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 the Strait of Hormuz?

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Finding Satoshi Documentary
• Fidelity Digital Assets, Getting Off Zero: Evaluating Bitcoin in 2026
• Coinbase, Quantum report

Brandon Arvanaghi, the co-founder and CEO of Meow, 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 USDC/USDT rails, stablecoin card programs, treasury management, and FX. To learn more about Meow visit meow.com

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 coming out
• There is an A-list Hollywood movie coming out about Craig Wright
• Leo Aschenbrenner's secret
• Tether invests into Drift Protocol post-hack
• Why is USDC refusing to freeze funds after hacks?
• Do we need an "on-chain" Chancery Court for blockchains

Content mentioned on this episode:

• Nic on X, How to resolve the matter of the Satoshi coins without a freeze

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 coming out
• There is an A-list Hollywood movie coming out about Craig Wright
• Leo Aschenbrenner's secret
• Tether invests into Drift Protocol post-hack
• Why is USDC refusing to freeze funds after hacks?
• Do we need an "on-chain" Chancery Court for blockchains

Content mentioned on this episode:

• Nic on X, How to resolve the matter of the Satoshi coins without a freeze

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 Hormuz tolls be payable in Bitcoin?

Connor Dougherty, Co-Founder and CEO of Valinor Digital, 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 valinordigital.com

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, Shor's algorithm is possible with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits
• Babbush et al, Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies against Quantum Vulnerabilities: Resource Estimates and Mitigations

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 risk
• Where is Bitcoin on quantum preparedness?
• Why it's not all doom and gloom on quantum
• MARA sells $1b worth of BTC

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, Bitcoin Is Rising to the Challenge of Quantum Readiness
• Global Risk Institute, Quantum Threat Timeline Report 2025

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:

• Are we in an oil crisis and energy shock
• Binance is suing the WSJ for defamation
• NASDAQ and Kraken partner to bring stocks on chain
• The SEC and CFTC issue an MOU
• Prediction markets need surveillance
• Across is considering converting their token into equity
• The White House's cyber strategy
• The banks are still fighting about stablecoin yield
• What risks do stablecoins actually pose to banks?