Crypto Episodes

May 23, 2025

294: Superteams, Startups and Stablecoins - Solana’s Bet on Ireland i…

This week, I’m joined once again by Alejandro Gutierrez, now officially leading Solana Superteam Ireland, a new initiative powered by the Solana Foundation to accelerate Web3 innovation across the entire island of Ireland.

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May 9, 2025

293: Building Bridges: Simon Brown on Ethereum’s Cultural Gravity and…

Simon Brown joins me to share how his role at Consensys has evolved since his last appearance in January 2024 and why he’s now leading the charge on the Consensys Network State. It’s all about reconnecting the sprawl of the Ethereum ecosystem, reinforcing the cultural gravity that made Ethereum mag…

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April 11, 2025

290: The Ethical Hacker Mindset with Yev Broshevan from Hacken

This week, I sat down with ethical hacker Yev Broshevan, co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer at Hacken, a leading blockchain security firm focused on making Web3 a safer, more trustworthy place for everyone. Even better? Yev’s birthday is the same day this episode drops - happy birthd…

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April 4, 2025

289: BlackRock BTC Flex | On-Chain Politics | Tokenized Fund Liquidit…

This week, I’m joined by the ever-insightful and gloriously unfiltered Laura Walsh for a whirlwind spin through the crypto-political multiverse. From BlackRock’s Larry Fink flirting with Bitcoin as the next global reserve currency to Trump-World and Cowboy State stablecoins, this episode has more l…

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March 21, 2025

287: Worlds Colliding | The Great Web3 Crossover with Alejandro Gutie…

In this week’s episode, I’m joined by my good friend and returning guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez, and we get into the thick of what I like to call “worlds colliding” — the convergence of Web3 and TradFi that’s playing out in real time as the Great Web3 Crossover.

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Feb. 21, 2025

285: Startup Smarts & Web3 Wisdom | Highlights from the Past Year

This week, we’re taking a look back at some of my favorite moments from the past year—the conversations that stuck with me long after we hit stop on the recording. If you missed them the first time around, now’s your chance to catch the highlights, chock full of startup smarts and web3 wisdom!

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Feb. 14, 2025

284: Operation Chokepoint 2.0 | SEC’s Next Crypto Journey | Solana’s …

Alejandro Gutierrez joins me once again to dive into some of the biggest conversations in crypto right now, including: The fallout from Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and the debanking of crypto startups —what it means for the indu...

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Jan. 24, 2025

Trump Memecoin Mania, SEC Shakeups, and the Future of Finance with La…

Laura Walsh returns this week to help me unpack the whirlwind of events shaking up crypto, finance, and politics—from Trump memecoin mania to regulatory shifts and the ever-increasing adoption of crypto by institutional finance.

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Dec. 20, 2024

280: 2025 Predictions with Alejandro Gutierrez

In this special year-end episode, Pete Townsend is joined by returning guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez for a wide-ranging conversation about what the future may hold with their 2025 predictions. Together, they explore transformative ideas, emerging trends, and groundbreaking technologies that cou…

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Dec. 6, 2024

278: Money Talks w/ Mai Santamaria | The Butterfly Defect & the Futur…

This week, I’m joined by the brilliant Mai Santamaria for a far-ranging discussion inspired by Ian Goldin’s concept of The Butterfly Defect — a thought-provoking take on the risks and interconnectedness of our global systems....

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Dec. 1, 2024

277: Straight Outta Crypton | Swarm and the Rise of RWAs | Timo Lehes…

This week. I sat down with Timo Lehes and Philipp Pieper, the co-founders of Swarm, the RWA (or Real World Assets) platform that brings unique digitization and trading solutions to the world of traditional and decentralized finance. Swam is the first organization in the world to offer digitized US …

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Sept. 27, 2024

270: The Stablecoin Revolution with Linda Jeng | Unpacking Castle Isl…

Linda Jeng is the Founder and CEO of Digital Self Labs, and she joins me in exploring the evolving landscape of stablecoins. Our discussion focuses on our key takeaways from Castle Island Ventures' latest stablecoin report, '...

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Sept. 20, 2024

269: Working in Web3 | Real World Asset Tokenization in Finance and B…

Alejandro Gutierrez, CEO of npayme Labs and co-founder of ETH Dublin joins me again as guest co-host this week. We recap our recent panel on working in web3 (‘Finding Web3 Talent’) at Dogpatch Labs, touching on market sentim...

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Aug. 30, 2024

266: Crypto Politics: Unpacking Trump's Campaign Promises

Returning from our summer hiatus, Laura Walsh joins the show again this week as guest co-host as we dive into Crypto Politics by unpacking Donald Trump's campaign promises involving bitcoin and crypto.

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June 21, 2024

264: Rita Martins | Author of Web3 in Financial Services

Rita Martins joins the show to discuss her new book, Web3 in Financial Services, which explores how blockchain, digital assets, and cryptocurrency are disrupting traditional financial services.

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June 10, 2024

263: Decentralization: Do Or Do Not | Kene Ezeji-Okoye and Stella Dye…

This week, we dive into decentralization with Kenny Ezeji-Okoye and Stella Dyer from Millicent, Ilya Orlov from FileMarket, alongside Rita Martins, author and Techstars Web3 mentor. The discussion covers the journey from centralized to decentralized models, the impact of decentralization on users a…

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May 31, 2024

262: Money Talks with Alejandro Gutierrez | ETH Dublin | ETH ETF | We…

Alejandro Gutierrez, CEO of npayme Labs and co-founder of ETH Dublin joins me again as guest co-host this week. We start with Alejandro's Token2049 Dubai ‘tsunami-in-a-yacht’ story, the upcoming ETH Dublin 2024, and the Techstars Web3 demo day on June 6th in NYC.

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May 24, 2024

261: Building the Aleph Zero Ecosystem with Antoni Zolciak and Piotr …

This week, we dive into Aleph Zero, a privacy-enhancing layer one blockchain renowned for prioritizing scalability, security and speed, with co-founder Antoni Zolciak and Head of Investments Piotr Saczuk.

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April 18, 2024

257: How I Got To Techstars on a Flywheel | Hesus Inoma Interviews Pe…

This week, I’m sharing an episode of the ‘Venture with Hesus’ podcast that I recorded in late 2023 with the unstoppable Hesus Inoma, as he interviews me on lessons learned from being part of the startup ecosystem the last 8 years.

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April 12, 2024

256: Common Misconceptions About Web3 | Julia Kemp | Daniel Uribe | T…

I’ve brought together 4 of the founders from the Techstars Web3 class of 2024 to help me dispel some of the common misconceptions about web3 with the general public, including Julia Kemp, founder and CEO of Pawpass, Daniel Uribe, founder and CEO of  GenoBank. Tiago Ferreira, co-founder and CEO of F…

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March 22, 2024

253: CBDC Adoption | Who's Ahead of the Game? | Joaquim Matinero Tor

Joaquim Matinero Tor joins the show this week as guest co-host as we look at the likely paths to CBDC adoption (Central Bank Digital Currencies) in countries around the world making progress with these digital versions of fiat currencies.

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March 15, 2024

252: Meet the Techstars Web3 Class of 2024

This episode features an introduction to the 12 founding teams that form the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2024, with each of their founder/CEOs giving you a quick look inside what they're building.

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Feb. 9, 2024

247: Money Talks with Mai Santamaria | Digital Identity, Trust, Risk …

Mai Santamaria joins me once again as guest co-host as we riff on the intersection of digital identity, digital wallets, blockchain, CBDCs, and how the political regime under which an individual lives influences your senses of trust and risk. We also blow to bits my expectation that the new EU digi…

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Jan. 12, 2024

244: Money Talks w/ Alejandro Gutierrez | Spot Bitcoin ETF Approved |…

Pete gives a quick update on the Spot Bitcoin ETF approval followed by a roundup of Messari's Crypto Theses 2024 with guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez.

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