Crypto and Blockchain Talk - Making You Smarter

Paypal and Venmo are going crypto! PayPal apparently is going to allow the buying and selling of crypto to its 325 million users which will ramp up adoption and of course, add legitimacy to digital currency – and Venmo is looking to do more of the same. It is all remarkably interesting, but what does this mean for crypto enthusiasts like you and me? Join Aviva Ounap, host of Crypto and Blockchain talk, and Ingamar Ramierz from Mand...

It's a Kodak Moment for sure! On July 28 of 2020, Kodak announced it was allegedly getting a $765 million loan from the US Government to aid it in producing drug ingredients.
What happened next was obvious - the news about this federal support led to its stock to explode by 2,190% the next day. But this was not the end of the excitement as the SEC, or US Securities and Exchange Commission, then announced that it was investigati...

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”, said Sir Walter Scott, and how right he was!  Billions are missing from Wirecard’s coffers, and no one knows yet where it went, but there are many ideas.

Wirecard has taken part in what the head of Germany's financial watchdog calls "a massive criminal act". So, what happened, and more importantly, how did their auditing firm, Ernst & Young (EY), n...

You do the crime, you do the time – so they say, but sometimes punishments for identical crimes are unequal and even puzzling. Let us start with the case of Charles C. Liu and Xin Wang, a married couple and U.S. citizens in California, who raised over $27 million USD from Chinese companies claiming they were going to use these investments to build a cancer treatment centre.

It was discovered by the Security and Exchange Commission ...

What is happening with the human race? How is it that we are now so addicted, so believing, so sheep-like, so affected by Social Media? Is it Fear Of Missing Out? Are we happier being pissed off all the time? Are we looking for anger? Join me, Aviva Ounap, host of Crypto and Blockchain Talk as I talk to the founder of Peteyvid.com Craig Stadler about his amazing video search engine, his new LIVE video platform, the state of social ...

Why in the world would institutional investors invest in crypto? What are institutional investors and how do they differ from retail investors? Join Ben Jessel from Forbes. com and Aviva Õunap, host of Crypto and Blockchain Talk, as we discover why institutions would invest in something so volatile, yet so lucrative.

Tune in to CryptoAndBlockchainTalk.com, the podcast that makes you smarter about the worlds of blockchain and crypto...

Satoshi, is that you? It seems that 50 Bitcoin moved for the first time since 2009, and the world is effervescent with guesses – it is Satoshi? This hoard of BTC has not been touched since being rewarded for mining block 3654 in 2009, but to be fair, there were several early miners on the Bitcoin network in 2009. When the transfer of funds was made, Bitcoin crashed in price, cutting about a grand from the worth of bitcoin from prev...

Goldman Sachs told their investors that Bitcoin is not a suitable investment and they gave five reasons why they feel Bitcoin is "not an asset class", including that it is primarily used as a conduit for illicit activity (um, like cash isn’t?). They made many other claims, but what they forgot to do was perhaps give great balance and food for thought in the way of a more rounded picture, but never fear! This is where Ben Je...

Have the legal woes of Telegram set a precedent for every ICO under the SEC's watchful eyes? What does the Telegram lawsuit and ruling tell us about the present and future conditions which will be enforced by the SEC for all blockchain companies? Why didn't Telegram just comply with the SEC and their orders, and show their documents and statements, and when are they paying back investors who invested in their ICO? Join me a...

Interesting developments are happening in the world of the Libra Association, aka Facebook's foray into blockchain and cryptocurrency. What is happening, you ask? Join me, host Aviva Ounap, and Igor Pejic, author of "Blockchain Babel" and winner of the Independent Press Award for the Best Technology Book of the Year as we talk about Facebook's Libra Association, Libra Coin, Calibra and all things with the word '...

Savings? Nope. Debt? Yes. Humans Suck at Finance. It is a fact. We have no clue about saving and spending as a species. The average human has almost no savings and is full of debt, despite working. Should we be teaching finance in schools, from kindergarten? I certainly think so! It should be right next to, "Johnny. how do you add 2+2? So can you afford the $5 toy? Tell me WHY." Regardless, there are sometimes external ...

There are many stories in the news lately that could impact the future of the crypto market, that perhaps the subtlety of some of them are being overlooked in terms of how, when grouped altogether, they could alter the bigger picture. Join me, host Aviva Ounap and Michael McCarty from Shrimpy.io as we look at some of these headline stories and back page news pieces - including Binance's purchase of CoinMarketCap, the impending ...

DeFi has been in the news a lot lately, and the headlines are more bad than good, Besides knowing that DeFi stands for Decentralised Finance, what else do you know and understand about it? As Jon Evans from Github stated in a recently published article, "DeFi seems to me more like cosplaying a financial system than an actual viable alternative. I don’t see it crossing that divide any time soon, if ever. It even cosplays the De ...

The Digital Dollar project has been around now for some time and was supposed to have its debut officially unveiled within the US coronavirus stimulus bill that was signed into law on March 27th. But guess what - there was not a whisper of it anywhere within the entire document. Of course, it would have made sense to use Digital Dollar wallets to distribute the funds from the US government to everyone who was entitled to aid as sta...

Well, we are in the thick of it. A pandemic of global proportions which is impacting the world’s economies on an epic scale. Countries one after the other have rolled out rescue packages and stimulus bills to support troubled economies, and many people are feeling the effects in their pockets as they are quarantined to stop the ultra-contagious coronavirus, or COVID-19, from spreading. Of course, businesses of all sizes and from al...

Coronavirus and the Crypto Markets. What’s going on?

What is going on with the Crypto Marketplace during this time of the COVID-19 outbreak, otherwise known as the coronavirus pandemic? On March 12 of this year, Bitcoin (BTC) experienced the biggest single-day drop since 2013, losing around 40% of its value, but shortly after experienced a gain of 16%, which no other market mirrored.

Although Bitcoins' price has started to show...

Join me, Aviva Õunap, the host of Crypto and Blockchain Talk as we talk to Nick Todorov, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Limechain, and get a quick explanation of what Hyperledger and Hyperledger Fabric are, and how Limechain is now one of the eight companies worldwide admitted as a Hyperledger Fabric Certified Partner. The Hyperledger Fabric Certified Partners is an “exclusive club”, and features only seven other companies including gi...

The New York Attorney General’s (NYAG) Office allege that Bitfinex and associated stablecoin firm Tether covered up an $850 million loss and in doing so, misled investors in the state of New York.

Instead, Bitfinex, once the world’s largest exchange, claims to have borrowed this money from Tether after it claimed it was having problems with its banking partners. Bitfinex has purported that its payment processor, the Panama-based Cr...

A report was produced by Bitwise Asset Management showing the existence of faked volumes in the bitcoin market – 95% of total volume according to its research. So, what is going on here and how can we move forward in the cryptosphere when one of the basic trading tools for these financial instruments is not working the way it should? Join me, Aviva Ounap and Michael McCarty, CEO and Founder of Shrimpy.io for a fun and fascinating t...