Larry Cermak and Mike Rogers (The Block) on the Stablecoin Market (EP.205)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 04/12/2021
Weekly Roundup 06/12/26 (Strategy survives, Zcash Orchard bug, the thin model hypothesis) (EP.725)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with a new week of news and deals. In this episode: Spanish soccer club Osasuna hedges their relegation on Kalshi Strategy shocks people by buying the dip Is Strategy sacrificing MSTR to save STRC? Saylor bolsters his cash position What factors are dragging on the BTC price? Zcash fixes a scary inflation bug SBF formally applies for a Presidential pardon The CFTC proposes banning a subset of prediction market contracts Polymarket thinks that Kalshi is spying on them European fans in America for the World Cup are discovering Buc-ees The DATs are struggling Hester...
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Omid Malekan (Columbia Business School) on Private Money, Financial Systems, and Crypto in Geopolitics (EP.724)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with Omid Malekan, a Professor at Columbia Business School, author of several books, and "Explainer-in-Chief" of blockchain technology. In this episode, Wyatt and Omid discuss: Why do stablecoins carry a persisent sense of being "dangerous" or "ungovernable? Are stablecoins truly private money? How do we define private money? Who owns our current banking and payment systems? Why do banks vocally oppose stablecoins? Who will own and control digital money networks? Are blockchains the right medium for digital finance over the long term? Is digital trust a problem?
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Weekly Roundup 06/05/26 (MSTR wobbles, Polymarket’s MSTR market, Andrew Left convicted) (EP.723)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: FIFA’s World Cup ticketing scandal Andrew Yang is now a crypto and telecoms entrepreneur Are Strategy’s woes responsible for the Bitcoin pullback? Will Saylor defend STRC or MSTR? What are Saylor’s options here? Polymarket has another market resolution SNAFU How UMA could be used to exploit Polymarket BitMine considers a perpetual preferred security Google’s quantum circuit is Galaxy launches OTC trading for prediction markets Treasury sanctions Iran’s largest digital asset exchanges Andrew Left of...
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Weekly Roundup 05/29/26 (Was debanking real, SoFiUSD, WSJ gets free banks wrong, trouble in ETHland) (EP.722)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: The CEO of Lead bank says debanking was made up Which aspects of debanking were real? The SEC scraps its 50-year-old gag rule The WSJ gets free banking history wrong in their attack on stablecoins What does history tell us about decentralized monetary issuance Why stablecoins aren’t vulnerable to the same issues as free banks SoFi launches SoFiUSD and mixes a stablecoin with a tokenized deposit Sentiment is bottoming in Ethereum David Hoffman sells his ETH Are stablecoins parasitic to L1s Can L1s accrue value...
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Weekly Roundup 05/22/26 (AI and power bills, SpaceX IPO, Prime Trust clawbacks, USG invests in quantum) (EP.721)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: Are AI datacenters better or worse for the environment than Bitcoin miners? AI is not responsible for your power bills Why AI could actually drive down residential power prices Is AI less popular than crypto ever was? The negative societal effects of tech companies staying private for longer We analyze the SpaceX S1 OpenAI solved one of the Erdos problems The US government is taking equity stakes in quantum computers Jane Street is still dealing with the Terra fallout Prime Trust is trying to claw back assets...
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Weekly Roundup feat. Gus Coldebella 05/15/26 (Clarity advances, Circle’s Arc token) (EP.720)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are aback with another week of news and deals, today joined by Gus Coldebella to cover the CLARITY Act. In this episode: The Clarity Act advances resoundingly from committee Sen. Warren doesn’t like the Clarity Act Will there be an ethics provision inserted into Clarity? The next fight in DC What’s up with Nantucket real estate? Nantucket’s ponzinomics Nantucket is the birthplace of venture capital Circle is issuing a token Cprkrn recovers 5 BTC with the help of Claude
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Weekly Roundup 05/08/26 (Consensus Miami, AI layoffs strike Coinbase, Clarity compromise, AI energy and water use) (EP.719)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Will Hantavirus become another global pandemic? Kraken buys Reap for $600m Bullish buys Equiniti for $4.2b Reflections on 10 years of attending Consensus Is it acceptable to wear a backpack with a suit a16z crypto announces a $2.2b fundraise Coinbase is laying off 14% of the firm Will AI lead to massive job losses? Is VC immune from AI job displacement I bipartisan compromise is finally reached on Clarity How the AI water use debate is just like Bitcoin The AI lobby is learning from Fairshake The SEC delays...
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Weekly Roundup 05/30/26 (DeFi’s worst ever month, PTJ on Bitcoin, quantum canaries) (EP.718)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: DeFi had its worth month of hacks ever How are people falling for the fake Zoom link hack The KelpDAO Aave bailout is happening Is Bitcoin’s security degrading because miners are pivoting to AI? Litecoin suffers a 51% attack Is Bitcoin PoW at risk? Computershare partners with Securitize Meta will offer creator payouts in stablecoins via Stripe Q-day prize controversy Why quantum canaries might not provide much of a warning Paul Tudor Jones is spooked by quantum Some evidence for insider information in political...
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Pluto (Harbor) on the fate of DeFi after KelpDAO (EP.717)
On The Brink with Castle Island
is a veteran of DeFi and cross chain systems, with prior stints at Thorchain and Airswap, now building , a native asset DEX. In this episode, we talk about the KelpDAO exploit and how DeFi can regain people’s trust. Nic sits down with him to discuss: What exactly happened with the KelpDAO/ Aave hack? Will new AI models make hackers more proficient? Is advanced AI a defensive or offensive technology for smart contracts? Why protocol exposures are often not on chain Why DeFi might want to segregate execution from settlement Is it possible to have instant settlement and proactive monitoring...
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Weekly Roundup 04/24/26 (Finding Satoshi, KelpDAO retrospective, Insider weather betting, Coinbase’s Quantum report) (EP.716)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals: The Finding Satoshi documentary has a new guess Was it Hal or Len? Could Satoshi have been a team? Why Stylometry might not reveal Satoshi Why the cypherpunks were interested in resurrection What happened with KelpDAO? Is DeFi cooked? Is Arbitrum decentralized? The Paris temperature market was manipulated Coinbase releases their highly-anticipated quantum risk report Performance tradeoffs for post-quantum signature schemes SBF was a good investor The Justin Sun WLFI saga continues Did an Indian tanker fall victim to a crypto scam in...
info_outlineThe Block's Director of Research Larry Cermak and Research Analyst Mike Rogers join the show to talk through their latest report on stablecoins. In this episode:
- Why the Block chose to focus on stablecoins for this report
- Larry and Mike's opinion on why stablecoins are so disproportionately dollar-based
- China's influence in the Tether market
- The history of Tether and why it attained so much traction initially
- How you can determine the location of stablecoin users
- The Tetherification for offshore exchanges – and how it displaced Bitcoin as the reserve asset
- The influence of USDC in DeFi and whether it represents a systemic risk to the sector
- Dai's transition to non-native collateral types
- Mike and Larry's view of algorithmic stablecoins
- Why stablecoins are so divisive between economists and crypto entrepreneurs
- Why Tether's dominance is declining
- Where the NYAG settlement leaves Tether now
- What Larry makes of USDT on TRON stealing some market share from Ethereum
- Why investors are settling deals in stablecoin terms
- The prospects for Libra/Diem
- Mike and Larry's expectations for the next decade in stablecoins
Related content:
- The Block's report on Stablecoins
- The OTB Crypto-dollarization series
Sponsor notes:
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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.