On The Brink with Castle Island

Matt and Nic are back for another roundup. In this episode: Elon is back Our take on the mining council Is Twitter Spaces killing Clubhouse? Prepare yourself for Kazakh FUD Is Chia driving up hard drive prices? OneRiver's green Bitcoin ETF The SEC asks for help regulating crypto The key catalysts we're watching in China Lael Brainard spreads historical fake news about free banking The Fed is concern trolling stablecoins Why neo Free Banking can work today Content mentioned in this episode: Hass McCook on OTB Fed Governor Lael Brainard's speech This episode supported by: Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Hass McCook is a civil engineer who has been delivering estimates of Bitcoin's energy use and CO2 emissions since 2014, as well as alternatives like gold or finance. In this episode: Hass's background in civil engineering and how it prepared him for the energy debate The conflation between energy generation and electricity generation Why you can't just generalize energy consumption to carbon emissions Hass breaks down the varying carbon intensities of different sources of generation How much energy goes to waste globally The difference between CO2 and CO2e / greenhouse gases Why today's US grid has lowered its carbon intensity over the last decade Why combusting methane is a net good from an emissions perspective Hass' level of optimism around flared gas mining Why the changing rate of ASIC innovation affects bitcoin's energy consumption The opportunity for stranded gas at landfills Hass' estimates of the gold and the financial system's energy footprints How gold mining actually works The ecological and human cost of gold mining Hass' thoughts on offsets Sponsor notes: Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Matt and Nic are back for another volatile week. In this episode: Nic's 72h fast Nic explains the Moscow time joke on Bloomberg Coinbase sells off Our explanations for the selloff Tax selling or Fed discussion of tapering? Taproot edges towards activation Eth monetary hardening - improving or impairing its monetary credibility? IRS demands cash transaction reports for transactions over $10k FinCEN doesn't inflation-index their reporting thresholds OCC reviews Brian Brooks' rules Will the new OCC be hostile to Bitcoin? Tom Emmer asks accounting regulators to revisit their accounting treatment of digital assets Elon suggests miners disclose their energy mix Should miners buy carbon offsets? Content mentioned in this episode: Nic's appearance on Bloomberg NyMag, Jack Dorsey Says Bitcoin Can Make the World Greener This episode supported by: Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Alex Thorn, the head of research at Galaxy Digital joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Alex's career path and the insights that led him to diving into the crypto space Perspectives on Dogecoin and whether this is an enduring phenomenon Considerations for Doge market infrastructure and the status of the network from a technical standpoint The state of the crypto venture market and how Alex sees this evolving To learn more about Galaxy Digital visit their website. Follow Alex on Twitter @Intangiblecoins Sponsor notes: Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Nic and Matt are back for an insane week. In this episode: Tom Brady is a Bitcoiner Elon betrays us Do virgin coins exist? Binance under investigation by the DOJ Bitwise launches the BITQ ETF Palantir thinks about buying Bitcoin Diem partners with Silvergate We break down Tether's questionable reserves 46 million Americans own BTC Elon's bad tweet New FUD dice just dropped The changing Bitcoin energy mix landscape Content mentioned in this episode: Nic Carter in Coindesk, The Virgin Bitcoin Fallacy Nic on Bloomberg/What'd You Miss This episode supported by: Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Katie Chase, the Chief Operating Officer of Coin Metrics joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Katie's time leading blockchain initiatives at Fidelity and how the firm approached early R&D efforts Her point of view on the historical barriers to institutional adoption of cryptoassets and how that is changing How Coin Metrics is addressing the data needs of large financial institutions Why risk management is an overlooked area and how CM's Farum product addresses the needs of exchanges and brokerages To learn more about Coin Metrics visit coinmetrics.io Sponsor notes: Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Nic and Matt return for another huge week of deals and news. In this episode: The Chamber of Digital Commerce publishes a Proof of Reserve whitepaper Why Proof of Reserves matter Popular critiques of PoR Coin Metrics raises a Series B from Goldman Sachs Galaxy acquires BitGo How do you pronounce 3LAU? NYDIG brings Bitcoin to banks through FIS global NYDIG continues their ascent Paypal considers a stablecoin DCG commits to another GBTC repurchase NY state explores a Bitcoin mining moratorium Why a ban in NY would be counterproductive Could Ripple actually win their case against the SEC? New FUD dice are in Content mentioned in the episode: The Chamber's PoR whitepaper Nic in the Harvard Business Review, How Much Energy does Bitcoin Actually Consume? This episode supported by: Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Noah Buxton and Jeremy Nau from accounting firm Armanino LLP join the show once again to discuss the launch of the Chamber of Digital Commerce's new whitepaper on Proof of Reserves, which they contributed to. In this episode: What was the purpose of the paper by the Chamber? What problems does it solve? History of PoR and Armanino When did Armanino first get into it? why? What's involved in a PoR? Why include an audit firm? Why exchanges are so reluctant to do PoR How trustless and fraud-proof is the process? what are the pitfalls? What are the prospects for protecting privacy in PoR? Other related engagements that Armanino is undertakin How do you expect the industry to respond to it? Different procedures that PoR refers to The semantic drift of PoR Armanino's PoR Taxonomy Why accounting firms have an important role in PoR

Nicholas Gregory, CEO of CommerceBlock, joins the show to talk about their new statechain implementation, Mercury. In this episode: Origins of CommerceBlock Nicholas' prior career in martial arts Nicholas' underground MMA club in NY Did Roger Ver take the most expensive BJJ lesson ever? The purpose of CommerceBlock's Mainstay system The difference between OpenTimestamps and Mainstay How sidechains evolved from the original vision and where they are today What can Bitcoin learn from Ethereum? Nic's rundown of privacy-enhancing technologies Centralized mixers versus coinjoin versus statechains for privacy How statechains allows you to send a UTXO without an on-chain transaction Trust drawbacks and caveats in using statechains CommerceBlock's Mercury statechain implementation Statechains as virtual opendimes Synergies between statechains and Lightning Nicholas' thoughts on Bitcoin scalability Statechain timelines Sponsor notes: Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Matt and Nic return for deals of the week, joined for the first time by new member of CIV Ria Bhutoria. In this episode: An update on Matt's Turkey problem Will Matt create OTB Turkey Jerky? Will Matt tase the Turkeys? Is monetizing stranded natural gas good for the environment? Elon 'proves Bitcoin's liquidity' Elon admits to having a personal Bitcoin position Nexon announces a $100m Bitcoin buy Is US Bank getting into Bitcoin custody? German regulators warn about Binance's equity tokens Do NFTs make sense for collectible card trading game studios? Genesis originates $20b worth of new loans Content mentioned in this episode Square and Ark Invest, Bitcoin is Key to an Abundant, Clean Energy Future [pdf] Fidelity and BBH, Applying Subcustody to Digital Assets This episode supported by: Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions