for them on mainstream channels like CNBC or Bloomberg. He’s also generous with his thoughts on Twitter, where he will post at length about complex topics and how he develops his investment theses. On this episode Ari discusses with Tor how he got into the crypto space, how he and BlockTower evaluate opportunities, whether or not decentralized protocols are winner-take-all, capturing versus creating new value, and what the largest barriers are to the adoption of these new technologies at scale. Enigma's new podcast "Decentralize This!" features guests from all over the decentralization space: developers, investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, writers, artists, people in government and enterprise - all individuals who care deeply about building a more decentralized and sustainable world. How can all these people with different perspectives collaborate to create and scale the technologies we need to shape a better future? **Disclosure: BlockTower invests in and actively trade many cryptocurrencies, long and short, and may have positions in assets discussed in this podcast.** ---- Relevant links: Ari's Twitter: www.twitter.com/aridavidpaul Enigma: www.enigma.co Enigma Blog: blog.enigma.co Enigma Twitter: www.twitter.com/enigmampc

For this week's podcast, we have the pleasure of interviewing Tory Reiss, Co-Founder and VP of Corporate Development at TrustToken. TrustToken is an asset-tokenization platform which recently raised $20 million in a strategic token sale with the support of major VCs, such as Andreessen Horowitz and BlockTower capital. Their first product is a stable coin, TrueUSD, which already is among the top 100 coins by market cap.

In Episode 32 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ari Paul about the inner workings of hedge funds focused exclusively on the cryptocurrency space. Over the course of the last year, cryptocurrency has dominated our society. The price of the most popular digital currencies surged, increasing in value by well over 1000% in a matter of weeks. We saw similar rises in initial coin offerings, with the number of token offerings increasing from just seven a month in January 2017 to more than forty a month by the end of the year. This crypto euphoria fueled the formation of several cryptocurrency hedge funds which, according to their various founders, aim to bring the professional trading and portfolio management of Wall Street to the emerging class of digital asset. Although this work promises to open the crypto space to an entirely new class of traders, there are many questions regarding how these funds work and how reliable they are. For example, how are crypto fund managers managing risk? What sorts of benchmarks are crypto funds using in order to measure performance? And how does a cryptocurrency investor seek alpha in an already uncorrelated market? To answer these questions, and help shed some light on the emerging world of crypto hedge funds, we turned to Ari Paul. As a portfolio manager who oversaw risk at the University of Chicago’s endowment investment office and the Chief Investment Officer at BlockTower Capital- a leading crypto hedge fund that raised over $140 Million in 2017 - Ari Paul is uniquely qualified to discuss the most interesting and creative investment opportunities for making money in cryptocurrencies. His positioning also means that he is intimately familiar with many of the risk factors that populate this new and fledgling market. Over the course of the discussion, Ari Paul speaks with host Demetri Kofinas about the skepticism surrounding market values, how we can protect ourselves from counterparty and exchange risk, and how hedge funds like BlockTower Capital are making it easier for someone who may not be intimately familiar with blockchain technologies or the inner working of specific cryptocurrencies, participate in this new digital economy. Demetri also asks Ari what the benchmarks for crypto funds like Blocktower are and how they measure performance. The challenge in the cryptocurrency space, according to Paul, Is that there are really three benchmarks: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies in general, as well as the broader equity markets. Seeking Alpha in an already uncorrelated asset class, therefore, presents a slew of new risk factors that aren’t present for traditional hedge fund managers. Ari Paul also gives his opinion on how the flood of institutional capital might alter these correlations, what a consolidation in cryptocurrencies might look like, and if we are verging near a collapse in valuations. The two also take a look at cash-settled futures markets, consider the use of put and call options, and explore ways in which investors can better protect themselves from counterparty and exchange risk. Finally, they examine some of the most interesting and creative investment opportunities for making money in cryptocurrencies and what the average investor can do in order to take advantage of them. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation at @hiddenforcespod

In episodes one and two of Hash Power, we explored blockchain technology and cryptocurrency investing. In this episode, we discuss the current and potential future states of the crypto world. We cover new forms of cooperation, regulation, security and storage, and why blockchains allow systems to evolve at such a rapid pace.  Be sure to listen until the end, where we close with some advice about conducting ourselves in a new world where creativity reigns and repetitive jobs disappear—a trend that may only accelerate thanks to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments   For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag    Show Notes 0:05 – Intro to episode 3 and what to expect  4:00 - Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of Polychain, on how the funding and investing in cryptocurrencies could easily get out of hand  5:00 – How people are creating holding companies to fund cryptocurrencies protocols  6:45 – Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and how they will replace the aforementioned holding companies  8:32 – Could fully decentralized organizations replace other more traditional organizational structures, even outside of crypto currency  9:59 – How can DAO’s impact everyday lives  12:39 – Why your skills and accomplishments will become more important than who you are or where you are from             15:38 – Ready Player One: A Novel  16:09 - Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, on the way humans cooperate and build new entities  17:51 – When people will demand oversight and regulation over crypto currency  20:42 - Peter Van Valkenburg, Director of Research at Coincenter on the current state of regulation  26:06 - Jameson Lopp on security needed to protect your cryptocurrency             26:22 - Glacierprotocol.org  27:51 - Ari Paul, co-founder of Blocktower, on how nail polish is used to protect their crypto wallet  30:03 – Juan Benet explains the Filecoin Protocol  35:52 - Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Blockstack, on how his team is plans to provide basic tools that will allow the broader developer community to build apps that the cryptocurrency population will use.  38:01 - Comparing blockstack to the analogy of creating a city  40:17 – How the blockstack token fits into everything  43:15 – Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, on forking in blockchains  47:52 – Naval Ravikant on how the idea of work will change in the future, and how that change helped to produce the idea of a blockchain in the first place.  49:31 – Why curiosity should govern what you do in life 53:22 - Naval’s framework for making money   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

In episode 1 of Hash Power, we explored blockchains as a technology—how they work, why tokens (also known as cryptocurrencies) are an integral part of any blockchain, and how these new networks might change the world. In episode two, we spend time with the leading investors in the field. Like any frenzied asset class, there are countless cryptocurrency hedge funds popping up everywhere. But founders from three of the original firms—Polychain, Metastable, and Blocktower Capital—are our primary guides this week. As I speak, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies is $136B. There are hundreds of tokens currently available, but bitcoin and Ethereum represent 75% of the total market cap. $136B sounds like a big number, but its tiny relative to any other asset class—and I use that term with hesitation. To put it in perspective, that’s exactly the same size as the market cap of IBM. But IBM had more than $10B of earnings in 2016. Tokens have none. As you will hear, valuing tokens is a very hard exercise. In such a nascent world, we are seeing investing strategies take hold. Olaf Carlson-Wee, Josh Seims, and Ari Paul walk us through different takes on cryptocurrency investing, be it early stage, long term buy and hold, or more hedge fund style strategies. Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Links Referenced Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro)   Show Notes 0:05 – Recap of part 1 and introduction to part 2 of Hash Power 2:58 – Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower explains how he got involved in cryptocurrencies 5:23 – Why do we need bitcoin 7:23 – Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee on why the value of tokens accrue 9:23 – How main stream money is getting into this space 12:26- Useful comparisons when talking about ICOs when compared to IPOs 15:01 - Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, is asked to explain the protocols of cryptocurrencies to platform businesses like Uber or Airbnb 17:43 – Naval’s interest in investing in cryptocurrencies 18:42 – Why average folks should avoid it before they dive thoroughly into the topic 20:25 – what are the most compelling counter arguments to using cryptocurrencies 23:07 - Olaf Carlson Wee on the lifecycle of a token 24:02 – SAFT note, Simple Agreement for Future Tokens 25:31 – What is the earliest stage that edge is most present for investors in cryptocurrency protocols 28:12 – How do you mitigate the volatility that is present in blockchain 31:18 - Jeremiah Lowin, a risk and statistics expert, who runs risk management for a large private family office, talks about why he no longer owns cryptocurrencies  34:19 - Jordan Cooper, a venture capital investor, is optimistic about blockchains in general, but thinks there may be some overvaluations in current currencies 37:02 – How Jordan would value a single cryptocurrency 42:10 – Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro) 43:52 - Josh Seims, of Metastable, the value investor in blockchain? 51:15 - Ari Paul on the equivalent of listed stocks in the crypto currency world 52:33 – Understanding the concept of a coin in blockchain and how people are getting access to them 55:07 – The fairground analogy to understand cryptocurrencies 57:57 – What lessons from traditional markets can you apply to investing in cryptocurrencies 1:02:48 – Where do family offices stand when it comes to jumping into this space 1:06:51 – Ari is asked to discuss some of the alternative cryptocurrencies outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum. He starts with Ripple 1:10:27 – What would help firms or traders create edge in investing in cryptocurrencies   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag