In short
Galaxy Brains episode with market commentary (gold rally, Bitcoin stagnation, and a potential U.S. government shutdown) followed by a deep dive on Evan Solomon’s college-focused crypto pipeline. Core focus is the Midwest Blockchain Conference (hosted by College.xyz) and how it bridges university students to crypto/blockchain careers via education, bounties, hiring events, and a hackathon.
Guests
Evan Solomon, Chief of Staff at Portal Ventures; co-founder of the Midwest Blockchain Conference; former president of Blockchain at the University of Michigan; recent University of Michigan graduate. Also featured: Bim Netabibi from Galaxy Trading (market segment).
Key claims
Student crypto interest is cyclical and price-driven; most students still view crypto as an investment vehicle, not infrastructure; there’s little standardized campus curriculum; College.xyz will create a talent network using sponsor-funded subsidies and a bounty platform (potentially DAO-like).
Notable examples
2024 conference at UMichigan subsidized 186 students ($200–$250 each) and helped ~50 land internships (Coinbase, Gemini). 2025 plans: Dec 5–6 in Ann Arbor, ~750 students from ~75 universities; $250 travel subsidy (plus ~$500 for ~60 international students); developer workshops, career fair, interview room, resume book, and an .edu-gated hackathon.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOOverview of the Midwest Blockchain Conference
0:45 to 1:55
Discussion about the upcoming Midwest Blockchain Conference and its significance.
“We're going to talk with Evan at length about this big conference that's hosted at the University of Michigan.”
Market Insights with Bimnet Abibi
1:55 to 2:42
Bimnet shares insights on current market trends, including gold performance and government shutdown implications.
“Let's go now to our friend Bimnet Abibi from Galaxy Trading.”
The Bitcoin vs Gold Debate
2:42 to 7:48
Discussion on the performance of Bitcoin relative to gold and factors affecting investor sentiment.
“And then there's the Fed credibility component where, you know, there's some folks that think that, you know, that the Fed is not appropriately tackling the inflation challenges.”
Government Shutdown and Market Impacts
7:48 to 11:25
Discussion regarding the potential impacts of a government shutdown on the market.
“But again, like gold went through periods where it did nothing.”
Building Bridges: College.xyz Initiatives
11:35 to 13:20
Evan discusses his work with College.xyz and the importance of linking students to the blockchain industry.
“I love what you guys are doing with colleges and students and getting them interested in blockchains and learning about them.”
Conference Success Stories and Future Plans
13:20 to 14:01
Discussion on the success of past conferences and plans for future events.
“and then around 60 international students with about$500 per person.”
Student Interest in Blockchain
14:01 to 14:59
Explore the fluctuating interest of students in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
“Through the conference and through stuff following the conference.”
Educational Opportunities in Blockchain Clubs
15:00 to 19:00
Learn about the structure and educational initiatives of blockchain clubs at universities.
“It's still hard to gauge what is the real, like, incentivizer for these students.”
Curriculum Development for Blockchain Education
19:01 to 22:56
Discuss the need for standardized blockchain education curricula in universities.
“That's one thing that we're very focused on right now.”
Midwest Blockchain Conference Overview
22:57 to 25:10
Get insights into the upcoming Midwest Blockchain Conference and its goals.
“mostly no In these, it was like a, it was sort of a, there was a great academic paper.”
Show all 18 chapters
Talent Acquisition and Hackathon Plans
25:11 to 28:01
Examine plans for talent acquisition at the conference, including hackathons and networking opportunities.
“and help them get paid by Farcaster to use the platform.”
Centralized Career Fairs for Students
28:01 to 28:35
Exploration of how CollegeXYZ centralizes college career fairs and hackathons.
“We get asked all the time to go and do college career fairs and stuff and there's too many colleges.”
The Concept of Sperm Racing
28:36 to 29:49
A humorous discussion about the viral phenomenon of sperm racing and its implications.
“The bounty platform and the website is going to be gated by.edu.”
The Rise of Young Crypto Enthusiasts
29:50 to 31:01
Discussion on how young people are increasingly knowledgeable about cryptocurrency and blockchain.
“And the core of it is who is the healthiest sperm?”
Global interest in Blockchain and Crypto
31:02 to 31:58
Insights into the international demand for blockchain technology and events.
“So there was no opportunity for me to like crypto.”
Building a Network in Crypto
31:59 to 33:45
The importance of networking and opportunities in the global crypto space.
“If there's any Australian-based blockchain companies that want to support the young talent in Australia.”
The Role of Universities in Crypto
33:46 to 36:35
Discussion on how universities can engage with blockchain technology and contribute to its ecosystem.
“the Caymans Tel Aviv, Dallas I mean we have a lot of places Like they don't all require an American visa.”
Upcoming Midwest Blockchain Conference
36:36 to 41:56
Details about the Midwest Blockchain Conference, its speakers, and its significance.
“And I asked them, I was like, why did she reach out to us?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Alex Thorn:Welcome to Galaxy Brains.
0:25Alex Thorn:Welcome back to Galaxy Brains. As always, I'm your host, Alex Thorne, head of firmwide research at Galaxy. Bitcoin, not zero. We have a great episode for you this week. Evan Solomon, chief of staff at Portal Ventures, co-founder of the Midwest Blockchain Conference and recent graduate from the University of Michigan, former president of Blockchain at Michigan, the blockchain club there. He is our guest. We're going to talk with Evan at length about this big conference that's hosted at the University of Michigan. It's coming up by this. It's called the Midwest Blockchain Conference. But it is a conference for college students from around the country to come and learn about crypto and blockchains.
1:03Alex Thorn:Very interesting conversation with Evan about what the younger generation thinks about crypto, what they view their prospects in the job market for crypto. If you're like me, I mean, I'm older. You know, when I entered the job market, literally the Bitcoin white paper had just been released, right? There was no industry. and so folks like me got into crypto and bitcoin you know as part of our during our careers but now that's not the case it's actually a very interesting conversation with evan about what we can expect from a new generation of of leaders in the crypto and bitcoin industries of course we'll also check with our good friend bim netabibi from galaxy trading as always to talk about markets and before we get to all that i need to remind you to please refer to the link to the disclaimer in the podcast notes and note that none of the information in this podcast constitutes investment advice or an offer, recommendation, or solicitation by Galaxy or any of its affiliates to buy or sell any securities.
1:55Alex Thorn:Let's hop right into it. Let's go now to our friend Bimnet Abibi from Galaxy Trading. As always, Bimnet, welcome to Galaxy Brains. Thanks for having me. We're recording on Tuesday, September 30th. Not our normal Wednesday because I am in Singapore for Token 2049 and it is 11.30 p.m. for me, 11.30 a.m. on Tuesday for you, just to set the date and time for the audience so they understand when we were saying these things. But one thing that we just cannot get around, I know we've talked about, but gold just absolutely continuing to rip. I mean, the chart is, like, if you look at it, zoom it out, it's a mind-blowing chart.
2:38Alex Thorn:It actually makes me wonder why it took so long for gold to rip this well because it was stagnant for over a decade
2:46Beimnet Abebe:yeah for about a decade no i i mean i think you know there's just a lot of forces coming to a head right now right there's the big push to kind of diversify away from you know u.s assets and that's a really hard thing to do um there's also just the the fiscal policy element where you know we're continuing to print more money. And then there's the Fed credibility component where, you know, there's some folks that think that, you know, that the Fed is not appropriately tackling the inflation challenges. And then there's, you know, a little bit of doubt over kind of just general U.S. supremacy. And that is kind of, you know, why you've seen, you know, gold do so well.
3:31Beimnet Abebe:And, And, you know, I think there's a big push from folks like the Chinese and the Chinese government to make it really like a cornerstone of financial markets. And what I mean by that is, you know, the reason why U.S. dollars have proliferated as much as they have and U.S. debt has is, you know, are part of the reason is because, you know, treasury bonds are tantamount to cash. Right. There is trillions of dollars in repo that will lend to you versus any treasury security at a 1 % haircut to its value. So I've got$99 worth of a bond or$100 worth of a bond. I can borrow$99 worth of cash at the front end interest rate.
4:17Beimnet Abebe:And so it's essentially equalized treasuries to cash. and, you know, therefore, like, you know, U.S. Treasuries have become like this kind of pristine collateral across our financial system. And I think there's a broader push to kind of make gold, you know, part of that collateral HQLA, you know, standard, you know, not domestically here but, you know, abroad at least. And so there's the fact that, you know, it's being pushed as the kind of basis for all of, you know, general collateral or a lot of general collateral. And then there's, you know, kind of the push to get away from U.S. assets. And so there's just so many different things that are coalescing to drive this price action.
5:07Beimnet Abebe:And it's really hard to ignore because, you know, when you add gold to a portfolio now, it's like it's risk reducing because it hasn't been that volatile. And it's adding out performance. And so it's just it's there's just so many things lining up for it. And, you know, there's a lot of folks that are in crypto that wish that, you know, Bitcoin was having a kind of a similar moment. And that's totally fair. But at the end of the day, like there is some value to having like such a such a strong government backing to it. And, you know, gold being around for, you know, centuries. and it's something that an average person can buy without that much, without onboarding anywhere.
5:52Beimnet Abebe:I could go to my jeweler and pay in cash. I could go to Costco and swipe my credit card and buy it. Nobody knows that I own the gold. And so it is literally universally accessible. Obviously, there's some drawbacks to it. But yeah, high level, I do think that there's some folks that are rethinking their Bitcoin thesis on the back of just how well gold has performed and kind of their outlook on a go-forward basis there. And I think those questions and concerns are warranted.
6:24Alex Thorn:Yeah, I think that's right. And it makes sense for there to be some consternation among Bitcoiners about seeing gold perform this way, because it is so obvious from the performance that something structurally is broken or people are afraid about. It's a lot of the stuff we've been talking about, you and I now, for years on this show. But Bitcoin has also often benefited from those fears. It just doesn't seem to be at the moment. Is it stagnation? Everybody already longed Bitcoin and that next wall of onboarded people has yet to become believers? Is that purely an adoption and flows question, you think?
7:04Alex Thorn:I can assure the audience and you, nothing has fundamentally changed about Bitcoin during this time.
7:10Beimnet Abebe:Which is the beauty of it. Yeah. No, I think it's just the adoption cycle, ultimately. And I think just because of just how much got baked into BTC and broader crypto, especially after the election, and just how much good news has come out. like it's just going to struggle to move higher. And it will over time because it should be a better play than gold. Right. And so I think you just need some more time for the adoption story to kind of build out. But again, like gold went through periods where it did nothing. Right. But the thesis was still super sound. Right. And so you can have these periods in markets where not much happens.
8:02Beimnet Abebe:And maybe that's what Bitcoin is doing now.
8:05Alex Thorn:So let's move on here, too. I know I mentioned at the top, we're here talking on September 30th, which is a Tuesday. The U.S. government is poised to close. I feel like when this first happened, not first, but this happened in what, like 2010 or so, when there was that first U.S. government credit rating decrease. that I was just a few years out of college then. And I remember that seeming like, oh my God, I've never even heard that this could happen. Or like, maybe it happened once during the Clinton era. I don't recall, but like, now this seems to happen all the time, right? And we're on the precipice of it apparently happening as soon as tonight, as we record this, the odds on Polly Market that the government shuts down by October 1st, which is, honestly, if you're listening to this pod, that will have already passed.
8:51Alex Thorn:I think we're gonna release this on Tuesday, October 2nd. They have it at 80%. Is the government going to shut down? And, you know, I guess we all know the effect, I think, now from watching this happen many times. You know, first, there's some essential employees who don't have to leave. And then, you know, they sort of, like, try to phase out, like, the least essential. And eventually, it becomes a big deal if it lasts, like, weeks and weeks. But, like, what is the impact on markets, you think, if any? Just, like, even in the short term, it shuts down. Maybe it's only shut for three days. Does that impact markets?
9:22Alex Thorn:How long does it have to be shut down to impact? Or, yeah, what are your thoughts?
9:25Beimnet Abebe:That's the million dollar question right now in the marketplace. And so far, you know, even with the, you know, polymarket odds, you know, north of 80 percent, you know, it hasn't really impacted stocks that much. You're within spitting distance of all time highs. You're one candle away. Let's put it that way. And so it doesn't seem like the market cares right now. That doesn't mean that if we progress and it's starting to look worse, then it won't impact markets. But ultimately, the U.S. government is one of the largest consumers of goods and services in the world. And so if they do pause in a meaningful way in terms of timing-wise, it should be a drag.
10:08Beimnet Abebe:now you know the beauty of it is like the employees like once the government's back on they get their pay you know the services the purchases you know resume after the shutdown is over so there isn't like you know a whole lot of concern about like long-run kind of impact but I do think it's kind of telling that you know there is a lot of dysfunction in the government And that's not even with us. That's with a Senate and a Congress that is Republican and an executive branch that's Republican. And so the fact that you're having this shutdown with, you know, one party in charge is kind of telling about, you know, the fragility of our system.
10:54Beimnet Abebe:And so, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it unfolds. I don't have any like specific calls to make in terms of how long I think it's going to last or the impact. But I'm pretty confident in, you know, that the market is going to look through this pretty meaningfully.
11:12Alex Thorn:All right. Well, it's going to be exciting to follow up with you next week to see if it's still shut down, if it even happened. And until then, have a good week, my friend, in New York. And I will see you next week. Everyone, Bim Netta BB, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Let's go now to our guest, Evan Solomon, Chief of Staff at Portal Ventures and founder of College.xyz. Evan, welcome to Galaxy Brains. Thank you. It's awesome to be here. Yes, it's very exciting to have you. I love what you guys are doing with colleges and students and getting them interested in blockchains and learning about them.
11:45Alex Thorn:Tell me at a high level what you are doing. What is college.xyz? Yeah, so what we're doing is bridging the gap between the industry and university students. When I got to college, I realized that that's going to be the biggest issue that the industry has, and in the last four years, I've demonstrated that. I did this blockchain club at Michigan for a while, Michigan has a strong alumni base. Michigan is a strong school. Students at Michigan have the opportunity to break into the industry and get jobs. A lot of these other clubs don't have the opportunity, and there isn't that strong pipeline where there is for traditional finance.
12:16So we're looking to build this pipeline through this conference that we do yearly and through a number of other things that we're going to roll out pretty soon. Very cool.
12:24Alex Thorn:And you did a conference already, so you've done one. We've done one. You have a second one coming up. Correct. How did the first one go? That was, what, last year? Was that 2024? 2024. uh, November, 2024 at university of Michigan. Uh, the school was like our, let's say partner cohost on it. Uh, they supported us. They gave us venues. Um, and it went great. We had about 35 universities across North America. So us and Canada. Um, what we did is we raised all this money from sponsors and we took, you know, around 50 % of that to subsidize students. Students have student loans. They don't have a ton of money to go spend on conferences.
12:57We don't want to make money on this entity anyways. So we might as well use the funds that we're fundraising to support the students that come out. And that's how you get buy-in. All the students are bought into the community because they get to come to this conference at a very, very low cost or no cost, ideally. So we subsidized 186 students last year. They all got between$200 and$250 in subsidies. We're doing that again this year,$250 per person, and then around 60 international students with about$500 per person. Wow. So that's the idea. We're also doing a high school program. Now I'm getting into the weeds of specific programs we're doing.
13:32We want to fly out the 25 top high schoolers across the nation. In crypto? In crypto.
13:37Alex Thorn:High schoolers? Yep. There's so many of these cracked high schoolers. My prediction is that the high schooler is going to win the hackathon. We got to get parental signature and all that. Of course. It's like any high school trip. That makes sense. That's cool. So that was great. Event went really well last year. Companies loved it. We had some really great sponsors. Ended up helping around 50 students land internships for this summer. Wow. Through the conference and through stuff following the conference. Many at Coinbase, many at Gemini. We had a few Galaxy here. I'm not sure it was us that did that.
14:10But they were at both. Many in our community are at Galaxy. That's awesome. Even Lucas, the new president of Michigan Blockchain. Nice.
14:17Alex Thorn:Yeah. That's great. I mean, the kids like the blockchain still. It's not old news now. What is the interest that students are having? Are they interested in Bitcoin? Are they interested in meme coins? It's very cyclical. Are they interested in digital identity? Like, what is it that you're seeing from a topical standpoint? It's very cyclical, first of all. Yeah. As you expect, prices dictate who's applying to these clubs and who isn't. Yeah. Right? When I was a freshman and just getting started with this club, we were getting, you know, 80 applicants. And we didn't really have much to show. We weren't doing that much, right?
