About the episode
BlockTower Capital Founder and CIO Ari Paul joins Kevin to discuss the crypto cycles of bull and bear markets, the potential for a DeFi collapse, why you should avoid a crypto index fund or ETF, and a new cryptocurrency called MobileCoin, which aims to power all mobile payments.
About our guest

Ari Paul
@aridavidpaul is the Co-Founder and CIO of crypto-asset investment firm BlockTower Capital, and author of The Cryptocurrency Investor blog, where he has published papers on cryptocurrency lending, the history of money, and applying investment concepts to cryptocurrency.
Topics covered
Links from the episode
Cryptoasset Investment Firm | BlockTower Capital
Signal Tests Payments in the UK Using MobileCoin | TechCrunch
Speed Bumps on the Road to Virtual Cash | The New York Times
Fiat Currency: What It Is and Why It’s Better Than a Gold Standard | The Motley Fool
Fiat vs. Crypto & Digital Currencies | Gemini
Byzantine Fault Tolerance Explained | Binance Academy
11 Projects at the Nexus of DeFi and NFTs | CoinDesk
Officially Licensed Digital Collectibles | NBA Top Shot
Save, Invest, and Earn with DeFi | Donut
Staking and Inflation on Coinbase | Coinbase
Cryptocurrency Insurance Market Shows Promise | Amex US
Tired of Fighting Chargebacks? Time to Accept Cryptocurrency Payments | CoinGate
$1B Fei Stablecoin’s Rocky Start Is a Wake-Up Call for DeFi Investors | CoinDesk
The Lindy Effect: Things That Age In Reverse | Coffee and Junk
Elon Musk Reveals Tesla Will Increase $1.5 Billion Bitcoin Holdings, Boosting The Price | Forbes
The 5 Most Valuable Internet Companies in 1995 vs. 2015 | Business Insider
The Friendster Autopsy: How a Social Network Dies | Wired
How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions | Harvard Business Review
Railway Mania: The Largest Speculative Bubble You’ve Never Heard Of | FocusEconomics
Bitcoin’s Record Price Surge of 2017 Was Caused by a Single Person, Study Claims | The Independent
‘Let’s Not Be Bitcoin’: Yearn Finance Considers Minting $200M in New YFI Tokens | CoinDesk
No.1 Ethereum DeFi Aggregator | 1inch
Square and PayPal Emerge as Whales in the Crypto Market | CNBC
What Is Staking? | Binance Academy
Impermanent Loss Explained | Binance Academy
What Is an Asset Class? | Investopedia
The 5 Phases of Bitcoin Adoption | Forbes
Coinbase S-1 Filing: One Key Chart Shows 2020’s Dramatic Bull Run | Decrypt
Gemini Partners with Crypto Lender Genesis to Offer 7.4% Yield on Customer Deposits | CoinDesk
A Leader in Digital Currency Investing | Grayscale
How to Invest in Index Funds: A Beginner’s Guide | The Motley Fool
Bitwise Launches DeFi Crypto Index Fund | CoinDesk
Exchange Traded Fund (ETF): What an ETF Is and How to Buy Them | Investopedia
Crypto Wallet Scams Are on the Rise in Google, Apple App Stores | CoinDesk
JPMorgan to Launch ‘Cryptocurrency Exposure Basket’ of Bitcoin Proxy Stocks | CoinDesk
Dogecoin Is Holding On to Its Blistering 3,000% Price Gains — for Now | Forbes
Build Crypto Apps That Scale | Solana
The Basics of Order Flow | Jigsaw Trading
Stellar Consensus Protocol | Stellar
Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake: Basic Mining Guide | Blockgeeks
Software Guard Extensions | Wikipedia
Bulletproofs | Stanford Applied Crypto Group
Telegram’s Cryptocurrency Kickoff Halted by SEC | CNET
Crypto Precedent: NY Judge Rules Kik’s Digital Currency Was a Security, Grants Win to SEC | Reuters
3 Reasons Why StormX (STMX) Price Has Rallied 2,800% in 2021 | Cointelegraph
How Axie Infinity Became a Living for Some Players | Trust Wallet
Let’s Quit Our Jobs and Become World of Warcraft Gold Farmers | TechCrunch
Millennials and Crisis | The Cryptocurrency Investor
Ethereum Virtual World | Cryptovoxels
Ranked List of Blockchain Dapps | DappRadar
The Future. Edited. | Neon District
The Blockchain for Open Worlds | Flow
Decentralized Web 3.0 Blockchain Interoperability Platform | Polkadot
The Internet of Blockchains | Cosmos
Understanding Blockchain Is Way Easier If You Think of It as an Onion | The Next Web
Ethereum’s ‘EIP 1559’ Fee Market Overhaul Greenlit for July | CoinDesk
A Decentralized Storage Network for Humanity’s Most Important Information | Filecoin
American Depositary Receipt (ADR) | Investopedia
Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) | Investopedia
Show notes
What problems does Ari see as uniquely solvable by cryptocurrencies?[05:53]
In any new industry, the first movers are people with less to lose.[18:10]
How does Ari picture DeFi 2.0?[19:23]
How does BlockTower decide what to back in DeFi?[20:30]
To Ari, what catalysts signal well-timed sell-offs?[23:30]
Weighing the sustainability of rewards in traditional vs. crypto markets.[25:58]
How does staking work, and what causes yields to fluctuate?[32:56]
Ari’s thoughts on Bitcoin today and where it’s going.[34:36]
How does Ari track institutional buying and retail interest in cryptocurrencies?[38:21]
How Michael Saylor evangelized Bitcoin to fellow billionaires.[40:02]
What is MobileCoin, and what makes the tech by which it’s powered appealing to Ari?[48:54]
What is StormX, and why has it caught Ari’s attention?[52:34]
How does Ari expect crypto to influence the world of gaming?[53:46]
How does Ari believe interoperability will play out where gaming and crypto intersect?[59:27]
What are atomic swaps and layer zeros?[01:00:11]
What are the tradeoffs of these new technologies?[01:01:33]
What is Ethereum’s EIP 1559 intended to correct?[01:04:40]
Why Ari doesn’t like the index approach to DeFi, and what he would prefer to see.[01:06:52]
Does Ari see a future in which everything is tokenized in some capacity?[01:09:50]
What’s the best way for a newcomer to “get smart” on crypto?[01:11:15]
Is MobileCoin available yet?[01:12:14]
Where to find Ari Paul online, and parting thoughts.[01:12:56]
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