Carpe Consensus

Does the future of media companies lie in decentralized models?

“Even successful magazines right now are rethinking their model... One of the ways you give power to your readers is to give them the direct ability to allocate funds.”

Former CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen joins Anna Baydakova and Ben Schiller on “Opinionated” to discuss Des Femmes, the magazine for women in finance and tech. Cuen co-founded the magazine to address a lack of representation and voice for women entrepreneurs, especially in the crypto industry.

Des Femmes is printed and managed by a DAO-inspired structure. Cuen discusses Des Femmes’ decision to pursue a bitcoin multisig structure to manage the funds the publication generated from an Ethereum crowdfunding campaign, and its plans for further decentralization in the future. Converting a media organization into a decentralized autonomous organization presents unique opportunities to get the community more involved in the co-creation of the publication.

This episode was produced, announced and edited by Michele Musso with additional production support from Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is by Elision.

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This week on the Opinionated podcast, we’re joined by PwC’s Henri Arslanian, the consultancy’s very smart global crypto hand.

Arslanian wrote a 2021 look-ahead op-ed for CoinDesk giving 10 Predictions for 2021: China, Bitcoin, Taxes, Stablecoins and More

He thinks next year will see a number of big trends in crypto come to fruition.

“2020 has been a terrible year for pretty much the entire world but when we look at it from a fintech and crypto perspective, it has been a game-changing year,” Arslanian tells me.

“COVID-19 really acted as a catalyst.”

Take bank notes. We’ve been using them less for years but the pandemic has really stopped us using them. At the same time, people are hoarding bank notes (because it’s a crisis), leading central banks to think more seriously about issuing their own digital currencies.

Next year, Arslanian expects to see the first retail digital currencies. All eyes will be on China’s advanced project.

Arslanian also discusses bitcoin, derivatives and taxes. He expects lots of M&A activity as crypto unicorns become “crypto octopuses.”

Listen in for one of the smartest consultants in the crypto space.

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What impact will crypto have on the nature of organizations? Will experiments in crypto’s governance lab lead to lasting trends in how companies are orchestrated?

This week on the “Opinionated” podcast we discussed this big topic with Jeff Dorman, the chief investment officer at Arca, a crypto hedge fund.

Dorman, a CoinDesk columnist, argues that “community tokens” (like LINK or SUSHI) will inevitably outpace “VC tokens” (like COMP, ATOM) because of the preferable incentives at play.

And he believes the trend of community ownership in crypto will meld with the wider shift towards companies doing right by a range of stakeholders as well as just their shareholders.

Dorman contrasts a decentralized finance (DeFi) project like Uniswap with Airbnb and DoorDash, which are now heading for initial public offerings. The former rewards liquidity providers (and soon token holders) who share in the system’s success. The latter companies were built on the work of homeowners and delivery guys, but all the gains from a public listing will go to stock holders.

“With digital assets, you’re starting to democratize access to these companies and you’re starting to spread out income inequality,” he says.

Incentives are key to make more democratic governance work. “Nobody cares about governance until it affects their bottom line. Twitter isn’t going to change its governance for the sake of ideology. If there’s governance for the sake of cash flows, that is another story.”

A sharp thinker with two decades of investing experience, Dorman had plenty of insights in our conversation covering bitcoin, nonfungible tokens (NFT) and Twitter in the wake of the Capitol attack this week.

Check out the episode now and read Dorman’s CoinDesk columns here.

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This week, “Opinionated” co-hosts Ben Schiller, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson are talking to Nik Bhatia, an Adjunct Professor of Finance and Business Economics at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

This episode is sponsored by hellointerpop.io and The Sun Exchange.

His book, "Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies" is freshly in print this year, and Nik has plenty of bold and controversial ideas to share.

Nik recently wrote two thought-provoking op-eds for CoinDesk about the future of bitcoin. One of them, “Why $1 Million Bitcoin Is Coming” is a projection of forces affecting bitcoin’s upcoming growth. In particular, Nik believes MicroStrategy’s and Tesla’s bitcoin purchases resulted in big increases in bitcoin’s price – increases that he sees continuing as new companies and even central banks start buying in.

If we expected more big enterprises to join the party, are we looking at $1 million bitcoin? Or is it too bullish? Nik guided us through his journey of understanding bitcoin and why he thinks it will be a base layer to the future financial system.

Bitcoin’s volatility is not going anywhere in the future, Nik believes. But that shouldn’t stop traditional asset managers from buying it, because they are buying a share in the world’s financial future. And in this future, the national currencies might become central bank digital currencies (CBDC), and bitcoin will be a global standard to weigh against those national

We discuss these and more bold ideas, how people should invest in bitcoin and how the world will treat bitcoin in the years to come. Enjoy the conversation and definitely check out Nik’s pieces, “Why $1 Million Bitcoin Is Coming” and “Asset Managers, Owning Bitcoin Is Now Your Fiduciary Duty.”

Nik Bhatia’s Twitter handle is: @timevalueofbtc.

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This week on the Opinionated podcast we’re joined by Brett Scott, the author of “The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money.”

Scott is a former derivatives broker who became a financial market reformer in the wake of the 2007-2008 crisis.

Many such reformers became big fans of Bitcoin. But Scott’s views on cryptocurrency are mixed and nuanced. He appreciates some aspects of the technology, but also criticizes people in the space for over-indulging certain arguments about it.

As he wrote recently in our op-ed pages, Scott believes that Bitcoin advocates often conflate points of attack that don’t belong together, namely that bitcoin can be a new form of money and a tradable asset simultaneously.

Check out that op-ed here:

How to Win a Bitcoin Street Fight (Without Mortal Combat)

And then listen in to my conversation with Scott on the podcast.

He has fascinating insights into the nature and future of money and how we can talk about bitcoin more usefully.

Brett Scott’s Twitter handle is: @Suitpossum.

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