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

• Damien Hirst’s physical NFT project 
• Why you need a bridge between the physical and the digital world for certain NFTs 
• Why physical NFTs provide advantages to collectors and brands
• Libra/Diem spawns Aptos and Sui
• Coinbase is under SEC investigation 
• Pat Toomey criticizes the SEC
• What is in the bipartisan stablecoin bill? 
• Squabbles over Voyager’s Chapter 11 plan 
• The UK inches towards recognizing cryptocurrency as property
• More 3AC shenanigans 
• How 3AC was and wasn’t like LTCM 
• 3AC liquidators will try to force cooperation 
• Tether reduces their commercial paper holdings 
• Matt starts a Tether conspiracy 
• Harmony mulls a post-hack bailout

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Coin Metrics state of the network 165
• Nic on Medium, Redeem-and-retain NFTs are the future of luxury goods
• FS Vector, Stablecoin Legislation Update 
• UK Law Commission: Digital Assets Consultation Paper

Check out this episode!

Itai Turbahn and Yoni Goldberg, the founders of Dynamic join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Itai and Yoni’s professional journey to starting Dynamic
• How Dynamic is addressing wallet based authentication
• Views on how standards will evolve in the blockchain ID category
• The evolution of decentralized identifiers
• The types of businesses that are early adopters for wallet-based logins

To learn more about Dynamic visit their website and follow them on Twitter.

Check out this episode!

(Reuploaded, fixed audio)

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

• Inert ETH from the crowdsale?
• Why the credit crunch is like the European panic of 1772
• Should we bring back full-liability banks?
• Are Bitcoiners wrong to reject fractional reserve banking?
• 1000 pages of 3AC intrigue 
• Genesis had 2.6b gross exposure to 3ac
• The 3AC blockchain .com transcripts
• More 3AC shenanigans are revealed
• Secret exchange insolvencies
• Coinbase insider trading scandal
• The SEC regulates by enforcement
• Gensler is getting a lot of heat
• Is the bottom in?
• What is MVRV telling us right now?
• What is the issue with ETH yield being related to MEV?
• Can MEV be addressed?
• Paul Krugman admits he was wrong about inflation
• Christie’s launches a venture arm

Content mentioned:

• Nic in Coindesk, The Credit Crunch is not the End of Crypto Lending
• SEC insider trading complaint
• Coinbase blog post on the SEC
• Paul Krugman, I was wrong about inflation

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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

• Stablecoin actives outpace blue chip crypto
• Why is Tether on Tron so popular?
• Is H E Justin Sun willing to deploy $5b in acquisitions
• Celsius files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
• KeyFi is suing Celsius
• Are DeFi business models going to have to change?
• Where do tokenholders fall in the capital stack?
• Three Arrows are not cooperating with liquidation
• 3AC liquidators reportedly fail to exercise the Starkware token warrant
• Blockchain.com report a loss from 3AC
• New lenders admit losses from 3AC
• Circle further clarifies their reserve assets
• Was Taibbi’s USDC FUD legit?

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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

• USDC gains ground on USDT
• Stable liquidity is sticky
• Why fiat-backed stables are still more censor resistant than bank deposits
• Do stablecoins make L1s unforkable
• Will the emergence of crypto prime brokers pressure crypto yields?
• Voyager files for Chapter 11
• Should investors also be clients of lending firms they invest in?
• Circle’s origins as a spot crypto broker
• 3AC files for Chapter 15
• Genesis confirms they had 3AC exposure and DCG absorbed the losses
• EU agrees on tentative MiCA regulation
• MiCA avoids the PoW ban
• Did the EU write model stablecoin regulation?
• The WSJ pushes back at Gary Gensler on the spot BTC ETF
• The SEC’s double standard in metal ETFs versus a BTC ETF

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Dave Balter and Jim Myers, the founders of Flipside Crypto join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• The early insights that led to the launch of Flipside Crypto
• Current market conditions and how Dave compares that to the dot com era
• The proliferation of NFTs and how the SaaS market will change as a result of this technology
• How Flipside prioritizes new blockchains
• ShroomDK, Flipside’s latest product release

To learn more visit www.flipsidecrypto.xyz

Check out this episode!

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: 

• Nic on Medium, Setting the Record Straight

Sponsor notes:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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Blake King, power markets engineer at Galaxy, formerly of Oak Ridge national lab and ERCOT, joins us to talk about how changing grids are accommodating an influx of load from Bitcoin miners. In this episode: 

• Why the grid is undergoing a radical transformation today
• Blake’s background in electrical engineering, power system modeling, and renewable development
• The origin of Blake’s papers on bitcoin mining and the grid
• Bitcoiner misconceptions about mining?
• Why Bitcoin is not a battery
• Why you can’t just arbitrarily add load to the grid
• Why Bitcoin mining does not generally increase energy prices during scarcity or peak load
• Why rational actors curtail or sell power during scarcity events
• Are grid planning models correctly estimating the risk of furloughing thermal generation?
• Is it possible to make the green energy transition as currently envisioned?
• Why renewable generation requires more transmission
• How renewable generation costs are increasingly upfront as compared to thermal generation
• Are bitcoiners overrating the importance of controllable load?
• Why Bitcoin miners may be over ambitious in terms of modeling ancillary service payments
• Are ancillary markets going to increase in size with more renewable generation?
• Economic demand response versus formal ancillary services
• Different types of ancillary services products
• Why load resources are able to bid out thermal generation in ancillary services markets
• How exactly Bitcoin miners get signals to curtail their load during scarcity events
• Does being a load resource imply ‘voluntary’ curtailment?
• Why miners owe it to the grid operator to be transparent in their breakeven price and operating plans
• How weather in Texas could affect block arrival times in Bitcoin
• Why the commodification of ASICs would increase the integration of the renewable energy sector and bitcoin mining
• Why ERCOT hit the pause button on the addition of new mining loads
• ERCOTs level of sophistication around Bitcoin mining
• Will miners toggle between Bitcoin, green hydrogen, and other location-agnostic uses of power?
• Do the economics of green hydrogen make sense relative to BTC mining?

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Bitcoin Mining and the Grid, Part I and Part II

Intro and outro used with permission: Ocarina #968

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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:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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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:

Check out this episode!

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:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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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:

• Subscribe to the Coin Metrics State of the Network newsletter

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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“

Check out this episode!

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

Check out this episode!

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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