In our second episode in the web3 music mini-series, we spoke with Matthew Chaim, musician and founder of Songcamp and other projects at the intersection of music and web3. We cover how Matthew thinks about:

• Helping artists gain control over their creative output
• Collective creation and re-imagining the role of fans
• Optimizing for resonance versus reach with music NFTs
• Discoverability in music NFTs and ways to democratize curation

And much more. We also recommend reading Matthew’s writing on these topics at chaim.mirror.xyz.

Intro and outro track: OmgKirby Genesis #326

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Matt and Nic return for a huge week of news and a big CIV announcement. In this episode: 

• Matt scans the Coinbase QR code ad
• The post-Superbowl backlash against crypto ads
• Is there any hope for music NFTs
• Castle Island announces a third fund
• Binance buys a stake in Forbes
• Is Circle a bet on interest rates?
• Our thoughts on BlockFi’s settlement with the SEC
• Does the SEC’s BlockFi settlement create a regulatory moat for larger lenders?
• What happens to DeFi in the wake of the BlockFi settlement?
• Canada weaponizes all financial services against truckers and donors
• Miners are once again active in Inner Mongolia – with a catch
• The etymology of tantalizing

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Bloomberg, Castle Island announces Third Fund
• CIV on Medium, Announcing Castle Island Ventures III 
• Hester Peirce, Statement on Settlement with BlockFi Lending LLC

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

• Fidelity’s Wise Origin spot Bitcoin ETF is denied
• Putin walks back the central bank ban on mining
• NY isn’t processing BitLicense applications
• Facebook is selling their IP being Diem/Libra to Silvergate
• Ripple buys out their Series C Investors
• Google’s cloud division makes a blockchain push
• A DeFi protocol founder is revealed to be a former Quadriga executive
• Are anonymous developers the future?
• Ark comes out with their Big Ideas for 2022

Content mentioned: 

• Ark’s Big Ideas 2022
• Bloomberg, Putin Backs Crypto Mining Despite Bank of Russia’s Hard Line

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

• Kraken brings back PoR
• Bitfinex hack money launderers are arrested
• The long history of Bitfinex, hacks, Recovery rights, Tether, and LEO
• Who is entitled to the recovered BTC from the Bitfinex hack?
• The NY Fed attacks stablecoins, and private banknote issuance
• Ottawa truckers are banned from Gofundme
• Are US Treasuries backing stablecoins stranded liquidity?
• Why central bankers attack stablecoins to promote CBDCs

Content mentioned: 

• NY Fed, The Future of Payments is not Stablecoins

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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In this episode, Kraken chief product officer Jeremy Welch joins the show to cover Kraken’s newly announced Proof of Reserve procedure. In this episode: 

• Why bring back PoR?
• What distinguishes today’s proof of reserve from the procedure Kraken undertook back in 2015
• Why haven’t exchanges done PoR historically?
• What Kraken’s PoR actually proves to depositors
• The role of Armanino in Kraken’s PoR
• What happens when a depositor verifies their PoR
• How Kraken protects user privacy in PoR
• The trustlessness of the PoR procedure
• What regulators can gain from a PoR
• How Kraken clients can benefit from PoR
• How Jeremy expects other exchanges to react

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

See more on Kraken’s PoR here

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• Tom Brady retires to focus on NFTs
• Was Satoshi interested in altcoins?
• Our thoughts on startups raising 69.420m
• The Solana-Ethereum bridge is hacked for over $300m– and then bailed out by Jump Capital
• Was Vitalik’s warning about cross-chain interoperability prophetic? 
• Is the cross-chain vision dead?
• Kraken revives their Proof of Reserve – after 7 years
• Why do exchanges avoid Proof of Reserves?
• Bitcoin developers at the MIT DCI are building the Boston Fed’s CBDC pilot program
• How whaling was the predecessor to venture capital
• Gamestop launches an NFT marketplace

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• MIT News, MIT experts test technical research for a hypothetical central bank digital currency
• Bloomberg, Biggest Texas Bitcoin Miner Shuts Down Ahead of Cold Blast
• Bloomberg Quicktake, This State is Becoming America’s Crypto Capital
• Kraken, Proof of Reserves

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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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: 

• Truthcoin, Security Budget in the Long Run
• Truthcoin, Security Budget II, Low Fees, and Merged Mining
• Truthcoin, Measuring Decentralization
• Truthcoin, Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work 
• All about Drivechains/ Bip300/301

