On The Brink with Castle Island

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week, featuring special guest Alex Treece, president and cofounder of Zabo. Alex joins the show to discuss his report covering the intersection of fintech and cryptocurrency. Also in this episode:  We gripe about the SaaSification of the world and the loss of genuine ownership Whether the Bitcoin hero's journey requires a private blockchain digression The boys argue about the merit of soccer We talk Twitter hack scenarios Why the Twitter hackers had to use Bitcoin Social media handles as property Grayscale's blockbuster quarter Abra settles with the SEC We cover the theory that individual bitcoins don't actually exist  

Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Avanti Financial Group, joins the show. Caitlin is a thinker and writer we admire a huge amount and she has done a monumental job with her advocacy for responsible custody practices among crypto depository institutions. She is one of the key architects of the Wyoming Special Purpose Depository Institution legislation which establishes a new form of crypto bank in Wyoming. In in no small part thanks to her efforts that Wyoming is the most progressive state in terms of defining and regulating digital assets and the institutions that custody them. We share Caitlin's enthusiasm for clarifying depositor exchange relationships and for public-facing proofs of reserve, so we were very excited have her on the show. Covered in this episode: Risks involved in complying with the FATF's travel rule How the FATF enforces its recommendations Why compliance burdens freeze out small and community banks How the $10k limit for disclosure for cash transactions increases the scope of transactions that should be disclosed in real terms How the Bank Secrecy Act and the third party doctrine means the government can procure warrantless financial data Caitlin's Bitcoin origin story The thawing of the gold community's sentiments towards bitcoin The tension inherent in the institutionalization of bitcoin Why Proofs of Reserves aren't more popular today The importance of distinguishing ownership of a key and a legal title Why users are poorly equipped to hold exchanges accountable Why the state by state regulation in the US doesn't suit the reality of crypto custodians How the Wyoming SPDI legislation got started What the Wyoming SPDI laws actually mean How Avanti got its name Caitlin's long term objectives with Avanti Why banking remains the achilles heel of the crypto industry Why existing banks might not be able to handle future growth of the crypto industry How the FDIC targeted the crypto industry Why custodians should have access to the Fed window Caitlin's pitch to entrepreneurs to move to Wyoming

Matt and Nic cover the top stories of the week. In this episode:  Nic's viral Tweet  The Fed competes with crypto startups for talent TikTok influences the crypto markets Why supply metrics should be reexamined Why we wrote our cryptodollar whitepaper Chainalysis raises another round Coinbase IPO rumors USDC funds are frozen for the first time Can the stablecoin 'blacklist model' survive? Our FATF 101 and what their new guidance means for the industry What the 'travel rule' actually means why the FATF is worried about stablecoins The FATF fires a shot at decentralized stablecoins

Tim Rice, Coin Metrics CEO, and Ben Celermajer, index manager at Coin Metrics join the show to discuss a new supply measure for cryptoassets which takes into account their "free float." This is designed to take into account coins which are immobilized or illiquid, and brings a systematic approach to the issue inherited from traditional capital markets. In this episode:  Why Coin Metrics developed a "free float" measure of supply and why it's informative to investors How CM borrowed from index weighting strategies in equity markets to devise a free methodology for cryptoassets Why the highly auditable nature of cryptocurrencies allows for extremely informative assessments of supply The lack of standards in how supply is assessed among existing data providers Which assets saw the greatest reduction in supply due to the free float adjustment How market capitalization in equities in indexes went through a historical transition from total supply to float-adjusted supply For more on free float supply, see CM's introductory research piece on the topic. 

Matt and Nic cover the top stories of the week. In this episode:  The MPC custody debate NYDIG raises $190m for a Bitcoin fund Zimbabwe bans all mobile money services and contemplates redollarization 4% of the UK population owns cryptocurrency, according to the securities regulator What a long-defunct exchange has to do with Bitcoin's GINI coefficient Why the 'market cap' of BCH and BSV is significantly overstated Why 'market cap' remains a problematic measure to compare cryptoassets Ark Invest's rebuttal to Goldman Nic gets a paper published in an antitrust law journal The looming antitrust wave against big tech

Dave Balter, the cofounder and CEO of Flipside Crypto, a business intelligence company focused on public blockchains, joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Dave’s new book, The Humility Imperative, and the lessons he has learned from seven startups His POV on leadership in an emerging market like cryptoassets/blockchain Reflections on fundraising, remote working, personal relationships and more. To learn more about Flipside Crypto visit their website and follow Dave @DaveBalter

We host Lyn Alden, equity research and investment strategist focusing on global macro and commodities, to talk about the debt overhang, the effect of the dollar as the reserve currency, QE, the likelihood of inflation, and the prospects for Bitcoin.  In this episode:  How the Bretton Woods system broke down and gave way to the Nixon shock The genesis of the petrodollar system with Saudi Arabia Alternatives to the dollar reserve that were mooted prior to Bretton Woods II Why the dollar reserve system has begun to impose a cost on americans rather than being a net benefit How the US became a debtor nation and what that means for the middle class Why the US dollar can't find a natural equilibrium The relationship between dollar strength and emerging markets Why the US government is caught between remaining strategic power through dollar centrality versus re-onshoring supply chains Can the world transition past a dollar standard? Why global commodities being priced in a single currency is a historical aberration Why calling QE simply an asset swap isn't a complete description Why our monetary situation bears resemblance to the 1940s The Fed's changing inflation target Why QE in 2008-14 was largely noninflationary and why this time might be different Lyn's view on Bitcoin and how it fits into her macro thesis Lyn's major concerns about Bitcoin

Matt and Nic cover the top stories of the week. In this episode:  More Proof of Reserve chatter OmiseGo's parent company raises $80m Bitmex backs a new options exchange Paypal plans to roll out crypto products KPMG announces Chain Fusion USDC goes multi-chain We explain the COMP situation Telegram finally settles with the SEC Jay Clayton eyes the SNDY job An explanation of Bitcoin as a synthetic commodity money Our favorite and least favorite regional Fed branches Why a US CBDC has troubling privacy implications Our breakdown of the Compound situation

Pat Larsen, cofounder and CEO of ZenLedger joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Pat’s entrepreneurial journey and the path that led him to start Zenledger The current state of cryptoasset tax regulation Perspectives on emerging consumer use cases and new applications for cryptoassets To learn more about ZenLedger visit their website and to receive a 15% discount on your tax prep this year use the coupon code “Castle15”  

Noah Buxton, director and co-lead of Armanino's blockchain practice and Jeremy Nau, senior manager of the practice join the show. Armanino LLP is an accounting and audit firm that has developed proof of reserve tools for exchanges and custodians, as well as real time attestation tools for stablecoins. In this episode, we cover:  How Armanino came to engage with crypto financial companies Why Proof of Reserve matters to the industry How a modern Proof of Reserve process is mechanically carried out Why exchanges are looking to adopt PoR today Why the first round of PoR didn't stick Why the Liability side is so tricky Why involve an auditor in a PoR process Whether PoR inherently requires an audit or accounting firm Proof of Reserve as a way to avoid onerous regulation Armanino's real time assurance tool for Trust Token