14:51By the time I'm a junior, when the market's at bottoms, we're getting, you know, 50 applicants or 40 applicants when we're doing a ton of things in the industry.
14:59Alex Thorn:You were doing to IC. You were doing a lot. you'd become sophisticated but like interest had dried up it was like literally like you're meeting in like a lecture hall and it's like just the first couple rows during that bear market to an extent yeah i mean pizza is a good incentivizer yeah i mean the club the club had was the second biggest delegate for uniswap so if you're in the industry you understand the value of joining the club and doing these consulting projects doing these governance projects um but if you're not interested you don't understand the importance of of governance or the the fact that we have such a major stake in some of these protocols, you're not going to apply to the club.
15:33It's still hard to gauge what is the real, like, incentivizer for these students. Like, do they see it as a viable career path? Do they see it as a cool way to gamble? That's still TBD.
15:44Alex Thorn:Yeah. For some, surely there's some that see it all, you have a diversity of ways people see it, right? 100%. So we're doing a few things now on, like, our college at XYZ is we're going to do a few onboarding sessions with PumpFun and we're going to get some soul in the hands of the students. We'll see how that plays out. It'll be a cool experiment. There is a lot of experiments that need to be done on campuses to see on the user side, on the developer side, and then the actual talent onboarding side. So we're doing a number of things across the industry to kind of test those things out. That's cool, yeah.
16:17Alex Thorn:And do you do educational sessions? Or I guess if we join, when we talk about a specific club and not like Let's say you were at UMichigan, right? Yeah. So the club there that you were a part of, were you doing educational sessions or bringing in speakers and stuff like that? Were you teaching people how to self-custody? Yeah. So you apply to the club. We accept around 30 people. Once you're accepted, you go through a 10-week educational curriculum. Lucas ran our educational curriculum. That's how he built himself into the president of the club. Curriculum goes great. Then you apply to join one of the teams.
16:49We have four different teams. or we had, I mean, I'm not there anymore. But four different teams, governance, consulting, investments, and a developer group. You apply for these teams and then the club or the leadership will go out and source opportunities for all these teams. That is a great way to break into the industry. That puts us on par with all the other clubs on campus, if not better than these other clubs. The issue is crypto and people are scared of crypto, so nobody's going to think of us. Are they still scared of crypto on campus? To an extent, yes. There's just a stigma that you can't shake of like, there have been all these scams, we don't understand the actual utility of it.
17:29If you're a finance pro, you might get it, but if you're in any of these other liberal arts degrees, you don't get it.
17:36Alex Thorn:That makes sense. You could go home and you see your cousins and they probably look at you and they're like, oh, he knows everything. They're probably still shaky. They've been laughing at me for more than 10 years. I think that makes a lot of sense. it does still, I think today, it is primarily financial technology, right? People want to do D-PIN or social or gaming, but none of that, in my opinion, from my vantage point, is really permeated out into mass adoption, where it's still seen as like, or said it another way, I think if you study finance or markets, you understand some about the plumbing of how assets work, how money works, then the triple entry ledger that Bitcoin is or that blockchains are in their distributed ledger nature becomes super interesting to you because you learn about how stocks trade or are accounted for or how the Fed works, and then you see something so different and so in performing the same function, it does still feel like a...
18:35Alex Thorn:And I guess the question then is, how many arts degree people did you have in these clubs or was it mostly developers, computer science, etc.? Yeah, it's generally a mix of business and computer science. At the end of the day, I think people still think of it as an investment vehicle. They're not understanding the infrastructure and the fact that there's no intermediaries is important. I think that there's some education that needs to be done there, right? That's one thing that we're very focused on right now. If we can, there really is no education curriculum right now that you could implement at these clubs or at these universities, right?
19:10What I want to do with the end goal, the hope is that all these universities adopt an actual curriculum and then offer a course to educate these students. But how do you get there?
19:19Alex Thorn:Some do, but very few. Very few. I know Columbia does. My friend Omid Malekhan, who's been on the show a lot as a professor at Columbia Business School, has a great course there. I've spoken at a number of times. I think NYU, I'm just talking about what's here in New York. NYU, I think, has something. Austin Campbell. Michigan has something, but it's not much. It's amazing. It's a digital asset course. Yeah, and then like, you know, places like Stanford, some of the more tech-oriented schools, MIT, they have technology curricula, I think, about some blockchain technology. But that's pretty much it.
Read the full transcript
19:52Alex Thorn:It does seem like, you know, if stocks are going on the blockchain, the chairman of the SEC has said that traditional assets will be on blockchains. Surely then business programs and finance and economics courses should cover blockchain. Correct. So the goal is to build this curriculum at some point and then be able to implement it at all these blockchain clubs so that everyone has the same base level. And once you complete this base level, then you have the opportunity to access all these other opportunities. Would you do like a – so you make your own course, syndicate it. I think it has to be student built.
20:25Alex Thorn:Yeah, but syndicate it. Yes. So there's some standardization. Correct. And then would there be like a test or like a certification? Some sort of certification at the end. and then that will exist on this College at XYZ site where you go and get educated. Another big piece of it, what I'm really excited about is this bounty page where companies that we're consistently working with can come to us and go and launch bounties so that they can kind of outsource some of the work that they want to do or use it as a way to find the best talent. Let's say Coinbase comes to us and says, hey, we want to find the best product or best graphic designer.
21:00They can go put up this graphic design bounty that the entire student base, because we have the distribution there, can go and complete, and they can go find the best talent. Let's say you guys want a research report on whatever it might be, and you guys want to outsource it, and you guys want to use it as somewhat of a test on which students are the best. You can go take this. You can go put up a$500 bounty, and that's that. So that's what I'm really excited about. It's a big network of talent. Correct. Michigan can go and source these consulting projects with you guys themselves, but Minnesota or Texas Tech probably won't.
21:33So now you're opening it for everybody, and then the best talent will showcase themselves that way.
21:38Alex Thorn:And this is sort of like where college.xyz, the website, is really probably going to be very active. You can post these bounties, reply to them. Is it going to be like on-chain in some way? In some way. I don't know. I mean, I would like for it to be like a fully functioning DAO. Yeah. That's the ideal because I'm busy. I mean – Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want it to run itself. Yeah, that's the goal. I think people leave the A out of doubt. They talk a lot about the D of decentralized. But autonomous is really useful. It's an on-chain robot of a company or an organization that would actually save a lot of time, potentially.
22:20Alex Thorn:Yep. It's something about posting. I mean, the website can post the actual thing. I'm not sure what would actually have to go on-chain. Surely, if there's payment involved, that can be handled on-chain and maybe through the website. That's for sure. The front end. I wonder what else you could put like the what I guess publish the text of the request as a on the chain I guess I'm not sure if you need to that's when you come to like is it really need to be on chain does it help things to be too complicated yeah and I'm typically a guy that says like you know does it need a blockchain in fact the first report I wrote on blockchains and crypto at Fidelity was do you need a blockchain question mark and the report was mostly no mostly no In these, it was like a, it was sort of a, there was a great academic paper.
23:04Alex Thorn:I think if you went to doyouneedablockchain.com, Phineas, go to that website, doyouneedablockchain.com, and let us know what it says. It used to be like a decision tree, like a flow, where it's like, oh, is it this type of data? Yes, no. Is it this type of data? Yes, no. That eventually was like, no, you need a permissioned database. No, you need, it was based on this academic paper. So I agree, though, not everything needs to be on chain. Let us know in a sec, Phineas, if that website's still live. So let me explain it for a second. So we did this conference last year. No, rough. Damn, maybe we can push it back up.
23:37It doesn't seem too complicated. Maybe you guys can do it. I mean.
23:40Alex Thorn:All right, sorry, go ahead, Evan. So we did this conference last year. It went really well. We're doing this conference again this year. Yes. It is going to be December 5th and 6th in Ann Arbor. We have some really great sponsors, Galaxy, Solana. We haven't really announced this publicly, but if somebody gets this far into the podcast and they get the alpha here, Galaxy, Solana, Coinbase, Gemini, Uniswap, Ledger. So a lot of really these companies that are looking to work with universities. And you're going to have university students from all over the country? All over the country. 750 students we're aiming for from 75 universities globally.
24:15Alex Thorn:And if you do, if you are able, you mentioned this before, to use the sponsorship money to help sponsor the students, does that include like travel? Yeah, so I mean, we're going to - It's not just a free ticket. No, it's a free ticket, and then we're giving them$250 in subsidies to travel. Incredible. I don't even know of any conference that's ever done that. Yeah, so we're going to raise, you know, let's say a few hundred K this year. That's amazing. And then we're going to use, you know,$100,$150 to cover. Help students get there. Exactly. Because we're a nonprofit anyways. So we launched this College XYZ, which is the nonprofit host of this conference.
24:45This conference is called Midwest Blockchain Conference. It needs to be rebranded, maybe university blockchain conference, maybe something cooler. Yeah. Because it's obviously not Midwest anymore. You got to come up with a name like Solana.
24:56Alex Thorn:Just break point. People are like, what is that? I don't know, man. It's the Solana conference. Access point. Sounds cool. No, I think honestly, I joke. Midwest makes it sound like it's not for the whole country. I know. So we're going to work on that. It's an issue. That's why we need to launch College XYZ. Because then we started doing these programs with like onboard 30 students to Farcaster and help them get paid by Farcaster to use the platform. But they were like, we're working with the Midwest Blockchain Conference on this. we're not even doing a conference activation. University Blockchain Coalition.
25:25I thought about that but there's so many of these legacy programs of like Blockchain Education Network or Blockchain Acceleration Foundation that haven't worked that you need something that's a bit more exciting. So we got the college.xyz domain and we're going to roll it back. College.xyz is pretty good. It's not bad. It's pretty good.
25:41Alex Thorn:Do you know what like global jurisdiction XYZ is as a subdomain? I don't know. It's like you know every subdomain actually belongs to a country. it's probably like somebody did connect me with the founder of because like io is like some like tiny little island nation literally oh i know you're talking like there's i have no idea i wonder where it could be they did release some like version i forgot what they called them version two domains you know dot media dot whatever that aren't maybe xyz is one of those that are not actually i was just wondering it's funny because you can't look them up in like a normal who is block uh uh domain explorer you gotta like go to like the xyz explorer um i like It's College XYZ.
26:17Alex Thorn:That's good. So I'm excited about that. And then these companies are actually using the event as a way to funnel talent into their organization. So we're going to give Galaxy an interview room. Yeah. Right? Galaxy is not going to want to do full formal interviews. But to get your foot in the door. So we'll have like a talent acquisition person there in addition to any speakers we have. And by the way, is it like – so you're going to have speakers and what? Panels? We're going to have speakers. We'll have panels. We'll have workshops, primarily developer-focused workshops. There will be a career fair.
