Paxos's Charles Cascarilla - How Blockchain Tech Could Prevent Another GameStop/Robinhood - Ep.214
In this episode of Unchained, Charles Cascarilla, CEO and cofounder of Paxos, explains how the 2008 financial crisis led him to crypto, what financial plumbing has to do with GameStop, and how Paxos is leveraging blockchain technology to change financial services. In this episode Charles discusses:
- his work experience prior to Paxos and how the financial crisis in 2008 opened his eyes to Bitcoin and blockchain (01:07)
- what it was like to work in Bitcoin during the early days compared to now (4:02a)
- why Paxos decided to focus on building solutions for institutions rather than targeting the retail market like Coinbase (11:38)
- the relationship between Paxos and PayPal + why PayPal customers can’t send crypto directly to their wallets or crypto addresses yet (19:37)
- how Microstrategy and Tesla are bringing Bitcoin mainstream (25:31)
- what really happened with GameStop and Robinhood and why financial plumbing matters (30:34)
- how the Paxos Settlement Service is bringing greater transparency to financial markets by using blockchain technology (39:02)
- what other assets he thinks will be tokenized (50:32)
- stablecoin regulation and why this might be as good as it gets for Tether (58:36)
- why Paxos chose to pursue a New York State trust company charter instead of a BitLicense (1:06:15)
- what changes he would make to crypto regulation for 2021 and beyond (1:09:28)
- what’s next for Paxos (1:15:12)
Thank you to our sponsors!
Crypto.com: https://bit.ly/3jzkTAD
Download the Crypto.com app here: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/laurashinpodcasttesla
Square: https://square.com/go/unchained
Episode links:
Charles Cascarilla
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlescascarilla/
Coindesk Profile: https://www.coindesk.com/charles-cascarilla-most-influential-2020
Previous interview with Laura: https://unchainedpodcast.com/chad-cascarilla-on-paxoss-partnership-with-paypal/
Presentation at Microstrategy’s Bitcoin for Corporation’s conference: https://www.microstrategy.com/en/bitcoin/videos/paxos
Blog post on the GameStop saga: https://www.paxos.com/what-lehman-brothers-gamestop-and-the-next-financial-crisis-have-in-common/
Interview with Frank Chaparro: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/61823/the-scoop-paxos-cascarilla-coronavirus
Paxos
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaxosGlobal + https://twitter.com/PaxosStandard
Paxos Settlement Service: https://www.paxos.com/securities/ + https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-paxos/paxos-to-launch-settlement-of-u-s-listed-equities-after-secs-no-action-letter-idUSKBN1X727M
Series C Fundraising: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/88133/142-million-series-c-paxos-crypto-stablecoins
Wall Street Journal write-up: https://www.wsj.com/articles/blockchain-makes-inroads-into-the-stock-markets-1-trillion-plumbing-system-11573131600
Plans to tokenize precious metals: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/15413/paxos-plans-to-put-precious-metals-on-the-blockchain
Other Links
Paypal’s crypto-focused business unit: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/93668/paypal-crypto-business-unit-earnings-2021
Paypal’s Q4 earnings: https://www.coindesk.com/paypal-2020-results-outstanding-finish-to-a-record-year
Stablecoin rankings: https://stablecoinstats.com/
Tether whitepaper: https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TetherWhitePaper.pdf
BitLicense: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/apps_and_licensing/virtual_currency_businesses/regulation_history
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.