Brian Venturo (CoreWeave) on the journey from mining crypto to the cloud (EP.163)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 12/30/2020
Bernardo Bilotta (Stables Money) on Stablecoin Fintech in APAC (EP.640)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with , founder of In this episode: Stablecoin usage in APAC, for saving, spending, and beyond Retail adoption that bleeds into institutional adoption The forward-looking path for stablecoin finance
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Weekly Roundup 06/27/25 (Bitcoin for mortages, Fiserv adopts stables, Fed drops reputation risk) (EP.639)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Golden age of prediction markets NYC mayor’s election What’s happening with Canton? The FHFA says crypto can be a qualifying asset for mortages Our thoughts on the market structure bill The significance of the Fiserv stablecoin pilot $500m public access vehicle for BNB The Fed drops reputational risk in bank supervision EO for debanking is rumored Kraken HQ is moving to Wyoming Texas buys Bitcoin Will banking hours be obsolete?
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Josh Frank (The Tie) on Crypto Market Intelligence (EP.638)
On The Brink with Castle Island
, the founder and CEO of joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The origin story behind The Tie and how Josh approached founding the business. The digital asset data market. How sentiment data has evolved in the digital asset industry. The buy-side landscape for digital assets and how Josh sees that evolving in the coming years. The Canton Network and how The Tie is working with this new protocol. To learn more about The Tie visit their .
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Luca Prosperi (M0) on a Universal Stablecoin Platform (EP.637)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Ria sits down with , CEO and Co-Founder of , a universal stablecoin platform that enables customization while preserving interoperability across assets. In this episode, we cover: Lessons from MakerDAO Drawing inspiration from the dual banking system Building a base asset that is decentralized, permissionless and ossified Issuing opinionated assets via wrapping and extensions while maintaining interoperability
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Weekly Roundup 06/20/25 (GENIUS passes, Nobitex Hack, FUD dice retrospective) (EP.636)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: The GENIUS Act passes the Senate Should GENIUS be stapled to market structure? Bessent thinks stablecoins could be $3.7T by 2030 Stablecoin FUD Will stablecoins destabilize the US Treasury market JPM's stablecoin FUDs JPMD's deposit token will launch on Base The future of stablecoin yield in the US Circle hits a $50b market cap Yellowcard partners with Visa in Africa Kraken will launch a token for their Ink L2 Are Walmart and Amazon looking at their own stablecoins? An Iranian crypto exchange is...
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Santi Alvarado (XFX) on Improving FX for Stablecoins (EP.635)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Sean is joined by Santi Alvarado, CEO/Co-Founder of , to cover their seed raise and how money moves cross border. In this episode: Background of Santi and how he made his way into crypto How legacy FX settlement operates today How XFX enables more liquidity for cross border payment companies
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Greg Genega (KPMG) on Crypto Auditing (EP.634)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt is joined by , Digital Asset and Blockchain leader at KPMG, for a conversation on the state of crypto auditing. In this episode: How KPMG works with crypto companies and protocols Relevant new innovations in the crypto space What to look out for as a new founder
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Weekly Roundup 06/13/25 (Stripe buys Privy, Stablecoin FUD, Rogue Traders) (EP.633)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Stripe acquires wallet infrastructure company Privy for an undisclosed sum Fireblocks’ stablecoin data Stablecoin FUD Were mnemonic phrases a local maxima? Bullish and Gemini have filed preliminary paperwork for IPOs Soc Gen is launching a USD stablecoin We look at some infamous rogue traders Gamestop’s bitcoin strategy is a flop DTCC is looking at issuing a stablecoin
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Weekly Roundup 06/06/25 (Circle IPO, Singapore rules, Trump wallet?) (EP.632)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Circle goes public and has an explosive first day The IPO window is open Circle’s vision for CPN is launching a token Will cannibalize Solana? JPM will let clients use Bitcoin ETFs as collateral Strategy introduces new offerings Magic Eden’s strange Trump wallet app announcement Truth Social Bitcoin ETF A K Pop Bitcoin access vehicle Korea’s cultural renaissance Singapore’s abrupt change in posture
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Isha Varshney (Celo) on Stablecoin Adoption Across Markets (EP.631)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with from the to talk stablecoins. Covered in this episode: Payments in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa Stablecoin usage and USDT The future of non-stable tokens
info_outlineBrian Venturo is the CTO of CoreWeave, the largest North American GPU miner, which also doubles as a cloud infrastructure firm for general computation. In this episode:
- How Brian went from hobbyist Ethereum mining to wielding a fleet of 50,000 GPUs
- How Core Weave was able to cheaply acquire GPUs from insolvent mining farms
- The implications of the Ethereum DAG file growing beyond 4 GB and its effect on miners
- The effect of the looming PoS transition on miner decision-making
- Why Core Weave specifically limited their GPU fleet to NVIDIAs with more memory
- Brian's stance on Ethereum's transition to Proof of Stake
- Are miners pro-cyclical or counter-cyclical?
- Does Core Weave hold inventory in the coins they mine or do they divest them immediately?
- Brian's options based model for pricing hardware
- The mini gold rush happening in publicly traded mining firms
- Brian's opinion on hashrate swaps or derivatives
- How Core Weave is transitioning from purely mining based to public cloud services
- The feasibility of GPU miners moving into cloud computing
- Core Weave's plans to train an open source version of GPT-3
- Brian's view of the role of miners in the Ethereum ecosystem
- The motivations behind monetary-related EIPs in Ethereum
- Brian's analysis of incentives to make Ethereum deflationary
- Why Proof of Work is an underrated distribution method
- Brian's position on increasing the gas limit
- Why tinkering with the fee market is counterproductive in terms of transactional efficiency
- The relationship between blockspace and fee revenue for miners
- Brian's thoughts on EIP 1559 and whether it increases Ethereum's security
- Brian's view on the pace of ethereum development
- Why Proof of Work launches are preferable to liquidity mining launches
- The current state of the ASIC v GPU debate
- Brian's retrospective on the Grin launch
- Why Core Weave is not interested in miner-extractable value (MEV)
Sponsor notes:
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