Wyre Talks

Ep 55, Secure Autonomous Earnings Through Staking and Defi—With Tim Ogilvie of Staked

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 14:00:11 +0000

DeFi and staking are classified as two different animals. And yet, both facilitate a protocol-level interaction with a smart contract that pays a yield over time. For that reason, Tim Ogilvie and the team at Staked are playing in both arenas, helping customers put their idle crypto to use.

Tim is the Cofounder and CEO of Staked, a crypto platform that helps institutional investors reliably and securely compound their crypto assets. On this episode of Wyre Talks, Tim joins us to share his team’s mission around creating an easy-to-generate yield button and offer a high-level overview of the Staked infrastructure. He walks us through the metrics the team uses to judge its performance in terms of security and reliability and explains how his experience as a validator has changed his view of the space.

Tim goes on to address Staked’s first DeFi product, Robo Advisor for Yield or RAY, discussing how it outperformed several other competitive rebalancing products and why the team wants RAY to be an open standard rather than staked product. He also weighs in on the current share of alpha that Staked earns, how that benchmark rate is defined, and the decisioning models the team uses to determine their potential market impact. Listen in for Tim’s take on KYC/AML and learn the benefit of smart contracts in terms of money operating like a pool—without being truly mixed.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Tim on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tim_ogilvie
Follow Staked on Twitter:https://twitter.com/staked_us

Today’s Topics

[0:20] Tim’s 20-year career in entrepreneurship and what drew him to crypto

[1:16] What inspired Tim’s transition from Wall Street to the risky world of startups

[2:44] How Tim’s work on a debt derivatives desk informs his work at Staked

[4:01] Where Tim thinks the crypto space is headed in terms of financial products based on interest rates

[5:45] The volatility of forward yield markets and the subsequent challenge around defining a risk-free rate in Bitcoin

[6:30] What Staked looked like in the beginning

[7:51] A high-level overview of the Staked infrastructure

[8:38] What metrics Staked uses to judge itself and other stakers

[9:31] The Staked team’s mission to make it easy to take advantage of passive opportunities in crypto + what customers need to show up with to facilitate that

[10:37] Why Staked runs its servers on a combination of public cloud and on-premise infrastructure

[11:12] Why Staked does not charge fees for individual pieces of infrastructure

[11:42] Determining which proof-of-stake coins require high-performance infrastructure to run a node based on performance, security and decentralization

[13:17] How Tim’s experience running validators has changed his view of the space

[14:41] Tim’s insight on the relatively low operating costs associated with PoS networks + why secure enclaves are much more expensive

[16:41] Tim’s take on the profitability of a staking-as-a-service business model

[18:36] How Staked benefits from running several different networks at once

[20:17] The fee pressure among validators on Cosmos + why validator fees are rising in general

[21:50] Other products and services Staked might provide in building a premium product

[22:46] How the common theme around putting idle crypto to use inspired Staked’s DeFi vision

[24:36] Staked’s first product in the DeFi space and how it works

[25:22] How RAY might evolve to support more sophisticated pricing and evaluate risk

[29:11] The DeFi opportunities the Staked team might add to RAY (i.e.: staking, liquidation tools)

[29:51] How pricing is likely to evolve for RAY’s option to bid on underwater loans

[31:10] How RAY outperformed several other competitive rebalancing products + how it will be better able to take advantage of opportunities and service new markets as its pool increases

[33:51] Tim’s thoughts on KYC/AML + the advantage of smart contracts in terms of money operating like a pool without truly being mixed

[36:19] How RAY is creating SPVs to bridge centralized lending services

[37:10] Why the Staked team wants RAY to be an open standard rather than staked product

[38:46] The decisioning models the team uses to determine their potential market impact

[40:11] How RAY earns revenue in lieu of fees

[40:46] The RAY token model and Staked’s approach to developing a decentralized product

[41:50] The current share of alpha that Staked earns and how the benchmark rate is defined

[42:48] Tim’s vision for the future of RAY + its potential distribution play to wallets and exchanges

[44:52] Opportunities around forwards, spot prices and other DeFi functionalities that developers are exploring with the latest Staked tech

[46:05] The most-requested features Staked customers are asking for

[46:50] Tim’s prediction that the space will move toward a fixed interest rate model

[48:24] How Tim thinks about Staked’s role in helping protocols define their own risk properties

[49:41] How customers maintain their role in governance while Staked serves as a technical pass-through

[50:19] Tim’s insight around smart contract insurance and the challenges associated with pricing it effectively

[51:57] The demand for building an effective borrowing product

[52:22] Tim’s view of early exit opportunities as the next big thing in the passive income space

[53:16] How validators think about the nuances of high inflation vs. low inflation coins

[56:34] Tim’s advice around recruiting capital for hobbyists interested in running a node

[57:42] Why Tim is excited about projects like Cosmos, Polkadot and Keep in allowing for interchain activity

Ep 54, Creating the Censorship-Resistant Standard for Global Free Speech —With Brad Kam of Unstoppable Domains

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 5 Nov 2019 16:10:00 +0000

Imagine having the capacity to build a website that only you can put up or take down. A website that doesn’t require you to answer to any government or powerful company. A truly censorship-resistant website created on a decentralized registry.

Brad Kam is the Cofounder and Head of Business Development at Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain startup that makes crypto payments simple and facilitates the creation of such censorship-resistant websites. On this episode of Wyre Talks, Brad joins us to discuss the custody problem with centralized domain registries and explain how Unstoppable Domains is building a decentralized system that works for wallets and websites simultaneously. He shares the idea of using extensions to support blockchain-based domains and the value of Unstoppable’s ecosystem partnerships with those browser extensions as well as IPFS providers and wallets.

Brad goes on to address how Unstoppable Domains differs from ENS, functioning as both a registry and registrar and driving adoption through a sunrise period for brand owners. He also weighs in on the team’s conscious decision to be unifying and inclusive of any currency or wallet, describing the current customer profile and the most interesting use potential use cases for the platform. Listen in for insight around Unstoppable’s show-don’t-tell approach to marketing its censorship-resistant sites and learn how Brad thinks about balancing global free speech with ethical concerns.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Unstoppable Domains on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unstoppableweb

Today’s Topics

[0:28] How living in ‘the house that Bitcoin built’ inspired Brad’s interest in crypto

[1:16] Brad’s previous referral marketing SaaS startup, Talkable

[1:50] How the 4 cofounders met and decided to work together on Unstoppable Domains

[3:04] The custody problem around centralized registries

[3:53] Why domain pricing differs across registries

[4:53] How top-level domains leverage marketing efforts to gain traction

[6:14] What you can do through Unstoppable Domains in terms of making crypto payments and building websites

[7:59] The Unstoppable Domains team’s progress to date

[8:46] Why Brad’s team decided to build on the Zilliqa blockchain and the value of high transaction throughput

[9:41] The simple process of creating an Unstoppable Domain that works for wallets and websites simultaneously

[11:53] Using extensions to support blockchain-based domains

[12:46] Unstoppable Domains’ partnerships with IPFS providers, browser extensions and wallets

[14:46] How Unstoppable Domains stores data from multiple crypto addresses

[16:00] How Unstoppable Domains differs from ENS

[18:07] Unstoppable’s plans to auction top domains

[19:19] Unstoppable’s adoption thus far + the site’s customer profile

[20:29] The ethical concerns around picking top-level domain names

[21:25] The Unstoppable team’s conscious decision to be unifying and inclusive of any currency or wallet

[22:01] How Unstoppable is addressing domain squatting with a sunrise period

[22:22] Unstoppable’s show-don’t-tell approach to marketing its censorship-resistant news sites

[24:13] Interesting use cases for Unstoppable (i.e.: political conflicts)

[24:55] How Brad thinks about ethics on the platform + how users can choose filters to match their beliefs

[26:44] The future of the Unstoppable Domains product

Ep 53, Hashflow — Bringing Financial Market Structure to Crypto with Varun Vruddhula and Lawson Baker

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 13:00:35 +0000

Scalability. Interoperability. Liquidity. Any number of projects in the crypto space are working to tackle these problems. But just one is solving for all three at the same time and leveraging cashflow incentives to encourage participation in the network.

