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Unchained

Laura Shin

Crypto assets and blockchain technology are about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity to the Internet of Things. In this podcast, host Laura Shin, an independent journalist covering all things crypto, talks with industry pioneers about how crypto assets and blockchains will change the way we earn, spend and invest our money. Tune in to find out how Web 3.0, the decentralized web, will revolutionize our world.


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  • Today · 13 min

    Bits + Bips: Is Bitcoin Finally Being Priced on Fundamentals?

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18. — Laura When the Clarity Act stalled in Congress, the shorts expected Bitcoin to break. It dipped to $75,000 and stopped. Then came the surprise that the bill might pass after all, and Bitcoin closed its first weekly candle above its 50-week moving average in 45 weeks. Ram Ahluwalia calls it a short squeeze, and says that doesn't make it illegitimate. Chris Perkins sees a regime change, with institutions now underwriting crypto on fundamentals. Austin Campbell asks what happens if US retail, still missing from the Coinbase premium, shows up too. Hosts: Austin Campbell - Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, 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 Head of Franklin Crypto - https://x.com/perkinscr97 This segment is from a longer conversation on Bitcoin, the Fed, a $30 trillion debt pile, and Meta's new AI agent. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/r2Z9ooMTcZ0?si=-mncR-xhm7kUM507 We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live. 👉 Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn Chapters: 📊 00:34 Bitcoin's 50-week reclaim: the bull case and the bear case laid out 🐻 03:51 Why Ram thinks it's a short squeeze, and why that doesn't make it illegitimate 🔄 05:14 Why Chris thinks this is a regime change toward fundamentals ⚖️ 07:31 Austin on how Clarity's failure invalidated the short case 👀 12:26 Why retail hasn't shown up yet, and what happens if it does Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Today · 56 min

    How Zcash and NEAR Are Driving This Crypto Bull Run

    Zcash and NEAR are both ripping this week, and Illia Polosukhin and Mert Mumtaz say privacy is the reason why. Is this how the “Bitcoin DeFi” vision comes true? ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18. — Laura ======================================================== Zcash just cracked the top 10 on CoinGecko, up 32% in a week and near an all-time high. NEAR is up 69% over the same stretch, and both rallies trace back to the same catalyst: transactions nobody else can see. Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, and Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius, join Laura Shin to unpack why confidential transactions, not speculation, are driving the rally, and why the two networks now function as one privacy-preserving liquidity layer for real businesses and institutions, not just traders. They cover NEAR Intents' $260 million in TVL, the multi-party computation and secure enclaves behind NEAR's confidential balances versus Zcash's zero-knowledge shielded pool, the counterfeiting bug that forced Zcash's Ironwood migration, and NEAR's Shield system, which halted transactions mid-hack during a Litecoin exploit. Zcash's next upgrade, Project Tachyon, aims to make the network quantum-proof and scale it 100x, and Mert argues privacy will not stay a competitive edge for long. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠Illia Polosukhin - Co-Founder of NEAR Protocol ⁠Mert Mumtaz - Cofounder and CEO of Helius Timestamps 🚀 01:39 Guest intros, plus why ZEC (+32%) and NEAR (+69%) are ripping this week 🌐 03:13 Illia and Mert on why NEAR and ZEC's price action is turning heads 🟠 08:34 Is Zcash and NEAR the Bitcoin DeFi dream, minus Bitcoin? 🕵️ 11:54 Why coffee-shop-level balance visibility is a real business risk ✈️ 15:06 Mert's travel hack: booking flights and hotels privately via NEAR Intents 🧠 18:12 Why privacy is a retention tool first, not just an onboarding one 📣 25:11 1inch Aqua: back multiple liquidity positions with one wallet balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🔐 26:23 Privacy vs confidentiality: ZK proofs versus NEAR's MPC-and-enclave model 🛡️ 29:26 Inside NEAR's secure enclaves, and why store-of-value needs real privacy 🔄 33:59 How a NEAR Intents swap settles across chains, and its $206 million in TVL 🐛 39:09 The Zcash counterfeit bug, the Ironwood migration, and formal verification 🤖 45:49 How NEAR's Shield AI system and MPC guardrails manage solver risk ⚡ 51:33 Zcash's NU7 upgrade: faster blocks, quantum-proofing, and private voting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Friday · 35 min

    Crypto's Clarity Act Collapses. Two Days Later, the SEC Introduces Its Innovation Exemption

