On The Brink with Castle Island

Matt and Nic review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include: Binance's acquisition of CoinMarketCap Factom's insolvency Telegram's latest setback in court Recent stablecoin growth Nic's piece on bailouts in Coindesk and much more news of the week

Adam Draper, co-founder of BoostVC, an accelerator and venture fund focused on Sci-Fi technologies joins the show. In this episode we discuss: - Adam's advice for portfolio companies navigating the current COVID 19 crisis - His thesis on Virtual Reality and what categories he is most excited about - His journey in crypto, from being an early investor in Coinbase to present - Book recommendations L...

Larry White, economics professor at George Mason University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, joins the show to discuss free banking, the history of dollarization, and the prospects for a crypto-native banking system.   In this episode: - Why CBDCs might not be a good idea - The legacy of dollarization in Ecuador - How the Scottish free banki...

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Deals of the Week - Dislocations in the gold markets - The effects of the -16% difficulty adjustments in BTC - Thoughts on the stimulus package - Quarantine reading suggestions and much more news of the week

Jurrien Timmer, the Director of Global Macro at Fidelity Investments, joins the podcast. In this episode we discuss:  - Jurrien's career trajectory and how he became the Director of Global Macro at Fidelity - His views on the current crisis in the context of other dislocations he has seen in his 25+ year career - Perspectives on the unprecedented interventions that we are seeing from the Federal g...

David Vorick, the founder of Nebulous and the blockchain Sia, joins the show to discuss Sia and its latest layer 2, Skynet . We also cover David's experience as an ASIC manufacturer, and what he learned about blockchain security models and the merits of ASICs versus GPUs. In this episode: How Sia is different from other decentralized storage platforms Different models for financing protocol develo...

Open Money Initiative founder Alejandro Machado joins the show to explain how Bitcoin is actually used in Venezuela, and how the country is dollarizing in real time. In this episode: How a power cut has been linked to a recent dollarization movement in Venezuela, and how dollar usage became decriminalized Whether dollarization has improved the prospects of everyday Venezuelans Why Maduro is actual...

Patrick South, VP of Development at the Chamber of Digital Commerce joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The mission of the Chamber of Digital Commerce and the policy initiatives that the organization is advocating for The line of demarcation between security and non-security tokens and a possible path forward for a safe harbor provision The potential impact of the travel rule and FATF guid...

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Market Commentary - Deals of the Week - Attestiv, Coase and other news - Quarantine Tips and much more news of the week

Nicos Vekiarides, the cofounder and CEO of Attestiv joins the show. Attestiv is a company that builds software to prove the authenticity of photos and videos using public blockchains to timestamp these records. In this podcast we discuss:  - The benefits of public blockchains as public notary systems - Use cases for deep fake detection in the insurance industry - Tooling and user experience buildi...

Douglas Jackson, the founder of E-gold, arguably the first widely-used electronic medium of exchange, appears on the show. In this episode we discuss:  - Douglas' motivations for starting E-gold - His disagreements with his cypherpunk contemporaries - Why private monetary issuers might be more responsible than public ones - The challenge of creating an open payments system which is also compliant...

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Market Turmoil - Market Infrastructure - Deals and much more news of the week

Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of Circle joins the show. In this episode we discuss:  - Jeremy's entrepreneurial journey and the original vision for Circle - The geopolitical impact of US Dollars on public blockchains - The goals of USDC - Circle Platform Services, a new product launching today - The regulatory environment globally for cryptoassets and much more

Matthew Le Merle, the co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era, Keiretsu Capital and Blockchain Coinvestors joins the podcast. In this episode we discuss:  - Matthew's career arc and how he came to understand the potential impact of blockchain technology - Building Blockchain Coinvestors, and the investment strategy of investing in blockchain venture capital funds - Predictions and analysis on...

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Deals of the week - India's Supreme Court Ruling - South Korea regulation - OFAC issues - Treasury meeting with industry leaders and much more news of the week

Joseph Jacks of OSS Capital joins the show. In this episode we discuss:  - What constitutes commercial open source, and how this differs from regular open source projects - the history of the open source software movement - why programmers contribute unpaid to open source projects - whether tokens are required to monetize open source OSS Capital: https://oss.capital/ The COSS Index: https://docs.g...

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Deals of the week - SEC denies another Bitcoin ETF - SEC whacks Steven Seagal - Ripple Moneygram payments - Central Bank Digital Currency - Binance jurisdiction shopping and much more news of the week

Sunayna Tuteja, the Head of Digital Assets and DLT at TD Ameritrade, appears on the show. On this episode we discuss: - What guides TD's decision making in this asset class - How they think about blockchain/DLT versus Bitcoin - Crypto ideology versus crypto agnosticism - Her career trajectory to date - Lessons from being a pilot

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Deals of the week - Enigma settles with the SEC - Fcoin lost user funds - Tim Draper bought 2.5% of Aragon - DeFi infrastructure - Neel Kashkari's thoughts on crypto and much more news of the week

Balaji Srinivasan is an angel investor and entrepreneur. He was formerly the CTO of Coinbase, a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and the co-founder of Earn.com, Counsyl, Teleport and Coin Center. In this episode we discuss:   - the 100x' crypto has delivered over traditional finance - how Balaji's views of what Bitcoin is good for have changed over time - the 'sovereign collective' versus t...

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - BlockFi raise - Other deals - JPM spinout? - USDC and much more news of the week

Jake Chervinsky the General Counsel of Compound joins the podcast. In this episode we discuss:  - The history of securities markets in the US - The Howey test in plain language - Whether commodities can transmute to securities, and vice versa - Why markets function best with regulation - The purpose of open finance - Being a bitcoiner at an ethereum-focused company 

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Deals of the week - U.S. Marshalls auction - ICE eyes Ebay - Crypto safe harbor? and much more news of the week

Alex Leishman, the cofounder and CEO of River Financial joins the show. In this episode we discuss:  - Why Alex started River Financial - Why they are Bitcoin only - Why other exchanges were so quick to list tokens - The role of banks in Bitcoin - Practical issues with implementing Proof of Reserves To learn more about River Financial visit: www.river.com  

Matt and Nic from Castle Island Ventures review the top stories of the week in the cryptoasset industry. This week's topics include:  - Nic's Presidential Endorsement - Proof of Stake Tax Policy - Popper's NYT Article - Ripple IPO? - Super Bowl Picks and much more news of the week