On The Brink with Castle Island

Latest Episodes:

Chris Maurice (Yellow Card) on Stablecoin Adoption in Africa (EP.641) Jul 02, 2025

Show notes

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

Bernardo Bilotta (Stables Money) on Stablecoin Fintech in APAC (EP.640) Jun 30, 2025

Show notes

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

Weekly Roundup 06/27/25 (Bitcoin for mortages, Fiserv adopts stables, Fed drops reputation risk) (EP.639) Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

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?

Josh Frank (The Tie) on Crypto Market Intelligence (EP.638) Jun 26, 2025

Show notes

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.

Luca Prosperi (M0) on a Universal Stablecoin Platform (EP.637) Jun 23, 2025

Show notes

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