On The Brink with Castle Island

Jill Gunter, co-founder of Espresso, discusses their mission to help L2 rollups decentralize, the role of sequencers in rollups, trading centralized revenue for decentralization, and the potential of blockchain-based payments.

Ryan Selkis, co-founder and CEO of Messari, discusses the regulatory landscape, institutional market, failures of the SEC, and Messari's roadmap in 2024. They also talk about the evolution of the 'crypto theses' report, the role of Michael Sanichan and Craig Salm in the ETF conversation, regulatory issues and industry activism, building Massari, and the launch of new protocols and comparison with Ethereum.

Hosts discuss tree falling on house during storm, funding deals in crypto industry, inscriptions frenzy on various blockchains, and the new super PAC Fair Shake promoting pro-crypto members in Congress.

Dan Tapiero, founder and Managing Partner of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners, discusses the state of the crypto market post-FTX collapse, the impact of Bitcoin ETF on fund flows, the market for growth and secondary investing, and 1RT's strategy. He emphasizes the importance of a minimum viable ecosystem and the dominance of US dollar stable coins.

Andreas Tsamados, Founder of Fileverse, discusses the need for a decentralized file sharing platform. Topics covered include the state of decentralized file storage, token models, and the Fileverse roadmap for the coming year.

In this episode, we host Nick Neuman, CEO of Casa to discuss their recent stablecoin launch and: Casa’s value proposition How customers use Casa The decision to expand beyond Bitcoin to Ethereum The rationale behind supporting stablecoins Building custody tools for security versus convenience Nick’s views on experimentation on Bitcoin Further reading: Protect your stablecoins: Hold USDC and USDT with Casa

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  Coinbase’s positioning ahead of the ETF Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick acknowledges their Tether role Where do we stand on cash creation versus in-kind creation for the Bitcoin ETF? Coinbase launches an RWA hub in Abu Dhabi Kucoin settles with the state of New York Do Kwon is staying in Montenegro a bit longer Coinlist settles an OFAC violation FASB adopts (again?) fair value accounting for Bitcoin SBF’s lawyer said he was the “worst witness he’s ever seen” The status of Warren’s anti-ML crypto bill How potent will the crypto lobby be in 2024? Content mentioned in this episode: Charles Rettig, IRS Digital Assets Plan Would Be a Setback for Taxpayer Services Sponsor notes: Coin Metrics State of the Network’s Q4 2023 Mining Data Special In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 237, we spotlight crucial developments and data across the mining ecosystem

Itai Turbahn, CEO of Dynamic, talks about seamless web3 logins, breakout applications in web3, Passkeys, account abstraction, and Dynamic's Series A funding round.

Brian Foster, Global Head of Wholesale at Coinbase, joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Brian’s career and the path that led him to joining Coinbase. An overview of the Coinbase business model and how the company is segmented. The evolution of the Coinbase Institutional business. The Wholesale business at Coinbase and how the company is positioned with brokers, banks and ETF issuers. Views on the Bitcoin ETF proposals and how Coinbase is positioned in this market segment. The BlackRock partnership and how Coinbase and BlackRock are collaborating. Views on the evolution of the competitive landscape for Coinbase. BASE, RWAs and stablecoins. Learn more at coinbase.com

In this episode, we sit down with Rowan Stone who leads Business Development at Base – the layer-2 network on Ethereum launched by Coinbase earlier this year. Rowan expands on: The decision to build Base using Optimism's OP stack and the "Superchain" vision The vectors of centralization in L2 networks and the path to decentralization Early use cases on Base across DeFi, loyalty and the creator economy The role of business development in growing an L2 network