MoneyNeverSleeps

I’m joined by three of the founders from the Techstars Web3 class of 2024 to help me identify the mainstream adoption path for blockchain technology, including Andrea Miele, Co-Founder and CEO of The Colony, Fabien Arneodo, Co-Founder and CEO of SportSyncTech, and Nick Mason, Co-Founder and CEO of ProofSpace.

As William Gibson, author of the 1984 book Neuromancer, famously said: “The future is already here, it’s just not that evenly distributed”. I think of this quote every time I get pushback from naysayers on the long-term usability of blockchain technology.

In the intro to a recent episode with the first group of 4 founders from Techstars Web3 we talked to about common misconceptions about web3, I referred to the estimated less than 20 million daily active users of crypto. Crypto in all of its shapes and forms is accountable for the overwhelming majority of the use of blockchain technology around the world today.

Recently, Lex Sokolin from the Fintech Blueprint (shout out to Lex!) summarized things nicely by pointing out that the daily active users of major blockchain protocols such as Ethereum, Binance Chain, Polygon, and Solana increased from 5 million to nearly 8 million this year. Whether we’re talking about 8 million daily active users or 20 million users, with blockchain, we’re only in the ballpark of the number of Robinhood daily active users or the population of the Netherlands.

Given how much of my time I spend in crypto and blockchain it feels like we’re already mainstream, and that the future is already here. But, back to the reality of today and our 20 million daily active users, we have some work to do.

We’re on a trajectory with crypto adoption similar to that of the internet in the 1990’s, and if the growth projections hold water, blockchain by association will become ‘mainstream’ during the 2030s. That’s a 10-year range, so what’s the timeline to where more of humanity with internet access are using blockchain daily than not?

In terms of adoption, what are the things we need to do more of (or less of) in web3 to trigger blockchain adoption by web2-only users? Do they even need to know they’re using blockchain?

To answer these questions and more this week, I asked Andrea Miele from The Colony, Fabien Arneodo from SportSyncTech, and Nick Mason from ProofSpace what they think about the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology.

LINKS:

Connect with this week’s guests on LinkedIn:

-Andrea Miele: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agriffin717/

-Fabien Arneodo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabien-arneodo/

-Nick Mason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-mason-762316b/

Follow this week’s guests on X/Twitter:

-Andrea Miele: https://twitter.com/NFTeafor2

-Fabien Arneodo: https://twitter.com/FabienArneodo

-Nick Mason: https://twitter.com/nick__mason

Learn more about each founder’s business:

-The Colony: https://thecolony.xyz/ | https://twitter.com/thecolonyxyz

-SportsyncTech: https://www.sportsynctech.com/ | https://twitter.com/SportSyncTech

-ProofSpace: https://www.proofspace.id/ | https://twitter.com/proof_space

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Gray Webb is co-founder and CTO at Liquibit Capital, and we kick things off with a look at what’s happened with BTC since the latest bitcoin halving. Gray and I then riff on the evolution of bitcoin into a long-term holding with huge opportunities for financial innovation. We also look at the mainstreaming of stablecoins as the killer app for crypto and how stablecoins have only scratched the surface by nudging past Visa in quarterly settlement volume.

Gray Webb is an entrepreneur and technology professional specializing in Digital Asset & Equity Capital Markets. With over 20 years of experience, he has expertise in high-frequency trading, risk management, and post-trade systems. He is currently the Co-Founder and CTO of Liquibit Capital, an algorithmic-driven trading and asset management company. Gray is also involved in mentoring, teaching, and startup mentoring in the blockchain and Web3 space, and is one of the fantastic mentors for founders in the Techstars Web3 accelerator program. He has a strong background in product management and technology delivery, having worked with companies like Digital Asset and JPMorgan.

Liquibit Capital⁠ is a best-in-class investment management firm focused on producing consistent and uncorrelated returns in the emerging digital asset class.

You can also listen to more of Gray’s backstory and that of his Liquibit co-founder Joseph Chang in episode 138 from 2021.

STORIES COVERED:

BTC as a long-term holding

Hong Kong's six spot bitcoin, ether ETFs see $11 million in volume on first trading day (The Block, 30-Apr-24)

Blockworks’ BTC ETF Tracker

Stablecoins mainstreaming

PV01 Issues First Digital Bond to Blue-Chip Stablecoin Investors (PRNewswire, 16-Apr-24)

Tether, USDC and DAI transaction volume surpasses Visa's 2023 monthly average: Nansen (The Block, 29-Apr-24)

Stripe Brings Back Crypto Payments Via USDC Stablecoin (Yahoo Finance, 25-Apr-24)

Making sense of stablecoins (Visa, 25-Apr-24)

LINKS:

Learn more about Liquibit Capital: https://liquibit.io/

Connect with Gray Webb on socials:

-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graywebb/

-X(Twitter): https://twitter.com/cryptopacific

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This week, I’m sharing an episode of the ‘Venture with Hesus’ podcast that I recorded recently with the unstoppable Hesus Inoma, as he interviews me on lessons learned from being part of the startup ecosystem the last 8 years, the power of networks, 2022 token sale aspirations, customer validation, building for users vs building for yourself, usability vs. security in crypto, funding your go to market, pre-seed rounds vs seed rounds, what I look for in founders, mental models, flywheels, how to be successful in an accelerator, how to get excited about regulation, real-world assets and more!

As Hesus wrote in his original ‘Venture with Hesus’ shownotes, “Buckle up and join us on this thrilling episode with our special guest, Pete, who brings his rich experiences from Boston to Ireland, and Bermuda to Galway. Witness firsthand the often-untold story of the startup ecosystem, the nitty-gritties of co-founder relationships and the transformative potential of Web3 technologies, as Pete lays it all bare.”

Hesus Inoma is the founder and Head of Strategy & Innovation at i13 Ventures, a venture studio supporting entrepreneurs, startups, universities, corporates and governments to ideate, strategize, build, launch and scale products.

Hesus originally founded an award-winning global fintech with WeSavvy, and is a well-respected leader within the Irish and European fintech ecosystem.

Hesus is passionate about the digitalization of financial services and the collaboration between the financial services and technology sectors with an excellent understanding of financial products and smart technologies underpinning emerging fintech solutions.

LINKS:

Original ‘Venture with Hesus’ episode page on i13 Ventures YouTube channel

https://www.i13ventures.com/media/v/-venture-with-hesus-pete-townsend-and-the-techstars-web3-story-

Connect with this Hesus Inoma on social media:

-LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hesusci/

-X(Twitter) - https://twitter.com/hesusci?

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I’ve brought together 4 of the founders from the Techstars Web3 class of 2024 to help me dispel some of the common misconceptions about web3 with the general public, including Julia Kemp, founder and CEO of Pawpass, Daniel Uribe, founder and CEO of GenoBank. Tiago Ferreira, co-founder and CEO of FairAI, and Tom Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Ember AI.

Even with an estimated 500 million crypto users around the world, the number of daily active users of crypto is less than 20 million, compared to 2 billion daily active users of Facebook, for example. So, for those around the world who have heard of web3, blockchain, crypto, DeFi, digital collectibles, NFTs, etc., the vast majority are uninformed at best, and negative or fearful at worst. However, they don't really need to be informed about how it works, in the same way you don’t need to understand SMTP to send an email or HTTPS to use a website.

In general, as early-stage founders, if you do put your head down and build, find customers and grow your user base, and hit the metrics to raise your round, you don’t have to worry too much about the general public for now - or do you?

What if you’ve just decided that building on blockchain technology and leveraging the trustless component of blockchain is the best way to deliver your value proposition to consumers? How will the uninformed react? How have you seen them react and what do you do about it? If what you’re building is more for the crypto-native, does it matter what the general public thinks about web3?

To answer these questions and more, I asked Julia Kemp, founder and CEO of Pawpass, Daniel Uribe, founder and CEO of GenoBank. Tiago Ferreira, co-founder and CEO of FairAI, and Tom Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Ember AI, what they wish the general public knew about web3.

LINKS:

Connect with this week’s guests on LinkedIn

-Julia Kemp from Pawpass: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kempjulia/

-Daniel Uribe from GenoBank: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uribedaniel/

-Tiago Ferreira from FairAI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlostiagoferreira/

-Tom Daniel from Ember AI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/0xtomdaniel/

Follow this week’s guests on other social media:

-Julia Kemp from Pawpass: https://www.instagram.com/usepawpass/

-Daniel Uribe from GenoBank: https://twitter.com/genobank_io?lang=en

-Tiago Ferreira from FairAI: https://twitter.com/getFairAI

-Tom Daniel from Ember AI: https://twitter.com/EmberAGI

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In this Money Talks segment, Paul Smyth and I kick things off with a look at Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence before jumping to the brighter side of things with BlackRock’s new tokenized money market fund. We then time travel back to 2017 with Copper’s sushi party (or so we thought), and close things out by questioning the correlation between fintech funding and the crypto bull run.

Paul Smyth is a specialist executive recruiter and executive coach within the fintech industry. As a founder of two startups, Paul also has a unique view of 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.

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.

STORIES COVERED:

SBF Sentenced

Sam Bankman-Fried’s fate sealed by his own words (FT, 28-Mar-24)

Where Is Sam Bankman-Fried Likely to Serve His Prison Term? (Unchained, 27-Apr-24)

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Final Trip to Court (New York Magazine, 28-Mar-24)

BlackRock Tokenized Fund

BlackRock Unveils ‘BUIDL’ Tokenized Asset Fund on Ethereum—With $5 Million Buy-In (21-Mar-24)

BlackRock's Tokenized Fund Quickly Rakes in $245M, Right Behind Franklin Templeton's Older Offering (CoinDesk, 27-Mar-24)

BUIDL: Blackrock's $10T Bet on Ethereum | Carlos Domingo (Bankless, 2-Apr-24)

Etherscan: BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL)

Copper’s Sushi Party

Crypto group Copper launches review after ‘embarrassing’ sushi party (FT, 28-Mar-24)

Crypto group Copper served sushi off partially clad models (FT, 26-Mar-24)

Julian Sawyer’s Statement from Zodia Custody (2-Apr-24)

Fintech Funding vs. Crypto Bull Run

Fintech funding falls 42% to $35B in 2023, but downturn may be nearing end (S&P Global Market Intelligence, 14-Feb-24)

LINKS:

Connect with Paul Smyth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsmyth1/

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Niall Mackey, the Commercial Director at TopSec Cloud Solutions, joins the show this week as we take an inside look at how businesses cope in the aftermath of a hack.

Niall is a tech industry veteran with over 35 years of experience with TopSec, Nokia, Interoute (now GTT) and Bank of America. With TopSec, Niall looks at commercial opportunities and influences the direction of service development to ensure they continue to bring value to their customers. TopSec have been pioneering cloud-based email and web security for more than two decades, servicing the government, healthcare, engineering, and IT sectors.

In this episode, Niall sheds some light on the gradually-then-all-at-once impact felt by a business undergoing a cyber attack, from social engineering and phishing to ransomware attacks. We talk through the psychological impact on those who were keeping watch, how those teams pick up the pieces, and the impact on customer trust

LINKS:

Connect with Niall Mackey on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niallmackey/

Learn more about TopSecCloud Solutions: https://www.topsec.com/

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Joaquim Matinero Tor joins the show this week as guest co-host as we look at the likely paths to the adoption of CBDCs (or Central Bank Digital Currencies) in the different countries around the world making progress with these digital versions of fiat currencies.

Joaquim Matinero Tor, or just “Quim” as he’s known to friends, is a lawyer with expertise in blockchain, digital assets, and web3 and a depth of experience in venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, derivatives and securities markets in general. Quim is a counsel at Ceca Magan in Barcelona, he serves as a lecturer at several universities and business schools, and he’s lent his expertise to CBDC projects for the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Singapore, the United Nations, and the World Bank.

In this episode, Quim helps me to understand the view of the general public towards CDBCs around the world, and sort through some of my lighthearted distaste for CBDCs. We also look at what’s happening with CBDCs in Asia, and how the country-by-country consumer trends with fintech and smartphones may influence CBDC adoption in those markets.

LINKS:

Connect with Joaquim Matinero on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquim-matinero-tor/

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This episode features an introduction to the 12 founding teams that form the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2024, with each of their founder/CEOs giving you a quick look inside what they're building.

Meet the companies!

Artizen - Match-funding platform for breakthroughs in human creativity.

Founder locations: USA / UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Rene Pinnell

The Colony - Shaping the future of collectibles through blockchain technology.

Founder locations: USA / Canada | Featured Founder/CEO: Andrea Miele

Ember AI - AI DeFi companion that understands what you want and helps you do it securely, without new apps or hardware.

Founder locations: USA / Colombia | Featured Founder/CEO: Tom Daniel

FairAI - Fueling democratized open-source AI through a decentralized marketplace with digital property rights.

Founder locations: Portugal / USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Tiago Ferreira

FileMarket - Multichain data tokenization protocol for storage and P2P digital goods trading.

Founder location: Hong Kong | Featured Founder/CEO: Ilya Orlov

GenoBank - Ensuring the privacy and data ownership of your genetic information.

Founder location: USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Daniel Uribe

Lantern Finance - Custodial staking and lending services for the everyday investor.

Founder location: USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Jung-Won Kim

Millicent - The open smart contract platform for compliant real-world DeFi.

Founder locations: UK / USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Kene Ezeji-Okoye

PawPass - Digital identification for animals.

Founder location: UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Julia Kemp

ProofSpace - No-code platform for reusable identity.

Founder location: UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Nick Mason

SportsyncTech - Empowering amateur sports organizations and athletes with innovative, data-driven solutions.

Founder locations: France / USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Fabien Arneodo

Savvy - Interest-free lending protocol with overcollateralized deposits and self repaying loans.

Founder location: USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Roman Giler

LINKS:

Learn more about the Techstars Web3 Class of 2024:

https://www.techstars.com/accelerators/web3

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Laura Walsh joins the show again this week as guest co-host as we explore the potential link between digital identity and decentralized social media through the lens of the Forecaster protocol, its challenges, user growth, and the future potential of a decentralized online ecosystem.

Laura is the Chief Marketing Officer and part of the founding team of Kaskade Finance, and we worked together closely for the past two years on the Techstars Web3 accelerator. Laura is a Techstars All-Star Mentor, advisor, founder, web3 O.G., and friend.

LINKS:

Learn more about Kaskade Finance: https://www.kaskade.finance/

Connect with Laura Walsh on social media:

-Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralwalsh/

-Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheOGLauraWalsh

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Brian Zwerner is the President and Founder of W3 Studio, and a VC and Founder of Beyond the Game Network. As the President and Founder of W3 Studio, a 501c3 non-profit venture studio, Brian and his team help diverse founders in Atlanta build startups in web3. W3 Studio partners with corporations and provides grants to startups to fund the launch of their first products.

With his role as a VC and Founder at Beyond The Game Network, Brian teams up with a venture group of athletes that invest in Seed to Series B consumer startups in sports, media, web3, and fitness.

Brian Zwerner was previously the founder of Sportal, a startup in the sports industry. He managed the growth of Aquina Health through a Series A capital raise. He has invested in or held senior roles with several companies and funds and previously spent 20 years in investment banking roles in the US and overseas.

In this episode, Brian and I riff on what led him to scratch his entrepreneurial itch in the first place, his experiences as a founder, and the symmetry of his leadership across Beyond the Game Network and W3 Studio. We also take a look at the market for sports-themed digital collectibles since the 2020-2021 bull run, how to build a more sustainable business at the intersection of sports and web3 by focusing on fandom rather than speculators, and how his advice to founders has evolved with the comings and goings of bulls and bears.

LINKS:

Episode title inspired by ‘The World is Yours’ by Nas

Learn more about W3 Studio: https://w3studio.us/

Learn more about Beyond the Game Network: https://thebtgnetwork.com/

Connect with Brian Zwerner on social media:

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/w3studioatl

-Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-zwerner/

-Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianZwerner

-Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bzwerner/

-TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brianzwerner

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