Themelia – Custom Crypto Indexes
The Crypto Conversation
Jessica Ellerm and Kent Grogan are the co-founders of Themelia, a platform building the next infrastructure layer for crypto investment through custom indexing technology. Jessica comes from a fintech background — including a stint at ASX-listed payments platform Tyro and a superannuation startup she founded and sold — while Kent ran a hedge fund for years before moving into portfolio management and FinTech. Together, they're tackling one of the most underserved problems in digital assets: how do you get sensible, risk-adjusted exposure to a market of 52 million tokens without getting...
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Stormrake – Old School Brokerage for the Digital Asset Era
The Crypto Conversation
Bisher Khudeira is the COO of , a Melbourne-based digital asset brokerage offering best execution trading, institutional custody, and asset management across Bitcoin, digital assets, and tokenized real-world assets. Bisher joins Andy to explain why the brokerage model beats the exchange model for serious investors, what it takes to build a crypto business in one of the most hostile banking environments in the developed world, and why Stormrake is about to plant its flag in Dallas. Why you should listen Bisher has spent a decade in financial services, starting in foreign exchange brokering...
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Solayer – Hardware Accelerated Finance at the Speed of Metal
The Crypto Conversation
Joshua Sum is the Chief Product Officer at Solayer, a hardware accelerated network built to move money at the speed of metal. Joshua joins Andy Pickering to explain how dedicated chip-level infrastructure is pushing blockchain throughput into territory no software-only chain can reach — and why that matters as payments, AI agents, and real-world asset tokenization all converge on the same rails. Why you should listen Joshua's path to crypto ran through direct-to-consumer e-commerce, a founding quant role at Treehouse, and building CollegeDow into the largest university blockchain network in...
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UTEXO – Native USDT Comes Home to Bitcoin
The Crypto Conversation
Viktor Ihnatiuk is the co-founder and CEO of UTEXO, a Tether-backed global settlement network for native USDT and Bitcoin payments, powered by the Lightning Network and the RGB protocol. Viktor joins Andy Pickering to walk through a decade-long journey from Ukrainian fintech to the frontline of Bitcoin infrastructure — and to explain why the world's biggest stablecoin is finally coming back to the chain where it was born. Why you should listen Viktor traces his path from launching Ukraine's first peer-to-peer lending platform and first fintech conference — where he discovered Bitcoin in...
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Open Frontier - The Coalition for Fair Crypto
The Crypto Conversation
Open Frontier Executive Director Erik Balsbaugh and board member Amanda Wick join Andy Pickering for a wide-ranging conversation on crypto, politics, and the future of digital finance. The discussion explores why digital assets are too important to be left to partisan trench warfare, and why the real promise of crypto has less to do with speculation and more to do with reducing fees, expanding access, and breaking the grip of extractive financial intermediaries. Erik and Amanda make the case that this is ultimately a fight about fairness, affordability, and who the financial system is built to...
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Transak - The Crypto On-Ramp
The Crypto Conversation
Andy Werner is VP of Partnerships and Strategy at Transak, one of the world’s leading fiat-to-crypto on-ramp providers. Werner shares his journey through fintech — from big banks to startups — and explains how Transak is building the compliance and payments infrastructure that quietly powers hundreds of crypto platforms globally. While the company operates in what he jokingly calls the “boring” side of crypto, Werner argues that boring is exactly what payments infrastructure should be: seamless, reliable, and invisible to the end user. Why you should listen The conversation dives...
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Veera - The OnChain Neobank
The Crypto Conversation
Andy sits down with SB, CEO and co-founder of Veera, to unpack a bold attempt at one of crypto’s oldest and most stubborn problems: making it usable for normal people. From launching BlackBerrys and building early mobile ad tech, to challenging Netflix with an Asian streaming platform and exiting a travel startup, SB’s winding entrepreneurial path now lands squarely in on-chain finance. The conversation traces how Veera is positioning itself as a true crypto neobank — not just a wallet with a card — and why user experience, not yield or hype, will decide whether crypto ever really...
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New Book - The Intelligent Crypto Investor
The Crypto Conversation
John Hargrave, CEO of Media Shower and author of The Intelligent Crypto Investor, joins the show to unpack a radically calm, Buffett-inspired approach to crypto investing. From wiring money to Belarus to buy Bitcoin in 2013 to nearly losing his business in the 2018 crypto winter, John shares how hard-earned wisdom led him to a disciplined, diversified strategy that blends traditional assets with a carefully sized slice of high-quality crypto — and why this model has quietly outperformed traditional portfolios over the past several years. Why you should listen John traces his origin story...
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OpenTrade - Stablecoin Infra & Yield for Financial Services
The Crypto Conversation
Andy sits down with Dave Sutter, CEO and co-founder of OpenTrade, to unpack why stablecoins are rapidly becoming the most important financial primitive in crypto — and arguably the missing link between digital assets and traditional finance. Why you should listen Dave traces his journey from building early Bitcoin wallets and launching one of the first dollar-backed stablecoins, through years working with major regulated institutions, to founding OpenTrade in 2023. His core thesis is simple but bold: stablecoins are no longer a niche crypto product — they are evolving into internet-native...
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SecondSwap - The Dex For Locked Tokens
The Crypto Conversation
Andy sits down with Kanny Lee, CEO and co-founder of SecondSwap, to explore one of crypto’s most under-discussed structural problems: liquidity for locked and vested tokens. With a background spanning two decades in Big Four forensic accounting and early institutional crypto OTC trading in Hong Kong, Kanny brings a rare blend of TradFi discipline and on-chain realism to the conversation. Why you should listen Kanny explains why crypto’s evolution now demands proper secondary market infrastructure—something traditional finance has always relied on, but Web3 has largely ignored. SecondSwap...
info_outlineWish is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pharos Network, a Programmable Open Financial Layer 1 For RWAs & Cross-Chain Liquidity. Wish leads the development of its decentralized protocol stack and drives key industry partnerships. Formerly CSO at ZAN, Ant Group's Web3 arm, he specialized in security architecture and vulnerability management.
Why you should listen
Pharos Network is a next-generation layer-1 blockchain protocol designed to bridge Web 2 and Web 3 liquidity by providing a high-throughput, modular platform for real-world asset tokenisation and open finance. Built by a team with backgrounds at organisations such as Ant Financial, Microsoft Research and Stanford University, the network emphasises institutional-grade performance while remaining accessible to individual users and developers. On its website, Pharos highlights its ability to handle 30,000+ transactions per second with block-finality in under one second and support for up to one billion simultaneous users.
Designed for real-world finance applications, Pharos targets use-cases such as tokenised financial products, stablecoins backed by real-world collateral, and infrastructure assets like property, energy and commodities. It also incorporates features aimed at regulatory compliance including identity – and AML/ KYC infrastructure – while maintaining open-chain access. With these characteristics, the network positions itself to enable institutions and individuals alike to participate in an on-chain economy that seeks to combine scalability, transparency and broad access.
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