Varun Vruddhula is the Founder of Hashflow Network and Lawson Baker serves as an Advisor and Acting Head of Operations for the team. On this episode of Wyre Talks, Varun and Lawson join us to discuss the problems Hashflow is trying to solve in terms of binding ETH and BTC—while achieving scale. They speak to the three players in the Hashflow ecosystem, describing how they interact on the network and sharing the profile of an ideal hub, watch tower and trader.

Varun and Lawson go on to explain how the Hashflow front end will parallel the Bloomberg terminal and address the flow of funds on the network. They also weigh in on the project’s token design and how it enables Hashflow to bootstrap liquidity, discussing how small and large exchanges alike benefit from joining the network. Listen in for insight around how cryptographic proofs are to crypto what paper currency is to commodity money and learn how Hashflow solves for the biggest problems in the crypto space and incentivizes participation through its unique cashflow token design!

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Varun on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GandalfTheBr0wn
Follow Lawson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lwsnbaker
Follow Hashflow Network on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hashflownetwork

Today’s Topics

[0:55] How Varun’s background in the space industry led him to the crypto space

[5:01] Lawson’s journey from investment banking to FinTech startups to crypto

[8:38] The core problems Hashflow is trying to solve, including scalability, interoperability and liquidity

[10:14] How Varun was inspired by Lightning Network, Plasma and SUMOKOIN and what drew Lawson to the Hashflow project

[20:04] The three players in the Hashflow ecosystem and how they interact on the network

[25:47] The profile of an ideal Hashflow hub, watch tower and trader

[30:56] How the Hashflow front end will parallel the Bloomberg terminal + the roadmap for what the team is building

[33:59] The flow of funds on the Hashflow Network and how it executes around proof of solvency and profit insurance

[42:26] How Hashflow safeguards users against false prices

[44:30] Varun’s insight into the concern around double spending on Hashflow

[47:06] Why Hashflow allows anyone to report prices but incentivizes only those used by users and exchanges

[52:55] How Varun made decisions around what parameters to standardize and when to allow freedom of choice

[56:26] How its token design enables Hashflow to bootstrap liquidity

[58:09] How both small and large exchanges benefit from joining the Hashflow network

[59:45] The process of joining the Hashflow network

[1:00:52] The top concerns expressed by exchanges and OTC desks in terms of integration costs and business opportunity

[1:05:13] The strategic impact of anyone being able to create an exchange on Hashflow

[1:07:41] What differentiates Hashflow from the projects it’s compared to most often (i.e.: 0x, Arwen and tBTC)

[1:14:07] Varun’s insight around how cryptographic proofs : crypto what paper currency : commodity money

Payments Evolved — Announcing Wyre V2 and the Future of Payments in Crypto with Michael Dunworth and Jack Jia of Wyre

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 13:00:06 +0000

Here at Wyre, we’re in a unique market position, serving as a bridge from the traditional payments ecosystem to the Wild West that is cryptocurrency. And we spend a lot of time on the podcast getting granular about innovative crypto projects and blockchain technology, but we have yet to focus our attention exclusively on the payments space. Until today, that is!

On this episode of Wyre Talks, we’re discussing key trends in the payments industry over the last five years, digging into the rise of challenger banks and how regulations have influenced the evolution of the space. We introduce the concept of strong customer authentication (SCA), explaining how it’s creating a liability shift from merchants to banks, and explore the slow pace of regulatory change in the US as compared to Europe.

Jack weighs in on the brilliance of WeChat Pay and China’s influence in the realm of device-based payments, and we look at the anticipated timeline for widespread adoption of contactless value exchange. Finally, Michael weighs in on the way hardware providers are hedging out of chargeback risk through biometric authentication and the telling link between payments and identity. Listen in for insight around how companies like Apple and Google are well-positioned to enter the crypto space and learn how that reality informed the launch of the latest Wyre Widget.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1
Follow Jack Jia on Twitter:https://twitter.com/demonopolize
Follow Wyre on Twitter:https://twitter.com/sendwyre

Wyre's Website: https://www.sendwyre.com

Today’s Topics

[0:26] The top trends in the payments industry over the last five years

[6:18] How much recent changes in payments have been driven by the regulatory landscape

[8:21] The concept of strong customer authentication (SCA) and how it’s creating a liability shift

[14:38] Why regulatory change in the US is so much slower than Europe

[21:35] The brilliance of WeChat Pay and China’s influence in the realm of device-based payment

[24:52] The anticipated timeline around widespread adoption of contactless payments

[27:38] How hardware providers are hedging out of chargeback risk via biometric authentication

[31:52] How fraudsters are likely to respond with deep fakes and pump schemes

[35:34] The link between payments and identity

[40:04] How Apple is positioning itself to enter the crypto space

[45:20] The new Wyre Widget product and how it fits into the crypto experience

[52:57] Michael and Jack’s insight around the next iteration of payments

Ep 51, An Early Technologist’s Perspective on Investing —with Joey Krug of Augur & Pantera Capital

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 2 Oct 2019 13:00:23 +0000

It’s no surprise that Joey Krug is a fan of taking calculated risks. After all, he was betting on horse races (and winning) in middle school and eventually created a mechanism for making bets on the blockchain. As an early crypto developer, Joey had the opportunity to meet a lot of promising entrepreneurs. And ultimately, he put together a syndicate to invest in the projects with the most potential.

Joey is the creator of Augur, the decentralized oracle and prediction market protocol built on Ethereum, and the Co-Chief Investment Officer with Pantera Capital, an investment firm focused exclusively on ventures related to blockchain tech, digital currency, and crypto-assets. On this episode of Wyre Talks, Joey joins us to discuss the inception and early days of Augur and explain why the team chose to raise money through an ICO — the first on top of Ethereum. He describes how Augur has evolved, shifting from a reporting to a dispute-based model, disincentivizing invalid markets, and incorporating the use of DAI in V2.

Joey goes on to address how companies building on Augur are tackling US regulations and offer his take on what should and should not be regulated by the government. He also covers the advantages of using Augur overrunning a centralized operation, sharing the benefits for users in terms of limits, odds, and fees. Finally, Joey walks us through his transition to angel investing, explaining how he came to work with Pantera and how he evaluates investments with regard to team, product, and market. Listen in for Joey’s insight around the prerequisites for DeFi mass adoption and learn about the scalability projects he is excited to see the launch in the near future!

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Joey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joeykrug
Follow Augur on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugurProject
Follow Pantera on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PanteraCapital

Today’s Topics

[0:30] Joey’s introduction to Bitcoin mining and building on Ethereum

[3:36] The inception of Augur

[4:59] Why Joey’s team pursued a crowd sale to raise money over venture capital

[6:15] How the Augur team created an incentive model around its tokens

[7:15] The profile of the average participant in the Augur ICO

[8:01] Augur’s shift from a reporting to dispute-based model and reduced dispute period

[10:23] How V2 of Augur is disincentivizing invalid markets and allowing the use of DAI

[13:23] How Joey’s day-to-day involvement in Augur has changed post-ICO

[14:56] The pros and cons of running a distributed team

[17:34] Joey’s insight on deciding what Augur should build internally vs. what external developers should build

[19:30] How companies building on Augur are tackling regulatory issues in the US

[20:56] The advantages of using Augur overrunning a centralized operation

[22:25] The benefit of Augur for users in terms of limits, odds, and fees

[23:20] Joey’s insight on political events + sports as the premier use cases for crypto prediction markets

[24:30] Joey’s thoughts around what should and should not be regulated by the government

[27:20] How the team is building compliance tools into Augur

[28:48] The tradeoffs Augur is making to maintain a sound regulatory position in the US

[30:52] How Augur’s solution to the oracle problem differs from that of UMA

[33:47] Joey’s take on the problem of parasitic use of oracles

[36:03] Joey’s transition to angel investing and how he came to work with Pantera

[40:14] The three main funds Joey works with at Pantera

[40:41] What Joey would do differently around Pantera’s digital asset and ICO funds at a time of massive flux in the crypto markets

[42:50] How Joey thinks about assets in the ERC-20 token space

[44:25] Whether governance tokens have value independent of a direct economic incentive

[45:37] How Joey evaluates investments in terms of team, product and market

[48:28] The major moat growing around Ethereum

[49:02] The Layer 1 platforms with a potential value prop for developers

[51:01] What Layer 1 platforms need to do from a go-to-market standpoint

[52:16] Why Layer 2 projects that sold equity should monetize at the UI layer rather than the protocol layer

[54:26] Why it’s advantageous to build your UI and protocol layers at the same time

[55:32] Joey’s thoughts on the existing interoperability solutions (e.g.: Cosmos and Polkadot)

[59:09] Why massive scalability and better fiat onramps are prerequisites for the mass adoption of DeFi

[1:00:51] What Layer 2 primitives Joey would like to see built in DeFi

[1:03:25] The advantages and disadvantages of building on open-source platforms

[1:04:16] Joey’s take on sharding as a scaling solution and how it might impact DeFi

[1:05:53] Joey’s crypto thesis + how he sees the misfits of other markets driving adoption

[1:08:52] The scalability projects Joey is excited to see launch in the near future and their potential to facilitate exponential growth in the space

Ep 50, Gnosis - The Full-Stack Predictions Market with Stefan George, Co-Founder, and CTO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 13:09:37 +0000

GNOSIS is a pioneer in the Ethereum ecosystem, creating the first implementation of both the multisig and smart contract wallets. Their pivotal technology served as the backbone for many ICOs, and the GNOSIS team was the first to leverage the Dutch auction for trading. So, how did the team at GNOSIS become trailblazers in the crypto space? And how are they working to demonstrate the value of fully decentralized prediction markets?

Stefan George is the Co-Founder and CTO of GNOSIS, a prediction market platform that allows users to create custom forecasting applications and produce an entirely new asset class of conditional tokens they can then trade or hold. Today, Stefan joins us to discuss the GNOSIS team’s core mission to originate a prediction market system capable of aggregating global knowledge. He shares the use cases for prediction markets, including information discovery, incentivizing behavior and establishing financial markets.

Stefan goes on to describe how financial markets created on prediction systems differ in terms of bounded loss and winnings and walk us through the process of creating a market on GNOSIS. He also explains the concept of conditional token design, the team’s decision to utilize a Dutch auction model, and the new dxDAO governance community. Listen in for Stefan’s insight around their consumer-facing products, the GNOSIS Multisig Wallet and GNOSIS Safe, and learn how they are becoming the first company with a license to operate a fully regulated prediction market!

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Stefan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stefandgeorge

Follow Gnosis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gnosisPM

Ep 49, Value Accrual in Nascent Token Economies — with Lasse Clausen of 1kx Capital

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 13:00:22 +0000

If you ask Lasse Clausen, tokenized networks are better than free. And that’s why he has created a crypto investment fund around a token maximalist philosophy. A fund that capitalizes on permissionless innovation and declining trust in companies and governments. The 1kx thesis is flexible enough to adapt to the fast-moving blockchain space yet focused enough that it affords the team conviction—even when tokens are out of fashion.

Lasse is a Founding Partner at 1kx Capital, a token fund designed to be the most founder-friendly and helpful source of early-stage capital for crypto projects. Today, Lasse joins us to discuss how his background as a software entrepreneur led him to create a crypto investment fund and offer insight around the current venture environment in the blockchain space. He shares the 1kx thesis for making investment decisions, describing how permissionless innovation and the omnipresence of trust inform their philosophy of token maximalism.

Lasse goes on to explain 1kx’s narrow focus around Ethereum and their advantage in being an evergreen fund. He also weighs in on the transparency he looks for in a crypto founder and the value 1kx provides its projects in terms of storytelling and investor relations. Listen in for Lasse’s take on the most interesting crypto subsectors, payments, DeFi and Web3, and learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the crypto ecosystems in Berlin, Silicon Valley and Asia.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Lasse on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lalleclausen

Follow 1kx on Twitter: https://twitter.com/1kxNetwork

Ep 48, The Smart Contract Wallet Bringing DeFi to the Mainstream —with Itamar Lesuisse & Julien Niset of Argent

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 4 Sep 2019 13:00:02 +0000

The most powerful financial tools available live on the blockchain. The problem is, only crypto aficionados currently have access to these decentralized financial protocols like Kyber, Uniswap, Maker, and Compound. So, how can we serve the investing, trading and borrowing needs of non-crypto users, abstracting the complexities of the blockchain to bring DeFi to the world?

Itamar Lesuisse and Julien Niset are the cofounders of Argent, the first smart wallet for Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies and apps. Today, they join us to discuss how the team identified wallets as the biggest problem to solve in the space, landing on smart contracts as the best way to circumvent the need for users to remember a seed phrase. Itamar and Julien walk us through the two user types, owners and guardians, describing how Argent creates a smart contract wallet around a particular externally-owned account or EOA.

Itamar and Julien go on to offer an overview of the Argent wallet architecture and the different types of contracts it supports, explaining how to create new modules on the platform and sharing examples of modules that integrate with—and provide access to—the best DeFi protocols. They also cover the Argent auditing process as well as the team’s plan around navigating regulations. Listen in to understand Itamar and Julien’s aim to onboard millions of non-crypto users, abstracting the complexities of the blockchain to serve as a gateway to the decentralized web.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Andrew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amcassetti

Follow Itamar on Twitter: https://twitter.com/itamarl
Follow Julien on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jniset
Follow Argent on Twitter: https://twitter.com/argentHQ

Ep 47, Announcing tBTC with James Prestwich and Matt Luongo of Cross-Chain Group

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 13:00:04 +0000

It goes without saying that DeFi is better with Bitcoin as collateral. And there is an appetite among BTC holders for ways to actively apply our money. But as of yet, there is no way to bring Bitcoin onto Ethereum that is censorship-resistant and adheres to the #1 principle of BTC: No printing money. Until now. The newly formed Cross-Chain Group is working on a project that facilitates interoperability known as tBTC Network.

