Private credit has seen a resurgence in the past few years. Bring that together with digital assets and tokenization, we have a multi-trillion dollar market. In this episode of the Tokenize podcast, I speak with David Vatchev, head of tokenization at Fasanara Capital. We discuss David's journey into digital assets, the significance of private credit as an asset class, the tokenization process, and the evolving landscape of public and private blockchains. The conversation also touc...

The digital assets world is entering an era where the largest economy in the world is looking to embrace this innovation. Yet, when Washington DC leads the narrative for the paradigm of a generation, it is critical that teams engage. Legal and compliance experts are no longer back office. In this episode of Tokenize, I had a fan-boy moment - with Rebecca Rettig from the Jito Foundation joining me. I have been following Rebecca's journey from a distance for years, through the Polygon/Eth...

Mainstream adoption and institutional engagement of digital assets can only happen if these assets have certain standards that they follow on-chain. Privacy, KYC, AML and other institutional asks need to be built in at the token level to ensure issuers, investors and on-chain users can collaborate at scale. This is precisely where bodies such as the ERC 3643 Association come in. In this episode of the Tokenize podcast, I host Dennis O'Connell from the ERC 3643 Association. We discuss token st...

Yes, the world is going from B2B (Business to Business) to A2A (Agent to Agent). And this was envisioned 10 years ago by Jamie Burke - the founder and Chairman of Outlier Ventures. Jamie has been a visionary within crypto and AI for several years and has led a team to create Outlier ventures, the most versatile crypto investors around. Jamie has launched a series of research efforts focused on the convergence of AI and Blockchain. The series that began in 2016 as Convergence, evolved into Con...

Can onchain lending scale? that too when it is institution focused? With $6 Billion in total borrowing and over $700 Million in TVL (Transaction Value Locked), Maple Finance have shown it is possible to scale lending to institutions onchain. And they have managed to do it with 5% of the workforce that a credit fund of a similar size would typically need. In this episode of Tokenize, I discuss Maple's journey with Ryan O'Shea, COO at Maple Finance. We discuss everything from how Maple's journe...

Real estate is the largest asset class that would benefit from tokenization. This market onchain is expected to get to $3 Trillion by 2030. In this episode of the Tokenize podcast, I talk to Dhivyan Kandaiah, Director @ Kodelab, building an FCA regulated real estate tokenization marketplace. In this episode we discuss how the RWA market has gained momentum over the last couple of years. Dhivyan gets into the details of how a property can be packaged as an NFT - yes you read it right - a...

What does it take to be one of the top 5 Crypto ETF issuers across the world? Bitwise have managed to do that for years. In a market often dominated by the likes of Blackrock and Fidelity, Bitwise have created a niche for themselves. In this episode of Tokenize podcast, Hadley Stern and I speak to Chanchal Samaddar - Head of Products and Capital Markets at Bitwise Europe. From the history of ETFs, Gold ETFs, Bitcoin ETFs and more, Chan walks us through the ups and downs of the industry and wh...

📢 Tokenization is no longer theoretical—it’s here, and it’s transforming finance! In the latest #Tokenize Podcast, Hadley Stern and I spoke with Maredith Hannon, Head of Business Development for Digital Assets at WisdomTree. 🧠 We discussed about how tokenization unlocks liquidity, transparency, and accessibility for real-world assets like money market funds. 🧠 Maredith shared how WisdomTree is bridging TradFi and DeFi through innovation. With products like WisdomTree Prime (a retail app...

Who issued the first crypto ETF ever? Read on.. When it comes to the crypto asset class, one part of the world often blindsides the entire world in the way it embraces cryptos - Latin America. Brazil being the largest economy in the region, has had several successful milestones achieved in the crypto space, because of retail demand, institutional adoption and innovation friendly policies. In this episode of Tokenize, I speak to Pedro Lapenta, Head of Research at Hashdex - the f...

Coco sold from Nigeria - is that something that could benefit from going onchain? What are the benefits? Why do we need a blockchain? And why Solana? These were the questions I had for Henry Duckworth, Co-Founder of Agridex. Agridex are taking a refreshing approach to address the inefficiencies in the food supply chain. So what is the secret sauce? They are starting with facilitating quick payments for farmers. They are not trying to get everyone on the incumbent supply chain onto their pla...

This is an age old question, Ethereum or Solana - which chain is better, who's got their product and ecosystem strategy right? Back in 2021, the Ethereum DeFi summer was on, and Solana was hailed as one of the contenders for the Ethereum killer narrative - not sure why one chain needs to get killed for another to shine, but hey, this is crypto. In this episode of the Tokenize podcast, I sit down with Christin Kim, VP of Research at Galaxy Digital, to discuss the topic of Ethereum vs Solana ...

To many, Crypto and Blockchain are still solutions looking for a problem. The number of Traditional Finance (TradFi) leaders moving into DeFi, however, indicates that there are global financial services challenges that Blockchain can solve. Welcome to season 2 of the Tokenize podcast, sponsored by Marinade. In this episode of Tokenize, I am joined by Hadley Stern, my co-host and the Chief Commercial Officer at Marinade. Together, we talk to Mark Richardson from Zodia Markets. Mark is the CEO...

Tired of overpriced whiskey? You’re not alone. The liquor market is a murky world of information asymmetry, where prices fluctuate wildly without rhyme or reason. Enter Baxus, a revolutionary platform leveraging Solana blockchain to bring transparency and efficiency to the spirits industry. In this episode of Tokenize, I sit down with the Tzvi (Todd) Wiesel, the CEO of Baxus to uncover how tokenizing whiskey can level the playing field, making this beloved drink more accessible ...

Many see DeFi as the future of finance, and the regulated financial industry we are in today is called as 'TradFi' by the crypto world. There are very few fortunate practitioners who play a role in bridging these two industries. In this episode of Tokenize, we speak to Sophie Bowler, Chief Compliance Officer at Zodia Custody. Sophie is certainly someone, who brings her years of experience as a compliance expert to bridge TradFi and DeFi. Zodia are backed by Standard Chartered and brin...

In this episode of Tokenize, I sit down with two Blockchain OGs. Efi Pylarinou and Anton Golub, who have been involved in the Crypto space for a good part of a decade. We structured this discussion such that each of us would bring our favourite three trends and one risk we are keeping a close eye on for this space. Interestingly enough, all three of us had the same first hot trend we are excited about. And Efi stole the show with explaining why the first hot trend - BUIDL - tokenizing money...

Yes, the approvals of the Bitcoin ETF was a major milestone for the crypto industry. But when we say Bitcoin ETF in this context, we mean the US based ETFs being approved by the SEC. But, the crypto ETF industry has had regional leaders for years now. 3iQ are pioneers within the crypto ETF industry and have been based out of Canada. In this episode of Tokenize, we have Greg Benhaim - Head of Funds at 3iQ talking to me about ETFs. Greg has the right mix of experience across traditional...

I recently joined Marinade Finance, leading their institutional growth capability. When I mentioned about it to my mom, I had to explain what Marinade did - and what crypto staking was. I had to go back to retail banking. A retail bank is healthier with more depositors and deposits, and the bank offers an interest on these deposits. It is a cringeworthy comparison if you are a native crypto person though. To celebrate my new job, and to explain to my own friends and family, what I was doing...

For years the Crypto industry has suffered from reputational issues. Despite several institutions trying to get the thumbs up from the US regulators for their Bitcoin ETFs, it was only in Jan 2024 that milestone happened. Yet, there have been several European and Canadian ETFs that have had their regulators' approvals for years now. They have managed several million dollars of cryptos through their ETPs all these years. I am glad to bring James Butterfill, Head of Research at Coinshares for...

It was not long ago that I was involved in the play2earn web3 gaming space Play2Earn founders were trying to solve a difficult problem - in fact a number of them. Onboarding gamers in millions and staying sustainable in a Play to Earn game economy. It was a struggle for startups with limited resources to take on that task. Unlike DeFi projects, gaming projects needed a number of skills from graphic designers, level designers, game strategists, economic modellers, smart contract engine...

What are Layer 2 Blockchains? 🎯 I recently read an article describing Layer 1 and Layer 2 Blockchains. If Layer1 Blockchain was a city, L2 chains are skyscrapers. Basically, L2s offer scale where L1s are starting to max out. Despite being L2 chains, sometimes these Blockchains punch harder than the L1 they sat on. Polygon developed by Polygon Labs is certainly one of them. They have been a lot more mainstream user focused than most other Blockchains. That is demonstrated by their commitme...