On The Brink with Castle Island

Joel Revill is the cofounder and CEO of Two Ocean Trust, a Wyoming Chartered Trust Company offering wealth management services to high-net-worth individuals and family offices. Two Ocean Trust has recently received a no-action letter from the Wyoming Division of Banking stating the division’s determination that Two Ocean is a “qualified custodian” under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the SEC Custody Rule. This letter states the division’s determination that Two Ocean may provide custodial services for digital assets under Wyoming law, including virtual currency and digital tokenized securities. In this episode: Joel's background and the genesis of Two Ocean Trust Current gaps in the market as far as digital asset custody is concerned The significance of Two Ocean's No-Action letter from the State of Wyoming What Qualified Custody actually means, and why it matters Why Wyoming is a great place to start a business pertaining to digital assets The history of the SPDI Charter – and why Two Ocean did not opt for the SPDI Why high net worth individuals are buying Bitcoin today Joel's current monetary outlook – and why Bitcoin is more than just a hedge

Matt and Nic cover deals and news of the week. In this episode:  PTJ's latest comments on Bitcoin How Bitcoin is akin to a cathedral Franklin Templeton invests in Curv PayPal launches a crypto offering Will PayPal open up its walled garden? The Kik story finally reaches a conclusion Coinbase publishes their first transparency report Paradigm's big bet Is CBDC going to be pro-inflationary? The bank lobby pushes back at the Wyoming SPDI Why this bull run is more sustainable than that of 2017 How Bitcoin scales with capital, not people Content mentioned in this episode: Doubleline, The Pandora's Box of CBDC Paul Tudor Jones appears on CNBC Coinbase, Transparency at Coinbase Forbes, feature on Paradigm Raoul Pal, The Bitcoin Life Raft  Bank Policy Institute, Beware the Kraken

Bruce Fenton, founder of the Satoshi Roundtable and Chainstone Labs, joins the show to talk security tokens and tokens-which-are-securities. In this episode: About Bruce's company Chainstone labs How the Bitcoin Roundtable is intertwined with Bitcoin history and the blocksize debate Coinbase's ongoing rapprochement with Bitcoiners Why longevity is so difficult in the crypto industry Are we living in the most historically aggressive period in terms of regulatory oversight into the industry? What Bruce makes of Heath Tarbert's comments on Ethereum Continuing uncertainty about the status of Ripple's XRP – and what possible outcomes look like The prospects for token S1s and a genuine standard of disclosure for new issuances Why trying to avoid securities laws causes token issuers to create subpar instruments How much control do governance tokens really give tokenholders? Why Bitcoin isn't sufficient to resist the state alone – and what tools are part of that toolkit Why the US should consider disrupting itself with regards to managing the world's financial system Why some people like security tokens for the wrong reasons The logistical advantages of tokenizing a security How security tokens could open up mid-size businesses which don't have access to capital markets

Matt and Nic cover deals and news of the week. In this episode:  NYDIG emerges from stealth and announces a Bitcoin balance sheet position More companies add Bitcoin to their balance sheet Filecoin launches at a $200b implied fully diluted valuation Is the Filecoin SAFT different from the other SAFTs? Why token projects are strongly incentivized to be untransparent about their tokens CFTC chair Heath Tarbert praises Ethereum The relationship between securities and commodities Ripple complains about securities regulation and claims China controls Bitcoin Grayscale Ether Trust becomes an SEC reporting entity Grayscale raises $1b in Q3 Breitling creates NFTs as an anti-counterfeiting measure Risks involved with brainwallets Coinbase plans to sponsor Bitcoin developers A new deadline in the Mt Gox saga Content mentioned in this episode:  Crypto VC panel on privacy from the Fidelity privacy conference Ripple, What’s at Stake for the U.S. When It Comes to Digital Asset Regulation The Block's new data dashboard Bitmex Research, Call me Ishmael Ryan Castellucci talk at DevCon, Cracking Cryptocurrency Brainwallets

Kyle Samani, cofounder and managing partner at Multicoin, joins the show to talk his current views on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and to give an update on web3 and how Multicoin is approaching the opportunity. In this episode:  Kyle's current views on Ethereum, its positioning, and its prospects for filling out the roadmap Whether liquidity network effects for smart contract chains are insurmountable What it would take to reach global scale for public blockchains Kyle's changing view of Bitcoin over time The effect of WBTC on Ethereum The topic that Kyle has most dramatically changed his mind on recently Kyle's view of the validity of DCF valuations for DeFi tokens Kyle's theory on which classes of DeFi tokens should accrue long-term value A retrospective on Multicoin's EOS thesis and where they were tripped up Which blog post of his Kyle thinks has aged the best What Web3 means to Kyle How fast Web3 has grown relative to Kyle's expectations in 2017 The imminent Web3 projects that Kyle thinks could have mass market applicability Multicoin's Helium thesis and the importance of LoRaWAN How Helium tokenomics are modeled after physical commodities Kyle's expectations for web3 applications within the next 5 years Whether Ethereum requires web3 to succeed and vice versa Content mentioned in this episode: Multicoin, EOS Analysis and Valuation  Multicoin, On Forking DeFi Protocols Multicoin, Augur Analysis and Valuation

Matt and Nic cover deals and news of the week. Repeat guest Zachary Kelman joins the show to give his view of the FinCEN files and how the crypto industry should interpret the revelations. In this episode:  How fees affect DeFi liquidity and the price of ETH Braintrust raises $18m Bitnomial raises an $11m Series B Arthur Hayes and Sam Reed step down from their roles at 100x Despite everything, Bitmex is still operational BitMEX keeps processing withdrawals India's legislature turns hostile to Bitcoin Square buys $50m worth of BTC to hold on its balance sheet The difference in the rationale between Microstrategy and Square for their Bitcoin positions John MacAfee is arrested in Spain for tax evasion Ripple complains that the US is an unfavorable regulatory environment The latest on the Ripple class action suit The Chamber of Digital Commerce gives congresspeople $50 worth of USA-mined Bitcoin The DOJ publishes a Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework Zach Kelman on how Bitcoin enthusiasts should be thinking about the FinCEN files Silvergate crosses $100b transacted through the SEN Content mentioned in this episode:  Peter Van Valkenburgh, There Is No Such Thing as a Decentralized Exchange Fidelity Digital Assets, The Role of Prime Brokerage in Digital Assets Nic on Medium, Public blockchain fee cyclicality and negative feedback loops Forbes, How Cathie Wood Beat Wall Street By Betting Tesla Is Worth More Than $1 Trillion  

Mitchell Nicholson is the founder of DACS Conduit and formerly an economist at the Bank of Canada. Mitchell's views are his own and not those of the Bank of Canada. In this episode: His path to joining the Bank of Canada Why he chose to start his career in central banking Mitchell's work on the Band of Canada Bitcoin awareness surveys Why the Bank of Canada put resources to the Bitcoin awareness surveys Mitchell's masters thesis on Bitcoin How covering Bitcoin was part of Mitchell's mandate at the Bank of Canada Their reaction to Quadriga How Crypto Twitter helped was useful to Mitchell during his time at the bank What it's like being a Bitcoin enthusiast working at a central bank Crypto penetration among Bank staff How Mitchell applied lessons from traditional finance to his analysis of Bitcoin Mitchell's thoughts on the legitimacy of Tether Comparing the risk profiles of single and multi collateral Dai Lessons that Bitcoiners can take from central banking Whether central banks should be concerned about crypto-dollarization The prospects for CBDCs Why the public sector may not be able to create a true digital cash with strong privacy assurances What a more restricted digital form of central bank money might look like Mitchell's view of the true killer app of the crypto industry Mitchell's new project now that he has left the BoC The one big gap Mitchell has identified in the crypto industry The likely effect of the rise of crypto markets on central banking Content mentioned in this episode:  The Bank of Canada's 2018 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey: Awareness and Usage Chainalysis' 2020 Global Crypto Adoption Report

Mason Borda, CEO and cofounder of Tokensoft, joins the show. In this episode:  Tokensoft's ERC-1404 standard Why put securities on chain? Commonalities between the spirit of securities laws and the values of crypto markets The possibility of making stock transactions into a real time phenomenon Transparency through registered security offerings versus on-chain cash flows and freely viewable contracts How on-chain tokens are transparent and where they should volunteer additional disclosures Tokensoft's Arcoin and INX issuances Mason's response to the critiques of the INX offering Why regular companies don't just "hold their own securities on a centralized database" DTCC explained for Bitcoiners How Mason thinks about securities regulation today as compared with 2017 Is the 'complexity defense' sufficient to ward off securities regulators? Mason's desired approach to the market from the SEC Lessons that the SEC can take from MAS (Singapore) and FINMA (Switzerland) The outstanding barriers to security tokens gaining liquidity and market share

Nic and Matt cover a tumultuous week in the crypto markets. In this episode:  We investigate the Dollar Milkshake Theory BitPanda raises $52m Genesis announces the official launch of their custody product Our breakdown of the BitMEX situation Where the BitMEX situation leaves the remaining offshore crypto exchanges The prospects for users who currently have funds on BitMEX How the BitMEX lawsuit potentially improves the prospects for a Bitcoin ETF Whether BitMEX was a source of sell pressure for Bitcoin Where BitMEX leaves decentralized exchanges The SEC obtains a summary judgment over Kik Why the SALT lending settlement with the SEC signals a shift in the SEC's attitude with regards to tokens CommerceBlock converts their token into equity into a UK company Talos Trading comes out of stealth mode The biggest remaining systemic risk that the crypto industry faces

Trent and Brock Elmore, two of the five creators of Yam Finance, a decentralized finance protocol, join the show. In this episode we discuss: The inspiration for starting Yam Finance The story behind the launch, the initial bug and the subsequent re-launch Contextualizing DeFi – what is a fad and what is enduring The future for Yam Finance and the long term sustainability of fair launch platforms   To learn more about Yam Finance visit: https://yam.finance/