Matt Luongo and James Prestwich are the crypto OGs behind tBTC, a decentralized, redeemable, BTC-backed ERC-20 token that gives Bitcoin users access to financial services on other chains. Today, they join us to discuss how their respective expertise in secure multiparty computation and stateless SPV led to their partnership on tBTC and the founding of Cross-Chain Group. Matt and James explain the technical and economic guarantees of tBTC that satisfy Bitcoin users and offer us a high-level overview of the system’s functionality, including how tBTC is minted and redeemed.

Matt and James go on to cover how tBTC signing groups are selected and how the system ensures they are behaving honestly, discussing how the network handles aborts versus fraud and its backup auction mechanism for sourcing liquidity when slashing conditions happen. They also explain their decision to launch with an authority-based price feed mechanism and later transition to a federation-based one. Listen in for insight around what the success of tBTC might mean for Ethereum and learn how Cross-Chain Group is working to further interoperability via collaboration and development in the crypto space.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mhluongo
Follow James on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_prestwich
Cross-Chain Group website: https://crosschain.group

Ep 46, Navigating the Crypto Investment Universe with Investor, Haseeb Qureshi

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 13:00:15 +0000

Crypto is a different animal. Investors who play in the blockchain space are putting their money on a science experiment rather than a company with a business plan. And the pace and complexity of the ecosystem make it impossible to have a depth of knowledge in any one area. So, the best crypto venture investors can do is secure a broad understanding of the space and adapt their beliefs to the world as it changes.

Haseeb Qureshi is a former general partner at cryptocurrency hedge fund MetaStable Capital. Today, he joins us to share his unconventional path to crypto, describing how his background as a professional poker player and experience in consumer payments at Airbnb inform his work as an investor. Haseeb explains why he focuses on layer one smart contract platforms and what differentiates one from another.

Haseeb weighs in on the attack factor associated with stable coins and why Bitcoin is less susceptible. He also shares his view of how the current macroeconomic environment might influence Bitcoin adoption and why it’s nearly impossible to ‘out-Bitcoin Bitcoin.’ Listen in for Haseeb’s insight on the bottlenecks preventing second-wave crypto adoption and learn about the opportunities he sees in porting protocols built on Ethereum to up-and-coming blockchains

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Haseeb on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hosseeb

Ep 45, The DAG Ledger Powering Wasm Smart Contracts—with Cofounders Kenta Iwasaki & Dorjee Sun of Perlin

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Thu, 8 Aug 2019 13:00:16 +0000

The creators of Perlin still hold the long-term vision of developing a revenue-generating distributed ledger system that closes the wealth gap. But until smartphones are powerful enough and broadband speeds are fast enough, the team has expanded its scope to include Wavelet, a DAG ledger that powers WebAssembly smart contracts.

Kenta Iwasaki and Dorjee Sun are the cofounders of Perlin, a crypto project powering the future of trade with enterprise solutions built on top of the world’s fastest public ledger. Today, Kenta and Dorjee join us to share their ten-year plan to realize a decentralized cloud compute platform and explain how the network evolved to include smart contracts—with international trade applications. They introduce us to DAG architecture, describing how it leverages alternatives to the longest chain rule and discussing Wavelet’s unique snowball sampling solution for identifying the valid chain.

Kenta weighs in on the main design flaw of Avalanche as a consensus mechanism and offers a high-level overview of how Wavelet achieves total ordering of transactions. He also walks us through the recent Wavelet benchmark, revealing the system’s impressive numbers in terms of transactions per second and time to finality. Listen in to understand the key considerations for smart contract developers building on Perlin and learn how its leaderless proof-of-stake governance model solves for the safety concerns associated with other modern proof-of-stake ledgers

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Perlin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerlinNetwork
Follow Kenta on Twitter: https://twitter.com/xtwokei
Follow Dorjee on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dorjeesun

Ep 44, Powering Exchange - 0x Roadmap Update, with Founders Will Warren and Amir Bandeali

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 13:00:11 +0000

The ZRX token was created to facilitate governance for 0x as a public piece of infrastructure. It gave the community voting rights and was baked into the settlement layer as a way to collect fees. The idea was to get the token into the hands of the platform’s users. But soon after launch, the team realized their hypothesis was wrong, and they have spent the last 18 months developing a new token economics model that rewards liquidity providers.

Will Warren and Amir Bandeali are the cofounders of 0x, an open protocol that enables the peer-to-peer exchange of assets on the Ethereum blockchain. Today, Will and Amir join us to share the 0x origin story, explaining how their own need for DEX infrastructure informed the creation of the protocol. They walk us through the team’s 2019 roadmap, offering insight around why liquidity is their #1 objective.

Will and Amir discuss their work in the realm of ZIEPs, the team’s collaboration with StarkWare, and the introduction of 0x Mesh—as an alternative to the standard relayer API. They also weigh in on the differences among the open order book, matching and coordinator relayer models, addressing the pros and cons of each. Listen in to understand the proposed changes to the 0x token economics model and learn how it scales with gas prices to reward liquidity providers!

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Andrew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amcassetti

Follow 0x on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0xproject
Follow WIll on Twitter: https://twitter.com/willwarren89
Follow Amir on Twitter: https://twitter.com/abandeali1

Ep 43, Wyre Mid Year Recap - with Mike, Thomas, and Louis

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 13:00:19 +0000

Today, we're looking back at the first six months of 2019 to review the most important developments in crypto. We start with the launch of LIBRA, discussing its ambition to own the financial infrastructure in the developing world. We introduce the evolving narrative around Bitcoin and explore what's behind BTC price action, including the trade war with China and the current monetary policy.

Louis offers insight into which institutions are entering the crypto space, and Michael offers his take on the potential for central banks to add Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Finally, we cover LedgerX's acquisition of all three licenses necessary to operate a derivatives exchange and how Bitfinex averted disaster with a $1B LEO token raise. Listen in to understand the latest SEC action against Kin and learn about the latest FinCEN guidance regarding what is and is not classified as a money transmitter in the crypto space.

Follow Thomas on Twitter
Follow Louis on Twitter
Follow Mike on Twitter

Ep 42, Investing in Sci-Fi with Adam Draper, Managing Director of Boost VC

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 9 Jul 2019 13:00:09 +0000

How do you develop a venture fund that invests in future tech like jetpacks and exoskeletons? According to Adam Draper, you start by branding yourself as the VC interested in ‘anything that gets me closer to an Ironman suit.’ This attracts the demented builders and deal flow of wild things you need to realize your sci-fi vision of a world without borders. To date, Adam’s team has invested in more than 250 startups, 110 of which were crypto projects—including Wyre.

Adam is the Cofounder and Managing Director of Boost VC, a pre-seed venture fund and accelerator dedicated to sci-fi tech. Today, he joins us to share his experience growing up in a venture family (he’s a 4th generation VC) and discusses his vision of a borderless, digital world enabled by virtual reality and crypto. Adam explains why he loves mentoring founders in the early stages, walking us through the three-month accelerator program Boost delivers to entrepreneurs.

Adam also weighs in on the challenges associated with raising money from LPs for a sci-fi tech fund and credits the other VC funds that contributed to the development of the crypto ecosystem. Listen in for Adam’s take on the connection between crypto and VR, where both industries stand in the adoption cycle, and how DeFi and gaming serve as gateways to the crypto space.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Adam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdamDraper

Market Protocol: Bring Any Market to Ethereum Using Synthetic Assets —with Seth Rubin, Co-Founder, and CEO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 2 Jul 2019 13:00:21 +0000

Seth Rubin is the cofounder and CEO of MARKET Protocol, a framework for creating synthetic assets represented as tokens that allows users to gain exposure to a variety of assets without leaving the Ethereum network. Today, he joins us to discuss the launch of the MARKET Protocol Exchange (MPX) and minting platform, explaining the role of the MKT token in onboarding and educating new users. Seth shares the benefit to putting a cap on risk and the UX tradeoffs associated with this unique approach.

