On The Brink with Castle Island

Matt and Nic are back. In this episode: More cured meats drama The Singapore sovereign wealth fund invests in Anchorage Will they or wont they - Goldman edition Bitcoin completes Paypal's original vision Schwab looks to add support for crypto Kings of Leon NFT Are NFTs the first truly mainstream application of blockchains? Are today's centralized public blockchains just a return of private blockchains? Citi releases the case for bitcoin GBTC trades at a steep discount to NAV and what it means Is the GBTC arbitrage trade over? Should startups hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets? How does 2021 feel compared to 2018? Are we likely to see another 70%+ drawdown? Content mentioned in this episode:  Bloomberg's Crypto Outlook, Mike McGlone Understanding Bitcoin, Jurrien Timmer Bitcoin at the Tipping Point, City GPS This episode is brought to you by Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin.

Brian Flynn, the founder and CEO of Rabbit Hole, a platform for driving customer acquisition for decentralized finance protocols joins the show. In this episide we discuss: Brian’s path to cryptoassets and the spark that led him to founding Rabbit Hole Views on NFTs and the use cases that we will see in the coming years Thoughts more broadly on the categories of decentralized finance that are the most enduring and likely to capture value How customer acquisition works now in DeFi and where Rabbit Hole is solving problems To learn more about Rabbit Hole visit their website and follow Brian on Twitter @Flynnjamm

Nic and Matt return for more news and deals of the week. In this episode:  Is Bitcoin more reliable than Fedwire? Are stablecoins already superior to legacy infrastructure? Tether-Tron transactions exceed Tether-Ethereum The social utility of trading wholesale energy One chapter in the Tether saga closes Is the Tether story over? The ultimate takeaway from the Tether saga Square buys more Bitcoin Nic evangelizes bitcoin to his hairdresser A bitcoiner joins the Federal Reserve How big will a Bitcoin ETF be on approval? Why exchanges are prudent to delist BCH and BSV

Namebase founder and CEO Tieshun Roquerre joins us for a discussion of Handshake, decentralized DNS, and issues with the current system of domains. In this episode:  The core technical problem with DNS today Why a blockchain for a decentralized DNS system makes sense How Satoshi anticipated blockchain-based DNS with BitDNS Could a global PoW blockchain system accommodate all of the world's domains? How Handshake learned from Namecoin, ENS, and other attempts from blockchain based DNS and alternative root zones The distinction between ENS and Handshake Handshake's origin and launch – and how it ended up with such diffuse governance Where the nexuses of control are in the Handshake ecosystem How Handshake PoW security works The merits of embracing ASICs How the distribution of domains works What you can actually do with handshake domains The growing interoperability between handshake and decentralized storage like Sia

Andy Edstrom, a financial advisor and Head of Institutional at Swan Bitcoin joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Andy’s new book Why Buy Bitcoin and why he embarked on writing a book about Bitcoin His path to understanding Bitcoin through the lens of an RIA His views on the prospects of a new Bretton Woods or Plaza Accord style arrangement in the coming years Prospects for an exchange-traded Bitcoin fund in the United States Bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset and the outlook for more MicroStrategy style moves   To learn more about Andy visit his website, check out his book or follow him on Twitter at @edstromandrew

Core Weave chief strategy officer and former energy trader Brannin McBee joins the show to talk about the grid meltdown in Texas and the impact of renewables on the grid. In this episode:  Brannin's history in energy trading and energy analytics How his firm survived a 95% collapse in the price of natural gas – and how that presaged his work in the crypto space How Brannin's firm Core Weave alternates between mining ETH and monetizing GPUs through high-performance compute How wholesale power trading works – and how it provides valuable informational signals to the grid How the US grid is arranged – and how the energy mix has changed in the last decade How coal has been marginalized in the last decade through natural gas and renewables Why energy is not globally fungible Why forecasting wind is so difficult – and how that complicates including wind into the grid How renewables trade off reliability against carbon impact How increasing the share of wind and solar destabilizing the grid Why increasing units of wind requires new units of gas on the grid The confluence of causes behind the Texas grid failure last week How Core Weave selected their location on the grid – and how they took political risk into account How much energy Bitcoin consumes – and where that stands relative to the energy consumption of the US How flaring natural gas to mine Bitcoin works – and whether it's economical Does Bitcoin work as a load balancer for grids? Can you compare Bitcoin's footprint to that of entire countries?  

Nic and Matt break down the headlines in yet another week of ATHs. In this episode:  Our cured meat scandal We dissect crypto mafias Necessary conditions for a corporate mafia to form Microstrategy's speculative attack on the dollar How the corporate adoption story took us by surprise Is there a goodwill dividend for buying bitcoin? Is buying bitcoin a bitcoin strategy? Nic's 50k road trip to Tahanis in Ontario Coin Metrics' partnership with Bitgo and KPMG Verge has a year-long reorg Is Coinbase fairly priced at $77b pre-IPO? Should Coinbase be worth more than Goldman? OFAC reminds us that it exists The implications of OFAC compliant mining How the tulip bubble is a Calvinist conspiracy Content mentioned in this episode:  Smithsonian Mag, There Never Was a Real Tulip Fever CM announces a partnership with BitGo and KPMG Coinbase pre-IPO shares trading at $77b

Teddy Fusaro, the President of Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The new Bitwise DeFi Index Fund The decentralized finance opportunity set and the narratives driving the space Teddy’s career path to cryptoassets and joining Bitwise The prospects of a Bitcoin ETFs Cured meats To learn more about Bitwise visit their website.

BlockFi Chief Risk Officer Rene Van Kesteren joins the show to explain how crypto lender and brokerage BlockFi engages in risk management. In this episode: Rene’s career trajectory and the path that led him to joining BlockFi The mechanics of how BlockFi offers interest bearing accounts The borrowing and lending market structure How BlockFi thinks about counterparty risk The reason why rates on U.S. Dollars are higher for stablecoins vs. dollars in a bank account How margin calls work Differences and similarities in market structure in ‘traditional’ vs. cryptoasset markets The biggest misconceptions about BlockFi and crypto lending in general To learn more about risk management at Blockfi visit: https://blockfi.com/how-blockfi-handles-risk-and-security To learn more about BlockFi’s products visit: www.blockfi.com  

Repeat guest Zach Kelman joins the show to break down the contemporary effects of Operation Choke Point from his perspective as a lawyer having worked in compliance and regulatory for large financial institutions. In this episode:  The (pre)history of Choke Point – and how it wasn't a bolt from the blue  How Choke Point was mechanically enforced against the banks  Why industry-wide politicization of financial services is a poor policy to pursue  How Choke Point lasted far beyond its original mandate Have banks been permanently politicized as a result of OCP?  How Choke Point's effects are being felt in the crypto industry What to expect on an ongoing basis Prior episodes in the Choke Point 2.0 series  Iain Murray (Competitive Enterprise Institute) on the history of Operation Choke Point Amber Scott (Outlier Canada) on crypto-bank relationships in Canada