MoneyNeverSleeps

Hosted by Pete Townsend | GP at Norio Ventures

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Episodes

322

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Aug 2026

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About the show

MoneyNeverSleeps is a weekly show where smart people bring one big idea, and Pete Townsend breaks it down in under 15 minutes. Featuring founders, operators, and investors shaping crypto, fintech, AI, and onchain finance. After 300+ long-form episodes, the show has evolved into a sharper, faster format built for a world where insights need to travel quickly.

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August 21, 2026Episode 32315 min

Grit Don't Quit: How Beezie Got to Yes | Andrea Miele [EP. 323]

Andrea Miele is co-founder and CEO of Beezie , a gamified commerce platform Pete Townsend backed through Techstars in 2024, joins Pete to talk about why the "TCG" label never captured what Beezie actually is, what it took to raise a second round after some of the best-known funds in the space passed on her more than once, and what's next now that Beezie has expanded to Base and Solana. Connect with Andrea:X: https://x.com/AndreaMYellie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agriffin717/ Learn more about Beezie:Website: https://beezie.com/ X: https://x.com/Beezie Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beeziedotcom/ Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:32 Intro: Andrea Miele and Beezie 1:22 What Beezie is, in plain English 2:07 The Claw and the cold-start problem 3:21 Why the TCG bucket undersells the vision 5:26 The pack rip smell, and trading it for liquidity 7:15 Building trust before asking for money 8:17 Fundraising through thirty no's 10:13 The lead investor who changed everything 12:26 Base, Solana, and what's next 13:41 Where to find Beezie MoneyNeverSleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures. moneyneversleeps.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: info@norioventures.com #Tokenization #Collectibles #Crypto #Startups

August 7, 2026Episode 32214 min

Agentic AI's Least Obvious Takeover Yet | James McCann | Everhaze [EP. 322]

James McCann, CEO and founder of Everhaze , joins Pete Townsend to talk about the 80/20 problem breaking PR agency economics, how an agentic layer turns hundreds of daily regulatory mentions into a 10-minute digest for a fintech client, where the human side of PR (the trust, the intros, the relationships) still does the heavy lifting, and why VC skepticism about AI-wrapped software didn't stop him from closing his round. Connect with James: X: https://x.com/JimmyMcCann01 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmccann862/ Learn more about Everhaze: https://everhaze.com/ X: https://x.com/everhaze LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/everhaze/ Email: info@everhaze.com MoneyNeverSleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures. moneyneversleeps.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: info@norioventures.com #AgenticAI #AI #PRTech #Startups

July 14, 2026Episode 32115 min

Making Monzo Irish: The Playbook for a More Human Digital Bank | Monzo Bank Europe | Elaine Deehan [EP. 321]

Elaine Deehan is back on MoneyNeverSleeps for her third appearance, and this one has been a long time coming. As Ireland Country Manager of Monzo Bank Europe, Elaine is doing what she's always done: building something that makes banking feel genuinely human, and genuinely Irish. Download the Monzo app and open your account at : https://monzo.com/ie Monzo went fully live in Ireland on April 14th with 100,000 people on the waitlist. But getting there wasn't a lift-and-shift from the UK. It meant walking the streets, talking to customers, and solving for the things that frustrate Irish people most about their banks. Elaine also talks about what the Irish playbook means for every market Monzo enters next. Connect with Elaine: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elainedeehan/ Monzo Ireland: https://monzo.com/ie Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moneyneversleeps1814 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/moneyneversleeps/id1455819294 Connect with Pete: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ MoneyNeverSleeps: https://moneyneversleeps.ie Email: info@norioventures.com

July 14, 2026Episode 31414 min

You Can't Code Your Way Out of Risk | Amor Sexton | Blockdaemon [EP. 314]

You Can't Code Your Way Out | Amor Sexton, Blockdaemon In the last few weeks, Drift and Kelp lost $577 million between them. Neither one was a code exploit. Both were operational and governance failures. Amor Sexton, Chief Operating Officer at Blockdaemon, was last on MoneyNeverSleeps in October 2022 (EP 193) talking about how institutional client expectations of resilient processes would drive blockchain adoption. Three and a half years later, the industry just got an extremely expensive lesson in exactly that thesis. In this episode, Pete and Amor get into: - Why "this isn't a hack, it's a governance failure" is the conversation the industry isn't having - How compliance is a subset of risk — and why DeFi keeps confusing the two - The Web2/human layer compromise that exploits a legitimate Web3 feature - Pluto on Castle Island: "Everything that TradFi has built in terms of circuit breakers, we're just speed running relearning those things in crypto" - The Kelp configuration was a known vulnerability — and 47% of operators chose it anyway - The two or three governance questions every DeFi protocol and LP should be asking right now - Why it always comes back to people, not code Chapters: 00:00 Cold open 00:24 Welcome back to MoneyNeverSleeps 00:55 $577M, 18 days, no code exploit 02:00 Compliance is a subset of risk 03:15 Guardrails and governance 04:30 The Web2 layer compromise 05:45 Speedrunning what TradFi already built 07:30 Why 47% chose the risky configuration 09:00 Three governance questions every protocol should answer 12:30 It always comes back to people 13:30 Sign off Connect with Amor: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amor-sexton/ Blockdaemon: https://www.blockdaemon.com/ About MoneyNeverSleeps: MoneyNeverSleeps is hosted by Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures. Sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people in crypto, fintech, AI, and onchain finance. Connect with Pete: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X: @petetownsendnv Norio Ventures: https://www.norioventures.com Subscribe to MoneyNeverSleeps wherever you get your podcasts: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moneyneversleeps1814 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/moneyneversleeps/id1455819294 #MoneyNeverSleeps #Blockdaemon #DeFi #Crypto #AmorSexton #Governance #RiskManagement

July 3, 2026Episode 32014 min

Founder Blind Spots: Hard Legal Lessons From the Edge | Sheila Lynch [EP. 320]

Sheila Lynch has been in the room for three of the biggest financial shocks of the last five years — COVID at CQS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine at BlackRock with live Eastern European assets in the funds, and the SVB collapse. When systems go under stress, what's actually there gets revealed. Culture, training, processes — either they hold or they don't. This episode is about what founders consistently get wrong before those moments arrive. Treasury after a raise, legal as a checkbox, wind-down plans that sit on a shelf and are never tested, equity structures that aren't optimised until it's too late. Sheila shares the story of a GC who called a law firm partner the day after closing a $50 million round to ask where to put the money. The room went silent. It's that kind of episode. Sheila Lynch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheila-lynch-27264726/ Partners for Growth: https://www.pfgrowth.com/ Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:21 Intro 01:02 Three systemic shocks, one pattern 04:13 The $50 million question 07:26 Legal as a checkbox, and what it actually costs 09:45 Building the right governance from day one 12:51 What every founder should know before signing a term sheet 13:37 Where to find Sheila MoneyNeverSleeps. Sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend. moneyneversleeps.ie Pete on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ Pete on X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Pete on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: info@norioventures.com

June 26, 2026Episode 31911 min

What Crypto Already Solved for Enterprise AI | Rami Akeela | Nera Systems

How can you use the world's most powerful AI models without ever exposing your sensitive data? Rami Akeela has spent twenty years building privacy and cryptographic infrastructure that most people didn't know they needed yet, and now, as founder of Nera Systems , he's solving the conundrum that's about to define enterprise AI — the more valuable your data, the less you can use it. We dig into what zero-knowledge proofs taught him about the wall enterprise AI is hitting today, the use cases hiding in plain sight across banking, healthcare, accounting and private equity, and what's kept him building through the grind underneath it all. Rami Akeela: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramiakeela/ Nera Systems: https://nera.systems/ Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:42 What zero-knowledge proofs taught Rami about AI 02:05 Why it doesn't have to be a paradox 02:50 The biggest use cases: banking, healthcare, accounting, PE 06:40 Training for this problem his whole career 07:53 What's kept him building through the grind 10:13 Where to find Rami and Nera Systems MoneyNeverSleeps. Sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people. moneyneversleeps.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: info@norioventures.com

June 22, 2026Episode 31814 min

The Drive to Five: Unpacking Citi's $5.5T Tokenization Forecast [EP. 318]

Citi Institute's "Tokenization 2030: Wall Street OnChain" puts a number on it: $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030. Alejandro Gutierrez, who leads Solana Superteam Ireland and returns for another appearance on the show, joins me to stress-test that forecast — what Citi gets right with DTCC, NYSE and Nasdaq embedding tokenization into core infrastructure, and what we think it misses, including the stablecoin-treasury flywheel, the pressure native issuers like Ondo and Superstate are putting on incumbents, Ireland and Luxembourg's combined funds industry as an underrated jurisdictional play, and why 24/7 markets are really built for AI agents, not retail traders. Read the full report, "Tokenization 2030: Wall Street Onchain," Citi Institute, June 2026: https://www.citigroup.com/global/insights/tokenization-2030 Castle DAO, the Solana builder residency at Slane Castle: https://tally.so/r/ODJv1k Follow Alejandro on X and LinkedIn: https://x.com/A_gutierrohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-gutierrez-98979b43/Follow Superteam Ireland on X: https://x.com/SuperteamIEhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/superteam-ireland/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open — for the agents 00:37 Introduction 01:18 Citi's stated case: three drivers behind $5.5 trillion 02:19 Is public equities at $3.6 trillion an aggressive number? 03:25 Public permissionless vs. private permissioned chains 04:30 The flywheel Citi missed: stablecoins, treasuries and collateral 06:28 24/7 isn't for retail — it's for the agents 08:50 Ondo, Superstate and the pressure on incumbents 10:53 Ireland, Luxembourg and the €12.5 trillion opportunity 12:02 The wrapper problem: tokenized funds without tokenized holdings 12:41 Castle DAO at Slane Castle MoneyNeverSleeps — sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures, sitting at the intersection of crypto, fintech, AI and onchain finance. Website: moneyneversleeps.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: info@norioventures.com

June 5, 2026Episode 31711 min

The Onramp Bringing TradFi Onchain | Martin Watkins | Montis [EP. 317]

Martin Watkins is CEO of Montis Group , which is building a blockchain-native central securities depository — the settlement and issuance layer that makes tokenized assets work as real financial products. With 30 years inside Euroclear, AtosEuronext and EY, Martin chose to build the infrastructure the market was missing rather than keep advising on the existing system. We get into what a digital CSD unlocks for collateral mobility, why the ECB's DLT eligibility confirmation matters, and what Luxembourg's Blockchain Law IV could mean for Ireland's €5 trillion funds industry. Find Martin at info@montis.digital or visit montis.digital Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd CHAPTERS 00:00 The doom loop that tokenization solves 00:27 Introduction 01:13 Martin Watkins welcome 01:18 30 years inside the plumbing of capital markets 03:50 What a blockchain-native CSD does differently 05:48 The Friday afternoon collateral problem 06:22 The 24/7 problem in tokenized funds 07:46 The Irish question: settlement finality and €5 trillion in fund assets 09:27 Legal certainty, portfolio managers and the velocity of capital 10:39 Why the market infrastructure isn't there yet — but nearly is 11:20 How to reach Martin and Montis MoneyNeverSleeps: Sharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people — all in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend with the people rebuilding money, markets, and the internet from the ground up. moneyneversleeps.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: info@norioventures.com

June 3, 2026Episode 31626 min

From Lean Startup to Incorruptible | Eric Ries [EP. 316]

Pete Townsend is joined by Eric Ries, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, for a conversation about the invisible structural forces that corrupt even the most mission-driven companies, and what founders can do about it before it's too late. Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, is out now. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Incorruptible-Good-Companies-Great-Stay/dp/B0FWZZBPZB Eric spent 15 years teaching a generation how to build fast and learn faster. Incorruptible asks the harder question: how do you protect what you built from the forces that will eventually try to take it from you? In this special double-length episode, he walks through the concept of financial gravity, the structural tools that the world's most durable companies have used for over a century, and why good intentions are never enough. Topics covered:– Why corporate corruption is a structural failure, not an ethical one – What financial gravity is and why it's invisible until it's too late – The Anthropic Long-Term Benefit Trust and what it was designed to protect against – How Novo Nordisk built a structure 100 years ago that protected $500 billion in shareholder value – Why Silicon Valley Bank's mission statement was worthless – The one two-page filing most founders never make CHAPTERS 00:00 The More Golden the Goose 00:23 Welcome Eric Ries 01:06 The Founder's Wake 05:08 What Did The Lean Startup Miss? 08:09 What is Financial Gravity? 12:50 The Right Architecture 13:11 Anthropic and the Long-Term Benefit Trust 14:59 The Novo Nordisk Story 18:18 Are You Smarter Than a Nobel Laureate? 19:28 The Vatican Panel 20:46 The Public Benefit Corporation 22:41 Is LTSE Incorruptible? 23:39 The Guardian of the Company's Soul Connect with Eric:X: https://x.com/ericries LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/ Incorruptible (book): https://incorruptible.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericriesactual/ Newsletter: https://news.theleanstartup.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow Podcast: https://www.ericriesshow.co Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Incorruptible-Good-Companies-Great-Stay/dp/B0FWZZBPZB Connect with Pete:X: @PeteTownsendNV LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ Norio Ventures: https://norioventures.com MoneyNeverSleeps: https://moneyneversleeps.ie#incorruptible #leanstartup #founders #startups

June 3, 2026Episode 31514 min

Product Before Token | Sal Ternullo | SVRN + A100x Ventures [EP. 315]

Pete Townsend is joined by Sal Ternullo, CEO of SVRN and Managing Partner at A100x Ventures, for a conversation about how to tell the difference between a token that represents ownership of the value-creating thing and one that's an accelerant bolted onto something else.Sal has been underwriting these decisions at A100x at the pre-seed and seed stage. He walks through what's actually changed in the market, what a defensible answer on value accrual sounds like in a pitch meeting, and why the race-to-TGE game that defined the last cycle is largely over. Topics covered: – Why the era of tolerating tokens with no claim on cash flows is ending – How to tell whether a founder has real conviction on decentralization or is bolting a token onto an equity business – The cap-table tensions between SAFEs, token warrants, and Series A investors who can't touch tokens – Why building the product before designing the token is the new discipline – The question Sal wishes more founders walked in with an answer to CHAPTERS: 00:00 Bad Tokens Ruin Good Projects 00:30 Welcome Sal Ternullo 01:10 What Changed in Token Value Accrual 03:00 Equity vs. Token: Where Does Value Accrue 04:55 Signs a Founder Has Real Conviction 06:15 Ownership or Loyalty Points 08:30 Tokens After 18 Months: Pump.fun and the Lag 10:00 The Race to TGE Game is Over 11:30 The Cap Table Reality 13:00 The Question Founders Should Ask Connect with Sal:X: @sal_ternulloEmail: sal@svrn.net SVRN: https://svrn.net A100x Ventures: https://a100x.vc Connect with Pete:X: @PeteTownsendNV LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ Norio Ventures: https://norioventures.com MoneyNeverSleeps: https://moneyneversleeps.ie#crypto #venturecapital #tokens