DARMA Capital's Andrew Keys is a believer in the disruptive power of Ethereum, but he's also concerned that regulators may stand in the way of it.

Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors, or DARMA for short, is an investment firm with more than $1 billion of assets under management. DARMA currently holds over 10,000 validators at over 320,000 Ether, Keys told host Frank Chaparro on this episode of The Scoop.

“And that's staking kind of an institutional-grade, generating tremendous yield,” said Keys.

Keys talked about the firm's journey since launching with just $100 million under management in 2019. He also looked forward, saying that despite the potential use cases of Ethereum and decentralized finance, regulatory headwinds might make it difficult for institutions to engage directly with the market.

“I think we are about to witness a regulatory environment that is excruciatingly painful and that is a result of being able to go create a wallet, go on to a decentralized exchange, have a million dollars of X and trade it for a million dollars of Y with no KYC, no accreditation at investor accreditation. And I think that until we start solving some of those problems and self-regulating and complying, the decentralized nature of blockchain is under imminent threat.”

In this episode Keys also discusses:

Why the cryptocurrency market is impacted by global market events such as the Evergrande meltdown
How the market has evolved since Keys' early days at Ethereum development studio ConsenSys
Tailwinds for Ethereum and headwinds for Bitcoin
What's behind the market success of competitive Layer-One protocols
The growth of the market for non-fungible tokens

Episode 63 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded at the 2021 Mainnet Conference with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Andrew Keys, co-founder & managing director at DARMA Capital.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

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Ether whale Andrew Keys on building products in an uncertain regulatory environment 45:36 Share

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Ether whale Andrew Keys on building products in an uncertain regulatory environment