The Scoop

For crypto venture investors, 2021 was a landmark year. The flood of capital that poured more than $28.65 billion into crypto firms last year was propped up by new billion-dollar fund launches, a ramp-up in venture investing among crypto firms, and investor appetite for a general risk-on environment, giving way to a new class of angel investors in the market.But 2022 has been more risk-off, with the crypto market shedding billions of market cap on news that inflation could lead to a hike in interest rates, plus the addition of geo-political uncertainty, which has caused its own price gyrations across markets. This pullback has begun seeping into the private crypto market, according to venture capital investor Darren Lau, who founded crypto educational resource The Daily Ape and runs VC firm Not3Lau Capital. Lau has backed projects including Nansen, Trader Joe, and Mixmob. He was also an early Solana investor.“I talked to a few projects recently, like just this week, and they were telling me like how even though these VC’s were committing to the round a month ago, two months ago, they’re pulling out of the deals based on how the market looks right now," Lau said on the most recent episode of The Scoop.They're also being much more selective compared to previously. "So back then a lot more VC’s were spraying and praying," added Lau. The "spray and pray" approach — which involves an investor making a bunch of bets on the hope that one will deliver a massive upside — appears to be becoming less of a darling strategy in today's market.Says Lau: "People are being more careful with their capital."Episode 14 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Darren Lau of The Daily Ape and Not3Lau Capital.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Jump Trading is one of the deepest-pocketed firms operating in the crypto market. Jump put its full scale on display earlier this month when the firm stepped up to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in losses after Wormhole—a DeFi project to which Jump contributes code—was hacked. In this episode of The Scoop, Jump president and CIO Dave Olsen explained how the firm reacted to the hack and market-bought more than $300 million in ETH to cover the losses."This was not a syndicate or a group of folks that pool resources to go out and purchase 120,000 ether," he said, explaining:"We did debate that but what led to such a swift conclusion was what we felt that we would have a bigger impact on the community by immediately being able to tell everything that their assets were backed one-to-one and step up and kind of lead the community."Once a secretive equities trading operation, Jump Trading has become more public-facing in a bid to grow its presence in the crypto market.During this episode, Olsen dove into details that have not been historically talked about publicly—including Olsen's view on what is important in market making in both crypto and traditional markets.In Olsen's view, connectivity to as many venues as possible is one of the three "building blocks" for being successful as a market maker. "You've got to be involved and connected to and able to trade pretty much everywhere that instrument trades," he said. In addition to connectivity, you also need ample capital, he said. "So connectivity, scale, and then the ability to analyze all the information you're getting and translate that into your best prediction of what should the price be for that asset at that moment in time? Those are really the three building blocks.”Episode 13 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dave Olsen, President & Chief Investment Officer at Jump Trading Group.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

The United States Congress turned its attention to stablecoins this month, with senior Treasury official Nellie Liang fielding a range of questions during twin hearings in the House of Representatives and the Senate.The hearings centered on a recent report on stablecoins penned by members of the President's Working Group, which Liang oversaw. That report urged Congress to create "rules of the road" for stablecoin issuers, mainly by restricting stablecoin issuance to insured depository institutions (IDIs). The Treasury has already designated stablecoins a "systemic risk" for the Financial Stability Oversight Council, meaning that if Congress fails to act, the council can step in. Liang told the House and the Senate that she believes in flexibility for any charter standards related to stablecoin issuers. In the meantime, proposals are beginning to float around the Hill. During this month's Policy Scoop, The Block's Aislinn Keely sits down with The Block's senior policy reporter, Kollen Post. Post was in attendance for both hearings and has been on the ground tracking the stablecoin regulation landscape from report to proposals.... For more visit theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 12 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Aislinn Keely and senior policy reporter Kollen Post.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

After a year of exponential growth, North American Bitcoin mining companies have raised billions of dollars in 2021 through equity and debt instruments to invest in both new top-of-the-line equipment and additional power capacities.The latest special episode of The Scoop – the Mining Report – features The Block Research's mining analyst Wolfie Zhao and host Frank Chaparro as they discuss the state of mining in North America, which is steadily growing its market dominance with the state of Texas rising to be the new biggest hub for Bitcoin mining.Some of the topics covered in the episode include: The potential growth of the network's hashrate in 2022 The current power capacity supply crunch The rise of traditional energy companies that are increasing their market shares in Bitcoin mining Episode 11 of Season 4 of The Scoop's Mining Report was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Research Mining Analyst Wolfie Zhao.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Wealth and financial advisors oversee trillions of dollars in assets.While a wide range of financial services, from trading firms to exchanges to hedge funds, have warmed up to the crypto market, wealth and financial advisors have largely remained on the sidelines.During the latest episode of The Scoop, Michael Batnick, director of research at Ritholtz Wealth Management, and Jeremy Schwartz, EVP and global chief investment officer at Wisdom Tree Asset Management, walked listeners through the RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index and the state of crypto wealth management today.Ritholtz Wealth Management and Wisdom Tree Asset Management recently announced the launch of a new diversified crypto index for financial advisors in December 2021. Through a partnership with Onramp Invest, the index can be offered by financial advisors via separately managed accounts (SMAs). "The US regulators still can't get their heads wrapped around a bitcoin spot ETF, which we think is the best structure for a 100 percent allocation," noted Wisdom Tree's Jeremy Schwartz.In Batnick's view, the crypto market hasn't done a good job marketing itself to advisors. A report released earlier this year by asset management firm Bitwise suggests that 16% of financial advisors have allocated to crypto in their clients' accounts — an increase from 9% in 2021. Batnick suspects that number might be far lower. "An informal survey, I'd say we're under 1 percent," he contended. "The reason why is because I think that the products that were available to financial advisers have not been suitable or at least had difficulties getting advisers comfortable wrapping their arms around the solution."Episode 10 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Michael Batnick, Director of Research at Ritholtz Wealth Management and Jeremy Schwartz, EVP & Global Chief Investment Officer at Wisdom Tree Asset Management.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Avi Felman's eyes are glued to his trading screen, waiting for market-moving headlines that could be prime opportunities to put on a multi-million crypto trade. These past few weeks have been especially active for the portfolio manager, who joined crypto investment firm BlockTower in November 2019. Felman, who co-leads the firm's flagship fund, navigated price gyrations stemming from macro and industry news, ranging from headlines that government officials recovered funds from Bitfinex's 2016 hack to more recent news that Russia could invade neighbor Ukraine.On this episode of The Scoop, Felman explained the decision-making process that goes into making a trade on headlines, using reports that Russia was on the verge of invading Ukraine as one case study example. "I know that the context is that the Biden administration has been warning about Russia for quite some time," he said. "I know that bitcoin doesn't like uncertainty. I read the headline as being extremely uncertain."Whether a certain news event adds uncertainty is just one factor Felman considers. Timing is equally important. "Okay, I want to make a trade and this all happens in the span of, you have to think, about 15 to 30 seconds," he explained. "You need to make those connections. Then I need to start de-risking a little bit."In some instances, Felman takes a cue from the S&P 500, which has been moving very closely with bitcoin despite the crypto's reputation as a hedge asset."The vast majority of time the bitcoin decouples from the S&P, it's because of a delayed reaction," he said. "It's because bitcoin has some idiosyncratic crypto native bidder that isn't paying attention to broader risk."...For more visit Theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 9 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Avi Felman, Co-Portfolio Manager at Blocktower Capital.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

2021 was a landmark year for Genesis Global. The trading firm — which operates a wide-range of businesses spanning lending and prime services — clocked in more than $100 billion in spot crypto volumes in 2021. On the lending side of the house, cumulative loan originations stood at more than $130 billion. On this episode of The Scoop, head of derivatives at Genesis Joshua Lim helped unpack the dynamics shaping the market behind its headline Q4 numbers.In addition to a compression in the popular, and once very juicy, basis trade, Lim explained that the market became more dynamic with big new hedge funds entering the fold. At the same time, existing participants become more engaged with the market – holding crypto on their balance sheet for not just investment purposes, but for operational use as well.“It could be linked to receiving payments denominated in tokens from projects that they had executed for other firms. It could be related to running nodes on a blockchain,” Lim said. “It could be more traditional kind of crypto native use cases like receiving a percentage of whatever assets under custody as sort of a revenue stream.”“We saw those types of firms really engaging on derivative hedges that would, you know, protect them on the downside, which was actually kind of useful.”Lim added that as more firms enter the space through the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), demand for such hedging tools could extend beyond the crypto native investors that Genesis is used to dealing with. The firm has already started accepting NFTs as collateral for certain loans. Still, it’s early days for NFT-related lending. “It's not something that we do on a regular basis,” Lim said. “I think from a business perspective, it's still, let's say, less than 50 basis points of our overall lending business in terms of the magnitude of the collateral value.Episode 8 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Joshua Lim, Head of Derivatives at Genesis Global Trading.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

For some, a landscape of colorful NFTs and crypto anons can be daunting — yet for traditional investors, it can present an array of new challenges that require near-constant adjustment or reinvention. But as novel use cases evolve under the twin banners of "Web3" and "the metaverse," business interests such as VC firm Standard Crypto are eyeing the opportunity to leap into such a world. During this episode of The Scoop, Alok Vasudev, co-founder at Standard Crypto, joined The Block's Frank Chaparro to discuss the future of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and NFTs, when a project "merits" a DAO, and how Vasudev learned to stop worrying and embrace the 'weirdness' of crypto. Vasudev contends that, unlike other venture firms, Standard Crypto doesn't follow themes but rather operates first as fans of the innovations technology can present.This broad investment approach has recently included DAOs, which Vasudev said he believes could one day potentially function like companies in the future, with the added benefit of on-chain governance. "One thing that we talk about is whether DAOs in how they're structured are actually going to evolve to look a little bit more like companies than they have in the past, but with radically different accountability structures because of token holder governance."Vasudev also believes NFTs and projects being built for Web3 may likely serve as the proving ground for the future iterations of internet success stories like Angry Birds or Facebook: "I think I remember the first time I was kind of stunned that they were actually making an Angry Birds movie... So this idea that kind of internet culture is just going to become mainstream culture, I think is already proven out. And now I think NFTs are the next chapter in that story."Episode 7 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Alok Vasudev, co-founder at Standard Crypto.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Tucked away in Signal’s app is a new “Beta” feature that allows users to send payments between each-other seamlessly. It’s powered by a crypto project called MobileCoin.On this episode of The Scoop, MobileCoin founder and CEO Josh Goldbard joined Frank Chaparro to explain how MobileCoin is trying to blend encrypted messaging and payments to make global money transfers easy. Goldbard and Chaparro explore the increasingly dynamic environment for payments, which has diverse firms from Walmart to Facebook to Jack Dorsey’s Cash App competing for mindshare and transactions.“What we're building is the global Cash App, the global Cash App that allows you to move money in and out at the velocity of the internet,” Goldbard described of the project.“What we want to make here is the last payment rail,” he added. “What makes it the last payment rail is that it is the lowest friction, highest priority, easiest to use payment technology ever made.”In this episode we also explore: What raising venture capital is like in a frothy venture environment Goldbard’s game-plan to recruit top engineers Why Signal decided to partner with MobileCoin How Goldbard poached Cash App’s founding CTO Bob Lee Episode 6 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Josh Goldbard, founder and CEO of MobileCoin.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About Coinbase PrimeCoinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

Since volumes skyrocketed in 2021 across marketplaces, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have seemed to become a focal point of the art and gaming world. Love them or hate them, NFT enthusiasts argue that the medium is in the infancy of its evolution. Adopters are beginning to appreciate not only the aesthetics of NFTs, but their potential usefulness. On this episode of The Scoop, Head of Growth at Parallel NFT Franklin Fitch and artist Dave Krugman joined host Frank Chaparro to discuss how NFTs are radically transforming the relationship between creators and the art market, as well as the gaming industry.Krugman compared the current state of NFTs to the early days of Instagram, when early adopters had to learn to become comfortable with sharing content without monetizing it. As the network effect of users and creators grew, eventually Instagram gave creators a way to make money on their efforts -- with certain caveats, like follower milestones. According to Krugman, adapting NFTs comes with an even steeper learning curve."This is a technology that is fundamentally going to change the way that we connect and operate with each other -- it's a lot," said Krugman, when referencing artists who are anti-NFT. Fitch noted that NFTs would be particularly disruptive for the video game industry in the realm of creating incentives for gamers such as loot boxes, which are tethered to their ecosystems and have no external value. Unlike traditional in-game assets, NFTs fundamentally allow an asset to be exchangeable, tied to a marketplace, and to allow for social signaling between players.As Fitch noted, "It adds new levels of competitiveness, new levels of participation, re-imaginings of incentives, right? New social layers. I think it's fantastic. And this is the power games."... For more visit the theblockcrypto.com/podcastsEpisode 5 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Head of Growth Franklin Fitch at Parallel NFT & Photographer & Digital Artist Dave Krugman.Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Kraken & ChainalysisFireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.About KrakenWhether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.About ChainalysisChainalysis is the blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.