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Rob Montgomery is the CoFounder and CEO at InfiniFi Labs and Ken Deeter is General Partner at Electric Capital, who led InfiniFi's most recent round.In this episode, we explore how InfiniFi is introducing duration matching to DeFi to unlock more sustainable, higher-yield opportunities for stablecoin holders, alongside insights from Electric Capital on the future of yield innovation.------
Web3 Academy: Exploring Utility In NFTs, DAOs, Crypto & The Metaverse
Today, on The Milk Road Show, we are joined by Avichal, co-founder of Electric Capital. In this episode, we explore a critical question: are you over-allocated to L1s and under-allocated to the applications built on top of them? Avichal provides his insights into the current L1 landscape, discussing the potential for oversaturation and where value will accrue. ~~~~~
Steve Lee from Spiral and Ren from Electric Capital join The Gwart Show to talk Bitcoin consensus! We cover how Bitcoin changes, stakeholder weight, and the future of protocol upgrades like covenants. Follow our guest on Twitter: @moneyball @0xren_cf Read our paper: https://bitcoin-cap.github.io/bcap/ 00:00 Start 01:00 Introductions 03:01 Partnering for the paper 04:25 Motivation to write paper 08:17 Reluctance to define a BTC consensus process 12:20 Defining the stakeholders 13:48 Consensus game theory 15:51 Blocksize war 20:36 Learnings from the Blocksize War 22:33 Signaling & other activation routes 26:13 Bounty claim attack 29:44 Are miners up to speed on covenants? 31:59 measuring state of mind 34:38 Education 36:45 Self custody = power 40:59 Role of influencers 45:20 Current state of possible changes 49:39 Echo chambers vs reality 53:42 Will we get to a breaking point? 58:16 OP_CAT 1:01:44 Productive paths to change 1:04:47 What does Bitcoin NEED?
Join Matt and Nick as they discuss Bitcoin at fresh all-time highs, Electric Capital's annual developer report and AMP buying Bitcoin. They also discuss various altcoin updates from NEAR Protocol (NEAR), Avalanche (AVAX) and others.Key Takeaways Bitcoin (BTC) hit an all-time high, partially due to continued buying from MicroStrategy, which officially entered the heavily traded Nasdaq 100 index.AMP invested $27M AUD worth of BTC, making it the first major superannuation fund to buy into an asset class that has previously been shunned by big fund managers.Electric Capital's annual developer report showed strong growth in Solana's developer ecosystem, while the number of developers fell by 7% compared to a year ago.The past week featured various altcoins updates, including projects such as Ethena (ENA), Jupiter (JUP), Ethena (ENA) and Avalanche (AVAX).Timestamps:00:00 Intro & market update03:15 ETH ETFs show sign of life04:35 Bitcoin treasury votes and strategic reserves06:00 2024 Electric Capital Developer Report11:25 Should crypto be concerned over quantum computing breakthroughs16:30 MicroStrategy enters Nasdaq 10018:45 AMP becomes first Aussie super fund to invest in crypto21:20 Trump-associated World Liberty Financial buys ETH tokens24:00 Altcoin news (Pump.Fun, Near, Jupiter, Avalanche, Ethena)31:40 What to look forward to this week32:50 Over & under-appreciated
Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, the crew explores the resurgence of ICOs through Echo sales, diving into MegaEth's record-breaking sale and the shifting meta of token launches. They also discuss Google's quantum computing breakthrough with the Willow chip and its potential implications for cryptographic security in crypto. Tarun doubles down on his critique of Decentralized Science (DeSci), sparking a lively debate on its viability and accountability. Finally, the team unpacks Electric Capital's developer report, highlighting Solana's dominance in India and the global trends shaping crypto development. Show highlights
Drop 1: Societe Generale successfully completed a first repo transaction on public blockchain with the Banque de France https://so.ge/RepoSGForge Drop 2: Balancer v3 https://medium.com/balancer-protocol/balancer-v3-is-live-2e5e8462aa4c Drop 3: BoE paper Privacy for the Digital Pound https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/media/v2/D4E1FAQHg3JLo_DKRQw/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/B4EZOvvIJ2HsAc-/0/1733820214401?e=1734566400&v=beta&t=o7enOB8VsTFD8PkPhcB0UU-qWiNbktfIp82SG8boRCA More: Opea and Growth Tech partner to launch a tokenization platform https://valor.globo.com/google/financas/criptomoedas/noticia/2024/12/09/opea-entra-em-tokenizao-de-ativos-em-parceria-com-growth-tech.ghtml Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance announces a new version of their Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard (CDMD), now powered by Chainalysis, adding geographical flows of stablecoins, and regulatory overviews for a wider set of jurisdictions. https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2024/digital-tool-sheds-light-on-stablecoin-flows-and-regulation/ Bradesco plans to launch digital ID on blockchain in 2025 https://valor.globo.com/financas/criptomoedas/noticia/2024/12/10/bradesco-prev-implementar-identidade-digital-em-blockchain-em-2025.ghtml Consensys web3 Global Survey Report https://consensys.io/insight-report/web3-and-crypto-global-survey Circle and Binance partner to expand USDC adoption https://www.circle.com/pressroom/circle-and-binance-enter-into-a-strategic-partnership-that-will-accelerate-global-usdc-and-crypto-adoption 2024 Developer Report, by Electric Capital https://www.developerreport.com/developer-report?s=developer-report Transfero acquires Fuse Capital to grow on DeFi and Tokenization https://br.cointelegraph.com/news/transfero-acquires-fuse-capital-to-expand-operations-in-defi-and-tokenization-with-an-eye-on-drex . Redes sociais / comms .. Instagram.com/blockdropspodcast .. Twitter.com/blockdropspod .. Blockdrops.lens .. https://warpcast.com/mauriciomagaldi .. youtube.com/@BlockDropsPodcast .. Meu conteúdo em inglês twitter.com/0xmauricio .. Newsletter do linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7056680685142454272 .. blockdropspodcast@gmail.com
Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, the crew explores the resurgence of ICOs through Echo sales, diving into MegaEth's record-breaking sale and the shifting meta of token launches. They also discuss Google's quantum computing breakthrough with the Willow chip and its potential implications for cryptographic security in crypto. Tarun doubles down on his critique of Decentralized Science (DeSci), sparking a lively debate on its viability and accountability. Finally, the team unpacks Electric Capital's developer report, highlighting Solana's dominance in India and the global trends shaping crypto development. Show highlights
The 2024 Developer Report from Electric Capital reveals many shifting dynamics. For starters, for the first time in eight years, Ethereum was not the top chain for new developers—Solana was. Meanwhile, Asia has emerged as the leading hub for crypto development, taking the top spot from North America, which dropped to third. In this episode, General Partner Maria Shen explores how Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions are bolstering its position despite fierce competition, why the Bitcoin developer ecosystem remains steadfast, and how emerging projects like EigenLayer are capturing builders' attention. She also delves into the top crypto technologies that are fascinating devs, and how their usage and development activity differ across the globe. Show highlights: Maria's top takeaways from the report Whether the developer migration from the U.S. will stop under a friendlier regulatory environment How Ethereum has maintained its dominance despite its high fees and the rise of Solana What the steadiness of the Bitcoin developer ecosystem shows Which other smaller ecosystems are growing the most How ZK contract usage has been increasing over time Why, despite what one could think, NFT minting activity is higher than ever How stablecoin usage differs from token to token and also across countries Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Polkadot Guest Maria Shen, General Partner at Electric Capital Previous appearance on Unchained: Why Crypto Developer Activity Continues to Grow Despite the Bear Market Links Unchained: A Big 2024 Crypto Trend: Solana Attracts More New Developers Than Ethereum Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:02 Key findings from Electric Capital's Developer Report 08:28 Could a friendlier U.S. regulatory environment reverse the developer migration? 12:54 How Ethereum could stay dominant amid rising competition from Solana 17:48 Insights from the Bitcoin developer ecosystem 21:33 Emerging smaller ecosystems gaining traction 23:41 The steady growth in ZK contract usage 27:39 Why NFT minting activity is at an all-time high 32:31 How stablecoin usage varies across tokens, chains and countries 36:22 News Recap Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The 2024 Developer Report from Electric Capital reveals many shifting dynamics. For starters, for the first time in eight years, Ethereum was not the top chain for new developers—Solana was. Meanwhile, Asia has emerged as the leading hub for crypto development, taking the top spot from North America, which dropped to third. In this episode, General Partner Maria Shen explores how Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions are bolstering its position despite fierce competition, why the Bitcoin developer ecosystem remains steadfast, and how emerging projects like EigenLayer are capturing builders' attention. She also delves into the top crypto technologies that are fascinating devs, and how their usage and development activity differ across the globe. Show highlights: Maria's top takeaways from the report Whether the developer migration from the U.S. will stop under a friendlier regulatory environment How Ethereum has maintained its dominance despite its high fees and the rise of Solana What the steadiness of the Bitcoin developer ecosystem shows Which other smaller ecosystems are growing the most How ZK contract usage has been increasing over time Why, despite what one could think, NFT minting activity is higher than ever How stablecoin usage differs from token to token and also across countries Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Polkadot Guest Maria Shen, General Partner at Electric Capital Previous appearance on Unchained: Why Crypto Developer Activity Continues to Grow Despite the Bear Market Links Unchained: A Big 2024 Crypto Trend: Solana Attracts More New Developers Than Ethereum Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:02 Key findings from Electric Capital's Developer Report 08:28 Could a friendlier U.S. regulatory environment reverse the developer migration? 12:54 How Ethereum could stay dominant amid rising competition from Solana 17:48 Insights from the Bitcoin developer ecosystem 21:33 Emerging smaller ecosystems gaining traction 23:41 The steady growth in ZK contract usage 27:39 Why NFT minting activity is at an all-time high 32:31 How stablecoin usage varies across tokens, chains and countries 36:22 News Recap Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Avichal Garg is a successful venture capitalist, serial entrepreneur, and founding partner at Electric Capital, where he focuses on investing in innovative technologies in the Web3 space. In today's episode, Avichal outlines the problems with legacy Big Tech and cryptocurrency's role in the declining power of the American dollar. He also describes his optimism about the burgeoning AI revolution, and how we can best prepare for the changes it will almost certainly bring to our everyday lives. Stay tuned to hear Avichal Garg's perspective on the intersection of technology and politics, on this episode of the Sunday Special. - - - Today's Sponsors: International Fellowship of Christians and Jews - To give to IFCJ, visit https://benforthefellowship.org/ Collars & Co - Get 20% off your first order when you use code BEN at: https://collarsandco.com
*SPONSORED CONTENT* Did you miss out on Breakpoint 2024? In partnership with Solana, Real Vision is releasing the best talks from Breakpoint 2024. Today, Avichal Garg of Electric Capital and Santiago Roel Santos of SRS Family Office join the Solana Foundation's Ben Sparango to debate which is more future-proof: Solana or Ethereum? Breakpoint is the annual gathering of the worldwide Solana community, hosted by the Solana Foundation. Breakpoint 2024 was held Sept. 20-21 in Singapore. For more information, go to https://solana.com/breakpoint. DISCLAIMER The content herein is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, options, futures, or other derivatives related to securities in any jurisdiction, nor should not be relied upon as advice to buy, sell or hold any of the foregoing. This content is intended to be general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional advisor. Solana Foundation Foundation and its agents, advisors, council members, officers and employees (the “Foundation Parties”) make no representation or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy of the information herein and expressly disclaims any and all liability that may be based on such information or any errors or omissions therein. The Foundation Parties shall have no liability whatsoever, under contract, tort, trust or otherwise, to any person arising from or related to the content or any use of the information contained herein by you or any of your representatives. All opinions expressed herein are the speakers' own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of any entities. Timestamps:
In this episode, Jason is live from Permissionless with Michael Anderson from Framework Ventures and Avichal Garg from Electric Capital. They delve into the implications of Uniswap's Unichain, exploring its potential impact on ETH, OP, and the broader DeFi ecosystem. The conversation shifts to the evolving landscape of crypto applications and infrastructure, touching on investment strategies in both public and private markets. Finally, they discuss the upcoming U.S. election's influence on crypto regulation and the surprising role of stablecoins in national security. - - Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts Follow Avichal: https://twitter.com/avichal Follow Michael: https://x.com/im_manderson Follow Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Santiago: https://twitter.com/santiagoroel Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod Subscribe on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/4fdhhb2j Subscribe on Apple: https://tinyurl.com/mv4frfv7ww Subscribe on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/wbaypprw Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Anoma is the universal intent machine, introducing a new era of applications where you define the outcomes you want. Anoma's intent-centric architecture provides a universal operating system for building intent-centric apps compatible with any blockchain. Anoma vastly improves blockchain UX, enables novel applications, and promotes a more human-centric future for decentralized technology. Follow Anoma at x.com/anoma and signup for the newsletter at anoma.net - - Supra Containers are secured by Supra's L1 nodes and get access to Supra's 500k TPS throughput, sub-second consensus latency, and all their built-in services like oracle price feeds and onchain randomness without any overhead. Supra is also MultiVM compatible so you can easily deploy your EVM, Move, and SVM smart contracts here. Get all the freedom, control, and tools you need to build super dApps and bring the world onchain. To learn more, visit www.supra.com/blockworks - - Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
Interview with Avichal Garg, co-founder and general partner on the investment team at Electric Capital. Topics:- Raising $2 Billion to invest in Crypto- Investment strategy for tokens and companies - Pitching Crypto to institutional investors - Bitcoin ETF inflows and the upcoming Ethereum ETF - Tokenization- Having Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton as an advisor - US Crypto Regulations - Crypto's impact on politics: Fairshake raising over $150 Million - Google and Facebook moving to Web3
Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and special guest Avichal Garg from Electric Capital dissect the latest trends in the crypto world. This episode dives deep into the buzz around EigenLayer's airdrop: What sparked the controversy and how did EigenLayer respond to community backlash? We then explore LayerZero's unique self-reporting strategy to combat Sybil farmers and analyze Friend.Tech's bold, no-VC token launch. The discussion heats up with a look at ConsenSys' proactive lawsuit against the SEC, setting the stage for a showdown over regulatory clarity. We also delve into Robinhood's decision to challenge the SEC's Wells Notice amidst soaring earnings, and tackle the ongoing debate between VC-backed tokens and memecoins: Which is captivating the market? Finally, we predict the future of SocialFi and its potential to revolutionize the crypto landscape. Join us for an insightful exploration of these pivotal topics shaping the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Show highlights
Sunil Srivatsa is the founder and CEO of Storm Labs, an open-source software development studio. They help build and maintain infrastructure for decentralized protocols like Cove. Why you should listen Storm Labs is an open-source software development studio that builds infrastructure for the next financial generation. Their mission is to build and share foundational infrastructure that enables economic empowerment for all. Storm Labs raised $3 million in pre-seed funding from leading venture capital firms and angel investors to launch their protocol Cove, the first onchain portfolio manager that addresses the challenges of Automated Market Makers (AMMs). The round was led by Electric Capital. The current scarcity of dedicated onchain management platforms forces retail crypto users to navigate DeFi's complexities and potentially lose through DIY yield-farming. According to the survey conducted by Storm Labs, 25% of investors spent 3+ hours a week manually managing their portfolios. Cove's platform empowers users to tailor their investments to their risk appetite and goals to build their optimal DeFi portfolio without any need for manual management, while addressing the limitations of traditional AMMs and eliminating Loss-Versus-Rebalancing (LVR). They achieve this through a unique execution mechanism that guarantees fair and transparent trades, minimizing issues like price impact, slippage, MEV (Maximal Extractable Value). Trades within Cove are facilitated through a proprietary matching engine, while external trades are routed through CoW Swap for added security while still eliminating MEV and capturing positive slippage. This means the platform can seamlessly match individuals holding complementary liquidity positions, facilitating efficient trades and maximizing returns. Marking Stage 1 of the product roll-out will be the launch of Cove Boosties. Boosties is the first dedicated liquid locker and staking platform specifically designed to simplify and enhance the Yearn experience. It allows users to effortlessly earn boosted APY on Yearn vaults and mint coveYFI, with flexible dYFI rewards and early access to Cove's governance token ($COVE). Boosties is built using Yearn V3 and optimized by Gauntlet and audited by Trail of Bits, Quantstamp, and yAudit. The main protocol is slated to launch during Stage 2 later this year. Supporting links Bitget Bitget VIP Link with BONUS 1000 USDT Bitget Academy Bitget Research Bitget Wallet Cove Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.
Adeniyi Abiodun is the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer @ Mysten Labs (https://mystenlabs.com). Backed by a16z Crypto, Jump Capital, Binance Labs, Electric Capital, & more, Mysten Labs is all about building critical infrastructure to enable a more decentralized internet. They're perhaps best known as the creators of Sui, a decentralized, proof of stake blockchain with horizontally scalable throughput and storage. In this episode we discuss Adeniyi's crypto journey (with a focus on the jump from Meta to creating Mysten Labs), what Mysten Labs gets uniquely right as a team, early challenges (and solves) as well as exciting possibilities for the future, thoughts on the current moment in crypto (from a technology and maturation perspective), & much more.Recorded Thursday March 28, 2024.
Join Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young as they decode the world of Web3 with special guests Avichal Garg, Co-Founder and General Partner, and Ken Deeter, General Partner, of Electric Capital. Listen in as they discuss the different phases of crypto adoption, how they think about investing in the space and key areas they're monitoring, what the future of decentralized finance might look like, the evolution of staking and yield-bearing assets, whether applications will go cross-chain or build out their own appchains, the net result of DeFi ecosystems between different chains, and more!
Austin Green is the Co-Founder @ Llama (https://llama.xyz). Backed by Founders Fund, Electric Capital, Elad Gil, & more, Llama is a full-stack platform for on-chain access control and governance, where users can securely take action using on-chain policies and custom execution strategies. In this episode we discuss Austin's path to conviction around the problem space, his perspective on progressive decentralization (and how Llama fits into that perspective), how crypto's changed since his introduction to the space, best advice for crypto founders in 2024, & much more.Recorded Thursday February 22, 2024.
Henri Stern is the Co-Founder of Privy (https://www.privy.io/). Backed by Paradigm, Sequoia, Electric Capital, & more, Privy's created one simple library to add beautiful authentication flows and powerful embedded wallets to your app. In this episode we talk about two things they've had to get right for Privy to work (and the insights behind that thinking), how web3 has changed since his beginnings in the space, Privy's earliest challenges and opportunities, the ultimate vision of what Privy's building toward, & much more.Recorded Thursday January 11, 2024.
Gratis twee weken premium toegang tot Bitcoin Alpha: https://bitcoinalpha.nl/feest Het was de week na de ETF. De grote vraag: hoe succesvol was de lancering? Bert neemt ons in de marktupdate mee naar het antwoord op deze vraag. Daarnaast bespreken we de rechtszaak tussen Coinbase en de SEC. Die is namelijk deze week van start gegaan. Bart heeft het over blocktimes langer dan twee uur en geeft je een tip om zo goedkoop mogelijk lightning bitcoin in je wallet te krijgen. Benieuwd? Luister dan snel verder. Satoshi Radio wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door: Anycoin Direct, Amdax, Watson Law, Finst en onze hoofdsponsor Bitvavo.(00:00:00) - Opening (00:13:00) - Bookmarks van Peter: Analyse van Electric Capital (00:18:55) - Bookmarks van Peter: proces tussen Coinbase en SEC (00:26:00) - Bookmark van Bart: Bitcoin is broken? (00:33:08) - Bookmark van Bert: Vivek en Trump over CBDC's (00:37:16) - Bookmark van Peter: Tether's funds check out (00:40:00) - Bookmark van Peter: ETF launch was succesvol (00:41:00) - Bookmark van Bart: Jamie Dimon op Davos (00:46:30) - Bookmark van Bert: het cryptowoordenboek (00:53:00) - Marktupdate: de week van de ETF (01:28:00) - Deepdive: de goedkoopste manier om bitcoin in je lightning wallet te krijgen (01:34:00) - Circle doet aanvraag voor een beursgang (01:37:26) - Einde
From Market trends to Blockchain's financial disruption, Avichal explores the 2023 tech landscape. This episode is sponsored by Cboe DigitalIn this week's installment of "Money Reimagined," Sheila Warren is joined by Avichal Garg, the Co-Founder and General Partner at Electric Capital to discuss the tech side of crypto in 2023. From crypto market trends and investor sentiment to the challenges of AI technology and its potential for abuse Avichal skillfully delves into the intricate interplay of these elements, unraveling the layers that define the complex tapestry of the crypto world.Links | About Me – Avichal Garg Electric Capital Avichal Garg, Electric Capital A Difficult Truth: The Unspoken Mismatch of Web3 and Generative AICrypto Winter Is Over -From our sponsors:Do you have a trusted partner for your crypto trading? Cboe Digital will introduce financially settled margin futures on Bitcoin and Ether on January 11th, 2024 with physically delivered contracts to follow. Listed and cleared on Cboe's U.S. regulated exchange and clearinghouse, and complemented by a liquid crypto spot market for greater ease and access. We invite you to learn more about this and all applicable risk disclosures at cboedigital.com/coindesk.-Money Reimagined has been produced and edited by senior producer Michele Musso and our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “The News Tonight ” by Shimmer. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
From Market trends to Blockchain's financial disruption, Avichal explores the 2023 tech landscape. This episode is sponsored by Cboe DigitalIn this week's installment of "Money Reimagined," Sheila Warren is joined by Avichal Garg, the Co-Founder and General Partner at Electric Capital to discuss the tech side of crypto in 2023. From crypto market trends and investor sentiment to the challenges of AI technology and its potential for abuse Avichal skillfully delves into the intricate interplay of these elements, unraveling the layers that define the complex tapestry of the crypto world.Links | About Me – Avichal Garg Electric Capital Avichal Garg, Electric Capital A Difficult Truth: The Unspoken Mismatch of Web3 and Generative AICrypto Winter Is Over -From our sponsors:Do you have a trusted partner for your crypto trading? Cboe Digital will introduce financially settled margin futures on Bitcoin and Ether on January 11th, 2024 with physically delivered contracts to follow. Listed and cleared on Cboe's U.S. regulated exchange and clearinghouse, and complemented by a liquid crypto spot market for greater ease and access. We invite you to learn more about this and all applicable risk disclosures at cboedigital.com/coindesk.-Money Reimagined has been produced and edited by senior producer Michele Musso and our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “The News Tonight ” by Shimmer. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Distressed debt has risen sharply in the past two weeks, with the outlook increasingly uncertain heading into year-end. Global Credit Strategy head Noel Hebert, BI distressed credit analyst Philip Brendel and BI bankruptcy litigation analyst Negisa Balluku discuss this and other topics in this edition of the State of Distressed Debt podcast. In other topics, Balluku interviews Electric Capital General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer Emily Meyers on the impact of bankruptcies on crypto's regulatory landscape here and abroad, the SEC's recent losing streak in court and Meyers' outlook for legislative progress (7:40). Also, Balluku, Hebert and Brendel discuss Rite Aid, Akumin, WeWork, Incora, Hertz's post-petition interest fight and Diamond Sports (50:10).
In this round-up, Imran and Qiao delve into the potential impact of real-world assets and consumer applications on the mainstream adoption of crypto.No BS crypto insight for founders. Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(01:25) Welcome to Good Game(06:48) People feeling insecure about speculation(07:50) Compressed NFTs(09:35) What compressed NFTs enabled(13:42) Music NFTs - Sound.xyz(18:11) What happened with Azuki(24:13) Where we are in the NFT space(24:32) NFTfi(28:10) Does perps make sense for NFTs(32:27) Brian Armstrong's announcement(43:20) Thoughts on real-world assets(57:48) What other existing immediate needs do people have now in terms of traditional assets?(01:00:53) Tokenized real estate(01:06:27) Electric Capital's 2023 Developer Report(01:09:56) Some founder common mistakes(01:11:26) "Don't compare yourself to your competitors"(01:12:32) Qiao: I'll tell you which crypto incumbents will be here to stay(01:13:43) Qiao: It's very likely for someone to dethrone Uniswap in 5 to 10 yearsDeveloper report - https://www.developerreport.com/blog/newsletter-20230706Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3N675w3Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3snLsxUWebsite: https://goodgamepod.xyzTwitter: https://twitter.com/goodgamepodxyzDISCLAIMER: The views expressed herein are personal to the speaker(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or entity. Discussions and answers to questions are intended as generalized, non-personalized information. Nothing herein should be construed or relied upon as investment, legal, tax, or other advice.
The team explains why the Ripple & XRP win against the SEC is significant for the cryptocurrency market. They also cover Google Play policy changes, a major developer report and recent bankruptcy updates with FTXKey Takeaways Markets rallied after a U.S. judge ruled that XRP, the cryptocurrency tied to Ripple, is not a security in certain cases. Read Our PostGoogle Play now lets users buy, sell or earn digital assets in apps. A surprising update that should benefit gaming and NFTs.Developer Report by Electric Capital. This metric is a must-follow.FTX Notice - Claims Portal is Live. Confirm your identity and funds on the exchange.Polygon proposes a token upgrade from Matic to POL, unifying their brand.
Nothing tests your conviction like a bear market. This is an opportunity to test what you think you know, refine your thesis, and make your bets for the next leg up. Avichal and Sanjay are long time crypto investors and at VC fund electric capital. What are they betting on during the bear market? We discuss 5 of the most pressing questions facing crypto investors during the bear market including… 1) L2 tokens - Are L2 tokens they worth something or they just worthless governance tokens? 2) AltL1s…Will the ETH killers make a comeback? 3) Multichain world - Millions of L2 chains or a few big winners? 4) Restaking - big deal or overhyped? 5) What Avichal things are this cycle's alt-coins. Episodes like this are an opportunity to sharpen your insights as a crypto investor. Don't take these ideas as gospel. Wrestle with them. Test them. Make them your own. We'll have other Bear Market Bets episodes with other perspectives, so this isn't the last. ------
Elena Nadolinski is a computer scientist and software engineer, and the CEO of the Iron Fish Foundation, a dedicated privacy layer for Web3 with built-in compliance solutions. Prior to founding Iron Fish in 2017, Elena worked as a software engineer at companies including Microsoft, Tilt, and Airbnb. Elena is a Forbes 30 under 30 alum, and has been honored with awards from both the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency for her outstanding achievements. About Iron Fish Iron Fish is a proof-of-work (PoW) based blockchain network, intended to serve as a fully-compliant privacy layer for digital assets and Web3. Using zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKS) and robust encryption standards, Iron Fish enables users to transact in a fully private way, without compromising on accessibility. Investors include: a16z, Electric Capital, and Sequoia Advisors include: Balaji Srinivasan, Linda Xie Elena on Twitter: https://twitter.com/leanthebean Iron Fish on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ironfishcrypto --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support
Welcome to Chain Reaction. A podcast that unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news in crypto with some of the biggest names in the industry to break things down block by block for the crypto curious. For this week's episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Maria Shen, a general partner on the investment team at Electric Capital, an early stage venture firm focused on crypto, blockchain, fintech and marketplaces. Before Electric Capital, Maria was the CTO and co-founder of a startup Bambify that helped small to medium-sized businesses create more efficient supply chains with manufacturers globally. Prior to that, she worked at Microsoft. In March 2022, the firm announced that it closed $1 billion for a pair of crypto funds – a $400 million vehicle for making equity investments in startups and a $600 million fund intended to invest directly in crypto tokens. Its website currently showcases a portfolio with about 75 investments with crypto startups like Magic Eden, ConsenSys and Bitwise, to name a few. More recently, Electric Capital put out a report that showed the number of blockchain developers in the U.S. has declined every year since 2017, dropping to 29% last year from 40% in 2017. We dove into what that report really means and how it will affect the growth of developers domestically and internationally. We discussed what crypto sectors Maria is watching for investments, why she's betting big on NFTs and the general venture capital market sentiment. We also talked about: U.S. regulatory impact on investments The bear market Trends she's following Advice for founders Chain Reaction comes out every other Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.
Ken is a partner on the investment team at Electric Capital and is an early investor in Frax.Follow KenWebsite: https://www.electriccapital.com/team/ken-deeter-3Twitter: https://twitter.com/puntiumLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendeeter/~~~~Subscribe to the Flywheel mailing list: https://flywheeloutput.comHave ETH but don't know what to do with it? Swap it to FrxETH for the highest staking yields in crypto.https://app.frax.finance/frxeth/mintWant to up your IQ
Elena Nadolinski is the Founder & CEO of Iron Fish (www.ironfish.network).Backed by Sequoia, a16z, Electric Capital, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Iron Fish encrypts every transaction, shielding your sensitive asset information from public view. With read-only view keys, you remain compliant and in control. In this episode, we discuss Elena's journey up to the creation of Iron Fish, the use cases and second-order possibilities of Iron Fish, the biggest early surprises and challenges (and how their team navigated them), advice to crypto founders about productive dialogue with regulators, and why the future is bright for crypto.Recorded Monday May 1st, 2023.
What does the future hold for shielded transactions? How can #shieldedtransactions/#privacy-protecting initiatives change the way we interact in society? What can we do to safeguard our identities in the future of this #crypto economy? Are there certain utopias and dystopias to embrace or to avoid?*Avichal Garg, Electric Capital | Shielded Transaction Special | Trailer*Avichal Garg is a co-founder and partner on the investment team at Electric Capital. He is a successful serial entrepreneur with executive experience at Google and Facebook, which acquired his previous company in 2012. At Facebook he was Director of Product Management for the Local product group, a team of 400 engineers responsible for billions in revenue.Prior to Electric, Avichal was an investor in crypto projects such as Anchorage, Bitwise, Celo, dYdX, Lightning Labs, and OpenSea and unicorns such as Airtable, Boom Supersonic, Color Genomics, Cruise, Deel, Figma, Material Secutiy, Newfront Insurance, Notion, Nova Credit, and Pulley.https://avichal.com/The Foresight Institute is a research organization and non-profit that supports the beneficial development of high-impact technologies. Since our founding in 1987 on a vision of guiding powerful technologies, we have continued to evolve into a many-armed organization that focuses on several fields of science and technology that are too ambitious for legacy institutions to support.Allison Duettmann is the president and CEO of Foresight Institute. She directs the Intelligent Cooperation, Molecular Machines, Biotech & Health Extension, Neurotech, and Space Programs, Fellowships, Prizes, and Tech Trees, and shares this work with the public. She founded Existentialhope.com, co-edited Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy, co-authored Gaming the Future, and co-initiated The Longevity Prize. Apply to Foresight's virtual salons and in person workshops here!We are entirely funded by your donations. If you enjoy what we do please consider donating through our donation page.Visit our website for more content, or join us here:TwitterFacebookLinkedInEvery word ever spoken on this podcast is now AI-searchable using Fathom.fm, a search engine for podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Join Miles Deutscher every week when he interviews the biggest minds in the crypto industry, starting with Avichal Garg, the founder of Electric Capital! Don't miss this episode of Crypto Banter DeFi! ⚠️
With over 80% developer growth the past year, the Solana ecosystem has never been stronger. Chase Barker, Head of Developer Ecosystem at The Solana Foundation joins Brian Friel to talk about the current initiatives happening on Solana that excite him the most, along with the biggest opportunities he sees for Developers on Solana in episode 20 of The Zeitgeist. Show Notes:00:05 - Intro 01:56 - Background / Start with Solana 11:49 - Highlights from last year with the developer ecosystem16:13 - Latest exciting initiatives in Solana 20:56 - Opportunities for devs in Solana 25:03 - Opportunities to build a project on Solana27:36 - Solana plays Pokemon" game 30:43 - Where will Solana be in 5 years 32:55 - A builder he admires Full Transcript:Brian Friel (00:00):Hey, everyone and welcome to The Zeitgeist, the show where we highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the web 3.0 space forward. I'm Brian Friel, developer relations at Phantom and I'm super excited to introduce none other than the man, the myth, the legend, Chase Barker of Solana Foundation. Chase, welcome to the show.Chase barker (00:24):Hey man, thanks for having me.Brian Friel (00:26):This has been a long time coming. For those who don't know, Chase is the head of developer ecosystem at Solana Foundation. He's one of the earliest guys you could have seen if you were a developer coming into Solana. And it's special for me personally because Chase was the first person I reached out to on Solana. We actually did an episode on your old podcast, Chewing Glass at one point. It's great to be on the other side of the mic though, but officially welcome to the show, Chase.Chase barker (00:49):Thanks man. Yeah, it was super cool and it's also wild for me to be on this other side because we met in some interesting circumstances, you trying to dive into the whole ecosystem and I had no idea what I was doing and I needed help. And you wrote some really cool shit for me for the Solana Cookbook and here you are, leading Phantom. So anyways, I won't dive into that too much. Maybe we'll talk about it later, but it's super cool to be here, so thanks for having me.Brian Friel (01:15):Yeah, thanks for coming on. No, I couldn't agree more. Probably a good place to start, is maybe rewinding time a little bit, going back to some of those early days. Solana's pretty unique from a developer perspective. There was always, having worked in the industry pre-2018, it was always... If you're doing something development wise, solidity is the only game in town you got to be working in EVM. And Solana basically struck it out on its own and completely changed that narrative and you were around to see pretty much that whole evolution. Can you talk a little bit about your journey to finding Solana? Who are you, what were you doing, and what have you seen evolve in Solana since you've been there?Chase barker (01:56):Yeah, for sure. So I've told this story a lot and I'm going to keep this one shorter than I normally do, but I was an engineer for 12 years and then started trading crypto in 2017, made a bunch of money, lost it all in 2018, like most people. And then along that journey I found this project, Kin, who now exists on Solana, but they had their own fork of Stellar and I was into crypto and the bear market in 2018 and they had this hackathon thing and I built a tip bot with a group of other people to be able to tip on Reddit, discord, Twitter and Telegram. And I was like, okay, this is really cool. I really sort of hate my web2 job right now. I'm doing this government contracting work working on legacy Spring VC systems. It was miserable and I've talked about this a lot before and I just got everybody's email addresses and started saying, give me a job.(02:47):And they told me that all the jobs were based in Tel Aviv, but they have this developer relations role for Kin. And I was like, okay, that sounds great. What the hell is that? I had no idea what developer relations was at the time. So did a little bit of research, ended up taking the role and really just started working. They had an SDK, but documentation tried to grow a community. It's a little bit different. I'll get into this from Solana because Kin was like, this is the ICO days. Nobody really gave a shit about use cases. It was just like how am I going to be the most degenerate thing here. It was way ahead of its time, but eventually flash forward after a couple years of really loving what I was doing, traveling around the world, speaking at conferences, and helping people learn how to build in crypto.(03:31):And I heard, and it's March or April 2020 way early, and I'm talking, nobody that I knew, knew about Solana. So they were like, we're going to migrate to Solana this new blockchain. Nobody knows about it, but it's going to be super fast. Our tech team says it's great. So I followed along. Around December, I was involved in the migration process and I had spoken with Dan Albert, who's now the head of the Solana Foundation, and Raj and I engaged with a bunch of these guys but didn't really know them, but I was part of that migration. And then a little bit later into 2021, early 2021, people don't know this, but actually I was leaving Kin and I was looking for another role and I got hired by Circle for one week as a developer advocate. And then I saw Solana had a developer relations role, applied.(04:21):So I actually had an awkward situation where I had to tell Circle that “I know I just started, but I'm going to go work at Solana.” But the reason I worked at Solana is because I just DMed the shit out of Raj and Dan until they finally submitted into saying, okay, finally we're we're going to let you take this role. And at that time all that existed was the core documentation and the PaulX Escrow tutorial, aka the Solana Bible. And that was the start. May 5th, the day after my birthday of 2021, I joined Solana as the first sort of developer advocate and that's sort of the entry point.Brian Friel (05:01):Wow. So yeah, it's not really that long in calendar days. Chase barker (05:07):It's been 20 years. It's been 20 years.Brian Friel (05:09):Yeah, exactly. 20 years in crypto years for sure. A lot has changed since then. Maybe the only thing that hasn't changed is the strategy of just spam DMing somebody to try to get a job. I definitely tried to employ that with you back in the day. I know a few other people who have successfully deployed that strategy as well. But yeah, it's been crazy. There's a lot to talk about here. Maybe we just focus on the last year in particular because you mentioned 2021, it's a pretty crazy year. There was just the public tutorial on the docs and then all these people come in, you get anchor that gets built around that time. Solana takes off, a bunch of independent teams.Chase barker (05:49):Actually, let's go a little bit before that because I think this is just a really interesting thing and I like telling this part because when I started at Kin I was begging people to build on it because nobody was really building on blockchain except Ethereum at the time. And then I started with Solana and I had the exact opposite problem. You had a ton of people that were like, hell yeah, this sounds really awesome, but how the hell do you build on this thing? What the hell is rust? There's no documentation. You go into the Discord and the cord devs are just “go read the tests, that teaches you how to build on Solana.” And that's literally the world that we lived in at the time. And then started putting together this sort of part-time dev advocate team, if you want to call it that. I just skimmed Discord and looked for people who were helping others and be like, hey, come over here into this private discord with me.(06:39):And I'm like, help me scale myself. Because I was starting to write some example code and there was none of that. And then luckily I met Donnie and then Jacob and a couple other guys that are now full-time at Solana Foundation and they were helping in dev support. Jacob was working on the Java STK with Skynet Cap, if any of you guys know him. He was really one of the early OGs there. And then this whole group formed and they were writing content and then you reached out and contributed to the Solana cookbook and this whole thing just came out of nowhere. And I was literally sinking. The demand for Solana was so high because the tech was so new and the sort of hardcore engineers just really wanted to build, and the Dafi's and the Max's and the Armani's just figured the shit out.(07:28):But everybody else was like, let me, let me. And I could not do that on my own. I didn't even have the brain big enough to supply the knowledge to all these people. And then long story short, or maybe long story long is that you and I started talking and you wanted to be part of it and you wrote some really important stuff for the Solana Cookbook, I think retries, possibly PDAs and some of these other things. And it's like, thank you. And I do remember you being like, hey, can I work at Solana? And I didn't have any approval of power at the time and you left me and probably a month later I got approval to hire somebody else, but by that time you were at Phantom, but it seems like it worked out. So it is what it is.Brian Friel (08:12):I think you're right about the demands being so strong for people to figure it out that you just saw people coming together. A lot of times, you look at people who are evangelizing new tech and they're like, hey, here's this awesome thing. Try to explain it. And the first reaction of everyone is like, okay, cool, but then they just move on. And I feel like Solana was one of the few cases where that was the opposite, where everybody was like, this is incredible. How do I use this thing? How do I build this thing? And it was just this hive mind of people coming out of the woodwork to try to make it happen.Chase barker (08:43):Even me leading into Solana, and I say this a lot too because it's true in my mind, and I was like, listen to Anatoli and all this stuff, and I'm one of two things. This is the giant scam, or this is actually really fucking awesome. And luckily my instincts were right on that one and everything sort of worked out. And when I met you and then we started doing this part-time DevRel team that you were a part of for a while, first Solana Foundation.(09:09):And the next thing, my Twitter account became this thing where people would create content and I would share it and then somebody else would be like, oh, I want my shit shared. And then they would make content and I would share it. And this was this huge flywheel and that's really what turned into my account was this person who, you do cool shit, I'm going to share it. And then I became this other guy where I'm also, I do stupid shit and then I also share good shit. So it's this perfect mix of this idiot and then this guy who knows where the good stuff is.Brian Friel (09:46):You either die a developer or you live long enough to be a Twitter celebrity, I guess in your case?Chase barker (09:52):Yeah, I mean I don't necessarily love the celebrity side, but I do love getting DMs from people to say, Hey, all the things that you shared, and you probably hear some of the same like, hey, I got a job here because of this tweet that you made or this thread because I started making threads, who's looking for a job or who's whatever. And in the early days that's all we had, was Twitter. There was no other way to connect. I made a Twitter developer list and I added 300 people to it so that not everybody had to come into Solana Twitter and be like, follow each individual person and these were such manual, weird, really hard... I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily people showed up and were there and then just ran with it. I mean, looking back, dude, it's just awesome to look and see what's happened since then.Brian Friel (10:40):Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. Lots of connections made in those early days, like you said too, where people get jobs, all this kind of stuff happens and it's crazy how little interactions like that go really far.Chase barker (10:49):Yeah, exactly.Brian Friel (10:50):So I guess taking it now to this past year, so we're recording this January 2023. The past year in particular, if you were just an outside observer looking at crypto, you're like, wow, prices are way down, everything's dead. And there's a report that comes out just the other day, Electric Capitalist Developer Report, which says Solana developers grew over 80% in the year. You and I... I had an intuition for this, I'm sure you did too. It was just developer activity.Chase barker (11:20):I didn't have intuition. I actually knew.Brian Friel (11:23):Yeah, you knew. But other people I'm sure had intuition if you're around the developer ecosystem, it's not stopping. Developer activities keeps picking up, summarize a little bit in your words over the last year, what has stood up to you? What are some of the highlights? You mentioned you started this thing and it's just you and DMing people on Twitter and getting this thing going. Now it's a serious operation of a developer ecosystem here going. What are some of the things you're most proud of that stood out to you?Chase barker (11:50):Yeah, so I think the start of the year in January of 2022, we're all sitting there, and the crypto markets nuke, and the blockchain literally is devastated. And that was any sort of pre any sort of ideas about what is wrong, what is it? Basically it was all these sort of liquidators, spamming to try to liquidate people and that just turned into this thing. And I think by that point in time though, we had some really high conviction developers that were already super invested themselves in Solana. So they stuck around and I think that's very unique for that to happen. Everybody's like, when are you going to fix this? But it literally took two to three months before they even identified what those solutions might be and those solutions to many of you, the devs out there were quick and fee-markets and some of these other things that improved.(12:45):But even though these solutions were being built, that shit takes time. So during that same time, Solana NFTs were going through the roof and these bots were spamming the network. Luckily we're flash forward briefly to right now all of those things have been implemented, but the work is never complete. But we've been pretty battle tested and recently, but I think to your original question, what I'm most proud of is being able to keep that morale up, being able to really build out this sticky community and I'm focused on devs, but it's not just the devs. Without that normal diehard community, without the Dev community, without the NFT community, we would've failed miserably like every other blockchain that tried to do what we did failed.(13:33):But I think a lot of this really comes down to personal relationships and when you come into Solana and you get involved, people really cheer you on and there's that sort of camaraderie there that kept people here, even in the darkest of times. I'm just really happy. Like I said, I knew that those numbers were high and to be honest, a lot of the reason while I've been memeing about the 75 developer ridiculous reports that have been coming out, I was memeing it so hard in the last couple weeks because we crawled GitHub internally and we know where our dev numbers are and we always make sure that we know where those things are. So it was sort of funny to me to just keep memeing that and then knowing Electric Capital was going to put out a report that sort of reflected... at least they have some pretty strict rules around what they constitute a dev. Our numbers are slightly higher, but their rules are strict. As a full-time dev, you have to commit code X amount of days per month or whatever that is.(14:32):I'm sure they have that somewhere and the way that they do it, but yeah man, it takes a village to do this and there's not one person you can point to, but there's obviously some champions out there that really made people inspired to continue building. The proudest thing I can think of is all the shit we took this year and we're still here and now we just have been pretty much named and given the silver medal of the second strongest developer community in crypto and you got to give a shout-out to Eat the Kings, fully open source and putting up numbers for devs, so you got to give them credit.Brian Friel (15:06):Yeah, we mentioned a little bit early on about how it was a narrative violation for Solana to have a completely different programming paradigm to not be using Solidity to get into an account model lower level dealing with Rust.Chase barker (15:20):There was FUD that was like “Solana's using Rust? Good luck. You guys are basically screwed.” Nobody's ever going to build on Rust. So that was false.Brian Friel (15:29):Yeah, most loved GitHub developer language though I'm pretty sure that's another narrative violation for you there. So talking a little bit more about what you guys have been up to you, you mentioned you guys have been crawling the GitHubs and you've seen this dev activity, you now have a full-time team like you said that, that you're working with, but it's not just you guys at Solana Foundation, there's all these other ecosystem teams now. There's people like Super Team Dao who are doing their own thing, coordinating devs and building devs. I'd say there's stuff on the community side getting devs and raising awareness there. There's Lamport DAO, I might be giving you too many answers here, but the community side and the tech side, what are some of the initiatives that are happening right now in Solana that have you most excited?Chase barker (16:14):I think one of the most important things to note about Solana Foundation and Labs in general is the headcount stays low. This sounds weird to a lot of people, but our job is to make ourselves irrelevant in the next five to 10 years as an organization, the super team and the Lamort DAOs and Meta Camp and Singapore in these different groups, a lot of them will get grants from the foundation to get themselves up and running. But after that they basically become these sort of miniature Solana foundations where they start growing their community from the inside out and giving out grants and doing all these really cool things. But you think of Solana as this giant bubble and every time one of these new miniature groups spins out, the Solana Foundation bubble gets smaller, and then these other bubbles start getting more and plentiful to eventually you reach a point where Solana Foundation bubble was the size of the rest of these small groups.(17:08):This is the antithesis of Web 2.0, hiring as many people in as much headcount as you can and trying to own everything. I don't want to own everything. I want to find Mertz, I want to find Super Teams. I want to find Meta Camps and I don't want to just go find them and ask them. I want to find these guys that just put everything they have into Solana the blockchain and they're just so passionate about it, that it's like this is the team that we want to put our energy behind. In the beginning it really was a lot of us at Foundation and Labs doing a lot of the talking, but now you have these stronger voices and I'm not going to lie, it makes my life a lot easier to not have to be doing all that talking online anymore, but I still do it.(17:53):And I think the important point here is that if we're going to become a decentralized blockchain, we also want to become a decentralized organization itself and that means nobody has to get our permission. I think one of the greatest examples of no permission is Hacker House was kicked off, everybody's like, when my city and MTN DAO was like, fuck this, I'm just going to make my own thing. And they actually built the best thing that's really happened out of our community to date and they produced multiple, clockwork previously, Kronos, mtnPay, all these guys won hackathons.(18:33):Because T.J. Littlejohn literally came up with mtnPay at MTN DAO and a food line being like, Solana Pay just came out. Oh shit, maybe I should just build a payment thing with this new thing. And then he set up the system and people were paying with USD right there. So if that trajectory keeps happening through Solana, and I know other blockchains are trying to emulate what we do, but there's no way to emulate this unless you actually do this organically and it's happening. And anytime I just find somebody like a TJ or a MERT or whoever or a Brian or whatever, I'm going to put all my time and energy behind them and that's literally my philosophy and the foundation's philosophy in general, I think.Brian Friel (19:15):Yeah, for sure. No, I've seen that too. It feels like there's more... Solana is the only ecosystem I know outside of Ethereum really is there are these factions not the best word, but it's these unofficial groups of people that... Maybe it started as simple as we like to ski in February and we want to get together and hack. MTN DAO, but it's becoming an official collective now. People are identifying with it. And it has influence in the community. I mean I totally see what you're saying too about the Hacker House is I know we had our own last summer, we kind of piloted the Summer Camp Hackathon fan of Sponsor [inaudible 00:19:51]. But I just see that model continuing to go and more and more teams coalescing around certain regions and sponsoring their own thing.Chase barker (19:57):And for everybody listening here, don't ask for permission, don't ask when, just literally do it. And if you do it and you do it well, the attention will get drawn onto you and then I'll come find you and I'll knock on your door and ask you how I can help. So that's really the sort of mentality that I personally have.Brian Friel (20:15):Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. That was my approach trying to work in this space, just do it and then ask for help or permission. Someone will find you. That's so much better than trying to ask somebody for permission to do something. So I guess that's a good transition to, let's put ourselves in the shoes of a developer who's looking at Solana right now. There's a lot of devs out there that might see Solana and they still think, oh, Rust and scary. That's probably not true. We can talk about that. But there's also probably a lot of devs who maybe know a little bit about Solana, they're kind of like right on the cusp, because they want to jump in. What do you want to say to these devs? What are some of the biggest opportunities that these devs should be looking at right now in Solana?Chase barker (20:56):Yeah, I think there's a couple things here. I think it depends on your demographic and age range. I mostly meant age range. So if you're in college right now, look up solanau.org and it's @SolanaUni on Twitter because Dana is our university relations person who is absolutely crushing it, sponsoring and participating in hackathons, doing workshops, just really bringing in my opinion, the next generation, the most risk averse group of people are students who are still funded by their parents that can make some sort of mistakes early on. So they're the next generation that's going to take this forward and luckily they have some really tech heavy guys out there that are just so dedicated to this, the Solana core engineers and the Jito team and all these different groups that are there to mentor them when they're ready to get in this. But I think SolanaU is probably a really high leverage thing.(21:54):We spend a lot of time working with Build Space who's built Solana Build Space Core, which is an amazing program. Things are getting easier. We're still in that place where new things are coming around the corner and I get a lot of shit for this, especially from Rust maxi's, but there's Seahorse Lang where you can build smart contracts on Python right now, not fully ready for production. There's a version of this in typescript coming. We're doing whatever we can to make it easier because the Chewing Glass thing is true and it's mainly true not because of Rust, not because of Solana, it's because learning Rust and Solana and all those concepts at the same time, is literally painful as hell. But content and all these other things combined put together right now and all of the sort of tooling that different groups are building like indexers and all these things are making the lives easier because as adapt dev you want to deal with “get program accounts and all that stuff”, it's not...(22:56):We're getting to a better place and it's coming right now there's a couple places, I mean solana.com/developers we're curating our own list, but I cannot negate what ELO from SOL Dev has done at soldev.app and the whole entire thing that he's built out. So I'm super bullish on a lot of the stuff they're doing. I think there's just too many things to name of how many independent contributors are out there just building shit. I said this the other day on Twitter, I know when things are getting really good when I can't even keep up with the retweets of the things that are being built that I have no idea about. And then you have this other guy that most people don't really know yet. His name's Jonas and I think it's Soul Play Jonas on Twitter,Brian Friel (23:40):He's our hackathon winner.Chase barker (23:41):Is he?Brian Friel (23:42):Yeah. So when we hosted the Summer Camp Hackathon last summer, we had a Deep Links prize and he won as the best use of Deep Links because he was the first to build a Unity game on Solana using it.Chase barker (23:53):I'm not going to dox his location, but I'm going to tell you this mfr is legend and really going to try to push the gaming world forward on Solana, which I think is the blockchain that has the best ability to actually scale. And I want to give credit where it's due, zk-Tech is going to be fucking amazing, but Solana as is right now, has the best chance to scale if a big top tier sort of gaming company hits and decides to leverage that tag.Brian Friel (24:24):Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit because I had Anatoly on as the first guest and he always talked about how his dream was blockchain at Nasdaq speed and it was like “it's DeFi all the way". Then you and I are both around for the 2021 craze where it was just all of a sudden it's the world's greatest JPEG trading machine, it's all NFTs. Now we're seeing stuff about gaming. Is there a certain type of developers interested in something they should come to Solana? It's just like everybody... It's not necessarily specialization here, but what are some of the biggest opportunities maybe if you're looking to start a company on Solana, build a project on Solana?Chase barker (25:03):Yeah, I think we're being honest here. If your use case does not necessarily require high throughput, then the options are pretty unlimited in blockchain. But if you want to be able to have fully on chain games.. And not to say that we both know this, when you're building a game on any blockchain, not everything has to be on chain and it's almost like not necessary to the extent, but DeFi, we need to reignite that on Solana. There's been a series of unfortunate events that–whatever, but I think there's a really strong group of people that are working on this open book DEX and this massive amazing thing that came true. But for me personally, I think that the big unlock comes in gaming and the real original use case of crypto that has never actually been solved, which is payments. I mean it's been solved but not in a usable way. If you're going to bring payments to new and emerging markets, the fees and stuff are important because the fees on some of these different chains is more money than is-Brian Friel (26:12):Not feasible. It's a non-starter.Chase barker (26:13):It's not feasible. And Solana Pay and a lot of these other payment options are starting to enable that. And I think it honestly just has the potential to change a lot of lives, JPEGs and all these other things. That's cool. And I love that people are having fun on blockchain also. Solana is definitely the funnest chain by the way, but payments, man payments, we have to do it. We have to get payments, remittances done on chain and Solana's the most equipped to do it, especially related to fees.Brian Friel (26:45):Yeah, I love you said it too about it being the most fun chain, priding yourselves with that because for a while, and I think you noticed this, with every new blockchain, something that starts, the first thing everyone does is copy what worked before. We're going to have an AMM, we're going to do some DeFi thing, we're going to have an NFT marketplace. But I'm starting to see now on Solana things that are uniquely Solana and just couldn't be done elsewhere. And it definitely feels like there's a unique culture. And I'll shout out too, one, we talked about T.J. Littlejohn and you mentioned payments, the Solana pay spec. Yeah, you can send payments to anyone, but you could send any transaction. So he built that NFT photo booth. You take a photo, scan it, and it mints as an NFT using the payment protocol. It's pretty cool. There's another one though, we just had him on as a guest, which will launch fairly soon on this podcast. Have you seen the “Solana Plays Pokémon” game?Chase barker (27:37):Yeah, I have briefly, but I don't know a ton about it.Brian Friel (27:40):I don't know. It's a game like that... It's like you said, it doesn't have to be crazy. It's not everything on chain, but it's almost like a new genre of game because here you have this emulator that's sitting off chain, it's playing Pokémon and it's like anyone can permissionlessly show up and just start voting to say, press this button, press up, press down. And Solana's so fast that it's basically processing these very quickly and all of a sudden you have people warring over, should we train a Squirtle? Should we release the Squirtle? Should we fight this gym leader? It's a toy today, but you can kind of see how wow, this could become kind of a new game genre where it's multiplayer and, you don't know who you're even playing with or against and it's all real time. It's all being coordinated. It's pretty wild.Chase barker (28:22):I think a lot, and I'm a big advocate of looking at the Web2 world and seeing what is possible on Solana, and also what makes sense because not every use case makes sense, but for example, like I said, I mentioned Shek earlier and Wordcel Club, which is the blogging platform and they're doing some other cool social primitives and it's like they're starting to open source those primitives, but why would you do something on web 3.0 that you could do on Web 2.0? And the answer is sort of incentives. And you look at some of these bigger social platforms that absorb 99.9% of the value and there's a way to distribute that value on web 3.0 that there never was in web 2.0. So I think that's an important one. There might be some disagreement here, but I think the group that really got closest to some sort of web 2.0 success was Stepn, because they went product first instead of... You see a lot of stuff in web 3.0 of it's like, developers first developing for developers, they're developing for things like that.(29:27):But Stepn was like, what does everybody do that we could reward them for and get this on chain? And that was working out, this is an incentive mechanism. Obviously it didn't fully work out and I think there's probably... They're working on that, but at the same time, we need to start thinking what in the web 2.0 world is working, how can we do that on web 3.0, and why would that app make sense in web 3.0? And then usually it's incentive mechanisms that give the user a reason to use it, but they're not going to do that with massive delays or lag times or all this stuff. It better work just like web 2.0 if not better if you're going to do that. So really focusing on things that Solana can do that other blockchains can't at this current moment is probably going to be some of the highest rate of success or at least some more of the higher impact things I think.Brian Friel (30:21):Yeah, I agree. It's got to be seamless in the background. There's people in crypto who care, but the vast majority of people don't want to sit around and wait for something to load. So we talked a lot about the state of Solana today, what you're excited about all these different people building. You alluded to this a little bit, but paint a picture for us. What do you see the Solana ecosystem five years from now?Chase barker (30:43):Five years from now, I see myself not having a job anymore, and I'm okay with that because I've said this since day one. If I do my job the way that I'm supposed to do my job by empowering, enabling others, then there's no need for a me anymore. And any true ecosystem that has a foundation or a labs, whatever, there should be a point that they're looking towards. The North Star is literally being able to walk away and that community in those small groups that you've sort of empowered and sort of distributed out, you can walk away and that shit just runs itself forever.(31:19):That's not just the blockchain that's actually distributed community, not just the distributed blockchain. So that's the North Star. Five years, probably not likely, but I do think in the next five years that it's going to be about as easy to build on Solana as it is to build on React. That's what I have in my mind. And we have the firepower in the ecosystem and the dedicated people that I already see completely just trying to push with Seahorse and all these other things. People are just thinking, how can I make this easier for people if we're already there two to three years in from [inaudible 00:31:59] Beta Solana, we're progressing rapidly right now and if we keep that rate in the next five years, it's going to be insane.Brian Friel (32:09):Love that. And yeah, the beta tag, I'm sure given all the trials and tribulations, we will be shedding that beta tag soon.Chase barker (32:17):I haven't seen the Bernie meme in a while and if anybody listening to this doesn't know, Anatoly said that we're going to drop the beta tag after one year from the Bernie meme that he posts about validators.Brian Friel (32:27):Zero days since last Bernie meme. Really? Okay.Chase barker (32:31):I mean who knows if that happens, but I haven't seen him post that Bernie meme in a while, so we'll see. We'll see.Brian Friel (32:36):Yeah, I'll miss that Bernie meme. We'll put some pit vipers on Bernie again, just for all time sake. Well Chase, this has been an awesome discussion, really great having you on, and it's been a long time coming. One closing question we ask all of our guests, I want to hear it from you, is who is a builder that you admire in the Solana ecosystem?Chase barker (32:55):So my initial sort of instinct is to probably mention somebody that's never been really mentioned before, but I can't not just talk about Armani because he was part of the first wallet. He was part of the framework that made Solana better in terms of developer experience with Anchor. And I mean I know he's now building another wallet and it's just the truth. Armani, his whole sort of ethos and what he is trying to do is just trying to make crypto usable and better for a lot of people.(33:34):And I think that's just an important thing for me and I really respect that about him. So I truly think that Armani is one of the people that I really respect the most in the space for what he's done and transparently and just like everybody who has a very large voice gets a lot of shit. And for people like that to stick around, it's incredible. We all deal with it. You work at Phantom, I work at Solana Foundation. Armani has worked at various groups or whatever and we have to just continue what we're doing and just deal with all the that shit we get and you just got to respect that, man. So that's pretty much my answer.Brian Friel (34:17):That's Awesome. I couldn't agree more. Well, Chase, it has been awesome having you on. Thank you so much for your time. Where can developers go to get started with Solana?Chase barker (34:27):Solana.com/developers or I'll also not show our own stuff and you can go to soldev.app as well. We have different offerings like soldev.app has a lot more, solana.com/developers has a little more curated smaller list, but both are very good options. So yeah man, that's the place. So check it out and let's get going.Brian Friel (34:53):Love it. Chase Barker, head of developer ecosystem at Solana Foundation. Thank you so much.
