Unchained - Camila Russo on the Most Pivotal Moments in Ethereum's History - Ep.182

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Camila Russo, founder of The Defiant and author of a new book on Ethereum, "The Infinite Machine," speaks about how currency controls in Argentina got her interested in crypto and explains why she chose to tell the Ethereum story. She discusses: how she started covering the crypto space what it was like living through currency controls in Argentina why she started focusing on Ethereum instead of Bitcoin what’s in her new book, The Infinite Machine the most pivotal moments in Ethereum’s history possible risks to Ethereum 2.0 because of delays whether competing protocols could take market share away from Ethereum the most surprising aspect of the Ethereum story starting her own DeFi-focused media platform, The Defiant why she launched ‘CAMI’ tokens and how they are used the significance of ERC-20 tokens having a higher market cap than ETH her predictions about trends and promising projects in the DeFi space   Thank you to our sponsors!  Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com  Tezos: https://tquorum.com/   Episode links:  Camila Russo: https://twitter.com/CamiRusso The Infinite Machine: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-infinite-machine-camila-russo The Defiant: https://thedefiant.substack.com/   Excerpt from The Infinite Machine on CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/sale-of-the-century-the-inside-story-of-ethereums-2014-premine   Decrypt review: https://decrypt.co/35466/the-incredible-story-of-ethereum-the-infinite-machine   Camila on what Ethereum has accomplished in five years: https://www.coindesk.com/five-years-on-ethereum-really-is-the-minecraft-of-crypto-finance   Hidden Forces podcast with Camila:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rise-ethereum-future-defi-transformation-crypto-media/id1205359334?i=1000484635053   Camila in the Keen On podcast: https://lithub.com/camila-russo-on-ethereum-and-the-future-of-the-internet/ Ethereum 2.0 phase 0 may not go live until 2021: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/71155/eth-2-phase-0-ama-2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today's guest is Camilla Russo, author of The Infinite Machine, how an army of crypto-hackers is building the next internet with Ethereum, and founder of the Defiant. Welcome, Camilla. Hi, Laura. Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here. I just want to say, first of all, congrats on the publication of your book. That must be so exciting. It is. I'm so happy with it.

So happy with all the feedback. It's been amazing. So let's start with your background. You've done so much in crypto, but I don't know if people really know how you got started. So how did you come to be covering this space? Sure. So, well, before being full-time crypto with the defiant and the infinite machine,

I was a reporter at Bloomberg News for around eight years. I started in an internship in New York, then I went to Argentina for over four years in Madrid and then back to New York. And in Argentina, I was there in Christina Fernandez's second term. And at that time, she imposed really harsh currency controls and inflation, as always, in Argentina, was, you know, in the double digits. And so I was covering Argentine markets and how people were protecting against inflation and currency controls. And that's how I came across Bitcoin for the first time in 2013. So I wrote a story for Bloomberg on, you know, how Argentines were using this digital currency to protect against inflation. And after that, I was like always really interested in crypto, you know.

To me, it was like a really powerful concept, this idea of having a parallel. and independent financial and monetary system that, you know, especially after living in Argentina and living through all that, it made a lot of sense to me. So I always kind of kept track of it. But then it was back in New York in 2017 when I started really covering it again and focusing more on it. So at this time I was at Bloomberg's Markets Live blog, which is kind of a live feed of market analysis. And I mostly covered emerging markets, but I had the freedom of to write whatever looked interesting. And 2017 was obviously huge for crypto. So I started writing about crypto and then started writing for like the general wire, because Bloomberg didn't have like

dedicated cryptocurrency reporters or a dedicated crypto team. So I became kind of the de facto crypto reporter at the time. And that kind of, you know, dragged me in the space. I had a front row view of the huge bubble of 2017, and I just, you know, was fascinated by it and kind of never left after that. And earlier when you said that having lived through the currency controls in Argentina, that that was part of the reason that you got fascinated with Bitcoin. What was it like living through that? You know, what did you experience and why was it that you felt that Bitcoin was related to what was happening then? It was really interesting to be living through that because I'm Chilean and in Chilean the situation was very different. Chile is a much more conservative country like fiscally and in its monetary policy.

Like nothing ever happens there. The pezo is pretty, the Chilean pesos is pretty stable. So coming to Argentina where, you know, there were all. all these like stimulus and like money printing and just like very populist policies with the Kersner's and I'm just living through currency controls like firsthand because I was I was earning in Argentine pesos like Bloomberg paid journalists there in their local currency

when they do that in every local bureau you get paid in obviously the country's currency so I got paid in Argentine pesos And when I first got to Argentina, the first thing I was told was as soon as you get your salary, change it to dollars because of the huge inflation. So what happens with inflation in practice is that, you know, you get, say, 100 Argentine pesos in January, and that it lets you buy a certain amount of stuff. But then at the end of the year, you can buy much less with the same 100 pesos. So effectively, you become poorer by holding your local currency. So that's why people in Argentina, countries with really high inflation, are always seeking a more stable currency, and that's usually U.S. dollars.

So that's what I was doing. As soon as I got my salary in pesos, I exchanged it $2. And then one day, I think it was like just like two or a couple of days after Christina Fernandez got reelected. I was at the Bloomberg office kind of covering this announcement where she said now U.S. dollar purchases

are prohibited. And I was like, okay, like I covered it. But then I went to my bank account to see if like actually I wasn't able to trade pesos for dollars anymore. And that option was just gone from my bank.

So I really kind of lived that. And then I was like stuck with Argentine pesos and having to go to the black market. And the U.S. dollar black market in Argentina is like, it's illegal, but it's like everyone does it. Like, everyone is using it. And it's just crazy. So people were doing like all these like schemes to try to get access to dollars.

Like they would go overnight to Uruguay to Punta del Este and like cash. casino chips for dollars and like to all this like crazy stuff including like bitcoin so um and and yeah like just seeing how frustrating it is to have a government dictate what you can and can't do with your own money and you know banks like prohibiting uh and enforcing those those laws and regulations it was just amazing to me like it just didn't make any sense It was like, this is my money. I earned it. Like, why are they telling me I can't buy dollars with it? Like, especially because the reason why the person is being devalued is their fault. So why do I have to pay for that? Right? It just felt like so insane. And so, yeah, it's this, the ability to have a hedge against crazy governments and irresponsible policies. It's just, was just groundbreaking. And yeah, I think that's what Bitcoin and votes. So, but something that's so fascinating to me is that I obviously can see how your experience in Argentina would get you interested in Bitcoin. And I've seen this, pretty much the same story

happened with people like Wencescasaurus and Michael Casey who lived in Argentina. It just feels like, you know, Mariona Conti, everybody who has experience with Argentina somehow finds their way to the crypto space. But why do you think that you instead ended up focusing on Ethereum rather than Bitcoin? Yeah, so I think like the reason is is like a practical one as well as like not ideological one but like one that's like focused on Ethereum itself. So the practical reason was that end of 2017 I thought what happened this year is crazy and it needs to be documented. like this is an incredible space. And I had always wanted to write a book, a non-fiction book. So I was on the lookout for like what interesting stories I could tell.

And so crypto was to me like that opportunity to tell an interesting story in a book. And so I just, you know, started thinking what's the most interesting story in crypto that hasn't been told? And the story of Bitcoin had been told before really well. I thought with digital gold and other books. And it was just more widely known. But Ethereum, you know, people didn't really know much about it beyond, you know, it's a platform for ICOs. There was no history of Ethereum, which was crazy. It was the second biggest cryptocurrency.

It fueled much of the craziness of 2017, yet nobody knew much about it and how it got created and started. So that's the reason I started looking at writing a book on Ethereum. And then, you know, after my kind of initial research, I realized it is really a book-worthy project because while Bitcoin tries to do, you know, peer-to-peer money, Ethereum wants to do peer-to-peer everything, like go beyond just the peer-to-peer transfer of money with smart contracts. So to me it was, you know, whether Ethereum meant out winning or succeeding in its goal of becoming like the world computer, it's still, you know, it's still won in the sense that

it was the first to try this, to push blockchain technology forward. And so I thought that was a story worth telling. And at some point you also left Bloomberg. when was that and why did you decide to leave Bloomberg? So I left Bloomberg January 2019. And I left in part because I really wanted to focus on finishing my book. So Bloomberg gave me a few months of book leave, and that was amazing, and I'm really grateful to them.

But then, you know, beginning of 2019 was when I had to go back to Bloomberg and do like my full-time reporting job, and I still hadn't finished writing the book. And so I just, like, couldn't see how I would be able to do both well, and I didn't want to delay publishing my book. So that was, like, one side of the decision, and then the other side was just, you know, I was there for eight years. I covered so many different markets.

I was at three or four different Bloomberg offices, if you count like some time I was also in the Chile office so I had like a lot of experience covering financial news for Bloomberg and I just thought it's time to do something else like I was excited to to freelance to maybe start something on my own like I left without a clear idea of what I would do after finishing the book but I knew I wanted a little bit more freedom to explore other things after like all that time of Bloomberg. And so you did start talking a little bit about your book, but why don't we just dive into the particulars. What is your book about? So yeah, my book is on, it focuses on

the history of Ethereum, especially the early days. So how Vitalik came up with the idea of Ethereum, how he inspired a group of very diverse characters from different walks of life to follow him in this journey of building this this new platform the challenges they face how they overcame them and then you know the the 2017 boom and bust in 2018 and then also I come to pretty much a present day kind of hinting about like the future of Ethereum with defy and and web 3 but really the focus is on the early days and how Ethereum got started and launched. And so what would you say were the most pivotal moments in Ethereum's history?

First, at the beginning of Ethereum history, there was this tension on whether, like, on the very kind of soul of Ethereum, whether, you know, it should be a for-profit company or a non-profit foundation. fueling development of like this open public blockchain. And so I think the moment, the decision to make it a non-profit foundation, obviously really defined Ethereum going forward. So that was definitely a pivotal moment. Another another key moment, I think, was the pre-sale, ICO pre-mine, however you want to call it,

you know, the decision to structure the distribution of ether in this way with a pre-sale instead of just by, you know, proof of work mining like Bitcoin. So Ethereum has been really criticized for this after that. It's always face kind of, had this kind of sort of Democles hanging over its head with like regulators on whether this was actual illegal. like if this was a securities offering or not, like that was always in doubt until recently. So I think that was another kind of big moment for it, like that decision to do ether distribution that way. And also like deciding to do it in the U.S. and, you know, that took like a huge amount of time with lawyers to decide all the like specifics of the sale. Also big, but I think less known is the Shanghai attack.

So Ethereum went through kind of this phase of like huge tests to it and one was the Shanghai attacks when it was receiving these denial of service attacks and like spam from from hackers for like an entire month and then right after that came the Dow hack so it was like a really intense period of like huge tests to the network so I think these two kind of attacks were like pivotal moments as well. And yeah, like it kind of like made Ethereum feel, I think, kind of more war tested after they happened. Yeah, and just it was reversed that the Dow happened first and then the DDo's attacks were shortly thereafter. So as we, yeah, as we.

Yeah. As we approach the five-year anniversary of the Ethereum Network being live, how would you characterize where Ethereum is now? It's been incredible to see the progress of Ethereum since when I first started writing the book until now. So when I first started writing, like I mentioned, it was like the main thing were ICOs and like enabling this fundraising mechanism. But now it's really enabling this more complex and sophisticated financial system that goes beyond just fundraising and into lending, borrowing, exchanging, and, you know, use cases that we never would have imagined on Ethereum. The birth of this new financial system is kind of proving that Ethereum is just to be a very financial system is just, it's just a very important. doing what it set out to do, to be this layer for an unlimited number of applications built on top of it. And so at this point, everybody's waiting for the launch of Phase Zero of Ethereum 2.0,

and there was some chatter recently about the fact that that might be delayed until 2021 rather than coming out later this year. Do you see any risks to Ethereum due to these delays? Risks? I don't think so because Ethereum has been waiting for proof of stake and E2 since like forever. It's basically, you know, been the thing that they've been working towards since I think like 2016 or so, like proof of stake is coming, you know. So and it's been able to continue going forward even with all these delays. So I think, I think. and I think now it's at a stronger place than ever to keep surviving even without

if two. Layer 2 solutions are in a really good place. Like they're actually working. You know, there's actual Dexas using zero knowledge proofs and optimistic roll-ups and OMG network launched recently with its plasma chain. So, you know, layer 2 scaling. is actually a reality and I think I think that will really help bridge that gap between ETH one and ETH two. So for that reason and also for the fact that right now the way that users are using Ethereum, it's been more of like whales using these financial platforms to transact. And so far it hasn't required, you know, that much scaling.

I mean, it has put Ethereum to the test with, like, gas prices rising and the network occasionally being clogged up, but it's not as bad as like Cryptokitties and, you know, like thousands of people just piling on or even like as crazy as the ICO days. I think it's like a much more measured use case of not like so many people using it at once, but it's like a more like sustainable way of like transacting. So between those things, I think, you know, Ethereum is in good shape to continue working well until ETH2 comes. So we'll see. I still, you know, I'm not sure whether a proof of state will launch this year.

or next year. But yeah, there has been some, Vitalik is really kind of pushing for a lunch this year. And like other prominent developers are too. So we'll see what happens. But I think it's good, it's a good sign that they're focused on having it done like well instead of like just pushing out something that's not ready. Are you watching any of these other competing layer one protocols? that used to be dubbed Ethereum killers, but people haven't been using that term so much anymore.

And do you think any of them have a chance of taking any market share from Ethereum? Possibly, yeah, it's hard to say. I think so far we can comment on what's happened. And so far it's been really hard to compete with Ethereum. I think Ethereum has a really great advantage of like a first mover advantage with a huge community. Like there's, I don't know, like thousands of developers building on Ethereum. I think they're supporting that they're even more Ethereum developers and Bitcoin developers. And just the level of connectivity between Ethereum applications will be really hard to replicate.

of this compostability of defy and other applications that they all start working with each other, it makes it harder for a single application to move to another chain and just be there by itself. So there's kind of these network effects, the communities that builders are there, users are there. So it's been really hard to compete. But that's not to say that, you know, if any of these new chains launches and it's just like many, many times better than Ethereum technically, and if two keeps being delayed and maybe layer two solutions aren't, you know, aren't fixing it, aren't fixing scaling as, as, you know, people hope, then, yeah, I mean, they very, very well could start taking market share. We'll see. And other than that,

are there any other obstacles that you think Ethereum faces? I think regulation is always like, It's always a risk, especially if Ethereum's main focus is finance, regulars are always going to be watching that closely. I think they haven't yet because it's still, like, DFI is still pretty small. But, you know, with $2 billion now, it's not nothing. I think what kind of protects it a little bit is that so far, it's really been crypto whales playing in these platforms. So you're not seeing kind of inexperienced retail users getting burned.

But if we have some sort of like ICU boom type of frenzy where retail traders come to defy, like to yield farm and they, you know, are paying 100 bucks of gas fees and, you know, getting, you know, wrecked with their leveraged loans, you know, you could see kind of regulators raising their eyebrows and taking a closer look at this. So I think that's one risk. I think what happened with ICOs and what's happened in general with theorem on blockchain technology is that at least in the U.S., regulators realize that they have taken this kind of soft touch to allow innovation to flourish because they really, I don't think they

want to stamp out this industry and have everyone goes. somewhere else and like, I don't know, maybe China having like the be the center of blockchain innovation. So I think, you know, what would likely happen is that there will be regulators looking closer at the space. You know, one thing that interests me is when you said that the regulators have been having a light touch. There was a moment. I'm just trying to remember when this was. I think it was about a year ago where I feel like the frustration from U.S. entrepreneurs with the regulators was sort of at a peak. And do you feel like that's changed? Because I think at that time, that's when a lot of entrepreneurs were saying, oh, yeah, people are leaving to go to other jurisdictions.

So do you think just that they were overreacting? Or do you think that things have calmed down since then? Betmoot activated. The scorebed app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes.

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Conditions apply. Yeah, I think the peak kind of concern with regulators, I think came with ICOs. I think, you know, people were moving to other jurisdictions because U.S. regulators really took a stance there that tokens can be securities, and these sales are probably securities,

illegal securities, offerings. I think, you know, they were rightly kind of concerned the developers in the space. But I think that's subsided now. First, because ICOs aren't being done in the same way, anymore. I think the space has matured and realized that the way fundraising was happening in Ethereum wasn't really healthy. I don't think the incentives were placed in the right way. Like giving a team of entrepreneurs millions of dollars write off just based off a white paper on website and

expecting them to deliver everything they promised after you already gave them all your money, you know, that didn't really turn out very well in many cases. In others, you know, they did, and we have, like, really good teams who raise money in the ICO days, like building right now and, you know, some of the top DFI projects raised money in the ICO days, but many, many others didn't and just, like, didn't do anything and ran off with the money. So I think the crypto space has really learned from that and matured and is seeking other more responsible ways to fundraise. And I think that's helping with regulators as well.

And so when you look back at all the history that you uncovered for your book and you look at how far Ethereum has come, what's most surprising to you about the Ethereum story? Oh, there were many surprising things. I think so, okay, so one thing that was surprising was kind of this clash of the like for-profit, non-profit. The other surprising thing to find out was just that right now, Vitalik is the only one of the initial co-founders who is still building for Ethereum. And everyone has gone off to do their own, like, other blockchain things or non-blocking things.

So that was also surprising. I think, like I said, too, watching this new kind of financial applications ecosystem thrive right now in Ethereum after the bare market when everyone thought Ethereum was dead has been like a really nice surprise as well. Yeah, I guess, yeah, those have been like the biggest surprises. All right. So in a moment, we will talk about the defiant, defy, and crypto media. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible.

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What is it? And what do you cover there? Yeah. So the Defiant is a, well, it started out as a newsletter, which I founded in June of last year. So it has a little bit over a year. And I started this newsletter because, like I said, I was watching this incredible financial ecosystem. being built on Ethereum, and I really thought it wasn't being covered at all, or at least very well,

even by crypto media, and much less by mainstream media. There were hardly even any newsletters focusing on Defi at the time when I started the Defiant. So I really saw this incredible amount of innovation, growth, activity happening in the space, And to me it was, you know, these developers are delivering kind of the dream of crypto, like the cyphor-funk dream of being your own bank and, you know, having your parallel financial system. And they're actually building it and it's working and like nobody's paying attention. So to me it was like it was an opportunity to come in. And after, you know, researching and learning about Ethereum for my book. and also having covered markets for years at Bloomberg,

I thought, you know, it's a good space for me to come and cover. And I was just, like, fascinated by it. So I started this newsletter, and at first I was, I thought, you know, let me try to do it daily because I think, you know, that kind of helps build an audience, that consistency. But without really knowing whether I'd have enough material or, you know, what would happen, but I just like, I started it. And, and yeah, like, there was so much going on that I never, I never was like lacking material to write a daily newsletter. And it grew really

quickly, like I had really good response to it. People really weren't needing this information source for DFI. It kind of evolved into more of a, I want to make it into a, into a, media company for the open economy beyond just a newsletter. So I recently launched a podcast as well, looking to start a YouTube channel soon, and I'm building kind of the Defiant website to like host all these things on like in one place. So yeah, that's my my idea with the Defiant to build it into a trustworthy content platform for decentralized finance. And I think the difference with other newsletters and people covering the space is that I really

do want to bring my kind of my journalistic perspective to it. So I'm covering the space from the perspective and with the expertise of a journalist. And I do have contributors who are also writing for the Defiant now. and I edit their pieces always with that in mind. I'm obviously super bullish in the space and my bias will be towards, you know, this is amazing, but always keeping the objectivism and the standards that I had at Bloomberg.

You know, like I'm not going to stop reporting the bad things that happened, the scam, the hacks. And I think that's especially important in such a nascent space. So yeah. And how would you compare doing financial coverage at Bloomberg to covering DFI? How are they similar and how are they different? Oh, my God.

Let's see. It's obviously a much smaller market. So there's less to cover. But at the same time, it's like one market. I don't know because, okay, so, so, So DFI is just a global ecosystem. And it's like all part of the same thing. Whereas in covering markets for Bloomberg,

you had like very separate markets. So there's emerging markets, developed markets. Within emerging markets, you have like Brazil or like Latin America and Asia and like each country has its own specific rules and systems and securities and they're all like in little cages, you know. But in DIPA it's because it's like a global net it's all one thing. So I think that's, you know, that's a little bit different. It's also

24-7 so it's not like at Bloomberg, you know, once the market closes, you can kind of like go home and not worry about anything. In Defi, you can have hacks in the middle of the night, like on weekends, which is when they usually have been, you know. So it's like, yeah, you need to be on all the time. And I think this is, I don't know, like, I'm very personal and more of like a colorful statement, but I enjoy covering this space more because I kind of can communicate better with the people building these things.

Like, I can relate better to them. So just to put it more concretely, covering financial markets at Bloomberg, I was always in a room with like, all men, in suits, in their, like, you know, big things or whatever, just like old white men in suits. And it just felt like it was obviously just a job for them. Like they didn't really, there was like no passion for what they were doing.

And it's so different covering crypto, you know, and especially covering Ethereum and the defy community. Like there, it's much more diverse. So obviously still male dominated, but you still get women. and female founders who are absolutely doing amazing stuff. It's a lot younger crowd. And it's so nice to be covering a space where people are actually passionate about what they're doing. I mean, and you can just, you know, see it, you know, come across interviews and they're proud of it.

They're like really putting their hearts into this. So, yeah, I think that's a big difference from covering traditional markets. Yeah, I relate to you on so many different levels and everything you just said. And how would you say that launching and running your own crypto media company compares to working for traditional media? Oh, I've been loving being my own boss so much. So, you know, when I left Bloomberg, I always had like in the back of my mind that I would one day start my own thing. And, you know, when I was thinking of it, I was like, am I glamorizing, being an entrepreneur and like starting, you know, having a startup? And actually, like, it's been amazing.

Like, I'm really, you know, I'm glad that I took that step. But it's obviously very different because, you know, I'm doing everything. It's like I'm covering, like I'm doing the journalism. I'm also doing the editing. I'm running kind of the infrastructure, like, you know, like building the website, doing the podcast, like editing, like making sure, like talking to the substack people when the site is down or, you know, like getting the crypto payments on board, like all that kind of logistics that at Bloomberg, there were like entire teams of people working. You know, I had like nothing to worry about are all on me now. really fun because it's like I get to think of bigger things like the strategy and like where am I going to take this this media platform and like what does the future look like and what

who do I partner with like what sponsors do I take you know like all of like the business side of things which I had no experience with before and like now I'm I'm doing has been really fun to learn and it's exciting building my own thing so you know I'm a bit. Bloomberg, I often, you know, stayed really late working on stories and, and it was fine. Like, it was still kind of my work that I was proud of to deliver a story. But now it's like even better because it's not just, you know, this one story, but it's, you know, working towards my own thing, you know, my own brand. So, yeah, I really enjoyed the experience.

