Crafting the Cryptoeconomy
Hosted by: Andreas Park (University of Toronto) and Fahad Saleh (University of Florida, Warrington College of Business)
Produced by: CBER Forum and Owl Explains (Ava Labs)
A podcast series featuring in-depth conversations with leading academics and industry experts about the economics of blockchain technology, decentralized finance, and crypto regulation.
🎧 Listen on Spotify · Listen on Apple Podcasts · All Episodes (Owl Explains)
Season 3 (2025)
Ep 15: Contagion in Decentralized Lending Protocols
Guest: Julien Prat (CNRS, CREST, Ecole Polytechnique, IP Paris)
Contagion risks in DeFi lending when assets lent to one pool serve as collateral in another. Discusses efficient protocol design and risk mitigation strategies.
Ep 14: Price Discovery at Decentralized Exchanges
Guests: Ruizhe Jia (Stanford University), Shihao Yu (Singapore Management University)
How price discovery can occur at DEXs rather than centralized exchanges, the economics of bidding for block space, and how private mempools affect the process.
Ep 13: Stablecoins and Digital Payments
Guests: Lin William Cong (Cornell University), Simon Mayer (Carnegie Mellon University)
The digitization of payments, China’s CBDC project, USD stablecoin adoption, and how stablecoins could reshape modern payment infrastructure.
Ep 12: Beyond the Foundation Model — DUNAs and BORGs
Guest: Miles Jennings (a16z crypto, Head of Policy & General Counsel)
The role of nonprofit foundations in blockchain networks, how they’ve become a friction point, and emerging legal alternatives like DUNAs and BORGs.
Ep 11: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
Guests: Jungsuk Han (Seoul National University), Jongsub Lee (Seoul National University / University of Florida), Tao Li (University of Florida)
DAO governance, ownership concentration, whale voting dynamics, and how to embed long-term incentives into DAO economic design.
Season 2 (2024)
Ep 10: Tokenization of Real-World Assets in Avalanche
A deep dive on the Avalanche blockchain, its consensus protocol, subnet architecture, and applications for real-world asset tokenization.
Ep 9: Mitigation Methods for MEV and LVR
Guest: Ciamac Moallemi (Columbia University)
Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) and Loss-Versus-Rebalancing (LVR) mitigation strategies, including expedited block times and auction mechanisms.
Ep 8: DEX Aggregators and Solvers
Guest: Mallesh Pai (Rice University)
Intent-based markets, the economics of aggregators vs. solvers, and implications for trade execution quality.
Ep 7: Blockchain Privacy and Regulatory Compliance
Guest: Fabian Schär (University of Basel)
Privacy-preserving technologies, forensic analysis methods, mixers, and how blockchain users can achieve privacy while remaining compliant.
Ep 6: Regulation of Decentralized Exchanges
Guests: Campbell Harvey (Duke University), Joel Hasbrouck (NYU Stern)
Novel risks at DEXs and why standard regulatory approaches are not well-suited for decentralized trading venues. What a feasible regulatory framework might look like.
Season 1 (2023)
Ep 5: Loss-Versus-Rebalancing (LVR) at Decentralized Exchanges
Guest: Ciamac Moallemi (Columbia University)
How arbitrageurs extract value from liquidity providers at DEXs, the mechanics of LVR, and design refinements to mitigate these losses.
Ep 4: Economics of Lending Platforms
Guests: Thomas Rivera (McGill University), Quentin Vandeweyer (University of Chicago)
Why DeFi lending platforms can generate sub-optimal welfare due to fund under-utilization, and potential improvements to protocol design.
Ep 3: Just-In-Time Liquidity at Decentralized Exchanges
Guest: Agostino Capponi (Columbia University)
The paradox of JIT liquidity: while generally viewed as positive for traders, it can undermine passive liquidity provision and reduce overall market liquidity.
Ep 2: Governance of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
Guests: Brett Falk (University of Pennsylvania), Gerry Tsoukalas (Boston University)
Voting protocols in DAOs, governance challenges, and the design of decentralized decision-making mechanisms.
Ep 1: Are Cryptoassets Securities?
Guest: Lewis Cohen (DLx Law)
Whether cryptoassets qualify as securities under US law. Many cryptoassets confer abilities rather than rights, suggesting the need for novel regulatory frameworks.
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