The Scoop (The Block)

Zane Tackett is the former head of institutional sales at FTX. In this episode, Tackett recounts his experience working with Sam Bankman-Fried at FTX and explains how the exchange's terms of service blow a hole in SBF's criminal defense. Although SBF claims he is not guilty of fraud, Tackett says "it's obvious that he knew what he was doing." OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 03:32 FTX's Business Model 06:56 FTX's Balance Sheet 10:06 Michael Lewis: Going Infinite 11:14 The Real SBF 16:02 FTX 2.0 17:14 FTX Estate Asset Recovery 17:50 FTX Hacked Funds 19:06 Crypto’s Capital Markets 20:54 CeFi vs. DeFI 23:07 Effective Altruism 26:04 SBF Trial 32:57 Closing Thoughts

The Scoop's host, Frank Chaparro, was joined by Lightspark Co-Founder and CEO David Marcus. In this episode, Chaparro and Marcus discuss the vision and technology behind scaling Bitcoin as a global payment network. Marcus explained how new developments, including stablecoins on Bitcoin, could transform worldwide financial systems and directly lead to an increase of GDP. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 01:52 Lightspark's mission and Bitcoin's Role 04:39 Challenges in scaling Bitcoin 09:44 Lightspark's evolution 16:10 Stablecoins x Bitcoin 21:27 Stablecoin improvements over traditional payments 27:20 Past regulatory challenges 30:23 Changing regulatory climate 35:19 Future outlook 41:37 Conclusion GUEST LINKS David Marcus - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmarcus/ David Marcus on X - https://x.com/davidmarcus Lightspark - https://www.lightspark.com/ Lightspark on X - https://x.com/Lightspark

Jeff Dorman is Arca's Chief Investment Officer. In this episode, Chaparro and Dorman discuss the recent approval of the spot ether ETFs and how it opens the door for institutional investors to engage with the Ethereum ecosystem. The discussion also highlights the importance of regulatory clarity and the shifting sentiment towards crypto in Washington.  OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 02:34 ETH ETF Approval 06:02 Wall Street Onchain? 12:05 ETH ETFs & Market Structure 17:53 ETH Headwinds & Underperformance 21:28 Altcoin ETFs? 25:27 Crypto's Crowded VC Landscape 34:32 Liquid Crypto Funds 41:47 Traditional Hedge Funds & Crypto This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Dr. Lisa Cameron is a UK Member of Parliament and is the Chairperson of the Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group. Ian Taylor is a Board Advisor to CryptoUK — the trade association for the UK's crypto industry. In this episode, Dr. Cameron and Taylor share how the UK is taking steps to become a global hub for crypto and web3. According to Dr. Cameron, the crypto industry could play an important part of the UK's economy in the years to come: "I can see the potential of the technology for the future of of people's livelihoods in the UK and I want to make sure that we harness the skills here as well and that we have the correct opportunities for young people moving forward into the workforce."  During this conversation, Chaparro, Cameron, and Taylor also discuss: How the UK's regulatory approach compares to the U.S.'s UK consumer protection in the wake of FTX Bipartisan support for crypto in the UK This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark. About PayPal Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

In the crypto world, MEV (‘Maximal Extractable Value’) refers to block producers’ ability to reorganize the sequence of transactions in any given block to extract a premium. While MEV can be used nefariously in instances such as front-running large transactions, it can also be used for arbitrage opportunities that do not directly impact other market participants. In this episode of The Scoop, we take a closer look at the world of MEV with Viktor Bunin, a protocol specialist at Coinbase, and Stephane Gosselin, the founder of Flashbots — a research project that provides MEV solutions to Ethereum validators. According to Gosselin, the purpose of Flashbots is to make markets more efficient: “We look at market structures, we research them and we develop products to try to improve them, and make sure that they're aligned with the intent of the chains that they're operating on top of.” How Flashbots works in practice is essentially by creating a separate layer where users can bid against each other to have their transactions included on the blockchain.  As Bunin explains, “It essentially creates a private mempool or a ‘fastlane’ where it says, ‘Hey, you're welcome to compete all you'd like, but you should do it at this layer,’ and then there will be a standardized way by which whoever is a winning bid — essentially the winning transaction — that will be the one that gets included on the blockchain and no others.” Episode 91 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Viktor Bunin, protocol specialist at Coinbase and Stephane Gosselin, MEV boost architect & co-founder of Flashbots. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized Web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.

To the bemusement of some XRP bears, crypto exchange Bitso captured attention earlier this year with news that it captured over 2% of Mexico's remittance market.    Indeed, the ability to quickly and seamlessly send money across borders has long been one of the touted benefits of cryptocurrencies, but Bitso's surge has stood out among its rivals. XRP/Peso volume growth has surged over the past 5-months, while volumes on the whole declined.    In this episode of The Scoop, Bitso CEO Daniel Vogel walked The Block's Frank Chaparro through its business. We also examine: Why Vogel thinks Bitso can capture 20% of the Mexican remittance market by the end of the year (the equivalent of over $100 million a week) The crypto landscape in Mexico and Latin America and the reason why it boosts "crazy" adoption metrics What traditional financial-services companies in Mexico can learn from crypto-native firms like Bitso about the digitization and democratization of finance The catalyst behind the growth of its XRP-powered remittance business Episode 7 of Season 2 of The Scoop was recorded on January 21 via Skype with Frank Chaparro and Daniel Vogel, CEO at Bitso. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com

Anthony Scaramucci serves as both the founder and managing partner of Skybridge Capital, as well as the founder and chairman of SALT Conferences.  In this episode recorded live at last week's SALT Conference in Jackson Hole, Chaparro and Scaramucci discuss the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election and the rising importance of the 'crypto vote.' OUTLINE 00:00 Intro 04:16 2024 Election 14:19 Presidential Crypto Policy 15:58 Donald Trump 19:59 China Policy 25:05 Closing Thoughts This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more, head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Last year’s bull market exuberance is a distant memory, as are the wildly inflated crypto funding rounds that attracted an unprecedented amount of venture capital to the space. In this episode of The Scoop, CoinShare’s Chief Strategy Officer Meltem Demirors and Aglaé Ventures Managing Partner Vanessa Grellet unpack how the crypto VC landscape has changed since last year’s bull market, and particularly why venture capitalists are becoming more reluctant to invest in early token rounds. As Demirors explains, savvy investors are realizing the token model is not always the best way to capture value: “There's now consideration of the fact that tokens, in particular governance tokens, are not necessarily the best way to capture value creation… an investor who's willing to write really large checks is going to have some fundamental questions around monetization that doesn't just rely on ‘number-go-up’ tokenomics.” According to Grellet, regulatory concerns — particularly regarding some token models’ similarity to unregistered securities — are another reason tokens are not as attractive to investors these days. While hesitancy regarding seed-stage token rounds is becoming more widespread, Grellet believes there is still interest in tokens if they make sense as part of larger equity investments: “We see a lot of investors being comfortable with both the equity and a token option so that if the main company has one project, but also has several other projects that warrant tokens, then you can have upside in the ongoing life of the company.” Episode 89 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro, CoinShares CSO Meltem Demirors, and Aglaé Ventures' Managing Partner Vanessa Grellet. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized Web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.

In the fourth installment of The Scoop’s continued coverage of FTX's demise, host Frank Chaparro examines the legal underpinnings of FTX’s bankruptcy and restructuring process with Dan Besikof, a partner at the law firm Loeb & Loeb, and Mark Shapiro, Chair of the Financial Restructuring Group and a partner at the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. In 2008, Shapiro served as the Head of Restructuring for Lehman Brothers, where he guided the sale of the firm's U.S. assets in chapter 11. According to Besikof, FTX’s fiduciary will likely attempt to bring money back into the estate through lawsuits: “One of the things that they're going to look at is where did money go out where value didn't come back, and to the extent money went out and value didn't come back, that's a natural target for a fraudulent conveyance lawsuit or a fraudulent transfer lawsuit.” FTX has notified a federal judge it wants BitGo to custody its $740 million worth of digital assets. While the exact situation of FTX’s finances is still uncertain, Shapiro says the sheer amount of money lost by FTX users is likely to prompt regulators to take a more proactive approach going forward: “Now that it's become so public and so much money has been lost, I think the paternalistic side of the government is going to take over and try to do something about protecting investors.” Episode 118 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro, Dan Besikof, a Partner at Loeb & Loeb, and Mark Shapiro, a Partner at Shearman & Sterling. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn About Tron Founded in 2013, Huobi Global is one of the largest virtual asset exchanges in the world. Huobi Global serves millions of users across international markets. Since its establishment, Huobi Global has committed to providing first class virtual asset investment services. Huobi Global's robust infrastructure, product innovation and capital strength provides a truly customer-centric and secure trading environment to help our international users to achieve their investment objectives. Please refer to Huobi's official website for more information: huobi.com. About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

Apex Clearing facilitates more than 1.7 million trades a day as the clearing and custody firm behind hundreds of fintech trading platforms. The firm, which entered the crypto market in 2019, provides more than 200 companies, including the likes of Stash, Public.com, and WeBull, with the technology to clear stock trades. At one point Apex also powered Robinhood's platform before the California-based firm launched its own clearing solution. On the crypto side, Apex Crypto helps brokers create their own crypto trading products. That business touches more than 1 million retail clients today. This past weekend, Apex began supporting Dogecoin, unleashing the meme-coin on more than 13 million end-clients. It was good timing considering the price of the coin has whipsawed as retail traders turned their attention toward that particular cryptocurrency market.  In this episode of The Scoop, Apex Clearing CEO Bill Capuzzi talks about the growth of its crypto business, what drew it to the dogecoin market, and why stockbrokers will ultimately break into the non-fungible token (NFT) space.  "We opened close to 150,000 accounts since we announced and launched Dogecoin from Saturday until today," Capuzzi said, adding: "They’re hearing it from their end customers. Right. So the end customers are raising their hands and saying, hey, we’d like access to Dogecoin through WeBull, and WeBull is leveraging Apex on the backend." This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go. 

Denelle Dixon is the CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation — the primary development team supporting the Stellar blockchain. In this episode, Dixon emphasizes the potential of blockchain technology to transform financial services in low- to medium-income countries, particularly in Africa and South America. She also addresses the need for policymakers to create a supportive environment for the industry and the importance of asset issuance and payments in creating equitable access to the global financial system.   This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens on stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe visit theblock.co/newsletters

As the crypto market matures, owners of “pristine” digital assets will increasingly be able to use their holdings as collateral for an array of financial services, according to Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra. Founded in 2014, crypto wealth management platform Abra closed a $55 million Series C last September led by IGNIA and Blockchain Capital. In this episode of The Scoop, Barhydt explains why the recent Terra blow-up has no impact on crypto’s disruptive potential, and how a new wave of crypto-backed financial products promises to unlock more utility for long-term holders. As Barhydt explains, “Most banks won't recognize crypto — I don't even know any that will recognize crypto when they're trying to figure out your financial status, when you're trying to qualify for a mortgage…” Just last month, Abra announced a partnership with Propy — the company who sold a Florida home for $650,000 using an NFT — allowing crypto holders to apply for loans using their crypto as collateral. While Abra is “not financing homes yet,” allowing long-term crypto holders to use their digital assets as collateral for down payments on property is a sign of maturity for the asset class, according to Barhydt. If crypto can become pristine digital collateral like Barhydt imagines, he believes the implications will be felt around the world: “The banking system knows that I have this much bitcoin, it lends me this amount of money to complete my payments, and that's debited later — that's a much more efficient way to process credit transactions in countries where there is no credit scoring system, which is most countries, so having a kind of digital collateral changes everything.” Episode 44 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Cross River Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

