My guest today is Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy Digital. Galaxy Digital is a diversified financial services company operating in the digital asset, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology sector. He manages a research team and platform that generates unique insights on the state of public blockchain networks for their clients. Prior to joining Galaxy Digital, Alex was an investor at Avon Ventures, the bitcoin and blockchain-focused venture capital fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments. Before Avon, Alex was the Dir. of Blockchain Research at Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, and before that held roles managing technical investigations for internal, litigation, and compliance inquiries. Alex spent a lot of time researching cryptocurrencies and applied cryptography, interrogating foreign policy, and producing hip hop music. He wants to build and help people access tools to increase self-sovereignty, privacy, security, and liberty. In our discussion, we cover a wealth of different topics including the grading and cataloging of blockchains and protocols, the path to decentralization, the importance of Bitcoin, and much more. Alex does an incredible job articulating why decentralization is an ideal a protocol should strive for and why decentralization is very hard to quantify. We go on to discuss the varying degrees of censorship resistance that exists within the crypto ecosystem. A very interesting topic that came up during conversation was the growth of NFTs. We discuss why Ether Rocks have become so valuable, the lack of liquidity in the NFT market, and future applications for NFTs. The second half of our conversation was centered around Bitcoin and Satoshi. We talk about the impact Satoshi being the richest entity in the world will have on society. Alex goes on to give various excellent points centered around why people should not be overlooking Bitcoin and Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. We finish our conversation by talking about where the space is headed and what areas of crypto we feel the most excited about. Please enjoy my conversation with Alex Thorn.

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