The Scoop

It has been a wild summer for blockchain project Solana.  From the meteoric rise in the price of its native token to technical problems facing NFTs launched on the blockchain, the project has entered the forefront. On this episode of The Scoop, Anatoly Yakovenko Founder & CEO of Solana Labs joins host Frank Chaparro for a deep dive into Solana, which some believe can compete with Ethereum desp...

Hundreds of institutions are looking to Coinbase as a trusted, publicly-traded exchange to create tailored crypto solutions for them. Now, as traditional finance firms begin to deploy capital into crypto services, Coinbase sees itself at the forefront of facilitating that institutional adoption. “I think we're moving away from the designation of Coinbase as an exchange to being a much more complex...

FTX.US President Brett Harrison wants the company to be the next Robinhood, and he says they’re listening to every customer's comments to expand their user base and untangle the complexities of building an exchange. “The retail user base wants to be heard," said Harrison. On this episode of The Scoop, Brett Harrison took a break from coding FTX.US to join host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on ho...

"The market filled your sail with wind and now you're doing a good job of sailing. But are you ready to survive the next time the wind drops?" Blockchain.com, one of the longest operating firms in the crypto space, has been successful at taking the long road. Now the U.K.-based company is building out its stockpile of cash reserves to prepare for a possible ‘Crypto Winter’ on the horizon -- that i...

Franklin Fitch, Head of Growth at Blockparty, sees the commodification of culture as the future of the internet. Indeed, Fitch believes that a well executed NFT strategy could very well be a make-or-break opportunity for legacy brands as well as for the brands of the future: “When you start to connect physical events, digital signaling, memes and collectibles all into one, I think you create this...

OpenSea's Devin Finzer is just as surprised as anyone to see non-fungible tokens (NFTs) taking off this summer. “None of us expected to hit a billion in transaction volume this month,” said Finzer, describing what he views as "the biggest economy in the history of the internet." During this episode of The Scoop, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on...

ConsenSys wants major financial groups to jump into the world of decentralized finance -- and believes MetaMask Institutional can serve as a gateway for such firms.  While most listeners are likely familiar with MetaMask, the DeFi wallet that boasts millions of monthly users, MetaMask Institutional (MMI) is a new initiative within ConsenSys focused on providing institutional access to DeFi. Alread...

Dave Weisberger is a Wall Street vet who saw market structure develop and go electronic. On this episode of The Scoop, the co-founder and CEO of CoinRoutes joined host Frank Chaparro for a walk-through on how far trading in crypto has evolved and why regulators are ignoring these improvements. He remarked: “Firms that are domiciled and regulated out of the United States are at such a massive disad...

A high-wire fight in Washington, DC over crypto tax reporting provisions included in a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill drew widespread attention and impassioned remarks from supporters, opponents and powerful members of Congress. And while Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, admits that the legislation's current language is not perfect, the collective show of force f...

As new networks are tapping into Polkadot, its co-founder sees a high-stakes battleground forming over privacy and security. "You want to create a system which is upgradable which can adapt to new technologies if you want to be able to stay one step ahead of the curve," says Rob Habermeier, who joins The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how exactly DeFi fits into Polkadot, where he se...

Genesis Global Trading—the New York-based crypto firm that bills itself as a prime brokerage—turned over more than $8 billion worth of derivatives last quarter.  Joshua Lim is the man behind those billions as the firm's Head of Derivatives. Lim joined The Scoop this week to unpack Genesis' second quarter report, explaining how new preferences among investors and traders have shaped the make up of...

Signs point to the looming specter of regulation slowly bringing the days of bitcoin and crypto's "Wild West" to an end. The only question, perhaps, is if not now, then when? "We’re getting to a boiling point," The Block's Aislinn Keely told The Scoop. On this policy report episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro is joined by The Block’s policy and regulatory reporters — Editor of Wonk Talk Aisl...

Access to bitcoin was once a case where “no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second”. Now, New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, won’t stop until it’s able to put bitcoin within reach of every American. Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG, explained during the most recent episode of The Scoop how the firm has been amping up its partnerships in order to roll out the...

State Street made headlines last month, announcing a brand new division covering crypto, digital assets, and tokenization. State Street VP and Head of Global Markets, Nadine Chakar, is leading that charge. Despite the recent price slump in crypto-assets, interest has not abated, she noted in an interview for the latest episode of The Scoop: “The price depreciation has not impacted demand and inter...

GSR’s Rich Rosenblum doesn’t seem to mind the volatility.  On this week’s episode of The Scoop, GSR Markets co-founder and President Rich Rosenblum, joined The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on the state of the bitcoin market.  The price of the cryptocurrency has been gyrating over the course of the last several weeks, even dropping below $30,000 on Tuesday. That bearish price activity...

Imagine a world with not just a few thousand cryptocurrencies, but billions of them. That's Rally CEO Kevin Chou’s vision. The founder of mobile gaming heavyweight Kabam joined The Scoop's Frank Chaparro to talk about the development of creator coins, which are blockchain-based tokens that are tied to the social capital of a person. “We thought about… if you have instead of just thousands of token...

Tom Farley, in many respects, was early to crypto.  The 45-year-old — who is best known for his time as the head of the New York Stock Exchange — vividly recalls a conversation with early Coinbase employee Dan Romero, who connected him Coinbase co-founder and fellow Duke alumnus, Fred Ersham.  "So I met with Fred and was blown away by what they were doing and agreed to put ten million dollars on b...

China banning bitcoin has happened so many times it’s become a meme at this point. But with this latest crackdown on China-based miners, there might be no coming back, says The Block’s Wolfie Zhao. “I think the crackdown on bitcoin mining has never been serious. There were a lot of talks in 2018-2019 but there wasn't anything seriously enforced. But this time it seems like there's no way to go bac...

It’s no secret that investors find themselves in a low-yield environment. And that backdrop is forcing investors to explore DeFi. That’s part of the logic behind the recently announced Compound Treasury , a new company that allows investors and firms to access the yields on Compound without engaging directly with the blockchain. On this episode of The Scoop, Compound Labs’ Founder Robert Leshner u...

Anthony Scaramucci — the New York financier and former White House official — first jumped into the crypto fray at the end of last year.  Now, Scaramucci is going all in.  During the latest episode of The Scoop, the Skybridge Capital founder walks listeners through his journey to bitcoin. Skybridge first began investing in BTC at the end of last year .  "We have a full commitment to crypto," he re...

Crypto venture investing is heating up.  In 2021, VCs poured $3.18 billion into crypto startups in Q1 2021, an increase from $1.1 billion in Q1 2020.  On this episode of The Scoop, Vanessa Grellet, CoinFund’s newly joined Head of Portfolio Growth, joins the show for a discussion on the current state of the crypto venture capital market. “If you compare the deal flow of crypto compared to private e...

Bitcoin mining continues to make headlines this week as China ramps up its clampdown on the long-running — and once-dominant — sector. In the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, Amanda Fabiano — who leads Galaxy Digital’s mining business — explained exactly what is happening in China, noting that authorities there recently ordered bitcoin mining projects to close in the southwest province of Sich...

The slump in prices across the cryptocurrency market has hit DeFi hard.  On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Mika Honkasalo walked us through The Block's Data Dashboard to illustrate the impact of the decline in retail interest across non-custodial trading venues.  The most notable area of weakness is demand for trading with leverage on decentralized derivatives venues such as Perpetual Prot...

Bitwise, the $1 billion-plus crypto asset management firm, announced a Series B funding round to further advance its index and fund products on Wall Street. With the raise, Bitwise became the latest startup in the digital asset industry to raise fresh capital amid a period of heightened interest from institutions and their clients. In this episode of The Scoop, Bitwise co-founder and CEO Hunter Ho...

Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation, is excited about the implications of El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin. Last week, Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, sparked shockwaves across the bitcoin community with his Miami conference announcement of a proposed bill to declare bitcoin as legal tender in the country and mandate its acceptance as a means of payment....