Building A Bitcoin Bank w/ Alexander Leishman

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.Subscribe to the newsletter! [https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com](https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com)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 Start00:34 Starting River01:51 Before River02:59 From altcoins to Bitcoin05:15 Save in BTC08:17 Coinbase trajectory10:13 Stablecoins14:10 Yield, and other fun distractions17:45 Lightning24:24 Proof of reserves26:39 Paper BTC28:08 10/10/25 fallout?33:19 Current cycle vibes36:10 Portfolio allocation39:47 Self custody42:06 Self custody unlocks45:07 Hyperliquid & others50:44 Admitting you were wrong56:05 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices