Episodes

Jeff Donnelley and Colin Bracey are the co-founders of MegaFans, a mobile esports platform and community bridging web2 to web3 in a play-to-earn environment for gamers, collectors and developers.

On the show this week, we’ve got Will Martin and Laura Brkić from LiveDuel, a DeFi-powered digital sports market with live fan engagement. LiveDuel supports decentralized sports betting built on blockchain to give you a fairer deal than traditional sports betting sites.

On the show this week, we’ve got Victor and Lee and Alvin Foo, co-founders of Securo Finance (formerly DAOventures) who are building a compliant, secure and easy to use DeFi (decentralized finance) investment platform for regular investors.

On the show this week we have Filipe Pereira and Mario Frade from Crowdclass, a web3 protocol for online education using the power of blockchain, tokenization, composability and the metaverse to create new monetization models for online educators, and better learning environments for students to grow and develop.

Eugene O’Brien and Kurt Pittman from Ireland-based BigFan join Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend on the show this week. BigFan is reinventing sports collectibles through officially licensed NFTs that provide access to Metaverse-driven fan experiences

Carla Rosenkranz, founder of Barterchain, riffs with Pete Townsend about how the Barterchain idea is rooted in her own experience of exchanging English lessons for yoga classes, the core of her conviction to start building Barterchain, the network effects from connecting local communities and virtual communities, how to keep pushing back against the blockchain and crypto naysayers….and her psychic storytelling superpowers!

What a week! Techstars kicked off the Launchpool Web3 Techstars Accelerator this week in Dublin and they’re already moving at a breakneck pace. With that, we’re taking the opportunity to introduce our MoneyNeverSleeps community to the ten amazing founding teams that make up Techstars’ first chain-agnostic blockchain accelerator as well as Techstars’ very first accelerator program in Ireland.

This week, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend return from a 2-week hiatus and look at what’s driving Ramp forward so quickly with their $8bn valuation, the JP Morgan deal for western Ireland-based fintech Global Shares, and the latest with ApeCoin, Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and Yuga Labs.

Nik Milanović is the founder of This Week in Fintech, a global digest of fintech news, and General Partner at The Fintech Fund, an early-stage venture capital fund. In this episode, Pete Townsend and Eoin Fitzgerald talk to Nik about what influenced his modus operandi, the big opportunity with fintech to provide financial services to even more people around the world, how Nik ramped up from a newsletter to a syndicate to a venture fund, the blurred lines between fintech and crypto…and how Nik managed to make the most of his love of music!

Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend riff on what started out as a student lending platform in SoFi now becoming a full-service digital finance player, Circle’s new SPAC deal in the context of stablecoins, advertising and naming rights in crypto and a long-term view on what Apple could be up to with Stripe.

Adam Bialy is the founder and CEO of Fiat Republic, the compliance-first, API-driven and highly secure and scalable bridge between banks and crypto. In this episode, Adam and Pete Townsend talk through the Fiat Republic vision, the current state of play between banks and crypto platforms that make Fiat Republic such a strong proposition, Adam’s unique leadership style, raising a $3.5mn seed round…and a little something about Taylor Swift!

Matthew Larby is the founder and CEO of Realm, a blockchain metaverse ecosystem where you can create and explore your own play to earn microverse. In this episode, Matthew and I talk through how the Realm experience works,  how to make the metaverse more accessible, transitioning from a web2 founder to a web3 founder, building a seed round in advance of Realm’s IDO (initial DEX offering), and a little known fact about his love for competing.

Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend are back with the first Money Talks segment of 2022 with a big bump in consumers spending crypto on Visa cards, the story of Ireland’s latest unicorn, Wayflyer, the UBS deal for Wealthfront, Walmart doubling down on their superapp strategy and the pummeling of PayPal’s stock price as a bellwether for the post-pandemic era.

This episode is from the second edition of the Finsight Series virtual event that Pete Townsend moderated recently hosted by Navirum and Salesforce. In this conversation, we’ve got an all-star cast with Rory Galvin from Navirum, Kerry Ryan from Salesforce, Christian-Maynard Philipp from Pattern and Joe Parkin from BlackRock.

Joining the show this week is Tim Bos, founder and CEO of ShareRing, a blockchain-based company that's focused on changing the landscape of the fragmented sharing economy. In this chat, Tim and Pete Townsend talk through Tim’s crystal ball-like experiences in deep tech in the ’90s, how being a third-time founder has shaped his view of the blockchain space, adapting all of this incredible technology at our fingertips into real-world scenarios, and what makes a great Web3 project.

Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend are back with their last Money Talks segment of the year with their review of their top stories for 2021.  From GameStop and Wallstreetbets, to Roblox and Coinbase going public, to Chamath and SPACs, to Charlie Munger on Bitcoin, to BNPL with Klarna, Square and Afterpay, to our spinning of the fintech flywheel, to CryptoPunks, stablecoins, the metaverse, Techstars in Ireland and Web3 and finally, Eoin’s new hope for Monzo, we’ve got it covered one last time for 2021.

Isaac Kato, who leads the Filecoin Techstars Accelerator program in Seattle joins Pete Townsend on this episode originally recorded as part of the Techstars Web3 Convo Series of fireside chats powered by the Launchpool Web3 Techstars Accelerator program in Ireland. In this chat, Isaac and Pete riff on the differences and similarities between Web2 and Web3 startups, the Lego blocks of Web3, defending your turf, incentivizing your users, keeping your community close, building your team, fundraising strategies ...and the Gaelic sport of hurling.

Joey Krug is the Co-Chief Investment Officer of Pantera Capital, the first institutional investment firm focused exclusively on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem. Joey joins Pete Townsend on this episode originally recorded as part of the Techstars Web3 Convo Series of fireside chats powered by the Launchpool Web3 Techstars Accelerator program in Ireland.

Matthew Graham is the CEO of Ryze Labs (formerly Sino Global Capital), which provides strategic investment to best-in-class companies that are moving the blockchain and digital assets ecosystems forward, and then help them to thrive in the Asia market. Matthew joins Pete Townsend on this episode, originally recorded as part of the Techstars Web3 Convo Series of fireside chats.

John Wu is president of Ava Labs, an a16z-backed technology company building the next-generation blockchain platform, Avalanche. In this episode, John shares insights on bringing passion to projects, building teams and communities in Web3, the sheer joy of bringing hundreds of companies onto Avalanche this year, insights on opportunities and rapid growth areas in Web3, and what makes a great Web3 project.

Teana Baker-Taylor is the Chief Policy Officer of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the longest established trade body representing blockchain and digital assets. In this episode, Teana shares her story with Pete Townsend on her journey into blockchain and digital assets, her view on the critical focal points for the digital asset industry over the next few years, how she gives back as a mentor and advocate, and her view on what makes a great Web3 founder.

Suzanna Hayek from Irish Tech News interviews Pete Townsend on Pete Townsend on financial trends, digital finance and investing in startups. This interview was originally aired on Irish Tech News in early September, and they kindly gave us permission to share the content. We also brought Rory Galvin from Navirum back onto the show to give us some quick insights on the next edition of the Finsight Series ‘Beyond WealthTech’ virtual event coming up on November 17th.

Michelle Tsing joins Pete Townsend in a special segment from the Techstars Web3 Convo Series of fireside chats driven by the Launchpool Web3 Techstars Accelerator program kicking off in Dublin in March 2022. Michelle is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in addition to wearing many hats as a lawyer, artist, entrepreneur, startup advisor, and self-described futurist, she mentors founders through the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator and Singularity University Ventures.

Referring to Colm Lyon as an Irish fintech ‘O.G.’ is just the tip of the iceberg, as at the core, he’s an entrepreneur who’s built indigenous Irish businesses into international players. Currently the CEO and Founder of Fire.com, we walk through Colm’s journey from the early days of banking IT to bootstrapping and scaling his first fintech Realex Payments before it was even called fintech, and building a great culture as an Irish company competing globally. We also talk through how successful exits aren’t really exits, what excites Colm about what fintech will become, what he looks for in startup founders…and the wonders of the antediluvial period!