Bennett Collen and Stephanie Howard (Endstate) on building a web3-native fashion brand (EP.346)
Ria and Nic from Castle Island sit down with Stephanie Howard and Bennett Collen, cofounders of Endstate, a web3 footwear and fashion brand. We cover the merits of the redeem-and-retain NFT model and the vision for Endstate. Bennett’s prior crypto startup and how he decided to unite his passion for sneakers with web3 How Bennett […]
Weekly Roundup 09/02/22 feat. Kyle Waters (Merge priced in, Roche and Ava Labs, Will Dai float freely?) (EP.345)
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 […]
Weekly Roundup 09/09/22 (Stablecoin wars, White House energy report, Gensler attacks) (EP.347)
Matt and Nic return for news and deals of the week. In this episode: Nic’s shoe problem Web3 merch for OTB? The White House releases a report on crypto asset energy usage Why the US should encourage mining within its borders Coinbase is funding a lawsuit against OFAC Binance is converting USDC into BUSD on […]
Dan Mottice (Ansible Labs) on Building the Offramp for Web3 (EP.348)
Dan Mottice, CEO and Co-Founder of Ansible Labs, joins the show to talk about a new payment gateway for web3. Dan’s personal background and how he ended up in financial services The Visa Network, Visa Direct Payouts and Visa Crypto Ansible Labs’ raise and what’s ahead Off-ramps and why they matter North stars in fintech […]
David Hoffman (Bankless) on Everything About the Merge (EP.349)
Bankless’ David Hoffman joins Matt and Nic for a special episode to cover Ethereum’s highly-anticipated Merge. In this episode: How David came to Ethereum and the Bankless origin story The story behind the Bankless DAO Whether David would ever consider focusing on other blockchains What could cause David to abandon Ethereum The Coinbase OFAC filtering […]
Steven Goldfeder (Offchain Labs) on Building Arbitrum (EP.351)
Steven Goldfeder is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Offchain Labs, the team building Arbitrum. In this episode we discuss: Steven’s academic background, and his work at Princeton University. BlockSci, an early blockchain forensics/search product that Steven co-founded. The evolution of MPC custody and the exciting developments in that category. The Flash Boys 2.0 paper and […]
Weekly Roundup 09/16/22 (Merge makes it, Chainalysis crypto adoption report, Starbucks NFTs, Coinbase grades Congress) (EP.350)
Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode: The Merge takes place without incident Will the Merge silence Ethereum critics on the left? Will the ESG narrative around crypto get louder? FTX takes a stake in Skybridge Castle Island is not an island If you make an NFT of […]
OTB Live! Weekly Roundup 09/23/22 (EU’s MiCA regulation finalized, XRP lawsuit, SEC dings Balina, Audience Q&A) (EP.352)
Nic and Matt sit down for a special live recording of OTB in front of an audience at the Boston Blockchain Week. In this episode: Ian Balina is dinged by the SEC for Sparkster The SEC’s weird argument for standing over all of Ethereum Is XRP a prediction market on Ripple’s case against the SEC […]
Christine Kim (Galaxy Research) on the merge and what comes next (EP.353)
In this episode, Christine Kim from Galaxy Research joins us to discuss the Ethereum Merge and prospects for future protocol development: Reactions to the merge and network changes that flew under the radar Finding a focus area in core protocol development on Ethereum EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals) on the near-term horizon Threats to decentralization and […]
Sergey Gorbunov (Axelar) on Blockchain Interoperability (EP.354)
Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Sergey’s path to founding Axelar His views on blockchain interoperability and the design decisions of Axelar The different approaches to interoperability that are being attempted in the industry Views on DeFi composability and the role of privacy on public blockchains The L1/L2 […]