PODCAST · news
Bits + Bips
by Unchained
Exploring how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. Hosted by Ram Ahluwalia, Austin Campbell and Chris Perkins. Livestream: Every Monday at 4:30 pm ET.
Episodes
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Is Crypto Security at 'Max Vulnerability'? Chris Perkins Thinks So
An Ethereum Foundation researcher says AI-driven math could break crypto keys in months, worst case. Austin Campbell and Chris Perkins weigh the real risk. Sponsor Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted...
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Is OpenAI's Agent Breach a Rogue AI Problem or a Basic Security Failure?
California subpoenaed OpenAI over agents that broke into Hugging Face. Ram Ahluwalia calls it a "media stunt." David Z. Morris sees an AI safety blind spot. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset…
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How the Bitget Hack Reopened Crypto's Fight Over Neutral Infrastructure
Bitget lost $388 million to spoofed transaction data, and THORChain kept routing the funds. The hosts ask what decentralization means if you can stop and don't. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset...
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Bitcoin Reclaims Its Bear-Market Ceiling. Is the Rally Real?
Bitcoin closed above its 50-week average for the first time in 45 weeks. Ram calls it a short squeeze, Chris a regime change. Plus, Amazon locks out Meta's Muse agent. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever…
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OpenAI Says It Cracked a Millennium Prize Problem. Why Is Anthropic Hitting the Brakes?
OpenAI says it solved a Millennium Prize problem as Anthropic calls for slowing AI down. Jordi Visser tells Austin, Ram, and Chris why it's a midterm story. Plus, oil at $108. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial.…
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Robinhood's Tokenized AMC Shares Spark a Fight Over What Stock Tokens Really Are
AMC's CEO says Robinhood's stock tokens are vile. Austin, Chris, and Ram break down what these tokens actually are, and whether the outrage holds up. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap...
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Why the Kalshi-Nevada Ruling Could Land at the Supreme Court
Kalshi's Andy Ross joins the panel to argue that a Ninth Circuit ruling against the exchange might actually help its case at the Supreme Court. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at...
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CME vs. Kalshi. Is Washington Picking a Winner in Prediction Markets?
CME's Terry Duffy and Kalshi traded public insults over prediction markets. Ram, Austin, Chris, and Bitwise's Gordon Grant break down who's winning. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it…
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New US Rules Could Force Coinbase to Delist Tether
A new presidential memo lets private firms hack foreign cybercriminals — a plan Chris Perkins helped pitch. Plus a Trump-family bank charter and a rule that could push Tether offshore. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial....
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A Technical Strategist Sees Opportunity in Bitcoin's Quiet Market
Bitcoin's barely budged in weeks, but Katie Stockton says the charts are flashing a long-term oversold signal that has preceded past turnarounds. Sponsors Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that...
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Why an Ethereum Proposal to Zero Out Staking Yield Sparked a Revolt
An Ethereum proposal to zero out staking yield has the community in revolt. Seth Ginns of Franklin Crypto weighs in on whether it solves a real problem. Plus, the Clarity delay. Sponsor Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever…
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Chinese AI Models Are Defending Bitcoin Wallets Because US Models Won't
Galaxy Digital's Alex Thorn joins Austin, Ram, and Chris on the Coldcard firmware bug that's drained over $100M from cold storage — plus why the researchers chasing the next hack are stuck on Chinese AI models. Sponsor Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone...
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Why Wall Street's AI Earnings Verdict Split Meta From Microsoft
Meta fell 10% on its CapEx guidance. Microsoft didn't move. Franklin Templeton's Chris Galipeau looks past the divergence to say that the AI trade isn't over, and lays out why. Sponsors Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's...
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Why RWAs Just Out-Traded Crypto on Hyperliquid for the First Time
Lorenzo Valente of ARK Invest joins Austin, Ram, and Chris on why real-world assets just out-traded crypto on Hyperliquid for the first time — plus what Jensen Huang's first-ever post on X started. Jensen Huang had never posted on X. His first post ever was an open letter arguing that open AI...
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Why Bitcoin's Vol Index Is Already Pricing In the Odds of the Clarity Act Passing
Cole Kennelly says Bitcoin's volatility index is already pricing in the Clarity Act, weeks before the Senate even votes on it. Sponsors Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM…
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Stripe Bid $53B for PayPal: Who Actually Wins Stablecoin Payments?
Cyclops founder Alex Wilson on why PayPal 'chose to fail' at stablecoins, and what Stripe's $53 billion bid really means for the payment wars. Plus: the Clarity Act's last shot before recess. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's...
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Bitcoin and ETH Are Up. But This Crypto Rally Still Lacks Conviction.
Crypto just had its best week in months. GSR's Andy Baehr explains why he is not calling it a real rally yet, and what would actually change his mind. Sponsors Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that...
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How China May Be Interfering in Local US Politics to Block AI Data Center Progress
Sam Lyman says a Shanghai-based network is quietly blocking billions in AI data centers. Austin, Ram, and Chris also debate Clarity odds and stablecoins. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's...
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Why Any DeFi Protocol 'Lives and Dies by Its Oracle' and How to Strengthen Them
From inventing DeFi's first oracle at MakerDAO to auditing BlackRock's tokenized billions, Niklas Kunkel maps the hidden plumbing behind the RWA boom. Sponsors Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that...
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Strategy Sells $216M in Bitcoin. Is Saylor a Buyer or a Seller Now?: Bits + Bips
Strategy sold $216M more Bitcoin. Ram, Austin, and Chris ask if Saylor's now a recurring seller, and whether tokens can ever coexist with equity. Plus: the stablecoin wars get real. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone...
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Anchorage’s David Lawant Explains Why Bitcoin's Options Market Isn't Panicking: Bits + Bips
Fear and greed says panic. The options market says something else. David Lawant of Anchorage Digital walks through the signals that matter right now. Sponsors Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most...
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Why Bitcoin May Not Run Until Saylor "Gets Blown Up": Bits + Bips
Bitcoin logged its worst ETF month on record, and the hosts debate whether Strategy has become the marginal seller dragging the whole market down. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career...
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Why a Perp Exchange Asked Carmen Li to Make a Market in Her Own Index
Carmen Li is bringing GPU futures to the CME while crypto perp venues court her index. She lays out which financial wrappers actually fit which assets. Sponsors Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most...
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Why You No Longer Have to Choose Between TradFi and Crypto
Coinbase is tokenizing US stocks for the rest of the world — but what makes a token 'real,' and who owns it? Plus: the AI trade wobbles and the CME sues its own regulator. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring....
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The Fed Is Turning Hawkish. What Does That Mean for Bitcoin and Strategy?
The Fed dropped its easing bias and half the FOMC penciled in rate hikes. Zach Pandl on what Kevin Warsh's first meeting means for Bitcoin, gold, and Strategy. Sponsors Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of...
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Why the Anthropic Export Ban Should Worry the Crypto Industry
A Friday-night directive banned Anthropic's Fable 5 with no public explanation — Sam Enzer on what it means for AI, crypto, and who controls the national security card next. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring....
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Was the SpaceX IPO Really to Blame for Bitcoin's Worst Week Since FTX?
Strategy owes $3.4 billion over two years on its preferreds. Austin maps the three exits: issue more stock, sell Bitcoin, or suspend dividends. None are good. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career...
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Strategy Sold Bitcoin. Polymarket Can't Agree on When
Strategy sold Bitcoin in May and disclosed the sale via SEC filing in June. The Polymarket market on that sale resolved to no sale in May, with tens of millions of dollars on one question: does the trade date control, or the disclosure date? Sam Enzer and Steven Ehrlich map the dispute, the…
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Why Strategy's Capital Stack Is Starting to Show Cracks
Strategy sold Bitcoin for the first time since 2022 — a small sale, but a meaningful signal. Ram, Austin, and Chris work through the capital stack math: $15 billion in preferred stock needs Bitcoin to appreciate 11.5% annually just to cover dividends. What happens if it doesn't? With: Austin...
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Why Crypto Is Losing the Momentum Trade to AI Stocks Right Now
Bitcoin’s implied volatility just hit a nine-month low. ETF outflows have been running for weeks. And a memory chip ETF may have matched IBIT for the fastest ETF launch in history. So what’s happening to crypto? Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, and Steve Ehrlich break down...
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Why Arjun Sees a Link Between Pope Leo and Bitcoin
What does Pope Leo's first AI encyclical have to do with the Bitcoin white paper? Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, traces a philosophical thread from Augustine's City of God through Catholic social teaching's subsidiarity principle to Satoshi's monetary architecture. Austin Campbell finds the same...
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Kevin Warsh Takes Over the Fed. Here's What He Actually Can Do
Kevin Warsh is confirmed as Fed chair today. He says he wants a smaller balance sheet, fewer dot plots, less forward guidance, and new ways to measure inflation. In this clip, Noelle Acheson tells Steve Ehrlich why the bond market will veto the balance sheet goal, why fewer FOMC press conferences...
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Structural Stimulus Has Replaced the TACO Trade
The TACO trade — the assumption that Trump will always walk back market damage — is temporary. The BLISS trade is not. In this clip, Noelle Acheson explains Gita Gopinath's thesis from the Financial Times: no government, regardless of political party or political system, will be voted out for...
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Why Agents Will Ditch Stablecoins That Don't Pay Yield
If the risk is the same, why would any rational agent choose a stablecoin that pays nothing over a money market fund that does? In this clip, Chris Perkins puts the question directly to Circle’s Gordon Liao, who walks through USYC — Circle's yield-bearing instrument — and the seamless toggle...
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Will On-Chain Repo Reach $1 Trillion? One Reason Yes, One Reason No
Matteo Pandolfi of Pareto puts a number on the table: on-chain repo reaches $1 trillion within five years. He makes the case using the current pipeline of traditional institutions entering the space and the hybrid infrastructure model that does not require full on-chain execution. Craig Burchell…
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$5B On-Chain Credit: What's Actually Working and What's Still Missing
On-chain private credit has crossed $5 billion across more than 2,000 assets. The borrower side has matured significantly — institutional counterparties like FalconX are accessing credit on-chain with clear terms, legal structures that hold up to institutional scrutiny, and professional...
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Is the AI Rally a Bubble? Ram, Chris, and Austin Disagree
Semiconductors now make up 18% of the S&P 500 — a record — as capital floods into AI infrastructure. Is this another dotcom bubble, or something structurally different? Ram Ahluwalia says the spending is coming from the world’s most profitable companies and the returns are already showing up in...
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Paul Tudor Jones Says Bitcoin Is the Best Inflation Hedge. Is He Right?
Paul Tudor Jones called Bitcoin the best inflation hedge the same day it broke through 80 while equities sold off. The Bits + Bips crew debates whether he’s right — and what comes next for the store of value. Ram Ahluwalia sees quantum-resistant successor coins on the horizon. Chris Perkins…
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On Polymarket, You Can't Pose a Question. On Delphi, Anyone Can
Why does Delphi call itself an information market instead of a prediction market? Ben Fielding, CEO of Gensys, says the difference is the direction of the question. On Polymarket, users cannot create markets — only suggest them. On Delphi, anyone can pose a question and pay for the world to…
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OpenAI Is Building an AOL. Here Is Why That Limits AI's Scale
How does a decentralized AI network compete with companies spending hundreds of billions on data centers? Ben Fielding, CEO of Gensys, says the question misunderstands what scale actually means. The big AI labs are building walled gardens, exactly the way AOL built one in the early internet era....
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How the Kelp rsETH Hack Left Aave With $193M in Bad Debt
The Kelp hack exposed a flaw at the center of monolithic DeFi lending. What comes next for Aave, for looping traders caught underwater, and for users who never knew the risk. A single compromised signature was enough. When an attacker exploited Layer Zero's DVN network to mint 116,000 unbacked...
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DeFi's Security Ceiling: Why Lending Can't Be Like Uniswap
After Bybit, the CDS hack, and Kelp DAO, Austin Campbell argues that DeFi's foundational assumption — that incoming transactions should be treated as legitimate — may no longer hold. Ram Ahluwalia pushes back: change that assumption and you risk giving up immutability and finality. Austin draws…
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Who's Really to Blame for the $290M Kelp DAO Hack?
North Korea's Lazarus Group drained $290 million from Kelp DAO by compromising two RPC nodes feeding Layer Zero's single DVN, swapping the binary for a malicious one, and DDoSing clean nodes to force a failover. In 46 minutes, Kelp DAO managed to stop the bleed — but not before $290M was gone and...
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Strategy's Preferred Stock Is Now a Stablecoin. And DeFi Has a Security Problem.
The $290 million Kelp DAO hack, attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, has DeFi TVL down $13 billion in 48 hours. Do DeFi's foundational assumptions need to change? --- Heads up! If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow…
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The Miner Sell Wall and Why Saylor Is Absorbing It
FalconX global co-head of markets Josh Lim explains what's keeping Bitcoin range-bound near $75-76K: miner selling to fund high-performance compute transitions, breakeven retail holders looking for an exit, and an options market oversupplied with calls. He also covers why the negative funding…
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Bits + Bips: Why Josh Lim Is Optimistic on the Dynamics He's Seeing in Bitcoin
Bitcoin's spot-led rally looks healthy on the surface. But derivatives say conviction is thin. Josh Lim from FalconX on what the market structure is actually telling you right now. --- Thank you to our sponsors! MultiChain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create…
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Is Anthropic’s Mythos a Real Threat? And Who Pays for AI?
Anthropic previewed Mythos, a model it says autonomously found 181 Firefox JavaScript exploits and vulnerabilities in OpenBSD that had been missed for decades. Cybersecurity stocks fell. Ram Ahluwalia says it’s masterclass marketing — a Keyser Soze play designed to win back DOD contracts and…
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The IRGC Is Damned Either Way — Here’s Why
Ram Ahluwalia argues that CENTCOM’s move to enforce the US Naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was exquisitely timed — placing the IRGC in a vice with no clean exit. He walks through why Iran can’t escalate without facing worse outcomes, and can’t stand down without ceding economic control....
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Why Apple Might Benefit More From AI Than AI Companies Will
The US Naval blockade is live, markets are holding, and Ram thinks the bottom is in. Austin and Chris are not so sure. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Citrea As Bitcoin's application layer, Citrea gives you access to the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable platform and a native...
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Bitcoin's Geopolitical Upturn and the $100K Question
Why ETH outperformed Bitcoin this past week, what's really behind the prediction market activity during the Iran situation, and what comes next for institutional crypto adoption. --- Thank you to our sponsors! Ether.fi — 15% cash back on food and rideshare apps, 3% on everything else, borrow at...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Bits + Bips have?
Bits + Bips currently has 64 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Bits + Bips about?
Exploring how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. Hosted by Ram Ahluwalia, Austin Campbell and Chris Perkins. Livestream: Every Monday at 4:30 pm ET.
How often does Bits + Bips release new episodes?
Bits + Bips has 64 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Bits + Bips?
You can listen to Bits + Bips on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Bits + Bips?
Bits + Bips is created and hosted by Unchained.
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