Drop 1: Reddit points https://www.reddit.com/community-points/documentation/introduction Drop 2: NAB e a stablecoin australiana https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/nab-creates-a-stablecoin-in-boost-for-digital-economy-20230117-p5cd8f Drop 3: China conecta CBDCs e Stablecoins https://scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3207599/chinas-state-backed-blockchain-project-aims-be-swift-stablecoins-and-central-bank-digital-currencies .. More: Stelo ajuda a prevenir transações suspeitas na sua wallet https://stelolabs.com/ Texas A&M oferece curso sobre Bitcoin https://cointelegraph.com/news/one-of-the-largest-us-colleges-has-begun-teaching-students-about-bitcoin/ Credix launches in Colombia https://medium.com/credix/credix-and-clave-launch-pioneering-tokenized-debt-facility-in-colombia-a3c62f6f3ed4 Parfin levanta 15M USD pra crescer infra web3 https://braziljournal.com/a-parfin-fornece-a-infra-para-a-web3-e-atraiu-a-framework-e-a-b3/ Polygon implementa hardfork para baixar os picos de gas e melhorar performance https://polygon.technology/blog/hardfork-incoming-upgrading-polygon-pos-chain-to-boost-performance Obligate levanta 4M com Circle Ventures para avançar com Blockchain na gestão de dívida https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/01/19/circle-ventures-backs-4m-round-for-blockchain-based-debt-provider-obligate/ Electric Capital developerreport.com .. Meu conteúdo em inglês https://bi.11fs.com/ Me sigam em blockdrops.lens --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/blockdropspodcast/message
Maria Shen, partner at Electric Capital, unpacks the venture firm's latest Developer Report. Hotly anticipated among crypto observers, the annual report captures which chains developers are building on. Despite 2022's price carnage, the report finds developer interest remains strong. Ethereum is the leading chain by far but EVM-compatibility is emerging as a major force in winning developers' hearts and minds. Shen unpacks Bitcoin's stability, Terra's implosion, and many more insights from crypto's open-source code repos. Show highlights: why the report "undercounts" developers and how it defines active developers how developers represent a fundamental measure of the health of emerging technologies like crypto the meaning of developer numbers going up even when prices plummet why in recent years the speed of developer growth jumped so drastically what happened after the number of developers reached an all-time high in June 2022 the role of Terra in the decline of developer activity in 2022's second half why Ethereum dominates the ecosystem and whether it will continue to be the leader the benefits of being part of “the EVM universe” why the number of Bitcoin developers has remained flat over the last year whether looking at the number of developers in the NFT ecosystem is even relevant Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Guest Maria Shen: Twitter Electric Capital Developer Report Full report Maria's 2022 thread 2021 report 2020 report Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Coinstack - For Smart Crypto Investors - Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi & The Future of Money
Electric Capital Releases Annual Developer Report, Gemini and Genesis Charged by SEC With Selling Unregistered Securities, 3AC Founders Seek to Raise Capital for a New Venture, FTX US Ex-CEO Speaks
The month of November has come to an end, and the year 2022 is almost through! That means it's time for another monthly update, where we'll recap the fascinating, insightful and entertaining conversations we've had on the Unstoppable Podcast in the last month. We cover:Our conversation with Bobby Ong at CoinGecko about building an independent crypto aggregator, NFT trends and the increase in tokenization.A talk with Raph Guilleminot at Electric Capital about the biggest user experience challenges in crypto, how to improve Web3 communication, the future of personal custody in Web3 and more.A discussion with Jad Esber at koodos labs about the future of identity, reputation and decentralization in Web3.A chat with Anand Venkateswaran at eDAO about buying a Beeple NFT for $69M, advice for NFT collectors, the role of NFTs in Web3 and the growth of crypto in India.You can follow Josh on Twitter, Bobby on Twitter , Raph on Twitter, Jad on Twitter, Anand on Twitter and learn more about Unstoppable Domains and our work here.Don't forget to rate, download and subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss an episode and we can keep producing awesome content for you.#crypto #blockchain #domains #web3.0 #decentralized
Fall is upon us and the chilly weather is well underway. For some pre-festive cheer, let's take a look at highlights from the Unstoppable Podcasts for the month of October, where we spoke to another round of fascinating and insightful guests. Here's what you can expect:Our chat with Adam Levy, Host of Mint Podcast, about how to grow a Web3 community with NFTs.A discussion with Elizabeth Laraki, Design Partner at Electric Capital, about user experience and design in Web3, how it differs from Web2 and where things are headed in the future.A conversation with Valet Jones and SAFA, Co-Founders of Jenkins the Valet, about building the first community-generated NFT, key lessons for Web3 community builders, and the growth of the digital profile picture movement.A talk with Dayo Adeosun, Co-Founder of Glass Protocol, about the pace of innovation in a crypto bear market, challenges facing creators, and how to bring creators and communities together. You can follow Josh on Twitter, Adam on Twitter, Elizabeth on Twitter, Valet and SAPA on Twitter, Dayo on Twitter, and learn more about Unstoppable Domains and our work here.Don't forget to rate, download, and subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss an episode and we can keep producing awesome content for you. #crypto #blockchain #domains #web3.0 #decentralized
In this episode of Empire, Avichal Garg Founder of Electric Capital and Haseeb Qureshi Managing Partner at Dragonfly Capital join the show to discuss the fallout of FTX. Avichal and Haseeb discuss the structure between FTX and Alameda Research, looking behind the curtain into how intertwined the two entities were. We then go on to discuss the potential contagion between large CeFi companies in crypto who could have exposure to FTX and Alemeda. To hear all this and more, you'll have to tune in! -- Follow Avichal https://twitter.com/avichal Follow Haseeb: https://twitter.com/hosseeb Follow Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod Subscribe on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/4fdhhb2j Subscribe on Apple: https://tinyurl.com/mv4frfv7 Subscribe on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/wbaypprw Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ -- Circle's USDC has quickly become one of the most trusted and widely used stablecoins because of its composability, stability and reserve transparency. As a seamless, trusted digital currency, USDC is a zero-to-one opportunity for the global financial system. Check out their Transparency Hub at http://empirepodcast.link/circle that outlines everything from links to USDC weekly reserve reports, monthly attestations, and blog posts written by their executive team highlighting how and why USDC was built the way it is. - - Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed. Disclaimer: Scammers are impersonating Blockworks and replying to comments on some of our videos. Please be advised that we will NEVER reply to your comment asking you to contact us on whatsapp, telegram, provide investment advice, or solicit money from you. These are scam impersonator accounts and you should not respond to them.
On today's episode, we're talking to Raph Guilleminot, Product Designer and Design Manager at Electric Capital — an early-stage venture firm investing in the next generation of iconic Web3 founders. We talk about:Raph's story and what makes him so excited to be working with Web3 today.User experience in Web3 and how it can be much more challenging than necessary.Challenges around identity in Web3, the lack of control and communication channels.Effectively communicating risk to Web3 users and how to educate them.The future of personal custody and key management in Web3 — can it survive?Composability in Web3 and the ability for NFTs and tokens to have utility across different applications.Some trends Raph sees in crypto going into 2023.You can follow Josh on Twitter, Raph on Twitter and learn more about Unstoppable Domains and our work here.Don't forget to rate, download and subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss an episode and we can keep producing awesome content for you.#crypto #blockchain #domains #web3.0 #decentralized
In today's episode, we're talking to Elizabeth Laraki. Elizabeth is the Design Partner at Electric Capital, an early-stage venture firm investing in the next generation of iconic Web3 founders, and she's here to talk about user experience and design in Web3.We dive into a whole range of interesting topics and ideas, such as:Elizabeth's background and what good user experience means to her.Are most of today's crypto applications delivering good user experiences?Building products for specific or niche audiences.The difference between Web2 and Web3 when thinking about UX.Applying insights and lessons from Google to Web3 projects.Common challenging experiences in crypto.How to improve UX when sending and receiving crypto.What needs to happen to make crypto truly mainstream?How Web3 terminology could change over time.The micro trends happening now that could lead to Web3 hitting a billion users.What leads people to transition from Web2 to Web3?You can follow Josh on Twitter, Elizabeth on Twitter, and learn more about Unstoppable Domains and our work here.Don't forget to rate, download, and subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss an episode and we can keep producing awesome content for you.#crypto #blockchain #domains #web3.0 #decentralized
Many businesses have been disrupted by technology - Electric Capital thinks investing is no different Electric Capital, a crypto VC fund with more than $1 billion AUM, hires Software Engineers and Designers instead of Financiers to manage its fund. Today, Managing Partner Avichal from Electric Capital shares with us: Thesis on Software Eating Money DAOs as Internet-native corporations Importance of UI/UX to onboard the next billion users Great Thinkers = Good Founders Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice. ------------ Timestamps ------------- (00:00:00) – Introduction (00:02:32) – Avichal's hop from Facebook to managing $1b fund (00:07:15) – Thesis on Software eating Money (00:13:05) – 3 things Electric's Engineers do (00:16:26) – Why is Electric bullish on DAOs (00:25:29) – Examples of good DAO governance (00:31:30) – Good UI/UX to onboard next billion users (00:37:36) – Identifying unobvious but good investments (00:40:33) – Investing in great founders (00:44:42) – Will crypto fail because of regulation ----------- Sponsors ------------- dYdX is the Leading Decentralized Exchange for trading perpetual contracts. Users enjoy low fees, deep liquidity, up to 20x more buying power and even earn $DYDX from trading. Trade on dYdX today at: https://trade.dydx.exchange ----------- More Resources --------- Guest Avichal's Twitter: https://twitter.com/avichal Electric Capital's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElectricCapital Blockcrunch Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/ Blockcrunch Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch Jason Choi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi ------------ Disclosures ------------- Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast (“Blockcrunch”) is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch's guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch's podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.
