BlockChain Reaction

Xapo Bank is a Gibraltar-based crypto bank and custodian that offers dollar and Bitcoin exposure to global customers - US excluded. This wasn't always the case, however. Xapo previously served the US market until 2021 and pioneered the Bitcoin-backed debit card in 2014. The CEO of Xapo is Seamus Rocca. He has a background in traditional finance after spending a decade at Standard Chartered Bank working in Liquidity and Funding Risk.  After talking about Xapo, banking, and regulations, Rocca and I spent several minutes on the geopolitical angles supporting the US dollar as global reserve currency. He's bullish Bitcoin, but Rocca seemed highly pragmatic in this conversation.  Topics covered: Rocca's crypto origin story Bridging crypto with banking, breaking the fear of crypto in traditional finance Xapo starting as a custodian and adding banking as a product How Xapo generates a profit Making an interface that works for the majority of consumers Why Xapo closed its US business, difficult to do business American market doesn't need banking but the rest of the world does Why Latin America and emerging markets could be the growth opportunity for Xapo Xapo's customer is already comfortable with crypto US Dollar as global reserve currency A lot of Bitcoin is outside of the US Do the BRICS nations get a say in how the global currency story changes? China's regime and wealth controls make it unappealing to the rest of the world Europe is going to be holding the bag on rebuilding Ukraine, which means Euro likely goes lower Local currencies in emerging markets will also likely lose steam vs the dollar Foreign governments holding US treasuries can't dump US debt without realizing a loss Reaction to Europe's MiCA legislation- TLDL: don't get too excited The effort to get fully registered and licensed in every US state isn't worth the return Xapo userbase has grown during 'Crypto Winter' - "positioned as a flight to safety" I wish we could have kept on going but Rocca had a hard out and I had to be respectful of his time. Maybe sometime down the line I can bring him on again. I hope you all enjoy this episode. Remember, you can get access to the full downloadable version of every BCR podcast episode by subscribing to my Seeking Alpha research service ⁠⁠BlockChain Reaction. ⁠⁠ The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of myself and my guest. None of this is investment advice or a solicitation for you to buy any financial instrument. I am not a licensed investment advisor. This content is for information purposes only. This episode was recorded on May 11th, 2023.

My latest guest on the BlockChain Reaction podcast is Calanthia Mei. She's the co-founder of Masa - formerly Masa Finance. Masa is a digital identity protocol that is built on the Celo (CELO-USD) blockchain. The company recently announced inclusion in the Binance (BNB-USD) accelerator program and is aiming to be a global leader in Web3 identity infrastructure. I thought this was a really interesting episode and we touched on everything from the privacy concerns about digital IDs to the global macro setup for fiat currencies more broadly speaking. What is Masa? Calanthia's TradFi bank and fintech background Building a new world on chain with identity infrastructure What are Soulbound tokens? How Masa allows developers to build Web3 native communities Web3 is likely more attractive to a global audience rather than a Western audience Future generations will be "on-chain native" How does a crypto builder define "decentralized?" Applicable ways Web3 identity is useful Protecting privacy in Web3 On choosing the Celo blockchain but also being a cross-chain protocol What being in the Binance Accelerator program enables The differences between jurisdictions in attracting crypto businesses Phones as a fintech utility How does Masa simplify Web3 for the non-crypto native Is EVM the blockchain winner or do ecosystems like Solana (SOL-USD) and Cosmos (ATOM-USD) have a chance long term? A possible Masa token in the future Learning from the airdrops of other market participants What else is exciting about Web3? Book/podcast recommendations Being a student of geopolitics and thinking long term macro outcomes How fiat currencies play in a future with internet native money I hope you guys enjoy this episode. Remember, you can get access to the full downloadable version of every BCR podcast episode by subscribing to my Seeking Alpha research service ⁠BlockChain Reaction. ⁠ One final note, if you're not completely sick of listening to my voice, I also joined James Foord on his new podcast The Pragmatic Investor earlier this week. You check that out here. In that pod, we talk crypto broadly, Bitcoin (BTC-USD), and the macro outlook.  The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of myself and my guest. None of this is investment advice or a solicitation for you to buy any financial instrument. I am not a licensed investment advisor. This content is for information purposes only. This episode was recorded on April 18th, 2023.

Episode 11 of the BlockChain Reaction podcast brings Marek Olszewski. Marek is the co-founder of the Celo (CELO-USD) blockchain and the CTO of cLabs. Celo is an EVM blockchain that is currently one of the top 20 blockchains by Total Value Locked. I enjoyed this conversation quite a bit. Topics we covered during the podcast include but are not limited to: Marek's MIT background and pivot to blockchain Celo's optimization for mobile payments Why the Celo team picked Ethereum Virtual Machine over other options Getting the UE right in crypto wallets Why do people even need decentralized options? Speed capabilities of the chain Deep dive on the real mission of the chain's developers and carbon offsetting Battling crypto's anti-climate narrative with PoS consensus The robustness of Celo's DeFi footprint Bringing more global markets onto the network How merchants are using Celo to reduce transaction costs with customers My take: getting payments right is a big deal. Even though the western world seems to be largely apathetic to permission-less systems in my opinion, Celos's global adoption is very encouraging and I think this is a chain to keep an eye on. I hope you guys enjoy this episode. Remember, you can get access to the full downloadable version of every BCR podcast episode by subscribing to my Seeking Alpha research service BlockChain Reaction. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of myself and my guest. None of this is investment advice or a solicitation for you to buy any financial instrument. I am not a licensed investment advisor. This content is for information purposes only. This episode was recorded on April 6th, 2023.

For the tenth episode of the BlockChain Reaction podcast, I spoke with Holger Arians. He's the CEO of Banxa (OTCPK:BNXAF); which is a crypto business that works with self-custodial wallet applications to provide an on/off ramp platform for on-chain wallet addresses. Banxa has wallet integration with MetaMask, Ledger and Trezor among others. Topics we covered during the podcast include but are not limited to: Entering crypto as a BTC miner Changing from mining to on-ramp platform What the process is like at the user level Competing with PSPs Being an advocate for regulation Navigating what is currently a hostile regulatory environment The journey to becoming a publicly listed crypto business Why the company's filings have been delayed Being chain-agnostic while Bitcoin eats the alts NFTs being a gateway to crypto rails Adapting organizational structures with blockchain Remittances are the still the big innovation of crypto With the latest regulatory developments impacting Coinbase (COIN) as a backdrop, I thought this was a very eye-opening discussion. This was a fun discussion and I hope you guys enjoy it. Remember, you can get access to the full downloadable version of every BCR podcast episode by subscribing to my Seeking Alpha research service ⁠BlockChain Reaction.⁠ ⁠https://seekingalpha.com/checkout?service_id=mp_1406 ⁠ The views and opinions expressed in the following podcast are those of myself and my guest. None of this is investment advice or a solicitation for you to buy any financial instrument. I am not a licensed investment advisor. This content is for information purposes only. This episode was recorded on March 22nd, 2023

The ninth episode of the BCR podcast brings Markus Levin from XYO Network (XYO-USD). Markus is the co-founder of that protocol. It serves as an Oracle for Web3 platforms and allows users to monetize their data through a variety of different engagements with the XYO platform. XYO was started by XY Labs and there's actually a second token that represents equity in XY Labs. That token is XYLB and is registered "security token" that trades on the tZERO platform. Topics we covered during the podcast include but are not limited to: Markus' background and building the COIN platform to work with Web2 companies for data monetization Using data Oracles to combat things like fake information Getting Web2 companies exposed to crypto rails User engagement of the COIN platform The somewhat controversial decision to work with US regulators on a decentralized blockchain project Data monetization in the 'metaverse' Issues with the SEC's approach to regulation How tokenization changes equity offerings in the future End game for the XY Labs token This was a fun discussion and I hope you guys enjoy it. Remember, you can get access to the full downloadable version of every BCR podcast episode by subscribing to my Seeking Alpha research service BlockChain Reaction. https://seekingalpha.com/checkout?service_id=mp_1406  The views and opinions expressed in the following podcast are those of myself and my guest. None of this is investment advice or a solicitation for you to buy any financial instrument. I am not a licensed investment advisor. This content is for information purposes only. This episode was recorded on March 3rd, 2023