What Grinds My Gears

If you turned on CNBC at any point during 2018, you’ll know that lots of startups and entrepreneurs used initial coin offerings (ICOs) to raise funding. Well, it turns out that countries also got into the game. In this episode, we explore the use of “initial country offerings” or the issuance of tokens to raise debt for a country, on the blockchain. We’ll delve into the mechanics of how and why countries raise money, what secures these loans, and how blockchain-based debt could fundamentally change global debt markets.Find our extended show notes on Medium: https://medium.com/@jillcarlson/episode-9-initial-country-offering-c87e73c7d9e9-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at:https://www.blockworksgroup.io

One of the key innovations of bitcoin is that it solves something called the double spend problem. This means that every bitcoin is provably scarce — it can’t exist in two peoples’ wallets at the same time. This is a big deal because it’s actually pretty hard to make sure digital files don’t get reproduced and propogated. Just think of what Napster and Limewire did with digital music files or what Pirate Bay and Popcorn Time did with movies.But just because cryptocurrency can’t be “double spent” on a technical level doesn’t mean it can’t be in two places at once — used to create leverage.In this episode we dive into credit. We run through a brief history of lending, credit’s components, and innovation in credit markets.Cryptocurrency markets have recently seen products like Maker DAO, Compound, Dharma, dYdX, Marble and others develop around lending. What are the implications? What are the problems here that remained unsolved?Find our extended show notes on Medium: https://medium.com/what-grinds-my-gears/episo

In past episodes, hosts Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson have touched on crypto business models, crypto asset classifications, and governance as both a function and a business. These topics are ultimately shaped by how a project chooses to raise capital. In this episode, we explore the various models that have been used by teams to fund development and to bootstrap the network - a phrase that grinds our gears. At the heart of this discussion is a deeper question of funding models the crypto community can beg, borrow, or steal from the existing world of financing to develop sustainable sources of capital for building networks.Find our extended show notes on Medium: https://medium.com/what-grinds-my-gears/episode-7-money-makes-the-world-go-round-4849ebc38a39-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit

In this episode, hosts Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson cover the nebulous and thorny topic of crypto governance mechanisms and the merging of politics and finance in the form of on-chain governance via token voting and staking. We draw from the history of politics, going all the way back to the romans, and fast forward to the drama and intrigue of the bitcoin block-size wars and the results of these early governance experiments. We end with some thoughts on how staking as a service and speculative participation in governance could thwart the goals of good governance, and what this might mean for the $4B of network value dependent on on-chain governance today.You can find our previous episode on crypto governance, "Boaty McBoatface," here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4viuD5SJJdcB0p7OpCv5Fh?si=eM3gPPbjT_ijdFiWapc5AAFind our extended show notes on Medium: https://medium.com/what-grinds-my-gears/episode-6-crypto-cartels-201d7a7f300f-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & f

One of crypto’s favorite narratives has always been that it can help people in places where their local currency is being debased. Venezuela, with its 1,000,000% inflation rate and political instability, has been a prime topic of conversation. As the situation in Venezuela unravels further, Jill and Meltem bring you up to speed on what’s going on, what role crypto can (and cannot) play, and what fundamental challenges the crypto community has yet to address.-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at:https://www.blockworksgroup.io

The story around crypto is broken. For many investors crypto has been about pattern matching, but the search for the “next Bitcoin” or the “next Ethereum” is not working as well as many would have hoped. In this episode we discuss some other frameworks for thinking about crypto assets and explore their old school financial equivalents, from gold to pink sheets.-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at:https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Crypto revolution or evolution? Regulatory arbitrage, cat and mouse games, and decentralization theater are all core parts of how the cryptocurrency industry is currently run. But what happens over the long run? In this episode, we look at whether “revolutions need rules”, what the role of regulators is in crypto, and how institutions are and are not interfacing with cryptocurrency markets. ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

What are all these cryptocurrencies actually worth? We break down a number of perspectives on how to unpack this issue. From balance sheet issues to legal rights of holders to liquidity matters, there is a lot to consider as the crypto world goes about trying to mark prices on its portfolios of private presales, ICOs, SAFTs, zombiecoins, and illiquid tokens.-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at:https://www.blockworksgroup.io

We put the crypto bubble in the context of the broader markets. Are we entering a global macro unwind? Is the decline cryptocurrencies just the canary in the coal mine of a bigger risk-off market move and deleveraging? We unpack some of the dynamics going on from the psychological to the technical and analyze the fallout as all kinds of bubbles burst.-----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at:https://www.blockworksgroup.io