Blake King on How Grids can Accommodate Bitcoin Mining (EP.330)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 06/27/2022
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_outlineBlake King, power markets engineer at Galaxy, formerly of Oak Ridge national lab and ERCOT, joins us to talk about how changing grids are accommodating an influx of load from Bitcoin miners. In this episode:
- Why the grid is undergoing a radical transformation today
- Blake’s background in electrical engineering, power system modeling, and renewable development
- The origin of Blake’s papers on bitcoin mining and the grid
- Bitcoiner misconceptions about mining?
- Why Bitcoin is not a battery
- Why you can’t just arbitrarily add load to the grid
- Why Bitcoin mining does not generally increase energy prices during scarcity or peak load
- Why rational actors curtail or sell power during scarcity events
- Are grid planning models correctly estimating the risk of furloughing thermal generation?
- Is it possible to make the green energy transition as currently envisioned?
- Why renewable generation requires more transmission
- How renewable generation costs are increasingly upfront as compared to thermal generation
- Are bitcoiners overrating the importance of controllable load?
- Why Bitcoin miners may be over ambitious in terms of modeling ancillary service payments
- Are ancillary markets going to increase in size with more renewable generation?
- Economic demand response versus formal ancillary services
- Different types of ancillary services products
- Why load resources are able to bid out thermal generation in ancillary services markets
- How exactly Bitcoin miners get signals to curtail their load during scarcity events
- Does being a load resource imply ‘voluntary’ curtailment?
- Why miners owe it to the grid operator to be transparent in their breakeven price and operating plans
- How weather in Texas could affect block arrival times in Bitcoin
- Why the commodification of ASICs would increase the integration of the renewable energy sector and bitcoin mining
- Why ERCOT hit the pause button on the addition of new mining loads
- ERCOTs level of sophistication around Bitcoin mining
- Will miners toggle between Bitcoin, green hydrogen, and other location-agnostic uses of power?
- Do the economics of green hydrogen make sense relative to BTC mining?
Content mentioned in this episode:
Intro and outro used with permission: Ocarina #968