Welcome to the first episode of Hash Power, an audio documentary that explores the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with leaders in the field like Naval Ravikant, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Fred Ehrsam, & Ari Paul. Hash Power is meant to be an introduction, but really, it is an invitation to explore this emerging world on your own. In the coming weeks, we will cover the technology, the power of decentralization, bitcoin, Ethereum, ICOs, cryptography and hashing. We will spend time with the leading active hedge fund managers in the field, and with outside investors who are both optimistic and skeptical. Episode one covers the big picture, and answers the question: what is blockchain and why might it significantly affect our world?If you enjoy what follows, you’ll still be very early in understanding this field. Most don’t. So help me spread it like wildfire, because the more people that understand blockchain, the better its impact might become. Please enjoy episode one, and stay tuned next week for episode 2, which explores investing in cryptocurrencies.Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpowerFor more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Books Referenced The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age Nostalgia for the Absolute Links ReferencedBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash SystemReddit User jav_rddtSHA-256 Calculator The BitCoin Model for CrowdfundingFat Protocols#cryptotwitter Show NotesCHAPTER 1 – Understanding the Concept of Blockchain (3:25)4:30 – Jeremiah Lowin explains how blockchain is like a database5:14 – Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System5:46 – Owning a digital asset7:14 – Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angelist on how blockchains can help to create personal networks and organize humans13:33 – New coins popping up around data storage and utility needs like solar panels14:57 – Permission vs permissionless networks18:13 – Keeping track of scarcity and the introduction of tokens18:51 – The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age21:55 – The role of blockchains in the informational age and the rise of more individual sovereignty23:29 - Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, on the increasing shift to digital worlds led by incentive structures CHAPTER 2 – Blockchain Technology (27:48)29:09 - Reddit User jav_rddt30:43 - SHA-256 Calculator31:53 - Charlie Noyes, Pantera Capital, explains how SHA-256 was developed and what make its so special35:48 – How miners create new blocks and the incentives to do so46:54 – Ethereum, the “spiritual successor” to bitcoin48:36 – How the Ether network is an ecosystem in which other tokens can sit50:51 - Naval Ravikant on alternative coins or tokens50:50 - The BitCoin Model for Crowdfunding52:35 – Fat Protocols53:22 – Blockchain as an experiment in distributed government54:47 – How cryptocurrency is more than just technology, it’s a movement54:50 – Nostalgia for the Absolute57:27 - #cryptotwitter1:00:58 - Peter Jubber, of Fidelity, on how huge institutions, like theirs, are getting into the cryptocurrency game1:05:21- Olaf Carlson-Wee, first employee at Coinbase and the founder of Polychain, on the early excitement for cryptocurrency1:06:56– Closing thoughts from PatrickLooking to work in this space - hashpowerdeveloper@gmail.com Learn MoreFor more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclubFollow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

LinksTwitterShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesIntroduction– Ari bought first Bitcoin in 2014– Really dove into crypto 2016– Friend emailed him in 2011 asking to check out crypto, Ari said it won’t retain value, not backed by guns like fiat– Ari: “For crypto you kinda gotta know a little bit about a lot of things”– Got involved with crypto through crypto twitter– Cunningham’s Law – “The fastest way to get an answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to state something wrong”Ari’s Headspace– Long term mostly thinking about the future of crypto– BlockTower bets on where the world will be in 1-3 years, not 10-20 years– Fascinated by the big picture– Huge believer in giving people defensive tools for overbearing statesVC Stuff– BlockTower is a trading firm by nature, so they invest in projects that they can actually be power users in– Ari: “Evaluating seed stage teams is its own skillsets, very different from evaluating something like Microsoft”– Cobie skeptical of a16z’s success in crypto, followed like 4 deals they did and got crushed– A lot of the time, timing is much more important than vetting skill– Ari: “If you were trading NFTs 2 years ago, it almost doesn’t matter if you were good it just matters that you were doing it”Privacy– Ari: “There’s a whole tech stack for privacy that’s missing”– Countries can control the internet very easily– People think the internet is super hard to control – there is literally a bundle of wires that delivers the internet to an entire country– Ari: “zk-rollup chains where you can shield the mempool… there is some super cool math we’re building into the system now that could change everything”– You could fork Ethereum and add it as a rollup chain to Bitcoin– Ledger: “Is there really a market for that?”– Ari: “It seems likely in the next 2 years that we’ll get a soft fork to implement this”– Ari: “There are bitcoiners who are pitching this as humanitarian technology but against adding privacy technology that exists…borderline unethical”Making ETH Maxis Mad– Ethereum is a risky startup competing on tech– The odds it is a market leader in 10 years is under 20%– Facebook didn’t need a single Friendster user or dev– If you have an industry that’s going to 20x, you don’t need to take existing users– Ari: “Solana has something like more than 10,000 active developers now”– Ethereum does not have much of a moat, it has a little bit of brand recognition, a little bit of regulatory head start, some dev moat, but largely the moat is very small– Ethereum cannot move as fast, cannot take as much risk. It’s hard to maintain its lead– Cobie: “Do you think Ethereum should have a canary network, kind of like Kusama?”– Ari: “(pause) I actually haven’t thought about that”– Seems to be a real, good ideaSolana– Ari has been recommending Solana for the last 2 years– Well intentioned team, real project, very cool innovation at the communication layer– *Ari still has a long Solana position to be clear*– It’s quite centralized, depends on the team to stay up, has a real path to decentralization– It’s a highly speculative early stage betBNB– Exchange coins are basically sold as equities– There are tons of regulatory actions which could likely be negative for $BNB– Would not hold the coinCardano– Ari: “Cardano I actually know very little about”– The only thing he really believed would stick around for 5 years was Bitcoin, DeFi and NFTs– Ari: “I worry that in 5-10 years the winning metaverse will be Facebook or Fortnite, some centralized entity, which scares me because I want a decentralized world”– Ledger: “so Cardano” lol– Ari: “I am deeply skeptical of Cardano”– Ledger: “Dump it”2017 Bull Market– Ari bought $50k calls in 2017– Did it to maintain upside exposure while not keeping material risk on– Went onto CNBC to talk about it, they mid-curved his thinking– Ari: “Options are a bet on volatility, not the direction, because you can always hedge the direction with the underlying”– Ari: “If you can’t define skew and kurtosis then you probably shouldn’t be trading options”Crypto Investing– Ari: “If you’re investing with a lot of small bets in alts, it almost acts as a call option”– Ari thinks vol is about fair today– Basically every time Bitcoin vol gets below 60, Ari buys it– Ari: “The crazier the bull market the crazier the retrace”– Ari: “My basic thesis now is DeFi 5-10x’s here and then retraces 80-90%”– Ari: “The biggest value add from crypto over the next 12-18 months is connecting DeFi to real world lending”FINAL ALPHA– Ari: “It doesn’t matter how much money you make, if you don’t keep yourself healthy you won’t enjoy it”– Focus on your health!Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

