Insight
Crypto talent inflow from traditional finance and tech is a one-way ratchet
“All the talent gets attracted and comes into the space when there's bull markets, but they don't leave when there are bear markets. It's a one-way function from traditional finance and from tech into crypto, and that is one of the best data points that you can…”
Assertion Partly supported
Anchorage Digital holds the exact same federal OCC charter as JPMorgan Chase
“That's what ultimately led us on the path to become the first nationally chartered bank. So we are regulated by the OCC, and we're the only crypto bank that has this ability. And this charter is exactly the same charter as That puts us on the same footing as a…”
Opinion
Most early-stage venture investors lack independent conviction and rely on FOMO
“I think it's less about the crypto ecosystem, but just investment ecosystem in general. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is this FOMO driven investment culture. And the whole, the first lead starts the round type of situation where until you have a lead, n…”
Assertion Partly supported
Institutions used $50 consumer hardware devices for crypto custody in early 2017
“Early 2017, there were no institutional custodial solutions available. Investors were literally using consumer devices, 50 dollar devices.”
Insight
Diogo Mónica: Crypto self-custody demands maximum responsibility with zero recourse
“When you have this ability that crypto assets give you of being your own bank, of doing self custody, of having this very instruments, it really brings out this principle of maximum liberty and maximum responsibility. And the maximum responsibility is if you r…”
Insight
Crypto prime brokerage requires controlling private keys due to lack of clearinghouses
“Digital assets work in a very different manner. There is no DTCC. There's no central repository. Owning the private key of Bitcoin is ultimately owning the ability to own the asset and settle the asset. And so if you don't own the private key, you can't actual…”
Insight
Monica: Crypto lending, brokerage, and staking require controlling the custody stack
“The same way that I mentioned that you can't do lending if you don't own the custody stack, and you can't do brokerage if you don't own the settlement custody stack, you can't do staking, because staking comes from the same private key, same password that owns…”
Assertion Supported
Global commercial insurance capacity cannot cover all digital assets on crypto platforms
“Now, ultimately, you do have to realize that the insurance appetite is still growing, and so there's not enough insurance interest to actually cover for all of the assets that are currently on all of the different crypto platforms out there.”
Assertion Supported
Anchorage Digital became the first federally chartered bank to custody an NFT
“So there's a federally chartered bank custodying an NFT, the first digital asset, the first bank ever to have this type of custody of a digital asset, which is kind of cool.”
Insight
A three-month hiring freeze puts a company nine months behind on recruiting
“When you freeze hiring effectively, you sort of very quickly lose the muscle that you need to have a very high-performing Hiring machine. And even a gap of three months is enough for you to just lose the momentum, and then it becomes very hard to recover. And …”
Insight
Founders must optimize interview processes for the 90% of candidates they reject
“If you are hiring one out of 10 people that you interview, then that means that your interview process should be made in such a way that the other 90% of people that don't get accepted have a terrific experience and will tell their friends, hey, I wasn't able …”
Disclosure
Fund offered Mónica a 20% bounty to recover $1.5M Bitcoin passphrase
“I was doing consulting on my free time while at Talker, and there was a fund that reached out to me that had lost the passphrase to a 1.5 million dollar Bitcoin wallet and offered me 20% if I could break into it.”
Assertion Supported
Mónica: Tens of billions in crypto private keys are permanently lost
“There are tens of billions of dollars worth of
Private keys that have been lost in an irrecoverable fashion.”
Assertion Supported
Monica: Military uses hardware security modules to store nuclear launch codes
“In fact, hardware security modules is what it's used by the military to store nuclear launch codes, for example.”
Insight
New blockchains require bespoke technical integrations unlike traditional stock tickers
“When you integrate with the New York Stock Exchange, say that you have Amazon stock, and one day you have Amazon stock, and you integrate with the API, and you can trade it, and if Square, say, IPOs tomorrow, then you now just have a new ticker, and it's the s…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Anchorage Digital hired a recruiter before putting its co-founders on payroll
“The first person on the payroll at Anchorage, the first person that we hired before myself or Nathan were on the payroll was a recruiter. In fact, on our payroll system, I'm actually not number one. I'm number two, because this person had to set up the payroll…”
