Making Markets

Eric Golden interviews Corey Hoffstein, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Newfound Research, discussing topics like portfolio allocation, diversification, and the innovative approach known as Return Stacking. They also touch upon lessons learned from running an Asset Management firm for 15 years.

In this episode, Samuel Rines, economist and author, discusses the current economic cycle, the concept of 'excuseflation', and the state of the consumer. They also explore the impact of leisure vacation travel on the economy and the effects of global geopolitical events on investment portfolios. This wide-ranging discussion offers insights into the economy and its various sectors.

In place of our usual quarterly market recap, we have a special announcement to make. The scope of this show, Web3 Breakdowns, will expand and rebrand to Making Markets. Eric and Matt discuss what is changing, why, and, importantly, what will stay the same. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. -----Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag Show Notes(00:01:27) - (First question) Rebranding from Web3 Breakdowns to Making Markets(00:06:08) - Why fixed-income investors are obsessed with markets(00:10:28) - The analysis of companies versus applying analysis to asset classes(00:12:42) - What it was like to cover the volatility of the cryptocurrency market(00:20:40) - Why you should have confidence in the cryptocurrency market (00:26:09) - What type of guests will appear on the Making Markets podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this replayed episode, William Quigley, co-founder of an early consumer VC fund, discusses his career in VC and gaming, the potential of blockchain and crypto, the origin story of Tether and its role in arbitrage trading, trust and stablecoins in the crypto market, building Wax and virtual items, and the future of blockchain in augmented reality.

This is Eric Golden and today we’re going to break down the mechanics behind three major blockchains: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. Blockchain is a term you hear a lot, both in this show and in Web3 more generally. But what do they actually mean and how do they work? That is the subject we’re going to cover today and something I’ve wanted to do for sometime. My guest for this episode is Keone Hon. Keone is a Math Prodigy who spent close to a decade building systems for high-frequency trading. Today, he is the co-founder and CEO of Monad Labs and is building a blockchain alternative to Ethereum and Solana. He has that rare blend of deep technical knowledge and the ability to communicate clearly, so he is the perfect guest for this episode. Please enjoy my conversation with Keone.For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here-----This episode is brought to you by OKX. You may have seen OKX on McLaren’s Formula 1 race car or Manchester City’s football kit. But what is OKX? OKX has over 730 spot trading pairs, 280 derivatives markets, and 1000 options markets. It processes 400,000 requests per second with 99.95% uptime. That’s why over 20 million traders and institutions choose OKX when they want to trade. Visit okx.com to learn more.-----Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag Show Notes (00:02:47) - (First question) - An analogy to explain how crypto and blockchain work(00:11:20) - Scenarios to further explore his schoolyard analogy for Bitcoin(00:17:03) - The reality of the math and power balance surrounding blockchain technology(00:23:28) - Expanding the analogy to explain Ethereum(00:25:26) - The broad impact of Ethereum on smart contracting and proof of staking(00:29:08) - Major differences between proof-of-work versus proof-of-stake models(00:31:09) - Comparing Solana’s stateless design to the older chains(00:34:44) - The added privacy and speed advantages enabled by Solana(00:35:56) - The real security and risk profiles of these major chains(00:38:09) - Explaining Solana’s parallel transactions (00:40:52) - Why the creation of new chains and further chain optimization still matters(00:42:27) - Why he got interested in the problem of chain efficiency and accessibility(00:44:54) - How crypto tech continues to build upon itself and expand to new use cases(00:48:34) - How Monad is building their blockchain to solve inefficiencies in crypto markets(00:50:09) - How he thinks about competition given the open-source nature of the space(00:52:12) - The process of actually building and testing a new chain(00:55:49) - What motivates him to continue building(00:56:53) - Diffusing a new blockchain innovation to users and coders(00:58:38) - What he’s most excited to see built over the next six months and six years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Eric Golden, and today we’re replaying one of my favorite conversations with 0xFoobar. Foobar is a developer and investor who writes a must-read newsletter called The Variable. We discuss the tradeoff between privacy and compliance, how culture and law shape each other, and his views on crypto regulation. When I interviewed 0xfoobar 11 months ago, the crypto world couldn’t have been more different. Today, as the industry moves toward court cases and regulation, the issues raised in this episode remain as relevant as ever. I hope you enjoy listening, and we’ll be back soon.For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.-----Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag Show Notes [00:02:02] - [First question] - How he built such a robust technical background in his career that lead him to crypto [00:04:42] - The trade off between compliance and privacy and his take on it writ large[00:07:27] - Whether or not people have given up on the idea that privacy of transaction matters [00:11:17] - The current technical framework for what exists in privacy today for crypto[00:14:07] - Defining a zero knowledge proof and explaining the process to do one [00:18:55] - The public ledger incentivizing other economic models and the ways crypto will be used in the future that might not be what we imagine today [00:20:14] - People want to experiment but doing so can involve blind risk unless they’re familiar with the space [00:22:00] - Reversible transactions and why they’re harmful [00:26:37] - Opensea’s flagging involvement and whether or not we’ll have a cash-like layer built on top of the irreversible chain   [00:29:26] - Minimizing crypto purchase risk and protecting participants with a transaction cooling process or holding period [00:32:46] - The ways in which law and culture shape each other [00:34:14] - Examples of how culture affects crypto in ways that laws don’t yet [00:36:31] - DeFi protocol hacks and how the culture should handle that kind of behavior [00:40:49] - His thoughts on the current takes of trying to bring regulation by enforcement to the crypto space[00:43:18] - His current area of focus is lately and what he enjoys doing the most [00:46:50] - What he’s most excited to see built in the next six months and six years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're continuing our series of replays this week with the first episode we ever published. Almost two years ago to the day, I sat down with Patrick to talk about the Bored Ape Yacht Club. I hope you enjoy listening back to this episode as much as I did recently and I'll be back with new episodes, including our Q3 recap, very soon.For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.-----Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossusShow Notes[00:02:30] - [First question] - What the Bored Ape Yacht Club is[00:03:39] - Motivations for owning a Bored Ape compared to traditional art [00:07:46] - The scope of prices, hierarchy, turnover, and trading overview of these NFTs[00:09:51] - Distribution of rarity and why it matters [00:11:29] - How the project roadmap is managed by the member community[00:16:23] - Who are the members and the key stewards of steering the ship[00:18:08] - An example of a project where the owners don’t own the IP of their NFT[00:20:56] - Underlying fundamentals and utility behind owning a Bored Ape [00:26:36] - Thoughts on fungible tokens inside of non-fungible projects[00:29:06] - Ways to think about the value proposition of owning an Ape and an Ape token [00:30:36] - Different options for minting NFTs and their pros and cons[00:34:36] - Literal mechanics of the minting process[00:36:59] - Smart contract mediating of combining NFTs to generate rare ones[00:39:20] - Building a bottom up brand and other examples of this trend[00:41:50] - Are NFTs just gambling, or will they become investable assets like physical art[00:46:09] - Blockchain infrastructure of the NFT space and whether it’ll stay on Ethereum[00:48:48] - What makes the Bored Ape Yacht Club so innovative compared to other projects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this podcast, Austin Campbell, an expert on stablecoins with a background in traditional finance, breaks down the nuts and bolts of how Stablecoins work. He discusses the lessons crypto should learn from traditional finance, the current US regulatory crackdown, and the challenges faced by regulators in the crypto space. They also explore the recent regulatory issues surrounding Paxos and their stablecoin BUSD, and predict the future of crypto including the transformation of markets and the deployment of identity on the blockchain.

Eric Golden, the host of Web3 Breakdowns, reflects on the art of interviewing and shares insights into his experience. He discusses the evolution of his interview style and preparation process, the importance of reframing questions, and how to create an authentic atmosphere. The podcast also explores the evolution of podcasts and the challenges and rewards of hosting a show. The chapter highlights the preparedness and vulnerability of Howard Stern's show and compares his style to Joe Rogan's. Overall, it offers valuable advice for starting a podcast and discusses the struggles and appreciation of being a host.

This is Eric Golden and my guest today is Nick Neuman, the CEO of Casa. Casa offers crypto users a secure and straightforward way to self-custody their assets, and today, we dive into this critical topic. We talk about the problems of self-custody, Casa’s solution, the recent addition of Ethereum to their platform, and the trade-off between security and usability. This is Nick’s second time on a Colossus Podcast after first appearing on an Invest Like the Best episode called “Becoming your Own Bank”, which I highly recommend. Please enjoy my conversation with Nick Neuman.Web3 Breakdown listeners can use code WEB3BREAKDOWN23 for 20% off your first year of a Casa Standard membership.For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.-----This show is brought to you by OKX. Want to stop paying trading fees? You can now trade for free for two months with OKX. Over 20 million traders and institutions choose OKX when they want to trade. And you can join them by signing up at okx.com/landingpage/okxtraderseries to start your two months of fee-free trading today.-----Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag Show Notes (00:02:09) - (First question) - Introduction to Casa: simplifying self-custody for secure storage of Bitcoin and Ethereum(00:05:13) - The risks of overestimating security among even experienced crypto enthusiasts(00:06:01) - Private keys, single points of failure, and Casa's multi-key approach to security(00:11:44) - Mobile key security: SIM swapping and securing funds through layers(00:14:28) - Balancing security and convenience with different security levels(00:17:32) - Spikes in interest during moments of fear or price volatility(00:19:53) - Offering video calls to simplify setup for hardware wallets(00:21:18) - Transitioning to Ethereum while maintaining security and usability for users(00:27:07) - Future challenges of balancing security and ease in interacting with smart contracts(00:29:54) - The importance of self-custody, simplifying the process for mass adoption(00:34:07) - Anxiety and laziness often delay sign-up, eased by simplified processes(00:36:49) - Blending user understanding with an effortless product experience(00:38:56) - Self-custody, like setting up a will or life insurance, brings relief and security(00:40:59) - What he is most excited to build over the next six months and six years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices