Lorien Gabel and Benjamin Thalman of Figment join the show. In this episode we discuss:

• The founding story of Figment and the focus of the firm.
• The evolution of proof of stake blockchains and how Figment helps their customers with staking.
• Ethereum, the Shanghai upgrade and the likely impacts of withdrawal functionality on the network.
• Views on the current regulatory environment and how that impacts proof of stake participants.

To learn more about Figment visit their website and follow Lorien and Benjamin on Twitter.

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In this episode I sit down with David Thompson, managing partner at Cooper & Kirk. We cover the emergence of Operation Choke Point 2.0 and what recourse can be sought by the industry. In this episode: 

• Cooper & Kirk’s track record and reputation
• The story of Choke Point 1.0 and how Cooper & Kirk helped end it
• How was OCP 1.0 resolved? 
• Why Cooper & Kirk wrote their recent white paper on OCP 2.0
• Differences between Choke Point 1.0 and 2.0 
• Inconsistencies in FDIC Chair Gruenberg’s Congressional testimony
• Why David thinks that a complaint on due process grounds might be the best option for affected firms 
• Relevant constitutional protections 
• How OCP 2.0 might resolve
• The fate of the SPDIs
• Possible violations of the Administrative Procedures Act by the Fed
• How SCOTUS might rule on this issue 

Further reading: 

• Cooper & Kirk: Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come For Crypto

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. 

• Cooper and Kirk’s white paper on Operation Choke Point 2.0
• How bank regulators put crypto-facing banks in a catch-22
• SBF charged with bribing a Chinese official
• Is Sam funding his legal defense with funds purloined from FTX users?
• The CFTC charges Binance with operating an unlicensed derivatives exchange
• Binance execs haz no confidence in their geofencing
• How did the CFTC get their hands on CZ’s Signal history
• The SEC shuts down Beaxy
• Microstrategy buys another $150m worth of Bitcoin
• NASDAQ is aiming to launch their crypto custody platform in June
• What’s the deal with McHenry’s stablecoin bill?
• House Democrats would make issuing a stablecoin effectively illegal
• Elizabeth Warren is “building an anti-crypto army”
• Are DAOs unincorporated associations or general partnerships?
• Is the SPDI dead in the water?
• Did the FDIC Chair perjure himself in front of Congress this week?
• What’s the deal with the SigNet sale?
• Is dedollarization happening?

Content mentioned:

• Cooper & Kirk whitepaper on Operation Choke Point 2.0

Check out this episode!

Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise Asset Management joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• The banking crisis and Operation Chokepoint 2.0
• The decisions facing the Fed and the second order impacts of Fed policy
• How the cryptocurrency industry has evolved post FTX
• Prospects for stablecoin and market structure regulation in the digital asset industry
• The bitcoin futures market
• The launch of the Bitwise Bitcoin Strategy Optimum Roll ETF (BITC)

To learn more about Bitwise visit www.bitwiseinvestments.com and follow Matt on Twitter.

Check out this episode!

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

• Matt’s turkey trouble continues
• Nic’s vespa problem
• Nic’s latest Choke Point 2.0 article
• Did the government destroy Signature on purpose?
• Who is the main architect of Choke Point 2.0?
• Why was Signature closed when PacWest and First Republic were given time?
• The Catch-22 in NY banking law
• Who has recourse in the Signature situation?
• Why we won’t be going offshore
• The SEC announces charges against Justin Sun and celebrity endorsers
• The SEC sends Coinbase a Wells Notice
• FTX creditors recoup $460m from Modulo Capital
• Reps Emmer and Soto introduce the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act
• The White House report is hostile to crypto
• Matt’s Hong Kong conspiracy theory
• Is the EU racing ahead of the US in terms of regulation?
• The XRP case is nearing summary judgment
• Bitwise announces their futures ETF $BITC
• We read some of our podcast reviews

Content mentioned:

• Nic in Pirate Wires, Did The Government Start A Global Financial Crisis In An Attempt To Destroy Crypto?

