Weekly Roundup 07/09/26 (BonkDAO exploit, Choke Point 2.0 extended to audit firms, Kraken v Mazars)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Matt Walsh and Nic Carter are partners at Castle Island Ventures. All of these expressed by them or the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Castle Island Ventures. Guests and hosts may maintain positions in the assets discussed in this podcast. You should not treat any opinion expressed by anyone on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of their personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:22)
Brought down by Bad Mortgage Investments, Lehman, which has 25,000 employees, will be liquidated.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:28)
The federal government loans American International Group, AIG, $85 billion.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:35)
The federal government is stepping in to stabilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants that have been threatened by the housing crisis.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:42)
The Bank of England has pumped $75 billion more into Britain's ailing economy.

**Nic Carter** (0:46)
The new round of constitutive easing.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:47)
You print a couple trillion dollars and all of a sudden people start to worry. So out of this worry, we have something called the Bitcoin.

**Matt Walsh** (0:54)
Welcome to On The Brink, I'm Matt Walsh.

**Nic Carter** (0:56)
And I'm Nic Carter.

**Matt Walsh** (0:57)
I watched my first full soccer game.

**Nic Carter** (1:00)
The USA Belgium.

**Matt Walsh** (1:01)
USA Belgium. That was awful. I mean, we always had that.

**Nic Carter** (1:05)
It was really bad.

**Matt Walsh** (1:07)
It was terrible.

**Nic Carter** (1:08)
It was historically bad. No, I mean, actually it was a surprise because in previous World Cups, the US has been really scrappy. You know, actually played Belgium in previous World Cup. And even though we would typically lose, we would push these better teams to the limit.
In this case, we actually brought the best team we've brought, the most skilled team, and just fell apart.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:34)
Yeah.

**Nic Carter** (1:35)
Horribly.

**Matt Walsh** (1:35)
I mean, it looks like we weren't even trying. That Pula Sička, who everyone says is the best player in the world, he looked terrible out there. He actually looked like he wasn't trying to play soccer.

**Nic Carter** (1:45)
I mean, he's pretty good on his day. I mean, he's certainly the most skilled player the US has ever had. But yeah, he was injured, I think.
And then the defending was just horrendous. Tim Ream, in particular, the central defender. I mean, that third goal we conceded where the keeper came out.

**Matt Walsh** (2:03)
Yeah, what was that?

**Nic Carter** (2:05)
It was one of the most embarrassing goals, I think, I've ever seen conceded.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:10)
Yeah.

**Matt Walsh** (2:11)
I mean, really, really bad. It's a pretty small country we were playing against. What is it, the size of Connecticut or something? And it's remarkable that we couldn't put together a better team to give them a run.

**Nic Carter** (2:23)
Yeah, I was a little shocked by it, even though the Belgium team is better skill for skill. But yeah, sorry, have you for sworn the rest of the World Cup? Are you going to see it out?

**Matt Walsh** (2:34)
I think I'll watch the finals, I guess, but it's not that exciting to me. It remains pretty uninteresting generally. I don't understand the hype.

**Nic Carter** (2:44)
This World Cup has actually been pretty thrilling.

**Matt Walsh** (2:46)
I saw a little, I saw the penalty kicks in that game a couple nights ago, was it Switzerland?

**Nic Carter** (2:52)
Oh yeah, penalty kicks are fun.

**Matt Walsh** (2:53)
Penalty kicks, yeah, the whole game should just be penalty kicks, honestly, it's way more exciting. But yeah, all right, well I'll watch soccer again in four years.

**Nic Carter** (3:03)
So we haven't converted you.

**Matt Walsh** (3:05)
No, but I think football season starts in 65 days, something like that, so we got some stuff to look forward to.

**Nic Carter** (3:11)
Yeah, I will be at the England-Norway game this weekend. Oh, awesome.
So the whole world is rooting for Norway, so everybody likes Norway.

**Matt Walsh** (3:20)
Because what are they, the big time underdogs here?

**Nic Carter** (3:23)
They're underdogs, but they have arguably the best striker in the world, this guy Erling Holland, who's this enormous, he looks like a Viking.

**Matt Walsh** (3:32)
Really?

**Nic Carter** (3:33)
So everyone likes him. And I guess people like to root against England, which is their right.

**Matt Walsh** (3:39)
All right, let's hop into the deals of the week. First one up is Paradigm, the crypto VC fund. They have raised $1.2 billion for their fourth fund, and they say they will be focused on crypto, AI and robotics.