How To Beat Coinbase At Their Own Game (But On-Chain) w/ Flashnet’s Ethan Marcus

September 10, 2025

Flashnet CEO Ethan Marcus joins us to discuss Bitcoin & markets. We chat the challenges of stablecoins, and how Spark’s signing protocol offers a fast, cheap alternative to Lightning. He also shares candid lessons from a $300 k load test and his vision for Bitcoin‑native finance.

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Notes:

Coinbase charges ~70 bps per trade.

Spark handled $300 k in 9 min during beta.

Bitcoin spot volume ≈ $20‑30 trillion yr.

Lightning’s fee‑free stablecoin rollout deemed “disaster”.

Spark’s operator model uses threshold signatures.

Brale’s USD‑BTC stablecoin launches on Spark.

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