MoneyNeverSleeps
MoneyNeverSleeps is a weekly podcast hosted by Pete Townsend, who takes one big idea from a guest and explains it in under 15 minutes. Guests include founders, operators, and investors working across crypto, fintech, AI, and onchain finance. After more than 300 long-form episodes, the show has shifted to a sharper, faster format built for quick distribution of insights.
Episodes
![Where the Next Founders Come From: An Irish Story | Eoghan Powell | WorkIQ [EP. 327]](https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_nologo/3340909/3340909-1616601625153-b69ec6a3063bf.jpg)
Where the Next Founders Come From: An Irish Story | Eoghan Powell | WorkIQ [EP. 327]
Pete Townsend is joined by Eoghan Powell, who runs WorkIQ, a new innovation centre for founders and early-stage companies in Tallaght, on the edge of Dublin. This is Part 2 of a pair on the Irish startup scene, after Derek O'Doherty of West x West on the capital side. Where Derek covered how founders find the money, Eoghan goes underneath that, to where founders come from in the first place. T
Bring the Funders to the Founders | Derek O'Doherty | West x West [EP. 326]
Pete Townsend is joined by Derek O'Doherty, founder of West x West, the two-day tech, venture and culture festival in Castlebar, Mayo that brings Irish founders together with global investors. Derek spent thirty years in capital markets across London, Sydney and New York, and until last week a year inside Enterprise Ireland building international VC relationships for scaling companies. They ge
The Love-Hate of Tokenization: A Trader's Reckoning | Steve Whyman | [EP. 325]
Steve Whyman spent 20 years trading fixed income at Bear Stearns, ABN AMRO, and BlackRock, then ran digital assets and tokenization inside Fidelity International, before leaving in 2025 to build onchain-native. In this episode he makes the case for tokenization from the one seat almost nobody tells it from: the trading desk.What pulled him out was seeing blockchain put every instrument on the same
Containerized: How Tokenization Restacks Finance | Justin Swart | BITKRAFT Ventures [EP. 324]
Justin Swart, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, joins Pete Townsend to make the case that tokenization is doing to finance what the shipping container did to global trade (standardizing the box, not the cargo - h/t Aleks Larsen, Blockchain Capital), whether that's real containerization or just the same fragmentation problem moved onchain, how BITKRAFT's early bet on Roundhill's record-brea
Grit Don't Quit: How Beezie Got to Yes | Andrea Miele [EP. 323]
Andrea Miele is co-founder and CEO of Beezie, a gamified commerce platform Pete Townsend backed through Techstars in 2024, joins Pete to talk about why the "TCG" label never captured what Beezie actually is, what it took to raise a second round after some of the best-known funds in the space passed on her more than once, and what's next now that Beezie has expanded to Base and Solana
Agentic AI's Least Obvious Takeover Yet | James McCann | Everhaze [EP. 322]
James McCann, CEO and founder of Everhaze, joins Pete Townsend to talk about the 80/20 problem breaking PR agency economics, how an agentic layer turns hundreds of daily regulatory mentions into a 10-minute digest for a fintech client, where the human side of PR (the trust, the intros, the relationships) still does the heavy lifting, and why VC skepticism about AI-wrapped software didn't stop
Making Monzo Irish: The Playbook for a More Human Digital Bank | Monzo Bank Europe | Elaine Deehan [EP. 321]
Elaine Deehan is back on MoneyNeverSleeps for her third appearance, and this one has been a long time coming. As Ireland Country Manager of Monzo Bank Europe, Elaine is doing what she's always done: building something that makes banking feel genuinely human, and genuinely Irish.Download the Monzo app and open your account at: https://monzo.com/ieMonzo went fully live in Ireland on April 14th with
You Can't Code Your Way Out of Risk | Amor Sexton | Blockdaemon [EP. 314]
You Can't Code Your Way Out | Amor Sexton, BlockdaemonIn the last few weeks, Drift and Kelp lost $577 million between them. Neither one was a code exploit. Both were operational and governance failures.Amor Sexton, Chief Operating Officer at Blockdaemon, was last on MoneyNeverSleeps in October 2022 (EP 193) talking about how institutional client expectations of resilient processes would drive bloc
Founder Blind Spots: Hard Legal Lessons From the Edge | Sheila Lynch [EP. 320]
Sheila Lynch has been in the room for three of the biggest financial shocks of the last five years — COVID at CQS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine at BlackRock with live Eastern European assets in the funds, and the SVB collapse. When systems go under stress, what's actually there gets revealed. Culture, training, processes — either they hold or they don't.This episode is about what founde
What Crypto Already Solved for Enterprise AI | Rami Akeela | Nera Systems
