Messari's Unqualified Opinions

Many in the West often look to privacy preserving technologies like Orchid’s virtual private network (VPN) marketplace as enablers of nefarious activities. Go to a place like Indonesia, where 43% of the population uses VPNs to circumvent an overly censored internet and government surveillance of basic business activities, and you’ll get a different opinion. For protesters in places like Hong Kong,...

If Bitcoin is to become the foundation of a global, non-national monetary system, consumers and institutions are going to need Bitcoin based financial services. At least that’s the thesis driving River Financial: a Bitcoin only platform that borrows heavily from the user experience of more traditional financial services. In this conversation, River Financial founder and CEO Alex Leishman explains...

You likely know Balaji as the former CTO of Coinbase and now editor-in-chief of Nakamoto.com. What you may not know is that prior to his days in the cryptosphere, Balaji studied at the intersection of engineering, biology and statistics, received a PHD and has published several academic papers in genomics. Given his background, Balajis has been watching and studying the developing situation surrou...

Launched as Xcoin in 2014, Dash is one of the oldest projects in the top 25. While the prevailing narrative around bitcoin has shifted to digital gold, Dash is still pursuing wide adoption as a payments network; an area that is looking increasingly competitive with stablecoins and eventually, central bank issued digital currencies (CBDCs).  In this conversation, Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor det...

Bitcoin is a technology that launched a thousand ships. In one direction, hundreds of permissionless cryptoassets and networks. In the other, permissioned networks being developed by enterprises and governments to upgrade and iterate on existing systems and institutions. R3’s Corda is an open-source protocol that falls in the latter category.    In this conversation, R3 CTO Richard Brown gives an...

Justin Sun is easily one of crypto’s most polarizing and controversial figures. While many in the West have been critical of Sun’s over-the-top marketing tactics, it’s hard to deny the momentum Tron has built in the East. Armed with a TRX warchest, Tron acquired Bittorrent and streaming service DLive while making strategic investments in Poloniex and Steemit, all in the span of 18 months.    In wh...

Crypto lending markets have exploded over the last year. Among the players in an increasingly competitive marketplace is Celsius, which according to CEO Alex “The Machine” Mashinsky has received $450M from over 70,000 users in 174 countries and paid out over $9M in interest payments. Unlike many competitors, Celsius somewhat boldly raised $50M in ICO during the latter half of 2018 at a time when m...

This is one conversation the entire #XRParmy is going to love. Daniel Vogel, CEO of Bitso, which is Mexico's largest crypto exchange details how the company is utilizing XRP the asset (not just Ripple software) to catch a piece of the $35B in remittances that flows across the US-Mexico border each year. Sourced mainly from Moneygram in the US, Bitso saw $18M in XRP remittance volume the last week...

Radar Relay, the peer-to-peer trading platform built on the 0x protocol did a respectable $100M in volume in 2019. This however is down from the dizzying highs of 2018 where in certain months, Radar Relay facilitated up to $60M. In this interview, Radar CEO Alan Curtis speaks candidly about the current state of the DEX landscape that features lower volumes ($5-7M a day) and more competition. He dr...

USDC, backed by Circle and Coinbase’s Centre Consortium has emerged as the dominant “regulated” stablecoin. In this conversation, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire provides some context around the evolution of USDC as well as where he sees it fitting within the broader macro landscape. He details how the next phase for USDC is to move beyond its use in crypto capital markets and into payments and settleme...

Tendermint Director of Research Zaki Manian reflects on the origins of the Cosmos project, including their 2017 crowdsale and the success of their “Game of Stakes” incentivized testnet. He also provides some color on why he thinks the Cosmos ATOM token has value right now, the role it currently plays in the Cosmos ecosystem as well as the role it can play in the future. Lastly, he weighs in on the...

On the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin’s genesis block, former Coinbase CTO Balajis Srinivasan launched Nakamoto.com to much fanfare, as well as controversy surrounding the site’s choice of name. On the latest episode of Unqualified Opinions, Balaji and Ryan discuss the intent behind the site, which at present boasts curated insights from 60 high-profile contributors, including Zooko, Naval, Vitalik....

Gone are the days when a blockchain network could launch quietly, coordinated over an online forum by an anonymous developer or when a small number of technically minded people could participate in a low-profile token sale. While the early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum came with their own inherent challenges, the high profile network launches of today come with a new set of concerns. How do you gai...

In this episode, we take a walk down memory lane through Bitcoin’s chaotic early years. Required listening for anyone who got into the industry post 2017 and is missing context behind some of Bitcoin’s longest standing feuds and divisions.  We cover Samson’s origin story as a pivotal player throughout Bitcoin’s first civil war, the history of Blockstream (and associated conspiracy theories), the b...

Matt Spoke is the founder and CEO of the Open Application Network, formerly known as Aion. In this discussion, Matt and Ryan discuss the OAN’s strategic shift to focusing on solving problems that exist within large online marketplaces. Matt lays out his vision for a future where YouTubers own their subscribers and can offer them discounts on Shopify or where drivers for Uber and Lift own their rep...

Oded Wertheim provides and update on Orbs, which is a project building public blockchain infrastructure designed for enterprises. In this conversation Oded details Orbs’s approach to collaborating with enterprises and how it differs from the private/permissioned approach taken by Hyperledger and R3’s Corda. Oded also lays out the problems that public chains solve for enterprises and how trust will...

Jake Yocom-Piatt is the project lead of Decred: a hybrid proof-of-stake/proof-of-work blockchain that re-thinks development funding, on-chain governance and consensus mechanisms. In this conversation, Jake discusses how his experience contributing to Bitcoin lead to the creation of Decred and how the project aims to compete as one of the top store-of-value chains. Jake and Ryan discuss Decred’s ro...

Ryan interviews Simon Taylor, Co-Founder of 11:FS. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Ryan interviews Max Pertosovskiy, Head of Growth at Waves. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Qiao Wang, Director of Product at Messari, interviews Chris McCann, Founding Partner at Proof of Capital. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Qiao Wang, Director of Product at Messari, interviews Dovey Wan, Founding Partner of Primitive Ventures. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Qiao Wang, Director of Product at Messari, interviews Mo Dong, CEO of Celer. This episode is sponsored by Voyager, a fast and 100% commission-free app that lets you trade more than 20 top cryptocurrencies. Sign up at investvoyager.com/messari to earn $25 in free Bitcoin when you download the Voyager iOS app and create an account. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues &amp...

Qiao Wang, Director of Product at Messari, interviews Dawn Song, the CEO of Oasis Labs. This episode of Unqualified Opinions was recorded live during SF Blockchain week. This episode is sponsored by Voyager, a fast and 100% commission-free app that lets you trade more than 20 top cryptocurrencies. Sign up at investvoyager.com/messari to earn $25 in free Bitcoin when you download the Voyager iOS ap...

Ryan interviews Ryan Sean Adams, the creator of Bankless. -----This episode is sponsored by Voyager, a fast and 100% commission-free app that lets you trade more than 20 top cryptocurrencies. Sign up at investvoyager.com/messari to earn $25 in free Bitcoin when you download the Voyager iOS app and create an account. -----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends...

Ryan interviews Matt Luongo, the Founder & CEO of Keep & Fold. -----This episode is sponsored by Voyager, a fast and 100% commission-free app that lets you trade more than 20 top cryptocurrencies. Sign up at investvoyager.com/messari to earn $25 in free Bitcoin when you download the Voyager iOS app and create an account. -----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues...