Bill Spence and Gregory Beard on The Real Story Behind Stronghold (EP.288)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 02/21/2022
Weekly Roundup 10/16/26 (OCC debanking report, Google’s quantum advance, Ledger spy chips, Richard Heart apprehended) (EP.745)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: The OCC publishes its debanking findings on America’s largest banks Will the banks’ fixes satisfy regulators? Google makes another advance in quantum error correction Coinbase lays out its requirements for Bitcoin’s post-quantum migration Can Bitcoin’s quantum transition accommodate institutional MPC wallets? OpenAI is reportedly in talks to buy Trail of Bits Patrick Witt leaves the White House — where does that leave Clarity? DWF Labs subsidiaries sue BitGo for $141m over allegedly premature...
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Weekly Roundup 10/09/26 (Going Bunker Mode, classical ECC breaks, AI’s math discoveries) (EP.744)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with more deals and news. In this episode: Is it appropriate to have AI manage your fantasy league? Quant firms are hiring “quals” Justin Drake scares everyone in crypto Did AI destroy math? Why a classical ECDSA break would be worse than a quantum one Why we lean forward hash-based signatures for post-quantum Why rotating your address doesn’t help now Is Bitcoin the “least of our concerns” if ECC breaks? Nic makes a new scientific discovery with Astra The NFL thinks that gambling should be state regulated What’s driving interest in Pokemon cards? ...
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Esther Wong (Cashi) on Making Stablecoins Spendable (EP.743)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Esther Wong, founder and CEO of joins the show. Cashi is a stablecoin spending app and cashback card with a global footprint. In this episode we discuss: Customer personas and use cases for stablecoin payments The future of tokenized equities on chain The landscape of layer one and two blockchains and how these platforms converge with global stablecoin applications Cashi’s roadmap and plans for the coming year To learn more about , visit their website and follow Esther Wong on .
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Weekly Roundup 10/02/26 (Fat Model Hypothesis, Agentic bank runs, Hester Peirce retires from the SEC, ETH 2030) (EP.742)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: Are OpenAI and Anthropic reenacting the Fat Protocol Hypothesis Will AI agents cause bank runs optimizing bank balances for yield? If the AI complex bursts does it take down VC? Our tribute to Hester Peirce as she retires from the SEC The SEC and CFTC publish crypto FAQs Vitalik lays out his vision for Ethereum in 2030 Quantum progress is accelerating Illinois delays their crypto transaction tax Is San Francisco better than it was?
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Weekly Roundup 09/25/26 (Post Clarity rulemaking, Sherrod Brown is back, RIP BitMEX, Coldcard white hats, is EA a cult?) (EP.741)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: How loud are America’s largest data centers? What’s wrong with XAI’s data center in Mississippi? The Trump admin is reportedly trying to promote dollar stablecoins Binance invests in Circle We pick up the pieces after Clarity Fairshake plans to spend $30m opposing Sherrod Brown in Ohio How AI anxiety helps the Democrats Sherrod Brown is back to haunt crypto Coinbase is listing IPOs now Are prediction markets out of step with the original vision? BitMEX finally closes its doors 52 BTC were saved from the...
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Weekly Roundup 09/18/26 (Clarity fails to advance, Caroline Ellison’s new job, AI leaking MNPI, Poland’s oil snafu) (EP.740)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: How is SBF like Dario? The EAs are at it again Do we need new regulation to Pace the Frontier? Can Anthropic be regulated like a bank? Are baseball cards back? Clarity fails at the final hurdle Why did Clarity fail? Stablecoin yield is still in effect The SEC and CFTC are engaging in rulemaking Circle launches Arc, their new L1 Robinhood employees get caught insider trading on Hyperliquid Caroline Ellison is back and working for a former FTX portco Can AI models leak MNPI? A Polish oil company tried to buy...
