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On The Brink with Castle Island

On The Brink with Castle Island

Castle Island Ventures

Hosts Matt Walsh and Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures explore news and deals in the public blockchain space and talk to some of the leading experts in the industry. Learn more and stay up to date at CastleIsland.vc and follow on twitter @CastleIslandVC

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Top 10 On The Brink with Castle Island Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best On The Brink with Castle Island episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to On The Brink with Castle Island for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite On The Brink with Castle Island episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

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:

Sponsor notes:

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On The Brink with Castle Island - Zac Prince (BlockFi) on Navigating Through the Storm (EP.329)
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06/24/22 • 37 min

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

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On The Brink with Castle Island - Jared Nusinoff (Mash) on Remonetizing the Internet with Lightning (EP.285)
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02/14/22 • 43 min

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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On The Brink with Castle Island - Jon Kol and Asa Oines (Abacus) on the Third Era of Interoperability (EP.319)
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05/16/22 • 65 min

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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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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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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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:

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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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 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:

Sponsor notes:

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FAQ

How many episodes does On The Brink with Castle Island have?

On The Brink with Castle Island currently has 579 episodes available.

What topics does On The Brink with Castle Island cover?

The podcast is about Investing, Podcasts, Technology and Business.

What is the most popular episode on On The Brink with Castle Island?

The episode title 'Weekly Roundup 05/20/22 (Terra aftershocks, El Salvador’s Bitcoin summit, Tether's redemption crisis) (EP.320)' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on On The Brink with Castle Island?

The average episode length on On The Brink with Castle Island is 45 minutes.

How often are episodes of On The Brink with Castle Island released?

Episodes of On The Brink with Castle Island are typically released every 3 days.

When was the first episode of On The Brink with Castle Island?

The first episode of On The Brink with Castle Island was released on Sep 17, 2019.

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