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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 · 1 hr 20 min
How North Korea Stole $6.3 Billion From Binance in 20 Minutes
A compromised developer laptop and 50 pre-signed transactions let North Korea drain $6.3 billion from Binance. Jonty and Pablo Sabbatella trace how it happened. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. With Election Day on November 3, crypto voters could make the difference in close races. Check where candidates stand on crypto, verify your registration, and make your voting plan at Stand With Crypto’s Voter Hub. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== North Korea only needed 20 minutes to take $6.3 billion from Binance in the largest hack in history, not just crypto history. According to Binance, one of the attack vectors started with a compromised developer laptop, which ultimately led to the attackers being able to sign transactions from the exchange's hot wallets. Jonty, founder of Pangolin Intelligence, and Pablo Sabbatella, founder of Opsek, trace how an EIP-7702 upgrade let the hackers sweep those wallets, why roughly 43% of the funds were frozen compared with less than 3% after Bybit, and how Circle, Tether, Arbitrum's Security Council and Aave responded. They also debate how decentralized THORChain really is, why the FBI named THOR node operators, and how TraderTraitor lures developers with fake job interviews. With Chainalysis tying nearly 89% of this year's reported hack losses to North Korea, Pablo and Jonty lay out the security and anti-laundering steps the industry could take before the next attack. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jonty (tanuki42) - Founder of Pangolin Intelligence ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pablo Sabbatella - Founder of Opsek Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 📋 00:26 Unchained Survey: complete the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey 🚨 02:08 How North Korea took $6.3 billion from Binance in about 20 minutes 🔑 07:51 Why the EIP-7702 delegation made the drain faster 💰 17:35 Nexo: earn daily interest on your crypto or borrow against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🗳️ 17:52 Stand With Crypto: see where candidates stand on crypto and make your voting plan at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/standwithcrypto-yt ⛓️ 18:31 Which chains were hit and where exchange signing infrastructure fails 🏦 23:00 Should Binance have held $6 billion in hot wallets? 🧊 29:18 Why Circle and Tether moved fast to freeze the stolen funds 🏛️ 35:38 How the hackers borrowed nearly 20,000 ETH on Aave 🔄 40:37 Is Binance liquidity helping launder funds through THORChain? ⚖️ 45:51 How decentralized is THORChain after a three-vote halt? 🚔 54:19 What the FBI naming THOR node operators signals 🤖 01:02:33 Why the laundering trail looks machine-driven 🕵️ 01:06:06 Who TraderTraitor is and how fake job interviews hack developers 🛡️ 01:13:00 What the industry should change to stop North Korea Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Saturday · 57 min
The Chopping Block: The Binance Hack, Circle's Fast Freeze, YC's Crypto Wishlist, and ICE Bringing Hyperliquid Perps Onshore
Rob Hadick guest-hosts for a second week with Tom and Robert, joined by Nemil Dalal of Y Combinator. Hours before the show, Binance lost an estimated $5 billion in what looks like the largest hack in crypto history, Circle and Tether froze funds faster than anyone expected, YC lays out its crypto Request for Startups, and ICE signs with trade.xyz to bring regulated perps built on Hyperliquid's technology to US customers. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Rob Hadick is back for a second week, and Nemil Dalal of Y Combinator returns as a repeat guest. 🔹 The hosts planned to skip hacks this week. Three hours before the show, Binance was hit for an estimated $5 billion, three times the largest hack in crypto history. 🔹 Tom says the attack looks tied to how Binance managed EIP-7702 delegation, letting an attacker generate signatures and withdraw funds by proxy. 🔹 Circle and Tether froze the stolen stablecoins within hours. Nemil says the USDC team literally practiced for moments like this. 🔹 Tom compares freeze requests to social media takedown requests: Circle can't adjudicate thousands of claims a day, but a call from Binance is high signal. 🔹 Robert asks why, four and a half years after 2022, no team has shipped a genuinely different architecture for DeFi protocols, even as the forest gets darker. 🔹 Rob says his stablecoin and TradFi crossover founders barely felt the hack, and Nemil warns that every financial crisis is about interconnection. 🔹 Nemil runs through YC's crypto Request for Startups: tokenization, new financial primitives, agents that need APIs, and raising capital for AI on-chain. 🔹 Rob calls it the bull run, but not the bull run the crypto people want. Nemil says he has to steal that. 🔹 Robert asks if it's better to build pre-cool or post-cool, and rules that crypto is post-cool, which makes it pre-cool again. 🔹 Nemil says every personal agent will have a credit card, while stablecoins win where payments are global and micro, like Cloudflare's pay-to-crawl. 🔹 ICE signs a definitive agreement with trade.xyz to bring regulated perps built on Hyperliquid's technology to US customers, pending CFTC approval. 🔹 Stan Druckenmiller tweets about Hyperliquid, and Robert says nobody likes ADL, Druckenmiller least of all. 🔹 Robert argues perps are a superior form factor to dated futures for everything, and that the institutional gap is credit risk. 🔹 Robert marvels that crypto went from Byzantine generals to talking about credit risk. Hosts ⭐️Rob Hadick, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate Guest ⭐️Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Cold Open 00:30 Intro 01:42 The $5B Binance Hack 04:40 Circle's Fast Freeze 10:57 Where's the New DeFi? 19:48 YC's Crypto Wishlist 26:38 The Wrong Bull Run 36:53 Is Crypto Just AI Rails? 40:18 ICE x Hyperliquid 51:45 Perps vs. Dated Futures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Friday · 36 min
Bitcoin's Price May Have Bottomed. One Reason Is the AI Debasement Trade
Galaxy's Alex Thorn argues Bitcoin bottomed in late June. While macro funds exit, sovereign wealth funds buy and AI pushes debasement, he says now makes a good entry point. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== Bitcoin has now traded five or six weeks above its 50-week moving average. In every prior bear market, Alex Thorn says, that signal meant the bottom was already in, and he believes this one came in late June. Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, walks Laura Shin through his essay "Why Now Is the Time to Add and Hold BTC," including 13F filings showing Millennium and D.E. Shaw cutting Bitcoin ETF exposure while Mubadala and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management added, and long-dormant coins waking up at 34,000 BTC a month in 2026, down from 67,000 in 2024. He argues a $40 trillion national debt and a credit-funded AI buildout make the debasement case stronger than at the October high, then names the tripwires that would break his thesis, from a sustained drop below the 50-week average to a quantum computer. With conferences full of tokenization panels, being long Bitcoin may be the contrarian trade. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex Thorn - Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 📋 00:29 Unchained Survey: complete the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey 🎙️ 01:28 Bits + Bips: search Bits + Bips and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips 🧭 01:50 Why Alex says retaking the 50-week average means Bitcoin bottomed in June 🏦 06:36 Who sold and who bought: macro funds out, sovereign wealth funds in 💳 12:19 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🐋 13:09 Why fewer old coins are waking up in 2026, and what that means for supply 💵 16:42 Why Alex says the debasement case is stronger than at the October high 🕵️ 19:56 Why Alex sees Bitcoin as an exit from an AI-powered surveillance state 🧱 23:48 Why Alex sees the tokenization boom as a contrarian signal to buy Bitcoin ⚠️ 29:31 The tripwires that would invalidate Alex's bottom call 🎯 34:09 Alex's $125K target and his $250K call for the end of 2027 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thursday · 1 hr 21 min
Uneasy Money: Why Anthropic's IPO Governance Has Crypto Veterans Worried
Anthropic's S-1 shows the company is still burning cash. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan say the bigger risk is a founder voting bloc that has to vote together. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at⁠⁠ Nexo⁠⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== Anthropic has filed its S-1, and Kain Warwick stacks it up against Google's 2004 IPO: $12 billion in revenue in Q2 2026 alone and $8.7 million in revenue per employee. What jumped out at him, though, was governance: 7 founders holding 50% of the voting shares in a side pot that has to vote together. Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Austin Griffith say crypto has run this experiment before. Monahan calls the founders' sense of moral superiority Anthropic's biggest risk, and Griffith compares the bloc to every multisig that stalled once the incentives to coordinate faded. The hosts also cover how AI models started sending bug bounty disputes to SEAL 911, an AI result that says "ETH is false," Keystone's leaked device signing key, phishing emails sent from Foundation's own mail system, and why Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade was cancelled. In what Warwick calls one of the most dangerous times to be in crypto, the safest move may be doing less. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Griffith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 📋 00:38 Unchained Survey: complete the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey 🎙️ 01:40 Bits + Bips: search Bits + Bips and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips 📈 02:08 Anthropic's S-1: how $12B in Q2 revenue stacks up against Google's IPO 🗳️ 10:27 Why Kain thinks Anthropic's 7-founder voting bloc is destined to blow up 🤖 23:24 Austin on why AI answers could become winner-take-all like Google search 🚨 27:41 How AI models started sending bug bounty disputes to SEAL 911 🏦 30:50 Nexo: generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🧮 31:32 'AI says ETH is false': why AI chipping away at hard math matters 🎓 46:06 Will kids still go to college? Austin, Tay, and Kain on parenting with AI 🔑 49:52 Are hardware wallets bad again? Keystone's leaked device signing key ☎️ 54:13 Why nobody legit in crypto will ever call you, and Kain's OTC scam story 📧 01:01:17 Foundation's hacked mail system and a phishing site too polished to be real 🧘 01:07:50 Don't panic: Kain's 'personal Lindy' and Tay's case for doing less ⛽ 01:11:12 Austin's 'smooth brain take' on why Glamsterdam was cancelled 🐜 01:18:33 OpenAI's Terra 6.1 and the agent armies battling on AntWars.ai Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 27 · 55 min
Why America's New Cyber Privateers Can't Go After North Korea
Can the US fight AI-powered hackers and North Korea by deputizing its private sector? Two government veterans explain why the answer is yes and no. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠⁠⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== North Korea has stolen more than $1 billion in crypto this year, AI-driven ransomware attacks have run with no human in the loop, and a single week exposed weak keys and bugs buried in old internet infrastructure. One answer gaining traction in Washington dates to the age of sail: privateering. Chris Giancarlo, former chairman of the CFTC and author of The New Adventures of CryptoDad, proposed reviving letters of marque and reprisal in a Cointelegraph op-ed with Chris Perkins, then pitched it at a White House crypto summit. Giancarlo and Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, join Laura Shin to unpack the August presidential memo that followed. They cover why the memo lets vetted contractors target scam compounds, cartels, and ransomware gangs but leaves Lazarus Group to the government, how the Prince Group's $15 billion forfeiture shows stolen funds can be clawed back, and how deepfake interviews put DPRK IT workers inside US companies. The final question: does hitting back make the problem bigger? Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠J. Christopher Giancarlo - Former Chairman of the US CFTC ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ari Redbord - Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 📋 01:01 Unchained Survey: take the listener survey for a free month of Premium at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey 🎙️ 02:02 Find Bits + Bips’ new channels and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips 🚨 02:40 Why Redbord says AI-run ransomware is now a civilization-level threat 📜 05:29 Letters of marque: how Giancarlo and Perkins proposed reviving them 💰 10:24 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🏛️ 11:14 How crypto privateering went from an op-ed to a White House memo 🛑 16:50 Why the memo bars privateers from going after Lazarus Group 🕸️ 23:04 What hacking back looks like: scam compound infrastructure and clawbacks 🔓 35:24 PHP bugs and weak eMudhra keys: privateering as risks multiply 🇰🇵 42:14 North Korea: why the government, not privateers, pulls the trigger 🎭 48:59 How companies can catch North Korean IT workers using deepfakes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 24 · 50 min
The Chopping Block: Black October, Banks Blocking AI Agents, Hyperliquid's Blockchain-Not-Bitcoin Moment, and the Visa-Fireblocks Rumor
Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week Rob Hadick of Dragonfly sits in for Haseeb as part of a podcast host swap. Tom walks through Black October, 48 hours in which top-severity vulnerabilities dropped across PHP, Node, Railway, and more, and Tarun runs down the rest of the damage, from Linux kernel exploits to Finland shutting down its internet services. Robert argues the blast radius was small for the worst day the web has had, Tarun says crypto was ironically ready first and closed source is the less safe bet, and he explains why defenders had to patch with open source models. Then banks start blocking AI agents: Robert says anything that can click a button terrifies them, Tarun reads Bernie Sanders' call to pause AI, and Rob asks what happened to Occupy Wall Street. Finally, Joe Weisenthal comes around on Hyperliquid, Tom is outed as the onion futures guy, and the hosts weigh a rumored $2.5 billion Visa deal for Fireblocks, 2021's bubble valuations, and where an AI financial crisis would start. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Rob Hadick guest-hosts as part of a host swap with Empire's Weekly Roundup, and Tarun says the hosts are finally free of the dictatorship of Haseeb. 🔹 Black October: in 48 hours, critical vulnerabilities hit PHP, Node, and Railway, Cloudflare saw millions of exploit attempts, and European governments took sites offline. 🔹 Tarun adds Linux kernel exploits with no responsible disclosure, a QUIC zero day, a GitLab flaw, and a Chinese state-aligned agent caught exploiting the CVEs in the wild. 🔹 Robert calls it the doomsday batch of security vulnerabilities, and says not that much broke. 🔹 Tarun says crypto was ironically prepared first, and that closed source is the less safe bet because every binary can now be reverse engineered. 🔹 Defenders tried to patch with Claude and got blocked, so open source models were the only way to rotate keys fast, the same reason AI trading agents took off. 🔹 JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Schwab, and Citi are restricting AI agents in customer accounts, after a month of talk about an agentic bank run. 🔹 Robert says banks took a decade to accept read-only Plaid, so anything that can click a button is 10 times as terrifying, and the friction is deliberate. 🔹 Bernie Sanders wants to pause AI to protect your bank account. Robert says he drew the exact opposite conclusion he should have. 🔹 Tarun says everything is crypto now: banks can't tell you from your agent, and that is the point. 🔹 Robert would short health insurance companies, the industry AI should hurt most. 🔹 Joe Weisenthal comes around on Hyperliquid 11 years after blockchain, not Bitcoin. Tom points out that Hyperliquid is not TradFi in any way. 🔹 Visa is rumored to be buying Fireblocks for about $2.5 billion, down from an $8 billion valuation. Robert says January 2022 prices were bubble prices. 🔹 Character.ai burned $16 in compute for every dollar of revenue, and Tarun maps the duration mismatch where an AI financial crisis would start. Hosts ⭐️Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 23 · 32 min
PaperTrade Attracted $140M, Then Changed the Rules. Was It a Bait and Switch?
Traders tried to lose money fast to earn PAPER. Now the token may never be transferable, and one tracker shows staking revenue fell 93% in a day. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== PaperTrade drew $140 million in pre-deposits and for one day flipped Nasdaq's daily notional volume by letting traders take up to 1,000x leverage against the house, with a PAPER token as the rebate for losing. Then the team announced it no longer plans to make PAPER transferable. Jason Pagoulatos, Head of Markets at Delphi Research, joins Laura Shin to unpack how the protocol works and why the reversal landed so badly. He walks through the house pool that pays winners from losers' margin, the launch-day trader who pushed ETH around on Hyperliquid to move PaperTrade's price feed, and why a transferable PAPER would invite a larger attack. Pagoulatos says the team's reasoning holds up but calls the change a bait and switch for everyone who deposited under the original rules. With one tracker showing staking revenue down 93% in a day, the conversation ends on what makes any token worth holding: a business that would work without it. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jason Pagoulatos - Head of Markets at Delphi Research Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro ⚡ 02:01 What PaperTrade is and why it briefly flipped Nasdaq's daily volume 🎰 06:46 How PaperTrade's house pool pays winners and mints PAPER for losers 🚀 10:32 Launch week: $140M in pre-deposits and a price-feed play on day one 💰 15:12 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🔒 15:59 Why promise transferability if the risk was already in the docs? 🔄 17:31 Why PaperTrade shelved plans to make PAPER transferable 📉 24:07 Is PaperTrade over after a 93% one-day drop in staking revenue? 🧱 27:52 Why Jason says tokens should be judged like equity in a real business Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 22 · 1 hr 16 min
Uneasy Money: Is the Internet Breaking Because Bots Never Get Lazy?
A certificate authority's private key was the number 4 for over a year. Kain, Taylor, and Austin on why the internet's trust schemes are cracking. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at⁠ Nexo⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== For more than a year, the private key behind signatures from a certificate authority trusted across the internet was the number 4. Taylor Monahan walks Kain Warwick and Austin Griffith through how eMudhra passed two audits with eight weak keys, and why revoking them now runs on an email thread between Google, Mozilla, and Apple. Kain argues it fits a pattern: schemes that assumed nobody would bother trying, now facing AI agents that never stop. The hosts also cover two remote code execution bugs in PHP, Austin's $1 test that drew three competing theft transactions the moment it landed, papertrade's 1,000x leverage launch and its lose-to-earn token, and why DeepSeek keeps getting cheaper even as DHS bans it for government use. They close on Anthropic, and Kain's case that any frontier lab that turns cash-flow positive would be worth "infinity," a prospect he calls petrifying. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Griffith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 🌐 02:07 Why a burst of unrelated internet-breaking bugs landed in the same 48 hours 🔑 05:13 How a certificate authority's private key turned out to be the number 4 📧 17:47 Why revoking bad certificates runs on a literal email thread 🤖 22:52 Kain on why schemes built on human laziness are unraveling against AI 🐘 25:34 PHP to shell: two remote code execution bugs in the language behind the web 🛡️ 33:21 How Cloudflare is shielding unpatched PHP admin panels during the rollout 🎣 36:04 Austin's $1 test: how fast bots drained a weak Ethereum private key 💼 37:44 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🪣 38:25 papertrade's 1,000x 'bucket shop' and the token you earn by losing 📚 48:55 The mechanism design lessons hidden under DeFi Summer's degeneracy 🐋 52:35 How DeepSeek keeps getting smarter while Kain's API bill fell to $3 a month 🏛️ 57:06 Why DHS banned DeepSeek and why Austin says local models are the safer bet ♾️ 01:05:13 Why Kain says Anthropic gives off SBF vibes and could be 'worth infinity' 🎯 01:14:23 The drained-key update: bots grabbed 10-digit keys, but 12 digits held Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 21 · 1 hr 1 min
How Crypto Can Survive If AI or Quantum Computers Break Its Cryptography
Justin Drake says crypto should brace for AI breaking elliptic curves before Q-Day. Project Eleven's Alex Pruden and Conor Deegan weigh in on what's actually at risk. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at ⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8. — Laura ======================================================== Ethereum researcher Justin Drake set off a debate across crypto by urging chains to plan for "bunker mode," a controlled migration of assets to addresses whose public keys stay hidden behind a hash. His concern is not only quantum computers, but AI getting good enough at math to break elliptic curves first. Alex Pruden, co-founder and CEO of Project Eleven, and Conor Deegan, its CTO, join Laura Shin to sort out what is at risk. They cover how ECDSA works, why Conor says no scheme in production is broken yet even though Hawk and McEliece fell to AI attacks, why Coinbase's Yehuda Lindell notes hash functions have broken more often than curves, and why NIST still favors lattices. Alex updates his Q-Day window to 2030 at the earliest and 2033 to 2035 as more likely than not. Both argue the post-quantum and post-AI migrations are the same work, and the chains most at risk may be those doing nothing. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex Pruden - Co-founder and CEO of Project Eleven Conor Deegan - CTO of Project Eleven Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 🛡️ 02:20 Why Justin Drake's 'bunker mode' tweet adds AI to quantum as a crypto threat 🔑 06:01 What ECDSA is and why its hidden 'trapdoor' structure worries people about AI 🧮 08:33 Why Conor says no scheme is broken yet, even as two cryptographic schemes fell to AI 🔐 13:06 Matthew Green's encryption warning and why privacy chains like Zcash are exposed 💼 17:20 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt ⚖️ 18:04 Where Conor lands between Yehuda Lindell and Justin Drake on AI breaking curves 🏦 25:53 Can blockchains recover if ECDSA breaks? Alex on the ETH Classic fork precedent 🧩 29:59 Curves, lattices, isogenies, or hashes: why NIST still prefers lattices 📅 48:14 Alex's updated Q-Day window and why Conor says 'A-Day' may already be here 🚨 53:05 Haseeb Qureshi's 'cryptographic wartime' and Balaji's rollback idea 🏗️ 58:41 Strongpoint: Project Eleven's crypto-agile custody and pricing quantum risk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 16 · 44 min
Ledger Wallets Were Drained of $100 Million. Is Self-Custody Still Safe?
A hidden implant read Ledger seed phrases off the screen and sent them out over an eSIM. Mark Karpelès and SEAL 911's Jonty discuss what that means for self-custody. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at ⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== An estimated $100 million or more has been drained from Ledger hardware wallets sold through CryptoBilis, an authorized reseller in Southeast Asia. The devices carried a hidden implant that reads the seed phrase off the screen and sends it out over an eSIM. Jonty, founder of Pangolin Intelligence and a SEAL 911 contributor, and Mark Karpelès, CEO of Karpelès Lab, join Laura Shin to trace how the attack was found and how far it may reach. They cover drains dating back to September 8, a tampered Ledger Flex bought from Metapod at Singapore's airport, the two MediaMarkt devices a buyer in Europe traced to distributor Aqipa, and Tether's $10 million freeze. Mark argues Ledger's manual sends mixed signals by picturing the device's insides while warning that opening it voids the warranty, then opens a Nano X on camera to show what to look for. The open question is whether self-custody's best defense against malware has become its newest attack surface. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mark Karpelès - CEO of Karpelès Lab Inc. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jonty - Founder of Pangolin Intelligence and Contributor to SEAL 911 Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 🚨 03:50 How Jonty spotted the Ledger drains through SEAL 911 victim reports 📡 05:52 How the implant reads a 24-word seed phrase and sends it out by eSIM 🛫 11:33 Mark on the spy implant he found in a Ledger Flex bought in Singapore 🕵️ 15:16 CryptoBilis or a distributor? Mark and Jonty on who could be behind it 📣 17:38 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🇪🇺 18:19 MediaMarkt and Aqipa: has the Ledger implant reached Europe? 🛒 27:00 Buying direct vs. through a reseller, and why Vietnam needs resellers 🔐 31:30 Ledger's 'tamper-proof' notice and whether self-custody is dead 🔧 36:45 Mark opens a Nano X on camera to show how to check for an implant 🧊 40:33 Tether's $10M freeze and why Jonty says recovery could take years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 15 · 1 hr 18 min
Uneasy Money: Why Ledger's Supply Chain Became a Nearly $100M Target
A Ledger reseller's devices shipped with a hidden LTE modem inside. Taylor Monahan lays out how it passed the genuine check and why panicking now costs more. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at Nexo. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== Genuine Ledger devices sold through the reseller CryptoBilis shipped with an LTE chip and eSIM wired inside, intercepting seed phrases on their way to the screen. The losses are estimated at $70 million to $100 million over roughly four months. Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Austin Griffith trace how the implant passed Ledger's genuine check, why panicked users are now losing money to phishing and fake apps, and whether an iPhone or a DIY build makes a better hardware wallet. They also cover the recording device planted in OpenAI's office, the decade-old XRP infinite mint bug that earned a $250K bounty, and why Taylor finds Google's Chrome payouts and $40K compute bills the more interesting math. Then StarkNet's talk of becoming an L1 turns into a debate over whether Ethereum will need L2s at all. Kain's answer: the most Ethereum-equivalent chain is Ethereum itself. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Griffith⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation Timestamps 🎬 00:00 Intro 🔐 01:32 Why a Ledger reseller became the entry point for a supply chain attack 📡 09:15 Taylor on how the CryptoBilis attack moved past fake devices and scratchers 🧯 19:01 Why Taylor says panicked Ledger owners now face the bigger risk 💸 20:17 Why Austin sees DIY hardware wallets as the future 🕵️ 30:34 How Taylor “demixed” Zcash by following the gas trail 📣 34:52 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🎙️ 35:37 What the bug planted in OpenAI's office says about AI espionage 🛠️ 41:42 Austin's homemade Alexa, blood wallet, and AI-run electronics bench 🪙 48:04 Why a decade-old XRP infinite mint bug points to AI-assisted hunting 🧮 51:04 Is $250K enough? Taylor compares the XRP bounty to Google's Chrome payout ⛓️ 01:00:30 StarkNet wants to become an L1: why Kain thinks that's where L2s end up 🏚️ 01:11:03 How MegaETH shows why L2 ecosystems struggle to keep their apps Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 15 · 58 min
The Chopping Block: The Ledger Hardware Implant, a Listening Device at OpenAI, Papertrade's 1000x House, and the Death of Technical Moats
The boys regroup after TOKEN2049. Ledgers sold through CryptoBilis, an authorized reseller in Malaysia, came with an LTE implant that read seed phrases off the screen, an OpenAI engineer was caught with a listening device, Papertrade launches 1000x perps where losing money mints you tokens, and the hosts argue over Nikita Bier's claim that technical moats are dead. 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 is a late-night episode recorded right after TOKEN2049. The hosts compare notes on a TOKEN2049 with zero Lambos and a quiet Marquee, then get into the CryptoBilis hack, where Ledgers sold by an authorized reseller in Malaysia came with a hidden chip and an eSIM that sent seed phrases home over LTE. Robert calls it a software supply chain attack made physical, Tarun explains it to a bar owner as North Korea buying the liquor distributor, and an OpenAI engineer caught with a listening device has Haseeb arguing that the choke points of a high-trust society are breaking down. Then Tom and Haseeb unpack Papertrade, the 1000x perps exchange where losing trades mint PAPER, and Tarun asks how long anyone will keep losing money for a token. Finally, Nikita Bier says technical moats are dead: Tarun half agrees, Haseeb calls it a fake story, and he explains why AI still writes investment memos like a growth investor. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 TOKEN2049 felt more institutional this year: Marquee was a normal nightclub all week, Franklin Templeton and Nasdaq took the stage, and Tarun saw zero Lambos. 🔹 Tarun says nothing in crypto feels like frontier tech anymore outside of Zcash and quantum, and remembers the robotic shrimp farm that pivoted into an L2. 🔹 Normal people have the Big Mac index; crypto people have the nightclub index. 🔹 Ledgers sold through CryptoBilis, an authorized reseller in Malaysia, carried a hardware implant with an eSIM that read the seed phrase off the screen and sent it over LTE. About $80 million was stolen. 🔹 CryptoBilis' founders say they sold the company to a Chinese buyer months ago and were under a confidentiality agreement until October 20th. Trezor has already cut off its authorized resellers. 🔹 Robert says someone has now prototyped buying a vendor to run a supply chain attack, and Tarun explains it to a bar owner as North Korea buying the liquor distributor. 🔹 Haseeb's PSA: buy hardware wallets directly from the manufacturer. Tom is skeptical of see-through cases and points to Ledger's honeypot problem. 🔹 An OpenAI engineer allegedly hid a recording device behind a TV in a conference room, and ChatGPT searches about how to build one gave it away. 🔹 Haseeb says the choke points of a high-trust society are breaking down as AI makes complex attacks easier, and Tom asks why nobody has tried to steal a frontier model's weights. 🔹 Papertrade offers 1000x leverage at Hyperliquid's mid-market price with zero slippage, losing traders mint PAPER, and it is doing about $32 million in weekly revenue. 🔹 Tom explains how Papertrade's house works and how one trader moved Hyperliquid's price to farm it. Tarun says everything hangs on the PAPER token. 🔹 Nikita Bier says technical moats are dead. Haseeb calls it a fake story: AI can one-shot a compiler, but nobody uses the one-shotted Photoshop clones. 🔹 Haseeb says the incumbents have AI too, Tarun says the superstar-engineer advantage is gone, and Robert explains why models never see the real investment memos. 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 14 · 59 min
Why Crypto Buybacks Are 'the Wrong Way to Allocate Capital'
ARK Invest's Lorenzo Valente says quantum fears and the Ledger hack are speeding up the death of self-custody, that Ethereum has to pick a lane, and buybacks are “crazy.” ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients. Find out more at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== Justin Drake warned that ECDSA, the cryptography securing Bitcoin and Ethereum, could break before Q-Day, in the worst case "in months, not years," and an attack on Ledger devices sold through a third-party reseller has led to about $100 million in losses. Lorenzo Valente, Director of Research, Digital Assets at ARK Invest, says both threats speed up a trend ARK already saw: self-custody is slowly dying. He tells Laura Shin why ARK favors a barbell of exchanges that own the user and infrastructure like Solana, Uniswap, and Aave, and why he would point a first-time Bitcoin buyer to an ETF. They also cover Satoshi's coins, why Ethereum's L1 accrues so little while Robinhood makes millions, and why he calls the buyback craze irrational. Plus: ARK's tokenized venture fund, Cloudflare's agentic commerce plans, and why Binance has never swapped out its USDT despite earning no yield. If he's right, crypto's next wave of users may never hold their own keys. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Lorenzo Valente - Director of Research, Digital Assets at ARK Invest Timestamps 🔭 01:27 Why Lorenzo says crypto investing is moving from '0 to 1' to '1 to 100' 🧮 08:41 Justin Drake's ECDSA warning and why RIAs keep asking ARK about quantum 💸 16:42 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt 🏋️ 17:31 The barbell: why Lorenzo favors exchanges and core crypto infrastructure 🪙 24:34 Satoshi's coins and why Lorenzo is less worried about Bitcoin's quantum fix 🔐 26:28 Ledger, Bitget, and why Lorenzo sees 'nowhere to hide' in hardware wallets 🍔 30:11 Ethereum's 'franchise model' and why Lorenzo says L1 value accrual is broken 🔥 38:04 Why Lorenzo thinks crypto has gone 'crazy' over token buybacks 📈 45:17 Why ARK thinks tokenized equities could pass stablecoin supply in 3 years 🤖 51:04 Cloudflare, AI bots, and why L1s are still orders of magnitude too slow 💵 54:05 Why Binance never dropped USDT, and what that says about Tether and Circle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 9 · 46 min
How NEAR Intents Identified a Suspect and Got Its Stolen Funds Back
A bridging bug cost NEAR Intents $3.8 million. Alex Shevchenko reveals how a coded tweet and a Signal invite encrypted with the attacker's key got the funds back. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== NEAR Intents halted services after an attacker exploited a bug in its Omni bridging infrastructure and walked off with $3.8 million. Twelve hours after announcing the hack, the team tweeted at the suspect: "We have identified you, sir." Alex Shevchenko, GM of NEAR Intents, joins Laura Shin to walk through how the attacker got the protocol to credit USDT deposits on BNB Chain that never happened, why NEAR Intents covered the loss from its own pockets, and how a Signal invite encrypted with the attacker's public key opened a private channel that ended with the funds coming back, partly in XMR. He also lays out how Shield, NEAR Intents' detection system, kept 99% of the more than $50 million tied to the Bitget hack from passing through, and why he thinks shielded Zcash could face Monero's fate. His argument: crypto that protects thieves can never become the economic backbone its builders want. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guest: ⁠Alex Shevchenko - GM of NEAR Intents Timestamps 🚨 01:43 How an Omni bridging bug let an attacker fake deposits and drain $3.8M 🌐 02:37 What NEAR Intents is, and how it relates to NEAR Protocol and near.com ⚙️ 05:01 How the hack worked and how the identified that it had occurred 💧 09:51 1inch Aqua: Back multiple positions with one token balance at https://1inch.com/aqua 🚔 10:55 Law enforcement, and how NEAR Intents identified a suspect within 12 hours 🔐 17:51 The Penn and Teller playbook: a Signal invite only the attacker could decrypt 🏎️ 22:52 Why Alex says a bug bounty beats hacking, Lambo included 🛡️ 26:24 Shield: how NEAR Intents kept 99% of Bitget hack funds off the protocol ⚖️ 32:07 Does blocking stolen funds make NEAR Intents centralized? Alex says no 🕶️ 40:17 Can shielded Zcash stay clean, or will it follow Monero's path? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 9 · 42 min
The Chopping Block: Live at TOKEN2049 feat. Balaji Srinivasan & Arthur Hayes on Kazakhstan, Crypto Bunker Mode, and the L2 Shutdowns
Live from TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun sit down with Balaji Srinivasan and Arthur Hayes. Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week they are live on the BingX Stage at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, joined by Balaji Srinivasan and Arthur Hayes. Balaji explains why Network School moved its headquarters to Kazakhstan, which he calls Singapore with space to build, and why courting a country works a lot like enterprise sales when half of all countries have fewer than 10 million people. Then OpenAI drops 700 AI-written math papers and Justin Drake tells crypto to go into bunker mode: Tarun separates theoretical attacks from practical ones, Balaji proposes a social smart contract that would let chains rewind after a cryptographic break, and Arthur pitches the Flop Network as food for AI agents. Finally, Blast and Abstract shut down, nobody booked Marquee this year, and the panel debates whether the L2 era was a necessary search or crypto's version of Chinese ghost cities. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 TOKEN2049 is still the one retail mega conference left, even in the first year with no wrapped Lambo out front. 🔹 Balaji says crypto is M&A-ing Western institutions, and that anything holding long-dated Treasuries is wrecked. 🔹 Network School has moved its headquarters to Kazakhstan, which Balaji calls Singapore with space to build: 21 million people, a tie with China and India at the physics Olympiad, about 40% of the world's uranium, and room for 10,000 acres of Arthur Hayes City. 🔹 More than 10 countries bid for Network School. Balaji says courting governments works like enterprise sales, because half of all countries have under 10 million people and a billion dollars goes a long way there. 🔹 Why Hollywood misleads you about the rest of the world, from Borat to Squid Game, and why Balaji splits countries into a descending world and an ascending world. 🔹 The ascending world has murals of Elon and will build Arthur a statue, preferably on a horse, while blue states drive their billionaires out. 🔹 OpenAI drops 700 AI-written math papers with nothing on cryptography, and Justin Drake tells crypto to go into bunker mode by moving funds to addresses that have never signed. 🔹 Tarun says there is still a big gap between a theoretical attack and a practical one, and Haseeb asks who will even tell us when ECDSA is broken. 🔹 Balaji proposes a social smart contract that lets a chain rewind after a cryptographic break, Haseeb says cross-chain dependencies make that far harder than it was five years ago, and Balaji warns that anti-tech is the new anti-capitalism. 🔹 Tom says to watch what people do rather than what they say, and Balaji argues there are hard mathematical bounds on what AI can do. 🔹 Tarun on quantum money, Balaji on blockchains that spend their own token budget trying to hack themselves, and Arthur on the Flop Network as food for AI agents. 🔹 Blast and Abstract shut down, and Arthur reports that Marquee, fully booked all week last year with half a million Singapore dollar minimum spends, has not had a single booking this year. 🔹 Balaji says every failed L2 was part of a search worth running, Arthur jokes that it was all a search for Base and Robinhood Chain, Tarun calls the L2s Chinese ghost cities that can at least be demolished, and Haseeb tallies the middlemen that make running one so expensive. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures Guests ⭐️Balaji Srinivasan, Founder of Network School ⭐️Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom & CEO of Flop Labs Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 8 · 1 hr 19 min
How OpenAI's Math Dump Has Crypto Rethinking Its Cryptography: Uneasy Money
Justin Drake told holders not to panic. Ben DiFrancesco says if AI weakens elliptic curves, the clock is how fast Chinese models catch up. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== OpenAI released 722 math papers, and Justin Drake followed with a "don't panic" tweet suggesting large holders consider moving funds, setting off a wave of speculation that elliptic curve keys might soon be easier to brute force. Ben DiFrancesco, Founder and CEO of ScopeLift, joins Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Austin Griffith to separate rumor from risk. DiFrancesco puts low odds on the rumors but argues crypto would get hit first, patch fastest, and could leave traditional finance as the worse place to hold money, with Chinese open-weight models setting the clock. Monahan untangles the 0.36 ETH MetaMask staking incident that got pulled into the speculation. They also cover ZachXBT's undercover investigation of a DPRK money launderer, the NEAR Intents hacker sending funds back, and a push for Swiss authorities to intervene at Safe. DiFrancesco closes with a warning for token teams: the regulatory excuse for skipping value return is going away. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Griffith⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation Guest: ⁠Ben DiFrancesco - Founder and CEO of ScopeLift Timestamps 🔐 01:57 Why Justin Drake’s ‘don’t panic’ tweet has crypto eyeing its cryptography 🦊 06:12 Taylor on the MetaMask staking incident and the 0.36 ETH that tipped it off 🧮 14:03 Ben on why even a worst-case ECC break wouldn’t mean instant theft 🏦 20:04 Why Ben thinks TradFi, not crypto, could be the worse place to hold money 🤖 25:02 How AI models went from flubbing 2+2 to formalizing hard math 💧 30:45 1inch: See how LPs can back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🔙 31:49 How the NEAR Intents hacker ended up sending the money back 🕵️ 37:07 ZachXBT went undercover with a DPRK money launderer: what he found 😤 51:25 Why instant outrage is the tell for launderers and Sybil farmers 🏗️ 56:11 From Gnosis’s 2017 ICO to Safe, the multisig securing $100B+ ⚖️ 01:02:23 The push for Swiss intervention at Safe and what it actually claims 🗳️ 01:08:12 Ben on how regulatory fear warped DAOs and why value return matters now 🧱 01:17:12 Blast and Abstract shut down: too many L2s, and never build a wallet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 7 · 1 hr 11 min
THORChain Says It Can't Block North Korean Laundering. Is That True?
In this spicypost-Bitget hack debate, THORChain co-founder Chad Barraford says the protocol can't block laundering. Taylor Monahan points to the halts it has used before. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== The Bitget hack reignited a fight on crypto Twitter: should chains that can stop North Korea from laundering stolen funds actually do it? THORChain, which DPRK hackers keep using to reach Bitcoin, landed at the center of it. Chad Barraford, co-founder of THORChain, argues the protocol cannot respond fast enough without redesigning it to be more centralized. Security expert Taylor Monahan counters that THORChain has acted before when its own protocol was at risk, and that routes made up almost entirely of stolen funds could simply be switched off. Laura Shin presses on the closed-source signing library, four operators running 39 nodes, why validators left after Bybit, ZachXBT's undercover look at a launderer pitching THORChain, Tornado Cash-style legal risk, and fee spikes after the KelpDAO and Bitget hacks. Barraford's answer to the biggest hypothetical is simple: if enough node operators want to block laundering, it gets blocked. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Taylor Monahan - Security Expert and Co-host of Uneasy Money Chad Barraford - Co-founder of THORChain Timestamps ⚖️ 01:56 The Bitget debate: should chains that can block laundering do it? 🧱 04:10 Why Taylor says THORChain has been 'making this excuse' for years ⏸️ 10:48 THORChain paused for 5 weeks for itself. Why not for stolen funds? 🪙 19:15 1inch Aqua: See how LPs can back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🏦 20:15 Is THORChain an intermediary? The custody critique of its TSS vaults 🚪 24:32 Why did validators leave after Bybit? Chad and Taylor disagree 🧪 39:36 Does THORChain pass Chad's own decentralization litmus test? 🕵️ 47:59 ZachXBT's undercover probe: a launderer's 'Thor cross-chain' pitch 🏛️ 57:24 Could THORChain face a Tornado Cash-style case? Chad's legal defense 🛡️ 01:05:05 NEAR's Shield stopped $50M in laundering. Could THORChain copy it? 💸 01:05:57 Does THORChain profit from stolen funds? The fee spike debate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 5 · 24 min
Paid Partnership: How Nexo Wants You To Build Wealth Using Crypto
SPONSORED CONTENT: This video is a paid partnership with Nexo. It was produced in collaboration with Nexo and is separate from Unchained's editorial coverage. Nexo is a digital asset wealth platform offering yield products and crypto-backed lines of credit. Join Nexo and get up to $5,000 in rewards. Terms apply. Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply. https://ref.nexo.com/_5MiOg41 ======================================================== A new report revealed that affluent investors aren't using crypto to build wealth. Nexo US COO Neil Steinhardt explains how the platform aims to fix that. ======================================================== About two-thirds of the affluent investors Nexo surveyed own crypto, but fewer than 5% have fully integrated it into how they build long-term wealth, according to the company's new report, The Future of Digital Wealth. Neil Steinhardt, COO of Nexo US, walks host Ryan S. Gladwin through the report's Crypto Integration Index and why he says friction, not conviction, is holding investors back. He covers why Argentina has the highest ownership but the lowest integration, and how incoming regulatory clarity has brought Nexo back to the US. Steinhardt also details how Nexo's crypto-backed credit lines work, what he heard from advisors at a registered investment advisor conference, and why a $35 trillion to $106 trillion wealth transfer could land with a generation that has high conviction in digital assets. He closes on why he thinks CeFi lenders, which he says outpaced DeFi lenders for the first time in Q2, are positioned for the convergence of TradFi and crypto. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ryan S. Gladwin - Freelance Journalist Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Neil Steinhardt - COO of Nexo US Timestamps 🔎 01:04 Why Neil says friction, not conviction, keeps crypto out of wealth plans 🧮 02:48 Inside Nexo's Crypto Integration Index 🌎 05:01 Other factors preventing crypto from integrating into wealth plans 🤝 06:50 How Nexo fixes friction in wealth building ⚖️ 08:27 How incoming regulatory clarity has brought Nexo back to the US 💳 10:15 How Nexo's crypto-backed credit lines work 👵 15:06 The coming wealth transfer to a generation with high crypto conviction 🏛️ 18:03 Investment advisors aren't advocating for crypto, here's how to change that 🏎️ 19:31 Nexo's card program and why Neil says wealth means experiences 📈 22:35 Why CeFi lenders outpaced DeFi lenders in Q2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 2 · 1 hr 5 min
The Chopping Block: Bitget's 387 Million Dollar Hack, Kalshi's Cooked Perps Volume, and Agentic Bank Runs
North Korea takes $387 million from Bitget and moves it through THORChain while NEAR's Shield freezes what it can, a Consensys validator hack tests whether staking was ever the risk-free rate, a quant named Benny shows Kalshi's perps volume was cooked, and Apollo warns that AI agents are coming for your checking account. Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week the three of them record from a self-serve podcast studio in Amsterdam. Bitget loses 387 million dollars to North Korea's Lazarus Group and pays every claim from its user protection fund, but the stolen funds raise a harder question: THORChain lets them through while NEAR's Shield freezes them, so which one is actually decentralized? (Dragonfly is an investor in Bitget and NEAR.) Then a Consensys validator compromise tests staking as the risk-free rate, Robert prices insurance on US Treasuries at 35 basis points, a quant named Benny exposes Kalshi's perps volume, and the crew takes apart Apollo's warning about agentic bank runs, from Robert's one basis point checking account to Tarun's agent filing his insurance claims. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Bitget loses about 387 million dollars to North Korea's Lazarus Group, and its 460 million dollar user protection fund covers every claim, so there is no contagion. 🔹 The stolen funds run through THORChain while NEAR's Shield freezes around 500K and refuses to route more than 100 million, which reopens the question of what decentralization actually requires. 🔹 Robert wants only the two extremes, fully neutral infrastructure or deliberate censorship, and nothing in the middle. Haseeb counters that everything between a centralized exchange and Uniswap already is the middle. 🔹 Haseeb argues property rights mean more than valid state transitions, and that anomaly detection can enforce them in a way that is still neutral and programmatic. 🔹 Tarun explains why cross-chain intents, with their solvers and RFQs, are where all the fights happen. 🔹 A Consensys validator compromise forces a mass exit, and Robert says staking was never the risk-free rate, only the best possible one. He looks up US CDS at 35 basis points and puts Ethereum validation risk at about five. 🔹 Would Ethereum roll back an unfair slashing? Haseeb says it would to protect stakers. Robert says only if transactions were corrupted. 🔹 A quant named Benny exposes Kalshi's perps volume, 3 million of open interest against hundreds of millions in daily volume, and Kalshi ends its liquidity incentives as the CFTC reportedly investigates. 🔹 Robert on why market maker rebates are normal, and how paying makers in equity for volume made Kalshi's go so wrong. 🔹 On Apollo's agentic bank runs: Robert earns one basis point on his checking account, Tarun's agent finds 1,700 dollars in health insurance overcharges, and the panel argues the whole economy is about to look like DeFi. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:42 Bitget loses $387M to North Korea 07:08 Should chains freeze hacked funds? 15:35 Chains as laboratories of democracy 21:44 The hidden premium on janky chains 27:13 Consensys compromised: is staking still risk-free? 30:53 Pricing and hedging validator risk 40:24 Kalshi's perps volume 44:17 How Kalshi's rebates went awry 53:07 Apollo's agentic bank runs 56:04 A banking system built on consumer laziness 1:02:46 SVB-style runs at agent speed 1:02:46 SVB-style runs at agent speed 1:05:01 Homo economicus is back Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 1 · 1 hr 23 min
Uneasy Money: The $388M Bitget Hack Started With a Security Vendor
Taylor Monahan ties the Bitget hack to North Korea and the crew asks why THORChain still avoids the scrutiny Tornado Cash got. ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== Attackers took $388 million from Bitget without ever getting its private keys. Opsek founder Pablo Sabbatella explains that the way in was a zero-day in a third-party security product the exchange relied on. Sabbatella, who now sits on Arbitrum's Security Council, joins Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Austin Griffith to trace the hack. Monahan attributes it to North Korea's TraderTraitor group and flags how fast the funds left Arbitrum, while the hosts ask why THORChain, which has halted its chain and reallocated balances before, still handles stolen funds. They also cover NEAR's SHIELD anomaly detection, reports of rogue AI agents hacking outside systems, whether retail should get the upside of a $2 trillion Anthropic IPO, and Vitalik Buterin's 2030 roadmap for Ethereum. Warwick's case: the harder the problem, the more superintelligence helps, and Ethereum is one of the hardest problems there is. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Griffith⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation Guest: Pablo Sabbatella - Founder at Opsek Timestamps 🚨 02:32 How Bitget got hit for $388M and covered the losses 🛡️ 08:24 Why Pablo says a third-party security product was the way into Bitget 🕵️ 11:22 Taylor ties the hack to North Korea and highlights their rush to exit Arbitrum ❄️ 13:34 Pablo on why security councils restart the freeze debate every time ⛓️ 14:17 Why Kain says THORChain can't claim it's like Bitcoin and Ethereum 🧭 30:24 How NEAR's Shield blocks funds using behavioral anomaly detection 📣 34:51 1inch: See how 1inch Aqua lets LPs back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt 🤖 36:16 Rogue AI agents are hacking outside systems as the labs eye IPOs 🔓 39:11 Why Pablo thinks the AI labs want to regulate open-source models 📈 48:55 Kain's case for letting retail take the risk on a $2T Anthropic IPO 🧱 01:05:47 Why Kain calls Vitalik's 2030 roadmap the most bullish Ethereum read in years 🏪 01:19:18 Pablo asks whether Ethereum's real challenge is commercial, not technical Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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