Anton Katz and Ethan Feldman, the cofounders of Talos join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Anton and Ethan’s path from roles at AQR and Broadway Technologies and into the world of cryptoassets
• The problem they are seeking to solve for market participants
• How the exchange and OTC liquidity landscape is evolving
• How custodians and exchanges have evolved their offerings
• The challenges of capital efficiency in the cryptoasset markets
• What it was like to fundraise in a bear market
• What is ahead for Talos

To learn more about Talos visit www.talos.com

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. Wherever your company is at, from pre-seed to IPO, we have tailored solutions just for you. To learn what our advisory, tax and audit services can do for you, visit withum.com/crypto.

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

• A new twist in the turkey tale
• Why airdrops historically haven’t work
• Sam Altman’s eyeball-based cryptocurrency
• Brady partners up with FTX
• The FCA tangles with Binance
• Nic’s paper on DeFi risks
• NYDIG deepens their bank partnerships
• Mexico’s bitcoin rebuke
• Coinbase’s aggressive new strategy
• The Bitcoin Mining Council shares Q2 data

This episode supported by: 

• Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

Check out this episode!

Jeff Kirt and Ted Rogers, CEO and board director of Greenidge Generation LLC respectively, join the show to discuss the Greenidge plant and Bitcoin mining operation in upstate New York. In this episode: 

• The origins of Greenidge
• Why Ted Rogers chose to join the Greenidge board
• How Atlas/Greenidge converted their NY plant from coal to natural gas
• Ted’s retrospective on the Segwit 2x drama in the context of the Crypto Mining Council
• How US-based mining has a lower carbon intensity than global miners at large
• Why Greenidge decided to offset their CO2 emissions and how they went about procuring them
• How natural gas has a much lower carbon intensity than coal
• Why banning Bitcoin in NY would actually raise the carbon intensity of Bitcoin
• How the energy debate ultimately comes down to the societal merit of Bitcoin
• How Greenidge sent 60% of their 2020 generated energy to the grid
• How Bitcoin mining has allowed Greenidge to run continuously and better contribute to grid stability
• Demystifying concerns about the trout habitat
• Has Greenidge fielded inquiries from mining firms looking to leave China?

Check out this episode!

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another rocky week in the markets. In this episode: 

• Our thoughts on the Chinese mining situation
• Is Sichuan being spared the crackdown?
• Why Bitcoin’s hashrate may not recover for a while
• Why China is cracking down on mining now
• How China’s ultra-high voltage transmission is affecting mining policy
• How is miner selling influencing price?
• Our remaining China grey swans
• Our theories on the relationship between price and hashrate
• The SEC settles another ICO from 2017
• Our analysis of the NYDIG/ core banking provider integrations
• Why social graph portability is so important
• Taleb writes a bad bitcoin paper
• Bitcoin still has a GBTC overhang

Content mentioned in the episode: 

• Nic in Coindesk, Go West, Bitcoin! Unpacking the Great Hashrate Migration
• NYDIG/FIS press release
• Rebuttals to Taleb’s paper on Bitcoin

This episode supported by: 

• Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

Check out this episode!

Hunter Horsley, the co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Bitwise’s recent $70M Series B fundraise and how he approached building a roster of unique investors
• Views on what is driving interest in cryptoasset products
• Decentralized Finance and how Bitwise is approaching constructing products to enable exposure to this part of the market
• NFTs and how Hunter contextualizes this segment of the market

To learn more about Bitwise visit www.bitwiseinvestments.com. Follow Hunter on Twitter @HHorsley

Sponsor notes: 

• Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

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

• What’s the biggest story with Bukele that isn’t being covered?
• Is Bukele motivated by a sanctions threat from the US?
• Will Salvadorians use the Lightning Network?
• How Bitcoin elevates heads of state in the popular consciousness
• Nic’s paper on DeFi protocol risks
• The SEC’s year-ahead agenda has no mention of Bitcoin
• The NY anti-mining bill fails
• The World Bank joins the IMF in spurning El Salvador
• Is the Salvadorian law a ‘forced tender law’?

Content mentioned: 

• Max Raskin in the WSJ: A Global First: Bitcoin as National Currency

This episode supported by: 

• Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

Check out this episode!

Nic and Matt are back and recovered from an insane Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. In this episode: 

• Our lost roundup from last week
• Our reflections on Bitcoin 2021
• Nic reacts to his spaces with President Bukele
• El Salvador accepts Bitcoin
• The story behind the 25k attendee Twitter space
• Does the Salvadorian law change the accounting treatment for Bitcoin in the US?
• President Bukele’s geothermal
• Where else is the Bitcoinización likely to happen?
• A new non-aligned movement
• The Bitcoin Bloc
• MSTR’s new bond offering
• Basel changes the rules for bank regulatory capital regarding Bitcoin
• Liz Warren attacks Bitcoin
• The Bitcoin political demographic grows

Content: 

• Recording of Nic’s spaces room with President Bukele (and 25,000 others) 

This episode supported by: 

• Eventus, the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Its award-winning trade surveillance platform is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. Find them at onthebrink.link/eventus

Check out this episode!

