George Selgin (Cato Institute) on Stablecoins, Bitcoin, and Free Banking (EP.234)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 08/02/2021
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
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Weekly Roundup 05/30/25 (Bitcoin Access Vehicles, GME buys BTC, Pangea Fund) (EP.630)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: Warning signs for the Bitcoin access vehicles? Has Bitcoin lost the MoE battle? Is OCP 2.0 over? The Dept of Labor rescinds their anti-crypto 401k guidance Cantor Fitzgerald is launching a bitcoin/gold fund Is it mathematically possible to give Bitcoin upside and gold downside? Content mentioned:
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Anthony Yim (Artemis) on Stablecoin Payments from the Ground Up (EP.629)
On The Brink with Castle Island
We sit down with Anthony Yim, cofounder, to talk about the from Artemis, CIV, and Dragonfly, providing brand new estimates of stablecoin payments volume. In this episode: Why we decided to work on the new report How we obtained the estimates Why we decided to put together a bottom-up estimate Stablecoin b2b volumes compared to traditional b2b How do you measure stablecoin transactions? Download the report at
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Markus Franke and Denney Kwok (Mento Labs) on Stablecoins for FX (EP.628)
On The Brink with Castle Island
and from join the show. In this episode: Non-USD stablecoins On-chain FX Microlending and financing for emerging markets
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Weekly Roundup 05/23/25 (Genius Cloture, Sui hack, $Trump dinner) (EP.627)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Trump’s crypto dinner reviewed Bitcoin access vehicles NYT stablecoin coverage Sui is hacked and censors the blockchain Kraken is launching tokenized stocks Circle in acquisition talks The GENIUS Act passes Cloture in the Senate Hong Kong passes stablecoin legislation
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Andrew MacKenzie (Agant) on British Pound Stablecoins (EP.626)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with , founder of the issuer of GBPA, a pound sterling stablecoin. In this episode: The potential emergence of non-USD stablecoins The prospect of a GBP-backed stablecoin The British crypto regulatory environment How global financial institutions are positioning around stablecoins
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Weekly Roundup 05/16/25 (GENIUS is back, Coinbase data breach, Big Tech stables) (EP.625)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: Why is Boston such a good sports city? Price inflation in dinosaur skeletons Cryptopunks IP is sold Machinsky is sentenced Nakamoto Holdings launches Meta wants to add stablecoins to its platforms Exchanges are honeypots for KYC data Coinbase suffers a data breach The GENIUS act is going to a vote next week GENIUS act new provisions More Movement shenanigans Thailand is launching a $150m crypto token Content mentioned in this episode: Tuongvy Le and Austin Campbell published a paper, "", which...
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Alex Cutler (Aerodrome) on DeFi’s Next Steps (EP.624)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with Alex Cutler, founder of for another episode in our stablefi series. In this episode: DEX trading advantages Building on-chain FX DeFi as a backbone
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TN (Pendle) on Stable Yield (EP.623)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with TN, cofounder of . Covered in this episode: How Pendle works The evolution from alt yield to stable yield DeFi's future core assets
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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
info_outlineGeorge Selgin, director of the Center of Monetary Alternatives at the Cato Institute joins the show to discuss Bitcoin, Free Banking, and stablecoins. In this episode:
- Why George refers to Bitcoin as a synthetic commodity money
- Why George was excited by the possibility for synthetic commodity money
- What conditions would have to hold for Bitcoin to be considered money
- Why money is a spectrum rather than binary
- Are stablecoins prone to bank runs?
- Is Tether's melange of underlying collateral sufficient?
- How should stablecoins be regulated?
- Why are regulators looking into stablecoins today?
- Comparing stablecoins to Money Market Mutual Funds
- Why money market funds broke the buck in 08
- Are stablecoins as systemic as money market funds?
- George's objections to Gorton and Zhang's paper on free banking and stablecoins
- George's definition of free banking
- Was the 1830s-60s period in the U.S. a period of genuine free banking?
- The actual causes of bank failures in the pre-Civil War period
- Why 'unit banking' was so fragile
- What lessons can be taken from Canada's experience with free banking in that era
- Why the history of Free Banking is a red herring in the stablecoin debate
- George's recommendations for a primer on free banking
- George's reflections on Hal Finney's reference to his work
- Why bank failures are often the consequence of regulation
Content mentioned in this episode:
- Selgin, Synthetic Commodity Money
- The Alt-M Blog
- Selgin, Money Free and Unfree
- White, Free Banking in Britain
- Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking
- Dowd, The Experience of Free Banking
- Gorton and Zhang, Taming Wildcat Stablecoins
Sponsor notes:
- This episode is brought to you by Withum, a top 25 accounting firm with a cutting-edge Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice. To learn more, visit withum.com/crypto.