On The Brink with Castle Island

Latest Episodes:

Ray Youssef (Paxful) on building the world's largest Bitcoin p2p market (EP.109) Aug 05, 2020

Show notes

Ray Youssef, founder and CEO of Paxful, joins the show to talk his journey with Paxful and his mission to bring Bitcoin to Africa. Paxful is a wholly bootstrapped startup that has recently taken the crown as the largest Bitcoin p2p marketplace in the world with $2.1B in annualized volume. Ray is from Egypt and has always sought to bring Bitcoin to Africa. Today, Africa is the 2nd most active region by volume on the platform (behind North America). In this episode:

Why Bitcoin p2p is so popular in Africa
Why interstate settlements in Africa are so challenging today
Ray's predictions about p2p volume versus centralized volume
Why p2p exchange data is more reliable than centralized exchange volume
How Ray went from being homeless to founding the largest p2p Bitcoin exchange
Why KYC in emerging markets is so challenging
How Ray went through 11 failed startups before starting Paxful
The downside of taking venture financing and why Paxful is better off without it
Why western startups fail when they try and get involved in African markets
Why African users are under-served by KYC providers like Jumio or Onfido
Why Paxful has KYC
How the Paxful remittance flow works with gift cards
Whether Paxful users are retail or wholesalers
Why Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana are popular on Paxful
Why Ray focused on Africa for Paxful
How Ray found his way to New Orleans after Katrina
The genesis of Ray's humanitarian project to build schools in Africa

Paxful is hiring!

How Canaccord Genuity is approaching the cryptoasset market (EP.108) Aug 03, 2020

Show notes

Michael Graham and Pat McEvoy of Canaccord Genuity join the podcast to discuss how their firm has approached the blockchain/cryptoasset sector. In this episode we discuss:

Michael's perspective on blockchain/cryptoassets from his role as Head of Equity Research at the firm. We discuss how blockchain technology could alter the landscape of the dominant internet companies of our era
Pat's perspective on the maturation of cryptoassets and the increased participation of institutional participants in the trading of these assets
Where Pat and Michael see the biggest opportunities and how Canaccord is positioning their blockchain strategy

To learn more about Canaccord visit their website.

Weekly News Roundup 07/31/20 Feat. John Collins of FS Vector (The OCC letter, Plustoken apprehended, Bitcoin's patronage system) (EP.107) Jul 31, 2020

Show notes

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week, featuring John Collins, partner and cofounder of FS Vector, to cover the OCC letter and its implications. Covered in this episode:

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

Jesse Walden (Variant) on the Crypto Ownership Economy (EP.106) Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

Jesse Walden, founder of Variant joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

Jesse's journey in the crypto industry, from founding Mediachain, to being an investor at A16Z, to founding Variant
The crypto ownership economy and how Jesse sees the evolution of consumer software
Crypto projects through the lens of contract theory

Learn more and follow Jesse at www.variant.fund and follow him on Twitter @Jessewldn

Weekly News Roundup 07/24/20 (the bombshell OCC letter, the custodian gold rush, Ampleforth mania) (EP.105) Jul 24, 2020

Show notes

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week. Covered in this episode:

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

Sam Wyner and Sal Ternullo (KPMG) on making blockchain data intelligible for institutions (EP.104) Jul 22, 2020

Show notes

Sam Wyner and Sal Ternullo, cryptoasset services co-leads at KPMG, join the show to talk about KPMG's newly-released analytics capabilities dubbed Chain Fusion. Chain Fusion is a patent pending suite of advanced analytics capabilities built on leading cryptoasset data and infrastructure products, to streamline the ability for financial services companies, FinTechs, and organizations across industries to deliver institutional quality cryptoasset capabilities and services. In this episode:

KPMG's historical engagement with the crypto industry
How audit/consulting firms are engaging with crypto financial institutions
The choice to have a crypto specific team at KPMG (rather than simply focusing on blockchain)
The reason why formal financial statement audits for crypto companies are not occuring in the US today
Why an asset taxonomy from regulators matters to auditors
What Chain Fusion is and what it's designed to solve
The intersection of Chain Fusion and Proofs of Reserves for exchanges
Why audit standards still don't take into account the notion of cryptographic signatures to prove ownership of an asset
Why the FATF travel rule is so difficult to implement

Check out the press release for Chain Fusion which provides a high-level overview of the accelerator suite and contact information to get in touch with Sam and Sal.

Learn more about KPMG's Blockchain initiatives to explore recent thought leadership including Cracking Crypto Custody which describes four pillars for winning institutional crypto custody models.

Nate Maddrey (Coin Metrics) on the rise of stablecoins (EP.103) Jul 20, 2020

Show notes

Nate Maddrey, senior research analyst at Coin Metrics, joins the show to discuss a recent report published by CM in collaboration with Bitstamp, The Rise of Stablecoins. We talk through the report and analyse some of the charts in depth. In this episode:

Why the auditability of public blockchains is so useful for evaluating stablecoins
Why fiat backed stablecoins have different price dynamics from 'native crypto collateral' backed ones
How the arbitrage growth cycle works for fiat-backed stablecoins
What the distribution of ownership and addresses for USDT tells us
Liquidity for USDT versus USDC and BUSD
Distinguishing stablecoins based on median transfer value
Stablecoins as wholesale rather than retail value transfer networks
What velocity of stablecoins relative to bitcoin and ether tells us

Weekly News Roundup 07/17/20 feat. Alex Treece (Twitter is hacked, social media property rights, fintech meets crypto) (EP.102) Jul 17, 2020

Show notes

Matt and Nic review the stories of the week, featuring special guest Alex Treece, president and cofounder of Zabo. Alex joins the show to discuss his report covering the intersection of fintech and cryptocurrency. Also in this episode:

We gripe about the SaaSification of the world and the loss of genuine ownership
Whether the Bitcoin hero's journey requires a private blockchain digression
The boys argue about the merit of soccer
We talk Twitter hack scenarios
Why the Twitter hackers had to use Bitcoin
Social media handles as property
Grayscale's blockbuster quarter
Abra settles with the SEC
We cover the theory that individual bitcoins don't actually exist

Caitlin Long (Avanti Financial Group) on Bitcoin banks and the Wyoming SPDI (EP. 101) Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Avanti Financial Group, joins the show. Caitlin is a thinker and writer we admire a huge amount and she has done a monumental job with her advocacy for responsible custody practices among crypto depository institutions. She is one of the key architects of the Wyoming Special Purpose Depository Institution legislation which establishes a new form of crypto bank in Wyoming. In in no small part thanks to her efforts that Wyoming is the most progressive state in terms of defining and regulating digital assets and the institutions that custody them. We share Caitlin's enthusiasm for clarifying depositor exchange relationships and for public-facing proofs of reserve, so we were very excited have her on the show. Covered in this episode:

Risks involved in complying with the FATF's travel rule
How the FATF enforces its recommendations
Why compliance burdens freeze out small and community banks
How the $10k limit for disclosure for cash transactions increases the scope of transactions that should be disclosed in real terms
How the Bank Secrecy Act and the third party doctrine means the government can procure warrantless financial data
Caitlin's Bitcoin origin story
The thawing of the gold community's sentiments towards bitcoin
The tension inherent in the institutionalization of bitcoin
Why Proofs of Reserves aren't more popular today
The importance of distinguishing ownership of a key and a legal title
Why users are poorly equipped to hold exchanges accountable
Why the state by state regulation in the US doesn't suit the reality of crypto custodians
How the Wyoming SPDI legislation got started
What the Wyoming SPDI laws actually mean
How Avanti got its name
Caitlin's long term objectives with Avanti
Why banking remains the achilles heel of the crypto industry
Why existing banks might not be able to handle future growth of the crypto industry
How the FDIC targeted the crypto industry
Why custodians should have access to the Fed window
Caitlin's pitch to entrepreneurs to move to Wyoming

Weekly News Roundup 07/10/20 (More cryptodollars, the FATF explained, Coinbase IPO rumblings) (EP.100) Jul 10, 2020

Show notes

Matt and Nic cover the top stories of the week. In this episode:

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

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