The Delphi Podcast

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Mrinal Manohar, the CEO of Casper Labs . I really enjoyed speaking with Mrinal since he brings an extensive amount of professional experience at major firms such as Bain Capital and Sagard Holdings to now leading Casper Labs. Mrinal has a real understanding of how the world works, how major firms with tens of billions make their investment decisions and where blockcha...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Dan Held , Director of Business Development for Kraken Digital, and Paul Sztorc , an independent Bitcoiner. They debate the Bitcoin security model, with Paul feeling skeptical that fee rates will climb and Dan believing that fees are already growing and could subsidize Bitcoin security solutions. Dan’s post ( Bitcoin’s Security is fine ) and Paul’s original post ( Sec...

(Originally published February 1, 2020) On this exclusive Macro Matters Series, guest Host Kevin Kelly talks to Octavio “ Tavi ” Costa, Global Macro Analyst at Crescat Capital. Tavi discusses Crescat’s top investment themes, the favorable backdrop for precious metals, how the macro environment could impact Bitcoin, and much more. Key Points Crestcat is focused on China due to statistics predictive...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Kathleen Breitman , the co-founder of Tezos and Coase , whose first game is Emergents , a highly anticipated blockchain base game.   After following Tezos for years, it was incredible to be able to talk with Kathleen about her journey. We covered a lot on Tezos, layer-1 blockchains, governance and upgrading mechanisms. Post this, we discussed Coase and Emergents, all...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Pat Larsen , CEO, and co-founder of ZenLedger . They discuss the issues with filing taxes when you have cryptocurrencies, what gaps ZenLedger fills, possible future use cases, and more. Episode Highlights: Pat went to the US Marine Academy and became a Navy officer, completing two combat tours. He proceeded to work in investment banking and tech, including for Amazon...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Pankaj Balani , CEO and co-founder of Delta Exchange . They discuss the differences between derivatives exchanges vs traditional exchanges, market stability, current engineering challenges, and more.   Episode Highlights: Pankaj began in derivatives trading in Hong Kong before moving into hedge funds. Pankaj believes his old colleagues view crypto as another asset cla...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Catherine Coley , CEO of Binance. US . They discuss Binance. US’s origin story, how Catherine made the switch from traditional finance to digital assets, how she sees them differing, and more.   Key Points: The scale of digital assets is wildly different from traditional finance. Digital assets allow users to have more agency and voice in their financial choices. Bein...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Uri Kolodny and Eli Ben Sasson of StarkWare, and Will Harborne from DeversiFi. They discuss the pros and cons of centralized and decentralized exchanges, the development of Layer 2 technologies, scalability, and more. Episode Highlights: StarkWare is an Israeli startup that develops proof systems for scalability, security, and permissions for blockchain. DeversiFi is...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder of Solana. They discuss how to make blockchain technology faster, its use cases, and how to accrue value in this space. They also discuss the philosophy behind where blockchain, math, and time intersect.   Key Points Processing speed has less to do with hardware than software; it’s the software that currently does not take full advantage of...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Yaniv Tal , project lead at The Graph  to discuss how the Graph is a decentralized protocol for querying data from blockchains, starting with Ethereum. We discuss indexing DeFi, Web3 and the decentralized future.  Episode Highlights:   What the graph is and its current status How the graph works, and what an indexing and querying layer for blockchains means.  The Web3...

On this exclusive Macro Matters Series, guest host Kevin Kelly talks to Oliver Renick , lead anchor for TD Ameritrade Network , about his outlook for markets and the way Oliver and his team integrate Bitcoin & crypto into their day-to-day coverage. Oliver discusses his philosophy for covering markets and the move away from “momentum news”, the growing importance of bitcoin as a macroeconomic i...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Stan Kladko , Co-Founder and CTO of SKALE Labs . They discuss the evolution of SKALE Labs, the decentralization of finance and social networks, and the current state of artificial intelligence. This builds on our previous episode with SKALE's CEO and Co-founder Jack O'Holleran.  Episode Highlights: Stan Kladko did his PhD in Germany in physics and moved to S...

