Blockchain Value-logo

Blockchain Value

1 Favorite

Hello! Welcome to Blockchain Value. We focus on the value of blockchain across industries. Together with builders and those who support builders, we explore how blockchain technology adds value and what new business models emerge.

Location:

United States

Description:

Hello! Welcome to Blockchain Value. We focus on the value of blockchain across industries. Together with builders and those who support builders, we explore how blockchain technology adds value and what new business models emerge.

Language:

English


Episodes
Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 3, Episode 6 - The IRS Is After Me: Why You Should Incorporate Your DAO (with Adam Miller)

7/18/2023
While ‘Decentralized Autonomous Organizations’ and ‘Incorporation’ might sound mutually exclusive, that could not be further from the truth. In fact, DAOs are not really protected or given the opportunity to realize their full potential until they incorporate. The reason why is threefold: first, if a DAO is not recognized as a legal entity, all of its contributors are at significant personal risk; second, if a DAO doesn’t have corporate personhood, it cannot own any intellectual property, participate in traditional finance, or hire employees; third, without tax entity, all of a DAOs members can be held accountable for taxes on any net earnings the DAO generates. The problem is, not a lot of people know about this and continue to organize with the hopes of changing the world without first ensuring that their foundation is stable. Others who might be aware about the benefits of incorporation dismiss it out of fear that it is ‘too complicated’ or ‘too expensive.’ In reality, incorporation has never been easier than it is today. In this podcast episode, Adam Miller will share everything you need to know about how to incorporate your DAO.

Duration:00:40:10

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 3, Episode 5 - What is missing to make Metaverse real? (with Batis Samadian)

5/1/2023
The founder and CEO of SPACE, Batis Samadian founded the company in 2021 with a goal to build a fair and equal economy for creators and businesses. Previously, Batis was the product lead at Zapp, and as a serial entrepreneur and investor, he also worked for Saffron, a venture builder that was involved with early VR startups and was an angel in a number of successful projects. Batis has been in crypto since 2013, initially mining with his friends from their college dorms. Today, he brings all his entrepreneurial and crypto knowledge to create the largest commerce virtual world owned by the community. The Metaverse is overhyped. We will talk with Batis Samadian, the founder and CEO of SPACE, about what is missing to make it real, and how consumers and businesses can participate in the Metaverse today.

Duration:00:42:26

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 3, Episode 4 - Why Women (And Everyone Else, but especially Women) Should Care about Cryptocurrency (with Amanda Wick)

4/10/2023
As a former Senior Investigative Counsel, federal prosecutor, and Chainalysis alum, Amanda Wick has been in nearly every corner of the crypto ecosystem. After nearly a decade in government service and working at a startup, she grew passionate about the need for increased inclusion of women in the future of digital assets. She recently founded a non-profit called the Association for Women In Crypto to provide networking and education opportunities that will help promote and advance women in the space. Cryptocurrency has existed for more than a decade, but countless people still don't know what it is and think it's just "criminal money." But market activity has risen to over a trillion dollars, and most governments around the world have recognized it is here to stay. So what, and why should women, especially, care? Because the future of digital finance has yet to be written and this time around, women have an opportunity to fight harder to ensure inclusion and equality. Amanda Wick will explain why everyone should care about cryptocurrency, but why women especially should care, why they should get involved, and how women can ensure there is greater inclusion in the future of digital finance.

Duration:00:34:05

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 3, Episode 3 - The Secret Recipe of Web3 (with Tegan Kline)

3/13/2023
Tegan Kline, Co-Founder and Head of Business at Edge & Node (the initial team behind The Graph), helping to ensure a vibrant decentralized future. The Graph is Edge & Node’s first protocol, an indexing and query protocol organizing the world’s open blockchain data and making open data a public good. Tegan helps leaders and innovators connect more deeply with stakeholders across the blockchain ecosystem. Tegan made Forbes 30 under 30’s class of 2022. Tegan Kline is the former International Business Development Manager and OXT Relations Lead for Orchid, an A16z and Sequoia backed blockchain company that created tools and protocols for users to obtain digital freedom and an open and accessible internet. Tegan began her career on Wall Street in Investment Banking at BAML and, prior to discovering blockchain, worked in Sales and Trading at Barclays. Tegan is a force of nature. She has been instrumental to the blockchain industry. She is making applications on blockchain technology possible at The Graph and, in launching Orchid, she helped to help get everyone equal access to the internet. She is now paving the way for DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem at Edge & Node to ensure web3 becomes the future of the Internet. Recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Powerful People in Crypto by The Information and Forbes's 2022 30 Under 30 in the Finance Category, Tegan has exemplified her continuous passion and efforts for people to own their data and money, independently verify all information, maintain neutrality, and empower humanity to evolve. In this episode, Tegan will explore why downcycles are euphoric for builders, why web3 is the perfect place for web2 developers to land, how web3 is evolving, how The Graph plays a major role in powering the web3 movement, and the importance of finding your community within web3.

Duration:00:30:05

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 3, Episode 2 – Blockchain for Social Good (with Kim Almeida & Eileen McNeely)

9/6/2022
Kimberly Almeida - Director of Programs, Levi Strauss Foundation Kim is a corporate philanthropy, CSR and international development professional. She joined the Levi Strauss Foundation in 2012 and leads the Foundation’s learning and analysis efforts across its three giving areas. Previously, she oversaw the design and implementation of Levi Strauss & Co.’s Worker Well-being initiative, which aims to improve apparel workers’ lives through partnerships with the Company’s vendors and community organizations. Kim led efforts to measure the impact of WWB in partnership with the Sustainability and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Levi Strauss Foundation she was Global Research Manager at UL Responsible Sourcing where she was responsible for following new developments in the CSR field and advising UL’s clients on how to manage specific labor challenges in their supply chains. Kim has also conducted extensive research on the business case for responsible labor and managed grantmaking programs throughout Latin America for Nokia and the International Youth Foundation. Kim received a Master of Pacific International Affairs from University of California, San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and a BA in anthropology from George Washington University. Born and raised in Guatemala, she is fluent in Spanish and German and proficient in Portuguese. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and son. Eileen McNeely, PhD, MS, RN, Executive Director, SHINE, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Eileen McNeely is Founder and Executive Director of SHINE, the sustainability and health initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is pioneering understanding of corporate social and health impacts and the role of business in advancing global well-being. Dr. McNeely has extensive experience in the areas of environmental epidemiology, occupational and community health, health promotion, health services management and policy, and clinical practice as a nurse practitioner. Her experience spans numerous industries. She started and runs the Harvard Flight Attendant Health Study, the largest cohort study of flight attendants. She is a former intern at the Occupational Health and Safety Administration in Washington D.C., evaluating the impact of regulations on the chemical industry. She has consulted both nationally and internationally on the impact of work on wellbeing and has authored many publications on this topic. Dr. McNeely’s research is currently focused on work as a platform to improve well-being, putting people and health at the center of corporate sustainability and business culture. Using a rigorous and applied academic approach she aims to shine a light on worker health and well-being in the business context, and engages companies to understand the impact of workplace culture and practices on well-being. Her research is driven by combining mental, physical and psychosocial well-being metrics with business metrics such as retention, absenteeism, productivity, and performance to guide businesses to better understand the impact of the workplace culture on health. Her work with companies aims to redesign how business integrates well-being from an ever-changing programmatic style to an integrated systems approach.

Duration:00:38:16

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 3, Episode 1 – The Cure to the Crypto Calamity (with Jeremy Nau)

8/23/2022
Jeremy Nau is a founding member and Director in Armanino's Blockchain and Digital Assets practice. A CPA, Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP), Jeremy acts as a subject matter expert for Armanino's clients across all industries. In this capacity, Jeremy leads the digital asset portions of audit, SOC, SOX and tax engagements for many types of industry clients such as exchanges, custodians, miners, stakers, token projects, wallets, payment processors and stablecoins. Additionally, Jeremy is a co-founder and product manager of Armanino's TrustExplorer suite of products. He helped create the first ever real-time audit application in the accounting/audit industry; TrustExplorer's Real-Time Audit application now attests to over $10B in assets as frequently as every 30 seconds. Jeremy also managed the first-ever proof of reserves engagement completed by an accounting firm. Jeremy also helped created the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s proof of reserves crypto claim taxonomy, which leads the accounting industry forward through the creation of transparency standards. Prior to focusing solely on crypto and digital assets, Jeremy spent four years working with and managing SOX and internal audit engagements for public companies. He is a graduate of CSU Chico.

Duration:00:27:54

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 10 – Crypto Nonprofit: Transforming Financial Inclusion (with Anna Stone)

8/17/2022
Anna Stone is an accomplished Web3 innovator and growth leader with a proven track record in building, launching, and scaling inclusive crypto products, made for the masses, since 2018. At eToro, Stone oversees go-to-market strategy for the company's NFT business, and leads the company's impact initiatives which focus on leveraging blockchain and #Web3 as key to democratizing finance for all. She is a co-founder of GoodDollar.org, a social-impact protocol and DAO that leverages free market incentives to pay for building a more equitable world, which eToro sponsored the building of as part of its corporate social responsibility efforts. She has worked in the space of crypto and decentralized finance since 2018, when she led growth for the Bancor Protocol for 2 years in the early days of decentralized finance. She has over 12 years experience in bringing to market complex technologies and leading growth teams across Web3, blockchain, big data, and advanced analytics. She has holds a BA from Dartmouth College, and a masters in global political economy from The Fletcher School, at Tufts Reducing wealth inequality is arguably the greatest threat to the future of humanity, with half of the world’s population (3.4 billion people) living on less than $5.50 a day. Despite efforts to address inequality, the gulf between rich and poor is growing and continues to divide us, and has only been exacerbated by global economic fall-out from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Yet, this crisis has triggered fresh, wide-scale and cross-party enthusiasm to put money directly in the hands of people. Universal basic income (UBI) – the idea of providing unconditional payments to individuals – while not a new idea, has emerged as a key policy proposal in over 20 nations. GoodDollar.org is a basic income protocol that presents a people-powered, distributed framework to generate, finance, and distribute a daily digital basic income. Through its novel tokenomics and integration with DeFi protocols, GoodDollar can achieve significant social impact. Since launching G$, a reserve-backed token, in September 2020, people all over the globe are receiving their share of G$ every day, and they are using it to transact, create new economies and businesses.

Duration:00:42:32

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 9 – How to Make Money Playing Games on a Blockchain (with Neeraj Kashyap)

8/2/2022
Neeraj Kashyap is the founder and CEO of Moonstream. Moonstream is a one of a kind web3 game engine with tools to build on-chain game economies. There are tens of thousands of players already participating in game economies built with Moonstream. The company has secured over $3b in transaction volume to date. Neeraj is a mathematician with a Ph.D. in Number Theory. He spent his late twenties in Japan, using mathematics and Machine Learning to build algorithms to diagnose Parkinson’s disease and other similar disorders. He worked at Google on TensorFlow, and built knowledge graphs that are being used actively by major US healthcare organizations. He has been a blockhead since 2015, with a focus on building software to connect blockchains to centralized services as well as to other blockchains. In this podcast, Neeraj Kashyap, the founder of Moonstream, will share about the challenges of building blockchain games and how crypto enthusiasts can make a profit playing games on a blockchain. Few gamers know the secret of earning money while playing blockchain games, so tune in to find out!

Duration:00:44:16

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 8 – Web 3 Industry: How to Onboard (with Brian Schuster)

7/17/2022
Brian Schuster is a Software Developer, Technical Manager and Entrepreneur building devMint School to close the talent gap in the Web3 industry. Brian started his career non-technical, graduating with a Business Degree from UNC. After studying entrepreneurship at MIT and realizing that the best opportunities were in technology, Brian started a rigourous self-study practice to learn software development. These practices eventually led him to roles including Infrastructure Developer, Solution Architect and DevOps Engineer. Brian now uses his dual background in business and technology to help people find new, exciting opportunities in the technology field. He's used his knowledge of how to find and execute on new opportunities to help successfully mentor hundreds of students looking to join technology companies. In his latest venture, Schuster is upskilling senior engineers and placing them into fast growing Web3 organizations. In thisepisode, we will discuss how both technical and non-technical executives can onboard into the Web3 space. The industry is growing very fast, but seem dauntingly out of reach for most individuals, especially those without a technical background. It seems that you have to have an unbelievably crazy, smart or lucky to get rooted in this industry. But the truth is that there are a ton of opportunities if you know how to build them. If you’re an investor and want to do more, or just someone wanting to take part in the excitement, this is the discussion for you!

Duration:00:36:31

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 7 – How Can Blockchain and Law be Used for Social Good (with Michele Neitz)

7/7/2022
Michele Benedetto Neitz is a Professor of Law at Golden Gate University School of Law and the Founding Director of the Blockchain Law for Social Good Center, the first of its kind in the United States. She teaches Blockchain and the Law, Business Associations, Legal Ethics, and other classes. She has been voted “Most Outstanding Professor” by the graduating class of GGU Law six times, most recently in 2022. Professor Neitz was appointed to advise the California legislature as a member of the California Blockchain Working Group in 2019. She researches and lectures on ethical, regulatory, and social impact issues in blockchain technology, and published the first law review article examining ethics in blockchain technology in January 2020. Her most recent article, entitled “How to Regulate Blockchain’s Real-Life Applications: Lessons from the California Blockchain Working Group,” was published by the peer-reviewed Jurimetrics Journal in 2021. Professor Neitz regularly speaks at tech and law conferences on these issues, including recent presentations at the CITRIS Research Exchange Panel at UC Berkeley and Bilgi University’s Data Driven Economy Lab in Istanbul, Turkey. Professor Neitz graduated as a Root-Tilden-Scholar from New York University School of Law. Before joining academia, she clerked in the Southern District of California for Judge Napoleon Jones. She also worked as an Equal Justice Works fellow at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego and was an associate at Morrison & Foerster. Two months ago, Professor Michele Neitz founded the first-of-its-kind Blockchain Law for Social Good Center at Golden Gate University School of Law. The Center's three pillars--education, community, and research/policy--are creating a new model of blockchain education for law students, lawyers, and policymakers. Join us to find out how the Center is training government agencies to look at blockchain as a tool for social good. There is more to this technology's story than crypto scams!

Duration:00:24:41

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 6 – NFTs in Hollywood (with Kadeem Clarke)

5/4/2022
Kadeem Clarke is an entrepreneur, blockchain expert, and venture capitalist investing in the top cryptocurrency companies of the future. In addition to being a freelance digital consultant for tech startups and small businesses, Kadeem is Head of Labs of Momentum 6, a value-add-focused VC fund in the crypto space. Momentum 6 invests in early-stage cryptocurrency startups and provides incubation services, from marketing to tokenomics, to help grow portfolio companies. At Momentum 6, Kadeem leads a research team that publishes educational content about blockchain projects and related topics. Kadeem also works with recording artists to launch NFT drops. Most current NFT projects target crypto investors and the wealthy with ultra-expensive PFP NFTs that gate access to communities and protocols. In P2E games, NFTs are used to power in-game economies. These use-cases have grown to large markets, but don't address the mass. NFTs are gradually disrupting the media and entertainment industry, tune in to learn more about Kadeem's predictions on how this will happen.

Duration:00:25:23

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 5 – Security Tokens And Financial Market Infrastructure (with Lewis Cohen)

4/20/2022
Lewis Cohen is the co-founder of DLx Law, a law firm founded in 2018 to serve the needs of a new, technology-driven economy. Lewis and the DLx Law team provide in-depth legal counsel to startups, growth companies, major enterprises, and governmental entities on a broad range of matters involving the use of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and other disruptive technologies. Passionate about the ability of innovative technologies to change the way businesses and individuals work together, Lewis has become a major advocate for the potential of emerging technologies to benefit and transform industries around the globe. Lewis brings more than 25 years of experience advising major clients in capital markets and finance transactions. Lewis is a frequent public speaker on the topic of blockchain and distributed ledger technology. Lewis served on the Board and Executive Committee of the Structured Finance Industry Group (SFIG). Lewis is also recognized by Chambers Global as one of only three lawyers in “Band 1” for Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies – USA. Follow Lewis on Twitter: @NYCryptolawyer. We’ve spoken a lot about digital assets and regulation so far, but there are still a few topics we have yet to cover. In this episode, we discuss stablecoins. What makes a digital asset a stablecoin? Are all stablecoins more or less the same? What regulatory issues do stablecoins pose? What exactly is an “NFT”? From a securities regulatory point of view, what should we know about NFTs? Last but by no means least, it seems like every country is talking about developing a “central bank digital currency”. Is the Fed really going to issue crypto!?

Duration:00:44:43

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 4 – Blockchain vs. Big Tech (with Dr. Thibault Schrepel)

4/6/2022
Dr. Thibault Schrepel, LL.M., is an Associate Professor of Law at VU Amsterdam University where he co-directs the Amsterdam Law & Technology Institute, and a Faculty Affiliate at Stanford University CodeX Center where he has created the “Computational Antitrust” project that brings together over 60 antitrust agencies. Thibault also holds research and teaching positions at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Sciences Po Paris. He is a Harvard University Berkman Center alumnus, a member of the French Superior Audiovisual Council’s scientific board, also, a blockchain expert appointed to the World Economic Forum and the World Bank. In 2018, Thibault was granted the “Academic Excellence” Global Competition Review Award, which recognizes “an academic competition specialist who has made an outstanding contribution to competition policy.” He has published a first manuscript (Bruylant ed.) on the subject of “predatory innovation in antitrust law” and articles at Harvard University, Stanford, MIT, Oxford, NYU, Berkeley, and Georgetown, among others. These last couple of years, Thibault has been focusing most of his research on blockchain antitrust and computational antitrust. He has written the world’s most downloaded antitrust articles of 2018 (“The Blockchain Antitrust Paradox”), 2019 (“Collusion by Blockchain and Smart Contracts”), 2020 (“Blockchain Code as Antitrust”), and 2021 (“Computational Antitrust: An Introduction and Research Agenda”). His latest book, “Blockchain + Antitrust”, was published in September 2021. In this episode, Prof. Thibault Schrepel will explore the dynamics between blockchain and big tech companies. What is the state of the relationship between blockchain and big tech companies? Is Web 3.0 truly decentralized? Why should antitrust agencies pay particular attention to this relationship? Can the law influence this relationship? A list of open-access resources to learn computer science https://leconcurrentialiste.com/computer-science-resources/ Blockchain + Antitrust The Decentralization Formula book https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781800885523.xml Blockchain + Antitrust The Decentralization Formula book https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/blockchain-antitrust-9781800885523.html

Duration:00:39:36

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 3 – The Metaverse and Blockchain Assets (with Claudia Olah)

3/21/2022
Claudia Olah is the Director of Marketing for Metajuice, a subsidiary of the first and largest social metaverse platform, Together Labs (formerly IMVU). She's been in the crypto industry managing global marketing teams in Shanghai for over 5 years and is now back in Silicon Valley leading a team that is building digital assets for the metaverse. Today we'll be talking about what industry leaders are doing in the Metaverse, how blockchain is a part of that whole system and what companies today are doing to utilize this to enhance their marketing strategy. What got her into Crypto industry? What made her join MetaJuice? What is the future of Brands and Marketing in the Metaverse?

Duration:00:27:05

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 2 – Navigating the Metaverse (with Dirk Lueth)

3/8/2022
Dirk Lueth is a serial entrepreneur and an early adopter of blockchain and related technologies, based in Silicon Valley. He co-founded European and US-based companies in the FinTech and digital media spaces, including the Financial Times Deutschland and Forbatec which has been acquired by SunGard (today NYSE:FIS). Dirk mentored over 30 startups through his work at international startup accelerators in Silicon Valley and is a frequent speaker/panelist focusing on topics about the metaverse, blockchain, and platform economics. He has studied Business Administration in Frankfurt and Paris and received a Ph.D. from the European Business School in Germany where he wrote his doctoral thesis about private and state-controlled currencies. Like the Internet before it, the metaverse is a virtual space bringing people, companies, and products together in both digital and real environments to create new economic opportunities. The groundwork is already laid. People and organizations jumping in are gaining invaluable experience, meeting customers, developing revenue streams, and even shaping metaverse culture. This episode delivers a groundbreaking discussion of how to find the right opportunities in this fast-moving universe. You’ll explore everything from the metaverse basics, to strategy, to launching your first metaverse project.

Duration:00:35:49

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 2, Episode 1 – What do Bored Apes have to do with crypto compliance? (with Ari Redbord)

2/23/2022
Ari Redbord is the Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, the blockchain intelligence company. TRM provides next generation blockchain analytics software to governments, financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses. Prior to joining TRM, Ari was the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary and the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the United States Treasury where he worked with teams from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and other Treasury components to use sanctions and other regulatory tools effectively to safeguard the financial system from illicit use. Prior to Treasury, Ari was an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for eleven years. 2021 was the year of the NFT and it looks like 2022 might be a repeat! From Bored Apes to CryptoPunks, Top Shot to SNL, non-fungible tokens have exploded into pop culture, sports, and finance. But like anything that allows for value transfer at the speed of the internet, NFTs present unique risks from illicit actors who want to use emerging technology for money laundering and other illicit activity. Ari Redbord of TRM Labs joins us to talk about the NFT regulatory landscape, illicit finance risks and ultimately the power and promise of NFTs to solve complex problems way beyond art and collectibles.

Duration:00:21:51

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 1, Episode 10 – Crypto: where do we go from here? (with Miko Matsumura)

2/9/2022
Miko Matsumura is a General Partner with gCC Gumi Cryptos Capital, a Silcon Valley investment fund with over $400M in assets including early-stage investments in unicorns like OpenSea, Yield Guild Games, Celsius Network, VEGA Protocol, Qredo and 1Inch Network. Miko fell in love with open source software 25 years ago as chief Developer Evangelist for the Java Programming Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems. Since then he has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley including raising over $50 million in venture capital for developer platform companies such as Gradle and financial infrastructure companies like Hazelcast and has participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in successful startups like Celsius (CeFi Lending), Idle Finance (DeFi Yield Aggregator), Pundi X (Payments), and KEYLESS (ID infrastructure). He holds a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from Yale University where he worked on abstract computational neural networks. In this episode, we discuss the state of the union speech and a conversation about where we are in the blockchain journey and why this matters. Where are we in crypto? What have we achieved? What worked? What hasn't worked? Where do we go next?

Duration:00:32:18

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 1, Episode 9 – Enforcement Actions And Civil Litigation Relating to Digital Assets: Mind the Gap! (with Lewis Cohen)

1/24/2022
Lewis Cohen is the co-founder of DLx Law, a law firm founded in 2018 to serve the needs of a new, technology-driven economy. Lewis and the DLx Law team provide in-depth legal counsel to startups, growth companies, major enterprises, and governmental entities on a broad range of matters involving the use of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and other disruptive technologies. Passionate about the ability of innovative technologies to change the way businesses and individuals work together, Lewis has become a major advocate for the potential of emerging technologies to benefit and transform industries around the globe. Lewis brings more than 25 years of experience advising major clients in capital markets and finance transactions. Lewis is a frequent public speaker on the topic of blockchain and distributed ledger technology. Lewis served on the Board and Executive Committee of the Structured Finance Industry Group (SFIG). Lewis is also recognized by Chambers Global as one of only three lawyers in “Band 1” for Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies – USA. Follow Lewis on Twitter: @NYCryptolawyer. At present, with some notable exceptions, like the DAO Report in 2017, much of our understanding of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approach to digital assets has been derived from enforcement actions. Unsurprisingly, many of these actions have resulted in settlements with the alleged offender, for which little can be gleaned. The relatively few cases which have gone to litigation have been instructive—if not illuminating. For example, a brief in the Ripple Labs matter from earlier this year revealed that the SEC’s position is that the digital asset that was sold, XRP, is not itself a security but rather the “embodiment” of an investment contract. Whether this position is one which the SEC and other regulators will continue to adopt and maintain—as opposed to the more common perception that many digital assets are in and of themselves securities—and whether such a concept would stand up to judicial scrutiny, is representative of the existential uncertainty which persists, despite the current corpus of regulatory guidance. In addition, although fewer in number, private litigation continues to play a role. Finding a way to solve for the gap and alleviate some of the legal uncertainties which persist, in a way which drives innovation forward while protecting investors and participants, will likely be one of the greater challenges that practitioners, regulators, and legislators face in the coming years.

Duration:00:38:15

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 1, Episode 8 – Industry Trends from the Blockchain Association (with Dan Spuller)

1/9/2022
Daniel Spuller is the Head of Industry Affairs for the Blockchain Association in Washington, DC. He was appointed Co-Chair of the North Carolina Blockchain Initiative by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor in 2019. Since 2012, Spuller has been an advocate of decentralized digital assets, bitcoin, and blockchain-based technologies. From 2016-2020, Spuller led membership and growth at the Washington-based Chamber of Digital Commerce growing it from 38 to over 200 members at its peak. He previously worked for North Carolina’s Department of Commerce and was instrumental in facilitating negotiations between the Commissioner of Banks and industry, successfully driving a multi-stakeholder campaign leading to the legislative passage of America’s first comprehensive blockchain-related legislation through the North Carolina Money Transmitters Act of 2016. In 2013 Spuller co-founded the Cryptolina Bitcoin Expo, and has since driven blockchain thought leadership as a heavily sought after resource sharing insights with corporate and governmental agencies, lawmakers on Capitol Hill and regulators at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of the Treasury, U.S. Department of State, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University, among others. The crypto ecosystem continues to revolutionize many of the most important and regulated functions of our society. Naturally, no other industry of comparable size and age has so quickly captured the focus of policy makers and regulators. This attention creates unique challenges and significant opportunities. Join us as we explore industry trends, discuss job growth and investment, and where things may be headed.

Duration:00:36:23

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Season 1, Episode 7 – The ICO Boom of 2017-2018: What Really Happened? (with Lewis Cohen)

11/28/2021
Lewis Cohen is the co-founder of DLx Law, a law firm founded in 2018 to serve the needs of a new, technology-driven economy. Lewis and the DLx Law team provide in-depth legal counsel to startups, growth companies, major enterprises, and governmental entities on a broad range of matters involving the use of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and other disruptive technologies. Passionate about the ability of innovative technologies to change the way businesses and individuals work together, Lewis has become a major advocate for the potential of emerging technologies to benefit and transform industries around the globe. Lewis brings more than 25 years of experience advising major clients in capital markets and finance transactions. Lewis is a frequent public speaker on the topic of blockchain and distributed ledger technology. Lewis served on the Board and Executive Committee of the Structured Finance Industry Group (SFIG). Lewis is also recognized by Chambers Global as one of only three lawyers in “Band 1” for Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies – USA. Follow Lewis on Twitter: @NYCryptolawyer. In this podcast, we will look at the origins of the initial coin offering (ICO) and how digital assets came to be used as a fundraising tool. We will then walk through how ICOs were conducted and some of the misaligned incentives involved. Following that, we will look at the enforcement response, from the SEC as well as from state regulators. Finally, we will look at the popping of the ICO bubble and its rebirth in initial exchange offerings and other alternative approaches to fundraising through the sale of digital assets.

Duration:00:33:33