Check out this episode!

Check out this episode!

Nick Hansen is the cofounder and CEO of Luxor, a Bitcoin mining pool. He joins to talk to us about his excitement around ordinals and inscriptions, and how Luxor is thinking about the opportunity.

• The history of ordinals and how Luxor got started in the space
• How Luxor mined the first 4MB block in Bitcoin
• Luxor’s decision to acquire Ordinalhub and their intentions with the project
• Risks Luxor incurred by mining the first 4MB block
• Transaction standardness versus validity
• How ordinals increase the overall quantity of Bitcoin blockspace
• The risks of out of band fees to Bitcoin
• Does Bitcoin already have MEV?
• How does the block reward decay make reorgs more likely?
• Where Luxor sees opportunity in ordinals
• Have inscriptions had a material impact on miner rewards?
• The effect of inscriptions on fees
• Transacting with PSBTs versus standard NFT marketplaces
• Nick’s confidence in the long-term persistence of Bitcoin state
• Why it’s virtually impossible to purge state in Bitcoin
• Are ordinals and inscriptions a violation of the implied Bitcoin social contract?
• Have inscriptions inadvertently ossified Bitcoin at the protocol level?

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back to cover a dramatic week in crypto. Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn also joins to provide market color. In this episode: 

• Bitcoin’s price action in response to the bank runs
• USDC recovers its peg
• FTX crime family news
• Signature bank is shut down somewhat arbitrarily
• What happened with Silvergate?
• Is Operation Choke Point 2.0 real?
• Blockchain Association FOIA’s federal banking regulators
• Are macro funds dipping their toes back into Bitcoin?
• Crypto Banks are gutted
• Was Signature solvent when it was shut down?
• Will Signet be sold off in the Signature auction?
• What was the importance of SEN and Signet?
• First Republic secures $30b in deposits
• What happened with Silvergate and the FHLB?
• Galaxy Digital’s head of research Alex Thorn joins the show
• Arbitrum announces their airdrop

Check out this episode!

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

• Nic’s Vespa crisis
• FTX crime family update
• Grayscale’s oral arguments go well against the SEC in the GBTC case
• Binance.US wins the right to buy the Voyager assets in court
• NYAG sues Kucoin and alleges that ETH is a security
• Silvergate is undergoing an orderly wind-down of the bank
• Why did Silvergate really collapse?
• Why are regulators trying to precipitate bank runs?
• Structural issues explaining why Silvergate’s deposits were so correlated
• SVB experiences a bank run
• Are the Silvergate and SVB difficulties warning sights that the Fed’s rate regime can’t last?

Content mentioned: 

• How Banks Fail, by Austin Campbell

Check out this episode!

Rob Hamilton, the founder and CEO of AnchorWatch joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Rob’s career journey and path to finding Bitcoin.
• The origins of miniscript and how Rob started to build in this area.
• The potential applicability for miniscript to the custody market.
• The current state of bitcoin core development.
• Ordinals and how Rob started to get involved in this project.
• The future applicability of ordinals and inscriptions.

Links: AnchorWatch, Rob’s Twitter.

Check out this episode!

Check out this episode!

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

• Is Yuga Labs’ NFT collection on Bitcoin genuine?
• Will the environmentalist attacks on PoW move to other industries?
• FTX’ Nishad Singh pleads guilty
• Ramnik Aurora maxed out donations to George Santos
• Silvergate is in trouble
• Why concentration risk makes it difficult for smaller banks to bank crypto firms
• UK banks are curtailing their crypto exposures
• Oasis returns $140m stolen from Wormhole to Jump
• NY Mag’s piece on Arthur Hayes
• Gensler continues to make vague threats against the crypto space
• Gensler’s regulation by blog post
• Greyscale’s case against the SEC is moving to oral arguments
• Can Bitcoin just change the code and move to PoS?

