Raoul Pal: The Journey Man

In 1955, during the post-World War II global economic boom, John van Eck set out to create an international broker to give US citizens access to foreign markets and connect the world through investment. The company he founded, VanEck, established its reputation by providing investors exposure to emerging industries, asset classes, and markets. Now, John’s son Jan van Eck is taking similarly innova...

The recent $320 million Ethereum-Solana cross-chain hack – the second-biggest exploit ever, behind the $600 million Poly Network theft – is only the beginning, according to Corby Pryor, venture partner at HOF Capital. A former academic who studied quantum physics and designed neural networks, Pryor went all in after dabbling in crypto investing in 2017. A talented computer scientist, Pryor has ide...

Quantitative traders Moritz Heiden and Moritz Seibert, chief technology officer and chief investment officer, respectively, at the Exponential Age Digital Asset Management Fund, developed a bot to help Real Vision better understand market sentiment by studying topics covered and emotions expressed in video interviews on our platform. This research project has grown to include building an algorithm...

The virality of CryptoPunks has spawned a series of new projects, one of which is led by a former punk himself: @punk4156, co-founder of Nouns.wtf DAO. He joins Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Delphi Digital, who has been on a mission to explore the world of DAOs, social tokens, and Web 3.0. The anonymous @punk4156, originally an active member of the CryptoPunks community, saw an opportunity in the NFT...

Within a week of announcing it would accept cryptocurrency donations, Ukraine raised nearly $40 million. The Ukrainian government even announced an airdrop for donors. Does this prominent deployment as an instrument of geopolitics mark a new stage in crypto’s development? Robin Schmidt and Camila Russo of The Defiant join Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to assess what Kyiv’s current crypto-reliance m...

Two major players in the crypto industry, BitGo and Galaxy Digital, have come together to advance a shared vision of what comes next for digital assets on the path to widespread deployment and use among the general public. Of key importance, according to BitGo CEO Mike Belshe, is crypto establishing a strong voice in the developing conversation about regulation. Belshe is concerned about the poten...

Ever wanted to know more about Raoul’s story? Interested in how he approaches not only his investments but life generally? Curious about what made it possible for him to retire for the first time at 36? In this special crossover episode, Raoul finds himself in the guest seat as My First Million host Shaan Puri probes Raoul’s background, his life philosophy, and the facts behind his first million....

Multiple layers of bureaucracy in the California real estate industry create major burdens but have proven ineffective at preventing fraud. This duality ultimately means higher transaction costs. At the same time, accommodative monetary policy and historically low mortgage rates attracted the ultra-rich. Altogether, too many people have been priced out of the California market. That’s why Natalia...

The NFT revolution has only just started and we all need to learn how to navigate it. This interview sets the core foundation stones for all of us to get involved. Sergio Silva, NFT Collector and Sales Director at Fireblocks, has taken the journey from being in investment banking to working full time in the digital asset world and being a key player in the NFT space. Raoul gets his inspiring story...

Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital, says Bitcoin is inevitable. That’s despite a slide of nearly 40% from its all-time-high price. Meanwhile, based on his own analysis of the issues in play, Thorn sees regulation eventually providing a tailwind to digital assets generally. In conversation with Real Vision’s Ash Bennington, Thorn also addresses interesting developments for Ethe...

Everyrealm is already an active developer in the metaverse ecosystem, with holdings in 25 platform portfolios, ownership of more than 3,000 NFTs, and management of more than 100 metaverse real estate projects. It began life as Republic Realm, alternative asset crowdfunding platform Republic’s metaverse real estate arm. Co-founder and CEO Janine Yorio led a spin off and rebrand that now has Everyre...

One of the world’s most successful NFT art-drops to date, Yam Karkai’s 10,000 images of diverse and powerful women has drawn global attention to female-led projects. The company she co-founded, World of Women, now includes celebrity collectors and investors like Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, Eva Longoria, and Liam Payne. Yam and co-founder Raphael Malavieille talk to Real Vision’s Elaine Ly ab...

What happened with the OpenSea $1.7 million phishing hack? And did Laura Shin unmask the perpetrator who siphoned 3.6 million Ether (with a current value north of $11 billion) from the Ethereum network? Robin Schmidt and Camila Russo of The Defiant join Real Vision's Elaine Ly to talk about these headline-making stories and the issues around them – including their views on safety and traceability...

Centralization has defined technology, finance, and government for decades. Bill Barhydt, co-founder and CEO of Abra, considers the 1969 moon landing the peak of centralization: people working together, pooling massive amounts of resources, achieving the near-impossible. Centralization has its benefits. It’s also had its day. History shows that global change often corresponds with the introduction...

We’re still in the Netscape phase of crypto, according to Marshall Hayner, founder and CEO of Metal Payments, and the future is bright. Hayner sees regulation and user interface as the two pivotal factors affecting mass adoption. While 2021 saw a rapid acceleration of lobbying efforts as well as public-awareness initiatives, most governments still just don’t seem to get it and people are still usi...

From the revolutionary potential of the microprocessor to the prediction of “anonymous digital cyber cash,” James Dale Davidson’s 1997 book “The Sovereign Individual” is full of future-looking scenarios that are part of 2022’s reality. Robert Breedlove, founder of the “What Is Money?” podcast, interviews Davidson, editor of the “Strategic Investment” newsletter, to discuss Bitcoin’s potential to d...

That Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana personally designed a set that ended up selling for $6 million strongly suggests NFTs are more than just a novelty. We’re talking real money – and real assets. Dolce & Gabbana launched its first NFTs with the help of UNXD co-founders Shashi Menon and Nick Gonzalez. Menon and Gonzalez share with Leslie Lamb, founder and host of the Crypto Unstacked podcast, t...

Alkemi Network touts itself as “an institutional-grade liquidity network facilitating professional DeFi for financial institutions and individuals to earn yields on their Ethereum-based digital assets.” On the ground, that means helping old-school financial institutions update their legacy infrastructure for the modern era. More and more companies and more and more people want ready access to digi...

Does the sheer number (and entertainment value) of crypto commercials during the Super Bowl broadcast mean widespread adoption is on the horizon? Or is this just a replay of the Web 1.0/Pets.com fiasco of the late 1990s? Does BlockFi’s settlement with the SEC complicate the process? Robin Schmidt and Camila Russo of The Defiant join Real Vision’s Elaine Ly to break it all down. Robin, Camila, and...

Kadena’s combination of “revolutionary, braided multi-chain architecture” and powerful, readable smart-contract language for writing applications directly on the blockchain make it the only sharded and scalable proof-of-work network in production today. In other words, according to co-founder and CEO Stuart Popejoy, Kadena is the only PoW platform capable of scaling to settle the more than 9 milli...

With more than 100 million users worldwide and over $20 billion in assets under management, Celsius founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky is doing his part to move DeFi into the mainstream. Mashinsky emphasizes the importance of liquidity in reducing friction and lowering barriers to entry, critical objectives that will accelerate widespread adoption. He notes too that DeFi platforms like Celsius are abl...

Tom Bilyeu, co-founder and host of Impact Theory, is an amazing storyteller with an amazing story, from business builder to educator to giant influencer. He’s driven by mission and purpose, and his journey into crypto and NFTs is an inspiration to us all. He’s an accidental macro investor who sees the big picture and can comfortably live in the world of possible futures, allowing him to make the b...

Josh Ong, affectionately known as @beijingdou on Twitter is onboarding many NFT projects into the metaverse, including Happiness House, a mental health clinic. Ong is Sandbox’s ambassador and co-founder of Causeway Strategies who “came across an ape cartoon picture” on his Twitter timeline. After minting it for $250 - the rest is history. In this conversation with Real Vision’s Elaine Ly, they dis...

“Don’t pay attention to the price. The price is not what matters. It’s the value that matters,” says Brian Estes, founder of Off The Chain Capital. Using various models, Estes joins Real Vision to explain how he values Bitcoin and why many investors miss opportunities when focusing on price rather than value. He believes Bitcoin prices are fair and could potentially reach as high as $10M in 2029....

Identifying the need to educate policymakers about blockchain technology, Bitcoin, digital currency, and digital assets early on, CEO Perianne Boring founded the Chamber of Digital Commerce in July 2014. Now, thanks to Boring and her growing team, members of Congress and regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission are warming to the new reality. Boring talks to Real Vision’s Ash Benn...