The Evolution of Crypto Investing - [Web3 Breakdowns, EP. 07]

Today, I am joined by Ari Paul, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of BlockTower; a crypto hedge fund started in 2017. Before founding BlockTower, Ari spent time at the University of Chicago Endowment and, before that, at Susquehanna as a derivatives trader. Ari has been an active voice in the crypto space for years now, including on the original Hash Power series. With BlockTower being one of the original crypto funds, Ari is an ideal guest to talk about the evolution of crypto markets and where we are today. 

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

[00:01:50] - [First question] - How a political science major ended up in investing

[00:05:06] - His perspective on how public opinion has shifted towards embracing crypto

[00:09:58] - Whether or not owning crypto requires you to understand blockchains

[00:13:34] - Setting a valuation for cryptocurrencies 

[00:19:45] - How censorship-resistant currencies could empower bad actors

[00:27:50] - BlockTower’s scale and what kind of investments they make 

[00:31:41] - Thoughts on separating alpha from beta at BlockTower

[00:38:26] - Explaining the protocol risk of crypto to investors

[00:42:38] - Endowment adoption of crypto via fund-to-fund models

[00:45:36] - Differences between equities, tokens, and varying levels of ownership

[00:48:55] - His perspectives on various blockchain asset classes 

[00:54:30] - Parallels between the NFT and DeFi cycles

[01:02:03] - Narrative driven correlations between traditional assets and crypto

[01:05:44] - Defining the current cycle, where we are in it, and his allocations

[01:13:41] - What he’s most excited to see built over the next six months and six years

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