On The Brink with Castle Island

Matt Walsh sits down with BlockFi CEO Zac Prince to cover turmoil in the crypto lending markets and how BlockFi is handling the crisis. In this episode:   Is the contagion among lenders over?  Was Three Arrows excessive risk taking or fraudulent?  BlockFi's relationship with Three Arrows Does BlockFi still have 3AC exposure?   BlockFi's plan to maintain all of their products and keep them operational What differentiates BlockFi's risk management from Celsius  Asset liability matching Duration management  The duration of BlockFi's loans  The structure of the interest account product and why withdrawal periods are up to 7 days  Did regulation work to stem any of the risk in the crypto markets?  Shift from a borrower's market to a lender's market  The effect of capital destruction on interest rates in crypto  Why crypto interest rates are going up BlockFi's deal with FTX  How the crypto lending market will change  Zac's message to BlockFi clients and to the industry Content mentioned in this episode BlockFi's risk management disclosures BlockFi fee schedule FT: Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows fails to meet lender margin calls  

Matt and Nic return for a fiery episode of deals and news. In this episode:  Is miner selling backed up by the on-chain data?  Is Massachusetts open to pro-crypto legislation?  FTX provides credit support to embattled crypto lenders  Why private market transactions do not constitute bailouts in the pejorative sense Was 3 Arrows just a case of too much leverage and bad trades, or was it fraud?  Does the 3AC situation stray into criminal territory?  There were significant harms stemming from the 3AC scheme Kyle's infamous On The Brink appearance and his special request  Did GBTC bring down 3AC?  Are we entering the PvP era of crypto twitter?  The story behind 3AC's yacht  Solend requisitions user funds  Wartime versus peacetime governance in DeFi South Korea puts a travel ban on Terraform labs employees DYDX is leaving Ethereum and moving to their own chain  The relationship between lender balance sheets and GBTC  Is there a case to be made for winding down GBTC? How to think about the GBTC trade today How the 3AC GBTC trade is like LTCM  How to think about the "macro"  Is the 'crypto hedge fund that also does VC' obsolete?  Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

In this episode, host Ria sits down with the co-founders of Starkware, Eli Ben-Sasson and Uri Kolodny to discuss how the team is leveraging STARKs, or validity proofs, to unlock a magnitude increase in scalability. We discuss: The differences between Starkex and Starknet and how the two will converge Enabling functions and applications that cannot be built on monolithic layer 1s Why data availability is important to zk rollups and the trade offs of different approaches Simultaneously solving for computational integrity and inclusive accountability To learn more about Starkware, visit their website.   Intro and outro used with permission: Collage #346 by Daniel Allan

Nic and Matt are back for a truly chaotic week in the markets. In this episode:  Is DeFi's transparency a vice?  We reconsider the need for a lender of last resort?  We debrief on Consensus How will the Celsius situation resolve? Fidelity doubles down on digital assets Is the Fed trapped by inflation?  Was the Celsius situation foreseeable?  Where does the next marginal buyer come from?  Another crypto lender goes down  Class action lawsuit launched against Binance US Circle is launching Euro coin  Bill Gates dances on our grave  Content mentioned in this episode:  All Falls Down, by Nic Carter and Allen Farrington [pdf] On Impossible Things Before Breakfast, by Nic Carter, Allen Farrington, and Ross Stevens  Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter    

Nic and Matt are back for news and deals of the week. In this episode:  Greetings from a very hot Consensus in Austin Our takeaways from the Lummis/Gillibrand bill What the NY state mining moratorium means for miners The Central African Republic lays out its plans for Project Sango Custodia Bank is suing the Fed for sitting on their master account application Binance fires back at Reuters We break down a NY Times article on early bitcoin mining NYDFS issues new standards for NY-regulated stablecoins Were the inflation truthers correct about CPI metrics? Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

The original roundup cast return for a covid-stricken episode. In this roundup:  The boys are laid low with Covid (again!) Nic recounts his visit to Norwegian parliament Nic recaps the Oslo Freedom Forum Are we on the brink of L2 summer? Former Opensea PM is arrested on wire fraud/insider trading charges Is there an insider trading standard for non-securities? Korean prosecutors summon all Terraform Labs staff Biden admin looks to lower the emissions footprint of Bitcoin Two ways for the US Government to lower the emissions of Bitcoin Does banning an asset make it worth less? Do we need net neutrality for power? OneRiver’s ETF application is denied How the SEC can unlock $6b worth of value to Bitcoin investors Crypto firms settle in for winter Fidelity Digital Assets is doubling their headcount Nic’s affiliate merch scandal Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

Andrew Cahill and Saurabh Deshpande of The Block join the show. In this episode we discuss: The Ethereum L2 ecosystem The varying scaling solutions and views on the communities with traction Views on native tokens being launched on these platforms in 2022 Optimistic rollups ZK rollups Learn more by reading the report, “Layer-2 Scaling Solutions: A Framework for Comparison”  

Matt returns with CMS Holdings' Dan Matuszewski, filling in for Nic, covering deals and news of the week. In this episode:  Bitcoiners brief Norwegian policymakers History of the BitLicense Circle’s physical BitLicense a16z raises a massive $4.5b fund The effect of VC dry powder on crypto startups Can crypto catch a bid until macro calms down Adam Neumann is back with a blockchain startup FTX attends a heated CFTC roundtable Arthur Hayes gets house arrest and probation Why certain Tether holders will never redeem An unlikely winner from Tether concerns Does shorting Tether make sense? Fallout from Terra’s collapse Are algostables going to exist forever CMS’s Super Pac and reflections on conversations in Washington SBF announces his intention to spend $1B on the 2024 election Scott Minerd is very bearish on Bitcoin What on earth is HEX ETH Merge concerns Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

Ric Edelman, the founder of Edelman Financial Services and the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Ric’s new book The Truth About Crypto His journey in the digital assets industry The current macro backdrop and how cryptoassets should be considered in a portfolio Views on the RIA market and how the crypto discussion is evolving The regulatory landscape, including views on the DoL, SEC and Elizabeth Warren How the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals is evolving Links mentioned on the show: The Truth About Crypto on Amazon DACFP Twitter: @ricedelman (Ric); @thedacfp (DACFP);  

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  Was UST/Terra a ponzi or not? Fintech apps put client deposits into Anchor Tradfi yields are competitive with DeFi yields The GBTC discount reaches its highest ever level at -31% MSM crypto hate reaches a fever pitch The World Bank publishes a new paper on crypto adoption The Warren staff have a dossier of mean tweets Will generalist VCs lose interest in web3? El Salvador hosts a Bitcoin summit for a number of central banks Nic’s secret origin story Is eSwatini a dark horse candidate for the next Bitcoin Nation? The Biden admin suggests segregating client deposits at exchanges TradFi thinks Tether is about to collapse Why no stablecoins are able to secure audits Tether receives a new assurance opinion showing $39b of treasuries How many outflows can Tether accommodate? Differences in redemption between USDC and USDT What does a crackdown in offshore assets by the CCP have to do with Tether? Cloudflare’s wall of lava lamps Is it time for a new batch of FUD dice? We assess the quality of the Terra mea culpas Content mentioned in this episode:  World Bank, The ascent of crypto assets: Evolution and macro-financial drivers Sponsor notes: Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter