

Empire
Blockworks
Empire features interviews with top crypto founders to get the real stories that aren’t shared elsewhere. Empire is your look behind the curtain of the crypto industry. We release two episodes per week: guest interviews on Monday and a weekly roundup on Friday.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 27, 2022 • 48min
The Current State of DeFi Investing | Ben Forman
On today’s episode of Empire Blockwork’s co-founder Jason Yanowitz and his co-host Santiago Roel Santos are joined by Ben Forman, managing partner at ParaFi Capital.Ben launched ParaFi in 2018 after seeing the potential of DeFi. Now with around $1 billion AUM, he provides his thoughts on how the DeFi ecosystem has evolved.Ben also shares his insights into how the recent Jan. 21 2022, market sell-off compares to March 2020, the explosive growth of stablecoins, the layer-1 wars, opportunities in NFTs, gaming and the biggest crypto trends for 2022.This episode was recorded on January 21, 2022.ParaSwap:If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out paraswap.io. ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage.--Empire is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Jan 21, 2022 • 1h 21min
Why Microsoft Could Win the Metaverse Wars | Weekly Roundup
On today's episode of Empire's Weekly Roundup, Jason and Santiago gear up for a jam-packed narrative week as they explore the hottest in crypto news. Echoes and reminders of last week's discussion crop up as they review changing opinions on tokenization, DeFi, and the Curve Wars. They look at the biggest in acquisitions, from new funds stepping into the cryptospace with billion dollar backing to Microsoft's metaverse news- and what all of these things could mean for the future of crypto. From liquidity to portfolio management, they cover it all on this week's roundup!--Shownotes
https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/blockchains-are-cities-564327013f86
https://medium.com/momentum6/lockdrop-lba-the-future-of-tokenomics-479ccb2afeed
https://0xrusowsky.substack.com/p/an-attempt-to-analyze-all-the-drama?r=rx2fd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://blockworks.co/everything-you-need-to-know-about-illuvium/
--Avalanche:Thank you to Avalanche for sponsoring Empire. Avalanche is one of the best and fastest growing smart-contract platforms in the industry.Learn more about them at https://www.avax.network/--Empire's Weekly Roundup is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Jan 20, 2022 • 1h 3min
$6 Billion Fund Manager Explains Why DeFi is Undervalued | Joey Krug, Pantera
On today's episode of Empire, Jason Yanowitz and Santos Santiago are joined by Joey Krug, CIO of Pantera. Before Pantera, Joey also organized the first ICO on Ethereum, raising a total $5.7 million for Augur, a peer-to-peer betting platform- among other things. With his multiple positions and involvements in the crypto scene, Joey provides a unique viewpoint to not only past and current trends, but a loud and vocal perspective on DeFi and the Layer wars. Join Jason and Santiago as they learn more about how Joey navigated his huge portfolio of experience in crypto leading up to Pantera and why he thinks DeFi is incredibly undervalued today. --Empire is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Jan 14, 2022 • 1h 5min
The Rebirth of Tokenomics: Yearn Finance and Ve(3,3)
In this episode of Empire's Weekly Roundup, Jason and Santiago bring their A-game and best sweaters for this conversation about the latest in crypto this week. After covering the launch of AllianceDAO yesterday and the Curve Wars last week, Ver(3,3) and Yearn Finance provide a stimulating and exciting revisit as they discuss what it means for the environment. Jason and Santiago track the markets, comment on fundraisers, and more.--Avalanche:Thank you to Avalanche for sponsoring Empire. Avalanche is one of the best and fastest growing smart-contract platforms in the industry.Learn more about them at https://www.avax.network/--Empire's Weekly Roundup is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Jan 13, 2022 • 1h 16min
AllianceDAO on raising $50M and this year’s biggest DeFi trends | Qiao Wang & Imran Khan
On this episode of Empire, Jason Yanowitz and Mike Ippolito are joined by Qiao Wang and Imran Khan of AllianceDAO. Not only are Qiao and Imran announcing big news about launching AllianceDAO & raising $50 Million, but they're also diving into all their thoughts on what DeFi Summer set up for the current state of crypto, the metaverse & gaming projects they're interested in. You won't want to miss this!--ParaSwap:If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out paraswap.io.ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage.Find out more about them at https://www.paraswap.io/--Empire is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Jan 7, 2022 • 1h 2min
Understanding the Curve Wars, crypto options, and new L1s stay hot | Weekly Roundup
Welcome to the first Weekly Roundup of the 2022! With new stories happening all the time, join Jason and Santiago as they look at the latest in market news, wrestle with the internet, and explain the hottest in crytpo news. This week they take a deep dive into explaining Curve and the curve wars, discuss the complicated back-and-forth of what is decentralized and permissionless- this time relating to an art theft!- and analyse Electric Capital's dropped report.--Avalanche:Thank you to Avalanche for sponsoring Empire. Avalanche is one of the best and fastest growing smart-contract platforms in the industry.Learn more about them at https://www.avax.network/--Required Reading!https://theknower.substack.com/p/the-curve-wars-rage-onhttps://moneywithcarter.substack.com/p/q1-2022-thesis--Empire's Weekly Roundup is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Jan 6, 2022 • 55min
Multicoin's Investment Theses on the Future of Crypto | Tushar Jain & Kyle Samani
On this episode of Empire, Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Santos sit down with Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital. As one of the top performing crypto funds of all time, Kyle and Tushar have insight not only discuss their former and current contrarian opinions on the space but discuss what they've learned, how they're thinking, and what they're seeing when it comes to the crypto industry in 2022.--ParaSwap:If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out paraswap.io.ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage.Find out more about them at https://www.paraswap.io/--Empire is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Dec 31, 2021 • 1h 12min
2022 Crypto Predictions with Santiago and Yano
In this episode of Empire's Weekly Roundup, Jason and Santiago bring enthusiasm and cheer to end a spectacular year and make some predictions about the new one! Sending off 2021 with a review of their past speculation, Jason and Santiago take turns explaining their own personal predictions and discussing their agreements, disagreements, or confusion thereafter!Want to hear what crypto predictions they have concerning DAOs, DEXs, NFTs and more? Then tune in and bring in the new year with Empire's hosts!Electric Capital Developer Report: https://medium.com/electric-capital/electric-capital-developer-report-2020-9417165c6444--Empire's Weekly Roundup is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Dec 30, 2021 • 1h 10min
How dYdX could overtake Binance | Antonio Juliano dYdX
In this episode of Empire Jason & Santiago are joined by Antonio Juliano. Antonio is the founder of dYdX one of the largest decentralized exchanges in the world. After leaving Coinbase to start dYdX in 2017, dYdX now settles over $2 Billion of trade volume per day and is backed by some of the largest funds in the crypto industry such as a16z, Polychain & Bain Capital.We invited Antonio on Empire to discuss how dYdX plans to become the largest crypto exchange in the world, futures trading products, order books vs AMMs, the layer-1 wars, Antonio's outlook for DeFi growth and much more.--Avalanche:Thank you to Avalanche for sponsoring Empire. Avalanche is one of the best and fastest growing smart-contract platforms in the industry.Learn more about them at https://www.avax.network/--ParaSwap:If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out paraswap.io.ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage.Find out more about them at https://www.paraswap.io/--Empire is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq?si=41bc452345b649f9Subscribe to the podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3srZf7M

Dec 24, 2021 • 1h 20min
Why Jack Dorsey hates Web 3 & DAOs beating VCs for investments | Weekly Roundup
Welcome back to another episode of Empire’s Weekly Roundup. The Weekly Roundup airs every Friday morning with Jason Yanowitz and co-host, Santiago Roel Santos.In today's weekly roundup Jason & Santiago discuss the latest in crypto narratives and news, starting with Jack Dorsey's latest polarizing tweets on Web 3.0, Permissioned DeFi, crypto social media, DAOs winning deals against VCs for investments, and more!--Empire's Weekly Roundup is brought to you by Blockworks, a financial media brand delivering breaking news and premium insights about digital assets to millions of investors. For more content like this, subscribe to Blockworks' free daily newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/Follow me and Santiago on Twitter, @JasonYanowitz and @santiagoroel; let us know what you thought of the show!