    Days after Clarity failed, the SEC granted a major exemption for tokenized stocks. The Digital Chamber’s Cody Carbone explains whether agencies can replace the law. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== The Clarity Act failed its cloture vote this week, with every Senate Democrat voting no and sinking crypto's biggest legislative shot in years. Cody Carbone, CEO of the Digital Chamber, joins Laura Shin to unpack what killed the bill: an ethics fight over Trump's blind trust and digital-asset dealings, stablecoin-reward limits the banks wouldn't accept, and a Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act rewrite that stripped noncustodial developers of criminal-liability protection. Carbone argues Democrats rejected 80% of their own ethics demands rather than hand Republicans a win, and traces how crypto PAC money and the threat of Maxine Waters chairing House Financial Services shape what happens next. Two days after Clarity died, the SEC granted an innovation exemption for tokenized stock trading, and Carbone says the SEC and CFTC are about to unleash years of rulemaking with or without Congress. The question now is whether that agency-driven momentum outlasts the next hostile administration, or gets undone with a single signature. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: Cody Carbone - CEO of The Digital Chamber Timestamps 🏛️ 01:18 Why the Clarity Act's cloture vote failed: 'politics beat policy' ⚖️ 02:38 Scoring Trump's corruption against Nixon and Suharto fuels the ethics fight 🗳️ 06:51 Election pressure: a lame duck vote and crypto PAC money's next targets 🏦 11:57 Why Cody blames the banks' stablecoin rewards fight for killing Clarity 🌊 14:35 1inch Aqua: See how LPs back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 📜 15:23 The SEC's new innovation exemption for tokenized stock venues 🔓 18:28 Could 2 years of SEC and CFTC rulemaking replace a crypto law? 🧩 23:20 Why regulators are staying silent on synthetic stock tokens 🤝 26:46 What's left to negotiate: developer liability and stablecoin yield 🔮 31:14 Is the lame duck Clarity's last shot, or could agency rules become permanent? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Thursday · 1 hr 14 min

    Uneasy Money: What Crypto's Gensler Years Say About the AI Slowdown Debate

    Delphi Ventures founding partner Tommy Shaughnessy tells Kain and Taylor the AI slowdown talk is a moat against cheap Chinese models. Plus, why the Clarity Act died. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== The Clarity Act failed a Senate cloture vote 49 to 50, and Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan open by asking what crypto did wrong. Taylor thinks the Trump family's memecoins and World Liberty sank it. Kain worries the industry squandered its best shot at actual laws and is now counting on friendly SEC rulemaking instead. Guest Tommy Shaughnessy, founding partner of Delphi Ventures, argues that OpenAI and Anthropic's calls to slow AI down are a play for a regulatory moat, because Chinese open source models like DeepSeek are getting good and cheap. He also explains why he runs Delphi Ventures on its own AI agent instead of handing its data to Claude or ChatGPT. Kain says the fear inside the labs is genuine, and that the idea of simply shutting down the data center won't hold forever. They also cover Anthropic's report on a Chinese surveillance operation that surfaced in its logs, an $8M exploit of a Safe wallet that a 4-year-old yoink bot frontran, the SDNY charges against Robinhood engineers accused of trading tokens on Hyperliquid ahead of Robinhood listings, and why Wyoming's stable token dropped LayerZero for Chainlink. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tommy Shaughnessy - Founding Partner of Delphi Ventures and Co-Founder of Delphi Digital Timestamps 🏛️ 02:35 Why Clarity died without 50 votes and what SEC/CFTC rules might replace it 🇺🇸 19:06 Why crypto's all-in bet on Trump has Taylor uneasy about the partisan trade 💧 23:20 1inch: Back multiple liquidity positions and keep your tokens in your wallet until a swap fills at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🤖 24:08 Why OpenAI and Anthropic's own founders are calling to slow AI down 🐉 31:12 Tommy on why AI safety talk is regulatory capture against Chinese open source 🕵️ 38:17 Anthropic's own report: how a CCP surveillance job showed up in its logs 💰 51:42 Would you bet on AI safety or acceleration? Tommy makes the hosts pick a side 🔓 56:56 How an $8M Safe exploit got frontrun by a 4-year-old yoink bot 📈 01:01:46 Why the SDNY charged Robinhood engineers with trading on Hyperliquid ahead of listings ⚔️ 01:05:27 Why Wyoming dropping LayerZero for Chainlink reignited the Link Marines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Thursday · 1 hr

    The Chopping Block: CLARITY Dies on the Senate Floor, Hunter Biden's LAPTOP Rug, & the AI Pause Pact

    The boys get together in person as CLARITY falls short with 47 votes. They break down what comes next, Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP token collapse, the Robinhood/Hyperliquid case, Balancer winding down, and the debate over an AI pause. The CLARITY Act fails cloture with 47 votes, not a single Democrat in favor, and the crew works out what that leaves behind: rulemaking at the SEC and CFTC, an ethics fight that was never really about market structure, and Robert's tally of everyone who walked away with nothing. Then Hunter Biden's LAPTOP token collapses 99.85 percent, the SDNY indicts two Robinhood engineers over Hyperliquid front-running, Balancer and a wave of exchanges wind down, Robert explains why Satoshi is a time traveler, and the panel takes apart the labs' agreement to pace the frontier. 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 gets 47 of the 60 votes it needed, with no Democrats in favor, and the sticking point was forced divestiture of Trump-affiliated tokens rather than market structure. 🔹 Robert tallies the losers: no ethics win for the Democrats, no GENIUS rewrite for the banks, no expanded AML hooks, and no developer protections for anyone. 🔹 Haseeb argues adoption protects crypto better than legislation ever will, because nobody takes away a product people already use. 🔹 Prediction markets are politically safe for a reason nobody says out loud: every politician already reads them as better polling data. 🔹 Tom's counterfactual for what would have flipped the vote is blunt. You never should have launched that damn memecoin. 🔹 Hunter Biden's LAPTOP token flashes to a 140 billion dollar valuation on 50,000 dollars of liquidity, then falls to twenty cents, and the chart ends up shaped like a laptop. 🔹 Two Robinhood engineers are charged over front-running crypto listings on Hyperliquid for about 50,000 dollars each, and Haseeb explains why the OpenSea conviction got overturned. 🔹 Balancer winds down and the panel asks what became of the ICO treasuries, from Golem's GPUs to Aragon's founder building a neobank. 🔹 Robert makes the case, half in jest, that a future superintelligence sent Satoshi back to 2008 to get humanity building chips early. 🔹 On the AI pause: Tarun on who evaluates the evaluators, Tom on why coordination without China is futile, and Haseeb on why a training freeze just moves the competition to another line item. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:43 CLARITY day 03:36 Silver linings 05:26 Was it close? Or did everybody loose? 12:23 Why adoption protects crypto better than a bill 15:00 Was DC trading on the CLARITY odds? 18:37 The one thing they would go back & undo 20:48 Hunter Biden's LAPTOP token collapses 23:50 Celeb coins never work 26:17 Robinhood engineers indicted over Hyperliquid front-running 31:35 Balancer winds down & the exchange shakeout 35:11 AI arbitration & ideas ahead of their time 37:44 Satoshi is a time traveler 39:14 The AI pause: pacing the frontier 42:57 China calls it a conspiracy 44:40 What do you buy if the doomers are right 45:50 Does an AI pause actually cut CapEx? 50:32 Futile without the Chinese labs 54:05 Harden society instead of slowing the models 56:47 Which doom vectors are real Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 16 · 16 min

    Bits + Bips: Would AI Rules Box Out Everyone but the Frontier Labs?

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips In one week, OpenAI said its agents solved a Millennium Prize problem, a researcher quit Anthropic warning that both labs are "gambling with our lives," and Dario Amodei called for the industry to pace the frontier. Jordi Visser doesn't dismiss the cyber risk, but he calls the fallout "a big midterm election story." Austin Campbell asks whether the labs are making a commercial play, Chris Perkins explains why regulation forces consolidation the way it did for banks, and Ram Ahluwalia makes the case that open weight models still have a seat at the table. 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 Guest: Jordi Visser - Founder of Visser-Labs, LLC This clip is from a longer conversation on AI regulation, frontier lab valuations, oil and the Fed. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/pNogg0vEjjs?si=Wrzh-5BJXnkkcQLr We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET. Subscribe to catch it live. 👉 Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt Chapters: 🧠 00:35 Why Jordi says Leopold's 'Situational Awareness' paper saw this coming 🗳️ 02:17 Jordi's read: this is a big midterm election story 💼 05:58 Is the AI slowdown a commercial play to cool CapEx before the IPOs? 🏦 07:28 Chris on why regulation is 'a really beautiful way of boxing out competition' ⚖️ 10:25 Jordi on who eats the liability when a model goes wrong 🔓 11:27 Could decentralization put AI liability back on the user? 📈 11:57 Ram's power law problem: capital concentration as the real story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 15 · 52 min

    Guy Young on Why Ethena Launched a Neobank on Top of Its Stablecoin

    Ethena's Guy Young explains why the companybuilt a neobank that pays 6% in yield, 5% cash back, and never tells users they're holding self-custodial stablecoins instead of dollars. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== DeFi's total value locked never reclaimed its 2021 peak, even four years and a full bull market later. That data point convinced Ethena Labs founder Guy Young the onchain dream needed a backup plan. Young joins Laura Shin days after launching Ethena Pay, a neobank paying 6% on dollar deposits and 5% cashback in AVAX while hiding from users that their balance sits in a self-custodial stablecoin wallet, not a bank account. He argues yield, not brand loyalty, is what pulls the next hundred million users onto crypto rails. They cover why Young shrugs off Tether-backed Plasma as a rival, how USDe's backing shifted from a basis trade toward AAA-rated real-world-asset lending, why a Revolut-style KYC breach is a risk Ethena can't fully control, and why card spend and FX fees, not USDe's own yield, are the revenue line he is actually chasing. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Guy Young - Founder and CEO of Ethena Labs Timestamps 🏦 01:25 Why Guy built a neobank after DeFi's TVL never beat its 2021 peak 🥊 07:16 Why Guy doesn't see Tether-backed Plasma as a competitor 🕵️ 17:57 How Ethena Pay hides self-custody from users who don't know it 🌍 19:10 The nearly 50-country rollout and Ethena's slow, controlled go-to-market 📣 22:30 1inch Aqua: See how the shared liquidity platform lets LPs back multiple positions with one wallet balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt ⛰️ 23:18 Why Ethena Pay chose Avalanche, not Ethereum, for settlement 🏛️ 29:20 How USDe's backing shifted from basis trades to AAA-rated RWA lending 🔓 33:00 What the Revolut KYC breach means for Ethena Pay's own compliance risk 💳 39:55 Why card spend, not USDe's yield, is the metric Guy actually chases 🚀 47:50 The 7-figure deposits that surprised Guy in Ethena Pay's first two weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 11 · 38 min

    Should Stock Tokens Be Limited to KYC'd Users? Or Be Tradeable by Anyone?

    The SEC's next tokenization rule could force platforms to get issuer sign-off for stock tokens first. Securitize’s Brett Redfearn lays out what's actually at stake for Wall Street. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== AMC CEO Adam Aron's public feud with Robinhood over its AMC stock tokens erupted into a war of words last week, with the AMC chief calling the tokens "contemptible" and Robinhood's chief legal officer, and former SEC commissioner, Dan Gallagher firing back that Robinhood would "not DECIST" mocking a misspelling in Aron’s tweet. Brett Redfearn, President of Securitize and a former SEC Trading and Markets Division director, joins Laura Shin to referee the fight. He explains why issuers deserve a say before their stock gets tokenized, and breaks down the three real categories of stock tokens, from Securitize's issuer-sponsored model to Robinhood's offshore synthetic. Redfearn unpacks why an AMC token pair once traded at 60 times its reference price, details the SEC's looming innovation exemption and the Securities Transfer Association's push for an issuer opt-out, and explains why non-KYC tokens could let bad actors amass stakes in defense contractors. The debate, he says, will decide whether tokenization becomes Wall Street's next upgrade or its next flashpoint. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brett Redfearn - President of Securitize Timestamps 🥊 00:54 Brett unpacks the AMC-Robinhood spat and who has the stronger legal argument 📣 10:15 1inch Aqua: See how the new shared liquidity platform works at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🧩 11:12 The 3 types of stock tokens, from issuer-sponsored to Robinhood's synthetic 🔐 21:33 Why Brett wants KYC before permissionless DeFi meets tokenized stocks 🏛️ 28:32 The Securities Transfer Association's push for an issuer opt-out 🗳️ 33:38 What Robinhood should do with the voting rights on its collateral shares 🏢 35:29 How many public company CEOs actually want their stock tokenized Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 10 · 1 hr 21 min

    Uneasy Money: Is OpenAI Training on Your Private Chats to Win the AI Race?

    Alex Thorn and Jon join Kain and Taylor to unpack a Bitcoin hack, two new frontier models, and why nobody trusts their AI chats anymore. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at ⁠⁠⁠http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== A Bitcoin sidechain lost $300 million to a consensus bug this week, and the hackers who returned 85% of it are trying to extort a "bug bounty" out of Blockstream for the rest. Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, and Jon, Head of Strategy at Venice and co-founder of ShapeShift, join Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to unpack how AI models are now finding exploits faster than the humans who wrote the code, and to push back on the idea that returning stolen funds makes anyone a white hat. They also dig into Astra and Fable 5.1, two frontier models that landed days after a mathematician working inside OpenAI's Codex clashed publicly with OpenAI over who actually solved a Millennium Prize-adjacent proof. Jon and Alex explain why the "don't train on my data" toggle may not mean much, and why identity is becoming the real privacy battleground. The conversation closes on whether an Anthropic researcher quitting this week is a warning the industry is choosing to ignore. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex Thorn - Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jon - Head of Strategy at Venice and Co-founder of ShapeShift Timestamps 🔓 01:15 How a consensus bug let hackers mint $300M in fake Bitcoin 📜 7:50 Why the Liquid hackers are no white hats 🤖 17:16 Did an AI agent find the Liquid exploit? ⚖️ 28:10 Taylor on why there’s no excuse for the hackers’ actions 💧 32:08 1inch Aqua: See how the shared liquidity layer works at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn 🧠 32:54 Astra and Fable 5.1 land, and one is writing eerily compressed code 📐 35:19 The Millennium Prize proof fight between OpenAI and an Anthropic researcher 🧬 44:48 Kain on fast takeoff, recursive self-improvement, and paperclipped kids 🕵️ 55:18 How to keep your novel research out of an AI's training data ⚰️ 01:07:03 Why an Anthropic researcher's resignation has Kain and Taylor spooked Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 10 · 1 hr 3 min

    The Chopping Block: FOMO's Co-Founder Defends the Memecoin Trenches, Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP, and AMC vs Robinhood

    FOMO co-founder Paul Erlanger joins Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun to answer last week's unc takes on memecoins: why a fully transparent social graph beats copy trading, how FOMO became the biggest app on Robinhood Chain, Hunter Biden's LAPTOP token, the three-way launchpad war, AMC's fight with Robinhood over tokenized stock, and the AI race to solve Navier-Stokes. Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra are joined by FOMO co-founder Paul Erlanger to chop it up about the latest in crypto. After getting dunked on as uncs for last week's memecoin takes, the crew brings on the founder at the center of it. Paul lays out FOMO's case for a fully transparent trading social graph, Tarun reports back from a holiday weekend in the trenches, and Haseeb holds the line on where memecoin trading actually destroys value. Then: Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP token, the Pons versus Stonk.fun versus Pump launchpad war, AMC's CEO versus Robinhood's tokenized stocks, and the OpenAI versus Anthropic fight over who solved Navier-Stokes. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Paul explains why FOMO refuses to build copy trading and bets on full transparency instead: trade well and the feed follows you. 🔹 Tarun spent his holiday weekend trenching, finished up a respectable 10 percent thanks to Hunter Biden copycat coins, and says it felt more like a video game than trading. 🔹 FOMO had 94,000 active wallets on Robinhood Chain, three times the next largest app, and its users no longer know which chain they are on. 🔹 Haseeb draws the line: buying Doge is harmless, but the memecoin production function is where retail reliably loses money. 🔹 Paul and Haseeb converge on churn: an app that lets customers incinerate themselves flames out fast, so FOMO rewards holding and theses over launching. 🔹 Hunter Biden's LAPTOP token launches on Base with airdrops to Trump token losers and a scraped Channel 5 subscriber list. 🔹 Pons, Stonk.fun, and Pump fight over launchpad revenue while Paul stays agnostic and pitches Team Tags as the highest-intent distribution channel ever built. 🔹 AMC's CEO calls Robinhood's tokenized stock vile, and the panel debates whether one-to-one backed equity tokens fix the fundraising objection. 🔹 Tarun explains Navier-Stokes and why math academia is depressed after OpenAI's $15 million compute run at a Millennium Prize problem. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures Guest ⭐️Paul Erlanger, Co-Founder of FOMO Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:06 Paul vs. the uncs 03:37 From dYdX to FOMO 05:14 Tarun's weekend in the trenches 08:40 Transparency vs. copy trading 12:27 FOMO's distribution power on Robinhood Chain 17:52 Where memecoin trading destroys value 21:10 Churn, theses, & traders as the next celebrities 27:08 Shaming, sidewallets, & clans 32:35 Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP token 37:15 Stock coins, bond ETF fees, & how long the meta lasts 42:52 AMC's CEO vs Robinhood's tokenized stock 47:51 One-to-one backed equity & earnings calls as TV shows 52:20 OpenAI, Anthropic, & the Navier-Stokes drama 58:49 Is math research over? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 9 · 19 min

    Bits + Bips: AMC's CEO Calls Robinhood's Stock Tokens 'Vile.'

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips AMC's CEO spent the holiday weekend calling Robinhood's tokenized AMC shares "contemptible" and "vile." Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins break down what a "reverse ADR" actually is, why Ram thinks most of this is derivatives repackaged as innovation, and why Chris pushes back using Robinhood Chain's own financials. Hosts: Austin Campbell - Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, 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 Head of Franklin Crypto - https://x.com/perkinscr97 This clip is from a longer conversation on tokenized stocks, meme coins, frontier AI, and the Fed. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/cDFv4OCihgU?si=qdPWALHcmHc97SEc We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live. 👉 Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt Chapters: 🥊 00:20 AMC's CEO calls Robinhood's tokenized stock vile: what it actually is 📊 06:36 Ram: stock tokens are "derivatives for the sake of derivatives" 🔍 11:17 Why Austin says the AMC fight reveals microstructure ignorance 🏗️ 14:40 Ram: real innovation looks like CDO Square 2.0, not this 💰 21:41 Chris defends Robinhood Chain's financials Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 7 · 1 hr

    How GenLayer Is Building a Court System for Disputes Between AI Agents

    Albert Castellana and Arthur Hayes walk through how GenLayer resolves an AI agent's dispute in minutes, for cents, without a single human judge involved. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== Every legal system assumes a human sits on the other side of a dispute. Albert Castellana, CEO of GenLayer Labs, is betting that assumption breaks down within the decade, once AI agents start disagreeing with each other faster than any court could keep up. Castellana built the idea after StakeHound, the liquid-staking company he ran before Lido existed, lost $150 million when a custodian misplaced two keys, and he saw how slow and costly the legal system was. He joins Arthur Hayes, CEO of Flop Labs and CIO of Maelstrom, to argue agentic commerce cannot scale without its own dispute layer, since agents cannot be jailed. They cover how GenLayer escalates a dispute to up to 1,500 AI validators for a verdict in minutes, how it compares to Kleros, UMA, and the failed Aragon Court, and why Hayes wants Flop plugged into GenLayer once both go live. If agents cannot go to jail, escrowed money may be the only leverage left. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arthur Hayes - CEO of Flop Labs and CIO of Maelstrom ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Albert Castellana - Co-Founder and CEO of GenLayer Labs Timestamps 🏛️ 01:20 Albert Castellana on the $150 million custody failure that led him to build GenLayer 🤖 05:20 Why Flop needs GenLayer's dispute layer to make agentic commerce work ⚖️ 07:26 The kinds of disputes AI agents will actually have with each other 📣 13:38 1inch Aqua: See how the shared liquidity platform works at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 📜 14:29 How an intelligent contract escrows funds and calls in AI validators 🔗 18:51 Inside GenLayer's architecture: the L2 chain and 1,500 validators 💵 27:21 What an AI verdict actually costs: 50 cents to $100, minutes to hours 🔒 34:30 Why AI agents can't go to jail, so escrow is the only enforcement ⚔️ 40:14 How GenLayer compares to the AAA, Kleros, UMA, and the failed Aragon Court 🕵️ 49:29 Can the validator network be gamed or bought off? 🚀 54:34 What's next for GenLayer's token launch and Flop's Q4 airdrop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 4 · 32 min

    Why the Question Over How to Regulate Perps Has Turned Into a Fight

    The CME is suing its own regulator over how perps get classified, and the ruling decides who in the US can trade them. Three lawyers make the case for futures over swaps. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== The CME is suing its own regulator. At stake is a single word: is a perpetual futures contract a swap, locked to institutional trading desks, or a future, open to any retail trader in the US? Cathy Yoon, General Counsel at Temporal, Tiffany J. Smith, Partner at WilmerHale, and Jake Chervinsky, CEO of Hyperliquid Policy Center, join Laura Shin at the Real World Assets Summit to make the case for futures. The CME was invited onto the panel to argue its side, but Yoon called their last-minute decision to bow out as "cowardice." They dig into the CFTC's recent approval of true perpetual futures for Coinbase and Kalshi, the running jurisdictional split between the CFTC and SEC, and Bloomberg's report that Hyperliquid is in talks to come onshore through Kraken's Bitnomial. Chervinsky argues Hyperliquid isn't an exchange at all, just neutral infrastructure any exchange could use. Yoon closes with a warning: most of Capitol Hill, she says, still doesn't understand there's a whole world running onchain. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cathy Yoon - General Counsel of Temporal ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tiffany J. Smith - Partner at WilmerHale and Co-Chair of its Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Working Group Jake Chervinsky - CEO of Hyperliquid Policy Center Timestamps ⚖️ 02:24 Why the CME is suing the CFTC over classifying perps as futures or swaps 🌍 13:00 Why RWA perps overtook crypto perps, and who ends up regulating them 📣 18:03 1inch: See how Aqua's shared liquidity platform puts idle capital to work at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🌐 20:42 Is Hyperliquid an exchange or neutral infrastructure? Jake makes his case 🏛️ 26:10 If you were the regulator: how each panelist would design fair rules for perps Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 3 · 1 hr 18 min

    Uneasy Money: Inside the AI Agent Scandal That Cheated, Then Covered Its Tracks

    OpenAI's AI agents already had the exam answers. So why did they hack Hugging Face anyway? Kain, Tay, and Austin Griffith explain. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at ⁠⁠http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn⁠⁠ ======================================================== OpenAI's AI agents didn't just get caught cheating on a security test. According to the postmortem, they already had the answers, and hacked Hugging Face's systems not to cheat, but to learn who was scoring them and cover their tracks. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan bring on Austin Griffith, Builder Enablement at the Ethereum Foundation, to work through what that cover-up actually means, and why Griffith thinks Nick Bostrom's twenty-year-old paperclip thought experiment stopped being hypothetical the moment agents started writing production-grade code. They also cover the tokenized HIMS stock pump, Rune's fake $100 million NASDAQ LARP, Kyle Samani's abrupt exit from Multicoin, and the Cronos validators who rolled back a hack. If agents can trick each other to avoid detection, what happens once they're running your portfolio, or your toaster? Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Griffith - Builder Enablement at the Ethereum Foundation and Founder of BuidlGuidl Timestamps 📈 01:09 How degens pumped BONER and HIMS on Robinhood Chain 📱 11:39 Austin calls FOMO's tokenized-stock UX crypto's smoothest onboarding yet 💧 25:51 1inch Aqua: See how it works at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🎭 26:37 Rune's fake $100M NASDAQ short squeeze LARP 🍄 33:39 The Chinese mushroom stock trading at an on-chain premium 🤖 34:46 OpenAI agents already had the answers and hacked to hide it ⚠️ 51:04 Bostrom's paperclip problem, 20 years later 🧠 54:20 Kain on the Claude 5.1 mixup that proved he can't tell the models apart 💸 01:04:13 Kyle Samani's $100 million 'line' with Multicoin 🔄 01:07:01 Cronos rolls back a $100M hack, and Moonwell gets hit again Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 3 · 1 hr 2 min

    The Chopping Block: Robinhood Chain's Memecoin Mania and Tokenized Stocks

    Laura joins Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun to unpack Robinhood Chain's surge, the strange fusion of stock tokens and memecoins, the damage speculative entertainment can do to retail, Solana's competitive position, and why regulated onchain markets will still look different across jurisdictions. Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra are joined by Laura Shin to chop it up about the latest in crypto. The panel examines Robinhood Chain's second wave, stock-backed memecoins built from old DeFi mechanics, the line between financial entertainment and retail harm, the race with Solana, and the legal constraints facing global onchain markets. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Robinhood Chain's activity spikes as FOMO, tokenized stocks, and memecoins converge in one retail product. 🔹 Tarun explains how Ohm-style mechanics can pair a memecoin incentive with an underlying stock token. 🔹 The crew compares the new speculation to DeFi summer, GameStop, and what they call financial Jackass. 🔹 Haseeb argues that traders should ask an AI whether a supposed retail short squeeze can work before handing over their keys. 🔹 Laura separates the cultural appeal of speculative entertainment from the real damage repeated losses can do to retail confidence. 🔹 The panel asks whether Robinhood captured the tokenized-stock opportunity that Solana pioneered too early. 🔹 Tom and Tarun compare American FOMO culture with the more explicitly profit-driven social-trading pitches they heard in Asia. 🔹 The group explains why KYC is only one part of bringing HIP-3 markets onshore, alongside clearing, surveillance, collateral, and local law. Host ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures Guest ⭐️Laura Shin, Foun of Unchained and CEO of the Show Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:58 Robinhood Chain's big wave 04:00 Ohm forks & stock-backed memecoins 10:50 Financial Jackass & generational speculation 15:13 DeFi code gets a second life 19:10 Does memecoin trading entertain or destroy retail? 34:37 Dream stock-memecoin pairings 36:12 Is Robinhood Chain overshadowing Solana? 44:19 Building FOMO for Asian markets 50:35 Hyperliquid in talks with Kraken parent 52:59 What regulated HIP-3 markets would require 58:26 Why global onchain markets still face local law Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 2 · 11 min

    Bits + Bips: Is Kalshi Headed to the Supreme Court Next?

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips A Ninth Circuit panel ruled 3-0 that Nevada can enforce its gambling laws against Kalshi's sports contracts, directly conflicting with an April ruling that put Kalshi under CFTC oversight instead. Andy Ross, Head of Institutional at Kalshi, joins the panel to make the case that prediction markets are nothing like sportsbooks, that Kalshi wants its winners to keep winning, and that its fastest-growing customers are not hedge funds but ice cream shops, kayak renters, and boat charter operators hedging ordinary business risk. 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 Guest: Andy Ross - Head of Institutional at Kalshi This clip is from a longer conversation on Kalshi's clash with state regulators over prediction markets. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/c5qwxUlaKQ4?si=9vIZPp0imIyuJIs3 We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live. 👉 Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn. Chapters: ⚖️ 00:20 Ninth Circuit rules 3-0 that Nevada can enforce gambling law against Kalshi 🎯 02:16 Andy on why prediction markets are not sportsbooks 🏛️ 04:44 Chris asks whether the CFTC believes it has federal preemption 🍦 06:21 Andy on ice cream shops, kayak renters, and boat charters hedging with Kalshi 📊 08:10 Ram asks where Kalshi's real trading volume actually comes from 🔬 09:21 Andy unveils Kalshi's 2.2 million-data-point calibration study Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 2 · 43 min

    How Cory Klippsten Would Decide How to Secure Bitcoin Post-Coldcard

    Bitcoin rallied 23% after Bessent's debt-buyback comments and settled near $80K. Swan's Cory Klippsten weighs in on what ETF inflows and onchain exchange moves really mean. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ========================================================Bitcoin rallied 23 percent in a week after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government would double its long-term debt buybacks, settling near $80,000 without a leverage-driven blowoff. ETFs pulled in about $3 billion over two weeks, even as onchain data showed coins moving toward exchanges. Cory Klippsten, founder and CEO of Swan, joins Laura Shin to discuss why he distrusts popular Bitcoin forecasting tools. He calls stock-to-flow and power-law price models unfalsifiable "false gods" that leave holders with paper hands, and dismisses the quantum-computing scare as manufactured hype tied to 2025's penny-stock schemes. Yet he insists onchain self-custody is where value lives. The two weigh the ColdCard hack, which cost self-custody wallets roughly 1,400 coins, against larger losses at Mt. Gox, Celsius, and Quadriga. Klippsten covers Swan's RBX tool for converting GBTC into real Bitcoin, the custody spectrum topped by Swan Trinity, and why nobody will know for decades whether Bitcoin's fee market can replace its shrinking block reward. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cory Klippsten - Founder and CEO of Swan Timestamps 📈 01:00 Cory Klippsten ties Bitcoin's $80K rally to Bessent's Treasury buyback move 📊 04:20 Laura asks about $3B in ETF inflows versus Bitcoin moving to exchanges 🔮 06:23 Cory debunks stock-to-flow and power law models for Bitcoin's price 🌊 14:23 1inch Aqua: See how LPs back multiple positions with one token balance and cover more pairs at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn 🔐 15:13 Cory reacts to the ColdCard hack that drained over 1,000 Bitcoin 🔄 20:10 Swan's RBX lets holders convert GBTC shares into real Bitcoin tax efficiently 🗂️ 25:20 Cory maps a 5-step custody spectrum from self-custody to multi-institution ⚛️ 31:34 Cory calls the Bitcoin quantum threat panic 'manufactured bullshit' 🪙 35:19 Cory rejects freezing or tail-emitting Satoshi's coins, backs the fee market Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 28 · 31 min

    How Tokenized Stocks Could Undercut Interactive Brokers' 77% Profit Margin

    Coinbase just launched fully backed tokenized stocks on Base. Dromos Labs’ Alex Cutler says they’ll chip away at Interactive Brokers "77% profit margin." ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1inch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================================================== Coinbase this week launched tokenized versions of Apple, Nvidia, Meta, and Google stock on Base, moving past the prior synthetic tokenized-stock wrappers. The tokens are fully backed, held in trust, with ETF-style minting and redemption. Alex Cutler, CEO and Co-Founder of Dromos Labs, joins Laura Shin to unpack what real backing changes about tokenized stocks, and to argue decentralized exchanges can beat legacy brokers on cost and access. Cutler points to Aerodrome's roughly 25% share of AMM volume on the new assets, about $80 million traded and 5,000 wallets active within days, plus integrations across nine DeFi protocols including Aave, Morpho, and 1inch. He argues Interactive Brokers extracts a 77% profit margin as a middleman, and cites Nvidia's earnings, released after the bell, as proof onchain markets kept pricing news around the clock. They also cover the SEC innovation exemption and a roadmap of more assets, a Centrifuge migration to Aerodrome, and a launch on Circle's Arc chain. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex Cutler - CEO and Co-Founder of Dromos Labs Timestamps 🪙 01:15 How Cutler splits tokenized stocks: real backing vs synthetic wrappers 📈 04:44 Cutler's launch numbers: 25% of AMM volume, $80M traded, 5,000 wallets 💧 13:10 1inch Aqua: back multiple liquidity positions with one wallet balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-x 🧩 13:59 Why composability across 9 DeFi protocols is Dromos' biggest draw 🌙 19:11 Cutler on 24/5 oracle risk: weekend price gaps are a feature, not a bug 🏛️ 24:23 Cutler on the SEC exemption bid and Armstrong's 10%-of-GDP vision Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 28 · 54 min

    The Chopping Block: Crypto's Rebound, Reg Crypto, and AI Router Wars

    The crew sizes up Bitcoin's rebound, the fight to bring Hyperliquid onshore, the SEC's new token fundraising framework, and why Stripe's OpenRouter deal could make AI inference markets look a lot like DeFi. 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. Tom and Tarun check in from Bhutan after lunch with the king, then the crew tackles Bitcoin's rebound, the path to a compliant U.S. Hyperliquid, the SEC's proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, and the growing overlap between AI inference markets and DeFi market structure. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Tom and Tarun report from Bhutan after discussing Bitcoin mining, AI, and tokenization with the king. 🔹 Bitcoin pushes back toward $80,000 as ETF inflows and the debasement trade revive crypto sentiment. 🔹 The panel explains why a U.S. Hyperliquid would probably require KYC, surveillance, and separate liquidity. 🔹 Robert argues the SEC's $5 million startup exemption could reopen token crowdfunding for smaller projects. 🔹 Tom asks whether Regulation Crypto Assets solves an ICO-era problem that today's builders no longer have. 🔹 Tarun predicts financial engineers will try to scale the small-offering exemption through many token launches. 🔹 AI could overwhelm government processes by removing the bureaucratic proof-of-work that quietly rationed access. 🔹 Stripe's OpenRouter acquisition turns model routing, inference providers, and cached tokens into a DeFi-style market. 🔹 The hosts debate whether data rebates and inference tokens could finally revive crypto's 2017 data-ownership dreams. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate Disclosures Links SEC Regulation Crypto Assets: https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/2026/08/s7-2026-27 OpenRouter is joining Stripe: https://openrouter.ai/blog/announcements/openrouter-is-joining-stripe/ Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:22 Tom & Tarun meet the King of Bhutan 04:13 Bitcoin rebounds and crypto gets hot again 08:10 What a compliant U.S. Hyperliquid could look like 13:14 The SEC's proposed Regulation Crypto Assets 23:53 Are the new token rules eight years too late? 28:23 AI removes the government's bureaucratic speed bumps 31:12 Why AI inference tokens could power the next cycle 34:13 Stripe buys OpenRouter and AI starts looking like DeFi 43:28 Router economics, data markets, and new security risks 51:01 Bull-market vibes from Bhutan and Asia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 27 · 1 hr 14 min

    Treasury Puts DeFi On Notice as Roman Storm Trial Drags On

    Roman Storm's retrial slides to April 2027. Peter Van Valkenburgh argues prosecuting Tornado Cash's developers cost real ground in zero knowledge cryptography. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at ⁠http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn⁠ ======================================================== Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has declared "economic D-Day" on Iran, leaving an open question over whether the sanctions crackdown reaches Uniswap and Ethereum or stops at Iranian exchanges, where humans are in the loop. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan take that gap to Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director of Coin Center, whose defense of the Tornado Cash developers rests as much on zero knowledge cryptography as on sanctions law. They cover the GENIUS Act's freeze and seize rules for the stablecoin secondary market and Roman Storm's retrial, now pushed to April 2027, where speech protections clash with prosecutors' "frying pan" theory of money transmission. The SEC's proposed exemptions, the stalled Clarity Act, and Trump’s Hyperliquid all raise the same question: where does decentralization end and regulation begin? Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Peter Van Valkenburgh - Executive Director of Coin Center Timestamps 🎯 01:26 Bessent brands Iran sanctions 'economic D-Day', DeFi not exempt 🏦 11:15 Van Valkenburgh explains the freeze-and-seize rules coming for stablecoins 💰 15:18 Bessent claims a $1B Iranian crypto rug, but the receipts don't add up 🌊 25:08 1inch Aqua: back multiple liquidity positions with one wallet balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn ⚖️ 25:50 Roman Storm's retrial slips to April as an acquittal motion looms 🔐 38:24 Why Van Valkenburgh calls Tornado Cash's developer a hero, not a villain 📜 47:22 SEC's 'Reg Crypto' plan opens two new paths to raise ICO-like capital 🏇 58:07 Trump name-drops Hyperliquid, raising hard questions for the CFTC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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