Ari Paul is co-founder and CIO of BlockTower Capital. BlockTower is a crypto and blockchain investment firm, applying professional trading, investing and portfolio management to this digital asset class. It is funded by well-known investors such as A16z and Union Square Ventures. Before BlockTower, Ari was a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago's $8 billion endowment, and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader for Susquehanna International Group (SIG). In this podcast we discuss: How to value bitcoin Understanding drivers of crypto markets What flows have driven crypto in recent years? Business for exchanges like UniSwap The real benefit of crypto is co-ordination power Trends in layer one protocols like Ethereum and Solana Will switch to Proof of Stake make a difference? What stage of hype cycle are Metaverse and DeFi tokens? Risk is about sizing positions Books/articles that influenced Ari: Money, blockchains, and social scalability (Nick Szabo), Shelling Out: The Origin Of Money (Szabo), Debt: The First 5000 Years (Graeber)