Alexei Zamyatin (Build on Bitcoin) on True Rollups on Bitcoin (EP.608)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Release Date: 04/02/2025
Weekly Roundup 05/30/26 (DeFi’s worst ever month, PTJ on Bitcoin, quantum canaries) (EP.718)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: DeFi had its worth month of hacks ever How are people falling for the fake Zoom link hack The KelpDAO Aave bailout is happening Is Bitcoin’s security degrading because miners are pivoting to AI? Litecoin suffers a 51% attack Is Bitcoin PoW at risk? Computershare partners with Securitize Meta will offer creator payouts in stablecoins via Stripe Q-day prize controversy Why quantum canaries might not provide much of a warning Paul Tudor Jones is spooked by quantum Some evidence for insider information in political...
info_outline
Pluto (Harbor) on the fate of DeFi after KelpDAO (EP.717)
On The Brink with Castle Island
is a veteran of DeFi and cross chain systems, with prior stints at Thorchain and Airswap, now building , a native asset DEX. In this episode, we talk about the KelpDAO exploit and how DeFi can regain people’s trust. Nic sits down with him to discuss: What exactly happened with the KelpDAO/ Aave hack? Will new AI models make hackers more proficient? Is advanced AI a defensive or offensive technology for smart contracts? Why protocol exposures are often not on chain Why DeFi might want to segregate execution from settlement Is it possible to have instant settlement and proactive monitoring...
info_outline
Weekly Roundup 04/24/26 (Finding Satoshi, KelpDAO retrospective, Insider weather betting, Coinbase’s Quantum report) (EP.716)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals: The Finding Satoshi documentary has a new guess Was it Hal or Len? Could Satoshi have been a team? Why Stylometry might not reveal Satoshi Why the cypherpunks were interested in resurrection What happened with KelpDAO? Is DeFi cooked? Is Arbitrum decentralized? The Paris temperature market was manipulated Coinbase releases their highly-anticipated quantum risk report Performance tradeoffs for post-quantum signature schemes SBF was a good investor The Justin Sun WLFI saga continues Did an Indian tanker fall victim to a crypto scam in...
info_outline
Brandon Arvanaghi (Meow) on Banking AI Agents (EP.715)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Brandon Arvanaghi, the co-founder and CEO of , joins the show. In this episode we discuss: The rise of agentic payments and the convergence of LLMs and financial services. Meow’s approach to banking the agentic economy. How financial services firms and banks will need to evolve in order to service AI agents. Meow’s product roadmap. Meow recently made history as the first fintech to enable AI agents to open business bank accounts and virtual cards. Meow has been building the banking and treasury infrastructure for crypto-native and VC-backed companies for several years now. This includes...
info_outline
Weekly Roundup 04/17/26 (BIP361 proposal, SEC’s DeFi frontend policy, CSW’s Bitcoin movie) (EP.714)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for more news and deals: Jameson Lopp’s BIP361 gets an official BIP number What about an official salvage process for the quantum-vulnerable Satoshi coins What about recycling Satoshi’s bitcoins into long-term tail emissions Why the Satoshi freeze war will be unlike the Blocksize war Kraken confidential files for an IPO The SEC says defi frontends might not be broker dealers even if they list tokenized securities Goldman files for a Bitcoin ETF WLFi is having a feud with Justin Sun Ether Machine, an Ethereum DAT winds down There is a new Satoshi documentary...
info_outline
Weekly Roundup 04/10/26 (New Satoshi candidates, Mythos’ 0-days, CZ’s memoir) (EP.713)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: The New York Times thinks Adam Back is Satoshi The problems with the NYT’s analysis The case for Len Sassaman The case for Satoshi not being alive Could Satoshi be a group? Why Satoshi might be discovered this year Morgan Stanley launches their Bitcoin ETF Scott Bessent asks for Congress to pass Clarity The White House finds that stablecoin yield would not harm the banking system Kalshi secures a key win in a NJ appeals court Anthropic’s Mythos model is exposing vulnerabilities CZ is publishing a memoir Will...
info_outline
Connor Dougherty (Valinor) on the Evolution of Private Credit (EP.712)
On The Brink with Castle Island
, Co-Founder and CEO of , joins the show. In this episode: Connor’s background working at a large private credit shop Pioneering a new category of Open Credit and how it expands the TAM for private credit Explosion of stablecoin demand enabling new borrowing types Structuring deals to align with traditional private capital and onchain lending Building a modern credit institution by utilizing technology See more at
info_outline
Weekly Roundup 04/03/26 (Two big quantum papers, Drift protocol hack, Maritime Salvage law) (EP.711)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: The significance of the new Google and Oratomic papers on quantum computing and ECC256 Why short range attacks are now part of the threat model Is Nic conflicted out from discussing quantum? What will be the fate of the Satoshi coins? What maritime law and shipwreck recovery tells us about the fate of Satoshi’s coins Drift protocol is hacked Gary Gensler does not like prediction markets DATs are selling BTC Content mentioned in this episode: Cain et al, Babbush et al,
info_outline
Weekly Roundup 03/27/26 (Google’s Quantum Deadline, Circle’s selloff, DATs are selling) (EP.710)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: Circle stock sells off big on a CLARITY yield update compromise Tether is doing their first big 4 financial audit Who is the CLARITY Act Yield “compromise” good for? Why Circle might benefit from closing the yield loophole Is no bill better than a bad bill? Should Coinbase back the bill? Fannie Mae will accept crypto-backed mortgages Ethereum Foundation launches their post-quantum roadmap Google has revised their quantum transition deadline up to 2029 Why we will not have a lot of warning regarding quantum...
info_outline
Weekly Roundup 03/20/26 (Vanity Fair fiasco, SEC token taxonomy, tokenized deposits) (EP.709)
On The Brink with Castle Island
Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: What happened with the disastrous Vanity Fair photoshoot Kraken postpones their IPO The SEC releases long-awaited guidance distinguishing securities from commodities A compromise may be developing over stablecoin yield The SEC drops their case against Nader Al-Naji Phantom gets a no-action letter from the CFTC Tempo mainnet launches Some regional banks are tokenizing deposits Will agentic payments be a thing Q-day is creeping closer Content mentioned: Galaxy Research, Global Risk Institute,
info_outlineAlexei Zamyatin, the cofounder of Build on Bitcoin (BOB), joins the show to talk about the state of the art in Bitcoin Rollups. In this episode:
- Can Bitcoin achieve parity with Ethereum rollups?
- How BitVM and BitVMv2 changed the game for Bitcoin rollups
- When will Bitcoin rollups be considered “Stage 1”
- Ethereum’s existential crisis
- Bitcoin fees in a rollup world
- The risk of L2s cannibalizing Bitcoin
- Will Bitcoin DeFi look different from Ethereum DeFi?
- Why Bitcoin deserves Rollups
- What soft forks is Alexei looking forward to?
- Does institutionalization ossify Bitcoin?
- BOB’s progress and roadmap for 2025
Learn more about Build on Bitcoin
Try BOB: app.gobob.xyz