The most valuable crypto stories for Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022."The Hash" team talks about a defamation lawsuit filed against YouTuber "Atozy” by fellow YouTuber Ben Armstrong, whose videos are produced under the moniker "BitBoy Crypto," Plus, Bloomberg reports former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton is joining Electric Capital as an advisor.See also: YouTuber vs. YouTuber: BitBoy Crypto Sues Atozy for DefamationBitBoy Lost His Lawsuit the Instant He Filed ItEx-SEC Chair Jay Clayton Joins Crypto Investor Electric Capital as Adviser: Report_I.D.E.A.S. 2022 by CoinDesk facilitates capital flow and market growth by connecting the digital economy with traditional finance through the presenter's mainstage, capital allocation meeting rooms and sponsor expo floor. Use code HASH20 for 20% off the General Pass. Register now: coindesk.com/ideas-This episode has been edited by Michele Musso. Our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “Neon Beach.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
A re-broadcast of our episode featuring Greylock investor Seth Rosenberg's interview with the co-founders of Espresso Systems, which provides configurable privacy and scalability tools for Web3. The company is operating at a critical time for privacy within Web3. Recently, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, a mixer platform that enables cryptocurrency transactions. The regulatory action marks the first time authorities have imposed sanctions on computer protocols (code) rather than individuals or wallets. This represents a key moment for the industry and raises questions on the right approach to regulation and how developers can enable important use cases with privacy. Rosenberg originally spoke with co-founders Charles Lu and Benedikt Bunz in March, when the company came out of stealth with a Series A co-led by Greylock and Electric Capital. In light of the regulatory action on Tornado, Rosenberg caught up with co-founder Jill Gunter to discuss the increased importance for privacy tools within the web3 industry. You can read Seth's original blog post about the investment and the transcript from the podcast here: greylock.com/portfolio-news/pri…lability-for-web3/
On today's Manager Meeting, Maneesh Gandhi sits down with Avichal Garg. Maneesh is a Partner at Evanston Capital, a $4.5 billion hedge fund of funds, whose CIO Adam Blitz was a past guest on Capital Allocators. Avichal is the Co-Founder of Electric Capital, an early-stage venture firm focused on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies, fintech, and marketplaces. He has been a successful serial entrepreneur with executive experience at Google and Facebook, which acquired his previous company in 2012. Their conversation covers Avichal's career as an operator, influence on his investment approach, conviction in crypto, and opportunities in today's markets. They cover Electric's investment strategy, differentiated team structure, investment examples, and the future of crypto. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership
Avichal Garg (@avichal), founder of Electric Capital, joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways:- Downturns impact large companies much more than founders and early stage investors because the companies are so small relative to their total addressable market.- Managing your own psychology in a downturn is the most important skill for a founder in these times.- Crypto is like a platypus — it has properties of growth tech, a store of value, and commodities.- People in the US sometimes look at crypto and don't see the use case but for those people around the world who are not on the US dollar, the use cases for crypto are clearer.- Crypto is an important technological breakthrough but more importantly is also a social science breakthrough: people are exchanging money for ones and zeros.- The transformation of money by crypto will start at the fringes rather than replacing conventional money all at once. It will start with young people, the wealthy, and the underserved.- An AI with a smart contract acting on chain managing a billion dollars in a non-jurisdctional way will be very disruptive.- In the future people will signal status in digitally, with NFTs rather than watches.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary onthe latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup
Jack Lu and Zhuoxun Yin are the Co-Founders of Magic Eden, a leading NFT platform on Solana. Magic Eden recently raised $130 Million in series B funding at a $1.6 Billion valuation, co-led by Electric Capital and Greylock and with new investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, also alongside previous investors Paradigm and Sequoia Capital. Prior to founding Magic Eden, Jack worked on partnerships & corp dev at FTX, product at Google, and consulting at BCG. Zhuoxun worked on the product team at Coinbase, strategy at dYdX, and consulting at Bain & Company. Check out our brand new YouTube Video Podcast! https://www.SmartVenturePod.com IG/Twitter/FB @GraceGongGG LinkedIn:@GraceGong YouTube: https://bit.ly/gracegongyoutube Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, super star founders, as well as well known tech executives in the silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company. ===================== Brought to you by: https://momentonft.com
Magic Eden, Solana's largest NFT marketplace, is eyeing an ambitious growth plan after raising a $130 million funding round co-led by Greylock and Electric Capital. While the broader crypto market struggles to find its footing, Magic Eden is coming off its best month ever, with just over 5 million SOL in volume transacted during May. In this episode of The Scoop, Magic Eden co-founder and COO Zhuoxun 'Zedd' Yin, talks through the project's funding efforts and unpacks some of the reasons why he believes Magic Eden has room to grow into more than just an NFT marketplace. As Zedd explains during the interview, both Magic Eden's founders and its investors share a broad time horizon for the future: “I think despite the ridiculous and amazing traction that I think we've had in the first nine months, it's still very early days for us and we have a lot more we want to build — and I think hopefully that plan and that outlook resonated with a lot of investors. And for us, we were lucky to be able to bring on the partners that we were really excited about.” Instead of limiting itself to running a marketplace, Magic Eden hopes to establish itself as a hub for all NFT-related activity. According to Zedd: “We would love to be the place where there's actually many layers on top of the marketplace — so not only is this the place where you perform the execution of the transaction, but really all of the discovery, all of the community based interaction, all the fun social elements that come with NFTs is also happened on Magic Eden.” Magic Eden also plans to branch out beyond the Solana blockchain "As, you know... very intentional decision to start on Solana. But I really do think that if developers and users are going to be in other ecosystems, it's almost like if you're a traditional company starting in Australia. But then there's a lot of users in New Zealand or like whatever, like Singapore. You want to be there too. Right?" Episode 56 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded in-person with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Magic Eden Co-Founder & COO, Zedd. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Cross River Cross River is powering today's most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River's API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Avichal Garg is Co-Founder & Partner @ Electric Capital, last month Electric announced they had raised $1BN for their new fund making them one of the largest independent and crypto-native VC firms in the world. As for Avichal, prior to Electric, he was an investor in crypto projects such as Anchorage, Bitwise, Lightning Labs, and OpenSea and unicorns such as Airtable, Cruise, Deel, Figma, Notion and many more. On the operating side, Avichal successfully sold his last company to Facebook where he became Director of Product Management for the Local product group, a team of 400 engineers responsible for billions in revenue. In Today's Episode with Avichal Garg You Will Learn: 1.) Origins into Venture: How did Avichal make his way into the world of startups and angel investing? How did Avichal make the pivot from software to crypto investing? Was Avichal nervous when making the move to institutionalize what had been personal investing? What does Avichal know now that he wishes he had known at the start of Electric? 2.) The Landscape: Crypto Investing How does Avichal assess the crypto fund landscape today? Will we continue to see a small number of firms (a16z, Katie Haun, Paradigm, Electric) dominate the market? What happens to all the small crypto funds that have been raised in the last year? Why does Avichal believe crypto investing is much more collaborative than venture investing? How can venture size returns be made if the ownership levels are so much smaller? 3.) Crypto Firms vs Traditional VC Firms: Why does Avichal believe that crypto is software eating money? What does this mean for traditional venture? Who will survive? Who will die? Who will thrive? Why can generalist firms not compete with crypto native firms? How are the teams of crypto native firms structured so differently to those of traditional VCs? Do crypto projects and investments need the same level of service and help that generalist VCs provide with their platform services? 4.) Tokens - Equity - Liquidity: How does Avichal advise investors on how to think through token vs equity investing? When does it make sense to have a token vs not having a token? How are crypto tokens priced and valued? What do you need to know when buying tokens? How does the liquidity of crypto markets make it challenging for investor psychology? What is the biggest lesson Avichal has learned on when is the right time to sell? 5.) DAOs: 101 What are DAOs? Are they not just another form of government? What makes one DAO successful and another not? What tooling and infrastructure are required to manage a DAO successfully? What does Avichal believe the vision of a DAO should be? How should they define success? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Avichal Garg Avichal's Favourite Book: The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization Avichal's Most Recent Investment: Magic Eden
Avichal Garg worked at Google and Facebook, generating billions in revenue, before co-founding Electric Capital: an investing firm developing the foremost leaders in Web3– a term meaning the reimagining of our existing technologies. Web3 especially includes innovation surrounding crypto. In this episode, we'll dive into the cryptocurrency phenomenon and evaluate the naysayers and their critiques of this new alternative and the coming financial industry revolution. We'll also dive into our thoughts on the government's discussions to back their own crypto coin, and whether to approach crypto more as a currency or a commodity.Become a Daily Wire member to hear the bonus questions! dailywire.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices