Alexander Leishman, CEO and Founder of River, joins us to talk about his vision for building a Bitcoin bank. We dive deep into why Coinbase pursued a local maximum with altcoin trading, the stickiness of traditional banking despite 0.01% yields, and why stablecoins lack product-market fit for Americans. Alex also shares his perspective on the limits of Lightning Network for global commerce, the necessity of proof of reserves after the FTX collapse, and why Bitcoin's terminal state is to become a boring treasury asset.
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Notes:
* River started in 2019 as a Bitcoin bank.
* Coinbase charged retail 2% for altcoin trades.
* Major banks pay 0.01% interest on savings.
* Proof of reserves adopted after FTX collapse.
* Zombie nodes have near-zero running costs.
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:34 Starting River
01:51 Before River
02:59 From altcoins to Bitcoin
05:15 Save in BTC
08:17 Coinbase trajectory
10:13 Stablecoins
14:10 Yield, and other fun distractions
17:45 Lightning
24:24 Proof of reserves
26:39 Paper BTC
28:08 10/10/25 fallout?
33:19 Current cycle vibes
36:10 Portfolio allocation
39:47 Self custody
42:06 Self custody unlocks
45:07 Hyperliquid & others
50:44 Admitting you were wrong
56:05 Quantum

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Ellipsis Labs builds the most efficient on-chain markets. Their orderbook and Prop AMM products have delivered price improvement to hundreds of billions of dollars in retail volume. Now, they are bringing their expertise to build Phoenix, the best on-chain perpetuals platform. Ellipsis Labs is hiring New York-based engineers. If you're an engineer looking to work with a proven team in making DeFi better, go to ellipsislabs.xyz slash careers

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