We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Michelle Legge, head of crypto tax education at Koinly — a cryptocurrency tax calculator and portfolio tracker for traders, investors and accountants. Alongside her work at Koinly, Michelle is passionate about closing the financial literacy gap for women. Before crossing into the crypto space, she looked after consumer education for an Australian fintech startup, where she launched a world-first gender-pay-gap insurance product. Today, Michelle is back in her homeland of South Africa, living the digital nomad life and managing a remote team of content and social media wizards from plant-based...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Chen Li, the co-founder and CEO of Youbi Capital, a venture capital firm investing in blockchain technologies and disruptive decentralized applications. Chen Li is the co-founder and CEO of Youbi Capital. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry and worked as a scientist for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, where he won two awards for his contributions to developing groundbreaking antibody drugs. In 2015, he was introduced to Bitcoin mining by his roommate in college, then jointly founded Youbi Capital in 2017. Chen built the foundation of Youbi’s thesis in blockchain infrastructure and led investments in Algo...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Mitch Liu, co-founder and CEO of Theta Labs — a decentralized video streaming platform powered by users and built on a new blockchain. Theta Labs is the organization behind the Theta Network — a fast, green blockchain designed from the bottom up for media and entertainment. In 2019, Mitch launched Theta.tv, a decentralized livestreaming platform that makes use of tokenized bandwidth-sharing to make video content delivery faster and cheaper than mainstream alternatives. Most recently, Mitch and his team launched ThetaDrop, an NFT marketplace powered by the Theta Network. Mitch has been an inve...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to John deVadoss, the head of development at Neo — an open-source blockchain development platform — and a governing board member at the Global Blockchain Business Council, an industry association for the blockchain technology ecosystem. I am proud to say that I build the best developer tools in the blockchain industry for N3. I also build the tools for the Token Taxonomy Framework as part of the Global Blockchain Business Council, where I serve as a governing board member. In addition, I serve as co-chair of IEEE Blockchain. Previously, I was a co-founder of the InterWork Alliance, which is now part o...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Joe DiPasquale, CEO of BitBull Capital — a company that manages a bundle of crypto hedge funds and has access to closed and exclusive funds. Joe DiPasquale is CEO of BitBull Capital, which has managed crypto hedge funds since 2017. Joe founded BitBull because he believes in active management in crypto investments. He has been an investor for 10 different crypto hedge funds, in addition to having run his own active strategies since 2013. Previously, Joe worked in investment management, investment banking, technology and strategy consulting at Deutsche Bank, Bain and McKinsey. He received his BA from...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Reeve Collins, co-founder of BLOCKv — a platform for creating, minting and distributing next-generation programmable NFTs. I have always found myself at the forefront of new trends and technology developments. I started in 1997 at the first-ever online advertising agency when the internet was in its infancy. As the “dot-com boom” matured, I created one of the first ad networks in 2000 before shifting into the online branded entertainment space in 2007. By 2013, I was diving headfirst into the world of Bitcoin, and this exploration led me to invent the first-ever stablecoin, Tether, in 2014 and the ...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Reeve Collins, co-founder of BLOCKv — a platform for creating, minting and distributing next-generation programmable NFTs. I have always found myself at the forefront of new trends and technology developments. I started in 1997 at the first-ever online advertising agency when the internet was in its infancy. As the “dot-com boom” matured, I created one of the first ad networks in 2000 before shifting into the online branded entertainment space in 2007. By 2013, I was diving headfirst into the world of Bitcoin, and this exploration led me to invent the first-ever stablecoin, Tether, in 2014 and the ...
Are future prices written in the stars? Meet Maren Altman, presciently named for cryptocurrency, who combines astrology and day trading crypto into a winning blend. In 1973, Princeton University professor Burton Malkiel published his book A Random Walk Down Wall Street, in which he famously states that a “blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.” Fast forward to 2013, and Rob Arnott, CEO of Research Affiliates, conducted research mimicking monkeys using AI and actually discovered the monkeys had done a much better job than both the experts and the stock market. Closer examination proved the success was a result of the random selection of companies by the “monkey approach,” op...
Colin Fitzpatrick is a Dubliner based in Dubai who turned a bad time during quarantine into a business that promises to bring your favorite artists to a metaverse near you. His company Animal Concerts, which launches in January, is in the process of signing world-class artists to perform in the decentralized worlds of the Metaverse. Among the first to get the Animal Concerts treatment was Grammy-winning rapper Future, who performed at an in-person Animal Concerts-themed Halloween party in Miami, which was filmed in such a way that it can later be broadcast in the Metaverse. In this startling new land, there are no COVID restrictions nor travel bans, and artists can sell NFT memorabilia to fans with little overhead, investment or middlemen. Virtual concerts have already begun to appea...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Cristina Dolan, co-founder and chief operating officer of InsureX Technologies, an alternative insurance marketplace based on blockchain, and CEO of InsideChains, which builds large consortia and marketplaces with economic token layers to facilitate the global exchange of data and transactions. Cristina is an engineer, entrepreneur and author who has successfully embraced advanced technologies to build and grow disruptive businesses throughout her career in media, telecommunications, e-commerce and, more recently, fintech. As an early adopter of crypto and blockchain technologies, she co-founded an...
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to David Chaum, one of the earliest blockchain researchers and a world-renowned cryptographer and privacy advocate. He is the founder of Elixxir, Praxxis and the XX network, which encompass his decades of research and contributions in the field of cryptography and privacy. David Chaum is the creator and founder of XX network, the first consumer-scale, quantum-ready online platform that enables value to be communicated and exchanged without revealing so-called “metadata.” David is a pioneer in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies, and is widely recognized as the inventor of electronic ca...
This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. Limping out of 2021 Last week we thought we had hit rock bottom for Chinese exchanges, as Bitmart was on the unfortunate end of a $150m hack. This week, it was more of the same, as AscendEX lost $80m to a similar style of theft affecting its Ethereum, BSC and Polygon hot wallet. On December 16, AscendEX released a security post-mortem detailing the attack: An in-depth security audit identified the breach as the result of an exploit of hardware-level vulnerability from third-party infrastructure utilized by AscendEX. The infiltration was carri...