Blockchain Insider Podcast by 11:FS

gm. Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to take another deep dive, this time into all things scaling and layer 2, including: Why do we want decentralisation and how is it achieved in traditional PoW blockchains? What solutions have been proposed and implemented for the scalability problem? And what are the main trade-offs at play? All of this, and much much more. We are also joined b...

gm. Simon Taylor hosted a live onstage panel as part of Empire Startups New York FinTech Week! Originally recorded for Fintech Insider podcast, the conversation was so good we just had to share it here too. Earlier this year, we saw an executive order signed on the desk of the White House calling for research and development on a US CBDC. What was once a theoretical possibility has now been direct...

gm. Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in the world of crypto, including: European crypto industry steps up efforts to influence EU policy Terra’s UST flips BUSD to become third-largest stablecoin Circle Announces $400M Funding Round Bitcoin may soon be accepted by McDonald’s, Walmart via Lightning Network, Mallers says Meta plans ‘Zuck buc...

gm. Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to take a deep dive into the world of crypto regulations. In this Insights show, we take a look at the current state of crypto regulations and its challenges, the differences in various parts of the world, the opportunities, and of course, the future. We are also joined by some amazing guests: Chris Brummer, Professor and Faculty Director, Inst...

gm. Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in the world of crypto, including: Paradigm and a16z back Ethereum scaling startup Optimism at $1.65bn valuation 3:03 FTX announces expansion into Europe, FTX Ventures invests $100m in money app Dave and Naomi Osaka becomes latest FTX 'ambassador' 15:35 The cryptocurrency community is celebrating Biden...

gm. Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to take another deep dive into the world of NFTs. We wanted to take a look at the intersection between NFTs and culture. This is such a wide topic with so many incredible artists, collaborations and forms of art - so for this episode, we want to shine a light on music. We explore how NFTs play a part in what music is and how we experience and s...

gm. Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in the world of crypto, including: NYSE wants to be the marketplace for NFTs Multis wants to build the financial backbone of crypto-native organizations Solana integrates Web3Auth to lower DApp barrier to entry Democratic DAO suffers coup, new leader steals everything $1.7m in NFTs stolen in apparent p...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to take a deep dive into Central Bank Digital Currencies, known as CBDCs. We have looked at them, as well as stablecoins, in a previous podcast, but as we have stated before - this space moves at the speed of sound. We want to revisit our conversation, and take a look at how they have evolved since we’ve last spoken about them. Simon and Cuy are jo...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain and Crypto. Tune in now to find out more about: Facebook and Instagram are reportedly exploring plans to make, showcase, and sell NFTs, while Twitter debuted their new hexagonal NFT avatars One Day After Launch, OpenSea Competitor LooksRare Sells Over $100M in NFTs Big month for play-to-earn...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss and unpack all things Fintechs and Crypto. In this Insights show, we want to take a deep dive into what their relationship has been like over the past few years. A couple of episodes ago, we visited the relationship between big banks and crypto - with incumbents dismissing Bitcoin and Co. at the very start. Now, at the beginning of 2022, not only...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss all things 2022 predictions! 2021 has been a wild year for crypto, so expectations are high for 2022. Simon and Cuy unpack all of their thoughts about what the new year will bring, and even debate some of your very own predictions. Will crypto crash in 2022? Will regulators kill the momentum in crypto this year? What wil happen to NFTs? All of thi...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain and Crypto. Tune in now to find out more about: MetaMask surpasses 21 Million MAUs as ConsenSys raises $200 million to make Web3 universally easy to use, access, and build on Crypto payments service MoonPay raises $555 million from Coatue and Tiger Jack Dorsey’s Square is now Block Bank of En...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss and unpack all things Large Banks and Crypto. In this Insights show, we want to take a deep dive into the turbulent relationship between the both. With incumbents dismissing Bitcoin and Co. at the start, things are now looking very different - large banks are offering crypto custody and leading in investments in crypto in 2021. So how is the space...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain and Crypto. Tune in now to find out more about: $9.5 billion spent using Chinese central bank's digital currency 1:55 Chipper Cash gets $2B valuation with $150M extension round led by FTX 15:05 Goldman Sachs Taps Digital Asset to Build Open Platform for Tokenized Assets 24:10 A DAO is trying...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss and unpack all things Play To Earn. In this Insights show, we want to take a deep dive into the metaverse, and all things Play To Earn. Even if you’re not into the crypto world, I can guarantee you have started seeing and hearing about the metaverse and Axie Infinity lately - and for good reasons. Play To Earn is revolutionising gaming and crypto,...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain and Crypto. Tune in now to find out more about: Visa develops interoperability concept for central bank digital currency payments 1:48 Almost 1.1M people have already signed up for Coinbase NFT waitlist, and NFT sales surge to $10.7 billion in Q3 as crypto asset frenzy hits new highs 12:40 Bi...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss all things DAO. In this Insights episode, Simon and Cuy want to explore the world of DAOs. After its resurgence in 2020, DAOs is grabbing headlines left, right, and centre. What are the differences between DAO and more traditional forms of financial services such as traditional banks? What about community based decision making that goes into DAO?...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain and Crypto. Tune in now to find out more about: The Loot project flips the script on NFTs 1:26 El Salvador endures bumpy first week with bitcoin as legal tender 11:16 SEC wants to regulate Coinbase’s crypto yield product, and is also investigating decentralized crypto exchange developer Unisw...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss all things NFTs. In this Insights episode, Simon and Cuy aim to break NFTs down: what are they, how do they work, what can you do with them, what are the practical applications of NFTs, and what does the evolution of the space look like? What is the story so far, how are they stored, and how can they move beyond what might be described as a “gimmi...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain and Crypto, kicking off with a big announcement from Visa that we dive into and ask Cuy all the burning questions. Tune in now to find out more about: Visa NFT White Paper and CryptoPunk Announcement 2:05 NFT Trading Surges 8X as Penguins, Apes Drive New Boom 6:16 SuperRare Drops RARE Token t...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back to discuss all things decentralized finance. In this insights episode, Simon and Cuy aim to break DeFi down: what is it, how does it work, what can you do with decentralised finance, how is it having a real world impact and how much more could be done with it? What is the story so far, how does Defi reward its investors differently to banks, and what does th...

Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are back this week to talk about the latest and greatest news in blockchain, Bitcoin and Crypto including: FTX Crypto Exchange Valued at $18B in $900M Funding Round 2:12 Visa Crypto Cards Have Racked Up $1B in Spending in 2021 10:10 USDC Stablecoin Backer Circle to Go Public in $4.5B SPAC Deal 15:20 Square is making a hardware wallet for Bitcoin 23:44 How Axie Infini...

Simon Taylor is back with a new co-host, Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at Visa, to discuss all things stablecoins. In this insight episode, Simon and Cuy aim to start at the very beginning, and dive deeper down the stablecoins rabbit hole. What are the problems with existing payments systems? What are the similarities and differences between stablecoins and CBDCs? How do they work against fiat? Ho...

Our expert host, Simon Taylor, is joined by a great panel of guests to talk about all things crypto. In the first part of the show, we want to take a look at just how far we’ve come. How far the crypto space has come in the last year - not just in terms of bitcoin surges but also the real steps forward in terms of adoption by big organisations, regulators and even central banks to start taking thi...

In a special episode of Blockchain Insider, Simon Taylor is in conversation with Yuval Rooz, CEO of fintech company Digital Asset. Yuval became CEO of the fintech company in 2019 and since then has shifted focus to smart contracts and DAML. We kick off the episode with the reasons for this change, the importance of distributed ledger and power of DAML. Moving onto the bigger picture issues in bloc...