[00:00:00] Luke: From privacy concerns to limitless potential, AI is rapidly impacting our evolving society. In this new season of the Brave Technologist podcast, we’re demystifying artificial intelligence, challenging the status quo, and empowering everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. I’m your host, Luke Maltz, VP of Business Operations at Brave Software, makers of the privacy respecting Brave browser and search engine, now powering AI with the Brave Search API.

[00:00:29] You’re listening to a new episode of the Brave Technologist. This one features Camilla Russo, who’s the founder of The Defiant, a media company focusing on decentralized finance, and the author of The Infinite Machine, the most read book on the history of Ethereum. Previously, she was a markets and cryptos reporter at Bloomberg News.

[00:00:44] In this episode, we discussed the importance of making crypto digestible and accessible to the masses and how they’re doing this at The Defiant. Ways they’re leveraging AI in their content creation and roles she thinks that they should never be replaced. We discussed some of the biggest myths and misconceptions about Ethereum, [00:01:00] along with how regulation is impacting growth and development of DeFi.

[00:01:03] Now for this week’s episode of the Brave Technologist. Camilla, thanks for joining us on the Brave Technologist today. How are you doing?

[00:01:15] Camilla: I’m good. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:01:17] Luke: How about you tell us a little bit about the work you’re doing and why it’s important for the space and kind of how you landed there.

[00:01:23] Camilla: Sure. So I’m the founder of The Defiant. The Defiant is a media company focusing on decentralized finance and Web3. And I’m also the author of The Infinite Machine. And The Infinite Machine is the first book on the history of Ethereum. Why I think The Defiant. And infinite machine are important with the defiant.

[00:01:43] We’re trying to bring professional, unbiased, independent journalism to define web three and crypto more broadly. Previously to funding the defiant, I was a reporter at Bloomberg news for eight years, covering [00:02:00] markets. So my goal was to bring the high standards that I learned at Bloomberg to crypto and create a media company that really covered the space in a professional way that was actually independent journalism and not PR or not investment advice, which in crypto is many times conflated.

[00:02:22] That’s we try to do that. As the defiant and then the infinite machine, it was the first book on the history of Ethereum. I think it’s the most read book on the history of Ethereum as well. With this book, it’s written so that anyone can understand what crypto is, what blockchains are, and to bring kind of a face to a topic that might seem difficult or boring for people kind of not deeply involved.

[00:02:53] In this, in, in crypto. So the machine is sold as a novel, like the story of the people behind [00:03:00] Ethereum, and then by the way, you get to learn about the technology and how it works, but the main point is like to tell the story of how it was founded and why it was founded and how it works and like its potential.

[00:03:13] So, yeah, those are kind of my. Two main projects.

[00:03:17] Luke: That’s awesome. how did you kind of find your way to Ethereum? Was it mainly through your reporting or was there a certain thing that kind of pulled you in?

[00:03:25] Camilla: Yeah. So at Bloomberg, I started covering crypto day to day in 2017. I was in a macro markets team and it was a blog.

[00:03:36] So we, we were writing about kind of market moves and 2017 was obviously very big for crypto. And I had been interested in crypto ever since 2013, when I was with Bloomberg, but in Argentina, and I covered how. Like the Bitcoin community in Argentina at the time was growing because people were using [00:04:00] Bitcoin to protect their savings and investments from inflation and currency control.

[00:04:04] So since then, I always thought it was fascinating. And so in 2017, with crypto kind of exploding and there being a lot of appetite for crypto content, I took the opportunity to write about crypto at Bloomberg. And obviously 2017 was Kind of the ICO boom. And so behind ICOs was Ethereum. And so it was, you know, writing about this reporting and I just thought it was so interesting.

[00:04:31] And by the end of the year, I decided to pitch to write a book on the history of Ethereum because I had, you know, always wanted to write a book and I was on the lookout for, you know, what could be a good book idea. And I realized nobody had told the story of Ethereum. So I thought that was, you know, that was important to have in kind of one consolidated place.

[00:04:56] So yeah, how came to Ethereum. And then, you know, all through. 2018, [00:05:00] 2019. I was just like very, very deep in, in that community and ecosystem researching it over a hundred interviews, went to all the conferences on hackathons, just like, you know, travel to like all the main Ethereum. Hubs like to Switzerland and in Zug and Berlin and Waterloo, Canada, like all the, you know, main kind of places where there were Ethereum co founders or like big work, like big Ethereum hubs that then led me to the Defiant as well.

[00:05:32] Luke: Yeah, that’s like a, such an exciting time too in the space. And it kind of is interesting too, like with your background, because right after that ICO era, right, like things kind of jumped right into DeFi, right. coming from kind of working on the Bloomberg side, what better background to have to, to try and kind of break down DeFi to people.

[00:05:50] So how do you kind of explain DeFi to somebody unfamiliar?

[00:05:54] Camilla: Sure. So DeFi is short for decentralized finance. And it’s [00:06:00] the. The ecosystem or the group of financial applications that are being built on blockchain networks So that means that they are using smart contracts And non custodial wallets as a kind of the back rails for these financial applications, they’re different from say centralized finance CFI, which is in crypto terms, financial applications built on a centralized entities, like.

[00:06:28] Coinbase or Binance, in that Coinbase Binance hold users assets, so custody assets. They use centralized servers, building in closed source software, whereas decentralized finance uses non custodial wallets, so that means there is no centralized entity custody in funds, User is responsible for their own funds.

[00:06:52] Software is open sourced and is often automated with a smart contract. So it’s software [00:07:00] that is running on blockchains that can’t be censored, can’t be stopped or, or disrupted. So to me, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s just a very exciting or the most exciting sector in crypto. It’s crypto, how it was meant to be like truly permissionless.

[00:07:16] Yeah. Breaking down the barriers to financial services because in DeFi, because it’s not custodial permissionless and runs on blockchains, anyone can access financial services, like anyone, anywhere, no matter, if you’re unbanked in Venezuela, you can still access stable coins earning yield on Ethereum.

[00:07:38] That’s kind of the use case and the difference with CFI and obviously traditional finance.

[00:07:43] Luke: Yeah, that’s awesome. No, I think that’s really sums it up pretty well from your position too. I mean, as somebody with a media company, would imagine too, you get a good look at like how regulations are impacting things.

[00:07:54] How do you see the regulatory side really impacting things? And from your point of view, are they already [00:08:00] impacting the growth of DeFi?

[00:08:01] Camilla: Yeah, definitely. So regulation is a big part of DeFi growth because DeFi is so kind of in the frontier of crypto that it is in gray area at the moment, especially in the U.

[00:08:15] S. So the U. S. has taken a skeptical stance when it comes to DeFi and with the SEC saying that most tokens are securities, that all kind of money transmitters must comply with KYC procedures and that it might consider wallets. to be money transmitters. And so in that case, you know, everything I was saying, you know, these like noncustodial smart contract based systems just simply can’t work because noncustodial wallets cannot perform KYC on their users.

[00:08:48] So there have been like all these legislations that haven’t gone through, but that have been proposed and that have been supported by both parties, which have created a lot of [00:09:00] uncertainty around the defaming system in the U. S., but that’s not the same in Asia and Europe, which have taken a much friendlier approach.

[00:09:09] To define crypto more broadly, and that has obviously created a disadvantage for crypto builders and the crypto industry in the U. S. And I think that that’s, you know, obviously a very poor strategic decision from the part of U. S. lawmakers and politicians because crypto is already big and growing industry.

[00:09:31] it’s not going anywhere. here to stay. And so other countries are realizing this and are taking all this talent and potential value and growth that was in the U S and it’s, you know, all of that is going elsewhere and that’s where we stand right now. But I think, you know, we’ve seen some encouraging signs from the current presidential candidates.

[00:09:55] You know, they have both turned a bit more pro crypto. I think they’re [00:10:00] realizing what’s happening. And so hopefully The regulatory environment improves in the U. S. But I think that the bottom line is that crypto has continued to grow even with this kind of regulatory overhang and founders just go elsewhere and block teams continue to be global and permission less so you can’t really stop it.

[00:10:18] You can slow the industry’s growth specifically kind of in jurisdictions that are not so friendly. But, like I said, builders will just go where they’re welcome.

[00:10:28] Luke: Yeah, totally. No, it makes a lot of sense. I’m just kind of curious too, cause I don’t really talk to very many people who have like a media company in this space, the space can get really tribal.

[00:10:36] Right. Like, and, and so you kind of have these like geographic areas of interest, but then there’s also, you got like hardcore Ethereum people or Bitcoin people or so on people, like, does a defiant kind of have people reporting on all of these different networks how much of a challenge is that having that tribal audience that all is kind of always wanting news from your point of view?

[00:10:55] Camilla: So at Defiant, we’ve been purposely chain [00:11:00] agnostic. So we’re covering DeFi and Web3 wherever it lives. So early on, you know, we, we were very kind of Ethereum centric because most of DeFi was happening on Ethereum. But as soon as we saw other applications be built on other chains, early on it was BNB, Binance, Smart Chain.

[00:11:18] Then it was Solana that started gaining traction. Now on top of Solana, there’s also Ton and well, there’s Avalanche and so many other layer ones and layer twos. To me, there’s, no point in segmenting our focus on one chain. Because the truth is, I mean, are important developments to report across chains, and it would be a disservice to our audience to not show that reality.

