Village Global's Venture Stories

Erik's guests for this episode are:- Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment- Meher Roy (@MeherRoy), co-founder of Chorus One- Jake Brukhman (@jbrukh), founder of CoinFundThey talk about a number of interesting topics, including the unique way that an investment firm participates in the growth of a company in the crypto world and why it's more important to be a network participant than just a funder.The four of them go through what a validator is and what being one entails. They talk about the big differences in people composition of a crypto fund versus a typical VC fund and they explain what kind of expertise the people at a crypto fund need to have.The group also discusses evaluating crypto networks, the relative importance of "user experience" vs. "developer experience" and what it means to have LPs and institutional investors paying attention to the space.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Michael Goldstein (@bitstein), president of the Nakamoto Institute and co-host of the Noded Podcast, joins Erik on this episode. Between him and Erik they break down some of the basic concepts around Bitcoin and explain why it's important in general. Michael explains why he's keen to feast on the tears of nocoiners and breaks down a number of the common misconceptions about Bitcoin. He also talks Austrian economics and potential roadblocks for Bitcoin.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Arianna Simpson (@AriannaSimpson), VC and managing director at Autonomous Partners and Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) of Ikigai Asset Management join Erik on this episode. Arianna starts by explaining her post about false precision and why you don't want to be "very precisely wrong." They talk various models and calculations and how to value different crypto assets.They also talk about Bitcoin maximalists, what the landscape of crypto networks looks like, and whether the huge trades made in the past few years on crypto merit the creation of a fund to try to replicate those returns in the future.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Avichal Garg (@avichal), Managing Partner at Electric Capital, join Erik on this episode to discuss privacy coins. They break down what a privacy coin is and why privacy is important in crypto. They talk about the three main privacy coins: Monero, Zcash and Grin — and discuss why it's important or not to have an auditable record of transactions, whether people will pay taxes, and whether the government will be able to penetrate a privacy coin.They discuss whether people will care about privacy given that less than 3% of all cryptocurrency transactions are done with a privacy coin. Avichal points out that perhaps not a lot of people will care about privacy but a large amount of dollars will. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

This episode of Venture Stories is co-hosted by Dani Grant (@thedanigrant), analyst at USV. She talks with three leaders in the distributed computing space: - Dan Desjardins, CEO of Distributed Compute Labs - Chandler Song (@chandlersyf), founder and CEO of Ankr Network- Greg Osuri (@GregOsuri), founder of Akash Network and CEO of Overclock LabsThey talk about what distributed computing is, why it has so much potential and why this is an exciting time to be involved in the space.The guests talk about what kinds of applications are enabled by distributed computing and how for example, a hospital can leverage the computing power of all of its computers that are sitting idle at night to do medical research.They discuss the different ways to compensate users for the use of their computer resources and the different approaches to distributing problems and tasks to distributed resources. They also discuss the challenges facing their companies and how to think about competing or not competing with incumbents like Amazon and Google.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik is joined by Nicholas Chirls (@nchirls), partner at Notation Capital, and Joe Lallouz (@JoeLallouz), entrepreneur, angel, and founder of Grand St. They explain how they got their start in the space and the genesis of their respective firms. They talk about generalized mining and how a firm might get into mining. They discuss the various crypto networks and talk about how the way an investment firm provides value to a crypto company has changed. Nicholas and Joe also talk about traditional VC firms and how theymight get into the mining space.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Dandelion Mane (@decentralion), founder of SourceCred, joins Erik on this mind-expanding episode about identity. Dandelion explains how they came upon the idea for a decentralized reputation system and how it could change how people live — both online and in the real world. Dandelion explains some potential improvements that could be made to online communities to improve the level of discourse and avoid the outrage mobs that are currently too prevalent in those communities.They also talk about a number of other topics around identity in general, like how one's name affects how you think, the many sides of any given person, and why you should choose your own name.Mentioned In This Episode:- Seeing Like A State by James Scott- Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1: Nosedive - Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow- Accelerando by Charles Stross- Homesteading in the Noosphere by Eric RaymondThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik's co-host for this episode is Myles Snider (@myles_snider), research associate at Multicoin Capital. They talk to Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb) who is a GP at MetaStable Capital.They discuss where stablecoins are now and envision what they could be in the future. They compare and contrast stablecoins and fiat and explain why someone would hold a stablecoin that's indexed to fiat. They talk about some of the applications for stablecoins and the different kinds of stablecoins. The trio also discuss why you would want to invest in a stablecoin, what the Oracle Problem is and how it could be solved, as well as what kinds of hurdles stand in the way of widespread usage of stablecoins.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik's co-host for this episode is Myles Snider (@myles_snider), research associate at Multicoin Capital. They talk to Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb) who is a GP at MetaStable Capital.They discuss where stablecoins are now and envision what they could be in the future. They compare and contrast stablecoins and fiat and explain why someone would hold a stablecoin that's indexed to fiat. They talk about some of the applications for stablecoins and the different kinds of stablecoins. The trio also discuss why you would want to invest in a stablecoin, what the Oracle Problem is and how it could be solved, as well as what kinds of hurdles stand in the way of widespread usage of stablecoins.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean), the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, joins Erik for a very interesting and highly quotable interview. He expands on a number of topics from his book but also gets into a lot that isn’t in the book. He recounts the story of money from an Austrian perspective and describes why the world never really had a complete gold standard. Saif explains how government became addicted to printing money, how Bitcoin could turn out to be a better version of gold and how it might replace central banks entirely.Saif talks about why Silicon Valley has been and may still be mistaken about Bitcoin and blockchain, and why the analogies of the early days of the internet don’t really apply. He also talks about why the blockchain as a concept has been overhyped and why Bitcoin won’t be as instantaneous and low-fee as you might think.He also talks about what kinds of threats Bitcoin might face, how the world will change when Bitcoin becomes the new standard, and how personal finance and capitalism might evolve in a Bitcoin world.(Murray Rothbard is the economist that Saif references early in the episode).Quotable lines from this episode:“You can’t omit the fact that you took a sledgehammer to the laptop before complaining that it doesn’t work.”“Ever since then it’s been a wild ride of governments having discovered this addiction to printing money to finance themselves to do everything.”“It’s a choice for people to opt-out of the modern nation state with all of its hefty bill that it sends you every year in the form of inflation.”“Gold’s emergence as a money happens on the market, not because of government decree.”“You can’t systematize human action and behavior into mathematical equations that allow you do calculations to predict an outcome.”“The real problem is the fascination with all the buzzwords around all these projects that hang around Bitcoin pretending to be the next big thing, which we’ve been seeing since the beginning of Bitcoin. It’s the same story always and always ends in the same sad way.”“Everybody wants everything to do everything they’ve ever read in a sci-fi novel.”“Everybody is not capable of reasoning just beyond an analogy.”“People think of Bitcoin as a brand… and it’s only natural to think that if it’s Pepsi, it’s going to have its Coca-Cola — but we have the internet, and we don’t have another competitor, because it’s a protocol.”“All of these other uses that people want to attach to blockchain, I humbly submit the thesis that none of them actually matter.”“I don’t conduct criminal activity but if I did I would definitely make sure I would not record it on a ledger accessible to millions of people instantaneously around the world.”“Without a lender of last resort, fractional reserve banking is not going to work.”“Every cent of investment will have to come from a cent of saving and people think that’s a horrible thing, but that’s a great thing, it’s how any society thrives.”“The laws of economics don’t stop functioning just because government just said they should stop functioning in that sector.”“Capital is just a market good like any other, there’s supply and there’s demand.” “The amount of gold today that is held in global central banks is many times larger than what was held in central banks during the time of the gold standard.”“If governments want to kill Bitcoin I think the best strategy would be to return to the gold standard and to offer everybody free markets in banking.”“I know it’s cool to go around on college campuses and talk about destroying capitalism and all of that stuff but really it makes no sense. It’s an insane kind of suicidal death wish.”

Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean), the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, joins Erik for a very interesting and highly quotable interview. He expands on a number of topics from his book but also gets into a lot that isn’t in the book. He recounts the story of money from an Austrian perspective and describes why the world never really had a complete gold standard. Saif explains how government became addicted to printing money, how Bitcoin could turn out to be a better version of gold and how it might replace central banks entirely.Saif talks about why Silicon Valley has been and may still be mistaken about Bitcoin and blockchain, and why the analogies of the early days of the internet don’t really apply. He also talks about why the blockchain as a concept has been overhyped and why Bitcoin won’t be as instantaneous and low-fee as you might think.He also talks about what kinds of threats Bitcoin might face, how the world will change when Bitcoin becomes the new standard, and how personal finance and capitalism might evolve in a Bitcoin world.(Murray Rothbard is the economist that Saif references early in the episode).Quotable lines from this episode:“You can’t omit the fact that you took a sledgehammer to the laptop before complaining that it doesn’t work.”“Ever since then it’s been a wild ride of governments having discovered this addiction to printing money to finance themselves to do everything.”“It’s a choice for people to opt-out of the modern nation state with all of its hefty bill that it sends you every year in the form of inflation.”“Gold’s emergence as a money happens on the market, not because of government decree.”“You can’t systematize human action and behavior into mathematical equations that allow you do calculations to predict an outcome.”“The real problem is the fascination with all the buzzwords around all these projects that hang around Bitcoin pretending to be the next big thing, which we’ve been seeing since the beginning of Bitcoin. It’s the same story always and always ends in the same sad way.”“Everybody wants everything to do everything they’ve ever read in a sci-fi novel.”“Everybody is not capable of reasoning just beyond an analogy.”“People think of Bitcoin as a brand… and it’s only natural to think that if it’s Pepsi, it’s going to have its Coca-Cola — but we have the internet, and we don’t have another competitor, because it’s a protocol.”“All of these other uses that people want to attach to blockchain, I humbly submit the thesis that none of them actually matter.”“I don’t conduct criminal activity but if I did I would definitely make sure I would not record it on a ledger accessible to millions of people instantaneously around the world.”“Without a lender of last resort, fractional reserve banking is not going to work.”“Every cent of investment will have to come from a cent of saving and people think that’s a horrible thing, but that’s a great thing, it’s how any society thrives.”“The laws of economics don’t stop functioning just because government just said they should stop functioning in that sector.”“Capital is just a market good like any other, there’s supply and there’s demand.” “The amount of gold today that is held in global central banks is many times larger than what was held in central banks during the time of the gold standard.”“If governments want to kill Bitcoin I think the best strategy would be to return to the gold standard and to offer everybody free markets in banking.”“I know it’s cool to go around on college campuses and talk about destroying capitalism and all of that stuff but really it makes no sense. It’s an insane kind of suicidal death wish.”

Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay), software engineer, crypto thinker and proponent of Austrian economics, joins Erik on this episode to talk about a number of interesting topics.They start with a primer on Austrian economics, what makes it different from other schools of economics, and why economics is a unique science with different schools of thought — “there isn’t a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”Vijay speculates on why Austrian economics has become a niche school of economics and analyzes Bitcoin and current economic policy through the lens of Austrian economics. He gives his opinion on the fed, fractional reserve banking and debunks some misconceptions that people have about Bitcoin.They finish with a lightning round discussing what famous economists like Hayek or Friedman would think about Bitcoin. Vijay also discusses the Bitmain IPO and what Facebook entering the cryptocurrency space might mean for the “incumbents.”Quotable lines from this episode:“You look at academia and there’s probably 10 Keynesian economists for every Chicago economist and there’s probably 10 Chicago economists for every Austrian economist.”“It’s sad that political expediency has trumped the pursuit of truth.”“There isn’t like a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”“Austrians really believe that an economy grows through investment, capital formation and entrepreneurial activities [rather than through consumption].”“The monetary premium is the value and purchasing power that it has that isn’t explained by its use value.”“All monies throughout history are bubbles and the bubbles don’t necessarily need to pop.”“I think it’s [Bitcoin] the most important innovation in money in a thousand years.”“The thing that’s exciting about Bitcoin is that it gives you a property right but doesn’t require anyone to enforce that property right.”-Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay), software engineer, crypto thinker and proponent of Austrian economics, joins Erik on this episode to talk about a number of interesting topics.They start with a primer on Austrian economics, what makes it different from other schools of economics, and why economics is a unique science with different schools of thought — “there isn’t a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”Vijay speculates on why Austrian economics has become a niche school of economics and analyzes Bitcoin and current economic policy through the lens of Austrian economics. He gives his opinion on the fed, fractional reserve banking and debunks some misconceptions that people have about Bitcoin.They finish with a lightning round discussing what famous economists like Hayek or Friedman would think about Bitcoin. Vijay also discusses the Bitmain IPO and what Facebook entering the cryptocurrency space might mean for the “incumbents.”Quotable lines from this episode:“You look at academia and there’s probably 10 Keynesian economists for every Chicago economist and there’s probably 10 Chicago economists for every Austrian economist.”“It’s sad that political expediency has trumped the pursuit of truth.”“There isn’t like a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”“Austrians really believe that an economy grows through investment, capital formation and entrepreneurial activities [rather than through consumption].”“The monetary premium is the value and purchasing power that it has that isn’t explained by its use value.”“All monies throughout history are bubbles and the bubbles don’t necessarily need to pop.”“I think it’s [Bitcoin] the most important innovation in money in a thousand years.”“The thing that’s exciting about Bitcoin is that it gives you a property right but doesn’t require anyone to enforce that property right.”-Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik is joined by two very exciting guests for this episode — Bill Tai, venture capitalist and director at Bitfury, and Derek Hsue (@derek_hsue), investor at Blockchain Capital.The three have a very engaging discussion about the mining landscape in cryptocurrencies, the similarities and differences between now and the early growth of the semiconductor industry, as well as the issues, obstacles and misconceptions standing in the way of new entrants to the mining sector.They get into the details on mining operations, how the architecture of certain coins impacts the equipment that mining can be done on, and how the underlying math is different between Ethereum and Bitcoin.There are also a number of impromptu history lessons courtesy of Bill, including how Wall Street got its name and went from a place to trade furs to the NYSE of today.They also discuss the future of exchanges, why buying into an ICO means buying into a community and a belief rather than something immediately valuable, and why we are headed for a massive reset of capitalism.Quotable lines from this episode: “In the start it’s kind of like riding a little bicycle and you see a pothole, you just go around it, but pretty soon you’re driving a freight train on a track and you can’t get off.” - BT“You’re going to have to come up with a check for 50-100 million dollars to be noticed by a semiconductor fab.” - BT“An upstart two years from now is probably going to have to take down 1000 megawatts just to start.” - BT“It’s really hard to get a venture type return from a mining operation, unless you’re really early on in a chain, or just extremely, much better than everyone else at producing hardware.” - DH “It all boiled down to, can you bribe a politician with an empty city in China to give you his power plant for a bit of money every month? …It turns out that Ethereum is a more concentrated mining ecosystem than Bitcoin.” - BT“Programming in Bitcoin is a bit like programming in assembly or DOS, where Ethereum is like programming in a high-level language that anyone that has done an iPhone app can work with.” - BT“If you look at the largest asset managers in the world, they don’t have a huge incentive to trade in a peer-to-peer manner.” - DH“It’s not about creating a product that is tailored to the world’s current behavior, it’s about providing that option for non-custodial and a trustless financial interaction.” - DH “We’re at that point today where we’re all standing under that buttonwood tree with our virtual assets, trying to figure out where to go.” - BT“The total of all debt in the world is 275 trillion, which is 3.18 times world GDP, it’s growing at 25 trillion a year, and is growing way faster than world GDP is growing.” - BT-Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik is joined by two very exciting guests for this episode — Bill Tai, venture capitalist and director at Bitfury, and Derek Hsue (@derek_hsue), investor at Blockchain Capital.The three have a very engaging discussion about the mining landscape in cryptocurrencies, the similarities and differences between now and the early growth of the semiconductor industry, as well as the issues, obstacles and misconceptions standing in the way of new entrants to the mining sector.They get into the details on mining operations, how the architecture of certain coins impacts the equipment that mining can be done on, and how the underlying math is different between Ethereum and Bitcoin.There are also a number of impromptu history lessons courtesy of Bill, including how Wall Street got its name and went from a place to trade furs to the NYSE of today.They also discuss the future of exchanges, why buying into an ICO means buying into a community and a belief rather than something immediately valuable, and why we are headed for a massive reset of capitalism.Quotable lines from this episode: “In the start it’s kind of like riding a little bicycle and you see a pothole, you just go around it, but pretty soon you’re driving a freight train on a track and you can’t get off.” - BT“You’re going to have to come up with a check for 50-100 million dollars to be noticed by a semiconductor fab.” - BT“An upstart two years from now is probably going to have to take down 1000 megawatts just to start.” - BT“It’s really hard to get a venture type return from a mining operation, unless you’re really early on in a chain, or just extremely, much better than everyone else at producing hardware.” - DH “It all boiled down to, can you bribe a politician with an empty city in China to give you his power plant for a bit of money every month? …It turns out that Ethereum is a more concentrated mining ecosystem than Bitcoin.” - BT“Programming in Bitcoin is a bit like programming in assembly or DOS, where Ethereum is like programming in a high-level language that anyone that has done an iPhone app can work with.” - BT“If you look at the largest asset managers in the world, they don’t have a huge incentive to trade in a peer-to-peer manner.” - DH“It’s not about creating a product that is tailored to the world’s current behavior, it’s about providing that option for non-custodial and a trustless financial interaction.” - DH “We’re at that point today where we’re all standing under that buttonwood tree with our virtual assets, trying to figure out where to go.” - BT“The total of all debt in the world is 275 trillion, which is 3.18 times world GDP, it’s growing at 25 trillion a year, and is growing way faster than world GDP is growing.” - BT-Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.