BlockTower Capital Founder and CIO Ari Paul joins Kevin to discuss the crypto cycles of bull and bear markets, the potential for a DeFi collapse, why you should avoid a crypto index fund or ETF, and a new cryptocurrency called MobileCoin, which aims to power all mobile payments.BIOAri Paul (@aridavidpaul) is the Co-Founder and CIO of crypto-asset investment firm BlockTower Capital, and author of The Cryptocurrency Investor blog, where he has published papers on cryptocurrency lending, the history of money, and applying investment concepts to cryptocurrency.LINKS & SHOW NOTESAll links and detailed show notes can be found here.

Crypto experts Jose Macedo and Ari Paul discuss the impact of upcoming token unlocks on the market, the ratio of unrealized gains to market cap, and manipulation of reported circulating supply by token projects. They explore the challenges faced by retail investors, the discrepancy between token trading prices and actual value, and propose innovative token launch strategies to balance short-term gains with long-term success.

In episode 1 of Hash Power, we explored blockchains as a technology—how they work, why tokens (also known as cryptocurrencies) are an integral part of any blockchain, and how these new networks might change the world. In episode two, we spend time with the leading investors in the field. Like any frenzied asset class, there are countless cryptocurrency hedge funds popping up everywhere. But founders from three of the original firms—Polychain, Metastable, and Blocktower Capital—are our primary guides this week.As I speak, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies is $136B. There are hundreds of tokens currently available, but bitcoin and Ethereum represent 75% of the total market cap. $136B sounds like a big number, but its tiny relative to any other asset class—and I use that term with hesitation. To put it in perspective, that’s exactly the same size as the market cap of IBM. But IBM had more than $10B of earnings in 2016. Tokens have none. As you will hear, valuing tokens is a very hard exercise.In such a nascent world, we are seeing investing strategies take hold. Olaf Carlson-Wee, Josh Seims, and Ari Paul walk us through different takes on cryptocurrency investing, be it early stage, long term buy and hold, or more hedge fund style strategies.Hash Power is presented by Fidelity InvestmentsFor comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpowerFor more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Links ReferencedFat Protocols (Joel Monegro) Show Notes0:05 – Recap of part 1 and introduction to part 2 of Hash Power2:58 – Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower explains how he got involved in cryptocurrencies5:23 – Why do we need bitcoin7:23 – Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee on why the value of tokens accrue9:23 – How main stream money is getting into this space12:26- Useful comparisons when talking about ICOs when compared to IPOs15:01 - Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, is asked to explain the protocols of cryptocurrencies to platform businesses like Uber or Airbnb17:43 – Naval’s interest in investing in cryptocurrencies23:07 - Olaf Carlson Wee on the lifecycle of a token24:02 – SAFT note, Simple Agreement for Future Tokens25:31 – What is the earliest stage that edge is most present for investors in cryptocurrency protocols28:12 – How do you mitigate the volatility that is present in blockchain31:18 - Jeremiah Lowin, a risk and statistics expert, who runs risk management for a large private family office, talks about why he no longer owns cryptocurrencies 34:19 - Jordan Cooper, a venture capital investor, is optimistic about blockchains in general, but thinks there may be some overvaluations in current currencies37:02 – How Jordan would value a single cryptocurrency42:10 – Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro)43:52 - Josh Seims, of Metastable, the value investor in blockchain?51:15 - Ari Paul on the equivalent of listed stocks in the crypto currency world52:33 – Understanding the concept of a coin in blockchain and how people are getting access to them55:07 – The fairground analogy to understand cryptocurrencies57:57 – What lessons from traditional markets can you apply to investing in cryptocurrencies1:06:51 – Ari is asked to discuss some of the alternative cryptocurrencies outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum. He starts with Ripple1:10:27 – What would help firms or traders create edge in investing in cryptocurrencies Learn MoreFor more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclubFollow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag