On The Brink with Castle Island

Latest Episodes:

Weekly Roundup 08/13/21 (More Infra Bill Chaos, an emerging Bitcoin Bloc, the crypto lobby shows up) (EP.236) Aug 13, 2021

Show notes

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

Weekly Roundup 08/06/21 (Infra Bill Chaos, Gensler's Speech, BSV 51% attack) (EP.235) Aug 06, 2021

Show notes

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

George Selgin (Cato Institute) on Stablecoins, Bitcoin, and Free Banking (EP.234) Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

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.

Weekly Roundup 07/30/21 (Shadowy super coders, Goldman's DeFi ETF, is TVL overrated?) (EP.233) Jul 30, 2021

Show notes

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

Michel Rauchs (Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance) on quantifying Bitcoin's energy use (EP.232) Jul 26, 2021

Show notes

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

Weekly Roundup 07/22/21 (The B Word, SpaceX owns Bitcoin, Stablecoins and Wildcats) (EP.231) Jul 23, 2021

Show notes

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.

Weekly Roundup 07/16/21 (New mining data, Shapeshift decentralizes, are clay tablets proto blockchains?) (EP.230) Jul 16, 2021

Show notes

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:

Weekly Roundup 07/09/21 (Circle is going public, SEC targets exchanges, the Bullish SPAC, good takes on stables from the Fed) (EP.229) Jul 09, 2021

Show notes

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

Anton Katz and Ethan Feldman on Trading Infrastructure in Cryptoassets (EP.228) Jul 05, 2021

Show notes

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:

Weekly Roundup 07/02/21 (Eyeball based coins, why airdrops don't work, the Mining Council shares data) (EP.227) Jul 02, 2021

Show notes

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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