On The Brink with Castle Island

Josh Schwartz and Dima Kogan, co-founders of Fordefi, join the show. In this episode we discuss: MPC custody: what it is, its academic roots and how MPC works. The tradeoffs and considerations that have led to the growth in popularity of MPC custody. Josh and Dima’s backgrounds and the path that led them to founding Fordefi. The institutional custody landscape and some of the challenges that firms face when engaging with DeFi protcols. How Josh and Dima think about the security risks associated with smart contract platforms. The types of customers that Fordefi is currently serving. Their fundraise announcement and what is next. To learn more visit fordefi.com

Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:  Bitwise is moving into active management What’s the deal with Uber on the blockchain? The boys review House of the Dragon The history of land-based blockchain bets Fidelity launches no-fee retail trading for trading BTC and ETH on their platform Matt reminisces on Fidelity’s crypto journey Google announces blockchain node engine Nic’s 2-year pending transaction on Venmo SBF continues to wrangle with CT Sam’s debate with Erik Voorhees Alameda’s questionable balance sheet is leaked Can FTX buy its way into respectability despite the existence of Alameda? What’s the deal with the MAPS token? Is it far for FTX to start offshore and buy way into the regulated system? Elon’s schemes for Twitter Coinbase and the Blockchain Association are supporting Ripple in their case against the SEC The Tether case is reopened at the SDNY Tether rips us off with their own bootleg FUD Dice What happens to Chinese Tether holders if Tether has to unwind If Tether fails, do funds flow back into BTC? The mining sector is deeply distressed Why the mining bankruptcies may cause concentration in who controls hashrate Circle delays their SPAC Coin Metrics releases a taxonomy with Goldman and MSCI Protos’ weird hatchet job on Nic’s tungsten cube infatuation Did we manipulate the market for tungsten? Sponsor notes: Talos powers institutional access to the entire digital assets ecosystem via a single-point of entry. Connect directly to your preferred prime brokers, lenders, investors, custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more, or meet them on Talos. Get started at Talos.com Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

Jeff Park, an active Portfolio Manager at Bitwise joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The state of active crypto asset management. How Bitwise approaches the active management opportunity. The taxonomy of strategies that Jeff observes in the market. Perspectives on MEV and other crypto specific opportunities. The institutional LP landscape for active management vs. passive. To learn more about Bitwise visit bitwiseinvestments.com and see their announcement of new active strategies.

CoreWeave's Brian Venturo (CTO) and Brannin McBee (CSO) return to On The Brink for a discussion of their journey through the merge and beyond. In this episode:  Are they relieved that the merge finally happened? Will there be some form of non-Bitcoin PoW in the future? Could Ethereum conceivably return to PoW? The effect of PoS on ETH’s censor resistance What quantity of ETH miners shifted to other PoW chains and what portion went elsewhere? What is the best use of capital for former ETH miners now? Did the merge really reduce global electricity consumption by 0.2%? Brannin’s estimate for precise electricity reduction from the merge How feasible is it for former ETH miners to get into GPU clouds? How Core Weave built their cloud product What it takes to be competitive in the high performance computing sector Why the generalized providers of cloud can’t just win when it comes to rendering and ML/AI Why the HPC market is exploding right now How open source communities behind text and image models contributed to the explosion in use cases The importance of Stable Diffusion versus Open AI The explosive growth of Stable Diffusion and Stability AI How the growth in infrastructure contributed to the emergence of these newer image models New directions in AI models like video creation Will generative AI be attacked by environmentalists? Can cloud data centers handle interruptible loads like Bitcoin miners can? How industrial compute will play a role in emerging metaverses Use cases Brannin and Brian are excited about Why hardware is actually a constraint to the number of metaverse users today Learn more about CoreWeave here.

Matt and Nic are back for another week of deals and news. In this episode:  Full time crypto haters What’s the deal with the nocoiner think tank? Eric Wall and Udi vs Bitcoiners Did Bitcoin put all of its eggs in the LN basket? Scaling isn’t LN versus big blocks any more Is there just one scaling solution for blockchains? What are the prospects for ZK Rollups on Bitcoin? Spam attacks on BSV and Zcash Bitcoin Miners are going bankrupt How did the Ethereum merge affect Bitcoin miners What’s the deal with Bitcoin’s hashrate spike? Are non-economic Bitcoin miners killing the free market for mining? What’s the deal with miner lenders? Synthetic Bitcoin stablecoins Is Twitter fairly priced at the deal price? Matt Levine’s 40k word article on crypto Is the pivot finally in? Sponsor notes: Talos powers institutional access to the entire digital assets ecosystem via a single-point of entry. Connect directly to your preferred prime brokers, lenders, investors, custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more, or meet them on Talos. Get started at Talos.com Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter 

Mike Cahill, Director of the Pyth Data Association joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The origin of Pyth and how the project is addressing the ‘Oracle Problem’. How Pyth works and how companies and protocols are using the product today. Mike’s views on how equities on chain will evolve, and how Pyth is positioned in this market. The recent Mango Markets exploit and the future of on-chain market manipulations in DeFi. Pyth’s network of partners and how the network is growing in 2022. To learn more about Pyth visit Pyth.Network.    

Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:  Why USDC is suffering redemptions but not USDT Some new 3AC shenanigans are unearthed The SEC and CFTC are investigating 3AC Details from the Voyager bankruptcy filing Avraham Eisenburg is crypto’s hottest new villain Is the Mango exploit against the law? Is there a vigilante group out to get Do Kwon? SBF is criticized for his regulatory draft proposal The Texas securities regulators are investigating FTX FTX shareholders at odds with FTT holders? Aptos’ controversial launch Have we forgotten how to do a fair launch? How Ethereum’s merge put pressure on Bitcoin miners Reuters’ Binance investigation Unstoppable domains deprecates over 100k .coin domains Is Bitcoin finally decorrelating from risk assets? Sponsor notes: Talos powers institutional access to the entire digital assets ecosystem via a single-point of entry. Connect directly to your preferred prime brokers, lenders, investors, custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more, or meet them on Talos. Get started at Talos.com Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter 

For another episode of the mining miniseries, Nic sits down with Blake King, power markets engineer at Galaxy Digital, for his second OTB appearance. In this episode:  Blake reacts to the White House OSTP report on crypto mining Does mining actually reduce the incentive for utilities to build additional transmission? How transmission building decisions get made How are ERCOT planners taking the price of Bitcoin into account? The merits of proactive transmission construction Why the existence of strong property rights makes transmission much harder to build Can Bitcoin be understood as the electrification of gold? Is there really 17-25 GW worth of Bitcoin miners in the process of connecting to the Texas grid? How should we think about interconnection and load queues Why would ERCOT exaggerate the planned scale of Bitcoin mining in Texas? Do miners using renewables “not count” because they displace other consumers of renewable energy? Why Blake expects the $/MWh revenue for Bitcoin to continue to trend down over time Are Bitcoin miners forcing grids into grid scarcity events? Economic curtailment versus formal demand response Are Bitcoiners overestimating the importance of demand response for miners? Content mentioned in this episode: Bitcoin Mining and the Grid, Part I and Part II Part I of Blake King on the show: OTB 330 White House OSTP report on Bitcoin Mining Intro and outro: Daniel Allan’s Collage #344

Matt and Nic are back for another week of deals and news. In this episode:  What is XEN and why is it driving up ETH fees? Bittrex settles with OFAC SEC is investigating Yuga labs Mango and Binance Smart Chain are hacked The FASB settles on fair value accounting for cryptoassets Warren writes a letter to Texas about mining Coin Center is suing OFAC Sponsor notes: Talos powers institutional access to the entire digital assets ecosystem via a single-point of entry. Connect directly to your preferred prime brokers, lenders, investors, custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more, or meet them on Talos. Get started at Talos.com Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter 

Rob Behnke, co-founder and CEO of Halborn joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Rob’s career journey in the cryptocurrency industry and the insights that led him to founding Halborn. The 2017 ICO era and the security issues that plagued many projects. How Halborn approaches engagements with DeFi ecosystem participants. How centralized financial services companies are engaging with DeFi and how these firms think about cybersecurity. How Rob and his co-founder Steven Walbroehl approached their Series A fundraising process. Halborn’s new suite of software products. To learn more about Halborn visit halborn.com and follow Rob on Twitter