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• Ryan Salame pleads guilty
• Our thoughts on the latest turn of the Bitcoin security budget debate
• What are the prospects for fees to develop on Bitcoin long term?
• Is blockcspace a race to the bottom?
• Visa adds merchant settlement tools for USDC on Solana
• The significance of Visa’s move toward merchant settlement with stablecoins
• CBOE files for spot Ether ETFs
• We reflect on El Salvador’s Bitcoin law
• The FASB moves to fair value accounting for Bitcoin
• Greenpeace files a comment letter on the GlobalX Bitcoin trust
• Are the ESG tides turning for Bitcoin mining?
• Has El Salvador’s Bitcoin project been a failure? 

Sponsor notes: 

• Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Evaluating the Market Quality of DeFi collateral
• In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 223, we explore predominant collateral types in DeFi lending protocols and evaluate their liquidity & volatility characteristics to determine their desirability as collateral

Check out this episode!

Martin Carrica, cofounder of Mountain Protocol, joins us to discuss their launch of their USDM, permissionless interest-bearing stablecoin. In this episode: 

• Martin’s story and origins of his desire to create a stablecoin
• Obtaining a registered digital assets company in Bermuda
• Martin’s review of regulatory options worldwide and how they ended up in Bermuda
• How Bermuda has distinguished itself from other financial hubs in the Atlantic
• How reinsurance is like stablecoins
• What it takes to get licensed as a digital asset business in Bermuda
• How Mountain Protocol’s USDM stablecoin works
• How rebasing stablecoins work – and how they integrate in DeFi
• How USDM differs from on-chain T bills and other interest bearing stable products
• How USDM was able to achieve a permissionless structure
• How Mountain avoids US clients
• Why the market for stablecoins is mostly ex-US
• Stablecoins as a backend for emerging market fintechs
• Different exchange rates in Argentina
• How Argentine firms use Argentine ADR stocks to manage their corporate cash
• How street moneychangers on the street in Argentina work
• Milei and the prospects for dollarization in Argentina
• The importance of a stablecoin being issued out of a bankruptcy remote structure

Disclaimer:

• USDM and other Mountain Protocol products and services are not available for U.S. persons as well as other restrictied jurisctions. 
• For more information and disclosures on Mountain Protocol, please refer to the Terms and Conditions.

Check out this episode!

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

• Tether is actually the most interventionist stablecoin when it comes to freezing
• Should we be bullish on PYUSD? 
• Why stablecoin data shows meaningful utility for public blockchains 
• Is the idea of a ‘crypto generalist’ dead? 
• The meaning of the SEC’s loss in court to Grayscale
• Why the SEC was ‘arbitrary and capricious’
• The SEC’s blunder over their approval of Futs ETFs
• The SEC’s possible options 
• Our guesses for how the SEC reacts to their loss
• The SEC delays other pending spot ETFs
• The SEC wins against Impact Theory
•  Why the case against Impact Theory could implicate a lot of other NFT projects 
• Uniswap wins a class action case 
• What does the SEC’s case against Binance being under seal mean? 

Content mentioned: 

• BH Digital, The Relentless Rise of Stablecoins
• WSJ, The SEC Strikes Out Again on Crypto With Grayscale

Sponsor notes:

• Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — Coin Convergence: Piecing Together Common Ownership Patterns Across Major Stablecoins
• In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 222, we highlight trends in user behavior & common ownership across major stablecoins on Ethereum

Check out this episode!

We sit down with Lee Bratcher, President and Founder of the Texas Blockchain Council. Lee is one of the primary architects of Texas’ Proof of Reserve bill, now in effect. In this episode: 

• The origin of the TBC
• Why Lee is moving their Summit to Ft Worth
• Notable legislative successes by the TBC in Texas
• The importance of getting the UCC to recognize digital assets
• The importance of Bitcoin mining
• The origins of HB1666
• Why PoR legislation benefited from the industry spontaneously adopting the standard
• How the TX PoR bill emerged as a compromise
• How Lee expects this to become model legislation in other states
• Comparing PoR to established financial statement audits
• The importance of frequency in Proof of Reserve
• The lack of accounting firms that are willing to supervise PoR
• How would PoR dealt with issues at Gox, Quadriga, FTX, or Prime Trust?
• How are companies operating in Texas reacting to the bill?
• Future legistlative directions
• The role of stablecoins in upholding the role of the dollar
• The lost authority of the states in chartering banks

Further reading on PoR: 

• Nic in Forbes, The crypto industry is embracing self regulation. It’s time Washington gets on board
• Texas HB1666
• TBC, Texas ‘Proof of Reserves’ Bill

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals. In this episode: 

• The Bitcoin halving is coming up
• We review the Republican Presidential debate
• We review the state of New Jersey
• Coinbase takes a stake in Circle
• Hidden tensions between Coinbase and Circle
• BH Digital releases a stablecoin report
• USDC is challenged due to their inability to pay interest
• The DoJ charges the founders of Tornado Cash with AML and sanctions violations
• Did the Tornado Cash token hurt the founders’ case?
• The problem with chat apps creating their own tokens
• FTX is working with Galaxy to liquidate some crypto
• SBF isn’t happy with his prison meals
• Prime Trust was up to some shenanigans

Content mentioned: 

• BH Digital, The Relentless Rise of Stablecoins

Sponsor notes: 

• Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — From East to West: the Global Pulse of Stablecoin Transactions
• In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 221, we provide a data-driven overview of halvings and their implications in anticipation for Bitcoin’s upcoming 4th halving

Check out this episode!

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

• Geographic distribution for USDC v USDT
• Blockchains have become dollarized
• What’s the deal with Helium’s phone plan?
• SBF heads to jail
• We inaugurate a new member of the bad boys
• Dubai regulators fines OPNX
• What’s up with Argentina’s Libertarian presidential candidate?
• We need a new theme song for the SEC
• The Prometheum saga rumbles on
• What’s going on with Better Markets?
• Coinbase can now offer Bitcoin and ETH futures
• FTX and Genesis reach a settlement

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Brooke Masters in the FT, When Tackling Crypto, the SEC Should Be Wary of Overreach
• Kristin Smith in Coindesk, The FIT Act Is the Most Comprehensive Crypto Regulation Ever Voted on by Congress

Sponsor notes: 

• Coin Metrics STATE OF THE NETWORK — From East to West: the Global Pulse of Stablecoin Transactions
• In Coin Metrics State of the Network Issue 220, we leverage seasonality analysis to reveal geographical trends in Stablecoin usage and volumes

Check out this episode!

Darshan Vaidya, the founder of Credora joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• The crypto credit markets, what went wrong in the last cycle and how the market functions today
• Thoughts on Real-World-Assets on chain
• Comparisons of risk management approaches in tradfi versus crypto markets
• How Credora is working with firms to protect customers from idiosyncratic risk
• The capital raising environment

To learn more about Credora visit www.credora.io

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with more news and deals. In this episode: 

• Matt’s op-ed in Coindesk
• SAB121 is still bad
• SEC scope creep
• We investigate PayPal’s stablecoin 
• Why would PayPal want to issue a stablecoin? 
• What does PYUSD mean for Operation Choke Point for 2.0? 
• Why PYUSD is being launched on Ethereum
• Crypto as a flashpoint for state versus federal banking oversight
• The Fed’s new crypto oversight program
• Banks still can’t issue stablecoins in the US
• Ryan Salame reemerges
• What will become of Ryan Salame’s restaurant empire? 
• SBF will indeed be prosecuted on campaign finance violations
• SBF’s trial will not be televised
• LK-99 did NOT replicate

Content mentioned in this episode: 

• Matt in Coindesk, Congress, Not the SEC, Should Set U.S. Digital Asset Policy
• Zach Wong, A comprehensive explanation of SAB 121 and how it prevents safe crypto custody

Check out this episode!