Shows
Around the CoinGrowing a Crypto Podcast in 2024 - Mike Townsend | ATC #493 In this podcast episode, Stephen Sargent, the new host of the Around The Coin podcast, engages in a deep conversation with former host Mike Townsend. Mike is the founder of Grupo, a professional development community for remote software developers. They discussed transitions, entrepreneurship, founding and selling businesses, the state of media, and future predictions for the podcast. The session reveals Mike's journey from his early entrepreneurial days, the challenges he has faced, how he overcame them, and his perspective on the changing landscape of media.
2024-01-0556 minAround The CoinGrowing a Crypto Podcast in 2024 - Mike Townsend | ATC #493 In this podcast episode, Stephen Sargent, the new host of the Around The Coin podcast, engages in a deep conversation with former host Mike Townsend. Mike is the founder of Grupo, a professional development community for remote software developers. They discussed transitions, entrepreneurship, founding and selling businesses, the state of media, and future predictions for the podcast. The session reveals Mike's journey from his early entrepreneurial days, the challenges he has faced, how he overcame them, and his perspective on the changing landscape of media.
2024-01-0556 min
Around the CoinArnab Naskar, Co-Founder of STOKRIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Arnab Naskar, Co-founder of STOKR, the EU’s pioneering digital marketplace for alternative assets, where smart investors connect with and fund forward-thinking founders. Arnab oversees STOKR’s business strategy and is dedicated to promoting open and decentralized capital markets. He is a regular speaker at major blockchain conferences and webinars in Europe. Coming from a legal background, Arnab has a passion for the intersection of law and tech and has led and contributed to blockchain policy discussions as a member of INATBA, an association focused on advising lawmakers and regulators with regards to thei...
2022-01-091h 03Around the CoinJack O'Holleran, CEO / co-founder SKALE In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Jack O'Holleran, CEO/Co-Founder Skale. Jack is a veteran entrepreneur with a deep background in machine learning, AI, security, and blockchain. Prior to co-founding SKALE, Jack was a founder at multiple Silicon Valley based enterprise technology companies including IncentAlign, a digital currency platform, and Aktana, the leading Machine Learning Analytics platform for the Life Science Industry. He also held an executive role at Good Technology which was acquired by Motorola for ~$500M and subsequently held executive positions in Motorola. Jack has been actively involved in cryptocurrencies and decentralization as an investor since early 2013 and...
2021-12-3057 minAround the CoinLiran Zelkha, Cofounder and CTO of LiliIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Liran Zelkha, Co-Founder and CTO of Lili, the all-in-one banking app designed for freelance workers. He has over 20 years of tech industry experience, including as a freelancer, which inspired him to create a solution for independent workers’ unique pain points. From strategic management to hands-on coding, Liran specializes in turning lofty ideas into functioning businesses. Prior to founding Lili, Liran served as CTO and VP, Research and Development for Pepper, the first and only challenger bank in Israel. Liran was also CEO and CTO at tech consulting firm Tona and owner / co-CEO of...
2021-12-271h 04Around the CoinSohaib Zahid, CEO of Railz Financial Technologies Inc.In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sohaib Zahid, Chief Executive Officer at Railz. Sohaib is a serial entrepreneur with a decade of successful experience in building teams, products, and companies. He focuses on Sales and Marketing. Prior to founding Railz, Sohaib founded Vanhawks, where he led product, sales, and operations. Vanhawks was acquired in 2016. Originally from Pakistan, Sohaib dropped out of medical school to pursue entrepreneurship and is a strong believer in open access to data. Outside of work, Sohaib enjoys time with his family, and nerds out on air-cooled engines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...
2021-12-201h 07Around the CoinTron Black, President of Ravencoin FoundationIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Tron Black, President of Ravencoin Foundation. Tron is a freedom advocate, crypto developer, entrepreneur, and founder of two startups that were sold to publicly traded companies. Tron holds a BS in Computer Science and a Master's of Business Administration. Since early 2013, Tron has been working in the cryptocurrency space as a miner, developer, investor, and trader. He was one of the first five employees of t0 (tZero), and helped issue the first publicly traded SEC acknowledged parallel crypto-equity for Overstock.com, and issued the world's first crypto bond offering. He worked for ANX International, a...
2021-12-171h 02Around the CoinRichard Groome, CEO of ALT 5 SigmaIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Richard Groome, executive chairman, and CEO at ALT 5 Sigma. He leads the firm’s global business and support to clients worldwide including financial institutions, institutional investors, and corporate clients. After 36 successful years in the securities industry, starting two leading securities firms from scratch, completing over 600 financings raising over $4 billion, and sitting on 30+ boards, today Mr. Groome is applying his expertise to grow companies seeking to make a difference in the world. He believes this is achieved through innovation, perseverance, and good governance scaled to a global level.He is a market disrupter ac...
2021-12-161h 03Around the CoinMichael Weisz, Founder & President, YieldstreetIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Michael Weisz, Co-founder and President of Yieldstreet, the only multi asset alternative investment platform for retail investors. As a seasoned Alternative Investments expert, Michael has created access to investments spanning art, real estate, private business credit, litigation and marine financing, structured notes, and more previously only available to ultra high net worth individuals and institutions. At Yieldstreet, Michael has led the company’s investment strategy and product development as well as the strategic vision of Yieldstreet from inception to 325,000 members on the platform, with more than $2.2B invested and $1B returned to investors in...
2021-12-151h 01Around the CoinWeiwu Zhang, CTO of Smart Token LabsIn our latest episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Weiwu Zhang, CTO of Smart Token Labs. Zhang has over 9 years of experience in blockchain technology, alt currency design and trading algorithms. He has served as blockchain architect for CBA (largest Australian bank), held the R3 global architect office, and also architected 3 altcoins and 7 ICO projects.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-12-131h 03Around the CoinToby Russell, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of ShiftIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Toby Russell, Co-CEO of Shift, the platform to make buying and selling cars simple and accessible to everyone. Previously, he was Managing Vice President of Digital at Capital One, where he led the bank’s consumer technology transformation, including building the mobile capabilities that drive the majority of Capital One’s new customers and interactions. In 2007 Toby co-founded Taxi Magic, the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology. He also led a $12 billion renewable energy and efficiency investment program for the US Department of Energy and has been a Project Leader at the Boston Cons...
2021-12-131h 08Around the CoinBrad Levy, CEO of SymphonyIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Brad Levy, CEO of Symphony, the leading financial markets’ infrastructure and technology platform. A driven and dedicated leader with decades of experience in the financial services industry, Brad has played an integral role in the growth of Symphony, and particularly in establishing Symphony’s platform as critical market infrastructure in financial services, in an unprecedented time. Under his leadership, as well as that of former CEO David Gurlé, Symphony saw record growth as the company swiftly supported the world’s leading financial institutions in their transition to remote work without interrupting their operations.Learn more ab...
2021-12-081h 18Around the CoinBen Jorgensen, CEO and Co-Founder, Constellation NetworkIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Ben Jorgensen, CEO, and Co-Founder of Constellation Network, the first scalable decentralized base layer zero infrastructure built for speed, security, and economical and technical scalability. Constellation Network is a framework that allows everyone to build and conduct a business on the blockchain. Their focus is to be the first decentralized ecosystem that enables developers to build web 3.0 applications with added security to data transportation and security. Existing blockchain technology does not support the speed, scalability, and economic incentive needed to build applications with robust business logic. Constellation is its own ecosystem, comprising H...
2021-12-081h 08Around the CoinAndrew Jamison, CEO & Co-Founder at ExtendIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Andrew Jamison, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Extend, a fintech that provides digital payment infrastructure for financial institutions to enable modern card experiences. Prior to Extend, Andrew was the head of B2B Corporate Payments Products at American Express with a mandate to drive digital payment innovation and adoption. Over the course of six years at Amex Andrew doubled B2B payment volumes by launching and scaling new capabilities and platforms. Prior to American Express, Andrew spent eight years managing global SAP deployments for large multinational corporations.Learn more about your ad choices. V...
2021-12-0755 minAround the CoinBrett Goldstein, Co-founder Launch HouseIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brett Goldstein, Co-Founder of Launch House, a community for founders and creators. Prior to Launch House, Brett was a Product Manager at Google, where he worked cross-functionally with engineering, design, marketing, machine vision research, and art as well as served as an M&A strategy analyst for the CEO of Google. He then took the role of Senior Product Manager at Clearbit where he was responsible for Platform (APIs & Infrastructure) and Integrations teams. Here, he took two products from concept to launch that drove 90% retention for >60 enterprise customers accounting for over $1.5M ARR a...
2021-12-051h 09Around the CoinOded Zehavi, CEO & Co-founder at Mesh PaymentsIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Oded Zehavi, the Founder & CEO of Mesh Payments, and board and advisory board member of several Israeli FinTech companies. Previously, he served as Payoneer's Chief Revenue Officer. Prior to Payoneer, Oded served as the business development director for PayPal, where among other responsibilities he led the inception of the PayPal services in the Middle East and Africa. He also held leadership roles at several technology, banking and software companies, focusing on sales and customer relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-3053 minAround the CoinSteve Berneman, CEO of Blueprint TitleIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Steve Berneman, the CEO and Co-founder of Blueprint. He is a former practicing attorney and a serial entrepreneur. Prior to starting Blueprint, Steve was the Co-founder and CEO of Overdog, a gaming company acquired in 2016. Steve formed the thesis for Blueprint while an Entrepreneur in Residence at Vanderbilt.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-2853 minAround the CoinPaul Garibian, President of NotaIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Paul Garibian, President of Nota. Fintech expert, entrepreneur, and executive Paul has spent nearly 20 years helping financial institutions drive product development and grow revenue and market share. Nota is an innovative legal industry fintech solution powered by M&T Bank that adds value through increased productivity and decreases compliance risk. Built primarily for small law firms and solo attorneys, Nota helps simplify trust account management, making it seamless and efficient for attorneys to adhere to accounting requirements.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-2556 minAround the CoinBrenda Loya, CEO and Founder of TellorIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brenda Loya, the CEO and one of the founders of Tellor. She's an economist and a self-taught solidity developer. Previously, she was an economist and supervisor at the U.S. Department of Labor, developing and leading teams to develop statistical software for principal economic indicators. She joined the space initially by helping to develop a derivatives protocol, Daxia, which had an oracle problem. We couldn’t find one that was decentralized so we built one and it became Tellor!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-2548 minAround the CoinStephen Stonberg, CEO of Bittrex GlobalIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Stephen Stonberg, CEO of Bittrex Global, one of the most reliable and secure cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Stephen has spent his entire 25-year career working in financial markets in London and New York. He left the traditional world of finance to get involved in the crypto and blockchain industry.Prior to Bittrex Global, Stephen joined the Investment Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. Stephen advised executives, entrepreneurs, and foundations on all items of economic impact to their balance sheet. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he advised some of the world’s most so...
2021-11-241h 00Around the CoinJoshua Tobkin, CEO and Co-Founder of SupraOraclesIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with the architect of the Supra BFT Consensus Algorithm. Blockchain Designer & Developer, Joshua Tobkin is a Meta-Game Theorist behind projects such as Unitychain.io's venture projects and more recently SupraOracles.comA lateral thinker, creative, and curiously dyslexic, Josh has been building SaaS companies for the last 10 years. Josh is a well-known distributed ledger technology architect.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-2356 minAround the CoinTrent Sorbe, Founder of Central PaymentsIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Trent Sorbe, President and Founder of Central Payments & Co-Founder of Falls Fintech. He is an architect of Central Payments’ Open*CP Fintech API Marketplace. With more than 28 years of debit, credit, and prepaid payments experience, Trent is responsible for products garnering nine Paybefore Awards, three of which garnered Best in Class or Category. He is also the inventor on 14 patents related to consumer financial services. Trent previously held senior positions at three nationwide payment card issuers and the FDIC. In 2016, Trent was named to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Community Bank Advisory Council and c...
2021-11-2255 minAround the CoinVivek Krishnamurthy, Principal at Commerce VenturesIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Vivek Krishnamurthy, Principal at Commerce Ventures, an early stage FinTech, InsurTech & RetailTech focused fund based in San Francisco. The Fund's investments include Marqeta, Bill.com, MX, Socure, Forter, and +90 others. At Commerce Ventures, Vivek primarily focuses on vertical FinTech applications, core financial services enablement technologies and insurance data & infrastructure platforms. Prior to CV, he was a member of the investment banking team at Financial Technology Partners where he worked on private placement and M&A transactions for growth and late-stage FinTechs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-191h 07Around the CoinMatt Spoke, CEO and Founder of MovesIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Matt Spoke, the Founder and CEO of Moves, a social finance product for independent 'gig' workers across the U.S. Matt founded the company on a belief that the gig economy isn't working for its workers and by building a product that solves their systemic financial challenges, millions of independent gig workers can come together to improve and own the future of the gig economy. Founded in August 2020, Moves has rapidly grown to become one of the leading financial products for gig workers in the U.S with members across all 50 states...
2021-11-171h 11Around the CoinRyan Cantor, Chief Product Officer at ThryvIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Ryan Cantor, Chief Product Officer at Thryv. He leads the Thryv product and engineering teams and is responsible for the vision and execution of platform improvements and enhancements in alignment with corporate strategy.Ryan joined Thryv after working with N2 Publishing leading their product effectiveness and scaling improvement efforts. Prior to his tenure at N2 Publishing, Ryan served as Vice President/GM at hibu, where he led the explosive growth of a new community-focused product to over $50M ARR in under 18 months.Before joining hibu, Ryan worked as a general manager for...
2021-11-1751 minAround the CoinSpartak Buniatyan, Founder and CEO of PayEngineIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Spartak Buniatyan, Founder & CEO of PayEngine where he oversees the business and development operations. Spartak has been in the technology development field for over 20 years with heavy emphasis on developing technologies for large-scale vertical software-as-a-service enterprises with a particular focus on payments infrastructures.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-11-1057 minAround the CoinRan Goldi, CEO of First DAGIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Ran Goldi, CEO of First Digital, where he has been creating blockchain-related products and services since 2017, focusing on payment acceptance for stablecoins and CBDCs. Prior to establishing First, Goldi co-founded and managed an algorithmic trading company, acted as VP in a company he took public in the London Stock Exchange, and acted as the head of IT investments for a private equity fund.First Digital enables merchants to succeed in expanding globally and growing revenue through an innovative, global digital payments platform. From Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), stablecoins, Diem, and more we...
2021-11-0954 minAround the CoinG. Scott Paterson, Executive Chairman of FutureVaultIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews G. Scott Paterson, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of FutureVault. Mr. Paterson, 57, is a prolific entrepreneur, financier and investor focused on technology and media. He is also the Chairman of QYOU Media (TSXV:QYOU), and Lead Director of Giftagram. Mr. Paterson began his career as a financial advisor in 1985 becoming the head of Dominion Securities Pitfield’s President’s Club (the top producer of all advisors in their first three years in the business). Mr. Paterson was later recruited to Yorkton Securities where he built the company, initially as Executive VP then as Chair & CEO, into Canad...
2021-11-081h 00Around the CoinNader Al-Naji, Creator of DeSoIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Nader Al-Naji, creator of DeSo. His interest in crypto began in 2012 when he mined approximately 23 Bitcoins on free campus electricity while studying computer science at Princeton. After that, Al-Naji worked in high-frequency trading at D. E. Shaw and as an engineer on Google Search prior to raising $133 million for Basis, his previous company, which was building a decentralized dollar. After Basis, Al-Naji set his sights on decentralizing social media. He created BitClout, a high-profile social app. BitClout was an early prototype that allowed Nader to test and iterate on the DeSo blockchain...
2021-11-0755 minAround the CoinCarl Memnon, COO and Co-Founder of GrainIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Carl Memnon, the COO, and Co-Founder of Grain. Previously, Carl worked at Goldman Sachs, KCG Holdings, and, most recently, as Associate General Counsel at Virtu Financial, a global market-making and execution services firm. Carl's practice focused on Securities, Corporate Finance, and Commercial Transactions in Capital Markets, Technology, and M&A. Carl is passionate about new innovations in fintech that provide inclusivity. In his spare time, he likes to go on runs and take trips to the park with his wife and two kids. He also binge-watches sci-fi shows. Carl earned his B.S...
2021-11-0455 minAround the CoinChris McCann, General Partner, Race CapitalIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Chris McCann, General Partner at Race Capital, entrepreneur, and community builder. Prior, Chris founded and led the community program at Greylock Partners, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm with $3.5 billion under management which led investments in Facebook, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Coinbase, among others. Chris has an angel portfolio of over twenty investments within the fintech and blockchain verticals including Binance, Solana, Serum, among others.Before he joined the firm, he was the co-founder and CEO of StartupDigest – of the earliest technology-focused publications – which he grew from zero to over one million subscribers before being acqu...
2021-11-031h 06Around the CoinPat White, Co-Founder and CEO of BitwaveIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Pat White, Co-founder and CEO of Bitwave, the world's first Enterprise Digital Assets Platform bringing cryptocurrencies, tokens, and other digital assets to the world's largest companies. Bitwave helps with accounting, taxes, AR / AP, secure DApps, and more.Pat was formerly a principal engineer and chief architect on Cisco Spark. Formerly, he was the CEO of Synata, a San Francisco startup that provides enterprise search software to cloud-enabled businesses. Pat has spent the last decade building software at companies such as Intuit, Microsoft, Ally Software, VistaConnect, S3/Diamond Multimedia, Fortify Software (now HP Security...
2021-11-0257 minAround the CoinEkaterina Romanovskaya, CEO and Founder of A.IDIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Ekaterina Romanovskaya, CEO and Founder of A.ID, an Identity & Compliance platform with a focus on high-risk customers. She has previously co-founded Nimb, a ring with a personal security system embedded into it.Before diving into entrepreneurship Ekaterina had been doing marketing communications, then started in a retail bank as a PR manager, and a few years later ran Public and Investor Relations in a private equity fund. She assisted key IPOs, co-founded a successful satirical project on Twitter (persona @kermlinrussia) but never stopped exploring.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
2021-10-311h 02Around the CoinKendall Cole, Head of Product at NEAR Protocol & Co-Founder of Proximity LabsIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Kendall Cole, Head of Product at NEAR Protocol, a base-layer blockchain designed to provide the ideal environment for dapps by overcoming some of the limitations of competing systems—such as low throughput, low speeds, and poor cross-compatibility. Kendall is in the process of transitioning out of his current role with NEAR to co-found Proximity Labs, a private incubator and research firm focused on the ecosystem of the NEAR Protocol.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-10-2155 minAround the CoinMatthew Schultz, Chairman of CleanSpark IncIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Matthew Schultz, Chairman and Director of CleanSpark. He served as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer from 2014 through October 2019 and has been involved in many capacities with several publicly traded companies. He served as the President and CEO of Amerigo Energy, Inc., creating multiple syndicated offerings of developmental oil production programs, as well as overseeing the operations from permitting through production. Since 1999, he has assisted numerous development and early stage companies to secure financing and experience significant growth. As the President of Wexford Capital Ventures, Inc., he was instrumental in funding companies bo...
2021-10-201h 05Around the CoinDan Martell, CEO/ Founder of SaaS AcademyIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Dan Martell, CEO, and Founder of SaaS Academy. Dan is a serial entrepreneur having built several multi-million dollar technology companies starting at the age of 17. He's also an award-winning angel investor, having invested in companies like Intercom, Udemy, Hootsuite, Unbounce. Today he's an executive coach focused exclusively on B2B SaaS working with the founders from ClickFunnels.com, Proposify.com, Carrot.com, and many others to help scale their businesses. He lives in Kelowna, British Columbia with his wife, Renee, and two boys.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...
2021-10-0843 minAround the CoinMicha Benoliel, CEO and Co-Founder at NodleIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Micha Benoliel, the CEO and Co-Founder of Nodle, a privacy-first, decentralized wireless network for connecting Internet of Things devices and sensors to the Internet, and Coalition Network, a non-profit foundation that provides open-source, secure exposure notification solutions for governments and enterprises to protect their citizens during pandemics. The Coalition App, the open-source Whisper Tracing Protocol, and the award-winning Nodle M1, a social distancing wearable device, were developed by Micha, the Nodle team, and a few independents. Previously, Micha enabled Skype to launch Skype In And Skype Out and built several ventures and products...
2021-10-0657 minAround the CoinMatt Marcus, Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder of Modern TreasuryIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Matt Marcus, Chief Product Officer & C0-Founder of Modern Treasury. Matt was responsible for building the payment operations system at LendingHome, which has funded over $3 billion in mortgage loans. When they really started to scale, the number of payments we made exploded — from hundreds to tens of thousands per month — and that’s when they started uncovering the many issues that we now call “payment operations.” Realizing that thousands of companies build similar, often under-supported systems, Matt and two friends (Dimitri Dadiomov and Sam Aarons) launched their company, Modern Treasury.In operation since 2018, Modern Treasury’s...
2021-10-0554 minAround the CoinMarcus New, CEO of InvestXIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Marcus New, CEO of InvestX. Marcus New has an accomplished career in the private and public financial markets that spans over three decades and is a pioneer in the pre-IPO asset class. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of InvestX Capital, a trading platform that delivers access and liquidity to the growth equity asset class and empowers the sell-side to invest and trade in institutional-quality private equity. InvestX's investment portfolio includes Palantir, Airbnb, Sofi, Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, Spotify, Dropbox, DocuSign, 23&me, and other global category leaders. Through Mr. New’s fami...
2021-10-041h 06Around the CoinVictor Zhang, CEO of AlphaWalletIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Victor Zhang, the CEO of Alphawallet. Alphawallet is the maker of AlchemyNFT, an attestation and remixing protocol for NFTs. One of its first iterations is AutographNFT.io, a platform where anyone can request a verified autograph, authenticated via Twitter profile. The technology that makes this happen is TokenScript, which transforms NFTs by adding utility so that anyone can remix, combine or otherwise iterate NFTs. Investors include Mark Cuban, Crypto.com Capital, Framework Ventures and Mechanism.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-10-031h 01Around the CoinCharlie Silver, CEO of Permission.ioIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Charlie Silver, CEO of Permission.io. Charlie is a successful entrepreneur who has founded and exited 5 startups in technology, media, and finance. He co-founded Onramp Invest, Blockforce Capital, and Reality Shares which created 7 publicly traded ETFs including the first Blockchain equity ETF(BLCN). In the dot-com era, he built RealAge which was successfully sold to Hearst for over 9 figures.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-09-2947 minAround the CoinPat Duffy, Co-Founders of The Giving BlockIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Pat Duffy, Co-founder of The Giving Block. Pat along with Alex Wilson created The Giving Block in 2018, developing the leading solutions that charities, universities and other nonprofits use to fundraise cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. They quickly established themselves as the leading crypto fundraising experts through the explosive growth of their programs at Save the Children and United Way Worldwide. Over the last four years, The Giving Block has turned cryptocurrency into the fastest growing donation method, founding the industry’s giving pledge, giving days and crowdfunding platform. Today, Pat, Alex, and their team are ho...
2021-09-261h 02Around the CoinAlex Adelman, CEO & Co-founder of LolliIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Alex Adelman, CEO & Co-founder of Lolli, a rewards application that lets people earn bitcoin when they shop online from 1,000+ top merchants. Alex was previously the CEO & Co-founder of Cosmic, the leading e-commerce gateway, which was acquired by PopSugar in ’15 and then by Ebates in ’17. Alex positioned Cosmic and Lolli as high growth, high value, and industry-leading technology companies, establishing strategic partnerships with key partners in e-commerce. Alex was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Retail & E-Commerce. His work has been featured on WSJ, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, TechCrunch, Cheddar, MarketWatch, and Digiday and...
2021-09-2155 minAround the CoinShmulik Fishman, CEO and Founder of ArgyleIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Shmulik Fishman, the founder, and CEO of Argyle, which provides a universal, trusted platform for accessing employment records with worker consent. He started Argyle in 2018 after experiencing the complexity of work verification for his previous venture STRATIM. Shmulik is a published author and has an undergraduate degree from Hampshire College where he studied philosophy, as well as a degree in business from Columbia University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-09-2058 minAround the CoinWagner Ruiz, Co-founder and Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of EBANXIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Wagner Ruiz, the Co-Founder and Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of EBANX. Wagner focuses on risk management, strategic partnerships, and regulatory operation, which are the essential pillars in the growth of the fintech company. Prior to being CRO, Wagner served as EBANX's Chief Financial Officer for almost nine years, since its founding in 2012. As CFO, he designed all of EBANX's cross-border payments infrastructure and all financial architecture linking EBANX to the world. Wagner studied Economics at Mackenzie University in Brazil and is a specialist in fintech finance regulatory systems, risk and compliance, and b...
2021-09-1758 minAround the CoinGershie Vann, Founder and CEO, Magma Capital FundsIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Gershie Vann, the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Magma Capital Funds. Gershie provides vision to the broader organization and implements strategic investment decisions in accordance with Magma’s investment approach and philosophy.Gershie has previous professional experience utilizing data analytics and process design. Gershie holds a BS in Finance from Touro College and can be found running, reading The Economist, and spending time with his wife and two daughters.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-09-151h 05Around the CoinCraig J. Lewis, Founder/CEO of Gig WageIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Craig J. Lewis, the Founder and CEO of Gig Wage, a venture capital backed SaaS company that’s raised $16.45 million to-date to meet the demands of the future workforce and to build modern payment tools for it. Investors have included Steve Case (Founder of AOL) and his Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Venture Fund, Foundry Group, Green Dot Corp. (NYSE: GDOT), and more. In an industry where forward thinking is a rarity, Craig’s vision for innovation has pushed an antiquated industry to modernize by designing a service that meets the demands of on...
2021-09-1450 minAround the CoinBrian Shniderman, CEO of Opy, CSO of OpenpayIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brian Shniderman, CEO of Opy and Chief Strategy Officer of Openpay. With over 30 years focused on payments of every kind, between all types of parties, and in almost every major country, Brian has been a frequent contributor to banking journals, has published numerous white papers addressing trends, threats, and strategic opportunities in banking and payments, and has been published and featured in Forbes, Fortune, CNN, The Business Standard, Dow Jones, HBR, Wired, CIO, Bloomberg, Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-09-0857 minAround the CoinRobert Materazzi, CEO of LukkaIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Robert Materazzi, the CEO of Lukka. Prior to joining Lukka, he served as Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, specializing in large risk, regulatory, and cybersecurity-driven technology implementations for traditional financial institutions and foreign banking organizations. Robert also led the PwC Advisory Veterans Recruiting and Mentorship Initiative. Prior to PwC, Robert served in the United States Marine Corps for nine years as an Officer and AH-1W Super Cobra Pilot.Founded in 2014, Lukka serves the largest crypto asset institutions with middle and back-office data & software solutions. Lukka solves the very unique complexities of crypto (and...
2021-09-0752 minAround the CoinSteven Chan, Senior Director of Government Relations, Asia-Pacific at PayPalIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Steven Xavier Chan, the senior director and regional head of government relations, Asia-Pacific, for Paypal Inc. Based in Singapore, he leads government advocacy, strategy, and outreach efforts in the region. Steven has more than 20 years of combined government and industry experience in international trade and public policy. Prior to joining Paypal in August 2018, he was the managing director and regional head of regulatory, industry and government affairs for State Street’s businesses in Asia Pacific. Steven also served as Director of Government Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility for the American Chamber of Commerce in...
2021-09-061h 03Around the CoinArthur Breitman, Co-founder of TezosIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Arthur Breitman, Co-founder of Tezos. Arthur is an early architect of the Tezos protocol. Prior to becoming involved in Tezos full time, he worked at X and Waymo on self-driving cars. In his earlier career, he worked as a quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-08-291h 25Around the CoinThejo Kote, Founder/CEO of AirbaseIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Thejo Kote, the Founder/CEO of Airbase. He was Co-Founder & CEO of Automatic, and of NextDrop. Prior to this, he worked as an Associate at Primera Capital. He served as Senior Engineer at Netcore Solutions and was the Software Engineer at Infosys Technologies Limited. He holds a Master’s degree from the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-08-2654 minAround the CoinRaullen Chai, Founder and CEO of IoTeXIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Raullen Chai, Founder & CEO of IoTeX. After stints in cybersecurity and blockchain at Uber and Google, Raullen is now CEO of IoTex. He leads a global team of cryptologists, blockchain experts, and IoT specialists in building the Trusted Internet of Things.Founded as an open-source project in 2017, IoTeX is building bridges across the Connected World, leveraging blockchain technology and in-house hardware devices to provide secure and interoperable pathways for the machine-to-machine economy.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-08-2551 minAround the CoinRicardo Pero, CEO of SellersFundingIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Ricardo Pero, Chief Executive Officer of SellersFunding. Ricardo received an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and has 20+ years of experience in Corporate Treasury and Wealth and Asset Management. He has previously held positions at Citi, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and most recently served as an Executive Director at JPMorgan from 2010 to 2016. As an investor and advisor to companies in the U.S. and Latin America, his company is helping start-up e-commerce businesses of all sizes to achieve success.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-08-0552 minAround the CoinSergey Savastiouk, CEO and Founder of TickeronIn our latest episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sergey Savastiouk, the CEO and founder of Tickeron, an artificial and human intelligence platform delivering unparalleled trading insights and analysis for market traders. Sergey is a thought leader in financial technology, specializing in artificial intelligence. Sergey was raised in Russia and entered the AI space when he earned his Ph.D. in applied mathematics, moved to the Silicon Valley area, and began teaching at Santa Clara University. He began working with a few different startups, developed his own trading algorithms, and then founded Tickeron in 2013. He is a very successful entrepreneur and...
2021-08-0458 minAround the CoinBryan Myint, Co-Founder of Republic CryptoIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Bryan Myint, the co-founder of Republic Crypto. Republic Crypto is the first vetted, compliant, and inclusive blockchain financing and investment platform. Bryan is also a Venture Partner at Outliers Fund and Founding Partner of Taureon Capital, a digital asset hedge fund. As an investor, he has seeded early DeFi projects such as 0x Protocol, REN, and Ethlend (now AAVE). Bryan is also an active mentor and advisor to Near Protocol's Open Web Collective, Consensys' Tachyon Accelerator, Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator, and Blockchain Founders Fund.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-08-0257 minAround the CoinMaryanne M Morrow, CEO 9th Gear TechnologiesIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Maryanne M Morrow, CEO of 9th Gear Technologies. Maryanne brings more than 25 years as a corporate veteran in the financial, marketing and advertising industries to her role as founder and CEO of 9th Gear Technologies where she is responsible for leading corporate strategy, scaling the company and investor relations. She is a mutual funds specialist, launching a family of funds and architecting fee-based asset management platforms for banks, broker dealers and insurance firms. Maryanne previously served as CEO of SurgeXLR, a boutique accelerator she founded that focused on a faster path to monetization. She...
2021-07-3056 minAround the CoinWilliam Li, CEO, AkulakuIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with William Li, the CEO and co-founder of Akulaku, a leading financial technology company improving the quality of life in Southeast Asia through advancement of digital financial services. Akulaku offers customers a full suite of financial services, including consumer financing, e-commerce, digital investments, digital banking and insurance brokerage. Previously, William served as CEO of Silvrr E-Commerce. William holds a B.A. in Law from Tsinghua University and a M.A. in law from Washington and Lee University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-07-161h 06Around the CoinChris Cox, COO of ApitureIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Chris Cox, the Chief Operating Officer of Apiture. Chris oversees all aspects of business operations. Previously, Chris was the General Manager of First Data’s digital banking business. He also led mobile payment product development efforts at First Data. Prior to joining First Data, Chris was a Principal Consultant at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants and a Staff Consultant at CSC Consulting. Chris has more than 20 years of experience in banking, payments, mobile commerce, product innovation, and technology strategy. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Miami University in Ohio, and an MBA...
2021-06-2452 minAround the CoinSean De Clercq, CEO of KickfurtherIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sean De Clercq, Founder Kickfurther. Sean founded Kickfurther when he had to deal with the inventory finance problem with a previous merchandising company. Now he's solving that problem for other entrepreneurs.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-06-211h 01Around the CoinNigel Walsh, MD, Insurance at Google CloudIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Nigel Walsh, the Managing Director for Insurance at Google Cloud, responsible for leading the firm's approach to Insurance, leveraging the best in market capability from Google's Cloud proposition, addressing mission critical Insurance challenges, from claims and underwriting to leveraging the company's AI and ML know-how - driving better business outcomes. Nigel also works with the broader Alphabet companies to bring their experience and insights to partner with the existing insurance customers. Prior to this, Nigel was a Partner in Deloitte Digital where he led on a number of areas for the firm including Gl...
2021-06-1646 minAround the CoinMatthew Beecher, Matthew Beecher, CEO of NeocovaIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Matthew Beecher, CEO of Neocova. Matt is an entrepreneur, business-builder, and investor with a 30-year track record of success in both public and private markets. From founding and driving growth and scale in fintech and financial services to leading companies that have realized returns of $1 billion. Prior to Neocova, Beecher served as CEO of Austin-based fintech, Vault. Before Vault, Beecher was co-founder and President of Redstar Ventures, a venture capital firm that pioneered the venture studio model by taking business ideas from conception through early-stages of funding.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...
2021-06-1452 minAround the CoinDenelle Dixon, CEO of Stellar Development FoundationIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Denelle Dixon, the CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit organization using blockchain to unlock the world’s economic potential by making money more fluid, markets more open, and people more empowered. Before joining Stellar, Dixon served as COO of Mozilla, one of the most successful mission-driven open-source organizations. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams including the ongoing fight for net neutrality and the global effort to ensure that people can control their personal data. She also pushed Mozilla to under...
2021-06-0953 minAround the CoinKevin Hart, Founder and CEO at Green Check VerifiedIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Kevin Hart, the Founder & CEO of Green Check Verified, a compliance technology, and services company enabling banks and credit unions to safely, efficiently, and profitably offer banking services to cannabis-related businesses. Kevin brings four decades of enterprise software experience as part of his founding vision for Green Check. He has worked in the C-Suite for a variety of software companies with global clients and partners, and he has led two companies to successful exits with publicly traded companies, as well as another to an IPO. With decades of experience at the helm of venture-backed...
2021-06-0855 minAround the CoinMatt Midson, CEO of CPQi North AmericaIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Matt Midson, the CEO for North America at CPQi. Matt has over 28 years of senior IT leadership experience, consulting, business development, and leading diverse teams in the Americas, Europe, and Asia within Financial Services. Matt has demonstrated he can manage all aspects of technology and business in Global Banking, Commercial Banking, Global Capital Markets, and Asset Management sectors of large global banks. He is known as a transformational leader and has led CPQi’s USA entity with strength and innovation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-06-0747 minAround the CoinAmanda Jacobson, Chief of Staff at Oyster FinancialIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Amanda Jacobson, Chief of Staff for Oyster Financial, a digital financial platform for small- and medium-sized businesses. Oyster Financial is co-headquartered in Mexico City and San Francisco. Prior to joining Oyster’s executive management team, she invested in a portfolio of nine fintech startups for Fiinlab, the innovation lab of Gentera, focused on generating sustainable solutions for financial inclusion. She also led the Latin American expansion of Village Capital, supporting 50 ventures and investing in eight startups.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-05-2851 minAround the CoinAdam Jackson, Founder & CEO of BraintrustIn this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Adam Jackson, Founder & CEO of Braintrust. Adam believes that the way we work is broken. In fact, it’s been broken for a long time now, which is why he founded Braintrust, the world’s first user-controlled talent platform-- one that aligns incentives, removes expensive middlemen and gives value and control back to Talent and Organizations. Braintrust’s unique business model allows talent to retain 100% of their market rate and enables organizations to spin up flexible teams and make their budgets go 2-3x further by cutting out the middlemen.Adam is a serial...
2021-05-1852 minAround the CoinBobby C. Lee, CEO of BalletIn our new episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Bobby Lee, CEO of Ballet. Bobby is among the leading and most recognizable figures in the cryptocurrency space. His startup, Ballet, provides a more user-friendly physical wallet for storing cryptocurrency. He is the co-founder of BTCC, the longest-running Bitcoin exchange and leading financial platform worldwide. Before founding BTCC, Lee was vice president of the technology of Walmart. Previously, Lee was a software engineer at Yahoo!, where he led the development of the earliest online communities.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-05-1753 minAround the CoinAmrit Santhirasenan, Founder and CEO of HyperexponentialIn our latest episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Amrit Santhirasenan, Founder & CEO of Hyperexponential. Amrit is fast becoming an influential figure in the world of fintech. He's founder and CEO of hyperexponential (hx), a cutting-edge fintech startup that's transforming the world of insurance. Amrit is actively engaged in tackling the broader challenges faced in the finance industry by looking to develop better pricing solutions in an increasingly data-driven and technological world. The idea for hx was borne out of Amrit's frustration with the software available to actuaries in the task of modelling, analysis and making difficult judgements with little...
2021-04-2849 minAround the CoinWilliam Quigley, Co-founder of Tether and WAXIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with William Quigley. Mr. Quigley is a Managing Director of Magnetic, a crypto focused investment fund. He was the first institutional investor in Paypal and has over 25 years of experience as a technology focused venture capitalist. Mr. Quigley has incubated and invested in more than 30 bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency-related investments. Mr. Quigley co-developed the first crypto derivative used to trade pre-release Ethereum. He co-founded many other transformative crypto companies including Tether, the first fiat-backed stablecoin and world's most traded cryptocurrency and GoCoin, a pioneering crypto payments processor. He also co-founded WAX, a blockchain built...
2021-04-191h 11Around the CoinDanny Shader, CEO & Founder, PayNearMeIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Danny Shader. Danny founded PayNearMe in 2009 and is driven to do right by customers, employees, and investors. Prior to PayNearMe, Danny led Good Technology, Inc., a wireless software company that was acquired by Motorola in 2007. Danny previously co-founded Accept.com, one of the first person-to-person payments providers, which Amazon acquired in 1999. Danny earned a BS from UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering and an MBA from Stanford University. Outside of work, you’ll find him trying to improve his terrible backstroke with a group of middle-aged swimming dads called The Mermaids.Learn more about...
2021-04-1253 minAround the CoinAlexander S. Blum, Managing Director of Two PrimeIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Alexander S. Blum, managing director of Two Prime. Alexander bought his first bitcoin for $9 in 2012 and has been professionally involved with the industry ever since. Two Prime offers an actively managed BTC and ETH long fund, focusing on wealth preservation and a secondary focus on growth. He previously founded digital investment group Atomic Capital, worked as a technology advisor for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, and as an economic development specialist for the Peace Corps. Alexander is a Fellow at University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies and Chair...
2021-04-0656 minAround the CoinBrian Dammeir, President, North America at AdyenIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brian Dammeir, President, North America at Adyen. As the President of North America for Adyen, Brian Dammeir is focused on bringing the company’s global payments solution to major retail, tech, platform, and hospitality companies - including McDonald’s, Uber, Spotify, Subway, Postmates, and Gap. He oversees all North American operations including sales, account management, marketing, product development and operations. Committed to helping merchants meet changing consumer expectations, Brian keeps a pulse on Adyen’s merchants around the globe to understand their unique needs and pain points, logging over 125 flights last year. Brian previo...
2021-04-0559 minAround the CoinMatthew Zipkin, Lead Developer for HandshakeIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Matthew Zipkin, Lead Developer for Handshake. Zipkin joined Impervious in 2021 to contribute full-time to Handshake, which is an alternative DNS root zone secured by proof-of-work. Impervious is a team of developers contributing open source core software for Handshake and Bitcoin. The Handshake full node software is a fork of bcoin (an alternative implementation of the Bitcoin protocol written for nodejs) which Zipkin contributed to as an employee of Purse.io from 2018-2020. He provides non-stop technical support to the Handshake developer community and is a maintainer of the Handshake organization on GitHub, where t...
2021-04-0158 minAround the CoinHossein Azari, CEO of CmorqIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Hossein Azari, CEO of cmorq. As the Founder and CEO of cmorq, Hossein Azari has set out to level the world’s financial playing field.After his first fintech startup, Clarity Money was acquired by Goldman Sachs, Hossein began his journey to build a data management platform that allows everyday consumers to access blockchain information through an easy to use interface. With experience at Harvard, Google and Goldman Sachs, Azari is at the forefront of data science and computational economics.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-03-311h 01Around the CoinJay Shah, President of Personal Capital, an Empower CompanyIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Jay Shah, President of Personal Capital, an Empower Company. Jay, as founding executive member and current President of Personal Capital, shaped the pioneering digital wealth management company into what it is today. With more than 20 years of experience scaling businesses with technology and data, he has grown Personal Capital from a Silicon Valley startup to a tech-enabled advisory business managing more than $17 billion in assets. The company now has visibility into over $1 trillion in linked account values on their free, financial tools dashboard where people consolidate and see all of their financial accounts securely...
2021-03-301h 01Around the CoinAaron Kaplan, Co-CEO of PrometheumIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Aaron Kaplan, the founder and co-CEO of Prometheum, Inc., a NYC based fintech company building a Federal Securities Law compliant, blockchain native, public market infrastructure servicing the entire digital asset lifecycle. Aaron is also of counsel at Gusrae Kaplan Nusbaum, where since 2013 he has focused his practice on the applications of distributed ledger technology in the securities industry.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-03-1758 minAround the CoinAndreas Fletcher , Project Manager of the Trustlines NetworkIn this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Andreas Fletcher. Andreas is a project manager of the Trustlines Network at Brainbot. He has a background in finance and has been in the Blockchain Space since 2013. After supporting the development of the enterprise blockchain solutions for the biggest stock exchange in Europe, including pilot projects with the German Central bank, he decided to join the more revolutionary space of Ethereum.In 2018, Andreas joined Brainbot, a blockchain development studio. Brainbot is one of the main contributors of the Trustlines Network and on behalf of it, Andreas is leading the project development.The Trustlines Network...
2021-03-1558 minAround the CoinKory Hoang, Founder of StablyIn this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Kory Hoang, Founder of Stably. Prior to founding Stably, Kory was a Private Equity Data Analyst for PitchBook in Seattle. Kory is also a quant who has consulted for money managers, hedge funds and CTAs on many subjects ranging from VIX derivatives to cryptocurrencies and algorithmic trading.Kory holds a BBA with a double major in Finance and Marketing from the University of Washington – Bothell.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-03-0456 min
Around the CoinRoham Gharegozlou, CEO at Dapper LabsMike Townsend interviews Roham Gharegozlou. Roham is the CEO of Dapper Labs and the founder of Axiom Zen, the award-winning emerging technology venture studio behind Dapper Labs. Dapper Labs is the creator of CryptoKitties, the world’s most popular consumer blockchain experience, with over 3M transactions on the Ethereum network – more than any smart contract that’s not a cryptocurrency exchange.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem www.redeeem.com- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin and other crypto...
2020-09-251h 00
Around the CoinKayvan Alikhani, CEO of Compliance.aiMike Townsend interviews Kayvan Alikhani. Kayvan is the CEO and co-founder of Compliance.ai. Kayvan has more than 25 years of experience in hi-tech, Kayvan leads operations, strategy, sales, and marketing for Compliance.ai. Most recently, Kayvan led the identity strategy at RSA, and represented EMC on various industry alliances such as the FIDO board. A serial entrepreneur as well, Kayvan was the co-founder and CEO of PassBan (acquired by RSA), a company focused on mobile identity assurance. He also led strategy at LiteScape (as CTO and later as CEO), creating security and mobile identity solutions for VOIP based networks. He...
2020-09-2455 min
Around the CoinJames Gillingham, CEO of FinxfloMike Townsend interviews James Gillingham. James is the Co-Founder and CEO of Finxflo, the world’s first hybrid aggregator and cryptocurrency brokerage firm. Under his leadership, Finxflo has embarked on a new partnership with leading blockchain luminaries, Tron and JustSwap, to build the world’s first DeFi protocol aggregator. During his 15 years’ of experience in financial markets, FinTech and entrepreneurship, James has managed over $4 billion worth of funds. An accomplished entrepreneur, he was the force behind the building of JageroFX, a trading algorithm start-up that he built up and led through a successful buy-out.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire g...
2020-09-2358 min
Around the CoinKinsa Durst, Partner at DeFi CodeMike Townsend interviews Kinsa Durst. Kinsa is the founder of DeFi Code, a consulting firm for developing and executing global go-to-market strategy for blockchain and cryptocurrency companies. Coming from a diverse cultural background, he leverages his extensive experience working with companies in the U.S., China, and Korea to help companies establish their unique value and presence in the industry. He has always been passionate about bridging multiple cultures, and loves connecting with new people and learning about their perspective of the world.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem...
2020-09-2253 min
Around the CoinDaniyal Inamullah, Head of Capital Markets at CredMike Townsend interviews Daniyal Inamullah. Daniyal is the Head of Capital Markets at Cred and Co-Founder for the Glitter of Hope Foundation. Daniyal has spent his career specializing in mergers & acquisitions for energy companies at EY and Houlihan Lokey before he focused his career on democratizing financial services by leveraging blockchain technology.In his current role at Cred, Daniyal works on optimizing Cred's capital markets through facilitating partnerships and product ideation. Cred's mission is to provide digital asset hodlers the tools to access financial services at the micro level and take control of their financial future.Daniyal graduated from Emory...
2020-09-2157 min
Around the CoinMoaz Hamid, CEO of MvmtAiMike Townsend interviews Moaz Hamid. Moaz is a mission-driven technologist and strategist, solving for the future of jobs and medicine, and the role of Robotics and AI. He is mvmtAi, a health tech startup, founder and CEO. Advisor for SoftBank Robotics, and serves on, and Robotics WG member, for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).Moaz is also advisor and mentor for seed stage startups for Yellow (accelerator) by Snap Inc., and early stage startups and chair of the advisory board for Startup Boost (pre-accelerator), as well as, LA underserved youth entrepreneurship program, embarcLA.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire...
2020-09-1858 min
Around the CoinNed Phillips, CEO of BambuMike Townsend interviews Ned Phillips. Started his Fintech journey with E*TRADE as one of the very first online brokers and now an entrepreneur, Ned Phillips is the founder and chief executive officer of Bambu. Ned had the opportunity to experience the first dot-com boom with one of the original FinTech companies as well as was a consultant to 8Securities when they launched the first robo-advisor in Asia.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem www.redeeem.com- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more...
2020-09-091h 05
Around the CoinJareau Wade, Head of Growth at FinixMike Townsend interviews Jareau Wadé, a payments entrepreneur and recovering engineer based in Atlanta, GA. He currently runs growth and marketing at payments infrastructure company, Finix. Prior, Jareau lead commerce and visual search business development for Pinterest and co-founded Balanced, a payments API company that exited to Stripe in 2015. Jareau was also the first employee and head of data acquisition at Milo.com, a local shopping search engine acquired by eBay in 2010.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem www.redeeem.com- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets y...
2020-09-041h 14
Around the CoinXiaohan Zhu, CEO of Meter.ioMike Townsend interviews Xiaohan Zhu, CEO of Meter.io. Xiaohan Zhu is an engineer by training, he was born and raised in Chine, and moved the US to go to graduate school at UC San Diego, and eventually got his MBA at Wharton before working as an engineer at Microsoft and Motorola. In 2016 he became fascinated with cryptocurrency and global finance and started ZMT Capital investing in Blockchain, and ICOs. In 2018 Xiaohan started Meter.io to further enable of the crypto community by using the cost of production and the minor's behavior and the proof of work system as the key...
2020-08-1559 min
Around the CoinInterview with Mark Thomas founder of ZenSportsIn this interview Mike Townsend interviews Mark Thomas, CEO and founder of ZenSports. ZenSports is a mobile peer-to-peer sports betting marketplace where anyone can create and accept sports bets with anyone else in the world, without the need for a centralized bookmaker. Mike and Mark uncover the history of betting, discuss the future of sports coming out of Coronavirus, and talk about what the strategies that the best sports betters use to win 55% of their bets. We also learn about the history of betting regulation and other high potential cryptocurrency companies.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and...
2020-05-3154 minAround The CoinInterview with Mark Thomas founder of ZenSportsIn this interview Mike Townsend interviews Mark Thomas, CEO and founder of ZenSports. ZenSports is a mobile peer-to-peer sports betting marketplace where anyone can create and accept sports bets with anyone else in the world, without the need for a centralized bookmaker. Mike and Mark uncover the history of betting, discuss the future of sports coming out of Coronavirus, and talk about what the strategies that the best sports betters use to win 55% of their bets. We also learn about the history of betting regulation and other high potential cryptocurrency companies.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and...
2020-05-3154 min
Around the CoinInterview of Ethan Austin of Techstars Western Union AcceleratorIn this interview, Mike Townsend interviews Ethan Austin, who oversees all operations at the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator. This Techstars program focuses on investing in startups looking to shape the future of money. Ethan and Mike talk about the history of Western Union, which is now about 170 years old and dominated the American telegraph industry in both the 19th and 20th centuries.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem https://redeeem.click/qdza- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin...
2020-04-1151 minAround The CoinInterview of Ethan Austin of Techstars Western Union AcceleratorIn this interview, Mike Townsend interviews Ethan Austin, who oversees all operations at the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator. This Techstars program focuses on investing in startups looking to shape the future of money. Ethan and Mike talk about the history of Western Union, which is now about 170 years old and dominated the American telegraph industry in both the 19th and 20th centuries.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem https://redeeem.click/qdza- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin...
2020-04-1151 min
Around the CoinInterview with Kyle Hill - Founder of Redeeem.comIn this interview Mike Townsend talks to Kyle Hill, which is a special episode because Kyle and Mike are co-founders of Redeeem (trusted peer-to-peer crypto gift card exchange), and have started 3 startups over the last 8 years together. Previous to Redeeem, they raised $23M for HomeHero, a tech-enabled home care marketplace. They talk about how to work successfully together as a team, the mission and story of Redeeem, as well as a variety of topics related to bitcoin, government regulation, and upcoming exciting blockchain projects.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter...
2019-11-1639 minAround The CoinInterview with Kyle Hill - Founder of Redeeem.comIn this interview Mike Townsend talks to Kyle Hill, which is a special episode because Kyle and Mike are co-founders of Redeeem (trusted peer-to-peer crypto gift card exchange), and have started 3 startups over the last 8 years together. Previous to Redeeem, they raised $23M for HomeHero, a tech-enabled home care marketplace. They talk about how to work successfully together as a team, the mission and story of Redeeem, as well as a variety of topics related to bitcoin, government regulation, and upcoming exciting blockchain projects.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter...
2019-11-1639 min
Around the CoinMike Townsend visits NY and drops in at Techstars Accelerator ProgramWhile visiting New York, Mike Townsend drops in at the Techstar / 2015 Barclays Accelerator. Mike meets up with Tommy Nicholas (Alloy), Jonathan Levin (Chainanalysis), Gadi Ruschin (Ogydocs), Rachel Cook (Seeds) and Jenny Fielding of Techstars.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem https://redeeem.click/qdza- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2015-08-011h 07Around The CoinMike Townsend visits NY and drops in at Techstars Accelerator ProgramWhile visiting New York, Mike Townsend drops in at the Techstar / 2015 Barclays Accelerator. Mike meets up with Tommy Nicholas (Alloy), Jonathan Levin (Chainanalysis), Gadi Ruschin (Ogydocs), Rachel Cook (Seeds) and Jenny Fielding of Techstars.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem https://redeeem.click/qdza- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2015-08-011h 07
Around the CoinHomeHero raises $20 Million, PayPal's acquisition of Xoom & what this means for Facebook and EbayThis week we discuss Mike Townsend (our co-host), who raised US$ 20+ Million in venture capital funding for his Senior Care Startup called HomeHero.Congrats Mike!Brian gives his perspective on the separation of Ebay and Paypal. PayPal's acquisition of Xoom and how we would be seeing the new roaring PayPal and more Brian's prediction that more acquisitions would be coming PayPal's way. We also discuss Facebook's Messenger which went live nationwide in the US. We discuss the possibility of Cisco entering into the payments business and towards the end we briefly discuss Ebay and what it would be doing in...
2015-08-0152 minAround The CoinHomeHero raises $20 Million, PayPal's acquisition of Xoom & what this means for Facebook and EbayThis week we discuss Mike Townsend (our co-host), who raised US$ 20+ Million in venture capital funding for his Senior Care Startup called HomeHero.Congrats Mike!Brian gives his perspective on the separation of Ebay and Paypal. PayPal's acquisition of Xoom and how we would be seeing the new roaring PayPal and more Brian's prediction that more acquisitions would be coming PayPal's way. We also discuss Facebook's Messenger which went live nationwide in the US. We discuss the possibility of Cisco entering into the payments business and towards the end we briefly discuss Ebay and what it would be doing in...
2015-08-0152 min
Around the CoinAn Entrepreneur's Journey Into Payments - Mike Townsend.This week on Around the Coin, Mike Townsend discusses his journey beginning as an engineer in Singapore then moving to LA to design military UAV’s. He tells us how he transitioned into payments by starting a point of sale company, ZingCheckout and mobile payments company Flowtab. Around the Coin.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem https://redeeem.click/qdza- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...
2014-04-131h 17Around The CoinAn Entrepreneur's Journey Into Payments - Mike Townsend.This week on Around the Coin, Mike Townsend discusses his journey beginning as an engineer in Singapore then moving to LA to design military UAV’s. He tells us how he transitioned into payments by starting a point of sale company, ZingCheckout and mobile payments company Flowtab. Around the Coin.Sponsors:Otter Labs www.hireotter.com- Hire great and inexpensive developer with staff augmentation through Otter.Redeeem https://redeeem.click/qdza- Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...
2014-04-131h 17