And so are you are working directly with your sponsors? or are you trying to do the... Oh, you are? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started taking sponsors in April, like late April. Okay, but are you trying to do the church and state separation between business and editorial? Oh, yeah, definitely. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. So I have sponsors who place kind of banners or logos at the top of the newsletter, but all the content, I mean, that doesn't affect the... the content. I'm still like covering the spaces I would if I had no sponsors. Oh, right, right. Yeah, but yeah, I actually hired a separate person so I don't even. Oh, that's good. Yeah, but yeah, I should do that. That comes next. Yeah, no, I'm right now hiring more on the editorial side. So, I think you seem to have built that out first, but also I'm still working on my book. So our, our timelines, we're probably doing similar parallel track things.

but on different timelines. And so I was curious, who are you finding as subscribing to the Defiant? Are they people who kind of already tend to be in the industry? Or are you also getting people who are just interested in Defi but don't necessarily work in the space already? So at first, I think it was mostly people in the industry. So I had tons of VCs,

like a lot of like the crypto funds subscribe to the Defiant. All of the big DFI projects and Ethereum projects subscribe to it. So developers from these projects and like team members subscribe. And also like just traders, like users of DFI platforms are also subscribers. But recently I've seen people who are like more like adjacent to DFI and Ethereum subscribing as well so not not so into in into like the the core so yeah I've seen you know I can tell from from I have this subscriber chat on on discord and and you know sometimes people introduce themselves and now I'm seeing more people who are just like oh I'm just starting to learn about defiant

and you know excited to to learn with the defiant and whereas before it was just like more people who were already in the space. So yeah, it seems like we're getting kind of an influx of new, new people. That's great. You also said in the Hidden Forces podcast overtime show that you think one trend that we're seeing in crypto media is people prefer to follow individuals rather than institutions. And I wondered coming from a traditional journalistic background, where obviously, like, you know, we try not to state our opinions or we try not to become the story. How are you dealing with becoming more synonymous with your brand or your publication? Yeah, it's been like a weird transition.

And it's something that I wanted to do to be able to express my own opinion and just be my own agent. At Bloomberg, I kind of struggled with that, especially because, I was obviously a lot more interested in crypto and much more bullish in crypto than most people at Bloomberg. So I always kind of found that struggle with my editors who wanted to push this story one way. But I was like, no, like that's not really what's going on. So now it's great to just be able to cover the space how I see it and not have to like ask for permission to go to like all these different events and like even go to on your podcast. I would have had to go through like three layers of like permission. So it's so great to just be able to say yes to everything.

At the same time, like I said, because I wanted to be a journalistic platform, it's not, you know, it includes my opinion, but it's, I try to be a lot more measured with it. And if I have an opinion, I'm always going to back it with facts. with facts. It's not like, oh, I love this thing because, you know, and you should use it. It's like, no, like, this is great because it has, like, it's tons of volume. It has never been hacked. It has audits. Whatever. Like, I'm going to provide more substance to whatever my opinion is. Yeah, it's something that I'm still kind of figuring out what the right balance is of, like, me being the figure for the defiant versus. having kind of the brand take the front stage and I think it'll be kind of a transition that

will just have to happen organically with time as I bring in more contributors and you know the defiant starts being the defiant and not like Cameruso's project you know um but you know we'll see I think I think for now I'm I'm happy to be kind of the face of it and like pushing it and like use my, I don't know, whatever influence I have in this space to build out the brand. But I think hopefully, you know, with time, the defined will become a bigger brand than my own brand. And along the way, you've launched something called the Kami token. Tell us what that is and how people can use it or earn it.

Yeah. Well, I think it's just part of me testing these things out as I report them. And this is something else that's different from reporting at Bloomberg, because at Bloomberg, we were very restricted in owning the things that we cover, rightly so, I think. But that was so strict that I couldn't even, like, it was hard for me to own even a little bit of crypto to test all these platforms out. But now I have more freedom to do that. And I've been using that to test different DFI platforms and NFTs and all.

all this stuff. So that's what kind of the idea of coming tokens came from. I was covering, I wrote a post on a role, which is the platform that facilitates the issuing of your own personal tokens. And at Bloomberg, I actually had wanted to do like my own ICO in the ICO bubble. Just like I thought it'd be like a fun story, like what it actually takes to do an ICO. But like, yeah, Obviously, I wasn't allowed to, because everyone freaked out. You go to jail, you'll get a suit, so I couldn't do that. But now, with withdrawal and, like, these personal tokens, I was able to finally have a kami token. And, yeah, it was just, like, more of a way to test how these things work.