Seth also weighs in on why his team has written their own oracle for initial implementation and how time to resolution impacts the user experience. Listen in to understand how Seth’s team is educating users around the pricing and trading of market position tokens and learn how asset exposure, a defined downside and accessible leverage differentiate MARKET Protocol from its competitors.

Ep 40, Hummingbot - Community Driven Market Making with Michael Feng, Co-Founder, and CEO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 13:00:02 +0000

Michael Feng was looking for a problem to solve, so he spent September of 2018 talking to everyone he could in the crypto space. The notion of liquidity kept coming up, and without knowing exactly what the solution might be, he and his team set out to answer the question: How do you create the liquidity necessary to attract traders to cryptocurrency markets?

Michael weighs in on the technical and regulatory challenges associated with market making on DEXes, the centralized and decentralized exchanges supported on the platform, and the startup's plan to monetize by way of liquidity bounties. Listen in for insight into the traction Hummingbot has gained since its launch in April and learn about the software's surprisingly diverse user base, including individuals in emerging markets, token projects, and even quant funds.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fengtality

Ep 39, Omniex - Priming for Institutional Entry with Co-Founder, John Burnett

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 13:07:59 +0000

John Burnett is the Cofounder and Head of Business Development and Strategy at Omniex, an institutional operating platform for investment managers and active traders focused on crypto assets. Today, he joins us to explain how Omniex is priming the crypto market for institutional entry, describing the increasing interest in the tokenization of assets among institutional players and the impact their entry will have on the crypto ecosystem as a whole.

John also discusses how Omniex differs from platforms like Tagomi or SFOX and weighs in on the pros and cons of trading with a single counterparty. Listen in to understand some of the key aspects of Omniex that appeal to institutional investors, including its suite of algorithms and ESP feature, and learn John’s theory around the ‘gateway drugs’ that will inspire major financial institutions to enter the crypto space.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben
Follow Omniex on Twitter: https://twitter.com/OmniexInc

Ep 38, UMA - The Primitive for Tokenized Financial Exposure with Co-Founders, Hart Lambur and Allison Lu

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 13:00:04 +0000

Today, we’re joined by the cofounders of UMA, COO Allison Lu and CEO Hart Lambur. Allison and Hart explain how UMA facilitates bilateral derivatives by allowing the short side to be levered and collateralizing the long side at 100%, and they describe how the tokenized derivative smart contract serves as the protocol’s core technology. They go on to cover the hub-and-spoke design of the UMA market structure, the team’s decision to adhere to the ERC-20 standard, and the planned shift from a one-to-many to a multi-token-sponsor model.

Allison and Hart also discuss the positive response to UMA’s USStocks synthetic token and the protocol’s potential to galvanize an ‘army of DeFi nerds’ via money-making arbitrage opportunities. Listen in for insight around UMA’s bring-your-own-price-feed approach to the oracle problem and learn how the team’s framework for dispute resolution—the decentralized oracle—serves as the foundation for its business plan.

Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria
Follow Louis (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben
Follow Hart (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hal2001
Follow Allison (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/allilulllc

Ep 37, Owning the Newcomer Experience - Wallet Panel with Itamar Lesuisse (CEO, Argent), Aaron Lasher (CSO, BRD) and Tom Teman (CEO, Portis)

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 4 Jun 2019 13:00:14 +0000

Crypto wallets come in a variety of shapes and sizes. What the team stands for has an influence on who they serve, what services they offer, and how they address security. The architecture of the wallet itself is, in fact, shaped by each project’s core values. Curious how the co-founders of three very distinct wallets make decisions based on their respective mission statements?

We also weigh in on security, covering the pros and cons of seed phrase recovery, the feasibility of hardware wallets as a long-term security solution, and the possibility of leveraging smart contracts as a viable alternative. Listen in for insight into how the Portis, BRD, and Argent teams decide what services to offer and what to display in their wallet’s UI—and learn how Tom, Aaron, and Itamar think about capturing value for investors, in bull and bear markets alike!

Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Itamar (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/itamarl

Follow Tom (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomteman

Follow Aaron (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronlasher

Ep 36, Uniswap - Liquidity by Virality with Founder, Hayden Adams

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 29 May 2019 15:15:00 +0000

Hayden Adams is the founder of Uniswap, the decentralized exchange that affords users a simple smart contract interface for trading ERC-20 tokens, a formalized model for pooling liquidity reserves, and an open-source front-end for traders and liquidity providers. Today, Hayden joins us to offer insight around the design tradeoffs he considered in building Uniswap, the pros, and cons of the constant product model, and the advantage to using ether as a single medium of exchange.

Hayden also explains how Uniswap reduces the complexity of becoming a market-maker and how the project has become a pillar of the DeFi space. Listen in to understand how Hayden is thinking about building a business on top of the protocol in light of its recent backing by Paradigm and learn about the team’s current focus on improving its user experience and function as a price oracle.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Hayden on Twitter: https://twitter.com/haydenzadams

Ep 35, Rethinking the Blockchain Structure with Solana Co-founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 21 May 2019 14:49:00 +0000

Anatoly Yakovenko is the co-founder and CEO of Solana, a venture to rebuild the blockchain for scale. The Solana team is designing new architecture focused on high throughput with the goal of facilitating up to 700K transactions per second on a 1Gb network—without data partitioning. Today, Anatoly joins us to discuss how his background in distributed systems attracted him to the blockchain scalability problem and introduce his proof-of-history solution to encode the passage of time as data.

Anatoly explains how Solana is addressing the network synchronicity problem, maximizing bandwidth usage, and solving challenges around data storage capacity. He also shares the role validators play in the system and offers insight into the hardware necessary to run a node on Solana. Listen in to understand Anatoly’s vision for Solana to function as a smart contracts platform and learn what differentiates Solana from other blockchains in terms of scalability, security and running code in a single state.

Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Anatoly (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko

Ep 34, Groundbreaking Asset Management Models with Set Protocol's Felix Feng and Inje Yeo

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 7 May 2019 15:00:00 +0000

Felix Feng is the CEO and Inje Yeo is the CPO of Set Protocol, the first functional asset-management protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. The team’s ultimate goal lies in bringing wealth-creation tools to a global user base. Today, Felix and Inje join us to discuss the flexibility of the Set architecture to add functionality over time and explain how the protocol allows users to source liquidity from any decentralized exchange.

They also offer insight around their new product, TokenSets, sharing the particulars of its range-bound and buy-and-hold strategies and describing their intent to leverage community feedback to introduce additional rebalancing tactics. Listen in for Felix and Inje’s thoughts on tackling the oracle problem to enhance the protocol’s extensibility, the regulatory implications of introducing active management strategies, and differentiating Set from its competitors by way of access and innovation!

Follow Felix (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/felix2feng

Follow Inje (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/injeyeo

Follow Mike (co-host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1

Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Wyre on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sendwyre

Follow Set on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SetProtocol

Ep 33, Q1 Wrap-Up: Facecoin/ZuckBucks, Bitwise Report & DeFi —with Michael Dunworth, Louis Aboud-Hogben & Thomas Scaria

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Today, we’re looking back on Q1 to explore the most important headlines in crypto. We start with a discussion of Facebook’s motivation to enter the space and how the introduction of ZuckBucks might impact the ecosystem as a whole. Michael shares his take on the Bitwise report, explaining why it doesn’t answer the right question and describing the SEC’s need to build surveillance infrastructure on the so-called Big 10 exchanges that matter.

Louis covers the dominance of Binance, sharing their big wins early on and what they are doing to maintain market share. Finally, we talk about the growth of DeFi this quarter, examining the popularity of lending products in a market cycle characterized by idle crypto. Listen in for insight around the two protocols that focus on synthetic assets and learn how we are thinking about the rising price of crypto and the potential for another bull run.

Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1

Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Ep 32, The Future of Margin Lending in Crypto with Tom Bean & Kyle Kistner of bZx

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 13:00:00 +0000

By definition, margin lending is not fully collateralized. Some sort of mechanism is necessary to ensure that lenders receive their full principal, with interest, even under unforeseen circumstances. In crypto, one way to handle this is with tokens. So, what would that look like? Why are some margin lending protocols proposing a kind of ‘insurance fund’ to safeguard lender capital in the case of a black swan event?

Tom and Kyle discuss how margin liquidations work on the network and how bZx incentivizes liquidators. Tom offers insight around the startup’s new Fulcrum product and how it improves the user experience, and Kyle describes the product roadmap moving forward, most notably bZx’s new integrations with Augur and ETHFINEX. Listen in to understand why bZx is sticking with the token model for monetization and otherwise keeping the platform open and rent-free—and learn about the protocol’s first big governance proposal for token holders.

Ep 31, DeFi the Odds: Growing an Open Financial System with Clay Robbins (0x), Brendan Forster (Dharma) and Calvin Liu (Compound)

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Of the 7.5 billion people in the world, 40 million have used cryptocurrency. 2 million possess non-custodial service wallets, but only tens of thousands are engaged in using DeFi services, specifically. So, how do we get more people interested in decentralized finance? Will there be one principal entry point to the ecosystem or many? And how do we grow in a way that aligns with DeFi values and provides global accessibility?

Follow Thomas (host): https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Brendan (Dharma): https://twitter.com/brendan_dharma

Follow Calvin (Compound): https://twitter.com/cjl49

Follow Clay (0x): https://twitter.com/crabbylions

Ep 30, The Scoop on Trends in Token Sales with Andy Bromberg of CoinList

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 9 Apr 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Andy Bromberg is the Cofounder and President at CoinList, the trusted resource for digital asset companies to manage their token sales, airdrops and online hackathons. Andy was also a founding research scientist at the Stanford Bitcoin Group. Today, he joins us to explain how the idea for CoinList came out of a collaboration between Protocol Labs and AngelList and discuss the two key pillars of the company, fundraising and community building.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Andy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andy_bromberg

Ep 29, Building the Foundation for Private Finance with Loong Wang CTO of Ren

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 2 Apr 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Loong Wang is the CTO of Ren, a project working to create an ecosystem for unstoppable privacy. The protocol allows users to transfer tokens in zero-knowledge, trustlessly swap between blockchains, and trade on a dark pool. Today, Loong joins us to explain how the need for a decentralized financial infrastructure inspired the launch of Ren and discuss the evolution of the project, from developing RenEx on the protocol to their current work on end-to-end privacy via RenVM.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Loong on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bzlwang

Ep 28, Creating Stability out of Chaos - Advanced Maker Topics with Rune Christensen, Founder of MakerDAO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Rune is the cofounder and CEO of MakerDAO, the originator of Dai, the world’s first stablecoin built on the Ethereum blockchain. Dai serves to eliminate volatility through a system of smart contracts designed to respond to market dynamics. Today, Rune joins us to discuss the imminent launch of Multi-Collateral Dai, explaining how the team overcame the challenge of formal verification and how it impacts product quality. He shares the impetus for the recent Dai stability fee increase and offers insight on the three data points Maker uses to design monetary policy and react in real time.

Follow Rune (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RuneKek

Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Louis (co-host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Ep 27, Dharma - The Easiest Place to Borrow and Lend Cryptocurrency—with Nadav Hollander

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Nadav is the Founder and Project Lead at Dharma, a decentralized protocol for globally accessible lending products built on Ethereum. Today, he joins us to discuss the current audience for the Dharma Lever product and share his long-term ambitions for the platform. Nadav explains how he thinks about the problem of unsecured lending on the blockchain, from creating a reliable reputation system to making crypto usable among the general population.

Follow Nadav on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NadavAHollander

Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Louis (co-host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Ep 26, Unifying Blockchains Elegantly via Cross-Chain Solutions — with James Prestwich and Matthew Hammond of Summa

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:00:00 +0000

James Prestwich and Matthew Hammond are two of the three cofounders of Summa, a startup working to provide high-impact financial tools for the new economy. At present, the team is leveraging their expertise in blockchain architecture to create contracts that link assets across chains. Today, James and Matthew join us to share Summa’s mission to employ cross-chain communication to unify a fragmented ecosystem.

Follow James on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_prestwich

Follow Matthew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mchammond

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1

Ep 25, How Digital Scarcity is Revolutionizing Gaming -- with Devin Finzer of Open Sea

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 6 Mar 2019 14:00:00 +0000

Devin Finzer is the co-founder of OpenSea, the world’s largest digital marketplace for crypto collectibles. He graduated from Brown in 2013 and worked as a software engineer at Pinterest before getting into the startup space. Devin’s finance app, ClaimDog, was acquired by Credit Karma in 2016, and he started working on OpenSea at the end of 2017. Today, Devin joins us at ETHDenver to share the mission and mechanics of buying, selling and trading digital assets on the platform and his long-term vision for OpenSea as the space moves beyond gaming and collectibles to mirror economies of real value.

Follow Devin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfinzer

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Ep 24, Delivering Crypto to the Masses with Erik Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift and Taylor Monahan, CEO of MyCrypto.

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 14:00:00 +0000

We’ve come a long way, baby. In fact, it’s mindboggling to consider the progress cryptocurrency has made, as an industry, since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009. But we’re still a long way from mass adoption. So, how can improvements in UX lower the barrier to entry? Who are the players working to push crypto adoption forward? And what potential catalysts could spark widespread use of crypto among the general public?

Follow Erik on Twitter: https://twitter.com/erikvoorhees

Follow Taylor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tayvano_

Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Ep 23, Decentralization's Trojan Horse - CODA Protocol with Evan Shapiro, Co-Founder and CEO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 14:00:00 +0000

Today, Evan joins us to discuss the immense resources required to verify cryptocurrency and how Coda is tackling the problem. He shares the fundamentals of Coda Protocol and its side project, Snarky, explaining why they use functional programming and how the team is dealing with scalability constraints.

Follow Evan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/evanashapiro?lang=en

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria?lang=en

Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben?lang=en

Ep 22, The One Stop Shop for Decentralized Liquidity — with David Bleznak of Totle

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 14:00:00 +0000

David Bleznak is the founder and CEO of Totle, the world’s first on-chain order routing solution. By aggregating the liquidity of the top decentralized exchanges, Totle’s software solution makes crypto investing and asset management easy. David began his career investing in the real estate space before developing an interest in crypto in general and the DEX ecosystem specifically. A self-proclaimed ‘dexpert,’ David is committed to advocating for the mainstream adoption of decentralized finance.

