On Episode 17 of 8 Minute Insights, Richard Johnson is joined by a very special guest, Max Harris. Max is the CEO of Ticker Markets. We discussed his approach to finding liquidity and other trends in the market including:

* 2021 presented a greater-than 100% increase in the secondary market overall, with an 156% growth in the LP secondary market - Jefferies

* Over $65B was raised in secondary funds during 2023 alone according to Pitchbook

* Private equity LPs are starting to see secondaries as the standard exit, and VC GPs are beginning to utilize them as a regular process as well - Coller Capital

* Data on the overall size of the market from Pitchbook

On this special Episode 16 of 8 Minute Insights, Richard Johnson is joined by a very special guest, Gabriel Sadoun, who runs business development for DigiShares here in the US.

Richard and Gabriel discuss the recent announcement that DigiShares is partnering with Texture to provide secondary trading capabilities to clients of their white-label investor management platform and enable issuers to list their security tokens on RealEstate.Exchange (RE.X).

“We are delighted to be partnering with Texture Capital to enable on-chain peer-to-peer trading of securities in the U.S. The key to creating liquidity, value, and democratization in the RWA market is providing a trading venue where investors can seamlessly and compliantly trade securities. The combination of Texture’s robust compliant platform and ATS with our investor management and trading infrastructure enables us to do just that.” Gabriel Sadoun, DigiShares

On Episode 15 of 8 Minute Insights, Richard Johnson spoke with Oscar Jofre, Founder and CEO of KoreConX, the all-in-one platform that manages private companies' capital market activity and stakeholder communications.

Oscar speaks about how he was inspired to start KoreConX by David Weild, the “Father of the JOBS Act”. “He inspired me… as an entrepreneur we needed a new way to raise capital”.

And also:

“Venture capitalists are not going to be funding… for the next 18 to 24 months you need to find a different way to fund your company if you want to stay in business. Online capital formation is an alternative way to fund your company. You need to pay attention to what these regulations can do for you. You can raise $5mm [Reg CF] or $75mm [Reg A+], and that will go a long way to building your company.” - Oscar Jofre, CEO KoreConX

On Episode 14 of 8 Minute Insights, Richard Johnson spoke with Benjamin Upward, Chief Investment Officer for the ChainLogic Fund about the recent Ethereum merge, and what it means for Ethereum and the crypto space overall.

Here's a preview of Ben’s interview:

"Ethereum switched in mod air from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, and it seems like they pulled it off:"What you're paying the stakers to run the network is far far less than what you had to pay the miners, so the inflation rate of Ether is now close to flat.”

"It was a little bit, 'buy the rumor, sell the news' but there is also a massive macro raincloud over everything right now” - Ben Upward, CIO at ChainLogic Fund

On Episode 13 of 8 Minute Insights, Richard Johnson speaks with John Nance, CEO of Deal Box - a specialty consulting firm focused on capital markets strategy and technology.

Here is a preview:

“Every time there is a market disruption, I ask: what is it that we missed?... One of the things that has really concerned me is excessive risk taking and leverage…I look at Warren Buffet’s comments around derivatives being financial weapons of mass destruction… well crypto has basically done that on steroids" -- John Nance

On Episode 12 of 8 Minute Market Structure, Richard Johnson speaks with Jay Biancamano, Managing Director and Head of Tokenization at State Street’s digital division.

Here is a preview:

“Market structure has come into play in the crypto space; and it’s a very attractive market.” “It doesn’t have what I call the ‘CBBO’ crypto best bid and offer.” “Future looking market structure…what happens when traditional assets start to trade on blockchain?” “Tokenization is where the market is moving.” -- Jay Biancamano

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On Episode 11 of 8 Minute Market Structure, Richard Johnson speaks with Ron Quaranta, Chairman/CEO of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance. Watch this episode to hear Ron discuss pain points in traditional financial markets with data reconciliation and how blockchain helps solve this.

Here is a preview:

“Blockchain technology, in my view, solves the friction associated with counterparty reconciliation”. “The vision of what DeFi could be removes so much of that reconciliation error” – Ron Quaranta

In this special episode of 8 Minute Insights Richard Johnson speaks with Rob Frasca and Bob Kramich about the Cosimo Ventures lead investment in BEASY’s seed round.

“We were blown away!” Watch this special episode of 8 Minute Insights to learn how BEASY aims to:

“Enable regular people – whether you’re a crypto enthusiast or not – to create, maintain and distribute NFT’s anywhere you want.” - Bob Kramich

On Episode ten of 8 Minute Market Structure, Richard Johnson speaks with Curt Engler, former head of trading, JP Morgan Asset Management.

Watch this episode to hear Curt explain why he wouldn’t change anything about US equity market structure… although:

“Data shouldn’t cost as much as it does.” “Trust is difficult to come by.” “Simplicity is the main thing to keep in mind in market structure.” -- Curt Engler

In episode nine Richard Johnson speaks with Dave Weisberger, CEO of CoinRoutes, a provider of algorithmic trading tools for buying and selling Crypto-Assets more efficiently.

Watch this episode to hear Dave explain why he thinks "crypto is the most transparent marketplace in the world".:

“I would want a market structure that evolves without regulation forcing the market structure in a particular direction” - Dave Weisberger

In episode eight Richard Johnson speaks with Hitesh Mittal, CEO of BestEx Research a provider of high performance algorithmic trading solutions for FX, futures and global equities.

Watch this episode to hear Hitesh explain his idea to create a protected, retail NBBO, which would level the playing field between wholesalers and exchanges:

"The problem is in over-the-counter markets the network effects are very strong, the larger dealers get even larger and that drives away competition, hurting investors. And US equity markets are gravitating more to becoming more over-the-counter.” - Hitesh Mittal

In episode seven Richard Johnson speaks with Virginie O'Shea, CEO of Firebrand Research where we discuss the plumbing of the industry.

Watch this episode to hear Virginie discuss the example of T2 Securities in Europe that was setup by the European Central Bank because the CSDs weren't collaborating:

"It’s about being more open to collaboration and less competitive. A lot of issues around post trade infrastructure are that interoperability is not there, we have challenges because of proprietary standards… that cause nightmares for operations teams.” - Virginie O’Shea

In episode six Richard Johnson speaks with Kevin McPartland, Head of Market Structure Research for Greenwich Coalition.

Watch this episode to hear Kevin’s idea that could be “the best of both worlds between and RFQ where you have that bilateral understanding, and an order book where it is anonymous":

“I think one of the most important things would be to create a trading mechanism that allows the counter-parties to know each other, but still do that in an electronic way.” - Kevin McPartland

In episode five Richard Johnson speaks with Mike Masone, Head of North American market structure for Citi.

Here's a preview:

“Where are the inefficiencies in today’s markets? One that is getting a ton of attention now is the scrutiny of how retail order flow is executed by a handful of market makers who pay for that order flow, and there are actual or perceived conflicts around that… what I think would really improve that overall is to allow for exchanges to quote in sub-pennies” - Mike Masone

In episode four Richard Johnson speaks with Vlad Khandros, Head of Corporate Development at Trumid.

Here's a preview:

"To try to dictate that everyone use a single, specific way, is not the right way to go about it. ... Whether it's building out about a product, or thinking about policy changes, flexibility is actually key." - Vlad Khandros

In episode three Richard Johnson speaks with Bill Harts, Board Member, ACTIV Financial, and former CEO, Modern Markets Initiative.

Here's a preview:

"Institutional investors are increasingly unwilling to display their orders, knowing that they may not interact with this retail order flow, and that leads to fragmentation and other unwanted side effects… I would implement a "simple" change: Require off-exchange market makers to check the price on a non-affiliated market center before trading as principal. In that way, both retail and institutional investors get the best price." - Bill Harts

In episode two Richard Johnson speaks with Dave Cushing, former Director of Trading at Wellington.

Here's a preview:

“The idea of a market being a fundamentally auction driven marketplace… that concept we really, sorely need to reintroduce to markets, and that becomes especially true for less liquid assets.”

“The thought process around trying to move away from the… one size fits all model has become more important”. - Dave Cushing, Co-Founder, Senior Advisor at Pine Grove Capital

In the very first episode of 8 Minute Market structure we speak with industry expert Dave Lauer to get his take on the most important market structure issues.

Here's a preview of Dave's interview:

“What are the principles of market structure that we’re looking for? We’re looking for transparency; we’re looking to minimize complexity; we’re looking for smart, adaptive regulations; [we're looking for] open competition for order flow; and we’re looking to avoid inefficient economics through subsidization.” -Dave Lauer, CEO at Urvin AI