The DeFi Decoded Podcast

Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Stefan Rust, CEO of Truflation and former CEO of Bitcoin.com. Listen in as they dig into the number behind the number: why the government still measures inflation by survey using a methodology unchanged in a hundred years, and what changes when you aggregate hundreds of millions of daily data points instead. Stefan explains why $130 trillion is tied to the official print, how Truflation runs ~41 days ahead of the government, and why its number is sometimes lower than CPI, not higher. Plus: what actually drives Fed decisions, why Bitcoin and gold traded like risk assets, and the case that tokenized dollars are what keeps borrowing costs down.

Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto, fintech and AI with special guests Gordon Liao, Chief Economist and Head of Research at Circle, and Ken Ng, Head of Ecosystem at Uniswap Labs. Listen in as Gordon explains why Circle is building Arc — a layer one purpose-built for stablecoin finance, with USDC as gas and the settlement finality institutions need to move trillions in real-world assets — and why another chain doesn't mean another silo. Ken makes the case that Uniswap is the real everything exchange: list once and you're listed everywhere, across a permissionless platform where Fidelity deployed liquidity without telling anyone first. Together they get into what a shared compliance layer would unlock, whether someone in the Philippines will ever hold BUIDL in $100 increments, and why bearer instruments — a centuries-old idea — are the key to tokenized assets. Plus: Circle's $400M all-stock acquisition and stablecoins as global payment rails, what's actually happening at the long end of the bond market, why stablecoins may become the stickiest buyer of short-term government debt, and how AI agents will use crypto — not just to pay each other, but to raise capital.

Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Adrian Cachinero Vasiljevic, Co-Founder of Steakhouse Financial. Listen in as they unpack the buzziest topic in DeFi right now: vaults. Adrian explains what a vault actually is (and why the word is as broad as "token"), why most vault capital sits in lending markets, and how onchain vaults can strike a NAV in real time in ways traditional funds and ETFs can't. They dig into Steakhouse's role as one of the largest risk curators in onchain finance — curating close to half the stablecoin deposits on Morpho and serving as the exclusive risk curator of Robinhood Earn — and what a curator can and can't do with your assets. Alex and Adrian also cover the "physics of DeFi," the regulatory road ahead for vaults and the CLARITY Act, who absorbs the losses when things go wrong, and why reimagining finance from first principles is the real frontier.

Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Eric Richmond, Country Director and CEO of Coinbase Canada. Listen in as they trade the "everything store" for the "everything exchange" — Coinbase's bet that one trusted, on-chain platform can carry a person's entire financial life. Eric explains why Canada is one of Coinbase's fastest-growing markets now that 25% of Canadians own crypto, what's actually getting used today — USDC yield, crypto derivatives, and tokenized equities that went live this week — and why 24/7 markets and instant settlement make tokenized stocks more than a repackaged brokerage account. Alex and Eric also dig into Canada's regulatory backslide: how a country that led on crypto ETFs ended up governing a new asset class through staff notices and exemption orders, why simply custodying Bitcoin turns it into a security here, and the Schrödinger's stablecoin problem the Stablecoin Act leaves unresolved. Plus: Base as evolution rather than hedge, and why the AI agent economy runs on stablecoins — agents can't open bank accounts, but they can hold wallets.

Join Alex Tapscott as he decodes the world of crypto with special guest Didier Lavallée, Founder and CEO of Tetra Digital Group. Listen in as they discuss why Canada - the birthplace of Ethereum - has ceded its lead in crypto and how a Canadian dollar stablecoin could help win it back. Didier explains the launch of CADD, why domestic payments (not just cross-border remittances) are the surprise growth story, and how orchestration infrastructure lets money move across borders without friction. Alex and Didier also dig into the sovereignty stakes behind Canada's financial system - from the Moneris sale to foreign-controlled crypto apps - why a bank-heavy oligopoly makes disruption so hard, and what it means that former Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins has joined Tetra's advisory council.