Beyond the Code

In this episode, we cover Michael Terpin's journey from early internet PR (founding Globe Newswire, working with Motley Fool, Earthlink, and AOL) to becoming one of crypto's earliest and most recognized figures — a path that earned him the nickname "the godfather of crypto" from CNBC, by his account, for his PR work on Ethereum, Tether, and roughly 400 other early projects. Terpi...

In one of the most unique conversations in Beyond the Code history, Yitzy sits down with Reuven "Ruby" Rivlin — the 10th President of the State of Israel — to talk about why, at 86 years old, he's betting on crypto. Rivlin is now Honorary President of Bitcore Capital , a publicly traded Israeli company building regulated digital financial infrastructure — including a shekel-pegged st...

This episode was recorded live at Consensus Miami 2026 . Jonathan Schmalfeld — known as 'Birdnals' across Crypto Twitter — is Policy Director at The Digital Chamber . He came up doing soft IP litigation, got into crypto around 2015, and eventually turned what he was doing for fun into his full-time work. We cover the NFT IP moment, what it takes to be a real Web3 lawyer, the knowledge-shar...

A milestone episode, recorded live at Consensus Miami 2026: after three years, Beyond the Code has its first sponsor — and there's a good story behind why it's FirstRead. Yitzy is joined by returning guest Mike Bacina, now a partner at NXT Law leading the firm out of Cayman, to talk about how boutique firms are gaining a real edge with AI, why the billable hour quietly works against adoption at bi...

Snir Levi is the founder and CEO of Nominis — a crypto compliance and blockchain intelligence platform. Before building Nominis, Snir was inside Celsius Network during its rise and sudden collapse, working in the security department with no warning of what was coming. In this episode, Snir walks us through what it was actually like when Celsius froze withdrawals, how he turned that experience into...

Sam Krichevsky and Sarah Figueroa are married, co-founders, and some of the most fun people I've met in this space. We sat down at Coindesk's Consensus Miami 2026 to talk about their whole journey - from Sarah mining Ethereum in 2017 and founding GeoJam (a social music platform whose biggest investor was Mariah Carey) to watching it collapse after a single exchange dumped over 10% of their token s...

Live from Consensus 2026 in Miami, we're joined by Russ Davis - " In Russ We Trust " - one of the co-founders of Shiba Inu, the meme coin that changed everything. Russ tells the full story: from passing on Doge in 2016 (a decision that would've been worth $15 million), to taking over Shiba's marketing in February 2021 when it was stuck at a $2M market cap, to watching it explode to $40 billion in...

Live from Consensus 2026 in Miami, we're joined by Jacqueline Cooper , also known as CryptoMom2 (we already had CryptoMom No. 1 on this show) ,— partner at Cogent Law Group, co-founder of the Blockchain Legal Institute, and a 10-year veteran of the blockchain space. Jacqueline shares her unexpected origin story (a chance encounter in Scotland), what it felt like to lose two years of Bitcoin mining...

Jonathan Benton spent 25 years at London's Metropolitan Police - running undercover operations straight out of "The Wire," investigating homicide and counterterrorism, and ultimately leading international corruption cases that took down politicians laundering hundreds of millions through London. In one of his biggest cases, his Nigerian counterpart was taken to a basement and offered...

Recorded live at Consensus Miami 2026, I sat down with Karen Knox, digital assets insurance specialist at Howden, for one of the most unexpected origin stories I've heard on this show. From Andy Griffith's hometown in North Carolina, to converting to Judaism, raising her daughter in Tel Aviv, and becoming one of the go-to names in crypto insurance — Karen's path is anything but straight. This epis...

I sat down with Delphine Forma — Head of Policy Europe at Solidus Labs, founder of the largest crypto compliance Telegram group in existence, and one of the most well-traveled compliance professionals in the space. From Sciences Po in France, to finding loopholes in French tax law, to moving to Tokyo for a guy who dumped her three months later — this one is a ride. This episode is sponsored by Fir...

Recorded live at Consensus Miami 2025, I sat down with Ari Redbord — Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs and former federal prosecutor at the DOJ — to talk about following illicit money through the blockchain, the Beacon Network, AI in law, and why human connection matters more than ever in the age of automation. Plus: shoes. This episode is sponsored by FirstRead — the AI-powered legal assistant th...

In this episode, Yitzy sits down with Itai Kanot , CGO and Co-Founder of BeeHero , the company using IoT sensors, AI, and machine learning to monitor beehives and deliver precision pollination at global scale.  Itai grew up in southern Israel as the son of the country’s largest beekeeper. What started as a childhood surrounded by hives, honey, and long days on the farm eventually became BeeHero: a...

After a six-week hiatus spent between reserve duty and bomb shelters, Beyond the Code is back with Avishay Yanai , co-founder and CEO of Soda Labs . In this episode, Yitzy sits down with one of Israel’s top cryptography minds to unpack the founder journey from academia and VMware to building a startup at the frontier of blockchain privacy. They discuss why most on-chain privacy tools are either fu...

In this episode of Beyond the Code , Yitzy Hammer sits down with Scott Thiel , CEO and founder of Tokinvest , to explore how real-world asset tokenization is moving from hype to reality. Scott shares his path from award-winning lawyer and legal innovator to startup founder building regulated on-chain investment products in Dubai. He reflects on his years at DLA Piper, his early fascination with th...

Erin West returns to Beyond the Code to unpack the terrifying scale of today’s global scam economy. A former prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock , Erin explains how organized criminal networks built massive scam compounds across Southeast Asia, how human trafficking fuels these operations, and why scams like pig butchering, fake investment platforms, and extortion schemes are affecting fa...

Stephen Sargeant ( Airdropd ) breaks down what crypto compliance actually looks like from the inside: five years at Bitfinex handling investigations and law enforcement requests, why the compliance community is tighter (and more welcoming) than people assume, and how a single 20-minute video to Chainalysis turned into producing their podcast, Public Key . We also get practical on content: why “AI...

I sat down with Yoni Assia , co-founder & CEO of eToro , for a wide-ranging conversation that spans Bitcoin’s earliest days , eToro’s journey through the 2008 crisis , and why Yoni thinks AI agents will soon trade more than humans . We talk about Yoni’s early path into tech, his first startup (and the tough realities of unit economics), and how eToro evolved from a trading product into a mass-...

Crypto lawyer-turned-operator Daniel Lo shares an “alternative legal career” journey, sharing how he wen from M&A in Calgary to Managing Director, GM and CLO at Acheron Trading in Singapore. He explains what it’s wearing both the legal and management hat, breaks down how a market maker supports token projects (from white-glove designated market making to execution/OTC), and what it takes to ge...

Prediction markets are booming - but Philipp Tsag o lov , CEO & co-founder of Trendle , believes the next frontier is attention . In this episode, we talk about “AttentionFi”: markets that let you trade whether a person or topic will gain or lose mindshare online, using an attention index built from signals across X/Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit. We also get into why meme coins were an early, c...

In Episode 86, Yitzy Hammer interviews Ran Neuner (aka “Crypto Man Ran”), co-founder of Crypto Banter , to unpack the real story behind the brand: the childhood hustle that revealed his entrepreneurial wiring, the obsessive “must-win” mindset he calls constructive paranoia, and the hard-earned lessons from building a company to a reported $150M sale—then later watching $130M evaporate in days duri...

This episode is with Anna George , co-founder & CEO of CowSwap / Cow Protocol (originally built inside Gnosis, spun out in 2022). What’s wild is Anna spent about a decade in humanitarian/UN work before getting pulled into crypto in 2017 - partly because she wanted impact, and partly because UN bureaucracy will make anyone want to run away and build something. We talk about the real CowSwap ori...

In this episode of Beyond the Code , Yitzy sits down with David Alexander “Alex” Scheer , founder and CEO of zkMe , a zero-knowledge identity network that lets users prove who they are - and meet KYC/AML requirements - without exposing their personal data. zkMe builds identity oracles that turn existing credentials (passports, bank accounts, credit scores, tax records and more) into reusable, priv...

In this episode of Beyond the Code , Yitzy sits down with Danielle Tichner, founder of W Source, a deep-tech venture builder operating at the intersection of infrastructure, crypto, and global commercialization. Danielle shares her journey from a red-headed, left-handed, dyslexic kid trying to “fit in” to becoming a top negotiator at Philips Electronics and then building her own firm that helps co...

EY’s Global Blockchain Leader Paul Brody joins Yitzy on Beyond the Code to peel back the curtain on how big companies really operate (“chaos on the inside”), why public blockchains beat private networks, and what it takes to ship serious enterprise workflows on Ethereum.  We trace Paul’s zig-zagging path—Nigeria during a coup, Apple’s textbook S&OP, a Samsung prototype with a young Vitalik—to...