How can you use the world's most powerful AI models without ever exposing your sensitive data? Rami Akeela has spent twenty years building privacy and cryptographic infrastructure that most people didn't know they needed yet, and now, as founder of Nera Systems, he's solving the conundrum that's about to define enterprise AI — the more valuable your data, the less you can use it. W
The Drive to Five: Unpacking Citi's $5.5T Tokenization Forecast [EP. 318]
Citi Institute's "Tokenization 2030: Wall Street OnChain" puts a number on it: $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030. Alejandro Gutierrez, who leads Solana Superteam Ireland and returns for another appearance on the show, joins me to stress-test that forecast — what Citi gets right with DTCC, NYSE and Nasdaq embedding tokenization into core infrastructure, and what we think it misses, includin
The Onramp Bringing TradFi Onchain | Martin Watkins | Montis [EP. 317]
Martin Watkins is CEO of Montis Group, which is building a blockchain-native central securities depository — the settlement and issuance layer that makes tokenized assets work as real financial products. With 30 years inside Euroclear, AtosEuronext and EY, Martin chose to build the infrastructure the market was missing rather than keep advising on the existing system. We get into what a digital CS
From Lean Startup to Incorruptible | Eric Ries [EP. 316]
Pete Townsend is joined by Eric Ries, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, for a conversation about the invisible structural forces that corrupt even the most mission-driven companies, and what founders can do about it before it's too late.Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay
Product Before Token | Sal Ternullo | SVRN + A100x Ventures [EP. 315]
Pete Townsend is joined by Sal Ternullo, CEO of SVRN and Managing Partner at A100x Ventures, for a conversation about how to tell the difference between a token that represents ownership of the value-creating thing and one that's an accelerant bolted onto something else.Sal has been underwriting these decisions at A100x at the pre-seed and seed stage. He walks through what's actually chang
Making Crypto Tax Efficient | Dan Gold | Stratiphy [EP. 313]
Dan Gold is founder and CEO of Stratiphy, and as far as anyone knows, the only platform offering tax-efficient crypto exposure to UK retail investors right now.The path got narrow fast. The FCA lifted the retail crypto ETN ban in October 2025. HMRC then closed the stocks-and-shares ISA route at the start of this tax year, leaving crypto ETNs eligible only for Innovative Finance ISAs, which no main
Sell More or Don't Bother - The Hard Truth of Tokenization | Alejandro Gutierrez | Solana Superteam Ireland [EP. 312]
Tokenization has a perception problem. The industry keeps selling it as an efficiency play — less friction, more transparency, better infrastructure. But if tokenization doesn't help you sell more of whatever you've tokenized, it's irrelevant.Alejandro Gutierrez leads Solana Superteam Ireland and has been building in this space since before most people knew what tokenization meant. Co-founder of t
VC 3.0: Venture Capital Reimagined | Brian McNulty | Lingfeng Capital [EP. 311]
Brian McNulty has been building toward this moment for a decade. When he co-founded the Post Trade Distributed Ledger Group with the London Stock Exchange back in 2015, he was helping the industry imagine what tokenized funds might one day look like. On April 21st 2026, he rings the bell at that same exchange to launch DVF — Lingfeng Capital's Digital Venture Fund — and the circle closes.In th
Who's Watching the Agent? | Rob Viglione | Horizen Labs [EP. 310]
Who's watching the agent? That's the question at the heart of this episode — and it's one that's going to define the next decade of finance.Rob Viglione spent his career figuring out how machines make decisions in high-stakes environments. From the US Air Force to Afghanistan, and now as Co-founder and CEO of Horizen Labs, he's building the cryptographic trust infrastructure fo
Talent is Equally Distributed, Opportunity is Not | John Hill | Whop [EP. 309]
Talent is equally distributed. Opportunity is not. John Hill, VP of Story at Whop, has spent his career watching founders in Cape Town, Lagos, and Medellín build something real — and then hit a wall the moment they try to get paid. Whop is an AI-backed platform where anyone can build a digital business in minutes, and in February 2026 it closed a $200 million investment from Tether to embed stable
Markets Never Close: The Case for Tokenized ETPs | Alex Pollak | 21Shares [EP. 308]
Markets don't close when the exchange does. They just move somewhere else.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend speaks with Alex Pollak of 21Shares about why crypto ETPs are not just surviving the rise of onchain finance — they're about to become part of it.Alex Pollak is Managing Director and Head of UK and New Markets at 21Shares, which provides the largest suite of cryptocu
Transparency Equals Liability: Why DeFi Strategies Get Copied | Matteo Manzi | Orion Finance (EP. 307)
DeFi transparency means every onchain trade is visible.Which means the moment a strategy works, the market can copy it.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend speaks with Matteo Manzi, co-founder and CEO of Orion Finance, about a structural challenge emerging in onchain asset management: the same transparency that makes blockchain markets verifiable can also expose the intellectual prop
Why Stablecoins and Banks Will Coexist | Emma Landriault | JPM Coin (EP. 306)
Money doesn’t become digital overnight.It becomes digital when the rails of finance begin to change.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend speaks with Emma Landriault of JPMorgan about why stablecoins and bank-issued deposit tokens may end up reinforcing, rather than replacing, each other.Emma Landriault is Executive Director at JPMorgan and global product lead for JPM Coin, a deposit
Digital Yuan: Trade, Gold, and the New Money Rails (EP. 305)
Money doesn’t become geopolitical overnight.It becomes geopolitical when the rails start to change.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend is joined by Sean Lee for a focused conversation on what China is really building with the digital yuan and why this moment is about infrastructure, not currency replacement.Drawing on recent meetings with the People’s Bank of China, Sean explains ho
Scaling Human Expertise in Crypto and AI
Scaling human expertise isn’t a technology problem — it’s a trust problem.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend speaks with Joni Pirovich, founder of Crystal aOS, about where crypto and AI quietly hit their limits — and why human judgment remains the real constraint as systems scale.Joni explains how her background in legal and regulatory work exposed a simple truth early on: expertis
Why Working Less Saved My Startup
Surviving the hard days of startup life isn’t about working more - it’s about building the right support around you.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend speaks with Ollie Walsh, founder of Pipit Global (exited to Qenta), about founder burnout, resilience, and what actually helps founders get through the hardest stretches.Ollie explains why cutting hours helped more than pushing harde
2026 Crypto Predictions: Why It All Gets Boring
Crypto doesn’t win in 2026 by being louder - it wins by becoming boring.In this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend is joined by Alejandro Gutierrez for a sharp set of 2026 predictions on where crypto, onchain finance, and AI actually go next, as the hype keeps fading and the infrastructure takes over.This is Alejandro’s 11th appearance on the show, and the first in the new era of MoneyNeve
Stablecoin Power Shift? Dollar Dominance, AI, and Europe’s Big Question (EP.301)
Why are stablecoins suddenly a geopolitical issue? Pete Townsend and Garrett Cassidy break down dollar dominance, EU pushback, AI’s role in digital money, and the future of global financial rails — in one fast 14-minute riff.We cover:• Why dollar-based stablecoins are spreading globally• Why European policymakers are pushing back• What Martin Wolf gets right (and wrong) in the FT• How AI could bec
The Next Episode - MoneyNeverSleeps 300: One Story Ends, Another Begins
Hey there, I’m Pete Townsend, and this is MoneyNeverSleeps - where we look inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at the crossover of startups, enterprise, finance, technology, and life as we know it.This one’s different.We’re live from The Podcast Studios at HeadStuff HQ in Dublin - the legendary former Westland Studios where artists like U2 and Hozier recorded in the past - for Episode 300.Seven
299: Norio Ventures’ Next Phase | Scaling Solana in Ireland | Stablecoin Growth | Tokenized Securities | Alejandro Gutierrez
Alejandro Gutierrez joins me to talk Solana in Ireland, stablecoins, and tokenized securities - plus I share the launch of Norio Ventures Fund I and what’s ahead for Episode 300.🔹 Scaling Solana Superteam Ireland and building community across the island🔹 Stablecoins moving mainstream + tokenized securities gaining momentum with Nasdaq🔹 My launch of Norio Ventures Fund I and what’s next for MoneyNe
298: Techstars Web3 Demo Day 2025: Live from NY Tech Week
This week, we're doing something different on MoneyNeverSleeps.You're coming inside the room for the Techstars Web3 Demo Day 2025, recorded live at Civic Hall in NYC during NY Tech Week, where we brought 5 incredible Web3 startups to the stage for a standing-room-only crowd of founders, investors, and builders.These aren’t founders chasing hype - they’re building with traction, with purpos
297: Grit, Mud & $400K | Jesse Phillips | Trustware Co-Founder & CEO
