Unchained

Amber Baldet, JPMorgan Chase blockchain program lead, talks about what she was discussing at SXSW with Hyperledger executive director Brian Behlendorf and what themes she heard at the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris. She talks about privacy in financial transactions, how "immutable" blockchains might conflict with a new EU privacy law granting people the "right to be forgotten." And we briefly touch on her work with Jalak Jobanputra's new diversity-focused group Collective Future. 

Privacy on Ethereum: https://www.coindesk.com/progress-hot-ethereum-privacy-projects-cooling-off/

The Collective Future: https://www.wired.com/story/for-women-in-cryptocurrency-a-new-effort-to-grow-their-ranks/

https://iapp.org/news/a/blockchain-technology-is-on-a-collision-course-with-eu-privacy-law/

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and Quantstamp: https://quantstamp.com/ 

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As a former government official, current board member of Coinbase and professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Kathryn Haun has a unique and varied view of the crypto space. She doesn't necessarily see the SEC subpoenas as a reason to be alarmed and compares it to her work as a federal prosecutor. We also discuss the FinCen letter and why her take is different from the fear we've seen in the marketplace.

SEC issues 80 subpoeast: https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-launches-cryptocurrency-probe-1519856266?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

The FinCen letter: https://coincenter.org/link/fincen-raises-major-licensing-problem-for-icos-in-new-letter-to-congress

Thank you to our sponsors: Preciate https://preciate.org/ which is seeking suggestions for who to appreciate at https://preciate.org/recognize/

and Quantstamp: https://quantstamp.com/ 

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Preston Byrne, an independent consultant and English lawyer, and Angela Walch, an associate professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law who focuses on blockchain technology, both explain their criticisms of the crypto space, give grades to regulators on their job so far, and how they think major players in the space can improve. They discuss what systemic risks they believe crypto could pose to the wider financial system, how the current activity in the space is accruing "legal debt," and what it's like being a critic in a land of believers.

Preston Byrne: https://prestonbyrne.com/

Angela Walch: https://law.stmarytx.edu/academics/faculty/angela-walch/

Sponsored by Preciate: https://preciate.org/ for https://preciate.org/recognize/ and StartEngine: http://startengine.com/ for https://www.startengine.com/pages/summit  

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Spencer Bogart, partner at Blockchain Capital, discusses why he think Bitcoin's growing pains are a sign of success, how the SEC regulatory gloom could affect the development of crypto and how a liquidity crunch could affect crypto hedge funds. We also take a peek at the coming platform wars.

Blockchain Capital: http://blockchain.capital/

New crypto hedge funds: https://hackernoon.com/the-fate-of-crypto-hedge-funds-ca5850e8421c

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Will Warren, cofounder of decentralized exchange protocol 0x, was working on building tokenized derivatives for Ethereum when he and his cofounder realized there would be no place to trade them. They ended up pivoting to create a decentralized exchange protocol, 0x, that enables companies to use that infrastructure to direct fulfill trade orders without worrying about a Mt. Gox- or Bitfinex-type hacking situation, as users would still retain control of their funds. In this conversation, he talks about the problems with centralized exchanges and how decentralized exchanges can overcome some of their own obstacles including liquidity and problems with front running. He also gives answers to some of the criticisms of the 0x project, including why it needs its own token (ZRX) and what the token's purpose is.

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Future Perfect Ventures' founder and managing partner Jalak Jobanputra and I discuss the New York Times article earlier this week about how few women there are in crypto. We discuss some of the surprising comments we saw from women in the space who wish the story hadn't been written and Jobanputra's new effort to increase diversity in crypto, The Collective Future.

The New York Times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/cryptocurrency-women-blockchain-bros.html

Jutta Steiner's tweet: https://twitter.com/jutta_steiner/status/968158503096471553

Meltem Dermirors' tweet: https://twitter.com/Melt_Dem/status/967983438945968130

Elizabeth Stark's tweet: https://twitter.com/starkness/status/968307972597272576

Wired article about The Collective Future: https://www.wired.com/story/for-women-in-cryptocurrency-a-new-effort-to-grow-their-ranks/

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Rune Christensen of MakerDAO and Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life and High Fidelity, discuss why stablecoins are called crypto's holy grail, why they may be what's necessary for mainstream adoption, and all the ways a stablecoin can be constructed. Philip brings in his experience with Second Life's Linden dollars, often called the first true virtual currency, to describe how it was constructed and how he's planning to disseminate the cryptocurrency of his new virtual world, High Fidelity. Plus, we talk about why a digital USD wouldn't be a threat to stablecoins and whether collateralized stablecoins resemble fractional reserve banking or not.

Maker DAO: https://makerdao.com/

High Fidelity: https://highfidelity.com/

HFC: https://docs.highfidelity.com/high-fidelity-commerce/basics/hfc

More info on Linden dollars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Second_Life

The Hacker Noon post by Haseeb Qureshi: https://hackernoon.com/stablecoins-designing-a-price-stable-cryptocurrency-6bf24e2689e5

IMF SDRs: http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/01/14/51/Special-Drawing-Right-SDR

Episode with Bill Tai: http://unchainedpodcast.co/maitai-globals-bill-tai-on-why-blockchain-is-the-6th-wave-of-technology

Vitalik's post on collateralized debt obligations for issuer-backed tokens: https://ethresear.ch/t/collateralized-debt-obligations-for-issuer-backed-tokens/525

Other stablecoins:

Tether: https://tether.to/

Basecoin: http://www.getbasecoin.com/

Havven: https://havven.io/

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Subscribe to my new show, Unconfirmed! Here's a sample:

Brian Kelly of BKCM talks about token-curated registries, such as the proposal for Messari, by Ryan Selkis, formerly of Digital Currency Group and CoinDesk, and why such TCRs are probably a good idea, but what pitfalls they may face. We also discuss the highly anticipated launch of crypto trading on Robinhood and look behind the scenes at Venezuela's new crypto offering, the petro.

Token curated registries:

Proposal for Messari: https://medium.com/@twobitidiot/a-token-to-self-regulate-tokens-but-really-a61da77e6a7b

TCRs generally: https://medium.com/@ilovebagels/token-curated-registries-1-0-61a232f8dac7

A curated list of resources on TCRs: https://medium.com/@tokencuratedregistry/the-token-curated-registry-whitepaper-bd2fb29299d6

Robinhood launches crypto trading: http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2018/2/21/robinhood-crypto-trading-is-here

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/free-crypto-trading/

Petro:

A good tweet storm on some of the issues surrounding the petro's launch: https://twitter.com/alemacgo/status/966072887319973891

Some meeting having to do with the petro that Laura found amusing -- the guy's smiles begin around 00:25: https://twitter.com/infrabolivar/status/965777624516759552

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The cofounder of MyEtherWallet and CEO of newly launched MyCrypto walks us through the nuts and bolts of how MyCrypto works, how it differs from a company like Coinbase, why the keys you get from the site even enable to work offline -- and how the company makes money. She also describes how the crypto community changed in 2017, her crazy sleeping schedule during that year, and how she responds when users ask questions like whether or not an initial coin offering will really deliver on the returns promised. We also cover what it's like being a CEO when running a company was never in her game plan, how she got into crypto after starting off in film school and what her tips are for not losing your crypto.

https://mycrypto.com/

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Check out the first episode of Unconfirmed, in which Olaf Carlson-Wee, CEO and founder of Polychain Capital, discusses why an issue facing the Ethereum community right now has him thinking about on-chain governance. If you enjoy the episode, subscribe to Unconfirmed today!

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