Base Layer

The CEO of Atari, Fred Chesnais joins me on Base Layer for an amazing episode from such an iconic brand that inspired me and many others into the world of technology. We discuss Fred and Atari's past - the hard work bringing it back from the brinks of bankruptcy and the new visions he has for it's growth. We discuss the recent news of their partnership with Litecoin and their new console that aims to ship out later this year. Don't miss this! 

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and a member of the investment committee at WESCAP Group, where he manages wealth and provides financial advice to clients.Andy is the author of the book Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on regulation of the Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist.Before joining WESCAP Group, Andy was a professional investor at a private equity fund and a hedge fund. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs.

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and a member of the investment committee at WESCAP Group, where he manages wealth and provides financial advice to clients.Andy is the author of the book Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on regulation of the Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist.Before joining WESCAP Group, Andy was a professional investor at a private equity fund and a hedge fund. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs.

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and a member of the investment committee at WESCAP Group, where he manages wealth and provides financial advice to clients.Andy is the author of the book Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on regulation of the Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist.Before joining WESCAP Group, Andy was a professional investor at a private equity fund and a hedge fund. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs.

Jeff joins me for an amazing chat that covers a wide array of topics. Jeff is the co-founder of BuildDirect, an online marketplace for heavyweight home improvement products that connects buyers with sellers. He has been at the forefront of technology for over 20 years since the dot-com era. Jeff also wrote an amazing book: "The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future. In a sweeping analysis that draws upon economics, science, innovation, politics, psychology, sociology, and business, Jeff offers an intriguing thesis predicated on the deflationary impact of technological advances. We also spend time discussing COVID-19 and the central bankers response and a very strong case for review of Bitcoin.  

Yan joins us to discuss his great book "Inventing Bitcoin" which friend of the show Nic Carter from Castle Island Ventures was quoted as saying: "Having read virtually every Bitcoin explainer, I believe it’s the best from-scratch introduction to Bitcoin, requiring no prior knowledge at all." We also discuss his work at Swan Bitcoin which allows weekly, paycheck, or monthly savings options steadily converting your dollars to Bitcoin savings. According to data provided by Swan Bitcoin, Dollars have lost 90% of their purchasing power since 1950 as central bankers printed more of them. According to Yan and the team: "Bitcoin’s fixed supply makes it the best way to save your money."

Adam joins me on Base Layer for a straight up fire episode of Base Layer! Adam has spent years in the traditional finance world and has a wealth of experience seeing the sausage made in '08-'09 and throughout. We talk about why PM's/Analysts in Wall Street haven't reviewed Bitcoin to date and why Paul Tudor Jones public announcement and investor letter is about to change all that. We talk about the role of Bitcoin in a professional portfolio when public pensions are underperforming and so much more. 

Kosala Hemachandra & Brian Norton from MEW joins Base Layer for a great chat. MEW offers a nexus point for transacting in the Ethereum ecosystem, providing unprecedented access, a secure wallet, and comprehensive education that allows anyone to quickly take advantage of all the benefits of crypto has to offer since 2015. Kosala built the first version of MEW just weeks after Ethereum’s launch in 2015 to help non-coders gain access to Ethereum at a time when only command line code instructions were available, making it difficult even for seasoned developers to transact in ETH. Since then, MEW has continued a steady stream of updates to its web and mobile versions, allowing users to buy, sell, and swap ETH and ERC20s, as well as participate in DeFi and use Dapps built on the Ethereum ecosystem. In March 2020, released MEW wallet, a full-featured mobile wallet app for Samsung, Android, and iPhone with all the features of MEW online accessible by phone.

Brian Kelly joins me on Base Layer for a great, comprehensive chat about the global macro investing backdrop and the role Bitcoin and Digital Assets play in modern day, post COVID-19 portfolio construction. Brian, as many know him, has been a trader for ~30 years and has experienced many of the downturns markets have gone through. He is frequently on CNBC discussing the market and digital assets. 

Tyrone Ross Jr, Director of Community at Altruist and Financial Consultant with 401 comes to Base Layer and it's epic. Tyrone is an incredibly lively and passionate person who I've become friends with; we discuss how Gen Z's are changing the Financial Advisor role, how COVID is changing risk & portfolio's and most importantly how and when Bitcoin will be (or not be) adopted by Financial Advisors -- hint: Tyrone drops some news on the episode! 

Michael joins us on Base Layer from Framework Ventures;  venture capital fund Framework Ventures is investing heavily in the decentralized finance industry, also known as DeFi. The San Francisco-based firm believes that the industry is going to become a $3 billion-plus industry shortly, and will bring major financial institutions on board. The firm was built by Michael Anderson, 29, who grew up in the Bay area, and has spent his career working for major tech companies such as Dropbox and Snapchat, along with his co-founder, Vance Spencer, 28, who’s worked for Netflix.

Piers joins us on Base Layer to give a full rundown on Radix and Cerberus, a sharded Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) solution to the state machine replication (SMR) problem. While classical SMR protocols ensure global ordering of commands, Cerberus introducesa partial ordering regime that enables a novel state sharding approach. With this approach, the consensus process for commands may be massively and safely parallelized across many nodes while retaining optimistic responsiveness and linear message complexity. Cerberus is designed as a suitable core for Radix, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform intended for a variety of deployments including global-scale decentralized public networks.

Dion joins me on Base Layer to discuss the many narratives affecting our markets and society today.Dion Rabouin is the Axios Markets Editor and author of the Axios Markets newsletter. Prior to Axios, Dion was the anchor of Yahoo Finance's "Midday Movers" and a global financial reporter, coving the bond, equity, and currency markets. He previously covered Treasuries, FX, and emerging markets for Reuters. He is also a regular contributor to Marketplace, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox Business and more.

Stephanie Link, known for her regular appearances on CNBC joins us on Base Layer to talk about the multitude of macro issues affecting the broad based markets today. Stephanie is a managing director and head of active equities research for TIAA Investments. Prior to joining TIAA Investments in 2016, she spent 7 years at The Street as Chief Investment Officer and was the co-portfolio manager and director of Research of Action Alerts Plus, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust. She was responsible for all premium content at The Street and the daily management of the charitable trust which included macro strategy, portfolio construction and stock selection. Prior to this role, she spent 10 years at Prudential Equity Group as managing director of institutional sales and as director of research. Stephanie began her career at Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. in the institutional sales department.

Billy joins us for an epic conversation about the oil markets and breaks down the last few weeks of unprecedented activity.Billy spent over six years analyzing energy companies and commodities for the legendary late T. Boone Pickens’ investment manager, BP Capital. Prior to founding Saltstone, he served as Portfolio Manager & Senior Research Analyst for the private hedge fund and the BP Capital fund advisors family of mutual funds. We discuss oil prices going negative, Russian and Saudi's in a Oil "Cold War" and what potential cascading effects in the market this could all take. 

Thibauld Favre joins us on Base Layer to discuss Fairmint and the CSO; what it means for Founders and Investors. A Continuous Securities Offering (CSO) is a new, updated way for companies to raise funding. The CSO democratizes investing and modernizes it for the digital era. It expands the pool of potential investors, allowing all stakeholders — not just a small group of privileged, wealthy investors — to share in the value created by a company’s success.

What a show! Nick Neuman, CEO of Casa Inc and the legendary OG Jameson Lopp, CTO at Casa, join Base Layer to discuss the innovations they are working on for key management of Bitcoin, some of the historical issues that have hindered the adoption of Bitcoin ownership and topics such as the halving as it relates to the macro discussions around the asset. Not to miss! 

Hugo Renaudin, the CEO of LGO, a leading digital asset exchange that works with over 40 Institutional Investors around 15 countries, comes on to discuss the problems they are working to address in digital assets,  how COVID-19 has been impacting review of Bitcoin and other digital assets, "Black Thursday"  and what lessons were learned and much more. 

The legendary investor Mike Maples Jr joins me on Base Layer. Some of Mike’s investments include being one of the first investors in Twitter & Twitch.tv as well as early investor in Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Okta, and Demandforce. Mike comes on to talk about a whole spectrum of issues relating to pre and post COVID19 world as it relates to venture investing; we also talk extensively about Bitcoin and its role in a world where governments are flooded the economy with liquidity. This is a very special episode and one to send around! 

Reuben joins me on Base Layer and we discuss privacy in the time of corona: how is contact tracking, surveillance of those under quarantine, and even the proposed digital dollar impacting privacy? Is the trade-off of individual privacy worthwhile for greater good? How COVID-19 is affecting crypto - While the Feds are "printing money" and considering a “digital dollar” stimulus package, what's happening in crypto? How his life changed due to COVID-19. Reuben's wife is a doctor working at the state hospital, closed down his Airbnb due to a ban on tourists, and closed his Aikido dojo. Has been self-quarantined for some time now. Additionally we discuss what's new with Zcoin: latest developments such as their new wallet, Lelantus protocol, and Elysium tokenization platform.