The Defiant - DeFi Podcast

In this week’s episode, I speak with some of the creators and investors behind Stoner Cats, the NFT-infused adult cartoon show about a group of cats who become sentient from their owner’s marihuana. And there are famous humans behind these cats, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin is one, and Jane Fonda is another. Ashton Kutcher’s VC fund is also involved. With all these big names, there was huge anticipation around this NFT sale -- so much, that the demand made Ethereum gas prices spike, so that many purchases didn’t go through and over $700,000 were lost in failed transactions. Ashton Kutcher said after this interview that the team is going to personally gift ETH to cover all failed transaction fees. Producer Lisa Sterbakov, investors Maaria Bajwa, Morgan Beller, and NFT creator Jonathan Howard, talk about the motivation behind Stoner Cats, how NFTs is changing the game for creators, what the chaotic launch was like for them, how they got Vitalik to join the show, and more behind the scenes scoops. Many thanks to 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, I interview Chris Blec, a researcher advocating for transparency in DeFi.  He was first drawn to cryptocurrencies through Bitcoin. He decided to go into crypto full time, first consulting with a token project in the ICO days, and later, in late 2019, by creating a YouTube channel where he aimed to educate users on how DeFi projects work under the hood. Here is where he came across what has become his focus since; the actual centralization behind supposedly decentralized protocols.All these questions and what appears to be constant criticism inspired some in the DeFi community to try to raise $50M for him to quit crypto. Meanwhile, Cointelegraph wrote a feature piece calling him maybe the most annoying man in DeFi. Chris seems unphased. To him, he’s just doing his part so that we don’t waste this opportunity to make a new, better financial system. Big thanks to 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

In this week’s episode I interview Raoul Pal, who retired from the hedge fund world at 36 years old and has run financial media company Real Vision for the seven years since. He predicted the housing bubble, he was early to call the devastating effect the pandemic would have on the economy, and now he gives us his thoughts on what he sees is coming up in the next few months. Raoul believes the second half of 2021 will be worse than expected, but that the decline will be short-lived thanks to even more stimulus to be added to the global economy. This will cause risk assets to continue their climb, including crypto. And for that he’s well-positioned: he says 100% of his liquid net worth is in cryptocurrencies but if he had to own just one asset over the next 12 months, that would be ETH. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode we speak with Tim Beiko, who organizes the Ethereum core developers calls and knows all the intricacies and latest development of the world’s most active blockchain. We spoke right after Beiko had proposed a date for the implementation of one of the biggest changes expected to happen to the Ethereum blockchain in recent history EIP 1559. If you’re not 100% clear on what this means, fear not, because Tim explains in non-dev terms exactly how this change will reduce volatility in Ethereum gas prices and also reduce the uncertainty of whether user transactions are approved or not. Importantly, it also means that part of ETH paid per transaction will be burned. That means that if demand for ETH and use of the Ethereum blockchain are greater than ETH issued, it should put pressure on the ether price to increase. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode we speak with Dan Robinson, a research partner at Paradigm, one of the most active VC funds in DeFi and crypto. One of the fund’s investments is Unsiwap, where Dan also had a central role in the design of v3, the latest version of DeFi’s most popular decentralized exchange. Dan talks about why Uniswap was so exciting as an investment, and about what drove the change to v3. He believes the new design will impact DeFi and crytpo, while rolling back the very revolution Uniswap itself prompted by creating a more hybrid model. ** Because of connectivity issues, the sound cuts off at times – huge apologies for that. We're providing a public transcript to make up for it. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode we speak with Jess Sloss, the instigator of Seed Club, a DAO that builds and invests in community tokens. We talk about the emergence of the social token economy, and how that’s different from the creator economy or the gig economy; the difference is that social tokens and DAOs allow individuals to create wealth rather than create revenue.  They’re tools for creators, and importantly, also for creator’ fans, to build something that’s similar to equity in a company, instead of having a salary. Another concept that describes this, Jess says, is the ownership economy. This is the idea that creators and fans can have actual ownership of their communities and platforms. Jess says we’re about to see billion-dollar communities on the internet. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode, I speak with Soona Amhaz of Volt Capital. Soona saw the value of crypto from very close when her family lost most of their savings after Lebanon’s currency crashed. She immediately told them to move their money to Bitcoin to protect themselves against further currency devaluation and currency controls. She was working on a startup as an engineer while trying to learn about bitcoin and onboard others into the space, and she realized there was very little information about crypto. So she decided to start the newsletter called Token Daily. The newsletter went from being a network of information to a network of people thanks to live events. That’s how she got to meet great teams building interesting projects in crypto and see their progress before anyone else did. When she saw big funds come in and invest in the projects she also knew had potential, she realized she had an edge and decided to start her own fund, Volt Capital. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode I speak with Mariano Conti, the former head of smart contracts at MakerDAO. Mariano knows the value of having permissionless and uncensorable currencies first hand —he started earning in Bitcoin in 2014 in Argentina because pesos would instantly lose value and it was hard to get dollars. When he learned about Ethereum he went all in and started working at Makerdao before DeFi was even a thing in 2016. When Dai was created, he was one of the first to take out a collateralized loan against his ETH and used that loan to buy a car. It must have been the first DeFi loan used to buy an actual physical thing.  The crypto space has come a long way since with an entire financial system built out of money legos and this week with a huge milestone of El Salvador becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Mariano talks about this historical moment and why it’s significant that it was a Latin American country to take this step. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode, I speak with Terry Crews, a legit star. He was a professional football player, has starred in multiple Hollywood films and currently leads in TV shows including America’s Got Talent. He is also a cryptocurrency enthusiast, minting his own social token called POWER. Terry has a very powerful story on how he got into crypto. It was at a design show in Milan. He wanted to support his friend at the show, but wasn’t able to withdraw money from his own American Express account. He realized a financial system that’s based on trusting a long line of intermediaries is broken. He thought, even when he did everything right, and he was already wealthy and famous, he still got the door shut in his face —so what’s left for the rest? All of that cemented his view that the financial system should be permissionless, transparent and global. Big thanks to our sponsors: Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online. 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

In this week’s episode, I interview Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at Arca, an investment management firm focusing on digital assets. Jeff has been valuing assets for the past 20 years, from investment-grade bonds, to high-yield debt and equities, and now he’s doing the same for crypto. We talk about the recent selloff and he thinks the big crash is over but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the market bottom. Still, Jeff says this is a buying opportunity and he gives insights into which sectors will outperform and underperform. He believes we’re heading to a 10 to 20-year secular bull market in crypto, where there will be a decoupling of sectors and where DeFi continues to grow. Big thanks to our sponsors: Kyber, whose Dynamic Market Maker, or DMM, is designed to react to market conditions to optimize fees, maximize returns 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