DeCent People

Kirill Gertman was born in north-eastern Ukraine when it was still a part of the USSR. His family left after the fall of Communism and eventually settled in Canada. His dad got him interested in computers when he was working on mainframes with punch card programming. While programming didn't appeal to him, the design aspect of making web sites and making games was his first foray into the industry. After a stint in fin tech, he realized the opportunity crypto afforded came from the money aspect that's inherent in blockchains like Ethereum. Last year he co-founded Conduit, a decentralized finance platform that allows users to plug into higher yielding assets all in one place.  Conduit's web site Kirill on Twitter Kirill on LinkedIn More on how crypto shadow banks pay pay such high yieldsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dawn Newton wasn't the first in on the Internet boom of the late 1990s but she arrived at just the right time. One of the first employees of NetZero, Newton rode the web1.0 wave as well as anyone. When she got burned out on the tech front, she decided to go to culinary school in Paris and served under several Michelin starred chefs. Not bad for someone who didn't know how to cook a hot dog in college. Newton is now the co-founder and chief operating officer of Netki, which is developing digital identity solutions for use with blockchains. One of their bigger projects has been helping right the Chivo wallet in El Salvador after it's rocky start. We also talk about digital identity and cooking shows. Netki's web site Follow Dawn on Twitter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Eric Tung spent parts of his childhood in Canada and China, where he was born. His mother home schooled him while they lived in Beijing so as to keep the Chinese Communist Party propaganda to a minimum. Yet as China ramped up its Great Firewall to block outside Internet from coming into the country, Eric rebelled and built Geph, a virtual private network that could get around the Chinese firewall. He did this when he was 12, and Geph is still in use today in China and Iran. At 14, Tung was accepted into the University of Waterloo, where Ethereum inventor Vitalik Buterin was also a student, and is the creator of Themelio, a new blockchain protocol that strips out higher-level functionality to focus on the shared trusted layer of truth. A blockchain builder and wunderkind, Tung has done all of this and is still only 25 years old.  More on Themelio Check out Geph Follow Eric on TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Cutler grew up in an idyllic setting in Connecticut, roaming the woods with friends and playing soccer. He attended M.I.T. where he started his first company, NetGenesis, at the dawn of the Internet era. Having that experience with web1, Cutler sees parallels today in the web3 world where the move again is toward decentralized applications. His latest firm, Blocknative, helps web3 developers, traders and others navigate the perils of the mempool, where blockchain transactions sit before being added to the next block. This is Dark Forest territory.  It's a fascinating and little-understood part of web3 and I spoke to Cutler to help cut through the confusion.  Blocknative web site Follow Blocknative on Twitter  Follow Matt Cutler on Twitter  Ethereum Is A Dark Forest  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode Stephen Laddin chats with Mitch Ngo, co-founder and CEO of Golden Ark, the first metaverse platform for cannabis consumers. Mitch brings with him team members Jack Lau and Al Freshko, who together with California's leading marijuana growers and suppliers are helping to usher in the future of weed. Members of Golden Ark will no longer be excluded from social networks on traditional apps and social media platforms, but will instead be part of a collaborative community with a shared passion for pot. Here, enthusiasts will be able to shop for wearables and accessories, find dispensaries, and game with their friends--all in a safe and social environment. In a blockchain crypto-based economy, members will earn tokens and record all cannabis transactions on a secure, permanent, and verifiable ledger. Golden Ark's web siteSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Parker McCurley read Satoshi's Bitcoin white paper he decided he needed to learn to code. Giving himself a year, he'd wear an M.I.T. shirt to help strike up conversations with software developers in coffee shops as he began searching for a job. Seeing the inside of a centralized software firm though made him want to create a decentralized alternative, and Decent Labs was born in mid-2017. The venture studio helps web3 developers create and launch applications and tools, and seeks to help underrepresented entrepreneurs get a start.   Decent Labs web site Parker on Twitter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I spoke to Charles Cascarilla, the CEO of Paxos, about his firm's work in digitizing assets like stocks and gold. It's part of the IEFA Conversation Series, which was nice enough to let me share this with you. I've known Charles since he was the founder of ItBit, the predecessor to Paxos, which he has grown into a multidimensional crypto firm with projects including an SEC-approved protocol for clearing and settling some U.S. equities using blockchain.  More on Paxos Charles on LinkedIn The IEFA Conversation Series A story I wrote on Paxos for Bloomberg and another one that goes way backSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mael Peneau, better known as Maelstrom, is a French DJ, electronic musician and producer who has been on the forefront of music NFTs and how they can change the economic equation for artists. We talk about his life in France, how he got in to the rave scene and began making his own records. This episode is a companion piece to the wonderfully thorough examination of how non-fungible tokens are changing music that we published on DeCential last month. You can read it here. Maelstrom lays out how the tide is changing after streaming services vastly reduced the ability for musicians to earn money from their songs being played on Spotify or Apple Music. He's no crypto evangelist, however, and is cautious about the challenges ahead.  Maelstrom's discography  Maelstrom on Soundcloud Follow him on TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jill Gunter grew up in the Boston area in a financially-savvy household, with both parents working in banking. Her mom, a quantitative options trader, was an inspiration for her that she could go to Wall Street too if she wanted. After realizing her diminutive frame made her perfect to be a coxswain on the crew team at her high school, she developed a love of rowing. She began her career at Goldman Sachs and saw firsthand some of the shortcomings of the traditional financial system's infrastructure. When she learned about Bitcoin and then Ethereum the possibilities to create an alternative monetary system was too good to pass up. She has advised the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on cryptocurrencies and served as head of business development at Chain. Now she's the chief strategy officer at Espresso Systems, a privacy-focused blockchain that will first be available as an add-on to Ethereum applications before the layer one launches later int he future. Jill is one of the smartest and most interesting folks you'll come across in crypto, as well as one of the nicest.  Learn more about Espresso  Follow Jill on Twitter Jill's profile on LinkedInSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Amanda Cassatt has been active within the Ethereum ecosystem almost from the very beginning as she led marketing for ConsenSys, the Ethereum application development studio built by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. She has since gone on to co-found Serotonin, a web3 professional services firm and Mojito, an NFT infrastructure firm. Amanda is a former special projects editor for the Huffington Post and interned at the New Yorker magazine, and co-founded Slant in 2015, so we naturally dove deep into media revenue models and how web2 didn't quite get it right. Amanda is one of the most-connected people you'll find in crypto and is helping bring to life Crypto: The Musical which plans to utilize a decentralized autonomous organization to raise money to produce the first Broadway musical about well, crypto. There is also a bonus mention of the best football club the world has ever known, Liverpool FC. Follow developments in Crypto: The Musical  Learn more about Serotonin and Mojito  Follow Amanda on TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.