On The Brink with Castle Island

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Matt and Nic are back with more news and deals. In this episode:

Why the Coldcard hack is worse than some major exchange and DeFi hacks
What the Coldcard hack told us about the need for open weight models
Is self custody over?
MSTR sells more Bitcoin
An FBI agent steals $1m in crypto
NY state sues Kalshi
Ethereum considers another change to issuance
Ethereum needs to resist the urge to change monetary policy
ai16z's Eliza winds down
the merit of reading sci fi
The cofounder of Sui leaves for Anthropic
Will Anthropic keep the discoveries to themselves?
The WSJ gets it wrong on Clarity

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What the novel Hyperion tells us about AI doom
Situational Awareness liquidates most of its public book after a sharp AI selloff
Will Leo have a second act?
Why has AI been selling off?
Over 1000 BTC stored in Coldcard wallets were stolen due to bad entropy
Where does self-custody go from here?
What happened with Coldcard?
Political winds are shifting against crypto as midterms loom
Strategy continues to strengthen its balance sheet with MSTR common sales
An ice cream shop in CA is hedging the weather with Kalshi
Circle buy's IBM's blockchain patent portfolio
Visions of Bitcoin turns 8 this week

Content mentioned this episode:

Nic and Hasu, Visions of Bitcoin

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Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The Fat Model Thesis
Are OAI and Anthropic in real trouble with Kimi?
The Bitcoin Security Consortium is announced to tackle quantum risk
Galaxy announces their Quantum Readiness Initiative
Clarity is beleaguered in Washington
Polymarket and Kalshi keep feuding
The SEC settles with Coinbase over Gensler's lost text messages
We uncover some new documents revealing that Genesis inadvertently kicked off the UST depeg
Jack Mallers leaves the XXI Capital DAT
Movement Labs declares bankruptcy
BitMEX finally winds down their exchange
Balaji's Network State is unceremoniously evicted from of Malaysia
The SEC warns about crypto vaults
Matt comes around on soccer

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Matt and Nic are back with the deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Nic licks his World Cup wounds
Do Bitcoin Treasury strategies make sense?
Trying to make sense of Saylor's "bitcoin rating"
Trump's teleprompter operator has been trading on what Trump is going to say in his speeches
Why do people keep insider trading on prediction markets?
Clarity Act odds are trickling down
Strategy shores up their balance sheet
Is the Bitcoin cycle finally turning?
Stripe bids for Paypal
The AI DeFi apocalypse didn't happen
Kathy Hochul's AI datacenter moratorium
Why is Anthropic running ads suggesting that they could cause extinction
The DTC is using Canton for it's tokenized settlement pilot
Brian Chesky's AI slop thread debacle
Jesse Pollak leaves Base
CBDCs are officially banned federally

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Strategy sells $216m worth of BTC
Where does Strategy go from here with STRC?
Kalshi's case faces the ban of sports contracts in NY
TeraWulf signs a massive lease with Anthropic
BonkDAO's legal hack
Vanguard hires a head of digital assets
Kraken wins arbitration against Mazars for de-auditing them in 2022
Vitalik lays out a new four year plan
Polymarket's 5 minute BTC markets are being manipulated

Content mentioned:

Settlement Manipulation in Prediction Markets

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Saylor releases Strategy's "Digital Credit Capital Framework"
MSTR stabilizes for now though STRC is still discounted
Is Saylor transitioning MSTR into a Bitcoin hedge fund?
Is Strategy doing anything tricky with their mNAV calculation
The OpenUSD consortium is announced
Is the Tether and Circle duopoly broken?
Can stablecoin consortiums work?
What could cause OpenUSD to fail?
Trump's 2025 diclosures include a lot of crypto
Binance leaves the EU for now
The K-pop DAT ends its digital asset ambitions
Why the bottom might not be in

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Our recording snafu
STRC's depeg explained
Saylor's path forward
Why Strategy's issue is the converts
Polymarket's questionable marketing
Trump's Quantum EOs

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Matt and Nic are back for a week of news and deals. In this episode:

The Tartan Army takes over Boston
Europeans are shocked that American infrastructure works
STRC falls into the low $80s
STRC's liquidation cascade mechanics
What are Saylor's options now?
Is the US right to put the brakes on Fable?
Will open weight models puncture the AI boom?
Are we living in a vulnerable world?
Kristin Gillebrand's son raises $30m for a perps exchange
Make sure your tokenized equity provider has the equity
Why aren't publishers doing pay per content

Content mentioned:

Nick Bostrom, The Vulnerable World Hypothesis

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Matt and Nic are back with a new week of news and deals. In this episode:

Spanish soccer club Osasuna hedges their relegation on Kalshi
Strategy shocks people by buying the dip
Is Strategy sacrificing MSTR to save STRC?
Saylor bolsters his cash position
What factors are dragging on the BTC price?
Zcash fixes a scary inflation bug
SBF formally applies for a Presidential pardon
The CFTC proposes banning a subset of prediction market contracts
Polymarket thinks that Kalshi is spying on them
European fans in America for the World Cup are discovering Buc-ees
The DATs are struggling
Hester Peirce gives her farewell address
Japanese banks are launching a joint stablecoin
Will there be offshore interest-bearing USD stablecoins?
Anthropic drops Fable
The thin model hypothesis
What could pop the AI rally?

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Wyatt sits down with Omid Malekan, a Professor at Columbia Business School, author of several books, and "Explainer-in-Chief" of blockchain technology. In this episode, Wyatt and Omid discuss:

Why do stablecoins carry a persisent sense of being "dangerous" or "ungovernable?
Are stablecoins truly private money? How do we define private money?
Who owns our current banking and payment systems?
Why do banks vocally oppose stablecoins?
Who will own and control digital money networks?
Are blockchains the right medium for digital finance over the long term?
Is digital trust a problem?

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

FIFA's World Cup ticketing scandal
Andrew Yang is now a crypto and telecoms entrepreneur
Are Strategy's woes responsible for the Bitcoin pullback?
Will Saylor defend STRC or MSTR?
What are Saylor's options here?
Polymarket has another market resolution SNAFU
How UMA could be used to exploit Polymarket
BitMine considers a perpetual preferred security
Google's quantum circuit is optimized by hobbyists
Galaxy launches OTC trading for prediction markets
Treasury sanctions Iran's largest digital asset exchanges
Andrew Left of Citron research is convicted of securities fraud

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The CEO of Lead bank says debanking was made up
Which aspects of debanking were real?
The SEC scraps its 50-year-old gag rule
The WSJ gets free banking history wrong in their attack on stablecoins
What does history tell us about decentralized monetary issuance
Why stablecoins aren't vulnerable to the same issues as free banks
SoFi launches SoFiUSD and mixes a stablecoin with a tokenized deposit
Sentiment is bottoming in Ethereum
David Hoffman sells his ETH
Are stablecoins parasitic to L1s
Can L1s accrue value sustainably?
The DATs are troubled
Is AGI here already?
AI cost discipline

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic on Substack, Stablecoins are private money. There's nothing wrong with that

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Are AI datacenters better or worse for the environment than Bitcoin miners?
AI is not responsible for your power bills
Why AI could actually drive down residential power prices
Is AI less popular than crypto ever was?
The negative societal effects of tech companies staying private for longer
We analyze the SpaceX S1
OpenAI solved one of the Erdos problems
The US government is taking equity stakes in quantum computers
Jane Street is still dealing with the Terra fallout
Prime Trust is trying to claw back assets from Swan
The SEC has questions about tokenized equities

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic on Substack, AI is not hiking your electricity bill - yet

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Matt and Nic are aback with another week of news and deals, today joined by Gus Coldebella to cover the CLARITY Act. In this episode:

The Clarity Act advances resoundingly from committee
Sen. Warren doesn't like the Clarity Act
Will there be an ethics provision inserted into Clarity?
The next fight in DC
What's up with Nantucket real estate?
Nantucket's ponzinomics
Nantucket is the birthplace of venture capital
Circle is issuing a token
Cprkrn recovers 5 BTC with the help of Claude

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Will Hantavirus become another global pandemic?
Kraken buys Reap for $600m
Bullish buys Equiniti for $4.2b
Reflections on 10 years of attending Consensus
Is it acceptable to wear a backpack with a suit
a16z crypto announces a $2.2b fundraise
Coinbase is laying off 14% of the firm
Will AI lead to massive job losses?
Is VC immune from AI job displacement
I bipartisan compromise is finally reached on Clarity
How the AI water use debate is just like Bitcoin
The AI lobby is learning from Fairshake
The SEC delays prediction market ETFs

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

DeFi had its worth month of hacks ever
How are people falling for the fake Zoom link hack
The KelpDAO Aave bailout is happening
Is Bitcoin's security degrading because miners are pivoting to AI?
Litecoin suffers a 51% attack
Is Bitcoin PoW at risk?
Computershare partners with Securitize
Meta will offer creator payouts in stablecoins via Stripe
Q-day prize controversy
Why quantum canaries might not provide much of a warning
Paul Tudor Jones is spooked by quantum
Some evidence for insider information in political prediction markets

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Pluto is a veteran of DeFi and cross chain systems, with prior stints at Thorchain and Airswap, now building Harbor, a native asset DEX. In this episode, we talk about the KelpDAO exploit and how DeFi can regain people's trust. Nic sits down with him to discuss:

What exactly happened with the KelpDAO/ Aave hack?
Will new AI models make hackers more proficient?
Is advanced AI a defensive or offensive technology for smart contracts?
Why protocol exposures are often not on chain
Why DeFi might want to segregate execution from settlement
Is it possible to have instant settlement and proactive monitoring
Do we have anything to learn from DeFi
What could Aave have done different?
Where did LayerZero go wrong?
Can DeFi work if there are occasional freezes and seizures?
Pluto's reflections on Thorchain
What Thorchain did right
Arbitrum's questionable precedent
What Pluto is building with Harbor
Where does DeFi go from here?

Learn more about Harbor and follow Pluto on X

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals:

The Finding Satoshi documentary has a new guess
Was it Hal or Len?
Could Satoshi have been a team?
Why Stylometry might not reveal Satoshi
Why the cypherpunks were interested in resurrection
What happened with KelpDAO?
Is DeFi cooked?
Is Arbitrum decentralized?
The Paris temperature market was manipulated
Coinbase releases their highly-anticipated quantum risk report
Performance tradeoffs for post-quantum signature schemes
SBF was a good investor
The Justin Sun WLFI saga continues
Did an Indian tanker fall victim to a crypto scam in the Strait of Hormuz?

Content mentioned in this episode:

Finding Satoshi Documentary
Fidelity Digital Assets, Getting Off Zero: Evaluating Bitcoin in 2026
Coinbase, Quantum report

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Brandon Arvanaghi, the co-founder and CEO of Meow, joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The rise of agentic payments and the convergence of LLMs and financial services.
Meow's approach to banking the agentic economy.
How financial services firms and banks will need to evolve in order to service AI agents.
Meow's product roadmap.

Meow recently made history as the first fintech to enable AI agents to open business bank accounts and virtual cards. Meow has been building the banking and treasury infrastructure for crypto-native and VC-backed companies for several years now. This includes USDC/USDT rails, stablecoin card programs, treasury management, and FX. To learn more about Meow visit meow.com

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Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals:

Jameson Lopp's BIP361 gets an official BIP number
What about an official salvage process for the quantum-vulnerable Satoshi coins
What about recycling Satoshi's bitcoins into long-term tail emissions
Why the Satoshi freeze war will be unlike the Blocksize war
Kraken confidential files for an IPO
The SEC says defi frontends might not be broker dealers even if they list tokenized securities
Goldman files for a Bitcoin ETF
WLFi is having a feud with Justin Sun
Ether Machine, an Ethereum DAT winds down
There is a new Satoshi documentary coming out
There is an A-list Hollywood movie coming out about Craig Wright
Leo Aschenbrenner's secret
Tether invests into Drift Protocol post-hack
Why is USDC refusing to freeze funds after hacks?
Do we need an "on-chain" Chancery Court for blockchains

Content mentioned on this episode:

Nic on X, How to resolve the matter of the Satoshi coins without a freeze

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The New York Times thinks Adam Back is Satoshi
The problems with the NYT's analysis
The case for Len Sassaman
The case for Satoshi not being alive
Could Satoshi be a group?
Why Satoshi might be discovered this year
Morgan Stanley launches their Bitcoin ETF
Scott Bessent asks for Congress to pass Clarity
The White House finds that stablecoin yield would not harm the banking system
Kalshi secures a key win in a NJ appeals court
Anthropic's Mythos model is exposing vulnerabilities
CZ is publishing a memoir
Will Hormuz tolls be payable in Bitcoin?

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Connor Dougherty, Co-Founder and CEO of Valinor Digital, joins the show. In this episode:

Connor's background working at a large private credit shop
Pioneering a new category of Open Credit and how it expands the TAM for private credit
Explosion of stablecoin demand enabling new borrowing types
Structuring deals to align with traditional private capital and onchain lending
Building a modern credit institution by utilizing technology

See more at valinordigital.com

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The significance of the new Google and Oratomic papers on quantum computing and ECC256
Why short range attacks are now part of the threat model
Is Nic conflicted out from discussing quantum?
What will be the fate of the Satoshi coins?
What maritime law and shipwreck recovery tells us about the fate of Satoshi's coins
Drift protocol is hacked
Gary Gensler does not like prediction markets
DATs are selling BTC

Content mentioned in this episode:

Cain et al, Shor's algorithm is possible with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits
Babbush et al, Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies against Quantum Vulnerabilities: Resource Estimates and Mitigations

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Circle stock sells off big on a CLARITY yield update compromise
Tether is doing their first big 4 financial audit
Who is the CLARITY Act Yield "compromise" good for?
Why Circle might benefit from closing the yield loophole
Is no bill better than a bad bill?
Should Coinbase back the bill?
Fannie Mae will accept crypto-backed mortgages
Ethereum Foundation launches their post-quantum roadmap
Google has revised their quantum transition deadline up to 2029
Why we will not have a lot of warning regarding quantum risk
Where is Bitcoin on quantum preparedness?
Why it's not all doom and gloom on quantum
MARA sells $1b worth of BTC

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What happened with the disastrous Vanity Fair photoshoot
Kraken postpones their IPO
The SEC releases long-awaited guidance distinguishing securities from commodities
A compromise may be developing over stablecoin yield
The SEC drops their case against Nader Al-Naji
Phantom gets a no-action letter from the CFTC
Tempo mainnet launches
Some regional banks are tokenizing deposits
Will agentic payments be a thing
Q-day is creeping closer

Content mentioned:

Galaxy Research, Bitcoin Is Rising to the Challenge of Quantum Readiness
Global Risk Institute, Quantum Threat Timeline Report 2025

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Are we in an oil crisis and energy shock
Binance is suing the WSJ for defamation
NASDAQ and Kraken partner to bring stocks on chain
The SEC and CFTC issue an MOU
Prediction markets need surveillance
Across is considering converting their token into equity
The White House's cyber strategy
The banks are still fighting about stablecoin yield
What risks do stablecoins actually pose to banks?

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What Dario Amodei and SBF have in common
Trump wades in to the market structure debate and asks the banks to come to the table
Why stablecoins are not like banks
Kraken Financial gets a skinny Fed master account
Visa and Bridge are rolling out stablecoin-linked cards
The FBI arrests a suspect accused of stealing $46m in BTC from the US marshalls
Morgan Stanley is coming out with their own Bitcoin ETF
The Aave token governance controversy rumbles on
Kalshi's traders are upset about their "death market" policy

Content mentioned in this episode:

The CIV Youtube Channel
Alpen Labs, Size Matters: Architecting BTC Credit Markets

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Alex Wilson, Co-Founder and CEO of Cyclops, joins the show. In this episode:

Alex's background running The Giving Block and the company's acquisition by Shift4
Difficulty in enabling stablecoin solutions when utilizing existing providers while inside of Shift4
Backgrounds of the founding team at Cyclops
Regulatory strategy for Cyclops
Products: Pay with Crypto (POS, E-Com), Stablecoin Settlement (for Merchants vs. Wire or ACH), Stablecoin Payouts (Payroll, Contractor Payments, Remittance)
Key features for building specifically for payments companies

See more at cyclops.io

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Dana Syracuse and Josh Boehm of Paul Hastings join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The OCC Charter process how digital asset companies are pursuing the federal path
The aftermath of the Genius Act passage and the rulemaking process for this law
Considerations for Federal vs. State charter pathways
The market structure bill

Learn more about Paul Hastings

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Kalshi has detected and banned two accounts for insider trading
Is Polymarket going to have to add KYC?
Is there a tradeoff between informational efficiency and market fairness
The OCC de facto bans stablecoin yield in its rulemaking around GENIUS
Meta is considering partnering with a stablecoin issuer
Stripe is bullish in their annual report
ZachXBT determines that Axiom employees have been abusing the platform
Terraform labs accuses Jane Street of insider trading
WSJ reports that Binance overlooked Iranian sanctions violations
Justin Drake unveils a post-quantum roadmap for Ethereum
Matt Corallo says Nic is wrong about Bitcoin and quantum

Content mentioned:

Larry Cermak: How Crypto Actually Works: The Missing Manual

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Crypto VC funds have some dry powder
CFTC chair Mike Selig asserts jurisdiction over prediction markets relative to the States
Is Kalshi more reliable than interest rate futures?
The CLARITY Act inches closer to passing
Shake up at Gemini
OpenClaw agents are going to start phishing crypto users
Bitwise aims to launch prediction market ETFs
Bridge gets their OCC charter
Hyperliquid launches a lobbying arm
DAT hangover continues
Blockfills reveals a $75m hole
Ethereum is having an identity crisis
Base is moving away from Optimism
Neel Kashkari's bad faith stablecoin criticism

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Wyatt sits down with Raj Parekh, Head of Stablecoins and Payments at Monad. In this episode:

Will enterprises build out their own stablecoin solutions?
Will card payments continue to grow, or be challenged by other forms of payments?
What is the role of governments in driving whether stablecoin adoption will continue, accelerate, or decelerate?
How does Monad work with leading financial organizations?
Where do you see opportunity for novel tech solutions around stablecoins?
Will there be many stablecoins or a smaller number of stablecoins at scale?
Will companies run their own corporate chains?
How should companies look at embedding stablecoins in their workflows from scratch?

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Matt reflects on the Patriots season
We review the Superbowl Ads
Looking forward to the OpenAI wearable
Is "something big happening" in AI?
Does crypto accelerate the rise of malicious AI?
Are all communications networks going to break down in 90 days?
SBF wants a new trial
Blackrock adds BUIDL to Uniswap
Blockfills suspends withdrawals
Robinhood is internalizing their prediction market product
The stablecoin yield issue in Clarity is still a problem
Fairshake is getting active in the midterms
Is Chris Dixon right about Web3?
We review winter olympic sports

Content mentioned:

Chris Dixon, The long game for crypto

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Wyatt sits down with Bhavin, co-founder of Birch Hill to chat about the tokenized asset and DeFi market broadly. In this episode:

Who is assessing whether cryptoassets are safe in DeFi today?
Who is assessing risk and ensuring assets are solvent and not fraudulent?
How have these standards been set and how are they evolving?
What is a risk curator, how do risk curators make money, and what is their role?
Is it the responsibility of protocols, curators, wallets, or someone else to protect users from buying bad assets?
How do you expect non-DeFi-native market participants will start to enter this market?
Will users eventually buy, hold, and sell assets on protocol interfaces, brokerages / exchanges, or risk curator interfaces?
Does the Fat Protocol Thesis hold true? Where does value accrue today?

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Bitcoin grapples with the fallout of the Epstein Emails
Did Jeffrey Epstein influence Bitcoin development?
Is Bhutan selling their Bitcoin?
Do Bitcoin devs care about quantum?
Is Bitcoin Core under the influence with sophons
Kyle Samani steps back from Multicoin
What Samani's departure means for crypto
Is web3 dead forever?
Vitalik starts second-guessing the L2-centric roadmap
Tether is trading at a slight discount

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic on Substack, Bitcoin developers are mostly not concerned about quantum risk

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Matt is heated about the Belichick HoF vote
Fidelity launches a stablecoin FIDD on Ethereum
Market structure passes Senate Ag Cmte
The White House crypto council is being revived to find a compromise on stablecoin yield
Fairshake has another war chest for the midterms
Do stablecoins cause bank deposit contraction?
Tether has 140 tons of gold now
Why is Bitcoin not participating in the "debasement" trade?
Is gold at risk from alchemy?
People are still worried about quantum
Will Worldcoin save us from AI bots?
What's the solution to the AI slop apocalypse?
Digital alibis with blockchains

Content mentioned in this episode:

Niall Ferguson and Manny Rincon-Cruz, Stablecoins Are the Future but Banks will Survive
McKinsey and Artemis, Stablecoins in payments: What the raw transaction numbers miss

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Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

There's a big storm coming
Matt's playoff picks
Farcaster sells to Neynar
Is this the nail in the coffin for Web3Social?
Where Farcaster went wrong
BitGo goes public
NYSE is building a tokenized security trading platform
Are we looping back around to enterprise blockchains?
A MA judge has issued an injunction against Kalshi
Jeffries drops Bitcoin from its model portfolio over quantum risk
Coinbase launches an advisory board on quantum
Trump sues JPM for debanking him
Does the Central Bank of Iran really control $500m worth of USDT?
What's next for Caroline Ellison?

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Matt and Nic are back after a week off. In this episode:

The Clarity market structure bill markup is delayed for now
Coinbase backs out of supporting Clarity
The bank lobby is trying to torpedo Clarity
Kontigo is accused of ignoring sanctions
X changes its API to block InfoFi
California's wealth tax has backfired already
BitMine invests $200m into Mr Beast's company
Why tokenized deposits aren't as interesting as stablecoins

Content mentioned in this episode:

Jason Mikula, Kontigo: Y Combinator's Venezuelan Sanctions Evasion Startup

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Wyatt, Henry, and Jake recently put out a report called "Total Value Lost", exploring how best to assess the value of various DeFi markets - starting with lending markets. This episode is a continuation of that conversation, exploring what carries value in DeFi going forward, particularly on the back of a shaky market period. This discussion covers:

Where does the recent, ongoing market selloff leave us?
What metrics matter for onchain markets?
What market dynamics contributed to the October 10 washout?
How does leverage manifest in onchain markets, and what does it look like today?
How do you assess the value of illiquid cryptoassets?
What drives revenue multiples.
Which protocols will benefit from the tokenization of other asset classes, and which will struggle?
How do the individual behaviors and incentives of investment funds contribute to crypto market volatility?

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Matt and Nic are back for the first OTB show of 2026. In this episode:

Matt's ice rink adventures
The House issues a draft of the PARITY Act
The trouble with wealth taxes
DATs continue to bleed out
We talk about Nic's fiction story
Predictions for 2026
Is there a secret exchange insolvency?
What constitutes insider trading for prediction markets?
Is the four year cycle finally over?
Is it time to try socialfi again?
Kickstarter snafus

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic Carter, Trillion Dollar Salvage

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Matthew Le Merle and Mitch Mechigian of Blockchain Coinvestors join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The top 5 themes of 2025 for the blockchain industry
2026 predictions and key themes to monitor

To learn more about Blockchain Coinvestors visit fifthera.com/blockchain

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Matt and Nic are back for more deals and news. In this episode:

Secret exchange insolvency rumors
Caroline Ellison is free
David Sacks says CLARITY is getting a markup
The Fed rescinds their 2023 Novel Activities Supervision program
Insolvent exchange prediction markets
Visa's stablecoin advisory business
JPM launches a tokenized Treasury fund MONY
Quantum FUD
Why Quantum might be a surprise
Bitwise 2026 predictions
The four year cycle is over
Grabby aliens and the Dark Forest

Content mentioned in this episode:

Talos and Factset, Year in Review

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Henry sits down with Corn, head of business development at Yearn Finance, for a conversation about the evolution and current state of defi. In this episode:

The history of defi from 2020 to today, and how the TerraLuna crash impacted the market
How incentive mechanisms in defi have changed in 2025
What caused the collapse of xUSD and Stream Finance?
What is the role of risk curators in defi?
The state of onchain cybersecurity and recent hacks
What is the appetite for defi from non-crypto users and institutions, and will a declining fed funds rate help?
How do defi protocols drive value to their native tokens?
How "decentralized" is defi today?

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Matt and Nic are back with more news and deals. In this episode:

CIV grows the team
Nic does not regret 8 years in crypto
People are getting blackpilled about crypto
Does speculation in crypto have positive externalities?
Matt has never seen LOTR
Will web3 ever come back?
The OCC lets banks broker crypto trades
The Bitwise 10 lists
Rushi Manche returns with a fund
Circle is launching a private stablecoin
The DTC gets a no action letter from the SEC to settle tokenized securities
We do a Terra/Luna restrospective
Terra's fatal mistake
Oracle mishaps on prediction markets
Why did the nation's largest teachers union come out against the Market Structure bill

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic Carter and Allen Farrington, All Falls Down

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Quantum risk again
Are banks filled with spooks?
The trouble with Taproot addresses
Microstrategy's dollar reserve
Kalshi is going on chain
Prediction market predicaments
Are insiders monetizing Google search information on Polymarket?
Are prediction markets insider trading machines by definition?
DAT activist fights
Vanguard adds Bitcoin ETFs
House Financial Services Committee releases their final report on OCP2.0
What's going on with leverage in crypto?
Are AI agents going to start stealing crypto?
Is Eliezer Yudkowski to be trusted?
AI is going to usher in the golden age of fraud

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Stepan, founder of Squads, sits down with Wyatt on today's episode. In this discussion:

Squads' evolution from a DeFi-facing product to servicing a broader range of companies' asset treasury needs.
What are the pain points of local small-medium businesses?
What is driving the gradual global movement from local currencies into USD stablecoins?
The appetite for safe yield across user types.
Other traditional digital banking players and how they are evolving with technology.
How the stablecoin trend impacts governments.
What happens to local banks?

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Matt and Nic record a special Thanksgiving episode of OTB. In this episode:

What's the deal with deep fried turkeys?
Polymarket gets CTFC approval
Klarna is launching a stablecoin on Tempo
Upbit is hacked
Berachain drama
Tether gets a downgrade from S&P
Robinhood is spinning up their own prediction market with Susquehanna
Are Visa and Mastercard moving fast enough?
Who are we thankful for?

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Is Quantum FUD causing Bitcoin to sell off?
Ray Dalio is worry about Quantum
Scott Aaronson is worried about quantum computing
Vitalik is worried about quantum
Quantum upgrade scenarios
Are we still suffering from the flash crash?
The DATs are selling
DAT spot arbitrage
Will the US government end up with the Satoshi coins
Should the government bail out AI?
Will NFTs come back?
IBIT is Harvard's largest 13F position
David Frum on stablecoins
Will stablecoins require a bailout?

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The Senate Ag Cmte publishes a Market Structure draft
Paul Atkins' token taxonomy speech
Fed Governor Stephen Miran gives a major stablecoin speech
Grayscale files their S-1
Coinbase announces a tokensale platform
Coinbase is leaving Delaware
The Coinbase BVNK deal falls through
Visa Direct adds stablecoin support
The Czech republic buys Bitcoin
DATs are struggling
CBDC holdouts
Jack Dorsey bends the knee on stablecoins

Content mentioned:

Stephen Miran, A Global Stablecoin Glut: Implications for Monetary Policy

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Tom Brady's clone dog
We reminisce on the Nic Carter v Mike Green debate
Is the government shutdown draining market liquidity?
The trouble with Opendimes
Balancer hacked
Stream finance's xUSD collapses
DATs are selling coins
Why is Zcash rallying?
Are stablecoins the lightbulb of crypto

Content mentioned:

JW Verret, Comment Letter to Treasury GENIUS ANPR

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Keone Hon, founder of the Monad Foundation joins the show. In this episode:

From the point of view of Keone's trading background, what is the promise of blockchains?
Reimagining financial systems with blockchains in 2025
Why build Monad, and for anyone using a chain, why use Monad?
How the importance of decentralization and chain efficiency becomes underscored during fragile market periods
Auto-Deleveraging (ADL): What it is and why it is important.
Where is there economic efficiency to be created?
How has Keone gone about building a team to tackle this challenge?
What would make Monad "successful" in 2-3 years?

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Wyatt sits down with Giovanni Vignone, the founder of Octane Security, a crypto security platform focused on vetting application code pre-deployment. In this episode we discuss:

What poses the greatest threat to crypto right now?
How are hackers evolving?
What are the important categories of crypto-facing cybersecurity?
How much should startup teams be spending on security?
How should teams think about counterparty risk?
What do you wish early stage teams knew?
Where is there room for improved security practices across the industry?

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Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals. In this episode:

Mastercard buys Zerohash for around $2b
Fiserv has a catastrophic day
Bitwise launches a Solana staking ETF
Is there another regional banking crisis?
EthZilla sold some ETH to buy back shares
Will there be activists with the DATs?
Are prediction markets structurally doomed?
Sen Tillis introduces the Ensuring Fair Access to Banking act
Could you go back and time and trade effectively?
Bessent's great peso trade
What's going to happen with Venezuela?
We review the Iran-Contra scandal

Content mentioned in this episode:

Sen Tillis, Fair Access to Banking press release

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Geetha Panchapakesan, the founder and CEO of Tesser, joins the show. In this episode:

Geetha's background in payments and how she arrived in stablecoins
Major shifts across payments over Geetha's career
Building a one-stop shop solution for financial institutions, PSPs and MSBs
Where FIs are today as it relates to engaging to stablecoins
Regulatory tailwinds post-GENIUS

See more at tesser.xyz

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Old fashioned crime is back
Quantum risk to Bitcoin
More outcry in Washington over the Democratic edits to market structure
CZ gets a presidential pardon
Federal Reserve announces a payments charter

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We dissect the market structure behind the flash crash last week
What happened with Binance and Ethena?
Palmer Luckey's de novo bank Erebor gets an OCC charter
Paxos' fat finger
The US government has seized $15b in funds tied to pig butchering scams

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Wyatt sits down with Pbj, the founder of Perpl, a prominent perpetuals exchange on the imminently launching Monad blockchain. In this episode:

How large are perp exchanges in the crypto market?
Why perps are attractive to crypto users and traders
Hyperliquid's success
What assets would people trade on Perpl vs Hyperliquid?
What makes Monad unique
Perps for other asset classes?
Reasons to be excited

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Dave Balter, the co-founder and CEO of Flipside Crypto joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

How Flipside has shifted its product to fully harness the power of LLMs for analyzing public blockchain networks.
Building a product organization in the age of A.I.
Perspectives on the evolving landscape of layer one and layer two blockchains.
How the role of a data analyst will evolve in the coming years.
Where Flipside is focusing its efforts within the blockchain data/analytics segment.

To learn more about Flipside visit flipsidecrypto.xyz and follow the company on X.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Will stablecoins drive deposit flight from the banks?
Is FDIC insurance obsolete?
Can CBDCs provide real privacy?
ICE invests in Polymarket
North Dakota is looking to issue their own “rough rider” stablecoin, joining Wyoming
Luxembourg buys bitcoin out of their sovereign wealth fund
Is the quantum bubble creating risks for Bitcoin?
The "Salomon brothers" OP_RETURN dusting attack on old Bitcoins
Reg NMS for blockchains?
Katie Porter has a new drama
Congress is still working on the market structure bill
Shutdown update

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic on Substack, Yes, we really do want to trust crypto interests with the future of money
Galaxy Research, The Great Bitcoin Dusting: A ‘Salomon Brothers’ Client Tries to Claim Dormant Wallets

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Pelle Braendgaard, the co-founder and CEO of Notabene joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Pelle’s background and path to co-founding Notabene.
The travel rule and how institutions achieve compliance for blockchain transactions.
The launch of Notabene Flow, the first open stablecoin payments platform enabling pull payments for businesses.
Views on the evolving market structure for stablecoin payments
The state of digital identity.

To learn more about Notabene visit notabene.id and follow the company on X.

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Mike Cagney, the founder of Figure joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The process of taking Figure public in September 2025.
The market structure for tokenized securities.
Perspectives on the key issues being debated in the context of The Clarity Act.
Reg NMS considerations for blockchain assets.
The impact of stablecoins on the banking sector.
The original thesis of Figure and the attractiveness of the HELOC market.
The Provenance Blockchain
Competition versus legacy financial services firms.

To learn more about Figure visit figure.com. Follow Mike on X. Follow Figure on X.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

AI bailed out the mining companies
AI people deal with the same energy use claims
We reflect on the life of Jane Goodall
DoubleZero gets a no-action letter from the SEC
Will Tether and Circle lose market share?
Who could challenge the Big Two stablecoins?
Do optimists always win?
Some DATs are troubled
Is Kalshi starting to take over?
Stripe announces Open Issuance
The US Government is shut down

Content mentioned:

Nic on Substack, The Stablecoin Duopoly is Ending

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Wyatt sits down with Ben Ward and Steven Pack of RockSolid. In this episode:

What are DeFi vaults? What is RockSolid?
Lido vs Rocket Pool
Creating effective unified efforts in decentralized communities
A look at the wider landscape of DeFi yield
How do you measure protocol success?
Strengthening the broader Ethereum ecosystem

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Mark Coe, the Founder and CIO of Intrinsic Edge Capital Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Mark’s background and path that led him to founding Intrinsic Edge Capital Management.
The Intrinsic Edge Digital Infrastructure Fund, a fund that was launched four years ago to focus on companies in the digital asset ecosystem.
Perspectives on the mining industry and the impact of AI/LLMs on this sector of the industry.
Views on the types of businesses that will enter the public markets in the coming years.
The future of prime brokerage and how service providers will evolve.

To learn more about Intrinsic Edge visit intrinsicedge.com or email them at info@intrinsicedge.com

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We review the Coin Center dinner
Tether is going out to raise at $500b
Cloudflare wants to launch a stablecoin for agentic payments and launches the 402 protocol
Circle is thinking about reversible transactions
BitGo files for an S1
Strive acquires Semler Scientific
The SEC is looking into 200 DATs for insider trading
9 major European banks are looking to launch a MiCA stablecoin
The Bank Policy Institute thinks stablecoins threaten banks
Senate Finance Cmte is looking at crypto taxes
Naver is looking to acquire Upbit

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Wyatt sits down with Felipe Montealegre and Noah Goldberg of Theia Capital, a fund investing actively in liquid crypto tokens with strong fundamentals. In this episode:

What drives crypto market valuations? Fundamentals or supply of capital?
The imbalance between venture vs hedge fund activity in crypto markets
Navigating a market where assets become liquid early in their lifecycle
Talent in the crypto industry
What makes exceptional founders and team members?
Using LLMs in investing and general workflow
Future themes Theia is excited about

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The SEC approves generic listing standards for cryptoassets
Gensler loses a year’s worth of text messages
BoE wants to limit stablecoin exposure to £20k
Tether launches USAT
Coinbase is exploring a Base token
Binance nears the end of DoJ compliance monitoring
Galaxy is launching a tokenized money market fund
PayPal launches PayPal links

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Walt joins the podcast to discuss the current state of Bitcoin and what is investable in and around the Bitcoin ecosystem. In this episode:

Austrian economics and Bitcoin
Bitcoin's strengths and limitations when it comes to innovation and durability
The modern role of decentralization and trust
Whether nation-states will fully adopt BTC
The role of Bitcoin in network states
Owning BTC and other cryptoassets directly vs in equity wrappers
Assessing the monetary value of cryptoassets
BTC for payments?