For some, a landscape of colorful NFTs and crypto anons can be daunting — yet for traditional investors, it can present an array of new challenges that require near-constant adjustment or reinvention. But as novel use cases evolve under the twin banners of "Web3" and "the metaverse," business interests such as VC firm Standard Crypto are eyeing the opportunity to leap into such a world.  During this episode of The Scoop, Alok Vasudev, co-founder at Standard Crypto, joined The Block's Frank Chaparro to discuss the future of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and NFTs, when a project "merits" a DAO, and how Vasudev learned to stop worrying and embrace the 'weirdness' of crypto.  Vasudev contends that, unlike other venture firms, Standard Crypto doesn't follow themes but rather operates first as fans of the innovations technology can present. This broad investment approach has recently included DAOs, which Vasudev said he believes could one day potentially function like companies in the future, with the added benefit of on-chain governance. "One thing that we talk about is whether DAOs in how they're structured are actually going to evolve to look a little bit more like companies than they have in the past, but with radically different accountability structures because of token holder governance." Vasudev also believes NFTs and projects being built for Web3 may likely serve as the proving ground for the future iterations of internet success stories like Angry Birds or Facebook: "I think I remember the first time I was kind of stunned that they were actually making an Angry Birds movie... So this idea that kind of internet culture is just going to become mainstream culture, I think is already proven out. And now I think NFTs are the next chapter in that story." Episode 7 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Alok Vasudev, co-founder at Standard Crypto. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Bitcoin and gold have both climbed higher in recent weeks, but any correlation between the two is still too slight to take seriously, according to CoinMetrics. Fundstrat managing partner Tom Lee offered a different explanation on this week's episode of The Scoop — that boomers and Millenials are taking sides. Lee pointed out that it's likely an older generation piling into gold with huge cash positions. For those who missed the market rally, gold likely became a more attractive position as inflation rose. As boomers load up on gold, members of Generation X and Millenials are buying up tech stocks. As tech stocks become more attractive and cash less so with concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the perception towards bitcoin is shifting as well, according to Lee. "Because of coronavirus, I think we're seeing businesses essentially go cashless and therefore digital money is making it easier to understand the value of Bitcoin, which is essentially a settlement network that isn't denominated in dollars," he said. Research from JPMorgan seems to agree with Lee. An August 4 note from the bank's strategists said millenials seem to prefer tech stocks while older investors are selling shares and buying bonds.  However, this doesn't mean the institutions are likely to jump in any time soon. As Bitcoin's value rises, Lee said that there might be more parallels to gold. On this week's episode, Lee broke down his other takes on current market conditions, including: Why the negative impact of COVID-19 on markets has waned How the virus has affected Fundstrat's so-called granny shots list, a list of easy-win stocks The relationship between traditional markets and bitcoin price volatility  The impact of election cycles on traditional and digital assets and how the winner will effect the market's movements Why he hates being called a perma-bull Listen to this week's episode on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Last week, saw a deluge of prime brokerage news, capped off by Coinbase's announcement of its acquisition of crypto broker Tagomi. After months of rumors surrounding the two-year-old firm, the deal became one of Coinbase's biggest acquisitions in a move to fill out its institutional business of trading and custody services.  With the deal inked, Coinbase is one step closer to becoming a full-scale prime broker. This week's episode features Su Zhu, crypto investor, market commentator and founder of crypto investing firm Three Arrows Capital — an early client of Tagomi.  Zhu unpacked his thoughts on the recent deal, touching on some pain points, including the importance of neutrality in the prime brokerage world. The Coinbase deal leaves room for possible conflicts of interest, according to Zhu.  The episode also explores: Why Tagomi's neutrality as a prime broker could be questioned under Coinbase's ownership The headwinds and tailwinds facing DCG's Genesis Trading and BitGo as they build out similar offerings The type of trading strategies and opportunities a full-scale prime broker open up for crypto investors like Three Arrows The reasons why Tether dominates Asian liquidity and doesn't have to worry about rivals taking its crown How Binance messed up delisting FTX's leverage product, and how it speaks to a broader existential issue at the exchange This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by Bitstamp, the original global cryptocurrency exchange. Since 2011, Bitstamp has been a cornerstone of the industry, earning the trust of over four million individuals and top financial institutions looking for a reliable trading venue. Whether you’re trading on our web platform, mobile app or industry-leading APIs, Bitstamp gives you the professional-grade tools you need to execute your strategy. Download the Bitstamp app or visit Bitstamp.net/Pro to learn more and start trading today!

Edan Yago is the co-founder and CEO of BitcoinOS, a Layer 2 platform and "operating system" for Bitcoin. In this episode, Yago and The Block's Frank Chaparro discuss BitcoinOS and how Bitcoin can evolve from being just “digital gold” into a fully programmable, global ledger for ownership and financial innovation. OUTLINE 00:00 – Introduction
 02:17 – Bitcoin and digital property rights
 04:40 – Bitcoin’s spirit of innovation
 08:17– Bitcoin smart contracts vs. rival chains 
 15:29 – Bitcoin DeFi’s value add
 20:44 – Solving scalability
 25:12 – Bitcoin, AI, and the next Trillion in assets
 28:28 – The next five years
 35:07 – Short term shifts 37:42 - Conclusion GUEST LINKS Edan Yago - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edanyago/ Edan Yago on X - https://x.com/edanyago BitcoinOS - https://www.bitcoinos.build/ BitcoinOS on X - https://x.com/BTC_OS This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more, head to polkadot.network

As the market for non-fungible tokens continues to court interest from mainstream corporates, investors, and celebrities, Anchorage co-founder Diogo Mónica reveals how his firm is managing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these assets.  As Mónica explained during an interview on The Scoop with host Frank Chaparro, there are two main reasons he believes institutions are expressing interest in NFTs: “The first one is that it’s free marketing. You buy an NFT or you do something in crypto and for a few hundred thousand dollars you get tens of millions of dollars of mainstream press. The second reason, which is probably the major reason for the ones who want to build products, is they want to try it out… if you’re going to build a product in NFTs, you have to own one.” Indeed, institutional interest in developing NFT products is accelerating. This month alone, Softbank, Gamestop, and Instagram all announced NFT products slated for release in the near future. Still, Mónica noted that NFTs only represent a small portion of the digital assets of which Anchorage holds custody. “I would say it probably maps in the hundreds of millions. But the business is obviously measured in the tens of billions which makes it not significant enough yet." The core of Anchorage's business is its institutional custodian services, which have been growing since its inception in 2017. Last year, Anchorage became the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the US and has now expanded its operations to lending and trading services. One particularly interesting NFT play that aligns with this narrative was Visa's acquisition of a CryptoPunk NFT last summer, which Anchorage Digital helped to facilitate. Episode 21 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Diogo Monica, Co-Founder and President of Anchorage Digital. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Juthica Chou is the head of OTC options trading at Kraken and the former president of LedgerX. In this episode, Chou explains how crypto's recent rally is being reflected in the options market, and what signals to pay attention to in the weeks ahead. According to Chou, volatility has returned to the market after months of relatively little activity: "The market's definitely pricing some big moves. And I always say, like if it can go up fast, it can go down faster." This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal. Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

ADA — the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano network — is among the myriad of cryptocurrencies that saw their price soar in 2021. On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Frank Chaparro sat down with Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global, to unpack the ecosystem underpinning the price headlines. While Cardano's ADA has surged over the course of 2021, the blockchain that underpins the token is yet to play host to a large decentralized exchange, of the kind that have sprung up on Solana or Ethereum. There have also been questions about the number of successful decentralized applications or 'DApps' in the ecosystem, when compared to others. Hoskinson says that this sentiment reflects a misunderstanding about what is being developed on Cardano. "There's almost 200 DApps that are under construction right now," he noted. "SundaeSwap is one of the most prominent, it's launching tomorrow," referring to the DEX that launched Thursday — albeit with congestion issues that resulted in some transactions taking longer than expected to complete. "There are several already running on the ecosystem," Hoskinson clarified. In the future, Cardano could even continue to exist without the participation of the Wyoming-resident. As Hoskinson opined, "the founders are important because they get the party started and they set the initial state of the system." He went on to add, "I think that you have to plan for obsolescence, you have to plan to fire yourself. And that's what Satoshi did." Episode 3 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

The Scoop's host, Frank Chaparro, was joined by Story Protocol Co-Founder Jason Zhao. In this episode, Chaparro and Zhao discussed the inefficiencies and challenges in the current IP landscape, and how Story aims to address these by allowing creators to monetize and license their IP in a more open and efficient manner, especially in the context of the rise of AI. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 05:29 Philosophy meets Crypto 09:08 The world of intellectual property 12:49 The financialization of IP 16:55 AI and ownership of IP 20:20 Getting started with AI and IP 24:40 Standing out in a sea of Picassos 27:45 Gen AI platforms 31:49 Story Protocol looking ahead 34:03 Conclusion GUEST LINKS Jason Zhao - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonjinzhao/ Jason Zhao on X - https://x.com/jasonjzhao Story Protocol - https://www.story.foundation/ Story Protocol on X - https://x.com/StoryProtocol

Agatha Bacelar is a 27-year-old Brazilian-American running for Congress in California’s 12th district, a seat currently held by House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Agatha is not your typical Congressional candidate. With a degree from Stanford University and a professional background in blockchain, Agatha is aiming to make tech regulation an important conversation in politics. In this conversation, Agatha discusses how she got into politics, her time working at Democracy Earth, her stance on universal basic income, and why now is the time to run against the most powerful Democrat in the country. I hope you enjoy the episode.

The Bahamas has turned into an attractive destination for crypto companies looking to set up shop in a jurisdiction with a clear regulatory framework for digital assets — a movement spearheaded by crypto exchange FTX’s announcement to relocate its headquarters to the island nation late last year. In this episode of The Scoop, Ryan Salame, Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets (FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary), explains why he believes the conference was “an incredible success,” and why he thinks the Bahamas is positioned to become a global hub for the crypto industry. The conference helped to highlight the crypto-friendly nature of the Bahamas, as Salame explains during the interview, “Some of my objectives were to show off the Bahamas as a jurisdiction, to show why we were there, allow the opportunity for companies to send people to see that this is a great place to do business. So that objective was easily hit.” Salame told The Block’s Frank Chaparro that over 20 companies are in conversation with FTX about moving their headquarters to the Bahamas. While the US has yet to solidify its regulatory approach to digital assets, clear legislation in the Bahamas removes the structural uncertainty. As Salame explains, “All of crypto sits under one regulatory body, versus in the US, you're seeing the CFTC and FCC debate.” Salame’s sentiment is shared by former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo, who gave the regulatory structure for digital assets in the U.S. a “zero” on a scale of 1 to 10 during a panel at the conference.  Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions. Episode 42 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Ryan Salame, Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.   This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Cross River Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Aya Kantorovich, head of institutional coverage at FalconX, has been experiencing a bit of déjà vu.  Kantorovich, a former associate at crypto hedge fund Pantera, joined The Scoop to unpack the crypto market's recent bouts of volatility and how the market is stuck in a cycle of retail-led drawdowns. FalconX — an aggregator of crypto trading flows — has a window into both the retail and institutional market.  According to Kantorovich, liquidations across off-shore market venues, cascading liquidations, and the inability for traders to access crypto exchange platforms drive prices down. When money can't move around, price drawdowns are amplified.  "We saw $2 billion worth of liquidations happening across BTC," she said. "Retail liquidations was a large portion of this ... and then a cascading effect." "When you have this level of heightened volatility you see some exchanges begin to shut down their trading capabilities and when these centralized trading platforms shut down those capabilities then traders don't have the ability to top off on their margin so you see a continued cascade," she added.  Kantorovich doesn't think this is a cycle that will break because many new institutions have to sell when the price reaches a certain threshold. Unlike crypto native whales, which have driven the buying at the dip, large billion-dollar plus asset managers "have a completely different level of drawdowns that they're allowed to maintain." "Let's say the market falls down by 30%, they have a fiduciary obligation to take money off the table," she said. "These aren't the momentum diamond hands that we're so used to seeing in crypto." "I think the reason for that is we are going to continue to see institutions that do not have a momentum-long venture persona ... and that could be both good or bad for the space." This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.  Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go. 

Michael Saylor is the Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy. Since 2020, MicroStrategy has amassed an eye-catching bitcoin reserve, making it one of the largest corporate holders of bitcoin in the world. Critics have been vocal, but Saylor and his company have stood firm in their belief and commitment. In this episode, Saylor explains why bitcoin's performance over the last two years relative to other asset classes is indicative of relative strength, and gives his opinion on recent bitcoin developments including the flurry of ETF applications as well as the Ordinals/BRC-20 debate.  Outline: 1:59 - Inflation & Bitcoin 8:29 - MicroStrategy's leverage 9:12 - Bitcoin's volatility regime 13:48 - Technocrats 15:19 - Bitcoin legitimization 19:34 - Bitcoin Maximalism 25:31 - Saylor on Ordinals 28:39 - Unregistered securities 30:20 - Crypto crackdown conspiracies 34:38 - Spot Bitcoin ETF 39:54 - Bitcoin dominance 51:50 - Work/life balance 53:30 - MicroStrategy's miscalculation 55:09 - Thermodynamically sound economic energy This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark. About PayPal Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

The Scoop's host, Frank Chaparro, was joined by The Digital Chamber President Cody Carbone. In this episode, Chaparro and Carbone discussed the current U.S. policy landscape for the crypto industry under the new Trump administration. With growing bipartisan support and regulatory clarity, the conversation highlights how crypto is becoming a mainstream political issue with significant economic and electoral implications. OUTLINE 00:00 Intro 01:12 Sponsor break 03:05 The tone has shifted 05:37 IRS DeFi rule nullified 09:25 Stablecoin legislation 12:35 Fine-tuning crypto policy 15:31 Crypto’s growing political influence 18:01 How Trump changed the crypto debate 24:14 The next six months 28:56 Conclusion GUEST LINKS Cody Carbone - https://www.linkedin.com/in/codycarbone/ Cody Carbone on X - https://x.com/CodyCarboneDC The Digital Chamber - https://digitalchamber.org/ The Digital Chamber on X - https://x.com/DigitalChamber This episode is brought to your by our sponsors: Fidelity Explore Fidelity crypto careers today. Go to crypto.FidelityCareers.com to learn more. Uranium.io Investing in uranium is now widely accessible. Visit uranium.io to learn more.

This is the opening installment of the miniseries 'Web3 will fail unless...', sponsored by Axelar and featuring co-host Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar. In this episode, EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan lays out the vision for EigenLayer and explains how the increasing modularization of blockchain infrastructure and services will enable the next wave of crypto innovation. OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 03:54 Web3 Adoption Curve 12:37 Monolithic vs. Modularity 20:20 Developer Complexity 25:38 Celestia DA vs. EigenLayer 31:27 Real World Assets This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Axelar. Axelar is scaling interoperability to connect hundreds of new blockchains anticipated in the Ethereum L2 ecosystem. Find out more at axelar.network/layer2

Scott Fletcher co-founded Intersection Growth Partners — one of the crypto industry's leading executive search firms. In this episode, Fletcher overviews how the crypto job market has changed since the market bottom in 2022 and explains what it takes to land an executive position at a top crypto company. According to Fletcher, CEO hires have more than doubled as a percentage of overall executive hires since the collapse of FTX, the number of new executive hires amongst centralized exchanges has more than halved, and the number of executives hired by infrastructure companies has nearly tripled.

Ethereum's transition to proof of stake brought significant changes to the network, including a more predictable yield for investors. Unlike proof of work, which relies on miners to validate transactions and secure the network, proof of stake involves validators holding a stake in the network and earning yield in ether for their support. CoinFund, a crypto investment firm, is attempting to standardize the yield model to create a new benchmark yield rate for Web3. In this episode, CoinFund President Chris Perkins explains how CoinFund's new Composite Ethereum Staking Rate ('CESR') aims to provide investors with a clear and comparable metric that can serve as the foundation for new financial products for the crypto space such as basis swaps and the development of a forward curve tied to Ethereum's interest rate. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor CleanSpark. About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

Launched in July 2021, World of Women ('WoW') began its journey as a distinctive collection of 10,000 generative portraits that aimed to carve out a community in the web3 environment with a focus on equality, representation, and inclusivity. WoW has attracted high-profile support from celebrities, including Reese Witherspoon and Eva Longoria. While WoW originated as an NFT collection, it is evolving into a global branded business, including plans to release a custom WoW Monopoly board. It's also selling fashion goods via a collaboration with Nicole Richie's House of Harlow.  In this episode, World of Women COO Shannon Snow delves into her role trying to drive the brand's growth IRL amid the crypto downturn. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor CleanSpark. About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

Tucked away in Signal’s app is a new “Beta” feature that allows users to send payments between each-other seamlessly.  It’s powered by a crypto project called MobileCoin. On this episode of The Scoop, MobileCoin founder and CEO Josh Goldbard joined Frank Chaparro to explain how MobileCoin is trying to blend encrypted messaging and payments to make global money transfers easy. Goldbard and Chaparro explore the increasingly dynamic environment for payments, which has diverse firms from Walmart to Facebook to Jack Dorsey’s Cash App competing for mindshare and transactions. “What we're building is the global Cash App, the global Cash App that allows you to move money in and out at the velocity of the internet,” Goldbard described of the project. “What we want to make here is the last payment rail,” he added. “What makes it the last payment rail is that it is the lowest friction, highest priority, easiest to use payment technology ever made.” In this episode we also explore: What raising venture capital is like in a frothy venture environment Goldbard’s game-plan to recruit top engineers Why Signal decided to partner with MobileCoin How Goldbard poached Cash App’s founding CTO Bob Lee Episode 6 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Josh Goldbard, founder and CEO of MobileCoin. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

NFT floor prices and trading volume are in decline. However, for NFT projects with strong communities, now is the time to stand out from the pack, according to Floor co-founders Christine Brown and Chris Maddern. Floor, which aims to be an 'everything app' for NFTs, raised $8 million from a Series A funding round in June of 2022. In this episode, Brown and Maddern discuss how increased liquidity in NFT markets is accelerating price discovery and where value is accumulating in this new paradigm of NFT market structure. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor CleanSpark. About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

"The market filled your sail with wind and now you're doing a good job of sailing. But are you ready to survive the next time the wind drops?" Blockchain.com, one of the longest operating firms in the crypto space, has been successful at taking the long road. Now the U.K.-based company is building out its stockpile of cash reserves to prepare for a possible ‘Crypto Winter’ on the horizon -- that is, a prolonged downturn in the market. "I think when I look out over the space right now, there's going to be a lot of folks who are unprepared for that," CEO and co-founder Peter Smith told The Scoop host Frank Chaparro. Blockchain.com recently obtained a $5.2 billion valuation following several rounds of funding in 2021, including a $300 million round of funding most recently in March. Chaparro and Smith also discussed some of the on-chain innovations that Smith is looking out for in the immediate future. One such example that Smith believes could invigorate public interest in the space is the launch of on-chain consumer apps, which Smith predicts could begin as soon as later this year. “It's going to lead to an explosion of innovation, probably something like when Apple created the App Store“. He likened the advent of such on-chain crypto apps to the rise of Web apps most are familiar with on their phones or tablets. “You’re on the phone 24hrs a day, the same thing will happen in crypto.” Smith noted that he hopes Blockchain.com could one day become one of the builders of such apps. Smith also highlighted the public interest in whether Blockchain.com may follow other industry companies in going public. He affirmed the company's appetite to one day tap public markets but cautioned that the team is waiting for the right time to take that step. Smith said that the company is currently focused on M&A, with four deals in progress as Blockchain.com looks to step up its market share. Episode 52 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Peter Smith, Co-founder & CEO at Blockchain.com Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Leo Zhang is Principal at Iterative Capital Management, an investment manager, cryptocurrency miner, and wholesale dealer. In this episode Leo joins Frank Chaparro and Matteo Liebowitz to discuss: The unseen impact Bitcoin miners have on the overall market The initial public offering of mining firm Canaan and new entrants to the market, like Layer1 The significance of rainy season in China and it's importance to mining ecosystem Leo's take on upcoming halvening and it's impact on the entire Bitcoin ecosystem Why Bitcoin on / off ramps are a main focus for Iterative Capital's investment strategy

"We're stepping more and more into an almost bigger focus in the building in crypto." On this episode of The Scoop, Kanav Kariya, President of Jump Crypto joined host Frank Chaparro for a rare interview to discuss Kariya’s vision for its 100-person large digital assets division. Launched in the late 1990s, Jump is one of the most active trading firms across equities and crypto markets. Kariya spoke about his path from an internship in 2017 at Jump to becoming the president of the firm's crypto wing. "The way things work at Jump is you naturally assume positions and then you're kind of handed the role after," Kariya explained. In addition to market-making and trading, Kariya outlined how the firm is also interested in building new projects. “The possibilities for the space are just far greater than DeFi and financial stuff,” Kariya said. He went on to explain that a big part of the firm’s strategy has been to participate in governance and build on different networks, highlighting projects like Pyth, Oasis and Wormhole. Jump Crypto also has a dedicated staff building on Solana.  “A lot of that is in translating the engineering work that we've done on building trading systems and bridging that over the building, tooling and contributing to these open crypto repositories," said Kariya. In fact, he announced that Jump Crypto is focused on putting healthcare networks on-chain via the Oasis Network. Kariya also expressed optimism about non-fungible tokens or NFTs, saying that Jump Crypto is watching the evolution of NFTs as an asset class. “There's no reason that those resources as an asset class couldn't evolve to be like any other tokens or financial products,” Kariya commented. Episode 68 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kanav Kariya, President at Jump Crypto. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Exodus Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

In this episode of The Scoop, Frank Chaparro and Larry Cermak interview Robert-Jan den Haan, an independent journalist focussed on cryptocurrencies and expert on all things Bitfinex and Tether. Robert guides Frank and Larry through the latest Bitfinex news, including the NYAG lawsuit, what may have happened their 850 million dollar reserves, and why Bitfinex in doing an IEO. To read the transcript and find additional reading material, please visit: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/05/13/what-the-heck-is-happening-at-bitfinex/

The Scoop's host Frank Chaparro was joined by The Block's CEO Larry Cermak, Editor-in-Chief Tim Copeland, and Foresight Centures Co-Founder Forest Bai for a year-end special. In this episode, Chaparro, Copeland, Bai and Cermak covered a myriad of pertinent topics  in the crypto market, including the factors that lead to a successful ecosystem, underexposure to bitcoin relative to memecoins, AI, and what they both expect and hope to see in the year ahead. OUTLINE 00:00 End-of-Year drawdown 5:56 Memes vs fundamentals 08:25 Importance of community 11:47 Shifting investment landscapes 14:34 AI x Blockchain 18:54 Newsroom expectations for 2025 23:48 Telegram games and improving UX 26:37 Standing out in the market 34:19 2025 expectations 41:50 Microstrategy’s Bitcoin bet 47:30 AGI & Quantum attacks on encryption 48:29 Conclusion GUEST LINKS Forest Bai - https://x.com/ForestBai1 Larry Cermak - https://x.com/lawmaster Tim Copeland - https://x.com/Timccopeland This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more, head to polkadot.network  

Jelena Djuric is the co-founder of Noble and Sam Hart is the co-founder of Timewave Labs and the Head of Strategy at Skip Protocol. In this episode, Djuric and Hart — both seasoned Cosmos veterans — breakdown the recent advancements that have helped the Cosmos ecosystem enter into a new era of innovation and expansion. Djuric also announces Noble's partnership with Hashnote to bring the USYC token to the Cosmos, making USYC the first cross chain real-world asset (RWA) in the Cosmos ecosystem that is liquid, compliant, interoperable and seamless to use. 

Digital artist Beeple sold his collection of 5000 daily works for a whopping $69 million in a Christie's auction last week. That's the third-highest auction price on record for a living artist, but the sale was record breaking for another reason — it was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT). In recent weeks, NFTs have soared in popularity, and that's created opportunities for big and small artists alike to generate value for their work. The Block's Saniya More sat down with Cory Van Lew, an artist who's been tokenizing his work on SuperRare, with some pieces going for tens of thousands of dollars.  He's taken a lot of that profit and reinvested it in the NFT market by supporting other artists, but he has even bigger aspirations — he's just started the process of creating his own NFT gallery in the physical world. On this week's episode of The Scoop, he talked about what a merged digital and reality gallery would look like, as well as: How Van Lew began his career as an artist and how that led him to tokenizing his work. The nuts and bolts of turning a creation into an NFT. Why holding NFTs creates different value than say holding a print of an artwork. His take on the energy use conversations surrounding NFTs. Why the NFT community is a supportive space for creators and collectors. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

Crypto venture investing is heating up.  In 2021, VCs poured $3.18 billion into crypto startups in Q1 2021, an increase from $1.1 billion in Q1 2020.  On this episode of The Scoop, Vanessa Grellet, CoinFund’s newly joined Head of Portfolio Growth, joins the show for a discussion on the current state of the crypto venture capital market. “If you compare the deal flow of crypto compared to private equity and hedge funds and the general space, it's still small. And I think there's a few cycles right now. We see the products getting product markets, trade and adoption with consumers. So you see a big deal flow of the more mature series coming up and institutional investors really getting interested here. And then innovation continues at a very rapid pace in the space,” she told The Scoop's Frank Chaparro. Grellet, who previously led strategic initiatives for Ethereum at Consensys, also walked us through some of the investment opportunities CoinFund is eyeing. She touched specifically on NFTs and the metaverse — referring to a convergence of physical and digital lives in a digital space. Grellet is bullish that certain groups will begin spending more time in the digital world, buying up digital land, collectibles, and other NFTs.  “[We’re] having digital first generations who are going to live in the Metaverse, who are buying land, who are buying clothes, who are buying experiences there, it creates almost like a second huge market for consumer goods and experience,” she said. (CoinFund is known for its presence in the NFT market, having previously invested in Genies, Upshot, and other NFT groups.) Grellet also teased an upcoming announcement from CoinFund on their new vehicle “Metaversal,” which will help capture consumer interest in NFTs in the metaverse.  Episode 35 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CoinFund's Head of Portfolio Growth Vanessa Grellet. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty, sees the commodification of culture as the future of the internet. Indeed, Fitch believes that a well executed NFT strategy could very well be a make-or-break opportunity for legacy brands as well as for the brands of the future: “When you start to connect physical events, digital signaling, memes and collectibles all into one, I think you create this really superpowered sort of wave of commodification of culture and commodification of status and commodification of membership. And also combine that with all the crypto native benefits of global payment rates, easy ability to transact and send peer-to-peer so it becomes really liquid and moves quickly.” As household name companies (such as Visa or Coca-Cola) begin to explore NFTs, Fitch sees an opportunity forming for brands to commodify "what culture is" for their brand and community. He related the growth in NFTs to luxury watches and their collectors, both of which are dependent on a community of buyers to maintain their value. With NFT’s, he argues, the marketplace is built into the ecosystem of NFTs and he believes its ease of access will help to maintain a product's liquidity. Much like the way watches are collected to connote social status, NFT's can actually be built to have additional use cases to unlock VIP access within the Metaverse. Fitch observed how NFT's are being used as a means to unlock experiences within online communities and in the Metaverse: "Now we have ways to codify, financialize, commodify artifacts of culture, and we have ways to communicate them peer-to-peer, socially, signal with them, unlock experiences with them." Episode 51 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Carlos Domingo is the founder and CEO of Securitize — a compliance platform for trading security tokens or digital securities on the blockchain used by the likes of KKR and Hamilton Lane. In this episode, Domingo explains how blockchain technology can be used to unlock broader access to alternative investments and how regulatory clarity in the U.S. could help trillions of dollars of real world assets be tokenized on-chain. Outline: 1:17 - About Securitize 2:32 - Market Evolution 7:22 - Tokenization 8:07 - Transfer Agent License 9:58 - Broker Dealers 12:00 - Prometheum 13:04 - Special Purpose Broker Dealer 16:38 - Alternative Trading Systems 19:05 - Second Order Effects of Regulation 21:30 - Tokenization of Real World Assets 28:02 - What’s Next for Securitize 31:32 - Closing Thoughts

Himanshu Sahay is the Co-Founder and CTO of Arch. In this episode recorded live at Emergence in Prague, Sahay and The Block's Frank Chaparro discuss the evolution of crypto lending after the 2022 market turmoil and Arch's approach to expansion and collateral. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 01:16 Intro to Arch  03:15 Shifting collateral standards  07:33 The state of crypto credit 12:48 New administration, new regulation 14:35 Debanking and Barron Trump 17:41 Arch’s global expansion 19:29 Encounters with Voyager and Celsius 20:47 Conclusion GUEST LINKS Himanshu Sahay - https://www.linkedin.com/in/himanshusahay/ Himanshu Sahay on X - https://x.com/hhsahay Arch - https://archlending.com/ Arch on X - https://x.com/ArchLending This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more, head to polkadot.network

 This week, the world's largest auction house cracked $100 million in NFT sales. Christie’s Noah Davis says they’re just getting started. On this episode of The Scoop, Davis, an associate vice president and head of digital sales at the auction house, joined Frank Chaparro to discuss Christie’s view of the 2021 rise in NFT sales and how the traditional art market and this brave new one are converging and bolstering adoption of a possible blockchain future. “It's incredible that it continues to gather speed and that interest continues to pour in from new corners of the world,” said Davis, a Specialist in post-war and contemporary art. He highlighted a recent uptick in interest in NFT sales with buyers in Asia. Still, that is running up against what could be described as a lull in the NFT market. As per data from The Block, weekly NFT transactions have fallen from highs near 2 million to 315,000 last week. Davis even observed an inverse correlation to NFTs and Ethereum’s price movements. “A lot of people will panic, sell their NFT’s when ETH is mooning and then they collect when ETH is kind of in a lull," he remarked. NFT sales are just the first taste for auction houses like Christie's to possibly one day also move onto the blockchain, which Davis believes could have specific applications for the company. “It would solve for authenticity testing, keeping track of exhibition history, literature references, title disputes, restoration, you name it.” Said Davis, “As far as financials are concerned and deals are concerned, it just is such a better, more democratic way to do business.” Christie’s recently announced that on October 1st they will auction off an NFT set of CurioCards that it is putting up in what will be the world’s first major auction with live bids taken in the form of ETH. Episode 60 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Noah Davis, Associate Vice President & Head of Digital Sales at Christie's. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Dan Tapiero is the founder and managing partner of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners — two growth equity funds operating across the digital asset ecosystem. In this episode, Tapiero gives an overview of how the recent market rally has impacted deal flow on the secondary market, and explains why he remains strongly bullish on the future growth trajectory of the industry. According to Tapiero, valuations in crypto's secondary market have yet to see a marked uptick in Q4 partially due to the lack of private equity firms that stuck with the space in the wake of the FTX meltdown. "There were a lot of blow ups and I think the people who got out of over their skis are kind of gone," says Tapiero. However, Tapiero does not believe his relative lack of competition in crypto's secondary market will exist for long — he's currently raising a fourth growth equity fund to invest in digital assets in part because he's "worried that prices are going to start to move up."

In this episode of The Scoop, Frank Chaparro and Ryan Todd interview Michael Moro, Chief Executive Officer at Genesis Trading / Genesis Capital. Genesis Trading is a Digital Currency Group company providing over the counter digital currency trading for high net worth individuals or institutions. In their conversation, Frank, Ryan, and Michael discuss legacy OTC firms adoption of crypto, the challenges of handling big alt-coin transactions, and how crypto lending markets are heating up. For the transcript and additional reading materials: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/05/07/a-conversation-with-michael-moro-ceo-of-genesis-global-trading/

Bitcoin is converging with one of the largest industries in the world: oil and gas. In this episode of The Scoop, Justin Ballard, co-founder of Jai Energy, joined The Block's Frank Chaparro to discuss how his Wyoming-based firm is working with producers of oil and gas to help them put excess energy to work by mining bitcoin. "Every single of one them that calls us, typically are calling us about a flare gas situation," Ballard, who worked for more than a decade as an attorney and operator in the oil industry prior to founding Jai, said of new entrants to bitcoin mining from the oil and gas world. "The oil and gas industry and bitcoin mining can work together," he said. Jai uses the excess energy or 'run-off' owned by oil companies to power bitcoin mining, which offers a new revenue stream for gas companies and energy for Jai's bitcoin mining operation. Ballard explained how the synergies between these groups will expand: "There's a variety of areas where oil and gas companies have megawatts of excess capacity that they've so capital into building out, but they're not utilizing on a daily basis. And we've had some success showing them those areas and where it's like, Look, you can go build a very nice bitcoin mine on this facility." Ballard also explained how the business models of oil and gas firms and bitcoin mining companies are nearly identical, with the main difference being the change in difficulty built into the bitcoin network. For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts Episode 15 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Justin Ballard, CEO & Founder at Jai Energy. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Mike Belshe founded BitGo—the crypto financial services and custody firm—in 2013 with the original intention to help solve a pinpoint he identified when entering the bitcoin market early on: how to store crypto holdings safely. "We forget about how easy loss is", said Belshe. Today BitGo is more wide-spanning than just storage and custody, also covering lending, trading, and prime-related financial services. The firm is expected to complete its acquisition by Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital by end of 2021, creating an operation the two Mikes hope will bridge the crypto world with Wall Street. On this episode of The Scoop, Mike Belshe CEO of BitGo joined host Frank Chaparro to talk about that deal between BitGo and Galaxy, BitGo's origin story, and why regulators should embrace the openness of the blockchain.  In Belshe's view, regulators—including Gary Gensler of the Securities and Exchange Commission—should actually lean into using blockchain to identify nefarious behavior, and say "wait a minute we have this huge tool, let's use that." In the event that the agency deems most cryptocurrencies as securities—a scenario Belshe said was unlikely—Belshe noted that regulators would lock out the US from the market's innovation. Episode 57 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mike Belshe, CEO at BitGo. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.  

Kristin Smith is the CEO of Blockchain Association and Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital. In this episode, Smith and Scaramucci discuss the impact of crypto policy and politics on recent events, including the ETH ETF win, bipartisan support, and the influence of Trump and Biden. The discussion highlights the significance of the crypto voter, the evolving stance of the White House, and the potential impact on elections. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 00:38 Political Paradigm Shift 05:57 Biden WH Crypto Policy 08:09 Crypto 'Voting Bloc' 13:02 Trump's Crypto Flip Flop 16:33 Biden's Crypto Strategy 23:17 Closing Thoughts This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Robert Alcorn is the CEO of decentralized credit marketplace, Clearpool. In this episode, Alcorn examines the state of the crypto credit market in the wake of a tumultuous 2022 for crypto lenders, and explains what is needed for the sector to mature. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark. About PayPal Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

Just as the internet revolutionized the taxi industry through the advent of apps like Uber and Lyft, it is only a matter of time before money gets brought into the digital age, according to the pseudo-anonymous crypto personality Punk6529. "Eventually cash is also going to end up being a centralized database," said Punk6529, and "the person who has the master password to the database can decide what rights you have in society." In this episode, Punk64529 lays out two possible futures for our society: one in which a handful of centralized corporations control the details of our daily lives, and one in which decentralized communities come to a consensus on the best path forward. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network, NordVPN About Circle Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com to learn more. About Railgun RAILGUN is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let RAILGUN’s Zero-Knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance, and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with RAILGUN SDK and be sure to check out RAILGUN with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more. About Flare Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network About NordVPN NordVPN is essential for keeping crypto transactions secure, hiding your IP address, and protecting your devices from hackers and data theft. Get premium cyber-security on up to 6 devices for the price of a cup of coffee a month. Get your exclusive NordVPN Deal and try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee: Visit https://nordvpn.com/thescoop

It was a tweet heard 'round the crypto world.  A breaking news account fired off, in all caps, an unsubstantiated headline that the U.S. Treasury Department was set to crack down on a number of unknown banks for their activity in the crypto market. Soon after the tweet's release, several industry insiders — including the Blockchain Association's Kristin Smith — threw cold water on its key claim.  "There's a lot of rumors going around that don't have any truth of foundation," Smith said.  In this episode of The Scoop, Smith unpacked the erroneous rumor, why U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen isn't making bitcoin a priority right now, how crypto policy works, and why crypto market participants should be concerned about the Financial Action Task Force decision coming this June. As Smith put it during the interview: "The thing that we do have to worry about at Treasury isn't coming from the top people as I said but Treasury's interaction with the Financial Action Task Force or the FATF. The FATF has proposed something that is fairly scary ... if adopted would require a lot of different entities in the U.S. to register as money services businesses." Smith went on to add: "The threat right now is not Yellen." This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go. 

