deeptech INSIGHTS

Blockchain Pioneer Charles Hoskinson: Crypto Will Eat AI. The Data Center Boom Is Going to Bust.

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:38:09 -0000

Charles Hoskinson (Input Output): $10 trillion on-chain by 2030 – and why Washington is throwing it away.

Charles Hoskinson, Ethereum co-founder, Cardano founder and CEO of Input Output, expects roughly ten trillion dollars of tokenized assets and a billion new users on public blockchains by the end of 2030. In conversation with Sascha Roehrer he lays out why consortium chains like Canton fail by design, how stablecoins are quietly dollarizing Argentina, and why he doesn't expect a Clarity Act to pass before 2029. The second half turns to AI agents as the internet's largest user group, Midnight City, the thesis that crypto will eat AI, a data center boom he expects to bust, and a 20-year forecast of centaurs, hyper-personalization and a cult of optimization.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:45 Two mega trends: Web 2.5 and privacy
00:03:12 The fourth generation: privacy, compliance, abstraction
00:05:16 Why banks don't need a private blockchain
00:09:38 Compliance was built for paper: 24/7 markets and composability
00:12:09 BlackRock, Argentina and soft dollarization
00:14:14 Wall Street, gatekeepers and the "PwC tax"
00:17:33 Geopolitics: why a blockchain is the only bridge left
00:19:28 Clarity Act: three fatal sins of the Trump administration
00:21:39 SEC vs. CFTC: security or commodity?
00:26:47 Why Clarity waits until 2029
00:28:07 From London to New York: America's arrogance
00:30:34 What Washington could have learned from MiCA
00:34:10 Google, not JP Morgan: Big Tech takes over payments
00:37:02 Agentic commerce: x402 and micropayments
00:39:29 Government stablecoins? Wyoming, Argentina, T-bills on-chain
00:44:13 Midnight City: more agents than humans
00:46:56 Agent civilizations and economic agency
00:49:50 Cigarettes as money: why agents will invent an economy
00:53:19 Crypto eats AI: alignment, provenance, grid compute
00:58:46 Dark data centers: the boom busts, edge wins
01:00:41 A write-only world: AI, nuance and polarization
01:15:21 Institutions losing legitimacy: the FDA and MDMA
01:22:13 The epistemic anchor: when everything is "AI"
01:24:10 Wildest prediction: centaurs and the cult of optimization

Guest:
Charles Hoskinson is founder and CEO of Input Output, the research and engineering company behind the Cardano blockchain, and the initiator of the privacy network Midnight. He was part of Ethereum's founding team in 2013. He funds the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University and runs a policy center in Wyoming.

X: https://x.com/IOHK_Charles
Website: https://www.iog.io/

deeptech Insights:
deeptech INSIGHTS is a long-form interview series for people who think about frontier technology and the future for a living. Host Sascha Roehrer sits down with executives, investors, researchers, and the people shaping what comes next. Produced by Börsenmedien AG, Germany's leading financial media house (DER AKTIONÄR, BÖRSE ONLINE, €uro, €uro am Sonntag).

Youtube English: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGwe6Ab4ZdSc
Youtube German: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYvuwOqohiSw
Spotify English: https://open.spotify.com/show/033ONjPa8CuRZwJ0wZyWPz?si=c6fe9d33623e4418
Spotify German: https://open.spotify.com/show/033ONlTEHwbLHanLrQ6SeC?si=738da62560ed4cd7
Guest suggestions & feedback: team@deeptech-report.de

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

I Found Bitcoin in 2012, I Don't Own Any Today — Santiago Roel Santos

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 08:30:00 -0000

Santiago Roel Santos, CEO of Inversion, on holding no Bitcoin and where crypto value actually accrues.

Santiago Roel Santos found Bitcoin in 2012 while pricing private equity deals at JP Morgan. He owns none today. With Sascha Roehrer he runs crypto through the screen he once ran companies through: fees, users, cash flow, multiple. The verdict is uncomfortable. A network carrying a 300 billion dollar market cap while producing less than a billion in fees would be a conversation in any other asset class.

Value moves up the stack, he argues: 90 percent of a chain's fees land with the application on top, one percent with the base layer. Stablecoins are the real application, not for ideological reasons but because demand for dollars outside the US runs ahead of supply. On tokenization he gets narrow. Putting a parcel of land in Burkina Faso on a blockchain solves no technology problem; it relocates a legal and coordination problem.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:56 2012 at JP Morgan: finding the Bitcoin white paper
00:04:41 Western Union as the benchmark
00:06:38 Why he holds no Bitcoin today
00:08:45 Usability, not scarcity
00:11:06 Token price is not product usage
00:14:33 Fees, valuation and the Ethereum problem
00:19:03 Open source as the engine of innovation
00:21:07 Where value goes: applications over base layers
00:26:13 Privacy: why not everything runs on-chain
00:28:40 Visa as the blueprint, banks with their own chains
00:33:17 Stablecoins, the GENIUS Act and dollar demand
00:36:09 Europe, MiCA and the CBDC question
00:37:56 The case against tokenizing everything
00:44:11 Inversion: a holding company, not a fund
00:45:49 Where AI actually makes a business better
00:50:49 Making good people excellent, not cutting headcount
00:53:38 Four people instead of twenty
01:00:56 Token spend per employee
01:01:52 Advice to owners: your data is the currency
01:03:58 The health passport: AI at the doctor's office
01:09:53 The wildest prediction: ten agents per human

Guest:
Santiago Roel Santos is Founder & CEO of Inversion, a permanent capital holding company that buys owner-operated businesses and holds them. Before that: investment banker at JP Morgan, growth investor at Sage View Capital, then an early move into a crypto fund.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/santiago-rs/
Website: https://www.inversioncap.com/

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

The TradingView Growth Chief: Savings Accounts Won't Exist in 20 Years – Rauan Khassan

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Rauan Khassan, TradingView CGO, on Germany's trading surge, 24/7 markets and why savings accounts won't last

Rauan Khassan joined TradingView eleven years ago as a user, in the platform's second or third year, and now runs partnerships and expansion as Chief Growth Officer. With Sascha Roehrer he explains why the German community has outgrown its usual benchmarks, the UK and France, over the past two years: Germany gives retail investors access to several markets at once, US exchanges, Euronext, Xetra, the locally popular certificate trade and crypto, while many other countries make international markets hard to reach. Khassan describes three cohorts growing in parallel, from crypto traders to conservative fixed-income investors, and why TradingView is putting development effort into its yield curve and screeners.

Also covered: the AI copilot, in closed beta since April and still oversubscribed; Pine Script as a deliberately narrow language of roughly 100 to 120 operators; the new Spaces section where creators keep 100 percent; and a Korean indicator that spawned more than 30 community versions within two weeks. Khassan files tokenized stocks next to CFDs, products without price discovery of their own, names the oracle problem as the bottleneck for real-world assets, and puts a number on prediction markets: under 10 million users worldwide against roughly 500 million addressable traders. AI trading, in his view, is the next step of algorithmic trading rather than a break with it. His wildest call for 2046: no more savings accounts, only managed accounts tied to specific assets.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:01:13 From user to growth chief: how Khassan joined TradingView
00:02:42 Growth as B2B2C: 40% APAC, India and Thailand
00:05:30 What TradingView is: retail access to markets once reserved for a few
00:08:19 Charting at the core: one click to building your own indicator
00:09:30 Why Germany is surging: US markets, Xetra, certificates, crypto
00:12:40 Three cohorts: crypto, certificates and conservative portfolios
00:17:08 Yield curve and screeners: making fixed income actionable
00:18:26 AI copilot: closed beta, oversubscribed, launching next quarter
00:19:44 Community: 5% post, news feed, ideas and scripts
00:22:03 Pine Script: a custom language of 100 to 120 operators
00:23:03 Vibe coding, Spaces and 100% to creators
00:25:02 What indicators do and where backtesting comes in
00:27:11 Bollinger, MACD, RSI: where beginners should start
00:29:32 The Korean indicator: 30 versions in two weeks
00:30:40 Backtesting: five years of a strategy in minutes
00:32:29 Germany vs. Korea: weekend trading and the road to 24/7
00:34:46 Tokenized stocks: closer to CFDs than to price discovery
00:36:01 Do traditional exchanges fear tokenization?
00:38:11 RWA, wine tokens and the oracle problem
00:41:08 200+ providers: user requests set the pipeline
00:42:32 Prediction markets on a chart: binary, multiple choice, options
00:45:04 Under 10M users against 500M addressable traders
00:46:33 AI trading as the next step of algo trading
00:48:26 Where to start: active vs. portfolio, screeners, local markets
00:51:50 Wildest prediction: no savings accounts in 20 years

Guest:
Rauan Khassan is Chief Growth Officer at TradingView. He joined in 2015, when the platform had fewer than one million users, grew the CIS community to 100,000 monthly visitors in six months as Regional Manager with no external marketing spend, and today oversees global expansion, user acquisition and strategic partnerships.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauan-khassan-271a8611/
Website: https://www.tradingview.com/

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

The Man Behind hundreds of Web3 Investments: "Tokenize or Die" | Yat Siu

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Yat Siu (Animoca Brands) on 200 billion AI agents, Europe's stablecoin risk, and why everything gets tokenized.

Yat Siu turned Animoca Brands from a mobile games studio into one of the world's largest Web3 investors: more than 600 portfolio companies, EBITDA-positive, with a US listing in the works. He tells Sascha Roehrer how Apple once wiped out Animoca's entire app business overnight, why CryptoKitties proved that people will pay for digital property, and why AI agents need wallets rather than bank accounts. He calls stablecoins one of the defining geopolitical questions of our time – with a clear risk for Europe. Plus: his forecast that at least a third of traditional assets will be tokenized within three to five years, what he looks for in founders today – and his wildest prediction for the next 20 years.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:01:01 A Job Offer From Atari at 13
00:03:39 From MIDI Software to the Early Internet
00:05:28 How the Data Ended Up With Facebook and Google
00:06:47 "We Don't Like You" — Apple Wipes the Business
00:08:09 Outblaze: 90 Million Users, Exit to IBM
00:11:44 CryptoKitties: Million in One Week
00:13:57 What Is an NFT?
00:15:30 Sandbox, Axie, Bored Apes: the Ownership Thesis
00:18:33 Did the Thesis Fail? The Market Since 2021
00:21:03 Tokenized Stocks and the 24/7 Market
00:22:26 Stablecoins as a Geopolitical Question
00:24:08 How Animoca Became an Investor
00:29:39 Animoca Today: 600 Investments and a Listing Plan
00:31:17 How Yat Evaluates Founders
00:33:10 Web4: the Agentic Web
00:35:05 Why Blockchain and Not Just a Bank API?
00:40:52 Hourly Yield Instead of a Savings Account
00:43:58 The GENIUS Act, Dollar Colonialism, Europe's Risk
00:46:24 Europe's Missing Nerve
00:51:51 Advice to Founders: Why Are You Doing This?
00:54:09 AI Makes Everyone a Programmer
00:58:35 Where Do Humans Fit In?
00:59:59 Minds: Earning Money With Your Own AI Agents
01:01:43 "Tokenize or Die"
01:03:15 Financial Literacy: Only Ten Percent Invest
01:07:54 Forecast: a Third of All Assets Tokenized
01:09:53 Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana: Who Captures the Value?
01:11:57 Wildest Prediction: Dating via AI Agents

Guest:
Yat Siu is the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands. He started at Atari Germany in 1990, founded Hong Kong Cybercity/Freenation – Asia's first free web page and email provider – and built Outblaze, an award-winning pioneer of multilingual white-label web services whose messaging unit was sold to IBM in 2009. An early advocate of NFTs in gaming since 2018, he has built Animoca Brands into one of the world's largest blockchain portfolios. He also founded the Dalton Learning Lab, serves on BAFTA's advisory board, and is a director of the Asian Youth Orchestra.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yatsiu/
Website: https://www.animocabrands.com/

Note: The English version of this episode uses AI voice synchronization. (Art. 50 EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689)

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

The Brain Implant Pioneer: 100,000 electrodes in the brain and the question that changed everything

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Marcus Gerhardt, CEO of Blackrock Neurotech, on brain implants for healthy people and the path to FDA clearance.

In 2007 Florian Solzbacher called with a plan to put a chip in the human brain. Marcus Gerhardt thought he was nuts and said yes anyway. Blackrock Neurotech has since implanted 56 people and gathered 55,000 patient days of brain data, more than any competitor. With Sascha Roehrer, Gerhardt walks through the Utah array, cutting calibration from nine months to minutes, how the company compares with Neuralink, and the design turn behind its next platform: it is built for able-bodied people, not only for tetraplegic patients. Also: why the FDA slows down new materials, how Casey, who has ALS, speaks with his children again at close to 100 characters per minute — and why Gerhardt now considers an implant for himself.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:53 The 2007 call: "I thought he was nuts"
00:03:00 2008: the worst-performing sector in VC history
00:04:46 Profitable in nine months instead of three years
00:07:29 What a brain-computer interface actually does
00:10:37 The Utah array: 4x4 millimeters, about 100 pins
00:11:59 Eleven years implanted: longevity as the core problem
00:14:10 The turn: building for healthy people, not only patients
00:15:46 Nine months or minutes — the calibration problem
00:20:22 Casey, ALS: close to 100 characters per minute
00:22:03 Neuralink, 2,000 channels — and the 100,000 goal
00:23:59 Clearance: the five-year horizon
00:28:00 FDA, CE and why new materials get slowed down
00:30:54 AI in the lab and a foundation model for the brain
00:33:23 The Matrix question: downloading a language?
00:35:28 Diagnostics and personalized medicine
00:36:44 The surgery today: craniotomy, several hours
00:38:40 Privacy: control over your own brain data
00:39:45 Salt Lake City, just over 100 people, Europe
00:42:00 Tether as an investor
00:43:21 Competition and collaboration at once
00:46:17 The BCI pioneers: Ian, Nathan, Casey, Michi
00:49:49 Market size: up to three billion people
00:52:26 The wildest prediction for the next 20 years
00:54:56 The guest turns the question around
00:57:28 A fruit fly's brain, running in a computer

Guest:
Marcus Gerhardt is CEO and co-founder of Blackrock Neurotech in Salt Lake City. He studied at St Andrews and Oxford, co-founded the e-commerce platform Mondus in 1999, then advised technology companies on funding and growth through BBI, and in 2003 co-founded one of the leading frontier market asset managers in the Middle East. Since 2008 he has been building the interface between brain and machine with Florian Solzbacher.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-gerhardt-1583524/
Website: https://blackrockneurotech.com/

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

The Fusion CEO: We're Building a Mini Sun on Earth.

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Warrick Matthews, CEO of Tokamak Energy, on fusion power plants in the 2040s, HTS magnets, and 1 MW per server rack.

