MoneyNeverSleeps

Mai Santamaria joins me once again as guest co-host as we riff on the intersection of digital ID, digital wallets, blockchain, CBDCs, and how the political regime under which an individual lives influences your senses of trust and risk. We also blow to bits my expectation that the new EU digital identity wallet will have anything to do with blockchain, contrary to what we’re seeing with digital identity frameworks in Latin America. 

Mai is one of the most helpful people I know and always has a uniquely incisive insight or two on what’s going on at the crossover of finance and emerging tech.  Mai originally featured on episode 5 of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, she made a cameo on our 200th episode last year, she’s a Techstars mentor, and she recently helped me make sense of the crossover of blockchain and AI in episode 241. Mai is the Head of the Financial Advisory Unit for the Department of Finance in Ireland.

In this episode, Mai and I riff on the topic of digital identity through the lens of the new European Digital Identity Wallet brought forth by the eIDAS2 legislation, and look at digital identity regimes in Latin America through the latest news on Nubank’s expansion. With the investments I’m making right now in early stage ventures in blockchain, topics like decentralization, over-centralization, and the elements of trust and risk when it comes to how individuals feel about who has access to their data are also a focal point of this chat.

Evan Miyazono is founder and CEO of

After finishing a PhD in Applie Physics at Caltech, Evan Miyazono jumped into blockchain with Protocol Labs in 2017 on a mission to build systems that affect real people.  After years as a researcher and then Head of Network Goods, Evan recently launched Atlas Computing with his co-founder with the goal of building an international standards organization of provably safe AI.

In our chat, Evan and I look at both the intended and unintended consequences of AI, how society’s own actions makes it hard to define good behavior for humans, some of the crossover points between blockchain and AI, and how Evan’s thinking about aligning stakeholders for the funding of Atlas Computing.

LINKS:

Learn more about Atlas Computing

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Blockchain ecosystem advisor and researcher Simon Brown from Consensys joins me as guest co-host this week. Consensys is a leading blockchain and web3 software company whose products like MetaMask and Infura are well known to the blockchain and crypto community.

While overjoyed that spot Bitcoin ETFs finally launched, I felt like something was not quite right about it, and I wanted to go deeper. 

There is an element of over-centralization of crypto happening, and I wanted to get an expert opinion.  Through the latest news on Spot Bitcoin ETFs, the Besu outage in the Ethereum ecosystem not reported by media outlets, the creation of the PBS (or Proposer-Builder Separation) Foundation, and speculation on the next wave of Spot ETFs with ETH, Simon helps me to make sense of over-centralization of crypto and where we might go from here.

Our weekly MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter is live on Substack, subscribe to go deeper into the topics we cover on each episode.

STORIES WE COVERED:

Spot Bitcoin ETF

Gensler sees bitcoin ETF irony in light of Satoshi's mission, says he respects Sen. Warren and the law (The Block, 12-Jan-24)

BlackRock on pace to become largest bitcoin holder in the world (The Street, 15-Jan-24)

Ethereum Execution Client Outage (Besu)

Hyperledger Besu Incident Report (11-Jan-24)

X/Twitter Scenarios From Hanniabu on Geth Potential Outage (5-Jan-24)

ClientDiversity.org dashboard of consensus and execution clients 

Project Sunshine dashboard measuring the health of Ethereum decentralization

PBS (Proposer-Builder Separation) Foundation

Buterin, Coinbase and more to fund Ethereum decentralization grants (Blockworks, 21-Dec-23) 

PBS Foundation Notion site

PBS Guild Proposal with credit to Simon Brown for his contributions

LINKS:

Follow our guest co-host Simon Brown on X(Twitter) and LinkedIn

Learn more about Consensys and follow them on X(Twitter) 

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Alejandro Gutierrez and I recorded this episode 10 hours before the SEC finally approved Spot Bitcoin ETFs, so we start with a quick update on what happened over the last few days.  We then get into the meat of this episode, which is a roundup of Messari’s Crypto Theses for 2024. We riffed on our respective Top 5 out of the 100 or so predictions from Messari CEO Ryan Selkis’s 194-page super-insightful read on key trends, people, companies and projects to watch in 2024.

LINKS:

Read Messari’s Crypto Theses for 2024

Follow our guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez on X(Twitter) and LinkedIn

Learn more about Defactor Labs and follow them on X(Twitter) 

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I’m joined this week by two of the wonderful people I met at the Solana Breakpoint conference in Amsterdam last month, Amira Valliani who is the Head of Policy at the Solana Foundation, and Nick Ducoff who is the Head of Institutional Growth at the Solana Foundation.  

Before my trip to Amsterdam in November for the Solana Breakpoint conference, my engagement with the Solana community over the years had been lacking. At Solana Breakpoint, I found a diverse community with a bunch of smart and engaging people building interesting projects, and I wanted to go deeper, hence this episode.

