Ryan Selkis: Messari – Bringing Transparency and Self-Regulation to the Blockchain Industry

Since he started blogging as Two Bit Idiot in 2013, Ryan Selkis has been both industry insider and industry critic. Consistently calling out excesses and abuses, but also maintaining his sights on the long-term potential.

He recently founded Messari, a project that aims to bring more transparency and fairness to the industry. Messari has narrowed in on siloed, inaccurate and incomplete data as a key factor that allows insiders to profit at the expense of the public. We talked about the various ways in which Messari tackles that problem, ranging from a community-led effort to gather project data to the ambitious goal of a token-curated registry of stand-up projects.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Ryan’s start into the crypto industry as pseudonymous blogger Two Bit Idiot
• His insights from being the Digital Currency Group’s first employee
• CoinDesk and the challenges of journalism in crypto
• Why poor and inaccurate information benefits industry insiders at the expense of retail investors
• Messari’s mission to lead a self-regulatory effort for the crypto industry
• How an open, distributed crypto data library could help create a fairer playing field
• The plans for Messari’s token-curated registry of projects following reporting standards
• The economics and game theory around the Messari token and TCR

Episode links:

• Messari - Crypto News, Pricing, and Research
• Introducing Messari: An Open-Source EDGAR Database for Cryptoassets
• Messari Whitepaper
• A token to self-regulate tokens. But really.
• Cryptoasset network value, market cap, rankings & metrics | OnChainFX
• Ryan Selkis (@twobitidiot) | Twitter
• Messari Community Analyst Application

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/247