Fusion energy promises CO2-free baseload power from a fuel so dense that one liter matches ten million liters of crude oil. After 24 years at Rolls-Royce, Warrick Matthews took over Tokamak Energy in January 2023 and rebuilt the business model: no power plant of its own, but high-temperature superconducting magnets as a systems business, with the UK's flagship STEP programme and stellarator developer Type One Energy as customers, backed by the acquisition of Ridgway Machines for industrial-scale production. He explains why pilot plants should prove energy gain by the mid-2030s with commercial rollout starting in the 2040s, why a fusion reactor holding two grams of fuel physically wants to stop rather than run away, how fast China is moving in the global race, and why NVIDIA's Feynman-class chips will need one megawatt per rack from 2029/2030, pulling superconductors into the data center. Also covered: electricity at 100 dollars per megawatt hour heading toward 50, industrial heat as a second market, and a prediction that ends on the Moon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:01:01 What is fusion energy?
00:03:10 Fuel & waste: seawater instead of uranium
00:05:10 Timeline: pilot plants by the mid-2030s
00:08:12 AI & data centers as accelerants
00:09:22 Safety: a reaction that wants to stop
00:11:05 500 MW: what one fusion plant delivers
00:12:14 Fusion vs. solar
00:13:40 24 years at Rolls-Royce, then fusion
00:17:19 ST40, HTS magnets & Ridgway Machines
00:23:09 Portfolio: fusion, TE Magnetics, Ridgway
00:24:14 Business model: systems provider, not plant builder
00:27:09 The global race: US, China, Germany
00:32:55 Tokamak Energy in numbers
00:34:26 Customers: STEP, Type One Energy, Japan
00:36:26 AI in fusion research
00:38:21 NVIDIA chips: 1 megawatt per rack
00:39:08 Data centers in orbit
00:41:06 Science fiction: a fusion reactor in a truck?
00:43:19 The future energy mix & industrial heat
00:46:21 Cooling, water & fuel supply
00:48:02 A bad day at a fusion plant
00:49:02 Costs: 100 dollars per MWh, target 50
00:50:54 Lifespan & footprint
00:52:07 Where Tokamak Energy is heading
00:55:36 Wildest prediction: industry on the Moon

Guest:
Warrick Matthews has led Tokamak Energy since January 2023, after 24 years at Rolls-Royce, most recently as Chief Procurement Officer of the Civil Aerospace division. Founded in 2009 as a spin-out from the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Tokamak Energy employs over 300 people in Oxfordshire, with subsidiaries in the US and Japan. The company operates ST40, the highest magnetic field spherical tokamak in the world, and Demo4, a world-first HTS fusion magnet system; its TE Magnetics division, launched in 2024, is already generating multi-million-pound revenues.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warrick-matthews-50bab721/
Website: https://tokamakenergy.com/

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Rise of the Robots: Martin Ford on AI, Jobs and Basic Income

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, on why AI won't take most jobs until models learn on the job.

Martin Ford has been writing since 2009 about AI permanently displacing paid work. Here he draws the line between what today's models actually do — mathematical proofs, yes; the daily work of a new graduate, no. The bottleneck is continual learning, the ability to learn in real time on the job, and while it is missing the effect on white-collar work stays narrow. He still considers the break inevitable, and he explains why a basic income would not fail for lack of value creation outside Silicon Valley. Also: what open models from China mean for the business models of OpenAI and Anthropic, why a bursting AI bubble could cost more jobs than automation itself, and where the upside sits that is meant to outweigh all of it.

Guest:
Martin Ford is a futurist and author. Rise of the Robots won the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and has been translated into more than 20 languages; the new edition was published on 2 June 2026. His other books are Rule of the Robots (2021), Architects of Intelligence (2018) and The Lights in the Tunnel (2009). His 2017 TED Talk has been viewed more than three million times. He holds a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a graduate business degree from UCLA.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfordfuture/
Website: https://mfordfuture.com/
Rise of the Robots (new edition): https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Robots-Technology-Threat-Jobless/dp/1541608860/
Architects of Intelligence (interviews, incl. Ray Kurzweil): https://www.amazon.com/Architects-Intelligence-truth-people-building/dp/1789131510
Rule of the Robots: https://www.amazon.com/Rule-Robots-Artificial-Intelligence-Everything/dp/1541674731/

deeptech Insights:
deeptech INSIGHTS is a long-form interview series for people who think about frontier technology and the future for a living. Host Sascha Roehrer sits down with executives, investors, researchers, and the people shaping what comes next. Produced by Börsenmedien AG, Germany's leading financial media house (DER AKTIONÄR, BÖRSE ONLINE, €uro, €uro am Sonntag).

Sagar Barvaliya: Blockchain, Stablecoins & a VC's AI Thesis

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Sagar Barvaliya, Founding Partner at Blockchain Founders Capital, on why crypto never shipped a product.

