Unchained

Is it Ethereum or bust? Ansgar Dietrichs makes the case that only Ethereum can anchor the financial system, and admits ETH still lacks a clear value story. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== The Ethereum Foundation is deliberately shrinking its role, and five former researchers have launched Ethlabs to take over the work they worry will otherwise go undone. Ansgar Dietrichs, co-founder of Ethlabs, joins Laura Shin to lay out the split: the Foundation will protect what should not change, while Ethlabs pushes the parts of Ethereum that must evolve. He makes the case that the global economy is moving onchain, and that Ethereum is the only candidate to sit at the center of it, or no one will. The conversation traces why ETH the asset has been stuck between $1,000 and $5,000 for five years, why Dietrichs thinks EIP-1559 and cheap blockspace were never intentional choices, how Ethlabs divides labor with the Foundation, Etherealize, and Consensys, and what DeFi founders like Uniswap's Hayden Adams actually need. The throughline is a single missing ingredient he keeps returning to: intentionality about what ETH is actually for. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ansgar Dietrichs - Co-founder of Ethlabs Timestamps 🏛️ 01:26 Why the Ethereum Foundation is stepping back and the gap Ethlabs fills 🌐 04:00 What Ethereum would look like if Ethlabs succeeds 🧱 07:56 Why Ethlabs is scaling the L1 and fixing interop at the same time 🤝 10:48 How Ethlabs divides labor with the EF, Etherealize, and Consensys 📣 18:34 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could shape the future of finance at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 🔐 19:16 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained 💸 20:15 Why ETH has been stuck waiting five years for its next act 🔗 24:24 Does L1 activity still drive ETH's value, and why ETH's interop lags 🔥 27:25 Why Ansgar says cheap blockspace and EIP-1559 were never intentional 🪙 33:27 Why being an Ethereum L2 isn't yet the superpower it should be 🦄 36:17 The culture at the EF and what kind of culture Ethlabs will have 🏢 39:41 The accountability loop: a two to three year runway and who Ethlabs serves 🛠️ 45:33 What DeFi founders actually need from Ethereum, per Hayden and others Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carmen Li thought it was a joke when a perpetual futures marketplace asked her to become the market maker for her own index. It wasn't. In this segment from Bits + Bips: The Interview, she walks Steven Ehrlich through the requests that alarmed her, a daughter analogy for why trading your own benchmark destroys neutrality, the manipulation risks she sees in crypto's index practices, and why she insists any perp venue on her index be regulated and guardrailed. Host: Steven Ehrlich - Host of Bits + Bips and Head of Research at Sharplink Guest: Carmen Li - CEO of Silicon Data and Compute Exchange This clip is from a longer conversation on GPUs, compute markets, and crypto. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/rYDiPneJv20?si=fjS7bSd-bJ6c6tYb  We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live. 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters 🤝 00:00 The perp venues circling her index, and the request that immediately felt off 🚩 01:27 The ask she thought had to be a joke: become the market maker of your own index 👧 02:47 Carmen's daughter analogy that nails why trading your own index breaks neutrality 🛡️ 04:47 The guardrails that keep it honest: external audits and hard internal trading rules 🔀 05:36 Why you can't just swap one index for another and keep on trading ⚖️ 06:26 Her one demand for any perp venue building on her index: regulated and ring fenced Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A regulated exchange suing its own regulator almost never happens. The hosts trace why CME did it, and why the CFTC may have better odds than crypto Twitter thinks. Thanks to our sponsor! 👉 Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠. 👉 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at⁠ https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED). CME has sued the CFTC, its own primary regulator, a rare move for a regulated exchange, landing the day after longtime CEO Terry Duffy announced he would step down. The trigger: the CFTC's approval of a narrowly tailored Kalshi Bitcoin perpetual, the first true perp cleared onshore. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le untangle CME's two arguments, that perps are swaps rather than futures, and that the agency acted arbitrarily by skipping notice and comment and reversing its own prior position in a single day. They weigh whether the case can win, and why the process may matter more than the outcome. From there, the panel digs into Cboe's prediction-style S&P 500 contracts headed to Schwab's customers and the binary-option-versus-swap line. With a recent poll finding 43% of Americans believe AI could "literally end the human race," Jessi argues crypto can't afford to dismiss the people who become its juries, judges, and voters. The conversation covers the CME lawsuit, prediction markets arriving on Wall Street, a viral $1 to $5 million crypto legal job, and the growing public backlash against AI. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda Timestamps 🏛️ 01:59 Why a regulated exchange suing its own regulator almost never happens ⚖️ 04:38 CME's two arguments, and why "future delivery" could reach the Supreme Court 🧠 12:51 Why process and durability may matter more than the outcome 🚪 19:54 How the Kalshi order opened the floodgates for self-certified perps 📊 23:48 Cboe's S&P 500 prediction contracts head to Schwab, and the binary-option-versus-swap line 🛡️ 33:27 Cape: Stop SIM swaps and get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained 💙 34:22 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 💼 35:05 The Pump.fun chief legal officer job and its $1 to $5 million salary 🤖 37:02 Why the AI vibe check has turned bleak and why crypto should care 🐶 47:10 This week's good news: the Marlins hunt for the hot dog meme Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vinny Lingham warned 18 months ago that Michael Saylor would harm Bitcoin more than FTX. Now he maps how the Strategy empire breaks and the one move that could slow the bleed. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Strategy's stock has fallen over 80% from its November 2024 high, its STRC preferred trades well below par, and a fresh $335 million raise has done nothing to restore confidence. Vinny Lingham, co-founder of Praxos Capital, tweeted in October 2024 that Michael Saylor would do more damage to Bitcoin than FTX. On Unchained, he argues the collapse was always predictable, and that this is not a Ponzi but what he calls a 'Saylor scheme.' Lingham maps how the empire breaks once MSTR trades at a discount to mNAV, why the 32-Bitcoin sale and the $1.5 billion buyback of 2029 converts blew Saylor's runway, and why $6.7 billion in convertible notes raises default risk by 2028. He also weighs a Soros-style attack theory and the switch to bimonthly dividends. His fix is the one thing Saylor won't do: stop buying, stop diluting, wait it out. The question is who removes the biggest buyer of Bitcoin, him or the market. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vinny Lingham - Co-founder of Praxos Capital Timestamps 📉 01:11 Strategy in free fall: why Vinny says the collapse was always coming 🪤 06:24 Why buying back 2029 debt blew Saylor's runway ₿ 07:36 The '32 years of dividends' claim and what a deeper bear market does to it 🏚️ 10:23 How the MSTR empire actually breaks: the discount-to-mNAV trap 🎯 13:35 Why is Strategy faltering? Is it leverage or a Soros-style attack on MSTR? 💙 16:38 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained 💚 17:32 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 📆 18:15 Why switching to bimonthly dividends makes the problem worse ⏳ 19:29 The $6.7B convertible-note overhang and the 2028 default risk 🛟 22:07 Can MSTR be saved, and the most likely outcome from here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An anti-MEV activist spent weeks building 66 fake contracts to trap the sandwich bot jaredfromsubway.eth. Then jared's operators did the one thing nobody expected. ======================================================== Thank you to our 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== A new R&D lab called Ethlabs has split from the Ethereum Foundation, backed by Bitmine and Joe Lubin. Its first stated goal is solving a '15 minute finality problem' that none of the hosts can quite explain the point of. Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Luca Netz ask whether a breakaway staffed largely by ex-EF people can really escape the EF's habits, or just rebuild a smaller version of them.  Then the conversation turns to fomo's $75M raise from non-crypto VCs, and why a trading app that never calls itself a wallet may have cracked the onboarding flow the rest of crypto keeps getting wrong. The hosts also trace a CryptoPunks judge ordering a self-represented plaintiff to handwrite filings to stop the AI slop, the anti-MEV activist who trapped sandwich bot jaredfromsubway.eth with 66 fake contracts, and the WSJ's claim that Polymarket paid creators to stage fake winning bets. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Timestamps 🧪 02:06 Ethlabs breaks from the EF: what the new R&D lab is actually for 🤔 03:57 Why the 'fifteen minute finality' framing baffles the hosts 📈 15:40 fomo's $75M raise and why a no-token trading app pulled it off 🧱 21:45 The wallet lesson: why building for trading beats building for custody 💙 30:48 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained ⚖️ 31:44 The CryptoPunks lawsuit where a judge ordered AI-slop filings handwritten 🥪 41:04 What a sandwich bot is and why jaredfromsubway.eth became infamous 🪤 45:34 How an anti-MEV activist trapped Jared with 66 fake token contracts 🏛️ 50:46 Why Jared running to the courts under the CFAA makes no sense 😤 56:36 Kain on the exploiter who cries foul when someone finally steals from him 📺 59:20 The WSJ claim that Polymarket paid creators to stage fake winning bets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The crew debates whether Saylor's STRC preferred shares are "Luna for suits," unpacks the ETH Labs spin-out and Ethereum Foundation layoffs, breaks down the CME's lawsuit against the CFTC to kill domestic perps, and weighs whether Meta's leaked prediction market Arena is a real threat to Polymarket. Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, Saylor's STRC preferred shares, which have broken below their $100 target. Laura argues it's a confidence crisis, Tarun calls it "Luna for suits," and Haseeb pushes back — there's no death spiral, Saylor can just defer dividends and "burn the boat." Then the Ethereum Foundation shakeup: ETH Labs spinning out with seven senior EF members while the EF lays off 20% of its headcount. The back half covers the CME suing the CFTC to block domestic perps — which Haseeb frames as "suing for the right to not compete" — and Meta's leaked prediction market Arena, where Tom reveals this is Meta's third or fourth attempt at prediction markets. Let's get into it. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Saylor's STRC preferred shares break below $100 target — Tarun calls it "Luna for suits" 🔹 Haseeb pushes back: no death spiral, no margin calls — Saylor can defer dividends and "burn the boat" 🔹 Tom reveals Strategy execs are cold-calling crypto funds to sell them STRC — "very Luna" 🔹 ETH Labs spins out with 7 senior EF members as the Foundation lays off ~20% of headcount 🔹 CME sues CFTC to block domestic perps — Haseeb: "suing for the right to not compete" 🔹 Haseeb proposes 100-year futures as a workaround to route around the lawsuit 🔹 Meta leaks prediction market Arena — Tom reveals this is Meta's third or fourth attempt at prediction markets 🔹 Tarun argues prediction markets will be viewed as information social networks within five years Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly  ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly  ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures Guest ⭐️Laura Shin, Journalist, Author of ‘The Cryptopians,’ Founder and CEO of Unchained Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:10 STRC & Strategy: Saylor "Luna for suits" 12:33 No death spiral — burn the boat 17:06 Strategy execs cold-calling crypto funds 20:06 Ethereum Foundation shakeup & ETH Labs spin-out 27:33 ETH Labs is the ghost of Tomasz 35:20 CME sues CFTC to block domestic perps 44:44 100-year futures as a workaround 50:29 Meta's prediction market "Arena" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three years ago, Chris Perkins sat across from Terry Duffy in Congress and made the case for perpetuals. Duffy pushed back — hard. Now Duffy's CME is suing the very regulator that finally allowed them. The CME argues Bitcoin perpetual futures are really swaps and should carry far more collateral. Chris traces the Dodd-Frank history that created the swap-versus-future divide, and Austin Campbell lays out why picking this fight in a post-Chevron court could backfire on the incumbent. Is a perpetual a swap or a future, and who gets to decide? Hosts: Austin Campbell - Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern Ram Ahluwalia - Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida Chris Perkins - Co-host of Bits + Bips and Head of Franklin Crypto This clip is from a longer conversation on tokenization, the AI trade, and the CME's lawsuit against the CFTC. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/oSiOeWq_pKE  We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live.  Sponsor 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters ⚖️ 00:00 The incumbent sues its own regulator: what the CME is actually claiming 📜 01:22 Chris on Terry Duffy, and the testimony fight that set this up 🏛️ 02:12 The Dodd-Frank origin story, traced back to the 2009 G20 ⏱️ 03:12 Why a 'swap' costs five days of margin and a future costs two 🌊 04:42 Constrain leverage onshore and watch it flee offshore ⚠️ 05:15 Austin: why the CME should be careful what it wishes for 🧨 06:26 The Dodd-Frank footnote where Congress admits it punted 🤝 08:20 ICE, OKX, and Kraken: where the dance partners line up 🎯 09:12 What the market really needs out of all this Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Was Michael Saylor wrong to sell Bitcoin? Matt Cole breaks from his fellow critics on Strategy, S&P's junk rating on MSTR, and whether the model is breaking. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Strive's Matt Cole had just lived through what he called the most difficult day in the history of digital credit when he sat down to defend it. STRC had touched $82.50, SATA had slipped into the low nineties, and the Bitcoin treasury trade was suddenly the most argued-over corner of crypto. Cole came from a pension background and built Strive into one of the largest Bitcoin treasury companies around a single conviction: that structured credit can solve an income problem fiat can't. The critics, he argues, can't even agree with each other on what is actually wrong. Was last week a leverage liquidation or a crack in the model? Did Michael Saylor quietly change his story? And is wrapping Bitcoin in preferred stock a betrayal of its ethos or the bridge most people actually need? Laura Shin pressed on all of it. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matt Cole - Chairman and CEO of Strive Timestamps 🎙️ 02:07 What Strive is, and why Matt calls SATA the company's main product 🏦 10:16 Could Strive cut SATA's 13% yield without breaking par? 👥 15:45 Who is actually buying SATA, and the one buyer Matt says he's never met 📣 25:15 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers and make the decision that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 🔒 25:58 Cape: Use code unchained for 33% off at https://cape.co/unchained 💧 27:28 What Matt thinks really drove last week's STRC drop, and why SATA didn't follow 🏛️ 31:28 Why Matt won't fault Saylor for selling, and the S&P rating he calls a joke ⚖️ 50:53 Is buying SATA un-Bitcoin? Matt answers the Mallers vs Saylor critique Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kalshi just brought crypto perps to the US, targeting a $90 trillion offshore market. Its Head of Crypto, John Wang, explains the bet, the risks, and who Kalshi is actually competing with. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== The $90 trillion offshore market for crypto perpetual futures just got its first US-regulated entrant. Kalshi — the prediction market exchange that raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation — launched the first CFTC-approved crypto perps, becoming the only domestic exchange approved on launch day. John Wang, Kalshi's Head of Crypto, joins Laura Shin to map how perpetual futures work, why Kalshi's guarantee fund and segregated accounts differ from what offshore venues provide, and how the exchange plans to compete with Hyperliquid, Coinbase, and Kraken. Wang pushes back on CME Group CEO Terry Duffy's claim that crypto perps are "a disaster waiting to happen," noting CME's own futures carry higher leverage than Kalshi's platform. He covers the ARCA and Galaxy block trades on Kalshi's prediction markets, insider trading protections built around athlete and congressional staff lists, and the regulatory filings separating Kalshi from perps on equities. Wang estimates only 0.2% of the US has adopted perpetual futures — the real growth has barely started. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠John Wang - Head of Crypto at Kalshi Timestamps 🎯 02:51 Why Kalshi chose crypto perps as its first product outside prediction markets 🔧 05:15 What a perpetual future is and why traders prefer it over options and standard futures 🤓 11:14 The metric that reveals real demand: Kalshi's ratio of trading volume to open interest 🛡️ 14:19 How Kalshi plans to onboard Americans, and how its risk model differs from Hyperliquid's auto-deleveraging 🏛️ 21:05 Wang on Terry Duffy's claim that crypto perps are 'a disaster waiting to happen' 🎓 23:17 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 📱 24:00 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained 🤝 25:32 How institutions are pitching its perps to institutions — and which ones have so far done trades 🌐 33:09 How Kalshi plans to compete with Hyperliquid, Coinbase, Kraken, and Robinhood 🔍 41:14 How Kalshi attempts to prevent insider trading — and what John thinks about its rivalry with Polymarket 💰 46:16 Kalshi's roadmap after its $1 billion raise at a $22 billion valuation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The government export-controlled Anthropic's best model. Kain, Luca, and Taylor debate whether Dario talked his way into it and what the shutdown means for every AI lab. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠Multichain Advisors⁠⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at https://multichainadv.com. ======================================================== A reported jailbreak of Anthropic's most powerful model, Fable, triggered US government export controls, and the Uneasy Money hosts argue Dario Amodei's response on the call with the administration made it inevitable. Kain, Taylor, and Luca dig into what Dario got wrong, why a company about to go public had no one in Washington who could speak the government's language, and what it means that the shutdown drew no public backlash. Porter Stowell, CEO of W3.io and a Coinbase alum, joins for the first half with his read on the exchange's big announcement day: agentic payments on Base, tokenized stocks, and a ground-up trading rebuild. Midway through, Luca drops something unannounced: Igloo has built a financial instrument to list crypto tokens directly on the NYSE as securities, with protocol revenue flowing back to holders. The episode closes on Strategy, and why Kain thinks selling 32 Bitcoin, then buying back 1,587 two weeks later, exposes the structural risk of a belief-based asset with one dominant buyer. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Porter Stowell - CEO of W3.io Timestamps 🏦 03:16 Porter Stowell on why Coinbase's announcement day signals a real shift in how the exchange competes 💬 06:26 Luca on why Coinbase's core trading product still lags: charts that won't load and page refreshes to buy Bitcoin 🤖 17:40 Porter on why agentic payments on Base is the real sleeper from Coinbase's announcement day 📋 25:10 What "real" means in Coinbase's tokenized stocks launch and whether the custody approach actually differentiates it 💡 34:15 Luca reveals Igloo's instrument to list crypto tokens directly on the NYSE as securities 📣 41:12 Multichain Advisors: Navigate TGEs, go-to-market, and capital markets advisory at https://multichainadv.com 🧠 41:54 What Fable was, why it scared security researchers, and how a reported jailbreak report ended it ⚠️ 48:36 Taylor on why Anthropic's communications with the government made the Fable export control inevitable 🏛️ 57:09 Kain on why the Fable shutdown is the 'first fracture' in AI, and what the lack of pushback means 🌍 01:00:18 Binance's EU license bid in doubt, and Kain's contrarian case that losing Europe is bullish 📉 01:07:32 Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin on June 1 then bought back 1,587: what the panic reaction revealed about Bitcoin's concentration risk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale Investments, argues that speculative retail flows, not geopolitical fundamentals, drove the recent gold and Bitcoin selloffs. His read: momentum chasing built gold from $4,000 to well above $5,000, then rotated out to chips and pre-IPO trades. The underlying deficit-and-debt case for both assets hasn't changed, and he's calling the dip a buy for longer-horizon investors. He closes with Grayscale's H2 DeFi revenue thesis. Hyperliquid is the clearest proof of concept: a protocol with a clear use case, real revenue, and value returned to token holders. Grayscale applied a discounted cash flow model to Aave and published a price target on the token. Host: Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview and Head of Research at Sharplink - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich Guest: Zach Pandl - Head of Research at Grayscale Investments - https://x.com/LowBeta This clip is from a longer conversation on the Fed's hawkish pivot, the SpaceX IPO, crypto winter, and Strategy's preferred equity. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/WIlLtRQidQg?si=ONIIkcPElZFgpa8l  We go live every Thursday at 12:00pm ET - subscribe to catch it live. 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters 🔍 00:00 Steve on gold and Bitcoin's worst quarter - what happened during the Iran war 📊 00:57 Why Pandl argues speculation, not fundamentals, drove both the run-up and the selloff 🥇 02:42 The buy case - Pandl on what to do when speculative excess washes out 💡 03:25 Steve asks about second-half assets and Standard Chartered's Uniswap call 💰 03:50 Why Hyperliquid and Aave anchor Grayscale's H2 DeFi revenue thesis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The federal government pulled Anthropic's Fable 5 offline with no public process — and Jessi Brooks makes the case it's a crypto chokepoint story, not just an AI one. Thanks to our sponsor! 👉 Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com. 👉 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). The federal government forced Anthropic to take Fable 5 offline last week, and the justification is still murky. Jessi Brooks makes the case that what began as a cybersecurity story is really a chokepoint story, one crypto has seen before. With no transparent process, no technical experts cited, and no clear legal authority, she argues the administration has effectively invented KYC for AI, raising questions far beyond Anthropic. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le work through two regulatory moves with real market-structure stakes. The CFTC released a near-300-page proposed rule on prediction markets, amending Rule 40.11 and clearing political event contracts. The SEC moved to repeal Reg NMS Rules 611 and 610E, two-decade-old market pillars. Vy Le argues the repeal is crypto's real opening: stop forcing AMMs to fit the old rules and start building the replacement, where solver auctions and cryptographic attestations let investors and regulators verify execution in real time. The throughline across the week is the same: when Washington moves this fast and quietly, is crypto the cautionary tale or the fix? Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda Timestamps 🤖 03:04 Why the Fable 5 shutdown is a chokepoint story, not just a security one 🔑 09:36 Jessi on why inventing KYC for AI with no process echoes the Gensler era ☢️ 18:48 Why Vy Le puts AI on the threat level of the nuclear bomb 🏛️ 22:36 What the CFTC's near-300-page prediction-markets rule changes in Rule 40.11 📣 34:21 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 📈 36:32 Why the SEC's Reg NMS repeal could clear the way for onchain markets ⚙️ 41:18 Why Vy Le says crypto already built the tools for better best execution 📑 46:42 Why Citi's 'tokenized shares' aren't shares, plus Coinbase's onchain dividends 🦕 51:26 Crypto good news: Jurassic Finance tokenizes dinosaur bones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The crew breaks down the SpaceX IPO's crypto-like low float dynamics and Hyperliquid's price prediction, debates accredited investor laws and failed tokenized stock allocations, dives into Fable 5's export control shutdown after Amazon flagged a jailbreak to the Treasury Secretary, and argues whether open source AI models will eat frontier pricing. Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. Robert is back after a brief hiatus recording his own podcast, The Pop, for Superstate — and the crew wastes no time roasting him for it before diving into the biggest week of news in recent memory. First up: the SpaceX IPO, the largest in history, and why it looks eerily like a crypto token launch — 4.2% float, retail getting cut out, and Hyperliquid perps predicting the first-day pop almost to the dollar. The crew debates TradeXYZ's winner-take-all dominance of HIP3 and why building on top of Hyperliquid might be a terrible startup environment. Then they unpack Elon's financial engineering genius — the Cursor acquisition as all-stock crypto playbook, XAI's pivot from failed AI lab to compute reseller, and why Grok is (unanimously) an embarrassing piece of shit. The conversation shifts to accredited investor laws, SPV dentists, and why every crypto platform failed to deliver SpaceX IPO allocations. From there, Coinbase's massive system update — tokenized stocks, an SEC-registered AI chatbot, combos, and 15-minute markets. Then things get spicy: Robert asks Claude about SBF on air, Sonnet gets it hilariously wrong, and everyone roasts him for not using Opus. The back half is all about Fable 5 — Amazon's jailbreak discovery, Andy Jassy calling Dario (who didn't pick up), and the export controls that shut down the most powerful commercial AI model ever released. Robert drops his most surprising take: "I am EAC, but this is a dry run of pressing the pause button." The episode closes with a heated debate on whether Chinese open source models will eat frontier AI pricing and a bet that may or may not have been agreed upon.  Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 SpaceX IPO breaks records with a 4.2% float — the closest thing to a crypto token launch Wall Street has ever done 🔹 Hyperliquid perps predicted the SpaceX first-day pop almost exactly, with $1.4B in daily volume on a single stock 🔹 TradeXYZ dominates HIP3 as other integrators fold — "HIP3 should be renamed to Trade" 🔹 SpaceX's all-stock Cursor acquisition mirrors the CZ/FTT playbook — Elon learned from crypto 🔹 Accredited investor laws debated after Brian Armstrong calls for reform post-SpaceX IPO 🔹 Every crypto platform that promised SpaceX IPO allocations failed to deliver after the deal went 5x oversubscribed 🔹 Coinbase launches tokenized stocks with real dividends, an SEC-registered AI advisor, combos, and 15-minute markets 🔹 Robert asks Claude about SBF on air — Sonnet 4.6 hallucinates, Opus 4.8 gets it right, model war ensues 🔹 Fable 5 shut down after Amazon flagged a jailbreak to Treasury Secretary Bessent — Dario didn't pick up the phone 🔹 Robert says "I am EAC" but argues the Fable shutdown is a healthy dry run of pressing the AI pause button Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the tenth anniversary of Unchained, Laura reflects on the SBF question she never asked, the Charles Hoskinson beef, and why she may be done with strict neutrality. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠. ⁠⁠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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Unchained started as a side project by Laura in 2016, with two interviews recorded on Necker Island. Ten years later, it’s become a network of podcasts and newsletters. Haseeb Qureshi of one of most beloved podcasts on the network, The Chopping Block, chats with Laura about everything from its origins to biggest regrets to her interview style and more.  Plus, she reveals the one regret she has over a question she never got to ask Sam Bankman-Fried after the collapse of FTX. Haseeb, managing partner at Dragonfly and an effective altruist himself, traces whether EA's moral framework enabled SBF's fraud, or whether SBF simply had ordinary delusions of grandeur.  The conversation also moves through Charles Hoskinson's disputed PhD claims, the Brian Armstrong interview that never happened, and Laura's emerging conviction that ten years of institutional disillusionment may be pushing her away from the neutrality that built her career. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Haseeb Qureshi - Managing Partner of Dragonfly - https://x.com/hosseeb Timestamps 🎙️ 1:46 How Unchained started: Necker Island, first guests, and the year-one sponsor 📰 6:46 Why Laura sold her crypto for journalism ethics and why she bought back in years later 😳 10:45 Why the SBF collapse was Laura's biggest shock in 11 years of covering crypto 🧠 14:24 Laura's 'license to play God' critique of effective altruism and Haseeb's rebuttal ❓ 23:32 The question Laura would have asked SBF after the FTX Collapse and why nobody did 🎤 25:16 Why Brian Armstrong has never been on the show and Laura's neutrality code 📣 30:08 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers and make the decision that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 🌐 30:58 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained ⚔️ 32:19 Laura ranks her worst and best Crypto Twitter brawls 🎭 38:33 Why Haseeb thinks The Chopping Block works best as a play, not a roundtable 🤔 47:06 Laura asks whether she should shed journalistic neutrality after ten years 🗞️ 51:06 Why Laura now believes independent journalism is better for humanity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The US government issued a Friday-night export control directive against Anthropic's Fable 5, citing a jailbreak that could expose advanced cyber capabilities built into the underlying Mythos model. No statutory authority was publicly disclosed. No comment period was given. Sam Enzer, Partner and CahillNXT Co-Chair at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, joins Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins to assess the directive's legal standing. Enzer draws a parallel to Gensler-era regulation by enforcement: familiar government power applied to new technology, with no transparent framework. His central question: if export controls can reach an AI model's API, can the same authority reach a US-based DeFi protocol serving foreign nationals? Austin raises the Choke Point parallel and asks where the limiting principle actually is. Ram argues that restricting software is restricting speech under the First Amendment. Chris warns that national security will always be the trump card unless the industry makes a credible counter-argument. Hosts: Austin Campbell, Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern - https://x.com/austincampbell Ram Ahluwalia, Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida - https://x.com/ramahluwalia Chris Perkins, Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management - https://x.com/perkinscr97 Guest: Sam Enzer, Partner and CahillNXT Co-Chair at Cahill Gordon & Reindel This clip is from a longer conversation on AI export controls, national security, and the First Amendment. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/pEh1zr1pj90  We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live. Sponsors 👉 Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com  Chapters 🤖 00:00 Austin on the Fable 5 export directive: what the ban said and what Anthropic disputes ⚖️ 02:09 Sam Enzer's initial take: a familiar overreach pattern with unfamiliar stakes 📜 05:03 Sam on what's missing from the directive: no public letter, no statutory basis, no comment period 🏛️ 07:06 Austin on the Choke Point parallel and the question the government hasn't answered 🔒 08:40 Chris on national security as the regulatory trump card and what the industry needs to counter it 📚12:21 Ram on why banning a model is the new book burning 🗳️ 18:15 Sam on what the government should do: due process, disclosed authority, and FOIA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceXand the AI IPO cycle face a structural problem: a cheap, capable open source exit is already drawing enterprise users away before either company goes public. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠Fidelity⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠. ⁠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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== A viral tweet by Tom Shaughnessy, founding partner of Delphi Ventures, identified the most basic way AI could blow up: a 40x subsidy gap between consumer AI subscriptions and enterprise API costs quietly pushing businesses toward open source inference providers at 1% of the price. Citadel Securities published a near-identical thesis shortly after. Shaughnessy joins Laura Shin to map the implications for the AI IPO wave, starting with SpaceX. Low floats and passive index demand should lift these stocks out of the gate, but public market disclosures will force OpenAI and Anthropic to reveal payback periods, margins, and subscriber numbers for the first time. He also argues OpenAI's reported price cuts target Anthropic's growth metrics before the IPO, not user demand. The episode also covers the China model wildcard, whether AI model restrictions amount to big brother fearmongering, and whether crypto's tools for capital formation could keep the AGI flywheel from stalling. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠Tom Shaughnessy - Founding Partner of Delphi Ventures and Co-Founder of Delphi Digital Timestamps 💸 01:10 Why over $600B left crypto in 30 days: AI deal outflows, the SpaceX IPO. and quantum concerns 🧵 04:46 Tom's viral tweet: the 40x subsidy gap hidden in AI subscription pricing 📊 07:51 Why AI IPO filings will force the financials nobody has seen 💡 10:16 Why open source inference will compete with the frontier labs 🏗️ 13:06 Why frontier labs need to own what they create, not collect $200 per month 📣 15:55 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained 📣 17:01 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 🌏 18:08 Chinese open source models and why going closed source could help OpenAI ⚔️ 20:58 Why Tom says OpenAI's price cuts target Anthropic's IPO, not users 🤬 22:09 Why AI model censorship is big brother fearmongering 🔗 24:42 Crypto's answer: ICO for open source AI, Nous Hermes, Venice, Grass, Ambient Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claude Fable 5 refuses security work, Kain Warwick pulls $5,000 of compute from a $200 plan, and Humanity Protocol loses its bridge, token, and treasury to one infected device. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠Multichain Advisors⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at https://multichainadv.com. ======================================================== Anthropic promised Mythos and shipped Claude Fable 5 instead. The model found a four-year-old bug in Zcash's shielded pool that survived multiple expert audits. But when Anthropic shipped the model days later, it was no longer willing to audit smart contracts, bailing the moment a prompt smells like security work.Jailbreakers are already turning a jailbroken Opus 4.8 against it, while white hats sit locked out. Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Luca Netz weigh the defender's dilemma: builders cannot point the model at their own code, but nobody can prove black hats have not jailbroken their way in —  and, the hosts warn,North Korean threat actors have spent more than six months harvesting AI API keys. Then Kain runs the numbers on the subsidy: roughly 200 million tokens in four hours on a $200 plan, about $5,000 at API rates, and on the 22nd Fable goes API only as the first unsubsidized frontier model. Plus Pump.fun's bounty marketplace and the Humanity Protocol hack, which left the hosts asking why a 3-of-6 multisig existed at all. When the subsidies stop, who still gets the frontier? Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Timestamps 🤖 00:40 Why Kain says Fable 5 should have been named Fable zero 🛡️ 03:50 Taylor on how Fable downgrades the second anything touches security 🕵️ 10:42Taylor on stolen AI keys,tokens and North Korea's new favorite loot 🧠 15:48 Does Fable reason like a senior engineer? Kain's 100-doc planning test 💸 20:06 How Kain pulled $5,000 of API value from a $200 Claude plan in four hours 🐧 ~33:45 How Igloo budgets $50K a month on AI, and the bot "brain" running the org 📊 44:00 Multichain Advisors: start building real traction with the team behind $50B at https://multichainadv.com 🎪 44:41 Pump.fun's bounty circus: tattoo typo, the Bootywork coin, Luca's steelman 🚨 55:36 How one infected device cost Humanity Protocol its bridge, token, and treasury Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mert and Illia autopsy a brutal weekend in crypto: Saylor's $3M test sale that taught him there's no sell button, the Zcash bug Claude found that could've minted unlimited counterfeit ZEC, formal verification as the bulwark against AI attackers, and whether NEAR's agentic commerce vision is real. Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week we've got two heavy hitters: NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin and Helius founder Mert Mumtaz. We kick things off with the weekend market meltdown -- Saylor sold 32 BTC for the first time in four years, STRC is trading below par, and Mert argues the real damage is that Saylor sucks all the air out of the room for actual crypto innovation. Then we get into the biggest story of the week: a critical bug discovered in Zcash's Orchard ZK circuit using Claude Opus 4.8 that could have allowed infinite counterfeit minting inside the shielded pool. Mert walks us through the emergency soft fork, the Ironwood migration, and why formal verification is about to become table stakes. Illia makes the case that AI-powered attackers have a permanent asymmetric advantage and that we need real-time on-chain detection systems to survive. Tom coins the analogy of the episode: we're moving from building boats to building spaceships. We close with Illia's pitch for NEAR's agent commerce vision – $240M in single-day volume, private intents, and the claim that agent-to-agent trustless commerce is already live – while Mert remains a friendly skeptic. Let's get into it.Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly  ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly  Guest ⭐️ Mert, Co-founder & CEO at Helius ⭐️ Illia Polosukhin, Co-founder of NEAR Protocol Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:17 Weekend Crypto Meltdown & Bitcoin Crash 02:52 Saylor, STRC & the DAT Death Spiral Fears 11:51 "No Sell Button" — Saylor's Lesson Learned 13:14 Zcash Bug: 50% Crash Explained 20:30 The Fix: Ironwood Pool & Formal Verification 23:11 AI vs Crypto Security: The Attacker Advantage 27:21 What Is Formal Verification? 30:07 Spaceship-Grade Smart Contract Security 31:36 OPSEC, Oracles & Anomaly Detection 36:08 Cypherpunk Dilemma: Stop the Hack or Not? 38:37 Will DeFi Survive? Long Math 42:49 NEAR's AI Agents & Intents Vision 48:43 Is Agentic Commerce Real? Mert's Skepticism Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For three years, a counterfeiting bug sat live inside Zcash's shielded pool, and no one noticed. Then Taylor Hornby pointed a custom Claude Opus 4.8 agent at the code, and it surfaced the flaw in Orchard that had gone undetected since 2022. Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins debate what that means for privacy protocols, the rotation away from dead-protocol alts, and why Bitcoin's simplicity may be its strongest security argument yet. The conversation closes on quantum risk and whether the Lindy effect holds up under the new threat environment. Hosts: Austin Campbell, Founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern - https://x.com/austincampbell Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of Lumida - https://x.com/ramahluwalia Chris Perkins, President of CoinFund - https://x.com/perkinscr97 This clip is from a longer conversation on AI, security, and the Zcash counterfeiting bug. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/oSUVTmC3wZo?si=zTopwWKi3ETPD5Rz  We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live. 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters 🤖 00:00 Chris on AI, security vulnerabilities, and the Zcash counterfeiting bug 💰 02:28 Should you rotate into Hyperliquid over dead protocols? 🔍 05:53 Claude Opus 4.8 finds Zcash's live shielded-pool bug 📉 08:16 The Enron analogy for a confidence crisis in privacy coins ⚛️ 12:30 Bitcoin's Lindy effect meets the quantum risk tension Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About 80% of STRC holders are retail investors. Glenn Cameron walks through the prospectus, how Saylor's public claims differ from the reality, and why Strategy has no good options. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: crypto.fidelitycareers.com. 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 identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Strategy's sale of 32 Bitcoin last week came with unusual framing: Saylor said the purpose was to "inoculate the markets." Glenn Cameron, Global Head of Institutional at Onramp Bitcoin, reads that word as preparation for larger Bitcoin sales ahead. Glenn traces the pressure points. Strategy is trading at 84% of its Bitcoin value, making new equity issuance dilutive rather than accretive on a Bitcoin-per-share basis. Its cash reserve has been cut to roughly seven months after the company redeemed a 0%-interest convertible note. And STRC, the perpetual preferred stock Saylor has marketed as "a high yield bank account," carries a dividend the board can suspend for any reason. The episode's sharpest argument: 83% of STRC holders are retail investors sold a product that resembles a bank account but behaves like junior equity on a volatile Bitcoin company. No maturity, no FDIC protection, no right to redeem. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Glenn Cameron, CFA - Global Head of Institutional at Onramp Bitcoin Timestamps 📊 1:24 Risk vs uncertainty: why Glenn won't predict Bitcoin's price but will name every structural pressure point 🔑 4:27 What 'inoculate' means: why Saylor's word choice signals a larger Bitcoin sale may be coming 📉 6:58 Strategy below NAV: why buying Bitcoin with new stock now dilutes Bitcoin per share for existing holders 🗣️ 12:33 Glenn's response to people who say that the criticism of Strategy is FUD: STRC has to raise the dividend if bitcoin lowers 👥 19:57 Strrategy's section option: suspend the dividend, but 83% of holders are retail who think STRC is a bank account ⏰ 24:02 The 2028 cliff: $3.5B in convertibles become putable when history says a drawdown may not have recovered 📣 29:21 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 📱 30:19 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained 🏷️ 31:02 The 'digital credits' name: why STRC's marketing label creates false expectations about legal structure and protections 💬 36:13 Saylor's own words: three public claims that STRC is a 'high yield bank account' or money market fund ⚖️ 40:54 The real product: how STRC compares to actual money market funds and FDIC-insured accounts 🔄 48:22 SATA vs STRC: same instrument, different issuer since one-third of Sata's cash reserve is in STRC 🪣 55:42 why the staking yield of Bitmine's upcoming BMNP, an Ethereum-backed preferred at $80 par, won't cover the cost of capital Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Dudas holds zero ETH and sees Hyperliquid as crypto's Tether moment. He also has a clear framework for what makes a token worth buying. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Fidelity: Explore crypto careers and make the decision that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com ======================================================== Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin, worth just $2.5 million, and the market didn't miss it. For Mike Dudas, Managing Partner at 6th Man Ventures, the sale broke the "never sell" promise that sustained the company's premium. He doesn't see how the narrative gets rebuilt. Dudas applies the same unsentimental read to the rest of the L1 landscape. His firm holds zero ETH — five years of contradictory narratives have left the market unable to value it. In his view, Solana's decline is simpler: memecoin activity peaked and hasn't recovered. Hyperliquid, in his view, is closer to Tether than a competing L1: the no-KYC international market is enormous, and asset quality is the moat. His framework for tokens worth owning: programmatic buybacks and consistent communication from leadership. On AI, he argues agentic trading will far outpace agentic payments — Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are moving too fast for new entrants to displace them. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mike Dudas - Managing Partner of 6th Man Ventures - Timestamps 💸 01:23 Why Mike thinks Strategy broke its 'never sell' promise, and the market premium is gone 🔷 05:06 Why ETH can't settle on a single story, and why Dudas has zero exposure 🌊 10:39 How Hyperliquid is the Tether of DeFi, not a competing L1 📣 13:56 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers and make the decision that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com ⚔️ 15:19 How ETH, SOL, and Hyperliquid actually compete, and where they don't 📊 20:13 Why programmatic buybacks beat discretionary ones, with Pump.fun as proof 🤖 26:17 Why agentic trading has a future, but agentic payments have Visa and Mastercard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Sosnick on the ratchet effect in equities, the AI bandwidth parallel, Kevin Warsh’s impossible first week, and why crypto is the unsexy trade right now. --- Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Equities are near all-time highs, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge just hit a multi-year peak, Iran ceasefire talks are producing a familiar ratchet effect in markets, and Bitcoin is quietly underperforming tech stocks on a nine-month volatility low. Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, joins Steve Ehrlich to map what’s actually driving these unique market dynamics. They cover the two vulnerabilities that could change things, the uncomfortable parallel between today’s AI capex and the 1999 bandwidth buildout, what $120 billion in money market inflows says about where retail cash is actually sitting, the challenge Kevin Warsh faces walking into an already-skeptical FOMC, and why crypto is currently losing the competition for momentum-chasing money to AI stocks, upcoming IPOs, and even a memory chip ETF. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve Ehrlich, Head of Research at SharpLink and Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sam Enzer - Partner and CahillNXT Co-Chair at Cahill Gordon & Reindel Timestamps 🏛️ 03:02 The two DOJ cases that just put prediction market traders on notice 📜 05:49 Why "insider trading" isn't actually a legal term, and why that matters 💡 11:49 Three scenarios where trading on an information edge is perfectly legal 🎭 15:32 The George Santos bet: closer to scalping than insider trading? ⚖️ 26:46 Why Kalshi may dodge the need for a gambling license 📉 34:41 The Strategy Polymarket bitcoin dispute: trade date vs. disclosure date 🚨 45:29 Expect more enforcement: what these two cases tell us about what's next Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Lubin makes the bull case for Ethereum amid a sea of bearishness. The panel dissects Saylor selling Bitcoin for the first time in four years, the meaning behind 9 senior EF departures, Justin Drake's Q-Day call (50% by 2032), Manuel Araoz declaring all of DeFi unsafe, the ThorChain hack fallout, the Zama/Overnight Finance USDC freeze saga, and the CFTC greenlighting the first US perpetual futures product. Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week Joe Lubin is stepping in to make the bull case for ETH on what he admits is a tough day to be bullish. We open on Strategy's first Bitcoin sale in four years and whether the STRC preferred stock structure is "an algorithmic stablecoin with too many steps," as Tarun puts it. Joe pivots to pitching Ether DATs, then we get into the Ethereum Foundation's brain drain -- nine researchers gone, CROPS as the new mandate, and a mysterious new developer organization taking shape behind the scenes. The episode's meatiest block covers DeFi security: Justin Drake warns Q-Day is 50% likely by 2032, Manuel Araoz says all of DeFi is unsafe, ThorChain's been offline for two weeks post-hack, and the panel debates whether we're entering a rough 12-24 months where attackers outrun defenders. We close on Hyperliquid's all-time highs and the CFTC opening the door to US perps.  Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Strategy sold 32 BTC for the first time in four years as STRC falls below $100 par – Tarun calls it "an algorithmic stablecoin with too many steps" 🔹 Joe Lubin pitches Ether DATs as a safer model than Strategy – ~3% staking yield, no leverage, and "permanent capital" for the ecosystem 🔹 Nine senior Ethereum Foundation members departed in 2026 including Tim Beiko and Barnabe Monnot as Vitalik reframes EF around CROPS mandate 🔹 Joe reveals SharpLink, BitMine, and ConsenSys in talks to become Ethereum's "decentralized commercialization engines" – "there's only one foundation" but new nodes are forming 🔹 Justin Drake puts Q-Day at 50% by 2032 and calls NIST's 2035 timeline "a joke" after Google's quantum circuit breakthrough 🔹 Crowdsourced reverse engineering of Google's withheld quantum circuit improved results 12-13% using LLMs as a grinding tool 🔹 OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Araoz declares all of DeFi unsafe and advises friends and family to exit Aave, MakerDAO, and Compound 🔹 ThorChain remains offline two weeks after $10.8M hack – claims they disclosed the same vulnerability 17 days before the exploit 🔹 Zama's cUSDC contract frozen by Circle via court order in Overnight Finance dispute, highlighting privacy protocol limitations on freezable stablecoins 🔹 Hyperliquid hits $75 and flips Solana in FDV as CFTC approves Kalshi's BTCPERP – the first regulated US perpetual futures product Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly  ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly  Guest⭐️Joe Lubin, Co-Founder of Ethereum, Founder & CEO of ConsenSys Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:06 Saylor Sells BTC & Market Panic                                        05:07 STRC Death Spiral & DAT Risks 07:07 Ethereum Foundation Exodus & CROPS 13:04 The "Not Second Foundation" Debate 17:58 Quantum Q-Day: 50% by 2032 23:47 Is All of DeFi Unsafe? 31:11 ZK Composability & Bridge-Free Architecture 34:19 Security Deployment Lag & AI Arms Race 40:18 Anti-Fragility & Formal Verification 47:36 Zama USDC Freeze & Privacy vs Courts 50:33 CFTC Perps Approval & Hyperliquid at $75 55:53 Hyperliquid's Distribution Flywheel 01:00:46 Joe Lubin's Ethereum Bull Case Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Circle froze $12M in a DeFi pool on a Friday court order, trapping users who had nothing to do with the dispute. . Polymarket couldn't resolve a Strategy market. And MegaETH's apps are defecting. Nothing is simple. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Multichain Advisors: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at https://multichainadv.com. ======================================================== Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin before the May 31 deadline. It just didn't disclose it until June 1 — and that one-day gap is why a $50M Polymarket market resolved "no," even though Strategy's own 8-K shows the sale happened inside the window.Kain Warwick, Luca Netz, and Taylor Monahan trace why Polymarket keeps writing resolution criteria that break under edge cases, and why handing oracle duties to UMA is a liability for a $20 billion platform. They also get into the third proposal to cut Solana's staking inflation, and what it would take to spark an "ultrasound money" moment for SOL. The most consequential story is Circle. A Friday-afternoon ex-parte court order froze a $12M commingled USDC pool all weekend, trapping innocent users' funds inside the Zama privacy protocol. Taylor’s warning: Circle's policy of complying with any court order without retaining a final say creates a replicable attack template for any pool with USDC exposure. The episode closes on MegaETH and Monad: Kain on whether the "Mega Mafia" approach was adverse selection from the start, and Luca on what chains actually owe their builders. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Timestamps 🎰 00:56 The unnecessarily stupid Polymarket dispute about whether Strategy sold Bitcoin by the end of may 🏛️ 08:49 WhyPolymarket,a $20B platform, is still outsourcing truth to UMA 🤝 12:45 What Taylor thinks Polymarket actually needs to do to rebuild trust after disputed resolutions 🔥 19:49 Solana’s third tokenomics proposals: Luca on what the SOL inflation cut actually changes 🦇 22:06Vitalik accidentally created the ultrasound money meme. Can Solana do the same? 📣 30:43 Multichain Advisors: start building real traction today at https://multichainadv.com ❄️ 31:28 How Circle froze a commingled DeFi pool on a judge's order with no warning, no notice 🏦 44:46 The NYSE CEO calls Hyperliquid ‘bigger than the Nasdaq’. Arthur Hayes bets $100k on it 🏃 51:38 Apps are fleeing MegaETH for Monad: was the ‘Mega Mafia’ approach a mistake? 🏙️ 56:12 Luca on how chains are cities, not VCs. What builders actually want is distribution Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The CFTC reclassified perps as futures. Katherine and Jessi parse what the ruling actually permits and what it means for Hyperliquid. Plus: if your AI agent gets scammed, who pays? Thanks to our sponsor! Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com The CFTC approved a perpetual Bitcoin futures contract for KalshiEX, and crypto Twitter immediately got it wrong. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos untangles what actually changed, why the switch from swap to futures classification matters for retail access, and what the ruling leaves wide open on leverage and decentralized exchanges. Jessi Brooks and Katherine explore the fact that AI agents can now place orders, not just give advice. They revisit their paper "The Agents at the Gate" and make clear why Robinhood's move to let agents charge your Gold Card raises liability questions that existing consumer protection law was never built to answer. In the strangest segment, they also dug into a New York lawsuit where an anonymous plaintiff is claiming legal ownership of nearly 40,000 dormant crypto wallets. Jessi explains why the lost-property theory will probably fail — and why even a partial win could force centralized exchanges into an impossible spot. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Timestamps 🏛️ 01:35 KK on why 90% of crypto Twitter got the CFTC perps ruling wrong ⚖️ 06:42 Jessi: the perps approval is case by case and the fine print matters 🌐 12:56 Does the CFTC ruling change anything for Hyperliquid and DEX perps? 🤖 19:54 Jessi: the financial system now has to treat software like a customer 💳 24:57 Why Robinhood's agentic Gold Card breaks the chargeback model 📣 32:15 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 🗝️ 33:39 The lawsuit nobody noticed: 40,000 dormant wallets, finders keepers 📜 40:28 Why even a partial win for Noah Doe could force exchanges to act Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff Dorman on why Strategy's four stakeholder classes are all losing, and why Saylor should have sold $2B of Bitcoin at once instead of $2.5M. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Fidelity: Explore opportunities at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com ======================================================== Strategy’s late-May Bitcoin sale has turned a long-running investor concern into a sharper question: how sustainable is the company’s capital structure if its Bitcoin accumulation strategy now comes with large cash obligations? Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at Arca, joins Laura Shin to discuss why the sale changed his view of the risks around Strategy. After months of pushing back on fears of forced selling, Dorman says the company’s preferred-share financing has altered the analysis. He points to roughly $15 billion in preferred shares carrying 10% to 12% dividend rates, which he estimates could mean about $1.7 billion in annual cash obligations for a company without operating revenue. Dorman also breaks down the stakeholder groups shaping Strategy’s choices, the tradeoffs each path may create, and the Polymarket dispute over whether Strategy sold Bitcoin in May. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeff Dorman - Chief Investment Officer at Arca - https://x.com/jdorman81 Timestamps 🐦 01:18 How MSTR was sitting pretty until it complicated its capital structure and put itself in a bind 🎾 04:49 How MSTR committed an unforced error, giving itself only 5 months of cash left 🔀 08:43 Four options, four stakeholder classes, at least one loser each 💼 20:23 Fidelity: Explore opportunities at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 📊 21:23 Jeff ranks the capital structure positions by probability 🎲 27:00 Polymarket: a confirmed Bitcoin sale is resolving 'no.' How did that happen? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Strategy sold BTC. Can its preferred dividend stack survive without Bitcoin growing at least 11.5% year? Plus, they cover Jamie Dimon calling Brian Armstrong “full of shit.” --- 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Strategy sold Bitcoin for the first time since 2022 — 32 BTC to cover preferred stock dividends. Ram, Austin, and Chris discuss whether that small sale signals a deeper structural tension between equity holders, preferred holders, and Bitcoin itself. They also covered the news that Anthropic filed for an IPO at a valuation approaching $1 trillion. The hosts lay out the bull and bear cases  and ask whether retail investors can realistically get a 10x out of a company already priced like a finished product. Unpacking a spicier moment, they also discussed the moment when JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon called Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong “full of shit” on live TV over the Clarity Act. Ram says crypto's window of peak political power is closing fast, while Austin gives crypto lobbyists a great idea for how to turn the banks’ stablecoin yield crusade against them. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Timestamps 🚀 00:00 Introduction 📣 00:12 Subscribe to Bits + Bips' new dedicated feeds at https://linktr.ee/bitsandbips 🤖 01:27 The bull and bear cases for Anthropic’s nearly $1T IPO filing 📉 09:44 Austin: do trillion-dollar IPOs lock retail out of 10x returns? ₿ 17:18 Strategy sells Bitcoin. Is Saylor's three-body problem real? 🎯 20:19 Ram and Chris on Bitcoin as an 'attention asset,' but not a yielding one 🏛️ 29:23 ICE's CEO on why he thinks Hyperliquid beats Nasdaq ⚖️ 40:16 Dimon saying Armstrong is “full of shit” and the banking lobby’s anti-crypto national security argument 🔑 47:11 Why Ram thinks this moment is crypto’s peak political power and the window is closing 🌐 53:30 Why DTCC picked Stellar to issue tokenized versions of US equities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A co-founder of OpenZeppelin said he’s urging friends to exit blue chip DeFi. Isaac Patka and Mike Silagadze explain what he got right, what he got wrong, and what needs to change. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== A co-founder of OpenZeppelin set off a firestorm on Crypto Twitter this week by declaring that he now considers all of DeFi unsafe, citing superhuman AI coding agents and the asymmetry between attackers and defenders.  Isaac Patka, certifications lead at Security Alliance, and Mike Silagadze, CEO of Ether.Fi, join Laura Shin to push back on that framing — and to make the case that the real problem isn’t AI finding sophisticated zero-days, it’s that 90% of hacks are still embarrassing opsec failures.  They cover the full threat taxonomy: opsec and parameter mistakes, contagion from bridge failures, AI-enabled social engineering, and the decentralization theater that leaves protocols unable to protect their own users.  Mike makes a pointed argument for why every serious DeFi protocol needs a hard pause button and a blacklist mechanism, while Isaac explains the three-multisig architecture that should be the minimum standard. Plus, both lay out the practical question every user should ask before putting money into any protocol. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Isaac Patka (@isaacpatka) — Certifications Lead at Security Alliance & Co-founder of Shield3 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Mike Silagadze (@MikeSilagadze) — CEO of Ether.Fi Timestamps 💥 00:00 Is all of DeFi unsafe? Responding to the OpenZeppelin co-founder’s viral tweet 💙 07:35 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at https://coinbase.com/unchained. 🛡️ 9:21 The real DeFi risk taxonomy: opsec, contagion, and bridge failure vs. code bugs 🎭 13:29 Why Mike says fake decentralization makes users less safe 🔐 16:54 The three-multisig architecture every DeFi protocol needs 🔴 20:57 Mike: not having a pause button is irresponsible 🤖 22:44 The AI threat: arms race or advantage for defenders? 🎯 26:45 Social engineering: humans are the weak link, so design around them ⚖️ 33:20 Code is not law — and why Arbitrum got it right 🌉 36:15 Bridge risk: rate limits, monitoring, and why one-of-one bridges should never be allowed as collateral 📦 42:04 Aave vs. Morpho: isolated markets, contagion, and the Kelp attack fallout 📋 48:50 Tips for users + why SEAL certifications matter more than audits alone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Sosnick on the ratchet effect in equities, the AI bandwidth parallel, Kevin Warsh’s impossible first week, and why crypto is the unsexy trade right now. --- Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Equities are near all-time highs, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge just hit a multi-year peak, Iran ceasefire talks are producing a familiar ratchet effect in markets, and Bitcoin is quietly underperforming tech stocks on a nine-month volatility low. Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, joins Steve Ehrlich to map what’s actually driving these unique market dynamics. They cover the two vulnerabilities that could change things, the uncomfortable parallel between today’s AI capex and the 1999 bandwidth buildout, what $120 billion in money market inflows says about where retail cash is actually sitting, the challenge Kevin Warsh faces walking into an already-skeptical FOMC, and why crypto is currently losing the competition for momentum-chasing money to AI stocks, upcoming IPOs, and even a memory chip ETF. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve Ehrlich, Head of Research at SharpLink and Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve Sosnick — Chief Strategist at Interactive Brokers Timestamps 📈 02:06 Stocks at records: the ratchet effect Iran just handed the bulls 💻 08:43 The AI-bandwidth parallel: who are the next Global Crossing and Lucent 🚀 14:00 SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic on deck: top signal or just supply 📉 18:39 Hottest PCE in three years: the inflation problem nobody wants to own 🏛️ 26:50 Kevin Warsh's first week: hawkish past, dovish pressure, unconvinced FOMC ₿ 34:11 Bitcoin at $73K, vol at a 9-month low: the trade nobody wants to take 👥 40:17 "Normies own crypto now": the ETF tourist problem 🔭 45:39 What Sosnick is watching: the tell that will tip the next move Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ethereum's midlife crisis hits the podcast as ex-Bankless and ConsenSys insiders unpack ETH's talent exodus, identity spiral, "Microsoft" future, EF shake-ups, and the Solana contender play-all with spicy takes on airdrops, real dev stats, and blockchain adoption drama. Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, it's an Ethereum apostasy spectacular: we're joined by David Hoffman and Max Resnick, who hit the confessional booth to explain why they've left the church of Ethereum.  We kick off with David's viral "ETH is money" post-mortem: why he finally sold, and whether ETH can escape its spot on the yield farm for good. Max jumps in with an OG technologist's view on EF's internal struggles, talent flight, and the move-slow, break-nothing philosophy now gripping Ethereum's core. Is the EF just ossifying—or is it devolving into the "Microsoft of crypto"? From there, the hosts dissect the "second foundation" meme, why Twitter doomers might not matter for the ETH price, and whether Solana has stolen the next generation of devs. Max throws down on Solana's quantum future while the group takes barstool shots at metrics, narratives, and the never-ending "Ethereum is for boomers" debate. Whether you're a ride-or-die Etherean or just here for the schadenfreude, let's get into it. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹David Hoffman reveals why he sold all his ETH and stepped down from the "ETH is money" pulpit 🔹Max Resnick on Ethereum's talent drain, EF's slow tech culture, and missing the Wall Street on-chain boat 🔹Why the Ethereum Foundation's leadership shuffle triggered so much existential dread 🔹The "Ethereum is Microsoft" thesis: ossification, enterprise comfort, and is that a bad thing? 🔹Are airdrops, stablecoin and NFT on-chain metrics just smoke and mirrors? 🔹Developer mindshare —did Solana peak? Has ETH truly lost the next-gen builders? 🔹Will a new "Number Go Up Foundation" for Ethereum change anything? 🔹Solana's post-quantum roadmap: why Max thinks ETH is over-complicating the problem 🔹What happens if Ethereum stops shipping upgrades —can it just coast Lindy-style? 🔹Is the future of crypto "strong" vs. "weak" crypto, and is ETH now firmly a boomer chain? Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly  Guest ⭐️ David Hoffman, Co-Founder at Bankless ⭐️ Max Resnick, Lead Economist at Anza “Why I Sold My ETH” by David Hoffman https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/2059371247163613489 Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:12 Why David Sold ETH 05:26 ETH Momentum and Value Capture 07:38 Ethereum Foundation Shakeups 10:18 Max on Tech and Identity Crisis 15:57 Talent Drain and New Blood 19:29 Strong vs Weak Crypto Debate 25:28 Ethereum as Microsoft 30:02 Second Foundation Idea 35:43 Microsoft Era Ethereum 38:20 EF Money Runs Out 42:02 Utility Asset Narrative 46:07 Etherealize Enterprise Push 48:04 Bitcoin Has Saylor 53:32 Ethereum Narrative Whiplash 55:51 Solana As The Yang 58:15 Post Quantum Solana Roadmap Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Illia Polosukhin, founder of NEAR and co-author of 'Attention Is All You Need,' on why confidentiality will let crypto become daily commerce — plus, some Near lore. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠Multichain Advisors⁠⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at ⁠⁠multichainadv.com⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== Before co-founding NEAR Protocol, Illia Polosukhin was on the eight-person Google Brain team that wrote the transformer paper — the architecture behind every large language model running today. He never mentioned it. When Kain Warwick found out two weeks ago, via a crypto AI chatbot, his reaction was: you have to be kidding me. That backstory sets the tone for a conversation that moves from how transformers actually came together, to why confidentiality is what unlocks on-chain commerce for real businesses, and what NEAR is doing to keep criminals off its network without becoming a surveillance layer. The hosts also get into the Ethereum Foundation's identity crisis, why Illia thinks decentralization is a tool and not a goal, and what the economy looks like when AI handles execution and blockchain handles coordination. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Illia Polosukhin — Co-Founder, NEAR Protocol - https://x.com/ilblackdragon Timestamps 🧠 00:52 The transformer paper: how Illia ended up on 'Attention Is All You Need' 🔗 05:57 Confidential Intents: how NEAR brings privacy to assets across every chain 💵 15:05 Why private stablecoins are the missing piece in on-chain commerce 🛡️ 24:58 Shield: NEAR's AI system scanning chains in real time to block illicit funds 🔓 25:46 The Litecoin MimbleWimble hack and what went wrong with the disclosure timeline ⛓️ 40:03 Multichain Advisors: [ad copy TBD — placeholder] at multichainadv.com 🎯 40:39 Coinbase One: boost newly staked assets 40% through May 31 at https://coinbase.com/unchained 🏛️ 42:24 What Vitalik's “smaller ship” post reveals about the Ethereum Foundation 🤝 48:33 How NEAR pitched its sharding work to the EF twice and got turned away 🛋️ 55:24 Tay compares the EF to Google and says "don't be evil" is a non-goal 🌐 63:45 Why Illia thinks decentralization is a tool, not a goal 🤖 68:22 How organizations change when AI agents can do the work 💀 78:34 Illia thinks DAOs “never worked” because of the credit assignment problem 📊 79:55 Illia's close: Markets solve what organizations can't Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Banks are about to lose two of their biggest advantages: custody and payments. A new White House EO opening Fed master accounts to fintechs could be the catalyst. Thanks to our sponsor! Coinbase One Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan ⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠ A White House executive order is pushing the Fed to open its master account system to fintechs and crypto firms, and the implications are bigger than most people realize. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le trace what it would mean to plug crypto directly into the core plumbing of the US dollar system, why traditional banks should be furious, and where the guardrails are missing. They also dig into the NYT’s scathing CFTC piece and whether the snark undermines the serious allegations. Plus the SEC's delayed innovation exemption, Commissioner Hester Peirce's departure, and the White House AI EO that collapsed in eighteen hours. Jessi maps the four White House factions fighting over AI governance, and argues crypto's "don't trust, verify" model is exactly the accountability layer AI needs. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Veda Timestamps 🏛️ 01:12 Could crypto firms get direct access to the Fed’s payment plumbing? 🏦 07:37 Why traditional banks stand to lose their two biggest advantages ⚖️ 15:57 The prediction market litigation war: Rhode Island, Congress, and the NYT’s CFTC exposé 🔍 30:52 Is leveling the playing field for retail the best case for prediction markets? 📣 32:15 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at https://coinbase.com/unchained ⚠️ 35:37 Commissioner Peirce is leaving the SEC. Who fills that role? 🤖 40:14 The AI EO that vanished: four White House factions and what crypto can teach them 🦕 48:06 Good news: the biggest sea creature ever found, and what it says about perspective Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vitalik finally said ETH the asset matters. Zak Cole’s reaction: ‘Should have said that five years ago.’ What broken cryptoeconomics mean for Ethereum’s future. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== The Ethereum Foundation has lost a wave of senior people in the span of a few months. A new co-executive director nobody has ever met is cutting budgets and releasing documents with a certain aesthetic. Vitalik published a post saying ETH the asset is the most high-value product of the blockchain. And David Hoffman sold his last ETH. Zak Cole, president of the Ethereum Community Foundation, and Greg Markou, co-founder of Sprinter and ChainSafe, join Laura Shin to sort through what’s a bear market tantrum, what’s a structural failure, and what would actually need to change for Ethereum to stop ceding ground to its competitors. The conversation covers the CROPS mandate, the rumored loyalty pledge, broken cryptoeconomics, and what Zak says the EF still refuses to admit. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Zak Cole - Managing Partner, Number Group; President, Ethereum Community Foundation ⁠⁠⁠⁠Greg Markou - Co-founder and CEO, Sprinter; Co-founder, ChainSafe Timestamps 🏛️ 00:32 The EF departures: a maturing org, or a retreat from what Tomasz built? 📣 06:52 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at https://coinbase.com/unchained 👀 08:41 Are these departures actually concerning, or is this just what churn looks like? 📑 15:22 The CROPS mandate, the manga aesthetic, and what it says about who’s really in charge ⚠️ 26:50 The loyalty pledge: performance improvement plan or loyalty purge? 🧠 33:11 Dankrad’s $1B proposal: what would it actually take to fund Ethereum’s comeback? 💸 42:00 Vitalik finally says ETH the asset matters. Zak: ‘Should have said that five years ago’ 🏆 48:36 Ethereum vs. Solana, Tron, and Hyperliquid: does the EF even know it’s in a race? 🏗️ 52:50 What Zak’s Ethereum Community Foundation is building, and what the EF could learn from it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Citadel and SIFMA lobbied to slow tokenized equity rules. Arjun Sethi calls it 'corporate plumbing.' Chris Perkins calls it a bond future moment. --- Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠. 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Kraken has spent $2.75 billion on acquisitions in the past year, and co-CEO Arjun Sethi says the point is not a bigger exchange. The goal is a 24/7 global operating system for capital markets: spot, derivatives, payments, tokenized equities, and custody under one regulatory stack. Sethi makes the case for each move, from REAP's tripling revenue in emerging markets to Bitnomial's CFTC trifecta, and says what will actually drive Kraken's next three years is not trading volume. The conversation then turns to the SEC's paused innovation exemption for tokenized equities, why Citadel and SIFMA showed up to lobby against it, and whether direct listings on crypto rails could eventually replace Wall Street's IPO machine. The episode closes on a question nobody saw coming: what Pope Leo's first encyclical on AI and finance has to do with the Bitcoin white paper. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell (@austincampbell) — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Guest: Arjun Sethi - Co-CEO of Kraken / Payward and Chairman of Tribe Capital Timestamps 💰 01:08 Kraken has spent $2.75B on M&A in 12 months. Which deal would Arjun defend most? 🌍 07:33 Institutions aren’t buying tokenized equities. So who is the target customer? 📈 10:54 Derivatives are 95% of crypto volume. Where does Bitnomial fit? 🔑 14:12 Arjun on what actually drives Kraken's next three years ☠️ 20:44 What keeps Arjun up at night and what problems he potentially sees in crypto 🏛️ 22:48 Why the SEC paused tokenized equity rules, and who's really to blame 🚀 31:15 Could 24/7 crypto rails make Wall Street's IPO machine obsolete? 📣 42:05 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at https://coinbase.com/unchained ⛪ 43:56 Why it matters that Pope Leo mentioned crypto in his AI encyclical 👀 49:38 How the pope's decentralization argument tracks with the Bitcoin white paper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Warsh wants a smaller Fed balance sheet and fewer dot plots. Noelle Acheson says the bond market won't let him have either. Here's what she expects instead. --- 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Bond yields are climbing globally while stock markets push higher on AI optimism — and Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter, argues the divergence is not a contradiction but a warning. In her read, inflation was building before the Hormuz crisis, the BLISS trade has permanently replaced the TACO trade as the structural put under markets, and Kevin Warsh is walking into a Fed that the bond market controls more than he does. She also flags a contrarian indicator nobody is talking about: the gap between the cap-weighted S&P 500 and the equal-weight index is widening at a pace last seen in 1999. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve Ehrlich, Head of Research at SharpLink and Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Noelle Acheson | Author, Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter Timestamps 📈 00:02:00 — Why the bond market is flashing fear while stocks party on 📊 00:04:30 — The inflation signals nobody's watching, and why Hormuz relief won't save us 💬 00:09:00 — The "BLISS trade" explained, and which market breaks first 🤖 00:12:30 — The AI stock bubble question Wall Street refuses to ask 🏛️ 00:19:00 — The Fed chair's real legacy: independence hero or inflation villain? 🔑 00:24:30 — What the incoming Fed chair actually can and can't do 📉 00:27:30 — The hawkish FOMC split the official vote tried to hide ₿ 00:31:00 — Bitcoin's identity crisis: debasement hedge or just high-beta risk? ⚖️ 00:34:00 — Will the CLARITY Act pass, and does crypto even need it anymore? 🔬 00:38:30 — The tokenization loophole that could break how markets work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pre-IPO trading is hot ahead of three big IPOs. Perp volume on Hyperliquid went from $3M to $44M in three months, and SpaceX perps is just the beginning, says Dio Casares of Patagon. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== Pre-IPO perp volume on Hyperliquid grew from $3 million to $44 million in roughly three months. Anthropic and OpenAI voided secondary shares, sending shockwaves through the pre-IPO marketes. Robinhood launched trust-style tokenized offerings into a gray area. And three trillion-dollar IPOs — SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI — are converging in the same window. Dio Casares, founder and CEO of Patagon, a private neobank that has facilitated deals in Anthropic, xAI, Circle, and Kraken, explains the structural difference between derivatives and tokenized spot, why second and third-layer SPV waterfalls are legal hot potato, who actually holds the cleanest title, and where the competition for private market liquidity goes next. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠Dio Casares - Founder & CEO, Patagon Timestamps 🚀 00:45 Why are we seeing so much pre-IPO activity bubble up right now 🗂️ 02:45 The types of market activity that are happening pre-IPO and why they’re happening 💙 6:04 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained ⛓️ 07:52 The kinds of problems that buyers and sellers of pre-IPO shares are trying to solve by going onchain ⚖️ 11:15 How unicorns have wanted to be private but have their shares 📊 13:19 Why people aren’t just waiting till pre-IPO share perps go live to get exposure 🃏 15:30 The problems can arise in second- and third-layer SPV situations 🏦 18:19 Where the Robinhood tokenized-share model fits in all this 🏛️ 19:59 Where the FTX bankruptcy Anthropic block falls 🗺️ 21:55 The spectrum of players — from offchain to onchain, from shadier to more legitimate 🤺 24:30 Why more of this activity is happening on Solana than Ethereum 🤝 25:23 What Patagon does in the secondaries market 🔭 29:27 How Dio expects the onchain private market space to evolve Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rebecca from Jito Labs joins Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun for a regulation deep-dive covering the CLARITY Act's stablecoin yield compromise and presidential ethics sticking points, CME and ICE's lobbying war against Hyperliquid's RWA perps, the prediction market legal battle heading to the Supreme Court, and whether the SEC's tokenized securities innovation exemption will actually matter. Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, joining us is Rebecca Rettig, Chief Legal Officer at Jito Labs, who's here to help the crew make sense of the absolute regulatory tornado tearing through the industry. First up: the CLARITY Act. It just got out of Senate Banking Committee, but the road to passage is anything but smooth. The stablecoin yield fight with banks ended in a "do stuff yield" compromise, but presidential ethics provisions remain the last polarizing hurdle. Rebecca breaks down what actually changes for token founders if it passes — spoiler: not much immediately, since rulemaking alone could take years. Then: CME and ICE have declared war on Hyperliquid, lobbying the Hill to force CFTC registration on the decentralized perps giant. The crew debates who actually wins US regulated perps, whether Hyperliquid's pre-IPO markets represent a genuine threat to investment banking, and Rebecca introduces "on-chain finance" — a distinction the panel immediately roasts her for. Finally: prediction markets are in a legal bloodbath across state courts with a Supreme Court showdown likely by 2027, and the SEC's tokenized securities innovation exemption has Twitter buzzing but Rebecca skeptical. Let's get into it. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 CLARITY Act Passes Senate Banking – Landmark crypto bill advances with bipartisan support, but presidential ethics provisions remain the final sticking point before a full Senate floor vote. 🔹 Stablecoin Yield Compromise – Banks screamed bloody murder, but the "do stuff yield" deal means transaction-based rewards are in and bank deposit lookalikes are out. 🔹 CME & ICE vs Hyperliquid – Traditional exchanges lobby Congress to force CFTC registration, KYC/AML, and trade surveillance on the decentralized perps giant. 🔹 Hyperliquid Prices Cerebras Better Than Bankers – Pre-IPO market nails the opening price while investment banks undershoot by over 100%, raising questions about the future of book building. 🔹 Rebecca Rettig Returns – Jito Labs CLO breaks down what CLARITY actually means for token founders (spoiler: not much changes immediately — rulemaking takes years). 🔹 Prediction Markets Head to SCOTUS – Legal bloodbath across state courts likely culminates in a Supreme Court showdown by 2027 over CFTC vs state gaming jurisdiction. 🔹 The Super Bowl Coin Toss Traded at 58/42 – Tarun surfaces the most absurd prediction market of the year, and the CFTC chair basically says it shouldn't exist. 🔹 Who Wins US Regulated Perps? – Haseeb bets on Coinbase and Robinhood, Tarun argues there's an opening for a dark horse, and Rebecca flags HIP 4's unified margin as a game-changer. 🔹 SEC Innovation Exemption Buzz – Twitter is hyped about tokenized securities guidance, but Rebecca is skeptical it drops before CLARITY is resolved. 🔹 OnFi Is Not Going to Happen – Rebecca tries to coin "on-chain finance" as distinct from DeFi. The panel roasts her. Mean Girls memes are inevitable. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly  Guest⭐️ Rebecca Rettig, Jurisprudential Genius at Jito Labs Timestamps 00:00 Intro 02:10 The CLARITY Act: Banks vs Crypto 05:21 The "Do Stuff Yield" Compromise 07:18 The Compromise: Transaction-Based Rewards 10:22 Presidential Ethics: The Last Sticking Point 12:26 What Actually Changes If CLARITY Passes? 16:01 Token Founders: What Do You Have to Do? 18:41 Developer Protection & DeFi Activity 20:15 CME & ICE Lobbying Against Hyperliquid 26:05 On-Chain Finance vs DeFi 29:57 Who Wins US Regulated Perps? 34:39 ETF Options vs Crypto Perps 40:24 What Hyperliquid Means for Investment Banking 44:50 Retail IPO Participation & Dynamic Share Counts 49:25 Prediction Markets: Kalshi & Polymarket vs the States 51:40 Supreme Court Showdown: CFTC vs State Gaming Laws 58:30 Economic Impact Test  01:01:47 Tokenized Securities & the SEC Innovation Exemption 01:06:41 Do Issuers Actually Care About Tokenization? Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top Ethereum Foundation staff are leaving. Why? Also, Trade.xyz launched a synthetic pre-IPO SpaceX perp on Hyperliquid that further shows RWAs moving onchain. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠Multichain Advisors⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at ⁠multichainadv.com⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== A synthetic SpaceX perpetual futures contract launched on Hyperliquid ahead of any IPO, jumping 44% before settling back down. Kain and Tay unpack what it means when a dress rehearsal for one of the biggest potential IPOs in years generates $33 million in trading volume. Then: the Ethereum Foundation exodus. Trent Van Epps, Josh Stark, Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, and Carl Beek are out. Kain’s theory: longtime Ethereum “missionaries” were given hope for change under Tomasz Stanczak, only to see that momentum fade. Finally, three DeFi exploits in four days, including a Thorchain attack that Taylor reconstructed in real time using AI tools during incident response — ending with a fully working attack demo she never asked for. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Timestamps 🚀 01:01 SpaceX pre-IPO perps go live on Hyperliquid — it opened at $150 and jumped to $216 📊 06:52 Were SpaceX IPO bankers watching — and was $150 too cheap? 🔒 10:40 Luca on hedging locked positions — and getting ADL’d at the bottom 💹22:25: Multichain Advisors: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at https://multichainadv.com. 💙23:04: Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at https://coinbase.com/unchained. 🏛️ 24:51 The Ethereum Foundation exodus — who left and why it matters 💥 29:21 Kain’s theory: Ethereum’s “missionaries” were given hope — then lost it 🤖 40:47 Kain: the place you want to be right now gives you infinite inference tokens ⚙️ 43:09 Grok Build launches — and xAI's compute advantage over every other frontier lab 🔓 49:51 Three DeFi exploits in four days: Echo Protocol, Thorchain, and a bridge attack 🔐 54:41 How the Thorchain attacker extracted a raw key that should never have existed 🧠 01:00:00 Tay: AI wrote a full working attack demo during live incident response Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

KK, Jessi, and Vy Le call out the silence from CoinDesk and industry organizations after the Consensus after-party was held at  E11even. Plus: Clarity’s odds. Thanks to our sponsor! Coinbase One Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan ⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠ The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9, but Katherine, Jessi, and Vy Le are not popping champagne.  KK puts passage odds at 35-40%. Vy Le came down from 90% after only two conditional Democratic votes out of committee. The ethics fight — whether any bill that leaves Trump family crypto holdings intact can get to 60 votes — remains the most credible blocker.  Meanwhile, WallStreetBets filed an SEC comment letter defending quarterly reporting that inadvertently makes the strongest case yet for why onchain transparency makes periodic disclosure obsolete. And the crew addresses the Consensus conference after-party, held at E11even, which features strippers: not a word from most of the trade organizations that claim to represent the industry. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Veda Timestamps 🏛️ 01:00 KK walks through the six sections of the CLARITY Act 📊 03:18 Odds on passage: KK at 35%, Vy Le below 90% — and the three blockers 🤖 16:35 Jessi on how frontier AI finds DeFi exploits — and programmatic prevention without centralization 🔵23:42: Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan - https://coinbase.com/unchained 📄 25:29 Vy on how the WallStreetBets SEC letter shows the benefits of onchain markets 📈 35:03 the SEC's tokenized-equities innovation exemption could drop soon 🎪 36:42 The Consensus after-party: what happened and why the silence is the story 💪 45:17 The good news: companies and people who are actually showing up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

USDC became Hyperliquid's stablecoin infrastructure, and the 30-year broke 5% for the first time since 2008. Austin, Ram, Chris, and Gordon Liao of Circle work through who wins. --- Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠Coinbase One⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠. 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Coinbase and Circle have moved into Hyperliquid, installing USDC as its aligned quote asset and taking over treasury and technical deployment. For Gordon Liao, Circle's Chief Economist and Head of Research, that is a liquidity supernova. For Chris Perkins, it is the moment every TVL-trapping platform was always going to arrive at.  Meanwhile, the CLARITY Act has cleared the Senate Banking Committee on a bipartisan vote, but the ethics question — whether Democrats will vote for a bill that leaves Trump's family holdings untouched — remains unresolved.  And as Kevin Warsh is confirmed as Fed chair, the 30-year yield breaks 5% for the first time since 2008. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell (@austincampbell) — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Guest: Gordon Liao | Master of Coin, Circle Timestamps 🚀 00:00 Introduction 🟡 01:17 Why Coinbase and Circle moved into Hyperliquid and how every TVL trap will monetize its float 🌊 07:14 Gordon: USDC on Hyperliquid is a 'liquidity supernova' 🧑‍⚖️ 12:29 Even though Elon Musk lost, Ram explains why Sam Altman is still a villain 🏃 18:21 Where value will really accrue in the AI race ⛓️💳 24:48 Whether agents will use blockchain rails or just credit cards 🤖 30:59 Why Chris thinks money market funds might win out over stablecoins among AI agents 🏛️ 36:11 CLARITY clears Senate Banking — what's still blocking 60 votes 🧨 41:27 Why Austin thinks the ethics fight is the one problem with no clean answer 📈 46:01 Why, after Warsh's confirmation, the 30-year cleared 5% Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CME and ICE want regulators to rein in Hyperliquid, which delivers 24/7 derivatives markets that incumbents can't match. Can it be brought onshore? ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange have asked the CFTC to regulate Hyperliquid, the offshore perpetuals exchange that has rapidly become one of the largest derivatives venues in the world. The incumbents argue that price discovery is migrating to unregulated territory. Hyperliquid argues that its onchain transparency makes it less susceptible to manipulation, not more.  Walt Lukken, president and CEO of the Futures Industry Association, and Chris Perkins, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management, sit down with Laura Shin to work through the options: come onshore and get the licenses, stay offshore and keep growing, or further decentralize until there is no entity left to regulate. The answer may reshape how global derivatives markets are built for the next decade. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Walt Lukken | President & CEO, Futures Industry Association Chris Perkins⁠ | CEO, 250 Digital Asset Management Timestamps 🏛️ 00:00 Why CME and ICE are asking the CFTC to act on Hyperliquid ⚙️ 00:06:47 Three paths for Hyperliquid: onshore, offshore, or decentralize 📋 00:9:28 How exactly Hyperliquid would end up coming onshore 🌐 00:13:32 What it would look like for Hyperliquid to be available in the US without an entity 📡 00:20:24 Whether blockchain transparency answers ICE and CME's concerns 🔮 00:35:00 What Chairman Selig and the CLARITY Act could change 🎯 00:41:00 How Polymarket should approach what is the same onshoring question Hyperliquid faces Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coinbase just became the official USDC treasury deployer on Hyperliquid. Alex Weseley of Artemis explains how this boosts Hyperliquid’s annual revenue by 25%. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠. ======================================================== The morning this episode was recorded, Coinbase announced it was acquiring the USDH brand and becoming the official USDC treasury deployer on Hyperliquid — a deal with $150 million in annual revenue implications for a platform that previously earned nothing from its $5 billion USDC float. Alex Weseley, institutional data lead at Artemis Analytics, walks through the math on the HYPE price move, explains why the deal had to be bilateral between Circle and Coinbase, lays out his $300 billion Coinbase thesis built on X402 and agentic commerce, and takes on the question Laura's been asking all week: is the Circle–Coinbase relationship heading for divorce? Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠Alex Weseley — Institutional Data Lead, Artemis Analytics Timestamps 🔵 0:00 Coinbase acquires USDH brand, and what an aligned quote asset is on Hyperliquid 📈 3:42 Why Hype jumped 10% and what's in it for Coinbase 💙 8:51 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. ⚖️ 10:52 Coinbase increases its staked Hype position: why is it aligning with a no-KYC competitor? 🤖 14:00 The two reasons why Alex projects that Coinbase could be a $300B company by 2031 📜 22:11 CLARITY Act: activity-based stablecoin yield compromise and what it means for Coinbase 💔 26:25 Is the Circle–Coinbase marriage heading for divorce? 🌊 30:22 After recent successes, where does Hyperliquid go from here? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The repo market is $16 trillion globally and most people have never heard of it — until the plumbing breaks. Craig Burchell of FalconX and Matteo Pandolfi of Pareto explain how it works and why bringing it on-chain is the next big unlock for DeFi. --- 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- The repo market is $16 trillion globally and it is, as Craig Burchell puts it, the oil that makes everything go. It is also almost entirely absent from on-chain finance — and that gap is creating real problems for RWA liquidity, stablecoin swap desks, and DeFi protocols trying to manage redemption queues. Steve Ehrlich sits down with Craig Burchell, head of lending at FalconX, and Matteo Pandolfi, CEO of on-chain credit infrastructure provider Pareto, to map exactly how repo works, what broke in 2019, why it translates extremely well into onchain finance. Matteo puts a $1 trillion figure on where on-chain repo gets in five years. Craig gives you one reason it gets there and one very honest reason it might not. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve Ehrlich, Head of Research at SharpLink and Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Craig Burchell — Head of Lending, FalconX; previously Head of Lending at Membrane Finance. @_CraigBirchall ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matteo Pandolfi — CEO & Co-Founder, Pareto (on-chain credit infrastructure). @pan_teo_ Timestamps 📋 2:35 Repo, explained: what repurchase agreements actually are and why they matter 💥 5:31 The 2019 repo crisis: rates spiked from 2% to 20% in a single day 🔧 7:55 The real lesson of 2019: cash was there, the plumbing couldn't move it ⚖️ 23:13 Why repo breaks smart contracts: bankruptcy remoteness and the legal problem nobody solved 💧 28:00 The hard question: does on-chain finance need a lender of last resort? 🚨 36:43 The Aave crisis reframed: how a mature repo market would have changed everything 📈 41:28 The call: on-chain repo hits $1 trillion within five years 🚧 42:32 The bear case: standardization is the gargantuan challenge in the way Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anthropic is voiding secondary market trades. Who gets hurt — WhatsApp scammers, Forge buyers, or the founders? Plus: why continuous synthetic pricing is coming for every pre-IPO company. Thank you to our sponsors!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Multichain Advisors: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at multichainadv.com. Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. Anthropic and OpenAI are moving to void secondary market trades — and Kain, Tay, and Luca think that's only going to work if they're serious about it, which means a lawsuit is probably coming. This week on Uneasy Money they trace the full anatomy of the pre-IPO SPV fraud wave, explain why synthetic perpetual markets will eventually price every in-demand private company continuously whether founders want it or not, and dig into the latest AI hacks. Tay breaks down how attackers are now using local on-device Gemini APIs to construct malware on the fly, and Kain shares the story of an agent that caught a slow-drain attack in 90 seconds that humans missed for 12 hours. Luca explains why Circle's Arc token is a brilliant move for Circle equity holders even if it changes nothing for ETH or Solana. Plus: the Aave/Kelp court update and why the Gerstein lawyers' argument that every victim needs to show up in court is fundamentally incompatible with how onchain recovery works. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Timestamps 📉 0:00 Intro: the Anthropic/OpenAI SPV daisy chain and the 'rocks with Anthropic written on them' problem 📋 4:31 When Luca faced a situation similar to Anthropic’s with Pudgy Penguins 🧱 7:12 Why this shows the secondary SPV market is broken, even catching legit platforms like Forge 🔗 13:11 How onchain synthetic pre-IPO markets, like PreStocks and Ventuals on Solana, work 🕹️ 24:54 The end game for Anthropic/OpenAI with these secondary SPVs 🚫 29:52 Why pre-IPO companies have no incentive to IPO — and why that breaks markets 38:01 ⛓️ : Multichain Advisors: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at multichainadv.com.💙 38:40 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. 💥 40:37 Google disrupts AI-mediated attack and how local Gemini APIs have greatly increased surface attack area 🤖 50:05 Why Kain is bullish on continuous monitoring by agents for slow drain attacks ⭕ 59:14 Why members of the crew are confused/bullish/skeptical on Circle's $220M Arc token presale  📈 1:00:51 Is Arc bullish Ethereum? Kain says Circle equity holders win, not ETH bags ⚖️ 1:06:35 Gerstein lawyers' absurd argument in the Aave/Arbitrum/KelpDAO case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Arthur Hayes sees one force driving markets right now: governments printing money to finance AI and war. He explains why that ends with Bitcoin much higher — and what could derail it. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠Coinbase One⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠. ======================================================== Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes called the Tehran toll booth scenario in writing — and now it's playing out. Sovereign nations are waking up to the fact that dollar assets don't buy oil when the strait is closed.  On this episode, Hayes joins Laura Shin to explain why the structural unwinding of petrodollar recycling forces the Fed to print, why an AI deflationary bust could rival 2008 in severity before central banks step in, and why that path ends with Bitcoin substantially higher.  He also breaks down his current highest-conviction positions: Hyperliquid, Zcash, and NEAR, and explains why he's deploying into what he calls maximum disillusionment in private crypto equity. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Arthur Hayes — CIO, Maelstrom Timestamps 🚀 0:00 Why Arthur thinks all wars, including the Iran War, are inflationary 🌍 3:01 How the Iran war is causing demand for US treasuries to decline 💙 10:17 Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained 🪖 12:18 How the Iran War is eroding the dominance of the petrodollar 📊 16:11 Why Arthur watches WTI futures — and when 'all hell breaks loose' ⏸️ 18:16 Why Arthur considered Q1 “a no-trade zone” and his approach to Q2 🏦 20:20 Kevin Warsh as Fed chair: why Arthur says he's a neutral variable 🌏 22:43 How Asia perceives the Iran war and the US-China AI race 🤖 26:28 Two catalysts that Arthur believes could end the AI bull market 💥 31:42 What Arthur sees as a coming AI agentic deflationary bust 😂 36:32 How Arthur actually invests in AI stocks: buy first, research later 🔵 38:42 The Hype thesis: why Hyperliquid got tokenomics right ⚖️ 45:11 Why Zcash is Arthur's largest position outside Bitcoin 🔗 48:24 NEAR as the next shitcoin: the Zcash-Near integration thesis 🔐 50:26 On-chain risk, the Kelpout hack, and what teams get wrong 🏢 53:12 Maelstrom update: fundraising and why now is the right time to deploy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a new CLARITY Act draft dropped, KK, Vy, and guest Josh Riezman of GSR give their passage odds and explain the one developer protection provision that matters most. Thanks to our sponsor! Coinbase One Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan ⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠ A new draft of the CLARITY Act just landed — all 300-plus pages of it — and Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, TuongVy Le, and guest Josh Riezman of GSR didn't wait to dig in.  On this episode they break down the specific developer protection provision in the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act that introduces a specific intent standard for charging developers, debate passage odds, and explain why Circle releasing a token as a public company signals a real shift in how the SEC thinks about the security/token distinction.  They also unpack Chair Atkins' remarks at the SEC's AI+ Expo — a speech Vy argues shows the SEC and Congress are now in lockstep on modernizing securities regulation for on-chain infrastructure — and why, for the first time, that infrastructure includes vaults. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Veda Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh Riezman — Chief Legal and Strategy Officer, GSR Timestamps ⚖️ 0:00 Intro — new CLARITY Act draft drops; why there’s still a lot of work to do 📜 5:27 Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Aact developer protections and why the “specific intent” standard is so important  🏦 11:06 How TradFi actually feels about crypto market structure legislation 📊 14:45 What CLARITY must achieve: the US as the center for crypto innovation and the security/commodity line 🎰 18:11 Lightning round — passage odds: KK at 35%, Vy at 90%, Josh at 45% 🌸 21:32 Does the recent M&A wave, massive VC raises and Circle's Arc token presale mean it’s crypto spring? 💙 27:41 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained 📈 29:39 The least bearish bear market in history — RWA wave and institutional onchain demand ♀️ 33:41 The E11even controversy: ‘Maybe we should just not have strippers at official events.’ 🎤 34:56 SEC Chair Paul Atkins'  speech recognizing that onchain infrastructure can achieve the same goals as TradFi rails  📚 43:00 The education gap: most legislators still at Bitcoin-level crypto knowledge 🤖 46:46 AI good news: Redmod AI system may detect pancreatic cancer early Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ram says the entire market is now one giant AI trade. Chris argues the boom is backed by real fundamentals. Austin asks: is AI creating value for the right companies? --- Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Circle just made history as the first publicly traded company to run a token presale, raising $222 million from BlackRock, Apollo, ICE, and a16z at a $3 billion valuation — and the stock went up. At the same time, Coinbase reported a $394 million loss, cut 700 jobs, and suffered a five-hour outage.  Ram, Austin, and Chris work through what's really happening: whether Circle's Arc is the institutional payment rail the industry has been waiting for or a financial engineering play, whether Coinbase's troubles are cyclical or structural, and whether the AI-driven market rally is a bubble forming or a fundamental shift that makes the dotcom comparison wrong. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell (@austincampbell) — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Timestamps 🚀 0:00 Introduction and Iran ceasefire update 🛢️ 1:02 What Ram and Chris are watching in oil and Hormuz 📊 4:49 Why markets are shrugging off geopolitical noise 🤖 13:25 Ram on why the market is all one giant bet on AI 💬 16:03 Is the AI rally a bubble or a fundamental shift? 🏦 27:04 Circle launches Arc: could its token compete with its own stock? 📉 40:21 Coinbase: were the layoffs due to AI or the bear market? 🎭 48:26 What it says about the industry that Consensus’s afterparty was at E11even The Crypto Industry’s Maturity Problem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coinbase's chief policy officer explains why the bank lobby failed to kill stablecoin rewards — and what 'workable compromise' actually means for crypto users. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Adaptive Security: Test and strengthen your company’s defenses against AI deepfakes and synthetic identities at adaptivesecurity.com.  Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. ======================================================== The Genius Act established that stablecoin issuers could pay rewards to users. The banks said no. For months, the American Bankers Association used the Clarity Act as a pressure point to reverse that decision — tying up a bill that was supposed to govern an entirely different corner of crypto. Now there's compromise language. Coinbase's chief policy officer, Faryar Shirzad, says it's workable. The banks say it doesn't go far enough. Meanwhile, the Clarity Act itself is racing toward a July 4th deadline, with a Senate Banking Committee markup expected the week of May 14. Ethics provisions around government officials holding crypto assets remain the hardest open question — and, as Shirzad puts it, one entirely above his pay grade. This is where the biggest crypto legislation in US history actually stands. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Faryar Shirzad (@faryarshirzad) — Chief Policy Officer, Coinbase Timestamps 🎙️ 0:00 Introduction 💰 0:43 What the Clarity Act's stablecoin rewards compromise means in practice 🏦 4:04 What the banks got, what crypto kept — and why rewards are still workable ⚖️ 7:51 The American Bankers Association pushes back — is this fight really over? 🔵 13:36 Coinbase One ad: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan 🔒 14:58 Adaptive Security ad: Run deep fake AI generated phishing and vising simulations 📋 15:55 Getting the Clarity Act over the finish line — what's still unresolved? 🔑 18:54 Remaining issues, such as ethics, SEC exemptive relief, whether DeFi apps are money transmitters 🗓️ 28:27 Can the Clarity Act pass by July 4th? What happens if it doesn't? 🌍 32:33 What's next after the Clarity Act — taxes, rulemaking, and global expansion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From AI agents as economic actors to quantum threats and prediction market regulation, Ali Yahya of a16z lays out the investment thesis behind a16z crypto's fifth fund. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase One 20% off first year of annual plan + $50 Bitcoin bonus. Offer valid until May 31. coinbase.com/unchained ======================================================== a16z crypto just closed its fifth crypto fund at $2.2 billion — smaller than its previous fund, but the firm says that's deliberate.  General Partner Ali Yahya argues we are entering a different phase of crypto's development: one where infrastructure is ready, regulatory clarity is arriving, and the competition for real users has begun in earnest.  Two themes sit at the center of a16z's thesis — the collision of crypto and FinTech, and the emergence of AI agents as economic actors. But Yahya's most striking claim may be about blockchains themselves: that performance is no longer a moat, privacy is. And that the chains which get privacy right will accrue stronger network effects than anything the industry has built before.  What does a world of privacy-dominant blockchains do to DeFi composability, to security, to the ability to track hackers? And where does the quantum threat actually stand? Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ali Yahya, General Partner, a16z crypto Timestamps 🚀 0:00 Introduction — Why a16z crypto raised its $2.2B Fund 5 now 💰 2:50 The two big investment themes: fintech x crypto and AI x crypto 🔒 9:25 Why Ali believes privacy is the most important moat in crypto ⛓️ 14:31 How the three privacy approaches compare: centralized sequencers, TEEs, zk tech 🔐 18:32 What happens to security in a world of privacy chains? 🧩 28:48 When privacy chains dominate, can we still have DeFi money Legos? 🤖 34:12 Ali's AI background and how agents will enter the financial system 🎨 43:55 What AI x crypto means for entrepreneurs and creative types ⚠️ 49:13 The quantum threat — why Ali says we have 10-15 years 📊 51:58 Prediction markets and insider trading — where the line is Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Missiles in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent jumps 5%. Bitcoin breaks through $80. The Bits + Bips crew reads the geopolitical tape — and explains why crypto is shrugging it off. --- Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase One — coinbase.com/unchained 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 us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Iranian cruise missiles struck commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, Brent jumped 5%, and Bitcoin broke through $80 — all in the same day. The Bits + Bips crew unpacks what the escalation means for crypto and macro positioning, why Ram stays bullish, and whether Paul Tudor Jones is right that Bitcoin is now the best inflation hedge. They also break down the Clarity Act’s yield compromise — with Circle up 16% — and why Austin argues banks may have handed asset managers a structural win. Finally, a U.S. court filing targeting Arbitrum’s frozen North Korean funds raises a bigger question: can you serve legal papers on code, and what does that mean for DAO governance? Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins break it all down. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell (@austincampbell) — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Timestamps ⚔️ 1:06 Iran strikes in the Strait of Hormuz — what's happening on the ground 📈 3:14 Why Bitcoin ripped through $80 while equities sold off 🛢️ 6:47 Ram's macro read: markets one day from all-time highs, stay bullish 🪙 17:45 What to make of Paul Tudor Jones calling Bitcoin the best inflation hedge ⚡ 20:58 Chris's thesis: the future store of value is wrapped energy or wrapped compute 🏛️ 37:29 Clarity Act yield compromise: did crypto win, did banks win, did anyone win? ⚖️ 48:47 What happens now that there’s a lawsuit against Arbitrum for freezing funds stolen by North Korea 🔐 51:47 Can DeFi achieve mass adoption without resolving the security question? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices