The Defiant - DeFi Podcast

In this week’s episode, I interview Adam Jackson, co-founder of Braintrust, a user-owned talent network. Think Fiverr for web3. Braintrust runs on Ethereum, has thousands of users, household names like NASA, TaskRabbit, Nike and Nestlé are clients, it has processed millions of dollars, yet not many people in the crypto community have heard of it.  And it may be by design, as the team has focused on building the platform looking outside of crypto. Adam believes the so-called gig economy is broken because platforms are incentivized to extract as much value as they can, leaving workers feeling like they’ve been cheated.  The way to fix it, he says, is through market-driven solutions using Web 3.0, DeFi and user-owned marketplaces. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

In this week’s episode I speak with Yam Karkai, the digital illustrator and artist behind NFT project World of Women. She’s had all sorts of odd jobs, before becoming a full-time illustrator, and none of them had anything to do with crypto. She was freelancing from gig to gig when she discovered NFTs this year and that’s when everything changed for her. For the first time ever, she had some economic stability, oddly thanks to volatile crypto. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4! https://bit.ly/IntegralSIZE

In this week’s episode, I interview Jaime Rogozinski, founder of Wall Street Bets, the famous Reddit trading group which earlier this year organized to push up the price of heavily shorted stocks like Gamestop and AMC to create a short squeeze, which had the double benefit of amplifying the group’s gains and screwing over big hedge funds. Jaime goes over what led him to create the subreddit back in 2012 and how it grew into several thousands and then millions of members. He started Wall Street Bets to make money, but also because he believed the financial system was broken and so-called retail traders should have a chance against the big guys. A lot of those sentiments mirror ideals that fuel the cryptocurrency community and so it’s only natural that after his exit from Wallet Street Bets, he has found his way into crypto. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week’s episode we speak with Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, an asset management firm overseeing $80 billion, which has shifted its focus heavily into crypto. They started out with investments almost exclusively in Bitcoin, but now, with Matthew on board, the firm is becoming increasingly bullish on Ethereum and DeFi. Matthew has a very methodical way of analyzing cryptocurrencies, applying the same rigorous methods used in traditional finance, and so it becomes even more compelling to hear him make the case for Ethereum’s market cap growing to $2 trillion. He also believes even after this year’s bull run, Ethereum and most DeFi protocols are trading cheaper than Web 2.0 and with better growth. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week’s episode I speak with Stephen Young, the founder and CEO of NFTfi, a platform for enabling NFT-backed loans. For some people, decentralized finance and nonfungible tokens sit on two separate worlds; DeFi on one end with its different lending, boring, and trading applications, and NFTs, with their digital art, music royalties and collectibles. Entrepreneurs like Stephen sit at the intersection, with a platform that uses NFTs to provide a financial product. He says volume on the platform is booming, as many new NFT owners find they can now get liquidity from digital property they don’t want to sell, while lenders can get more attractive rates for their crypto. Stephen believes this is just the beginning, and that eventually, real-world assets will also become digital property incorporated in the growing world of NFT and DeFi. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week’s episode, I speak with John Crain, the co-founder & CEO of SuperRare, one of the top NFT marketplaces. SuperRare wants to differentiate itself by being the NFT marketplace that best curates art, specifically. John believes the natural evolution for NFT platforms will be to specialize in verticals. The team recently launched a token and a DAO, and John explains how the move will be instrumental for SuperRare to scale its curation, as the original team gives up control and other participants propose and vote on what should go on the platform. We talk about the NFT boom more broadly, and how John believes NFTs are enabling the first artistic revolution since the internet. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.He started doing so well, collecting Axies, which are NFT tokens linked to digital, mystical animals, that he started renting out his NFTs. He realized this could lead to an entirely new business model, and that’s how Yield Guild Games was born.

In this week’s episode, I speak with Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games, or YGG. Long before Gabby was into crypto he was into gaming, and that’s how he started playing Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based game where players earn cryptocurrency just for playing. Gabby eventually became a well-known figure in the Axie community, spreading the word especially in his home country, the Philippines, as he saw that crypto earned for playing was making a real difference in people’s lives.  Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.He started doing so well, collecting Axies, which are NFT tokens linked to digital, mystical animals, that he started renting out his NFTs. He realized this could lead to an entirely new business model, and that’s how Yield Guild Games was born.

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dan Morehead, the founder of one of the longest-standing and largest crypto funds. Dan founded Pantera Capital in 2003 as a global macro hedge fund. In 2013, Pantera began investing in Bitcoin and quickly shifted its entire focus into crypto. Today, Pantera manages $3.8 billion in digital assets and equity in blockchain companies. Dan said Pantera is planning on increasing the Bitcoin exposure on its liquid tokens fund from zero to somewhere in the teens, while its main bet will remain DeFi. Dan is most excited about what he views is a shift in institutions’ interest in crypto. Firms which had told him they would never come close to holding crypto, are now wanting to dip their toes. And in a still small market, that has the potential to make big waves. Thanking our sponsors: Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week’s episode we speak with Ryan Selkis, CEO and founder of Messari, one of the most popular crypto data and research companies.  Recently, Ryan has been very vocal about crypto regulation in the US. We talk about how he believes the infrastructure bill was a catalyzing event for the whole American crypto ecosystem. He believes while there are think tanks and corporate-led lobbying groups, the space is missing a grassroots entity that gives a voice to the millions of crypto users in the US that so energetically came to life against this bill. That’s why he’s creating a group to help mobilize voters in the crypto community to support pro-crypto candidates. Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week’s episode we interview Nate Chastain, head of product at OpenSea. Opensea got its start back in 2017 when CryptoKitties launched on Ethereum. After those digital cats, the NFT space was pretty dead for the next couple of years. Now OpenSea is reaping the rewards of hanging through that NFT winter, as NFT summer explodes with punks, apes, penguins and more cats. Nate was openSea’s first product hire and now he’s making sure that what started out as a platform for essentially CryptoKitties and a couple of other projects, can deal with millions of digital assets. He talks about the scaling challenges OpenSea is facing and what’s next on the roadmap after raising $100M dollars in a round led by a16z. The daily records in volume and users, are proving the founders right in thinking maybe it’s not finance that will take crypto to mainstream, but something that looks like a cute game. Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.