On The Brink with Castle Island

Dan Mottice, CEO and Co-Founder of Ansible Labs, joins the show to talk about a new payment gateway for web3. Dan’s personal background and how he ended up in financial services The Visa Network, Visa Direct Payouts and Visa Crypto Ansible Labs’ raise and what’s ahead Off-ramps and why they matter North stars in fintech The consumer experience in a b2b sales cycle Navigating turbulent markets and how to build to win Learn more about Ansible here.   

Bankless' David Hoffman joins Matt and Nic for a special episode to cover Ethereum's highly-anticipated Merge. In this episode:  How David came to Ethereum and the Bankless origin story The story behind the Bankless DAO Whether David would ever consider focusing on other blockchains What could cause David to abandon Ethereum The Coinbase OFAC filtering debate Why proposer-builder separation might make validator-driven censorship harder Filtering transactions at the pool layer versus undertaking a ‘Treasury Activated Soft Fork’ Under what conditions would social slashing of major validators make sense? How embedded is the social slashing consensus into Ethereum’s social fabric? The significance of the new supply dynamics stemming from the Merge Is the unlock something to worry about? Is there a ‘crowding out’ effect from staked Ether becoming a risk free rate? Does MEV pose a concentration risk post Merge? Are MEV-driven yields for stakers perverse? Is MEV an inescapable feature of richly stateful blockchains Why the notion of Certified-Toxic-MEV-free blocks might emerge How is Ethereum’s roadmap determined? What’s the deal with the Surge, the Verge, the Purge, and the Splurge? What are the strongest narratives coming out of the Merge? Probabilities of the Merge success Why the Merge may not be fully priced in Follow David on Twitter and learn more about Bankless. Intro and outro music: Daniel Allan's Collage #344 

Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:  Nic's shoe problem Web3 merch for OTB? The White House releases a report on crypto asset energy usage Why the US should encourage mining within its borders  Coinbase is funding a lawsuit against OFAC  Binance is converting USDC into BUSD on their platform  Poolin is having liquidity problems Russia considers crypto for cross border payments  The US Government recovers $30m from the Axie hack Gensler keeps firing barbs Nic doesn't buy the supply shock thesis around the Merge Will ETH have another high fee era?  What could an ETH carry trade look like?  Content mentioned:  The White House, Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto-Assets in the United States Gary Gensler speech at the SEC, Kennedy and Crypto Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter and read their Mapping out the Merge report  

Ria and Nic from Castle Island sit down with Stephanie Howard and Bennett Collen, cofounders of Endstate, a web3 footwear and fashion brand. We cover the merits of the redeem-and-retain NFT model and the vision for Endstate. Bennett’s prior crypto startup and how he decided to unite his passion for sneakers with web3 How Bennett and Stephanie met and cofounded Endstate Stephanie’s career in sneaker design to date  Why creators and athletes are jumping at the opportunity to issue merchandise-linked NFTs Why Bennett and Stephanie chose to launch a web3 native brand How redeem-and-retain NFTs allow manufacturers to reduce inventory risk Why fashion is getting more targeted and niche Why Endstate is able to release new iterations of their sneakers so quickly Endstate’s rationale for manufacturing in the US Endstate drops to date Endstate’s new drop with Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith How web3 brands should think about which metaverse to build for Endstate’s thinking around Solana vs Ethereum and the impact of gas fees How to link physical products with NFTs – from NFCs to QRs to visual scans What should we call physical NFTs? Aside from shoes, what merch is amenable to the Endstate model? What product sectors will be NFTed? How developed are authenticated third party marketplaces for physically linked NFTs? Physical-linked NFTs as a trojan horse to onboard mass markets into web3 The future state of Endstate Other web3 drops Bennett and Stephanie enjoyed The future of entangled NFTs  Read more:  Nic Carter on Medium: Redeem and Retain NFTs are the future of Luxury Goods Vogue Business: How the crypto bear market is resetting fashion’s Web3 strategy Drops and more at endstate.io Intro and outro music: Daniel Allan's Collage #344 

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  What happens to the GPUs post merge? Will the gamers finally get cheap GPUs back? Is the merge like superbowl sunday or Y2K? Does the success of the merge undo a long-term Bitcoin talking point? Are NFTs going to cc0 screwing over their users? DC sues Michael Saylor and Microstrategy for allegedly skipping taxes in DC The SEC questions whether the certain assets in Grayscale trusts are securities What’s going on with the Roche Freedman/ Ava Labs/ Cryptoleaks situation? Is Roche just David Boies 2.0? The Biden executive order reports are due next week Rune of Maker muses about turning Dai into a free floating unit of account Will Maker be able to survive real world assets as collateral? Did Moonbirds rugpull their buyers with IP issues? Kyle Waters from Coin Metrics joins to talk about the Merge Is the distribution of stakers on Ethereum something to be worried about? What’s going to happen to ETH issuance post merge? How to forecast post-merge staking returns Is the merge priced in? Did Ethereum install a pro-cyclical monetary policy? Content mentioned:  Coin Metrics, Mapping out the Merge Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

Obi Nwosu, CEO and Founder of Fedi joins the show to cover a new model for shared Bitcoin custody in Fedimint. In this episode:  Obi’s experience with Coinfloor and how that informed his views on custody Why third party custody with Proof of Reserves isn’t sufficient Why ‘credible centralized’ custody shouldn’t be the default Why state level attacks on custodians are ramping up Obi’s early prediction that Nigeria would be the heartland of Bitcoin adoption Why messaging apps are actually the most popular p2p exchanges worldwide The history and origins of Chaumian Mints How the enabling pieces of Fedimint all came together over time The relationship between federated custody and microfinance How Fedimint is analogous to Free Banking Does Fedimint satisfy Hal Finney’s vision for Bitcoin banks? How Fedimint compares to first party custody How Obi expects regulators to react to Fedimint Learn more about Fedi and Fedimint.

Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:  Matt’s prior radio career The boys consider reinvesting in the podcast How to avoid audience capture We puzzle over metaverse advertising How do you value metaverse real estate? Rep. Tom Emmer writes a letter to OFAC questioning their sanctioning of Tornado Cash Tether and BUSD (Paxos) don’t blacklist Tornado Cash addresses The FDIC reprimands crypto companies Web3 hoodies Best podcast listening speeds Are security tokens and real world assets back? No new 3ac shenanigans Tadge Dryja leaves MIT DCI for David Marcus’ Lightspark New findings on OFAC censoring Bitcoin Mining pools Tether has a new auditor Can a firm with outstanding tokens be acquired or go public? Gensler’s weird op-ed Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

Brooke Pollack, the founder of Hutt Capital joins the show. In this episode we discuss:  Brooke's career journey and path to founding Hutt Capital The events that led him to seeing that crypto/blockchain was going to be an industry with dedicated venture managers The institutional limited partner landscape The narratives that have captured the most institutional mindshare Views on the optimal fund structure for crypto/blockchain managers The DeFi landscape Views on NFTs as a foundational building block for future businesses.    To learn more about Hutt Capital visit www.huttcapital.com and follow Brooke on Twitter 

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  NYMag writes a long piece on 3AC Is OTB a ‘crypto fanboy podcast’? Are we up against the nation state ‘final boss’? 3AC boat name reveal The Toyota Century rumors are true Revelations about 3ACs FX days Did 3AC actually owe the Mafia money? The 3AC Deribit deal A new 3AC supporter dials in to the show Machinsky was trading Celsius customer deposits The Galaxy BitGo acquisition falls through Dragonchain settles with the SEC Hodlnaut files for creditor protection Genesis reorganization Tornado cash developer arrested in Amsterdam Are Bitcoin miners filtering transactions for OFAC? Will Coinbase censor Ethereum at the protocol level? Vitalik suggests slashing Ethereum if they comply with OFAC at the protocol level Would Coinbase ever abandon their staking business? The effect of MEV on the centralization of PoS vs PoW End of the merge rally? Content mentioned in this episode:  NYMag, Inside the Crash of Three Arrows Capital Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

In this episode, Uddhav Marwaha, co-founder and CEO of Friktion Labs, joins us to discuss Friktion's approach to a full stack portfolio management platform in defi. We cover a plethora of topics, including: The opacity surrounding defi yields and distinguishing fleeting opportunities from sustainable sources of income Using options overwriting and basis strategies to generate more durable returns and provide portfolio protection across market conditions In-housing core tooling such as Friktion's RFQ system (Channel RFQ) and an exotic options DEX (Entropy) to unlock time and cost efficiencies   Friktion's emphasis on demystifying complex products and deconstructing sources of risk and yield in crypto differentiate it from the pack. To complement the data and analytics within the application, the team frequently publishes research breaking down complex topics.