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We reminisce about the fork wars
Figure goes public
Gemini is slated to list
The Winklevoss Quintenz drama rumbles on
DAT updates
CLARITY updates
The fight over stablecoins paying interest continues
Prediction markets and sports betting
SwissBorg is hacked
The CBOE is launching BTC and ETH “continuous futures”
Harberger taxes

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Wyatt sits down with Austin Federa, the founder of DoubleZero to discuss the hardware systems that underlie blockchains and the internet. In this episode:

Building a newer, better fiber network
How and why much of internet hardware infrastructure is antiquated
Why software innovation has taken precedent over hardware innovation
Vertical integration and who has access to the best hardware systems
Why hardware innovation requires startups and new entrants
Why blockchains demand faster, reliable bandwidth
Why a token framework offers a better incentive mechanism

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We review the US Open
The Clippers scandal
Fantasy football and the efficient market hypothesis
Tax treatment of sports betting on Poly versus sports betting apps
Are prediction markets more efficient than bookies?
Galaxy launches a tokenized version of their stock
NASDAQ is adding supervision rules for DATs
Is it over for the DATs?
World Liberty Fi launches and gets into a fight with Justin Sun
Gemini files to go public
Stripe releases details around their Tempo L1
Some academics have an explanation for why MSTR might trade at a persistent premium

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic on Substack, Situating Stablecoins in the Payments Landscape
Valuing Microstrategy

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Wyatt sits down with Daniel Lev, the founder of Coinflow, to discuss the evolution of payments amidst a wave of stablecoin-enabled innovation. In this episode:

Lurking legacy issues of payment networks
How our current payment networks benefit end users but not merchants
Types of merchant profiles and who stands to benefit
Creating faster settlement
Marketplace models and better rails
How blockchain can reduce fraud and help businesses know their customers

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Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic reviews the stablecoin conference in Mexico City
Will the banks obsolete stablecoins?
Some DATs are having trouble
The government is putting GDP on the blockchain
The CFTC opens the door to US customers trading on non-US exchanges
Trump fires Lisa Cook
Can the Fed be considered “independent”
Google is developing a blockchain
A BNB DAT gets delisted
Tether is building on Bitcoin via RGB
How does insider trading work in prediction markets?

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Wyatt sits down with Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton, to cover Sandy's work with the CFTC and DTCC and creating sandboxes for onchain financial markets. In this episode:

How wallets stand to become the hub of asset management
Lasting policy for crypto
Protecting consumers in an open financial system

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Wyoming releases a stabletoken “FRNT”
Matt’s bear encounter
Bowman and Waller’s speeches at Jackson Hole
Eric Trump’s Bitcoin prediction
Is there an example of a DAT that makes sense?
Should DATs trade at a persistent premium?
Figure is going public
Bullish goes public
Is Saylor cornered?
Quintenz’ nomination
The DoJ decriminalizes writing open source code
Is Polymarket cooked?
Does a trial by a jury of your peers make sense?

Content mentioned:

Reducible Errors, Predicting our own demise

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Wyatt sits down with the founders of Groom Lake. In this episode:

How social engineering attacks are being used to exploit companies in crypto and beyond
How companies can better protect themselves and be vigilant of these exploit attempts
The future of cybersecurity software for crypto

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Wyatt sits down with Luke Xie, cofounder of SatLayer for a conversation about Bitcoin yield. In this episode:

What makes financial markets for BTC unique
How BTC DeFi will evolve, in the backdrop of the broader macro environment
DeFi vs CeFi financial systems for BTC

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We review the DAT fine print
Why being in power is sometimes the hardest part
Stripe and Circle announce their own L1s
We make the case for stablecoin L1s
The irony in Stripe's L1
What about a DAT of DATs?
Bullish goes public
Breakfast cereals
Do Kwon pleads guilty
BPI sends a letter to Congress complaining about stablecoin interest
Can you prohibit stablecoin yield?
Bo Hines steps down
Bessent says the USG will not be buying Bitcoin
Is monero being 51% attacked?

Content mentioned:

BitMEX Research, Treasury Company Advisory Agreements
Julie Hill, Governmental Debanking

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We sit down with Huf Haus, founder of Pear Protocol. In this episode:

What pair trading is, the benefits of Pear trading, and different strategies
How to approach different market regimes from a trader's perspective
Applying trading strategies to other asset classes

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Nathan McCauley, the founder and CEO of Anchorage joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The passage of The Genius Act and the impact it will have on the digital asset industry.
The launch of Anchorage’s white label stablecoin issuance platform.
Anchorage Digital Prime and how the company is working with its customers on trade execution, lending and custody.
The status of the market structure bill.
The Roman Storm case.

To learn more about Anchorage visit their website. Follow Nathan on X.

Further reading:

Hester Peirce, Peanut Butter & Watermelon: Financial Privacy in the Digital Age
Nic on Substack, The Last Word on Stablecoins and Free Banking

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Maple Finance CEO and cofounder Sid Powell joins the show to talk about Maple's huge year so far. In this episode:

Syrup and Maple's evolution into an on-chain asset manager
Traditional credit players servicing on-chain finance
DeFi's strengths and weaknesses relative to traditional markets

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The White House publishes their highly awaited crypto report
SEC Chair Paul Atkins makes a landmark speech
Stablecoin-focused L1s
DAT mNAV premia are converging to 1
Figma IPO
The SEC embraces tokenized securities, airdrops, token issuance, and DeFi
In-kind create and redeem has been authorized for Bitcoin ETFs
JPM deepens their partnership with Coinbase
Roman Storm verdict is imminent

Further reading:

Blockworks’ DAT Dashboard
Omid Malekan and Zach Pandl, Stablecoins and the Singleness of Money
White House, Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology
Paul Atkins, American Leadership in the Digital Finance Revolution
Nic Carter, The Last Word on Stablecoins and Free Banking

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Wyatt sits down with Michael Bentley, the founder of Euler. In this episode:

Euler's founding story, infamous security incident, and comeback story
How the team and protocol stayed together in the face of immense challenges
The value of personal relationships in crypto despite a pseudonymous culture

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Defending “Free Banking” from the critics – and why stablecoins are unlike free banks
The American Bankers Association doesn’t like new crypto charters
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announces the company’s plan to launch a new US-based stablecoin this year
Strategy announced the plans for the fourth preferred stock offering this week, STRC, or "Stretch."
Anchorage Digital, which does hold an OCC banking charter, is launching a new stablecoin issuance platform. The first stablecoin product will be USDtb in partnership with Ethena Labs
The Senate Banking Committee released their discussion draft for crypto market structure legislation this week, designed to build off the House's passage of the CLARITY Act last week
Citadel Securities has expressed concern around the rise of tokenized securities
Bhutan’s Bitcoin trade
BitGo, a crypto custody provider, and Bullish, a crypto exchange, both announced that they had confidentially filed an S-1

Further reading:

Wired, The Great Crypto Re-Banking Has Begun
Galaxy Digital, Crypto Policy Under Trump: H1 2025 Report

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Cyrus Shirazi, CEO of Haven joins the show. In this episode:

R&D tax credits and offering an attractive tax product to early stage companies
What on-chain finance needs to fulfill becoming a better ledger for accounting
What startups should look for in a tax & accounting partner

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The Coldplay concert incident
It’s Crypto Week in Washington
Talos acquires Coin Metrics
Do you need an MTL to run a fantasy football league?
GENIUS Act is law pending Trump’s signature
Clarity Act passes the House
Pump.fun ICO
Fairshake raises $141m
Grayscale is preparing for an IPO
Adam Back’s Bitcoin access vehicle
Polymarket beats the allegations
Is GENIUS creating a narrow bank system?
Governor Waller's comments on stablecoins and banks

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Wyatt sits down with Nikhil Raghuveera of Predicate to talk policy for blockchain applications. In this episode:

How Predicate’s “rules for blockchain transactions” are making on-chain finance more scalable and secure
Creating more compliant stablecoin transfer systems suitable to mass financial use cases
The future of secure money movement
How leading software and financial firms can integrate transaction policies in their workflows

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Bitcoin hits a new ATH and no one is talking about it
Grok goes haywire
The White House posts chudjak
Core Weave looks to buy Core Scientific
Stablecoins are going to pay yield anyway
Did Zelenskyy wear a suit?
How should prediction markets be settled?
Pump.fun ICO is coming up
Hester Peirce issues a warning on tokenized securities
Crypto Week in Congress is coming up
Jonathan Gould has been confirmed as Comptroller of the Currency
There are new public access vehicles
Andreessen wants you to leave Delaware
A fundamental valuation model for L1s?
GMX is hacked for $42m
Tim Massad's exchange with Bernie Moreno

Content mentioned in this episode:

Hester Peirce, Enchanting, but Not Magical: A Statement on the Tokenization of Securities
Fidelity, Blockchains as emerging economies
Bridge, How Meow and Bridge Make USDC Payments as Seamless as Cash

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Zac Townsend, the founder and CEO of Meanwhile, joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Zac’s background and the path that led him to start Meanwhile.
The mechanics of Bitcoin denominated life insurance.
How Meanwhile generates Bitcoin yield.
Zac’s views on the evolution of Bitcoin treasury companies.

To learn more about Meanwhile visit meanwhile.bm

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Charles Hamel, Product Director at Opera's MiniPay, joins the show. In this episode:

Stablecoin habits in emerging markets
Prospects for local stablecoins
What’s next on the stablecoin horizon

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

EthCC troubles
Robinhood has been shipping
Figma owns BTC
The House GOP has declared "crypto week" in July
Circle and Ripple are applying for bank charters
AI companies are buying Bitcoin miners
Sharia finance
The BBB passes
America teeters towards default
The Sohan Parekh fiasco
How do tokenized stocks work?
Another architect of OCP2.0 bites the dust
Is AI going to usher in a socialist revolution?
Ric Edelman wants you to buy crypto
Franklin Templeton is worried about bitcoin treasury companies
No crypto language was included in the BBB

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Chris Maurice, founder of Yellow Card, a pan-Africa stablecoin business and exchange, rejoins the show. In this episode:

How Chris feels about the crypto space in 2025 as compared to when he started a decade ago
How Yellow Card evolved from being a retail BTC exchange to being an enterprise payment platform for stablecoins
How Chris realized that stablecoins were all about b2b transfers
How businesses in EM use stablecoins, and what the alternatives are
Regional differences within Africa in terms of stablecoin adoption
Shifting regulatory attitudes in Africa
Does Chris worry about crypto-dollarization in Africa?
Is dollarization happening on the ground right now
Tether and TRON market share developments
Where we are in stablecoin infra and tooling and what needs to be built
Why we need a stablecoin clearinghouse
The future of Yellow Card a few years ahead
How banks will engage with stablecoins

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Wyatt sits down with Bernando Bilotta, founder of Stables.money. In this episode:

Stablecoin usage in APAC, for saving, spending, and beyond
Retail adoption that bleeds into institutional adoption
The forward-looking path for stablecoin finance

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Golden age of prediction markets
NYC mayor’s election
What’s happening with Canton?
The FHFA says crypto can be a qualifying asset for mortages
Our thoughts on the market structure bill
The significance of the Fiserv stablecoin pilot
$500m public access vehicle for BNB
The Fed drops reputational risk in bank supervision
EO for debanking is rumored
Kraken HQ is moving to Wyoming
Texas buys Bitcoin
Will banking hours be obsolete?

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Josh Frank, the founder and CEO of The Tie joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The origin story behind The Tie and how Josh approached founding the business.
The digital asset data market.
How sentiment data has evolved in the digital asset industry.
The buy-side landscape for digital assets and how Josh sees that evolving in the coming years.
The Canton Network and how The Tie is working with this new protocol.

To learn more about The Tie visit their website.

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Ria sits down with Luca Prosperi, CEO and Co-Founder of M0, a universal stablecoin platform that enables customization while preserving interoperability across assets. In this episode, we cover:

Lessons from MakerDAO
Drawing inspiration from the dual banking system
Building a base asset that is decentralized, permissionless and ossified
Issuing opinionated assets via wrapping and extensions while maintaining interoperability

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The GENIUS Act passes the Senate
Should GENIUS be stapled to market structure?
Bessent thinks stablecoins could be $3.7T by 2030
Stablecoin FUD
Will stablecoins destabilize the US Treasury market
JPM's stablecoin FUDs
JPMD's deposit token will launch on Base
The future of stablecoin yield in the US
Circle hits a $50b market cap
Yellowcard partners with Visa in Africa
Kraken will launch a token for their Ink L2
Are Walmart and Amazon looking at their own stablecoins?
An Iranian crypto exchange is hacked at the coins are lost
We review old Bitcoin FUDs on the FUD Dice

Content mention in this episode:

Yesha Yadav and Brendan Malone, Stablecoins and the US Treasury Market

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Sean is joined by Santi Alvarado, CEO/Co-Founder of XFX, to cover their seed raise and how money moves cross border. In this episode:

Background of Santi and how he made his way into crypto
How legacy FX settlement operates today
How XFX enables more liquidity for cross border payment companies

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Wyatt is joined by Greg Genega, Digital Asset and Blockchain leader at KPMG, for a conversation on the state of crypto auditing. In this episode:

How KPMG works with crypto companies and protocols
Relevant new innovations in the crypto space
What to look out for as a new founder

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Stripe acquires wallet infrastructure company Privy for an undisclosed sum
Fireblocks’ stablecoin data
Stablecoin FUD
Were mnemonic phrases a local maxima?
Bullish and Gemini have filed preliminary paperwork for IPOs
Soc Gen is launching a USD stablecoin
We look at some infamous rogue traders
Gamestop’s bitcoin strategy is a flop
DTCC is looking at issuing a stablecoin

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Circle goes public and has an explosive first day
The IPO window is open
Circle’s vision for CPN
Pump.fun is launching a token
Will pump.fun cannibalize Solana?
JPM will let clients use Bitcoin ETFs as collateral
Strategy introduces new offerings
Magic Eden’s strange Trump wallet app announcement
Truth Social Bitcoin ETF
A K Pop Bitcoin access vehicle
Korea’s cultural renaissance
Singapore’s abrupt change in posture

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Wyatt sits down with Isha Varshney from the Celo Foundation to talk stablecoins. Covered in this episode:

Payments in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa
Stablecoin usage and USDT
The future of non-stable tokens

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Warning signs for the Bitcoin access vehicles?
Has Bitcoin lost the MoE battle?
Is OCP 2.0 over?
The Dept of Labor rescinds their anti-crypto 401k guidance
Cantor Fitzgerald is launching a bitcoin/gold fund
Is it mathematically possible to give Bitcoin upside and gold downside?

Content mentioned:

Stablecoin.fyi

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We sit down with Anthony Yim, Artemis cofounder, to talk about the latest report from Artemis, CIV, and Dragonfly, providing brand new estimates of stablecoin payments volume. In this episode:

Why we decided to work on the new report
How we obtained the estimates
Why we decided to put together a bottom-up estimate
Stablecoin b2b volumes compared to traditional b2b
How do you measure stablecoin transactions?

Download the report at stablecoin.fyi

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Markus Franke and Denney Kwok from Mento Labs join the show. In this episode:

Non-USD stablecoins
On-chain FX
Microlending and financing for emerging markets

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Trump’s crypto dinner reviewed
Bitcoin access vehicles
NYT stablecoin coverage
Sui is hacked and censors the blockchain
Kraken is launching tokenized stocks
Circle in acquisition talks
The GENIUS Act passes Cloture in the Senate
Hong Kong passes stablecoin legislation

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Wyatt sits down with Andrew MacKenzie, founder of Agant, the issuer of GBPA, a pound sterling stablecoin. In this episode:

The potential emergence of non-USD stablecoins
The prospect of a GBP-backed stablecoin
The British crypto regulatory environment
How global financial institutions are positioning around stablecoins

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Why is Boston such a good sports city?
Price inflation in dinosaur skeletons
Cryptopunks IP is sold
Machinsky is sentenced
Nakamoto Holdings launches
Meta wants to add stablecoins to its platforms
Exchanges are honeypots for KYC data
Coinbase suffers a data breach
The GENIUS act is going to a vote next week
GENIUS act new provisions
More Movement shenanigans
Thailand is launching a $150m crypto token

Content mentioned in this episode:

Tuongvy Le and Austin Campbell published a paper, "Crypto and The Evolution of Capital Markets", which dissects the current market structure for securities trading and settlement and discusses how blockchain networks can improve this architecture.

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Wyatt sits down with Alex Cutler, founder of Aerodrome for another episode in our stablefi series. In this episode:

DEX trading advantages
Building on-chain FX
DeFi as a backbone

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Wyatt sits down with TN, cofounder of Pendle. Covered in this episode:

How Pendle works
The evolution from alt yield to stable yield
DeFi's future core assets

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We have a new Pope
The etymology of ampersand
The GENIUS act collapses spectacularly
Coinbase consummates its acquisition of Deribit
Did World Liberty Financial’s USD1 torpedo the GENIUS act?
Did “pro crypto” democrats snake on the industry
Scott Bessent thinks stablecoins could reach $2T
The OCC says banks can provide crypto custody and execution
Stripe is launching stablecoin financial accounts
The SEC explores a sandbox for tokenized securities
Tariff the L2s

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Adam Healy, co-founder of Station 70 and Josh Schwartz, co-founder of Fordefi join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The collaboration between Station 70 and Fordefi on failover MPC wallets. Announcement here.
The state of the wallet category
Best practices for blockchain cybersecurity
The future of bank custody for digital assets
Station 70’s Bunker product
Station 70 and Fordefi are holding a joint webinar to showcase this product collaboration. You can register here.

Learn more about Station 70

Learn more about Fordefi

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Wyatt sits down with David Taylor of Etherfuse. In this episode:

MXN stablecoins and other currencies
Shaping regulatory frameworks
Who wins out: innovators vs financial incumbents

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Wyatt sits down with Justin Garland and Hannah JoJo of Asymmetry Finance. In this episode, we cover:

The evolution of yield in DeFi
Primitives users want
Crypto risk assessment

Learn more about Asymmetry

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Will stablecoins disrupt credit cards?
The US Treasury Advisory Committee drops a report on stablecoins
Mastercard and Visa launch stablecoin integrations
Movement labs has more scandals
Are quantum timelines accelerating?
The real risk of quantum to Bitcoin
Could a quantum break fix Bitcoin’s security budget?
Are any Bitcoin purists left?
Circle turns down Ripple’s acquisition offer
Machinsky is facing a 20-year sentence
Arizona passes an SBR bill
Cambridge releases a new report on bitcoin mining
Bitcoiners are fighting about OP_RETURN again
What is Bittensor

Content mentioned:

US Treasury, Report on Digital Money
Coindesk, Inside Movement’s Token-Dump Scandal: Secret Contracts, Shadow Advisers and Hidden Middlemen
Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report: Global Operations, Sentiment, and Energy Use

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Wyatt sits down with Kedian Sun, the founder of Level Money. In this episode:

Stablecoin usage in DeFi today
Fiat-backed stablecoins vs other "stable" assets
Ethereum vs other blockchains for stablecoins

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Is Bitcoin decoupling?
The Fed rescinds anti-crypto letters from 2022 and 2023
Upexi raises $100m PIPE to invest in Solana
Cantor, Tether, Softbank and Bitfinex inject $3.6b into 21 Capital, a Bitcoin acquisition vehicle
Bitcoin ETFs versus bitcoin acquisition companies
Trump is hosting a dinner for $TRUMP holders
Charles Schwab wants to launch crypto trading
Citi thinks stablecoins could reach $3.7T in supply by 2030

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We recap Nic’s article on why Signature collapsed
Crypto exchange OKX announced their plans to expand to the US
Kraken announced that US equities are now supported on the exchange
MANTRA, a layer 1 network focused on RWAs, saw the price of its native token crash 90% in a matter of hours
Global Payments agreed to acquire Worldpay, a payments processor, for $24 billion from FIS and private equity firm GTCR
The US Department of Homeland Security has launched a probe into Anchorage, the digital asset custodian, related to the company's AML polices
Jerome Powell reiterates his support for stablecoin legislation
Strategy (and others) buy more Bitcoin

Content mentioned in this episode:

Galaxy Digital, The State of Crypto Lending
Nic Carter in Piratewires, Signature Didn’t Have to Die, Either

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Wyatt sits down with Fred Hsu and Michael Ho of D3 to talk domain markets. In this episode:

The existing domain name industry and legacy systems
An interoperable marketplace for domains
New financial promitives around domains and RWAs

More about D3

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Yuval Rooz and Eric Saraniecki, co-founders of Digital Asset join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The origins of Digital Asset and the path to starting the firm.
Views on privacy in the context of public blockchains.
How enterprises and financial institutions are approaching tokenizing assets and leveraging blockchain technology.
Examples of how on-chain privacy enables use cases in collateral management and stablecoin payments.
The role of the Canton Network public blockchain for enabling institutional use cases.
How Canton Network works from a design perspective.

To learn more:

Digital Asset Website
Canton Network

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Is dedollarization happening?
The SEC's Division of Corporate Finance released a "Statement on Stablecoins"
The US Justice Department has disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement team
The SEC releases new guidance on securities offerings in crypto markets
FDIC Chair relaxes rules on crypto activities at banks
Paul Atkins is confirmed
The SEC has approved options trading for spot ETH ETFs
Tether is exploring a US stablecoin
Janover is doing a Microstrategy for SOL strategy
Michelle Bowman is launching a review of the Fed's failures in 2023 around the banking crisis
What happened to Signature?
Matt's critter situation

Content mentioned:

SEC, Offerings and Registrations of Securities in the Crypto Asset Markets

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Wyatt Lonergan and Juan Lopez of Vaneck Ventures join the show to talk stablecoins and institutionalization. In this episode, we cover:

The landscape of stablecoin growth and activity
A world with many stablecoins vs few stablecoins
Winning/losing companies in the new stablecoin era
Impact on the longer tail of altcoins

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Hoolie Tejwani, the head of Coinbase Ventures joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The history and rationale behind the launch of Coinbase Ventures.
The evolution of the crypto venture category.
Areas of focus for Coinbase Ventures.
Stablecoins, Crypto/AI and consumer startup category.
The regulatory landscape in the United States.
Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and the impact on startups.
The rise of the Coinbase Mafia.

To learn more visit coinbase.com/ventures

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What’s the deal with the tariffs?
Are the tariffs 4D chess?
STABLE Act advances from committee
Galaxy settles with the NYAG for touting Luna
Trump pardons the BitMEX founders
Coinlist returns to the US
FDUSD has a depeg amidst Justin Sun drama
Fidelity launches a no-fee crypto IRA product
Larry Fink is bullish bitcoin

Content mentioned:

AI 2027, by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean

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Alexei Zamyatin, the cofounder of Build on Bitcoin (BOB), joins the show to talk about the state of the art in Bitcoin Rollups. In this episode:

Can Bitcoin achieve parity with Ethereum rollups?
How BitVM and BitVMv2 changed the game for Bitcoin rollups
When will Bitcoin rollups be considered “Stage 1”
Ethereum’s existential crisis
Bitcoin fees in a rollup world
The risk of L2s cannibalizing Bitcoin
Will Bitcoin DeFi look different from Ethereum DeFi?
Why Bitcoin deserves Rollups
What soft forks is Alexei looking forward to?
Does institutionalization ossify Bitcoin?
BOB’s progress and roadmap for 2025

Learn more about Build on Bitcoin

Try BOB: app.gobob.xyz

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We reflect on our podcast with Paolo Ardoino
The EU’s MiCA rules make launching a stablecoin virtually impossible
We explain the Ghiblification crazy
OCC removes Reputation risk from bank supervision
World Liberty Fi launches a stablecoin
Hyperliquid suffers an exploit - are they decentralized?
Fidelity is exploring the launch of a stablecoin
ICE is looking to use USDC
Coinbase is reportedly looking to acquire Deribit
US Treasury lifts sanctions on Tornado Cash
Sei is looking to buy 23andme

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Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, rejoins the show for a timely discussion. In this episode:

How is Paolo feeling about political trends in the US today?
Tether is the 7th-largest buyer of USTs at the sovereign level
Paolo’s decision to spend more time in the US
What does Paolo make of the stablecoin bills in Congress?
Does Tether want to eventually come onshore to the US?
Tether is pursuing a Big 4 Audit
The effect of Operation Choke Point 2.0 on Tether
Tether is moving their HQ to El Salvador
Paolo’s thoughts on stablecoins in MiCA
How does Tether get to the figure of 400m global users of the stablecoin?
Tether’s efforts to better understand their userbase and usage modes
Tether’s methodology around balance sheet investing
Is Paolo concerned about crypto-dollarization?
Tether’s relationship with Cantor now that Lutnick is Commerce Secretary
Is Paolo concerned about the emergence of interest-bearing stablecoins?

Further reading:

Nic Carter in Piratewires, Operation Choke Point 2.0 Is Underway, And Crypto Is In Its Crosshairs
Nic Carter in Piratewires, Did The Government Start A Global Financial Crisis In An Attempt To Destroy Crypto?
Nic Carter in Piratewires, Inside the Biden Admin’s Plot to Destroy Silvergate and Debank Crypto for Good

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Should we revisit Basel rules on Bitcoin?
Jay Powell evolves on banks serving crypto
Are banks going to offer crypto custody post SAB121?
Gensler joins MIT Sloan
Should crypto firms boycott MIT?
The Senate will hold a hearing on debanking next week
Choke Point 2.0 is getting caught up in conservative debanking
Where are we on DeSci?
Is tokenization finally going to happen?
X is adding payments to the platform with Visa
Truth Social is launching Truth.Fi
Christine Lagarde says the ECB will not buy Bitcoin
Is the Czech Republic buying bitcoin?
Kraken turns back on staking
Apollo is launching a tokenized credit fund on Ethereum and Solana
Fairshake raises another $116m for the midterms
SBF is asking Trump for a pardon
Elliott says crypto is in a bubble

Content mentioned:

Blockchain Association Unveils Digital Asset Market Structure Principles

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The episode where we logged on and won forever. Probably the biggest week in crypto history...

In this episode:

Ross Ulbricht is granted a full pardon
Did Ross Ulbricht deserve a life sentence?
SAB121 is finally gone
Why SAB121 was bad
Crypto ball review
Trump launches a memecoin
Trump is inaugurated
OCP2.0 is over
CBDCs are banned
We review Trump's Executive Order
No Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, but a stockpile instead
Larry Fink calls for 600-700k BTC
Mark Uyeda, announces the formation of a new task force: SEC Crypto 2.0
Senator Cynthia Lummis announces the formation of the Senate Banking Committee on Digital Assets
A US court in Texas overturnes the sanctions placed on Tornado Cash

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Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals. In this episode:

Lummis instructs FDIC staff to not destroy evidence of Chokepoint
Did the FDIC call Nic poor?
Coinbase wins a partial victory against the SEC
Canary Capital files for a Litecoin ETF
Tether is moving to El Salvador and building an HQ there
Atlanta Fed gets stablecoins
The case for non-USD stablecoins
Is there a case for other assets in a Strategic Reserve?

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Matt and Nic are back after a week off. In this episode:

Southern District of New York grants Coinbase’s appeal in their case against the SEC
The Governor of the Czech national bank is considering Bitcoin in their reserves
Do Kwon is extradited to the US
E-trade is launching crypto trading
The FDIC is forced by a court to further un-redact documents Coinbase asked for in a FOIA request
We cover the FDIC’s Pause Letters

Content mentioned in this episode:

Fidelity Digital Assets, 2025 Look Ahead
Bitwise, Benchmark Survey of Financial Advisor Attitudes Toward Crypto Assets
Nick Anthony, Fair Access to Banking

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Dana Syracuse and Josh Boehm of Paul Hastings LLP join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The common legal and regulatory considerations that are encountered by companies in the digital asset industry.
Common pitfalls that entrepreneurs in this ecosystem should avoid.
The state of the stablecoin industry and the regulatory considerations in this category.
Potential changes ahead in 2025 on how digital assets are regulated in the United States.

To learn more about Paul Hastings and their fintech and digital asset practices visit www.paulhastings.com

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Matt and Nic are back for an end of year episode. In this episode:

Tether invests $775m in Rumble
Who are the Rumble shareholders in Trump's admin?
Microstrategy seeks approval for more Bitcoin buying
We review the quantum risk to Bitcoin
Matt and Nic's predictions for 2025

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, State of the Network’s 2024 Year in Review
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 291, we revisit major stories that shaped the digital asset industry in 2024 with a data-driven lens

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Janusz and Red from Bitcoin Layers join the show. In this episode:

Innovation on Bitcoin, previously and now
Technology vs consumer adoption
The future of BTC use cases

More about Bitcoin Layers

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic comes out against the SBR on Bloomberg
More Prometheum nonsense
MicroStrategy acquired an additional 15,350 BTC for roughly $1.5 billion, bringing the company's total holdings to 439,000 BTC. Microstrategy was also added to the Nasdaq 100 this week, which will lead to the stock's inclusion in several large ETFs including Invesco's QQQ.
Anchorage Digital has received New York BitLicense approval, enabling them to offer digital asset custody and trading services to more customers in the state such as RIAs and other institutional asset managers.
The US Senate scrapped a vote to renominate SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw in response to immense backlash from the crypto community, led by Coinbase-backed non-profit Stand With Crypto, for Commissioner Crenshaw's treatment of the digital asset industry.
A Texas state representative, Giovanni Capriglione, introduced a bill for the state to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Riot Platforms, the publicly traded Bitcoin miner, acquired 667 BTC this week for $67.4 million to add to their balance sheet, bringing their total holdings to 17,429 BTC.
The NFT collection CyberKongz announced they had received a Wells Notice from the SEC.
A California judge sided with Coinbase in a suit brought by BiT Global over the exchange's delisting of wBTC. Coinbase had recently moved to remove the asset, a tokenized version of BTC tradeable on Ethereum-based networks, following BiT Global, a custodian closely affiliated with Tron founder Justin Sun, assuming custody services for wBTC.

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, State of the Network’s Q4 2024 Mining Data Special
A quarterly update on Bitcoin mining in Q4 2024

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Wyatt sits down with Reforge VC's Alex Lin. In this episode:

Alex’s interdisciplinary road into crypto
Innovation in blockchain infrastructure
Crypto-powered consumer applications

Learn more about Reforge, a blockchain and frontier tech investment firm.

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Rodrigo Seira, Special Counsel at Cooley and Ron Hammond, Director of Government Relations at The Blockchain Association join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The 2024 election and the impact of the crypto vote.
Executive branch actions to keep an eye on in 2025.
Potential SEC related actions that would impact the digital asset market.
The future of Staff Accounting Bulletin 121.
Where digital asset legislation fits into the 2025 legislative priorities.
Stablecoin legislation.
Market structure legislation.

To learn more about Cooley visit:

www.cooley.com

To learn more about The Blockchain Association visit:

www.theblockchainassociation.org

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

French Hill wins the nomination to chair the House Financial Services Committee
Riot Platforms, a bitcoin mining company, announced the intention to raise $500 million via a convertible note offering. The proceeds will be used to acquire additional bitcoins, and for general corporate purposes.
MicroStrategy acquired another 21,550 bitcoin for roughly $2.1 billion.
Circle and Binance announced a partnership with the goal of expanding the reach of Circle's USDC stablecoin across Binance's trading, saving, and payments platforms. Additionally, Binance plans to adopt USDC as part of the company's corporate treasury.
Coincheck, the second largest crypto exchange in Japan, went public via SPAC, joining Coinbase as the only other crypto exchange listed on Nasdaq.
The total stablecoin market cap eclipsed $200 billion this week, a record high following a 13% increase in supply in the past month.
Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin gained approval from New York's Department of Financial Services, a key step in the company's plan to launch the tokenized dollar by year-end.
Google announced a new quantum computing chip, though the specs are still many orders of magnitude away from threatening the encryption levels of Bitcoin and other crypto protocols.

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics State of the Network: Where in the World is Crypto Trading?
Exploring the Kimchi premium, regional exchange activity, and crypto seasonality

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Matthew Le Merle and Mitch Mechigian of Blockchain Coinvestors return to the show. In this episode we run through the Blockchain Coinvestors 2025 Predictions for the digital asset industry.

To learn more about Blockchain Coinvestors visit their website.

To view the full Blockchain Coinvestors 2025 Predictions webinar visit this link.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Bitcoin finally hits $100k
Our reflections on 100k BTC
Declaring victory
Machinsky pleads guilty
Rep French Hill pledges to investigate Operation Choke Point
Trump nominates Paul Atkins for SEC Chair
Hawk Tuah memecoin fiasco

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics State of the Network: Understanding Staking Yields and Economics on Ethereum & Solana
Contextualizing staking yields, inflation, and network economics on Ethereum & Solana

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Lorien Gabel, the founder and CEO of Figment joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The latest developments at Figment.
Post-election impact on the general crypto markets and the staking category.
How Figment is approaching the institutional staking market opportunity.
Staking in the context of investment products.
Evolving ecosystems like Eigen Layer, Babylon and Bitcoin Layers 2s.
The stablecoin market.

To learn more about Figment visit www.figment.io

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Matt and Nic are back for another Thanksgiving episode of OTB. In this episode:

Fire departments love thanksgiving
Who we’re thankful for
Eggnog is underrated
Justin Sun puts $30m into World Liberty Financial
Marc Andreessen appears on Joe Rogan and covers OCP 2.0
Why were non crypto tech peopled shocked by Choke Point revelations?
Trump is looking to shift power from the SEC to the CFTC
An appeals court rules that OFAC exceeded its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash
Cantor owns a 5% ownership stake in Tether that they acquired at a $12b valuation
How prudent is the establishment of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
Can the government pay down its debt with Bitcoin?
Careful what you wish for on the strategic reserve

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics: MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Mega Strategy: Analyzing MicroStrategy's bitcoin holdings, acquisition strategy, and its role as a Bitcoin treasury company

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Matt and Nic return for another week in the markets. In this episode:

How is the DOGE going to work?
Bitcoin is heading to 100k
Gary Gensler announces his resignation as SEC chair
We look back at Gensler’s awful term
18 state AGs file a lawsuit against the SEC
The SEC’s dealer rule is tossed by a judge
Trump is mulling the creation of a crypto czar
Microstrategy is trading at a massive premium
The latest on OCP 2.0
FDIC Gruenberg chair testifies in the House and potentially perjures himself
FTX cofounder Gary Wang given no time in prison
Coinbase is delisting wBTC
Trump nominates Lutnick for Commerce Secretary
Bitcoin Options launch on IBIT
Shaq settles a lawsuit for his NFT touting
Solana ETFs are filed
Goldman is spinning out their digital assets platform
We unveil our first nocoiner draft picks
We reflect on Bitcoin's progress after 10 years in the industry

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, A Data-Driven Update on Stablecoins: Analyzing growth in stablecoin supply, trading volumes, on-chain usage, and yield generation.

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Aaron McDonald, the founder of Futureverse joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Aaron’s professional career and the path that led him to founding Futureverse.
How he has built the company through a mix of organic growth and acquisitions.
How blockchains and digital currency interact with Metaverse technologies.
The future of virtual worlds and gaming technologies.
The L1 and L2 blockchain ecosystem and how Futureverse has built their platform.

To learn more about Futureverse visit their website.

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals. In this episode:

Nic recaps his trip to Congress
Vibes in Congress post election
The likelihood for stablecoin and market structure bills
What are the prospects for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
What’s happening in Devcon?
18 state AGs are suing Gensler and the SEC
Gensler is hinting at retirement
FTX sues Binance and CZ
Sam Trabucco forfeits $70m in assets to the FTX estate
Polymarket’s Shayne Coplan raided by the FBI
Doodles partnership with McDonalds
The verdict on Fairshake's efforts in the election
OCP developments and how Congress will tackle it
We review Trump's cabinet appointments so far

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, The Election Bull Run From the Perspective of Options Markets: Analyzing options markets to contextualize the election bull-run that brought BTC prices to $85,000.

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David Low, CEO and cofounder of Hata joins the show. In this episode,

In this episode, Wyatt and David discuss:

Crypto adoption in Southeast Asia
Regulatory attitudes
Operating a centralized exchange
Bitcoin interest vs other cryptoassets in the region

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Nic and Matt are back with more news and deals. In this episode:

Trump resoundingly wins the election
A demographic realignment
Polymarket versus the polls
Podcasts and twitter versus the legacy media
How did the pro-crypto candidates do?
Trump promises to fire Gensler on day 1
How did the Fairshake PAC do?
Review of key Senate races
Will Trump execute on his crypto promises?
Moreno defeats Brown in Ohio
Will OCP2.0 finally end?
What’s the deal with Trump’s Bitcoin reserve?
How would the SEC change token issuance rules?
How will Trump's election affect DeFi and cashflowing tokens?
Why Tether is a big winner from the election

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, Crypto Market & Polymarket Dynamics Heading Into Elections: In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 284, we analyze Bitcoin’s (BTC) historical performance around prior elections and examine Polymarket data driven by 2024 elections.

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Hadley Stern, the Chief Commercial Officer of Marinade joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Hadley’s career in the blockchain industry.
The early days of researching and building blockchain products at Fidelity.
The landscape for banks in the United States as it relates to digital asset product development.
The evolving regulatory landscape and the prospects of pro-innovation legislation.
The staking landscape and how Marinade is going to market with its products and services.

To learn more about Marinade visit www.marinade.finance

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We check in on the presidential odds
State races to watch
As part of their quarterly earnings release, Microstrategy announced a plan to raise $42 billion in the next 3 years in order to buy more Bitcoin. The raise will be evenly split between equity offerings and sales of fixed-income securities.
Coinbase pledged a future donation of $25 million to Fairshake to be used for the 2026 midterm elections.
Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering for FTX, avoided prison time following his guilty plea and cooperation in the investigation into the exchange's collapse.
Blackrock's IBIT Bitcoin ETF saw $872 million of net inflows on Wednesday, which marked a new record for the fund since the launch in January.
The US Treasury released a quarterly fiscal report this week that had a section dedicated to digital assets, noting stablecoins growth has caused "a modest increase in demand for short-dated treasuries."
The Bank for International Settlements announced they are no longer working on Project mBridge, a cross-border payment network for CBDCs backed by China, Hong Kong, UAE, Saudia Arabia, among others.

Content mentioned:

Treasury Presentation to TBAC
Fortune, Wash Trading on Polymarket
Blockchain Association, Regulation by Enforcement

Sponsor notes:

Polymarket and the Power of Collective Intelligence: In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 283, we dive into how Polymarket’s prediction markets operate on Polygon and analyze data behind the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Pat Larsen, the founder and CEO of Zenledger joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The latest developments in the tax and compliance categories within digital assets.
How asset managers and large financial institutions are increasingly adopting digital assets.
The compliance obligations of financial services firms as it relates to digital asset trading.
The venture capital landscape for digital asset startups.
The use cases that are currently driving adoption in the blockchain industry.

To learn more about Zenledger, visit www.zenledger.io

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Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals. In this episode:

The Polymarket whale is identified
BTCUSD predictions for the election
Election models versus prediction markets
Stripe acquires Bridge for $1.1b
Did the Bridge deal make sense for Stripe?
Stablecoins as Fintech 3.0
Nigeria frees Tigran Gambaryan
Kraken is launching the Ink blockchain
Buenos Aires is launching a blockchain-based identity solution
Opera launches the minipay wallet
A new paper from the Fed gives us new insight into the 2023 bank run
Coinbase FOIAs the regulators behind OCP 2.0

Content mentioned in this episode:

NY Fed, Tracing Bank Runs in Real Time

Sponsor notes:

Introducing Exchange Flow Metrics: In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 282, we introduce Coin Metrics’ new exchange flow metrics for BTC & ETH
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s Dutch misadventures
Federal versus State regulation of Stablecoins
TD Bank filed $3b for money laundering
Are stake rewards property or income?
Italy hikes capital gains taxes on Bitcoin
Is Polymarket manipulated?
Has the first AI bot millionaire been minted?
The World Liberty Financial tokensale flopped

Sponsor notes:

Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto
An Overview of the Flow Blockchain: In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 281, we provide an overview of the Flow Blockchain

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Are shipping regulations making the oceans hotter?
Is Satoshi Peter Todd?
Is the identity of Satoshi the best mystery of all time?
The SEC comes after Cumberland
Crypto.com sues the SEC
World Liberty Financial is doing a tokensale
Uniswap announces Unichain
Is Polymarket manipulated?
Ryan Salame appears on Tucker

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, State of the Network’s Q3 2024 Mining Data Special: In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 280, we provide our quarterly update on Bitcoin mining.
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Monad Madness
CZ is released from jail
Roman Storm’s motion to dismiss is denied
Mango settles with the SEC
Swift is piloting digital asset transactions
Bitwise submits and S-1 for a Ripple ETF
Visa announces their Tokenized Assets Platform
Franklin moves to Aptos
The SEC’s Gurbir Grewal steps down

Sponsor notes

Coin Metrics, State of the Network’s Q3 2024 Wrap-Up: A data-driven overview of events shaping crypto markets in Q3–2024
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Stephen Novenstern, the founder of Kintsu joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Stephen’s path to the cryptocurrency industry and the vision for Kintsu, a liquid staking project in the Monad ecosystem.
The history of DeFi and the LST category.
Why Monad and views on the net new primitives that are enabled by this new layer one blockchain.
The future of layer one blockchains.
Central limit orderbooks in decentralized finance.

To learn more about Kintsu visit their website and follow the project on X.

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Gensler denies knowledge of Operation Choke Point 2.0
We recap the Silvergate collapse
Why did the MSM ignore the new Silvergate revelations?
Trump’s fair banking access rule
Looking back at the Signature closure
Gensler appears in front of the House
Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison
Options approved for Bitcoin ETFs
SEC versus TUSD
What’s going on with the port strike?
Nic’s panda moon moon situation

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, Real World Assets (RWAs) & Tokenization Report. Exploring the RWA landscape, sectors and networks gaining adoption, regulatory implications and market opportunities.
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

Content mentioned:

Ross Stevens, Bitcoin's Protection under the First Amendment

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s Singapore Zyn problem
Nic’s Token 2049 keynote
The Iggy Azalea Eric Wall debate
Trump make an appearance at Pubkey in NYC
World Liberty Financial continues to be insane
SEC versus Flyfish club
Are airdrops done for?
Is JPM really the “largest user of blockchain”?
Bhutan has a ton of Bitcoin
Listening to podcasts with AI
Interest rates fell
The exploding pagers and what it means for crypto

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics, The Crypto Universe Through the Lens of datonomy™
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Alex Leishman, founder and CEO of River, joins us to talk about River's Proof of Reserve initiative. In this episode:

River business update
Building their own custodian
Why Alex decided to do PoR now?
River’s PoR mechanics
Proof of Reserve versus traditional audit
What kind of assurances PoR gives users
How does River handle privacy for PoR?
Responding to various PoR critiques
Boxing
What’s on the horizon for River

Content mentioned:

Alex’s previous appearance on OTB
River PoR on Github
River PoR: river.com/reserves

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We review the Trump-Harris debate
Matt’s new wildlife problems
Nic’s birthday party
Trump doubles down on World Liberty Financial
The Castle Island stablecoins whitepaper is out!
Our reactions to the emerging markets stablecoin report
TZero gets approval to trade tokenized securities
Coinbase’s cbBTC
North Carolina bans CBDCs
Something is happening to Friend Tech
Circle is moving their HQ to NYC

Content mentioned:

Castle Island, Visa, and BH Digital, Stablecoins: The Emerging Market Story

Sponsor notes:

Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto
Coin Metrics state of the network: A Primer on Blockchain Network Health: Exploring key metrics to gauge network health and centralization in PoW and PoS blockchains

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

SEC fiscal year ending in September
How to get accurate transfer volume figures for stablecoins
How much volume do stablecoins really settle?
Do SEC rules stop registered venture firms from voting in governance or staking?
CFTC settles with Uniswap
Robinhood settles with the California DoJ
Choke Point 2.0 is still happening
What’s the latest with World Liberty Financial?
John Deaton wins his primary in MA
What’s the deal with Polymarket versus the polls?

Sponsor notes:

Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto
Coin Metrics: An Update on Layer–1 Networks

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Dan Burke, CEO of Nirvana Labs, joins the show. In the episode we discuss:

Dan’s background and journey into the crypto space
The role of nodes in a blockchain network and the complexities of running one independently
Challenges with existing node infrastructure providers as companies in the space scale
Nirvana’s product offerings including managed nodes and web3 cloud and the benefits of leveraging bare metal servers
Dan’s long term view on how the node operation landscape evolves

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Mark Eckerle, Partner at Withum joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Mark’s journey into the digital asset/blockchain industry.
Withum’s history in digital assets and how the firm came to prioritize working with clients in this category.
The rise of stablecoins and the impact that these assets are having on corporate accounting and operations.
How startups should evaluate tax, audit and advisory services in the digital assets context.
Where Withum is seeing the most engagement in the digital assets industry.

To learn more about Withum visit www.withum.com/crypto

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Has cryptodollarization occured?
Tigran Gambaryan is still detained in Nigeria
Durov of Telegram was detained in France
Should major tech companies leave the EU?
The SEC settles with Abra
Sony is launching an ETH L2
The mythical Harris reset
VCs for Harris support Harris
Trump’s weird World Liberty Financial DeFi thing is looking ominous

Sponsor notes:

Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto
Coin Metrics Stablecoin Dashboard; State of Stablecoins: Sector Expansion & A Changing Interest Rate Environment

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Scott Fletcher, founder of Intersection Growth Partners joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Scott’s professional background and the events that led him to launching Intersection Growth Partners.
The Intersection Growth Partners business model and how they also became investors in a number of their clients’ businesses.
The current state of the Executive Search market for digital asset/blockchain companies.
How the best founders run structured recruiting and interview processes.
What job candidates should be thinking about when evaluating digital asset / blockchain roles.
The categories of roles that are the most in demand in today’s environment.
The impact of legislation on the future of the industry.

To learn more about Intersection Growth Partners, visit their website.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

SALT Wyoming review
Nic’s next fight
How Bitcoin miners have a procyclical effect on the Bitcoin price
Hunting Hill is launching a credit fund seeded by Kraken
Wyoming is launching a stable token in Q1 of 2025
The SEC rejects CBOE’s filings for SOL ETFs
Is Gensler actually being slated to run Treasury under Harris?
Tether is launching a UAE Dirham stablecoin
Our upcoming Emerging Markets Stablecoin Report
Our Bozo of the Week
Babylon is launching
Ron Conway defects from Fairshake PAC
Chuck Schumer is evolving on crypto
Would a CBDC actually be private for users?

Sponsor notes:

Unwrapping Wrapped Assets & wBTC: In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 273, we understand wrapped bitcoin’s (wBTC) custody transition, BitGo’s business model and usage of WBTC in DeFi
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Fairshake is getting active in Senate Races
What’s going on with the Harris pivot?
Chuck Schumer promises crypto legislation by end of year
What’s happening with WBTC?
The SEC is subpoenaing VC funds over Uniswap
Don Jr is launching a crypto project
Will CBDCs destroy the stablecoin sector?
Will stablecoins have to KYC all holders?

Sponsor notes:

Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto
Futures Falter, Funding Flips: In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 272, we explore the robustness of decentralized systems and the stability of synthetic financial products within the crypto ecosystem.

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Michael Bentley, Co-Founder & CEO of Euler joins the show to talk about crypto lending and the launch of Euler v2. In this episode:

The evolution of lending/borrowing in crypto/defi
Euler's history and the upcoming launch of Euler v2
How crypto allows for market discovery of financial primitives
Building programmable finance around blue chip and long tail assets alike

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What happened with the rate-based turmoil in Japan?
VP Harris announces Tim Walz as her VP pick
Ripple settles with the SEC for $125m
Is Jump quitting crypto? (again)
Are Plustoken ETH on the move?
Does the Harris reset with crypto have legs?
Does Trump's promise to end Choke Point have legs?
Adeyemo for treasury secretary?
The Fed issues an enforcement action against Customers Bank, one of the most active pro-crypto banks
Our Olympics recap
Nic's airsoft misadventures
Austin Campbell's thread on Customer's bank

Sponsor notes:

An Update on Crypto Markets & Coinbase Q2 2024 Earnings: In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 271, we provide an update on crypto markets amid the unfolding global market sell-off and break down Coinbase’s Q2 2024 earnings.
Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We react to Trump’s speech on Bitcoin in Nashville
Is Bitcoin a proxy for Trump’s electoral chances?
Will there be a “crypto reset” from the Harris campaign?
Lummis’ Bitcoin Act
The US government moves some Bitcoin
Should the US government hold on to the coins from the Bitfinex hack?
Is the new Bitcoin law civil asset forfeiture?
Tether’s big Q2
Where are the Tether Truthers?
Howard Lutnick’s claim about SBF and Tether
Bitclout founder Nader Al Naji is charged by the SEC and SDNY
California DMV partners up with the Avalanche network

Content mentioned:

Adams, Ibert, and Liao, What Drives Crypto Asset Prices?

Sponsor notes:

Withum’s Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Team specializes in crypto-assets, offering accounting, tax and advisory solutions to fortify trust in a dynamic industry. Contact them today to get started. - withum.com/crypto
The Story of Ethereum Staking So Far: In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 270, we uncover Ethereum's staking ecosystem, from "The Merge" to "Shapella", the rise of LSTs and beyond.

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Luke Hoersten, the founder and CEO of Bitnomial joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Luke’s background and the path that led him to start Bitnomial.
An overview of Bitnomial and the products that the firm has launched to date.
Perspectives on the market participants that are engaging in the digital asset derivatives market today.
The future of digital asset market structure in the United States.
The regulatory landscape and what is potentially ahead for the industry.
How Bitnomial’s licensing strategy is unlocking new product opportunities.

To learn more about Bitnomial visit their website.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic recaps his Karate fight
The Bitcoin Nashville conference
Kamala’s crypto posture
A new pension fund is buying Bitcoin
Did we get a soft landing?

Content mentioned:

BVNK, The decade of digital dollars

Sponsor notes:

The Launch of Ether ETFs
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 269, we look into ETH ETF fees, Grayscale funds and demand & supply dynamics heading into Ether ETF Launch

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Representative French Hill (R-AR) join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Representative Hill’s perspective on the blockchain/digital asset ecosystem and why he initially became interested in this technology.
The status of SAB 121 repeal.
FIT 21 and the future of market structure clarity in the United States.
The prospects of stablecoin legislation and the issues that are being discussed in Congress.
Tigran Gambaryan’s unlawful detainment in Nigeria.

To learn more about Representative Hill’s efforts please visit his website.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nate Silver joins Polymarket
JD Vance is Trump’s VP nominee
Ethereum ETFs get the final go ahead
Should crypto users be single issue voters?
JD Vance’s crypto platform
Does a Trump Vance admin imply a devaluation of the dollar?
JD Vance and seed oils
State Street is exploring their own stablecoin
Possible SAB121 carveouts
Germany is done selling their Bitcoin
The CSW story is finally over
Jamie Dimon for Treasury secretary?
Trump is due to speak at Bitcoin Nashville
Update on how voting works in Congress
Was Trabs a whistleblower?

Sponsor notes:

Charting the Course to Mt. Gox Repayments
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 268, we trace Mt. Gox's journey, analyzing BTC wallet flows and liquidity in the wake of Mt. Gox repayments.

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Chris Duffus, Founder & CEO of Fonbnk joins Wyatt in this episode. We cover:

Stablecoin and crypto usage in emerging markets
Popular and high-potential platforms in these markets
Alternative forms of onramping and moving money
Airtime as a form of digital value storage

Further reading:

- Infrastructure for Synthetic Blockspace

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Will Biden step down?
The importance of prediction markets in elections
Can you insider trade on prediction markets?
What does the SCOTUS repeal of Chevron mean for crypto?
SEC sues Consensys
Stripe and Coinbase partnership
Circle achieves MiCA compliance for USDC and EURC
Will Euro stables ever be popular?
Silvergate settles with the SEC, SF Fed, and California
Why the Silvergate story remains a huge scandal
Polkadot’s strange spending habits
Bozo of the week
Blackrock puts IBIT in their global allocation fund
Matt’s SEC-fu
The SEC’s new website
Stoner Cats in retrospect

Sponsor notes:

State of the Network’s Q2 2024 Mining Data Special
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 266, we provide our quarterly update on Bitcoin mining

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Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s vehicular issues
BTC mining FUD is now AI fud
Abra settles with state regulators over lack of MTLs
State Street and Galaxy Digital partner up
US reps visit imprisoned Binance exec in Nigeria
Vaneck files for a Solana ETF
Coinbase is suing the FDIC and the SEC
Germany is selling Bitcoin
SCOTUS further limits the SEC’s power

Sponsor notes:

Mastering Crypto Derivatives
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 265, we dive into the landscape of derivatives in traditional financial and cryptoasset markets, examining their types, applications and underlying data

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Adam Healy, the co-founder and CEO of Station 70 joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Adam’s career and path that led him to enter the digital assets industry as a CSO and eventually co-founder of Station 70.
The evolution of digital asset custody from a technology perspective.
The evolution of MPC as an infrastructure technology.
The threat vectors that CSOs must confront in managing a custodial business.
Cybersecurity best practices.
The inception of Station 70 and the state of private key backups in the digital asset industry.
How market structure is likely to evolve with more banks and broker-dealers getting active in the space.

To learn more about Station 70 visit their website.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Certik goes from white hat to black hat regarding a Kraken exploit
Bozo of the week
The DJT memecoin scandal and Martin Shkreli
What’s the deal with Barron Trump and the DJT memecoin?
Should we welcome celebrity memecoins?
Should bankers have been more supportive of crypto over SAB121?
Paul Ryan’s stablecoin op-ed in the WSJ

Sponsor notes:

Floating on Thin Air
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 264, we dive into the different factors of a project’s tokenomics and its effects on token valuation and on-chain activity.

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Edward Woodford, founder and CEO of Zero Hash joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Edward’s origin story in the digital asset industry and his path to founding Zero Hash.
Zero Hash’s product lineup and the ways that the firm is powering companies seeking to engage in the digital asset ecosystem.
The regulatory landscape for digital assets and how Zero Hash has positioned the firm both in the United States and internationally.
Stablecoin adoption and the types of businesses that are emerging to service this breakout category.
How brokerage platforms are integrating digital assets.
Zero Hash’s roadmap and what is coming in the next year.

To learn more about Zero Hash visit their website.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

GME and Roaringkitty drama
The detention of Tigran Gambaryan continues
OP_CAT prospects
Biden considers accepting crypto campaign donations
What’s the deal with Hamster Kombat
Martin Shkreli vs PleasrDAO
Terraform labs settles up with the SEC
Microstrategy is still buying Bitcoin
Should crypto holders donate coins to Biden?
New nominee for FDIC chair
Are democrats pivoting on crypto?
We dissect a tweet thread by Rep Sean Casten

Sponsor notes:

Meme Coin Mania
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 263, we delve into the surge of meme coin activity on Ethereum and Solana, highlighting key market trends driven by the meme coin sector.

Content Mentioned:

Jen Wieczner in NYMAG, Are Democrats Pivoting on Crypto

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In this episode, Wyatt sits down with Babylon founder David Tse to cover:

Restaking/shared security and how it works
Why shared security is a valuable use case for Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s structural limitations and their impact on Bitcoin innovation
Bitcoin innovation broadly and Bitcoin L2’s

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Kerrisdale versus Bitcoin miners
Robinhood buys Bitstamp for $200m
Biden vetoes the SAB121 overturn bill
Is the Biden admin’s pro crypto tilt over?
Tucker interviews Bukele
Coinbase donates to Fairshake
SEC takes more Ls
Big inflows into the bitcoin ETFs
Are ETF inflows more about the basis trade?
Paxos launches the interest-bearing stablecoin USDL out of the UAE
Can Bitcoin miners sell into the AI cloud market?
Kraken is in talks to raise a pre-IPO round
State Street is reentering crypto
MiCA and stablecoins
Matt’s latest crisis
The barbell approach to AI investing

Sponsor notes:

Breaking Down Ethereum Blobs & EIP-4844
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 262, we break down Layer-2 blob usage and evaluate the success of Ethereum’s EIP-4844 upgrade.

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We sit down in Bermuda with Mountain Protocol founder Martin Carrica and XBTO founder Philippe Bekhazi for a talk on stablecoins and doing business on the island. In this episode:

Why XBTO is Bermuda-first and why Mountain set up there
The “Bermuda triangle” for doing business on the island
The overlap between Bermuda’s reinsurance industry and crypto
The partnership between Mountain and XBTO
The rise of interest-bearing stablecoins
USD stables as extending the reach of the dollar
The relationship between crypto and big 4 auditors
The coming race between interest and non-interest bearing stablecoins
Blackrock’s BUIDL product and tokenized treasurys

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Wyatt sits down with Julian Duran, product lead of Marathon Digital’s Anduro project. Discussion included:

Why miners are strategically expanding and exploring new initiatives
New innovation in Bitcoin broadly
How Bitcoin today differs from Bitcoin 2+ years ago
Where Bitcoin L2’s and sidechains are headed

Learn more about Anduro

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We recap the Coin Center annual dinner
Will Biden follow through on his SAB121 veto threat?
The Biden admin is reportedly reaching out to key industry figures
Ethereum ETF prospects
Recap of the fight that didn’t happen
Prediction market issues
Gemini Earn recovery

Sponsor notes

Exploring the Impacts of ETH ETF Approvals
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 261, we explore the market reaction and network implications of ETH ETF approvals

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Felix Pago CEO and Co-Founder Manuel Godoy joins us for an episode to share how Felix Pago is utilizing stablecoins to make remittances easier for immigrants.

Manuel’s personal story including financial services pain points as an immigrant
Felix’s founding story around the massive Latin American remittance market
The importance of trust for remittance businesses
The dominance of WhatsApp as an operating system across Latam
Utilizing stablecoins to move money faster and cheaper

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Matt and Nic return for another wild week in crypto. In this episode:

Whip Emmer returns to OTB
Matt’s animal problems
Congress passes the SAB121 overturn
Gruenberg offers his resignation and what it means for crypto
In a stunning overturn the SEC approves the ETH ETF
The significance of the FIT21 act
The anti-CBDC bill passes the House

Sponsor notes:

Decoding the Digital Dollar
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 260, we assess the growth and usage patterns across Coin Metrics' suite of stablecoin coverage

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Minnesota Representative and House Whip Tom Emmer joins the show once again to talk about the policy sea change in Washington and recent legislative successes. In this episode:

The House passes Emmer’s anti-CBDC bill
Trump’s embrace of crypto and what that means
Why some Democrats and the White House have changed their tone on crypto
Congress votes to repeal SAB121 in defiance of Biden’s veto threat
Is the influence of the progressives in DC waning with regards to crypto?
Will Biden follow through on his SAB121 overturn veto threat?
FDIC chair Marty Gruenberg’s planned resignation and what that means
Whip Emmer’s thoughts on stablecoin legislation
The SEC’s reversal on the Ethereum ETF
The importance of the FIT21 act and its prospects in the Senate
Whip Emmer’s legislative expectations over the remainder of 2024

Whip Emmer's prior OTB episodes:

Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) on FTX, the SEC, and the House Crypto agenda for 2023 (EP.382)
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) on MMT, CBDCs, and crypto policy for 2022 (EP.276)

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The Senate votes to repeal SAB121
Which Democrats defied Biden on SAB121?
Chuck Schumer breaks with Warren
Paul Ryan’s pro-stablecoin comments on Bloomberg
CME is launching a spot crypto exchange
The State of Wisconsin owns over $100m of Bitcoin ETFs
Pump.fun exploited
MEV exploiters arrested by the DoJ
What’s up with Roaring Kitty?

Content mentioned in this episode:

Matt Hougan, Who’s Buying Bitcoin ETFs (According to 13F Filings)
David Morris, What President Biden’s Crypto Politics Might Really Be About
Rep Mike Flood and Wiley Nickel, It’s time to overturn SAB 121

Sponsor notes:

Bitcoin’s Halving Aftermath
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 259, we analyze the impact of Runes and miner revenues in Bitcoin's post-halving landscape

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The SAB121 repeal bill passes the House with 21 Democrat votes
Biden threatens to veto SAB121 repeal
Trump endorses crypto
Is Gensler a liability for Biden?
A scandal deepens at the FDIC
Senator Warren defends the embattled FDIC chair
Robinhood gets a Wells Notice from the SEC
Is FTX really offering over 100% recovery to creditors?
We review the Ohio State commencement speech
Greyscale withdraws their Ethereum ETF application

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic on Medium, Five Perspectives on Stablecoins
Wyatt on Medium, Monad & Stablecoins

Sponsor notes:

The Usage & Evolution of Decentralized Exchanges (DEX’s)
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 258, we explore activity across Ethereum decentralized exchanges (DEXs)

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Will Peck, Head of Digital Assets at WisdomTree re-joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

WisdomTree’s journey in digital assets and the firm’s strategy in the area.
Views on the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States.
Will’s views on tokenization and how the firm is approaching this category.
WisdomTree’s New York Trust Charter and the opportunities that the license opens up.
The evolving stablecoin landscape.
Views on evolving regulatory landscape.

To learn more about WisdomTree visit their digital assets page.

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Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals. In this episode:

Matt get’s 2nd in Jeopardy at ETH Boston
We reminisce over Nic’s 2020 holiday quiz
Ian Cain’s Senate candidacy in MA
CZ get 4 months in prison
The significance of ‘4’
Did CZ deserve his sentence?
Roger Ver arrested for tax fraud
Tough week of outflows from the ETFs
The chilling effects of the DoJ Samourai case
Coinbase reports earnings

Content mentioned:

Nic’s 2020 Bitcoin Esoterica Compendium

Sponsor notes:

Measuring Exchange Quality & ‘Fake Volume’
Trusted Exchange Framework
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 257, we delve into our framework to assess exchange quality in digital asset markets

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Ian Cain, republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state of Massachusetts against Elizabeth Warren joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Ian’s personal background and path to politics.
How he became interested in emerging / blockchain technology.
Qubic Labs and fostering a startup ecosystem in Massachusetts.
The on-chain municipal bond project in Quincy, MA.
The key issues that MA voters care about.
Elizabeth Warren’s posture on crypto and whether the “anti-crypto army” is a real thing or a political stunt.
Stablecoins
Digital asset market infrastructure and why it is important to prioritize this effort.
Ian’s message for Massachusetts voters.

Links:

To support Ian Cain please visit www.cainforus.com
To learn more about Qubic Labs visit www.qubiclabs.com
Qubic’s Impact Report
More on the Quincy Municipal Bond effort.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

CIV's new stablecoin survey
What happened with Runes?
Lawsuit against the SEC’s dealer rule
New capital gains tax proposal
How would taxing unrealized gains work?
Two SEC lawyers leave in connection with the DEBT Box scandal
The founders of Samourai wallet are arrested and charged by the DoJ
Morgan Stanley close to permitting Bitcoin ETF to be solicited by their brokers
Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs go live
Block is building Bitcoin mining hardware
Visa’s stablecoin analytics dashboard
Bitcoin Sign Guy sells his sign
TikTok ban reactions
Choke Point 2.0 moves to fintechs

Content mentioned in this episode:

Visa’s stablecoin dashboard
IMF, A Primer on Cross-Border Bitcoin Flows
FDAS Q1 Signals Report

Sponsor notes:

Layer-1 Landscape
In Coin Metrics' State of the Network issue 256, we explore the diverse landscape of Layer-1 blockchains

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Chris Harmse, co-founder and VP of Revenue at BVNK joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Chris’ career and the path to founding BVNK.
The origin story of BVNK and how the company has evolved over time.
The key drivers behind the adoption of stablecoins.
Segmenting the stablecoin market.
Interest bearing stablecoins and the impact that this category will have on the overall market.
Tokenized money funds and the future of securities settlement.
How stablecoins will refactor the global FX market.
The regulatory landscape and how stablecoin adoption is evolving in various regions.

To learn more about BVNK visit their website.

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In this episode we sit down with Alexei Zamyatin, the founder of Build On Bitcoin (BOB). Topics covered:

Why EVM-compatibility is important for Bitcoin and Bitcoin L2s
Merge mining and fostering adoption of Bitcoin L2’s
Why now for the Bitcoin Renaissance
BitVM, use cases, and unlocks for Bitcoin

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Dubai is underwater
The Lummis Gillebrand stablecoin bill and its prospects
Do stablecoins affect the US’ ability to make sanctions?
Avraham Eisenberg has been found guilty for the Mango markets hack
Stablecoins as proto CBDCs
Do stablecoins disintermediate commercial banks?
What do the 13F filings tell us about ETF flows?

Sponsor notes:

Bitcoin’s 4th Halving
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 255, we understand the significance of the Bitcoin halving, its impact on miners and potential effects on BTC’s price as the 4th Bitcoin halving nears.

Content mentioned in this episode:

Timothy Massad, Stablecoins and national security: Learning the lessons of Eurodollars

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Cynthia Lo Bessette and Matt Horne of Fidelity Digital Asset Management join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The history of digital asset innovation at Fidelity.
The decision to operationalize a digital asset-management capability under Fidelity’s Asset Management business unit.
The launch of the Fidelity Bitcoin ETF and the path to getting this product to market.
How Bitcoin ETFs are currently being consumed and the distribution of these products to various investor types and platforms.
How Fidelity is approaching the tokenization of real world assets.
Broader views on the future of public blockchain assets and the types of opportunities for asset managers.

Learn more about Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Our reactions to the CPI print
The SEC announces its intention to sue Uniswap
Sen Warren doesn’t like the stablecoin bill
Howard Lutnick weighs in on stablecoins again
Saylor’s core dev funding controversy

Sponsor notes:

An Introduction to the Solana Network
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 254, we provide a data-driven overview of the Solana blockchain, exploring its architecture, ecosystem, network usage and adoption metrics

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Quinn Thompson, founder and CIO of Lekker Capital, joins the show. In this episode:

Launching Lekker Capital
Quinn’s investment strategy with Lekker
Using crypto instruments to take a view on macro trends
The significance of the move in the 10year
How unusual is it to cut rates when inflation is running hot
Is inflation the lesser of two evils?
Why an inflationary reset is the only way out of our fiscal position
Is Bitcoin more analogous to gold or NASDAQ?
What are memecoins telling us about the crypto cycle?
Institutional participation in Bitcoin dampening volatility?
Quinn’s views on the halving
Will Microstrategy shares ever converge to the value of their BTC?
Why it is often mechanically difficult to bring meme stocks back to earth
Quinn’s views on GBTC selling and the US govt’s seized Silk Road coins

Further reading:

Follow Quinn on Twitter
Fortune on Lekker Capital

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

How risky is Eigenlayer?
The SEC is asking for public comment on ETH ETFs
Is the US government about to liquidate $2b worth of Silk Road Bitcoin?
Goldman wealth management CIO doesn’t like Bitcoin
WSJ is back with a Tether hitpiece
Fed Governor Chris Waller says crypto is good for the dollar
Nic and David Hoffman are fighting at Karate Combat at Consensus

Sponsor notes:

State of the Network’s Q1 2024 Wrap-Up
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 253, we take a data-driven look at the most important events that impacted the digital assets industry in Q1 2024.

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David Hoffman of Bankless and Bankless Ventures returns to the show. In this episode we discuss:

What Bankless Ventures has been focusing on, including Bitcoin Layer Twos.
Eigenlayer – what originally attracted David to the project.
The Eigenlayer value chain and the emerging categories of projects building in this ecosystem.
Liquid Restaking Tokens, Actively Validated Services and how these primitives work in the Eigenlayer ecosystem.
Views on risk management and leverage in the context of Eigenlayer.

To learn more:

Bankless
Bankless Ventures
Eigenlayer Risk FAQ

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Miller Whitehouse-Levine and Amanda Tuminelli of the DeFi Education Fund join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Beba, an American apparel company based in Waco, TX and the DeFi Education fund have filed a complaint against the SEC, challenging the agency’s pattern of regulation via enforcement.
The specific’s of Beba’s airdrop campaign.
The Debt Box case and the pattern of behavior that the case highlights.
The status of Congressional action on market structure, stablecoins and SAB 121.
How the DeFi Education Fund prioritizes key initiatives.
How to get involved in this case and support the broader mission of the organization.

To learn more about the Beba case: https://www.defieducationfund.org/post/it-s-our-time-def-goes-on-offense-against-the-sec

To learn more about the DeFi Education Fund: https://www.defieducationfund.org/

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Was SBF’s 25-year sentence too lenient?
Beba vs SEC
Coinbase motion to dismiss is dismissed
Coinbase notches a win vs the SEC over their Wallet product
SDNY v Kucoin
Ripple vs SEC
Will MSTR ever converge to the fair value of their Bitcoin?
North Korea allegedly hacks Blast’s Munchables farm
How did Blast persuade the hackers to give the money back?
What’s going on with ETH blobspace?
Bitwise’s ETH vs ETH futs correlation analysis

Content mentioned:

Bitwise thread on ETH/futs correlation

Sponsor notes:

State of the Network’s Q1 2024 Mining Data Special
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 252, we zoom in on the impressive recovery of miner profitability amid improving market conditions

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s Columbia scandal
Stablecoin growth
ETH Foundation subpoena from the SEC
ETH ETF prospects
Blackrock releases their tokenized Treasury product with Securitize
Are private blockchains obsolete?
Fidelity amends their ETH ETF prospectus to add staking
Japan's pension fund is learning about Bitcoin
More GBTC outflows
More bad boys
Kyle Davies wants a debate

Content mentioned:

Brian Armstrong, What is crypto good for, anyway?
Bitwise, 12 Real-World Stories of How Millions of People Are Using Crypto Services Today

Sponsor notes:

Appraising Growth in Digital Asset Markets
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 251, we leverage market data and datonomy™ sector classification to understand recent shifts in digital asset markets.

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Jeff Lunglhofer, the Chief Information Security Officer at Coinbase joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Jeff’s background and what attracted him to joining Coinbase.
How Coinbase approaches cybersecurity risk.
The impact of the Bitcoin ETF and the custodial business at Coinbase.
How users should protect themselves via multi-factor authentication.
Phishing and how to protect oneself from this attack vector.
Passkeys and how this is improving the log-in flow at Coinbase.
How Coinbase uses bug bounty programs.

To learn more about cybersecurity at Coinbase visit coinbase.com/security

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of ATHs. In this episode:

ETH’s Dencun upgrade goes live
Is ETH stuck between two different stakeholder groups?
Is Traeger going to hold Bitcoin?
Saylor is still buying Bitcoin
Nigeria holds two Binance executives for a $10b ransom
A UK judge in the COPA case has determined that Craig Wright is not Satoshi
Why the COPA v CSW case matters
Blackrock will buy Bitcoin ETFs in their global allocation fund
Greyscale filed for a low-fee spinoff of GBTC, ticker BTC
John Griffin of Griffin and Shams is back with another terrible paper
A new paper alleges that crypto finances slavery

Sponsor notes:

Market Dynamics & Risks of Liquid Staking Tokens
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 250, we explore the market dynamics and risks of liquid staking tokens (LST’s)

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Nic and Matt return for a week of blockbuster price action and new ATHs. In this episode:

ETF flows recap
Warren favorite Katie Porter loses her primary in CA
Super Tuesday recap
Are crypto PACs working?
Why the Ohio senate race matters for crypto
State AGs amicus brief in Kraken v SEC
The WSJ is accused of defamation in their Tether coverage
Were Signature and Silvergate wrongly accused?
Arizona state Senate considers adding Bitcoin to state reserves
Saylor buys Bitcoin
SEC comissioners Pierce and Uyeda write an entertaining dissent in the Shapeshift case
Is Prometheum the SEC's patsy?
Nic reviews ETH Denver
How priced in in the Halving?

Sponsor notes:

Following Flows V: Pool Cross-Pollination
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 249, we examine fund flows among mining pools and miners, revealing hidden connections to gauge mining decentralization

Join the conversation on Farcaster

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Funding rates in crypto
Blockbuster ETF flows
Bitcoin Renaissance
BitVM opening the overton window
Remembering PlusToken
SBF is “too autistic” to go to jail
The 3ac boys have another fake fundraise announcement
Genesis reaches a settlement proposal
The DOE’s demand for information from miners has been halted for now
Should the Bahamas be a state
Marathon is launching their own L2

Content mentioned in this episode:

Alex Thorn, Why we aren’t Stopping
Fidelity Digital Assets, Addressing Ethereum Risks

Sponsor notes:

In the Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 248, we provide an overview of the paper—Breaking BFT—and examine the importance of network security

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Guy Young, the founder of Ethena, rejoins the show to give us an update on Ethena and to discuss the nature of crypto interest rates.

In this episode:

Reflections on the Ethena launch
ETH funding rates versus ETH ETF expectations
Funding rates on crypto native exchanges versus CME
Why Ethena versus doing the cash and carry trade
At what point does Ethena start to drive down funding rates
The history of the cash and carry trade in crypto
Did yield farming represent a real form of yield?
Why is yield farming less viable today?
The ultimate convergence between tradfi and crypto yields
Where risk premia come from for Ethena versus the risk free rate
ETH taking yields and their development
Guy’s concerns about Eigenlayer and its effect on DeFi
Interactions between real rates and crypto rates
Stablecoin supply versus tradfi interest rates
Crypto yields versus RWA supply
The share of stablecoins that is speculative in nature
Guy’s expectations for the medium term future of crypto rates

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Crusoe CEO and Co-Founder Chase Lochmiller joins us for an episode sharing an update on improving the efficiency of power production with on-site digital infrastructure. In this episode:

Solving the broken links between supply (flaring, renewables) and demand for energy (BTC, high performance compute)
Engineering a portfolio of applications to pair with different sources of energy
Aligning economic incentives with climate solutions
New hardware coming online and the impact to AI inference and training
Decentralized Airbnb for GPU networks – what works and what doesn’t
Halvening impact on BTC Miners
Crusoe’s climate impact

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Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Wireless outage in the US
Russia's space weapons and Rods from God
Will the market like the cubes once again?
Brink nation farcaster update
Our ETH ETF skepticism
Circle leaves Tron
Revolving door between SEC and biglaw
Whip Emmer's letter to the OMB
The ECB's very bad, no good Bitcoin blog
Reddit hold Bitcoin and ETH
SBF's photoshoot
Latest on the 3AC boys
The SEC's mysterious ETF correlation analysis

Content mentioned in this episode:

ECB, ETF approval for bitcoin – the naked emperor’s new clothes
Rep. Emmer letter to OMB over Bitcoin mining data request
NYMAG, 'They are very comfortable lying' 3AC update

Sponsor notes:

The Coin Metrics Team will be hosting a Data Challenge at ETH Denver! Learn more about the event & register for it here.
At the Crossroads: Bitcoin ETFs & Coinbase
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 247, we zoom into the latest developments with Bitcoin ETFs and Coinbase Q4 2023 earnings

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Matt and Nic are back with news and deals of the week. In this episode:

On The Brink is now on Farcaster
The pitfalls of Web3 social
The boys have problem with seed phrases
Optimistic rollups on Bitcoin are now possible?
ETF flow updates
GBTC and Mt Gox flows
Why the halving may not be bullish
SEC vs Debt Box
Why we think an Ethereum ETF is unlikely
SAB121 update
The Treasury rebukes the WSJ's story on Hamas' use of crypto
Can John Deaton unseat Elizabeth Warren?

Sponsor notes:

Navigating the Avalanche: An Introduction to the Avalanche Network
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 246, we navigate Avalanche’s role in the digital asset ecosystem

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

OPNX is very sadly shutting down
Is jail good for you?
GBTC outflows are declining
Solicited versus unsolicited treatment of ETFs
The Bitcoin L2 space is heating up
The latest on COPA
We revisit the Satoshi is the NSA conspiracy
SAB121 stuff
The DoE's Bitcoin mining data collection emergency
What's happening with Farcaster?
Brink Nation joins Farcaster
Monero delisted from Binance
Solana outage this week

Content mentioned:

Fidelity Digital Assets, Q4 2023 Signals Report

Sponsor notes:

Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 245, we dive into the details of the Ethereum Dencun upgrade and highlight key indicators to monitor its success

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Where is the FTX tungsten cube?
FTX will make a 100% recovery for creditors
FTX 2.0 is not happening
The Genesis Digital Assets mystery
Tether’s blockbuster quarter
Chris Larsen hacked
New legislative developments on SAB121
Bitcoin Season 2 is underway
The Biden admin is requesting information from Bitcoin miners
How anti-AI energy activism is revealing about the decel agenda
The CSW v COPA case is nearing trial
We reflect on the terrible CSW era
Elizabeth Warren letter watch
The SEC withdraws their case against DebtBox in shame

Content mentioned:

IEEE, Bezos Bucks? Get Ready for Corporate Digital Currency

Sponsor notes:

Conducting the ETH Census
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 244, we highlight the complexities of calculating ETH’s total supply and share our method for arriving at an accurate figure

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Matt and Nic are back with a celebratory 500th episode. In this episode:

ETFs are off to a rocky launch with the GBTC premium trade closing
Bitwise launches real time transparency for their ETF holdings
Fraud in the metals market versus Bitcoin
The boys confront some fake news
Is there light at the end of the tunnel for GBTC redemptions?
Nic’s spat with Bloomberg
The US is selling $130m of BTC seized from the Silk Road
TFL declares bankruptcy
The boys learn about a face amount certificate
We answer your listener questions

Content mentioned:

Bloomberg, Crypto fans lured by 20% stablecoin yiekds

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Tether’s Ascent: Breaking Down the Dominant Stablecoin's Growth
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 243, we explore Tether's impressive growth, adoption, nature of USDT usage and reserves through on-chain data

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Bridge CEO and Co-Founder Zach Abrams joins us for an episode chronicling the explosion of stablecoin volume and how Bridge is building critical infrastructure. In this episode:

Zach’s origin story and how he arrived at building Bridge
Bridge’s core products today and how clients use their APIs
Future issuance of stablecoins
Key global use cases for stablecoins today
Evolution of the stablecoin market
Building a crypto company in a bear market

Learn more about Bridge

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Our plans for episode 500
Jamie Dimon thinks Satoshi might return and vanish the bitcoins or increase the 21m cap
Howard Lutnick goes to bat for Tether
Chevron doctrine is challenged in SCOTUS
Dunking on Tether Truthers
Coinbase vs SEC resumes
Coinhares acquires Valkyrie
The relationship between GBTC and spot BTC
BTC ETF rankings after 4 days of trading
Coin Center declines to answer Elizabeth Warren
Morgan Stanley on stablecoins (and did they plagiarize?)
Will restaking cause an ETH fork?

Sponsor notes:

A Short Guide to Bitcoin On-Chain Data for ETF Newcomers
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 242, we introduce or reacquaint some to the field of on-chain data, underscoring the properties that make bitcoin an intriguing asset

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Matt and Nic are back for a historic week in the history of Bitcoin. In this episode:

Spot ETF approved and starts trading
Why day 1 flows might disappoint but longer term flows could materialize
Day 1 price action review
The GBTC conversion effect
ETF scoreboard after one day of launch
The SEC’s multiple SNAFUS in their ETF launch
Gensler’s grudging approval and his questionable logic
Commissioner Crenshaw’s dissent
Gensler may have made a strategic mistake in his dissent
Prospects for an ETH ETF
What’s next for the Bloomberg ETF boys
Did Bitcoin change tradfi
Fidelity is harvesting goodwill
ETF fee review

Sponsor notes

Market Structure on the Cusp of Spot Bitcoin ETFs
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 241, we explore digital asset market structure on the cusp of spot Bitcoin ETFs

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Matt Hougan, the CIO of Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Spot Bitcoin ETFs are approved!
The process to get to this point.
The competitive landscape for the 11 products that were approved by the SEC on Wednesday.
BITB, the Bitwise spot product which is the low cost option in the market. How it works and when it will trade.
Bitwise’s plan to donate 10% of profits to The Human Rights Foundation, Brink and OpenSats
The outlook for an evolving custody and trading market structure.
Ethereum ETFs in the near future?

Learn more about Bitwise's BITB

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Matthew Le Merle and Mitch Mechigian of Blockchain Coinvestors join the show. In this episode we discuss the Blockchain Coinvestors 2024 Predictions.

To learn more about Blockchain Coinvestors:

Website
Webinar

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Matrixport’s bearish ETF take
The DoJ drops campaign finance charges against SBF
Goldman and JPM are authorized participants for the ETF
Where will the fees settle out for the major Bitcoin ETFs
Nic’s vanity license plate story
Do we still believe in tungsten

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics State of the Network’s 2024 Outlook
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 240, we offer our perspective on some of the biggest trends to watch in 2024 in the digital assets industry.

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In this episode, we host Nitya Subramanian, founder and CEO of Capsule, which is building cross-application embedded wallet infrastructure. We discuss: * Outstanding challenges with web3 onboarding * How applications are integrating parts of the wallet experience * How Capsule helps developers give their end users the key privileges * Why interoperability is crypto's key superpower * How Capsule simplifies the transaction signing process * How Capsule's infrastructure is complimentary to smart contract wallets

Learn more about Capsule here. Follow Nitya here.

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Matt and Nic return for the last week of 2023. In this episode:

South Shore bar pie
Our 2024 resolutions
Was Barry Silbert the main character
Bitcoin miners had a good year
ARK is selling their GBTC holdings
The Cointucky Derby
Will an ETH ETF be a fast follow?
Will ETF sponsors sue the SEC over cash create for ETFs?
Nic and Matt’s 2024 predictions for stablecoins, Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, NFTs, and adoption
Solana versus Ethereum debate
ETH L2 gas usage and EIP4844
Is the BSA unconstitutional?
Is 2024 the year the 3AC boys are finally apprehended?

Sponsor notes

Coin Metrics’ Best of State of the Network in 2023
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 239, we reflect on a year full of riveting data and crucial events through the lens of the research team’s favorite issues from 2023

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In this episode, we sit down with Jill Gunter, co-founder of Espresso, to discuss: * Espresso's original mission and the challenges of building a privacy solution * Shifting direction to focus on building infrastructure to help L2 rollups decentralize * The role of a sequencer in a rollup and how Espresso intends to decentralize it * Trading off centralized sequencer revenue for decentralization and permissionlessness

Visit Espresso for more.

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Ryan Selkis, the co-founder and CEO of Messari joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The regulatory landscape and how the industry should be prioritizing policy initiatives.
Grayscale, GBTC and the evolution of exchange traded products.
The institutional market and the impact of a Bitcoin ETF.
The many failures of the SEC with regards to crypto policy in the USA.
Messari’s roadmap in 2024

To learn more visit messari.io and download the Crypto Theses 2024 report. Follow Ryan on X.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Matt’s tree crisis
The Jamie Dimon Elizabeth Warren nexus
Is there a really a revolving door between crypto and the government?
Warren’s latest volley of letters
Promethian gets authorization to start trading
We recap the inscriptions frenzy
A new Super PAC is raised
The BVI issues a seizure of the 3AC assets
Zooko steps away from Zcash

Content mentioned in this episode:

Messari’s Crypto Theses for 2024
Bitwise 2024 predictions
Blockchain Coinvestors 2024 predictions

Sponsor notes

State of the Network’s 2023 Year in Review
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 238, we revisit major stories that shaped the digital asset industry in 2023 with a data-driven lens

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Dan Tapiero, the founder and Managing Partner of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners joins this show. In this episode we discuss:

The state of the crypto/blockchain markets since the FTX collapse.
The impact of the Bitcoin ETF on fund flows in the industry.
The market for growth and secondary investing.
The LP landscape and how allocators are thinking about the sector.
1RT’s strategy and the categories that Dan is finding compelling.

To learn more about 1RT visit their website and follow Dan on X.

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Andreas Tsamados, the founder of Fileverse joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Andreas’ academic background and path that led him to starting Fileverse
An overview of Fileverse and the ambitions of the project.
Why a decentralized file sharing platform is necessary and better than a centralized option for certain customer types.
SAFE multi-signs
The state of decentralized file storage.
Token models and how these could evolve over time.
The Fileverse roadmap in the coming year.

To learn more about Fileverse visit fileverse.io

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In this episode, we host Nick Neuman, CEO of Casa to discuss their recent stablecoin launch and:

Casa’s value proposition
How customers use Casa
The decision to expand beyond Bitcoin to Ethereum
The rationale behind supporting stablecoins
Building custody tools for security versus convenience
Nick’s views on experimentation on Bitcoin

Further reading:

Protect your stablecoins: Hold USDC and USDT with Casa

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Coinbase’s positioning ahead of the ETF
Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick acknowledges their Tether role
Where do we stand on cash creation versus in-kind creation for the Bitcoin ETF?
Coinbase launches an RWA hub in Abu Dhabi
Kucoin settles with the state of New York
Do Kwon is staying in Montenegro a bit longer
Coinlist settles an OFAC violation
FASB adopts (again?) fair value accounting for Bitcoin
SBF’s lawyer said he was the “worst witness he’s ever seen”
The status of Warren’s anti-ML crypto bill
How potent will the crypto lobby be in 2024?

Content mentioned in this episode:

Charles Rettig, IRS Digital Assets Plan Would Be a Setback for Taxpayer Services

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics State of the Network’s Q4 2023 Mining Data Special
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 237, we spotlight crucial developments and data across the mining ecosystem

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Itai Turbahn, the co-founder and CEO of Dynamic joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The mission of Dynamic and the how the company is enabling seamless web3 log in experiences.
Breakout applications in the web3 category.
An overview of Passkeys and the impact that this technology will have on both web2 and web3 log in experiences.
Account abstraction and the innovation that is likely to emerge using this technology.
Dynamic’s new embedded wallet offering.
Itai announces Dynamic’s Series A round of financing from a16z, Founders Fund, Castle Island Ventures and others.

To learn more about Dynamic visit dynamic.xyz

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Brian Foster, Global Head of Wholesale at Coinbase, joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Brian’s career and the path that led him to joining Coinbase.
An overview of the Coinbase business model and how the company is segmented.
The evolution of the Coinbase Institutional business.
The Wholesale business at Coinbase and how the company is positioned with brokers, banks and ETF issuers.
Views on the Bitcoin ETF proposals and how Coinbase is positioned in this market segment.
The BlackRock partnership and how Coinbase and BlackRock are collaborating.
Views on the evolution of the competitive landscape for Coinbase.
BASE, RWAs and stablecoins.

Learn more at coinbase.com

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In this episode, we sit down with Rowan Stone who leads Business Development at Base – the layer-2 network on Ethereum launched by Coinbase earlier this year. Rowan expands on:

The decision to build Base using Optimism's OP stack and the "Superchain" vision
The vectors of centralization in L2 networks and the path to decentralization
Early use cases on Base across DeFi, loyalty and the creator economy
The role of business development in growing an L2 network

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Matt and Nic return for deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Chainalysis Geography of Crypto adoption
Jamie Dimon comes out against crypto – again
Our vote for Time Person of the year
The AICPA announces their stablecoin attestation framework
Do Kwon is being extradited to the US
Nubank is getting into crypto
Rep McHenry is retiring

Content mentioned in this episode:

Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index
It’s all a Game by Colleen Sullivan

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK—State of Stablecoins:Signs of Returning Liquidity
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 236, we look into stablecoin supply, usage, adoption and key trends in market evolution

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Kim Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis, joins the show to talk about their 2023 Geography of Crypto Adoption report. In this episode:

The difficulty of ascertaining reliable illicit finance data for crypto
Why Chainalysis started publishing the Geography of Crypto report
Why emerging markets dominate in terms of crypto adoption
How Chainalysis devised their methodology
What the variables in their index mean
Potential sources of error or noise in the data
How Chainalysis overlays internet traffic data with blockchain data to determine usage on a country by country basis
Top countries on the index and changes from prior years
Evidence for cryptodollarization
What variables correlate with crypto adoption globally
Countries with positive year/year growth in crypto adoption

Content mentioned in this episode:

Chainalysis, The 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index

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Ruud Smets and Marc de Kloe of Theta Capital join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Theta’s initial foray into the world of blockchain focused venture funds and hedge funds.
The process of educating institutional limited partners on this emerging technology.
How the Theta team segments the investable opportunities in the blockchain industry.
Views on fund capacity and securing allocations in promising managers.
Views on co-investment opportunities and how Theta has approached these opportunities.
Promising trends for 2024.
The Legends4Legends conference and plans with the event going forward.

To learn more about Theta Capital visit thetacapital.com

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Nic and Matt return for news and deals. In this episode:

CZ must stay in the US until sentencing
The SEC is looking into Binance US
In kind versus cash creations for ETFs
The Major Questions Doctrine
FDIC scandal keeps rumbling
Is there a world where GBTC doesn’t get converted?
Elizabeth Warren versus Subway

Content mentioned in this episode:

Austin Campbell tweet on Treasury letter
Coin Center blog on Treasury letter
Fortune, Gary Gensler has remade the SEC into a crypto nemesis and climate warrior. Now a backlash is brewing

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK—Dollar-Cost Averaging Portfolio
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 235, we delve into the dollar-cost averaging strategy in the digital asset market, emphasizing the need for informed investment choices

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Vivek Ramaswamy is a Republican candidate for President in 2024. In this episode we sit down to dig into his crypto policy proposals:

Vivek’s keynote in Ft Worth
Vivek’s crypto platform and how that derives from his convictions
Vivek’s view on Bitcoin mining
Is Choke Point 2.0 real?
Is banking a utility?
‘Choke Point 6.0’ and how it goes beyond just crypto and banking
Does the suppression of speech have a technological solution?
Can public blockchains actually be supportive of the US Dollar?

Further resources:

Vivek2024.com
Vivek’s Speech in Ft. Worth: “Three Freedoms of Crypto Policy”

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Matt and Nic return for a Thanksgiving episode. In this edition:

Fidelity files for an ETH spot ETF
The SEC sues Kraken
Javier Milei wins – and prospects for dollarization
Stablecoins versus dollar liabilities in emerging markets
Prediction markets do well in the Argentine election
We digest the OpenAI scandal and reflect on corporate governance
Do we need a new McCarthyism directed at effective altruists?
CZ settles with the DoJ and the CFTC over BSA and OFAC violations
Binance appears to be solvent thanks to their Proof of Reserve
Where the Binance settlement leaves the industry
Tether supply hits $88b
Bhutan is mining bitcoin

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK— Checking On-Chain Indicators for Green Shoots in the Digital Assets Market
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 234 we present a selection of indicators that offer us insights against the backdrop of a recent surge in valuations within the digital assets ecosystem.

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We sit down with Mike Cahill, CEO of Douro labs, to talk Pyth’s retroactive airdrop and launch. In this episode:

A brief history of Pyth
What was the problem with legacy oracles before Pyth
How is Pyth is technically differentiated from other oracles
The importance of introducing confidence intervals into prices
How does Pyth achieves cross chain data delivery
Disintermediation in the oracle market
Major proof points that convinced Mike that Pyth could work
Pyth’s traction on various chains
Which blockchains Pyth does particularly well on
Mike addresses the ‘collusion FUD’?
Why Pyth oracles are not like LIBOR
How the Pyth retrospective airdrop works
What’s happening with Pyth governance on a go forward basis?

Further reading:

Pyth, How the Retrospective Airdrop works
On The Brink ep. 364, Solving The Oracle Problem

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Tail risks with the Bitcoin ETF
Are SBF’s parents off the hook?
The FDIC is embroiled in scandal
Should Marty Gruenberg step down?
Tokenized bank deposits versus stablecoins
What’s wrong with the third party doctrine
SAB121 under pressure

Content mentioned in this episode:

Fidelity Digital Assets, Understanding Proof of Work
The WSJ, Strip Clubs, Lewd Photos and a Boozy Hotel: The Toxic Atmosphere at Bank Regulator FDIC
Whip Emmer Letter to Treasury regarding Hamas crypto financing

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK—November Rally Reaches New Corners of the Digital Asset Market
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 233, we delve into the primary beneficiaries of the recent market rally and explore diverse avenues channelling this momentum

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The boys join forces with Alex Thorn of Galaxy Brains for a special live episode at the Pubkey bar in NYC.

In this episode:

Galaxy's Beimnet Abebe joins for market color
Bloomberg's James Seyffart opinions on Bitcoin ETF prospects
The WSJ/Hamas affair
Audience Q&A

With special thanks to the Galaxy team for organizing and Thomas Pacchia for hosting

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Anthony DeMartino, the co-founder and CEO of Trident Digital joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Anthony’s background in the banking industry and his path to founding Trident Digital.
Digital asset lending markets and how Trident is innovating in this category.
Trident’s US Treasury product and how he is going to market.
The state of the U.S. banking system and the status of the FDIC insurance fund.
The potential impact of Commercial Real Estate on the banking sector.
Chokepoint 2.0 and the regulatory landscape in the USA.

To learn more about Trident Digital visit their website.

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Matt and Nic return for another episode of news and deals. In this episode:

WSJ bounty updates
Will Euro stablecoins take off?
SBI and Standard Chartered start a crypto infrastructure fund
SEC opens talks with Grayscale over the GBTC conversion
Kraken is exploring the creation of an L2
SEC staff can’t own crypto
FTX 2.0 prospects
CME OI flippens Binance
Nouriel Roubini is launching a token

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Ethereum Staking through the Lens of Lido
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 232, we dive into Lido—the largest player within the staking economy—and understand the state of its liquid staking token (stETH), governance token (LDO) and underlying node-operator composition.

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Adam Guren, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Hunting Hill joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Adam’s career journey and the path that led him to found Hunting Hill in his late 20s.
How he discovered cryptocurrency and the initial digital asset products that he traded.
The initial market structure for trading closed end digital asset products and the challenges that it presented.
Views on the prospects of a Bitcoin ETF and the impact that it will have on the market when approved.
The prospects of a spot ETH ETF.
An overview of Hunting Hill today, including a deep dive on Hunting Hill Digital.
The opportunities for distressed investors in today’s market.
Hunting Hill’s efforts with Versifi and Base Layer Ventures.

To learn more about Hunting Hill visit their website.

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Devin Walsh, executive director of the Uniswap Foundation joins the show. In this episode: * Proposing and setting up the Uniswap Foundation * The Foundation's priorities and role in growing the Uniswap ecosystem * Uniswap v4 hooks as a new primitive for developers to unlock efficient innovation * Supporting developers and researchers on Uniswap via grants * Fostering education and participation in governance

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What happened to mimblewimble
Where Nic’s bounty program stands
What’s the deal with Binance’s proof of reserve?
The SEC takes down Safemoon
Hester Pierce criticizes the SEC’s approach to LBRY
Did the SEC violate the administrative procedures act by issuing SAB121?
The SEC comes from Paypal
How will MSTR fare post Bitcoin ETF?
Did Do Kwon commit fraud or did he really believe in UST?
We would like to buy the FTX tungsten cube

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Unpacking the Forces Behind the Market Rally
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 231, we focus on both spot and derivatives markets to explore forces driving the recent market rally

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Brandon Mulvihill the co-founder and CEO of Crossover Markets joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Brandon’s career in the FX industry and the path to founding Crossover Markets
ECNs and how this market structure came to evolve in the FX market
The opportunity to bring ECNs to the digital asset market
The CrossX platform and how this product is impacting the digital asset trading landscape
Crossover’s partnership with Hidden Road in launching Route 28
The evolution of the digital asset market structure and how non-custodial trading is evolving
The regulatory landscape and the jurisdictional decisions that went into establishing Crossover Markets

To learn more about Crossover Markets visit their website and follow the company on X.

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Hong Fang, President of OKX, joins the show to to announce their twelfth consecutive monthly Proof of Reserve attestation and to discuss how their PoR implementation has changed over time. Covered in this episode:

OKX’s brand refresh
Why OKX chose to launch their monthly PoR attestations a year ago
The importance of PoR today and who is asking for it
Which PoRs they looked at for inspiration
How OKX evolved the procedure from inception to now
The move from merkle liabilities to ZK PoL
The PoR security model and how many users need to check for it to be valid
Handling issues like margin, leverage, and negative balances in their attestation
The relationship between Proof of Reserve and conventional audits
Future directions in PoR and ways to improve
Technical PoR versus audit-enhanced PoR and the role of an auditor
Attacks on PoR and mitigations
Common criticisms of PoR
Why numerous exchanges need to do PoR for it to work overall

Content mentioned:

Nic Carter on Medium, The Status of Proof of Reserve as of Year End 2022
OKX Proof of Reserve Dashboard

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Seth Priebatsch, the founder and CEO of Groma joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Seth’s entrepreneurial journey, including the founding story of LevelUp.
His ambitions with the founding of Groma, a company building a real-estate backed cryptocurrency.
The tokenization of real-world assets, including the steps that Groma is taking to launch a REIT security that will be represented on-chain.
The choice to focus on multi-family-residential property as the initial backing of the Groma REIT.
The regulatory landscape for digital asset securities in the United States.
The prospects of other categories of real-world-assets and their eventual representation on-chain.

To learn more about Groma, visit their website or follow Groma on X.

Links mentioned: Groma on Republic. For a preview of the Groma whitepaper email whitepaper@groma.com

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Matt and Nic return for a big week of news and deals. In this episode:

Has there been a vibe shift?
Sen Tillis and Hickenlooper introduce the PROOF Act
Is there a lack of crypto-native auditors?
Liz Warren's plan to interfere with crypto audits
What's going on with the WSJ, Warren's letter, and Hamas' crypto donations?
The WSJ is refusing to update their claims
ETF momentum is picking up
What explains the move in Bitcoin this week?
SBF is going to testify

Content mentioned:

Sen. Tillis' office, The PROOF Act introduced
Jeff John Roberts in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal and Liz Warren double down on the Hamas crypto canard
Nic's WSJ/Hamas bounty campaign
Elliptic, Setting the record straight on crypto crowdfunding by Hamas
Elizabeth Warren letter to the White House

Sponsor notes: * Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Navigating the Liquidity Landscape: Insights into Digital Asset Markets * In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 230, we examine trends in liquidity and volume across centralized and decentralized exchanges

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Mike Higgins of Hidden Road joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Mike’s career and the path to joining Hidden Road
Overview of Hidden Road and the prime brokerage category
The market structure for digital asset trading and settlement
The launch of Route28 and the value proposition for institutional customers
The regulatory landscape and the path that Hidden Road has pursued for licensing across the world
Institutional adoption in 2024

Further reading:

Learn more about Hidden Road
Learn more about Route28

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Amanda Tuminelli of The DeFi Education Fund joins the podcast. In this episode we discuss:

Amanda’s background and path to joining The DeFi Education Fund
The IRS “broker” rulemaking process and its potential impact on DeFi
The SEC’s “Exchange” rulemaking process
DEF’s amicus briefs on SEC vs. Coinbase
Patent trolls in the DeFi ecosystem

Links to content discussed on this episode:

protectdefi.org
IPR Petition (Patent Case)
"Exchange" Rulemaking Comment Letter
DEF's Amicus Brief in SEC v. Coinbase

To learn more about The DeFi Education Fund visit: defieducationfund.org/

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The Cointelegraph SNAFU
The NYAG sues Gemini, Genesis, and DCG
The FTX trial isn't going well for Sam
The latest with FTX clawbacks
Elon files an amicus brief in a case against SEC
Sen Warren's latest anti-crypto letter
Chainalysis debunks the WSJ's false narrative about crypto financing for Hamas
Larry Fink supports Bitcoin now
We profile the Silk Road hacker

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic interview with Bermuda Premier David Burt
Chainalysis, Correcting the Record: Inaccurate Methodologies for Estimating Cryptocurrency’s Role in Terrorism Financing
CNBC, The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3 billion

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Exploring Supply Transparency
In this joint report by Coin Metrics & Bitcoin Suisse, we explore token supply and ownership dynamics in digital asset markets

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Nic travels to Bermuda to sit down with the Premier, Hon. E. David Burt to discuss digital asset policy and the emerging crypto ecosystem on the island. In this episode:

The origins of the Digital Asset Regulation in Bermuda
Catalysts that have led crypto firms to take Bermuda seriously as a domicile
Premier Burt’s evangelization of Bermuda regulation on the crypto circuit
Why Bermuda is a good place for a crypto firm to do business
The “bermuda triangle” (government, industry, and regulator)
How Bermuda straddles the risk of digital assets with the potential for innovation
How the Premier aims to incorporate local residents into the tech industry here
What the Premier is happy about regarding Bermuda’s regulatory strategy for digital assets
Which sectors within the crypto space the Premier is focusing on at the moment How Bermuda is situated relative to other financial regulators
Premier Burt’s view on regulatory passporting

Thanks to Penrose Partners.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Holland versus the Netherlands
The end of Pax Americana
Ditching the 'stablecoin' term
Why synthetic USD is not the next Luna
Caroline Ellison testifies
SBF wanted to be president
How Teneo worked with Singapore to apprehend Su Zhu
Will criminal charges ever be leveled against the 3AC principals?
Lightning is getting more efficient

Content mentioned in the episode:

Nic and Martin join the Empire podcast
Do we need a TARP 2.0?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Q3 2023 Wrap-Up
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 228, we set out to analyze USDC's supply loss and its impact on Circle

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Guy Young, the founder and CEO of Ethena, joins the show to talk crypto-backed stablecoins.

How Ethena began with an Arthur Hayes blog post
The origins of synthetic stablecoins on Bitmex
The difference between Hayes’ Nakadollar and the Ethena design
Why synthetic stablecoins have failed in the past and how Ethena addresses this
How staked ETH as the underlying collateral opens up a new design space
How Ethena mitigates their exposure to exchanges with off-exchange custody
Guy’s backstory and entrance into crypto
Why the circumstances are favorable for the success of a synthetic stable today
Why the short leg of the Ethena position has to rely on CeFi for now
Where the yield from ETH positive funding ultimately comes from
Limits to scale on Ethena on the short leg of the trade and ETH staking
Guy’s explanation for where the yield from being long ETH comes from
Correlation dynamics between the ETH yield and the funding rate
Why it’s important that crypto yields are somewhat negatively correlated with tradfi yields
What protects the system when funding flips negative?
How the system can react to constraints in ETH funding and ETH staking
The possibility of adding Bitcoin as a collateral type
Why Ethena distinguished the stablecoin and the yield-bearing component
Rebasing versus accruing yield tokens
How they think about different stETH derivatives
Ethena versus stETH-backed overcollat stablecoins
Why the supply of stablecoins is shrinking
Will major stablecoin issuers become interest bearing?
Ethena’s regulatory strategy
The BUSD security analysis from the SEC and how interest bearing affects that
Why end users deserve yield in exchange for taking on the counterparty risk of holding a stable
Why Guy is excited by Paypal USD
Guy’s prediction for stablecoin interest-bearing market cap

Further reading:

Arthur Hayes, Dust on Crust

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

OTB gets some critical feedback
The boys cover Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography
Is Elon going to turn around the Twitter acquisition?
Bourgeous capitalism
We review Lewis’ Going Infinite
SBF was tungsten pilled
Su Zhu is jailed for contempt of court in Singapore
Is FTX solvent again thanks to Anthropic?
Does ETH futs ETFs mean that ETH isn’t a security?
Bharat Ramamurti, one of the architects of OCP 2.0, leaves the White House
The Economist covers the Bitcoin lab leak hypothesis
Coinbase gets a license in Singapore

Content mentioned in this episode:

The Economist, Did bitcoin leak from an American spy lab?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Q3 2023 Wrap-Up
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 227, we take a data-driven look at the most important events that impacted the digital assets industry from Q3 2023

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Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The SEC’s approval of Ethereum Futures ETFs
Bitwise’s launch of AETH, The Bitwise Ethereum Strategy ETF and BTOP, the Bitwise Bitcoin and Ether Equal Weight Strategy ETF.
The current state of play as it relates to Bitcoin spot ETF filings.
The SEC’s approach and posture given the Grayscale court case.
The current lay of the land in the institutional market as it relates to digital asset products.

To learn more about Bitwise visit bitwiseinvestments.com

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David Phelps is the co-founder and CEO of jokerace and a prolific writer. He joins the podcast to discuss:

Why tokens are not optimal for effective governance
Alternative ways to incentivize users and distribute decision making power
How we solve for retaining users versus just attracting them
Composability and evolving from user generated content to user generated apps

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Matt and Nic return for deals and news. In this episode:

Is AI going to cause unemployment for IB associates?
Blockchain based sneakers
Tungsten business cards
What’s happening with OTB merch?
Nic’s Vespa catastrophe
Gensler’s HSFC hearing
How Gensler is the Tonya Harding of crypto
Made up airlines
What’s going on with Huobi?
FTX trial starts next week

Content mentioned in this episode:

Merch: onthebrink.shop
Eric Hess, Bridging Policy and Practice: A Pragmatic Approach to Decentralized Finance, Risk, and Regulation
Nic's Token 2049 talk

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals. In this episode:

We recap the conferences
Nic's Columbia lecture snafu
The Bitcoin security budget debate
One theory for what might provide Bitcoin with long term security
FTX sues Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried
Tether has resumed their lending operations
Did SBF's parents make him do it?
HK is creating stablecoin legislation
USA vs Singapore

Content mentioned:

David Morris tweetstorm on SBF parents
Evanston Capital, Investor Participation Trends in Blockchain VC
Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana co-founder: ‘To keep the next great American founder in America, Congress must regulate crypto. But first lawmakers should learn how it works’

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — A Glimpse into Coinbase through Coin Metrics’ Data
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 225, we highlight pivotal data underscoring Coinbase's current market position

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Henri Stern, CEO and co-founder of Privy, joins us to discuss: * The contradictory functions that wallets serve * Offering in-app non-custodial embedded wallets

Balancing the trade offs of security versus convenient recovery
How customers are customizing their embedded wallet experience
The decision to build third party wallet connectors and embedded wallets

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode.

We review Singapore and Token 2049
Singapore food reviews
Is crypto pivoting to Asia?
Singapore bans the 3ac boys from the Securities industry for 9 years
The offshoring of dollar stablecoins
Stablecoins are becoming interest bearing
Fortress is hacked and acquired by Ripple
SEC versus Stoner Cats
Sentiment is turning against John Ray III
We review Arthur Hayes’ party in Singapore
How involved was Joe Bankman in FTX?
Genesis is ceasing trading operations
19 hour flights

Content mentioned in this episode:

Nic’s Token 2049 Keynote (slides)

Bloomberg, How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Elite Parents Enabled His Crypto Empire

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Peter Johnson, co-head of Venture at Brevan Howard Digital, returns to the show to talk about his latest theses on stablecoins. In this episode:

The origins of Peter's interest in stables
We review Peter's prior stablecoin predictions
USDC versus USDT market share trends
Peter's main takeaways from the Relentless Rise paper
Stablecoin usage on BSC and TRON
Peter's views on PYUSD
The emergence of interest-bearing stablecoins
How synthetic USD stablecoins might work
Stablecoin comparisons to the Eurodollar market
We make some predictions

Further reading:

BH Digital, The Relentless Rise of Stablecoins

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Martin Carrica, cofounder of Mountain Protocol, joins us to discuss their launch of their USDM, permissionless interest-bearing stablecoin. In this episode:

Martin’s story and origins of his desire to create a stablecoin
Obtaining a registered digital assets company in Bermuda
Martin’s review of regulatory options worldwide and how they ended up in Bermuda
How Bermuda has distinguished itself from other financial hubs in the Atlantic
How reinsurance is like stablecoins
What it takes to get licensed as a digital asset business in Bermuda
How Mountain Protocol’s USDM stablecoin works
How rebasing stablecoins work – and how they integrate in DeFi
How USDM differs from on-chain T bills and other interest bearing stable products
How USDM was able to achieve a permissionless structure
How Mountain avoids US clients
Why the market for stablecoins is mostly ex-US
Stablecoins as a backend for emerging market fintechs
Different exchange rates in Argentina
How Argentine firms use Argentine ADR stocks to manage their corporate cash
How street moneychangers on the street in Argentina work
Milei and the prospects for dollarization in Argentina
The importance of a stablecoin being issued out of a bankruptcy remote structure

Disclaimer:

USDM and other Mountain Protocol products and services are not available for U.S. persons as well as other restrictied jurisctions.
For more information and disclosures on Mountain Protocol, please refer to the Terms and Conditions.

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Ryan Salame pleads guilty
Our thoughts on the latest turn of the Bitcoin security budget debate
What are the prospects for fees to develop on Bitcoin long term?
Is blockcspace a race to the bottom?
Visa adds merchant settlement tools for USDC on Solana
The significance of Visa’s move toward merchant settlement with stablecoins
CBOE files for spot Ether ETFs
We reflect on El Salvador’s Bitcoin law
The FASB moves to fair value accounting for Bitcoin
Greenpeace files a comment letter on the GlobalX Bitcoin trust
Are the ESG tides turning for Bitcoin mining?
Has El Salvador's Bitcoin project been a failure?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Evaluating the Market Quality of DeFi collateral
In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 223, we explore predominant collateral types in DeFi lending protocols and evaluate their liquidity & volatility characteristics to determine their desirability as collateral

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We sit down with Lee Bratcher, President and Founder of the Texas Blockchain Council. Lee is one of the primary architects of Texas' Proof of Reserve bill, now in effect. In this episode:

The origin of the TBC
Why Lee is moving their Summit to Ft Worth
Notable legislative successes by the TBC in Texas
The importance of getting the UCC to recognize digital assets
The importance of Bitcoin mining
The origins of HB1666
Why PoR legislation benefited from the industry spontaneously adopting the standard
How the TX PoR bill emerged as a compromise
How Lee expects this to become model legislation in other states
Comparing PoR to established financial statement audits
The importance of frequency in Proof of Reserve
The lack of accounting firms that are willing to supervise PoR
How would PoR dealt with issues at Gox, Quadriga, FTX, or Prime Trust?
How are companies operating in Texas reacting to the bill?
Future legistlative directions
The role of stablecoins in upholding the role of the dollar
The lost authority of the states in chartering banks

Further reading:

Learn more about IBEX
IBEX’s partnership with Salinas Group

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The problem with SEC SAB 121
Pickleball is driving up American healthcare costs
Microstrategy buys some more Bitcoin
Fidelity refiles their Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF
Why the Prime Trust insolvency is so bad
Will there be Prime Trust clawbacks?
The SEC is slacking with their document retention policies
How stablecoins are mirroring the development of eurodollars
How Prometheum’s listing strategy might pose a risk to certain cryptoassets
The UK law commission determines that digital assets are a new kind of “thing”

Content mentioned in this episode:

SEC Staff Bulletin 121
Odd Lots, Josh Younger on the Surprising Origins of Eurodollars and Petrodollars
Laura Shin Podcast, Paradigm debates Prometheum
The UK Law Commission: Final Report on Digital Assets

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics’ State of the Network: Bitcoin & the Rest
In this issue of State of the Network, we assess Bitcoin’s resurgence and gauge market sentiment amidst a rapidly evolving digital asset landscape marked by regulatory ambiguity and external macro events.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Bitcoin hits 30k
Wyoming’s stable token developments
The story behind FTX’s mammoth $500m outflow to K5 global
Why was SBF spending hundreds of millions cozying up to talent agents?
Do Kwon will spend 4 months in jail in Montenegro
The Bitgo Prime Trust acquisition falls apart
Deutche Bank applies for a crypto license in Germany
EDX officially launches
Blackrock files for their ETF and others follow
Our theory for why Blackrock is filing now
Is the SEC back-channeling to Blackrock?
Was surveillance sharing really a blocker for other ETF applications?
Does the notion of spot market surveillance even make sense for a global commodity?
What’s the deal with the Bitcoin bathhouse in Brooklyn?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK - The Signal & the Nonce, Re-imagined
In this issue of State of the Network, we showcase a novel analysis that sheds light on Bitcoins energy consumption, efficiency and e-waste

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Wyoming state senator and Minority Floor Leader in the Wyoming Senate, Chris Rothfuss joins the show. We cover Wyoming’s crypto efforts to date to create a stable and secure digital asset ecosystem. In this episode:

Senator’s Rothfuss’ pre-politics career and how he came to grapple with the crypto space
Why Wyoming has an opportunity in digital asset policy
The origins of Wyoming’s blockchain select committee
How the NY Bitlicense inspired Wyoming’s efforts
Why crypto policy isn’t politically polarized in Wyoming
Wyoming’s foundational move to recognize digital assets under the uniform commercial code
The origin of the SPDI charter
Is there a future for the SPDI given that the Fed is denying master accounts?
How Wyoming’s SPDI emerged as a consequence of Chokepoint 1.0
Is the Fed blocking state charters unconstitutional?
Wyoming’s Stable Token Act and the prospects for that product
How the WY Stable Token could be a huge windfall for Wyoming – and where the revenues would be directed
How Wyoming is thinking about the permissionless qualities of the stable token

Further reading:

More about Chris Rothfuss
More on the Blockchain Select Committee
The Wyoming Stable Token Act

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Coin Metrics derives new estimates of Bitcoin’s electricity consumption
Nic reviews his Lasik experience
Matt takes Prometheum to task
Is Prometheum a patsy for the SEC?
Why is vaporware being elevated by the SEC and major exchanges being stymied?
We digest the Hinman emails and what they mean for ETH and XRP
What do the Hinman emails mean for the SEC’s
The SEC attempts to make DeFi protocols register as exchanges
Blackrock is about to file a renewed application for a Bitcoin ETF
Reps Davidson and Emmer’s SEC Stabilization Act
Hong Kong is pressuring banks to service crypto firms
Coindesk gets their hands on the NYAG’s Tether reports
Abra is in trouble

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK - The Signal & the Nonce, Re-imagined
In this issue of State of the Network, we showcase a novel analysis that sheds light on Bitcoins energy consumption, efficiency and e-waste

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Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:

Token disclosure practices
Matt tries pickleball
Sequoia is breaking up into parts
Will Chinese and American capital markets be severed?
What’s in the proposed House market structure bill?
Coinbase sues Coinbase and Binance
How does the SEC think BUSD is a security?
The SEC approves Prometheum as a crypto broker dealer
Prometheum’s CCP ties
Did Gensler solicit Binance to advice them before he ran the SEC?
What’s going on with Prime Trust?

Content mentioned:

Tommy Tuberville in the WSJ, Crypto communism has a new meaning

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK - Token Unlocks & Free Float Supply Shocks in Digital Asset Markets
In this issue of Coin Metrics’ State of the Network, we analyze the impact of token unlocks and free float supply shocks through the lens of various unlock events to explore the behavior of participants under different market conditions

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In this episode, we sat down with Lili Infante, Founder and CEO of CAT Labs. Lili shared:

Her experience spearheading the formation of the crypto taskforce at the DOJ
How the crypto-enabled crime landscape has evolved and become more sophisticated
Investigating cases where crypto is used and the unique challenges in establishing a chain of custody
Products CAT Labs is building to more effectively recover digital assets and protect against situations where assets are compromised in the first place

Learn more about Cat Labs in Fortune and on their website.

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The debt ceiling debate is resolved
What happened to Paxos’ / Paypal’s stablecoin?
Offshore dollar stablecoins are growing while onshore stablecoins are shrinking
Stablecoin policy in the US is backfiring
USD stables issued out of Hong Kong
Tether reaches a new all time high
The bad boys are back
SBF’s defense will reportedly claim he got bad advice from Fenwick
Farenheit wins the bid for the Celcius assets
Why Celcius’ mining operation was a big red flag
What does CZ mean by 4?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK - Zooming Out: A datonomy update
In this issue of Coin Metrics’ State of the Network, we leverage datonomy—a classification system for digital assets to zoom out and gauge the ecosystem and its underlying trends from a broader lens. Despite a slew of challenges over years, we explore how the market has shown resilience through an analysis of market returns, volatility and volumes across sectors.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Validators sign up to stake ETH post merge
Will there be MEV on Bitcoin?
What's the deal with Worldcoin?
Is the wash sale tax loophole stalling the debt ceiling negotiations?
Have ordinals changed Bitcoin culture?
The Fed releases new data on crypto adoption in the U.S.
Paradigm adds AI to their mandate
Whip Tom Emmer and Rep Darren Soto introduce the Securities Clarity Act
The NYT reports that prosecutors have a mountain of evidence against SBF
Greenidge is vindicated regarding activist claims
Ripple vs the SEC

Content mentioned:

The Federal Reserve, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022
Coindesk, The Bitcoin Mining Debate Is Ignoring the People Most Affected

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK - A Claim in the Ether: Tracking the Soaring Demand for Ethereum Staking
In this week’s issue of State of the Network, we examine essential data and metrics highlighting the current state of the Ethereum staking ecosystem. The transition to Proof of Stake and the successful launch of the Shapella upgrade have bolstered confidence in the Ethereum ecosystem, but a variety of regulatory and technical risk factors still pose challenges.

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Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic and Matt reminisce on the Bitcoin Miami conference
Ripple wins a key victory over the SEC in the Hinman test
Texas passes a proof of reserve bill
The SEC alleges that Filecoin is a security
What's the deal with Worldcoin?
How biometrics and blockchain can help with AI
Regulating AI
Tether is buying Bitcoin
John Ray is trying to claw back more funds
Is Michael Lewis an innocent bystander in the FTX situation?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK - Market Liquidity Review
The current market environment for digital assets is characterized by complexity, owing to the presence of regulatory uncertainty, an onslaught of exogenous macro events, and continued shifts in the preferred exchange venues among traders. In this edition of State of the Network, the Coin Metrics team zooms in on essential trading volume & market data trends to contextualize the current crypto market environment.

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Chris Ellis, Head of Strategic Initiatives at FactSet and Tim Rice, founder of Coin Metrics join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The partnership between FactSet and Coin Metrics how the companies are jointly going to market.
How FactSet thinks about partnerships and how digital assets has evolved as an area of focus at the company.
The features and functionality that FactSet users are asking for as it relates to crypto/digital asset data.
The future of asset tokenization and the regulatory landscape in the United States.
On-chain data and how Coin Metrics sees this category evolving.

To learn more about the FactSet/Coin Metrics partnership visit:

https://investor.factset.com/news-releases/news-release-details/factset-and-coin-metrics-collaborate-deliver-digital-assets-data

To learn more about Coin Metrics visit www.coinmetrics.io

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

BRC20 PEPE versus ERC20 PEPE
Is PEPE an alt right coin?
What’s driving up fees on Bitcoin?
The relationship between HEX, XEN, and VPMX
Bitcoin’s circular firing squad
The upside of high fees in Bitcoin
Why the White House’s DAME mining tax is counterproductive
What is the $18b tax loophole the Biden admin thinks crypto investors are taking advantage of?
What’s the deal with blue checks?
The difficulty of bootstrapping new social networks
Bittrex is filing for bankruptcy in the US
The Democratic messaging on the crypto hearing
The US chamber of Congress files an amicus brief in the Coinbase v SEC case
Texas passes a bill to support flare gas mining
The Wyoming Stable Token gets closer to becoming a reality
The US Chamber of Commerce amicus brief in the Coinbase v SEC case
Can the US government afford these interest rates?
Matt and Nic solve the debt crisis

Content mentioned in this episode:

Reuters, Cryptoverse: Digital coins lure inflation-weary Argentines and Turks
Nic Carter in Coindesk, The White House’s Bitcoin Mining Tax Undermines Itself
Two Ocean Trust, Revisiting the Case for Bitcoin
Nick Neumann at Casa, Hands Off our Self-Custody

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics State of the Network - Bidding on Bytes: A Bitcoin & Ethereum Fee Market Update
In this week’s report, the Coin Metrics team examines the underlying causes of the recent surge in transaction fees on Bitcoin and Ethereum and explore the implications of this development for the future.

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Steven Walbroehl, the co-founder and CTO of Halborn joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Steven’s crypto origin story and how he began tinkering with public blockchains.
How Halborn’s work differs across traditional financial services customers versus decentralized organization customers.
Basic recommendations for companies entering the public blockchain ecosystem.
Halborn’s recent discovery of a zero-day exploit impacting 280 public blockchains.
Views on market manipulation and game theory exploits.
Halborn’s Seraph digital notary product and how it is keeping DeFi protocols safe.

To learn more about Halborn visit www.halborn.com

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Updates on South Shore Bar Pie
The CIV boys consider new sponsors
Regional banks keep failing
Is the turmoil in the bank sector deflationary or inflationary?
How does the Fed end the banking crisis?
McHenry’s stablecoin bill
Biden proposes a 30% tax on Bitcoin miners
Why Biden’s DAME tax is counterproductive
RFK Jr’s pro-crypto takes
Nic throws his hat in the ring for RFK Jr
Gensler running for Senate in Maryland/
Where in the world are the FTX executives
FTX attempts to claw back funds from Genesis
FTX debtors stumble on Mysten Labs
Is summary judgment in the Ripple SEC case almost due?
Nate Chastain is found guilty of insider trading
Poloniex settles with OFAC
OpenX is reprimanded by Dubai for not registering
Coinbase launches in Bermuda
Bhutan has been mining Bitcoin since 2020
NYMAG spills the beans about Protego
CIV is throwing a pickleball event at BTC Miami

Content mentioned in this episode:

Jen Wieczner in NYMAG, Is the Federal Government Trying to Kill Off Crypto?

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics State of the Network - MakerDAO’s Dai Dilemma: As one of the longest-standing DeFi protocols, Maker has held strong as the maintainer of the decentralized stablecoin Dai. Still, the protocol faces headwinds, and MakerDAO stakeholders must make major decisions about governance and risk management.

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Simon Forster and Duncan Trenholme of TP ICAP join the show. In this episode we discuss:

TP ICAP's journey in the crypto / blockchain space. - The market structure for institutional cryptoasset trading. - The future of tokenization and the types of assets that are likely to be represented on chain. - The regulatory landscape and how this will shape the pace of building in the industry. To learn more about TP ICAP and their strategy visit: www.tpicap.com/digitalassets

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What’s the deal with south shore bar pie?

We review Consensus in Austin
Nic’s 2022 Coin Center dinner incident
Nic’s gas siphoning incident
First Republic appears heading for collapse
Why was First Republic given time to save itself but not Signature?
Block partners with Yellowcard for cross-border African payments
Open Exchange’s purported investors deny investing in the business
Coinbase is setting up operations in Bermuda
Coinbase is suing the SEC for clarity
Hong Kong embraces banking for crypto firms
NYDFS Superintendent Harris denies that crypto caused the Signature collapse
The Biden admin is backpedaling on whether crypto contributed to the banking crisis
House Republicans probe financial regulators for info on de-banking of crypto
The FBI has searched the home of FTX’s Ryan Salame
We reminisce on FTX’ Crypto Bahamas conference
Why is flare gas mining better than the alternative?
Nic’s music royalties situation
Nic resolves his differences with the Bitcoin 2023 conference

Content mentioned:

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Embracing new opportunities and accessing banking services
Letter from Reps Hill, Huizenga, and McHenry to key financial regulators
TVP, The Emerging Bitcoin-Native Venture Capital Landscape

Sponsor notes:

Coin Metrics presents State of the Network Foundations: Blockchain Addresses: This week's State of the Network kicked off the new Foundations series, which looks to present various technical aspects of blockchain technology in an approachable way. In the first report, Coin Metrics breaks down the concept of an 'address,' the fundamental unit of identity in the world of crypto.

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Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We debate some curious new sponsors
The Miami gas shortage
Nic’s impressions of NFT NYC
We review Eric’s Orb
When do Harberger taxes work?
CIV is hiring
The SEC is suing Bittrex and alleges that Algorand and Dash are unregistered securities
Gensler is skewered by Republican lawmakers in the House Financial Services hearing
Gensler refuses to answer whether Ethereum is a security
We review the House hearing on stablecoins
The McHenry Waters stablecoin bill appears to be dead
Does FedNow make stablecoins obsolete?
Should stablecoin issuance be limited to banks?
A stablecoin catch-22
Hester Peirce dissents on the proposed SEC exchange rule

Content mentioned:

CIV is hiring
Austin Campbell’s written testimony to the House financial services committee
Hester Peirce, Rendering Innovation Kaput: Statement on Amending the Definition of Exchange

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Dan Tapiero, the founder of 10T Holdings and 1 Round Table Partners joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The performance of Bitcoin as a macro asset over the past year.
The current regulatory environment and how the USA is losing its lead versus other countries in the digital asset ecosystem.
The prospect of U.S. companies going public in non-U.S. jurisdictions.
How Dan and his team approach growth stage investing.
The secondary market and how Dan thinks about building ownership via secondary transactions.
The LP landscape and how allocators are thinking about digital asset ecosystem managers.

To learn more about Dan visit the 1RT website and follow Dan on Twitter

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Eric Wall is a cryptocurrency researcher, analyst, critic, and investor. In this episode we sit down to discuss the creation and premise of his new project, the Orb.

What is the orb?
How did the orb come about?
How to bet on the human capital and reputational growth of individuals
Why previous social tokens failed
What does the orb entitle you to?
Why the orb is not a security
Harberger taxes and their implementations so far
How harberger taxes create better allocative efficiency
Harberger taxes and domain names
The problem with social tokens as a way to invest in people
Why an obligation to a single holder is better than one to many holders
Eric’s feud with the Hex community and how the rb could solve this
Possible orb failure modes
Possible AI issues with the orb
Why orb issuers have an incentive to provide value to holders
The possible role of orbs in venture capital
How the orb could disrupt expert networks
How to parameterize the orb
The significance of the orb animations

Further reading:

Orb.land

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Is Ethereum going through a ‘bullish unlock’?
Did the SEC decicion around staking help decentralize Ethereum?
What is a commodity?
We pitch futures for restaurant bookings
The problem with ‘phygitals’
What’s going on with DWF labs?
Twitter users will be able to trade crypto through the app
Is FedNow a CBDC?
Does FedNow introduce risks to the banking system?
A relaunch of FTX gets more likely
How the DOJ caught the Silk Road hacker
Could a CBDC emerge which is actually private?
We roll out the Tap In or Tap Out segment
Is France going to become a crypto haven?
The NYT article on Bitcoin mining
Did the NYT doctor pictures to make Bitcoin miners look more polluting than they are?
CIV is hiring

Sponsor notes:

Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter: this week, Ethereum's Shanghai redemption

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Dennison Bertram, the co-founder and CEO of Tally, returns to the show. In this episode we discuss:

Dennison’s career in the crypto industry from exchange founder to founding Tally.
How to frame DAOs from a total addressable market perspective.
What types of companies and industry categories would be better served as DAOs.
Best practices in managing DAOs.
The regulatory landscape for DAOs and how state LLC regulations could factor into future legislation.
How Tally works with leading DAOs.

To learn more about Tally visit their website and follow Dennison on Twitter.

Further reading:

Cooper & Kirk: Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come For Crypto

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals.

Cooper and Kirk’s white paper on Operation Choke Point 2.0
How bank regulators put crypto-facing banks in a catch-22
SBF charged with bribing a Chinese official
Is Sam funding his legal defense with funds purloined from FTX users?
The CFTC charges Binance with operating an unlicensed derivatives exchange
Binance execs haz no confidence in their geofencing
How did the CFTC get their hands on CZ’s Signal history
The SEC shuts down Beaxy
Microstrategy buys another $150m worth of Bitcoin
NASDAQ is aiming to launch their crypto custody platform in June
What’s the deal with McHenry’s stablecoin bill?
House Democrats would make issuing a stablecoin effectively illegal
Elizabeth Warren is “building an anti-crypto army”
Are DAOs unincorporated associations or general partnerships?
Is the SPDI dead in the water?
Did the FDIC Chair perjure himself in front of Congress this week?
What’s the deal with the SigNet sale?
Is dedollarization happening?

Content mentioned:

Cooper & Kirk whitepaper on Operation Choke Point 2.0

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Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The banking crisis and Operation Chokepoint 2.0
The decisions facing the Fed and the second order impacts of Fed policy
How the cryptocurrency industry has evolved post FTX
Prospects for stablecoin and market structure regulation in the digital asset industry
The bitcoin futures market
The launch of the Bitwise Bitcoin Strategy Optimum Roll ETF (BITC)

To learn more about Bitwise visit www.bitwiseinvestments.com and follow Matt on Twitter.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Matt’s turkey trouble continues
Nic’s vespa problem
Nic’s latest Choke Point 2.0 article
Did the government destroy Signature on purpose?
Who is the main architect of Choke Point 2.0?
Why was Signature closed when PacWest and First Republic were given time?
The Catch-22 in NY banking law
Who has recourse in the Signature situation?
Why we won’t be going offshore
The SEC announces charges against Justin Sun and celebrity endorsers
The SEC sends Coinbase a Wells Notice
FTX creditors recoup $460m from Modulo Capital
Reps Emmer and Soto introduce the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act
The White House report is hostile to crypto
Matt’s Hong Kong conspiracy theory
Is the EU racing ahead of the US in terms of regulation?
The XRP case is nearing summary judgment
Bitwise announces their futures ETF $BITC
We read some of our podcast reviews

Content mentioned:

Nic in Pirate Wires, Did The Government Start A Global Financial Crisis In An Attempt To Destroy Crypto?

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Jamil and Nick, co-founders of Gamma.io, join us on the show to discuss: * Lowering the barrier to inscribing NFTs on Bitcoin

Why creators and collectors are excited about NFTs on Bitcoin
Designing a trustless Ordinals marketplace that aligns with its unique culture
The emerging collecting and trading culture on Bitcoin and it's key differences

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Nick Hansen is the cofounder and CEO of Luxor, a Bitcoin mining pool. He joins to talk to us about his excitement around ordinals and inscriptions, and how Luxor is thinking about the opportunity.

The history of ordinals and how Luxor got started in the space
How Luxor mined the first 4MB block in Bitcoin
Luxor’s decision to acquire Ordinalhub and their intentions with the project
Risks Luxor incurred by mining the first 4MB block
Transaction standardness versus validity
How ordinals increase the overall quantity of Bitcoin blockspace
The risks of out of band fees to Bitcoin
Does Bitcoin already have MEV?
How does the block reward decay make reorgs more likely?
Where Luxor sees opportunity in ordinals
Have inscriptions had a material impact on miner rewards?
The effect of inscriptions on fees
Transacting with PSBTs versus standard NFT marketplaces
Nick’s confidence in the long-term persistence of Bitcoin state
Why it’s virtually impossible to purge state in Bitcoin
Are ordinals and inscriptions a violation of the implied Bitcoin social contract?
Have inscriptions inadvertently ossified Bitcoin at the protocol level?

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Matt and Nic are back to cover a dramatic week in crypto. Galaxy Digital's Alex Thorn also joins to provide market color. In this episode:

Bitcoin’s price action in response to the bank runs
USDC recovers its peg
FTX crime family news
Signature bank is shut down somewhat arbitrarily
What happened with Silvergate?
Is Operation Choke Point 2.0 real?
Blockchain Association FOIA’s federal banking regulators
Are macro funds dipping their toes back into Bitcoin?
Crypto Banks are gutted
Was Signature solvent when it was shut down?
Will Signet be sold off in the Signature auction?
What was the importance of SEN and Signet?
First Republic secures $30b in deposits
What happened with Silvergate and the FHLB?
Galaxy Digital’s head of research Alex Thorn joins the show
Arbitrum announces their airdrop

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Matt and Nic are back for another tumultuous week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s Vespa crisis
FTX crime family update
Grayscale’s oral arguments go well against the SEC in the GBTC case
Binance.US wins the right to buy the Voyager assets in court
NYAG sues Kucoin and alleges that ETH is a security
Silvergate is undergoing an orderly wind-down of the bank
Why did Silvergate really collapse?
Why are regulators trying to precipitate bank runs?
Structural issues explaining why Silvergate’s deposits were so correlated
SVB experiences a bank run
Are the Silvergate and SVB difficulties warning sights that the Fed’s rate regime can’t last?

Content mentioned:

How Banks Fail, by Austin Campbell

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Matt and Nic are back for another tumultuous week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s Vespa crisis
FTX crime family update
Grayscale’s oral arguments go well against the SEC in the GBTC case
Binance.US wins the right to buy the Voyager assets in court
NYAG sues Kucoin and alleges that ETH is a security
Silvergate is undergoing an orderly wind-down of the bank
Why did Silvergate really collapse?
Why are regulators trying to precipitate bank runs?
Structural issues explaining why Silvergate’s deposits were so correlated
SVB experiences a bank run
Are the Silvergate and SVB difficulties warning sights that the Fed’s rate regime can’t last?

Content mentioned:

How Banks Fail, by Austin Campbell

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Rob Hamilton, the founder and CEO of AnchorWatch joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Rob’s career journey and path to finding Bitcoin.
The origins of miniscript and how Rob started to build in this area.
The potential applicability for miniscript to the custody market.
The current state of bitcoin core development.
Ordinals and how Rob started to get involved in this project.
The future applicability of ordinals and inscriptions.

Links: AnchorWatch, Rob’s Twitter.

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Chainalysis CEO and co-founder Michael Gronager joins us for an episode chronicling the rise of the blockchain analytics firm. In this episode:

Michael’s origin story and how he went from helping build Kraken to founding Chainalysis
Responding to early market pull from the public sector when building products
Responding to criticism around privacy vs. anonymity
Building the Crypto Adoption Index for content marketing around what is actually happening on the blockchain
Perspective on how long it can take to change an industry online

Content mentioned:

Public Key (Podcast) Global Crypto Adoption Index Chainalysis Content / Blog

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Matt and Nic are back for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Is Yuga Labs’ NFT collection on Bitcoin genuine?
Will the environmentalist attacks on PoW move to other industries?
FTX’ Nishad Singh pleads guilty
Ramnik Aurora maxed out donations to George Santos
Silvergate is in trouble
Why concentration risk makes it difficult for smaller banks to bank crypto firms
UK banks are curtailing their crypto exposures
Oasis returns $140m stolen from Wormhole to Jump
NY Mag’s piece on Arthur Hayes
Gensler continues to make vague threats against the crypto space
Gensler’s regulation by blog post
Greyscale’s case against the SEC is moving to oral arguments
Can Bitcoin just change the code and move to PoS?

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We host Matt Cutler, CEO and co-founder of Blocknative, in this episode to discuss the intricacies of block building and his thoughts on the future of MEV. We cover:

The phenomenon of certain block builders subsidizing transactions
The requirements for operating a competitive block builder
Margins required for sustainable block building
MEV redistribution and balancing interests of users vs. validators.

You can follow Matt @mcutler on Twitter and learn more about Blocknative here.

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Matt and Nic are back for the 400th episode of OTB! In this roundup:

Nic’s Vespa story
More on Ordinals
Is embedding non-economic data in Bitcoin Satoshi’s vision?
How Ordinals accelerates efficiency improvements in Bitcoin
More FTX crime family news
SBF is hit with four new criminal charges
Augustin Cartens claims that crypto has lost the battle against fiat
NYAG vs Coinex
The SEC alleges that UST is a security - does this implicate other stables?
What can Congress do about Choke Point 2.0 or SEC overreach
Rep. Emmer introduces an anti-CBDC bill
Matt’s baseball card collection
Silvergate is the most shorted stock right now
The SEC blocks Binance.US’ purchase of Voyager assets

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Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor joins us to talk ordinals, inscriptions, and digital collectibles on Bitcoin. In this episode:

What is an ordinal? Why the name?
The history of ordinals and inscriptions
How does ordinal theory work exactly?
How to participate in ordinals and do you need Ord
The interaction between inscriptions and Bitcoin fees
Should inscriptions be compressed? How should this happen?
Why did Casey not use Counterparty?
How Bitcoin is the most premium blockspace for NFTs
Inscribed content property rights on Bitcoin versus Ethereum
Will Bitcoin state just be pruned?
Who will store inscription data?
How bitcoin data availability might be improving over time
How ordinals affect Bitcoin’s security budget
Why NFT traders are looking at Bitcoin for the first time
Where the inscription 400kb limit comes from
‘Ripping a 4 megger’
Is Casey concerned about out of band transactions
Do ordinals actually increase the possible efficiency of operating a full node?
The primary bottlenecks in running Bitcoin Core and how inscriptions affect that
Will ordinals catalyze more pruning in Bitcoin Core?
Might ordinals make rollups more likely on Bitcoin?
Do inscriptions dilute Bitcoin’s primary purpose as a monetary system?
Transporting other NFTs to Bitcoin with teleburns
What Casey is most excited about with ordinals

Further reading:

Ordinals.com
Rodarmor.com
Casey's twitter

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Ray Hindi and Jake Lynch of L1 Digital join the show. In this episode we discuss:

L1 Digital’s origin story and early path into the crypto ecosystem.
The firm’s approach to investing in managers and making direct investment.
The evolution of crypto funds including views on structure, strategy, focus.
The fundraising landscape – how pensions/larger pools of capital think about crypto investing.
Views on the impact of FTX.
Thoughts on the current regulatory landscape.
Real World Assets (RWAs) and how L1D is exploring this thematic area.
DAOs and how this framework is evolving.

To learn more about L1 Digital visit L1.Digital.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Is peak FUD in?
Is this the ‘custody rule rally’?
OTB is keeping the deals of the week
House is probing the connections between FTX and the SEC
SBF is banned from using a VPN
Is SBF a secret sports fan?
SBF’s bail cosigners are unmasked
SBF VC investors are hit with a class action lawsuit
SEC sends Paxos a Wells notice
Circle dispells Wells notice rumors
Is the SEC going after all stablecoins or just BUSD?
What does Reves say about stablecoins being securities?
Tether is the beneficiary of the crackdowns in the US
Can US regulators really go after Tether?
How Paypal deposits are like stablecoins
What’s in the SEC’s custody rules?
Changes to market structure if the SEC’s custody rules go through
Binance suggests that they are ready to settle up with US regulators

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Kraken winds down their staking as a service product
The SEC asks all staking as a service providers to register
Does 3rd party staking pass all of the prongs of Howey?
The FT’s article on the final days of FTX
Did the FTX executives leave the labradoodles in the Bahamas?
Ordinals are bringing NFT enthusiasts to Bitcoin
Matt has had a tough week
Kyle and Su launch OPNX
So what’s the deal with the crypto-focused Chokepoint 2.0?
Major crypto-facing banks are cutting back their crypto practice
What will be the fate of the Wyoming SPDIs?
The boys review Bad Boys
We discuss Colombia’s hippo problem
DCG reaches a provisional agreement with creditors
Our Storybook Brawl conspiracy

Content mentioned:

Nic in Pirate Wires, Operation Choke Point 2.0 Is Underway, And Crypto Is In Its Crosshairs

Sponsor notes:

Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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In this episode, we were joined by Josh Benaron, founder of Bundlr, a scaling protocol built on top of Arweave. Josh shares his views on: * Censorship resistant and permanent storage * The importance of provenance in attributing and distributing value * Why Arweave's approach to decentralized storage is elegant * How Bundlr addresses trade offs in Arweave and makes it more usable

Follow Josh Benaron here. Learn more about Bundlr here.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic’s Proof of Reserves for Policymakers
Charlie Munger attacks crypto
The academic Tether truthers are back
We unveil a new bad boy
New allegations about Celsius surface
The problem with exchange tokens
How do you retire a token?
The paradox of issuing tokens via an offshore foundation
SBF is allegedly tampering with witnesses
Did Sam really believe in EA?
We review Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto
Were the Maya really that bad?
What on earth is going on with Ordinals?
Are Bitcoin NFTs a DOS attack?
A conflict of visions in Bitcoin reemerges
Matt keeps tearing his shirts
VC dress codes

Content mentioned in this episode:

Ark Invest Big Ideas 2023 Report
Coin Metrics’ report on MEV
Dennis Porteaux, Illegitimate Bitcoin Transactions
Nic Carter, Proof of Reserves for Policymakers

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We host Julien Niset, co-founder of Argent in this episode on account abstract and smart contract wallets. We cover: * Building the first smart contract wallet on Ethereum * Why smart contract wallets improve the non-custodial experience * Standardizing contract wallet implementations on L1s retroactively and on L2s natively * Comparing and contrasting contract wallets and MPC (multi-party computation) wallets * Capabilities (social recovery, gas abstraction, transaction batching) unlocked by smart contract wallets

Follow Julien Niset here. Learn more about Argent here.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Is there a socially optimal level of vigilantism
What's the deal with Modulo Capital?
SBF's mother and brothers are now in the crosshairs
Matt and Nic hash our VR vs AR
Ted Cruz asks cafeterias in the Capitol to accept bitcoin
Texas introduces Proof of Reserve legislation
What's North Korea's endgame with all their hacked crypto?
Tucker Carlson's theory that the airline outage was due to Bitcoin randomware
Matt's Bell's Palsy story
Roger Ver owes Genesis $20m
Tungsten cubes are making a comeback
Our Super Bowl picks

Content mentioned in this episode:

Fidelity Digital Assets, "2023 Look Ahead: Refocusing and Building on Digital Assets’ Core Principles."
Galaxy Digital mining, "Surviving the Perfect Storm – 2022 End of Year Mining Report"
Former Senator Phil Gramm and current SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in the WSJ, "The SEC Seeks to Supplant the Market. Its mandate doesn’t include telling CEOs how to run their companies and investors how to invest"
Texas Bill HB-1666
NYDFS new virtual currency guidance for custodial institutions

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Maneesh Gandhi and Michael Liddy of Evanston Capital join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Evanston Capital’s history and foray into the blockchain ecosystem.
Their views on the current market environment and how this crypto cycle compares to others.
The evolution of the crypto venture landscape and how Evanston thinks about fund structure.
Thoughts on the FTX collapse and the impact it will have on the market.
How institutional LPs are thinking about the crypto/blockchain ecosystem.
Areas of opportunity in the current market environment.

To learn more about Evanston Capital visit www.evanstoncap.com

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Arch cofounders Dhruv Patel and Himanshu Sahay

Arch coming out of stealth
Key lessons learned from the crypto lending crisis
Arch’s differentiated offering within crypto and other alternative assets
Leveraging crypto rails to build a lender of the future
Using experience at top technology companies to build a superior consumer product

Learn more at Archlending.com and on Twitter

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What’s going on with our merch?
Nic’s pitch for pickleball
What’s the deal with the leaked GTX pitch deck?
What happened at CoinFLEX?
Our conspiracy about GTX
What’s the latest with the FTX crime family
Will FTX or FTX.US be relaunched?
SBF says FTX.US is still solvent
DOJ takes down Bizlato
Genesis is exploring a bankruptcy process
Coinbase is pulling out of Japan
What was the deal with NEM?
What happened with Veritaseum
Corporate loyalty programs are getting debased
Peter Thiel liquidates his BTC

Sponsor notes:

Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Tony Scuderi, the founder of Imperii Partners joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The investment banking landscape for crypto/blockchain companies.
How the fundraising environment is evolving in 2023.
The impact of FTX on the broader market.
How companies backed by FTX are taking action.
The M&A landscape.
Common pitfalls that founders make when selling their business.

To learn more about Imperii Partners visit imperiipartners.com

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Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Luuk Strijers joins the show to talk about their new Proof of Reserve rollout. In this episode:

Why Deribit decided to do a PoR
What were the considerations going into it? What made Deribit cautious about the procedure?
Which PoRs did Deribit look at for inspiration?
Has Deribit received client feedback from the procedure so far?
How does Deribit demonstrate asset ownership?
Unique among exchanges, Deribit was able to do a PoR for all of your assets, and on a daily basis. How did they manage this?
Why Deribit chose to release the full list of liabilities
How does Deribit achieve end user privacy given the full liability dump?
What data, if any, is leaked by the attestation?
Did you look at audit firms in terms of supervising the PoR? Why did you go the auditless approach?
Does Luuk anticipate moving to ZK proofs for liabilities eventually?
How can PoR be improved?

Related episodes:

OTB 180, The Auditor view of PoR
OTB 212, The Proof of Reserve Restoration
OTB 283, Jeremy Welch (Kraken) on Contemporary Proofs of Reserve

Further reading:

Jon on Substack, Censorship, What Do?

