defire

On Tuesday (Nov 8, 2022), a bank run on the cryptocurrency exchange FTX triggered one of the most significant setbacks in the crypto industry since Mt. Gox.

I invited Feyyaz Alingan (@freshfey), the founder of Bluealpine Research, to digest what had happened.

Today on the show, I have the pleasure of talking to Fulowa (@Fulowa). Fulowa is a true NFT degen and the co-founder of OnChained, an NFT analytics platform. In this episode, Fulowa shares with us how he went from doing manual labor as Chemist in a laboratory to switching careers and becoming a data scientist and now his latest station as a JPG trader and entrepreneur.

Fulowa also shares his ideas on what's happening in the NFT market and why NFT trading, or crypto in general, is similar to playing a video game. He also shares with us the tools he uses to spot opportunities in the NFT market, and we also dive deeper into the Cyberkongz NFT project and community, where he is an active member to this day.

João is a Brazilian entrepreneur and investor from Rio de Janeiro. He started an investment firm when he was only 19 years old, and then he made a small fortune as a bond trader in Miami, which led him to buy US helicopters and fly them down to Brazil in his twenties.

When he returned to Rio he started investing in startups. Several of them became unicorns (in Brazilian Reais).

Nowadays, João is investing in crypto companies with a connection to real life and he is currently raising a new crypto fund focused on Latin America with his latest company Fuse capital.

Alain Brenzikofer (@brenzi5) and his Encointer association have launched a new digital currency in Zürich, Switzerland. The digital currency, Leu (meaning Lion in Swiss German), wants to become an equal-opportunity money system that supports the local economy and fights inequality worldwide. The trick is that you can only use it locally. Oh, and did I mention that you can get it for free?

GM. This is Defire (@defiremoney), the podcast that feels like relaxing in a hammock in the shades of palm trees, sipping delicious coconut water while magically getting smarter about crypto.

Today on the show, we hear the story of Corina (@0xCorina). Corina is working in the growth core unit at MakerDAO, the OG DeFi lending protocol and issuer of the stablecoin DAI.

After the spectacular collapse of UST and Luna, many people, myself included, have rediscovered the tried and tested DeFi OGs. MakerDAO is not the shiny new thing in the DeFi tool shed, and they also don't have the loudest voices and promoters on social media. But it has something that most other protocols don't: MakerDAO did withstand the test of times and has solidified its place as this solid building block in the DeFi world.

In this conversation with Corina, we talk about MakerDAO and how it works. We talk about the newfound popularity of the stablecoin DAI and how the governance process works. I also asked Corina more mundane questions: How it is to work for a DAO? Wow do you get hired? and how do you get paid?

Ultimately, we also talk about why women are still underrepresented in crypto, and Corina highlights some fantastic initiatives that successfully bring more diversity to crypto.

In this episode of defire (@defiremoney): The story of Jason Hitchcock (@jasonhitchcock).

Jason is the founder and General Partner of Four Moons, a hedge fund actively investing in DeFi. Before moving to crypto, Jason spent over a decade at early-stage startups, helping companies get the first 1000 users. One startup, Bebo, a live streaming app, got acquired by Twitch.

Even though Jason is managing a sizeable Defi fund, he remains incredibly relatable. He is a gifted storyteller. In this episode, he takes from his startup days to being acquired by Twitch. He decided to go all-in on crypto during the pandemic and made it big, but he also lost half a million to hackers.

This is a fast-paced and exciting conversation. Jason doesn’t hold back on details and specifics. He reveals the astonishing amount of money he made just by farming airdrops and shares his thoughts and tips on what he thinks is most important for people trying to make it in DeFi. For instance, launching a chat group with your friends who have the same financial goals.

We recorded our conversation before the Terra Luna debacle. For updates on Jason and Four Moon Capital follow his Twitter account (@jasonhitchcock)

Today on the show, I (@defiremoney) am going to visit a VC with a pleasing baritone voice. Ryan Zurrer (@kukulabanze) is the founder of Dialectic (@Dialectic_CH). Ryan somehow managed to reliably be early to almost everything. From crypto, renewables, NFTs and now even psychedelics.

In this conversation, we talk about his journey from trading dot com stocks as a teenager to how he became CEO of a big energy company in Brazil when he was only 25 years old.

Ryan also shares the stories of the early days of Polychain Capital (@polychaincap) and how two guys with a laptop started one of the most successful VC funds out of an apartment in San Francisco.

But that's not all; we also talk about NFTs and Art. Ryan recently gained notoriety in the art world when he bought Human One, a digital artwork slash sculpture by the artist Beeple for 29 million dollars. Ryan relives the moment of the auction, explains his strategy and tells us what makes this sculpture of an astronaut strolling through a dystopian landscape so unique.

This episode, REZ (@0xRez) takes us into the world of carbon credits on the blockchain. He explains how the carbon credit market functions and how buying such credits funds climate projects in real life. This episode is an excellent introduction to Regenerative Finance (ReFi) - a new crypto movement that uses the powerful market mechanics of DeFi to combat climate change.

About Defire

defire is a podcast making crypto more fun, engaging and accessible for everyone. Jonas (@defiremoney) is interviewing the most exciting minds in the crypto-sphere and brings their stories to life.

In this episode I talked with Orange DAO and Origami founder Matt Voska.

we talked about: How Matt hacked his way into Y Combinator. Why regulations crushed his startup dream of flight-sharing. How he and his friends built Orange DAO. Why he believes 2022 to be the year of the DAOs. Why Rio de Janeiro is an ideal city for digital nomads.. Why Matt is not a tech-bro. Which gadget help for a good night's sleep.

How this Brazilian Unicorn founder launched the world’s first DeFi ETF and helped my father-in-law to buy Bitcoin with Roberta Antunes

When Roberta Antunes launched a new Bitcoin ETF last year at the Brazilian stock exchange in São Paolo, she was the first woman ever to hold such an opening speech at this venue. She did this in her current role as Chief of Growth at Hashdex. This financial services company is known for launching a variety of crypto ETFs.

An ETF is a fund that you can trade and buy just like a stock. Just in case you didn’t know.

Institutional and retail investors in Brazil are really into their crypto and web3 ETFs.

Over 250’000 investors have bought Hash11, their flagship product representing a basket of crypto and web3 tokens, ranging from Bitcoin, Ethereum to Sandbox and UniSwap.

It is the second most popular ETF in Brazil. Only the Brazilian equivalent of the S&P 500 is more popular.

In her former life, Roberta co-founded Hotel Urbano. She grew the online travel agency from a scrappy team of four friends into a Unicorn with over 600 employees.

In this episode, we talk about her first steps as an entrepreneur, Rio de Janeiro, and of course, the future of crypto.

About defire

defire is a podcast making crypto more fun, engaging and accessible for everyone. Jonas (@defiremoney) is interviewing the most exciting minds in the crypto-sphere and brings their stories to life.

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