The DeFi Decoded Podcast

DeFi Fan Favorite Charlie Morris, GP of CMCC Global, is back! This time he joins to discuss his views on the Layer 1 wars which have been lighting up crypto twitter recently. Charlie and the guys talk about the concept of so-called "Ethereum killers," new protocols like Solana, Terra and Avalanche which are capturing DeFi market share from Ethereum. They debate whether 'Ethereum killer' is the correct framing, whether one chain will rule them all and how many of these new protocols will stand the test of time. Charlie also shares some thoughts on his recent trip to Lisbon to attend the Solana Breakpoint event. One big take-away was the rise of gaming, social media and other Web3 applications taking greater prominence. I guess crypto really is eating the world.

On today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Alex sits down with Ethan Buchman, co-founder of Cosmos and inventor of Tendermint, the consensus algorithm which powers a huge chunk of the blockchain economy. Ethan is a true polymath, versed in biology, philosophy, and political economy, which informs his view on how blockchain can bring about a more sustainable and just world and a new kind of financial system called Regenerative Finance (ReFi). Ethan is also an enormously successful entrepreneur: In less than three years, Cosmos has grown into a nearly $10 billion protocol that supports hundreds of different blockchains and over $100 billion in value. Investors in the original token offering for Cosmos ($ATOM) are up approximately 300x their money. As the "internet of blockchains" Cosmos is knitting together different platforms into one interoperable network. In addition, the DeFi ecosystem on Cosmos is growing fast, with Osmosis nearing in on $1 billion in TVL since launch.

On today's DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex speak to Luigi DeMeo, reformed Wall Street trader turned DeFi entrepreneur, evangelist, and community builder. Luigi currently oversees DeFi for Ava Labs, the software development company that supports the Avalanche ecosystem. Luigi tells the guys about his personal journey, which started on the Citigroup trading floor and how he fell down the Ethereum rabbit hole and ended up going full-crypto. He explains what makes Avalanche different, what problems it solves, who is building on the protocol, how it could be adopted by traditional financial players, and where DeFi on Avalanche is headed next. This is a must-listen for newbies and veteran DeFi traders.

In this episode, Andrew and Alex sit down with DeFi pioneer Galia Benartzi, co-founder of Bancor and inventor of the Automated Market Maker, now a building block of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Galia is also a member of the advisory council of Prophecy DeFi (PDFI-CSE). Galia has appeared on BloombergTV and CNBC, and has spoken at the United Nations. Previously, she was a Venture Partner at Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund, a founding member of Summit Powder Mountain, and the organizer of Bretton Woods 75, a commemoration event evaluating the historic monetary accords. Galia provides her perspective on the origins of DeFi, why DeFi matters, the most exciting areas of growth and more.

On today's episode, Andrew and Alex are joined by Sunny Aggarwal, Co-founder of Osmosis ($OSMO), a Decentralized Exchange (DEX) on the Cosmos blockchain network which, in only nine months, has soared to US$600 million in Total Value Locked. Osmosis is attracting capital from across the industry including from some of the most influential investors: On the day we recorded the podcast, Paradigm, the multi-billion crypto VC firm, announced a major investment of $21 million to help Osmosis accelerate its growth. It was the first DEX investment Paradigm made outside of the Ethereum ecosystem, evidence of Osmosis' growing important to the future of DeFi. Sunny tells us about the origin of Osmosis, his vision for blockchain interoperability and composability, the innovative feature set of Osmosis, the importance of privacy in blockchain transactions, why traditional finance people should be paying attention to DeFi and much more.

On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew is joined by Kevin Zhang. Kevin is the co-Founder of PayTrie and DFX Finance. PayTrie is one of Canada's largest fiat on-boarding ramps, helping Canadians buy crypto stablecoins with their bank account. DFX Finance is the leading decentralized foreign exchange protocol that is optimized for stablecoins. DFX is the category leader in the rapidly emerging DeFi FX sub-sector, garnering over $15m in assets to the protocol and attracting millions of dollars in trading volume. In this episode, Andrew and Kevin do a deep-dive into both PayTrie and DFX and how they are complementary to each other. They discuss emerging trends in stablecoins, looking into market flows and where investor demand is. Finally, we get Kevin's views on where DeFi is today, and how he views the space evolving over time.

