Blockchain Innovation: Interviewing The Brightest Minds In Blockchain

Michael Oved and Don Mosites are Co-Founders of AirSwap – a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.

Michael is a veteran algorithmic trader and mathematician.

Don is a former Google employee, serial entrepreneur, product designer, and full-stack engineer.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What the design of a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange looks like
• The advantages of decentralized vs. centralized exchanges
• And we touch on issues like front-running by miners in traditional blockchain ecosystems

Michael Casey is a Senior Advisor for the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT.

Prior to that, he was a Senior Columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

He spent 18 years covering global economic and financial trends and co-authored The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain are Challenging the Global Economic Order with Paul Vigna.

In this episode, Michael and I discuss:

• His journey from the Wall Street Journal to the MIT Digital Currency Initiative
• His perspective on ICOs/token sales
• And how his co-author, Paul Vigna, became motivated to write a book on Cryptocurrency

Matthew Spoke is the CEO of Nuco, an enterprise software company set to launch its AION Blockchain network in the near future.

Matt is a CPA and former consultant at Deloitte. He is also a board member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance

In this episode, we discuss:

• How in the not-so-distant future, we may have thousands of Blockchains
• How Nuco's AION network is trying to become the router for a global network of Blockchains
• And we touch on some interesting concepts like Blockchain network bridges and proof-of-intelligence consensus

Don Tapscott is the best-selling author of Blockchain Revolution. He is also CEO of The Tapscott Group.

Some of his positions and accomplishments include:

• Associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University
• Senior Advisor, World Economic Forum
• Chancellor, Trent University
• Member of the Order of Canada (the second highest honor for Canadian citizens)
• Ranked the 4th most influential management thinker in the world by Thinkers50.
• Adjunct Professor at the Rotman School of Management
• Co-Founder of the Blockchain Research Institute

In this short episode, we discuss:

• How Don, a psychology major, ended up becoming one of the world's foremost technology thought leaders
• We go over some of the seventy projects currently being worked on at the Blockchain Research Institute
• We also talk about Don's son – Alex Tapscott – an investment banker turned "Blockchain guru," and the projects he is working on

Thomas Linder is a Crypto Tax Lawyer from Zurich Switzerland. He is a Partner at MME Legal. MME is not just any law firm, it is the law firm behind the historic Ethereum token sale of 2014. Thomas was a Director at KPMG Switzerland, and is a Certified Tax Expert who graduated from the Swiss Tax Academy. In this episode, we discuss:

• How Thomas's law firm, MME, was the legal advisor behind the iconic Ethereum token sale over 3 years ago, as well as other projects they've worked on like SingularDTV - A blockchain entertainment studio
• We go over ICOs, IPOs, and crowdfunding, pointing out the critical differences between each term
• We also break down the landmark SEC Investigative Report on DAO tokens or "D-A-O" Tokens, which came out on July 25th

Rahul Sood is the CEO and Founder of Unikrn, an E-Sports betting platform.

I first heard of these guys when Mark Cuban announced he would be investing in their ICO. Ashton Kutcher is also another key investor in the company.

After founding and selling several successful startups, Rahul went to work for Microsoft Ventures, before diving back into entrepreneurship with Unikrn.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What E-Sports is
• How Unikrn plans to hold an ICO for a token they call "Unikoin Gold," which will be used for E-Sports gambling on the Unikrn platform
• And, how Mark Cuban once declared he would never buy an E-Sports team, but that may be changing…

**Please note: Any comments about the Unikrn token sale should not be misconstrued as investment advice or considered an endorsement of Unikrn**

Chris Ballinger is the CFO and Head of Mobility Services at Toyota. Specifically, within the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) which leads Toyota's efforts around autonomous vehicle technology – self-driving cars.

Chris previously worked at the White House and was a Senior Vice President at Bank of America.

He is also a formally trained monetary economist (which made for quite an interesting conversation).

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Toyota plans on using Blockchain, AI, and Machine Learning to make its vision of fully autonomous vehicles, a reality
• The different functional areas where Blockchain would play a pivotal role
• How Nick Szabo's 1998 paper on smart contracts, was the perfect primer for Chris

Bill is the CEO and Founder of Abra. What is Abra? Think of it as the "WhatsApp of Money." A single app available in 200 cities that enables you to send money from your phone to any other phone, anywhere in the world.

Bill has co-founded a long list of Tech startups. He's also worked for NASA, Goldman Sachs, and was a Senior Director for Netscape – the first commercially successful web browser.

In this episode, Bill and I discuss:

• Why traditional remittance companies like PayPal, Western Union and Venmo are quickly becoming obsolete
• Abra's secret hedging strategies
• And why the irrational exuberance we've seen with ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), may result in buyer's remorse

Brian Behlendorf is a legend in the open software movement. He is one of the creators of Apache – server software that powers most websites on the internet.

He currently serves as Executive Director of Hyperledger – one of the most prominent Blockchain consortiums in the world.

His list of accomplishments in the tech industry is beyond impressive:

• Technology Advisor – White House & 2008 Obama Presidential Campaign
• President – Apache Software Foundation
• CTO – World Economic Forum
• Managing Director – Mithril Capital Management (venture capital firm)
• Board member – Mozilla Foundation, Benetech, Electronic Frontier Foundation

In this episode, Brian and I discuss the history of Hyperledger, the 8 projects under the Hyperledger banner (including several interesting use cases), and what Brian really thinks about the current ICO and cryptocurrency craze.

To celebrate Canada's upcoming 150th birthday (on July 1st), I interviewed Canadian Blockchain entrepreneur Greg Wolfond.

Greg is the CEO & Founder of SecureKey – an identity and authentication provider.

He's also a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years in FinTech, security and mobile solutions. Here are some of his accolades:

• Founded Footprint Software – a financial software company that he sold to IBM
• Founded 724 Solutions – a wireless infrastructure software provider he took public
• Entrepreneur of the Year
• Canada's Top 40 Under 40
• Named 100 Top Leaders in Identity

In this episode, Greg and I discuss why Blockchain was a logical choice in building SecureKey's digital identity network, the future of digital identities, and how two of Greg's friends got their identities hacked and had mortgages put on their homes!