Matthew Le Merle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era and Blockchain Coinvestors joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Matthew’s views on The Rise of Generation C and some of the trends he foresaw ten years ago
• Views on the GameStop / WSB saga and what this portends for the financial markets in the years to come
• The state of the cryptoasset market and the infrastructure that is being deployed in 2021
• How he thinks about approaching this industry as a leading fund of funds

Learn more about Blockchain Coinvestors at their website and follow Matthew on Twitter @mlemerle 

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Zac Prince, CEO and Cofounder of BlockFi joins the show once again to discuss BlockFi’s newly announced Series D financing and to discuss market dynamics. In this episode: 

• Announcing the Series D round of financing
• Growth of revenues and clients on the platform
• How BlockFi classifies itself in the taxonomy of banking, fintech, and brokerage
• Market worries around the GBTC discount
• Why did GBTC flip to being discounted?
• What the GBTC discount means for BlockFi
• How do the current GBTC dynamics affect Bitcoin interest rates, if at all?
• One unexpected way the GBTC discount could disappear
• The prospects for “busting the trust”
• How Zac thinks about public messaging and the Twitter environment
• What fraction of the bitcoin interest rate the GBTC trade represents
• What’s next for BlockFi

Prior BlockFi OTB episodes: 

• Rene Van Kesteren on how BlockFi manages Risk 
• Zac Prince on growing BlockFi through a pandemic

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Matt and Nic are back. In this episode:

• More cured meats drama
• The Singapore sovereign wealth fund invests in Anchorage
• Will they or wont they – Goldman edition
• Bitcoin completes Paypal’s original vision
• Schwab looks to add support for crypto
• Kings of Leon NFT
• Are NFTs the first truly mainstream application of blockchains?
• Are today’s centralized public blockchains just a return of private blockchains?
• Citi releases the case for bitcoin
• GBTC trades at a steep discount to NAV and what it means
• Is the GBTC arbitrage trade over?
• Should startups hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets?
• How does 2021 feel compared to 2018?
• Are we likely to see another 70%+ drawdown?

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Bloomberg’s Crypto Outlook, Mike McGlone
• Understanding Bitcoin, Jurrien Timmer
• Bitcoin at the Tipping Point, City GPS

This episode is brought to you by Sovryn, DeFi on Bitcoin.

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David Vorick, the cofounder and CEO of Nebulous, the firm developing the Sia network, joins the show once again to talk about the growth of decentralized cloud storage.

In this episode: 

• Skynet reaches its 1 year anniversary
• Dweb versus Web3
• Current capacity and utilization of the Sia network
• Where Sia stacks up in terms of the decentralized storage networks by usage
• How the internet ended up massively siloed
• Why data portability and thin internet applications are so important
• Current breakout applications of decentralized storage
• New models for authentication for web apps
• How the dweb could return the internet to its 90s-era topology
• The current state of property rights on the internet
• The intersection between Handshake and Sia

Check out this episode!

Namebase founder and CEO Tieshun Roquerre joins us for a discussion of Handshake, decentralized DNS, and issues with the current system of domains. In this episode: 

• The core technical problem with DNS today
• Why a blockchain for a decentralized DNS system makes sense
• How Satoshi anticipated blockchain-based DNS with BitDNS
• Could a global PoW blockchain system accommodate all of the world’s domains?
• How Handshake learned from Namecoin, ENS, and other attempts from blockchain based DNS and alternative root zones
• The distinction between ENS and Handshake
• Handshake’s origin and launch – and how it ended up with such diffuse governance
• Where the nexuses of control are in the Handshake ecosystem
• How Handshake PoW security works
• The merits of embracing ASICs
• How the distribution of domains works
• What you can actually do with handshake domains
• The growing interoperability between handshake and decentralized storage like Sia

Check out this episode!

Core Weave chief strategy officer and former energy trader Brannin McBee joins the show to talk about the grid meltdown in Texas and the impact of renewables on the grid. In this episode: 

• Brannin’s history in energy trading and energy analytics
• How his firm survived a 95% collapse in the price of natural gas – and how that presaged his work in the crypto space
• How Brannin’s firm Core Weave alternates between mining ETH and monetizing GPUs through high-performance compute
• How wholesale power trading works – and how it provides valuable informational signals to the grid
• How the US grid is arranged – and how the energy mix has changed in the last decade
• How coal has been marginalized in the last decade through natural gas and renewables
• Why energy is not globally fungible
• Why forecasting wind is so difficult – and how that complicates including wind into the grid
• How renewables trade off reliability against carbon impact
• How increasing the share of wind and solar destabilizing the grid
• Why increasing units of wind requires new units of gas on the grid
• The confluence of causes behind the Texas grid failure last week
• How Core Weave selected their location on the grid – and how they took political risk into account
• How much energy Bitcoin consumes – and where that stands relative to the energy consumption of the US
• How flaring natural gas to mine Bitcoin works – and whether it’s economical
• Does Bitcoin work as a load balancer for grids?
• Can you compare Bitcoin’s footprint to that of entire countries?