Follow David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bleznak

Follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louAboudHogben

Follow Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Ep 21, Navigating the Regulatory Landscape in the Blockchain Space—with Crypto Lawyer Ryón Nixon

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 6 Feb 2019 14:00:00 +0000

Ryón Nixon is General Counsel at MyCrypto and Founding Partner of Horizons Law & Consulting Group, a boutique crypto and blockchain corporate and litigation law firm. Ryón’s interest in working with startups led him to Boost VC, where his exposure to entrepreneurs in the blockchain space afforded the opportunity to build a pivotal business relationship with Taylor Monahan and eventually establish his own niche practice. Ryón’s diverse experience ranges from clerking for the US District Court in California to litigating business and class action suits to serving as in-house counsel for a startup.

Follow the guest, Ryón on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ryonnixon

Follow the host, Thomas on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Follow the co-host, Jack on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/demonopolize

Ep 20, Designing for Liquidity — with Alex Wearn, CEO of IDEX (Aurora)

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 14:00:00 +0000

Today, Alex joins us to discuss Aurora’s mission to recreate the financial stack through a hybrid decentralized exchange and the company’s plans to decentralize over time. We ask Alex about AURA staking, and he speaks to the current return for running a node. He also offers insight around why IDEX has succeeded where VC-backed market darlings have not and Aurora’s ambitions to expand in terms of asset classes and customer base. Listen in to understand how the Aurora team makes decisions around which tokens to list and learn how the architecture of IDEX is designed to incentivize liquidity.

Connect with the guests and hosts:

Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexWearn

Thomas' Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria

Mike's Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1

Ep 19, MakerDAO, Novel Paradigms for Risk Management with Steven Becker, President and COO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 14:00:00 +0000

In this Wyre Talks, we are excited to host Steven Becker COO and President of MakerDAO. Having spent his career at various trading desks on Wall Street banks and high stakes hedge funds, Steven is no stranger to managing risk. However, a new challenge arose as he was tapped to run the decentralized risk functions at MakerDAO. Steven grasped the problem and led the decentralized organization scale and survive the downturn, all while preparing for the launch of MultiCollateral Dai -- the most intricate risk management problem.

MakerDAO is many things, but it can be thought of colloquially as a decentralized central bank or more precisely as a decentralized credit facility. Maker is governed by their token holders who vote to implement the risk management around the collateral that backs their stablecoin, Dai. With decentralization center plate and a battle-tested Single Collateral Dai system, Maker is poised to make the jump into additional collateral types. We’re excited to continue rooting on their journey into riskier waters as the world’s only truly decentralized stablecoin.

An overview of the MakerDAO ecosystem components and how they
motivate stability.
How the diverse range of MKR holders coordinates to govern the
various risk verticals of the MakerDAO system.
How liquidations are an essential part of the economic ecosystem that
Maker is creating.
Inherent systemic risks of the DeFi platform that participants should
be mindful of.
The primary objectives and motivations behind the launch of the Multi
Collateral Dai.
How adding additional collateral to the Maker platform presents a new
risk management problem set.
Maker’s measured approach to growing the acceptable collateral assets
and subsequently their debt ceiling.
How Maker will measure non-quantifiable risks like counterparty risk
& legal risk for new collateral assets.
How the Maker team focuses their go-to-market and partnerships
efforts.
Maker’s opinion of the other stablecoin models
How Maker is thinking through the oracle problem.

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep 18, Fetch, Evolving a wallet into a financial services firm with Co-Founder and CEO Hansmeet Seethi.

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 14:00:00 +0000

Fetch is a wallet with trade execution capabilities. Fetch is evolving into a financial services firm by pursuing the appropriate regulations to offer securities trading to their users. This will allow them to market US securities internationally and bring international securities to US citizens. Ditch the Wall Street infrastructure and keep the most popular financial assets in the world - all custodied in your pocket.

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep 17, Lessons learned from 2018 and predictions for 2019

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +0000

What an eventful year at Wyre and in the crypto ecosystem. Outsiders will look at the price/headlines and think the whole industry is in crisis. We don’t think that’s the case at all. Infact, we welcome the negative press since it chruns the non-believers out of the space so that the true visionaries can focus on building great product. In this special 90 minute episode with Mike, Louis and Thomas, we cover what we’ve witnessed in 2018 and how we think the industry will evolve in 2019. See below for a watered down summary but we recommend listeners tune in to hear our unadulterated, no BS outlook on the industry. Thanks again for a wonderful 2018. Happy Holidays. Much Love.

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Michael Dunworth: @MichaelDunwort1

Louis Aboud: @louAboudHogben

Ep 16, Compound — Yield Opportunities in Crypto with Robert Leshner, Founder and CEO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Less is more - keep it simple. That's the elegance of the Compound protocol. Compound has created a liquid, on-chain lending market. By keeping loan terms identical and utilizing a cohesive rate interest model, Compound has created a deep liquidity in a floating rate money market. With a long-term vision for protocol-level governance and a native model for generating revenue, the roadmap for Compound's success seems much more visible than the average protocol level project.

Overview:

How money markets can create better price discovery for crypto assets.
How Compound can abstract away the need to own crypto and increase dApp usage
How Compound’s floating rate architecture lends itself to better UX.
Compound’s vision to become a DAO that organically creates value and incentives.
Market neutral arbitrage opportunities in Compound and other yielding crypto projects.
Compound’s position in the decentralized debt markets
Compound as a monetization mechanism for dApps and as a layer for constructing financial products.
How Compound’s architecture casts itself away from the regulatory spotlight.
The vision for go-to-market and product roadmap

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Michael Dunworth (co-host): @MichaelDunwort1

Ep 15, CarpeNoctom, Inside the mind of a full-time Bitcoin trader with Josh Olszewicz

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 4 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Overview:

Josh’s trading style as it pertains to risk management, sizing,
instruments, The mindset and habits of a winning trader.
A profile of the early Bitcoin trading community.
The impact on the derivative markets in crypto on underlying spot
markets.
The relationship between information asymmetry and technical
analysis, the closest thing a trader has to a roadmap.
How fundamental indicators can help with predicting BTC price as well
as completely mislead traders.
Thoughts around current market volatility and this bear cycle.
Key takeaways for Consensus Invest and how it differed from last
year.
Price predictions and discourse on ETFs.

Ep 14, Alchemy: A Leading Blockchain Intelligence and Infrastructure Platform - with Nikil Viswanathan CEO and Joe Lau CTO

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 14:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Wyre Talks, we're excited to have Joe Lau (cofounder & CTO) and Nikil Viswanathan (cofounder & CEO) of Alchemy, join us for the show. Alchemy, the world's leading blockchain intelligence and infrastructure company, powers the top hedge funds managing billions of dollars. In this session they share their background - how they met TAing the largest database class in the world at Stanford, built the #1 Social App in the App Store (featured on front page of the New York Times), were honored as Forbes 30 Under 30, and started Alchemy. They share their analysis of the crypto hedge fund industry and provide insights into the product development secrets they use to build a best in class product. Joe and Nikil also give the first sneak peek into Alchemy’s new infrastructure platform, which has been an instant hit and already powers many of the most well known crypto companies within weeks of their alpha release. In addition, as founders who are known for creating an incredible company culture and having extremely high powered investors, they share their tips on hiring and fundraising. We know you’ll love hearing this insightful and entertaining interview as much as we did.

