Ahmed is in one of his favourite places in the world, Shanghai, for the Shanghai Blockchain week. In this episode, he caught up with James Wo, CEO and Founder of Digital Finance Group.

The two delve right in to talk about James’ incredible ventures as well as latest topics in the crypto world including:

• Digital Finance Group’s $80 million venture fund which was raised from traditional capital in Shanghai (02:10)
• Bridging UAE and China: Why are they setting up an exchange in Abu Dhabi and how they got an In Principal Approval from the ADGM (04:50)
• How MENA is a big enough market for multiple exchanges to operate (09:00)
• Proof of work Vs Proof of Stake (12:30)
• Would you choose Bitcoin or Ethereum. Interesting thoughts from James! (15:15)
• Blockchain and crypto ecosystem in China (16:54)

All of the above and more is discussed on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word and hitting that subscribe button!

Special Guest: James Wo.

Ahmed catches up with Jamie in London to learn more about Outlier Ventures, how they’re structured, their investment thesis and what makes them different as a VC investing in this space.

Unlike other VCs, Outlier is funded by the capital of the co-founders, their team is mostly comprised of technical analysts and researchers in order to do a lot of applied learning as well as supporting the projects they invest in and contributing to the wider ecosystem building out open source networks. Jamie likes to describe Outlier as more of an incubator or a Venture as a Platform business where they reinvest all returns into the platform, where they recently committed to reinvesting $30 million of their own capital in the next 3 years to support investments.

Jamie then goes onto to discuss the concept of Convergence and what the Convergence stack is, how autonomous agents work, and how they’re trying to create the new data economy.
He talks about the evolution of the internet citing two main innovations; platforms and cloud. Like every other person who believes in the space, Jamie touches upon the current problems of the internet and these past innovations, in particular how big platforms and cloud providers have become. With European regulators trying to strive ahead to unbundle these mammoth platforms to protect the end consumer, Jamie shares how they are solving these problems and preparing for what consumers demand in the future.

If you’re a governance lover, Ahmed and Jamie discuss the concept of Pathway to Decentralisation. This is a really interesting concept and idea which proposes founders and projects to never codify assumptions early on and to keep some aspects centralised until their assumptions are validated. Jamie also shares their recent partnership with Smart Dubai and how they’re working together.

Ultimately, this awesome episode is all about the new internet, theorizing how it could play out and what's needed to realise the vision. What’s amazing is that this is all a socio-economic experiment and we have no idea what will happen.

All this and more on this week's episode of Encrypted.

Also, the legal bits for the soundtrack used in the podcast:
Music Credit: LAKEY INSPIRED

Track Name: Warm Nights

Music By: LAKEY INSPIRED @ https://soundcloud.com/lakeyinspired

Original upload HERE – https://soundcloud.com/lakeyinspired/warm-nights

License for commercial use: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported “Share Alike” (CC BY-SA 3.0) License.

Full License HERE – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

Special Guest: Jamie Burke.

Hubertus, who was part of the Tezos Foundation board transformation and is currently very active on Tezos operations, speaks to us about how he became involved in the project and gives a rundown on the early days of Tezos, its present status and also the future outlook.

He shares why Tezos was initially created, how they completed a mega crowdsale and the key features that distinguish Tezos from the rest. We also touch on the issues that the Tezos Foundation faced following the fundraise and how the team acted accordingly.

We also talk about the verticals in enterprise that Tezos will initially tackle which are: Digital Assets, Mobility and Gaming. And yes, Tezos are creating their own token security standard under the Digital Assets vertical, so do make sure to watch this space!

Hubertus being an investor himself at Enabling Future, shares his investment experience in both the start-up sphere and blockchain/crypto sphere and what he typically looks out for in projects.

All this and more on this episode of Encrypted. Please subscribe if you still haven’t and remember to rate and review the show!

Special Guest: Hubertus Thonhauser .

We find out what Ginco Investments is, their role in the entrepreneurship ecosystem and their enterprise-focused investment thesis. Being the first Emirati family to operate a pure play early-stage VC, they have also ventured into the blockchain space.
We dig deep into the different investments they have made, in particular, their blockchain investments, which revolve heavily around the verticals of financial services, developer toolsets, and broad enterprise use cases.

We also talk about what crypto related services will pave the way in the short term to medium term future, such as crypto asset management and custody solutions that hedge funds and professional investors inherently need.

Gary also shares his views and insights on how start-ups should approach this region and how they should set their expectations when starting in this new market.

Finally, we also talk about the regional banking system, how they should improve and change and why on earth we are still using paper to change small details in our bank accounts!

If you enjoyed this episode, do not forget to hit that subscribe button and do remember to rate and review the show. Every little helps!

Special Guest: Gary Sheynkman.

Fares first introduces Wamda Capital and shares the investments they have made in the blockchain space as well as thoughts about regulation in the region and how regulation is being shaped by the blockchain start-ups they are investing in.

The three then start of the discussion on this week’s news starting with Japan’s approach to tackle illicit crypto activities, and how as a developed market it is increasingly active in regulating this industry. They also touch on how crypto is becoming less and less used for illicit purposes as it actually makes it easier to get caught using crypto for fraud!
We discuss a wide range of topics from this piece; from bitcoin maximalism, to working with regulators, and to a new generation of regulated exchanges implementing pieces of software that allows to track the origin of funds of cryptocurrencies and tokens.

In the next news article, Ahmed opens up the discussion about a crypto start up called Dfinity which just raised $102 million and what this means for investments going forward, particularly in a bear market.

Then we discuss the findings of one particular research showing that from the top 100 cryptocurrencies on coinmarketcap, only 36 projects have a working product with users. Fares shares a very interesting perspective from the VC angle and argues the importance of protocol development first before assessing working products.

Ahmed and Faisal also question the viability of the current VC model, and Fares shares how he thinks the VC model will change in the future.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Articles links:
Japanese Police to Fund Crypto Criminal Tracking Tool
Cryptocurrency Start-Up Dfinity Raises $102 Million to Build Internet Computer
Cryptocurrencies in the top 100 with working products
Mount Gox bitcoin theft flow of funds- you can toggle your mouse to track where the bitcoins went after they were stolen

Special Guest: Fares Ghandour.