Volt Capital announced in May the launch of its second fund — with backing from the likes of Andreessen Howoritz's Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen — and despite the ongoing bear market for digital assets, founder Soona Amhaz says there's an opportunity to invest in a new wave of entrepreneurs.  Following the launch of a wide range of marketplaces tied to non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance, Amhaz said she is setting her sights on projects and companies that solve the problems facing such organizations, including the breaches and security issues that hang over the space like a cloud.  "A trend I'm seeing is second order thinking to primitives that were finally established," Amhaz noted. "So one anecdote of this is just being able to move NFTs between buyers and sellers: having marketplaces established was a huge win for the space this most recent cycle. But now we're already seeing a wave of founders who are building with this second order thinking of, 'Okay, now that NFTs are here and now that we have NFT marketplaces, how are we preventing fraud? How are we thinking about security? How are we thinking about content moderation?'" Indeed, Volt's strategy reflects a shift among venture capitalists in the market more generally, who are now focusing on infrastructure plays rather than token deals.  "You're now building where there is demand," she said. "If you look at where the center of gravity is right now for crypto, because retail has largely evaporated… the center of gravity really and the attention and the spotlight are on other founders who are building crypto startups, they're on builders that need developer tools to enhance the DX or developer experience." Episode 104 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at Circle's Converge in San Francisco with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Volt Capital Managing Partner Soona Amhaz. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

The Scoop's host Frank Chaparro was joined by LMAX Group CEO David Mercer. In this episode, Chaparro and Mercer discussed the accelerating institutional adoption of crypto, with major banks entering the market and driving stability, maturity, and significant capital inflows. They also explored how improved interoperability between tradfi and crypto could increase adoption by enabling more seamless asset movement between the two ecosystems. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 02:43 Bullish vs Bearish narratives 06:23 Improving regulatory environment 09:24 This ain’t mania 14:54 Competent credit offering   18:55 The necessary infrastructure  24:04 Capitalising on future growth 33:35 Good tech solutions will win 35:19 Conclusion GUEST LINKS David Mercer - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mercerdavid/ David Mercer on X - https://x.com/mercerdavid LMAX Group - https://www.lmax.com/ LMAX Group on X - https://x.com/LMAX  

Unstoppable Domains allows users to register domain names via non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which can then be used to receive crypto payments, and as digital identity markers around Web3. In July, the company raised $65 million in a Series A, successfully clinching ‘unicorn’ status at a $1 billion valuation. In this episode of The Scoop, Unstoppable Domains’ Founder and CEO Matt Gould explains why NFT domain names are likely the future identity system for Web3, and how persistent digital identities will redefine the importance of online reputation.  As Gould explains, once people start using an NFT domain as part of their online identity, additional interactions with Web3 applications will link more information to that NFT domain name, and a digital identity begins to emerge:  “We think this is a big deal because there really isn't an identity system for the Internet yet, and a lot of people in the space think this is probably one of the big unlocks for crypto and blockchain over the next several years.” If this new NFT-based identity system develops the way Gould anticipates, then it will also be significantly harder for people to create fake reputations on Web3 platforms. Given bots and scammers are notorious problems on existing Web2 platforms, Gould thinks the implications could fundamentally change how we view online interactions: “Reputation that comes from having persistent digital identities is another huge benefit — not only owning your data, but being able to create your reputation will make online interactions hopefully more pleasant.” Episode 88 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live withhe Block's Frank Chaparro and Unstoppable Domains Founder and CEO Matt Gould. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized Web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.

This episode of The Scoop explores the technical headwinds and security challenges faced by the crypto industry. Blockaid co-founder Raz Niv discusses common scams and phishing attacks in the crypto space, and emphasizes the importance of good on-chain hygiene and best practices for engaging with different protocols. Just last month, Metamask integrated Blockaid-powered security alerts by default across multiple chains.

Avi Felman's eyes are glued to his trading screen, waiting for market-moving headlines that could be prime opportunities to put on a multi-million crypto trade.  These past few weeks have been especially active for the portfolio manager, who joined crypto investment firm BlockTower in November 2019. Felman, who co-leads the firm's flagship fund, navigated price gyrations stemming from macro and industry news, ranging from headlines that government officials recovered funds from Bitfinex's 2016 hack to more recent news that Russia could invade neighbor Ukraine. On this episode of The Scoop, Felman explained the decision-making process that goes into making a trade on headlines, using reports that Russia was on the verge of invading Ukraine as one case study example.  "I know that the context is that the Biden administration has been warning about Russia for quite some time," he said. "I know that bitcoin doesn't like uncertainty. I read the headline as being extremely uncertain." Whether a certain news event adds uncertainty is just one factor Felman considers. Timing is equally important.  "Okay, I want to make a trade and this all happens in the span of, you have to think, about 15 to 30 seconds," he explained. "You need to make those connections. Then I need to start de-risking a little bit." In some instances, Felman takes a cue from the S&P 500, which has been moving very closely with bitcoin despite the crypto's reputation as a hedge asset. "The vast majority of time the bitcoin decouples from the S&P, it's because of a delayed reaction," he said. "It's because bitcoin has some idiosyncratic crypto native bidder that isn't paying attention to broader risk." ...For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcasts Episode 9 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Avi Felman, Co-Portfolio Manager at Blocktower Capital. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

A DeFi protocol known as Cryptex offers a permissionless way to speculate on the total crypto market capitalization through its novel index token, TCAP. Now, Cryptex is on the verge of releasing its newest index token, JPEGz, which will allow holders to track the total market cap of NFTs on Ethereum. In this episode of The Scoop, Cryptex co-founder Joe Sticco shares the details behind the upcoming JPEGz NFT index token, including why the index token is a good way to speculate on the future growth of the NFT sector. According to Sticco, the list of NFT collections included in the JPEGz index token is dynamic, which ensures that whenever a hot new NFT project crops up in the future, it will be included in the index. As Sticco explains, “NFTs are literally in their infancy. I look at them now and it's like where crypto was in 2017 — we had that first bust cycle now, and now we're in the ground, and who knows what happens next, but JPEGz is going to be the ability to track the NFT market cap.” Episode 123 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Cryptex co-founder Joe Sticco. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or click here to watch the full interview on YouTube. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn About Tron Founded in 2013, Huobi Global is one of the largest virtual asset exchanges in the world. Huobi Global serves millions of users across international markets. Since its establishment, Huobi Global has committed to providing first class virtual asset investment services. Huobi Global's robust infrastructure, product innovation and capital strength provides a truly customer-centric and secure trading environment to help our international users to achieve their investment objectives. Please refer to Huobi's official website for more information: huobi.com. About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

Paolo Ardoino is the Chief Technology Officer for Tether and Bitfinex. In this episode, Ardoino talks through Tether's treasury management strategy, including the firm's recently announced bitcoin purchases and how the firm is planning to use the $1.5 billion in profit generated during Q1 of this year. According to Ardoino, Tether's recent profitability is prompting the firm to diversify: “The beauty of our next period plan is that we can start diversifying ourselves from the pure stablecoin offering and become a more round tech provider that that requires expertise in many important fields. So energy, communication, financial infrastructure are going to be the key of the next six to 12 to probably 48 months.” Despite the bear market, the market cap of USDT is currently near its all-time high of $84.1 billion. During this episode, Chaparro and Ardoino also discuss: Why USDT is so popular on Tron Tether's key to success in emerging markets The US default and how Tether is positioning This episode is brought to you by our sponsor CleanSpark. About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

Mastercard EVP Raj Dhamodharan manages Mastercard's blockchain and digital asset strategy. In this episode, Dhamodharan unpacks Mastercard's vision for a future in which value can be transferred seamlessly between public and private blockchains, and explains how CBDCs and tokenized bank deposits could revolutionize global payments.  Outline: 1:00 Mastercard's Multi Token Network 6:00 MTN Applications 10:13 KYC & Crypto Credential 12:46 Public/Private Transactions 14:09 Tokenized Bank Deposits 21:20 The Multichain Future 24:25 Central Bank Digital Currencies 29:16 Closing Thoughts

Earlier this year, Binance.US became the first U.S.-based exchange to cut bitcoin trading fees to zero. Since the announcement, Binance.US has consistently ranked in the top three of North America-based exchanges by volume, according to data from The Block. In this episode of The Scoop, Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder examines how Binance.US is attempting to distinguish itself from the competition, including the impact cutting bitcoin trading fees had on bringing in new business. According to Shroder, the decision to cut bitcoin trading fees revolved around wanting to make the bitcoin purchasing experience as consumer friendly as possible: “Our goal was to be able to say very concretely that if you buy bitcoin on any other exchange, you are paying substantially more — without question.” In addition to appealing to retail investors, cutting bitcoin trading fees also brought in a record amount of new institutional business. As Shroder explains, “Being able to go to institutions and almost literally have a pitch which is: ‘You have a fiduciary responsibility to your investor-base to use Binance.US because it is free … ’ After the announcement, we had our best month ever in terms of institutional signups.” Episode 106 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Binance.US President & CEO Brian Shroder. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Tron, Ledn About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

Justin Slaughter is the Policy Director at Paradigm. In this episode, Slaughter explains why crypto regulation in the U.S. is likely stuck "in a holding pattern" until after the 2024 election cycle, and how policymakers on both sides of the aisle are beginning to see past crypto's volatility to appreciate the underlying technological innovation. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction 07:16 - Crypto Policy Overview 11:04 - Political Perceptions of Crypto 15:52 - Bipartisan Crypto Support 19:37 - FIT Act & Stablecoins Bill 23:02 - Global Crypto Regulation 25:29 - US Regulatory Uncertainty 28:01 - BlackRock’s Impact on Crypto 30:58 - 2024 Policy Outlook 37:30 - Paradigm’s Policy Priorities This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, PayPal. Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

Aaron Kaplan founded Prometheum to create a trading venue for digital assets that is compliant with federal securities laws. However, Kaplan's firm came under fire following the SEC's approval of Prometheum's special purpose broker-dealer license back in May of this year — the only such license issued by the SEC to date. In this episode, Kaplan lays out how Prometheum managed to secure the special purpose broker-dealer license and why he believes strict adherence to the federal securities laws is the key to increased institutional participation in the digital asset industry. While companies like Coinbase claim regulatory ambiguities exist surrounding digital assets, Kaplan firmly believes that existing federal securities laws can be applied to digital assets without alterations. As Kaplan explains, "Our approval shows that if you put your head down, you work hard, you focus on how the regulators have laid out the rules and regulations, that you can be compliant."

State Street, one of the largest custody banks in the world, has yet to launch a service to store crypto assets but that doesn't mean it is actively involved in the digital asset market. Leading the charge is Jay Biancamano, Managing Director of digital product development and innovation at the firm. Biancamano has had his finger on the pulse of all things market structure, having previously worked at trading technology firms like ITG, Liquidnet, and Fidessa. So he has seen the shift to electronic trading take place in U.S. equities. On this episode of The Scoop, Biancamano and The Block's Frank Chaparro explore how the digitization of assets will transform the trading landscape. In this episode we look at State Street's partnership with Gemini on cryptocurrency trade reporting The five key trends to watch has markets shift from electronic to digital The relevance of the Morgan Stanley/E*Trade deal to the crypto market Why stocks aren't going to tokenize as soon as some pundits might think  Episode 8 of Season 2 of The Scoop was recorded at The Block offices with Frank Chaparro and Jay Biancamano, Managing Director at State Street. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com

Michael Sonnenshein is the CEO of Grayscale — the digital asset manager embattled in a court case against the Securities and Exchange Commission over the agency's refusal to convert Grayscale's flagship product, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), into a spot Bitcoin ETF. In this episode, Sonnenshein explains why a spot Bitcoin ETF could have shielded many U.S. market participants from the crypto 'carnage' of 2022, and how Grayscale's veteran legal team is working to ensure GBTC holders receive the most favorable possible outcome. During this episode, Chaparro and Sonnenshein also discuss: What will happen if Grayscale exhausts all its legal options Why Grayscale is waiting to lower its management fees How a spot Bitcoin ETF will draw more capital to crypto This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network About Circle Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com to learn more. About Railgun Railgun is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let Railgun’s zero-knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with Railgun SDK, and be sure to check out Railgun with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more. About Flare Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network.

Wesley Pryor is the founder of Acheron Trading — a crypto market maker operating in the space since 2018. In this episode, Pryor discusses the role of market makers in the context of token market debuts, and explains the nuances of market making in the crypto space, where assets are highly volatile and lack established processes. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 04:40 Institutional Trading 11:19 Institutional Adoption 17:02 Market Opportunities This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Despite Argentina grappling with an annual inflation rate surpassing 100% and enduring strict capital controls, many citizens still opt to trade currency via illicit "cuevas" and maintain bundles of near-worthless cash, rather than embracing the potential benefits of cryptocurrencies. In this episode, The Block's Nathan Crooks breaks down his research into why crypto adoption in Argentina is not more pervasive, and The Block editor and Argentinian resident Christiana Sciaudone shares her local perspective on the Argentinian currency crisis. During this episode, Chaparro, Crooks, and Sciaudone also discuss: Why Argentina has multiple exchange rates for U.S. dollars How locals think about different cryptocurrencies Crypto businesses building in Argentina This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle and CleanSpark. About Circle Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit circle.com/Scoop to learn more. About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

Union Square Ventures is one of the most prominent east coast VC firms and is also one of the most notable mainstream investors in the bitcoin market. On this episode of The Scoop USV partner Nick Grossman joined us to discuss the firm's approach to investing in the market -- he was recently promoted to partner to lead blockchain investments after 5 years with the firm. We spoke about Libra association which USV is a member of, we examined USV's portfolio and talked about the future of venture capital and the future of capital formation. I hope you enjoy the episode 

The market for non-fungible tokens and digital collectibles has been growing at a breakneck pace, with projects like Dapper Lab's NBA Top Shot seeing user activity and transaction volumes soar. Since the beginning of the year, the burgeoning market — which runs the gamut of sports collectibles to digital cats — has seen more than half a billion in weekly trade volumes, according to data compiled by The Block.  On this episode of The Scoop, Gary Vaynerchuk — the Internet personality, entrepreneur, and CEO of VaynerMedia—broke down what's taking place beyond the hype and why he thinks NFTs are going to be the internet's next big thing after the development of social media. Vaynerchuk is best known for his angel investments in tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, Venmo, and Uber.  This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt and Kraken Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.  

For web3 developers looking for alternatives to tools like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform, QuickNode's development environment allows teams to easily build and deploy on over 16 blockchains. According to QuickNode Co-Founder and CEO Alex Nabutovsky, a recent surge in demand for NFT data has played a large part in QuickNode's recent success. "The amount of need for the NFT technology and NFT API, and NFT data is growing on our platform by a factor of let's just say 5x every quarter," Nabutovsky said.  In this episode of The Scoop, Nabutovsky discusses how QuickNode's $60 million Series B — which valued the startup at $800 million — will be used to expand the business, and why he believes NFTs will continue to be a driver of growth for the web3 industry in the years to come. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network, NordVPN About Circle Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com to learn more. About Railgun RAILGUN is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let RAILGUN’s Zero-Knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance, and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with RAILGUN SDK and be sure to check out RAILGUN with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more. About Flare Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network About NordVPN NordVPN is essential for keeping crypto transactions secure, hiding your IP address, and protecting your devices from hackers and data theft. Get premium cyber-security on up to 6 devices for the price of a cup of coffee a month. Get your exclusive NordVPN Deal and try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee: Visit https://nordvpn.com/thescoop

The US has yet to see a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) reach the market, but when a futures-based product got the green light from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last year, issuers were hopeful. Some thought it signified the regulator becoming more comfortable with crypto products and a spot ETF could be on the horizon. But since then, the SEC continued to shoot down application after application on the basis that there aren't sufficient mechanisms to prevent price manipulation in the spot market. Grayscale, which has long desired to convert its flagship GBTC product into an ETF, took issue with this. During the SEC's continued extensions on its application, and after a series of rejections of other similar applications, the firm sent a letter saying the regulator could be violating its own procedures by approving a futures product but refusing to allow a spot-based product. The firm argued that futures are priced based on the underlying spot market, meaning any price manipulation in the spot market would affect futures products. The idea is if the regulator is comfortable with futures, it should be comfortable with a spot-based product. But Grayscale, too, received a rejection weeks later, spurring it to mount a legal challenge in the DC Court of Appeals. Now, it's gearing up to submit its first brief in the case, detailing its qualms with the SEC's rejection of its application. In this week's episode of Policy Scoop, Aislinn Keely sat down with Grayscale's Chief Legal Officer, Craig Salm, to take an in-depth look at the firm's argument. "It wasn't a decision that we made lightly, and during the course of that comment letter period, we had a couple of meetings with the Commission to try to work through their questions and the issues presented, lay out the arguments and reasoning why we felt that if they were okay with futures, they should now be okay with spot," said Salm. Episode 78 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Aislinn Keely and Craig Salm, Chief Legal Officer at Grayscale. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron On August 1st, 2022, Poloniex launched a faster and more stable trading system along with a brand new user interface. Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency trading platform. With its world-class service and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors, including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and margin trading as well as leveraged tokens. Its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available. For more information visit Poloniex.com About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

We are going to rewind the clock on this episode of The Scoop with the Odd Lots team, Bloomberg's Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal. The podcast duo – whose combined time covering global financial markets spans more than three decades – take us back to their times at the FT's Alphaville and The Business Insider, respectively, where they covered the 2008-2009 financial crisis.  In this episode, the podcasters become the "podcast-ees." The episode explores how there are parallels between the dearth of reporters at the cutting edge of the repo markets and blind spots in today's coverage of the coronavirus. We also dive into: The differences between the structural problems as revealed by the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19-linked crisis. How the government's inability to funnel money to Main Street reveals the issues underpinning our financial plumbing, and how those issues could make Universal Basic Income more of a mainstream policy prescription in the U.S.  Why cash in people's pockets during a crisis is a good thing. How this crisis might result in a shift in how we think about capitalism, whereas the last crisis resulted in a shift in the way we think about risk. How bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) aren't as different as some pundits might think. Why we shouldn't sleep on equity analyst research. This episode is brought to you by Bitstamp the original global cryptocurrency exchange. Since 2011, Bitstamp has been a cornerstone of the industry, earning the trust of over four million individuals and top financial institutions looking for a reliable trading venue. Whether you’re trading on our web platform, mobile app or industry-leading APIs, Bitstamp gives you the professional-grade tools you need to execute your strategy. Download the Bitstamp app or visit Bitstamp.net/Pro to learn more and start trading today!

Alex Gluchowski is the Co-Founder CEO of Matter Labs, a company focused on scaling Ethereum using zero-knowledge proofs, and Matthias Broner is their Head of Growth for Latin America. In this episode, Gluchowski and Broner discuss the QuarkID project in Buenos Aires, which uses zero-knowledge proofs to give citizens control over their digital identity and serve as a model for decentralized digital identity systems. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 04:25 Blockchain Scaling 07:19 Buenos Ares ZK-Powered 12:01 Government Innovation 16:40 DID Tech Stack 18:25 ZK 101 19:57 Impact on Argentinian 21:39 DID Expansion 25:59 Crypto's Utility 31:33 Development Roadmap 32:42 Public Services Onchain 34:50 DID Security 36:24 ZKsync Roadmap This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more, head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Matthew Graham is the founder and managing partner of Ryze Labs — the crypto VC firm formerly known as Sino Global.  In this episode, Chaparro and Graham discuss the state of the stablecoin market and the potential impact of stablecoins on the global financial system. Graham also highlights the importance of stablecoins in emerging markets and the potential for stablecoins to enhance financial inclusion. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 00:47 Ryze Portfolio Positioning 03:25 Stablecoin Opportunities 10:17 Stablecoins & Emerging Markets 13:00 Stablecoins & US Dollar Dominance 18:08 Financial Inclusion 20:21 Remittances 22:03 Political Paradigm Shift 26:42 Stablecoin Risks 28:20 Closing Thoughts This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Dan Finlay is the co-founder of MetaMask — a leading crypto wallet provider that allows users to access decentralized web3 applications. In this episode, Finlay makes the claim that people not feeling safe holding crypto is the "biggest plague" the industry faces and unpacks what MetaMask is doing to address the problem. During this episode, Chaparro and Finlay also discuss: A recent MetaMask all-time high MetaMask's plans to decentralize "Sign-in with MetaMask" This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Railgun, and Flare Network About Railgun Railgun is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let Railgun’s zero-knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with Railgun SDK, and be sure to check out Railgun with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more. About Flare Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network.

Before Tarun Chitra built out his company, he spent years doing quantitative research and development for places like D.E. Shaw Research and Vatic Labs. Chitra took his experience in machine learning to create and head a simulation platform for crypto networks — Gauntlet — which garnered backing from companies like Coinbase, Distributed Global and Polychain, among others. Gauntlet provides tools for crypto developers to forecast security risks, possible governance snags and consensus mechanism issues. By forecasting such problems and showing how they could affect assets or network activity, developers can make more informed decisions about security and governance structures. In this week's episode of The Scoop, Chitra spoke from his experience in the high-frequency trading (HFT) world. Chitra's appearance coincided with growing concerns surrounding the market activity driven by Robinhood traders, as users of the app continue to buy up stocks that other investors have dumped. Much of the conversation also coincides with the conversation surrounding brokerage and payment for order flow (PFOF), as some critics object to selling order flow to market makers, claiming it creates a conflict of interest. The Block recently uncovered how Robinhood received more than $90 million in PFOF payments during Q1. Chitra discussed the HFT world's view on PFOF and broke down some of the nuance in the transactions on this week's episode. Chitra also touched on: Why private exchange trade funds aren't that private Whether open finance has structural advantages in comparison to legacy market structure  If those possible advantages are enough to drive volumes in the same league as traditional markets The role of transparency in both the Open Finance and traditional finance ecosystems. This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by Bitstamp, the original global cryptocurrency exchange. Since 2011, Bitstamp has been a cornerstone of the industry, earning the trust of over four million individuals and top financial institutions looking for a reliable trading venue. Whether you’re trading on our web platform, mobile app or industry-leading APIs, Bitstamp gives you the professional-grade tools you need to execute your strategy. Download the Bitstamp app or visit Bitstamp.net/Pro to learn more and start trading today!

Galaxy Digital is one of the most well known brands in the market for digital currencies led by it's stalwart Mike Novogratz. The firm's origin story dates back to the bitcoin boom of 2017. Originally, Galaxy was to be a $500 million hedge fund which at the time reportedly lured the attention of family offices and other hedge fund managers. It also marked a striking comeback story for Novogratz who left his previous employer, Fortress Investments after his $2.3 billion macro-fund was liquidated resulting in his exile from the Wall Street world. Fast forward to 2019 and Galaxy Digital looks a lot different than it was described in initial reports. The nearly 80 person firm spans asset management, trading and consulting -- an operation some have likened to Wall Street's investment banks. In this episode of The Scoop Novogratz talked about Galaxy's multi-faceted role in the crypto market, why it is expanding into San Francisco and the reason why the bear market might not necessarily be over. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Mike Cagney is the co-founder and CEO of Figure Markets. In this episode, Cagney discusses the need for a 'marketplace of everything,' the potential for equity trading on the blockchain, and more. OUTLINE 00:00 Intro 07:21 The 'Everything' Platform 12:16 Onchain Equities Trading 17:50 Institutionalization of Crypto 27:12 DeFi Lending 29:59 Rebuilding Crypto's Credit Markets 33:51 Wall Street Appetite for ATS 36:28 Regulatory Considerations 38:09 Closing Thoughts

At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the daily lives of virtually everyone around the world radically changed. Commutes to the office ceased. Concerts and dining outings were canceled. For some, punting stocks and cryptocurrencies on online brokerages filled the void. That fundamental shift reshaped US equity markets, ushering in an era dominated by Wall Street Bets, meme stocks, and cryptocurrency. Indeed, retail trading has yet to subside even as economies reopen. Monthly net purchases of US equities by individual investors have stabilized at around $20 billion—a surge from the pre-pandemic norm of about $5 billion.  On this episode of The Scoop, eToro's newly-appointed US lead Lule Demmissie explained why she doesn't see retail's newfound presence in the market subsiding anytime soon, and how eToro plans to capitalize on growing its business related to cryptocurrencies and stock trading. "What you're seeing is the sustainability of that user base staying engaged, waiting for dips, getting in the markets when necessary," said Demmissie, former Ally Invest president and TD Ameritrade managing director. "Ultimately they're sticking around and they're engaging every time there's volatility," she added. Demmissie said that the collective mind of the retail crowd could have more insight than institutions previously may have thought. "I'm originally from Ethiopia, right? So I grew up in the throes of a revolution. So the idea of mob rule is something that is like embedded in my DNA as to be averse to it," said Demmissie. "There is a self-made mechanism, a self-clearing mechanism that is happening in social, where there is a balance that takes place within the crowd, where the crowd gets smarter and smarter, and the synthesis of it afterwards becomes something that is really interesting to listen to." Episode 4 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CEO Lule Demmissie of eToroUS. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & Chainalysis Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

On this episode of The Scoop, Michael Sonnenshein talks about the largest Q3 that Grayscale has experienced in it's 6 year history, the increased participation of institutions in the space and the transference of traditional wealth that will be occurring over the next couple of decades -- a transference that will undoubtedly expand the scope and usage of digital currencies. 

Unless you were hiding under a rock on Thursday, you would have seen the letter by macro investor Paul Tudor Jones that outlines his case for owning bitcoin as a hedge against central bank money printing.  In the letter – titled The Great Monetary Inflation – Jones dropped the bombshell update that Tudor Investment Corp could allocate a percentage of its assets to bitcoin futures. Although Jones doesn't subscribe to owning bitcoin "in isolation" or view himself as a "crypto nut," the coin community propelled into euphoria at the sight of one of the most respected fund managers giving the burgeoning asset a stamp of approval.  Galaxy Digital's Mike Novogratz – having once sat in a similar seat to Jones as a macro investor – joined The Scoop's Frank Chaparro and discussed the significance of Jones' letter. This latest episode also digs into: The macro investor's toolbox: Why it doesn't matter that Jones might allocate to futures rather than spot bitcoin More funds on the sidelines: Novogratz says many major fund managers he knows own bitcoin in their personal accounts but say it's too difficult to buy through their funds Update on Galaxy: How the firm revamped its playbook to take advantage of the new environment and why subscriptions for the asset management business have increased The macro picture: Why inflation could follow a period of deflation The dollar: Why Novogratz thinks the chances of China taking on dollar hegemony is at an all-time high Halving: How it’s fueling bitcoin’s bullish narrative and where bitcoin’s price is going after it happens This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by Bitstamp, the original global cryptocurrency exchange. Since 2011, Bitstamp has been a cornerstone of the industry, earning the trust of over four million individuals and top financial institutions looking for a reliable trading venue. Whether you’re trading on our web platform, mobile app or industry-leading APIs, Bitstamp gives you the professional-grade tools you need to execute your strategy. Download the Bitstamp app or visit Bitstamp.net/Pro to learn more and start trading today!

Signs point to the looming specter of regulation slowly bringing the days of bitcoin and crypto's "Wild West" to an end. The only question, perhaps, is if not now, then when? "We’re getting to a boiling point," The Block's Aislinn Keely told The Scoop. On this policy report episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro is joined by The Block’s policy and regulatory reporters — Editor of Wonk Talk Aislinn Keely and Senior Politics Reporter Kollen Post — for an update on where the United States currently sits on the digital asset policy front. Keely and Post covered what a Gensler-led SEC looks like, citing Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the SEC questioning how the US plans to regulate exchanges.  Keely and Post noted the potentially risky domino effect of agency mandates on policies such as those that targeted crypto startup BlockFi, particularly in instances for which crypto products mimic savings accounts and securities and don’t have the provision of FDIC backing.  Post noted that if the NY investigation of Tether becomes a federal case, it could change the narrative of the White House’s coverage of digital assets in terms of how much cash the Senate wants to monitor the ecosystem. As of this podcast’s publication, The Block received new details stating that an upcoming infrastructure bill in the U.S. Senate will in fact be partially paid for by enhanced tax enforcement of cryptocurrency.  Keely also clarified where the US currently stands on Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC. Keely said that the US is still on the perceived “losing side” relative to countries like China, which is in the process of developing a digitized version of the yuan. The US government has not made any final decisions on whether it will issue a digital dollar. Episode 44 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Aislinn Keely, Editor of Wonk Talk & Kollen Post, Senior Politics Report at The Block. This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Since going public last October, the digital asset management platform Bakkt has been working towards enabling more businesses to provide crypto services to their customers. For example, in April of this year, Bakkt closed a deal with American Bank which allows the bank’s customers to buy and sell both bitcoin and ether. In this episode of The Scoop, Bakkt’s Chief Product Officer Dan O'Prey lays out Bakkt’s ambitions for the future and breaks down his company’s strategy to help banks grow their client-facing crypto offerings. According to O'Prey, Bakkt hopes to position itself as the underlying infrastructure layer that enables access to a variety of crypto services: “Bakkt is aiming to be that infrastructure platform — those services under the hood — that can enable non-crypto companies to offer crypto to their consumers in a variety of different fashions.” Episode 86 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Bakkt Chief Product Officer Dan O'Prey. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron On August 1st, 2022, Poloniex launched a faster and more stable trading system along with a brand new user interface. Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency trading platform. With its world-class service and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors, including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and margin trading as well as leveraged tokens. Its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available. For more information visit Poloniex.com. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange FTX, joins The Scoop to close out 2021 in a two-part episode that explores the origin story of the increasingly ubiquitous trading venue, Bankman-Fried's worldview, and what he expects for the digital asset market in the year to come. In Part 2 of this episode, Bankman-Fried and Chaparro also explore: Whether a crackdown on stablecoins is a possible concern for FTX’s business The ramifications of the government’s “really extreme fiscal” reaction to Covid-19 and its impact on the monetary supply Why the Fed should have seen hot inflation coming Product leverage in the cryptocurrency market and cascading liquidations How the amount of capital sitting on the sidelines is “absolutely massive” and could fend off a big crypto bear market Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions. Episode 86 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken and Kava Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Kava For over four years, Kava Labs has contributed to building a portfolio of decentralized products and services that allow users to gain access to all of the benefits of DeFi. Kava connects the world's largest cryptocurrencies, ecosystems, and financial applications on one of DeFi’s most trusted, scalable, and secure earning platforms. Kava lets you mint stablecoins, lend, borrow, earn and swap safely and efficiently across the world’s biggest crypto assets with a simple and intuitive user experience and the full confidence of institutional-grade security and quality. With a proven track record of delivering successful projects safely, the Kava Platform is DeFi's most trusted, scalable, and secure institutional-grade cross-chain engine.

Jeff Lunglhofer is Coinbase's Chief Information Security Officer. In this episode, Lunglhofer highlights common techniques used by malicious actors in the crypto space and offers suggestions on how to avoid these threats. The crypto industry lost $336 million in the first quarter of 2024 due to hacks and fraud, according to blockchain bug bounty platform Immunefi. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 01:22 Malicious Actors 03:32 Data Leaks 09:30 Scammer Psychology 10:19 Red Flags 12:57 Phising Frequency 15:06 Victim Recourse 17:57 Security Best Practices 23:21 Scammer Trends 26:46 Coinbase's Security 30:20 Closing Thoughts This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more head to polkadot.network The Block Community The Block is launching a new community experience for fans of The Scoop! Follow us on Lens to stay in the loop: hey.xyz/u/theblockcommunity The Block Newsletters The Block's newsletters bring you the latest news and analysis of the fast-moving crypto and DeFi markets. To subscribe, visit theblock.co/newsletters

Following the crypto market crash in May and June, several institutional bitcoin mining companies have liquidated large portions of their bitcoin reserves, adding more fuel to the selling pressure. In this episode, we discussed the impact of the shrinking hash price and the profitability of bitcoin mining at the moment. The network's hash price has reached the lowest point since late 2020 due to bitcoin's price decline and only moderate difficulty correction. Even though the network has had three difficulty declines in a row over the past month, the competition level is still up by about 10% year-to-date. Meanwhile, the global energy price surge and inflation are pushing mining firms' production costs even higher – not to mention that a lot of them also have growing interest expenses on outstanding loans they took since last year. If bitcoin's price drops below the critical $15,000 level, we may start to see miner capitulation. Listen to more of our discussions below. In this episode of The Scoop Mining Report, The Block Research's mining analyst Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro take a further look at the pressures facing miners in today's market environment and how recent heatwaves have affected mining operations today. Episode 69 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and The Block Research Analyst Wolfie Zhao. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Policy and regulation in the U.S. is top of mind in the industry of crypto and digital assets. The Scoop's Frank Chaparro sat down with The Block's policy reporter Stephanie Murray and broke down the biggest stories and trends from Gary Gensler's big bet against crypto to CBDCs and who takes Sam Bankman-Fried's place in Washington, DC. From the collapse of FTX, Blockfi, Voyager, Celsius and others, to the aggressive stance regulators are displaying, it's been busy in Washington. "We went from big bull market to the collapse of some of the biggest crypto firms that sent ripples through the entire industry," Murray said.  "It's definitely impacted me. And Stephanie, I mean, most of the companies I wrote about are now bankrupt or are out of business, about 50% from Blockfi to FTX to Celsius," Chaparro said. "I'm gonna have to hope on the policy beat, I don't really have much to do these days!" Who's Bankman-Fried's Washington replacement? For all his faults, Chaparro noted that Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of bankrupt FTX, stepped up to represent the industry in Washington, DC, to agitate for change. Chaparro cited Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and Kraken's Jesse Powell as leaders who, while not running apparent frauds, are antagonistic to politicians and may not be great replacements. "Whereas Sam was not antagonistic to regulators, but ran a fraud. So what we need is someone who doesn't operate a fraud, and who is not antagonistic to regulators. So there's a Venn diagram there, and somewhere there is a CEO or a figurehead who can fill the gap," Chaparro said.  This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle and CleanSpark. About Circle Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit circle.com/Scoop to learn more. About CleanSpark CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

In this breaking news episode of The Scoop, we continue our coverage of FTX’s demise with Jim Greco, a general partner at F9 Research, and Douglas Colkitt, founder of Crocodile Labs. According to Greco, many market participants knew about the relationship between Alameda and FTX. Still, few thought former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried would risk jeopardizing the success of his exchange: “Most professionals knew of the Alameda connection, but we all thought that this exchange is so valuable — it's worth $32 billion — why would he do something that would destroy the equity value in this exchange?” said Greco. Not only did Bankman-Fried end up destroying the value of his exchange, but it’s now apparent that he did so in an effort to prop up Alameda’s unsuccessful trading operation, said Greco. Colkitt added that recent events have shattered the perception that Alameda was one of the top performing firms in the space: “Nobody really expected FTX to run out of money because they thought Alameda must be making so much money, but it's really quite the opposite — they just seemed so incompetent that even with all these advantages they were losing money,” said Colkitt.? Episode 112 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro, F9 Research General Partner Jim Greco, and Crocodile Labs Founder Douglas Colkitt. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

Tom Jessop is the President of Fidelity Digital Assets. In this conversation Frank and Tom discuss: Fidelity's process in deciding between servicing institutions or retail The importance of custodians as a foundation for the digital assets market Why even the best technology may fail when there is no mature market structure Fidelity Digital Assets offering of execution services Why it is important to implement aspects of traditional finance into the digital assets space

Part one of this two-part special on Nouriel Roubini’s new book, Megathreats, examines how the economy is facing a combination of interconnected phenomena that Roubini believes will result in a severe economic crisis. Roubini discusses some alternative assets that could gain prominence in the event of a global financial meltdown and explains why he prefers gold over bitcoin in such a situation, among other topics in his book Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them. According to Roubini, the "weaponization" of the U.S. dollar is making it less attractive as a reserve currency: “We have weaponized the dollar as a tool of national security and foreign policy… If I owe you a billion it is my problem; if I owe you a trillion it is your problem because we could default on those treasuries eventually if there is a conflict…” Similar to USD, Roubini believes other common reserve currencies such as the euro, yen, pound, and Swiss franc can be similarly weaponized, leaving gold as the only widely held reserve currency that remains a viable option: “What's the only other asset that is a liquid asset that can be a reserve currency? … What's the only one that cannot be seized if there are sanctions? It’s gold — as long as you keep it in your own vault.” Although ardent bitcoin proponents claim BTC has similar properties, Roubini is dismissive of the largest cryptocurrency’s potential to be used legitimately in global commerce.  “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — we know they are not currencies,” Roubini says, “They are not a unit of account, nobody's pricing anything in Bitcoin, they're not scalable means of payment.”  Episode 110 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Roubini Macro Associates Chairman and CEO, Nouriel Roubini. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn, Athletic Greens About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord | About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

Samantha Bohbot is the Chief Growth Officer & Partner of RockawayX, a blockchain-focused venture capital fund. In this episode recorded live at Emergence in Prague, Bohbot and The Block's Frank Chaparro discuss discuss challenges facing European firms compared to their American counterparts, and RockawayX's credit fund and developing opportunities in DeFi. OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 00:36 RockawayX 03:38 Tech and investment in Europe 07:11 Post-election investment 09:19 DeFi rally 11:58 Crypto credit 17:56 Standing out to investors 21:24 Value-add investor 25:32 The race to the bottom 27:52 Conclusion GUEST LINKS Samantha Bohbot - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-bohbot-7622b933/ Samantha Bohbot on X - https://x.com/samantha_bohbot RockawayX - https://www.linkedin.com/company/rockawayx/ RockawayX on X - https://rockawayx.com/ This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: Polkadot Polkadot is the blockspace ecosystem for boundless innovation. To discover more, head to polkadot.network

Bitcoin mining continues to make headlines this week as China ramps up its clampdown on the long-running — and once-dominant — sector. In the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Amanda Fabiano — who leads Galaxy Digital’s mining business — explained exactly what is happening in China, noting that authorities there recently ordered bitcoin mining projects to close in the southwest province of Sichuan. However, this could provide a bull case for North American mining, as miners are pushed out of China in search of areas with cheaper sources of energy like Kazhakstan. “A lot of people have built lives there on Bitcoin mining. They were the first people who dove into how to set up these large mining facilities. They have been holding the Bitcoin network up and running it forever. So I genuinely feel for the groups that have been working on that... On the other side, I think it's really bullish for North American mining. And I also think it's a testament to how the Bitcoin network is so resilient. An entire country just banned Bitcoin mining that is supposedly accounting for the largest hash distribution in the world. And yet the Bitcoin network continues on.” Rising concerns about curbing the energy consumption in bitcoin mining in China have also lead to ESG initiatives in the hopes of producing sustainable mining solutions. But the promise of a sustainable coin seems like one too good to be true. Fabiano dispels some of the misconceptions around bitcoin mining and what it really looks like for a coin to be mined with renewable energy. “So when we think about the amounts of electricity, for example, that's lost in energy end transmission and distribution it's 19 times that of the Bitcoin network. And the energy footprint of always-on electrical devices in America is 12.1 times that of the Bitcoin network," Fabiano said, adding: "But what we always hear is how Bitcoin is ruining the world. We don't care about how your toaster being left on is ruining the world because people don't care that much about it. I think it's really easy to pick on bitcoin’s energy consumption because it is so transparent." This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.  Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go. 

Superphiz is a long-time Ethereum community member and a became a vocal advocate for staking decentralization following the Ethereum 'Merge' to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism last year. In this episode of The Scoop, Superphiz unpacks how Ethereum's merge to proof-of-stake has caused liquid staking derivatives to pose a potential threat to Ethereum's credible neutrality, as well as the best pathways to mitigate the potential for staking centralization. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction 2:55 - Success of ‘The Merge’ 5:28 - Ethereum Centralization Concerns 13:34 - Lido’s LSD Dominance 20:54 - Scaling Ethereum 25:33 - New Use Cases 27:37 - Closing Thoughts This episode is brought to you by our sponsor PayPal. Make your crypto move with PayPal. Get started today at PayPal.com/crypto

While NFT projects grew in popularity, so too did brand recognition — and the interest of talent representatives to sign them on. United Talent Agency (UTA) was among the first in August of 2021, when it signed CryptoPunks and Meebits creators Larva Labs, followed by Deadfellaz in April of this year. Other talent representatives got into web3 as well, such as Creative Artists Agency (CAA) signing on the NFT collector 0xb1 in October 2021 and even hiring a Chief Metaverse Officer in August of this year.  But why did talent representatives like UTA sign on these NFT brands at all? Why do NFT brands need talent representation?  To get to the heart of these questions, MK sat down with UTA's head of web3, Lesley Silverman. Silverman has been at UTA for the past seven years, educating artists on the utility of web3 and helping interested artists launch their web3 brand. Before joining UTA, Silverman worked as a fine arts lawyer, and she says this experience shaped how she lead UTA through the NFT space.  Episode 80 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's MK Manoylov and Lesley Silverman, Head of Web3 at United Talent Agency. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron On August 1st, 2022, Poloniex launched a faster and more stable trading system along with a brand new user interface. Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency trading platform. With its world-class service and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors, including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and margin trading as well as leveraged tokens. Its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available. For more information visit Poloniex.com About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

While big players like Coinbase, Bakkt and Consensus make most of the headlines in Crypto and on Crypto Twitter there are some institutional players that have been quietly operating in the background for years in the Bitcoin market. One such player is Jump Trading and it's affiliate venture capital firm, Jump Capital. Jump Trading is one of the most active traders in the digital asset world and also one of the most discrete. Leading investments on the Crypto side at it's sister firm Jump Capital is Peter Johnson -- a principal at the firm who joined The Scoop to discuss the firm's origin story in Crypto, we also dove into the firm's Crypto incubator at the University of Illinois Champaign and we talked about the trends Johnson is expecting to play out in 2019. I hope you enjoy the episode.

To date, Silicon Valley-based VC firm a16z has raised over $7.6 billion to invest in crypto and web3. In this episode of The Scoop, a16z General Partner Chris Dixon shares some of the guiding principles that determine a16z’s investments in the crypto space and explains why the time is ripe for decentralized networks to replace centralized, corporate networks. According to Dixon, both a16z and other VC firms have begun to shy away from investing in projects building on top of corporate networks: “Our firm and others do not invest in things anymore that are building on these networks — on these corporate networks like Facebook and TikTok and things — because they know we've seen before that if you're successful, they'll just take all the money.” While corporate networks had initial advantages such as access to VC funding and the ability to subsidize parts of their business models, Dixon believes decentralized networks have matured to the point where they are ready to take on their corporate counterparts. As Dixon explains, “Now we have the tools, I believe we, meaning the side of people that want things to be open and community-owned through blockchains, now have the tools to rival corporate networks and beat them.” Episode 126 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and a16z General Partner Chris Dixon. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn, Athletic Greens About Tron Founded in 2013, Huobi Global is one of the largest virtual asset exchanges in the world. Huobi Global serves millions of users across international markets. Since its establishment, Huobi Global has committed to providing first class virtual asset investment services. Huobi Global's robust infrastructure, product innovation and capital strength provides a truly customer-centric and secure trading environment to help our international users to achieve their investment objectives. Please refer to Huobi's official website for more information: huobi.com. About Ledn Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io About Athletic Greens Build a Foundation for Better Health. It’s time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient, daily nutrition! Fill nutrient gaps, promote gut health, and support whole-body vitality with AG1. One daily serving delivers a potent blend of 9 health products—a multivitamin, minerals, probiotics, adaptogens and more—working together to help you feel like your healthiest self. For more information visit AthleticGreens.com/Scoop

Bitcoin traded below $30,000 on Monday, amid market uncertainty brought about by the ‘depegging' of UST—an algorithmic stablecoin whose value is supposed to remain equivalent to $1. At publication, UST is trading at $0.92, although the ‘stablecoin’ saw lows of $0.6050 on the Binance UST/USDT trading pair. In this breaking episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro spoke with crypto researcher Mika Honkasalo, who appeared on the podcast to provide a detailed look at how the UST drama is unfolding. As Honkasalo explained, while UST has experienced depegging before, this time around is structurally different: “I think people at first didn't really realize that it would be a real thing, because they had seen something similar before and they didn't realize that the structure of the market had become a lot more averse to UST than it previously had. And I think what you're seeing today is sort of that just escalating or going further.” Although the Luna Foundation Guard announced plans yesterday to support the UST peg with $1.5 billion worth of assets, whether or not UST returns to its peg will likely come down to whether the buyers or sellers win out. As Honkasalo noted during the interview, “Whether or not it maintains the peg today is very much a question of: if the sellers sort of run out of tokens and the buyers have more, the buyers will live to fight another day here in the mid-term.” As for the future fate of Luna and UST, Honkasalo thinks much of its success will rest on macro forces outside of its control. “I think that if the market turns positive, it will be much easier to keep the whole Luna ecosystem going. But if it continues to be more negative than this, the next wave of sells could be even much worse.” Episode 41 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mika Honkasalo, Crypto Researcher. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Cross River Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

Back in July, controversy broke out amongst Bitcoiners when Nic Carter — a long-time bitcoin proponent and Founding Partner of Castle Island Ventures — announced that his firm invested in a Web3 authentication company. Even though Castle Island recently launched a $250 million fund explicitly for Web3 investments, Carter’s announcement was met with staunch criticism from some members of the Bitcoin community. In this episode of The Scoop, Nic Carter and host Frank Chaparro discuss some of the philosophical underpinnings of the crypto space, including the similarities between Bitcoin maximalism and religious dogma. Although Carter himself is a vocal supporter of Bitcoin, he does not elevate it to anything beyond a monetary innovation — this, Carter says, is what separates him from the more zealous members of the community: “The one part of the community I distance myself from is the part that confuses bitcoin with religious doctrine. I think religion is religion, money is money, and they're pretty distinct, and they should stay distinct. The day after the controversy broke out on Twitter, Carter addressed the situation in a Medium article titled, ‘Setting the record straight; or: a eulogy for Bitcoin maximalism.’ In it, he writes: "I am not pessimistic on Bitcoin. I’m just interested in the world as it actually is, instead of the world of utopias and pleasant delusions." Episode 101 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded at Converge22 with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Castle Island Ventures Founding Partner Nic Carter. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron About Tron TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |

Kristin Smith is the Executive Director of The Blockchain Association. In this episode Kristin sits down for her second time with Frank, Ryan, and Steven to discuss:  Where we stand after the Libra hearings and predictions on how this story will play out in 2020 The important differences between Republicans and Democrats in the manner they introduce crypto related legislation  The Blockchain Association's efforts in making the U.S. more appealing for blockchain businesses to operate The implications of Brad Sherman being appointed as new chair of the subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

Many Web3 platforms require users to connect their crypto wallets before engaging with the platform in any meaningful way. Consequently, the Web3 experience on mobile devices is tedious at best, given current devices are not designed with such functionalities in mind. Solana Mobile — a subsidiary of the development team behind Solana — hopes to address the difficulties that surround the Web3 mobile user experience with its new Android phone called ‘Saga,’ which is slated for release in early 2023.  Last week, Solana Labs co-founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko announced the new mobile device, which will run a ‘Solana Mobile Stack’ (SMS) operating system and will feature a marketplace for decentralized Web3 applications. In this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko said he believes Saga’s early success will be linked to its ability to significantly enhance the mobile crypto user experience: “The theory is that crypto users might be crazy enough to switch from iOS to Android because of crypto. It might be so important to have that experience, that they're willing to change their habits.” If Solana Mobile is successfully able to prove there is consumer demand for crypto-forward mobile products, Yakovenko believes it will inspire major tech companies to integrate crypto infrastructure into their own mobile devices moving forward: “You need Google and Apple to do it, but they're not going to do it until there is proven demand that people need it — and so somebody has to kind of make that leap…” Episode 60 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live at The Block headquarters in New York with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Plaid, a fintech infrastructure and payments provider aiming to simplify the digital financial ecosystem through a single API, recently announced big crypto players such as Gemini and Binance.US are joining its network of financial institutions. The move is part of Plaid's broader effort to integrate both legacy institutions and crypto service providers into its platform, which was valued at more than $13 billion last year after a $425 million fundraise. In this episode of The Scoop, Plaid's head of UK, Keith Grose, joins host Frank Chaparro to discuss how its integration with crypto platforms is helping bring new users into the ecosystem, and to break down what the future of digital finance will look like. According to Grose, users' digital financial interactions will increasingly be controlled by a single wallet that is able to move seamlessly between different platforms: "You are essentially, as a user, going to have this back end wallet, whether it's your bank account or your crypto wallet, that you control the keys to and you can take wherever you want to use it around the digital world. That's where we're headed." While Plaid is built to cater to a range of digital financial platforms, Grose points out that all financial transactions ultimately come down to trust: "What we're really talking about when you're talking about payments is trust… and I think we're more and more moving to a place where trust is becoming digital, and proving trust online in the digital world is very different than proving trust in a physical, community based system that most of humanity has been in for most of history." Episode 79 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Plaid head of UK/EU Keith Grose. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Tron On August 1st, 2022, Poloniex launched a faster and more stable trading system along with a brand new user interface. Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency trading platform. With its world-class service and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors, including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and margin trading as well as leveraged tokens. Its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available. For more information visit Poloniex.com. About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.