The Daily Stack

Randy Little, CEO of Zenrock and formerly an investor at 10T alongside Dan, joins the hosts, including Jody Flournoy, to discuss the post-election crypto market, institutional demand for $BTC, and Zenrock's zenBTC, a wrapped bitcoin secured by a decentralized custody network with native yield. The conversation covers the upcoming ROCK token TGE, a planned zenBTC launch on Solana in December,...

Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise, and Ben Werkman, founder of NumerisX, join host Sean on the Block Fuel podcast to break down MicroStrategy ($MSTR) financial engineering: convertible bonds, the 130% early conversion clause, Bitcoin yield, the NAV premium and $MSTR options versus Bitcoin ETF options. They also discuss whether other corporates can replicate the model, the coming FASB...

Blue Macellari, head of digital asset strategy at T. Rowe Price, explains how she went from emerging markets credit and a front-row view of central banking in Brazil to building an institutional crypto business. She covers the challenges of an institutional crypto investment thesis, Bitcoin through a macro and dollar dominance lens, tokenization, stablecoins, DePIN, and why the 'crypto voter&...

Dan Tapiero, founder of 10T and 1RT Holdings and chairman of Zenrock, and Randy Little, CEO of Zenrock, join the Block Fuel podcast with co-host Jody to explain how they bought Qredo's assets out of administration and rebuilt the business in under a year as Zenrock, a decentralized MPC cross chain security protocol. They cover the ZR Sign smart contract, zenBTC (a decentralized, multichain wr...

James Runnels, co-founder and CEO of Digital Prime Technologies, joins Jody and Sean Ristau on the Block Fuel weekly market insights livestream to explain prime brokerage for institutional digital assets and his firm's regulated broker dealer. He covers TokenNet, the company's peer to peer digital asset lending platform, along with its launch partners, custodial partners Anchorage Digita...

Jim Hiltner, CFA, co-founder and head of business development at Superstate, joins hosts Jody and Sean on Block Fuel to explain how Superstate builds regulated, tokenized funds, including its crypto carry fund and US Treasury bill fund. He covers the Federated Hermes partnership, engagement with the SEC, how the fund handled the yen carry trade unwind, barriers to institutional adoption, and why t...

Anthony Moro, CEO of Provenance Blockchain Labs and the Provenance Blockchain Foundation, and Alfred McDaniel, managing director of GateCap Ventures, explain how tokenizing private funds on Provenance enables NAV loans for limited partners through NAVLend. Moderator Travis and co-host Jody Flournoy of Block Fuel cover Provenance's hold module, the Figure playbook, tax and transfer pitfalls li...

Maria Adamjee, CEO and founder of Plum Data Labs and a former Ripple employee, joins host Jody Flournoy on Block Fuel Weekly Market Insights to discuss where AI and blockchain intersect. They cover regulatory enforcement versus guidance, AI crypto projects such as Fetch, Bittensor and DePIN networks, and why builders should focus on applying AI models rather than building new ones. The conversatio...

Nick Ducoff, who leads institutional growth at the Solana Foundation, joins Block Fuel host Jody to discuss how banks and asset managers are adopting the Solana blockchain. Topics include public versus permissioned Solana environments, token extensions and confidential transfers, real world asset tokenization, meme coins, the Solana Foundation's relationship to Solana Labs and Anza, and commo...

Bitwise head of research Ryan Rasmussen joins Sean Ristau, Jody Flournoy and Avi Mash on the Block Fuel podcast to discuss a volatile week led by macro fears, including the yen carry trade unwind, recession worries, the US election and Middle East tensions. They cover what a Trump or Harris win could mean for $BTC, Morgan Stanley advisors gaining access to Bitcoin ETFs, how wealth managers are app...

Former SEC attorney and legal and operations consultant Alex Damsker joins the Block Fuel weekly market insights show, with hosts including Jody, to discuss her path into blockchain in 2016, how she vets crypto projects, and why she thinks premature token launches and churn drain value from the space. She argues for removing the accredited investor rule, explains what went wrong between the crypto...

Sunil Daluvoy, head of sales and partnerships at Sift AI and a former FCC lawyer with stints at Yahoo, Google, Uber and Abra, joins Jody and Sean on the Block Fuel live podcast. They discuss Republican support for crypto after the RNC and JD Vance's pick, Sunil's voice over IP analogy for crypto, why the industry lacks product leaders, banks and Jamie Dimon, the upcoming ETH ETF and self...

Republic president Andrew Durgee joins The Daily Stack, with host Jody among those asking questions, to talk about his path from early Bitcoin mining and multisig work to leading Republic's pivot to a web3 native, digital first firm. He covers JD Vance's pro crypto record, his congressional testimony, the Supreme Court's Chevron ruling, and operating under 1930s securities law. He a...

Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, joins the Block Fuel podcast with Avi Mash and Jody Flournoy. He covers his path from Square and Docker to founding Anchorage, the conversion of its South Dakota trust charter into an OCC national trust charter, its asset support framework, and the Porto self-custody software. He also discusses why spot $BTC and $ETH ETFs satisfied existing...

Adam Swick, Chief Growth Officer at Marathon Digital Holdings ($MARA), explains how the company is evolving from a bitcoin miner into a data center company focused on solving energy problems, including its Abu Dhabi grid balancing joint venture, flare and landfill gas mining, and two phase immersion cooling. He also covers his bitcoin origin story, Marathon's history, the impact of the bitcoi...

Rich Widmann, Head of Web3 Strategy at Google Cloud, joins an interview recorded live in Austin about how Google built its Web3 team. He explains the team's focus on developer infrastructure such as nodes, data and RPC, and its use of on-chain data to guide product decisions. He also covers partnerships with Polygon, Solana, Sui and Tezos, the Google Cloud Web3 portal and testnet faucet, the...

John Deaton, a former Marine and mesothelioma attorney running for US Senate in Massachusetts against Elizabeth Warren, joins Jody Flournoy and Sean Ristau of the Block Fuel podcast. He explains how suing the SEC over $XRP led to his campaign and argues that a Federal Reserve issued CBDC is the biggest threat to economic freedom of his lifetime. He also discusses his upbringing in poverty, how he...

Jim Knox of Aon, speaking for himself and not for Aon, joins hosts Avi Mash, Jody and Sean Ristau to explain how the insurance industry is evolving alongside bitcoin and digital assets. Topics include hot and cold wallet coverage, smart contract and slashing insurance, the SEC's Wells notice to Uniswap and the lack of MiCA-style rules in the US, banks pulling back from digital assets, and Aon...

Halborn COO David Schwed, formerly of BNY Mellon, explains why Web3 security still lags enterprise standards, how banks are adopting distributed ledger technology as financial plumbing, and why CBDCs will likely start with interbank settlement. He also covers the Ledger Connect Kit supply chain exploit, centralized choke points in crypto infrastructure, Visa's use of Solana ($SOL), terrorist...

Zach Townsend, founder of Meanwhile, explains how his Bermuda-based, licensed and regulated life insurance company operates entirely in bitcoin, taking premiums, paying claims and holding reserves in BTC. Speaking with host Jody and a co-host, he covers how Sam Altman came to co-lead Meanwhile's first seed round of about $7 million, how its 10-pay whole life policy works, and its roughly 3% t...

Cody Carbone, VP of Policy at the Chamber of Digital Commerce, joins the Block Fuel podcast with co-host Jody to explain how the blockchain trade association lobbies Washington. He covers his move from EY to crypto policy, stablecoins and the dollar's reserve currency status, CBDCs, the presidential election, the Chamber's agenda, its amicus brief in the Coinbase vs SEC case, and tokeniz...

Rob Hadick of crypto venture firm Dragonfly joins the Block Fuel podcast with co-host Jody and a second host to discuss his path from traditional finance to crypto, Dragonfly's global investment approach, and the state of crypto venture capital. He covers portfolio companies Monad, Parcl and Medallion, then turns to NFTs for loyalty, the spot $BTC ETF approvals, US regulation under Gary Gensl...

AlphaPoint CEO and co-founder Igor Telyatnikov joins hosts Avi Mash and Jody Flournoy to explain how AlphaPoint's white label software powers crypto exchanges, brokerages and wallets in about 50 countries. He also covers its role behind El Salvador's Chivo wallet. The conversation also covers regulation across jurisdictions, the expected spot $BTC ETF approval, how banks are adding crypt...

Tad Smith, former CEO of Sotheby's and Madison Square Garden and now chairman of The Fine Art Group and a partner at One Round Table Partners, talks with hosts Avi and Jody about his career path from JP Morgan during the 1987 crash to running major creative companies. He covers how to move across industries, why he thinks NFTs will return when liquidity comes back, how AI could reshape art, c...

Nabil Manji, head of crypto and Web3 at Worldpay, joins Avi Mash and Jody Flournoy on the Block Fuel podcast. He explains Worldpay's role as a payment processor and its pending acquisition by GTCR from FIS. He also covers Worldpay's crypto history since partnering with Coinbase in 2015, the Visa $USDC settlement pilot and the four party model, tokenized real world assets, risk appetite a...