The Blockchain Show

Kim Hamilton Duffy is Centre’s Director of Identity and Standards. The Centre Consortium, an independent standard-setting body for the crypto ecosystem created by Coinbase and Circle. Centre launched an innovative set of decentralized identity protocols, called Verite, to address this question of how to protect our digital identities. Verite is designed to give people and organizations direct control over how, when, and where their personal information is shared in the crypto economy.  The standards can protect individuals’ digital identities for new blockchain-based apps in the next era of the internet. Algorand, Alkemi, Block, Coinbase, Circle, Compound Labs, ConsenSys, Espresso Systems, FTX, Hedera Hashgraph, Ledger, MetaMask Institutional, Phantom Technologies, Solana Foundation, Spruce, and Stellar Development Foundation have already committed to collaborating on shared decentralized identity standards using Verite. 

Ganesh Swami is the CEO and co-founder of Covalent - a Web3 data analytics company offering a unified API that brings visibility to billions of blockchain data points. His focus with Covalent is to provide the richest and most robust data infrastructure requiring no code and is easy to use – for the entire blockchain ecosystem. In this episode we discuss the following: Data analysis and trends within crypto industry (across NFTs, DEXs, wallets, more) Price movement and market trends Entrepreneurship and bringing Web3 products to the market  Transitioning from Web2 to Web3; mainstream adoption of Web3

Matt Wisniewski is CEO of Satellite IM, a fully-integrated decentralized messaging platform addressing today’s data ownership and privacy issues. Unlike the current popular instant messaging apps, Satellite IM allows people to chat in a decentralized and peer-to-peer manner, without the need for intermediaries storing or tracking users’ data. Amidst ongoing data abuses by big tech companies, and the lack of a strong federal data privacy law, Satellite IM is taking the important step of returning data privacy to users so they can communicate, share assets, and more in an off-line, serverless, and encrypted way.

Alexander Tkachenko is Founder and CEO of VNX. Alexander is also the Founder of 2BE.LU, a Luxembourg-based VC fund, serves as co-Chair of the VC club at Luxembourg’s PE/VC association, and as an Executive Council member at Digital Banking and Fintech Cluster in the Luxembourg Banking Association. VNX is the first European regulated investment platform for tokenized precious metals. It recently launched its VNX Gold token (VNXAU), which represents a stake in a physical gold bullion certified by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). 

Steven Walbroehl is Chief Technology Officer / Chief Security Officer and cofounder of Halborn, a cybersecurity organization specializing in blockchain companies. Steven is also a course author of SANS SEC554: Blockchain and Smart Contract Security and co-author of SEC556: IoT Penetration Testing. We cover the 2022 Blockchain Security Summit as well as Blockchain and Cyber Crime issues today and in the future.

Micah Fraim is a cryptocurrency tax expert and author. He founded his CPA firm in 2013. In this episode Micah shares his expertise on how crypto is currently taxed, tax planning and preparation for cryptocurrency investors. More importantly, he explains how to stay compliant with ever-changing crypto regulations while still paying as little as possible on your taxes.

Phillip Shoemaker is the Executive Director at Identity.com and former Apple App Store Director.  Identity.com is a non-profit organization pioneering pseudonymous on-chain identity verification for Web3. They provide an open-source, decentralized platform that offers developers permissionless authentication and verification while allowing consumers to control their own data.

The xx network is a fast, scalable blockchain that allows developers to deliver dapps that are secure and private thanks to their privacy protecting layer. We're talking quantum computer resistant cryptography. The Elixxer messaging app is built on the xx network and likewise provides ultimate privacy and security. Jim Dolbear is the Co-Founder of xx network and the Chief Strategy Officer at Elixxer.   

Daniel Matalon founded #IsThereEnough, a conversation about human survival, and is the cofounder of Impact Launchpad, a UK based venture studio for social impact investment, incubation, and development. Both organizations are co-developing a token designed to underwrite a new, ownerless social impact banking system "to make the world work for 100% of humanity." 

John deVadoss is Head of Development at Neo Blockchain and the former Managing Director of Microsoft.  As we transition into what some would call Web3, John points out the need for utilizing Web2 type coding. 

Chris and Jeff are the hosts of Your Bytes = Your Rights, a new podcast about data privacy. Chris is Managing Partner at Sustany Capital, a VC fund focusing on Blockchain Technology.  Jeff is a Data Privacy Researcher and CEO at Privacy Plan. You can find their past live streams here. Tune in there Fridays at Noon Pacific Time for new episodes.  Join their LinkedIn group here    

Linda Lu is Head of Ecosystem at Oasis. Oasis Network is the leading privacy-enabled and scalable layer-1 blockchain network to propel Web3 forward. We talk about the transition from Web2 to Web3, the importance of data privacy, the need for a data DAO to reward data owners, and how data can benefit social welfare and economic efficiency. 

Frank Mong is COO at Nova Labs, formerly Helium Inc. Helium is providing internet connectivity through blockchain technology.  Frank explains how this works, the next phase of the Helium Network, and the rapid growth and success of the Helium Blockchain.  Similar to how Helium's co-founder created the first decentralized media company at scale, Napster, Helium is also changing the mind set of how internet service providing can be done.

Seth Wunder, CFA, is the Chief Investment Officer of Acorns. Previously, Seth founded Los Angeles based black-and-white Capital LP as it's sole Portfolio Manager in May 2016, with assets at peak greater than one billion dollars. black-and-white Capital's investment mandate centered on innovation, including a concentration in software, internet, fintech, e-commerce and other disruptive trends. Before black-and-white Capital, Seth was a founding partner and portfolio manager at Contour Asset Management LLC, in New York. During the almost seven years of operating Contour, he led growth in assets from approximately $500mn to over $1.5bn. Seth started his career over two decades ago as an equity analyst at two mutual fund complexes: OppenheimerFunds and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He holds a B.S. in Applied Economics and Business Management from Cornell University. Acorns is how everyday consumers save & invest for the long term. By putting tools of wealth-making in everyone's hands, Acorns has become the largest subscription service in U.S. consumer finance, serving 4.6 million everyday Americans. Customers get automated investing in diversified portfolios built with help from experts. In this episode we cover Acorn's new Bitcoin-linked ETF experience as well as investing for the long term. As we look to the future of finance and investing, the role Blockchain will play is evident. With Seth's experience in analysis, he shares some factors influencing the emerging markets.  Read Acorn's Bitcoin Manifesto here Use This Link to Try Acorns and get a $5 bonus investment Use this LINK to get $10 of free bitcoin on Coinbase and also support the show.

Martin Fiore is Managing Partner for the EY US East Region Tax practice. We talk about recent tax policies for crypto, DeFi, and metaverse assets, and speculate on the future implications of these technologies. Links referenced in the episode: EY TaxChat US Blockchain solutions | Platforms, insights & services | EY - US EY Blockchain Cryptocurrency: compliance and controls | EY - US

Katie Chonacas is an international actor, NFT artist, and podcaster. The Hey Layer platform for women in blockchain recently released her latest NFT collection, 11 Pillars of Katie Chonacas. She released her Dreamland 1111 Album on Opensea last year. https://www.chonacas.com/

Alex Paley is the co-founder of Faraway, a new gaming studio leveraging blockchain technology to unlock the potential for truly player-driven and decentralized game economies. Faraway’s debut title, Mini: Royale Nations, is the first live multiplayer game to launch on the Solana blockchain platform.

Steven Walbroehl is the Chief Security Officer and cofounder of Halborn. He's also a Blockchain Course Author and Instructor at SANS, one of the top cybersecurity education organizations. In this episode we cover the following: Key vulnerabilities with blockchains and how hackers exploit them to steal crypto; private keys, code vulnerabilities, and financial vulnerabilities Regulation of crypto security Security for dApp and DeFi developers Blockchain and Cybersecurity education How decentralization and Bitcoin can help citizens in war-torn parts of the world

Tomer Weller is the Vice President of Tech Strategy at the Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world's financial infrastructure. Founded in 2014, the Foundation maintains Stellar’s codebase, supports the technical and business communities building on the network, and serves as a voice to regulators and institutions. The Foundation seeks to create equitable access to the global financial system, using the Stellar network to unlock the world’s economic potential through blockchain technology. At SDF, Tomer focuses on technology strategy and the future of the stellar protocol. More on Stellar: Stellar is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network for financial products and services that create equitable access to the global financial system. It is both a cross-currency transaction system, designed specifically for international settlement, and for issuance of digital assets, designed to connect the world’s financial infrastructure. Dozens of financial institutions worldwide issue assets and settle payments on the Stellar network, which has grown to over 6 million accounts. In his previous role as SDF’s Director of Partner Engineering, he led an engineering team working closely with selected financial institutions on defining interoperability standards and building the supporting tools to grow the Stellar network. Tomer has been part of the Stellar ecosystem since 2017, has led a plethora of partner integrations and contributed to projects such as Horizon and StellarX. He holds a MSc degree in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology And a BSc degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Learn more about Stellar at www.stellar.org You can follow Tomer on Twitter here

Evan Kuo is CEO and Co-Founder of Ampleforth. Founded in 2018, Ampleforth is a digital currency, like Bitcoin, but with elastic-supply. The company was founded with a mission to introduce an “ideal money” that would have properties similar to Bitcoin, be able to be used to denominate smart contracts long-term, and act as a hedge against inflation.

Josh Rogers is CEO and Founder of Minterest, a value-capturing lending and borrowing protocol designed to make DeFi fairer for users. 

Venn joins Ethan for a look at the "Crypto Bowl" ads as well as some other pop culture blockchain references.  Ethan interviews Brian Platz Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Fluree and Dmitri Safine CTO of Ikigai Technologies at the 21:00 minute mark. 

Ed DeLeon is the founder and CEO of Anatha, an ethos driven decentralized financial ecosystem. 

Brian Bondy is CTO and co-founder of Brave, a privacy browser with a blockchain based digital advertising platform. If you've heard us talk about BAT tokens, then you've probably heard us talk about Brave. Brian gives us a look back at how Brave came to be, their core features, what's new, and what's to come.  Brave recently partnered with Solana for Dapps, and also introduced the Brave Wallet. 

Ethan talks with Wesley Thysse about some upcoming changes that may be coming to the crypto community. We talk about the focus on peer-to-peer transactions, stable coins, privacy coins, and more and how individuals and businesses could be effected. Click here to read Wes's full article.

Ryan Worsley is CTO at iov42 and has a love for formal Computer Science approaches and techniques. His career has charted a course in which he developed one of the first retail, customer-facing live FX trading portals; rebuilt an “unfixable” bespoke in-memory database for an investment bank; designed and built a big-data Bitemporal Graph Database; and architected a Non-Repudiation Database for the UK tax authority. Ryan’s love of big-data distributed systems engineering, complex problem spaces and worthwhile abstractions has found him at home at iov42, where the engineering is challenging from an academic perspective, but ultimately needs to be useful to real use cases and engineers.   David Coleman is CPO at iov42. David jumped straight into the fire of a startup by interning as a programmer after his first year of a Computer Engineering degree. His newfound passion for creative problem solving inspired him to join the company full-time and finish his degree in his spare time. After the startup was sold, David moved into investment banking, designing and engineering high performance, high throughput systems. He continued to build this expertise in the financial sector, going on to initiate and run an API First initiative at a large global bank. During his first foray into blockchain, David won Thomson Reuters’ 2016 and 2017 Hackathons, and with his interest in blockchain piqued, he joined iov42 in 2018. He now heads up the Product team, where he loves the challenge of combining his love of technological innovation with solving hard business problems.   Learn more about their EBSI project here.

Adrian Kolody is Founder of Domination Finance, the first decentralized exchange for dominance trading. It's built on the Universal Market Access protocol and available on Ethereum and Polygon. DomFi’s platform tracks the market cap of bitcoin relative to the market cap of altcoins, allowing users to analyze shifts in relative coin prices and to trade on the overall market dominance of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether. Last month, the DomFi team announced the close of a $3.2 million seed round, led by ParaFi.  In this episode Adrian discusses: How dominance metrics work and their value for crypto traders The interplay between the bitcoin and altcoin markets Which topics are bound to be important in the coming months for the DeFi market factors influencing bitcoin versus altcoin market dominance, such as the new Bitcoin ETF. His outlook on the industry’s growth and trends. 

Matthew Niemerg, Ph.D., is the co-founder and president of Aleph Zero Foundation—a Swiss non-profit offering a new infrastructure layer with a scalable plug-and-play privacy solution leveraging zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) and Secure Multiparty Computation (sMPC). Mathew is also a Ph.D. in Mathematics in the area of numerical algebraic geometry, a Simons-Berkeley Fellow, and an IBM Center of Excellence Fellow in High-Performance Computing. Aleph Zero is a new infrastructure PoS infrastructure layer based on an original, peer-reviewed consensus protocol. It’ll be the first privacy solution to combine zk-SNARKs and sMPC. Collectively, these tools work to cancel out the other’s drawbacks. zk-SNARKs allow for basic transfers but do not allow multi-user interactions. Whereas sMPC can be prohibitively slow on its own but allows for multiple participants. Merged, they create the basis for Liminal— a fast, secure, and highly private framework from which users can gain true privacy and where developers can stage Web 3.0 projects.

Venn, Daniel, and Ethan share their experiences with Coinbase and offer advice for those ready to make their first crypto purchase. Use this LINK to get $10 of free bitcoin and also to help support this show.  If you've been listening for a while and don't need this guide, please share with a friend who may.

Dr. Markus Franke is a partner at cLabs working on Celo, an open source, global platform that aims to facilitate secure and efficient cross border payments to anyone with a mobile device.