20VC: Scalar Capital's Linda Xjie on Who Will Win The Smart Contract War, The Future of Exchanges: Centralised or Decentralised & The Pros and Cons of Differing Privacy Coins
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Linda Xie is a Co-Founder & Managing Director @ Scalar Capital, one of the leading crypto asset funds to have been born over the last few years with Linda becoming one of the most prominent figures in the space. Prior to co-founding Scalar, Linda was a product manager at Coinbase where she worked with regulators and law enforcement. Before Coinbase, she was a portfolio risk analyst at AIG. If that was not enough, Linda is also an advisor to 0x, the critical infrastructure layer in the emerging financial stack built on a foundation of Ethereum token standards.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Linda made her move into the world of crypto joining Coinbase back in 2014 and how that led to her founding of Scalar? What were her biggest takeaways from seeing the first-hand scaling of Coinbase?
2.) What is a privacy coin and why does it matter? What are some of the dominant legitimate uses for privacy coins? From ZCash to Monero to Dash, there are many players in the space, what are some of the core benefits and tradeoffs of each platform? What is the fundamental problem with privacy coins today?
3.) What is a decentralised exchange, why does Linda believe it is inherently important? How does Linda assess the current exchange environment today? Where does she see it moving over the coming years? What have been some of Linda's biggest learnings advising 0x? Given the mission and ethos of crypto, does Linda believe that centralised exchanges fundamentally go against the core ethos of the space?
4.) How does Linda perceive the state of ethereum today? What are some of the core challenges facing ethereum today? How does ethereum compare to alternative smart contract platforms? What is their differentiation? Will we see a winner take all/most market within smart contract platforms? Will we see smart contract platforms be regionally fragmented?
5.) How does Linda address the fundamental challenge of valuing tokens today? What has been her preferred model in doing this to date? How does Linda assess the mega raises we have seen over the last year? How does Linda think about preventing projects from raising huge rounds just to stay in step with the mega raises of their competitors?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Linda’s Fave Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Linda’s Most Recent Investment: Kadena
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Linda on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to another week on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. It would be fantastic to see you on |
| 0:04.5 | Instagram at H. Stebings, 1996. I would love to hear what you like and don't like about a show, always |
| 0:10.1 | looking to improve, so please do let me know there. But to our episode today, and we've not |
| 0:14.0 | dived into the world of crypto since our episode with Anna at Lightspeed. And so we're going to change that today and I'm very, very excited to welcome Linda G, co-founder and managing director at Scala Capital, one of the leading crypto asset |
| 0:25.4 | funds to have been born over the last few years, with Linda becoming one of the most |
| 0:28.9 | prominent figures in the space. Prior to co-founding Scalar, Linda was a product manager at |
| 0:33.3 | Coinbase, where she worked with regulators and law enforcement. Before Coinbase, she was a portfolio |
| 0:37.9 | risk analyst at AIG. And if that wasn't enough, Linda's also an advisor to ZeroX, the critical |
| 0:43.5 | infrastructure layer in the emerging financial stack, built on a foundation of Ethereum token standards. |
| 0:49.0 | And I'd also have to say a huge thank you to the wonderful Elad Gill, who's done so much for me. |
| 0:53.0 | Really do appreciate the intro here, my friend. It means so much to me. However, before we welcome Linda to the hot seat today, |
| 0:58.5 | and I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex, the first corporate card for startups. Brex founders |
| 1:03.4 | Enrique M. Pedro built a payments business in Brazil, but found themselves rejected for a |
| 1:07.8 | corporate card when they were in Y Combinator. They decided to build |
| 1:10.8 | Brex with instant online sign-up, no founder liability required, and limits 10 to 20 times higher |
| 1:16.6 | than standard cards. Pretty incredible, I know, and you can sign up for Brex today and get |
| 1:21.1 | fees waived by entering the code Harry during sign-up. Honestly, it really is such a special |
| 1:26.0 | service. And with Brex in place, |
| 1:27.8 | we now need a team to really use the cards. And that's where Terminal comes in. Terminal |
| 1:31.8 | is a startup that appreciates. Hiring amazing developers is really hard. Plus, it's even |
| 1:36.2 | harder if you're only looking in a 25-mile radius of your office. So Terminal is your |
| 1:40.4 | dedicated partner in rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams. |
... |
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