Rahul Pagidipati is the CEO of ZebPay, India’s oldest and most widely used Bitcoin and crypto asset exchange, with over 3 million users and $3 billion worth of transactions.
Prior to ZebPay, Rahul was a co-founded of Freedom Health which became the largest Private Health Insurance company in America with over $1.8 Billion in annual revenue. The company was acquired by Anthem in 2018. Along with his family office, Rahul has led investments in multiple "Unicorn" Healthcare companies.
Rahul has a JD/MBA from the Northwestern School of Law and Kellogg School of Management, and he has been investing in Blockchain and digital currencies since 2011.
Rahul and I talk about his early investments in Ethereum, what he thinks about Dogecoin, the future of digital assets, basic attention tokens, Ethereum 2.0 and more. If you are a crypto expert or beginner, there are plenty of great insights in this episode. We also talk about Rahul risking much of his personal wealth to acquire ZebPay despite the Reserve Bank of India’s ban on crypto-related payments – a move many felt was crazy but turned out to be an incredible investment once the Supreme Count of India reversed the ban. Finally, Rahul shares his wisdom on the future of business school education and he shares his advice for anyone seeking a career in crypto.
Discussion Topics:
(1:45) All things Ethereum.
(15:52) Acquiring ZebPay during the Reserve Bank of India’s ban on crypto-related payments.
(19:10) ZebPay acquisition investment thesis and risk-taking.
(21:50) Social impact, corporate social responsibility & Bitcoin as social enterprise.
(28:52) Mining Dogecoin back in 2014.
(31:28) Interesting NFT applications that is not art or collectables.
(38:55) How co-founding Freedom Health helped prepare Rahul for success with ZebPay.
(44:00) MBA & business school advice.
(48:19) Basic Attention Tokens (BAT).
(49:27) The Metaverse pioneers and prisoners.
(58:22) Rapid fire questions.