On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex are joined by Jon Lister, co-Founder and President of Satstreet, one of Canada's fastest growing digital asset brokerages. Jon has executed over $500 million in digital currency trades for institutions and high net worth clients. He previously co-founded BlockEQ, a leading platform for the Stellar Network, which was acquired by Coinsquare for $12 million in December 2018. Jon also gained experience at BMO Capital Markets, Blackhawk Network and earned an HBA from Ivey Business School. On this episode, Andrew and Alex get Jon's outlook on the macro-environment and what it means for cryptoassets and defi. They also discuss some DeFi trends he's watching, and learn more about how SatStreet works and how it's helping broaden access to DeFi opportunities for institutional investors. They discuss which projects are being picked up by the market, and point out some exciting ones that are flying under the radar. They also get Jon's take on the recent regulatory news out of both China and the US and what it means for crypto and defi.

On this epside of DeFi Decoded, in light of the Facebook outage, Alex and Andrew dig into the promise and peril of Web3 - Can it actually solve these problems, or does it threaten to create a system that's just as fragile but more fragmented and thus harder to control. For ten perilous (or blissful, depending on who you ask) hours on Monday October 4th, Facebook and all the Facebook branded apps went offline, exposing the centralized and surprisingly fragile nature of the Web. Despite the broadly positive innovations of the internet, we still rely on middlemen to perform many essential functions, such as maintaining internet infrastructure, moving, and storing value and data, verifying identities, and performing basic business logic like databasing, contracting and so forth. This is problematic for several reasons. Intermediaries are vulnerable to hacking or failure (as we saw with Facebook). Banks, social media companies and other intermediaries are gatekeepers that exclude many people. They also capture all the data and much of the value created online. That's bad because it could violate our privacy but also because we don't get to fully participate in what we create online. Blockchain promises a new era of the internet, dubbed Web3, which could solve many of these problems by giving us a way to move and store assets digitally and peer to peer. Blockchain gives us the tools, incentives and mechanisms to create value and organize capability though DAOs or decentralized autonomous organizations, rather than centralized companies. Web3 promises a fairer, more resilient, more transparent, more private, and more decentralized internet, financial services industry, and economy.

On Today's episode of DeFi Decoded, Andrew and Alex are joined by our first special guest, Charlie Morris, Managing Partner of CMCC Global, a US $300 million asset management company focused exclusively on digital assets and blockchain technology. Charlie is also an independent board member of Prophecy Defi (PDFI-CSE). CMCC Global was founded in 2016, making Charlie one of the longest tenured VC investors in this entire industry. CMCC research on DeFi and other emerging areas of blockchain innovation are required reading for anyone trying to understand the future of this industry. With offices in Asia and North America, CMCC has a truly global footprint. On this episode, Andrew and Alex ask about Charlie's main crypto theses, and discuss some of the emerging DeFi trends he is keeping an eye out for. They dig into what makes a good project- from the core team to the tech to the target market. And get Charlie's take on some emerging protocols or L1s that are starting to chip away at Ethereum's market share. We also get Charlie's take on the recent news that China is cracking down on crypto and what that means for the industry.

On today's episode we review the key transformations and ask what's next? As Robert Leshner co-founder of Compound Labs says, DeFi is not going to be called DeFi in the next 5 years. It's just going to be called finance. And all finance is going to run on blockchains; most assets will make their way onto a blockchain." Financial services is more than an industry—it is the cardiovascular system of the global economy, the lifeline of all other industries. DeFi is reimagining its anatomy and physiology from banking and trading to risk management and more. Through the first few weeks of DeFi decoded, we have covered all the key functions of the financial service industry and how it's being disrupted. They are: Storing value: DAO treasuries for institutions, cryptoasset/token wallets for individuals. These are the new crypto-native bank accounts Moving value: Stablecoins such as USDC and MakerDAO's DAI route around banks Lending value: Pooled lending such as Compound and AAVE augment savings accounts at banks and other financial intermediaries and have better yields to boot. Funding and investing: Investment aggregators such as YFI and Rari could ultimately disintermediate investment advisors, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and robo-advisors. Exchanging value: Decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, Sushiswap, and QuickSwap could replace or enhance stock exchanges and centralized cryptoasset exchanges Insuring value and managing risk (i.e., derivatives): On-chain insurance such as NexusMutual and derivatives platforms such as SX, Perpetual protocol, and dYdX could supplement or replace insurance policies and over-the-counter derivatives. Analyzing value: Contract auditors such as Zeppelin and DeFi Score could augment or perhaps even perform the work of the Big Five accounting firms. Accounting for value: Block explorers such as Etherscan and PolygonScan track asset movements in real time; perhaps eventually eliminating periodic audits by accounting firms. Authenticating identity: Formal verification is no longer required to access open-source DeFi protocols. Pseudonymous or anonymous identities are common.