CoinDesk Podcast Network

Taylor Monahan is the founder and CEO of MyCrypto. In this interview as part of The Breakdown’s end of year coverage, she argues that the level of discourse in crypto matured in 2019, with more focus on things that actually matter. That’s important, because in 2020, she predicts a major fork-in-the-road moment, where the industry as a whole could either stay on the path set out in its cypherpunk roots, or be significantly co-opted and corrupted by the entrance of corporate and government actors into the space.

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Tom Shaughnessy is a co-founder at Delphi Digital as well as the host of the Chain Reaction podcast. Jordan Clifford is managing director of Scalar Capital. In this end of year interview for The Breakdown, Tom argues that the big story of 2019 was actually the fact that it was all about quiet building. When it comes to 2020, however, watch out for fireworks. Tom predicts we’ll see a major increase in the layer 1 smart contract platform wars, as well as an increased in the perceived importance of token economic design. Jordan meanwhile argues that we’re likely to see a shift back to development at the application layer. 

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Katherine Wu was a founding team member at Messari before moving into a VC role at Notation Capital, but is perhaps best known in crypto for her epic annotations of key regulatory enforcement actions. In this end of year interview with The Breakdown, Katherine argues that decentralized finance is the narrative of 2019, but also that when it comes to 2020, the emergence of a Chinese digital yuan is likely to have a huge impact on the crypto space. 

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Sometimes things are clear, and to both Camila Russo (write of The Defiant newsletter) and David Hoffman (co-host of the Crypto POV podcast), it couldn’t be clearer that the essential narrative of 2019 was the rise of DeFi as a true market force. In individual interviews as part of The Breakdown’s end of year coverage, each also makes a 2020 DeFi prediction. For David, it’s all about increased attention on the space and the power of composability, while for Camila, it’s a bet that we’ll start to see the first under-collateralized DeFi loans.

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Marty Bent is the author of one of the most popular daily Bitcoin newsletters and co-host of Tales From The Crypt. In this end of year interview with The Breakdown, he talks about the macro context - from trade wars to pressure on the fed to continue and expand the QE experiment to global instability - and how it is painting in stark colors the need for tools like bitcoin. 

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Rob Paone, aka Crypto Bobby, got his start as a popular crypto YouTuber and has gone on to help build a number of crypto companies before launching his own technical recruitment firm. Preethi Kasireddy is the founder of the TruStory debate platform. In two individual interviews as part of The Breakdown’s end of year extra, both argue that a big part of the 2019 story was the slow, steady slog of building, and that, in some ways, 2020 may be poised for more of the same.

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One of CoinDesk’s ten most influential people of 2019, Melem Demirors is a crypto renaissance woman, known best for investing, operating as CSO of CoinShares, and for explaining ‘shitcoins’ to Congress.

In this end of year Breakdown, Meltem argues explains why the entrance of governments to the digital asset game is the most significant story of 2019, as well as suggesting that the presence of an entirely new financial infrastructure around bitcoin means the halvening is likely to be unlike what anyone thinks.

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 Peter McCormack is one of the most prominent podcasters in the space. In 2019, he added a new podcast called “Defiance” and focused on the intersection of bitcoin, human rights, and political activism to complement his “What Bitcoin Did” podcast. In this special end of year episode of The Breakdown, Peter discusses why the past year represents an inflection point for citizen action and sovereign protest around the world, and why 2020 is likely to see a continued bloodletting among non-bitcoin cryptoassets. 

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One of the most important (yet somehow quiet) narratives of 2019 has been the financialization of bitcoin and the emergence of a robust market for derivative products. That was reinforced today as Binance announced a significant investment in derivatives exchange FTX. How will key events coming up in 2020 like the bitcoin halving be impacted by the presence of derivatives? 

At the same time, not all crypto projects are trying to change money. Some, like the Saint Fame DAO, a fashion house-slash-human coordination experiment, are simply trying to do interesting things that people think are cool.

Topics discussed:

Binance invests in crypto derivatives exchange FTX 

https://www.coindesk.com/binance-invests-undisclosed-sum-in-crypto-derivatives-platform-ftx

New derivative products help miners hedge against volatility 

https://www.coindesk.com/gsr-partners-with-canaan-backed-startup-to-offer-crypto-miners-derivatives

Saint Fame brings the DAO model and bonding curves to fashion. 

https://www.coindesk.com/meet-the-decentralized-fashion-house-bringing-overpriced-t-shirts-to-ethereum

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Accredited investor laws block most of the US out of technology and other types of early stage risk investing, but as the ICO boom showed, not being allowed to do something doesn’t mean that people don’t want to do it.

The SEC announced prospective changes to those laws that could expand accredited status. In the world of DeFi, a number of different projects including Synthetix (with an assist from Chainlink) and Kyber are looking to more fully decentralized heading into 2020.

And finally a quick review of the CoinDesk 2019 most influential list, including why Hodlonaut is the best selection.

Topics Discussed

The SEC has announced a set of potential modifications to contentious accredited investor rules. https://www.coindesk.com/sec-proposal-would-broaden-accredited-investor-definition

Kyber and Synthetix look to move certain governance functions to DAOs and Synthetix teams up with Chainlink for decentralized price oracles. https://thedefiant.substack.com/p/defi-heavy-weights-synthetix-and

CoinDesk has published its annual most influential list. https://www.coindesk.com/presenting-coindesks-most-influential-2019

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