And it was, like, actually super easy, like, the, like, interface is just, you know, like, what's your token's name, like how many tokens do you want issue, and building kind of use cases for the token. So I haven't been like paying that much attention to it, but my idea was that people would be able, that first I could reward my readers and audience with the token. So if people were recommending the Defiant or like tweeting about it or like tweeting about my book,

I would send them kami tokens. And then the other side of the market would be that kami tokens could be used to buy things like a subscription to the defiance. And I think so far one subscription has been bought by June. June and Wong. Yeah. So yeah, it hasn't been like an exactly active market, but it's been fun to test it out. I should give it more attention.

And did you do any kind of leave? work to make sure that the different use cases you had for it didn't run a foul of securities laws? Well, I did, you know, talk to some, to a couple of lawyers about like personal tokens and where that line is. And, you know, as long as you're using them to, to exchange, like, actual things, they're more like airline miles. But I think the, that line is crossed when you're promising like future profits that come from your work. Like when it's like more like a dividend kind of thing, that's where it becomes trickier. But if you're just, you know, using these tokens in exchange for a subscription or in exchange

for like an hour of my time, then then it's like safer. And I also saw you participated in some of the Gitcoin grant rounds. Yeah. Describe that process and what you've been getting. grants for? I think what they're doing is is really amazing in enabling funding for for different open source and like Ethereum projects. What makes it get coin grants work is this idea that with donating a little bit of money of crypto you can actually make a big impact so that because of the the matching. So that really kind of incentivizes people to donate even, you know, if it's one die,

because of like how the system works, you actually end up donating a lot more. So that's kind of generated this like feedback loop of like everyone in Ethereum donating to these grants. And yeah, I started, I made the first grant in the previous. round that's when they opened it to to like media projects and it was really great like I got over a 4,000 dye in in the grant and I've been using it to compensate my contributors so it's been like really instrumental and then this time around I also got close to 4,000 dye in donations and I want to use that to help build out part of my website. Yeah, I think in general,

the whole kind of experiment in these types of funding around generates this sense of community that you're all kind of helping each other, building for each other. So yeah, we'll see. I think I'm doing it quarterly feels like it's helping these projects

be like more sustainable. In general, how do you think media companies can take advantage of crypto tokens or decentralized business models? That's interesting. I think this, you know, there's a lot of work to be done in this space. I don't think anyone has like really figured it out yet. But, you know, like one of the like big ideas and kind of holy grail ideas for like media and crypto is this. kind of model where users pay, like make micropayments for like reading single articles

or this idea of like streaming content as you would stream music or video. So I think, you know, I don't think that's been achieved yet, but that would be like an interesting model to try out. You know, it would require kind of everyone being connected, and very cheap transactions, so potentially like in some like layer two channel or something, it could work out. But yeah, that'd be interesting. Unlock has been, unlock protocol is this project that's focused on like media subscriptions with crypto. And they've been working on

on this idea of like unlocking content with crypto. So that's that's another way. For now, you know, for me personally, it's been a way, Unlock has allowed a way to give crypto subscriptions where, you know, sub-sec hasn't yet. So it's like very, very basic, just like subscriptions, but with crypto. But at least, you know, that's, I've been able to implement that. But yeah, I think going forward this idea of,

like streaming content is where crypto can make a big impact. So let's now talk again about Ethereum because obviously we have this five-year anniversary coming up. You recently tweeted that the total market cap of ERC 20 tokens is now higher than the market cap of Ethereum. What do you think is the significance of that fact? Well, what this obviously means on itself is that the, economy being built on Ethereum is now more valuable than the token securing it. So it's more valuable than ETH itself. And, you know, that really signals the amount of innovation going on on top of Ethereum. I mean, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is,

well, it is really undervalued because the platform should be more valuable than, you know, the applications on top. But, you know, that's a thesis that's, that's, it's a hypothesis that's yet to be proven. So it's been kind of the kind of assumed that in, in blockchains, because the, the underlying layer one can now be made valuable with, with its own token, that, that this would allow the, like, layer one and protocol layer to gaining value as applications are built on top. And I think, you know, that's different from non-tokens, like, from layer one protocols that don't have tokens. Like, obviously, the internet is like the best example. And so the idea there is that if the internet, like the TCPIP protocol had had a

token that token would be more valuable than all of the applications and build on top but because it didn't have a token like nobody could actually profit from this network right and so that's the difference that blockings are building to the table that now these layer one protocols can actually be made sustainable and people can invest in these protocols and that these tokens will become the most valuable so i think it seems interesting that with tokens on top of ether becoming more valuable, this theory is being challenged. So I don't really, I don't know if it's the case that, you know, that that theory was wrong and that really the tokens on top of Ethereum can be more valuable than ether itself,

or that ether is undervalued and it just like needs to catch up. Yeah, I wonder if it might switch back once we move to proof of stake or once Ethereum moves to proof of stake. Right, yeah, maybe kind of the economics of proof of work aren't kind of keeping up with the actual value of ether. And once people start locking eth up to stake, it will. We'll see. Yeah. And just going back to defy, there have been so many hacks in the defy's face. how do you think about balancing your coverage of the risks against who your readers are

and the fact that they're interested in defy? Yeah, no, I think to me, covering the hacks is probably the most important thing that I can do. Because everyone else is going to be covering how great the space is. You have their projects themselves doing that. You have, like, their press releases. You have their tweets. You have all these other newsletters covering, you know, like kind of cheerleading for the space, which they're great.

But I think you need to balance that out with a more kind of objective view and pointing out the good and the bad. And the hacks are definitely the bad. So I think, you know, it's really important for, especially for new readers to realize. the level of risk that there is here and there is definitely really high risk in in defy from code breaking which it does to just the volatility of the market how liquid it is yeah there's there's just risks everywhere and and I always say you know as excited as I am for for defy and Ethereum these things are you know defy is just like two years old you know how how long how many years

the financial system take to be as secure as it is today. We're just like in the very, very early stages, this code needs to be tested, it needs to be audited, there needs to be some sort of like protection for users, I think. So, I mean, the main thing I say is I encourage people to check these things out, but with, you know, money that they can afford to lose. I think it's kind of the safest advice. for sure. And so for the next, let's say, year, do you have any predictions in Defi or are there any

particular metrics that you're keeping your eye on or projects or trends? Let's see. Well, I think like Value Lock is like the main metric that people are looking at. But in terms of like trends, I'd love to see more like Defi. becoming more secure and I think that should be a big focus and I think it is. So there are projects like Nexus Mutual, building insurance for Defi, others like Open, building kind of hedging options for Defi. So hopefully a big trend in Defi will be different ways to protect traders and users. And another trend I hope to see, which I think has been very much missing, is identity systems. The ability to have, like, decentralized identity will unlock so many other

new use cases, which might enable kind of greater adoption beyond crypto whales. And, you know, specifically the ability of having loans that require less collateral than they do now. Because right now, borrowing in DFI requires you to put capital up front. And so that right of the bat excludes a bunch of people who just don't have that that capital. So having some sort of credit system, some way of like verifying payment history that will really kind of unlock so much more value and use cases in the ecosystem. So hopefully that will be a trend to look forward to. And what about Bitcoin on Ethereum? What are you looking for?

Yeah, as you watch that. That's such an interesting trend. So, yeah, Bitcoin on Ethereum has really skyrocketed. And it's been interesting to see there's actual demand from Bitcoin holders to, you know, put their Bitcoin and on like, smart contracts or deposits and using Ethereum tokens instead on Ethereum. So I think this will be, this will continue to grow as D5 becomes more useful and secure. More Bitcoiners will want to start using these applications.

And I think that will be the case with other non-Etherium tokens and even with like maybe like real, like tokenized. real world assets. There's this idea that Ethereum will start kind of sucking in assets into the platform. I think the first one is Bitcoin, but going forward, I'd expect all types of assets to start kind of participating in, in DFI. Yeah, it's definitely a fascinating space. I think it's really great that you carved out this niche to cover because you're right, it's easily one of the most interesting beats within the overall crypto beats. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been so great having you on Unchain. Where can people learn more about you, the Defiant, and the Infinite Machine? Yeah, it's been so great, Laura. Thank you. I love the conversation. So the Infinite Machine, you can order it on Amazon.

If you go to HarperCollins website and search for the Infinite Machine, you'll see all their resellers there beyond Amazon. I'm always on Twitter at Camille Russo, C-A-M-I-R-U-S-S-L. And The Defiant is the Defiant.com if you want to subscribe. Perfect. Well, thanks so much for coming on Unchained. Yeah, thank you. It was my pleasure.

Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about Camilla, the Infinite Machine, and The Defiant, check out the show notes for this episode. Don't forget, you can now watch video recordings of the shows on the Unchained YouTube channel. Go to YouTube.com slash C slash Unchained podcast and subscribe today. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Anthony Yoon, Daniel Nuss, Josh Durham, and the team at CLK transcription. Thanks for listening.