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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Will Peck, the head of digital asset at WisdomTree joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Will’s path to WisdomTree and how the firm began researching digital assets
• How WisdomTree is approaching exchange traded products in the public blockchain ecosystem
• Views on the Bitcoin futures ETF products vs. the proposed spot products
• Views on the various Bitcoin ETF proposals and the prospects of an SEC approval in 2022
• Views on tokenization of investment products
• How ‘legacy’ asset management firms will face increased competition from digital asset early adopters

To learn more about WisdomTree 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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Matt and Nic return for a busy week of deals and news. In this episode: 

• We cover the witness selection for the House energy hearing on Bitcoin mining
• The SEC goes to war with its employee union
• The SEC rejects the Skybridge Bitcoin ETF proposal
• GBTC is trading at a 30% discount
• Walmart is building its own metaverse
• Twitter rolls out NFT avis
• Crypto dot com’s ad copy
• We correct the record on Ari Juels’ Congresional testimony on PoW

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Ari Juels’ congressional testimony
• The House Energy Committee’s memo on Bitcoin mining 
• The House Hearing ‘Cleaning up Cryptocurrency’

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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In this latest installment of the mining miniseries, Iris Energy cofounder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts joins us to talk through their approach to mining. In this episode: 

• How Dan came to work in mining
• Backgrounds of the Iris executive team
• Which thinkers influenced Dan in his Bitcoin journey
• Why Iris focuses on sustainable energy and on only entering energy markets where they will not drive prices up for households
• How Iris chooses geographies to operate
• How Iris found abundant underutilized power in British Columbia
• Why Iris’ entry to British Columbia actually drives down energy prices for regular households
• Why Bitcoin mining has better location agnosticism than aluminum smelting or hydrogen production
• How Bitcoin miners are more flexible loads than other datacenters
• How Iris is geographically diversified in Canada, Texas, and Australia, and why geographic diversification is so important
• How flexibility from Bitcoin mining replaces peaker plants burning fossil fuels
• Why the oversupply of power is an issue for many power markets
• Are Western miners being sufficiently responsible in finding low carbon energy sources
• How Dan thinks about political risk at the state level
• Can the world accommodate Bitcoin’s power consumption growth if the price goes up tenfold?
• What plateauing efficiency gains for ASICs means for Iris
• Why Iris doesn’t see itself as a pseudo Bitcoin ETF and does not seek to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet

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

• Matt loses the podcast audio
• New Turkey drama
• Rep Emmer introduces a bill banning a retail focused CBDC
• Nic releases a song with Gramatik
• The story behind the Scribbler song
• We investigate Fan Controlled Football
• Paypal looks to build a stablecoin
• Several banks issue the USDF stablecoin
• Crypto-dollarization in Turkey
• Why dollarization fails
• Jack Dorsey starts a Bitcoin developer legal defense fund 
• Justin Sun is a Grenadan diplomat 

Content mentioned

• Nic’s song with Gramatik, Just a Scribbler
• WSJ, Turks Pile Into Bitcoin and Tether to Escape Plunging Lira

Sponsor notes: 

• Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Learn more at fireblocks.com
• Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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House Representative Tom Emmer (R-MN) joins the show to share thoughts on his crypto policy agenda for 2022, as well as his views on inflation, MMT, stablecoins, and CBDCs. In this episode: 

• How Rep. Emmer came to be interested in public blockchains
• Rep. Emmer’s interest in Austrian economics
• How Rep. Emmer stays up to date with the industry
• Are MMTers the establishment or an outsider group?
• Is Washington dominated by covert MMT ideology?
• Is fiscal conservatism dead in Washington?
• Why Rep. Emmer voted for the CARES act any regrets he has
• How the massive injection of cash in the last two years warped our economy
• Is inflation driven by fiscal spending or corporate greed?
• Is crypto inherently a partisan issue?
• Rep Emmer’s concerns about a CBDC
• Why the US should not take cues from China
• Why CBDCs are not akin to physical cash
• Why insisting that stablecoins need bank charters is deeply ironic
• Problems with the Presidential Working Group’s guidance on stablecoins
• Is crypto favorable or hostile to American interests?
• What are Rep Emmer’s colleagues’ residual objections to crypto?
• The purpose of Emmer’s Securities Clarity Act
• Will the midterms alter Congress’ approach to the crypto industry?

Useful links: 

• Support the Emmer 2022 reelection campaign (crypto donations accepted) 
• Follow Rep. Emmer on Twitter
• Emmer’s cosponsored Securities Clarities Act (press release)
• The Keep Innovation in America Act (press release)
• About the Blockchain Caucus

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

• Everything is selling off
• Is the US losing its status as global reserve?
• We announce our policy miniseries
• Sen. Lummis will reportedly propose a crypto bill
• Opensea raising $300m at a $13b valuation
• Illicit activity in 2021 was only 0.15% of total crypto volume
• The Boston Fed CBDC pilot program rumbles on
• Kazakhstan turns off the internet, and dims Bitcoin hashrate by 12%
• NY State reproposes their bill to ban mining in the state
• The National Credit Union Administration looks to ratify usage of crypto for its members
• The House Energy and Commerce committee will hold a hearing on PoW
• A group of environmentalist organizations sends a letter regarding PoW to congress

Content mentioned: 

• National Credit Union Administration, Relationships with Third Parties that Provide Services Related to Digital Assets
• Letter to Congress from environmentalist groups regarding PoW

Sponsor notes:

• Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting

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Luxor COO and CPO Ethan Vera and Guzman Pintos join the show to talk about their relaunched data product, Hashrate Index and other trends in mining. In this episode: 

• The history of the firm
• Why Luxor created the hashrate index
• How Luxor gathers data on ASIC pricing and creates their time series charts
• ASIC pricing dynamics
• Are sell side analysts correctly pricing ASICs on the balance sheets of public miners?
• Why different efficiencies of miners have traded differently in the last 2 months
• How constraints on rack space affect the demand for older ASICs
• Why so many ASICs can’t leave China
• Is there still residual black market mining in China?
• Kazakhstan’s under-reported mining crackdown
• Are ASIC development cycles slowing?
• Are miners still front-running their clients with prop mining?
• Are Bitcoin miners trying to acquire Bitcoin or do they want to hedge their exposure
• Are derivatives becoming more popular among miners?
• The maturation of the Bitcoin mining derivatives market
• Why prior hashrate derivatives haven’t worked
• Multiple based analysis for public miners
• Why there is a ‘public market arbitrage’ for miners
• Why incentives exist for public miners to be highly acquisitive
• Do miners care about long term fee budget?

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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Nic and Matt return for the last episode of 2021. In this episode: 

• Someone makes an unauthorized Nic NFT
• Microstrategy buys more BTC
• Blake Masters sells a political NFT
• Why do gamers and artists hate NFTs?
• We look back at our 2021 crystal ball predictions
• Best predictions of 2021
• Our outlook for crypto policy in 2022
• Our favorite OTB episodes of the year
• We look back at the Token Daily 2019 crystal ball predictions
• What it’s like to be in crypto for an entire decade
• Midterm implications for the crypto industry
• Our favorite OTB episodes of 2021

Content mentioned:

• Tokendaily, 2021 Crystal Ball 

Sponsor notes: 

• Corporations and institutions can allocate cash into Circle Yield to gain crypto lending exposure and earn superior returns compared to traditional markets. It’s secured, overcollateralized and built on the leading dollar digital currency. Visit circle.com/yield to book a meeting
• 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

Check out this episode!

Gabe Frank and Robert Masiello, the founders of Arcade, a financial services platform for NFTs join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Gabe and Robert’s origin stories in the crypto industry and the path that led them to founded Arcade
• The similarities in the market structures for bitcoin in the early years and NFTs today
• The role of MPC custody in the crypto markets
• How they think about the various L1 chains that will host NFTs
• The OTC trading landscape for NFTs
• Peer to peer vs. peer to pool NFT lending models
• How the lending market will evolve with great data / pricing functionality
• The product roadmap for Arcade over the next year

To learn more about Arcade visit their website.

Sponsor notes:

• This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit  withum.com/crypto
• This episode supported by Public.com. Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/onthebrink to download the app and sign up.

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Matt and Nic return for a festive Christmas eve roundup. In this episode: 

• Reevaluating our intro song
• Jack Dorsey’s web3 beef
• What’s on our Christmas list
• Is PoW inherently high-fee?
• We steelman the Jack Dorsey and the pro web3 arguments
• Is there a paradox in web3?
• We advance a model of tapered token issuance for web3
• The downsides of token issuance to early adopters
• Is Liz Warren right about corporate greed causing inflation?
• Radioshake releases a defi token
• Is Bitcoin ownership too concentrated?
• Bitcoin is dispersing while equities are concentrating
• Will there be a revolt among the staffers at the SEC?

Content mentioned: 

• Nic Carter and Lucas Nuzzi in Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin’s Proof of Work is Well Worth its Fees
• Paul Vigna in WSJ, Bitcoin’s ‘One Percent’ Controls Lion’s Share of the Cryptocurrency’s Wealth

Sponsor notes: 

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