Ryan Selkis - The Crypto Barbell and Token Curated Registries

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode of Invest Like the Best is brought to you by Paxos. I have personally interviewed Paxos' CEO, Chad Cascarilla, on this podcast before, and I'm excited about how they're changing the crypto landscape. Whether you're a small fintech or a large financial institution, with Paxos crypto brokerage, you can offer your customers crypto buying, selling, transferring, and more, all with Paxos' easy to integrate APIs.
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:59)
Want to meet other curious investors, get in good shape, and support a fantastic cause? Consider joining a great group to hike 28 miles in honor of those who have fallen in defense of our nation.
Wes Gray, a past podcast guest and marine, came up with the idea to bring people from finance together to march. He's posted all the information you need about the event and how to train at alphaarchitect.com/mftf, stands for March for the Fallen. Wes arranged for food and lodging for our large group and we have around 100 spots left. Both male and female barracks will be available for lodging. Come for a hard hike, amazing camaraderie, and most importantly, to share in thanks of the fallen men and women who served on our behalf.
We hope to see you there.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (1:46)
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best.
This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, methods, stories, and of strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. You can learn more and stay up to date at investorfieldguide.com.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:06)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:41)
This week's conversation is for those interested in the nitty-gritty of cryptocurrencies, and for those who, like me, are fascinated by that world, but more than a bit skeptical of the investing prospects for many cryptocurrencies now in existence. My guest is Ryan Selkis, who I met at an event hosted by Union Square Ventures and Blocktower Capital. At that event, in a crowd of many brilliant people, Ryan was consistently asking hard questions and raising counterpoints. I love his perspective because he is both passionate but realistic, excited about crypto, but worried about many aspects of the ecosystem. We discussed many new topics like his barbell analogy for thinking about different kinds of coins, token curated registries, a fascinating topic, and the need for better transparency around decentralized projects. Like the Hashpower documentary, this episode and other Hashpower singles are brought to you by Fidelity Investments, a company that is constantly researching and experimenting with emerging technologies like crypto assets and blockchain to improve the lives of their customers. Fidelity provides a comprehensive set of products and services to individual investors, employers and financial advisory firms. For more information, please visit fidelity.com.
Please enjoy this conversation. Thank you.
I'm always curious how people that have a lot of experience in this world, actually especially non-engineers, describe the entire ecosystem to someone that's unfamiliar with it. It's been a while since I've done this at a basic level. So how do you do that?

**Ryan Selkis** (4:06)
Oh man, and you know, this is always like a tough one. You'd expect the old guys to have the perfect one-on-one, and we end up just getting so far in the weeds that I'm going to completely botch shit out of us.
The way that I think about it at a super high level is that we are just a washing information, and there's so much pollution on the internet. And the original information on the internet was to make information flow freely and make it accessible to anybody. And what that's led to is just a glut of information. So I always think of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in general as the thing that finally makes value flow as freely as information, scarce value flows freely as information.