Moneyneversleeps

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

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 in

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 a

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 Collect

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

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 Co

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 basi

We’ve got a special crossover episode this week courtesy of our friends at the Irish VC podcast, with a big shout-out to Finn Hatherell for producing the initial episode on the Irish VC podcast channel over the summer.  The Irish VC podcast is produced by BVP, an Ireland-based venture capital firm founded in 2004 by Elliott Griffin. In this episode, Elliott and Pete Townsend share a few stories on venture investing, Pete’s path into crypto, working with founders before and after investing in them, building products that people actually want, what it’s like inside a Techstars program, the power of founder market fit, founders and investors being accountable to each other, how to get the attention of VCs, why Pete is still doing MoneyNeverSleeps after all of these years and learning from our mistakes. LINKS: Follow Elliott Griffin on LinkedIn and learn more about BVP on their website Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at info@norio

Eva Lawrence is the Head of EMEA for Figment, the leading provider of blockchain infrastructure, providing staking solutions for institutions. In this episode, we get into Eva’s evolution from a legal mind into institutional trading, and her slow-burn crypto awakening before jumping from the institutional world into the great wide open of crypto back in 2018.  We also step through her role at Figment, look at the importance of staking now and into the future, and use the Wayback Machine that is X/Twitter to figure out what makes Eva do what she does. Eva Lawrence has a diverse career across law, trading, business development, and strategy. Eva has been in the crypto space since 2018 and was previously COO of Arcane Crypto, a Nordic-listed crypto platform. She has 8+ years of experience in finance, primarily at Morgan Stanley, where she was Head of EMEA Flow Trading for Securities Lending after working in FX Prime Brokerage. In addition, Eva is a UK-qualified lawyer, with experience in digital assets, securit

Alejandro Gutierrez joins the show as guest co-host in this Money Talks segment. Alejandro is the CEO of Defactor Labs, providing all the required technological and financial tools for traditional companies to tap into alternative sources of financing using tokenized Real World Assets as collateral. Congratulations to Defactor Labs for taking home the gong at the inaugural National Fintech Awards in Ireland for ‘Best Crypto, Blockchain or Digital Asset Offering’.  In this episode, Alejandro and Pete Townsend riff on the SEC cracking down on NFTs as a fundraising tool by looking at the Mila Kunis-backed Stoner Cats project and that of LA-based media company Impact Theory. They also step through the story of Visa integrating the Solana blockchain for USDC settlements, Mark Cuban getting hacked, Citi’s new token service, and have some fun with emerging tech hype cycles and Patagonia vests. STORIES COVERED:  NFT Takedowns What Happens to Mila Kunis' Stoner Cats NFTs After SEC Settlement? (Decrypt, 13-Sep-23)

Asad J. Malik is an augmented reality pioneer and the founder and CEO of Jadu, a next-gen multiplayer augmented reality fighting game for your phone launching this month.  In Jadu, players can settle or start rivalries with friends or compete against strangers for fame and glory in this combat game from the future.  Malik’s critically acclaimed and globally exhibited narrative storytelling projects Terminal 3 and A Jester’s Tale premiered at Tribeca and Sundance Film Festivals, positioning Asad as a visionary in the space before completing his undergraduate degree. Asad was named one of Variety’s 10 Innovators to Watch, Rolling Stone’s Future 25, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Adweek’s Young Influentials, and also made The Independent’s Filmmakers to Watch list. He sits on the Board of Trustees for Bennington College as a recent graduate. In this episode, Pete Townsend and Asad get into the formative experiences that influenced Asad’s desire to bring Jadu to life, before going deeper into the story of Jadu and the comp

After intersecting stories of meeting Vitalik Buterin and Bono, Pete Townsend and guest co-host Laura Walsh take a look at the recent SEC ruling in favor of Grayscale that many expect will open up the floodgates for the trillions of institutional capital currently on the sidelines of crypto. We also look at the positioning of NFTs or ‘dynamic digital assets’ as the core technology to drive more expansive yet personalized loyalty programs for big brands and sports teams, all through the lens of Pet Berisha’s Sporting Crypto newsletter.  Laura also gave us a run-down of two new web3 venture capital funds from MoonPay and Vessel Capital, and we also exercised our right to ask ‘what the heck Elon Musk is up to now?’. With over 6 years of experience in the blockchain and web3 space, Laura Walsh is a passionate and innovative entrepreneur, mentor, and consultant. She founded, invested in, and advised multiple startups in the gaming, esports, and decentralized finance sectors, leveraging her extensive network, knowl

Joining Pete this week are Liang Wu and Dan Herrera from Eleven26 Capital, an early-stage VC firm investing in diverse founders on the evolving Internet across web2 and web3. In this episode, we get into how Liang and Dan originally got together and stayed close through the years, their Evolving Internet thesis across web2 and web3, building a platform for investing through content creation and community into a flywheel, and a ‘so-what’ look at the intersection of web3 and AI.  In addition to his role as the Co-founding Managing Partner at Eleven26 Capital, Liang is also a Senior Researcher at Harvard Business School where he researches Web3 and AI, and writes Web3 and AI cases for the MBA curriculum. He also supports and leads growth and community at Harvard’s Crypto Lab. Liang writes regularly on his Evolving Internet Insights newsletter (@ https://evolvinginternetclub.beehiiv.com/), where he and Dan Herrera curate the most interesting emerging tech stories and add their analysis, insights, and so-whats on

We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus this summer, as we took a break to recharge after a few mad months, as sometimes, you need to go away for a while and dream it all up again.  In this episode we recorded on the Fourth of July, we pull the curtain off our upcoming plans, with a big announcement from longtime co-host Eoin Fitzgerald that brings him and Pete Townsend to a fork in the road with MoneyNeverSleeps. But before we get into all that, Eoin and Pete take a look back at Pete’s experience with the Techstars Web3 class of 2023 founders and their ‘distributed demo day’ at the end of June with 3 investor events across 3 cities in 2 countries in 5 days, and an epic journey in the spirit of  Planes, Trains and Automobiles. LINKS: Episode title inspired by ‘Encore’ by Jay-Z Eoin’s reference to ‘The Sheep Shipper’ scene is from the movie ‘Just Go With It’ Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify  Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at info@moneyneversleeps.ie Follow us on Twitter:  

Neal Peters is co-founder and CEO of JR Studio, a frictionless web3 gaming platform that gives game creators the superpowers to build, host, launch, manage, and grow their games and communities. JR Studio is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023. After launching his first business as a 14-year-old gamer building websites, Neal spent 18 years as an IT architect and in public/private/hybrid cloud, software development, and blockchain.  He also co-founded and led a venture capital business during the last crypto bull run focused on web3 gaming and NFTs, and that was the step that led him towards getting together with Marco Colaco and Aleks Gecevski in 2022 to build what has become JR Studio. In this episode, Neal and Pete Townsend riff on his earliest days in tech and the eventual path that he took with Marco and Aleks with JR Studio, before diving into what JR-Studio is now and what it will become. We also get into the long arc of infrastructure and innovation we

Federico Panisi is a co-founder and CEO of Loki.code, enabling simplified and intuitive co-creation of smart contracts with a collaborative web app for smart contract designers and developers. Loki.code is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the https://www.techstars.com/newsroom/announcing-the-techstars-web3-class-of-2023. Before founding Loki.code in July 2022 with Pedro Wilson, Fabio Manzani, Adam Toth-Fejel, and Malachy Lin-Nugent, Federico’s time in academia included a law degree and a Ph.D. in Law & Business in his home country of Italy with stints in Sydney and Hong Kong, before rounding things out with a Master's in Legal Studies at Stanford Law School with a thesis on smart contracts. Federico is passionate about Web3, smart contracts, and cryptocurrency technologies, so he’s come to the right place! In this episode, Federico and Pete Townsend riff on the serendipity of how he became an entrepreneur before diving into what Loki.code is now and what it will become.  Federico and Pete als

Tatiana Botskina is the founder and CEO of Mintycode, a decentralized IP marketplace for software creators, bringing together software creators, software buyers, and software contributors. By building communities around software creators’ source code and enabling shared ownership, Mintycode helps software creators monetize their work and incentivize and reward contributors. Mintycode is also one of the 12 startups forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023.  Before founding Mintycode in January 2022, Tatiana began her career as a lawyer before returning to academia and adding disciplines in international finance, machine learning, and blockchain development, Through her time in academia and also through working with startups, Tatiana developed strong beliefs in digital transformation powered by artificial intelligence and global decentralization. In this episode, Tatiana and Pete Townsend dive into her background that inspired her passion for fairness and justice, her approach to developing Mintycod

Terence Reilly is the co-founder and CEO of OLTA, one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023. OLTA is a protocol for creators and studios to create dynamic media, pushing the boundaries from generative art into interactive art and story. OLTA brings this all to life through dynamic NFTs which enable collectors to determine the outcome of the artwork over time. Before co-founding OLTA with George Baldwin in 2021, Terence spent 20 years working on 3D character animation projects, including the movies Jurassic World, Iron Man 2, and Paul & Chappie with clients such as Disney, Sony, Google and Aardman, the Academy Award-winning animation studio. In this episode, Terence and Pete Townsend explore the relationship between art and technology before diving into the deep first-hand experience that Terence has with the problem that OLTA is solving for creative coders and studios.  Terence and Pete also talk through some examples of the OLTA protocol in action, the big opportun

Javier Tamashiro is the co-founder and CEO of Ospree, a comprehensive anti-money laundering compliance solution for Virtual Asset Service Providers that seamlessly integrates customer onboarding, blockchain monitoring, and the Travel Rule. Javier and his Ospree co-founders Anne Winston and Jukka Pellinen are one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023.  By connecting to premium on-chain and off-chain data suppliers, Ospree offers a centralized repository of high-quality alerts for risk and compliance teams. With Ospree, institutions and SMEs serving the crypto and wider digital asset markets today can significantly reduce false positives, benefit from a single point of reference for Travel Rule data transactions, and automate and scale essential compliance operations. Before co-founding Ospree in 2019, Javier’s tour of duty in TradFi included stops at S&P Global Market Intelligence, Standard Chartered Bank and Credit Suisse.  At each stop along the way, Javier operate

Greg Hannam is the co-founder and CEO of Peerkat a data analytics tool for marketers to help them understand their users, increase engagement and drive growth in their web3 strategies. In this episode, Greg chats with Pete Townsend about how his life experience drove him to the Peerkat vision, driving value for brands moving from web2 to web3, the evolution of non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) beyond profile pics, and a few life lessons along the way. Peerkat is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023. Peerkat combines multiple data sources with machine learning to connect the dots between web2 and web3 and provide powerful insights into user behavior across disparate platforms. Before co-founding Peerkat with Ben Marshall and Ike Iwumene, Greg’s roots bring him back to mechanical engineering at the University of Leeds before diving headfirst into deep data analytics and product management.  Greg then worked with a number of VC-backed deep tech startups in the AI spa