In our second OTB AMA, we field questions from Brink Nation. In this episode: 

• What other countries are good candidates to ratify Bitcoin next?
• What are the prospects for DeFi on Bitcoin?
• Is price to hashrate a viable ratio to use to value bitcoin?
• Will other countries follow El Salvador’s lead in light of the pushback from the IMF?
• Who will win Euro2020?
• Are ransomware attacks good because they will get directors to add Bitcoin to corporate balance sheets “just in case”?
• Will users eventually hold their bitcoin through banks?
• What is missing to make lightning workable?
• Why do people allocate energy cost pro rata across bitcoin transactions?
• Matt’s turkey update
• Stablecoin yields as an attractive product for corporate treasuries?
• Why doesn’t bitcoin just increase the block size?
• Our takes on DAOs
• What govt action could turn bitcoiners into dissidents?
• Our proposed improvements for twitter spaces

Sponsor notes: 

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

Chris Blec is a researcher and the founder of DeFi Watch, a project dedicated to identifying points of centralization and risk factors in DeFi, in particular the presence of admin keys. In this episode: 

• How Chris got interested in DeFi 
• How he first noticed the risk of admin key usage 
• The changing nature of admin keys and multisigs 
• Whether project multisigs reduce dependence on trust 
• Why worry about Admin keys in the first place? 
• Have DeFi projects improved their key management and trustlessness over time? 
• Chris’ letter to 0xPolygon
• Chris’ plans with DeFi Watch 
• Should Bitcoiners care about DeFi? About admin key failures? 
• Why transparency is a self-regulatory measure 

Sponsor notes:

Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

Matteo Leibowitz of Uniswap and Eric Stone of Flipside Crypto join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Uniswap v3 and how it differs from v2 and other AMMs
• Broader implications of Uniswap v3 for DeFi
• Uniswap v3 metrics and how the system is being used today
• Uniswap treasury and grant program
• How Flipside is engaging with Uniswap and other DeFi communities

Follow Teo on Twitter @teo_leibowitz and learn more about Uniswap at Uniswap.org. Follow Eric on Twitter @theericstone and learn more about Flipside Crypto at flipsidecrypto.com.  

Sponsor notes:

Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another roundup. In this episode: 

• Elon is back
• Our take on the mining council
• Is Twitter Spaces killing Clubhouse?
• Prepare yourself for Kazakh FUD
• Is Chia driving up hard drive prices?
• OneRiver’s green Bitcoin ETF
• The SEC asks for help regulating crypto
• The key catalysts we’re watching in China
• Lael Brainard spreads historical fake news about free banking
• The Fed is concern trolling stablecoins
• Why neo Free Banking can work today

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Hass McCook on OTB
• Fed Governor Lael Brainard’s speech 

This episode supported by: 

• Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin
• Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Check out this episode!

Hass McCook is a civil engineer who has been delivering estimates of Bitcoin’s energy use and CO2 emissions since 2014, as well as alternatives like gold or finance. In this episode: 

• Hass’s background in civil engineering and how it prepared him for the energy debate
• The conflation between energy generation and electricity generation
• Why you can’t just generalize energy consumption to carbon emissions
• Hass breaks down the varying carbon intensities of different sources of generation
• How much energy goes to waste globally
• The difference between CO2 and CO2e / greenhouse gases
• Why today’s US grid has lowered its carbon intensity over the last decade
• Why combusting methane is a net good from an emissions perspective
• Hass’ level of optimism around flared gas mining
• Why the changing rate of ASIC innovation affects bitcoin’s energy consumption
• The opportunity for stranded gas at landfills
• Hass’ estimates of the gold and the financial system’s energy footprints
• How gold mining actually works
• The ecological and human cost of gold mining
• Hass’ thoughts on offsets

Sponsor notes:

Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another volatile week. In this episode: 

• Nic’s 72h fast
• Nic explains the Moscow time joke on Bloomberg
• Coinbase sells off
• Our explanations for the selloff
• Tax selling or Fed discussion of tapering?
• Taproot edges towards activation
• Eth monetary hardening – improving or impairing its monetary credibility?
• IRS demands cash transaction reports for transactions over $10k
• FinCEN doesn’t inflation-index their reporting thresholds
• OCC reviews Brian Brooks’ rules
• Will the new OCC be hostile to Bitcoin?
• Tom Emmer asks accounting regulators to revisit their accounting treatment of digital assets
• Elon suggests miners disclose their energy mix
• Should miners buy carbon offsets? 