This week, I caught up with Jesse Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Trustware, and one of the most quietly determined founders I’ve ever backed.I invested in Jesse and his co-founder Jonathan Frazier through the Techstars Web3 accelerator in 2023, and since then, Trustware have done what most early-stage startups only dream of—shipping a real product, signing real customers, and generating real rev
296: The Unstoppable Founder | Allard Luchsinger from Techstars
This week, I sat down with my longtime Techstars colleague and friend Allard Luchsinger, Managing Director of the ABN AMRO + Techstars Future of Finance Accelerator in Amsterdam.Allard and I have been on each other’s investment committees for years, so this conversation hits a bit differently. We’ve traded notes across dozens of startups, and we’ve seen each other call the shots on what makes an u
295: VC For the Rest of Us | Shuttle | Scott Ashmore and Rob Halligan
This week, I’m joined by Scott Ashmore and Rob Halligan, co-founders of Shuttle - a platform giving individuals access to venture capital deals that have traditionally been reserved for the ultra-wealthy.Scott and Rob are best friends of 25 years, first-time founders, and the type of guys who rolled up their sleeves, built something that didn’t scale, tore it all down, and came back with something
294: Superteams, Startups and Stablecoins - Solana’s Bet on Ireland
This week, I’m joined once again by Alejandro Gutierrez, now officially leading Solana Superteam Ireland, a new initiative powered by the Solana Foundation to accelerate Web3 innovation across the entire island of Ireland.In this conversation, Alejandro and I go deep on how Solana Superteam Ireland came to life, why the momentum is building so quickly, and what this means for Ireland as a Web3 hub
293: Building Bridges: Simon Brown on Ethereum’s Cultural Gravity and Consensys Network State
Simon Brown joins me to share how his role at Consensys has evolved since his last appearance in January 2024 and why he’s now leading the charge on the Consensys Network State. It’s all about reconnecting the sprawl of the Ethereum ecosystem, reinforcing the cultural gravity that made Ethereum magical in the first place, and creating a more cohesive network of builders, founders, and ecosystem ex
292: Done Deal: Ollie Walsh on Pipit’s 12-Year Journey to Qenta
This week, I’m welcoming back Ollie Walsh, formerly the co-founder and CEO of Pipit Global, and now, the President of Qenta, following Qenta’s recent acquisition of Pipit. This is Ollie’s fourth appearance on MoneyNeverSleeps, making him the all-time guest record holder on the show.This conversation is a special one. Not only has Ollie been building something purpose-driven and globally relevant
291: Scaling Without VC: The Long Game with Fergal McGovern from VisibleThread
This week, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Fergal McGovern, founder and CEO of VisibleThread, for one of the most enlightening founder chats I’ve had in a while.Fergal’s been building for decades—starting with enterprise systems in the '90s, then launching and selling his first startup SteelTrace, and eventually pivoting VisibleThread through the 2008 crash into a trusted platform
290: The Ethical Hacker Mindset with Yev Broshevan from Hacken
This week, I sat down with Yev Broshevan, co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer at Hacken, a leading blockchain security firm focused on making Web3 a safer, more trustworthy place for everyone. Even better? Yev’s birthday is the same day this episode drops - happy birthday, Yev!Yev’s story goes way back to her early days as a cybersecurity engineer in Ukraine, where weak institutions
289: BlackRock’s BTC Flex | On-Chain Politics | Tokenized Fund Liquidity | SBF Still Scheming | Laura Walsh
This week, I’m joined by the ever-insightful and gloriously unfiltered Laura Walsh for a whirlwind spin through the crypto-political multiverse. From BlackRock’s Larry Fink flirting with Bitcoin as the next global reserve currency to Trump-World and Cowboy State stablecoins, this episode has more layers than a Siberian haplogroup.What’s inside?Larry Fink’s crypto come-up – From “index of money lau
288: Anthony Rose, SeedLegals | 99 Problems (But My Legals Ain’t One)
Anthony Rose is the co-founder and CEO of SeedLegals, the #1 platform for startup funding and legals in the UK. But long before he was helping tens of thousands of founders raise capital and avoid legal potholes, Anthony was in the digital trenches – first turning the music industry on its head with Kazaa, then helping reinvent online streaming at the BBC with iPlayer, before building and selling
287: Worlds Colliding | The Great Web3 Crossover with Alejandro Gutierrez
In this week’s episode, I’m joined by my good friend and returning guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez, and we get into the thick of what I like to call “worlds colliding” — the convergence of Web3 and TradFi that’s playing out in real time.From Robinhood stepping into prediction markets, to ETF filings for Solana, XRP, and even Sui, and even the Fed making front-page crypto headlines, this one'
286: Introducing the Techstars Web3 Accelerator Class of 2025
In this episode, we’re announcing the Techstars Web3 Accelerator Class of 2025 featuring founders from the six web3 startups that Techstars are investing in and accelerating in 2025 and beyond. Get ready for insights from:Satyam Agrawal, founder of 0xBridge, enabling seamless, non-custodial, and efficient two-way Bitcoin movement across blockchains, allowing users to mint 1:1 pegged BTC without r
285: Startup Smarts & Web3 Wisdom | Highlights from the Past Year
This week, we’re taking a look back at some of my favorite moments from the past year—the conversations that stuck with me long after we hit stop on the recording. If you missed them the first time around, now’s your chance to catch the highlights!And here’s the kicker—every one of the eight segments I pulled together features a mentor from the Techstars Web3 Accelerator that I lead. It’s part hig
284: Operation Chokepoint 2.0 | SEC’s Next Crypto Journey | Solana’s Growth | Alejandro Gutierrez
Alejandro Gutierrez joins me once again to dive into some of the biggest conversations in crypto right now, including:The fallout from Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and the debanking of crypto startups—what it means for the industry and how regulatory shifts in the U.S. and Europe could reshape the future of digital assets.Why Solana is having its moment—how Solana's DEX volume is outpacing Ethereum’s
283: Arabian Prince | The N.W.A Pioneer Empowering the Next Tech Generation
This week, we’re tapping into the intersection of hip-hop, technology, education and startups with a true pioneer—Arabian Prince.
If you know your rap history, you know Arabian Prince as one of the founding members of N.W.A, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rap group that redefined music and culture. But what you might not know is that he’s also a lifelong technologist, entrepreneur and futurist—a k
Trump Memecoin Mania, SEC Shakeups, and the Future of Finance with Laura Walsh
Laura Walsh returns this week to help me unpack the whirlwind of events shaking up crypto, finance, and politics—from Trump’s memecoin antics to regulatory shifts and the ever-increasing adoption of crypto by institutional finance.
Laura Walsh is a Techstars All Star Mentor, advisor, founder, web3 OG and friend, and in this episode, we dive into:
Trump’s Memecoin Playbook – How the former U.S. p
281: The Art of Startup Exits | Brian McDonald from Bay Advisory
Brian McDonald is a partner at Bay Advisory, a corporate finance firm helping founders navigate funding, scaling, and exiting their businesses. Brian first joined the show in 2021, and now, four years later, he returns to share updated insights on startup exits, valuations, and the evolving market landscape.
From the importance of staying true to your business identity to understanding deal struct
280: 2025 Predictions with Alejandro Gutierrez
In this special year-end episode, Pete Townsend is joined by returning guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez for a wide-ranging conversation about what the future may hold in 2025. Together, they explore transformative ideas, emerging trends, and groundbreaking technologies that could shape industries, disrupt norms, and redefine global innovation. From traditional finance’s embrace of tokenization to
279: Mastering the Startup Game | Nigel Eccles | Insights from a Serial Entrepreneur
This week, I interviewed serial entrepreneur Nigel Eccles. Known for his role as co-founder and former CEO of FanDuel, Nigel shares his incredible journey of launching and scaling multiple ventures, including his latest projects BetHog and BetDex. Nigel dives into the pivotal moments that defined his career, lessons learned from raising over $450 million in venture funding, and his insights into t
278: Money Talks w/ Mai Santamaria | The Butterfly Defect & the Future of Finance
This week, I’m joined by the brilliant Mai Santamaria for a far-ranging discussion inspired by Ian Goldin’s concept of The Butterfly Defect — a thought-provoking take on the risks and interconnectedness of our global systems. We dive into how this idea resonates with the evolution of crypto, web3, and the financial markets, and explore how the convergence of traditional and decentralized systems c
277: Straight Outta Crypton | Swarm and the Rise of RWAs | Timo Lehes and Philipp Pieper
This week. I sat down with Timo Lehes and Philipp Pieper, the co-founders of Swarm, the RWA (or Real World Assets) platform that brings unique digitization and trading solutions to the world of traditional and decentralized finance. Swam is the first organization in the world to offer digitized US treasury bills and Apple stock via a compliant and decentralized platform
From their personal journey
276: Sponstar and the Rise of Fractional Sponsorship with Manu | Exclusive Interview
This week, we’ve got an exclusive interview with Manu, the founder and CEO of Sponstar, the fractional sponsorship marketplace that’s leveling the playing field for small and mid-sized brands to access high-profile sponsorship opportunities. Manu’s entrepreneurial journey, from traditional finance to web3, led to the creation of Sponstar—a game-changing platform that bridges physical events and di
275: Web3 Fundraising Playbook | Pete Townsend | Raising Your 1st Round at the Frontier
We're diving deep into the fundamentals of fundraising for Web3 startups and early-stage ventures navigating their first capital raise. Fundraising is always challenging, but in web3, it’s a whole new frontier with unique hurdles. This session, originally presented at a Techstars Web3 Accelerator event, is packed with actionable insights that apply to most tech startups, especially those aiming to
274: Filmmaker to Founder | René Pinnell and Artizen | Funding Human Creativity
René Pinnell is the founder of Artizen, a match-funding platform for human creativity, helping creators match fund new projects at the frontier of art, science, technology and culture. With over two decades of experience, René has helped creators raise more than $50 million for groundbreaking projects, including securing the first seven-figure VR film deal at the Sundance Film Festival.
As an exec
273: Mission Minded Founder | Niall Dennehy & AID:Tech | Fixing Humanitarian Relief and Digital Identity
Niall Dennehy is an Irish entrepreneur and the co-founder and COO of AID:Tech, who are bringing traceability and transparency to the flow of funds for governments, NGOs and charities with their payments and digital identity infrastructure bridging web2 to web3.
In this episode, Pete Townsend reconnects with Niall to explore the groundbreaking journey of their mission-driven company since Niall wa
272: Scaling Environmental Impact: Luca Franchi’s Journey with Ambient and DePIN Innovation
Luca Franchi is the CEO and a co-founder of Ambient, a decentralized network of air quality sensors. Luca brings to Ambient over two decades of leading growth at several startups and large corporations in the US and Europe (O2 UK, Telefónica, Sky) across enterprise and consumer verticals.
In this episode, Luca shares his fascinating journey from working in startups and corporates like Sky in Sil
271: Luis Ramirez and Mawari | Building the 3D Internet
Luis Ramirez is the Founder and CEO of Mawari, a pioneer in cloud rendering and streaming technology. The Mawari team got started in Tokyo in 2017, and since then, the team has effectively built the foundation for the 3D internet.
Mawari enables real-time 3D content streaming to spatial computing devices like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 through a global network of GPUs, leveraging Web3
270: The Stablecoin Revolution with Linda Jeng | Unpacking Castle Island Ventures’ Latest Stablecoin Report
Linda Jeng is the Founder and CEO of Digital Self Labs, and she joins me in exploring the evolving landscape of stablecoins. Our discussion focuses on our key takeaways from Castle Island Ventures' latest stablecoin report, 'Stablecoins: the Emerging Market Story'.
Linda shares her background in financial regulation, blockchain, and AI, and offers critical insights into how stablecoins are reshap
269: Working in Web3 | Real World Asset Tokenization in Finance and Beyond | Guest Co-Host Alejandro Gutierrez
Alejandro Gutierrez, CEO of npayme Labs and co-founder of ETH Dublin joins me again as guest co-host this week. In this episode, we recap our recent panel on ‘Finding Web3 Talent’ at Dogpatch Labs, touching on market sentiment, the cyclical nature of crypto investments, and strategies for early-stage startups. We delve into the concept of real-world asset tokenization, highlighting key initiativ
268: Garvan Callan | Be the Change You Seek | Founder of OneZero1
Garvan Callan is the founder of OneZero1, a company that’s redefining how startups and enterprises alike can navigate the complex world of digital strategy and transformation. Garvan is a strategist, innovator and transformation advisor whose career spans leadership roles in major corporations and working hands-on with startups, giving him a unique perspective on both sides of the entrepreneurial
267: Mark McLaughlin | Co-Founder & CEO of Coras | Building & Fundraising at the Intersection of Web2 & Web3
Mark McLaughlin is an Irish entrepreneur who has been at the forefront of the ticketing industry since 2006. Mark is the co-founder and CEO of Coras, a company that's been revolutionizing the ticketing landscape with its powerful API solutions, boasting clients like Ryanair. But Mark’s journey doesn’t stop there—he’s now leading Coras into a new frontier with Fida, a cutting-edge loyalty platf
266: Crypto Politics: Unpacking Trump's Campaign Promises
Returning from our summer hiatus, Laura Walsh joins the show again this week as guest co-host as we dive into Crypto Politics by unpacking Donald Trump's campaign promises involving bitcoin and crypto.
Laura and I worked together closely in the first two years of the Techstars Web3 accelerator, and she is a Techstars All-Star Mentor, advisor, founder, web3 O.G. and friend.
In this episode, L
265: Keep it Simple | Pranav Kanade from VanEck on Liquid Venture Investing
Pranav Kanade, Portfolio Manager of VanEck's Digital Assets Alpha Strategy joins the show this week. VanEck is an American investment management firm headquartered in New York City with over $100bn in assets under management. Although they’re well known for their passive exchange-traded funds or ETFs, they also manage active portfolios such as Pranav’s Digital Assets Alpha Strategy.
Pranav K
264: Rita Martins | Author of Web3 in Financial Services
Rita Martins joins the show to discuss her new book, Web3 in Financial Services, which explores how blockchain, digital assets, and cryptocurrency are disrupting traditional financial services.
In this episode, Rita and I riff on her inspiration for writing Web3 in Financial Services and how she tackled the process of writing a book for the first time. We also talk about the present and the futu
263: Decentralization: Do Or Do Not | Kene Ezeji-Okoye and Stella Dyer (Millicent Labs) | Ilya Orlov (FileMarket) | Rita Martins (Author, Web3 in Financial Services)
This week, we dive into decentralization with Kenny Ezeji-Okoye and Stella Dyer from Millicent, Ilya Orlov from FileMarket, alongside Rita Martins, author and Techstars Web3 mentor. The discussion covers the journey from centralized to decentralized models, the impact of decentralization on users and developers, and insights into decentralization in financial services. The episode also includes a
262: Money Talks with Alejandro Gutierrez | ETH Dublin | ETH ETF | Web3 VC Climate | Crypto Politics
Alejandro Gutierrez, CEO of npayme Labs and co-founder of ETH Dublin joins me again as guest co-host this week. We start with Alejandro's Token2049 Dubai ‘tsunami-in-a-yacht’ story, the upcoming ETH Dublin 2024, and the Techstars Web3 demo day on June 6th in NYC. We then cover the challenging venture capital funding market for Web3 projects, political and regulatory developments in the U.S. co
261: Building the Aleph Zero Ecosystem with Antoni Zolciak and Piotr Saczuk
This week, we dive into Aleph Zero, a privacy-enhancing layer one blockchain renowned for prioritizing scalability, security and speed, with co-founder Antoni Zolciak and Head of Investments Piotr Saczuk.
Antoni discusses his transition from technology marketer to blockchain, emphasizing the humanist aspect of technology and the broad scope of blockchain's potential applications. Piotr shares
260: Money Talks with Mai Santamaria | The Human Side of Digital Identity
This week, I’m joined by guest co-host Mai Santamaria, the head of the financial advisory unit for the Department of Finance in Ireland. We delve into the world of digital identity, discussing the projects of World ID and TON, iris and palm scanning, and how humans are incentivized to digitalize their identity. Mai and I explore the broader implications of digital identity on economic freedoms and
259: Blockchain Going Mainstream | Andrea Miele - The Colony | Fabien Arneodo - SportSyncTech | Nick Mason - ProofSpace
I’m joined by three of the founders from the Techstars Web3 class of 2024 to help me identify the mainstream adoption path for blockchain technology, including Andrea Miele, Co-Founder and CEO of The Colony, Fabien Arneodo, Co-Founder and CEO of SportSyncTech, and Nick Mason, Co-Founder and CEO of ProofSpace.
As William Gibson, author of the 1984 book Neuromancer, famously said: “The future is alr
258: Money Talks with Gray Webb | Bitcoin as a Long-Term Holding | Stablecoins Mainstreaming
Gray Webb is co-founder and CTO at Liquibit Capital, and we kick things off with a look at what’s happened with BTC since the latest bitcoin halving. Gray and I then riff on the evolution of bitcoin into a long-term holding with huge opportunities for financial innovation. We also look at the mainstreaming of stablecoins as the killer app for crypto and how stablecoins have only scratched the su
257: How I Got To Techstars on a Flywheel | Hesus Inoma Interviews Pete Townsend | Venture With Hesus
This week, I’m sharing an episode of the ‘Venture with Hesus’ podcast that I recorded recently with the unstoppable Hesus Inoma, as he interviews me on lessons learned from being part of the startup ecosystem the last 8 years, the power of networks, 2022 token sale aspirations, customer validation, building for users vs building for yourself, usability vs. security in crypto, funding your go to ma
256: Common Misconceptions About Web3 | Julia Kemp | Daniel Uribe | Tiago Ferreira | Tom Daniel
I’ve brought together 4 of the founders from the Techstars Web3 class of 2024 to help me dispel some of the common misconceptions about web3 with the general public, including Julia Kemp, founder and CEO of Pawpass, Daniel Uribe, founder and CEO of GenoBank. Tiago Ferreira, co-founder and CEO of FairAI, and Tom Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Ember AI.
Even with an estimated 500 million crypto user
255: SBF Gets 25 Years | BlackRock’s Tokenized Fund | Copper’s Sushi Party | Fintech Funding vs. Crypto Bulls | Guest Co-Host Paul Smyth
In this Money Talks segment, Paul Smyth and I kick things off with a look at Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence before jumping to the brighter side of things with BlackRock’s new tokenized money market fund. We then time travel back to 2017 with Copper’s sushi party (or so we thought), and close things out by questioning the correlation between fintech funding and the crypto bull run.
Paul Smyt
254: Psychology of the Hacked | Niall Mackey from Topsec Cloud Solutions
Niall Mackey, the Commercial Director at Topsec Cloud Solutions, joins the show this week as we take an inside look at how businesses cope in the aftermath of a hack.
Niall is a tech industry veteran with over 35 years of experience with Topsec, Nokia, Interoute (now GTT) and Bank of America. With Topsec, Niall looks at commercial opportunities and influences the direction of service developmen
253: CBDC Adoption | Who's Ahead of the Game? | Joaquim Matinero Tor
Joaquim Matinero Tor joins the show this week as guest co-host as we look at the likely paths to the adoption of CBDCs (or Central Bank Digital Currencies) in the different countries around the world making progress with these digital versions of fiat currencies.
Joaquim Matinero Tor, or just “Quim” as he’s known to friends, is a lawyer with expertise in blockchain, digital assets, and web3 and
252: Meet the Techstars Web3 Class of 2024
This episode features an introduction to the 12 founding teams that form the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2024, with each of their founder/CEOs giving you a quick look inside what they're building.
Meet the companies!
Artizen - Match-funding platform for breakthroughs in human creativity.
Founder locations: USA / UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Rene Pinnell
The Colony - Shaping the fu
251: Money Talks with Laura Walsh | Farcaster, Digital Identity and Decentralized Social Media
Laura Walsh joins the show again this week as guest co-host as we explore the potential link between digital identity and decentralized social media through the lens of the Forecaster protocol, its challenges, user growth, and the future potential of a decentralized online ecosystem.
Laura is the Chief Marketing Officer and part of the founding team of Kaskade Finance, and we worked together close
250: The World is Yours | Brian Zwerner, W3 Studio & Beyond the Game Network | Investing in Diverse Founders, Sports and Web3
Brian Zwerner is the President and Founder of W3 Studio, and a VC and Founder of Beyond the Game Network. As the President and Founder of W3 Studio, a 501c3 non-profit venture studio, Brian and his team help diverse founders in Atlanta build startups in web3. W3 Studio partners with corporations and provides grants to startups to fund the launch of their first products.
With his role as a VC and
249: Bridging the Gap | Connor Murphy | One Problem, Two Ventures and Bridging Networks
This week’s guest is Connor Murphy, the CEO of Bridge. I met Connor at a Techstars event in Dublin in 2019 as he was just getting his latest venture off the ground in Bridge, and I started using the Bridge app within seconds of meeting him to help me bridge my network.
Connor Murphy is an all-around good guy, and in every conversation I have with with him, I end up connecting way more dots than I
248: Venture Investing and Connecting the Dots [Double Episode Replay]
We've remastered and packaged up two of our most popular episodes from 2023 that were originally going to be one episode looking at the venture capital mantra of ‘investing in lines and not dots’.
Both of these episodes were recorded in March 2023, after my team and I had just completed another 12 investments through Techstars, and I was itching to share some of the lessons learned.
Eoin Fit
