EP1 - Bitcoin before Maximalism: The experiments we forgot.
Before Ethereum. Before smart contracts. Before the hype around NFTs and ICOs — Bitcoin was already experimenting.In this episode of Beyond Digital Gold we rewind to 2012–2014, when developers were pushing Bitcoin’s limits with: • Colored Coins were early real-world assets • Mastercoin, the first ICO in crypto history • Counterparty and Rare Pepes, the first NFTs • Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s first native Layer 2Featuring JR Willett, Matt Luongo, Yoni Assia, Adam Krellenstein and Elizabeth Stark, and co-hosted with Nathan from StarkWare, this episode asks a fundamental question:👉 If Bitcoin has alre...
Yoni Assia on the Rise of Active Trading in a Blockchain-Based World and Building a 27M-User App
Yoni Assia is the founder and CEO of eToro, one of the most successful crypto and stock buying apps with over 27 million users in more than 100 countries. Originally founded in 2007, it was one of the pioneering companies to incorporate crypto as early as 2013. Yoni speaks about what led to being so early and where the idea for Etoro stemmed from. He also dives into the importance of the user experience in creating a mainstream crypto trading app, and how including a social aspect to the product early on helped in accelerating growth.
We talked about the next phase for eToro and the role NFTs and DeFi will play in the platform, as he looks to integrate both. Yoni is convinced finance will become increasingly digital, and believes eToro’s role is to help investors diversify their holdings. He sees a change in investment attitudes as the younger generation is interested in taking a more active role with their assets, and trading is becoming a more social experience. Finally, we talk about some of the lessons he has learned about entrepreneurship and taking big risks.
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A Conversation with Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro
Yoni Assia has been in the bitcoin world since 2012 and his firm eToro has offered a platform for crypto trading for several years but if you're a listener in the U.S. you might not have ever heard of his firm which actually has a $1 billion plus evaluation. The Israeli based company which is popular across Europe has just expanded into the U.S. and it's preparing to go head to head with the likes of Robinhood and Coinbase. Yoni is hoping big marketing dollars and the social network elements of eToro's platform will help it out compete U.S. giants. In this episode of The Scoop Yoni outlined his vision for eToro in the U.S., how the firm has traditionally expanded globally and the plan for it's new cryptocurrency exchange eToroX