VCs are used to being the gatekeepers of capital. There's this old narrative of entrepreneurs going hat in hand begging VCs for money. That absolutely is not the world we're in anymore.

We are seeing more managed money and, to an extent, institutional money entering the space. Anecdotally speaking, I know of many people who are working at hedge funds or other investment managers who are trading cryptocurrency personally, the question is, when do people start doing it with their firms and funds?

We are seeing entrepreneurs issuing their own blockchain-based tokens to raise money for their networks, sidestepping the traditional, exclusive world of venture capital altogether. The importance of this cannot be overstated - in this new world, there are no companies, just protocols.

I view Bitcoin as the more democratic version of money and value transfer because no one controls it... I expect the Internet to be around longer than any nation-state, so a nation-state-backed currency is actually less safe than an Internet currency in my mind.

Living in Washington, you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to.

Despite the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in our presidential election, President Donald Trump and Republican leadership seem wholly uninterested in examining how and why Russia targeted us - and what we must do to prevent it from happening again.

The Black Lives Matter National Network and the movement at large are sophisticated. We're not easily won over by talking points and campaign trail pledges. We want to see meaningful collaboration and a genuine transformation of American democracy.

The Arab spring that began in 2010 was driven by the educated youth who were connected to the outside world. They had visions of liberal politics derived from social networks. They used innovative means to spread awareness and to network among activists.