On The Brink with Castle Island

George Selgin, director of the Center of Monetary Alternatives at the Cato Institute joins the show to discuss Bitcoin, Free Banking, and stablecoins. In this episode:  Why George refers to Bitcoin as a synthetic commodity money Why George was excited by the possibility for synthetic commodity money What conditions would have to hold for Bitcoin to be considered money Why money is a spectrum rathe...

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  Warren's shadowy super coders Was Digicash the first stablecoin? Is TVL overrated ? Castle Island adds a new partner An anti crypto rider inserted into the Congress infrastructure bill Does taxation pay for government spending? Goldman applies for a 'DeFi ETF' Exxon looking at flare gas? China's crackdown on big tech Sponsor...

We welcome Michel Rauchs , research affiliate and longtime contributor to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance which just released an update its Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index featuring new mining location data . Covered in this episode:  Why Michel returned to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance The evolution of the CCAF's miner benchmarking efforts The original motivation...

Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  We debate the merits of the Merritt parkway We reflect on the B Word conference SpaceX owns Bitcoin We cover the Elonfolio Gensler covers tokens giving synthetic exposure to underlying securities Are stablecoins appropriately regulated? Can stablecoins learn from the free banking era in the 1830s? Is there a future for Rip...

Nic and Matt are back for a sideways week. In this episode:  BlockFi's credit card comes out How mesopotamian clay tablets are blockchains Cambridge releases new data regarding bitcoin mining distribution Shapeshift decentralizes itself Can corporations successfully decentralize? Elizabeth Warren writes a letter to the SEC Larry Fink sees little demand for crypto Sponsor notes: This episode is bro...

Nic and Matt are back. In this episode:  Circle's SPAC filing Circle's evolution over the year The business model behind stablecoins Circle's risk factor slides The SEC is targeting centralized exchanges for trading unregistered securities Senator Pat Toomey buys BTC and ETH Matt tries out the Blockfi credit card GBTC unlocks wrapping up this summer Why are congresspeople allowed to trade financia...

Anton Katz  and Ethan Feldman , the cofounders of Talos join the show. In this episode we discuss: Anton and Ethan's path from roles at AQR and Broadway Technologies and into the world of cryptoassets The problem they are seeking to solve for market participants How the exchange and OTC liquidity landscape is evolving How custodians and exchanges have evolved their offerings The challenges of capi...

Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  A new twist in the turkey tale Why airdrops historically haven't work Sam Altman's eyeball-based cryptocurrency Brady partners up with FTX The FCA tangles with Binance Nic's paper on DeFi risks NYDIG deepens their bank partnerships Mexico's bitcoin rebuke Coinbase's aggressive new strategy The Bitcoin Mining Council shares Q...

Kinjal Shah of Blockchain Capital and Manasi Vora of Skynet Labs join us to discuss their recently launched investment DAO, KomorebiCollective. We discuss: 1) The motivation behind Komorebi and its mission to fund female and non-binary founders 2) The decision to structure the collective as a DAO 3) The cost, transparency, and speed benefits DAOs provide 4) What use cases DAOs are serving well tod...

Matt and Nic are back for another rocky week in the markets. In this episode:  Our thoughts on the Chinese mining situation Is Sichuan being spared the crackdown? Why Bitcoin's hashrate may not recover for a while Why China is cracking down on mining now How China's ultra-high voltage transmission is affecting mining policy How is miner selling influencing price? Our remaining China grey swans Our...

Hunter Horsley, the co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Bitwise's recent $70M Series B fundraise and how he approached building a roster of unique investors Views on what is driving interest in cryptoasset products Decentralized Finance and how Bitwise is approaching constructing products to enable exposure to this part of the market NFTs and...

Nic and Matt return for deals and news of the week. In this episode:  What's the biggest story with Bukele that isn't being covered? Is Bukele motivated by a sanctions threat from the US? Will Salvadorians use the Lightning Network? How Bitcoin elevates heads of state in the popular consciousness Nic's paper on DeFi protocol risks The SEC's year-ahead agenda has no mention of Bitcoin The NY anti-m...

In our second OTB AMA, we field questions from Brink Nation. In this episode:  What other countries are good candidates to ratify Bitcoin next? What are the prospects for DeFi on Bitcoin? Is price to hashrate a viable ratio to use to value bitcoin? Will other countries follow El Salvador's lead in light of the pushback from the IMF? Who will win Euro2020? Are ransomware attacks good because they w...

Nic and Matt are back and recovered from an insane Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. In this episode:  Our lost roundup from last week Our reflections on Bitcoin 2021 Nic reacts to his spaces with President Bukele El Salvador accepts Bitcoin The story behind the 25k attendee Twitter space Does the Salvadorian law change the accounting treatment for Bitcoin in the US? President Bukele's geothermal...

Chris Blec is a researcher and the founder of DeFi Watch , a project dedicated to identifying points of centralization and risk factors in DeFi, in particular the presence of admin keys. In this episode:  How Chris got interested in DeFi  How he first noticed the risk of admin key usage  The changing nature of admin keys and multisigs  Whether project multisigs reduce dependence on trust  Why worr...

Jeff Kirt and Ted Rogers, CEO and board director of Greenidge Generation LLC respectively, join the show to discuss the Greenidge plant and Bitcoin mining operation in upstate New York. In this episode:  The origins of Greenidge Why Ted Rogers chose to join the Greenidge board How Atlas/Greenidge converted their NY plant from coal to natural gas Ted's retrospective on the Segwit 2x drama in the co...

Matteo Leibowitz of Uniswap and Eric Stone of Flipside Crypto join the show. In this episode we discuss: Uniswap v3 and how it differs from v2 and other AMMs Broader implications of Uniswap v3 for DeFi Uniswap v3 metrics and how the system is being used today Uniswap treasury and grant program How Flipside is engaging with Uniswap and other DeFi communities Follow Teo on Twitter @teo_leibowitz and...

Matt and Nic are back for another roundup. In this episode:  Elon is back Our take on the mining council Is Twitter Spaces killing Clubhouse? Prepare yourself for Kazakh FUD Is Chia driving up hard drive prices? OneRiver's green Bitcoin ETF The SEC asks for help regulating crypto The key catalysts we're watching in China Lael Brainard spreads historical fake news about free banking The Fed is conc...

Hass McCook is a civil engineer who has been delivering estimates of Bitcoin's energy use and CO2 emissions since 2014 , as well as alternatives like gold or finance . In this episode:  Hass's background in civil engineering and how it prepared him for the energy debate The conflation between energy generation and electricity generation Why you can't just generalize energy consumption to carbon em...

Matt and Nic are back for another volatile week. In this episode:  Nic's 72h fast Nic explains the Moscow time joke on Bloomberg Coinbase sells off Our explanations for the selloff Tax selling or Fed discussion of tapering? Taproot edges towards activation Eth monetary hardening - improving or impairing its monetary credibility? IRS demands cash transaction reports for transactions over $10k FinCE...

Alex Thorn, the head of research at Galaxy Digital joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Alex's career path and the insights that led him to diving into the crypto space Perspectives on Dogecoin and whether this is an enduring phenomenon Considerations for Doge market infrastructure and the status of the network from a technical standpoint The state of the crypto venture market and how Alex...

Nic and Matt are back for an insane week. In this episode:  Tom Brady is a Bitcoiner Elon betrays us Do virgin coins exist? Binance under investigation by the DOJ Bitwise launches the BITQ ETF Palantir thinks about buying Bitcoin Diem partners with Silvergate We break down Tether's questionable reserves 46 million Americans own BTC Elon's bad tweet New FUD dice just dropped The changing Bitcoin en...

Katie Chase, the Chief Operating Officer of Coin Metrics joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Katie's time leading blockchain initiatives at Fidelity and how the firm approached early R&D efforts Her point of view on the historical barriers to institutional adoption of cryptoassets and how that is changing How Coin Metrics is addressing the data needs of large financial institutions Why ris...

Nic and Matt return for another huge week of deals and news. In this episode:  The Chamber of Digital Commerce publishes a Proof of Reserve whitepaper Why Proof of Reserves matter Popular critiques of PoR Coin Metrics raises a Series B from Goldman Sachs Galaxy acquires BitGo How do you pronounce 3LAU? NYDIG brings Bitcoin to banks through FIS global NYDIG continues their ascent Paypal considers a...

Noah Buxton and Jeremy Nau from accounting firm Armanino LLP join the show once again to discuss the launch of the Chamber of Digital Commerce's new whitepaper on Proof of Reserves , which they contributed to. In this episode:  What was the purpose of the paper by the Chamber? What problems does it solve? History of PoR and Armanino When did Armanino first get into it? why? What's involved in a Po...