Why Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Fell in Love With Crypto - Ep.327
While researching for The Cryptopians, I discovered that Andrey Ternovskiy, the founder of internet sensation Chatroulette, was heavily involved in The DAO back in 2016. In this episode, we skirt around revealing major spoilers from The Cryptopians and discuss Andrey’s experience founding Chatroulette, how he fell down the crypto rabbit hole, whether hacking smart contracts is ethical, and more. Show topics:
- Andrey’s background
- how Andrey’s struggles with PayPal at Chatroulette led him to quickly understand the need for crypto
- what Andrey’s involvement at Chatroulette is
- the different ways Andrey thinks crypto can disrupt middlemen
- why Andrey became infatuated with the narrative behind the “crypto” movement
- why Andrey became a fan of Ethereum
- why Andrey decided to tell me about his previously undisclosed involvement in The DAO and early Ethereum
- whether hacking smart contracts is ethical (or legal)
- what Andrey thinks about how Ukraine has used crypto in its fight against Russia’s invasion
- why Andrey will most likely not decentralize Chatroulette
- what Andrey’s perspective is on decentralization in terms of DeFi and DAOs
Upcoming Book Events
For folks in the Bay Area: On Tuesday March 8, I’ll be doing a reading and signing at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, moderated by The Information’s Kate Clark. Doors open at 5:15 p.m. , the program begins at 6 p.m., and the book signing is at 7 p.m. https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2022-03-08/laura-shin-inside-first-cryptocurrency-craze
For people in Seattle: I’ll be doing a reading and signing as part of town Hall Seattle on Wednesday March 9, at 7:30pm at The Forum, moderated by Steve Scher, of Town Hall Seattle. https://townhallseattle.org/event/laura-shin/
And, I may also be at SXSW on March 12 — details still TBD, and I may also be in Boston at Harvard the weekend of March 26. No promises on either score, but I guess if you feel strongly about either one, you can tweet at me, as that might tip the scales. On April 5th, I’ll be in Miami doing a reading, and on April 9th, I’ll be in Annapolis at the Annapolis Book Festival. Finally, on March 23rd, I’ll be doing a virtual reading with Powell’s bookstore at 8pm Eastern Time/5pm Pacific Time, and Jeff Roberts, executive editor of Decrypt and author of Kings of Crypto will be moderating.
Thank you to our sponsors!
Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021
Beefy Finance: https://beefy.finance
Cross River Bank: https://crossriver.com/crypto
Episode Links
- Andrey Ternovskiy: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/andrey-ternovskiy
- Chatroulette: https://chatroulette.com/
The Cryptopians
- http://bit.ly/cryptopians
- On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cryptopians-Idealism-Greed-Making-Cryptocurrency/dp/1541763017/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1645037311&sr=8-2
- On Barnes. &. Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-cryptopians-laura-shin/1138980345?ean=9781541763012
- On Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/the-cryptopians-idealism-greed-lies-and-the-making-of-the-first-big-cryptocurrency-craze/9781541763012
- Unchained: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-writing-the-cryptopians-shaped-my-views-on-ethereum/
DAO Hacker Reveal:
- Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2022/02/22/exclusive-austrian-programmer-and-ex-crypto-ceo-likely-stole-11-billion-of-ether/
- Unchained: https://unchainedpodcast.com/exclusive-cryptos-biggest-whodunnit-who-was-behind-the-2016-dao-attack-on-ethereum/
- Medium: https://medium.com/@laurashin/who-hacked-the-dao-on-ethereum-heres-how-we-jumped-past-one-critical-step-60aec489a127
- Bulletin: https://laurashin.bulletin.com/who-was-behind-the-2016-dao-attack-on-ethereum-the-backstory-to-my-investigation
- Forbes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuICbAucfn0
- Daily Tech News Show: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1306972988
The DAO Hack
- https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2016/06/25/understanding-the-dao-attack/
- https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/the-dao-hack-makerdao
- https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-matthew-leising-confronted-his-suspects-in-the-dao-attacks/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Available Results
Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.
Choose Template
Pick the result you want. You can review provider and model before generating.
A concise first-pass summary for understanding the episode quickly.
A comprehensive, source-grounded extraction of the reusable knowledge in an episode.
A comprehensive extraction focused on opportunities, strategy, markets, and company building.
Explicit actions, next steps, habits, recommendations, and things to avoid.
Repeatable methods, frameworks, mental models, processes, and systems.
A dedicated inventory of concrete resources named in the episode.
A concise first-pass summary for understanding the episode quickly.
A detailed readable summary organized by chapter or topic.
A navigable map of subjects, topic flow, and suggested chapters.
A comprehensive, source-grounded extraction of the reusable knowledge in an episode.
Reusable atomic knowledge units extracted from the episode.
A comprehensive extraction focused on health practices, protocols, claims, and safety caveats.
A comprehensive extraction focused on opportunities, strategy, markets, and company building.
Explicit actions, next steps, habits, recommendations, and things to avoid.
A dedicated inventory of concrete resources named in the episode.
A dedicated analysis of warnings, limitations, trade-offs, weak evidence, and uncertainty.
A concise first-pass summary for understanding the episode quickly.
A detailed readable summary organized by chapter or topic.
A navigable map of subjects, topic flow, and suggested chapters.
A comprehensive, source-grounded extraction of the reusable knowledge in an episode.
Reusable atomic knowledge units extracted from the episode.
A comprehensive extraction focused on health practices, protocols, claims, and safety caveats.
A comprehensive extraction focused on opportunities, strategy, markets, and company building.
Scientific findings, mechanisms, studies, hypotheses, and the limits of the evidence discussed.
Technologies, AI models, technical methods, capabilities, limitations, and adoption implications.
Investment theses, assets, catalysts, valuation reasoning, time horizons, and risks.
Chronologies, actors, causes, consequences, turning points, and competing historical interpretations.
Policies, proposals, stakeholders, arguments, implementation constraints, and predicted effects.
Career paths, skills, hiring signals, workplace decisions, transitions, and limitations of the advice.
Behavioral mechanisms, biases, motivation, habits, emotions, interventions, and evidence limitations.
Economic mechanisms, incentives, indicators, market structure, forecasts, and uncertainty.
Leadership principles, team systems, organizational design, culture, feedback, and failure modes.
Audience, positioning, messaging, acquisition, retention, experiments, metrics, and failed approaches.
Teaching methods, learning strategies, practice, feedback, assessment, and effectiveness evidence.
Theses, premises, arguments, objections, values, thought experiments, and unresolved questions.
Communication patterns, conflict, boundaries, expectations, repair methods, and contextual limitations.
Books, papers, authors, courses, and other learning resources mentioned in the episode.
Repeatable methods, frameworks, mental models, processes, and systems.
Explicit actions, next steps, habits, recommendations, and things to avoid.
Memorable statements and important claims with attribution and source context.
A dedicated inventory of concrete resources named in the episode.
A dedicated analysis of warnings, limitations, trade-offs, weak evidence, and uncertainty.