On The Brink with Castle Island

Weekly Roundup 07/11/25 (New BTC ATH, Crypto Week, Zelensky suit scandal) (EP.645)

Zac Townsend (Meanwhile) on Bitcoin Life Insurance (EP.644)

Charles Hamel (Opera MiniPay) on Globalizing Dollar Access (EP.643)

Weekly Roundup 07/04/25 (Tokenized stocks, Crypto Week, BBB passes) (EP.642)

Chris Maurice (Yellow Card) on Stablecoin Adoption in Africa (EP.641)

Stablecoins are fundamentally transforming international payments in emerging markets by bypassing the limitations of traditional SWIFT and correspondent banking systems. Unlike speculative retail trading, the primary utility for businesses in regions like Africa involves facilitating cross-border invoice settlements a...

Bernardo Bilotta (Stables Money) on Stablecoin Fintech in APAC (EP.640)

Weekly Roundup 06/27/25 (Bitcoin for mortages, Fiserv adopts stables, Fed drops reputation risk) (EP.639)

Josh Frank (The Tie) on Crypto Market Intelligence (EP.638)

Luca Prosperi (M0) on a Universal Stablecoin Platform (EP.637)

M0 functions as a decentralized, many-to-many middleware for stablecoins, addressing the fragmentation and lack of interoperability inherent in current financial and crypto-native systems. Founder Luca Prosperi, leveraging his background in traditional financial institutions and MakerDAO, designed M0 to serve as a whol...

Weekly Roundup 06/20/25 (GENIUS passes, Nobitex Hack, FUD dice retrospective) (EP.636)

Santi Alvarado (XFX) on Improving FX for Stablecoins (EP.635)

The global foreign exchange market moves $7.5 trillion daily, yet remains plagued by inefficiencies, high capital costs, and opaque settlement processes. Traditional cross-border payments rely on the SWIFT messaging system and extensive Nostro/Vostro account pre-funding, which ties up trillions in capital. XFX addresse...

Greg Genega (KPMG) on Crypto Auditing (EP.634)

Weekly Roundup 06/13/25 (Stripe buys Privy, Stablecoin FUD, Rogue Traders) (EP.633)

In this episode of On The Brink, Matt Walsh and Nic Carter discuss recent deals and news in the crypto space, focusing on stablecoins and related infrastructure. They highlight acquisitions like Stripe's purchase of Privy, and funding rounds for companies like TYB and NOAA. They analyze the stablecoin market, addressin...

Weekly Roundup 06/06/25 (Circle IPO, Singapore rules, Trump wallet?) (EP.632)

Isha Varshney (Celo) on Stablecoin Adoption Across Markets (EP.631)

Digital money adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa serves as a blueprint for the future of global on-chain finance. Mobile-first systems like M-Pesa successfully digitized local payments, creating a foundation for fintech innovation that now extends into blockchain-based stablecoins. These stablecoins provide essential store...

Weekly Roundup 05/30/25 (Bitcoin Access Vehicles, GME buys BTC, Pangea Fund) (EP.630)

Anthony Yim (Artemis) on Stablecoin Payments from the Ground Up (EP.629)

Stablecoin payment volumes represent a significant, emerging shift in global finance, with recent data revealing approximately $100 billion in annual run-rate payments. This analysis, conducted by Anthony Yim of Artemis in partnership with Castle Island and Dragonfly, utilizes a bottom-up methodology by aggregating sen...

Markus Franke and Denney Kwok (Mento Labs) on Stablecoins for FX (EP.628)

Mento Labs provides a platform for on-chain currency trading, leveraging stablecoins to facilitate efficient foreign exchange (FX) and cross-border transactions. By utilizing fixed-price market makers (FPMMs), the platform enables instant settlement and access to a diverse range of 15 currencies, including G7 and emerg...

Weekly Roundup 05/23/25 (Genius Cloture, Sui hack, $Trump dinner) (EP.627)

Andrew MacKenzie (Agant) on British Pound Stablecoins (EP.626)

Agant is developing a UK-domiciled GBP stablecoin to address the lack of sterling-denominated assets on-chain and streamline cross-border financial settlements. While current crypto adoption in the UK relies heavily on USD-based stablecoins, the introduction of a GBP-backed alternative offers more efficient infrastruct...