Carpe Consensus

The recent collapse of Terra has left many people wondering if crypto projects can be trusted. And who holds the burden of keeping crypto projects honest?  In this episode, hosts  Ben Schiller and Danny Nelson are joined by Nansen researcher Andrew Thurman for a discussion on what is wrong with systems in today's blockchain world that cause these devastating outcomes when they fail.

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Consensus 2022, the industry’s most influential event, is happening June 9-12 in Austin, Texas. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in the fast-moving world of crypto, Web 3 and NFTs, this is the festival experience for you. Use code OPINIONATED15  to get 15% off your GA and Pro pass at coindesk.com/consensus2022.

This show is produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso.Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Small-scale bitcoin mining – think machines whirring away in basements, eating up home electricity bills – have become more popular in recent weeks.

Colin Harper, head of content and research at Luxor Mining, joins “Opinionated” hosts Ben Schiller and Danny Nelson to explore why the mining community has recently gained a new cohort of at-home miners. The influx goes back to China’s mining ban and is influenced by the economics of a bear market, but Harper explains the less tangible factors drawing those to mining, including a sense of community and partaking in securing the network.

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Consensus 2022, the industry’s most influential event, is happening June 9-12 in Austin, Texas. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in the fast-moving world of crypto, Web 3 and NFTs, this is the festival experience for you. Use code OPINIONATED15  to get 15% off your GA and Pro pass at coindesk.com/consensus2022.

This show is produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support from Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bitcoin 2022 drew masses of bitcoin (BTC) enthusiasts to Miami Beach last week, where attendees congregated to discuss the future of the cryptocurrency.

Joining “Opinionated” hosts Ben Schiller and Danny Nelson is George Kaloudis, research analyst at CoinDesk. The trio recap their experiences at Bitcoin 2022 in Miami Beach, from encounters with Bitcoin Maxis to promising announcements in the future of the Lighting Network.

Last year’s Bitcoin conference came with the explosive news from El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele that he would introduce legislation to make cryptocurrency legal tender in his country. This year, the nation-state adoption narrative stalled slightly. What might this indicate about bitcoin’s future on the global stage?

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Consensus 2022, the industry’s most influential event, is happening June 9-12 in Austin, Texas. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in the fast-moving world of crypto, Web 3 and NFTs, this is the festival experience for you. Use code OPINIONATED15  to get 15% off your GA and Pro pass at coindesk.com/consensus2022.

This show is produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support from Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) led sports leagues into the non-fungible token (NFT) space with the successful Top Shot collection. But how much further will it explore Web 3 technologies?

Magdalena Kala joins “Opinionated” hosts Ben Schiller and Danny Nelson to discuss her recent opinion piece, “The NBA’s Web 3 Innovation Dilemma.” Kala expands upon her research and analysis of the NBA’s many ventures into the Web 3 space, and what technologies the NBA is likely to explore in the future.

Beyond just fan engagement, crypto technology presents new ways for fans to interact with the teams they love. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) are the next logical step for the NBA, as Kala explains, where fans could own an entire team through a DAO. But would the NBA ever allow such an ownership structure?

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Consensus 2022, the industry’s most influential event, is happening June 9-12 in Austin, Texas. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in the fast-moving world of crypto, Web 3 and NFTs, this is the festival experience for you. Use code ONPURPOSE15  to get 15% off your pass at coindesk.com/consensus2022.

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This show is produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support from Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Ukrainian government kicked off an impressive crypto donation campaign, receiving over $50 million in cryptocurrency contributions in just a few weeks.

Kim Bazak of blockchain PR and marketing firm Market Across has an inside perspective on the campaign. Bazak joins “Opinionated” hosts Ben Schiller and Danny Nelson to explain the story of how Market Across worked with the Ukrainian government to organize some of the first and largest crypto donations, including Polkadot founder Gavin Wood’s $5 million contribution.

The donation campaign has spotlighted the power of borderless money. Ukraine continues to support the proliferation of crypto assets in the country with the decision to make Ukrainian cryptocurrency exchanges as legal as banks. How will crypto continue to develop in Ukraine?

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Consensus 2022, the industry’s most influential event, is happening June 9–12 in Austin, TX. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in the fast-moving world of crypto, Web 3 and NFTs, this is the festival experience for you. Use code Opinionated15 to get 15% off your pass at www.coindesk.com/consensus2022.

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This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Will Gottsegen, CoinDesk’s media and culture reporter, joins “Opinionated” hosts Danny Nelson and Ben Schiller to discuss what recent events in the Ethereum Name Service Foundation (ENS) say about the limitations of DAO governance.

When homophobic and transphobic posts from ENS director Brantly Millegan were uncovered, Millegan was promptly fired from his role at the nonprofit that operates the ENS. However, the ENS put the decision to remove Millegan from the organization as a whole to a DAO vote, but it failed to pass.

Millegan himself was able to sway the vote. Without his voting power, obtained through tokens and delegations, the vote would not have failed. Additionally, almost a fifth of the total votes cast were abstentions.

What does the ENS voting outcome tell us about the effectiveness, ethics and future of DAOs?

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, “Opinionated” hosts Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson are talking to Rev Miller, co-founder of Unchain, a decentralized fundraising crypto for humanitarian needs in war-besieged Ukraine.

The situation in the war theater in Ukraine is getting more and more bleak, but people are bracing to fight on, and the crypto community is ramping up its own arsenal, too. Over the past week, multiple crypto fundraising efforts have been launched in Ukraine by both the government and various activists, including the Russian art collective Pussy Riot.  

Unchain is a fund that unites multiple crypto projects in an attempt to raise funds in a decentralized and transparent way that the blockchain technology can offer. Each donation wallet will be configured as a multisig, so that Unchain’s team of key holders, distributed across Ukraine and other countries, can have access to funds at all times.

Listen to Anna and Danny talk to Rev about how the Ukrainians are holding up amid the war, what are the plans of Unchain and how things are going with the crypto fundraising.

Check out the CoinDesk story about Unchain: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/03/01/absolutely-surreal-inside-a-fund-raising-millions-in-crypto-for-besieged-ukraine/

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Does the future of media companies lie in decentralized models? 

“Even successful magazines right now are rethinking their model… One of the ways you give power to your readers is to give them the direct ability to allocate funds.”

Former CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen joins Anna Baydakova and Ben Schiller on “Opinionated” to discuss Des Femmes, the magazine for women in finance and tech. Cuen co-founded the magazine to address a lack of representation and voice for women entrepreneurs, especially in the crypto industry. 

Des Femmes is printed and managed by a DAO-inspired structure. Cuen discusses Des Femmes’ decision to pursue a bitcoin multisig structure to manage the funds the publication generated from an Ethereum crowdfunding campaign, and its plans for further decentralization in the future. Converting a media organization into a decentralized autonomous organization presents unique opportunities to get the community more involved in the co-creation of the publication.

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support from Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Will AI be coming to DeFi anytime soon?

Joining Anna Baydakova and Ben Schiller on “Opinionated,”  is Jesus Rodriguez, CEO of analytics platform IntoTheBlock. Rodriguez explores a future where artificial intelligence merges with decentralized finance (DeFi) to create an even smarter, more automated and possibly better regulated DeFi.

Machine learning and AI are rapidly becoming innovative solutions to software problems across a variety of applications, and Rodriguez sees AI in DeFi as the next logical step. Integrating AI solutions and analysis into DeFi protocols could have vast impacts to user protection, contract efficiency and market dynamics.

AI integration could be used to predict major market moves, prevent undesirable usage of contracts and even potentially in financial regulation of DeFi platforms. While the possibilities sound endless, are they practical?

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support by Eleanor Pahl.  Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The cypherpunks dreamed of a world where a person’s information would be revealed only if that individual so desired. A legendary group of cryptographers who came together in the 1990s, they fought back against government attempts to create backdoors to encryption and enforce key escrow.

The cypherpunks laid the groundwork for the crypto revolution we see today. But, arguably, says the futurist Dan Jeffries, theirs is a dream deferred. Today, we’re more watched and surveilled than ever and the dominant internet business models are based on a quid pro quo of “your data, their free-services.”

Where do we go from here?

In an interview for CoinDesk’s “Opinionated” podcast, Jeffries argues that we need to get away from political messaging around privacy. That doesn’t work: Not enough people care about privacy to pay for it and ensure it. Most of us don’t care until intrusions of privacy become material to our well-being. 

Instead, we have to make privacy a part of the design of products, whether that’s money transactions or informational ones. “Make privacy the plumbing, not the marketing tagline,” Jeffries says.

Relatedly, the “Opinionated” team – Ben Schiller, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson – also discuss the failure of the Libra/Diem Facebook/Meta stablecoin project and look at what it means for the future of digital currency. 

Does its demise indicate that governments hold the cards when it comes to issuing currencies, or that open-source projects like Bitcoin or Ethereum are more likely to succeed than closed systems like Facebook’s?

Tune in to listen to the discussion. 

Articles mentioned in this episode:

The Trojan Horse of Privacy by Dan Jeffries

Reflecting on Facebook’s Hilarious, Well Deserved Crypto Failure by David Z. Morris

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso. Our theme song is by Elision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.