Michel Rauchs (Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance) on quantifying Bitcoin's energy use (EP.232)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 07/26/2021
Weekly Roundup 05/09/25 (GENIUS stalls, Coinbase buys Deribit, Bessent on stables) (EP.622)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: We have a new Pope The etymology of ampersand The GENIUS act collapses spectacularly Coinbase consummates its acquisition of Deribit Did World Liberty Financial’s USD1 torpedo the GENIUS act? Did “pro crypto” democrats snake on the industry Scott Bessent thinks stablecoins could reach $2T The OCC says banks can provide crypto custody and execution Stripe is launching stablecoin financial accounts The SEC explores a sandbox for tokenized securities Tariff the L2s
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On The Brink with Castle Island
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David Taylor (Etherfuse) on Non-USD Stablecoins (EP.620)
On The Brink with Castle Island
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Justin and Hannah (Asymmetry Finance) on Stablecoins, Yield, & Risk in DeFi (EP.619)
On The Brink with Castle Island
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Weekly Roundup 05/02/25 (OP_RETURN wars, Mastercard and Visa push stables, quantum revisited) (EP.618)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: Will stablecoins disrupt credit cards? The US Treasury Advisory Committee drops a report on stablecoins Mastercard and Visa launch stablecoin integrations Movement labs has more scandals Are quantum timelines accelerating? The real risk of quantum to Bitcoin Could a quantum break fix Bitcoin’s security budget? Are any Bitcoin purists left? Circle turns down Ripple’s acquisition offer Machinsky is facing a 20-year sentence Arizona passes an SBR bill Cambridge releases a new report on bitcoin mining...
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Kedian Sun (Level Money) on Stablecoin Expansion in DeFi (EP.617)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with , the founder of In this episode: Stablecoin usage in DeFi today Fiat-backed stablecoins vs other "stable" assets Ethereum vs other blockchains for stablecoins
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Weekly Roundup 04/25/25 (Decoupling, Fed Rescinds guidance, 21 Capital) (EP.616)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Is Bitcoin decoupling? The Fed rescinds anti-crypto letters from 2022 and 2023 Upexi raises $100m PIPE to invest in Solana Cantor, Tether, Softbank and Bitfinex inject $3.6b into 21 Capital, a Bitcoin acquisition vehicle Bitcoin ETFs versus bitcoin acquisition companies Trump is hosting a dinner for $TRUMP holders Charles Schwab wants to launch crypto trading Citi thinks stablecoins could reach $3.7T in supply by 2030
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Weekly Roundup 04/18/25 (Signature Postmortem, Mantra collapse, Powell on stablecoins) (EP.615)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: We recap Nic’s article on why Signature collapsed Crypto exchange OKX their plans to expand to the US Kraken that US equities are now supported on the exchange MANTRA, a layer 1 network focused on RWAs, saw the price of its native token 90% in a matter of hours Global Payments agreed to Worldpay, a payments processor, for $24 billion from FIS and private equity firm GTCR The US Department of Homeland Security has launched a into Anchorage,...
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Fred Hsu and Michael Ho (D3) on Creating Efficient Domain Name Markets (EP.614)
On The Brink with Castle Island
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Yuval Rooz and Eric Saraniecki (Digital Asset) on the Canton Network (EP.613)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Yuval Rooz and Eric Saraniecki, co-founders of Digital Asset join the show. In this episode we discuss: The origins of Digital Asset and the path to starting the firm. Views on privacy in the context of public blockchains. How enterprises and financial institutions are approaching tokenizing assets and leveraging blockchain technology. Examples of how on-chain privacy enables use cases in collateral management and stablecoin payments. The role of the Canton Network public blockchain for enabling institutional use cases. How Canton Network works from a design perspective. To learn...
info_outlineWe welcome Michel Rauchs, research affiliate and longtime contributor to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance which just released an update its Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index featuring new mining location data. Covered in this episode:
- Why Michel returned to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance
- The evolution of the CCAF's miner benchmarking efforts
- The original motivation for the Bitcoin Energy Index
- The relationship between the CCAF and Cambridge University
- How to estimate energy consumption from hashrate figures
- The meaning of the confidence interval in the electricity consumption figures
- How CCAF amassed the CBECI mining map
- Is the pool sample for the mining map representative?
- Methodological drawbacks with miner location assessment
- Why the CCAF is still reluctant to determine a carbon emissions figure for Bitcoin
- New evidence regarding the seasonal hashrate migration
- Is the Chinese crackdown going to lower the carbon intensity of the Bitcoin network?
- Is country-level granularity sufficient to determine the energy mix of mining?
- How the CCAF devised comparisons between the Bitcoin network and other consumers of energy
- Does Bitcoin get held to a different standard than other industries?
- Michel's experience talking to the press about Bitcoin energy consumption
- Has the narrative changed in the press at all?
- Michel's level of optimism regarding the decarbonization of Bitcoin mining
This episode supported by:
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