In this conversation, Amira and Nick both tell their personal stories about their path to the Solana Foundation and what they brought with them into the Solana Foundation from their past lives as startup founders.  We also riffed on my observations on the diversity of projects being built on the Solana blockchain from high-volume stablecoin networks to Triple-A games like the massive galactic game world that is Star Atlas, and we also covered what we would all like to see from web3 founders going forward.

LINKS:

Learn more about the Solana Foundation

Follow our guests on LinkedIn:  Amira Valliani  |  Nick Ducoff

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Paul Smyth joins me as guest co-host this week, and he is a specialist executive recruiter and executive coach within the fintech industry.  As a founder of two startups, Paul has a unique view on the startup ecosystem.

Paul and I met back in 2017 shortly before I photo-bombed his stand at a fintech event in Dublin, and we’ve collaborated quite a bit since then.  He and his business partner and life partner Laura Smyth from Top Tier Recruitment were the original sponsors of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, and since then, Paul has also launched the Possible.ie executive coaching business that counts me as one of their proud customers.  I was so happy with the outcome of Paul’s coaching of me that I asked him to coach the founders that we bring through the Techstars Web3 accelerator.  As one of the many hats he wears, Paul is a fantastic Coach-in-Residence for Techstars, helping startup founders find their way to positive outcomes.  

In this Money Talks segment, Paul and I kick things off with a look at the recent “State of European Tech 2023” report produced by Atomico, the on-traditional European Venture Capital firm.  We then get into some of the key issues at play with the proposed Digital Euro, and how Central Bank Digital Currency (or CBDC) adoption may be impacted by the context of privacy in personal financial transactions.  This leads us to a rundown on SocGen’s new stablecoin listed on Bitstamp exchange, and we finish with a big question on what matters more in startup success:  great founders or great markets.

STORIES COVERED: 

European tech funding halves to $45 billion, back to pre-Covid levels — but AI is a bright spot (CNBC, 28-Nov-23)

State of European Tech 2023

Fiery Public Hearing on Digital Euro Sees Experts Diverge on Key Issues (CoinDesk, 28-Nov-23)

France’s 3rd-largest bank, Société Générale, launches euro-pegged stablecoin (Cointelegraph, 6-Dec-23)

Reid Hoffman on the Psychology of Great Founders (The Generalist, 5-Dec-23)

LINKS:

Follow our guest co-host Paul Smyth on LinkedIn and X(Twitter)

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This week I’m joined by guest co-host Mai Santamaria, who is the Head of the Financial Advisory Unit for the Department of Finance in Ireland. Mai and I met in February 2018 at a meeting of the Irish Blockchain Expert Group which later became the industry group now referred to as Blockchain Ireland.  

She’s one of the most helpful people I know and always has a uniquely incisive insight or two on what’s going on at the crossover of finance and emerging tech when she and I catch up.  Mai originally featured on episode 5 of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, she made a cameo on our 200th episode last year, she’s a Techstars mentor, and has received a ton of shout-outs from Eoin Fitzgerald and me on this podcast over the years.

In this episode, Mai and I riff on where crypto exchange Binance goes from here after pleading guilty to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act in the US and being fined $4.3bn, with co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zao stepping down.  We also look at the new crypto-friendly Argentinian president, Javier Milei, and what he might do with dollarization and crypto adoption, and then finish up with a mind-opening counterpoint on Ethereum co-founder Vitalk Buterin’s new manifesto. 

STORIES COVERED: 

Binance CEO Resigns, Part of $4.3 Billion Settlement With US (Sporting Crypto, 27-Nov-23)

Everyone Needs a Manifesto (CoinDesk, 28-Nov-23)

My techno-optimism (Vitalik Buterin, 27-Nov-23)

Elon Musk Sees A Bright Future For Argentina Under Its New Pro-Bitcoin President (Binance Square, 21-Nov-23) 

Argentina Has a New Pro-Bitcoin President—Who Is Javier Milei? (Decrypt, 20-Nov-23)

LINKS:

Follow our guest co-host Mai Santamaria on  LinkedIn

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This week’s episode is from a session Pete Townsend hosted with Alex Tapscott, author of ‘Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier’ (Harper Collins). Alex and Pete were joined by venture investors Justin Swart from BITKRAFT Ventures and Sterling Campbell from Blockchain Capital. 

In this chat, Pete asked Alex to share his thoughts on what to expect next from those building in web3.  Following this, a conversation ensued with Alex, Justin, and Sterling on the critical need for accessibility in technology, the future of web3 user growth, the role of gaming in web3 adoption, alignment of value and protocols, the movement towards decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) and the future of blockchain protocols.

PANELISTS:

Alex Tapscott - Author of Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier (and ‘Blockchain Revolution’), Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Ninepoint Partners, a Toronto-based alternative investment manager and Founder at Blockchain Research Institute

Justin Swart - Principal  at BITKRAFT Ventures, a global investment platform specializing in Synthetic Reality: the space where our physical and digital worlds converge. Driven by video games and gaming technology, Web3, and AI.  BITKRAFT’s portfolio includes Epic Games, Discord and Immutable.

Sterling Campbell - Investor at Blockchain Capital, partners to crypto builders since 2013, with investments including Techstars grad Arweave, Aave, Coinbase, Kraken and OpenSea.

TIMESTAMPS:

02:12 Alex Tapscott's Journey and Vision for Web 3

03:23 Justin Swartz's Gaming and Investment Background

04:27 Sterling Campbell's Career Transition to Blockchain

06:11 Discussion on Alex Tapscott's New Book on Web3

07:26 The Future of Web3 User Growth

09:17 The Convergence of Technologies in Web3

14:09 The Role of Gaming in Web3 Adoption

22:30 The Metaverse and the Future of Gaming

25:42 The Cycles of Crypto and Web3

27:13 The Importance of Aligning Value with Protocol

27:58 The Impact of Social Tokens

28:28 The Future of Protocols

30:03 The Longevity of Blockchain Capital

30:19 The Dominance of Ethereum

32:53 The Evolution of Blockchain Protocols

34:06 The User Experience in Blockchain

35:34 The Future of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure

47:07 The Regulatory Landscape of Crypto Ecosystem

LINKS:

Get in touch with the contributors to this week’s episode with the links above

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Pete Townsend introduces an insightful line-up of entrepreneurs and investors who share their thoughts on web3. Opinions are gathered around what aspects they hope to see web3 founders solve, focusing on topics such as user experience, digital identity, decentralized finance, AI, regulatory issues, and real-world applications.

The diverse panel includes John Hallahan from Fireblocks, Arry Yu from the U.S. Blockchain Coalition, Hesus Inoma from i13 Ventures, Niamh O'Connell from CasperLabs, Prashanth Swaminathan from Woodstock Fund, Sean Lee from the Crypto Council for Innovation, Clarisse Hagege from Dfns, and Lou Kerner from the Crypto Oracle Collective. The episode aims to explore and understand the current challenges and potential opportunities in the Web3 space.

00:19 Techstars Web3 Accelerator Announcement

00:47 Web3 founders' challenges and solutions

01:46 John Hallahan's Web3 Wishlist

03:43 Arry Yu's thoughts on digital identity and being the adult in the room

06:17 Hesus Inoma's insights on Web3 founders

08:27 Niamh O'Connell on self-sovereign identity

11:28 Prashanth Swaminathan's top areas for Web3

15:52 Sean Lee's perspective on Web3 tokens

18:16 Clarisse Hagege's call for real-life use cases

19:10 Lou Kerner's thoughts on balance and mistakes

CONTRIBUTORS:

John Hallahan, Director, Business Solutions & Advisory at Fireblocks, whose mission is to enable every business to easily and securely support digital assets and cryptocurrencies. (video) 

Arry Yu, is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair at the U.S. Blockchain Coalition, a coalition of state blockchain associations, organizations and influencers across the country cooperating together to ensure the United States is a leader in blockchain, Web3, and distributed ledger technologies (DLT).  

Hesus Inoma, Head of Strategy & Innovation at i13 Ventures, whose purpose is to co-create and back products and services grounded on first design principles for the new era of the web.

Niamh O’Connell, Enterprise & Partnerships Lead (U.S) at CasperLabs, the first blockchain built specifically for business adoption.  

Prashanth Swaminathan, Partner at Woodstock Fund, a thesis and research-driven fund, investing in early and growth stage Web 3.0 companies and protocols.

Sean Lee, Senior Advisor at the Crypto Council for Innovation, a global alliance of crypto industry leaders that are advocating for responsible and healthy regulations in the digital asset industry.

Clarisse Hagege, Founder & CEO at Dfns, providing web3 wallets as APIs and wallet-as-a-service infrastructure that enables crypto developers to forget about private key management so they can focus on building what matters most — their applications.

Lou Kerner, the founder of the Crypto Oracle Collective, a decentralized web3 advisory firm and also the DAO for Crypto Mondays, which is the largest crypto meetup in the world with active chapters in 54 cities.

LINKS:

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Sean Lee is the senior advisor at the Crypto Council for Innovation, which is a global alliance of crypto industry leaders advocating for responsible and healthy regulations in the digital asset industry.

Sean has conducted business in over 20+ countries and two continents across his career, and networked with extraordinary professionals across many industries. As a technology enthusiast, his career started in Internet 1.0 during the mid ’90s, spanning across eCommerce, cloud computing, and digitalization, with IBM, EMC, Pivotal, and Dell before moving into blockchain and crypto in the last few years. Through it all he has witnessed how technology combined with innovative business models can transform industries, and ultimately global economies as well. 

In this episode, Sean and I dive into

LINKS:

Follow Sean Lee on LinkedIn and X/(Twitter) 

Learn more about the Crypto Council for Innovation and their DeFi regulatory policy white paper

Watch Sean Lee’s weekly ‘This Week in Crypto: Sean’s Take on Asia’ videos on YouTube 

Episode title inspired by Global Access by Young Thug (feat, Nate Ruess)

Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected]

Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend

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