What’s holding back real institutional adoption of blockchain? Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset, joins High Stakes to reveal what institutions really need before moving serious volume on-chain. From tokenized treasuries to the privacy gap in DeFi, Yuval brings over a decade of experience bridging traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure. If you’re tracking where real-world assets are headed or building for regulated markets, this episode is a must-listen.

HOST: Alex Nwaka, Co-Founder of Validation Cloud
GUEST: Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Institutional adoption hinges on native asset tokenization, not IOUs or wrappers
• Privacy is critical - institutions need selective transparency, not full public visibility
• Scalability is not the main barrier to adoption - trust and sovereignty are
• Real-world examples of $400B daily repo volumes running on-chain with Broadridge
• Why US Treasuries can now be held natively on-chain through canton
• Interoperability must have real commercial value for institutions to matter
• The importance of regulatory posture over regulatory change
• Tokenization enables new financial products that aren’t viable today
• US market remains the global center of gravity for blockchain adoption
• AI enhances blockchain by verifying data before it hits the chain

BEST MOMENTS

00:03:11. “If you can do it for institutions, you can do it for everyone else.”
00:05:01. “Currently, institutional adoption in crypto is for the most part, trading crypto.”
00:07:06. “That to us is privacy.”
00:08:09. “They want to know that they are holding that equity, not a representation.”
00:09:46. “Broadridge is doing now $400 billion of repo every day on chain.”
00:14:13. “How much dollar utility have been burned on your chain?”
00:25:13. “We did this with the DTCC. People go like, okay, that's good enough.”
00:34:52. “I actually think we do have a real chance of significant institutional volume… in 2026.”

🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Tune in weekly for sharp, no-hype conversations on blockchain, AI, and enterprise innovation.

📢 Follow Validation Cloud for more insights:
• Website: https://sholink.to/validationcloudio
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/validationcloud
• X (Twitter): x.com/HighStakesWeb3
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ValidationCloud

👤 Hosted by Alex Nwaka, CSO at Validation Cloud.

Cut through the noise. Stay ahead of the market.

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

What if Ethereum is closer to replacing Wall Street infrastructure than anyone realizes?

In this episode of High Stakes, host Alex Nwaka sits down with Vivek Raman, CEO of Etherealize, to explore the deep structural gaps in traditional finance and why Ethereum is poised to fill them. With a decade of experience trading credit on Wall Street, Vivek brings unmatched clarity on blockchain’s institutional adoption curve, from skepticism to inevitability. Whether you’re a portfolio manager, policy maker, or protocol builder, this episode breaks down the why, how, and when of Ethereum’s shift into institutional finance.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Ethereum is transitioning from retail hype to institutional infrastructure
• Vivek’s Wall Street background revealed outdated settlement rails and reconciliation pain points
• ETH is a productive, yield-generating asset, Ethereum is “digital oil”
• Ethereum Layer 2s let institutions build custom blockchains that plug into global liquidity
• Stablecoins are the “ChatGPT moment” for crypto and tokenization
• Privacy is essential for institutional adoption, Ethereum needs future-facing primitives
• The value of decentralization is clearest to Wall Street, not retail
• Ethereum’s core strength is being globally accessible but owned by no one
• Tokenized dollars, credit, treasuries, stocks, and commodities are all accelerating on-chain
• AI agents will need Ethereum to transact and coordinate autonomously

BEST MOMENTS

00:01:34. “I approach the space from a Wall Street and traditional finance background.”
00:02:30. “Despite trillions of dollars, the technology backing Wall Street hadn't been upgraded since the '80s or '90s.”
00:04:02. “The way to digitize the financial system is to use what the Ethereum blockchain allows.”
00:05:34. “That was the birth of Etherealize, almost exactly a year ago.”
00:07:46. “The whole financial system can be upgraded if we adopt Ethereum technology.”
00:11:01. “They keep Excel spreadsheets on local computers of their positions and their risk.”
00:16:05. “We've checked all the boxes. Now it's time to accelerate and bring the whole world on.”
00:19:44. “Ethereum is actually a much better store of value than oil.”
00:28:52. “Stablecoins are the canary in the coal mine for all of tokenization.”
00:36:33. “The world where AI and public blockchains intersect is going to be a really cool one.”
00:41:01. “We’re going to see Ethereum flip Bitcoin in the next 1 or 2 years.”

🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Tune in weekly for sharp, no-hype conversations on blockchain, AI, and enterprise innovation.

📢 Follow Validation Cloud for more insights:
• Website: https://sholink.to/validationcloudio
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/validationcloud
• X (Twitter): x.com/HighStakesWeb3
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ValidationCloud

👤 Hosted by Alex Nwaka, CSO at Validation Cloud.

Cut through the noise. Stay ahead of the market.

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

What if blockchain, not AI, is the biggest disruption in finance?

In this episode of High Stakes, host Alex Nwaka sits down with Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure, to explore how blockchain is reshaping capital markets from the ground up. With a background spanning SoFi and Brex, Michael shares how his real-world fintech experience led him to double down on real-world assets, tokenization, and the massive opportunity behind blockchain-powered infrastructure. From regulatory clarity to capital markets modernization, this conversation is a masterclass for anyone thinking seriously about institutional blockchain adoption.

Tune in to hear why the next wave of fintech won't be AI-first, it'll be blockchain-native.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Capital markets innovation depends on mastering tech, finance, and regulation
• Figure embeds origination and blockchain into one seamless ecosystem
• Blockchain enables faster, cheaper, and more transparent mortgage processes
• Standardization reduces third-party risk and accelerates capital deployment
• Trust in blockchain doesn’t eliminate the need for institutional trust
• Tokenization ≠ Liquidity, distribution infrastructure still matters
• Real-world assets are blockchain’s most valuable use case
• Figure has traded over $60B in tokenized private credit assets
• AI and blockchain together can make compliance auditable and immutable
• Future infrastructure must scale for billions of autonomous AI agents

BEST MOMENTS

00:02:04. “I worked my way up through SoFi and ultimately ran the mortgage business.”
00:03:01. “If I'm doing this... there's probably a better way.”
00:05:24. “We took a 45-day, $12,000 process and reduced it to five days and $1,000.”
00:07:12. “Trust is something that is earned in drips and lost by the bucketful.”
00:10:51. “If something like Figure existed for Brex at the time, we would have been very interested.”
00:13:17. “Those loans could have existed in a database… but that database was wrong.”
00:21:00. “Tokenization doesn’t necessarily mean liquidity.”
00:33:04. “I didn’t appreciate the scale of the opportunity for blockchain beyond payments.”

🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Tune in weekly for sharp, no-hype conversations on blockchain, AI, and enterprise innovation.

📢 Follow Validation Cloud for more insights:
• Website: https://sholink.to/validationcloudio
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/validationcloud
• X (Twitter): x.com/HighStakesWeb3
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ValidationCloud

👤 Hosted by Alex Nwaka, CSO at Validation Cloud.

Cut through the noise. Stay ahead of the market.

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com