The Pop

Eps 4, The Pop: Will Blockchains Replace the Stock Market? w/ Prof Omid Malekan

Superstate — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:30:00 -0400

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, Omid Malekan, joins The Pop to look beyond today’s IPO process and ask what the next generation of markets could become as finance moves onchain. We cover how crypto, stablecoins, and tokenization may reshape the trust layer of capital markets; why intermediaries exist; where legacy banking and payments still create friction; and how ownership, settlement, and investor access could evolve in a world of programmable financial assets. Omid separates speculation from infrastructure, explaining why the most important crypto use cases may be about rebuilding market plumbing rather than replacing markets outright. The conversation brings The Pop’s core questions into the future: how companies raise capital, how investors gain access, how markets settle, and how going public could evolve.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro: Omid Malekan on trust, finance, and crypto

01:15 - Omid’s path into crypto and financial education

03:20 - Why crypto is difficult to explain clearly

05:45 - Trust as the foundation of markets

08:10 - Why financial intermediaries exist

10:30 - The tradeoffs inside legacy banking and payments

13:00 - What blockchains actually change

15:35 - Stablecoins and the global demand for dollars

18:20 - Why stablecoins became crypto’s most practical use case

21:00 - Payments, settlement, and the movement of money

23:35 - Tokenization versus true market structure change

26:10 - What it means to own an asset onchain

28:50 - Public markets, private markets, and access

31:20 - The role of disclosure and investor protection

34:00 - How regulation shapes financial innovation

36:45 - Crypto speculation versus infrastructure

39:15 - Institutional adoption and what has changed

41:50 - Risks, failures, and lessons from crypto cycles

44:30 - Why onchain finance still needs trust

47:00 - What issuers should understand about tokenized assets

49:30 - The future of stablecoins, securities, and capital markets

52:15 - What crypto gets right, wrong, and misunderstood

55:00 - Closing thoughts: rebuilding market infrastructure

Links Mentioned

About the Guest

Omid Malekan is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, where he lectures on crypto, blockchain, and finance. He is the author of several books, including Re-Architecting Trust: The Curse of History and the Crypto Cure for Money, Markets, and Platforms, and The Story of the Blockchain. His work focuses on the intersection of traditional finance, crypto, trust, and market design.

About The Pop
The Pop is a podcast examining the science and hidden machinery of how companies go public and how markets actually work in the United States. Hosted by Robert Leshner, a founder and operator building infrastructure for modern capital markets, the show breaks down IPOs and listings from the S-1 to the first trade, exploring how incentives are structured, where the system breaks down, and who it ultimately serves. Through high-signal, story-first conversations with founders, executives, investors, lawyers, and regulators, The Pop looks at the good, the bad, and the ugly of going public, and what the next era of capital formation could look like.

Follow / Subscribe

Contact / Connect

Email Us: comms@superstate.co
Twitter/X
LinkedIn

Disclaimer:

This podcast is produced by Superstate Inc., a Delaware corporation and parent company of Superstate Advisers LLC, a registered investment adviser with the SEC, and Superstate Services LLC, a registered transfer agent.

Nothing contained in this podcast should be construed as investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or an offer to provide investment advisory services. All information is presented for educational and informational purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Guests and the host may have financial interests in or use products and services offered by Superstate. This podcast does not establish a fiduciary or advisory relationship between Superstate Advisers LLC and any listener.

Securities discussed involve significant risks, including potential loss of principal. Markets are volatile and subject to regulatory changes. Please consult with a qualified financial advisor, attorney, or accountant before making any investment decisions.

For more information, visit the SEC at www.sec.gov or investor.gov to verify Superstate's registration status.

