Navigating the Crypto Sea with Mark Lurie

Today’s guest is Mark Lurie, the CEO & Co-Founder of Shipyard Software. Shipyard Software builds decentralized exchanges (DEX) for specific types of trades, traders, and instruments, starting with Clipper, a DEX with the best prices anywhere on retail trades. Mark is an entrepreneur and investor who founded two venture-backed startups, Codex Protocol and Lofty. He is currently a Venture Partner at FJLabs, a board member of GMO Trust (issuer of GYEN, the first Yen-backed stablecoin), and a board member of the Foundation for Art and Blockchain (a 501c3 nonprofit). He is also the host of the podcast, WTF, Crypto, where he chats with experts in the industry about how the most significant developments in crypto affect traders. Previously, he was an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where his investments included Twilio (NYSE: TWLO). He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Harvard College. We discuss various things, including Shipyard Software, DeFi, DEXs, Compliance, Venture Investing, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the importance of Twilio in connecting Web1 and Web2. Mark discusses his investment thesis behind investing in Twilio. We transitioned to discussing Shipyard. Mark shares why he pivoted from being a VC to founding Shipyard. Mark discusses the concept of shared prosperity and how that guides his understanding and thesis around DeFi. Mark goes on to share how he believes DeFi will develop. We discuss how Clipper has been optimized for retail traders and why specialized DEXs with individual use cases will be the future of DEXs. Mark explains how Clipper is the most profitable DEX. We discuss competitive differentiation. We pivot our conversation to focus on OFAC Compliance. Mark explains why it is essential to be OFAC compliant and how to integrate OFAC sanctions into the crypto space. We stress the importance of tradeoffs and differentiation and how this applies to the DEX space and compliance. Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Lurie.