To discover more about the Alchemy, visit alchemyinsights.io

To get priority access to Alchemy API, sign up at alchemyapi.io

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep 13, Dan Held — Bitcoin: Where we started and where we are now.

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 01:16:00 +0000

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep 12, dYdX - Decentralized margin trading for the average user, with Antonio Juliano and Zhuoxun Yin.

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Thu, 8 Nov 2018 23:01:00 +0000

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep 11, Paradigm Market - Aggregated Liquidity: The Bumpy Road to Trading Nirvana with Liam Kovatch and Henry Harder

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Thu, 1 Nov 2018 23:00:00 +0000

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep 10, Trade any asset in the world using Ethereum: Seth Rubin, founder and CEO of Market Protocol

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 13:00:00 +0000

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep 9, The scalable DEX built on plasma with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder and CEO of Altcoin.io

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 13:00:00 +0000

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep 8, How traditional VC money is changing crypto with John Evans CEO and founder of Decision CFO.

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 13:00:00 +0000

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep. 7, Fixing the Lehman Problem with Crypto: John Piotrowski, Founder and CEO of The Ocean

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 3 Oct 2018 12:10:00 +0000

In this Wyre Talks, our guest is John Piotrowski, founder and CEO of The Ocean.

John has a past life in political campaigning and traditional finance, but made the pivot to cryptocurrency and founded the Ocean in 2017. The Ocean provides wallet-to-wallet trading on a high performance, institution-grade, decentralized platform that provides more liquidity with less risk. They also strive to create an intuitive trading experience, while maintaining a safe exchange with KYC/AML performed on their users.

In this episode, we also discuss:

How is the New York financial scene different from the SF crypto scene?
With a team in Krakow, Poland, what are the challenges in building a distributed team? How do you address them?
Transitioning from a career in political campaigning to being a VP at Goldman Sachs
How is the Ocean more than just a 0x relayer?
What led to the decision to build the infrastructure layer using the 0x protocol?
Why create an onboarding flow instead of just sticking with Metamask?
Why is verification and KYC so important to what the Ocean does?
Why does the Ocean choose to focus on the U.S. market when you could move to a country that supports your business?
What are the critical ingredients needed for institutional entry into the crypto space?
What's the purpose of the OCEAN token?

Links:

The Ocean website: https://theocean.trade/
The Ocean blog: https://medium.com/the-ocean-trade

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep. 6, Powering the Decentralized Exchange Ecosystem: Tom Schmidt and Alex Xu, 0x protocol

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 12:11:00 +0000

In this special live edition of Wyre Talks, we host Tom Schmidt, Product Manager, and Alex Xu, Director of Operations, of 0x protocol.

In this episode, we discuss:

Operational hurdles with setting up a decentralized project in early 2017
Why does 0x not have any partnerships?
Fat protocol thesis and why open protocols are so popular
What are relayers?
Building an ecosystem that is all about incentivizing relayers
Can ethereum handle a successful 0x protocol?
Why has governance been the key purpose of the ZRX token?

0x project website: https://0xproject.com/

0x twitter: https://twitter.com/0xproject

0x blog: https://blog.0xproject.com/latest

Tom Schmidt's twitter: https://twitter.com/tomhschmidt

Alex Xu's twitter: https://twitter.com/aqxu

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Michael Dunworth (co-host): @MichaelDunwort1

Ep. 5, Decentralized Inter-Blockchain Trading and the LQDEX Platform: Yogesh Srihari, Co-founder and CEO of LQDEX

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 12:31:00 +0000

Yogesh Srihari is a serial entrepreneur, who started several companies until he stumbled upon blockchain and was convinced by its potential to refocus his attention. Now, he is co-founder and CEO at LQDEX (pronounced "liquid-ex"), an inter-blockchain trading platform which allows trading of digital tokens across multiple blockchains. Because the exchange is decentralized, all the trading can be done without counterparty risk. Cross-chain trading often utilizes what are called atomic swaps. We explore what atomic swaps are, and why LQDEX does not use them, so therefore does not require modifications to the existing blockchains.

As he discusses his past with Spankchain, Yogesh tells of the lessons he learned to not only build a great product, but to become an effective leader and decision-maker.

In this episode, we also cover:

How the adult entertainment industry has catalyzed other technologies in the past
Launch of the LQDEX Bridge
Collators in the LQDEX ecosystem, why they're crucial to the system
Ensuring good behavior from those participating on the platform by issuing LQD tokens
Stake and earn token models
Training yourself to become a hyper-rational thinker
Using a sidechain for more efficient cross-chain trading

LQDEX website: https://lqdex.com/#exchange

LQDEX blog: https://medium.com/lqdex

LQDEX Whitepaper: https://lqdex.com/doc/LQDEX-Whitepaper.pdf

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep. 4, Own Your Identity Through the Blockchain: Apurv Mishra, founder and CEO of Zeus Protocol

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 12:12:00 +0000

In this episode of Wyre Talks, we welcome Apurv Mishra, founder and CEO of Zeus Protocol, who explains the mission of the Zeus protocol of breaking down data silos to help developers and how the blockchain can empower users in owning their own identity and personal data.

Zeus Protocol: https://zeusprotocol.com/

Contact Zeus Protocol with Telegram: https://t.me/zeusprotocol

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep. 3, Getting 100M Users (including Grandma) Trading on a DEX

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 5 Sep 2018 12:04:00 +0000

In this episode of Wyre Talks, we host Michael Dunworth, CEO of Wyre, and Louis Aboud, Head of Research at Wyre Capital; we took this opportunity to dissect a topic we're not only very interested in, but feel is an important next step for crypto: the DEX.

Through the episode, we discuss topics including:

What is a DEX (decentralized exchange)?
How having unregulated exchanges attracts bad actors
How to get the first 100 million users for DEXs
Challenges in improving user experience
Regulation and compliance for exchanges
Scaling issues with DEXs
How will this ecosystem play out?

Questions or comments? Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, or the Wyre Blog!

Remember to subscribe on Google Play or iTunes to get the latest episodes and let us know if you have any topics you’d like us to cover.

You can follow the hosts on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria (host): @tomscaria

Michael Dunworth (co-host): @MichaelDunwort1

Louis Aboud (co-host): @louAboudHogben

Ep. 2, Bitcoin ETF's and why crypto is a bigger threat to Silicon Valley than Wall Street feat. Louis Aboud

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:10:00 +0000

As traditional investors enter the crypto world, they not only bring their legitimacy and access to funds with them, they also bring old habits with them. This week's episode is about institutional players entering the crypto market and why bitcoin ETF's are so important to the market. We also cover topics like:

Are ETF's good for bitcoin?
Why the bitcoin ETF was rejected by the SEC
Financial institutions making crypto mainstream
Why Sillicon Valley is more threatened by crypto than Wall Street

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria

Ep. 1, The Wyre Story

josh@sendwyre.com (Wyre) — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 13:15:00 +0000

In this episode Wyre Talks, we interview the cofounders of Wyre: Michael Dunworth and Ioannis (Yanni) Giannaros. They recounted the story of Wyre; where it came from and where it's going. Wyre has been in the crypto space for five years now, and it's been a long and winding road, but we've seen a lot and learned a lot. It wasn't always easy but this is the story that defines who Wyre is today.

Mike and Yanni also talk about:

the struggles of founding a company and scaling it beyond the hacker house
trying to get into Boost VC and handling rejection finally
getting some traction and raising funds

You can follow the host on Twitter!

Thomas Scaria: @tomscaria