StarkWare is solving two of blockchain’s biggest issues. Key takeaways: StarkWare is building a full proof-stack that allows blockchains to be more scalable, secure, and private; There are many applications for this technology including allowing users to trade their digital assets on centralized exchanges from a non custodial wallet; The StarkWare team is world class, and their technology could prove to be one of the most important innovations in the blockchain space. Full show notes at http://wing.vc

Token Talks – Interviews with the Best Projects in Crypto

StarkWare: Scalability and Privacy for Blockchains

What if launching an application on the blockchain was fast, simple, and user-friendly? Today, we are joined by Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol. Key takeaways: NEAR Protocol aims to be the most developer-friendly blockchain, with ambitions to be a community operated cloud platform; NEAR is using a proof of stake consensus but has a sophisticated governance model; NEAR plans to launch mainnet in summer 2019, and you can follow the team’s progress at NEARProtocol.com

NEAR Protocol: Community Operated Cloud

What if there was a way retain total privacy with your digital transactions? Join us for a look at how Grin aims to be the first private electronic cash, how it compares to Bitcoin, and the important impact this technology could have on democracy. Key takeaways: Grin is a 3-month-old crypto asset that aims to be digital cash; Unlike Bitcoin’s fixed supply schedule, a new Grin will be created every second; Grin has seen developer-led community support, and has an early but vibrant community

Grin: Global Digital Cash

Gauntlet and Computable Labs: Blockchain Simulation and Fair Data

UMA wants to create universal market access for financial products. Co-founder Hart Lambur joins us to discuss their newest product and future plans. Key takeaways: UMA is a decentralized financial contracts platform, built to enable Universal Market Access; Synthetic assets are incredibly important for the evolution of open finance, because they make financial markets more accessible; UMA is the infrastructure layer that will allow anyone to both create and trade synthetic assets.

UMA: Decentralized Financial Contracts

Join us as we chat with Marc and Kevin from Tagomi. Key takeaways: Executing large orders of digital assets is hard and Tagomi makes it simple by automating best execution and settlement; For crypto to mature into a credible asset class, infrastructure like Tagomi is critical to making trading, settlement, and custody more professional and institutional; Tagomi has an exciting product roadmap, including adding more tokens, integrating more exchanges, and adding more financial features.

Tagomi: Crypto Prime Brokerage

Rocket Pool: A Simple, Decentralized Ethereum Staking Service

CoinList's goal is to help token issuers succeed by managing capital formation and building community. CoinList is the trusted platform for running compliant token sales; Token projects face an incredible amount of regulatory uncertainty and compliance when launching a token sale and are strongly advised to work with a platform like CoinList to launch compliantly; CoinList is successfully launching new community building projects, including the recent platform to manage developer hackathons.

CoinList: A Trusted Platform for Compliant Token Sales

How do decentralized applications get data from underlying sources and transform it in meaningful ways? Key takeaways: Getting data off blockchains today is difficult; The Graph is a decentralized platform for querying data that uses GraphQL, a query language developed in open source by Facebook; The Graph can help eliminate data silos by providing a powerful API to get exactly the data you need in a single request, seamlessly traversing and combining multiple data sources. Full show notes at http://wing.vc

The Graph: A Decentralized Query Protocol

Key takeaways: The size of the institutional investor base is much larger than the retail investor base, and institutional investors have yet to come into crypto; Bitwise is the first cryptocurrency fund and filed an application to launch the first Bitcoin ETF; With Bitwise, investors can rest assured their assets have proper custody, reporting, and oversight; If interested in investing with Bitwise, check out their website at www.BitWiseInvestments.com

Bitwise: The First Cryptocurrency Index Fund

Hear from some of the smartest investors in the space: Nic Carter and Matt Walsh of Castle Island Ventures. Key takeaways: Castle Island believes the most compelling investment opportunities in crypto are in public blockchain infrastructure and applications; Nic talks about public-private key management and potential businesses built around this industry; In addition to interest in infrastructure and application, Nick and Matt are bullish on non-sovereign, censorship-resistant store of value.

Castle Island Ventures: Investing in Infrastructure

The internet has fundamentally changed our lives, but along with the benefits, what kinds of challenges has it created? Key takeaways: One of the primary concerns around today’s general purpose smart contracting platforms is the lack of privacy-preserving technologies; Oasis is a platform with improved scalability and privacy-preserving smart contracts; Privacy-preserving smart contracts have the potential to eliminate data silos by improving the coordination and access controls around data.

Oasis: A Privacy-First Smart Contract Platform

Felix Feng, founder of Set Protocol, talks decentralized finance and what it means to bundle your tokenized assets. Key takeaways: Felix is most interested in crypto’s potential to transform the financial services industry; Set is an important layer in the decentralized financial stack, along with other protocols like 0X, Dharma, Compound, and dYdX; Set is going after the $4 trillion currently invested in ETFs by allowing tokenized assets to be bundled in creative ways.

Set Protocol: Bundle Your Tokenized Assets

Tomer Afek of Spacemesh on how the Proof of Space Time consensus protocol is built on fairness and what that means in the creation of a cryptocurrency. Key takeaways: Proof of Work blockchains suffer from known scalability issues and energy waste and Proof of Stake solutions risk compromised decentralization and security; Spacemesh is creating a protocol and token for money use-cases ; Spacemesh aims to create money that is energy efficient, highly decentralized and democratic, and fair.

Spacemesh: A Blockmesh Operating System

Figure's Mike Cagney is applying blockchain technology to traditional financial services in compelling new ways. Figure will offer faster, cheaper home equity products to consumers; Figure will abstract a way to use blockchain technology to the consumer, integrating with a new native blockchain called Provenance; Offering faster and cheaper loans is a practical use case for blockchain technology that is going after a $100 billion market; Mike is one of the smartest minds in financial services.

Figure: Home Equity on the Blockchain

Join Zach DeWitt as we highlight the best emerging projects in crypto through unbiased and exclusive interviews with blockchain technology founders. Token Talks intends to make the cryptocurrency ecosystem more accessible by connecting thought leaders and entrepreneurs with mainstream companies, consumers, and investors. This podcast is produced by Wing Venture Capital (aka “Wing”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Multiple episodes are released every month and discussions include ICOs, altcoins, decentralization, token economics and the future of digital currency in tech. Visit www.wing.vc for more details.