Great conversation, but it always surprises me how few people know that there are already atomic swaps on Stellar Lumens XLM. On any of its DEXs I can have say ETH and be sending value to someone who only wants say BTC. In a single transaction I can send my ETH and have them receive BTC. It's done with what's called a Path Payment which is a native part of how XLM chain functions. And it all happens for a fee that's a fraction of an XLM, and in maybe a minute. Now it doesn't work within a smart contract's functioning! You can't run an ETH contract using BTC, for example. But at least for payment there is currently atomic swaps. For deeper functioning, I look hopefully toward projects like Polkadot DOT. Just wanted to insert that, because the implication when atomic swaps was discussed was that it was a future "nice to have," when really it's available now in certain contexts. Very instructive conversation though. I'm also looking forward to seeing more use cases built on Matic. ETH fees are madness. I'm eager to see DEFI move to some other chain entirely, really. Reduced security won't work for DEFI or even NFTs. But ETH just can't natively handle the volume that wants to participate on it, and ETH2 is probably years from taking its place. I refuse to even buy NFTs minted on ETH. I'll take them from any other chain. How people put up with this, I don't understand. You think DEFI is catching on fast now? Wait until we are no longer confined by the pitiful ETH throughput bottleneck. I'm willing to give up a little alpha for fewer grey hairs.

Around the 40 min mark Ari says something to the effect that DeFi investments should be viewed as hyper-speculative and would invest there if not getting 40%+ returns. What exactly is he referring to ? Investing in the coins themselves, using the Dapps to earn yield, lend or borrow, or other ?

How do you lock in profit during the bull run so you don't watch your portfolio drop when it ends, without selling? Options, futures?

Let's get ready for a wild ride in 2021! Happy New year to all.

Great interview RV!! One small suggestion, can you pls list the key word of each section, the ones shown throughout the interview, in the description sections? Thank you.

Another day, yet another RV crypto video that espouses the "Bitcoin Maximalist" slur coined by ETH founder Vitalik Buterin. Can't just call us "Bitcoiners"? What is this obsession of using that term? Have a bunch of ETH bags, Raoul? I also take exception at Raoul's insistence that all coins are essentially equivalent, because he believes in "diversification". Look at XRP (Ripple) which Raoul recently has espoused and supported -- they're currently in the throes of an SEC lawsuit, having lost over 15% (more like 23% including today) because XRP has a CEO. Yet Raoul didn't understand why people pushed back on him supporting this coin. You see, we're all "tribalist" and "maximalists". We don't have his rose-colored glasses view that coins with wildly different issuance, monetary policy, network nodes and the rest are somehow all under the same family of assets, so why discriminate? This boggles my mind -- Raoul has run a hedge fund, among other things -- you want to tell me that he treated every tradeable instrument the same in his portfolio? Of course not -- so why would he insist on treating these altcoins the same? It reeks to me, and I don't like it. As for forks and the rest, there's a lot of history that RV doesn't get right. It is more than the events themselves, but the motivations and the actors behind them. I lived through it, so I know the history. It is also primarily why I'm very reluctant to embrace a coin that makes grandiose claims, because 99% of them have crashed and burned on the long tail of failure. But RV doesn't touch on this. Get it together, honestly. Its like crypto n00b hour around here, and what irritates me is that a single bit of due diligence would educate RV enough to stop doing these things, including the "marketcap" comparison which is utterly cringeworthy. TL;DR - Raoul somehow doesn't understand that very different coins are not equivalent, so accepts them all equally.

Regulation was mentioned to be coming “in a couple of weeks” and this was filmed on December 10th. Was the Ripple lawsuit what was being referenced or is this still to come?

So what is your performance mr Paul? I bet you don't have much alpha...

You mentioned your exchange arbitrage... i am a stupid retail investor and I see huge arbitrage with greyscale. Grayscale Ethereum was down 17% Christmas eve. Actual ETH has been going up since Christmas. On Monday grayscale will soar. Grayscale ALWAYS overshoots to the downside and the upside...

It's just be or anybody else also thinking the videos is running at 3X!

fantastic conversation!!!

I’m sad the comments section for FREE Real Vision Crypto has become youtubey in flavour. 😑.

Here's a question that has puzzled me for weeks: As described in the interview, Bitcoin as an asset has ~80% retracement bear markets (which arguably reduce as volatility reduces over time). Institutional money is now beginning to enter the asset class slowly. Central banks do not allow bear markets as the financial system is so leveraged/financialized it would almost certainly result in a systemic crisis. In the last bear market, systemic crisis issues were discussed by bankers, but dismissed as the market was too small to affect the system. When a new bear market inevitably arrives for crypto (as has been the case cyclically), it is likely that the market is now large enough to potentially cause global liquidity issues and a sell off in traditional markets. How do governments respond to a potential crisis involving non-sovereign assets that challenge their sovereign currency monopoly? My assumption is with deep anger as they have no alternative but to print, along with it may come some attempt to destroy the industry.

If you are trading crypto, as apposed to just hold-ing, the discussion that takes places around the 20 minute mark is a must see. It's important to trading in general - how to identify when the blow off top is about to happen. People move out the risk curve into more and more speculative assets. The alts will likely begin to vastly outperform BTC at some point. When that happens, look out below.

Brilliant perspectives shared here; thank you. I particularly appreciated the conversations around alpha, and the ways in which an investor can build a sustainable competitive advantage in this space that can last for up to or more than a decade. Again I think of how democratized this possibility is, and how that is such a contrast to web 1.0 and especially web 2.0, where key VCs captured most of the alpha for themselves and their already-rich clientele.

Even Raouls dog barks bullishly talking bout bitcoin :D

Let's go we got Ari back!