About this episode

What does it mean to be agnostic about blockchain? Jesse Proudman joins the episode to discuss his time at IBM, Tether flows, gap finance and how his hedge fund is navigating the volatility of crypto markets.

Jesse is the CEO and Founder of Strix Leviathan and a member of the Strix Leviathan Investment Committee. Jesse has over 20 years of experience as a technical entrepreneur. Prior to Strix Leviathan, Jesse founded Blue Box, a cloud computing startup. Jesse raised $22M in venture capital for Blue Box and subsequently sold the company to IBM where Jesse was named as an IBM Distinguished Engineer. At IBM, Jesse spent time researching blockchain and cryptocurrency. Jesse is an active member of the Seattle startup community. He was awarded the 2014 GeekWire Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, was named to the 2013 PSBJ 40 under 40 class and serves on the board for the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington. Jesse holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound.

Jesse's Links

Linkedin | Wikipedia

Strix Leviathan's Website

Where to find the show

iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Youtube | RSS Feed

What to listen for

• 
  
• Why Jesse’s time at IBM and working in Hyperledger, helped him develop his approach to blockchain investment.
  
• How IBM’s marketing machine is doing a great job of getting people talking about blockchain and asking why?
  
• Why public blockchains solve three/four problems well and why most business models do not need one.
  
• How Jesse’s research demonstrated that prices are entirely driven by behaviour, speculation and liquidity in the crypto space.
  
• Why Tether is a privatised Eurodollar network and how this is used to evade capital controls and sanctions.
  
• Why the next halving is different than the previous two because of the number of leveraged loans.
  
• Why miners are betting on speculation and leveraging their businesses to pay their bills rather than selling their Bitcoin.
  
• Why the Stablecoin business model falls apart when you have negative rates, which are coming sooner than you think.
  
• Why the painful user experience problem still exists in the crypto/DeFi space and how this needs to be fixed to allow for wider adoption.
  
• Why Jesse is a big fan of Silvergate Bank’s exchange transfer network and why infrastructure development still has a long way to go in the space.
  
• Why Jesse believes price is a function of the narrative that people choose to believe in: if you think it will happen, it will happen.
  

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you like End of the Chain you can help support the show by doing one of the following:

• 
  
• Help keep this show going by sending us $5
  
• Make a Tip - Send me an email after so I can mention you on the show.
  

Bitcoin: USE THIS LINK FOR ADDRESS REUSE

Ethereum: 0xDAb148614f22dDa800cF006Be7932eeEB75AC644

• 
  
• Leave a Review on iTunes
  
• Share an episode with family and friends
  
• Follow me on Twitter | Youtube
  
• If you are interested in sponsoring the show please send me an email.