If anyone knows fintech — it’s Julie VerHage-Greenberg. She was one of Bloomberg’s first fintech reporters and even covered Robinhood from before it was a billion dollar company. Since her time at Bloomberg, Julie has gone on to build her own media and newsletter company. Fintech Today is a community and media/content company focused on the fintech startup ecosystem for investors, entrepreneurs and operators in the space. On top of her founder duties, Julie is also an angel investor, startup advisor, podcast host, group fitness instructor, running coach, and yoga teacher. It’s alway fun to have reporters and fellow podcast hosts like Julie on Panic with Friends and ask them some questions for a change. In this episode, Julie and I talk about her jump to and building a fintech product, API, Robinhood, BNPL, Bitcoin, the gamification of trading, financial education, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Co-Founder at Fintech Today howardlindzon.com, fintechtoday.co Twitter: @howardlindzon, @julieverhage, @Fintechtoday_, @knutjensen linkedin.com/in/Julie-verhage-greenberg-1748801b #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

Raoul Pal leads Real Vision as co-founder and CEO. I’m a big fan and investor in Real Vision — a company with the goal of democratizing the very best of financial intelligence through media and video. Raoul has a history of managing hedge funds, and he was also one of a relatively small number of investors to predict the mortgage crisis of 2008–2009. Basically — he knows his stuff. I’ve also had Raoul on as a past Panic with Friends guest, and I loved getting his insights on the markets and crypto. So I figured it was time to give him another call and chat about what’s been happening in everything from the markets to tech since our last time together. In this episode, Raoul and I talk about the growing blockchain space, decentralization, crypto, the power of Twitter as a community, growing companies like FTX, asset allocation, inflation, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Raoul Pal, Co-Founder and CEO of Real Vision Group howardlindzon.com, realvision.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @RaoulGMI, @RealVision, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 https://www.linkedin.com/in/raoul-pal-real-vision #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

I brought back Yoni Assia for another guest appearance on Panic with Friends. He is a good friend of mine who's been in the crypto space for a while now. Recently, I even got to catch up with him in Miami, which you can read about on my blog. I first met Yoni back in 2010. He was one of the first people to talk to me about Bitcoin, and I was immediately sold on the brokerage he was starting, eToro. Back then, I was telling all the venture capitalists I knew eToro was like “Zynga, but for men.” So, we invested. And I’m glad I did. eToro is now an over $10 billion Israeli social trading and multi-asset brokerage. They recently added 3.1 million new users in the first quarter of 2021 and clocked in 5.2 million users for the full year 2020. In total, eToro has reported 20 million registered users. In this episode, Yoni and I talk about Dogecoin, the most interesting characters in crypto space, eToro, capital markets, the rise of retail investors, “fashionology,” blockchain, SPACs, trends, liquidity, art, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Yoni Assia, Co-Founder and CEO at eToro howardlindzon.com, eToro.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @yoniassia, @eToro, @eToroUS, @eToroX @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoniassia #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

JC Parets is a good friend of mine who I first met back when I started Stocktwits, and he’s back for his second Panic with Friends episode. As the founder of All Star Charts, JC lives and breathes all things charts. If there’s a chart in front of him, you can bet he’ll have a strong opinion about it. His company All Star Charts is a technical analysis publication for everyone from hedge funds, to financial advisors, to individual investors. I was more than happy to bring JC back on to get his perspective on the markets and have a few laughs with him in the process. It’s fun to have market pros with such infectious energy like JC on that I can talk to for free, but I’d be happy to pay for his ideas and thoughts too. In this episode, JC and I go deep on the bull market, option strategy, the best technical indicator, gold, risk management, data, paying for ideas, and more. Enjoy! Guest - JC Parets, CMT, President and Founder at Allstarcharts.com howardlindzon.com, Allstarcharts.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @Allstarcharts, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcparetscmt #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

For this week’s episode, we’re chatting with Sam Bankman-Fried. He’s a 29-year-old vegan living in Hong Kong. Oh, and he’s also a crypto billionaire with a huge cult following of fans around the world. Sam is the founder of two impressive companies: Alameda and FTX. His claim to fame came after capitalizing on the South Korean crypto kimchi premium (not the fermented food) and building FTX. Founded just a few years ago in 2017, FTX is one of the fastest growing digital asset exchanges in the world. I’ve had my eye on FTX for a while now and was excited to sit down with Sam to get his thoughts on the state of crypto markets and where he sees it going. In this week’s episode, Sam and I talk about his background, how he gets it all done, his preferred way to relax, living in Hong Kong versus the United States, stablecoins (and why they matter), crypto, defi, blockchain, derivatives, regulations, who he looks up to in the crypto space, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Sam Bankman-Fried, Founder and CEO of FTX howardlindzon.com, ftx.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @SBF_Alameda, @FTX_Official, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-bankman-fried-8367a346 #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

On this week’s episode we brought on Michael Sonnenshein. He is the CEO of Grayscale Investments, a company that entered the world of crypto back in its earliest days. Starting as an account executive in 2014, Michael worked his way up under the guidance of Grayscale founder Barry Silbert and recently took the reins as their CEO earlier this year. He is an impressive, driven, and smart guy with formidable experience. Grayscale Investments is a big player in the crypto space, with the largest bitcoin investment product ($GBTC) and plans to ramp up an ETF. Grayscale is the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, which currently has $40 billion in assets under management and 14 different investment funds. They’re making crypto mainstream and helping everyday investors looking to buy Bitcoin on the stock market. In this episode, Michael and I talk about Grayscale’s success, crypto, retail investing, security, ETFs, decentralized finance, volatility, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Michael Sonnenshein, CEO at Grayscale Investments howardlindzon.com, grayscale.co Twitter: @howardlindzon, @sonnenshein, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 linkedin.com/in/michaelsonnenshein #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

Ben Hunt is back for his third Panic with Friends appearance. Ben is co-founder and writer for Epsilon Theory, a newsletter and website that examines markets through game theory and history. He is is a great writer, investor, and an activist for people to stop being dumb (my words, not his). Ben wants you to invest with your head on straight, which is something I am a strong supporter of. He has helped navigate us through the ups and downs of the crypto space in his past appearances, and this episode is no exception. You can listen to his first and second appearances anywhere you get podcasts. This time around – and following our crypto conversation with Vinny Lingham from last week’s episode – Ben is giving his take on the bitcoin narrative. In this episode, I talked with Ben about his farm, raccoons (the real and financial kind), decentralization, the markets, how the bitcoin narrative has changed posts-crash, gold, the influence of Elon Musk, pricing power, why inflation is here to stay, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Ben Hunt, Co-Founder and Partner at Second Foundation Partners, Author and Co-Founder at Epsilon Theory howardlindzon.com, epsilontheory.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @epsilontheory, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 linkedin.com/in/bhunt #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

In this week’s episode, I brought on Vinny Lingham – an entrepreneur, founder, prolific crypto investor, and decentralization pied piper. Vinny is an old friend who I first met back at a fintech conference in Ireland. We quickly hit it off after a round of golf and idea pitching. He has been in the crypto space since the beginning and has even been called a crypto ‘oracle’ due to his accurate bitcoin predictions. I figured he would be the perfect person to catch up with and get a point of view from following the recent epic crash in crypto. Vinny puts his crypto knowledge to use as co-founder and CEO of Civic, a blockchain-powered tech company that Social Leverage was also an early investor in. I truly believe in Vinny and the work he’s doing. In addition to his work at Civic, Vinny is a general partner at Multicoin Capital (a name you may recognize from past Panic guest Kyle Samani) and co-founder of the South African VC Newtown Partners. In this episode, Vinny and I talk about decentralization, crypto, the long-term scalability of bitcoin, blockchain, virtual intelligence, data privacy, and more. Enjoy! Guest - Vinny Lingham, CEO & Co-Founder of Civic howardlindzon.com, civic.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @VinnyLingham, @civickey, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17  https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinnylingham https://www.linkedin.com/companies/civic-technologies #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

For this week’s episode, I brought on my friend Jeff Richards for his third Panic with Friends appearance. In case you can’t tell, I never get tired of talking to him. Jeff is a great friend and an even greater thinker. And he just keeps picking winners. Jeff is managing partner at GGV Capital, a $9 billion global venture firm. He focuses mainly on enterprise, cloud, and marketplace investments. It’s been great having him on the podcast during different stages of the pandemic to get his thoughts and assess where we’re going. In Jeff’s first Panic appearance, he offered a sense of much needed calm back when everyone was panicking. In his second appearance, Jeff gave insight into the fintech boom and the post-COVID future of investing. This time around, I wanted to check back in with him about tech, growth, and the future. In this episode, I chatted with Jeff about infrastructure, fintech, the digital economy, crypto, cloud, ecommerce, and categories and trends coming strong out of the pandemic. And of course we had to talk about golf for a bit too. Enjoy! Guest - Jeff Richards, Managing partner GGV Capital howardlindzon.com, ggvc.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @jrichlive, @GGVCapital, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 linkedin.com/in/jeffrichards #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

This episode we’re talking about a subject near and dear to my heart: watches. Watches continue to be a timeless investment piece synonymous with value. And as someone who has collected over 50 watches, I was super excited to bring on Justin Reis of WatchBox to learn more about the growing tech-enabled luxury commerce market. WatchBox is the world’s leading platform for the buying, selling, and trading of pre-owned luxury watches, with offices in the U.S., Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore, and Dubai. In this episode, Justin talks with my co-hosts and I all about the luxury commerce market, WatchBox’s hybrid high-tech high-touch model, how their service works, the typical WatchBox customer, having value in brand equity, WatchBox TV, collectability, the rise in Apple and other tech watches, NFTS, and more. I also offered up some great dating tips this episode, which I know everyone was dying to hear about! Guest - Justin Reis, Co-Founder and Global CEO at WatchBox howardlindzon.com, thewatchbox.com Twitter: @howardlindzon, @watchbox_global, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-reis-633925188 #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance