Gridmatic – AI-Powered Energy for Flexible Loads
The Crypto Conversation
Kise Shannon is VP of Business Development at Gridmatic, an AI-first power company helping Bitcoin miners and other flexible loads turn energy market volatility into opportunity. Drawing on more than 20 years in the US energy industry – starting in Texas the moment the state deregulated – Kise has built her career across both global energy majors and startups, and now leads Gridmatic's push into the Bitcoin mining vertical from her base in Houston. Why you should listen Most retail electricity providers evolved out of legacy utilities, and it shows: slow innovation, rigid contracts, and...
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Perceptron Network – A Thousand Eyes, One Vision for Decentralized AI Data
The Crypto Conversation
Peter Anthony is the co-founder of Perceptron Network, a decentralised data infrastructure purpose-built for AI. A crypto native since 2019, Peter also runs The House of Crypto — one of the fastest-growing crypto YouTube channels — where years of speaking with founders convinced him that the next wave of blockchain projects would be defined by real revenues, real users, and real-world utility. Perceptron, which merged with the 700,000-node BlockMesh network in mid-2025, is his bet on what he sees as AI's biggest unsolved bottleneck: access to high-quality, affordable, real-time data. Why...
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Coins.ph – Building the Stablecoin Economy
The Crypto Conversation
Wei Zhou is the CEO of Coins.ph, the largest crypto-native fintech platform in the Philippines, which he acquired in 2022. A former CFO of Binance and long-time finance executive — Wei has been rebuilding Coins.ph as a fully regulated on-ramp between fiat, crypto and stablecoins for Filipino users and businesses, while extending the playbook globally through Coins.xyz. Why you should listen A real-world stablecoin case study: The Philippines pulls in close to $100 billion a year in foreign inflows — roughly $38 billion in retail remittances from nearly 10 million overseas Filipino workers,...
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Tok-Edge - The Crypto Hedge Fund with a Token
The Crypto Conversation
Raees Chowdhury is the co-founder and chief investment officer of Tok-Edge, a London-based regulated DeFi hedge fund built around a novel cryptoasset structure called the Redemption Token. With a career spanning senior roles at BCG and Bain Capital, a managing partner position at Revolt Ventures — a fund sitting beneath a $10 billion AUM vehicle — and deep roots in on-chain markets dating back to the ICO era of 2016–17, Raees brings rare dual fluency in institutional finance and DeFi to one of crypto's most ambitious new fund structures. Why you should listen Tok-Edge emerged from...
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MovitOn - The Next Uber for Delivery
The Crypto Conversation
Marco Kowalewski is the managing partner at MovitOn, a Dubai-headquartered startup building what it describes as the Uber for delivery. Originally from Germany, Marco spent years in management roles and as a business lecturer before diving into blockchain around eight years ago. He is a three-time author on topics spanning cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and tokenisation, and joined the MovitOn team roughly eight months ago after an advisory relationship evolved into a leadership role. Why you should listen The global logistics industry is worth trillions, yet sending a single document...
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PerpTools – How DEXTools Is Building the Full DeFi Trading Stack
The Crypto Conversation
Wael Rajab is the CMO of PerpTools and co-founder and director of DEXT Ventures, the capital arm of DEXTools — one of DeFi's original and most widely used on-chain trading and analytics platforms. With nearly a decade in crypto and a portfolio spanning over 100 investments across 150+ integrated blockchains, Wael has been at the centre of decentralised finance's growth from data dashboard to full trading stack. Why you should listen DEXTools built its reputation as the go-to platform for on-chain token analytics — the place traders head when they want to understand what's happening across...
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Abundant – What If the Most Radical Act Is Giving?
The Crypto Conversation
Andy sits down with Donald Griswold, director of the new indie documentary feature Abundant, and Sheila Dohmann, Chief Marketing Officer at Stuff.io, the decentralized media platform bringing the film to audiences worldwide. Abundant examines generosity, scarcity and what drives the rarest altruists among us — non-directed kidney donors who give a kidney to a complete stranger — and it's being distributed exclusively via blockchain streaming starting March 26th. Why you should listen This conversation cuts to the heart of what's broken in independent film distribution. Donald explains how...
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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...
info_outlineKise Shannon is VP of Business Development at Gridmatic, an AI-first power company helping Bitcoin miners and other flexible loads turn energy market volatility into opportunity. Drawing on more than 20 years in the US energy industry – starting in Texas the moment the state deregulated – Kise has built her career across both global energy majors and startups, and now leads Gridmatic's push into the Bitcoin mining vertical from her base in Houston.
Why you should listen
Most retail electricity providers evolved out of legacy utilities, and it shows: slow innovation, rigid contracts, and pricing models that punish flexibility. Gridmatic was built differently. The company applies foundational AI models – the same forecasting and optimization engine that powers its wholesale trading desk and its battery storage business across ERCOT and CAISO – to the question every miner is trying to answer in real time: when do I run, when do I curtail, and what is my true effective rate? Kise walks Andy through how that AI layer ingests hundreds of thousands of data points to forecast prices down to specific nodal locations, automating the financial trading between day-ahead and real-time markets while the miner stays focused on operations. It's a clear-eyed look at what "AI-powered energy optimization" actually means once you strip away the buzzwords.
The conversation then turns to one of the most underdiscussed problems in mining economics: collateral. New mining LLCs have no trade history, which means traditional retail suppliers demand large upfront deposits at exactly the moment a miner is bleeding cash on land, interconnect, containers, and ASICs. Gridmatic has solved this through partnerships with OBM, Synota, and Satoshi Energy's Bitcurrent platform, all of which enable daily settlement in place of monthly invoices. Layer in Strike for Bitcoin-to-USD conversion and miners can effectively pay their power bill in BTC each day without parking working capital as collateral. Kise also explains why contractual flexibility matters more than ever as miners blend ASIC and AI compute on the same site – two very different load profiles requiring very different energy strategies.
Kise makes a strong case for why Texas remains the best home for flexible mining despite tightening competition for interconnects. Abundant land, a state government that has actively welcomed the industry, deep renewable penetration, and natural synergies with the oil and gas sector all combine to make ERCOT uniquely suited to flexible loads. More importantly, Bitcoin miners are not just consumers of Texas power – they are critical grid resources, capable of fully shutting down when supply tightens in a way AI data centers (which often demand five-nines uptime) simply cannot. On the AI-versus-Bitcoin debate, Kise sees coexistence rather than replacement: miners with land and interconnects are partnering with AI customers, and new flexible load is still arriving in Texas. The hot take round closes things out with thoughts on a 10-year vision of Gridmatic as "the power company of the future," why every professional should be using AI now rather than fearing it, and a fitting May the 4th nod to The Martian.
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