The Blockchain Founders Capital partner breaks down why almost every token project of the past few years failed to ship a real product — and where value actually accrues: stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and the application layer of AI. Sagar Barvaliya explains why his fund deliberately avoids foundation models, why capital is scarce again, and why Germany has to carry its automotive-era know-how into robotics before it's too late.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:25 From BMW crash engineer to venture capital
00:06:47 Blockchain, not crypto speculation: the application-layer thesis
00:08:10 The first fund: BFC, €10M, launched in Davos
00:09:04 What changed since 2023: hype, crashes, scarce capital
00:16:21 Stablecoins, RWA and the Tether playbook
00:25:44 Blockchain as the internet's trust layer
00:31:52 Investment thesis: application layer and AI-native companies
00:38:22 What BFC looks for in founders
00:46:21 Europe's chance: from automotive to robotics
00:53:12 Germany's self-inflicted decline?
00:58:36 An AI bubble? Valuations under scrutiny
01:00:14 The next 20 years and what won't change

Guest:

Sagar Barvaliya is Founding Partner at Blockchain Founders Capital (BFC). Previously: BMW, Techstars, BlockRocket.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barvaliyasagar/

Website: https://www.bfc.vc/

deeptech INSIGHTS:

deeptech Insights is a long-form interview series for people who think about frontier technology and the future for a living. Host Sascha Roehrer sits down with executives, investors, researchers, and the people shaping what comes next. Produced by Börsenmedien AG, Germany's leading financial media house (DER AKTIONÄR, BÖRSE ONLINE, €uro, €uro am Sonntag).

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Rajeev Singh: AI Agents Are the New Users

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Smartsheet CEO Rajeev Singh on which software survives AI — and why agents, not humans, are the new users.

Rajeev Singh co-founded Concur and sold it to SAP for $8.3 billion, took Accolade public, and nine months ago became CEO of Smartsheet — shortly after Blackstone and Vista took the company private. He tells Sascha Roehrer why Smartsheet went all in on the Model Context Protocol and now builds software for AI agents, not just people. He lays out the three tests that decide which enterprise software vendors stay relevant, and why handing employees an LLM login is not an AI strategy. Also covered: model costs at enterprise scale, regulation in the EU and the US, his advice for founders, and his predictions on the economy and lifespan.

Chapters

00:00:00 Why Rajeev Singh came back for one more run
00:02:25 The engineer in the CEO
00:05:35 What Smartsheet does — and the MCP bet
00:07:40 Agents as project managers
00:10:13 Model strategy: open source, cost, stability
00:12:35 Markets and industries, growth in Germany
00:14:48 Blackstone, Vista and the target
00:16:21 Which software survives the AI wave
00:20:24 Regulation: EU AI Act vs. the US
00:22:59 From Concur to Accolade: the founder years
00:25:08 Starting a company now — but how?
00:28:00 One-person companies and the future of work
00:31:13 Why switching on an LLM is not a strategy
00:34:19 Boards, healthcare AI and longevity
00:38:22 Speed vs. data: 180M automations
00:40:02 Hiring for curiosity and grit
00:44:22 Smartsheet one year from now
00:46:18 Bubble or not? The economic outlook
00:51:00 The application layer and data moats
00:53:19 The wildest 20-year prediction

Guest:
Rajeev Singh is CEO of Smartsheet, a work management platform with over 100,000 customers, including more than 85% of the Fortune 500. He co-founded Concur (sold to SAP for $8.3 billion in 2014) and served as CEO and Chairman of Accolade (IPO 2020, acquired by Transcarent in 2025). He serves on the boards of Basalt Health and Scala.ai.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeevsinghseattle/
Website: https://www.smartsheet.com/

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Bradley Duke: Bitcoin Cycle, ETPs & Tokenization

Börsenmedien AG — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:30:00 -0000

Bradley Duke, Head of Europe at Bitwise, on Bitcoin's late cycle, crypto ETPs and his year-end price call.

Bradley Duke brought one of Europe's first Bitcoin ETPs, BTCE, to market in 2020, then as co-founder of ETC Group (acquired by Bitwise in 2024). With Sascha Roehrer he explains why institutional investors are treating this bear market differently than 2022, how Bitwise decides which products to launch, and why he sees real-world asset tokenization as inevitable. Further topics: the quantum risk to Bitcoin and the debate over lost Satoshi wallets, Strategy's roughly 817,000 BTC as a market risk, MiCA and the case for a European stablecoin, his skepticism toward a euro CBDC, and the role of AI agents in the next wave of adoption. He closes with a concrete price call for year-end.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:54 The first Bitcoin ETP in 2020 and the doubts
00:02:04 From ETC Group to the 2024 Bitwise acquisition
00:03:50 Clients: from retail to sovereign wealth
00:05:18 AUM and the crypto cycle
00:06:42 Different this time? Institutions in the bear market
00:08:58 What is an ETP — and why not self-custody?
00:12:48 Germany's tax regime
00:14:36 Choosing products: BHYPE, Canton, DA20
00:15:41 From speculation to the application layer
00:18:16 Bitcoin dominance, stablecoins & Hyperliquid
00:21:13 Real-world asset tokenization
00:27:07 Quantum risk and lost Satoshi wallets
00:33:21 Strategy, Saylor and the 817,000 BTC
00:37:12 Where are we in the cycle?
00:39:01 Bitcoin, equities and the AI vacuum
00:42:00 Duke's path from TradFi to crypto
00:45:15 MiCA and global regulation
00:50:11 Does Europe need its own stablecoin?
00:51:58 Privatized money: mini central banks?
00:54:08 CBDC skepticism and the digital euro
00:56:25 AI agents, X402 and agentic commerce
01:00:06 Wildest prediction for the next 20 years
01:02:36 Bitcoin price call for year-end

Guest:
Bradley Duke is Managing Director and Head of Europe at Bitwise. Previously co-founder of ETC Group (2019), whose Bitcoin product BTCE became the largest and most heavily traded crypto ETP in Europe; after the Bitwise acquisition in August 2024 he joined the executive team to lead the European expansion. Before that: investment bank Jefferies (New York, Paris, London), head of Knight Direct Europe at KCG, co-founder of fintech and payments company Zapper, and CEO of the UK arm of BCS Global Markets.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-duke/
Website: https://bitwiseinvestments.eu/

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Stefania Ferrero: Robots for the AI Buildout

Börsenmedien AG — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:56:26 -0000

Stefania Ferrero, Comau's CMO, on robotics for the AI-driven data-center boom and the trillion behind it.
Where does automation actually make money as AI drives a roughly $1 trillion data-center buildout? Stefania Ferrero, Chief Marketing & Solutions Portfolio Officer at Comau, explains why battery storage, fenceless outdoor robots, and application engineering decide who wins. Her counterpoint to the hype: even with robots building robots, the human factor stays the real edge. For decision-makers: concrete demand signals from control systems to inspection to balance of plant, and where Comau is scaling now.

Guest:
Stefania Ferrero is Chief Marketing & Solutions Portfolio Officer at Comau, the Italian industrial automation and robotics group, a role she has held since 2023. A certified engineer with a Master's in Management Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin, she brings close to 20 years across strategy, marketing, and business development in multiple industries. Before returning to Comau she was Head of Strategy and Strategic Marketing at Baker Hughes, shaping the long-range plan of its Industrial Energy Technology unit across gas, digital, and clean technologies; earlier roles include Pininfarina and Comau's Powertrain business. She sits on the board of Automha and on Comau's DEI Committee, and speaks six languages.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefania-ferrero-5a6a541/
Website: https://www.comau.com/en/

deeptech Insights:
Deeptech Insights is a long-form interview series for people who think about frontier technology and the future for a living. Host Sascha Roehrer sits down with executives, investors, researchers, and the people shaping what comes next. Produced by Börsenmedien AG, Germany's leading financial media house (DER AKTIONÄR, BÖRSE ONLINE, €uro, €uro am Sonntag).

This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.