26:49So it's like companies will set up boosts and you'll be able to interact with these students for hiring or for building relationships with these blockchain clubs. You've got an interview room. So we're going to give you guys a resume book of all the students that are there beforehand. You could flip through and actually start to schedule your interviews beforehand and just do 50-minute coffee chats with somebody from Vanderbilt, somebody from Texas, somebody from Michigan, somebody from Minnesota. That's awesome. And just build cadence with them.
27:10Alex Thorn:Let's go Vandy, go doors. I went to Vanderbilt. Yeah? Just as the one who happened to you. I didn't know that, but I'm good. I mean, I was thinking of Will. I know. Yeah, Will Owens, who works here at Galaxy, also went to Vandy. Vandy's a good club. Yeah. Is it a good club? Yeah, a good club. Do you know a lot of the clubs from this work? That's so cool. So it's fun because I don't work with these people, but I get to build relationships. Well, it's great for you and the whole college.xyz. Yeah, and Portal. I was going to say, and everyone else that actually goes. They all get to meet everyone.
27:37Alex Thorn:It's pretty cool. That's one of the reasons I joined Portal. Portal was already investing in this young talent. Katrina, one of our general partners, was hosting the Penn Blockchain Conference. So she already has a very strong cadence with this younger talent. Also a good blockchain club, I'm aware of, at Penn. Yeah, a good blockchain club. Now we get to put these students in a position with, if you guys are serious builders and you're going to build something, we can support you with venture funding and get you rolling and mentor you guys. Well, you'll know them earlier and you do early stage venture investing and CollegeXYZ can help.
28:06Alex Thorn:It's actually incredible synergy. It's quite smart. We get asked all the time to go and do college career fairs and stuff and there's too many colleges. This is like a nice central line. Now you bring them all to the same place and that's that. And then there'll be a pretty big hackathon. Very excited about the hackathon because there's so many of them. Now we have the proper student hackathon. Who is the best student developer? I want to spin up a polymarket of which university is going to win. And you have to be a university student. Right? Yes. You have to have a.edu. .edu. The bounty platform and the website is going to be gated by.edu.
28:42Love it. So you have to be a student. You have to be a student. There's no cheat like you're a... Thing is I just graduated so technically I'm not a student. Well, there you go. My email works but...
28:50Alex Thorn:Well, okay, fair. But well, I think that is really cool and I love you. Yeah, you can have like... I mean obviously the individual student would get the credit for winning a hackathon. But you can also just put up the like college logo. Yep. Dude, like Southern Illinois won this year. Good on them. They beat out MIT. Or the high schooler. Right, or the high schooler. You think that... Yeah, that was what you were saying. The high schooler might win, right? You never know. I mean, they're building sperm racing. We were exploring during like a sperm racing event. I'm not sure you've seen sperm racing.
29:18I have not seen that. You haven't seen sperm racing? Oh, sperm racing was viral a few months ago. God, I got to, maybe I'm showing my age. They're racing. They're putting sperm on like a petri dish and they're racing it. So it was a big sperm race, like UCLA versus USC. No way. My mom's going to watch this and she'll be like, why are you talking about sperm racing? This was science. It was science. Oh my God. So our high schoolers were working at sperm racing. So we were exploring doing like a whole sperm racing competition. They want to do like an on-chain betting platform that's attached to the sperm racing.
29:47Oh, my God. Who is the healthiest? It's health. It's health. Oh, God. I love that. And the core of it is who is the healthiest sperm? Oh, my God. Phineas.
29:56Alex Thorn:It's so funny, dude. Cut to the sperm racing opening ceremony. That's so funny. Yeah. And it's high schoolers that built this. Well, that's the thing, too. Like, I mean, I have young people that work for me. And I used to think this. Like, so, you know, I was head of blockchain research at Fidelity. And I was like a couple – and I'm head of research at Galaxy. And I was thinking, I was like, you know, in 2017, when I became head of blockchain research at Fidelity, I was for sure on a relative basis one of the most knowledgeable people about blockchain, at least in the finance world. But, you know, years later, now you've got people that are economists with PhDs that are interested.
30:33Alex Thorn:Part of the reason, I mean, I was good, but part of the reason was there weren't many people interested in it. Yeah. And that changes all the time. And sometimes I'll meet someone who's like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm talking to them. I'm like, wow, you really know a lot about what's going on in crypto and blockchain. But you're only 22. And I'm like, well, wait a second. They're like, yeah, well, I got interested in it when I was 14. I'm like, what the F? And I'm like, oh, it is 2025. Bitcoin's been around for 16 years. Like that's possible now. So young people. There's some of these 17, 16-year-olds.
31:00Alex Thorn:I mean, but I, dude, Satoshi launched the blockchain on January 3rd, 2009. I was already 23. I was 23 in 2009. So there was no opportunity for me to like crypto. But that's just not the case anymore. And I think there is a lot about crypto and blockchain technology even more broadly that is more appealing to young people naturally. Partly because it's revolutionary. It gives the chance at saving, growing, or storing your wealth in an economy that's widely perceived to be rife with crony capitalism and wealth inequality. right like it has a there's an uplifting idea about the innovational potential of um crypto but also that it's a tech it's still tech you know 100 i mean we're very focused on the u.s yeah but internationally there's so much demand where we're getting like 12 applications from malaysia because they see it as a way to break out of their system yeah i think i mean i think after you you know get your feet wet and oil the gears on this a few times like expanding internationally makes a lot of sense or you know do do one conference in the uk or like you know i'm not saying like you necessarily spin up to like every college in the entire world yeah that would be a lot but you could you could do the conference in some other i mean asia the middle east and europe are all right now we're like and south america right now we're like let's just get five of the best talent from each of them yeah we're like hong kong university we'll get five you know tomb in germany we'll get five cambridge oxford that's gonna be amazing though you are gonna have some international yeah yeah all of them um so we're looking to get around five from each of those we'll do 500 in subsidies.
32:28It likely won't cover everything.
32:29Alex Thorn:It's going to become a huge network. Yeah. So, I mean, if there are companies that want to sponsor and help these students come out for free because at the end of the day, like, these three students that are coming out from Australia are going to have to cover a good amount of costs. Yeah, it's a long flight. If there's any Australian-based blockchain companies that want to support the young talent in Australia. You hear that, Aussies? Get, you know, to my mates down under. Let's do it. Get in touch with Evan. Check the show notes. We'll put Evan's contact info in there. We have an office in Hong Kong.
32:56Alex Thorn:I think we would be very interested potentially in which I don't know. I should, we have a whole business in Hong Kong. Yeah. I could ask our man there, John Cahill, who's been on the show. What I think they do some outreach in Hong Kong with students and stuff. It's just such an interesting global phenomenon, right? Crypto and blockchain, generally Bitcoin, like it's the ledgers are obviously global. Well, they exist nowhere and everywhere, right? So there's no borders on chain, or at least there shouldn't be. so it's not surprising that people are interested in everywhere and that they're all going to meet in Ann Arbor I think they're qualified for these roles too the thing is like then some of these companies want you to have a visa and they're not going to go through this visa process well maybe you can't get the job in the US but again Coinbase has stuff all over the world Galaxy we're in New York, London, Hong Kong the Caymans Tel Aviv, Dallas I mean we have a lot of places Like they don't all require an American visa.
33:55Alex Thorn:Yeah. So I mean, and surely others do too. Separately, there's just crypto companies all over the world anyway. Like so, but it's helpful to have that network to know people. Everybody knows this in any business or industry, I should say. Like that's why people go to industry conferences to meet their counterparties. And there's so much more that can be done outside than just jobs. Yeah. Like one thing we discussed last time is proper validators at these universities. that could easily be a subsection of what the clubs do. Right. And, you know, right now there are some tools or there's some ways that the people are going about it, but it's generally, like, centralized.
34:32They're not really owning these validators. Yeah. If these clubs can run their own validators or these universities can run their own validators. Pretty cool. Very cool.
34:40Alex Thorn:A lot to learn around that. We have a big validator business here, and, you know, it's not as easy as just, like, set it and forget it. Like, it's not a same thing. A Bitcoin mining business, also not easy. lots to learn and share about that I think it's really really cool Evan how many people do you expect this year total to attend people I haven't been saying people I've been saying students students aiming for 750 students that's pretty big a chunk of that will be for Michigan is it going to be like in a giant like lecture hall we have so it's in the business school in Michigan we're doing a few cool things we'll do our like sponsorship dinner in the big house in the football stadium hopefully nice the hockey the hockey team screwed the hockey ticket sales kind of screwed me.
35:20They promised me they would call me. The second tickets come out and I was going to buy all the hockey tickets available. Oh, so you could go to a game. And just the whole conference is going to a Michigan hockey game. Yeah. But they like, whatever. Well, we'll find,
35:30Alex Thorn:surely there's a squash match we can check out. I mean, yeah. I mean, UMichigan's huge. You went there, right? How many students are at UMichigan undergrad? Like 50 ,000 or something? Yeah, about 50 ,000. It's huge. 50, 40. That's 10 times the size of an undergrad. So we have the whole business school Friday, Saturday. They gave us the whole walking area. All the rooms, the main lobby stuff. Yeah, we got all the big rooms. That's sick. Commissioner Purse is coming out to speak, which will be really great. Love Commissioner Purse. Yeah, she came to Michigan. So she also, she's another example of somebody that just reached out to blockchain at umich.edu.
36:04Just emailed it? Yeah, and I'm just driving, and I'm like, there's no way this is real. You were like, it's an sec.gov email address, though. Crypto.sec.gov. Pretty sick. And I was like, I was driving. I was like, there's no way this is legit. I call Shashank, my corporate. So did you just graduate like in May?
36:22Alex Thorn:In May, yeah. Yeah, so she's been going all around the country doing this. Yeah. I hear this all the time. She wants to meet, you know, small crypto firms, companies, or startups that are 10 people or less in Berkeley or in Boston or the club. So she's done a lot of good outreach. Yeah, she's really great. And I asked them, I was like, why did she reach out to us? Yeah. She keeps a very strong touch point on everything that's going on in this industry. And, you know, it's just because she wants everything to be fair. Yeah. And that was really cool. So we did a speaker event with her last year.
36:53I moderated that. I'm never going to moderate a panel with her again because supremely unqualified for that opportunity.
36:58Alex Thorn:She's been on this podcast twice. Really? Yeah. And I'm a huge fan. Me too. She was really great. I encourage you, if you haven't, but also to tell the students that you go on the SEC's website. you can see every public speech or written statement that any commissioner has ever done. And Hester is one of the most prolific in the history of the SEC. She's got like more than 450 written statements. And some of them are, she's a phenomenal writer, phenomenal writer, like just separate from the topics. Forget the subject even. She's got a beautiful way with words. She's got a great one that I've been obsessed with a long time called the Secret Garden, SEC Secret Garden.
37:38Alex Thorn:all criticized from years ago, criticizing the SEC's like non-transparent approach to rulemaking at the time. And you can see that she is very, just on that topic, she is very much following through that. Now that she and Chairman Atkins and Mark Ueda control the commission, she's working very hard to be transparent. Anyway, it's just phenomenal writer. I recommend people read everything that she writes. It's really, really excellent. I tell my team, I mean, we're primarily writers. Most of where the rubber meets the road in investment research is writing. Yep. Anyway, she's goaded. Big fan of Hester.
38:13Alex Thorn:Yeah, big fan. I'm not surprised. I mean, they're coming. So they're actually doing a task force in Ann Arbor. No way. So I look at all the task force sessions, and it's like New York, SF, DC, LA, Boston, and then Ann Arbor, Michigan. I love that. And I was like, this is sweet. Well, UMichigan's a great school. It's a big school. Yeah. It makes sense. I'm hoping they do it as like a student task force session where you get all the best students in the same place. Open to the public, too? I mean, open to the public, sure. But, like, you get 15 or 20 of the best students, and you just get them all in the same room to chat policy.
38:46Yeah. Because I think that's really impactful. Yeah. Because there are 15 to 20 students that are deeply in the industry and can provide very strong insights there.
38:53Alex Thorn:Love that. So that would be fun. But, yeah, I'm with you on the research. I mean, I joined a venture firm 60 days ago, and I haven't written this much in years. I think I always tell people, just as an aside, should tell students, like, clear writers are clear thinkers, right? You can't be a good writer unless you are a good thinker. The whole point is getting that insight from inside your brain into a conveyable format, right? So one thing I think would be valuable to the student base at least, and I've been saying this a lot, like, one-on-one, is, like, how do you enter the industry as a university student?
39:27What are the steps that you need to take to get there? First of all, join your blockchain club. if there is no blockchain club create your blockchain club right use college xyz or these other entities as a way to source speakers source opportunities or just complete the bounties on the platform as a way to build yourself up right that's step one step two is you got to get a twitter and you got to be active on twitter um there's no reason not to be you start writing if you get no followers you get no followers but people will support you we'll repost you we want you guys you as students to get visibility if you're a developer build out your github that's the first thing that all the companies are going to ask.
40:05They ask that every time. Engage with these other ecosystems. If you're interested in building in a certain ecosystem, just hop in their Discord and start building cool things. You'll catch their eye. Use the fact that you're a student as a way to reach them. It's like a hack. You can get free tickets to all the conferences. You can get access to all the companies. When you're graduated, it's probably a bit harder. When you're a student, you have a unique angle that you can play there. And just start doing things. There's this classic meme of you can just do things. It's true. It's so true. It's so true.
40:40You can go just launch a conference.
40:42Alex Thorn:Start coding, start writing, start meeting, start asking questions. Yeah. Get involved. If you want to go work at the task force or in the SEC, just start writing. Yeah. You could shoot them an email, crypto.acc.gov. They'll respond to you. Yeah. They will. They will. It's not that complicated. I know. But it's like, that's why we need to build this. Because in traditional finance, there's this classic structure of like, hey, I got to do this. Then I got to learn this. Then I got to join this club. Then, you know, McKinsey will come to campus. Right. And I'll interview with McKinsey. And if I don't get McKinsey, I'll get PwC or I'll get whatever.
41:18Yeah. In crypto, there isn't that.
41:20Alex Thorn:Yeah. So hopefully, you know, we can build this event or this pipeline where if you want to go work at Galaxy, then you have an opportunity to write and get your research, showcase the galaxy and get hired there. I think it's really exciting, Evan. It's a brilliant idea. It's much needed. And I can't wait to meet more of the students. I mean, I know you said you probably can't come to this again. I'm not sure. We'll see. I'm going to look at it. Maybe this pitch was good enough. It's December 5th and 6th in Ann Arbor, the Midwest blockchain conference. I'll get you a ticket to the hockey game.
41:49I'm trying to get a box. We'd love to have you in the hockey box.
41:53Alex Thorn:Awesome. I appreciate it, Evan. And thank you so much for coming on Galaxy Brands. Thank you for having me. That's it for this week's episode of Galaxy Brains. Thank you to our guest, Evan Solomon, chief of staff at Portal Ventures and co-founder of the Midwest Blockchain Conference. And to our good friend, Bim Netabibi from Galaxy Trading. Everyone have a safe and happy weekend and we will see you next week.
42:16Alex Thorn:Thanks for listening to Galaxy Brains, the weekly podcast from Galaxy Research. If you enjoy the show, please like, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. To follow Galaxy Research, sign up for our weekly newsletter at gdr.email, read our content at galaxy.com slash research, and follow us on Twitter at glxyresearch. See you next week.
From the publisher
In this episode of Galaxy Brains, Alex Thorn welcomes Evan Solomon, Chief of Staff at Portal Ventures and Co-Founder of College.xyz and MBC Conference, to discuss how university blockchain clubs are building the next generation of crypto talent. They cover the growth of the Midwest Blockchain Conference, the push to standardize a crypto curriculum, and how initiatives like bounties, hackathons, and Farcaster onboarding are helping students break into the industry.
Plus, Beimnet Abebe (Galaxy Trading) joins to discuss markets, macro headwinds, and the latest government shutdown drama.
This episode was recorded on Wednesday, October 1, 2025.
Disclaimer: https://www.galaxy.com/galaxy-brains-episode-181-disclaimer
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Follow us on Twitter, @glxyresearch, and read our research at www.galaxy.com/research/ to learn more! This podcast, and the information contained herein, has been provided to you by Galaxy Digital Holdings LP and its affiliates (“Galaxy Digital”) solely for informational purposes. View the full disclaimer at www.galaxy.com/disclaimer-galaxy-brains-podcast/