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My guest today is Laura Shin. Laura is a crypto/blockchain journalist covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, Defi, NFTs, DAOs, stablecoins, etc. She is the host of the podcast Unchained; and author of "The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze." During the course of writing her book, Laura and her sources uncovered who they believe was behind the 2016 DAO attack on Ethereum. Laura is a former senior editor at Forbes. She is the first mainstream journalist to coCryptover crypto full-time. Her podcasts and videos have had more than 15 million downloads and views. She has spoken about cryptocurrency at TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University, and the Oslo Freedom Forum. In our conversation, we discussed various topics, including the early days of crypto, how new technology is adopted, the early Ethereum team’s dynamic, the DAO hacker, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing how Laura got into crypto and what sparked her interest in the space. Laura shares how she became the first mainstream reporter to report on crypto full time and how reporting on crypto eventually led her to start her podcast and write her book, Cryptopians. Another important topic we discussed was the adoption cycle of new technology. We discuss the adoption patterns as recent technological advancements are integrated into society—our conversation transitions to discuss the founding of Ethereum. Laura shares a few stories to illustrate how Ethereum was founded and the political strife within the early team. We also briefly touched on the ICO craze and what sparked the mania. We discuss the DAO hack that changed the course of Ethereum’s history. Laura shares the story of who she believes hacked the DAO and the account behind her reporting. Our final conversation topic centered around crypto Twitter. We discuss how crypto Twitter has become a vital aspect of the crypto space and the possible impact Elon’s acquisition of Twitter will impact crypto Twitter. Please enjoy my conversation with Laura Shin.
