On The Brink with Castle Island

Nic and Matt cover deals and the news of the week. In this episode: Are we in a bull run or is fiat devaluating? Africa volumes growing on Paxful BCH contemplating redirecting block rewards to fund developers Electric Capital raises 110m Casa adds a direct buy bitcoin feature Dapper labs raises $12m with participation from multiple NBA players Matt's scoop about the Microstrategy Bitcoin position Grayscale files a form 10 for their Ethereum Investment Trust Whether Bitcoiners should try to appeal to goldbugs Why the world needs Bitcoin hardware that demonstrates UTXOs held Is DGC the biggest company in the crypto industry? Square's monster Q2 for Bitcoin Goldman has a new digital assets lead ETC keeps getting 51% attacked

Ray Youssef, founder and CEO of Paxful, joins the show to talk his journey with Paxful and his mission to bring Bitcoin to Africa. Paxful is a wholly bootstrapped startup that has recently taken the crown as the largest Bitcoin p2p marketplace in the world with $2.1B in annualized volume. Ray is from Egypt and has always sought to bring Bitcoin to Africa. Today, Africa is the 2nd most active region by volume on the platform (behind North America). In this episode: Why Bitcoin p2p is so popular in Africa Why interstate settlements in Africa are so challenging today Ray's predictions about p2p volume versus centralized volume Why p2p exchange data is more reliable than centralized exchange volume How Ray went from being homeless to founding the largest p2p Bitcoin exchange Why KYC in emerging markets is so challenging How Ray went through 11 failed startups before starting Paxful The downside of taking venture financing and why Paxful is better off without it Why western startups fail when they try and get involved in African markets Why African users are under-served by KYC providers like Jumio or Onfido Why Paxful has KYC How the Paxful remittance flow works with gift cards Whether Paxful users are retail or wholesalers Why Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana are popular on Paxful Why Ray focused on Africa for Paxful How Ray found his way to New Orleans after Katrina The genesis of Ray's humanitarian project to build schools in Africa Paxful is hiring!

Michael Graham and Pat McEvoy of Canaccord Genuity join the podcast to discuss how their firm has approached the blockchain/cryptoasset sector. In this episode we discuss: Michael's perspective on blockchain/cryptoassets from his role as Head of Equity Research at the firm. We discuss how blockchain technology could alter the landscape of the dominant internet companies of our era Pat's perspective on the maturation of cryptoassets and the increased participation of institutional participants in the trading of these assets Where Pat and Michael see the biggest opportunities and how Canaccord is positioning their blockchain strategy To learn more about Canaccord visit their website.

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week, featuring John Collins, partner and cofounder of FS Vector, to cover the OCC letter and its implications. Covered in this episode: Our Plustoken conspiracy Nic's bird situation USDC raises $25m from DCG Avanti's dollar-coin Avit Why Pats players keep declaring their intention to sit out the season Bitcoin Suisse raises $48.6m Polkadot raises $43m What tokensales and desert real estate have in common FTX is building a DEX on Solana Paradigm sponsors a Bitcoin developer Why Bitcoin's patronage system is a competitive advantage relative to other blockchains Our predictions on whether this rally will last The circular logic inherent in valuations of certain DeFi tokens Why distinguishing pseudo equity from cryptocurrency is so important

Jesse Walden, founder of Variant joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Jesse's journey in the crypto industry, from founding Mediachain, to being an investor at A16Z, to founding Variant The crypto ownership economy and how Jesse sees the evolution of consumer software Crypto projects through the lens of contract theory Learn more and follow Jesse at www.variant.fund and follow him on Twitter @Jessewldn

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week. Covered in this episode: Why holding Bitcoin in banks isn't necessarily contrary to the nature of Bitcoin VALR, a South African exchange, raises $3.45m from 100x Group and others The OCC's bombshell letter saying that banks can custody cryptocurrency What this means for established crypto custodians Follow-up questions we have for the OCC Hester Pierce expresses her disappointment with the outcome of the Telegram case Standard Chartered working on cryptoasset custody Paypal partnering with Paxos Coinbase blacklists the Twitter hacker addresses Our explanation of what's going on with Ampleforth The potential pro-Bitcoin regulatory troika in the US

Sam Wyner and Sal Ternullo, cryptoasset services co-leads at KPMG, join the show to talk about KPMG's newly-released analytics capabilities dubbed Chain Fusion. Chain Fusion is a patent pending suite of advanced analytics capabilities built on leading cryptoasset data and infrastructure products, to streamline the ability for financial services companies, FinTechs, and organizations across industries to deliver institutional quality cryptoasset capabilities and services. In this episode: KPMG's historical engagement with the crypto industry How audit/consulting firms are engaging with crypto financial institutions The choice to have a crypto specific team at KPMG (rather than simply focusing on blockchain) The reason why formal financial statement audits for crypto companies are not occuring in the US today Why an asset taxonomy from regulators matters to auditors What Chain Fusion is and what it's designed to solve The intersection of Chain Fusion and Proofs of Reserves for exchanges Why audit standards still don't take into account the notion of cryptographic signatures to prove ownership of an asset Why the FATF travel rule is so difficult to implement Check out the press release for Chain Fusion which provides a high-level overview of the accelerator suite and contact information to get in touch with Sam and Sal. Learn more about KPMG's Blockchain initiatives to explore recent thought leadership including Cracking Crypto Custody which describes four pillars for winning institutional crypto custody models.

Nate Maddrey, senior research analyst at Coin Metrics, joins the show to discuss a recent report published by CM in collaboration with Bitstamp, The Rise of Stablecoins. We talk through the report and analyse some of the charts in depth. In this episode: Why the auditability of public blockchains is so useful for evaluating stablecoins Why fiat backed stablecoins have different price dynamics from 'native crypto collateral' backed ones How the arbitrage growth cycle works for fiat-backed stablecoins What the distribution of ownership and addresses for USDT tells us Liquidity for USDT versus USDC and BUSD Distinguishing stablecoins based on median transfer value Stablecoins as wholesale rather than retail value transfer networks What velocity of stablecoins relative to bitcoin and ether tells us

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