Messari's Unqualified Opinions

Bobby Lee has witnessed the ascent of Bitcoin from a unique perspective relative to many in the west. In 2013, Lee was the CEO of BTCChina and dealt first hand with the CCP as they tried to come to grips with this strange new asset. In this conversation, he recalls bitcoin’s first bubbles, his foray in Bitcoin mining and the time the Chinese Communist Party instructed him to lower the price of bit...

Fireblocks is one of the hottest infrastructure companies in crypto, facilitating $30B in digital asset transfers to date and recently expanding its presence into Asia. In this conversation, CEO Michael Shaulov details how a $200M heist from the North Korean government led him to crypto, and ultimately founding a company whose technology secures and transfers billions for top exchanges and OTC des...

Bison Trails is an infrastructure-as-a-service company that allows anyone to run a node for multiple blockchains. This gives Bison Trails CEO Joe Lallouz the unique vantage point of seeing all of the major projects in the space at a granular level. Bison Trails is one of the founding members of the Libra Association who stuck around when top names were backing out due to regulatory pressure. In th...

Veteran OTC trader Dan Matuszewski discusses the evolution of crypto OTC markets from Bitcoin's first, second, and third halvings, and how the trading environment has gotten... a bit different from the 2012 event. --- Bitstamp is the original global cryptocurrency exchange. Since 2011, we’ve been a cornerstone of the industry, earning the trust of over four million individuals and top financial in...

This interview with Ontology co-founder Li Jun offers a rare window into Asia’s crypto ecosystem, which remains undercovered and misunderstood in the West. In Li’s own words, Ontology is a decentralized trust collaboration platform. In our words, it’s one of a host of “ETH Killers” competing within a competitive smart contracting platform landscape with a focus on enterprise adoption of DeFi. In t...

Paolo Ardoino sits at the intersection of one of crypto’s most liquid exchanges and its most dominant stablecoin. In this conversation, Paolo provides unique insight into the philosophy behind Tether and walks us through its path to a $5B+ market cap. He also discusses how Bitfinex approaches markets, how to spot fake liquidity and whether or not he’d consider exploring proof-of-reserves.    --- S...

ErisX is one of a handful of highly regulated crypto platforms that currently offers spot and derivatives trading for top assets. In this discussion, CEO Thomas Chippas discusses their slow and steady approach to organically creating vibrant markets. He details the table stakes required for institutional participation that don’t apply to retail, such as the need to fully understand counterparty ri...

In this double header, we dive into two midcap projects across the privacy and smart contract sectors. First we talk to Zcoin founder Reuben Yap and learn about how Zcoin is differentiated from other privacy protocols like Monero and Zcash. Reuben details how Zerocoin’s protocol works and discusses its focus on building community throughout Asia. Then we talk to Zilliqa Head of Marketing Colin JG...

As long as there have been blockchains there has been talk of “banking the unbanked”. Backed by a16z and Polychain, Celo aims to deliver financial inclusion through a mix of on-chain collateralized stablecoins and easy to use mobile applications built with the unbanked in mind. In this conversation, Celo founder Rene Reinsberg describes how Celo’s solutions differ from Libra, where he sees Celo’s...

Paxos founder and CEO, Chad Cascarilla, is one of crypto’s longest standing entrepreneurs who first fell down the bitcoin rabbit hole in 2010. Paxos is the first crypto company to receive a NY Trust charter and has blazed a trail as one of the few regulated financial settlement and custody platforms outside of the legacy banking system.  In this conversation, Chad details how Paxos is playing the...

Today’s episode with Ray Youssef covers his path to founding Paxful after immigrating to New York from Egypt, founding 2 successful startups and 11 failed ones before temporarily becoming homeless while finding his way to bitcoin. He details how he sees Bitcoin moving beyond a speculative instrument and returning to its roots, with payments, e-commerce and wealth preservation in emerging markets....

Backed by Visa, Andreesen Horowitz and Blockchain Capital, Anchorage has emerged as one of the largest custodians in crypto. In this conversation, Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley details the origins of the company and their early involvement with the Libra Association where Nathan saw Facebook’s engineering and legal might up close and personal. He relays what he’s seeing from institutional buyers w...

Ben Hunt  is the author of Epsilon Theory; a newsletter and website that examines markets through the lenses of history and game theory. In this wide ranging discussion, Ben discusses what our government's response to the COVID-19 crisis revealed about those in power and why we need to take a different approach to hedging against catastrophic risk. He shares his affinity for what crypto stands for...

While BitGo may not be as much of a household name as Coinbase and Binance, they’re easily one of the industry’s most important institutional custodians. BitGo supports custody for over 200 assets and In 2019 alone, accounted for 20% of all transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. In this conversation, CEO Mike Belshe shares his views on the role of custodians in the industry, BitGo’s approach to a...

Overstock is known in crypto circles as one of the first major online retailers to accept Bitcoin payments. On top of being an early adopter, Overstock has invested heavily into blockchain technology through its subsidiary, Medici Ventures. In this conversation, Overstock CEO and President of Medici Ventures, Jonathan Johnson, details why the company is betting heavily across blockchain’s applicat...

Catherine Coley is the CEO of Binance US and former Head of XRP Institutional Liquidity at Ripple. In this conversation, Coley details her early days working for Morgan Stanley on the Forex trading floor in Hong Kong where she got a first hand look at how money really moves around the globe. She recounts her time at Ripple and her path to Binance. US, where she sheds light on the relationship betw...

Christopher Giancarlo earned the moniker “Crypto Dad” by advocating for sensible crypto regulation during his time as CFTC Commissioner. He’s since joined the advisory board to the Chamber of Digital Commerce to advocate for the Digital Dollar Project. In this conversation, Christopher recounts his experiences regulating Bitcoin futures and details why he thinks the US is at its Sputnik moment wit...

Meltem Demirors is the Chief Strategy Officer at Coinshares and goes way back with Ryan from their time together at Digital Currency Group. In this conversation, Ryan and Meltem discuss her pathway through the industry, the ridiculousness of 2017’s ICO mania, her Potato Fund, and her current focus at Coinshares. Meltem provides insight into how she approaches investing with respect to power laws,...

Alex Gladstein is the Chief Strategy Officer for Human Rights Foundation and a long time proponent of Bitcoin and its potential to bring freedom to those living under authoritarian regimes. In this conversation, Alex revisits some of his experiences and lessons learned working with dissidents from Cuba, Hong Kong and North Korea. The conversation inevitably lands on the spread of Coronavirus and h...

The mainstream media and the crypto industry have long been at odds, with crypto proponents often accusing the media of unbalanced or inaccurate coverage. Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal has been covering financial markets since 2008 and bitcoin longer than many of its supporters. Over the years, Joe has consistently been one of the most informed members of the MSM who never shies away from taking a sk...

Coinbase sits atop a short list of the largest and most critically important companies in crypto - a status they’ve achieved through a mix of product innovation and legal and regulatory compliance. As Chief Legal Officer, Brian Brooks is tasked with allowing Coinbase to continue to innovate while remaining within the good graces of governments and regulators, both domestic and abroad. In this conv...

There are very few people who have created a top 20 cryptocurrency. Charles Hoskinson is one of them. In this conversation, Charles details his path through a failed project with Dan Larimer, an unsanctimonious departure from the founding team of Ethereum to ultimately creating Cardano. Charles details how he structured Cardano "like a DARPA project" with a deep focus on R&D and why they're co...

Jameson Lopp has been involved with Bitcoin in one form another for 9 of Bitcoin’s 11 year history. In that time, Lopp has contributed volumes of free educational resources while remaining a vocal proponent of Bitcoin’s core ethos of individual empowerment and self-sovereignty. In 2016, he co-founded Casa, which develops self-custody solutions for bitcoin owners.   In this conversation, Ryan and L...

In 2019, centralized crypto exchanges were hacked to the collective tune of $300M. The ever present threat of exchange hacks has led to the rise of DEXs, which allow for trade without handing over custody to a third party. While DEXs have seen impressive growth, the liquidity available at their centralized counterparts remains orders of magnitude greater. Arwen protocol’s aim is to achieve the hol...

Founded in 2018, The Block has grown into one of the leading crypto news outlets using a combination of thorough research and reporting and brash, in your face twitter theatrics. In this conversation, The Block Founder and CEO Mike Dudas details his journey from traditional fintech to crypto as well as the evolution of the company. Mike sheds light on how he views the role of media in 2020 and on...