Brian Venturo and Brannin McBee (CoreWeave) on Building an Industrial Scale GPU Cloud (EP.366)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 10/31/2022
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: French Hill wins the nomination to chair the House Financial Services Committee Riot Platforms, a bitcoin mining company, the intention to raise $500 million via a convertible note offering. The proceeds will be used to acquire additional bitcoins, and for general corporate purposes. MicroStrategy another 21,550 bitcoin for roughly $2.1 billion. Circle and Binance a partnership with the goal of expanding the reach of Circle's USDC stablecoin across Binance's trading, saving, and payments platforms....
info_outline Matthew Le Merle and Mitch Mechigian (Blockchain Coinvestors) on Predictions for 2025 (EP.581)On The Brink with Castle Island
Matthew Le Merle and Mitch Mechigian of Blockchain Coinvestors return to the show. In this episode we run through the Blockchain Coinvestors 2025 Predictions for the digital asset industry. To learn more about Blockchain Coinvestors visit their . To view the full Blockchain Coinvestors 2025 Predictions webinar visit this .
info_outline Weekly Roundup 12/06/24 (Bitcoin $100k, Atkins for SEC, more OCP2.0) (EP. 580)On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Bitcoin finally hits $100k Our reflections on 100k BTC Declaring victory Machinsky pleads guilty Rep French Hill pledges to investigate Operation Choke Point Trump nominates Paul Atkins for SEC Chair Hawk Tuah memecoin fiasco Sponsor notes: Coin Metrics State of the Network: Contextualizing staking yields, inflation, and network economics on Ethereum & Solana
info_outline Lorien Gabel (Figment) on the Latest Developments in the Staking Market (EP.579)On The Brink with Castle Island
Lorien Gabel, the founder and CEO of joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The latest developments at Figment. Post-election impact on the general crypto markets and the staking category. How Figment is approaching the institutional staking market opportunity. Staking in the context of investment products. Evolving ecosystems like Eigen Layer, Babylon and Bitcoin Layers 2s. The stablecoin market. To learn more about Figment visit
info_outline Weekly Roundup 11/28/24 (OFAC loses vs Tornado, Cantor owns some Tether, More OCP2.0, Who we’re thankful for) (EP.578)On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another Thanksgiving episode of OTB. In this episode: Fire departments love thanksgiving Who we’re thankful for Eggnog is underrated Justin Sun puts $30m into World Liberty Financial Marc Andreessen appears on Joe Rogan and covers OCP 2.0 Why were non crypto tech peopled shocked by Choke Point revelations? Trump is looking to shift power from the SEC to the CFTC An appeals court rules that OFAC exceeded its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash Cantor owns a 5% ownership stake in Tether that they acquired at a $12b valuation How prudent is the establishment of a...
info_outline Weekly Roundup 11/22/24 (Bitcoin $100k?, Gensler Resigns, Nocoiner Rankings, Looking Back) (EP.577)On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic return for another week in the markets. In this episode: How is the DOGE going to work? Bitcoin is heading to 100k Gary Gensler announces his resignation as SEC chair We look back at Gensler’s awful term 18 state AGs file a lawsuit against the SEC The SEC’s dealer rule is tossed by a judge Trump is mulling the creation of a crypto czar Microstrategy is trading at a massive premium The latest on OCP 2.0 FDIC Gruenberg chair testifies in the House and potentially perjures himself FTX cofounder Gary Wang given no time in prison Coinbase is delisting wBTC Trump nominates Lutnick...
info_outline Aaron McDonald (Futureverse) on Metaverse Technologies (EP.576)On The Brink with Castle Island
Aaron McDonald, the founder of joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Aaron’s professional career and the path that led him to founding Futureverse. How he has built the company through a mix of organic growth and acquisitions. How blockchains and digital currency interact with Metaverse technologies. The future of virtual worlds and gaming technologies. The L1 and L2 blockchain ecosystem and how Futureverse has built their platform. To learn more about Futureverse visit their .
info_outline Weekly Roundup 11/15/24 (Congressional agenda, FTX vs Binance, Polymarket raid) (EP.575)On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic return for news and deals. In this episode: Nic recaps his trip to Congress Vibes in Congress post election The likelihood for stablecoin and market structure bills What are the prospects for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve What’s happening in Devcon? 18 state AGs are suing Gensler and the SEC Gensler is hinting at retirement FTX sues Binance and CZ Sam Trabucco forfeits $70m in assets to the FTX estate Polymarket’s Shayne Coplan raided by the FBI Doodles partnership with McDonalds The verdict on Fairshake's efforts in the election OCP developments and how Congress...
info_outline David Low (Hata) on Crypto in Southeast Asia (EP.574)On The Brink with Castle Island
, CEO and cofounder of joins the show. In this episode, In this episode, Wyatt and David discuss: Crypto adoption in Southeast Asia Regulatory attitudes Operating a centralized exchange Bitcoin interest vs other cryptoassets in the region
info_outline Weekly Roundup 11/08/24 (Trump wins, crypto candidates win, Election implications) (EP.573)On The Brink with Castle Island
Nic and Matt are back with more news and deals. In this episode: Trump resoundingly wins the election A demographic realignment Polymarket versus the polls Podcasts and twitter versus the legacy media How did the pro-crypto candidates do? Trump promises to fire Gensler on day 1 How did the Fairshake PAC do? Review of key Senate races Will Trump execute on his crypto promises? Moreno defeats Brown in Ohio Will OCP2.0 finally end? What’s the deal with Trump’s Bitcoin reserve? How would the SEC change token issuance rules? How will Trump's election affect DeFi and cashflowing tokens? Why...
info_outlineCoreWeave's Brian Venturo (CTO) and Brannin McBee (CSO) return to On The Brink for a discussion of their journey through the merge and beyond. In this episode:
- Are they relieved that the merge finally happened?
- Will there be some form of non-Bitcoin PoW in the future?
- Could Ethereum conceivably return to PoW?
- The effect of PoS on ETH’s censor resistance
- What quantity of ETH miners shifted to other PoW chains and what portion went elsewhere?
- What is the best use of capital for former ETH miners now?
- Did the merge really reduce global electricity consumption by 0.2%?
- Brannin’s estimate for precise electricity reduction from the merge
- How feasible is it for former ETH miners to get into GPU clouds?
- How Core Weave built their cloud product
- What it takes to be competitive in the high performance computing sector
- Why the generalized providers of cloud can’t just win when it comes to rendering and ML/AI
- Why the HPC market is exploding right now
- How open source communities behind text and image models contributed to the explosion in use cases
- The importance of Stable Diffusion versus Open AI
- The explosive growth of Stable Diffusion and Stability AI
- How the growth in infrastructure contributed to the emergence of these newer image models
- New directions in AI models like video creation
- Will generative AI be attacked by environmentalists?
- Can cloud data centers handle interruptible loads like Bitcoin miners can?
- How industrial compute will play a role in emerging metaverses
- Use cases Brannin and Brian are excited about
- Why hardware is actually a constraint to the number of metaverse users today
Learn more about CoreWeave here.