MoneyNeverSleeps

Steve Whyman spent 20 years trading fixed income at Bear Stearns, ABN AMRO, and BlackRock, then ran digital assets and tokenization inside Fidelity International, before leaving in 2025 to build onchain-native. In this episode he makes the case for tokenization from the one seat almost nobody tells it from: the trading desk.

What pulled him out was seeing blockchain put every instrument on the same settlement rail. The frustration is what came next, five issuers wrapping the same stock five different ways, none of them netting against each other, and issuers walking away when the wrapper carries no legal recourse. Also in this one: why a desk never actually buys technology, whether AI agents can settle 24/7 when a smart contract can't own a security, and Steve's "wings of finance" case that the real prize is financing and collateral, not the shiny tokenized equity everyone's chasing.

Connect with Steve:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-whyman-210a6273/

Referenced in this episode:
Semi Liquid: https://pcp.co/
Solana Breakpoint, London, November 2026: https://solana.com/breakpoint

Chapters
0:00 Cold open
0:24 Intro: Steve Whyman, from fixed income to onchain
1:10 What made a 20-year trader jump: the rails are the same
3:42 What a desk actually needs before it touches a tokenized instrument
5:42 The F1 pit crew: why adoption is operational, not technical
6:52 The fragmentation problem: five wrappers, one stock, no netting
9:53 Same but better, or just adding layers?
10:35 The wings of finance: financing and collateral, not the shiny equity
11:28 Can AI agents legally settle 24/7 when a smart contract can't own a security?
12:09 The love-hate: going native, and what stuck
14:08 Where to find Steve, and Solana Breakpoint

MoneyNeverSleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures.
moneyneversleeps.ie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com

Justin Swart, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, joins Pete Townsend to make the case that tokenization is doing to finance what the shipping container did to global trade (standardizing the box, not the cargo - h/t Aleks Larsen, Blockchain Capital), whether that's real containerization or just the same fragmentation problem moved onchain, how BITKRAFT's early bet on Roundhill's record-breaking Memory ETF fits a broader thesis on personalized finance, and why trading itself is becoming the new competitor to gaming for consumer attention.

Chapters
0:00 Cold open
0:24 Intro: Justin Swart and BITKRAFT
1:00 The container analogy, retold
3:58 Robinhood's own chain, and stablecoins at Visa scale
6:09 BUIDL, BENJI, and Robinhood Chain by the numbers
7:15 Is this containerization, or fragmentation onchain?
8:18 The consumer thesis: trading as entertainment
10:37 Gamification, streamers, and trading as esports
12:33 How founders should think about BITKRAFT
14:02 Where to find BITKRAFT

Connect with Justin:
LinkedIn: https://za.linkedin.com/in/justinswart1
Email: Justin@bitkraft.vc

More on BITKRAFT:
Website: https://www.bitkraft.vc/

References:
Episode 240, What's Next with Web3: https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/alex-tapscott/
Aleks Larsen's tweet on tokenization and containers: https://x.com/alekslarsen/status/2092302780379574675
The Box by Marc Levinson: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691170817/the-box
Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM): https://www.roundhillinvestments.com/etf/dram/
Matthew Ball, State of Video Gaming 2026: https://www.matthewball.co/all/presentation-the-state-of-video-gaming-in-2026

MoneyNeverSleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures.
moneyneversleeps.ie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com
Hashtags: #Tokenization #Crypto #VentureCapital #fintech #gaming

Andrea Miele is co-founder and CEO of Beezie, a gamified commerce platform Pete Townsend backed through Techstars in 2024, joins Pete to talk about why the "TCG" label never captured what Beezie actually is, what it took to raise a second round after some of the best-known funds in the space passed on her more than once, and what's next now that Beezie has expanded to Base and Solana.

Connect with Andrea:X: https://x.com/AndreaMYellie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agriffin717/

Learn more about Beezie:Website: https://beezie.com/
X: https://x.com/Beezie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beeziedotcom/

Chapters
0:00 Cold open
0:32 Intro: Andrea Miele and Beezie
1:22 What Beezie is, in plain English
2:07 The Claw and the cold-start problem
3:21 Why the TCG bucket undersells the vision
5:26 The pack rip smell, and trading it for liquidity
7:15 Building trust before asking for money
8:17 Fundraising through thirty no's
10:13 The lead investor who changed everything
12:26 Base, Solana, and what's next
13:41 Where to find Beezie

MoneyNeverSleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures.
moneyneversleeps.ie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com
#Tokenization #Collectibles #Crypto #Startups

James McCann, CEO and founder of Everhaze, joins Pete Townsend to talk about the 80/20 problem breaking PR agency economics, how an agentic layer turns hundreds of daily regulatory mentions into a 10-minute digest for a fintech client, where the human side of PR (the trust, the intros, the relationships) still does the heavy lifting, and why VC skepticism about AI-wrapped software didn't stop him from closing his round.
Connect with James:
X: https://x.com/JimmyMcCann01
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmccann862/ 
Learn more about Everhaze:
https://everhaze.com/
X: https://x.com/everhaze
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/everhaze/
Email: info@everhaze.com

MoneyNeverSleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures.
moneyneversleeps.ie 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com 
#AgenticAI #AI #PRTech #Startups

Elaine Deehan is back on MoneyNeverSleeps for her third appearance, and this one has been a long time coming. As Ireland Country Manager of Monzo Bank Europe, Elaine is doing what she's always done: building something that makes banking feel genuinely human, and genuinely Irish.
Download the Monzo app and open your account at: https://monzo.com/ie
Monzo went fully live in Ireland on April 14th with 100,000 people on the waitlist. But getting there wasn't a lift-and-shift from the UK. It meant walking the streets, talking to customers, and solving for the things that frustrate Irish people most about their banks. Elaine also talks about what the Irish playbook means for every market Monzo enters next.

Connect with Elaine:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elainedeehan/Monzo Ireland: https://monzo.com/ie
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moneyneversleeps1814Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/moneyneversleeps/id1455819294

Connect with Pete:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNVInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/MoneyNeverSleeps: https://moneyneversleeps.ieEmail: info@norioventures.com