Tokenize

This is an age old question, Ethereum or Solana - which chain is better, who's got their product and ecosystem strategy right?Back in 2021, the Ethereum DeFi summer was on, and Solana was hailed as one of the contenders for the Ethereum killer narrative - not sure why one chain needs to get killed for another to shine, but hey, this is crypto.In this episode of the Tokenize podcast, I sit down with Christin Kim, VP of Research at Galaxy Digital, to discuss the topic of Ethereum vs Solana - and who's got it right. Forgive me if I come across as a Solana Maxi - I just can't help it.Post FTX, Solana did a rise from the grave and since then has clearly been the Consensus chain of this cycle - definitely with regards to price action. However, are Solana's fundamentals robust? Will it be able to scale as a monolithic chain vs Ethereum's modular approach? Will Solana's innovation hubs start decentralizing away from a few founding members? So many questions to be answered. 

To many, Crypto and Blockchain are still solutions looking for a problem. The number of Traditional Finance (TradFi) leaders moving into DeFi, however, indicates that there are global financial services challenges that Blockchain can solve.Welcome to season 2 of the Tokenize podcast, sponsored by Marinade. In this episode of Tokenize, I am joined by Hadley Stern, my co-host and the Chief Commercial Officer at Marinade. Together, we talk to Mark Richardson from Zodia Markets. Mark is the CEO of Ireland and Chief Commercial Officer at Zodia Markets.Zodia Markets are an institution-ready brokerage and trading platform for digital assets. In this episode, Mark shares his views of the digital assets market, the initiatives he is laser focused on, and how he is able to see real world opportunities even when Digital Asset capabilities are delivered on regulatory rails.

Tired of overpriced whiskey? You’re not alone. The liquor market is a murky world of information asymmetry, where prices fluctuate wildly without rhyme or reason. Enter Baxus, a revolutionary platform leveraging Solana blockchain to bring transparency and efficiency to the spirits industry. In this episode of Tokenize, I sit down with the Tzvi (Todd) Wiesel, the CEO of Baxus to uncover how tokenizing whiskey can level the playing field, making this beloved drink more accessible and affordable for everyone. Get ready to raise a glass to the future of liquor!

Many see DeFi as the future of finance, and the regulated financial industry we are in today is called as 'TradFi' by the crypto world. There are very few fortunate practitioners who play a role in bridging these two industries. In this episode of Tokenize, we speak to Sophie Bowler, Chief Compliance Officer at Zodia Custody. Sophie is certainly someone, who brings her years of experience as a compliance expert to bridge TradFi and DeFi.Zodia are backed by Standard Chartered and bring the TradFi rigour while still staying nimble and innovative like DeFi.In this episode, we discuss the key areas that DeFi needs to focus on, engaging with regulators and working collaboratively and the role of institutional custodians in bridging the gap between the two worlds.

Join Blockchain OGs, Efi Pylarinou and Anton Golub, as they discuss hot trends in the crypto space. They delve into tokenizing money markets, decentralized social networks, restaking for higher yields, and risks associated with meme coins. The conversation also covers institutional interest in staking, regulatory clarity for altcoins, and the complexities of synthetic stablecoins.

Yes, the approvals of the Bitcoin ETF was a major milestone for the crypto industry. But when we say Bitcoin ETF in this context, we mean the US based ETFs being approved by the SEC.But, the crypto ETF industry has had regional leaders for years now. 3iQ are pioneers within the crypto ETF industry and have been based out of Canada. In this episode of Tokenize, we have Greg Benhaim - Head of Funds at 3iQ talking to me about ETFs. Greg has the right mix of experience across traditional finance and cryptos and is quite close to the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystem.We talk about Ethereum ETFs and all the innovation that is happening within traditional finance to get closer to the crypto ecosystem.

I recently joined Marinade Finance, leading their institutional growth capability. When I mentioned about it to my mom, I had to explain what Marinade did - and what crypto staking was.I had to go back to retail banking. A retail bank is healthier with more depositors and deposits, and the bank offers an interest on these deposits. It is a cringeworthy comparison if you are a native crypto person though.To celebrate my new job, and to explain to my own friends and family, what I was doing there, I had to do this episode with Michael Repetny. Michael, Marinade's core contributor calls crypto staking as exercising your right in a democratic set up - on a blockchain.Did you know that if you bought a longstanding crypto like Solana or Ethereum, you could stake it and earn returns in the tokens, while also making returns as the token appreciates in value (if it does)?Michael and I get into the details of how Proof of stake works on Solana, what staking is, different variations of staking, its relevance to traditional financial services, ETFs, restaking and MEVs (towards the end).

For years the Crypto industry has suffered from reputational issues. Despite several institutions trying to get the thumbs up from the US regulators for their Bitcoin ETFs, it was only in Jan 2024 that milestone happened.Yet, there have been several European and Canadian ETFs that have had their regulators' approvals for years now. They have managed several million dollars of cryptos through their ETPs all these years.I am glad to bring James Butterfill, Head of Research at Coinshares for a discussion on ETFs on Tokenize this week. This will be the first of many ETF discussions where we expand on what ETFs are, who the key stakeholders are, how the BTC ETFs have done and what lies ahead for TradFi firms that are looking to innovate around digital assets.

It was not long ago that I was involved in the play2earn web3 gaming spacePlay2Earn founders were trying to solve a difficult problem - in fact a number of them. Onboarding gamers in millions and staying sustainable in a Play to Earn game economy. It was a struggle for startups with limited resources to take on that task. Unlike DeFi projects, gaming projects needed a number of skills from graphic designers, level designers, game strategists, economic modellers, smart contract engineers and the growth guys. There was a point in time in 2022 when I felt this was a problem for the well funded large organisations to solve.Until I met the Honeyland team I didn't have much conviction in the space. Honeyland have not only created a gaming ecosystem in the Play2Earn style, they have also launched it to a web2 audience. For a normal web2 gamer, the web3 infrastructure is hardly noticeable. In this episode of Tokenize, we move away from the TradFi world, into the world of gaming. We have Corey Wright from Honeyland. We discuss everything from building a sustainable gaming ecosystem, what went wrong in 2021 and what the learnings have been. We are just getting started, again, and this time with more hope!

What are Layer 2 Blockchains? 🎯I recently read an article describing Layer 1 and Layer 2 Blockchains. If Layer1 Blockchain was a city, L2 chains are skyscrapers. Basically, L2s offer scale where L1s are starting to max out.Despite being L2 chains, sometimes these Blockchains punch harder than the L1 they sat on.Polygon developed by Polygon Labs is certainly one of them. They have been a lot more mainstream user focused than most other Blockchains.That is demonstrated by their commitment to working with mainstream brands.By the end of 2023 they had the following brands working with them - Nike, Starbucks, Reddit, Mastercard, Adobe, Disney, Meta, Adidas, Mercedes, and Google Cloud.In this episode of Tokenize, I talk to Polygon's Global head of institutional Capital - Colin ButlerWe talk about his efforts to bring in institutional capital into the crypto space, but don't miss the part where he expands on how Polygon is thinking of tapping into cross chain liquidity.