Today, my guest is Dr. Julian Hosp, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Cake DeFi. Cake DeFi is a fintech platform that manages over $1 billion in customer assets. It focuses on creating DeFi (decentralized finance) services and applications like liquidity mining, staking, and lending, which generate cryptocurrency returns for users. The company recently announced a $100 Million raise to start a venture fund. The venture arm will be led by the company’s co-founders, Julian Hosp, CEO, and U-Zyn Chua, chief technology officer. While the company is based in Asia, it will invest in other opportunities globally. He is widely regarded as a leading influencer in the crypto and blockchain space, with over one million followers across all of his channels globally. His ideas, knowledge, and influence have been conveyed in numerous articles and keynote engagements at industry-leading conferences and events. As well as being credited as a leading authority in the vertical, he is an active speaker for the Washington Speaker’s Bureau, an advisor for the EU’s blockchain groups, and manages multiple businesses in the industry. He is also a best-selling author, having written Cryptocurrencies Simply Explained and Blockchain 2.0 — Far More Than Just Bitcoin. His vision is to bring blockchain awareness and understanding to a billion more people by 2025. Before being an entrepreneur, he was a professional kitesurfer and worked as a medical doctor. We discuss a wide range of topics, including Cake DeFi, Bitcoin, the gift of financial literacy, DeFi vs CeFi, and much more. Our conversation begins by discussing the second-order effects of COVID and lockdowns on the digitization of society. We discuss the growing adoption of the metaverse as society becomes more digitally native. Our next conversation topic centered around the economic philosophy of Bitcoin. We discuss the pros and cons of a hard monetary policy and how the debate is beginning to gain steam in the mainstream discourse. We transition the conversation to discuss yields. Julian explains why crypto platforms and DeFi protocols give their users higher yields than traditional financial institutions. Julian also describes how the business model of Cake DeFi is aligned with its users. Julian discusses how Cake DeFi is paying users to learn about crypto and the importance of financial literacy. We transitioned our conversation to discuss the custodial vs noncustodial crypto worlds. We discuss the concept of virgin Bitcoin. We also touch on why regulators' view of blockchains is antiquated and why their limited understanding of the technology holds back innovation. Our next conversation topic centered around the design of Bitcoin. We discuss the limitations of bitcoin and the benefits of its simplicity. Another fascinating topic in our discussion was the market manipulation in crypto and its impact on retail investors. Our final conversation topic was the importance of preserving crypto culture. We discuss the evolving nature of crypto’s culture and the importance of maintaining the core ethos of crypto as the industry grows. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Julian Hosp. -- This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co