Host Tom Shaughnessy sat down to speak on short notice with  Eric Feigl-Ding , PhD, an epidemiologist, health economist, and nutrition scientist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health to discuss the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Eric has been an extremely informative source on the Coronavirus, and we discussed all aspects of the virus from what it is, to transmission rates, to outlook and vaccines...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Brooke Pollack, Founder and Managing Partner of Hutt Capital . They discuss the differences between traditional VC funds and VC within blockchain, how Hutt Capital chooses investments and more.   Episode Highlights: After a lot of work with investing and VC, Brooke steered Greenspring Associates into work with crypto and blockchain before eventually founding Hutt Capi...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Omer Ozden and Kevin O’Brien, CEO and Managing Director of Rocktree Capital , respectively. They discuss the China blockchain market versus the US, tech innovation, the move to cashless economies, and more.  Key Points US tech innovation is stifled by regulatory restrictions as compared to China. It’s of the utmost importance to be sure you’re legally compliant from t...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius Network. Alex discusses the impetus for creating MOIP (Money over IP) and Celsius Network, what has prevented blockchain from becoming mainstream thus far, and his predictions for the future of MOIP technology. Key Points: There is a high barrier to entry for new users of crypto and blockchain technology. The shift for crypto becoming ma...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Galen Wolfe-Pauly, CEO of Tlon, which is building out Urbit. Galen discusses his vision for Urbit, how developers can work with it, what’s on the horizon for Urbit in the near future, and more. Episode Highlights: Galen learned programming really young and was interested in web and app design. Urbit functions like an operating system rather than an app and provides a...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Ria Bhutoria, Director of Research at Fidelity Digital Assets. Ria discusses her recent article about Omnibus model, the importance of proof of solvency, technological developments in crypto and DeFi in financial institutions, and more.   Key Points The omnibus account model has been important to large financial institutions as the cryptocurrency market has grown. Usi...

On this episode, Host Tom Shaughnessy is joined by Camila Russo, founder of the Ethereum based newsletter The Defiant and author of the coming book on the birth of Ethereum titled,  The Infinite Machine : How an Army of Crypto-hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum. We dive into why Camila decided to research Ethereum's early life, how she has been tirelessly researching the prot...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Aleks Larsen, part of the Investment team at Blockchain Capital. Aleks discusses issues with decentralization, DeFi growth and opportunities, what place security tokens hold in the DeFi space, and more. This episode builds on a recent episode we hosted with Blockchain Capital's Spencer Bogart.  Key Points Nothing is entirely decentralized yet because we’re still...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Kyle Samani, Founder and Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital. Kyle discusses his predictions for the middle layer and full-stack development, attracting developers to the crypto space, how competition in the industry will develop, and a complete discussion on the Web3 Stack.  Key Points While there are a lot of opportunities higher up the stack, there is the most mo...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Jake Ryan, Founder and general partner of Tradecraft Capital and author of an upcoming book on crypto investing. Jake discusses his prediction for the Age of Autonomy, the challenges of predicting where crypto will go, and more. FYI: We're looking for long term show sponsors. To be considered as a sponsor this show, contact Tom@DelphiDigital.io  Key Points: Socie...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Spencer Bogart, general partner with Blockchain Capital. Spencer discusses the current state of crypto, his predictions for its future, and more.  FYI: We're looking for long term show sponsors. To be considered as a sponsor this show, contact Tom@DelphiDigital.io Key Points: Crypto is becoming increasingly relevant to global macroeconomics. It’s difficult to pin...

Host Tom Shaughnessy leads a roundtable discussion with Yan Liberman (co-founder of Delphi Digital), Phil Bonello (former Head of Research at Ikigai), and David Puell (Head of Research at Adaptive Capital). They discuss the difficulties of crypto valuation, productive vs. unproductive assets, the differences between some projects, and more. Key Points It is very difficult to establish any intrinsi...

Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Akin Sawyerr a Strategy and Governance Lead for Decred. Akin discusses getting involved with the Decred platform, governance, and community-building. Key Points Decred is unique for its transparent, token-holder led governance. A community mindset of searching for the best solution to a problem increases transparency and decreases contention. Decred wants to build inc...