On The Brink with Castle Island

Weekly Roundup 05/16/25 (GENIUS is back, Coinbase data breach, Big Tech stables) (EP.625)

Alex Cutler (Aerodrome) on DeFi’s Next Steps (EP.624)

TN (Pendle) on Stable Yield (EP.623)

Weekly Roundup 05/09/25 (GENIUS stalls, Coinbase buys Deribit, Bessent on stables) (EP.622)

Adam Healy (Station 70) and Josh Schwartz (Fordefi) on failover MPC wallets (EP.621)

David Taylor (Etherfuse) on Non-USD Stablecoins (EP.620)

Tokenizing sovereign debt on-chain provides a pathway to modernize global financial infrastructure, particularly in emerging markets where traditional payment systems remain inefficient. Etherfuse addresses this by issuing interest-bearing stablecoins and stablebonds denominated in non-US currencies, including Mexican ...

Justin and Hannah (Asymmetry Finance) on Stablecoins, Yield, & Risk in DeFi (EP.619)

Weekly Roundup 05/02/25 (OP_RETURN wars, Mastercard and Visa push stables, quantum revisited) (EP.618)

Kedian Sun (Level Money) on Stablecoin Expansion in DeFi (EP.617)

DeFi-native stablecoins like LevelUSD represent a shift toward yield-bearing assets that function similarly to fixed-income instruments in traditional finance. By backing assets with USDC and USDT and deploying them into low-risk lending protocols like Aave and Morpho, these primitives offer a DeFi risk-free rate. Whil...

Weekly Roundup 04/25/25 (Decoupling, Fed Rescinds guidance, 21 Capital) (EP.616)

Weekly Roundup 04/18/25 (Signature Postmortem, Mantra collapse, Powell on stablecoins) (EP.615)

Fred Hsu and Michael Ho (D3) on Creating Efficient Domain Name Markets (EP.614)

Yuval Rooz and Eric Saraniecki (Digital Asset) on the Canton Network (EP.613)

Weekly Roundup 04/11/25 (Tether's new stablecoin, Signature, dedollarization, DoJ disbands crypto team) (EP.612)

The global financial landscape shows little evidence of actual dedollarization, as no viable alternative currency exists to displace the dollar's dominance in trade. Regulatory momentum in the United States is shifting, marked by the SEC’s clarification that stablecoins backed by short-term treasuries are not securitie...

Wyatt Lonergan and Juan Lopez (Vaneck Ventures) on Stablecoin Adoption and The Institutionalization of Crypto (EP.611)

Stablecoins are rapidly evolving from simple on-ramps into the foundational infrastructure for global B2B payments and cross-border value transfer, effectively challenging the inefficiencies of traditional banking systems. Wyatt Lonergan and Juan Lopez of VanEck Ventures highlight that while stablecoin supply has surpa...

Hoolie Tejwani (Coinbase) on The Evolution of Coinbase Ventures (EP.610)

Weekly Roundup 04/03/25 (Circle S1, Tariffs, Galaxy settles, BitMEX pardons) (EP.609)

Alexei Zamyatin (Build on Bitcoin) on True Rollups on Bitcoin (EP.608)

Weekly Roundup 03/28/25 (MiCA Stablecoins, Gamestop, Hyperliquid) (EP.607)

Paolo Ardoino (Tether) on stablecoin bills, pursuing an audit, and getting to 400m users (EP.606)