The Alt Funds Investment podcast explores those making investments in the alternative asset landscape, as well as the vendors who service these funds. We provide resources for emerging managers and insights for those in the alternative fund space.
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60 recent
October 21, 202658 min
#167 Why Smart Contract Audits Are No Longer Enough | Henri Binsztok, OKcontract
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Henri Binsztok: Website: https://okcontract.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:34 Henri Binsztok's background 06:30 On-chain security and OKcontract 10:12 Chainwall and DeFi vault security 16:22 Mapping crypto security incidents 22:17 Why smart contract audits aren't enough 25:05 AI, formal verification, and smart contract security 29:07 Protecting assets when signers are compromised 34:39 MPC wallets and institutional crypto security 39:17 AI cyberattacks and cloud infrastructure risks 42:45 Practical cybersecurity advice 46:21 Using blockchain to secure cloud systems 51:14 Layer 2 security and sequencer risks 53:47 Institutional crypto custody versus self-custody 57:43 Chainwall's purpose and closing remarks Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
October 16, 202628 min
#166 Venice AI (VVV):How to Value a Token Built on Buybacks and Burns |Mike Treidl,Blue Coin Capital
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Mike Treidl: Website: https://bluecoincapital.substack.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Setup 01:23 Blue Coin Capital Overview 02:23 Why Research Venice 04:32 Why VVV Matters 05:54 Product and Privacy Edge 08:23 Dual Token System Explained 10:31 Burn Mechanics and Tokenomics 11:44 Equity vs Token Risks 13:50 Valuation Framework and Multiples 22:00 Bear Base Bull Scenarios 23:52 Fund Position and Supply Outlook 25:56 Final Takeaways and Where to Follow Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
October 14, 202648 min
#165 Setting Up a Crypto Fund in the Cayman Islands: Rules, Risks & Governance | Darragh Murphy, Marfire
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Darragh Murphy: Website: https://www.marfire.co/ Personal LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/darragh-murphy-cta/ Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome And Guest Intro 00:25 Darragh Career Journey 02:13 What Marfar Does 03:25 Fund Director Role 05:06 When Directors Required 08:13 Board Size And Cadence 13:07 Service Providers Oversight 16:27 Director Liability And Insurance 18:53 Regulation Getting Tougher 21:44 Crypto Funds Maturing 25:16 VASP Act Explained 29:46 FATCA CRS Updates 31:35 Launching A Cayman Fund 34:34 Conflicts And Approvals 39:39 Custody And Wallet Controls 41:18 Fees And Pricing Model 44:32 AI In Fund Operations 47:57 Wrap Up And Contact Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
October 9, 202651 min
#164 An Ex-JPMorgan PM Breaks Down Crypto’s Biggest Regulatory Gray Area | Bo Zhang, Unsquared
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Bo Zhang: Website: https://unsquared.finance/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bozhang7940/ Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:37 Bo’s Crypto Origin Story 02:58 Leaving Wall Street 04:56 Building UnSquared Capital 06:20 Factor Investing Basics 09:38 Research Process and Tail Risk 14:51 Exchange Risk and Liquidity 19:05 Perps and Funding Rates 22:47 Best Execution in Crypto 25:45 Trade Coordination Layer 27:16 Coordination Layer Execution 28:45 Why Choose SMAs 30:52 Custody and Exchange Setup 33:29 Scaling SMA Operations 36:56 Market Trends Stablecoins 38:46 Token Views Hype Zcash 41:24 Regulatory Gaps and Vaults 44:04 Due Diligence Transparency 47:53 Creativity and Team Edge 50:54 Where to Connect Wrap Up Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
September 30, 202631 min
#163 The Case for Putting Idle Stablecoins Into Real-World Credit | Waseem Salim, Valdora Finance
Mike Schroeder and Skyler Steinke sit down with Waseem Salim, CEO of Valdora Finance, who spent six years in crypto — including running communities globally for the Algorand Foundation — before setting out to fix what he calls the circular yield problem. Most DeFi yield comes from crypto activity feeding itself: lending, borrowing, providing liquidity. When the market slows, the yield collapses with it, because there was never real economic activity underneath. Waseem walks through Valdora's answer: vault infrastructure that routes on-chain stablecoins into real-world strategies and hands the depositor back a liquid token representing the position. He breaks down what a vault actually is versus a liquidity pool, the three things any vault has to deliver — access, control and verifiability — and the mechanics behind their stablecoin vault, where yield comes from short-duration credit facilities backed by verified business cash flows: invoice factoring, payment financing, SME lending, mostly through originators in the MENA region. The conversation also covers who does what in the stack, how a non-custodial architecture uses time locks, multisig and role separation, and Waseem's honest account of what non-custody does not remove — smart contract risk, strategy risk, oracle risk, and what happens if an originator defaults. Plus DeFi's Wild West years (all three of them admit to being in Time Wonderland at 80,000% APY), where vaults sit in three to five years, and why he thinks institutional and retail DeFi are converging faster than people expect. Chapters: 00:00 Intro: Stablecoins, Vaults, and Real-World Yield 00:25 From Algorand Ambassador to Global Head of Communities 01:49 The ETHDenver Coffee Queue That Started It 03:31 Why Valdora Exists: Three Structural Failures in DeFi 05:44 What a Vault Actually Is, and the Three Things It Must Do 08:20 DeFi's Wild West Years: 80,000% APY and Time Wonderland 10:37 Why the Degens Were the Beta Testers DeFi Needed 11:49 Olympus DAO, Gas Fees, and Lessons Paid For 12:42 Inside the Stablecoin Vault: Invoice Factoring and SME Credit 15:08 Curators vs. Originators: Who Does What 16:40 The Roadmap: A Catalog of Vaults and 48-Hour Launches 18:04 Non-Custodial by Design: Time Locks, Multisig, Role Separation 18:55 Institutional Demand and Going Multi-Chain to Ethereum and BNB 20:57 Who Can Launch a Vault, and the Due Diligence Behind It 21:57 What Non-Custodial Does and Doesn't Remove From Risk 23:36 Smart Contract Risk and the Hardening of Vault Frameworks 25:10 NAV, Redemptions, and Where DeFi Meets Fund Admin 27:00 Vaults in Three to Five Years: A Fund Wrapper for On-Chain Capital 28:23 Who Valdora Is Built For 30:34 Where to Find Waseem and Valdora Connect with Waseem Salim: Valdora: https://valdora.finance/ Valdora on X: https://x.com/Valdora_finance Waseem on X: https://x.com/WaseemMSalim Alt Funds Network: Website: https://altfunds.io/ Topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Be a guest on the podcast: https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Listen instead: Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4akXAUS #DeFi #Stablecoins #RWA Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal, accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
September 23, 202649 min
#162 Signature Bank Had $34B in Liquidity. They Shut It Down Anyway | Scott Shay, N3XT
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Scott Shay: Website: https://n3xt.io/ X: https://x.com/N3XTinc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/n3xtio/ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Scott Shay's journey into banking 03:00 Building Signature Bank 05:00 The origins of Signet and crypto banking 07:00 How Signet enabled 24/7 payments 09:00 The rise of stablecoins 13:00 The banking industry's reaction to crypto 14:00 What happened to Signature Bank 18:00 The fundamental problem with traditional banking 21:00 Moving dollars like Bitcoin 23:00 Why Scott decided to build N3XT 26:00 Building a full-reserve U.S. bank 29:00 Tokenized dollars outside the bank 32:00 Full-reserve vs. fractional-reserve banking 34:00 How N3XT makes money 36:00 Crypto regulation and the future 38:00 The N3XT digital dollar 43:00 How traditional banks view crypto 45:00 The future of banking 47:00 What fund managers should know Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
September 16, 202641 min
#161 The DTCC and Brazil's Stock Exchange Picked Canton | Ryan Wishnow, Memora
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Ryan Wishnow: Website: https://www.memora.systems/ Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Introductions 00:21 Ryan Background and M&A 01:51 Discovering Canton Network 03:05 Canton Use Cases Explained 04:11 Privacy and DAML Basics 05:48 Network of Networks Model 07:15 Obsidian and Developer Demand 09:10 DAML Learning Curve 10:59 Institutional Adoption Trends 13:09 Selective Privacy Advantage 15:07 DTCC and Brazil Exchange 17:59 Memora Origin and Vision 22:53 Bridge Security and Oracles 25:31 RWA Opportunities on Canton 27:37 Roadmap and RWA Thesis 29:10 Attestation Layer Explained 30:32 Tradecraft and Liquidity 32:48 Retail Adoption Timeline 34:43 Learning Resources and Tokenomics 39:47 What Comes Next and Wrap Up Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
September 8, 202645 min
#160 Why Do the People With the Most Influence Have the Least Wealth? | Travis Henry, Factory
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Travis Henry: Website: https://thefactoryhq.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:43 Travis Henry Origin Story 01:10 From Agency to Finance 03:56 Factory Thesis Explained 06:39 Culture Segments and Language 08:01 Five Pillars Overview 10:20 Factory Club Launch Story 12:40 NIL Client Fit Framework 14:44 Spotting Durable Influence 17:40 Brand Deals as Ad Network 18:54 Purpose Plus Profit Strategy 21:01 SPVs and Deal Examples 22:30 Purpose Profit Bridge 23:55 SPVs And Allocation 25:12 Three Bucket Portfolio 26:08 Sweat Equity Creativity 27:35 Protecting Young Athletes 28:56 Traditional Athlete Finance 33:11 Dream Leverage Cashflow 35:24 Tech Education Dashboards 37:30 Factory Team Breakdown 40:00 Liquidity Private Markets 41:22 Fund Manager Network 42:35 Factory Roadmap Vision 44:32 Community Club Wrapup Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
August 28, 202634 min
#159 Give Away Your Company Before You Sell It | Phoenix Hafen, UI Charitable
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Phoenix Haffen: Website: https://www.uicharitable.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoenix-hafen-2024b6162 Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:24 Phoenix Background and UI Charitable 01:38 Why Not Donate Cash 03:14 How to Evaluate Charities 08:11 Donor Advised Funds Explained 10:19 DAF vs Private Foundation 12:21 DAFs as LP Capital for GPs 13:30 Donating Founder Equity Pre Exit 15:18 Timing Mistakes and IRS Rules 17:03 Appraisals and Valuation Window 18:08 Business Interest vs Cash Donation 19:06 Wild Assets and Venture LP Gifts 23:59 Problem Assets and UBIT Risks 26:13 Custody and Bitcoin Multisig 28:42 Creative DAF Projects Example 31:23 Unique Causes and Tonga Project 33:20 Who Uses UI Charitable 34:12 Where to Learn More Closing Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
August 21, 202653 min
#158 Businesses Trade at 6x. Their Real Estate Trades at 20x. | The Sale-Leaseback Arbitrage Explained | Mark Sinnett, Avison Young
Find us online: https://altfunds.io/ Email us with topic ideas: info@altfunds.io Spotify: https://bit.ly/4afXcan Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4akXAUS Google: https://bit.ly/4am9oXk 👇 Click Below to be a guest on our video podcast: 👇 https://bit.ly/46X7cSQ Connect with Mark Sinnett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-sinnett/ Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:49 Starting in 2008 02:40 Turnkey Scaling Playbook 05:42 Drugs Thugs and Bugs Deal 12:30 From Turnaround to Syndication 15:47 Fund Structure Explained 18:07 Who Can Invest 20:14 Raising Capital with Trust 23:51 Borrowed Credibility Strategy 25:46 Markets and Asset Focus 26:20 Operator First Due Diligence 27:16 Needs Based Asset Classes 28:41 Calm Money Never Panics 30:09 Senior Housing Strategy 31:59 Strict Operator Standards 33:38 Fund Manager GP Role 34:52 Investor Trust Transparency 37:09 Masterminds Relationships Learning 38:55 Choosing The Right Mastermind 41:55 Avoiding The Burnout Trap 47:57 Books And Core Themes 51:09 Freedom Vehicle Not Goal 52:13 Connect With Freedom Family Disclaimer: Alt Funds Network LLC and its affiliates, episode guests, and the companies they represent do not provide tax, legal or accounting or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, accounting, and investment professionals before engaging in any transaction or making any financial or legal decision based on your specific situation.
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