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Nic’s appearance on Bloomberg
• NyMag, Jack Dorsey Says Bitcoin Can Make the World Greener

This episode supported by: 

• Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin
• Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Check out this episode!

Alex Thorn, the head of research at Galaxy Digital joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Alex’s career path and the insights that led him to diving into the crypto space
• Perspectives on Dogecoin and whether this is an enduring phenomenon
• Considerations for Doge market infrastructure and the status of the network from a technical standpoint
• The state of the crypto venture market and how Alex sees this evolving

To learn more about Galaxy Digital visit their website. Follow Alex on Twitter @Intangiblecoins

Sponsor notes:

Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

Katie Chase, the Chief Operating Officer of Coin Metrics joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Katie’s time leading blockchain initiatives at Fidelity and how the firm approached early R&D efforts
• Her point of view on the historical barriers to institutional adoption of cryptoassets and how that is changing
• How Coin Metrics is addressing the data needs of large financial institutions
• Why risk management is an overlooked area and how CM’s Farum product addresses the needs of exchanges and brokerages

To learn more about Coin Metrics visit coinmetrics.io

Sponsor notes:

Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!

Nic and Matt are back for an insane week. In this episode: 

• Tom Brady is a Bitcoiner
• Elon betrays us
• Do virgin coins exist?
• Binance under investigation by the DOJ
• Bitwise launches the BITQ ETF
• Palantir thinks about buying Bitcoin
• Diem partners with Silvergate
• We break down Tether’s questionable reserves
• 46 million Americans own BTC
• Elon’s bad tweet
• New FUD dice just dropped
• The changing Bitcoin energy mix landscape

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Nic Carter in Coindesk, The Virgin Bitcoin Fallacy
• Nic on Bloomberg/What’d You Miss

This episode supported by: 

• Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin
• Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Check out this episode!

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

• The Chamber of Digital Commerce publishes a Proof of Reserve whitepaper
• Why Proof of Reserves matter
• Popular critiques of PoR
• Coin Metrics raises a Series B from Goldman Sachs
• Galaxy acquires BitGo
• How do you pronounce 3LAU?
• NYDIG brings Bitcoin to banks through FIS global
• NYDIG continues their ascent
• Paypal considers a stablecoin
• DCG commits to another GBTC repurchase
• NY state explores a Bitcoin mining moratorium
• Why a ban in NY would be counterproductive
• Could Ripple actually win their case against the SEC?
• New FUD dice are in

Content mentioned in the episode: 

• The Chamber’s PoR whitepaper
• Nic in the Harvard Business Review, How Much Energy does Bitcoin Actually Consume?

This episode supported by: 

• Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin
• Eventus, global leader in trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions

Check out this episode!

Noah Buxton and Jeremy Nau from accounting firm Armanino LLP join the show once again to discuss the launch of the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s new whitepaper on Proof of Reserves, which they contributed to. In this episode: 

• What was the purpose of the paper by the Chamber? What problems does it solve?
• History of PoR and Armanino
• When did Armanino first get into it? why?
• What’s involved in a PoR? Why include an audit firm?
• Why exchanges are so reluctant to do PoR
• How trustless and fraud-proof is the process? what are the pitfalls?
• What are the prospects for protecting privacy in PoR?
• Other related engagements that Armanino is undertakin
• How do you expect the industry to respond to it?
• Different procedures that PoR refers to
• The semantic drift of PoR
• Armanino’s PoR Taxonomy
• Why accounting firms have an important role in PoR

Check out this episode!

Nicholas Gregory, CEO of CommerceBlock, joins the show to talk about their new statechain implementation, Mercury. In this episode: 

• Origins of CommerceBlock
• Nicholas’ prior career in martial arts
• Nicholas’ underground MMA club in NY
• Did Roger Ver take the most expensive BJJ lesson ever?
• The purpose of CommerceBlock’s Mainstay system
• The difference between OpenTimestamps and Mainstay
• How sidechains evolved from the original vision and where they are today
• What can Bitcoin learn from Ethereum?
• Nic’s rundown of privacy-enhancing technologies
• Centralized mixers versus coinjoin versus statechains for privacy
• How statechains allows you to send a UTXO without an on-chain transaction
• Trust drawbacks and caveats in using statechains
• CommerceBlock’s Mercury statechain implementation
• Statechains as virtual opendimes
• Synergies between statechains and Lightning
• Nicholas’ thoughts on Bitcoin scalability
• Statechain timelines

Sponsor notes:

Copper is transforming how institutional investors engage with digital assets by developing award-winning custody and next-gen trading infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the firm is scaling rapidly across Asia and North America to bring its suite of products to a wider pool of institutional investors. To learn more visit copper.co or reach out on Twitter, @CopperHQ

Aave is a decentralized, open source, and non-custodial protocol where users can deposits and borrow digital assets, and earn interest on those assets. Head over to aave.com to experience and learn more about DeFi.

Check out this episode!