Exploring Blockchain Infrastructure with Shawn Douglass of Amberdata
Shawn Douglass, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Amberdata, joins theCUBE at the New York Stock Exchange for an insightful discussion on advancements in blockchain infrastructure and digital asset analytics. As part of the NYSE Wired Crypto Trailblazer series, this video examines the pivotal role Amberdata plays in tracking and analyzing cryptocurrency transactions through innovative data solutions.
In this session, Douglass shares their expertise on blockchain infrastructure and its impact on financial services. Over the past eight years, Amberdata has pioneered data analytics for digital assets, building institutional-grade technologies that process billions of application programming interface calls. Hosts from theCUBE Research explore these topics, highlighting Amberdata's journey and the evolving landscape of decentralized finance.
Key takeaways from the discussion include Douglass's perspectives on the convergence of traditional finance and cryptocurrency, the importance of comprehensive analytics in this sector, and the significance of the US regulatory shift in favoring cryptocurrency advancements. According to Douglass, Amberdata is positioned at the forefront, providing critical insights that facilitate institutional engagement with digital assets.
Find more SiliconANGLE news and analysis https://siliconangle.com/
Follow theCUBE's wall-to-wall event coverage https://siliconangle.com/events/
Learn about the latest theCUBE events https://www.thecube.net/
00:00 - theCUBE and Amberdata: A Journey through Institutional Innovation and Partnerships
02:43 - Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Digital Asset Markets
05:56 - Advancements and Opportunities in the Digital Asset Landscape
08:09 - Navigating the Evolving World of Digital Assets: Regulation, Adoption, and Use Cases
11:38 - Synergy of Finance: Integrating Traditional Systems with Digital Assets
15:36 - Amberdata's Role in the Market
17:38 - Lessons Learned from Past Challenges
19:50 - Title: Strategic Insights and Future Prospects
#Amberdata #CryptoTrailblazer #BlockchainInfrastructure #DigitalAssets #NYSEWired #theCUBE #DecentralizedFinance #InstitutionalData #FinancialAnalytics
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Thomas Lee, CIO
Exploring Blockchain Infrastructure with Shawn Douglass of Amberdata
Shawn Douglass, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Amberdata, joins theCUBE at the New York Stock Exchange for an insightful discussion on advancements in blockchain infrastructure and digital asset analytics. As part of the NYSE Wired Crypto Trailblazer series, this video examines the pivotal role Amberdata plays in tracking and analyzing cryptocurrency transactions through innovative data solutions.
In this session, Douglass shares their expertise on blockchain infrastructure and its impact on financial services. Over the past eight years, Amberdata has pioneered data analytics for digital assets, building institutional-grade technologies that process billions of application programming interface calls. Hosts from theCUBE Research explore these topics, highlighting Amberdata's journey and the evolving landscape of decentralized finance.
Key takeaways from the discussion include Douglass's perspectives on the convergence of traditional finance and cryptocurrency, the importance of comprehensive analytics in this sector, and the significance of the US regulatory shift in favoring cryptocurrency advancements. According to Douglass, Amberdata is positioned at the forefront, providing critical insights that facilitate institutional engagement with digital assets.
Find more SiliconANGLE news and analysis https://siliconangle.com/
Follow theCUBE's wall-to-wall event coverage https://siliconangle.com/events/
Learn about the latest theCUBE events https://www.thecube.net/
00:00 - theCUBE and Amberdata: A Journey through Institutional Innovation and Partnerships
02:43 - Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Digital Asset Markets
05:56 - Advancements and Opportunities in the Digital Asset Landscape
08:09 - Navigating the Evolving World of Digital Assets: Regulation, Adoption, and Use Cases
11:38 - Synergy of Finance: Integrating Traditional Systems with Digital Assets
15:36 - Amberdata's Role in the Market
17:38 - Lessons Learned from Past Challenges
19:50 - Title: Strategic Insights and Future Prospects
#Amberdata #CryptoTrailblazer #BlockchainInfrastructure #DigitalAssets #NYSEWired #theCUBE #DecentralizedFinance #InstitutionalData #FinancialAnalytics
play_circle_outlineThomas Lee discusses the impact of October's crypto price drop due to geopolitical news.
replyShare Clip
play_circle_outlineBitcoin and Ethereum Show Resilience Amid Liquidation Event as Smaller Cryptocurrencies Falter and Stablecoins Experience Price Drops
replyShare Clip
play_circle_outlineQuestions arise about potential consolidation in the crypto market after recent events.
>> Welcome back here. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE here at our NYSE studios. Palo Alto Studio on the West Coast connecting the East Coast. Our Crypto Trailblazer's back by popular demand, Thomas Lee with Fundstrat Capital. Big success with what he's doing. Great to see you back again.
Thomas Lee
>> Great to see you.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. First of all, great conversation last time around how you got , you got the debt, you got the staking on Ethereum. People love that. I mean, they love that market. But there was a little event happened in October that put a little ripple in the pond, if you will. Talk about that dynamic, because I think a lot of people were talking about that being a moment in the industry.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. Well, on October 10th, there was a headline related to Trump and China trade relations that caused a pretty big drop in crypto prices. And that triggered a cascade of events that led to the biggest single day liquidation in the history of crypto. So it was bigger than FTX, bigger than COVID. And I think it exposed that there were some problems within the plumbing of crypto, and those ripple effects are still happening today.
John Furrier
>> And it was really... Take me through the impact, because Bitcoin and Ethereum handled pretty well.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Or did it? And what was the main force?
Thomas Lee
>> Well, there's a lot of people who are trying to put the events together, but you're right, Bitcoin and Ethereum actually proved to be pretty resilient. I think they only fell roughly peaked to trough 7% during that liquidation. A lot of the smaller cryptos fell 80% or more. But what they ended up tracing this to is, there was a feature in some of these exchanges called ADL automatic liquidations. And when the collateral that someone puts to borrow money, if the price of that drops, it triggers an automatic sale. So some of the small stablecoins actually went below a dollar momentarily. So what you thought was safe collateral because it was worth a dollar suddenly fell 40%, and that triggered a cascade of liquidations. That is what spread really quickly across the network.
John Furrier
>> Is that a macro-micro combination all happening at once? Because it begs the question, do this... I guess it's the wrong word to say small cap coins, but as crypto has multiple tokens, does that signal maybe a consolidation? Does that signal maybe a rethinking of what should be even in the system?
Thomas Lee
>> I think as people look back, I think Bitcoin and Ethereum held up really well because in prior episodes of liquidation events that you could have seen Bitcoin and Ethereum fall 30, 40%, but instead they barely fell. But in that market, there is a bit of leverage because crypto does attract people who like to use leverage and there's volatility, but that combination can be quite lethal when liquidity shrinks. And so, it was a negative adverse combination of factors.
John Furrier
>> Perfect storm, as they say. I want to get your thoughts on Ethereum. Obviously your fund staking all in on Ethereum. Bitcoin, we all know is a store of value. Ethereum's a productive asset. Talk about that aspect because there's financial opportunities and thinking of it that way. Explain again why you think the Ethereum staking is so important because if you're getting yield, you can organize around that.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. I think foremost Ethereum is a smart contract blockchain. So you can essentially program a lot of information and store it. That allows you to do a lot of things that are really useful. And it's in contrast to Bitcoin, which really is essentially stored energy or digital gold. One of the big breakouts this year in terms of product adoption has been stablecoins, which is a dollar that's tokenized onto the blockchain. And a tokenized dollar or stablecoin is useful because you can use fractional payments. Instead of something being in pennies, a stablecoin drops to 12 digits. So it's good for micropayments. And there's a lot of finality. You can send money, send dollars, and you know that these transactions are final. Well, it turns out Wall Street's interested in tokenizing more than just dollars. There's a lot of talk about tokenizing, as Larry Fink would say, tokenize everything onto the blockchain. So equities, bonds, credit, real estate, what they call real world assets. You'll need a neutral blockchain to essentially create these products and run it on. Ethereum makes a lot of sense because it's got a vast network of validators, meaning there's a lot of security. It's also been around the longest. It's celebrating 10 years. And it has had 100% uptime, which means it's very reliable. And the Ethereum Foundation has been pushing forward ideas and projects in a way that is trying to be Wall Street friendly. And I think that's also really important. In fact, the fact that they're hosting an event here at the NYSE makes all the difference in the world. The NYSE is the most prestigious exchange in the world. Everybody in any country who does markets knows what the NYSE is.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And with the sovereignty issues going on with the US dollar, with stablecoin, this symbol of capitalism, I said you'd called it Darwinism last time we chatted, which was a fun comment. It does represent a symbol, even though we're going digital.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> And the stablecoin now backed by the US dollar has huge implications.
Thomas Lee
>> That's right.
John Furrier
>> Huge implications.
Thomas Lee
>> That's right. And I think what we have to remember is, for everything that happens in the real world, like economic activity, there's one unit of financial transaction. So the NYSE sits really at the center of that. Everything that happens in the world has to essentially go through an exchange. And NYSE is, again, the most prestigious exchange.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And I think NYSE is owned by ICE now. I lived for the past 25 years in Silicon Valley, grew up in New Jersey. So I knew NYC. I know the East Coast and West Coast. I've seen both cultures, lived there both side. The NYSE was its own thing. Now it's owned by ICE. ICE is a huge monster company.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> They understand data. And if you look at the NYSE history, I was just talking with another interview about this. They used to have stuff on paper. Used to close the exchange down just to count the papers if they overloaded. Then they went digital. So they're not a stranger to format changes. So I think you got a good point there. And I was in meetings where I've heard they're open and their arms are open for crypto infrastructure. There's more data. It's more exchange opportunities. So what's your view on that? Because we say go paper, go digital, digital to crypto. It's a natural progression for the NYSE.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. There's a lot of unlocks that come. Well, foremost, more things are moving to digital. I think more than 50% of all economic growth over the past 10 years has been native digital. And it's just a matter of time that as money has become digital and you're tokenizing digital dollars, that it means that what becomes traded on a digital exchange isn't just stocks anymore. And it's not just bonds. And it's not even just real estate. It may be prediction markets. That's become a huge breakout.
John Furrier
>> Poly market investment two billion by NYSE.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. And Polymarket has really been good signal for markets. Polymarket correctly predicted in the 2024 election, 50 out of 50 states. The prediction markets got those correct. And in the New York City mayoral election correctly called Mamdani as the winner. So the prediction markets are proving to be really good signal for markets, but also that's taking events and making it a financial product.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. I mean, converts everything to data. All right. If you look at the market today, and I asked you, in your world, when you're staking and you're running this now crypto native thinking and systems that you're building and management of it, when I say what's a headwind and what's a tailwind, how would you answer that question? What's a headwind and what's a tailwind for you?
Thomas Lee
>> Well, yeah. Well, I'd say the headwind for crypto continues to be that it is a very competitive marketplace. And so, there's a lot of ideas and the best ideas win. So it's important for people to navigate that carefully because there's a lot of DeFi projects out there, and a lot of good ideas, but only a handful are going to really break out. On the tailwind side, of course, is that we know that there is enormous efforts and interest in moving everything digitally onto the blockchain. So that's going to be a 10-year tailwind for the industry.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. I like the idea of the trading of real world assets. I think that's where I see a lot of opportunity. What does that do to to the TAM? I mean, the TAM is incredible if you think about what the TAM is. Even today, compared to what it could be, with other assets coming in, not just stock.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. I think Ethereum's network value today is maybe 400 billion or so, but global GDP is 90 trillion. The total size of global financial markets is 200 trillion, maybe more. It might even be 300 trillion. How much of that ends up on blockchains? The idea, according to Larry Fink, is to move 100% of this onto the blockchain. So we're talking trillions of dollars of assets moving onto layer one blockchains. That creates a lot of network value for the underlying chain that's essentially the base layer. So yeah, it's-
John Furrier
>> Yeah. You mentioned Larry Fink multiple times and also circular investment. They're all pro this direction.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. So we could see exponential upside.
John Furrier
>> Well, what's new for you? What's on your plate now? What are you working on? You're here for the 10th anniversary party. Good to see you. We'll see you on the floor, for sure. What are you focused on now? What's on your to-do list?
Thomas Lee
>> Well, there's a lot on the to-do list. I think that with regard to BitMine, BitMine continues to do really well. It's the largest holder of Ethereum in the world. Last time I was here, it was just starting, and now owns close to 2.9% of Ethereum. And there's a lot of investor education out there. A lot of people are really interested in learning about, well, one, how to actually create products onto the blockchain. There's a lot of interest in people deploying stablecoins, and a lot of folks want to work with us on understanding that.
John Furrier
>> Well, Thomas, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. Great to see you again.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah, great to see you.
John Furrier
>> Always a pleasure. I'm John Furrier. The Crypto Trailblazer's here at the NYSE, it's the 10th anniversary celebration for Ethereum. Everyone's in town. Huge event happening here at the NYSE. Thanks for watching.
>> Welcome back here. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE here at our NYSE studios. Palo Alto Studio on the West Coast connecting the East Coast. Our Crypto Trailblazer's back by popular demand, Thomas Lee with Fundstrat Capital. Big success with what he's doing. Great to see you back again.
Thomas Lee
>> Great to see you.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. First of all, great conversation last time around how you got , you got the debt, you got the staking on Ethereum. People love that. I mean, they love that market. But there was a little event happened in October that put a little ripple in the pond, if you will. Talk about that dynamic, because I think a lot of people were talking about that being a moment in the industry.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. Well, on October 10th, there was a headline related to Trump and China trade relations that caused a pretty big drop in crypto prices. And that triggered a cascade of events that led to the biggest single day liquidation in the history of crypto. So it was bigger than FTX, bigger than COVID. And I think it exposed that there were some problems within the plumbing of crypto, and those ripple effects are still happening today.
John Furrier
>> And it was really... Take me through the impact, because Bitcoin and Ethereum handled pretty well.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Or did it? And what was the main force?
Thomas Lee
>> Well, there's a lot of people who are trying to put the events together, but you're right, Bitcoin and Ethereum actually proved to be pretty resilient. I think they only fell roughly peaked to trough 7% during that liquidation. A lot of the smaller cryptos fell 80% or more. But what they ended up tracing this to is, there was a feature in some of these exchanges called ADL automatic liquidations. And when the collateral that someone puts to borrow money, if the price of that drops, it triggers an automatic sale. So some of the small stablecoins actually went below a dollar momentarily. So what you thought was safe collateral because it was worth a dollar suddenly fell 40%, and that triggered a cascade of liquidations. That is what spread really quickly across the network.
John Furrier
>> Is that a macro-micro combination all happening at once? Because it begs the question, do this... I guess it's the wrong word to say small cap coins, but as crypto has multiple tokens, does that signal maybe a consolidation? Does that signal maybe a rethinking of what should be even in the system?
Thomas Lee
>> I think as people look back, I think Bitcoin and Ethereum held up really well because in prior episodes of liquidation events that you could have seen Bitcoin and Ethereum fall 30, 40%, but instead they barely fell. But in that market, there is a bit of leverage because crypto does attract people who like to use leverage and there's volatility, but that combination can be quite lethal when liquidity shrinks. And so, it was a negative adverse combination of factors.
John Furrier
>> Perfect storm, as they say. I want to get your thoughts on Ethereum. Obviously your fund staking all in on Ethereum. Bitcoin, we all know is a store of value. Ethereum's a productive asset. Talk about that aspect because there's financial opportunities and thinking of it that way. Explain again why you think the Ethereum staking is so important because if you're getting yield, you can organize around that.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. I think foremost Ethereum is a smart contract blockchain. So you can essentially program a lot of information and store it. That allows you to do a lot of things that are really useful. And it's in contrast to Bitcoin, which really is essentially stored energy or digital gold. One of the big breakouts this year in terms of product adoption has been stablecoins, which is a dollar that's tokenized onto the blockchain. And a tokenized dollar or stablecoin is useful because you can use fractional payments. Instead of something being in pennies, a stablecoin drops to 12 digits. So it's good for micropayments. And there's a lot of finality. You can send money, send dollars, and you know that these transactions are final. Well, it turns out Wall Street's interested in tokenizing more than just dollars. There's a lot of talk about tokenizing, as Larry Fink would say, tokenize everything onto the blockchain. So equities, bonds, credit, real estate, what they call real world assets. You'll need a neutral blockchain to essentially create these products and run it on. Ethereum makes a lot of sense because it's got a vast network of validators, meaning there's a lot of security. It's also been around the longest. It's celebrating 10 years. And it has had 100% uptime, which means it's very reliable. And the Ethereum Foundation has been pushing forward ideas and projects in a way that is trying to be Wall Street friendly. And I think that's also really important. In fact, the fact that they're hosting an event here at the NYSE makes all the difference in the world. The NYSE is the most prestigious exchange in the world. Everybody in any country who does markets knows what the NYSE is.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And with the sovereignty issues going on with the US dollar, with stablecoin, this symbol of capitalism, I said you'd called it Darwinism last time we chatted, which was a fun comment. It does represent a symbol, even though we're going digital.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> And the stablecoin now backed by the US dollar has huge implications.
Thomas Lee
>> That's right.
John Furrier
>> Huge implications.
Thomas Lee
>> That's right. And I think what we have to remember is, for everything that happens in the real world, like economic activity, there's one unit of financial transaction. So the NYSE sits really at the center of that. Everything that happens in the world has to essentially go through an exchange. And NYSE is, again, the most prestigious exchange.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. And I think NYSE is owned by ICE now. I lived for the past 25 years in Silicon Valley, grew up in New Jersey. So I knew NYC. I know the East Coast and West Coast. I've seen both cultures, lived there both side. The NYSE was its own thing. Now it's owned by ICE. ICE is a huge monster company.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> They understand data. And if you look at the NYSE history, I was just talking with another interview about this. They used to have stuff on paper. Used to close the exchange down just to count the papers if they overloaded. Then they went digital. So they're not a stranger to format changes. So I think you got a good point there. And I was in meetings where I've heard they're open and their arms are open for crypto infrastructure. There's more data. It's more exchange opportunities. So what's your view on that? Because we say go paper, go digital, digital to crypto. It's a natural progression for the NYSE.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. There's a lot of unlocks that come. Well, foremost, more things are moving to digital. I think more than 50% of all economic growth over the past 10 years has been native digital. And it's just a matter of time that as money has become digital and you're tokenizing digital dollars, that it means that what becomes traded on a digital exchange isn't just stocks anymore. And it's not just bonds. And it's not even just real estate. It may be prediction markets. That's become a huge breakout.
John Furrier
>> Poly market investment two billion by NYSE.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. And Polymarket has really been good signal for markets. Polymarket correctly predicted in the 2024 election, 50 out of 50 states. The prediction markets got those correct. And in the New York City mayoral election correctly called Mamdani as the winner. So the prediction markets are proving to be really good signal for markets, but also that's taking events and making it a financial product.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. I mean, converts everything to data. All right. If you look at the market today, and I asked you, in your world, when you're staking and you're running this now crypto native thinking and systems that you're building and management of it, when I say what's a headwind and what's a tailwind, how would you answer that question? What's a headwind and what's a tailwind for you?
Thomas Lee
>> Well, yeah. Well, I'd say the headwind for crypto continues to be that it is a very competitive marketplace. And so, there's a lot of ideas and the best ideas win. So it's important for people to navigate that carefully because there's a lot of DeFi projects out there, and a lot of good ideas, but only a handful are going to really break out. On the tailwind side, of course, is that we know that there is enormous efforts and interest in moving everything digitally onto the blockchain. So that's going to be a 10-year tailwind for the industry.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. I like the idea of the trading of real world assets. I think that's where I see a lot of opportunity. What does that do to to the TAM? I mean, the TAM is incredible if you think about what the TAM is. Even today, compared to what it could be, with other assets coming in, not just stock.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. I think Ethereum's network value today is maybe 400 billion or so, but global GDP is 90 trillion. The total size of global financial markets is 200 trillion, maybe more. It might even be 300 trillion. How much of that ends up on blockchains? The idea, according to Larry Fink, is to move 100% of this onto the blockchain. So we're talking trillions of dollars of assets moving onto layer one blockchains. That creates a lot of network value for the underlying chain that's essentially the base layer. So yeah, it's-
John Furrier
>> Yeah. You mentioned Larry Fink multiple times and also circular investment. They're all pro this direction.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah. So we could see exponential upside.
John Furrier
>> Well, what's new for you? What's on your plate now? What are you working on? You're here for the 10th anniversary party. Good to see you. We'll see you on the floor, for sure. What are you focused on now? What's on your to-do list?
Thomas Lee
>> Well, there's a lot on the to-do list. I think that with regard to BitMine, BitMine continues to do really well. It's the largest holder of Ethereum in the world. Last time I was here, it was just starting, and now owns close to 2.9% of Ethereum. And there's a lot of investor education out there. A lot of people are really interested in learning about, well, one, how to actually create products onto the blockchain. There's a lot of interest in people deploying stablecoins, and a lot of folks want to work with us on understanding that.
John Furrier
>> Well, Thomas, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. Great to see you again.
Thomas Lee
>> Yeah, great to see you.
John Furrier
>> Always a pleasure. I'm John Furrier. The Crypto Trailblazer's here at the NYSE, it's the 10th anniversary celebration for Ethereum. Everyone's in town. Huge event happening here at the NYSE. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier