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Hi, everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast.

I'm Sonal.

There's a lot of talk about cryptocurrencies and tokens and ICOs out there, but

beyond the hype, why does it all matter?

It turns out the internet, believe it or not, given all the things that are already

built on top of it, is just the beginning.

And as we enter a new phase of blockchain-enabled innovation, there's a lot more

to come.

So in this hallway-style conversation, we break down the fundamentals you need to know on the topic.

From incentives, networks, developer communities, and new models of governance, to the trade-offs between centralized and decentralized systems.

And then we briefly touch on how to tell the difference between what's promising and legitimate

versus the red flag when it comes to ICOs, as well as valuing tokens. The two guests on this episode covering all of this are

general partner Chris Dixon, who shared his thoughts about the topic on Medium, as well as on our

podcast before you can check out those episodes. And Fred Erism, who did computer science at Duke

and undergrad, was a foreign exchange trader at Goldman Sachs in New York and

is a co-founder of Coinbase, which has now become the largest cryptocurrency company in the world.

And he's on his own now. And you can check out his posts going deep on the topic on Medium as well.

So let's go right into our favorite topic, which is what we talk about all the time, which is

...