Raoul Pal: The Journey Man

With confirmation that Raoul Pal finally bought himself a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, The Defiant’s Robin Schmidt sits down with Real Vision’s founder and CEO to talk about his decision. Raoul and Robin discuss both the good and the (possible) bad of Yuga Labs’ and Bored Ape Yacht Club’s expansion, the recent ApeCoin airdrop, and how NFTs (and social tokens) can democratize the space. Tune in for a fascinating debate on the future of the metaverse. Recorded on March 23, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All cryptocurrency trading and investing activity is available on a public ledger. And all that activity can be extracted and studied. This is what’s called “on-chain analysis.” Indeed, one of the remarkable things about trading and investing in crypto is the easy availability of rich data streams that allow traders and investors to see things traditional technical analysis does not make visible. Benjamin Cowen, CEO of Into The Cryptoverse, joins Real Vision's Ash Bennington to talk about new ways of understanding price action using on-chain data to analyze consumer behavior through indicators like "HODL Waves." Cowen also describes how social metrics complement on-chain data to complete the macro picture. These new methods, combined with traditional technical analysis, can help traders make sense of market cycles, prevailing risks, and future price direction. Recorded on March 18, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Clinical trials are a crucial part of the development of new medicines. But existing processes are antiquated, and it can take as many as 10 years before a new drug is approved. As demonstrated during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, efficient influx of vaccines and other innovative solutions is critical for society’s current and future medical needs. Triall is leading the deployment of blockchain-integrated software solutions to accelerate delivery of new drugs to patients. Triall co-founder and CEO Hadil Es-Sbai and co-founder and head of marketing Raymond van der Waal join Santiago Velez, co-founder and division lead of R&D at Block Digital, to talk about the world’s first digital ecosystem for clinical trials and how it will improve reliability and efficiency in the drug-development process. Recorded on March 7, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Persistent deflationary forces in Japan have puzzled economists for decades. Takaaki Kato, the Japan-based executive director and head of sales/trading for BitFlyer, doesn’know how long into the future present conditions will sustain. But he does see potential instability for the Japanese yen. Also a fiat currency bear, Kato perceives in Japan’s set of problems major tailwinds for crypto adoption. Kato tells Real Vision’s Ash Bennington that President Joe Biden’s executive order directing a “whole of government” approach to U.S. crypto policy will usher in a bifurcated era of the regulated and the unregulated. Those crypto platforms that navigate uncertainty and earn sanction by the U.S. government will have a head start on success in this new era. Recorded on March 9, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Interest rates on DeFi platforms are often as opaque as they are impressive, to the point where they seem too good to be true, especially in a world of near-zero TradFi yields. Sudhu Arumugam, co-founder of crypto derivatives exchange and yield platform CoinFLEX, offers a peek behind the curtain of his firm’s operations. Arumugam walks Real Vision’s Ash Bennington through the arbitrage strategies deployed by CoinFLEX, noting that his team’s edge comes from working with large pools of capital and enjoying privileged international access. Arumugam also discusses the evolving regulatory environment in light of the Biden administration’s new “whole of government” approach to crypto. Ultimately, as Arumugam sees it, regulation is bullish because it will catalyze institutional adoption like nothing else before it. Recorded on March 9, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back, just in time to talk about the biggest NFT news of 2022: Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, has acquired the brands, copyrights in the art, and other intellectual property of the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from Larva Labs. BAYC is the most valuable NFT collection; CryptoPunks is the second-most valuable. So, what’s next now that these crown jewels have become one? Real Vision’s Ash Bennington joins The Defiant’s Camila Russo to talk about the deal. Camila and Ash also discuss how the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening cycle will impact digital assets and what President Joe Biden’s executive order means for the crypto space. Recorded on March 16, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Marcello Mari is the CEO of SingularityDAO and an expert on the emerging business structure that’s opening new frontiers to individual investors. Mari joins Santiago Velez, co-founder and division lead of R&D at Block Digital, to explain what a decentralized autonomous organization is and to share what he learned when he created his DAO. The DAO governance structure has been criticized as too slow to operate effectively. Mari counters that DAOs afford individuals opportunities to pool capital at levels previously possible only for institutions. Combined with risk-hedging algorithms, this suggests that there’s vast unrealized potential for DAOs as viable structures for individual investors. Mari and Velez dig into the technical aspects of DAOs and their underlying anatomy. This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to learn more about DAOs. Recorded on February 25, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ray Dalio, founder, co-chairman, and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, famously noted that global reserve currencies typically last for 100 years or so. If that trend holds, the US dollar is nearing the end of the privileged status it inherited from the British pound. So, what comes next? Greg Foss and Seb Bunney believe it’s Bitcoin. Foss, a strategist at VPC, and Bunney, who advocates at The Looking Glass, argue that the world’s No. 1 cryptocurrency features characteristics necessary to the task. Foss stresses the importance to humanity of a hard asset immune to censorship and manipulation. Inflation, he says, is crippling poor families on fixed incomes, leading them down a dangerous path of debt accumulation. Bitcoin, as Foss sees it, is the way out of the fiat-driven leverage spiral the entire Western world has fallen into. Recorded on March 1, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What problem does DeFi solve? Jamis Johnson and Ali Hassan, founding partners of Perceptive Capital, attempt to answer that question. As two early Bitcoin adopters, Johnson, a computer scientist, and Hassan, a former TradFi fund manager, were convinced of the original cryptocurrency’s promise almost from its very beginning. But they each saw opportunities to expand on that promise. And they were particularly excited by decentralized finance. Johnson and Hassan have combined their expertise to create a cutting-edge investment fund focused on crypto and crypto-adjacent ventures. They talk to Real Vision’s Ash Bennington about the need for greater decentralization and a shift away from the “regulatory monopolistic banks,” as Hassan calls them. Tune in to share in the knowledge they’ve accumulated along their journey into the DeFi space. Recorded on February 24, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We promised Bill Tai would be back soon, and the day has come. In this special follow-up to their talk at Real Vision/MGM’s The Takeover, Bill shares with Raoul an update on the OnChain Monkey project, holding it up as an example of how NFTs and their communities can be incentivized to do good in the world. Bill also leads essentially a master class on Reed’s Law and how the concept is paramount for anyone who wants to understand today’s crypto ecosystem. Curious why everything is evolving even more rapidly than one can imagine? Your answers are here. It’s always magic when Bill and Raoul get together, and this episode is no exception. Recorded on February 28, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices