On The Brink with Castle Island

Travis Scher, co-founder of North Island Ventures joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Travis' investing career including his tenure at DCG and his path to founded North Island Ventures. How Travis initially met SBF and his reasons for passing on the deal. Analysis of the bankruptcy process and the likely second order impacts. How this event will change the early crypto VC landscape. To learn more visit northisland.ventures and follow Travis on Twitter.

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Matt's blog post, 'It's Time to Grow Up' The Alameda - FTX relationship was always sketchy Would FTX ever have been able to go public? Why don't we have decent disclosure for token emissions? How do we put this crisis to use? John Ray's Day 1 filing about the state of affairs at FTX So what in the hell happened to the client funds at FTX? Will funds donated to politicians be clawed back? What's wrong with utilitarianism? How effective altruism is like Stalinism One theory on how Alameda lost money on Luna Some lending firms kicked out Alameda after the summer credit crisis Is Serum forking out coins which are due to FTX creditors? Why has the DOJ been so passive so far? We introduce some new bad boys Su Zhu and Kyle are trying to redeem themselves Do Kyle and Su have a new venture underway? Rep. Tom Emmer is elected as the GOP Whip in the House Will the Republican led House subpoena Gensler? Content mentioned in this episode: Matt Walsh in Medium, It's Time to Grow Up FTX CEO John Ray's Day 1 filing 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

Garrett Weaver, the co-founder and CEO of Juke joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Garrett's career as an entertainment industry executive and the path that led him to starting Juke. How Hollywood intellectual property works and how blockchains can open up revenue opportunities for studios. The use cases for NFT technology and the innovation on the horizon in the industry. To learn more about Juke visit www.juke.io Read about Juke's launch

Nic and Matt return for one of the craziest weeks in crypto history. In this episode: Coin Metrics makes a key on-chain discovery regarding FTX's insolvency Will Castle Island buy the naming rights to the Miami Heat arena? What in the hell happened to FTX/Alameda? How big is the hole in FTX' balance sheet Was FTX/Alameda insolvent as early as Q2? How this is reminiscent of the Bitfinex/Tether transaction? What did CZ see that caused him to catalyze the attack on FTX? How did FTX pass an audit? Who will be affected by the FTX collapse? How this will affect the already impaired crypto lenders We revisit some of the recent departures from FTX/Alameda This explains why FTX was bailing out the lenders in Q2 Will FTX US be firewalled off here? Could this crisis have been forecasted? Did Sam perjure himself in front of Congress? Gensler's responsibility in the FTX fiasco Su Zhu is trying to do a redemption arc Why is Su Zhu surfing? Possible regulatory consequences What are the midterm consequences for crypto? A failure of corporate governance at FTX Some venture funds were attesting to the solvency of FTX while withdrawing funds FTX is selectively processing withdrawals to Bahamanian entities Silver linings from the crisis Proof of Reserves is having a moment Sam's crypto agenda in DC is thankfully dead SBF was somehow an LP in Sequoia and Paradigm Setting the record straight on Tom Brady 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

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.