Dave Lerner
Welcome to Venture Studio, the Podcast
Welcome to Venture Studio, the Podcast

Cryptocurrency

Episode 52: Building Blocks of the New World with Sean Ford

Sean Ford is the COO of Algorand, pioneers of a new future powered by blockchains. In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of blockchain, and how Algorand is leading the charge by providing an infrastructure for existing businesses to operate globally in this emerging, decentralized economy.

Let’s head up to the office….

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“[Blockchain is] really designed to remove the friction from financial exchange and participation” - Sean Ford

Show Notes:

  • What is a blockchain, and why is it important to society?

  • What are the challenges of building an infrastructure through blockchain?

  • How do you evaluate the quality of a blockchain project?

  • What is Algorand, and how is this recent incarnation unique?

  • Who is Silvio Micali, and why is he important?

  • Which entities/businesses are building off of Algorand?

  • How do governments/institutions build on top of Algorand?

  • How is Algorand structured?

  • Where is Algorand going in 5-10 years? And how about blockchain as a whole?

  • What’s a good way to get the next generation into the industry?

“[Algorand] has never experienced even a millisecond of downtime since we launched in June 2019” - Sean Ford

Links Mentioned:

“You’re successful in technology if people don’t know you’re they’re USING your technology. - Sean Ford

Episode 51: The Crypto Future with Ken Kruger, CEO of MOON

I’m sure like me, a lot of you who don’t work in crypto are trying to understand and learn about it these days. I know that some of us are very skeptical, some are intrigued, and that some are just curious, and trying to learn as much as they can.

After this conversation with Ken Kruger, you can consider me among those who are really inspired at the possibilities. Ken deeply believes that Cryptocurrencies are the future of money — he is walking the walk, and is the founder and CEO of Moon, a company on a mission to bring this future to fruition.

By background, Ken is a serial founder and software engineer with a computer science degree from Cornell, and an MS in industrial engineering and Operations Research from Columbia, where he studied Financial engineering. In the past he’s has worked at Lockheed Martin as a software engineer, and as a Product Manager on classified military projects.

Let’s head up to the office….

You can Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

And be sure to leave me a Rating and Review!

“The power of crypto is that every time a new application comes up, it brings new people, and that’s the built-in network effect of these cryptocurrency networks.” - Ken Kruger

Show Notes:

  • About Ken’s intro to the world of Crypto

  • What are stable coins?

  • The currency situation in Venezuela

  • What does Dave get consistent pushback on regarding crypto?

  • China, and bitcoin mining prohibition

  • What is the importance of stable coins?

  • How do you obtain a stable coin?

  • What are the methods for converting to local currency from your crypto wallet?

  • Why are stable coins important in the scenario of currency exchange in foreign countries?

  • What are some alternates to stable coin?

  • Which Crypto communities are “up and coming”?

  • What are the problems with crypto payments?

  • What are some companies that allow for purchases in crypto?

  • What’s driving consumers to want to transact in crypto?

  • What is “Moon”, and how does it work?

  • What is the Moon user base like, demographically?

  • What’s in the future for Moon?

  • Increasing use cases of Moon

  • What are systems like Moon unlocking for the future?

“Stablecoins you just can’t ignore; there’s so much value there” - Ken Kruger

Links Mentioned:

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Discord

“Crypto payments are almost like a marketplace that has to be bootstrapped — do you get all the merchants to start accepting crypto first, or do you get the consumers to start spending crypto first?” - Ken Kruger