The Scoop The Block

Keone Hon is the founder and CEO of Monad Labs — the development team behind a new Layer-1 blockchain that aims to bring pipelined execution to the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
In this episode, Keone shares how his background at various HFT firms led him to identify problems with existing blockchain infrastructure and ultimately inspired him to rebuild the EVM entirely to optimize it for high-performance trading activity.
Monad has raised $19 million from investors including Dragonfly Capital, Naval Ravikant, Cobie, Hasu and others.

OUTLINE:
03:33 - Monad Overview
05:17 - Another Layer-1?
06:26 - ‘Pipelining’
08:32 - Web3 Social
11:38 - Bridges to Monad
12:11 - High Performance DeFi
13:34 - DeFi Summer 2.0?
16:01 - Monad’s Funding
16:49 - Onchain HFT
19:05 - The Future of Trading
22:55 - Onchain Sports Betting
23:19 - Surviving Crypto Winter
28:30 - Closing Thoughts

Aaron Kaplan founded Prometheum to create a trading venue for digital assets that is compliant with federal securities laws. However, Kaplan's firm came under fire following the SEC's approval of Prometheum's special purpose broker-dealer license back in May of this year — the only such license issued by the SEC to date.
In this episode, Kaplan lays out how Prometheum managed to secure the special purpose broker-dealer license and why he believes strict adherence to the federal securities laws is the key to increased institutional participation in the digital asset industry.
While companies like Coinbase claim regulatory ambiguities exist surrounding digital assets, Kaplan firmly believes that existing federal securities laws can be applied to digital assets without alterations.
As Kaplan explains, "Our approval shows that if you put your head down, you work hard, you focus on how the regulators have laid out the rules and regulations, that you can be compliant."

Mike Dudas has over a decade of experience investing in the crypto industry and is the managing partner at the VC firm 6th Man Ventures.
In this episode, Dudas examines the state of the crypto venture market, which he claims is currently stuck in "the slowest pace of dealmaking" he has ever seen.
According to Dudas, two of the main contributors to slowing crypto VC activity are the dwindling number of real users for blockchain based products, plus founder expectations that are still anchored to unrealistic bull market valuations from days past.
However, despite slowing user growth and lackluster price action, Dudas points to the uptick in developer activity as a beacon of hope that promises better experiences and products to the next wave of new crypto users.

Li Jin is the co-founder and a general partner at the VC firm Variant and has written extensively about the benefits of web3 social platforms for creators. Stani Kulechov is the creator of Aave (one of the largest decentralized finance protocols) and has been key to the development of the web3 social network platform, Lens Protocol.
In this episode, Li and Kulechov examine the problems with the existing social media landscape and explain the opportunities that exist for new web3 social media attempts such as Lens Protocol.
As Jin explains, one of the key benefits of web3 social is that "every element of the business model is totally in the creator's control."
Outline:
01:15 - Existing Social Media Landscape
08:18 - Opportunities for Web3 Social
12:35 - 'Socioeconomic Graph'
14:20 - Lens Protocol
17:44 - Financialization of Social Media
25:30 - Monetization on X (Twitter)
31:00 - Community Ownership
34:46 - 'Liquid Citizen'
38:26 - Investing in Web3 Social
40:09 - Tokens & Web3 Social
45:17 - Lens Protocol v2

Kristin Smith is the CEO of Blockchain Association — one of the top crypto policy advocacy groups in the U.S.
In this episode, Smith unpacks the intricacies of the pending market structure bill set to make its way through Congress this fall, highlighting its potential to bring crypto regulatory clarity in the U.S. once and for all.
According to Smith, the bill could be what's needed to bring in greater institutional participation and mainstream adoption:
"It's something that we think that if it were to move forward, would give a lot of confidence to institutional investors, to traditional tech companies and other players to enter this space because they know there is a clear and workable regulatory framework in place."

Outline:
00:40 - Current State of Crypto in DC
05:00 - Token Taxonomy Act (2018)
07:24 - 2023 Congressional Crypto Outlook
09:02 - Stablecoin Legislation
13:20 - Market Structure Legislation
16:24 - XRP Ruling
24:46 - Treasury Department & Crypto
28:07 - Anti-Crypto Congressional Sentiment
29:48 - Aliens
31:55 - 2024 Presidential Candidates & Crypto

Rebecca Rettig serves as the Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Polygon Labs.
In this episode, Rettig offers a comprehensive analysis of the SEC's ongoing legal proceedings against Coinbase and Ripple, including instances where the Court seems to be challenging the SEC's authority.
Rettig explains, "I think what both the Ripple and the Coinbase motion for judgment on the pleadings is really trying to say is, 'We got to bring it back to the law. This may look like something, but it doesn't look like anything you've seen before.' So we can't import these other ideas where an investment contract means there's some implied contract."
Additionally, she touches on the Court's perspective regarding the SEC's prior actions towards Coinbase: "The judge that [the Coinbase case] is in front of expressed a lot of skepticism about the case because she said to the SEC, 'Didn't you guys let this one go through and allow them to IPO?'"
During this episode Chaparro and Rettig also discuss:

Regulatory frameworks for digital assets outside the U.S.

The Value Prop and how blockchain is being used for good

Why this has been a "bullish" bear market