The Pomp Podcast
283: Adam Traidman on the Future of Crypto in Asia
- Adam Traidman's career arc from chip design at NASA and Silicon Valley to founding BRD wallet and becoming CEO of SBI Mining Chip Company and Ripple Asia.
- BRD wallet's design philosophy prioritizes simplicity and zero-friction onboarding; users download the app, tap "new wallet," and can send Bitcoin in seconds with no account creation.
- Blockset by BRD is an infrastructure layer (comparable to AWS for blockchain) enabling enterprises to build custody, portfolio management, and banking applications without running their own nodes.
- Japan's unique position in crypto: high consumer financial sophistication, a cash-first culture now shifting digital, and deep vertical integration by SBI across exchanges, mining, chips, and energy.
- Mining economics post-halving reward winners with lowest electricity costs and most efficient hardware; many older, higher-cost operations will shut down, reducing network hash rate until the difficulty resets.
- China's strategic move toward a central bank digital currency (digital RMB) as geopolitical and monetary control, similar to how the U.S. established SWIFT and the dollar-based global financial system.