Check out this episode!

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

• Matt’s bike is stolen in mysterious circumstances
• Our top takeaways from the Brian Brooks interview with Laura Shin
• The state of financial regulation in the US as it pertains to crypto
• Is the permissioned pseudonymity model of stablecoins sustainable?
• SoFi’s application for a new bank charter approved
• Why lowering the barrier to entry for new bank charter approvals is so important
• is there any merit to personal tokens?
• Avanti gets their SPDI charter approved
• Why Avanti’s Avit stablecoin is so interesting
• What is the legal enforceability of stablecoin transactions?
• Accounting and tax questions with stablecoins
• Coin Metrics partners with KPMG
• Is the Iranian Central Bank accumulating Bitcoin?
• Why Iran adopting Bitcoin demonstrates its value proposition
• FTX offers equities – is it compliant?
• Is Paypal a Bitcoin Sidechain?

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Brian Brooks appears on Laura Shin’s Unchained
• The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance Bitcoin mining map
• Apolline Blandin on On The Brink

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Yoann Turpin, cofounder of Wintermute Trading joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Yoann’s background in trading and how he made his way to trading cryptoassets
• His views on the evolving market structure for cryptoassets and where the industry is headed
• How important market makers are for new token launches
• The role of stablecoins and how these instruments are changing the landscape for traders
• Wintermute’s decision to raise capital from VCs and how they see themselves are a technology firm

To learn more about Wintermute Trading visit their website.

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Joel Revill is the cofounder and CEO of Two Ocean Trust, a Wyoming Chartered Trust Company offering wealth management services to high-net-worth individuals and family offices.

Two Ocean Trust has recently received a no-action letter from the Wyoming Division of Banking stating the division’s determination that Two Ocean is a “qualified custodian” under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the SEC Custody Rule. This letter states the division’s determination that Two Ocean may provide custodial services for digital assets under Wyoming law, including virtual currency and digital tokenized securities. In this episode:

• Joel’s background and the genesis of Two Ocean Trust
• Current gaps in the market as far as digital asset custody is concerned
• The significance of Two Ocean’s No-Action letter from the State of Wyoming
• What Qualified Custody actually means, and why it matters
• Why Wyoming is a great place to start a business pertaining to digital assets
• The history of the SPDI Charter – and why Two Ocean did not opt for the SPDI
• Why high net worth individuals are buying Bitcoin today
• Joel’s current monetary outlook – and why Bitcoin is more than just a hedge

Check out this episode!

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

• PTJ’s latest comments on Bitcoin
• How Bitcoin is akin to a cathedral
• Franklin Templeton invests in Curv
• PayPal launches a crypto offering
• Will PayPal open up its walled garden?
• The Kik story finally reaches a conclusion
• Coinbase publishes their first transparency report
• Paradigm’s big bet
• Is CBDC going to be pro-inflationary?
• The bank lobby pushes back at the Wyoming SPDI
• Why this bull run is more sustainable than that of 2017
• How Bitcoin scales with capital, not people

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Doubleline, The Pandora’s Box of CBDC
• Paul Tudor Jones appears on CNBC
• Coinbase, Transparency at Coinbase
• Forbes, feature on Paradigm
• Raoul Pal, The Bitcoin Life Raft 
• Bank Policy Institute, Beware the Kraken

Check out this episode!

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

• NYDIG emerges from stealth and announces a Bitcoin balance sheet position
• More companies add Bitcoin to their balance sheet
• Filecoin launches at a $200b implied fully diluted valuation
• Is the Filecoin SAFT different from the other SAFTs?
• Why token projects are strongly incentivized to be untransparent about their tokens
• CFTC chair Heath Tarbert praises Ethereum
• The relationship between securities and commodities
• Ripple complains about securities regulation and claims China controls Bitcoin
• Grayscale Ether Trust becomes an SEC reporting entity
• Grayscale raises $1b in Q3
• Breitling creates NFTs as an anti-counterfeiting measure
• Risks involved with brainwallets
• Coinbase plans to sponsor Bitcoin developers
• A new deadline in the Mt Gox saga

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Crypto VC panel on privacy from the Fidelity privacy conference
• Ripple, What’s at Stake for the U.S. When It Comes to Digital Asset Regulation
• The Block’s new data dashboard
• Bitmex Research, Call me Ishmael
• Ryan Castellucci talk at DevCon, Cracking Cryptocurrency Brainwallets

Check out this episode!

Kyle Samani, cofounder and managing partner at Multicoin, joins the show to talk his current views on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and to give an update on web3 and how Multicoin is approaching the opportunity. In this episode: 

• Kyle’s current views on Ethereum, its positioning, and its prospects for filling out the roadmap
• Whether liquidity network effects for smart contract chains are insurmountable
• What it would take to reach global scale for public blockchains
• Kyle’s changing view of Bitcoin over time
• The effect of WBTC on Ethereum
• The topic that Kyle has most dramatically changed his mind on recently
• Kyle’s view of the validity of DCF valuations for DeFi tokens
• Kyle’s theory on which classes of DeFi tokens should accrue long-term value
• A retrospective on Multicoin’s EOS thesis and where they were tripped up
• Which blog post of his Kyle thinks has aged the best
• What Web3 means to Kyle
• How fast Web3 has grown relative to Kyle’s expectations in 2017
• The imminent Web3 projects that Kyle thinks could have mass market applicability
• Multicoin’s Helium thesis and the importance of LoRaWAN
• How Helium tokenomics are modeled after physical commodities
• Kyle’s expectations for web3 applications within the next 5 years
• Whether Ethereum requires web3 to succeed and vice versa

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Multicoin, EOS Analysis and Valuation 
• Multicoin, On Forking DeFi Protocols
• Multicoin, Augur Analysis and Valuation

Check out this episode!

Mason Borda, CEO and cofounder of Tokensoft, joins the show. In this episode: 

• Tokensoft’s ERC-1404 standard
• Why put securities on chain?
• Commonalities between the spirit of securities laws and the values of crypto markets
• The possibility of making stock transactions into a real time phenomenon
• Transparency through registered security offerings versus on-chain cash flows and freely viewable contracts
• How on-chain tokens are transparent and where they should volunteer additional disclosures
• Tokensoft’s Arcoin and INX issuances
• Mason’s response to the critiques of the INX offering
• Why regular companies don’t just “hold their own securities on a centralized database”
• DTCC explained for Bitcoiners
• How Mason thinks about securities regulation today as compared with 2017
• Is the ‘complexity defense’ sufficient to ward off securities regulators?
• Mason’s desired approach to the market from the SEC
• Lessons that the SEC can take from MAS (Singapore) and FINMA (Switzerland)
• The outstanding barriers to security tokens gaining liquidity and market share

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic cover deals and news of the week. Repeat guest Zachary Kelman joins the show to give his view of the FinCEN files and how the crypto industry should interpret the revelations. In this episode: 

• How fees affect DeFi liquidity and the price of ETH
• Braintrust raises $18m
• Bitnomial raises an $11m Series B
• Arthur Hayes and Sam Reed step down from their roles at 100x
• Despite everything, Bitmex is still operational
• BitMEX keeps processing withdrawals
• India’s legislature turns hostile to Bitcoin
• Square buys $50m worth of BTC to hold on its balance sheet
• The difference in the rationale between Microstrategy and Square for their Bitcoin positions
• John MacAfee is arrested in Spain for tax evasion
• Ripple complains that the US is an unfavorable regulatory environment
• The latest on the Ripple class action suit
• The Chamber of Digital Commerce gives congresspeople $50 worth of USA-mined Bitcoin
• The DOJ publishes a Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework
• Zach Kelman on how Bitcoin enthusiasts should be thinking about the FinCEN files
• Silvergate crosses $100b transacted through the SEN

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Peter Van Valkenburgh, There Is No Such Thing as a Decentralized Exchange
• Fidelity Digital Assets, The Role of Prime Brokerage in Digital Assets
• Nic on Medium, Public blockchain fee cyclicality and negative feedback loops
• Forbes, How Cathie Wood Beat Wall Street By Betting Tesla Is Worth More Than $1 Trillion
   

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Mitchell Nicholson is the founder of DACS Conduit and formerly an economist at the Bank of Canada. Mitchell’s views are his own and not those of the Bank of Canada. In this episode:

• His path to joining the Bank of Canada
• Why he chose to start his career in central banking
• Mitchell’s work on the Band of Canada Bitcoin awareness surveys
• Why the Bank of Canada put resources to the Bitcoin awareness surveys
• Mitchell’s masters thesis on Bitcoin
• How covering Bitcoin was part of Mitchell’s mandate at the Bank of Canada
• Their reaction to Quadriga
• How Crypto Twitter helped was useful to Mitchell during his time at the bank
• What it’s like being a Bitcoin enthusiast working at a central bank
• Crypto penetration among Bank staff
• How Mitchell applied lessons from traditional finance to his analysis of Bitcoin
• Mitchell’s thoughts on the legitimacy of Tether
• Comparing the risk profiles of single and multi collateral Dai
• Lessons that Bitcoiners can take from central banking
• Whether central banks should be concerned about crypto-dollarization
• The prospects for CBDCs
• Why the public sector may not be able to create a true digital cash with strong privacy assurances
• What a more restricted digital form of central bank money might look like
• Mitchell’s view of the true killer app of the crypto industry
• Mitchell’s new project now that he has left the BoC
• The one big gap Mitchell has identified in the crypto industry
• The likely effect of the rise of crypto markets on central banking

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• The Bank of Canada’s 2018 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey: Awareness and Usage
• Chainalysis’ 2020 Global Crypto Adoption Report

Check out this episode!

Trent and Brock Elmore, two of the five creators of Yam Finance, a decentralized finance protocol, join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• The inspiration for starting Yam Finance
• The story behind the launch, the initial bug and the subsequent re-launch
• Contextualizing DeFi – what is a fad and what is enduring
• The future for Yam Finance and the long term sustainability of fair launch platforms

To learn more about Yam Finance visit: https://yam.finance/

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Chase Lochmiller, cofounder and CEO of Crusoe Energy Systems joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Crusoe’s approach to addressing the issue of natural gas flaring by monetizing stranded energy
• The process by which Crusoe turns this stranded energy into Bitcoin
• How Chase sees the compute use cases that can benefit from capturing stranded energy
• Chase’s career path from finance to crypto to founding Crusoe
• The impact that successfully climbing Mount Everest has had on his career.

To learn more about Crusoe Energy Systems visit their website.

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Nic and Matt cover a tumultuous week in the crypto markets. In this episode: 

• We investigate the Dollar Milkshake Theory
• BitPanda raises $52m
• Genesis announces the official launch of their custody product
• Our breakdown of the BitMEX situation
• Where the BitMEX situation leaves the remaining offshore crypto exchanges
• The prospects for users who currently have funds on BitMEX
• How the BitMEX lawsuit potentially improves the prospects for a Bitcoin ETF
• Whether BitMEX was a source of sell pressure for Bitcoin
• Where BitMEX leaves decentralized exchanges
• The SEC obtains a summary judgment over Kik
• Why the SALT lending settlement with the SEC signals a shift in the SEC’s attitude with regards to tokens
• CommerceBlock converts their token into equity into a UK company
• Talos Trading comes out of stealth mode
• The biggest remaining systemic risk that the crypto industry faces

Check out this episode!

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

• The OCC clarifies that banks can custody dollars for stablecoin issuers
• Maker’s flippening in collateral types, and what that means for the system
• Tether falls below 80% of stablecoin market share
• Two congressional bills propose to federally regulate crypto exchanges and tokens
• “Stablecoins” or “cryptodollars”?
• Cambridge AltFin releases their long-awaited cryptoasset benchmarking report
• The prospects for big tech antritrust
• What to replace the 60/40 portfolio with

Content mentioned in this episode:

• OCC, OCC Chief Counsel’s Interpretation on National Bank and Federal Savings Association Authority to Hold Stablecoin Reserves
• Coin Center, Two new bills in Congress would clarify agency jurisdiction over cryptocurrency
• Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study
• ECB Crypto-assets Task Force, Stablecoins: Implications for monetary policy, financial stability, market infrastructure and payments, and banking supervision in the euro area
• Apolline Blandin on OTB, Estimating Bitcoin’s Energy Footprint

Check out this episode!

Jeff Dorman is the CIO at Arca, which is currently engaged in a fascinating standoff with Gnosis, a token project in which they have a position. Arca is asserting that Gnosis has delivered little value to tokenholders and has proposed that they perform a tender offer for GNO tokens with the assets held on their balance sheet (which exceed the capitalization of GNO). Covered in this episode: 

• The original purpose of Gnosis as laid out in the whitepaper
• Why Gnosis only sold 5% of their tokens in the initial sale
• How Gnosis’s dutch auction backfired
• How the original objective to create a prediction market failed
• The history of Gnosis’ non-core products and expenditures – and why they don’t accrue value to GNO
• Under what circumstances pivoting is permissible – and when it isn’t
• The existence of obligations towards tokenholders, even if implicit and unstated
• What should a well-codified arrangement between tokenholders and token issuers look like?
• Jeff’s view of whether the utility theory of tokens is still valid
• The substance of Arca’s proposal to Gnosis, and their preferred resolution
• Arca’s proposal around a tender offer to buy back GNO at a fixed price with treasury assets
• Why large investors exerting themselves in governance benefits smaller shareholders
• How Arca’s GNO position is similar to the ESG movement
• Arca’s response to the rebuttal that tokenholders have no rights
• Arca’s leverage to achieve a positive outcome – and willingness to litigate
• Whether explicit security tokens like Arcoin and INX will converge to tokens with equity-like characteristics

Check out this episode!