On The Brink with Castle Island

Andrew Myers and Brock Petersen of Satoshi Energy join the show to cover how Bitcoin mining monetizes renewables. In this episode we cover:  Andrew and Brock's origin story How Satoshi Energy develops sites and infrastructure for miners Is Satoshi Energy explicitly renewable focused? How mining with intermittent renewables can be economical How Bitcoin mining improves the economics of renewables T...

Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Mora et al rears its head again Chris Larsen and Greenpeace team up to try and eliminate PoW from Bitcoin  Who is the protagonist in the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit?  Rep. Stephen Lynch introduces the ECASH Act  Axie Infinity suffers a $625m hack   Is there any debate remaining about the utility of Bitcoin?  Circle selects BNY Mell...

Ben Gagnon , the Chief Mining Officer at Bitfarms , joins the show. In this episode we cover: Bitfarms' journey to the public markets in the US Ben's early efforts in flared gas mining How immersion cooling could provide operational efficiencies  Bitfarms' site selection methodology  How Bitfarms secures power originally built for now-departed industries  How Quebec overbuilt electrical infrastruc...

Michael Sonnenshein and Craig Salm of Grayscale Investments join the show. In this episode we discuss: Grayscale's filing to convert GBTC to an ETF and their advocacy campaign. The comment process (details at: www.grayscale.com/comment ) Reactions to the Biden Executive Order. Grayscale's product lineup and the future of active vs. passive crypto products. The metaverse, NFTs and other areas of in...

Matt and Nic return for more deals and news. In this episode:  Brink Nation is officially moving to GM.xyz Did blockchains 2.0 make fundamental scaling improvements? Is ESG over? Nic surrenders his eyeball sovereignty to Clear A secret trick to get through the Miami airport Bloomberg analysts think a spot ETF could be approved summer 2023... pending SEC developments Would the SEC have to gain cont...

Jon Birnbaum, COO of Domain Money , a new investment platform, joins the show. In this episode, we discuss: History and launch of Domain Money Jon's path into fintech and then the digital asset industry Dimension of access to investing for the retail market Domain's product offering across crypto and equities Developing new metrics to help consumers think through investing Learn about Domain Money...

Celestia Labs COO, Nick White , joins us on the show to kick off our modular blockchain mini-series. Celestia is the first modular blockchain network, which decouples consensus and data availability from execution and settlement. Celestia implements a novel design to unlock key properties such as scalability, interoperability, and sovereignty while preserving decentralization. We cover:   Why scal...

Matt and Nic return for more news and deals of the week. In this episode:  Too much Tom Brady content? Can Roman Abramovich sell Chelsea? Former skeptics coming around on Bitcoin Arbitraging tungsten cube NFTs? Why isn't physical tungsten rallying? Facebook's Diem is back from the dead Takeaways from Laura Shin's book The Cryptopians Tom Emmer's letter to the SEC Details of Sen. Lummis' bill start...

Brett Harrison, the CEO of FTX.US joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Brett's pre-crypto career and the path to leading FTX.US How FTX is evolving on their derivatives product offering Perspectives on crypto market structure in the US will evolve How equity markets may come to be impacted by innovations in the crypto world How FTX is pursuing NFTs and gaming To learn more visit FTX.us and...

Former FT Alphaville Editor and founder of The Blind Spot,   Izabella Kaminska joins the show. In this episode:  Izabella's pre-FT career Izabella's Polish ancestry and how that informed her monetary worldview Why Izabella was a skeptic about Bitcoin – and why she revisited her stance Izabella's interest in anacyclosis and cyclicality in political systems Jeremy Bentham and his views on utilitaria...

Nic and Matt return for more deals and news of the week. In this episode:  The fallout from the seizure of the Russian fx reserves Did America default on its obligations? How are Chinese interests served by the US weaponizing the dollar? Can Bitcoin become an inter-state settlement asset and sovereign-scale SoV? Zoltan Pozsar declares an end to Bretton Woods We digest Biden's executive order The W...

Singer and songwriter, VÉRITÉ (Kelsey Byrne), and artist manager, Vanessa Magos have been leading the charge for artists and their teams to learn about and experiment in web3. In our third episode in the web3 music mini-series, they joined us to talk about: Artists as CEOs who bootstrap their business and put themselves in positions of power and ownership Artists being locked into the arbitrary fi...

Sohrob Farudi , the founder and CEO of Fan Controlled Football joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Sohrob's entrepreneurial journey and the insights that led to him founding Fan Controlled Football. How FCF works and how fans engage with the league, all the way to calling the plays. How Sohrob came to be interested in cryptocurrency and how NFTs have crossed into FCF. Longer term opportuni...

Nic and Matt return for another wild week. In this episode:  OTB theme music controversy Is Bitcoin a risk off asset Ukraine raises crypto to fund the war effort Why Ukrainians were better positioned to deal with a banking sector failure The U.S. cuts Russia out of SWIFT (mostly) Can the U.S. pull the SWIFT deplatforming again? Will gold be remonetized? Metamask, Infura, and Opensea are banned in...

We sit down with Blake Masters , COO at Thiel Capital, coauthor of Zero to One, and 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona.  Why Blake is running for Senate in Arizona  Blake's experience running Thiel Capital and what led him to politics today  Does Congress need more business expertise?  Where Blake falls on the spectrum of being pro vs anti crypto  Where Blake gets his info regarding the cry...

Meow CEO Brandon Arvanaghi and CTO Bryce Crawford join the show to cover crypto yields and how they make them accessible to corporate treasuries. In this episode:  The origins of the name Bryce and Brandon's backgrounds The purpose of getting access to crypto yields while staying in dollars How Meow manages risks in DeFi protocols Are crypto yields fundamentally mispriced? Where crypto yields ulti...

Matt and Nic return for another insane week of news and deals.  Russia invades Ukraine Will Russia get kicked off SWIFT? Are there alternatives to SWIFT? Laura Shin identifies  the alleged DAO hacker Is Bitcoin's privacy fundamentally broken? Chainalysis demixes Wasabi transactions Was the DAO hacker even guilty of a crime? Should blockchains be private at the base layer? Wyoming introduces a stat...

Leo Lucisano of Decentral Park Capital joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Leo's regulatory predictions for 2022 and the beliefs that informed his blog post. Views on how DeFi would evolve in the face of a harsher treatment from the SEC. The emerging crypto lobby and how this will shape future elections and also policy. Lending, derivatives and other financial products in a central and dec...

Co-chairman of Stronghold Digital Mining Bill Spence and CEO Gregory Beard join the show. Stronghold is a vertically integrated Bitcoin miner that uses waste coal to power their operations – while also remediating this environmentally damaging product. We dive into this fascinating, and counter-intuitive story. In this episode:  Backgrounds of the co-chairmen and how they found the intersection of...

Matt and Nic return for a huge week of news and a big CIV announcement. In this episode:  Matt scans the Coinbase QR code ad The post-Superbowl backlash against crypto ads Is there any hope for music NFTs Castle Island announces a third fund Binance buys a stake in Forbes Is Circle a bet on interest rates? Our thoughts on BlockFi's settlement with the SEC Does the SEC's BlockFi settlement create a...

In our second episode in the web3 music mini-series , we spoke with Matthew Chaim , musician and founder of Songcamp and other projects at the intersection of music and web3. We cover how Matthew thinks about: Helping artists gain control over their creative output Collective creation and re-imagining the role of fans Optimizing for resonance versus reach with music NFTs Discoverability in music N...

Mash founder Jared Nusinoff joins the show to explain how internet monetization is broken and how lightning-based payments fixes it. In this episode:  Jared's professional history and how he came to work on Bitcoin Going from an adventure guide to bitcoin Jared's early entrepreneurial work Jared's early history sharing music prior to torrents Why Jared quite Google to found an adventure guide comp...

Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:  Kraken brings back PoR Bitfinex hack money launderers are arrested The long history of Bitfinex, hacks, Recovery rights, Tether, and LEO Who is entitled to the recovered BTC from the Bitfinex hack? The NY Fed attacks stablecoins, and private banknote issuance Ottawa truckers are banned from Gofundme Are US Treasuries backing...

In this episode, Kraken chief product officer Jeremy Welch joins the show to cover Kraken's newly announced Proof of Reserve procedure. In this episode:  Why bring back PoR? What distinguishes today's proof of reserve from the procedure Kraken undertook back in 2015 Why haven't exchanges done PoR historically? What Kraken's PoR actually proves to depositors The role of Armanino in Kraken's PoR Wha...

Tom Brady retires to focus on NFTs Was Satoshi interested in altcoins? Our thoughts on startups raising 69.420m The Solana-Ethereum bridge is hacked for over $300m– and then bailed out by Jump Capital Was Vitalik's warning about cross-chain interoperability prophetic?  Is the cross-chain vision dead? Kraken revives their Proof of Reserve – after 7 years Why do exchanges avoid Proof of Reserves? Bi...