Follow Jon on Substack and on Twitter

Cover image meme credit: Jon on Twitter

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In this episode, Ria sits down with Jon Charbonneau from Delphi Digital to discuss layers of potential censorship on Ethereum post merge and proposed solutions. We dive into:

The supply chain of block production
The importance of proposer builder separation
Options for avoiding de facto censorship by builders
The road to scaling Ethereum via danksharding
Comparing approaches to data availability

Further reading:

Jon on Substack, Censorship, What Do?

Follow Jon on Substack and on Twitter

Cover image meme credit: Jon on Twitter

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Kim Kardashian settles with the SEC
Gensler’s promotional campaign ruffles feathers at the SEC
Was the SEC indirectly throwing shade at Jake Paul with their video?
Is Gensler cracking down on crypto as part of a bid for Treasury secretary?
Can the industry outlast the SEC?
CBOE signs on to Pyth
Hamilton Lane is tokenizing three funds
GoldenTree invests in Sushi
Should DAOs pursue an LLC wrapper?
Maker is buying Treasuries and IG debt
Should stablecoins pass along interest from treasuries to tokenholders?
Celsius executives cashed out prior to bankruptcy
Starry Night NFTs are on the move
Ark Invest partners to put their active strategies on the Eaglebrook platform

Sponsor notes:

Talos powers institutional access to the entire digital assets ecosystem via a single-point of entry. Connect directly to your preferred prime brokers, lenders, investors, custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more, or meet them on Talos. Get started at Talos.com
Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Kim Kardashian settles with the SEC
Gensler’s promotional campaign ruffles feathers at the SEC
Was the SEC indirectly throwing shade at Jake Paul with their video?
Is Gensler cracking down on crypto as part of a bid for Treasury secretary?
Can the industry outlast the SEC?
CBOE signs on to Pyth
Hamilton Lane is tokenizing three funds
GoldenTree invests in Sushi
Should DAOs pursue an LLC wrapper?
Maker is buying Treasuries and IG debt
Should stablecoins pass along interest from treasuries to tokenholders?
Celsius executives cashed out prior to bankruptcy
Starry Night NFTs are on the move
Ark Invest partners to put their active strategies on the Eaglebrook platform

Sponsor notes:

Talos powers institutional access to the entire digital assets ecosystem via a single-point of entry. Connect directly to your preferred prime brokers, lenders, investors, custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more, or meet them on Talos. Get started at Talos.com
Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Vivek Raman, Head of Proof of Stake at BitOoda joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Vivek’s career journey from traditional financial services to the world of public blockchains.
Views on the impact of Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake, including his perspective on the new financial products on the horizon.
The path of CeFi as it relates to DeFi and where Vivek sees overlap.
How BitOoda is working with bitcoin miners to manage risk.
The smart contract platform category and how Vivek stays current on the latest developments in the industry.

To learn more about BitOoda visit their website. Follow Vivek on Twitter.

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Vivek Raman, Head of Proof of Stake at BitOoda joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Vivek’s career journey from traditional financial services to the world of public blockchains.
Views on the impact of Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake, including his perspective on the new financial products on the horizon.
The path of CeFi as it relates to DeFi and where Vivek sees overlap.
How BitOoda is working with bitcoin miners to manage risk.
The smart contract platform category and how Vivek stays current on the latest developments in the industry.

To learn more about BitOoda visit their website. Follow Vivek on Twitter.

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Alexandra DaCosta (CEO) and David Yi (Chief Commercial Officer) join the show to talk about Aspen Creek Digital Corp.'s fundraise and their model for additive renewable mining. In this episode:

What was it like raising for a mining firm in this environment
David and Alexandra’s backgrounds and how the came to cofound ACDC
Why ACDC is pursuing a ‘power first’ model and what that means
ACDC’s wind, solar, and battery approach to energy
Why ACDC focuses on additional, new renewable generation
How mining behind the meter with renewable sources actually works
Why intermittency of wind and solar is not a dealbreaker for Bitcoin miners
The merits of going behind the meter for a Bitcoin miner
The importance of the Inflation Reduction Act for renewables
Industries are becoming more location agnostic overall
Are Bitcoin miners doing a sufficiently good job of disclosures around their energy mix?
What is the feasibility of batteries at grid scale?
Are Bitcoin miners interfering with the market signal indicating where transmission should be built?
How Aspen Creek pairs demand response with renewable incentivization
How Aspen Creek affects power prices paid by households

Read more:

Nic Carter on Medium: Redeem and Retain NFTs are the future of Luxury Goods
Vogue Business: How the crypto bear market is resetting fashion’s Web3 strategy

Drops and more at endstate.io

Intro and outro music: Daniel Allan's Collage #344

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What happens to the GPUs post merge?
Will the gamers finally get cheap GPUs back?
Is the merge like superbowl sunday or Y2K?
Does the success of the merge undo a long-term Bitcoin talking point?
Are NFTs going to cc0 screwing over their users?
DC sues Michael Saylor and Microstrategy for allegedly skipping taxes in DC
The SEC questions whether the certain assets in Grayscale trusts are securities
What’s going on with the Roche Freedman/ Ava Labs/ Cryptoleaks situation?
Is Roche just David Boies 2.0?
The Biden executive order reports are due next week
Rune of Maker muses about turning Dai into a free floating unit of account
Will Maker be able to survive real world assets as collateral?
Did Moonbirds rugpull their buyers with IP issues?
Kyle Waters from Coin Metrics joins to talk about the Merge
Is the distribution of stakers on Ethereum something to be worried about?
What’s going to happen to ETH issuance post merge?
How to forecast post-merge staking returns
Is the merge priced in?
Did Ethereum install a pro-cyclical monetary policy?

Content mentioned:

Coin Metrics, Mapping out the Merge

Sponsor notes:

Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

What happens to the GPUs post merge?
Will the gamers finally get cheap GPUs back?
Is the merge like superbowl sunday or Y2K?
Does the success of the merge undo a long-term Bitcoin talking point?
Are NFTs going to cc0 screwing over their users?
DC sues Michael Saylor and Microstrategy for allegedly skipping taxes in DC
The SEC questions whether the certain assets in Grayscale trusts are securities
What’s going on with the Roche Freedman/ Ava Labs/ Cryptoleaks situation?
Is Roche just David Boies 2.0?
The Biden executive order reports are due next week
Rune of Maker muses about turning Dai into a free floating unit of account
Will Maker be able to survive real world assets as collateral?
Did Moonbirds rugpull their buyers with IP issues?
Kyle Waters from Coin Metrics joins to talk about the Merge
Is the distribution of stakers on Ethereum something to be worried about?
What’s going to happen to ETH issuance post merge?
How to forecast post-merge staking returns
Is the merge priced in?
Did Ethereum install a pro-cyclical monetary policy?

Content mentioned:

Coin Metrics, Mapping out the Merge

Sponsor notes:

Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Obi Nwosu, CEO and Founder of Fedi joins the show to cover a new model for shared Bitcoin custody in Fedimint. In this episode:

Obi’s experience with Coinfloor and how that informed his views on custody
Why third party custody with Proof of Reserves isn’t sufficient
Why ‘credible centralized’ custody shouldn’t be the default
Why state level attacks on custodians are ramping up
Obi’s early prediction that Nigeria would be the heartland of Bitcoin adoption
Why messaging apps are actually the most popular p2p exchanges worldwide
The history and origins of Chaumian Mints
How the enabling pieces of Fedimint all came together over time
The relationship between federated custody and microfinance
How Fedimint is analogous to Free Banking
Does Fedimint satisfy Hal Finney’s vision for Bitcoin banks?
How Fedimint compares to first party custody
How Obi expects regulators to react to Fedimint

Learn more about Fedi and Fedimint.

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Matt’s prior radio career
The boys consider reinvesting in the podcast
How to avoid audience capture
We puzzle over metaverse advertising
How do you value metaverse real estate?
Rep. Tom Emmer writes a letter to OFAC questioning their sanctioning of Tornado Cash
Tether and BUSD (Paxos) don’t blacklist Tornado Cash addresses
The FDIC reprimands crypto companies
Web3 hoodies
Best podcast listening speeds
Are security tokens and real world assets back?
No new 3ac shenanigans
Tadge Dryja leaves MIT DCI for David Marcus’ Lightspark
New findings on OFAC censoring Bitcoin Mining pools
Tether has a new auditor
Can a firm with outstanding tokens be acquired or go public?
Gensler’s weird op-ed

Sponsor notes:

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Matt’s prior radio career
The boys consider reinvesting in the podcast
How to avoid audience capture
We puzzle over metaverse advertising
How do you value metaverse real estate?
Rep. Tom Emmer writes a letter to OFAC questioning their sanctioning of Tornado Cash
Tether and BUSD (Paxos) don’t blacklist Tornado Cash addresses
The FDIC reprimands crypto companies
Web3 hoodies
Best podcast listening speeds
Are security tokens and real world assets back?
No new 3ac shenanigans
Tadge Dryja leaves MIT DCI for David Marcus’ Lightspark
New findings on OFAC censoring Bitcoin Mining pools
Tether has a new auditor
Can a firm with outstanding tokens be acquired or go public?
Gensler’s weird op-ed

Sponsor notes:

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Brooke Pollack, the founder of Hutt Capital joins the show. In this episode we discuss: * Brooke's career journey and path to founding Hutt Capital * The events that led him to seeing that crypto/blockchain was going to be an industry with dedicated venture managers * The institutional limited partner landscape * The narratives that have captured the most institutional mindshare * Views on the optimal fund structure for crypto/blockchain managers * The DeFi landscape * Views on NFTs as a foundational building block for future businesses.

To learn more about Hutt Capital visit www.huttcapital.com and follow Brooke on Twitter

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

NYMag writes a long piece on 3AC
Is OTB a ‘crypto fanboy podcast’?
Are we up against the nation state ‘final boss’?
3AC boat name reveal
The Toyota Century rumors are true
Revelations about 3ACs FX days
Did 3AC actually owe the Mafia money?
The 3AC Deribit deal
A new 3AC supporter dials in to the show
Machinsky was trading Celsius customer deposits
The Galaxy BitGo acquisition falls through
Dragonchain settles with the SEC
Hodlnaut files for creditor protection
Genesis reorganization
Tornado cash developer arrested in Amsterdam
Are Bitcoin miners filtering transactions for OFAC?
Will Coinbase censor Ethereum at the protocol level?
Vitalik suggests slashing Ethereum if they comply with OFAC at the protocol level
Would Coinbase ever abandon their staking business?
The effect of MEV on the centralization of PoS vs PoW
End of the merge rally?

Content mentioned in this episode:

NYMag, Inside the Crash of Three Arrows Capital

Sponsor notes:

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In this episode, Uddhav Marwaha, co-founder and CEO of Friktion Labs, joins us to discuss Friktion's approach to a full stack portfolio management platform in defi. We cover a plethora of topics, including:

The opacity surrounding defi yields and distinguishing fleeting opportunities from sustainable sources of income
Using options overwriting and basis strategies to generate more durable returns and provide portfolio protection across market conditions
In-housing core tooling such as Friktion's RFQ system (Channel RFQ) and an exotic options DEX (Entropy) to unlock time and cost efficiencies

Friktion's emphasis on demystifying complex products and deconstructing sources of risk and yield in crypto differentiate it from the pack. To complement the data and analytics within the application, the team frequently publishes research breaking down complex topics.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:

Underwhelming Taproot adoption
Tornado Cash gets sanctioned by OFAC
Is Tornado a better mixer than coinjoin
Why the Tornado Cash sanctioning is the first of its kind
How much of the liquidity in Tornado Cash was illicit?
Are we at a turning point in financial privacy?
Why was Tornado Cash specifically targeted and not other mixers
Account-based versus UTXO systems and their effect on your ability to segregate funds
Can you really sanction a blockchain or smart contract?
The crypto wars of the 90s continue
Is Ethereum the biggest crypto platform for privacy today?
Is Dai at risk from USDC?
The Merge finally gets a launch date
BlackRock launches a Bitcoin spot trust

Sponsor notes:

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Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:

Is there any hope for ETH PoW forks?
Is Ethereum unforkeable?
More 3AC shenanigans of the week
The 3AC Toyota Century situation
The 3AC boys have some unexpected supporters
A bipartisan bill proposes giving the CFTC oversight over the spot market
What’s up with the croissant diet
NYDFS fines Robinhood Crypto
Michael Saylor steps down from this CEO role at Microstrategy
The SEC charges 11 individuals involved in the Forsage ponzi
The other Nick Carter is in trouble for endorsing Safemoon
Another cross chain bridge is hacked
What happened with this Solana wallet hack?
Matt loses the tip of his finger
Coinbase partners up with Blackrock

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Damien Hirst's physical NFT project
Why you need a bridge between the physical and the digital world for certain NFTs
Why physical NFTs provide advantages to collectors and brands
Libra/Diem spawns Aptos and Sui
Coinbase is under SEC investigation
Pat Toomey criticizes the SEC
What is in the bipartisan stablecoin bill?
Squabbles over Voyager's Chapter 11 plan
The UK inches towards recognizing cryptocurrency as property
More 3AC shenanigans
How 3AC was and wasn't like LTCM
3AC liquidators will try to force cooperation
Tether reduces their commercial paper holdings
Matt starts a Tether conspiracy
Harmony mulls a post-hack bailout

Content mentioned in this episode:

Coin Metrics state of the network 165
Nic on Medium, Redeem-and-retain NFTs are the future of luxury goods
FS Vector, Stablecoin Legislation Update
UK Law Commission: Digital Assets Consultation Paper

Sponsor notes:

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Itai Turbahn and Yoni Goldberg, the founders of Dynamic join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Itai and Yoni’s professional journey to starting Dynamic
How Dynamic is addressing wallet based authentication
Views on how standards will evolve in the blockchain ID category
The evolution of decentralized identifiers
The types of businesses that are early adopters for wallet-based logins

To learn more about Dynamic visit their website and follow them on Twitter.

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Inert ETH from the crowdsale?
Why the credit crunch is like the European panic of 1772
Should we bring back full-liability banks?
Are Bitcoiners wrong to reject fractional reserve banking?
1000 pages of 3AC intrigue
Genesis had 2.6b gross exposure to 3ac
The 3AC blockchain .com transcripts
More 3AC shenanigans are revealed
Secret exchange insolvencies
Coinbase insider trading scandal
The SEC regulates by enforcement
Gensler is getting a lot of heat
Is the bottom in?
What is MVRV telling us right now?
What is the issue with ETH yield being related to MEV?
Can MEV be addressed?
Paul Krugman admits he was wrong about inflation
Christie's launches a venture arm

Content mentioned:

Nic in Coindesk, The Credit Crunch is not the End of Crypto Lending
SEC insider trading complaint
Coinbase blog post on the SEC
Paul Krugman, I was wrong about inflation

Sponsor notes:

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Stablecoin actives outpace blue chip crypto
Why is Tether on Tron so popular?
Is H E Justin Sun willing to deploy $5b in acquisitions
Celsius files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
KeyFi is suing Celsius
Are DeFi business models going to have to change?
Where do tokenholders fall in the capital stack?
Three Arrows are not cooperating with liquidation
3AC liquidators reportedly fail to exercise the Starkware token warrant
Blockchain.com report a loss from 3AC
New lenders admit losses from 3AC
Circle further clarifies their reserve assets
Was Taibbi’s USDC FUD legit?

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

USDC gains ground on USDT
Stable liquidity is sticky
Why fiat-backed stables are still more censor resistant than bank deposits
Do stablecoins make L1s unforkable
Will the emergence of crypto prime brokers pressure crypto yields?
Voyager files for Chapter 11
Should investors also be clients of lending firms they invest in?
Circle’s origins as a spot crypto broker
3AC files for Chapter 15
Genesis confirms they had 3AC exposure and DCG absorbed the losses
EU agrees on tentative MiCA regulation
MiCA avoids the PoW ban
Did the EU write model stablecoin regulation?
The WSJ pushes back at Gary Gensler on the spot BTC ETF
The SEC’s double standard in metal ETFs versus a BTC ETF

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Dave Balter and Jim Myers, the founders of Flipside Crypto join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The early insights that led to the launch of Flipside Crypto
Current market conditions and how Dave compares that to the dot com era
The proliferation of NFTs and how the SaaS market will change as a result of this technology
How Flipside prioritizes new blockchains
ShroomDK, Flipside’s latest product release

To learn more visit www.flipsidecrypto.xyz

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Matt and Nic return for the news and deals in another tumultuous week.

Matt is snubbed by Coin Metrics
Nic gets sort of cancelled on Twitter by the Bitcoin hardliners
Nic is not a Bitcoin Maximalist
Is there a positive, non-maximalist vision of Bitcoin?
BlockFi update
Our case for wallet-based passwordless authentication
CIV’s 3AC takes from last week start to be independently confirmed
What trade kicked off 3AC’s issues?
We reminisce over the stolen bike saga
BVI and Singapore regulators act on 3AC
Coinflex loses money on Roger Ver’s BCH trades
Matt’s Roger Ver story
Matt’s prior Up In the Air career
Grayscale’s GBTC ETF application is denied
Grayscale sues the SEC
Compass mining leadership departs
Solana launches a phone
North Korean hackers allegedly hack the Harmony bridge for $100m
Razzlekhan may have actually hacked Bitfinex
The Crypto Queen is on the FBI most wanted

Content mentioned:

Nic on Medium, Setting the Record Straight

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Blake King, power markets engineer at Galaxy, formerly of Oak Ridge national lab and ERCOT, joins us to talk about how changing grids are accommodating an influx of load from Bitcoin miners. In this episode:

Why the grid is undergoing a radical transformation today
Blake’s background in electrical engineering, power system modeling, and renewable development
The origin of Blake’s papers on bitcoin mining and the grid
Bitcoiner misconceptions about mining?
Why Bitcoin is not a battery
Why you can’t just arbitrarily add load to the grid
Why Bitcoin mining does not generally increase energy prices during scarcity or peak load
Why rational actors curtail or sell power during scarcity events
Are grid planning models correctly estimating the risk of furloughing thermal generation?
Is it possible to make the green energy transition as currently envisioned?
Why renewable generation requires more transmission
How renewable generation costs are increasingly upfront as compared to thermal generation
Are bitcoiners overrating the importance of controllable load?
Why Bitcoin miners may be over ambitious in terms of modeling ancillary service payments
Are ancillary markets going to increase in size with more renewable generation?
Economic demand response versus formal ancillary services
Different types of ancillary services products
Why load resources are able to bid out thermal generation in ancillary services markets
How exactly Bitcoin miners get signals to curtail their load during scarcity events
Does being a load resource imply ‘voluntary’ curtailment?
Why miners owe it to the grid operator to be transparent in their breakeven price and operating plans
How weather in Texas could affect block arrival times in Bitcoin
Why the commodification of ASICs would increase the integration of the renewable energy sector and bitcoin mining
Why ERCOT hit the pause button on the addition of new mining loads
ERCOTs level of sophistication around Bitcoin mining
Will miners toggle between Bitcoin, green hydrogen, and other location-agnostic uses of power?
Do the economics of green hydrogen make sense relative to BTC mining?

Content mentioned in this episode:

Bitcoin Mining and the Grid, Part I and Part II

Intro and outro used with permission: Ocarina #968

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Matt Walsh sits down with BlockFi CEO Zac Prince to cover turmoil in the crypto lending markets and how BlockFi is handling the crisis. In this episode:

Is the contagion among lenders over?
Was Three Arrows excessive risk taking or fraudulent?
BlockFi's relationship with Three Arrows
Does BlockFi still have 3AC exposure?
BlockFi's plan to maintain all of their products and keep them operational
What differentiates BlockFi's risk management from Celsius
- Asset liability matching
- Duration management
The duration of BlockFi's loans
The structure of the interest account product and why withdrawal periods are up to 7 days
Did regulation work to stem any of the risk in the crypto markets?
Shift from a borrower's market to a lender's market
The effect of capital destruction on interest rates in crypto
Why crypto interest rates are going up
BlockFi's deal with FTX
How the crypto lending market will change
Zac's message to BlockFi clients and to the industry

Content mentioned in this episode

BlockFi's risk management disclosures
BlockFi fee schedule
FT: Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows fails to meet lender margin calls

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Matt and Nic return for a fiery episode of deals and news. In this episode:

Is miner selling backed up by the on-chain data?
Is Massachusetts open to pro-crypto legislation?
FTX provides credit support to embattled crypto lenders
Why private market transactions do not constitute bailouts in the pejorative sense
Was 3 Arrows just a case of too much leverage and bad trades, or was it fraud?
Does the 3AC situation stray into criminal territory?
There were significant harms stemming from the 3AC scheme
Kyle's infamous On The Brink appearance and his special request
Did GBTC bring down 3AC?
Are we entering the PvP era of crypto twitter?
The story behind 3AC's yacht
Solend requisitions user funds
Wartime versus peacetime governance in DeFi
South Korea puts a travel ban on Terraform labs employees
DYDX is leaving Ethereum and moving to their own chain
The relationship between lender balance sheets and GBTC
Is there a case to be made for winding down GBTC?
How to think about the GBTC trade today
How the 3AC GBTC trade is like LTCM
How to think about the "macro"
Is the 'crypto hedge fund that also does VC' obsolete?

Sponsor notes:

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In this episode, host Ria sits down with the co-founders of Starkware, Eli Ben-Sasson and Uri Kolodny to discuss how the team is leveraging STARKs, or validity proofs, to unlock a magnitude increase in scalability. We discuss:

The differences between Starkex and Starknet and how the two will converge
Enabling functions and applications that cannot be built on monolithic layer 1s
Why data availability is important to zk rollups and the trade offs of different approaches
Simultaneously solving for computational integrity and inclusive accountability

To learn more about Starkware, visit their website. Intro and outro used with permission: Collage #346 by Daniel Allan

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Nic and Matt are back for a truly chaotic week in the markets. In this episode:

Is DeFi's transparency a vice?
We reconsider the need for a lender of last resort?
We debrief on Consensus
How will the Celsius situation resolve?
Fidelity doubles down on digital assets
Is the Fed trapped by inflation?
Was the Celsius situation foreseeable?
Where does the next marginal buyer come from?
Another crypto lender goes down
Class action lawsuit launched against Binance US
Circle is launching Euro coin
Bill Gates dances on our grave

Content mentioned in this episode:

All Falls Down, by Nic Carter and Allen Farrington [pdf]
On Impossible Things Before Breakfast, by Nic Carter, Allen Farrington, and Ross Stevens

Sponsor notes:

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Nic and Matt are back for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Greetings from a very hot Consensus in Austin
Our takeaways from the Lummis/Gillibrand bill
What the NY state mining moratorium means for miners
The Central African Republic lays out its plans for Project Sango
Custodia Bank is suing the Fed for sitting on their master account application
Binance fires back at Reuters
We break down a NY Times article on early bitcoin mining
NYDFS issues new standards for NY-regulated stablecoins
Were the inflation truthers correct about CPI metrics?

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The original roundup cast return for a covid-stricken episode. In this roundup:

The boys are laid low with Covid (again!)
Nic recounts his visit to Norwegian parliament
Nic recaps the Oslo Freedom Forum
Are we on the brink of L2 summer?
Former Opensea PM is arrested on wire fraud/insider trading charges
Is there an insider trading standard for non-securities?
Korean prosecutors summon all Terraform Labs staff
Biden admin looks to lower the emissions footprint of Bitcoin
Two ways for the US Government to lower the emissions of Bitcoin
Does banning an asset make it worth less?
Do we need net neutrality for power?
OneRiver’s ETF application is denied
How the SEC can unlock $6b worth of value to Bitcoin investors
Crypto firms settle in for winter
Fidelity Digital Assets is doubling their headcount
Nic’s affiliate merch scandal

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Andrew Cahill and Saurabh Deshpande of The Block join the show. In this episode we discuss:

The Ethereum L2 ecosystem
The varying scaling solutions and views on the communities with traction
Views on native tokens being launched on these platforms in 2022
Optimistic rollups
ZK rollups

Learn more by reading the report, “Layer-2 Scaling Solutions: A Framework for Comparison”

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Matt returns with CMS Holdings' Dan Matuszewski, filling in for Nic, covering deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Bitcoiners brief Norwegian policymakers
History of the BitLicense
Circle’s physical BitLicense
a16z raises a massive $4.5b fund
The effect of VC dry powder on crypto startups
Can crypto catch a bid until macro calms down
Adam Neumann is back with a blockchain startup
FTX attends a heated CFTC roundtable
Arthur Hayes gets house arrest and probation
Why certain Tether holders will never redeem
An unlikely winner from Tether concerns
Does shorting Tether make sense?
Fallout from Terra’s collapse
Are algostables going to exist forever
CMS’s Super Pac and reflections on conversations in Washington
SBF announces his intention to spend $1B on the 2024 election
Scott Minerd is very bearish on Bitcoin
What on earth is HEX
ETH Merge concerns

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Ric Edelman, the founder of Edelman Financial Services and the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Ric’s new book The Truth About Crypto
His journey in the digital assets industry
The current macro backdrop and how cryptoassets should be considered in a portfolio
Views on the RIA market and how the crypto discussion is evolving
The regulatory landscape, including views on the DoL, SEC and Elizabeth Warren
How the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals is evolving

Links mentioned on the show:

The Truth About Crypto on Amazon
DACFP
Twitter: @ricedelman (Ric); @thedacfp (DACFP);

The Truth About Crypto: A Practical, Easy-to-Understand Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFTs, and Other Digital Assets

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Was UST/Terra a ponzi or not?
Fintech apps put client deposits into Anchor
Tradfi yields are competitive with DeFi yields
The GBTC discount reaches its highest ever level at -31% MSM crypto hate reaches a fever pitch
The World Bank publishes a new paper on crypto adoption
The Warren staff have a dossier of mean tweets
Will generalist VCs lose interest in web3?
El Salvador hosts a Bitcoin summit for a number of central banks
Nic’s secret origin story
Is eSwatini a dark horse candidate for the next Bitcoin Nation?
The Biden admin suggests segregating client deposits at exchanges
TradFi thinks Tether is about to collapse
Why no stablecoins are able to secure audits
Tether receives a new assurance opinion showing $39b of treasuries
How many outflows can Tether accommodate?
Differences in redemption between USDC and USDT
What does a crackdown in offshore assets by the CCP have to do with Tether?
Cloudflare’s wall of lava lamps
Is it time for a new batch of FUD dice?
We assess the quality of the Terra mea culpas

Content mentioned in this episode:

World Bank, The ascent of crypto assets: Evolution and macro-financial drivers

Sponsor notes:

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Jon Kol and Asa Oines, cofounders of Abacus join the show to talk about the state of the art in cross chain interoperability. In this episode:

Career trajectories and why Jon and Asa decided to start Abacus
The three eras of interoperability
Asset interoperability vs app based interoperability
Why asset interoperability might just be a transitional phase
Why asset interoperability is more about the creation of derivatives than true portability
Application parallelization or duplication versus native cross chain applications
Why duplicating applications across chain is inefficient
The advantages of building natively cross chain for developers
How blockchains can be made to communicate with each other
Key assumptions you need to rely on to trust that Abacus will work
How Abacus is distinguished from other interoperability protocols
Why speed matters in cross chain
How Abacus differs from Layer0 and Axelar
Which blockchains Abacus is linking together

Learn more about Abacus

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Matt and Nic cover news and deals of the week. In this episode:

The CIV hat snafu
Was synthetic USD on Bitmex the first stablecoin?
Remembering Mastercoin and seigniorage shares stablecoins
Does the Fed have a shadow third mandate?
We break down the Luna situation and why it was destined to fail
Why the subsidized yields on Anchor were the biggest mistake
Likely fallout from the Luna collapse
The Terra blockchain is halted
Do we actually need algorithmic stablecoins?
SBF acquires a stake in Robinhood
Is the Twitter sale to Elon under threat?

Sponsor notes:

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Mark Lamb, co-founder and CEO of CoinFLEX joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Mark’s entrepreneurial path in the cryptocurrency industry and the insight behind starting CoinFLEX
The history and market landscape for crypto derivatives platforms
The state of the stablecoin market and how flexUSD is positioning for USA launch
The regulatory environment and how this is impacting trading venues and stablecoin issuers.

To learn more visit coinflex.com and follow Mark on Twitter

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Nic and Matt return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Matt's takeaways from the Medici conference
The rapid growth of ZKPs
We review Brink Nation posts on GM
We look back at the history of the FUD dice
Are tungsten dice possible?
Big thunderstorm in Miami
Is the crypto industry sitting out the recession?
We consider the merits of virtual real estate
Does proximity matter in the metaverse?
Metaverse land rights and NIMBYism
The Bitcoin Mining Council letter to the EPA and what motivated it
Ohio's primary yields an entirely pro-crypto field
CBOE acquires ErisX
Goldman takes out a Bitcoin-collateralized USD loan
Jane Street dives into DeFi
The SEC doubles the size of its cyber unit
CA issues an EO on the crypto industry
The Dept. of Labor criticizes Fidelity for their Bitcoin 401k product
The IMF criticizes the Central African Republic's adoption of Bitcoin
The divergence between public and private valuations in crypto and equities, and why they can't always be arbitraged away

Content mentioned:

Prominent Bitcoiners' letter to the EPA to respond to Rep. Huffman's letter

Sponsor notes:

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TeraWulf cofounder and CEO Paul Prager joins us to talk about his experience building a vertically-integrated, zero carbon Bitcoin miner. In this installment of the mining miniseries we cover:

Paul’s career trajectory from coal trading to energy infrastructure to Bitcoin
Beowulf’s deal with Marathon and their entry into Bitcoin
How TeraWulf distinguishes itself from other Bitcoin miners
Why TeraWulf has an explicit ESG focus
Zero carbon and how that differs from ‘carbon neutral’
The importance of being vertically integrated
How Paul thinks about the halvings and how that affects their business
TeraWulf’s facility in upstate NY
Paul’s views on NY State’s approach to Bitcoin mining
How the Bitcoin mining industry struggles with proactive messaging
TeraWulf’s 300 MW nuclear-powered facility in Pennsylvania
Why Bitcoin is synergistic with nuclear power
The prospects for nuclear bitcoin mining
TeraWulf’s zero-carbon approach and how that manages risk
TeraWulf’s plans for growing their hashrate under management
The characteristics that TeraWulf looks for in new sites
Will Bitcoin miners develop better transparency around emissions data?
Why mining is so useful for decarbonization through curtailment programs
The convergence between the energy sector and Bitcoin mining
Why vertical integration and zero carbon will prevail in Bitcoin mining long term
Trends in consolidation Paul expects
Why vertical integration allows you to manage your risk better than a hosting model
What public market analysts should be doing when they evaluate miners

Follow Paul on Twitter and learn more about TeraWulf.

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Matt and Nic are back with news and deals of the week, joined by Dave Gray, Head of Workplace Retirement Offerings and Platforms at Fidelity Investments, who joins us to talk about Fidelity's new Bitcoin 401(k) product. In this episode:

Are airdrops taxable?
CheckTemplateVerify drama in Bitcoin
Central African Republic apparently adopts Bitcoin as legal tender
NY State Assembly passes a bill banning Bitcoin mining with fossil fuels
Fidelity adds Bitcoin to 401ks
Will deep deplatforming on the internet influence Twitter?
Can you actually open source the Twitter algorithm?
Is the Twitter purchase an indirect way for Musk to liquidate his Tesla position?

Learn more about Fidelity's 401(k) plans here

Sponsor notes:

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Longtime Bitcoiner Bruce Fenton re-joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Bruce’s career and the events that led him to discovering Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s social layer and how Bruce has managed to stay close to the project through so many chapters of the journey
His view on the tokenization of securities and why he is so optimistic on this technology
Why Bruce decided to run for Senate and what issues he is fighting for
Views on big tech, the future of the U.S. dollar and more
His outlook for Bitcoin friendly regulation

See Bruce's prior episode here.

To learn more about Bruce visit brucefenton.com and visit Bruce on Twitter @BruceFenton

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Pat Larsen, founder and CEO of crypto tax prep company ZenLedger, joins the show for a timely discussion on how investors should be thinking about taxes this tax season. In this episode:

The outlook for crypto taxes in 2022
Tax accounting for specific transactions
Clarifications and improvements to tax regulation

ZenLedger provides a platform that makes it easy for users to aggregate transactions across centralized and decentralized venues and measure their crypto tax impact. The team published a helpful guide on nft related taxes.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

The OTB music debate rages on
Nic survives Covid
Should we bring back dueling?
Ancient altcoin dramas
Coinbase launches NFTs
Elon has financing to buy Twitter
Product suggestions for Twitter
The US sanctions Russian miners BitRiver
Is Russia remonetizing gold?
Australia gets a spot BTC ETF
North Korean hackers are active in crypto

Sponsor notes:

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Adam Jackson, co-founder and CEO of Braintrust, a web3 talent network joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Marketplace business models and how web3 models will improve on web2 dynamics
How Adam came to the insight to launch Braintrust and how the platform works
The regulatory environment in the United States and how Adam sees web3 evolving over time
Other marketplace categories where Adam sees opportunities for community owned networks
Adam’s view on the venture landscape and how that has evolved over time.

To learn more about Braintrust visit usebraintrust.com and follow Adam on Twitter @AdamJacksonSF

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We sit down with Ohio Senate Candidate Josh Mandel to cover his race, platform, and Bitcoin advocacy.

Josh’s political origins and why he is running for Senate in Ohio
Josh’s time as Ohio state treasurer and his Ohio state checkbook initiative
Why Josh pioneered Ohio’s acceptance of Bitcoin for tax payments
How Bitcoin values mirror American values
Why Bitcoin support ought to stay nonpartisan
The state of the Ohio primary and Josh’s prospects
The political prudence of making Bitcoin such a key cornerstone of Josh’s platform

Learn more about Josh Mandel's platform at joshmandel.com.

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Matt and Nic return for a post-conference episode. This week we cover:

The FDIC asks banks to go slow on crypto integrations
Blackrock is studying cryptoassets and invests in USDC
Blockchain.com partners with the Dallas Cowboys
Virginia will allow state chartered banks to custody cryptocurrency
Balaji’s decentralization inflation index winner is announced
Why this current CPI print is misleading
Blockstream Block and Tesla are mining Bitcoin with solar
Celcius shuts down their retail-facing lending product in the US
Is Peter Thiel wrong on Ethereum valuation?
Will Elon be able to buy Twitter?
Takeaways from Bitcoin 2022

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com
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In the second episode in our modular blockchain mini-series, we sat down with John Adler, the inventor of optimistic rollups and co-founder of Fuel and Celestia. Fuel is the fastest execution layer for the modular blockchain stack. The technology enables parallel transaction execution and offers flexible throughput and the highest security required to scale. FuelVM offers developers a superior experience and the ability to go beyond limitations faced by the EVM and other virtual machines. In our conversation, we discuss: * The importance of data availability for maintaining censorship resistance * Fuel as a modular execution layer with configurable consensus, data availability, and settlement * Why Fuel Labs is building the entire blockchain stack to offer the best possible developer and user experience * How FuelVM supports parallel transaction execution and other notable improvements over EVM

To learn more about some of the concepts we cover, here are a few incremental resources John mentions in the episode.
* John Adler: Wait, it’s all resource pricing? * John Adler: Secure Off-chain Data Availability for Rollups * John Adler: FuelVM Bootcamp

Follow John on twitter and Fuel on Github

Intro/outro track: OmgKirby #664 (used with permission)

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Socket Supply Co founder and CEO Paolo Fragomeni joins the show to discuss what web3 is and isn't – and what it should be. In this episode:

Paolo's start writing modem software and BBS in the pre-modern web days
What delineated web 1.0 from web 2.0
The single request that really made web 2.0 possible
How today's web is limited by incumbents
When did web 3.0 really emerge? What distinguishes it from 2.0?
Best definitions of web3?
State of the web in terms of centralization and prospects from here
How the internet has flip flopped between centralization and decentralization
What will push users towards web3?
Moxie's comments on web3 and whether they have any merit
What Paolo is building at Socket Supply
Why p2p is so fundamental
How to get started with Socket Supply

Read about Socket Supply in Coindesk and on their website.

Intro/outro music: Ocarina #986 (used with permission)

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Andrew Myers and Brock Petersen of Satoshi Energy join the show to cover how Bitcoin mining monetizes renewables. In this episode we cover:

Andrew and Brock’s origin story
How Satoshi Energy develops sites and infrastructure for miners
Is Satoshi Energy explicitly renewable focused?
How mining with intermittent renewables can be economical
How Bitcoin mining improves the economics of renewables
The merits of the behind the meter approach
How using Bitcoin as an offtake improves the economics of renewable generation assets
The role of demand response as renewables account for more generation
Does Bitcoin actually incentivize renewable generation?
Is the future of Bitcoin mining vertically integrated?
What does the interconnection queue tell us about the future of renewables?
Book recommendations

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Mora et al rears its head again
Chris Larsen and Greenpeace team up to try and eliminate PoW from Bitcoin
Who is the protagonist in the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit?
Rep. Stephen Lynch introduces the ECASH Act
Axie Infinity suffers a $625m hack
Is there any debate remaining about the utility of Bitcoin?
Circle selects BNY Mellon to custody their own assets
Grayscale mulls a lawsuit against the SEC over their continued ETF disapproval
Can the government create a truly private CBDC?
Rep. Tom Emmer and Sen. Ted Cruz look to ban CBDC creation
Is the SEC obliquely regulating AMM LPs out of existence?
When will Bitcoin be sovereign scale?
Seed stage bets on aspiring members of congress

Content mentioned:

Martin Wolf in FT, A New World of Currency Disorder Looms
Bloomberg, Ukraine's Crypto Banker Describes how the War is Changing His Life
Bloomberg, Crypto Miners in Texas Face Approval to Energize Hurdle

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com
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Ben Gagnon, the Chief Mining Officer at Bitfarms, joins the show. In this episode we cover:

Bitfarms' journey to the public markets in the US
Ben's early efforts in flared gas mining
How immersion cooling could provide operational efficiencies
Bitfarms' site selection methodology
How Bitfarms secures power originally built for now-departed industries
How Quebec overbuilt electrical infrastructure
The benefit of miners locating themselves in Quebec and scooping up stranded power
How Bitfarms took over a shuttered hockey stick factory
Why Bitfarms is so keen on stranded hydro
How Bitfarms curtails their power usage – and why curtailment makes sense
Finding excess power in Argentina and Paraguay
Does Bitfarms have a low carbon intensity mandate?
Why being pro-renewable is a good business decision
Why Bitfarms isn't focusing on Texas right now
How Bitcoin is the most efficient way to monetize stranded energy assets
Bitfarms' criteria for compelling energy resources
The progress of the Bitcoin Mining Council and the bettering of transparency in the mining space
Where Ben sees room for improvement in the mining sector
The lack of standardization in reporting and valuation around mining firms
The flaws in Digiconomist's estimates of Bitcoin's energy consumption
Issues with academic claims that Bitcoin miners produce significant quantities of e-waste
Why Bitcoin ASICs are more recyclable and have long lifespans
The academia and press to policy pipeline

Content mentioned:

Ben in Bitcoin Magazine: We Need to Talk About the Not Science Behind Digiconomist
Ben in Bitcoin Magazine: We Need to Talk About the Climate Problem in Bitcoin Mining

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Michael Sonnenshein and Craig Salm of Grayscale Investments join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Grayscale’s filing to convert GBTC to an ETF and their advocacy campaign.
The comment process (details at: www.grayscale.com/comment)
Reactions to the Biden Executive Order.
Grayscale’s product lineup and the future of active vs. passive crypto products.
The metaverse, NFTs and other areas of interest for crypto asset managers.

To learn more about Grayscale visit www.grayscale.com

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Matt and Nic return for more deals and news. In this episode:

Brink Nation is officially moving to GM.xyz
Did blockchains 2.0 make fundamental scaling improvements?
Is ESG over?
Nic surrenders his eyeball sovereignty to Clear
A secret trick to get through the Miami airport
Bloomberg analysts think a spot ETF could be approved summer 2023... pending SEC developments
Would the SEC have to gain control over crypto exchanges to approve an ETF?
Florida will accept corporate taxes in BTC
Terra is buying up to $10b in Bitcoin
Will seigniorage shares stablecoins ever work?
The USD is the unit of account for 99% of all stablecoins
Are the Democrats fracturing along crypto lines?
Russia mentions accepting Bitcoin for energy payments
The NYT repeats the misleading per-transaction energy cost analysis

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com
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Jon Birnbaum, COO of Domain Money, a new investment platform, joins the show. In this episode, we discuss:

History and launch of Domain Money
Jon’s path into fintech and then the digital asset industry
Dimension of access to investing for the retail market
Domain’s product offering across crypto and equities
Developing new metrics to help consumers think through investing

Learn about Domain Money here.

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Celestia Labs COO, Nick White, joins us on the show to kick off our modular blockchain mini-series. Celestia is the first modular blockchain network, which decouples consensus and data availability from execution and settlement. Celestia implements a novel design to unlock key properties such as scalability, interoperability, and sovereignty while preserving decentralization.

We cover:

Why scaling and decentralization have historically been at odds
How Celestia creates a modular system to reimagine traditional monolithic blockchain architecture
Leveraging data availability sampling to unlock scalability
How Celestia intends to be the engine that powers sovereign communities

Learn more about Celestia here.

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Matt and Nic return for more news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Too much Tom Brady content?
Can Roman Abramovich sell Chelsea?
Former skeptics coming around on Bitcoin
Arbitraging tungsten cube NFTs?
Why isn’t physical tungsten rallying?
Facebook’s Diem is back from the dead
Takeaways from Laura Shin’s book The Cryptopians
Tom Emmer’s letter to the SEC
Details of Sen. Lummis’ bill start to come out
The EU almost bans PoW cryptocurrencies
Instagram announces plans to add NFTs
Ukraine legalizes cryptoassets
The story behind Nic’s Tucker appearance
Bitcoiners growing beards

Content mentioned in the episode:

Rep. Tom Emmer's letter to the SEC
Decrypt, Bill From 'Bitcoin Senator' Lummis Would Alter Capital Gains Landscape for Crypto
Coindesk, Ukraine's Zelenskyy Signs Virtual Assets Bill Into Law, Legalizing Crypto

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io
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Brett Harrison, the CEO of FTX.US joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Brett’s pre-crypto career and the path to leading FTX.US
How FTX is evolving on their derivatives product offering
Perspectives on crypto market structure in the US will evolve
How equity markets may come to be impacted by innovations in the crypto world
How FTX is pursuing NFTs and gaming

To learn more visit FTX.us and follow Brett on Twitter

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Former FT Alphaville Editor and founder of The Blind Spot, Izabella Kaminska joins the show. In this episode:

Izabella’s pre-FT career
Izabella’s Polish ancestry and how that informed her monetary worldview
Why Izabella was a skeptic about Bitcoin – and why she revisited her stance
Izabella’s interest in anacyclosis and cyclicality in political systems
Jeremy Bentham and his views on utilitarianism
Consequentialism and its influence on contemporary elite ideology
What Covid-19 policies revealed about freedoms in the West
The flaws inherent in bureaucracy
Izabella’s changing view on the politicization of finance
The failure of AML/KYC rules in the West
Reflections on the FT’s Wirecard story
Izabella’s view on stablecoins and why she first compared them to Eurodollars
Why stablecoins are mini central banks
The paradoxes of Web3 and DeFi and the veil of decentralization
Do crypto systems end up inherently recentralizing
Why Central Banking is so obscure and difficult to penetrate
Bitcoin narratives in the context of Bitcoin’s apparent failure to be a real rates hedge
Is gold genuinely a good inflation hedge?
Are there Bitcoiners Izy pays attention to?
Izabella’s thoughts on Bitcoin ESG questions
Is Bitcoin security worth paying for?
Why Izabella is leaving the FT and starting the Blind Spot

Learn about The Blind Spot and follow Izabella on twitter.

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Nic and Matt return for more deals and news of the week. In this episode:

The fallout from the seizure of the Russian fx reserves
Did America default on its obligations?
How are Chinese interests served by the US weaponizing the dollar?
Can Bitcoin become an inter-state settlement asset and sovereign-scale SoV?
Zoltan Pozsar declares an end to Bretton Woods
We digest Biden’s executive order
The White House calls for 14 studies on crypto and CBDCs
A pro-crypto candidate wins the Korean presidential election
BNY Mellon gets into MPC crypto custody
Stripe now supports crypto payments
The Verge profiles Justin Sun
Does insider trading apply to commodities?
Coinbase blocks 25k Russian users from the platform

Content mentioned:

Nic in Coindesk, America’s Quiet Default
The Verge, The Many Escapes of Justin Sun

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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Singer and songwriter, VÉRITÉ (Kelsey Byrne), and artist manager, Vanessa Magos have been leading the charge for artists and their teams to learn about and experiment in web3. In our third episode in the web3 music mini-series, they joined us to talk about:

Artists as CEOs who bootstrap their business and put themselves in positions of power and ownership
Artists being locked into the arbitrary fixed price imposed on music by the industry
A future where artists have access to their fans free of paywalls, algorithms, and third parties
The role music DAOs can play in restructuring artist teams

You can find VERITE and Vanessa on Twitter @verite and @vanessamagos, respectively.

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Sohrob Farudi, the founder and CEO of Fan Controlled Football joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Sohrob’s entrepreneurial journey and the insights that led to him founding Fan Controlled Football.
How FCF works and how fans engage with the league, all the way to calling the plays.
How Sohrob came to be interested in cryptocurrency and how NFTs have crossed into FCF.
Longer term opportunities for cryptocurrencies and tokenized securities in the context of FCF.
The upcoming season and what fans can expect.

To learn more visit FCF.IO and follow the league on Twitter

Sponsor notes

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Nic and Matt return for another wild week. In this episode:

OTB theme music controversy
Is Bitcoin a risk off asset
Ukraine raises crypto to fund the war effort
Why Ukrainians were better positioned to deal with a banking sector failure
The U.S. cuts Russia out of SWIFT (mostly)
Can the U.S. pull the SWIFT deplatforming again?
Will gold be remonetized?
Metamask, Infura, and Opensea are banned in Iran and Venezuela
Why the cost of running a full node matters
Can NFTs be securities?
Is Russia evading sanctions with crypto?
Powell’s comment on multiple reserve currencies

Content mentioned:

JP Schnapper-Casteras in the New Atlanticist, Here’s why crypto won’t save the Kremlin from sanctions
Jon Sindreu in the WSJ, If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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We sit down with Blake Masters, COO at Thiel Capital, coauthor of Zero to One, and 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona.

Why Blake is running for Senate in Arizona
Blake's experience running Thiel Capital and what led him to politics today
Does Congress need more business expertise?
Where Blake falls on the spectrum of being pro vs anti crypto
Where Blake gets his info regarding the crypto industry
USA vs Chinese policy on Bitcoin
Should the US pursue a strategic Bitcoin reserve?
Does cryptocurrency impair the US' sanctions-making ability?
Will the government maintain its sanctions-making ability in perpetuity?
How crypto and Bitcoin could shore up the U.S. dollar
Can the Fed solve climate or racial equity issues?
Are the MMTers in power?
Is the U.S. facing a genuine risk of default?
Leftist explanations for inflation and why they are unsatisfying
Where the Covid-related stimulus payments warranted?
Dealing with Big Tech deplatforming and whether Section 230 is sufficient
Can decentralized internet applications compete with Big Tech platforms?
Are legislative solutions sufficient to Big Tech oligarchies?
Blake's view on stablecoins and how they should be regulated
Should the government be following China's lead on CBDCs?

Learn about Blake's platform.

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Meow CEO Brandon Arvanaghi and CTO Bryce Crawford join the show to cover crypto yields and how they make them accessible to corporate treasuries. In this episode:

The origins of the name
Bryce and Brandon’s backgrounds
The purpose of getting access to crypto yields while staying in dollars
How Meow manages risks in DeFi protocols
Are crypto yields fundamentally mispriced?
Where crypto yields ultimately come from?
The risk free rate of crypto yields
The relationship between fragmented exchange environments and the cost of capital in crypto
Why smart contract risk differs between chains and its effect on yields
Why yields compressing will be a sign of the institutionalization of crypto
The emergence of undercollateralized lending on DeFi, and which protocols the Meow leadership is most excited about
Do DeFi yields face the risk from declining subsidies from token issuance
Why institutional tooling is still lacking in DeFi
The emergence of the crypto scene in Miami
Projections for the future of DeFi
Visions for the future of Meow

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Matt and Nic return for another insane week of news and deals.

Russia invades Ukraine
Will Russia get kicked off SWIFT?
Are there alternatives to SWIFT?
Laura Shin identifies the alleged DAO hacker
Is Bitcoin’s privacy fundamentally broken?
Chainalysis demixes Wasabi transactions
Was the DAO hacker even guilty of a crime?
Should blockchains be private at the base layer?
Wyoming introduces a state stablecoin
Miami grapples with the fallout of Miamicoin
Do turkeys hibernate?

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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Leo Lucisano of Decentral Park Capital joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Leo’s regulatory predictions for 2022 and the beliefs that informed his blog post.
Views on how DeFi would evolve in the face of a harsher treatment from the SEC.
The emerging crypto lobby and how this will shape future elections and also policy.
Lending, derivatives and other financial products in a central and decentralized context.
How Decentral Park Capital is investing across the landscape.

To learn more about Decentral Park visit their website.

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Co-chairman of Stronghold Digital Mining Bill Spence and CEO Gregory Beard join the show. Stronghold is a vertically integrated Bitcoin miner that uses waste coal to power their operations – while also remediating this environmentally damaging product. We dive into this fascinating, and counter-intuitive story. In this episode:

Backgrounds of the co-chairmen and how they found the intersection of Bitcoin mining and coal waste mitigation
Bill’s personal commitment to the mitigation of coal waste
Why coal waste has been accumulating in PA since the late 1700s
The immense scale of the coal waste and how it continue to affect PA, even though mining no longer occurs
How unremediated coal waste can be understood as a form of class warfare
Why coal waste exists in the first place
Why developments in power plant technology meant that coal waste could be safely combusted
Why aboveground coal waste oxidizes and releases CO2 anyway - as well as other harmful particulates
Why growing grass over the coal waste doesn’t solve the problem
Why 2 billion tons of coal waste can’t just be moved into landfills
How there are 800 sites in PA and 70 of them are currently on fire
Why Stronghold is vertically integrated, and the advantage this grants them in mining Bitcoin
How Stronghold sends power to the grid in the case of a shortage
Has Stronghold evaluated other high energy intensity loads aside from just Bitcoin
Why Bitcoin is a more suitable load for their energy resources than others
How Bitcoin allows Stronghold to keep their power available at short notice
Stronghold’s reaction to criticism in the press and from Washington
Why nothing had been done about the coal waste for 100 years before Stronghold came along Is the future of Bitcoin mining vertical integration?

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Matt and Nic return for a huge week of news and a big CIV announcement. In this episode:

Matt scans the Coinbase QR code ad
The post-Superbowl backlash against crypto ads
Is there any hope for music NFTs
Castle Island announces a third fund
Binance buys a stake in Forbes
Is Circle a bet on interest rates?
Our thoughts on BlockFi’s settlement with the SEC
Does the SEC’s BlockFi settlement create a regulatory moat for larger lenders?
What happens to DeFi in the wake of the BlockFi settlement?
Canada weaponizes all financial services against truckers and donors
Miners are once again active in Inner Mongolia – with a catch
The etymology of tantalizing

Content mentioned in this episode:

Bloomberg, Castle Island announces Third Fund
CIV on Medium, Announcing Castle Island Ventures III
Hester Peirce, Statement on Settlement with BlockFi Lending LLC

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

Intro and outro track credit: OmgKirby Genesis #326

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In our second episode in the web3 music mini-series, we spoke with Matthew Chaim, musician and founder of Songcamp and other projects at the intersection of music and web3. We cover how Matthew thinks about:

Helping artists gain control over their creative output
Collective creation and re-imagining the role of fans
Optimizing for resonance versus reach with music NFTs
Discoverability in music NFTs and ways to democratize curation

And much more. We also recommend reading Matthew’s writing on these topics at chaim.mirror.xyz.

Intro and outro track: OmgKirby Genesis #326

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Mash founder Jared Nusinoff joins the show to explain how internet monetization is broken and how lightning-based payments fixes it. In this episode:

Jared’s professional history and how he came to work on Bitcoin
Going from an adventure guide to bitcoin
Jared’s early entrepreneurial work
Jared’s early history sharing music prior to torrents
Why Jared quite Google to found an adventure guide company
How Jared thinks of Bitcoin’s MoE/SoV debate
Why internet monetization models are flawed today - and the missing middle
How the technology of payments online directly affects the quality of internet experiences
How Lightning uniquely solves the monetization of quality content online
Jared’s view of Lightning’s maturity and momentum as a payments infrastructure
How Lightning provides completely novel business models on the internet
How Mash could change the game for internet ‘miniapps’

Get started on Mash here and follow Mash on Twitter.

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:

Kraken brings back PoR
Bitfinex hack money launderers are arrested
The long history of Bitfinex, hacks, Recovery rights, Tether, and LEO
Who is entitled to the recovered BTC from the Bitfinex hack?
The NY Fed attacks stablecoins, and private banknote issuance
Ottawa truckers are banned from Gofundme
Are US Treasuries backing stablecoins stranded liquidity?
Why central bankers attack stablecoins to promote CBDCs

Content mentioned:

NY Fed, The Future of Payments is not Stablecoins

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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In this episode, Kraken chief product officer Jeremy Welch joins the show to cover Kraken's newly announced Proof of Reserve procedure. In this episode:

Why bring back PoR?
What distinguishes today’s proof of reserve from the procedure Kraken undertook back in 2015
Why haven’t exchanges done PoR historically?
What Kraken’s PoR actually proves to depositors
The role of Armanino in Kraken’s PoR
What happens when a depositor verifies their PoR
How Kraken protects user privacy in PoR
The trustlessness of the PoR procedure
What regulators can gain from a PoR
How Kraken clients can benefit from PoR
How Jeremy expects other exchanges to react

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

See more on Kraken's PoR here

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Tom Brady retires to focus on NFTs
Was Satoshi interested in altcoins?
Our thoughts on startups raising 69.420m
The Solana-Ethereum bridge is hacked for over $300m– and then bailed out by Jump Capital
Was Vitalik’s warning about cross-chain interoperability prophetic?
Is the cross-chain vision dead?
Kraken revives their Proof of Reserve – after 7 years
Why do exchanges avoid Proof of Reserves?
Bitcoin developers at the MIT DCI are building the Boston Fed’s CBDC pilot program
How whaling was the predecessor to venture capital
Gamestop launches an NFT marketplace

Content mentioned in this episode:

MIT News, MIT experts test technical research for a hypothetical central bank digital currency
Bloomberg, Biggest Texas Bitcoin Miner Shuts Down Ahead of Cold Blast
Bloomberg Quicktake, This State is Becoming America’s Crypto Capital
Kraken, Proof of Reserves

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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In the first episode in our web3 music series, Cherie Hu, founder of Water & Music, sits down with Ria to talk about transitioning Water & Music into a research DAO and Cherie’s thoughts on the growing interest of musicians in crypto. We discuss: * How Cherie found a niche covering the intersection of music, technology, and now web3 * The decision to formalize the Water & Music community into a research DAO harnessing the wisdom of the crowds * The shortcomings of early experiments with music and crypto and how the recent approach differs * The salient macro factors contributing to enthusiasm and experimentation with music NFTs, DAOs, and social tokens * The pushback against music NFTs by skeptical fans and artists

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Veteran Bitcoin commentator and inventor of Drivechains Paul Sztorc joins the show to talk Bitcoin's sustainability and the role of merged mined side chains. In this episode:

Why Paul is the ‘Steely Dan’ of Bitcoin
Revisiting ‘Measuring decentralization’
Revisiting Paul’s argument on Proof of Stake being veiled PoW
Why you should roll your own statistics
Concentration of power in miners and mining pools
Is PoW worthless if it isn’t challenged?
How Bitcoin energy FUD is based on neo-malthusianism
The Julian Simon / Paul Ehrlich wager
Why none of our resources are finite
How climate change diplomacy is neo-colonial
Why and when innovation happens
Why Paul is a critic of Bitcoin development culture
Paul’s critique of Stock to Flow
Why Bitcoin culture is static
Why Bitcoin needs more satire
Bitcoin fees are 80-100x less than those of Ethereum
Why BTC fees are not sustainably high
Why Bitcoin fees and security budget need to grow over time
Can you just wait for more confirmations if security spend declines
Are fees destined to be effectively 0 through the creation of more blockspace?
The history of Drivechains /BIP300
Does merge mining make it more expensive to run a node?
Do we know how to upgrade Bitcoin Core today?
The relevance of sidechains and merge mining to Bitcoin today
Was Satoshi into altcoins?
Would more sidechain development have inhibited the growth of Ethereum?
Does BIP300 solve the problem of the Bitcoin security budget?
Why you can’t reduce blockspace to increase security budget?
Update on Drivechains

Content mentioned in this episode:

Truthcoin, Security Budget in the Long Run
Truthcoin, Security Budget II, Low Fees, and Merged Mining
Truthcoin, Measuring Decentralization
Truthcoin, Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work
All about Drivechains/ Bip300/301

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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Matt and Nic return for deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Fidelity's Wise Origin spot Bitcoin ETF is denied
Putin walks back the central bank ban on mining
NY isn’t processing BitLicense applications
Facebook is selling their IP being Diem/Libra to Silvergate
Ripple buys out their Series C Investors
Google’s cloud division makes a blockchain push
A DeFi protocol founder is revealed to be a former Quadriga executive
Are anonymous developers the future?
Ark comes out with their Big Ideas for 2022

Content mentioned:

Ark's Big Ideas 2022
Bloomberg, Putin Backs Crypto Mining Despite Bank of Russia’s Hard Line

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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Chris King, Founder & CEO of Eaglebrook Advisors, a digital assets SMA platform, join the show. In this episode, we discuss:

Eaglebrook’s Series A announcement
Chris’ path into the digital assets space and the origins of Eaglebrook Advisors
Crypto penetration in the RIA and asset management space
Inflection points in the market over the last couple years that have put a spotlight on solutions for RIAs and asset managers
Key parts of the SMA solution that offer advantages for end clients
Eaglebrook’s new product launches in 2022

To learn more about Eaglebrook visit their website.

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Will Peck, the head of digital asset at WisdomTree joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Will’s path to WisdomTree and how the firm began researching digital assets
How WisdomTree is approaching exchange traded products in the public blockchain ecosystem
Views on the Bitcoin futures ETF products vs. the proposed spot products
Views on the various Bitcoin ETF proposals and the prospects of an SEC approval in 2022
Views on tokenization of investment products
How ‘legacy’ asset management firms will face increased competition from digital asset early adopters

To learn more about WisdomTree visit their website.

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Matt and Nic return for a busy week of deals and news. In this episode:

We cover the witness selection for the House energy hearing on Bitcoin mining
The SEC goes to war with its employee union
The SEC rejects the Skybridge Bitcoin ETF proposal
GBTC is trading at a 30% discount
Walmart is building its own metaverse
Twitter rolls out NFT avis
Crypto dot com’s ad copy
We correct the record on Ari Juels’ Congresional testimony on PoW

Content mentioned in this episode:

Ari Juels' congressional testimony
The House Energy Committee's memo on Bitcoin mining
The House Hearing 'Cleaning up Cryptocurrency'

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com

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In this latest installment of the mining miniseries, Iris Energy cofounder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts joins us to talk through their approach to mining. In this episode:

How Dan came to work in mining
Backgrounds of the Iris executive team
Which thinkers influenced Dan in his Bitcoin journey
Why Iris focuses on sustainable energy and on only entering energy markets where they will not drive prices up for households
How Iris chooses geographies to operate
How Iris found abundant underutilized power in British Columbia
Why Iris’ entry to British Columbia actually drives down energy prices for regular households
Why Bitcoin mining has better location agnosticism than aluminum smelting or hydrogen production
How Bitcoin miners are more flexible loads than other datacenters
How Iris is geographically diversified in Canada, Texas, and Australia, and why geographic diversification is so important
How flexibility from Bitcoin mining replaces peaker plants burning fossil fuels
Why the oversupply of power is an issue for many power markets
Are Western miners being sufficiently responsible in finding low carbon energy sources
How Dan thinks about political risk at the state level
Can the world accommodate Bitcoin’s power consumption growth if the price goes up tenfold?
What plateauing efficiency gains for ASICs means for Iris
Why Iris doesn’t see itself as a pseudo Bitcoin ETF and does not seek to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Matt and Nic return for more deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Matt loses the podcast audio
New Turkey drama
Rep Emmer introduces a bill banning a retail focused CBDC
Nic releases a song with Gramatik
The story behind the Scribbler song
We investigate Fan Controlled Football
Paypal looks to build a stablecoin
Several banks issue the USDF stablecoin
Crypto-dollarization in Turkey
Why dollarization fails
Jack Dorsey starts a Bitcoin developer legal defense fund
Justin Sun is a Grenadan diplomat

Content mentioned

Nic's song with Gramatik, Just a Scribbler
WSJ, Turks Pile Into Bitcoin and Tether to Escape Plunging Lira

Sponsor notes:

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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House Representative Tom Emmer (R-MN) joins the show to share thoughts on his crypto policy agenda for 2022, as well as his views on inflation, MMT, stablecoins, and CBDCs. In this episode:

How Rep. Emmer came to be interested in public blockchains
Rep. Emmer’s interest in Austrian economics
How Rep. Emmer stays up to date with the industry
Are MMTers the establishment or an outsider group?
Is Washington dominated by covert MMT ideology?
Is fiscal conservatism dead in Washington?
Why Rep. Emmer voted for the CARES act any regrets he has
How the massive injection of cash in the last two years warped our economy
Is inflation driven by fiscal spending or corporate greed?
Is crypto inherently a partisan issue?
Rep Emmer’s concerns about a CBDC
Why the US should not take cues from China
Why CBDCs are not akin to physical cash
Why insisting that stablecoins need bank charters is deeply ironic
Problems with the Presidential Working Group’s guidance on stablecoins
Is crypto favorable or hostile to American interests?
What are Rep Emmer’s colleagues’ residual objections to crypto?
The purpose of Emmer’s Securities Clarity Act
Will the midterms alter Congress’ approach to the crypto industry?

Useful links:

Support the Emmer 2022 reelection campaign (crypto donations accepted)
Follow Rep. Emmer on Twitter
Emmer's cosponsored Securities Clarities Act (press release)
The Keep Innovation in America Act (press release)
About the Blockchain Caucus

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Matt and Nic return for more news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Everything is selling off
Is the US losing its status as global reserve?
We announce our policy miniseries
Sen. Lummis will reportedly propose a crypto bill
Opensea raising $300m at a $13b valuation
Illicit activity in 2021 was only 0.15% of total crypto volume
The Boston Fed CBDC pilot program rumbles on
Kazakhstan turns off the internet, and dims Bitcoin hashrate by 12%
NY State reproposes their bill to ban mining in the state
The National Credit Union Administration looks to ratify usage of crypto for its members
The House Energy and Commerce committee will hold a hearing on PoW
A group of environmentalist organizations sends a letter regarding PoW to congress

Content mentioned:

National Credit Union Administration, Relationships with Third Parties that Provide Services Related to Digital Assets
Letter to Congress from environmentalist groups regarding PoW

Sponsor notes:

Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Luxor COO and CPO Ethan Vera and Guzman Pintos join the show to talk about their relaunched data product, Hashrate Index and other trends in mining. In this episode:

The history of the firm
Why Luxor created the hashrate index
How Luxor gathers data on ASIC pricing and creates their time series charts
ASIC pricing dynamics
Are sell side analysts correctly pricing ASICs on the balance sheets of public miners?
Why different efficiencies of miners have traded differently in the last 2 months
How constraints on rack space affect the demand for older ASICs
Why so many ASICs can’t leave China
Is there still residual black market mining in China?
Kazakhstan’s under-reported mining crackdown
Are ASIC development cycles slowing?
Are miners still front-running their clients with prop mining?
Are Bitcoin miners trying to acquire Bitcoin or do they want to hedge their exposure
Are derivatives becoming more popular among miners?
The maturation of the Bitcoin mining derivatives market
Why prior hashrate derivatives haven’t worked
Multiple based analysis for public miners
Why there is a ‘public market arbitrage’ for miners
Why incentives exist for public miners to be highly acquisitive
Do miners care about long term fee budget?

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Nic and Matt return for the last episode of 2021. In this episode:

Someone makes an unauthorized Nic NFT
Microstrategy buys more BTC
Blake Masters sells a political NFT
Why do gamers and artists hate NFTs?
We look back at our 2021 crystal ball predictions
Best predictions of 2021
Our outlook for crypto policy in 2022
Our favorite OTB episodes of the year
We look back at the Token Daily 2019 crystal ball predictions
What it’s like to be in crypto for an entire decade
Midterm implications for the crypto industry
Our favorite OTB episodes of 2021

Content mentioned:

Tokendaily, 2021 Crystal Ball

Sponsor notes:

Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting
Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io

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Gabe Frank and Robert Masiello, the founders of Arcade, a financial services platform for NFTs join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Gabe and Robert’s origin stories in the crypto industry and the path that led them to founded Arcade
The similarities in the market structures for bitcoin in the early years and NFTs today
The role of MPC custody in the crypto markets
How they think about the various L1 chains that will host NFTs
The OTC trading landscape for NFTs
Peer to peer vs. peer to pool NFT lending models
How the lending market will evolve with great data / pricing functionality
The product roadmap for Arcade over the next year

To learn more about Arcade visit their website.

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto
This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.

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Matt and Nic return for a festive Christmas eve roundup. In this episode:

Reevaluating our intro song
Jack Dorsey’s web3 beef
What’s on our Christmas list
Is PoW inherently high-fee?
We steelman the Jack Dorsey and the pro web3 arguments
Is there a paradox in web3?
We advance a model of tapered token issuance for web3
The downsides of token issuance to early adopters
Is Liz Warren right about corporate greed causing inflation?
Radioshake releases a defi token
Is Bitcoin ownership too concentrated?
Bitcoin is dispersing while equities are concentrating
Will there be a revolt among the staffers at the SEC?

Content mentioned:

Nic Carter and Lucas Nuzzi in Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin's Proof of Work is Well Worth its Fees
Paul Vigna in WSJ, Bitcoin’s ‘One Percent’ Controls Lion’s Share of the Cryptocurrency’s Wealth

Sponsor notes:

 * Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto

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Anders Larson, head of strategic finance at U.S. Bitcoin Corp, joins us to talk about how miners make decisions and allocate capital. In this episode:

The Wharton class of 2018
Are Bitcoin miners clogging up the chip supply chain?
Why Bitcoin miners are 'tier 2' customers at foundries
The scale of US BTC operations in terms of hashrate
Why US BTC has been so quiet historically
How US BTC targets renewable energy
Which renewables are easiest to find
Is there any truth to the story of Bitcoin improving the economics of renewables?
Why ASIC depreciation is slowing, and how that affects the viability of different energy sources
The relationship between Bitcoin's carbon intensity and ASIC depreciation period
Can ASICs last for 5 years?
How does US BTC think about uptime on their units?
Why lower uptime means that you have cheaper power due to demand response
How US BTC thinks about hashrate growth and why they are more conservative than their competitors
Why Chinese hashrate is not completely eliminated
The state of affairs in Kazakhstan
How Anders thinks about political risk in mining
How policy logic informs selective mining bans and mining subsidies
How Anders sees miners vertically integrating with energy firms
How Anders thinks about proposed state bitcoin mining bans in places like NY
Why mining bans in the West are often counterproductive
The relationship between energy consumption and civilizational progress
How Anders thinks about the energy cost debate
Whether the CBECI hashrate distribution estimates are reliable
Why the US having a large share of hashrate isn't something to be concerned about
How mining could become a states rights issue
Does US BTC project fee growth in their models?

Sponsor notes:

Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io
This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

A glitch in the CoinMarketCap data feed causes disturbances in the crypto industry
AscendEX is hacked last week to the tune of $77 million
Coinbase urges the SEC to approve NYSE Arca’s application to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an exchange-traded fund
Bitwise launches a blue-chip NFT fund
A bipartisan group of Senators write a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen regarding the crypto provisions in the infra bill
The Myanmar government in exile official adopts Tether, while the Junta government de-dollarizes
Matt takes the giving pledge
The Open Markets Institute spreads a lot of FUD
Can the boys lift a 230 pound tungsten cube?

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Alex Wilson, co-founder and CEO of The Giving Block joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Alex’s path in the blockchain space, from consulting to founding The Giving Block
The landscape of charitable giving, and how the company is assisting charitable organizations
The pain points that charities face when accepting donations
Perspectives from the donor’s perspective and why donating cryptocurrency is so compelling
How the company came to launch its campaigns

To learn more about The Giving Block visit their website or follow the company on Twitter.

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto

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Matt and Nic return for deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Are cubes a suitable holiday gift?
Best crypto Xmas gifts
Bitcoin purchases we regret
The House Financial Services committee holds a hearing
Our Congressional hearing MVP
Brian Brooks' evolution
SBF kicks off shoegate
Takeaways from the House hearing
EOS holders reject a payment to Block One
Block One's weird pivot to Bitcoin
Greyscale says 26% of American adults own Bitcoin
Governance difficulties in Dfinity
Will SWIFT survive American sanctions on Russia
Impenetrable Sushiswap drama
Those landfill Bitcoins are still lost

Content mentioned:

Brian Brooks' testimony before the House Financial Services Committee
The Economist, The Explosion in Stablecoins Revives a Debate around 'Free Banking'
WSJ, Crypto, NFTs and Tungsten Cubes: A Guide to Giving Cash in 2021

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Matt Cutler, the founder and CEO of Blocknative joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Matt’s entrepreneurial history and path to founding Blocknative
How he came to see blockchain transaction data as a big opportunity for his company
How blockchain mempools work and why they are important
The types of customers that are monitoring blockchain network data and how this data is actionable
Matt’s views on blockchain scalability across L1s and Ethereum L2s
What is on the horizon for Blocknative

To learn more about Blocknative visit their website.

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic return for deals and news. In this episode:

Art Basel is now a crypto event
Is the crypto industry culturally relevant?
Jack Dorsey leaves Twitter
Will Twitter become more censored
Square renames itself Block
Celcius CFO is arrested
Fidelity launches a Bitcoin ETF in Canada
David Marcus is leaving Facebook
Regulatory projections from Cowen
BadgerDAO hacked

Content mentioned:

Cowen's analysis of the regulatory headwinds in crypto

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Galaxy Digital Mining Associate Brandon Bailey and Research Associate Karim Helmy join the show to cover a new accounting methodology for Bitcoin miners. In this episode:

Galaxy's new miner margins accounting methodology
Brandon and Karim origin stories in mining
How the randomness-based miner fingerprinting works
How Karim thinks about miner depreciation schedules
Why the Bitcoin e-waste paper understates the expected lifetime of Bitcoin ASICs
S9s are still a quarter of the Bitcoin network
Why Karim and Brandon created the new accounting framework
The differences between marginal, direct, and total cost of production for BTC miners
Does the sell side capably cover Bitcoin miners?
What you would expect to see for marginal and total cost of production for established Bitcoin miners
Why miners focus on marginal cost rather than total in their storytelling
Major bottlenecks preventing the addition of new hardware
Why hashrate may not converge to price in the near term
Why the chip shortage advantages incumbents in Bitcoin mining
Why Kazakhstan is scaling back their Bitcoin mining
Why mining manufacturers do not get priority access to the best foundry capacity
Why established miners will be able to mine Bitcoin at favorable rates for the near and medium term
Why of the accounting identities Galaxy would prioritize when evaluating public mining companies
How Galaxy arrived at a 3 year depreciation period for the average mining unit
What advice Brandon and Karim would give you public market analysts evaluating mining companies

See the full write up and sample model here.

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto
OurCrowd analyzes companies across the global private market, selecting those with the greatest growth potential, then brings them to you. Get started at OurCrowd.com/otb

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Coinbase acquires Breadwallet
El Salvador's Bitcoin City
Is El Salvador's Bitcoin Bond worth buying?
New merch on the website
Midwest tungsten releases a new shape
Is India banning crypto again?
Miners coming back online in China
The OCC, FDIC, and Fed will release cryptoasset guidance in 2022
Saule Omarova's nomination to run the OCC has fallen through
Jerome Powell will keep helming the Fed
Elizabeth Warren blames inflation on Big Poultry
ConstitutionDAO crashes and burns
Insider trading doesn't just apply to securities
Who we are thankful for

Merch: onthebrink.shop

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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We sit down with James McGinniss, CEO and Cofounder of David Energy to talk about Bitcoin's role in the energy transition and how Bitcoin mining is a useful source of flexible load for increasingly renewable grids. In this episode:

The fundamental change happening in the US grid today
What distributed energy resources are and why they are important
Why DERs are catching on in California
Why bitcoin allows load to move to supply
Why better metering improves the prospects for demand response
How demand response works nationwide
Why there's a fundamental tradeoff between uptime and power prices
Why Bitcoin is the best demand response resource
The prospects for other location agnostic load resources
Do better batteries obsolete Bitcoin mining as a grid balancer?
How David Energy is working with Bitcoin miners
Why Bitcoin miners should trade mining uptime for cheaper power
Are grid operators designing programs for bitcoin miners?
Why there's a longer tail of energy assets that miners should take advantage of

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt return for more news and deals of the week. In this episode:

ConstitutionDAO
Why you can't smelt tungsten
Breaking down the Keep Innovation in America Act
The SEC denies the Vaneck Bitcoin Trust
Crypto.com buys the naming rights to the Lakers arena
The US Marshalls are auctioning BTC seized from Bitconnect
Is Gerald Cotten deceased?
Load ze quantum FUD
Is David Chaum right about Bitcoin's quantum FUD?
What fraction of Bitcoins are quantum vulnerable?
Can stablecoins be rendered run-proof?
Sweden and Norway agitate against PoW
Why banning Bitcoin mining can be counter productive
What does the DAO do if they win the Constitution?

Content mentioned in this episode:

David Andolfatto, Run Proof Stablecoins
Derek Hsue and Larry Sukernik, I Pledge Allegiance

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Nic and Sean sit down with Kevin Anetsberger, General Manager at Midwest Tungsten, to cover their journey as a business and their entry into the crypto industry In this episode:

The history of Midwest Tungsten
How Midwest got its start making metal steam
Industrial applications of tungsten
Tungsten's physical properties and how that makes it suitable for industrial applications
Military applications of tungsten
Where Midwest Tungsten sits in the supply chain
How Tungsten is actually refined and formed, given that it's impossible to smelt
The upper limits to tungsten formed objects, and where the constraints derive from
Why a 14 inch cube is actually the largest size Midwest can actually make
How Kevin came to work in the tungsten industry
Where is tungsten mined?
Have the supply chain disruptions affected Midwest Tungsten
How Midwest Tungsten resisted offshoring
Why Midwest Tungsten began selling collectibles
Who has bought the cubes historically
Was this the largest spike in demand for the tungsten cubes ever?
How the company came to accept Bitcoin and make the NFT
Is Midwest Tungsten holding the Bitcoin they have earned in cube sales?
Is tungsten safe to handle?
Where Kevin falls on the cube vs sphere debate
What is the optimal cube size?
Why Midwest chose to sell the cube NFT
Other metals that Kevin likes
What about Osmium?

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

Circle launches an early stage venture fund
SEC targets American CryptoFed DAO LLC
The SEC references Nic's paper on DeFi risks
Should DeFi teams be more aggressive in disclosing admin key risks?
What would a DeFi disclosure regime look like?
BlockFi files for a spot Bitcoin ETF
Bitwise withdraws its futures-based ETF
NYC mayor Eric Adams says NYC schools should teach about cryptocurrency
Miami will airdrop BTC to residents
Inflation prints at 6.2% annualized
Why the 'supply chain' explanation for inflation obscures the underlying dynamics
Is inflation really a supply chain issue?
Real interest rates are as low as they were in the 1970s
Why we have entered monetary repression
Discord dithers on Web3
BrinkDAO
Could tungsten rods in space improve on nuclear weapons?

Content mentioned in this episode:

SEC, Statement on DeFi Risks, Regulations, and Opportunities
Michael Greenwald, The Digital Asset Olympics
21Shares, Q3 Report
Nic Carter and Linda Jeng, DeFi Protocol Risks

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Core Weave cofounder and CSO Brannin McBee joins the show to talk GPU mining and high performance computation. In this episode:

Details on the Core Weave's latest fundraise
Core Weave's hybrid data center model which combines Ethereum mining and generalized computation
Transitioning from just crypto mining to the specialized compute market
Why the hyperscale cloud providers aren't always suitable for firms with specialized computation needs
The nature and size of Core Weave's GPU and CPU fleet
How Core Weave services clients in VFX and rendering, machine learning, and blockchain
Why Core Weave was able to build a generalizable computational fleet
Why the demand for VFX/rendering-based compute is accelerating
How film studios are going from capital intensive on-prem computation to outsourcing it to cloud providers
How Core Weave is able to achieve a high utilization rate for their GPUs
How Core Weave is working on open sourcing GPT-3
Why you can't access scale compute at conventional providers
How Core Weave is managing Ethereum's transition to Proof of Stake
When Brannin expects the final merge to occur
How the market for GPU mining will change over time
How NFTs are a new source of demand for large-scale compute
Core Weave's attitude to Ethereum development
Did Ethereum move away from some of its original principles?
How proof of work was a strong distributive force during the early days of Ethereum
Are miners less positively inclined towards the network now that their business model has an expiration date?
Brannin's attitude towards MEV today
Brannin's thoughts on Ethereum's security model as it moves towards PoS
Does the abundance of capital make PoS more vulnerable than PoW?
Why diseconomies of scale for electricity procurement protected PoW networks
Why rendering PoW 'synthetic' in PoS makes it easier to pull off an attack
How Core Weave pursues sustainability in their operations

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt return for deals and news of the week. In this episode:

The President's Working Group report on Stablecoins comes out
Should stablecoins really require a bank charter?
Would a red wave in the midterms be good for the crypto industry
Two congressmen ask the SEC to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF
The TungstenDAO buys the Midwest Tungsten 14 inch cube
Where was the Neeraj kitchen photo taken
Tarantino is auctioning off uncut scenes from Pulp Fiction as NFTs
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez will take his salary in Bitcoin
Tungsten's industrial uses
Should you count native tokens as an asset on your balance sheet?

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Nikos Andrikogiannopoulos. the founder of Metrika joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Nikos’ journey to the blockchain industry and how we came to see the opportunity to found Metrika
How Metrika thinks about monitoring public blockchains for reliability and downtime
Perspectives on the common reasons that blockchains go down
Nikos’s perspective on the use cases that are driving blockchain adoption
How Metrika prioritizes the blockchain networks that it covers

To learn more about Metrika visit their website.

Sponsor content:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.
This show is supported by OurCrowd. Join the fastest growing venture capital investment community at OurCrowd.com/OTB

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Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode:

The SEC wants to regulate stablecoins
El Salvador buys 420 BTC
River launches a mining product
Direxion wants to launch a short BTC ETF
The FATF guidance isn't as bad as we thought it might be
Facebook is now Meta
Is 'the metaverse' going to stick around?
We unretire China FUD

Content mentioned:

The NFT Tax Guide
Coin Center, The long-awaited FATF crypto guidance is not as bad as it could have been, but still flawed
Nic in Bitcoin Magazine with Shaun Connell, Miners Are the Optimal Buyers

Sponsor notes

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Ray Cline, Lancium CTO, and Shaun Connell, EVP Power at Lancium, join the show. We cover the changing Texas grid, several models for renewable based mining, and how miners can serve as a controllable load. In this episode:

Personal backgrounds and crossing the threshold from energy to Bitcoin
Origins of Lancium
Features of Texas grid
Why Texas is so suitable for renewables
How Texas is the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of renewable generation
Why renewables grew so fast in Texas
Two reasons why prices reach negative prices
Three models for mining
- Grid connected with new gen miners
- Renewable colocation with new gen miners
- Off grid renewable colocation with old gen miners
How different ASIC vintages affect the power price you can tolerate for the units and what interruptibility they can deal with
ERCOT’s surplus renewable power
How the Texas grid is splitting in half
How Bitcoin is a ‘premium customer’ for energy assets
Why miners depreciate their miners over 4-5 years, and not 1-2 years as Digiconomist claims
Are energy producers aware of the importance of Bitcoin mining as an alternative energy buyer?
Introduction to Demand Response
What a Controllable Load Resource is and how Bitcoin miners uniquely satisfy the requirements
History of Controllable Load in ERCOT
Why controllable load is so useful to grid operators
Why Bitcoin miners can be flexible load, and why other industrial consumers of energy cannot
Why the economics of operating an interruptible load as a miner make sense
Are other grid operators looking to build programs for BTC miners?
Do Bitcoin miners decarbonize the Texas grid in the final analysis?
Will Bitcoin mining improve the reliability of the grid?

Sponsor notes:

This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic are back for a monster week of deals and news. In this episode:

CBOE acquires ErisX
FTX raises a monster round
Worldcoin launches with their eyeball scanner
The Proshares futures-based ETF goes live and sets a record
Why are futures-based ETFs expensive?
the Proshares ETF starts to max out its futures exposure
What will be the fate of GBTC?
Grayscale announces a $1b buyback of GBTC
Hester Peirce delivers another great talk
Tether settles with the CFTC
The academia-press complex
Diem launches a Novi stablecoin based on USDP
Why stablecoins are a frontier in the battle over financial privacy
Facebook leans hard into the metaverse
Tungsten takes over
Square makes ASICs
Why you shouldn't eat your tungsten cube
Will CMS intern be able to lift the 7 inch cube?

Content mentioned in this episode

Bloomberg, First Bitcoin ETF Is Already in Danger of Breaching a Limit on Futures Contracts
Hester Peirce speech at the Texas Blockchain Summit, Lawless in Austin

Sponsor notes

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Tom Chippas, the CEO of ErisX and Chris Isaacson, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Cboe Global Markets join the show. In this episode we discuss:

CBOE’s acquisition of ErisX
Details of the acquisition and the rationale for the deal
CBOE’s current and future plans in the digital assets industry
The market structure implications for the broader digital assets ecosystem and why this combination provides for a catalyst for broader institutional adoption
Views on the regulatory landscape and how CBOE and ErisX are approaching the market
Future products that may be on the horizon
Broader views on the spot market, and discussion of Matt Trudeau’s, “The Next Leg of The Crypto Trade”
The landscape for exchange traded digital asset products

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We had the pleasure of hosting NFT collector, Gmoney, on the show. He is a former equities trader turned NFT collector, educator, and expert. In this episode, we unpack the community, stories, and experiences Gmoney has amassed during his time in the NFT space and discuss the following: * Gmoney's "aha" moment about the massive supercycle taking place in digital goods * The shift in ownership and value accrual from the hands of a few investors to everyone interacting with crypto networks * Gmoney's first NFT experience that allowed him to use NFTs as collateral for, what was at the time, the largest on-chain loan * The factors that Gmoney considers in evaluating and investing in NFTs (above all, community) and more

This was an enlightening discussion that really opened our eyes to the impact NFTs will have on the industry. Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt are back for our 250th episode! We discuss:

ETF chatter heats up
Where the Tungsten memes come from
Why tungsten is good
Coinbase launches an NFT platform
Ribbon airdrop controversy
How DeFi airdrops are like the McDonalds monopoly game
Does the token industry need a disclosure framework?
Miami plans to pay employees in Bitcoin
Stripe is getting back into crypto
Jamie Dimon wants to know how it ends at 21 million
China's hashrate goes to virtually 0
The USA is the center of hash
We retire an old FUD

Content mentioned:

Jump Capital, Stablecoins: The Impending Rise of a Multi-Trillion Dollar Market

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime

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Mark Coe, the founder and CIO of Intrinsic Edge Capital Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Mark’s professional career and path to founding Intrinsic
How he came to see blockchain/crypto as an investable category
His personal journey on understanding the various blockchain thesis areas
How he thinks about the taxonomy of publicly traded companies in the blockchain space
How Intrinsic thinks about their research and investment process for long/short equity investing
The comparisons of blockchain technology to the early days of the internet

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt are back for more deals and news. In this episode:

Our podcast SNAFU
Can you wear a suit with sneakers
How to offset your Bitcoin emissions (without buying offsets)
Soc Gen asks Maker for a loan
Bloomberg's Tether bombshell
Are stablecoins like money market funds?

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
This show also supported by OurCrowd. Join the fastest growing venture capital investment community at OurCrowd.com/OTB

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Esteban Castaño, the cofounder and CEO of TRM Labs, joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

The founding story of TRM Labs and the methodical approach the team took to finding product market fit
Esteban’s perspectives on the NFT landscape and the growth potential in this category
How regulators and public sector clients are approaching blockchain forensics
How TRM is engaging with crypto native businesses and traditional financial services firms
Perspectives on building a remote first organization while maintaining a strong culture

To learn more about TRM Labs visit www.trmlabs.com

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic return for another week. In this episode:

Is fasting lindy?
Ripple's 250m NFT fund
Kraken reaches a $1.25m settlement with the CFTC
Could Ripple win their case against the SEC?
Wyoming gives a tax break to flare gas miners
Coinbase adds direct deposits to their platform
Should stablecoins be issued by banks?
China is tapped out of their Bitcoin FUD
Compound suffers an exploit
Bitcoin miners look at nuclear

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime

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In this episode, Chris Maurice, co-founder and CEO of pan-African crypto platform Yellow Card, joined us to talk about his background, the business, and the state of crypto adoption in Africa. The company's goal is to provide a seamless on and off ramp to anyone in Africa. We also discuss: * Yellow Card's recently announced fundraise * The diversity in culture, language, history, and economy across the 54 countries in the region and why Yellow Card is on a pan-African journey * The popular use cases for crypto in the region, including as a savings and transaction tool for individuals and businesses * The challenges Yellow Card faces in driving crypto adoption in the region and what the firm can do to address them * The details about Yellow Card's recent raise and the future of the company

Based on this conversation with Chris, it's clear that crypto provides fundamental utility beyond speculation in the region that rings true to the ethos on which this industry was built.

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Christian Dittmeier, cofounder and CEO of Evaluate Market joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

How Christian and his cofounders Alex and Cody came to find themselves spending their free time analyzing NFTs
The insight that led them to start Evaluate Market, a platform for discovering, search for, and evaluating NFTs
Christian’s perspective on the emerging taxonomy of NFTs and how Evaluate prioritizes the assets that it lists
The projects and categories of NFTs that Christian is most excited about

To learn more about Evaluate visit evaluate.market

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Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Latest on the infrastructure bill
The latest on the platinum coin
Zany things that financial regulators said this week
Gensler continues to misrepresent the free banking era
How bad was the wildcat banking era really?
Why are financial regulators so interested in free banking?
The SEC and CFTC are nearing the end of their fiscal year
The prospects for 'pipe to crypto'
Why miners are participating in 'demand response' programs
Matt's 20-year-old cereal
Twitter adds lightning tips and NFT authentication
Binance is under CFTC investigation
Biden's new OCC nominee is anti-bank, anti-crypto
FASB takes comment on GAAP treatment of digital assets

Content mentioned:

George Selgin on antebellum Free Banking

Sponsor notes:

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime
This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic return to recap a tumultuous week. In this episode:

Matt's ongoing war against the turkeys
Fidelity thinks the SEC should approve a spot ETF
The Futures based Bitcoin ETFs are nearing approval
The SEC stonewalling an ETF is a political choice
The OpenSea insider scandal
Elizabeth Warren's critiques of the industry get more and more specific and niche
Do we event want to know which tokens are securities according to the SEC?
Ripple is asking the SEC to compare them to Ethereum
Solana goes down for 17h
Our interaction with a blockchain fraudster
The NYT doesn't understand cryptography
Are Bitcoiners cosplayers?
The Epic games v Apple case has implications for the crypto industry

Content mentioned:

Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF presentation to the SEC on Sep. 8

Sponsor notes

This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime

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Matt and Nic are back for another week. In this episode:

El Salvador's bitcoin launch
Was the Chivo rollout really that bad?
Bukele buys the dip
Did El Salvador's bitcoin day cause a 20% selloff?
McDonalds supports lightning in El Salvador
SEC v Coinbase
Introducing the Reves test
Takeaways from the Miami Bitmain conference
What is the NFL planning with NFTs?
Oil majors are getting into bitcoin mining
Is flare gas the future?

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.
This show supported by Coinbase Prime, an integrated solution that provides advanced multi-venue trading, custody, and prime services for institutions. For more information see coinbase.com/prime

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We welcome Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen.ai to On the Brink to provide color on Nansen's unique approach to on-chain data and analysis. We discuss:

The evolution of Nansen from a wallet labelling tool to an end-to-end analytics platform
How Nansen provides actionable insights from its analysis of individual addresses, transactions, and contracts
Nansen's process to scale the collection of individual wallet level data over time
Specific ways end-users are leveraging Nansen to make data-driven NFT investments
And more broadly, the application of AI to the analysis of blockchain data

You can learn more about the company and its offerings at Nansen.ai and the company's YouTube channel.

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Nic and Matt are back for another week.

Patriots choose Mac Jones
Kanye releases Donda
Two year anniversary of OTB
The fate of the OTB lost episode
Matt's peculiar NFT acquisition strategy
What the hell is Loot
Punks weren't the first NFTs
Square is making a Bitcoin DEX
The SEC sues Bitconnect

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic return for another week. In this episode:

Nic sells an NFT to Von Miller
OnlyFans and financial inclusion
Visa buys a cryptopunk
Do stablecoins have a future outside of the banking sector?
The history of Choke Point and what it means today
Our merch supply chain issues
Tungsten talk

Content mentioned

Iain Murray's OTB appearance on Choke Point
Nic in Coindesk, OnlyFans Shows How the Banking System Is Politicized

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt are back for news and deals. In this episode:

Our current sentiment on the Senate infrastructure bill
The controversial Flipside/Uniswap portfolio
MIT's 2014 Bitcoin airdrop
Chainalysis' new data on Bitcoin adoption shows that it's a developing markets phenomenon
Is there a conflict between good stablecoins and a competitive market for stablecoins?
Are lossmaking stablecoins anti-competitive?
Gensler makes more noise about DeFi
The problem with futures-based ETFs

Content mentioned in this episode:

Bitmex's new Proof of Reserve/Liability
Nic in Bitcoin Magazine, The Bitcoin Energy Debate is a Modern Reprise of the Gold Resource Cost Debate
Chainalysis, The 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index
David Marcus on Medium, Good Stablecoins

Sponsor notes

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt return for more deals and news of the week. In this episode:

Where we stand on the Senate infrastructure bill
Is Bitcoin a bipartisan issue?
What the prospects for the House to change the language in the infrastructure bill?
The crypto lobby shows its teeth
Why is Bitcoin rallying in the presence of this bill?
What is Gensler cooking up for the crypto industry?
The Economist publishes a pair of critical articles on Bitcoin
Should stablecoins be regulated like banks
What's Tether's leverage ratio?
Is there a political Bitcoin bloc being formed?

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.
Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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Nic and Matt return for another week. In this episode:

Gensler makes a landmark speech
Gensler asks for a futures-based ETF
Will the crypto taxation in the infrastructure bill be sufficient to pay for the new spending?
What explains the 11th hour language in the infra bill?
When does the Bitcoin lobby become a meaningful voter bloc?
BSV gets 51% attacked

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.
Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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George Selgin, director of the Center of Monetary Alternatives at the Cato Institute joins the show to discuss Bitcoin, Free Banking, and stablecoins. In this episode:

Why George refers to Bitcoin as a synthetic commodity money
Why George was excited by the possibility for synthetic commodity money
What conditions would have to hold for Bitcoin to be considered money
Why money is a spectrum rather than binary
Are stablecoins prone to bank runs?
Is Tether's melange of underlying collateral sufficient?
How should stablecoins be regulated?
Why are regulators looking into stablecoins today?
Comparing stablecoins to Money Market Mutual Funds
Why money market funds broke the buck in 08
Are stablecoins as systemic as money market funds?
George's objections to Gorton and Zhang's paper on free banking and stablecoins
George's definition of free banking
Was the 1830s-60s period in the U.S. a period of genuine free banking?
The actual causes of bank failures in the pre-Civil War period
Why 'unit banking' was so fragile
What lessons can be taken from Canada's experience with free banking in that era
Why the history of Free Banking is a red herring in the stablecoin debate
George's recommendations for a primer on free banking
George's reflections on Hal Finney's reference to his work
Why bank failures are often the consequence of regulation

Content mentioned in this episode:

Selgin, Synthetic Commodity Money
The Alt-M Blog
Selgin, Money Free and Unfree
White, Free Banking in Britain
Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking
Dowd, The Experience of Free Banking
Gorton and Zhang, Taming Wildcat Stablecoins

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Warren's shadowy super coders
Was Digicash the first stablecoin?
Is TVL overrated?
Castle Island adds a new partner
An anti crypto rider inserted into the Congress infrastructure bill
Does taxation pay for government spending?
Goldman applies for a 'DeFi ETF'
Exxon looking at flare gas?
China's crackdown on big tech

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.
Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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We welcome Michel Rauchs, research affiliate and longtime contributor to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance which just released an update its Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index featuring new mining location data. Covered in this episode:

Why Michel returned to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance
The evolution of the CCAF's miner benchmarking efforts
The original motivation for the Bitcoin Energy Index
The relationship between the CCAF and Cambridge University
How to estimate energy consumption from hashrate figures
The meaning of the confidence interval in the electricity consumption figures
How CCAF amassed the CBECI mining map
Is the pool sample for the mining map representative?
Methodological drawbacks with miner location assessment
Why the CCAF is still reluctant to determine a carbon emissions figure for Bitcoin
New evidence regarding the seasonal hashrate migration
Is the Chinese crackdown going to lower the carbon intensity of the Bitcoin network?
Is country-level granularity sufficient to determine the energy mix of mining?
How the CCAF devised comparisons between the Bitcoin network and other consumers of energy
Does Bitcoin get held to a different standard than other industries?
Michel's experience talking to the press about Bitcoin energy consumption
Has the narrative changed in the press at all?
Michel's level of optimism regarding the decarbonization of Bitcoin mining

This episode supported by:

Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

We debate the merits of the Merritt parkway
We reflect on the B Word conference
SpaceX owns Bitcoin
We cover the Elonfolio
Gensler covers tokens giving synthetic exposure to underlying securities
Are stablecoins appropriately regulated?
Can stablecoins learn from the free banking era in the 1830s?
Is there a future for Ripple or Stellar as a bridge currency?
What's next for US CBDCs?

Content mentioned:

Gary Gensler's speech
Gerald Dwyer in AIER, What do Wildcat Banks tell us about Stablecoins?

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. Wherever your company is at, from pre-seed to IPO, we have tailored solutions just for you. To learn what our advisory, tax and audit services can do for you, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt are back for a sideways week. In this episode:

BlockFi's credit card comes out
How mesopotamian clay tablets are blockchains
Cambridge releases new data regarding bitcoin mining distribution
Shapeshift decentralizes itself
Can corporations successfully decentralize?
Elizabeth Warren writes a letter to the SEC
Larry Fink sees little demand for crypto

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. Wherever your company is at, from pre-seed to IPO, we have tailored solutions just for you. To learn what our advisory, tax and audit services can do for you, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt are back. In this episode:

Circle's SPAC filing
Circle's evolution over the year
The business model behind stablecoins
Circle's risk factor slides
The SEC is targeting centralized exchanges for trading unregistered securities
Senator Pat Toomey buys BTC and ETH
Matt tries out the Blockfi credit card
GBTC unlocks wrapping up this summer
Why are congresspeople allowed to trade financial assets?
Warren grumbles about crypto markets once again
Bullish exchange is SPACing
Fed vice chair Randal Quarles has some good takes on stablecoins and CBCS

Content mentioned in this episode:

Randal Quarles' speech
Circle's announcement on becoming a public company

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Anton Katz and Ethan Feldman, the cofounders of Talos join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Anton and Ethan’s path from roles at AQR and Broadway Technologies and into the world of cryptoassets
The problem they are seeking to solve for market participants
How the exchange and OTC liquidity landscape is evolving
How custodians and exchanges have evolved their offerings
The challenges of capital efficiency in the cryptoasset markets
What it was like to fundraise in a bear market
What is ahead for Talos

To learn more about Talos visit www.talos.com

Sponsor notes:

This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. Wherever your company is at, from pre-seed to IPO, we have tailored solutions just for you. To learn what our advisory, tax and audit services can do for you, visit withum.com/crypto.

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Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

A new twist in the turkey tale
Why airdrops historically haven't work
Sam Altman's eyeball-based cryptocurrency
Brady partners up with FTX
The FCA tangles with Binance
Nic's paper on DeFi risks
NYDIG deepens their bank partnerships
Mexico's bitcoin rebuke
Coinbase's aggressive new strategy
The Bitcoin Mining Council shares Q2 data

This episode supported by:

Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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Kinjal Shah of Blockchain Capital and Manasi Vora of Skynet Labs join us to discuss their recently launched investment DAO, KomorebiCollective. We discuss:

1) The motivation behind Komorebi and its mission to fund female and non-binary founders
2) The decision to structure the collective as a DAO
3) The cost, transparency, and speed benefits DAOs provide
4) What use cases DAOs are serving well today and could serve as they mature

To learn more about Komorebi, you can visit their website and apply for funding.

Sponsor notes:

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.

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Matt and Nic are back for another rocky week in the markets. In this episode:

Our thoughts on the Chinese mining situation
Is Sichuan being spared the crackdown?
Why Bitcoin's hashrate may not recover for a while
Why China is cracking down on mining now
How China's ultra-high voltage transmission is affecting mining policy
How is miner selling influencing price?
Our remaining China grey swans
Our theories on the relationship between price and hashrate
The SEC settles another ICO from 2017
Our analysis of the NYDIG/ core banking provider integrations
Why social graph portability is so important
Taleb writes a bad bitcoin paper
Bitcoin still has a GBTC overhang

Content mentioned in the episode:

Nic in Coindesk, Go West, Bitcoin! Unpacking the Great Hashrate Migration
NYDIG/FIS press release
Rebuttals to Taleb's paper on Bitcoin

This episode supported by:

Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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Hunter Horsley, the co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Bitwise’s recent $70M Series B fundraise and how he approached building a roster of unique investors
Views on what is driving interest in cryptoasset products
Decentralized Finance and how Bitwise is approaching constructing products to enable exposure to this part of the market
NFTs and how Hunter contextualizes this segment of the market

To learn more about Bitwise visit www.bitwiseinvestments.com. Follow Hunter on Twitter @HHorsley

Sponsor notes:

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.

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Nic and Matt return for deals and news of the week. In this episode:

What's the biggest story with Bukele that isn't being covered?
Is Bukele motivated by a sanctions threat from the US?
Will Salvadorians use the Lightning Network?
How Bitcoin elevates heads of state in the popular consciousness
Nic's paper on DeFi protocol risks
The SEC's year-ahead agenda has no mention of Bitcoin
The NY anti-mining bill fails
The World Bank joins the IMF in spurning El Salvador
Is the Salvadorian law a 'forced tender law'?

Content mentioned:

Max Raskin in the WSJ: A Global First: Bitcoin as National Currency

This episode supported by:

Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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In our second OTB AMA, we field questions from Brink Nation. In this episode:

What other countries are good candidates to ratify Bitcoin next?
What are the prospects for DeFi on Bitcoin?
Is price to hashrate a viable ratio to use to value bitcoin?
Will other countries follow El Salvador's lead in light of the pushback from the IMF?
Who will win Euro2020?
Are ransomware attacks good because they will get directors to add Bitcoin to corporate balance sheets "just in case"?
Will users eventually hold their bitcoin through banks?
What is missing to make lightning workable?
Why do people allocate energy cost pro rata across bitcoin transactions?
Matt's turkey update
Stablecoin yields as an attractive product for corporate treasuries?
Why doesn't bitcoin just increase the block size?
Our takes on DAOs
What govt action could turn bitcoiners into dissidents?
Our proposed improvements for twitter spaces

Sponsor notes:

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.

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Nic and Matt are back and recovered from an insane Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. In this episode:

Our lost roundup from last week
Our reflections on Bitcoin 2021
Nic reacts to his spaces with President Bukele
El Salvador accepts Bitcoin
The story behind the 25k attendee Twitter space
Does the Salvadorian law change the accounting treatment for Bitcoin in the US?
President Bukele's geothermal
Where else is the Bitcoinización likely to happen?
A new non-aligned movement
The Bitcoin Bloc
MSTR's new bond offering
Basel changes the rules for bank regulatory capital regarding Bitcoin
Liz Warren attacks Bitcoin
The Bitcoin political demographic grows

Content:

Recording of Nic's spaces room with President Bukele (and 25,000 others)

This episode supported by:

Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

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Chris Blec is a researcher and the founder of DeFi Watch, a project dedicated to identifying points of centralization and risk factors in DeFi, in particular the presence of admin keys. In this episode:

How Chris got interested in DeFi
How he first noticed the risk of admin key usage
The changing nature of admin keys and multisigs
Whether project multisigs reduce dependence on trust
Why worry about Admin keys in the first place?
Have DeFi projects improved their key management and trustlessness over time?
Chris' letter to 0xPolygon
Chris' plans with DeFi Watch
Should Bitcoiners care about DeFi? About admin key failures?
Why transparency is a self-regulatory measure

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.

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Jeff Kirt and Ted Rogers, CEO and board director of Greenidge Generation LLC respectively, join the show to discuss the Greenidge plant and Bitcoin mining operation in upstate New York. In this episode:

The origins of Greenidge
Why Ted Rogers chose to join the Greenidge board
How Atlas/Greenidge converted their NY plant from coal to natural gas
Ted's retrospective on the Segwit 2x drama in the context of the Crypto Mining Council
How US-based mining has a lower carbon intensity than global miners at large
Why Greenidge decided to offset their CO2 emissions and how they went about procuring them
How natural gas has a much lower carbon intensity than coal
Why banning Bitcoin in NY would actually raise the carbon intensity of Bitcoin
How the energy debate ultimately comes down to the societal merit of Bitcoin
How Greenidge sent 60% of their 2020 generated energy to the grid
How Bitcoin mining has allowed Greenidge to run continuously and better contribute to grid stability
Demystifying concerns about the trout habitat
Has Greenidge fielded inquiries from mining firms looking to leave China?

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Matteo Leibowitz of Uniswap and Eric Stone of Flipside Crypto join the show. In this episode we discuss:

Uniswap v3 and how it differs from v2 and other AMMs
Broader implications of Uniswap v3 for DeFi
Uniswap v3 metrics and how the system is being used today
Uniswap treasury and grant program
How Flipside is engaging with Uniswap and other DeFi communities

Follow Teo on Twitter @teo_leibowitz and learn more about Uniswap at Uniswap.org. Follow Eric on Twitter @theericstone and learn more about Flipside Crypto at flipsidecrypto.com.

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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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Andrew Steinwold, the founder of Sfermion, an investment fund focused on investing in themes surrounding the metaverse joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Andrew’s journey in the cryptoasset industry and how we came to see the Metaverse as an investable theme
How NFTs are a critical infrastructure component for the metaverse
Views on the evolution of digital property rights
How Andrew views investing in cryptocurrencies vs. NFTs vs. equity
The companies that are best positioned to build the infrastructure for the metaverse

To learn more about Andrew follow him on Twitter @AndrewSteinwold and subscribe to his newsletter, Zima Red.

Today’s episode is brought to you by:

Aave: Aave is a decentralised, 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.

Copper: Copper is the global provider of blockchain infrastructure solutions for institutional investors who are actively trading digital assets. Head over to www.copper.co/clear-loop to learn more.

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Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

43% capital gains taxes?
Are decentralized storage networks reaching fruition
Binance US hires ex-Comptroller Brian Brooks
Matt's Turkey problem
A Turkish exchange apparently exit scams
Scott Minerd has a new target for Bitcoin
Bernstein isn't worried about Bitcoin's energy consumption
Ark Invest thinks Bitcoin is an incentive for renewables
How much did Bitcoin hashrate really collapse?
What did we learn from the Xinjiang shutdown?
Why hashrate is hard to estimate
Xinjiang is more renewable than you think

Content mentioned in this episode:

Alliance Bernstein, Is Bitcoin ESG Friendly for Equity Investors?
Square and Ark Invest, Bitcoin is Key to an Abundant, Clean Energy Future [pdf]

This episode supported by:

Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin
Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

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Nick Neuman, the CEO of multisig software provider Casa, joins the show to discuss how to harden your Bitcoin custody setup. In this episode:

Nick's own journey to Bitcoin and to becoming CEO of Casa
Casa's design philosophy
The merits of native multisig on Bitcoin
Casa's decision to stay Bitcoin-only
Nick's experience raising capital as a Bitcoin-only startup
Is it easier to be a Bitcoin-only startup today?
How complicated is multisig?
Why Casa recommends the usage of multiple brands of hardware wallets
Why self-custody matters
Nick's vision for the future and how private keys will power the decentralized web
Nick's responses to common criticisms of Casa
The purpose of Casa's new subaccounts feature

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.

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Nic and Matt return for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

Nic's feud with the NYT
How Lysenkoism fits in
Issues with the contemporary press
Coinbase does the biggest direct listing of all time
Is COIN a trojan horse for Bitcoin?
Coinbase mafia?
The best thing about Coinbase being public
Gary Gensler finally confirmed as SEC chairman
Our thoughts on Hester Pierce's token safe harbor 2.0
How do you do disclosures in token land?
The former CIA director points out that Bitcoin has less illicit usage then believed

Content mentioned:

SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce's Safe Harbor 2.0
Nic Carter, On Bitcoin, the Gray Lady Embraces Climate Lysenkoism

This episode is brought to you by Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin.

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Dmitry Tokarev, the cofounder and CEO of Copper joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Dmitry’s path to crypto and the pain points that led him to starting Copper
How Dmitry sees the competitive landscape and how legacy financial firms are reacting
How MPC enables Copper to quickly add support for new blockchain platforms
Views on what it’s like to hire in a rapidly growing startup
Outlook for settlement and custody services in the years to come

To learn more about Copper and Clearloop visit: www.copper.co

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The Block's Director of Research Larry Cermak and Research Analyst Mike Rogers join the show to talk through their latest report on stablecoins. In this episode:

Why the Block chose to focus on stablecoins for this report
Larry and Mike's opinion on why stablecoins are so disproportionately dollar-based
China's influence in the Tether market
The history of Tether and why it attained so much traction initially
How you can determine the location of stablecoin users
The Tetherification for offshore exchanges – and how it displaced Bitcoin as the reserve asset
The influence of USDC in DeFi and whether it represents a systemic risk to the sector
Dai's transition to non-native collateral types
Mike and Larry's view of algorithmic stablecoins
Why stablecoins are so divisive between economists and crypto entrepreneurs
Why Tether's dominance is declining
Where the NYAG settlement leaves Tether now
What Larry makes of USDT on TRON stealing some market share from Ethereum
Why investors are settling deals in stablecoin terms
The prospects for Libra/Diem
Mike and Larry's expectations for the next decade in stablecoins

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