Episode 250: Will Aave Eat Wall Street? with Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo of Aave Labs @alextapscott @luigidemeo @aave @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 3:48 Leaving Avalanche and landing at Aave 7:17 From ETHLend to the largest lending protocol in crypto 11:16 $80B in deposits, no back office 12:12 How overcollateralized lending works and why people borrow 15:49 Why Celsius and BlockFi blew up and Aave didn't 18:46 What's being built on top of Aave 21:12 Life after CLARITY, and the cost of uncertainty 23:55 Does uncertainty advantage the risk-tolerant? 26:20 Why stablecoins cut at the heart of the bank model 29:29 Deposit insurance as a taxpayer subsidy 31:22 Fintech as digital wallpaper and why that's ending 33:34 Moving loans off balance sheets and onto Aave 37:23 The DTCC and the next killer app

Episode 249: Economic TruthMaxxing with Stefan Rust of Truflation @alextapscott @fiftyfly @truflation @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 3:59 "Transitory" and the case for a better number 5:37 Real-time, verifiable, and written to a blockchain 6:52 Why nobody built this sooner — and the $130 trillion tied to CPI 9:47 41 days ahead of the government (70 during COVID) 13:45 Oil, the Iran war, and where we are in the cycle 15:33 Going live on FRED, and what the Fed actually watches 18:38 Trimmed mean, $15 eggs, and the 40% nobody reports 20:27 Inflation as a hidden tax 24:18 Building macro data for an agentic market 28:57 Revisions, edits, and the frozen index 29:55 Why Bitcoin and gold traded like risk assets 33:00 The Genius Act, stablecoins, and borrowing costs 39:06 Where to learn more

F* the Lambo, get a Zamboni

Episode 249: Economic TruthMaxxing with Stefan Rust of Truflation @alextapscott @fiftyfly @truflation @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 3:59 "Transitory" and the case for a better number 5:37 Real-time, verifiable, and written to a blockchain 6:52 Why nobody built this sooner — and the $130 trillion tied to CPI 9:47 41 days ahead of the government (70 during COVID) 13:45 Oil, the Iran war, and where we are in the cycle 15:33 Going live on FRED, and what the Fed actually watches 18:38 Trimmed mean, $15 eggs, and the 40% nobody reports 20:27 Inflation as a hidden tax 24:18 Building macro data for an agentic market 28:57 Revisions, edits, and the frozen index 29:55 Why Bitcoin and gold traded like risk assets 33:00 The Genius Act, stablecoins, and borrowing costs 39:06 Where to learn more

Episode 249: Economic TruthMaxxing with Stefan Rust of Truflation @alextapscott @fiftyfly @truflation @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 3:59 "Transitory" and the case for a better number 5:37 Real-time, verifiable, and written to a blockchain 6:52 Why nobody built this sooner — and the $130 trillion tied to CPI 9:47 41 days ahead of the government (70 during COVID) 13:45 Oil, the Iran war, and where we are in the cycle 15:33 Going live on FRED, and what the Fed actually watches 18:38 Trimmed mean, $15 eggs, and the 40% nobody reports 20:27 Inflation as a hidden tax 24:18 Building macro data for an agentic market 28:57 Revisions, edits, and the frozen index 29:55 Why Bitcoin and gold traded like risk assets 33:00 The Genius Act, stablecoins, and borrowing costs 39:06 Where to learn more

Episode 249: Economic TruthMaxxing with Stefan Rust of Truflation @alextapscott @fiftyfly @truflation @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 3:59 "Transitory" and the case for a better number 5:37 Real-time, verifiable, and written to a blockchain 6:52 Why nobody built this sooner — and the $130 trillion tied to CPI 9:47 41 days ahead of the government (70 during COVID) 13:45 Oil, the Iran war, and where we are in the cycle 15:33 Going live on FRED, and what the Fed actually watches 18:38 Trimmed mean, $15 eggs, and the 40% nobody reports 20:27 Inflation as a hidden tax 24:18 Building macro data for an agentic market 28:57 Revisions, edits, and the frozen index 29:55 Why Bitcoin and gold traded like risk assets 33:00 The Genius Act, stablecoins, and borrowing costs 39:06 Where to learn more

Episode 249: Economic TruthMaxxing with Stefan Rust of Truflation @alextapscott @fiftyfly @truflation @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 3:59 "Transitory" and the case for a better number 5:37 Real-time, verifiable, and written to a blockchain 6:52 Why nobody built this sooner — and the $130 trillion tied to CPI 9:47 41 days ahead of the government (70 during COVID) 13:45 Oil, the Iran war, and where we are in the cycle 15:33 Going live on FRED, and what the Fed actually watches 18:38 Trimmed mean, $15 eggs, and the 40% nobody reports 20:27 Inflation as a hidden tax 24:18 Building macro data for an agentic market 28:57 Revisions, edits, and the frozen index 29:55 Why Bitcoin and gold traded like risk assets 33:00 The Genius Act, stablecoins, and borrowing costs 39:06 Where to learn more

Episode 248: These Two Companies Might Dominate the Next Era of Finance with Gordon Liao of Circle and Ken Ng of Uniswap Labs @alextapscott @gordonliao @nkennethk @circle @Uniswap @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 2:49 Why Circle is building Arc 7:14 Uniswap's push into RWAs and permissioned pools 15:26 Circle's $400M acquisition and stablecoins as global payment rails 17:00 The Jackson Hole paper on stablecoins and global payments 18:37 The SEC innovation exemption and bearer instruments 20:10 The everything exchange: Uniswap vs. the centralized players 23:00 Meme coins, stock pairings, and new financial primitives 24:27 What's happening in the treasury market right now 27:27 Stablecoins as the marginal sticky buyer of short-term debt 29:36 How AI agents will use crypto 35:03 Agents using Uniswap and Arc for capital formation 36:46 Where to learn more

Episode 248: These Two Companies Might Dominate the Next Era of Finance with Gordon Liao of Circle and Ken Ng of Uniswap Labs @alextapscott @gordonliao @nkennethk @circle @Uniswap @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 2:49 Why Circle is building Arc 7:14 Uniswap's push into RWAs and permissioned pools 15:26 Circle's $400M acquisition and stablecoins as global payment rails 17:00 The Jackson Hole paper on stablecoins and global payments 18:37 The SEC innovation exemption and bearer instruments 20:10 The everything exchange: Uniswap vs. the centralized players 23:00 Meme coins, stock pairings, and new financial primitives 24:27 What's happening in the treasury market right now 27:27 Stablecoins as the marginal sticky buyer of short-term debt 29:36 How AI agents will use crypto 35:03 Agents using Uniswap and Arc for capital formation 36:46 Where to learn more

The world’s biggest investors are descending on Toronto for the first-ever Canada Investment Summit. They’ll be pitched shovel-ready projects in oil and gas, mining, power generation, infrastructure and more. I hope we see some major deals announced. But I also hope our guests learn that Canadians are not only “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” We are also some of the world’s boldest innovators in AI, next-gen compute, space, blockchain and more. Invest in Canada, yes! Help us build the physical infrastructure to become a global energy and industrial powerhouse. But also help us build the digital infrastructure needed for Canada—and the world—to thrive in this new technology order. Our startups are shovel-ready. Venture capital is shovel-ready. Builders are shovel-ready. I will be at the Canadian Global Growth Forum today, hosted by @cvca making this case to global investors If you want to invest in Canada while pushing the frontier forward, consider Canada’s builder community. CC: @EvanLSolomon @FP_Champagne @buildcanada @lucyhargreaves4 @Ben_Bergen @cvca

Episode 248: These Two Companies Might Dominate the Next Era of Finance with Gordon Liao of Circle and Ken Ng of Uniswap Labs @alextapscott @gordonliao @nkennethk @circle @Uniswap @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 2:49 Why Circle is building Arc 7:14 Uniswap's push into RWAs and permissioned pools 15:26 Circle's $400M acquisition and stablecoins as global payment rails 17:00 The Jackson Hole paper on stablecoins and global payments 18:37 The SEC innovation exemption and bearer instruments 20:10 The everything exchange: Uniswap vs. the centralized players 23:00 Meme coins, stock pairings, and new financial primitives 24:27 What's happening in the treasury market right now 27:27 Stablecoins as the marginal sticky buyer of short-term debt 29:36 How AI agents will use crypto 35:03 Agents using Uniswap and Arc for capital formation 36:46 Where to learn more

New @defidecodedpod is out! Could @circle and @Uniswap dominate the next era of finance? Great discussion with two big brains on how the digitization of financial markets will upend the status quo. Thanks to @gordonliao and @nkennethk for stopping by. Check it out 👇

In 2023, I argued in the @nypost that AI's biggest problem was lack of transparency. Decisions about governance and safety were being made by small groups behind closed doors. After 3 years, that is starting to change. Good. AI transparency is long overdue!

Episode 247: “It’s in the Vault” — Breaking Down Crypto’s Hot New Thing with Adrian Cachinero Vasiljevic of Steakhouse Financial @alextapscott @adcv_ @SteakhouseFi @CMCC_Global 0:00 Introduction 2:59 What actually is a vault? 6:09 Why most vault capital sits in lending markets 7:56 Real-time NAV and the efficiency edge over funds 9:15 Are vaults the next evolution of the ETF? 10:56 The "physics of DeFi" and composable exposures 15:09 Who actually custodies the assets and what a curator can't do 17:29 Inside the Robinhood Earn and Coinbase deals 19:39 Tokenized real-world assets and the regulatory landscape 24:06 The odds on the CLARITY Act and curation as index-building 26:03 Index vs. active: where the real risk lives 29:24 What happens when things go wrong: first-loss and junior tranches 31:26 Reimagining finance from first principles 32:21 Hacks, total loss, and DeFi's real loss-given-default 34:41 Where to learn more