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

• BlockFi’s risk management disclosures
• BlockFi fee schedule
• FT: Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows fails to meet lender margin calls

Check out this episode!

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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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:

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Nic and Matt are back for a truly chaotic week in the markets. In this episode: 

• Is DeFi’s transparency a vice? 
• We reconsider the need for a lender of last resort? 
• We debrief on Consensus
• How will the Celsius situation resolve?
• Fidelity doubles down on digital assets
• Is the Fed trapped by inflation? 
• Was the Celsius situation foreseeable? 
• Where does the next marginal buyer come from? 
• Another crypto lender goes down 
• Class action lawsuit launched against Binance US
• Circle is launching Euro coin 
• Bill Gates dances on our grave 

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• All Falls Down, by Nic Carter and Allen Farrington [pdf]
• On Impossible Things Before Breakfast, by Nic Carter, Allen Farrington, and Ross Stevens 

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Nic and Matt are back for news and deals of the week. In this episode: 

• Greetings from a very hot Consensus in Austin
• Our takeaways from the Lummis/Gillibrand bill
• What the NY state mining moratorium means for miners
• The Central African Republic lays out its plans for Project Sango
• Custodia Bank is suing the Fed for sitting on their master account application
• Binance fires back at Reuters
• We break down a NY Times article on early bitcoin mining
• NYDFS issues new standards for NY-regulated stablecoins
• Were the inflation truthers correct about CPI metrics?

Sponsor notes:

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The original roundup cast return for a covid-stricken episode. In this roundup: 

• The boys are laid low with Covid (again!)
• Nic recounts his visit to Norwegian parliament
• Nic recaps the Oslo Freedom Forum
• Are we on the brink of L2 summer?
• Former Opensea PM is arrested on wire fraud/insider trading charges
• Is there an insider trading standard for non-securities?
• Korean prosecutors summon all Terraform Labs staff
• Biden admin looks to lower the emissions footprint of Bitcoin
• Two ways for the US Government to lower the emissions of Bitcoin
• Does banning an asset make it worth less?
• Do we need net neutrality for power?
• OneRiver’s ETF application is denied
• How the SEC can unlock $6b worth of value to Bitcoin investors
• Crypto firms settle in for winter
• Fidelity Digital Assets is doubling their headcount
• Nic’s affiliate merch scandal

Sponsor notes:

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Andrew Cahill and Saurabh Deshpande of The Block join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• The Ethereum L2 ecosystem
• The varying scaling solutions and views on the communities with traction
• Views on native tokens being launched on these platforms in 2022
• Optimistic rollups
• ZK rollups

Learn more by reading the report, “Layer-2 Scaling Solutions: A Framework for Comparison“

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Matt returns with CMS Holdings’ Dan Matuszewski, filling in for Nic, covering deals and news of the week. In this episode: 

• Bitcoiners brief Norwegian policymakers
• History of the BitLicense
• Circle’s physical BitLicense
• a16z raises a massive $4.5b fund
• The effect of VC dry powder on crypto startups
• Can crypto catch a bid until macro calms down
• Adam Neumann is back with a blockchain startup
• FTX attends a heated CFTC roundtable
• Arthur Hayes gets house arrest and probation
• Why certain Tether holders will never redeem
• An unlikely winner from Tether concerns
• Does shorting Tether make sense?
• Fallout from Terra’s collapse
• Are algostables going to exist forever
• CMS’s Super Pac and reflections on conversations in Washington
• SBF announces his intention to spend $1B on the 2024 election
• Scott Minerd is very bearish on Bitcoin
• What on earth is HEX
• ETH Merge concerns

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Ric Edelman, the founder of Edelman Financial Services and the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Ric’s new book The Truth About Crypto
• His journey in the digital assets industry
• The current macro backdrop and how cryptoassets should be considered in a portfolio
• Views on the RIA market and how the crypto discussion is evolving
• The regulatory landscape, including views on the DoL, SEC and Elizabeth Warren
• How the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals is evolving

Links mentioned on the show:

• The Truth About Crypto on Amazon
• DACFP
• Twitter: @ricedelman (Ric); @thedacfp (DACFP);

Check out this episode!

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: 

• World Bank, The ascent of crypto assets: Evolution and macro-financial drivers

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Mark Lamb, co-founder and CEO of CoinFLEX joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Mark’s entrepreneurial path in the cryptocurrency industry and the insight behind starting CoinFLEX
• The history and market landscape for crypto derivatives platforms
• The state of the stablecoin market and how flexUSD is positioning for USA launch
• The regulatory environment and how this is impacting trading venues and stablecoin issuers.

To learn more visit coinflex.com and follow Mark on Twitter

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Matt and Nic cover news and deals of the week. In this episode: 

• The CIV hat snafu
• Was synthetic USD on Bitmex the first stablecoin? 
• Remembering Mastercoin and seigniorage shares stablecoins 
• Does the Fed have a shadow third mandate? 
• We break down the Luna situation and why it was destined to fail 
• Why the subsidized yields on Anchor were the biggest mistake 
• Likely fallout from the Luna collapse 
• The Terra blockchain is halted 
• Do we actually need algorithmic stablecoins? 
• SBF acquires a stake in Robinhood 
• Is the Twitter sale to Elon under threat? 

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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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 

Check out this episode!

Nic and Matt return for news and deals of the week. In this episode:

• Matt’s takeaways from the Medici conference 
• The rapid growth of ZKPs
• We review Brink Nation posts on GM
• We look back at the history of the FUD dice 
• Are tungsten dice possible? 
• Big thunderstorm in Miami 
• Is the crypto industry sitting out the recession? 
• We consider the merits of virtual real estate 
• Does proximity matter in the metaverse? 
• Metaverse land rights and NIMBYism 
• The Bitcoin Mining Council letter to the EPA and what motivated it
• Ohio’s primary yields an entirely pro-crypto field 
• CBOE acquires ErisX
• Goldman takes out a Bitcoin-collateralized USD loan
• Jane Street dives into DeFi 
• The SEC doubles the size of its cyber unit 
• CA issues an EO on the crypto industry
• The Dept. of Labor criticizes Fidelity for their Bitcoin 401k product
• The IMF criticizes the Central African Republic’s adoption of Bitcoin 
• The divergence between public and private valuations in crypto and equities, and why they can’t always be arbitraged away

Content mentioned: 

• Prominent Bitcoiners’ letter to the EPA to respond to Rep. Huffman’s letter 

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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TeraWulf cofounder and CEO Paul Prager joins us to talk about his experience building a vertically-integrated, zero carbon Bitcoin miner. In this installment of the mining miniseries we cover: 

• Paul’s career trajectory from coal trading to energy infrastructure to Bitcoin
• Beowulf’s deal with Marathon and their entry into Bitcoin
• How TeraWulf distinguishes itself from other Bitcoin miners
• Why TeraWulf has an explicit ESG focus
• Zero carbon and how that differs from ‘carbon neutral’
• The importance of being vertically integrated
• How Paul thinks about the halvings and how that affects their business
• TeraWulf’s facility in upstate NY
• Paul’s views on NY State’s approach to Bitcoin mining
• How the Bitcoin mining industry struggles with proactive messaging
• TeraWulf’s 300 MW nuclear-powered facility in Pennsylvania
• Why Bitcoin is synergistic with nuclear power
• The prospects for nuclear bitcoin mining
• TeraWulf’s zero-carbon approach and how that manages risk
• TeraWulf’s plans for growing their hashrate under management
• The characteristics that TeraWulf looks for in new sites
• Will Bitcoin miners develop better transparency around emissions data?
• Why mining is so useful for decarbonization through curtailment programs
• The convergence between the energy sector and Bitcoin mining
• Why vertical integration and zero carbon will prevail in Bitcoin mining long term
• Trends in consolidation Paul expects
• Why vertical integration allows you to manage your risk better than a hosting model
• What public market analysts should be doing when they evaluate miners

Follow Paul on Twitter and learn more about TeraWulf. 

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Adam Jackson, co-founder and CEO of Braintrust, a web3 talent network joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Marketplace business models and how web3 models will improve on web2 dynamics
• How Adam came to the insight to launch Braintrust and how the platform works
• The regulatory environment in the United States and how Adam sees web3 evolving over time
• Other marketplace categories where Adam sees opportunities for community owned networks
• Adam’s view on the venture landscape and how that has evolved over time.

To learn more about Braintrust visit usebraintrust.com and follow Adam on Twitter @AdamJacksonSF  

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Matt and Nic are back with news and deals of the week, joined by Dave Gray, Head of Workplace Retirement Offerings and Platforms at Fidelity Investments, who joins us to talk about Fidelity’s new Bitcoin 401(k) product. In this episode: 

• Are airdrops taxable?
• CheckTemplateVerify drama in Bitcoin
• Central African Republic apparently adopts Bitcoin as legal tender
• NY State Assembly passes a bill banning Bitcoin mining with fossil fuels
• Fidelity adds Bitcoin to 401ks
• Will deep deplatforming on the internet influence Twitter?
• Can you actually open source the Twitter algorithm?
• Is the Twitter purchase an indirect way for Musk to liquidate his Tesla position?

Learn more about Fidelity’s 401(k) plans here

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Longtime Bitcoiner Bruce Fenton re-joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Bruce’s career and the events that led him to discovering Bitcoin
• Bitcoin’s social layer and how Bruce has managed to stay close to the project through so many chapters of the journey
• His view on the tokenization of securities and why he is so optimistic on this technology
• Why Bruce decided to run for Senate and what issues he is fighting for
• Views on big tech, the future of the U.S. dollar and more
• His outlook for Bitcoin friendly regulation

See Bruce’s prior episode here.

To learn more about Bruce visit brucefenton.com and visit Bruce on Twitter @BruceFenton

Check out this episode!

Pat Larsen, founder and CEO of crypto tax prep company ZenLedger, joins the show for a timely discussion on how investors should be thinking about taxes this tax season. In this episode: 

• The outlook for crypto taxes in 2022
• Tax accounting for specific transactions
• Clarifications and improvements to tax regulation

ZenLedger provides a platform that makes it easy for users to aggregate transactions across centralized and decentralized venues and measure their crypto tax impact. The team published a helpful guide on nft related taxes.

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• The OTB music debate rages on
• Nic survives Covid
• Should we bring back dueling?
• Ancient altcoin dramas
• Coinbase launches NFTs
• Elon has financing to buy Twitter
• Product suggestions for Twitter
• The US sanctions Russian miners BitRiver
• Is Russia remonetizing gold?
• Australia gets a spot BTC ETF
• North Korean hackers are active in crypto

Sponsor notes: 

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

Check out this episode!