Around The Coin

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Ken Kruger, the founder and CEO of Moon, a crypto challenger bank and banking as a service platform. Prior to starting Moon, Ken ran a software consulting company that helped New York-based venture-backed startups build products. Previously he worked at Lockheed Martin as a software engineer and product manager on classified military projects. Ken has engineering degrees from Columbia University and Cornell University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Michael Messele, a co-founder and CEO of Pillar Project, the leading open source, non-custodial, and community-owned crypto wallet that facilitates seamless access to markets, DEXs, and provides storage for crypto assets across multiple chains. The wallet is powered by Etherspot - Pillar Project’s native SDK. Michael is an experienced campaigner within the technology space of the Financial Services industry coupled with a previous start-up exposure, and he has devoted the last few years to leveraging innovations built on the decentralized economy. Michael has an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sonny Alves Dias, CTO of Pixelmatic, a video game studio currently developing the title “Infinite Fleet” published by Exordium Limited. Infinite Fleet is an MMO strategy game set in space where players take command of a fleet of spaceships and play in cooperation against an alien race controlled by AI. The game also has crypto elements such as a cryptocurrency powering player-to-player trades and NFTs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sergey Gorbunov, CEO and Co-Founder of Axelar, delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3. Sergey is an Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo (2016 - present). He is interested in building cryptographic primitives, protocols, and systems that enable new applications in untrusted and distributed environments. He received a Ph.D. from MIT, where he was a Microsoft Ph.D. fellow and MSc and BSc from UToronto. His Ph.D. dissertation was on designing cryptographic tools for the cloud using lattice-based cryptography for which he received the Sprowls Doctoral Thesis Award for best thesis in CS at MIT. He was on the founding team of Algorand where he was involved in various business and technical aspects of the company and led the cryptography group. He also spent some time at IBM T.J. Watson Research Centre.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Justin Banon, co-founder and CEO of Boson Protocol, the decentralized network on which the future of commerce will run. Boson Protocol enables anyone to sell physical products in the metaverse as NFTs within the Decentraland space Boson Portal. He previously blitzscaled the Priority Pass Group to a $1Bn per annum revenue global rewards platform. With an academic background in physics, digital innovation and crypto, Justin applies first principles thinking to solve human problems with technology. By combining cool tech with deep tech, he imagines a future where commerce is open, fair, and equitable.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Matt Cutler, CEO and Co-Founder of Blocknative, the leading real-time infrastructure for monitoring pre-chain data, optimizing gas spend, and predicting transaction settlement. Matt has founded multiple technology startups, including Web analytics pioneer NetGenesis, which went public in 2000 at the height of the Web 1.0 boom. His most recent startup, the mobile collaboration platform Collaborate.com, was acquired by Cisco in 2013. Along the way, Matt has consistently made meaningful contributions to emerging technology ecosystems, including serving as chair of the first-ever Webmasters Guild, co-authoring the award-winning E-Metrics Whitepaper, championing AdWeek’s Viral Video Awards, establishing Cisco’s global Design Thinking initiative, and more.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Jack McDonald the CEO of PolySign, Inc., and Standard Custody and Trust, a qualified custodian for digital assets licensed by the state of New York. Prior to joining PolySign, Jack McDonald was CEO of Conifer Financial Services for a decade. Jack was named one of the ‘20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds’ by Institutional Investor Magazine and inducted into Global Custodian's 'Legends of The Industry’.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Julian Liniger who is the co-founder and CEO of Relai, Europe's easiest Bitcoin App and one of the fastest growing Bitcoin Startups in Europe. Julian is a young serial entrepreneur in the fintech and crypto space based in Switzerland. He is into Bitcoin and Crypto since 2015 and has raised more than $5M in Venture Capital so far, before even turning 30 years old.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Justin Newton, CEO of Netki. Justin Newton is an early internet pioneer and a startup veteran - a serial entrepreneur, thought leader, and innovator with a reputation for driving companies to unicorn valuations while exemplifying the ideals that defined the internet revolution - free speech, anonymity, decentralized ownership, open infrastructure, and permissionless innovation. As a tech executive, Justin led four consecutive companies to $1B+ IPOs. In 1998, Justin helped take AboveNet, a leading Internet Infrastructure company, public, followed by NetZero, the world’s largest free ISP, in 1999. Justin was then EVP of IT for Demand Media, now Leaf Group, where he prepared their technology platforms and IT infrastructure for the stress tests and audits required in advance of their public filings. Additionally, Justin applied all of this technical expertise to the financial services industry as CTO of Blackline systems, developing software that was instrumental in ensuring financial stability in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.Since co-founding Netki in 2014, Justin has brought his incredible experience in tech to the blockchain world. Netki has pioneered new digital ID validation solutions for onboarding, KYC/AML, and Travel Rule compliance for a variety of blockchain platforms, helping wallet providers, exchanges, banks, fintech, governments, and any company using blockchain technology comply with Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) guidance while maintaining the principles of privacy and autonomy upon which blockchain and digital assets were founded. Netki has been a highly sought-after participant in government-led initiatives on digital identity by the US Treasury, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Central Bank of Aruba, the government of El Salvador, and other global agencies and institutions.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Chris Swenor, CEO of Reach. Chris Swenor managed technical teams across the globe for over 15 years before leading the blockchain development platform to a $48 million valuation in May of 2021. With multiple exits under his belt, Swenor serves as mentor at Harvard Business School, TechStars, and MassChallenge. Reach has amassed over 6,000 developers as of March, 2022, with many exciting new developments underway.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices