I’m joined this week by two of the wonderful people I met at the Solana Breakpoint conference in Amsterdam last month, Amira Valliani who is the Head of Policy at the Solana Foundation, and Nick Ducoff who is the Head of Institutional Growth at the Solana Foundation.   Before my trip to Amsterdam in November for the Solana Breakpoint conference, my engagement with the Solana community over the years had been lacking. At Solana Breakpoint, I found a diverse community with a bunch of smart and engaging people building interesting projects, and I wanted to go deeper, hence this episode. In this conversation, Amira and Nick both tell their personal stories about their path to the Solana Foundation and what they brought with them into the Solana Foundation from their past lives as startup founders.  We also riffed on my observations on the diversity of projects being built on the Solana blockchain from high-volume stablecoin networks to Triple-A games like the massive galactic game world that is Star Atlas, and we also covered what we would all like to see from web3 founders going forward. LINKS: Learn more about the Solana Foundation Follow our guests on LinkedIn:  Amira Valliani  |  Nick Ducoff Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts  |  Spotify  Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on X(Twitter): Pete Townsend  |  MoneyNeverSleeps   Follow us on LinkedIn:: Pete Townsend  |  MoneyNeverSleeps  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

Paul Smyth joins me as guest co-host this week, and he is a specialist executive recruiter and executive coach within the fintech industry.  As a founder of two startups, Paul has a unique view on the startup ecosystem. Paul and I met back in 2017 shortly before I photo-bombed his stand at a fintech event in Dublin, and we’ve collaborated quite a bit since then.  He and his business partner and life partner Laura Smyth from Top Tier Recruitment were the original sponsors of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, and since then, Paul has also launched the Possible.ie executive coaching business that counts me as one of their proud customers.  I was so happy with the outcome of Paul’s coaching of me that I asked him to coach the founders that we bring through the Techstars Web3 accelerator.  As one of the many hats he wears, Paul is a fantastic Coach-in-Residence for Techstars, helping startup founders find their way to positive outcomes.   In this Money Talks segment, Paul and I kick things off with a look at the recent “State of European Tech 2023” report produced by Atomico, the on-traditional European Venture Capital firm.  We then get into some of the key issues at play with the proposed Digital Euro, and how Central Bank Digital Currency (or CBDC) adoption may be impacted by the context of privacy in personal financial transactions.  This leads us to a rundown on SocGen’s new stablecoin listed on Bitstamp exchange, and we finish with a big question on what matters more in startup success:  great founders or great markets.   STORIES COVERED:  European tech funding halves to $45 billion, back to pre-Covid levels — but AI is a bright spot (CNBC, 28-Nov-23) State of European Tech 2023 Fiery Public Hearing on Digital Euro Sees Experts Diverge on Key Issues (CoinDesk, 28-Nov-23) France’s 3rd-largest bank, Société Générale, launches euro-pegged stablecoin (Cointelegraph, 6-Dec-23) Reid Hoffman on the Psychology of Great Founders (The Generalist, 5-Dec-23) LINKS: Follow our guest co-host Paul Smyth on LinkedIn and X(Twitter) Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts  |  Spotify  Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on X(Twitter): Pete Townsend  |  MoneyNeverSleeps   Follow us on LinkedIn: Pete Townsend  |  MoneyNeverSleeps --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

This week I’m joined by guest co-host Mai Santamaria, who is the Head of the Financial Advisory Unit for the Department of Finance in Ireland. Mai and I met in February 2018 at a meeting of the Irish Blockchain Expert Group which later became the industry group now referred to as Blockchain Ireland.   She’s one of the most helpful people I know and always has a uniquely incisive insight or two on what’s going on at the crossover of finance and emerging tech when she and I catch up.  Mai originally featured on episode 5 of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, she made a cameo on our 200th episode last year, she’s a Techstars mentor, and has received a ton of shout-outs from Eoin Fitzgerald and me on this podcast over the years. In this episode, Mai and I riff on where crypto exchange Binance goes from here after pleading guilty to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act in the US and being fined $4.3bn, with co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zao stepping down.  We also look at the new crypto-friendly Argentinian president, Javier Milei, and what he might do with dollarization and crypto adoption, and then finish up with a mind-opening counterpoint on Ethereum co-founder Vitalk Buterin’s new manifesto.  STORIES COVERED:  Binance CEO Resigns, Part of $4.3 Billion Settlement With US (Sporting Crypto, 27-Nov-23) Everyone Needs a Manifesto (CoinDesk, 28-Nov-23) My techno-optimism (Vitalik Buterin, 27-Nov-23) Elon Musk Sees A Bright Future For Argentina Under Its New Pro-Bitcoin President (Binance Square, 21-Nov-23)  Argentina Has a New Pro-Bitcoin President—Who Is Javier Milei? (Decrypt, 20-Nov-23) LINKS: Follow our guest co-host Mai Santamaria on  LinkedIn Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts  |  Spotify  Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on X(Twitter): Pete Townsend  |  MoneyNeverSleeps   Follow us on LinkedIn:: Pete Townsend  |  MoneyNeverSleeps  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

This week’s episode is from a session Pete Townsend hosted with Alex Tapscott, author of ‘Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier’ (Harper Collins). Alex and Pete were joined by venture investors Justin Swart from BITKRAFT Ventures and Sterling Campbell from Blockchain Capital.  In this chat, Pete asked Alex to share his thoughts on what to expect next from those building in web3.  Following this, a conversation ensued with Alex, Justin, and Sterling on the critical need for accessibility in technology, the future of web3 user growth, the role of gaming in web3 adoption, alignment of value and protocols, the movement towards decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) and the future of blockchain protocols. PANELISTS: Alex Tapscott - Author of Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier (and ‘Blockchain Revolution’), Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Ninepoint Partners, a Toronto-based alternative investment manager and Founder at Blockchain Research Institute Justin Swart - Principal  at BITKRAFT Ventures, a global investment platform specializing in Synthetic Reality: the space where our physical and digital worlds converge. Driven by video games and gaming technology, Web3, and AI.  BITKRAFT’s portfolio includes Epic Games, Discord and Immutable. Sterling Campbell - Investor at Blockchain Capital, partners to crypto builders since 2013, with investments including Techstars grad Arweave, Aave, Coinbase, Kraken and OpenSea. TIMESTAMPS: 02:12 Alex Tapscott's Journey and Vision for Web 3 03:23 Justin Swartz's Gaming and Investment Background 04:27 Sterling Campbell's Career Transition to Blockchain 06:11 Discussion on Alex Tapscott's New Book on Web3 07:26 The Future of Web3 User Growth 09:17 The Convergence of Technologies in Web3 14:09 The Role of Gaming in Web3 Adoption 22:30 The Metaverse and the Future of Gaming 25:42 The Cycles of Crypto and Web3 27:13 The Importance of Aligning Value with Protocol 27:58 The Impact of Social Tokens 28:28 The Future of Protocols 30:03 The Longevity of Blockchain Capital 30:19 The Dominance of Ethereum 32:53 The Evolution of Blockchain Protocols 34:06 The User Experience in Blockchain 35:34 The Future of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure 47:07 The Regulatory Landscape of Crypto Ecosystem LINKS: Get in touch with the contributors to this week’s episode with the links above Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

Pete Townsend introduces an insightful line-up of entrepreneurs and investors who share their thoughts on web3. Opinions are gathered around what aspects they hope to see web3 founders solve, focusing on topics such as user experience, digital identity, decentralized finance, AI, regulatory issues, and real-world applications. The diverse panel includes John Hallahan from Fireblocks, Arry Yu from the U.S. Blockchain Coalition, Hesus Inoma from i13 Ventures, Niamh O'Connell from CasperLabs, Prashanth Swaminathan from Woodstock Fund, Sean Lee from the Crypto Council for Innovation, Clarisse Hagege from Dfns, and Lou Kerner from the Crypto Oracle Collective. The episode aims to explore and understand the current challenges and potential opportunities in the Web3 space. 00:19 Techstars Web3 Accelerator Announcement 00:47 Web3 founders' challenges and solutions 01:46 John Hallahan's Web3 Wishlist 03:43 Arry Yu's thoughts on digital identity and being the adult in the room 06:17 Hesus Inoma's insights on Web3 founders 08:27 Niamh O'Connell on self-sovereign identity 11:28 Prashanth Swaminathan's top areas for Web3 15:52 Sean Lee's perspective on Web3 tokens 18:16 Clarisse Hagege's call for real-life use cases 19:10 Lou Kerner's thoughts on balance and mistakes CONTRIBUTORS: John Hallahan, Director, Business Solutions & Advisory at Fireblocks, whose mission is to enable every business to easily and securely support digital assets and cryptocurrencies. (video)  Arry Yu, is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair at the U.S. Blockchain Coalition, a coalition of state blockchain associations, organizations and influencers across the country cooperating together to ensure the United States is a leader in blockchain, Web3, and distributed ledger technologies (DLT).   Hesus Inoma, Head of Strategy & Innovation at i13 Ventures, whose purpose is to co-create and back products and services grounded on first design principles for the new era of the web. Niamh O’Connell, Enterprise & Partnerships Lead (U.S) at CasperLabs, the first blockchain built specifically for business adoption.   Prashanth Swaminathan, Partner at Woodstock Fund, a thesis and research-driven fund, investing in early and growth stage Web 3.0 companies and protocols. Sean Lee, Senior Advisor at the Crypto Council for Innovation, a global alliance of crypto industry leaders that are advocating for responsible and healthy regulations in the digital asset industry. Clarisse Hagege, Founder & CEO at Dfns, providing web3 wallets as APIs and wallet-as-a-service infrastructure that enables crypto developers to forget about private key management so they can focus on building what matters most — their applications. Lou Kerner, the founder of the Crypto Oracle Collective, a decentralized web3 advisory firm and also the DAO for Crypto Mondays, which is the largest crypto meetup in the world with active chapters in 54 cities. LINKS: Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

Sean Lee is the senior advisor at the Crypto Council for Innovation, which is a global alliance of crypto industry leaders advocating for responsible and healthy regulations in the digital asset industry. Sean has conducted business in over 20+ countries and two continents across his career, and networked with extraordinary professionals across many industries. As a technology enthusiast, his career started in Internet 1.0 during the mid ’90s, spanning across eCommerce, cloud computing, and digitalization, with IBM, EMC, Pivotal, and Dell before moving into blockchain and crypto in the last few years. Through it all he has witnessed how technology combined with innovative business models can transform industries, and ultimately global economies as well.  In this episode, Sean and I dive into How the current events in crypto point to an even greater opportunity for education, advocacy, and policy to accelerate the adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology. How the Crypto Council for Innovation approaches policy frameworks to align the digital asset industry with regulators and vice-versa   How far the crypto industry and regulators have come with centralized finance (CeFi) already An example of policy building through the lens of decentralized finance (DeFi) with a focus on placing the regulatory lens on appropriate layers of the DeFi stack.   How we approach the paraphrasing of the various definitions of web3 into terms that are accessible to non-crypto natives A big change that Sean and I would both like to see in how most web3 founders think about fundraising. LINKS: Follow Sean Lee on LinkedIn and X/(Twitter)  Learn more about the Crypto Council for Innovation and their DeFi regulatory policy white paper Watch Sean Lee’s weekly ‘This Week in Crypto: Sean’s Take on Asia’ videos on YouTube  Episode title inspired by Global Access by Young Thug (feat, Nate Ruess) Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

Lou Kerner is the founder of the Crypto Oracle Collective, a decentralized web3 advisory firm, and also the DAO for Crypto Mondays, which is the largest crypto meetup in the world with active chapters in 54 cities. In addition to Lou’s roles as founder of Crypto Oracle Collective and Crypto Mondays, he’s also a partner at Blockchain Coinvestors, a venture capital fund of funds focused on investing in blockchain since 2014. Lou has a great track record of recognizing emerging trends and doubling down on them, first on Wall Street, then onto media, venture capital and now in crypto and blockchain.   In this episode, Lou and I dive into his early career in traditional finance and community building and uncover what it was that he saw with his big crypto revelation in 2017, how he ported over his community-building experiences into crypto and blockchain, and the one thing on which he would like to see web3 founders focus. LINKS: Follow Lou Kerner on LinkedIn and X/(Twitter)  Learn more about Crypto Oracle Collective and Crypto Mondays Follow Crypto Mondays on LinkedIn  Follow Crypto Oracle Collective on Linkedin Episode title inspired by All Around the World by Jay-Z Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

My discussion with Somi Arian is a deep dive into the entrepreneur's dilemma of solving problems vs. fulfilling desires, customer discovery, product building and pivots, all baked into a live startup mentoring session. Somi is the founder and CEO of InPeak, an innovative platform enabling creators and businesses to build and monetize communities.  Somi is also an award-winning filmmaker, tech philosopher, and author whose work sits at the intersection of AI, blockchain, and the future of work. Her 2018 documentary, “The Millennial Disruption” won several international awards and featured industry leaders from The Economist, Marie Claire, Bentley, JLR, and Steinway. If you’re building in web3, the next class of the Techstars Web3 accelerator takes place in spring 2024, and applications are open now.  As web3 is global and borderless, so is Techstars Web3.  Although most of the accelerator content is delivered virtually, the class does meet up in person for a week at a time at the beginning, middle and end of the program in different cities around the world.  Jump on over to techstars.com/accelerators/web3 to apply. LINKS: Follow Somi Arian on LinkedIn and X/(Twitter)  Check out the Somi Arian Podcast and learn about InPeak Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

Arry Yu is a 23+ year emerging technology industry veteran, serial founder and strategic operator with expertise in scaling business from "zero to one" with a consistent track record building high-performing teams. In this episode, Arry shares her story on her path into crypto and blockchain from the roots of her early corporate career into becoming a startup founder, investor and Executive Director and Co-Founder of the U.S. Blockchain Coalition (USBC). Arry also sheds some light on the paradox that is the US attitude towards crypto, with the overwhelming majority of venture capital investment in crypto companies coming from the same country whose innovators have to withstand such a toxic regulatory view of crypto.  We then round things out with Arry’s views on investing in web3 founders and their startups, and some of the ups and downs that come with the territory. In addition to her role leading the U.S. Blockchain Coalition (USBC), Arry Yu is also the founding Chair of the Cascadia Blockchain Council. Yu also works in venture capital as she serves as the Managing Director of Yellow Umbrella Ventures and Venture Partner with Startup Haven Fund.  She also regularly serves as an educator, as Adjunct Professor and instructor for various academic institutions like the Saudi Digital Academy, Coding Dojo, Portland State University and the University of Washington Tacoma Milgard School of Business.  An innovator, public speaker, and writer, she has been widely published in national media outlets including Forbes, CNN Money, U.S. News & World Report, Geekwire and more. Over the years, Yu has worked with both investors and developers across four continents to launch both SaaS and consumer products. LINKS: Follow Arry Yu on LinkedIn and X/(Twitter)  Learn more about the US Blockchain Coalition and Yellow Umbrella Ventures  Episode title inspired by Reset Button by XV (feat. Talib Kweli) Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message

Joining Pete as guest co-host this week is Pet Berisha from Sporting Crypto, the number one Web3 Sports business exploring the intersection alongside 3000+ subscribers from the biggest sports and crypto brands in the world. In this episode, Pet and Pete dive into whether or not the Sam Bankman-Fried trial actually matters, without digging into all of the gory details, and they also look at the state of crypto fundraising through the lens of Messari’s report of the same name for Q3 2023. They also talk through the latest news on Web3 gaming with the story of how one game from the team behind the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Atlas drove transaction volumes on the Solana blockchain to unexpected levels. The Sporting Crypto newsletter is read by leaders from Meta, the EPL, Candy Digital, NBA, LaLiga, MLB, Sorare and many more. Sporting Crypto is also multi-media, with a podcast interviewing 15 industry leaders at the intersection, and they also host industry-leading events on a regular basis.  Sporting Crypto is also an advisory and consultancy service that has worked with Adidas, Infront Sport, COPA90, Universal Music, Flannels, Karate Combat, W3FC and more. Pet Berisha is hosting two upcoming Sporting Crypto in-person events in London and NYC, check them out below: -London, 25th October: https://www.sportingcrypto.com/events/event-three-448m9 -NYC, 16th November: https://www.sportingcrypto.com/events/event-three-448m9-srkzf Finally, the Techstars Web3 accelerator is now open for applications for the class of 2024.  If you’re building in web3, jump over to Techstars Web3 to apply. STORIES COVERED: The Judge is So Fed Up with Sam Bankman-Fried’s Lawyers (Slate, 5-Oct-23) State of Crypto Fundraising (Messari, 5-Oct-23) Just One Game on Solana Is Doing More Daily Transactions Than All of Polygon (Decrypt, 9-Oct-23) LINKS: Follow Pet Berisha on LinkedIn and X/Twitter Subscribe to the Sporting Crypto newsletter Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend Follow us on LinkedIn:  MoneyNeverSleeps  |  Pete Townsend --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moneyneversleeps/message