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Weekly Roundup 09/11/26 (Liquid hack, AI x-risk, Silvergate revisited, can AI leak MNPI?) (EP.739)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for more deals and news. In this episode: We bring back his the theme music Anthropic employees think there’s a 10% chance AI destroys humanity Was Jacob Coxon astroturfed or real? Are Anthropic employees being sincere or cynical? Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain is hacked What does the Liquid hack mean for privacy coins? Hunter Biden launches the $LAPTOP memecoin IONQ says they will be able to crack ECC in two years Ex Silvergate CEO Alan Lane speaks out OpenAI offers a solution to the Navier-Stokes problem Can insider information leak through AI...
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Weekly Roundup 09/04/26 (HuggingFace hack breaks containment, Hyperliquid onshoring, RSA260 factored, is the stablecoin sandwich cheaper?) (EP.738)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: We determine the winner of the bad boys theme song competition Dwarkesh ignites controversy with his OpenAI hack recap What actually happened with OpenAI and Huggingface? Gwern’s and Matt Huang’s short story competition Will AI make us dumb? 200m Americans KYC data has been hacked Prediction markets lawsuit heading to SCOTUS? Robinhood Chain is taking off Strategy is buying Bitcoin again Should Members of Congress be paid more? Cronos suffers a defi hack Revolut gets a bank charter Is the stablecoin sandwich...
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Guy Young (Ethena) on Digital Financial Markets (EP.737)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Wyatt sits down with Guy Young, founder of Ethena, for Guy's third appearance on the pod. In this episode: What has driven Ethena's success and durability? Where is there demand for other yield assets? Where is capital coming from? Is full onchain portfolio construction possible today? Why tokenize financial products at all? Who are the eventual winners? How is Ethena positioning to an evolving onchain yield landscape?
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Weekly Roundup 08/28/26 (BankChain alliance, Goat grazing hedges, SHRINCS, is maximalism over?) (EP.736)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode: Matt and Nic consider candidates for the new bad boys intro music 39 state banking associations form the BankChain alliance Blockstream researchers proposed SHRINCS, a PQ signature scheme for Bitcoin How much should depositors care about bank credit risk? Kalshi hosts a prediction market on goat grazing regulation Are trading bot agents getting good? Blockstream proposes SHRINCS for Bitcoin Zcash hits an 8-year high Treasury designates anyone helping Iran’s crypto sector AI watermarking Bad boys theme song...
info_outlineCo-chairman of Stronghold Digital Mining Bill Spence and CEO Gregory Beard join the show. Stronghold is a vertically integrated Bitcoin miner that uses waste coal to power their operations – while also remediating this environmentally damaging product. We dive into this fascinating, and counter-intuitive story. In this episode:
- Backgrounds of the co-chairmen and how they found the intersection of Bitcoin mining and coal waste mitigation
- Bill’s personal commitment to the mitigation of coal waste
- Why coal waste has been accumulating in PA since the late 1700s
- The immense scale of the coal waste and how it continue to affect PA, even though mining no longer occurs
- How unremediated coal waste can be understood as a form of class warfare
- Why coal waste exists in the first place
- Why developments in power plant technology meant that coal waste could be safely combusted
- Why aboveground coal waste oxidizes and releases CO2 anyway - as well as other harmful particulates
- Why growing grass over the coal waste doesn’t solve the problem
- Why 2 billion tons of coal waste can’t just be moved into landfills
- How there are 800 sites in PA and 70 of them are currently on fire
- Why Stronghold is vertically integrated, and the advantage this grants them in mining Bitcoin
- How Stronghold sends power to the grid in the case of a shortage
- Has Stronghold evaluated other high energy intensity loads aside from just Bitcoin
- Why Bitcoin is a more suitable load for their energy resources than others
- How Bitcoin allows Stronghold to keep their power available at short notice
- Stronghold’s reaction to criticism in the press and from Washington
- Why nothing had been done about the coal waste for 100 years before Stronghold came along Is the future of Bitcoin mining vertical integration?
Sponsor notes:
- Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io