Eps 3, The Pop: Inside the SEC’s IPO Disclosure Playbook with Bill Hinman (frm. SEC Director)

Superstate — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:30:00 -0400

Bill Hinman, former Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance and Senior Advisor at Superstate, joins The Pop for a rare inside look at the gate every IPO has to pass through: SEC review. Before the bankers, roadshow, pricing drama, or opening bell, there is the S-1: the disclosure document that determines whether a company is ready for the public markets. Bill breaks down what the SEC actually looks for, why risk factors and comment letters matter, how issuers should think about counsel, auditors, timing, and market readiness, and what makes a filing truly useful to investors. He also zooms out to the bigger question facing capital markets today: why fewer companies are going public, how private market liquidity has changed the IPO playbook, and where alternatives like auction IPOs and direct listings shine or fall short, including the story behind Google’s auction IPO. The episode closes with a dive into digital assets, tokenization, and regulatory clarity, connecting the hidden machinery of IPO disclosure to the next era of capital formation.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro: Bill Hinman on capital markets and crypto
01:15 Why fewer companies are going public
03:35 Private markets, liquidity, and IPO reluctance
06:10 Why public markets still matter for everyday investors
08:00 Expanding access to private opportunities
10:00 The IPO journey starts before the filing
12:10 Confidential filings and a less punitive IPO process
14:00 Telling the company story to the SEC and investors
16:00 What investors really read in IPO disclosures
18:00 SEC review timelines and comment letters
20:00 Choosing counsel, auditors, and experienced advisors
21:55 Timing the IPO window and avoiding costly delays
23:55 Common filing mistakes and staff comments
25:50 Why Google tried an auction IPO
28:00 Google's S-1, founder control, and auction mechanics
30:05 Auction pricing versus traditional bookbuilding
32:00 Direct listings and liquidity without primary capital
34:00 When alternatives to IPOs help or fall short
36:05 Private market disclosure and investor protection
38:00 Digital assets, securities, and market innovation
40:00 Auctions, price discovery, and private fundraising
42:00 Tender offers, late-stage investors, and Facebook
44:00 Reporting burdens, investor expectations, and foreign issuers
46:00 Tokenization, crypto legislation, and regulatory clarity
48:00 The SEC's mission in an era of innovation
50:00 Closing thoughts: modernizing U.S. capital markets

Links Mentioned

About the Guest

Bill Hinman is the former Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, where he led the division responsible for reviewing registration statements and overseeing the S-1 comment process. He brings rare “both sides of the table” perspective, with decades of issuer-side private practice experience and a role in major IPOs including Google, Meta, Square, and others. He is also known for the widely cited “Hinman Speech,” which shaped the conversation around digital assets, securities law, and regulatory clarity.
https://www.sec.gov/about/division-office-directors/william-hinman

About The Pop

The Pop is a podcast examining the science and hidden machinery of how companies go public and how markets actually work in the United States. Hosted by Robert Leshner, a founder and operator building infrastructure for modern capital markets, the show breaks down IPOs and listings from the S-1 to the first trade – exploring how incentives are structured, where the system breaks down, and who it ultimately serves. Through high-signal, story-first conversations with founders, executives, investors, lawyers, and regulators, The Pop looks at the good, the bad, and the ugly of going public, and what the next era of capital formation could look like.

Follow / Subscribe

Contact / Connect

Email Us: comms@superstate.co
Twitter/X
LinkedIn

Disclaimer:

For more information, visit the SEC at www.sec.gov or investor.gov to verify Superstate's registration status.

Eps 2, The Pop: IPO Roadshows, Pricing & Allocation w/ Alaoui Zenere (J.P. Morgan)

Superstate — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:30:00 -0400

Alaoui Zenere, Managing Director in Equity Capital Markets at J.P. Morgan, joins The Pop to shed light on the world of underwriting, including the IPO roadshow, bookbuilding, pricing, and how the allocation process actually works. We cover what companies are really choosing when they hire a banker, what an underwriter does behind the scenes, how management teams pitch public market investors, and how feedback from the roadshow turns into a book of demand. Alaoui also explains how banks, issuers, and investors work toward the final IPO price, how allocation decisions are made, and why the tradeoff between price, pop, and long-term shareholder quality matters. Drawing on experience across major fintech and crypto-adjacent public market debuts, including Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle, and Bullish, Alaoui shows how an IPO is not just a capital raise, but a market-entry process that shapes a company’s life as a public company.

Links Mentioned

About the Guest
Alaoui Zenere
Managing Director, Equity Capital Markets, J.P. Morgan

Alaoui Zenere is a Managing Director in the Equity Capital Markets group at J.P. Morgan, where she heads the Financials, FinTech, and Real Estate teams within ECM. She advises clients and executes initial public offerings, secondary offerings, and broader capital markets transactions. Her transaction experience includes major public market debuts across traditional finance, fintech, and crypto-adjacent companies, including Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle, and Bullish.

Follow / Subscribe

Contact / Connect

Twitter/X
LinkedIn
comms@superstate.co

About Superstate

Superstate partners with issuers to bring securities onchain, enabling access to new investor capital and modern financial markets. Through Opening Bell, Superstate partners with companies issuing tokenized equity. Through FundOS, it serves asset managers launching tokenized funds. Both platforms support compliant issuance, record keeping, direct investor registration, and onchain market integration via their SEC-registered transfer agency infrastructure. Superstate's flagship funds USTB and USCC validated this infrastructure at institutional scale before transitioning to leading asset managers on FundOS. Learn more at superstate.com.

Disclaimer:
This podcast is produced by Superstate Inc., a Delaware corporation and parent company of Superstate Advisers LLC, a registered investment adviser with the SEC, and Superstate Services LLC, a registered transfer agent.

For more information, visit the SEC at www.sec.gov or investor.gov to verify Superstate's registration status.

Eps 1, The Pop: The IPO Overview: From S-1 to Opening Bell w/ Joe Gawronski (Rosenblatt Securities)

Superstate — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:30:00 -0400

Joe Gawronski, CEO of Rosenblatt Securities, joins The Pop to discuss how the end-to-end IPO process actually works, from the decision to go public through filing through pricing, allocation, trading, and beyond. We cover why companies go public, how the banking syndicate, roadshow, and bookbuilding work, and how investor mix and allocation shape the aftermarket, along with the tension between a successful deal on paper and a healthy public company over time. Joe explains how an IPO is not a single event, but a chain of incentives, handoffs, and market-structure decisions.

Links Mentioned

About the Guest

Joe Gawronski

Chief Executive Officer, Rosenblatt Securities

Joe Gawronski joined Rosenblatt in 2002 and started the firm’s market structure group. He is a former securities and M&A lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, a former Vice President in the equities division at Salomon Smith Barney, and former COO of Linx.

Follow / Subscribe

Contact / Connect

About The Pop

About Superstate

Disclaimer:
This podcast is produced by Superstate Inc., a Delaware corporation and parent company of Superstate Advisers LLC, a registered investment adviser with the SEC, and Superstate Services LLC, a registered transfer agent.

For more information, visit the SEC at www.sec.gov or investor.gov to verify Superstate's registration status.

(00:19) - - Why start with the full IPO map
(01:42) - - Why companies still go public
(05:29) - - Why going public is hard, expensive, and high-friction
(07:24) - - Liquidity and why it matters
(09:09) - - What a company has to fix before it can file
(11:15) - - The roles inside the banking syndicate
(20:41) - - Roadshow feedback and price discovery
(21:22) - - What a covered book actually means
(22:34) - - Hot deals, oversubscription, and “real” demand
(24:01) - - Primary vs. secondary shares
(25:00) - - Why existing holders usually do not sell in the IPO
(26:33) - - Long-only holders, fast money, and the aftermarket
(28:41) - - What the roadshow tells you beyond the order book
(30:41) - - The greenshoe / overallotment option
(31:41) - - Retail allocation and directed share programs
(35:41) - - Who really controls allocation decisions
(39:41) - - The night-before process and final allocations
(41:01) - - IPO price vs. opening trade price
(44:41) - - Stabilization after the open
(49:41) - - When underwriters are actually on the hook
(53:41) - - Does a strong IPO make a strong company?
(55:41) - - Choosing a bank for the long term
(57:41) - - Research coverage, lockups, and life after listing

Introducing “The Pop”: Inside America’s IPO Machine | Official Trailer

Superstate — Wed, 27 May 2026 09:04:27 -0400

What really happens when a company goes public?

"The Pop" is a new podcast from Superstate. In each episode, Robert Leshner and industry-leading guests take us deeper into America’s IPO machine: why companies go public, how deals get priced, what happens behind the first trade, and why the IPO market is changing.

Season One features conversations with market veterans, regulators, bankers, and builders on the mechanics of going public, the role of “the pop,” and the future of capital markets. By the end, viewers will understand the end-to-end IPO process. The good, the bad, the ugly. The past, the present, the future.

First episodes coming soon.

Links Mentioned

Follow / Subscribe

Contact / Connect

About Superstate

For more information, visit the SEC at www.sec.gov or investor.gov to verify Superstate's registration status.