[00:11:47] Our view is we will report the facts, and we trust that our audience is smart enough to Make their own decisions. And, you know, maybe some people are [00:12:00] decentralization maxis and they will go for Ethereum or Bitcoin, but you know, not everyone has the same priorities. Maybe someone just like wants to send money cheaply and they don’t care about sending it on Tron.

[00:12:11] But that’s their decision to make. As a news organization, we’re not gonna tell them or pass judgment. It’s. You know, our role is to just report the facts and trust our audience will, you know, make their own smart decisions

[00:12:25] Luke: from your point of view, what common misconceptions about kind of Ethereum and DeFi do you encounter from people?

[00:12:31] maybe they’re not totally familiar with the crypto space or just kind of learning.

[00:12:35] Camilla: Yeah, I guess like the biggest misconception is that all of DeFi, or like most of crypto, is used for illicit activities. I think that’s kind of the, like, one question I keep getting, like, crypto is for criminals or, you know, it’s something that’s, it’s a myth that’s been debunked multiple times through multiple sources.

[00:12:58] From independent kind [00:13:00] of on chain analysis firms like Chainalysis, Elliptic, all of their research shows that illicit activity is a small fraction of most activity happening on chain. And also, you know FBI reports also show that. And that actually, you know, blockchains are really, really bad tool for criminals because everything is stored in public ledgers.

[00:13:25] You know, all you need to do is like connect a wallet to an individual and then you have their entire transaction history. So I think that’s, that’s kind of the biggest misconception I see. And then another one is that I don’t know if it’s a misconception, but I think it’s like the perception that crypto is only used.

[00:13:47] For like buying and selling tokens. So it’s kind of like a, a bit of a casino, like you’re just like throwing money at these, like random coins and like hope, one of them takes off. And there’s a lot of that, of course like [00:14:00] speculation is a big part of it. But like I said, I think to me, at least like the exciting side of crypto is the fact that it is rebuilding a parallel financial system and that it’s actually working right now.

[00:14:12] So. You do have something as simple as a cheap cross border payments on stable coins that’s working and from multiple chains. They’re processing hundreds of millions of dollars in value every day. Billions of dollars a month in cross border payments and then earning yield like savings and getting an interest on your money.

[00:14:36] That’s a really important use case that just like helps people build wealth wherever they are and that’s also working. Taking out collateralized loans, so like secured lending, that’s also a big use case that’s already working. So there’s like all of these like actual financial applications that are not about just like buying and selling [00:15:00] tokens that are more sophisticated than that and just, you know, that are building the pillars of a blockchain based financial system.

[00:15:07] So I think that’s something that I think is like hugely. Transformational like it, it can revolutionize finance and that’s happening kind of under our noses, but I don’t think most people realize it

[00:15:18] Luke: people inside the U. S. I think I have no idea. I just how difficult the banking systems are outside of the U.

[00:15:24] S. Right? Like, and how much this stuff really opens up the world of finance to them in a new way, which is great. So I’m really curious too, because you came in the ICO phase 2017 and seem like there was more of a question of like, okay, will it make it or not? Now you’ve got like ETFs, like in, in major institutions that are starting to get to use crypto, like with your role at the defiant, how has the media side evolved?

[00:15:47] Where do you see as like the defiance role in kind of this space as institutions start to play more and the sector gets bigger and bigger over time?

[00:15:55] Camilla: The media ecosystem in crypto is becoming more and [00:16:00] more sophisticated. Like I’m seeing coverage in mainstream publications. Improve over time, like before most mainstream media, they didn’t have a crypto team and now they do.

[00:16:13] You have a lot more knowledgeable reporters and editors. So I think quality of coverage in crypto is improving in mainstream media, but it, remains mostly superficial, like they’ll. You know, just cover major moves and only, you know, the biggest projects, but for like deeper coverage, obviously, you have crypto dedicated media and there’s been growth of companies coming crypto as well.

[00:16:42] And then I think the quality there varies greatly. And that’s what I was mentioning at the beginning of our conversation. A lot of it. Is not actually journalism. And so I think you know that that’s important for audiences and for people be aware [00:17:00] that a lot of the information in crypto, you know, does have an agenda behind it from, you know, companies who are paying to get out there get kind of favorable coverage or from, you know, a lot of the content is coming from, you know, VCs and investors who have their own media arm and have their own podcast.

[00:17:19] And so obviously that does come with conflicts of interest. And, you know, I think that content is still good, but I think it’s just important for people to kind of realize where those. Conflicts might, be. And so the defiance role here is to just provide unbiased professional journalism about the space and to also be specialized because there’s many great crypto focused in news outlets, but many of them are just, you know, covering generalist crypto at the defined.

[00:17:48] We are the biggest media company focusing specifically on the on chain. Well, like defy web three, all of the applications built specifically on chain. I mean, obviously because I found that [00:18:00] they defined, I think it’s the most interesting site. So. Yeah, that’s, our role, you know, providing unbiased professional journalism, specifically about the on chain side of crypto.

[00:18:10] Luke: Is it a lot of written articles are you all doing video or audio content too, or what’s the media mix like?

[00:18:16] Camilla: Yeah, we have a multi channel organization. So we have a free newsletter and a paid newsletter, a weekly podcast, a YouTube channel. And our website with, you know, daily news

[00:18:29] Luke: articles. Awesome.

[00:18:30] Awesome. What trends do you see in crypto and in DeFi or, or any other areas that you think are going to stick around for the next five years or however long?

[00:18:40] Camilla: Well, going forward, I believe crypto will continue growing. I think more and more finance will come on chain. And down the line, I don’t think it’s, maybe it’s going to be five years from now or, 10, but I think most of finance will be running on blockchains.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] I think it’s clear that blockchains are just a better, more efficient way of transferring value. So it just makes a lot of sense to me that more, you know, traditional institutions and banks will move their operations forward. Thanks. on chain. So that’s kind of the long term vision. And, you know, to get there, then that means like we’ll continue seeing growth of all these DeFi applications that I mentioned before.

[00:19:26] So stable coins and payments and tokenized real world assets that has become a huge trend, you know, bringing U. S. treasuries on chain, bringing equities on chain. Lending and borrowing, you know, all of these pillars of finance, which are happening now, but in a very kind of niche way in crypto will continue, you know, we’ll start going and growing until, you know, it just becomes finance and not the

[00:19:51] Luke: AI is really blowing up recently.

[00:19:53] And we see some corners of the world people concerned about. Impact on for publishers on that front. Like, how are [00:20:00] you all looking at AI as a media organization? Is this something you all are using? Are you all concerned about it at all? Like really curious for your take on that.

[00:20:08] Camilla: I think media companies benefit from AI and use it to their advantage.

[00:20:14] For example, we have partnered with an AI news company to publish stories that we’re not covering directly. So like I said, we specialize in DeFi. We have a small team, so we don’t have a lot of room to cover many non DeFi crypto news. So for those stories, we’ll push an AI story from our partner. And reporters also use AI to summarize long, long filings.

[00:20:46] I think they, they might use it to help write, but I think that’s where it kind of just, you know, actual humans contribute the most researching reporting and writing original news stories and [00:21:00] features. So, you know, I think if news organizations use a combination of both like original reporting. Plus AI where, you know, it doesn’t make sense to, to use their, their own staff.

[00:21:12] I think we can benefit what’s a bit concerning is I don’t know where we stand with kind of attribution when AI’s use our stories for their answers and then they don’t attribute, or, you know, we use, we lose that traffic. I think, you know, hopefully. News organizations can exert enough pressure so that is amended and, you know, links are included so that we continue to get that traffic.

[00:21:37] Otherwise, you know, AIs will have no original content to get their, their news from, their

[00:21:44] Luke: information

[00:21:45] Camilla: from.

[00:21:45] Luke: No, no, it’s awesome. You know, I know we covered a lot here, you’ve been super gracious with your time. Is there anything here that we didn’t cover today that you would like our audience to know about?

[00:21:54] Thank you

[00:21:55] Camilla: I just encourage everyone to visit the Define. io to subscribe to our [00:22:00] newsletter and you’ll find the links there. We provide a very quick daily newsletter with, where we curate like there’s so much noise in crypto. That I think we do a really good job in distilling what’s actually important.

[00:22:14] So yeah, encourage everyone to, to do that. And yeah, if you’re looking for a book on crypto, the infinite machine, there’s something else to add. I’m currently looking for a time to, to write a second book. So it’ll be kind of a sequel to the infinite machine, but more focused on, on DeFi than on kind of Ethereum itself.

[00:22:33] So that’s, yeah, something I’d add on kind of what I’m. Looking forward to in the next few months.

[00:22:39] Luke: Awesome. I was going to ask if another book was on the horizon. So appreciate you sharing that bit. And, and yeah, like, I’ll just echo that too. Like I’ve been following the Defiant for a long time. And like you mentioned in the beginning of the interview, it is really hard to find good, independent information out there.

[00:22:53] So like, I strongly encourage everybody to give it a look, give the book a read too. It’s fantastic. And yeah, where can people find you online too?

[00:22:59] Camilla: I’m on [00:23:00] Twitter at Kami Russo.

[00:23:01] Luke: Awesome. Well, thank you, Camille for, for dropping by. I really appreciate it. Love to have you back too, especially anything you all are looking to promote or, or get the word out about that our audience would like to hear about.

[00:23:09] So thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:23:11] Camilla: Thank you.

[00:23:13] Luke: Thanks for listening to the brave technologist podcast to never miss an episode and make sure you hit follow in your podcast app, if you haven’t already made the switch to the brave browser, you can download it for free today at brave. com. And start using Brave Search, which enables you to search the web privately.

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