Messari's Unqualified Opinions

Many in the West often look to privacy preserving technologies like Orchid’s virtual private network (VPN) marketplace as enablers of nefarious activities. Go to a place like Indonesia, where 43% of the population uses VPNs to circumvent an overly censored internet and government surveillance of basic business activities, and you’ll get a different opinion. For protesters in places like Hong Kong, VPNs can serve as freedom preserving technology.  In this conversation, Orchid CEO Seven Waterhouse details the project's plans for creating an internet free from surveillance and censorship. Ryan and Seven discuss the evolution of the project, the role its OXT token plays in the network as well as Orchid’s unique listing on Coinbase. They also get into the origins of Seven’s peculiar nickname.    --- Special thanks to our sponsors Nexo: Borrow, lend and grow your crypto. Lukka: Crypto taxes made simple. Use the code messaritax and get $5 off the normal price of $19.95  If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

If Bitcoin is to become the foundation of a global, non-national monetary system, consumers and institutions are going to need Bitcoin based financial services. At least that’s the thesis driving River Financial: a Bitcoin only platform that borrows heavily from the user experience of more traditional financial services. In this conversation, River Financial founder and CEO Alex Leishman explains the thinking behind River’s single asset focus that flies against the grain of the multi-asset strategies employed by companies like Coinbase and Binance. Alex details how River’s BTC-only mindset allows them to deliver a suite of services that others cannot. This includes integration with Lightning Network, SegWit transactions, joint accounts, statements and tax reporting features aimed at Bitcoin power users, high net worth individuals and institutional investors. --- Special thanks to our sponsors Nexo: Borrow, lend and grow your crypto. Lukka: Prepare your taxes for just $19.95 If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

You likely know Balaji as the former CTO of Coinbase and now editor-in-chief of Nakamoto.com. What you may not know is that prior to his days in the cryptosphere, Balaji studied at the intersection of engineering, biology and statistics, received a PHD and has published several academic papers in genomics. Given his background, Balajis has been watching and studying the developing situation surrounding COVID-19 closely. In this conversation Ryan and Balaji discuss the current status of the Coronavirus, the variables to watch, the likely economic and geopolitical impact as well as what it all means for the future of work. This special edition will leave you feeling more informed about the implications of COVID-19 and the ripple effects to come. --- Special thanks to our sponsors Nexo: Borrow, lend and grow your crypto. Lukka: Prepare your taxes for just $19.95 If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Launched as Xcoin in 2014, Dash is one of the oldest projects in the top 25. While the prevailing narrative around bitcoin has shifted to digital gold, Dash is still pursuing wide adoption as a payments network; an area that is looking increasingly competitive with stablecoins and eventually, central bank issued digital currencies (CBDCs).  In this conversation, Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor details how Dash is emulating strategies employed by Visa in the 1960’s and Paypal in its early days to focus on one concentrated area and branch out from there. Where Visa focused on Fresno, California and PayPal on Ebay, Dash is focusing its efforts on adoption in Venezuela.  --- Special thanks to our sponsors Nexo: Borrow, lend and grow your crypto. Lukka: Prepare your taxes for just $19.95 If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Bitcoin is a technology that launched a thousand ships. In one direction, hundreds of permissionless cryptoassets and networks. In the other, permissioned networks being developed by enterprises and governments to upgrade and iterate on existing systems and institutions. R3’s Corda is an open-source protocol that falls in the latter category.    In this conversation, R3 CTO Richard Brown gives an overview of the current enterprise blockchain environment, including his thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currencies being explored by every Central Bank from Europe to Thailand. Richard provides insight into how applications are being built on Corda to fix broken processes within trillion dollar loan markets and how Swiss exchange SIX Digital is attempting to fundamentally change the way its markets work. Lastly, he details some of the challenges Central Banks are grappling with when deciding how to roll out CBDCs to general populations. --- Special thanks to our sponsors Nexo: Borrow, lend and grow your crypto. Lukka: Prepare your taxes for just $19.95 If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Justin Sun is easily one of crypto’s most polarizing and controversial figures. While many in the West have been critical of Sun’s over-the-top marketing tactics, it’s hard to deny the momentum Tron has built in the East. Armed with a TRX warchest, Tron acquired Bittorrent and streaming service DLive while making strategic investments in Poloniex and Steemit, all in the span of 18 months.    In what is likely Sun’s most candid interview to date, Ryan and Tron’s enigmatic founder discuss past controversy surrounding Tron as well as what Sun has planned for the future. Hint: it’s to follow in the footsteps of other Asian companies that have built off of innovations developed in the West to ultimately compete globally. In Tron’s case, that means expanding further into DeFi to go toe-to-toe with Ethereum.  --- Special thanks to our sponsor Nexo: Borrow, lend and grow your crypto. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Crypto lending markets have exploded over the last year. Among the players in an increasingly competitive marketplace is Celsius, which according to CEO Alex “The Machine” Mashinsky has received $450M from over 70,000 users in 174 countries and paid out over $9M in interest payments. Unlike many competitors, Celsius somewhat boldly raised $50M in ICO during the latter half of 2018 at a time when many were shying away. Alex gives a colorful interview in which he provides an overview of the current crypto lending landscape, predicts that the most valuable blockchain platforms haven't been invented yet and that Bitcoin is heading for all-time highs in 2020. He also details that it is ultimately everyday people who will pick crypto winners by voting with their wallets amongst what he calls the "3 horses": decentralized protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum, corporate chains like JP Morgan & Libra or the CBDCs proposed by Central Banks. --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

This is one conversation the entire #XRParmy is going to love. Daniel Vogel, CEO of Bitso, which is Mexico's largest crypto exchange details how the company is utilizing XRP the asset (not just Ripple software) to catch a piece of the $35B in remittances that flows across the US-Mexico border each year. Sourced mainly from Moneygram in the US, Bitso saw $18M in XRP remittance volume the last week of December and that number has been growing 15-20% each week. Daniel hopes to catch as high as 20% of the weekly US-Mexico remittance flow by the end of 2020.  Beyond highlighting a clear win for the Ripple team and XRP, this conversation sheds light on a region of the world that is ripe for crypto adoption beyond pure speculation. Bitso's home country of Mexico is home to 125 million people, 87 million of which have smartphones while only 40 million have bank accounts - only 22 million of these bank accounts are active. Basically, the perfect ingredients for crypto adoption. --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Radar Relay, the peer-to-peer trading platform built on the 0x protocol did a respectable $100M in volume in 2019. This however is down from the dizzying highs of 2018 where in certain months, Radar Relay facilitated up to $60M. In this interview, Radar CEO Alan Curtis speaks candidly about the current state of the DEX landscape that features lower volumes ($5-7M a day) and more competition. He draws attention to the current “space race” taking place between Kyber Network and 0x to aggregate liquidity, how he’s seeing an inbound of more automated and professional traders and how he expects to see more centralized exchanges experimenting with DEX models. He also opens up about the high cost of compliance and how Radar has managed to create a compliant DEX by US regulatory standards. More about Radar  RADAR is best known for RADAR RELAY, but has recently been expanding its portfolio of products. It now has REDSHIFT, which bridges payments between the Bitcoin Lightning Network and other blockchains such as Ethereum. They've also built ION, which services to educate and onboard users to the Lightning Network. Their latest project, DEPLOY is a node operations platform that helps developer spin up and maintain blockchain infrastructure. You can find more information about the various product offerings on radar.tech, --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

USDC, backed by Circle and Coinbase’s Centre Consortium has emerged as the dominant “regulated” stablecoin. In this conversation, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire provides some context around the evolution of USDC as well as where he sees it fitting within the broader macro landscape. He details how the next phase for USDC is to move beyond its use in crypto capital markets and into payments and settlements while drawing comparisons to how Visa and Mastercard developed interoperable standards ultimately adopted by businesses, consumers and governments alike. You can read more about USDC and Centre here https://blog.circle.com/2019/12/17/circle-organizes-for-stablecoin-platform/ --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io