The Scoop

OpenSea's Devin Finzer is just as surprised as anyone to see non-fungible tokens (NFTs) taking off this summer.“None of us expected to hit a billion in transaction volume this month,” said Finzer, describing what he views as "the biggest economy in the history of the internet."During this episode of The Scoop, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer joined host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on NFT’s, the metaverse, and OpenSea’s most recent completed fundraise.OpenSea recently raised $100 million from VC majors such as A16z as well as angel investors like Michael Ovitz and Ashton Kutcher, setting the NFT marketplace valuation at a $1.5 billion value.The company's focus on building a marketplace appeared to bear fruit based on the NFT volume in August for OpenSea. With fresh capital in hand, OpenSea is planning on retooling its systems to make it easier for the public to gain access to the marketplace.Finzer spoke with The Scoop about how OpenSea is improving gateways for the public to purchase NFT’s with a credit card and how the team is working with partners to lower fees for minting, selling and buying. He also touched on how this also includes expanding their blockchain partnerships with layer-1 and layer-2 scaling solutions, such as their recent Polygon integration. Finzer further discussed the Metaverse application of NFT’s as brands begin to buy into virtual worlds, such as Decentraland, in what the startup believes will become the stage for this new economy.“Long term we think NFT’s will be used for all sorts of creative things, across gaming, art collectibles, event tickets, real world items," said Finzer.Episode 50 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Devin Finzer, co-founder & CEO at OpenSea.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

ConsenSys wants major financial groups to jump into the world of decentralized finance -- and believes MetaMask Institutional can serve as a gateway for such firms. While most listeners are likely familiar with MetaMask, the DeFi wallet that boasts millions of monthly users, MetaMask Institutional (MMI) is a new initiative within ConsenSys focused on providing institutional access to DeFi. Already, the firm counts several large multi-billion dollar crypto-native and traditional funds among its clients, according to Johann Bornman, the initiative's product lead. For bigger investment firms, interest in DeFi centers around exposure to higher yields from lending protocols like Aave or Compound. “Some of them are very active in terms of their yield fund strategies and their yield farming strategies,” Bornman explained during a new episode of The Scoop podcast. “But on average, if you're talking about these larger hedge funds and pension funds that you mentioned and also some of the larger crypto funds, on average, you're seeing them sort of dip their toe into the space.”Bornman added:“And this might entail minting assets or lending assets on Compound and Aave or using some of the most well-known protocols in the space."Episode 48 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Johann Bornman, product lead for MetaMask Institutional at Consensys. 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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Dave Weisberger is a Wall Street vet who saw market structure develop and go electronic. On this episode of The Scoop, the co-founder and CEO of CoinRoutes joined host Frank Chaparro for a walk-through on how far trading in crypto has evolved and why regulators are ignoring these improvements.He remarked:“Firms that are domiciled and regulated out of the United States are at such a massive disadvantage in the growing digital asset world to the point where, as a startup, we had to make a choice to become software only.”Weisberger views the slow regulatory work by the SEC as being harmful to investors, which among factors, is causing exchanges and custodians to put fees and premiums on crypto in order for investors to enter the market.But as the market grows and becomes more differentiated from traditional markets, the crypto “market is getting more efficient," Weisberger said.While the current sentiment sees larger players continuing to find themselves subject to arbitrage fees and the headaches of legal battles, Weisberger believes it won’t last forever:"The settlement costs and the financing costs of doing certain esoteric strategies will ultimately go down dramatically as DeFi finds its sea legs and matures. We're nowhere near that point yet, but the application of that technology is going to be profound as it grows."During this episode, Weisberger and Chaparro also discuss: Regulatory risks in the US Rich valuations in private crypto markets Outweigh benefits to firms headquartered overseas The completion of CoinRoutes’ Series B round of funding Episode 48 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dave Weisberger, Co-founder & CEO of CoinRoutes.This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

A high-wire fight in Washington, DC over crypto tax reporting provisions included in a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill drew widespread attention and impassioned remarks from supporters, opponents and powerful members of Congress.And while Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, admits that the legislation's current language is not perfect, the collective show of force from advocacy groups, business leaders and think tanks was "like no other thing I have experienced in my 20 years in Washington, D.C.”On this episode of The Scoop, Smith joined host Frank Chaparro and senior reporter Kollen Post to discuss the legislation live during the podcast as senators conducted their last vote before sending the bill out of the chamber. According to Smith, the fight over the crypto tax reporting requirements — which opponents say puts undue burdens on businesses that aren't clearly defined as "brokers" of digital assets and at one point risked choosing technological winners and losers — is far from over. In the end, Smith concedes that there ultimately may not be an opportunity to add amendments to the bill. However, the fight put the crypto industry front-and-center in Washington for the first time, with Smith saying: "We went from zero to 60 overnight, and we have caught the attention of the entire policymaking class in Washington."The bill now makes its move into the House which will reconvene in September for next steps.This episode of The Scoop also focused on: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s position on crypto The players in the DC crypto scene today Which policymakers and politicians favor amendments to the bill. Episode 47 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kristin Smith, Executive Director at Blockchain Association.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

As new networks are tapping into Polkadot, its co-founder sees a high-stakes battleground forming over privacy and security."You want to create a system which is upgradable which can adapt to new technologies if you want to be able to stay one step ahead of the curve," says Rob Habermeier, who joins The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on how exactly DeFi fits into Polkadot, where he sees privacy and security headed, and the hurdles that Polkadot's so-called 'parachains' face in 2022.Polkadot is still in “very early days”, said Habermeier, in terms of the interoperability of the network’s recently launched parachain functions.“A lot of this interoperability stuff that's been talked about for a very long time is just coming to fruition now. We're seeing the first parachains, we're seeing the first bridges between ecosystems," he says.Polkadot's parachains operate by allowing multiple blockchains to branch off their network. Polkadot deployed its first six parachain partnerships via the Kusama network on July 20. “And those are focusing on, for example, DeFi, on smart contracts, on layer 2 scaling, and on identity secure compute using some secure hardware," Habermeier continues.Habermeier also outlined how Polkadot’s Substrate platform works, on which Compound Labs recently launched a product called Gateway. Substrate works by reordering transactions in a block to suit the needs of DeFi institutions.“You're not going to have your profits constantly cut into by some aggressive miner who's reordering your transactions or sandwiching them,” Habermeier explained. “What that's going to do is essentially make it more difficult to exploit users who are using DeFi systems.”During this episode Habermeier and Chaparro also discuss:  Why Habermeier dropped out of college to build Polkadot Where security and privacy is headed with blockchain The challenges of finding and procuring talent in the digital asset industry Episode 46 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Rob Habermeier, Co-Founder at Polkadot.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Genesis Global Trading—the New York-based crypto firm that bills itself as a prime brokerage—turned over more than $8 billion worth of derivatives last quarter. Joshua Lim is the man behind those billions as the firm's Head of Derivatives. Lim joined The Scoop this week to unpack Genesis' second quarter report, explaining how new preferences among investors and traders have shaped the make up of derivatives. He told The Block's Frank Chaparro that the growth of crypto-native hedge funds have increased their need for derivatives, including options and futures, to hedge their positions. "I think it's mostly crypto negative hedge funds that we deal with that were more willing to engage with us on hedging strategies," he said. As bitcoin was approaching $55,000, he said many were "looking for attractive pricing on the implied volatility across two different strikes such that they could buy some cheap sort of protection for their portfolio."That desire to hedge among crypto players was echoed in Genesis' report, which was released Wednesday:"As BTC/USD marched to new highs in April, a number of our forward-thinking crypto-native hedge fund and corporate treasury counterparties meaningfully stepped up their systematic put-hedging programs."As for the second-quarter specifically, Lim pointed out a number of trends that played out, including the tightening of the spread between spot and futures and a reversal of the popular basis trade that aims to profit from that spread. In this episode Lim also unpacks: How the derivatives market in crypto evolved from linear products to a wide-range of products How the spread between spot and futures can indicate how frothy the market is The big takeaways from Genesis' second quarter report What needs to happen in the NFT market for it to support derivatives The emergence of market neutral strategies in crypto Episode 45 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Genesis Global Trading's Head of Derivatives Joshua Lim.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Signs point to the looming specter of regulation slowly bringing the days of bitcoin and crypto's "Wild West" to an end. The only question, perhaps, is if not now, then when?"We’re getting to a boiling point," The Block's Aislinn Keely told The Scoop.On this policy report episode of The Scoop, host Frank Chaparro is joined by The Block’s policy and regulatory reporters — Editor of Wonk Talk Aislinn Keely and Senior Politics Reporter Kollen Post — for an update on where the United States currently sits on the digital asset policy front.Keely and Post covered what a Gensler-led SEC looks like, citing Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the SEC questioning how the US plans to regulate exchanges. Keely and Post noted the potentially risky domino effect of agency mandates on policies such as those that targeted crypto startup BlockFi, particularly in instances for which crypto products mimic savings accounts and securities and don’t have the provision of FDIC backing. Post noted that if the NY investigation of Tether becomes a federal case, it could change the narrative of the White House’s coverage of digital assets in terms of how much cash the Senate wants to monitor the ecosystem. As of this podcast’s publication, The Block received new details stating that an upcoming infrastructure bill in the U.S. Senate will in fact be partially paid for by enhanced tax enforcement of cryptocurrency. Keely also clarified where the US currently stands on Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC. Keely said that the US is still on the perceived “losing side” relative to countries like China, which is in the process of developing a digitized version of the yuan. The US government has not made any final decisions on whether it will issue a digital dollar.Episode 44 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Aislinn Keely, Editor of Wonk Talk & Kollen Post, Senior Politics Report at The Block.This is the first edition of The Scoop’s policy focused series, Policy Scoop.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Access to bitcoin was once a case where “no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second”.Now, New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, won’t stop until it’s able to put bitcoin within reach of every American.Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG, explained during the most recent episode of The Scoop how the firm has been amping up its partnerships in order to roll out their bitcoin products now that there is interest being expressed from regional banks.To that end, NYDIG has teamed up with banking service providers, including NCR, Alkami, Fiserv, Allied Payment, Q2, First Foundation, and others.“I think if we kind of pause today and you fast forward to 12 months, you would see over a thousand institutions rolling out NYDIG products," he said, referring to the results these partnerships will yield. "I think we'll see that number grow as we move forward through the next 12 months.”Much of what NYDIG has offered to banks is centered around bitcoin purchases, but the ambitions appear to be broader.Sells discussed NYDIG’s ability to offer credit card solutions and retail lending. Sells said they could offer a service that converts unused hotel points into bitcoin “allowing people to have points and convert those to Bitcoin, that's in some ways the lowest friction path possible from an entry point standpoint or from allowing gift cards to be converted into Bitcoin."NYDIG is also working on providing a way to make it easier for clients to leverage their bitcoin holdings to get approved for loans, according to Sells. Today, most lenders don't consider bitcoin as collateral or a traditional asset. As Sells put it: "Any type of fiat financing for a home, a car, a line of credit, whatever, credit underwriting doesn't take into account your bitcoin, right?" Episode 43 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Patrick Sells, Head of Bank Solutions at NYDIG.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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

State Street made headlines last month, announcing a brand new division covering crypto, digital assets, and tokenization.State Street VP and Head of Global Markets, Nadine Chakar, is leading that charge. Despite the recent price slump in crypto-assets, interest has not abated, she noted in an interview for the latest episode of The Scoop:“The price depreciation has not impacted demand and interest at all. I think we're still seeing a lot of people enthusiastically embracing digital in general, crypto in certain cases. And there's not a day that goes by that you don't see some large hedge fund or some large investor, you know, outlining their support for digital.”To meet that demand, State Street is working with clients on developing solutions that help them allocate to bitcoin and other crypto-assets. It is also a partner to several fund managers looking to offer exchange-traded funds–although, it’s not clear when financial regulators will approve such a product. Still, Chakar said the bank isn’t ready to dive into the market with a custody offering: “We're not going to rush into this unless we can feel very comfortable that we could support the new digital assets with the same rigor that we support the old ones where we're going to continue to work on fine-tuning our models.”Chakar also does not believe that a decentralized banking ecosystem will be built to replace banks or traditional finance institutions. Chakar mentioned pensions plans as an example of a traditional finance structure that DeFi may not be able to execute on. Though it's not an impossibility one day, she noted:“I hate to disappoint people that think the banks are just going to up and disappear and be totally replaced by blockchain.”Nadine sees the balance between the integration of DeFi traditional finance as that “sweet spot” but sees the industry as still at a starting point.Episode 42 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Nadine Chakar, Head of State Street Digital at State Street. 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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

GSR’s Rich Rosenblum doesn’t seem to mind the volatility. On this week’s episode of The Scoop, GSR Markets co-founder and President Rich Rosenblum, joined The Scoop host Frank Chaparro for a discussion on the state of the bitcoin market. The price of the cryptocurrency has been gyrating over the course of the last several weeks, even dropping below $30,000 on Tuesday. That bearish price activity, however, is happening against a backdrop of crypto firms raising hundreds of millions in equity financing. Rosenblum cut his teeth as an oil trader at Goldman Sachs before launching the crypto trading firm and market maker GSR in 2013. Today, GSR trades billions of dollars worth of crypto. He said what we are seeing is not a bear market.“I'd say we're in more of a stasis. I think that the market is getting more iterated, more complex than ‘do I buy it and hold it for this rampant bear market or do I get short?’ I think we're a bit in between here.”Indeed, the private market in crypto startups is heating up, with FTX announcing its own $900 million Series B raise this week. In total, data from The Block Research shows companies have raised $6.2 billion this year. Rosenblum added:“So, certainly the private equity companies that are coming to the space and looking there, they've got more firepower than the VC’s and they're not afraid to spend. So there's a lot of building, but the price of a token dropping by 50 percent in two or three months, I think it's pushed away not only in retail, but some of the institutional investors. So the token landscape is a little bit quieter. But as say, it's down but not out.” We also discuss: The growth of GSR’s team and business operations  Why market makers matter in DeFi How GSR could make markets in the NFT space Where Rich is seeing bigger opportunities in crypto trading today China’s mining ban Episode 41 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Rich Rosenblum, Co-founder and CEO of GSR Markets. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, 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 Eventus, Kraken, and ExodusEventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges.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 ExodusExodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.