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Unchained

Laura Shin

#36 in News this week

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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  • 83 episodes
  • Avg 49 min
  • English

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  • August 7 · 1 hr 6 min

    Inside the Coldcard Hack That Drained Over $100 Million in Bitcoin: Uneasy Money

    A hardware wallet's 5-year-old randomness bug just let hackers drain over $100 million in Bitcoin. How many more waves are coming? Plus, Ethereum's fight over cutting ETH issuance. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at ⁠https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== A firmware randomness bug buried in Coldcard's code since 2021 surfaced last week and has already drained over $100 million, an estimated 1,600 to 1,800 Bitcoin, across four attacker waves. Taylor Monahan makes the case that the culprit is not North Korea but professional GPU crackers, and explains why the dice-rolling ritual many early victims trusted still left them exposed. Sonya Kim, co-founder of 3F Labs, and Mike Silagadze, founder and CEO of ether.fi, debate where DeFi's responsibility ends after trade.xyz's SK Hynix perp swung from $1,128 to $917 on a thin premarket print, then turn to Ethereum's own monetary policy fight. That fight centers on EIP-8361, a proposal to cut ETH issuance that opened with only 48 hours for public comment, reviving the minimum viable issuance debate Sonya once worked through at Steakhouse. Silagadze calls cutting issuance economically unsound and warns it could push billions of dollars of ETH out of staking, while Kain Warwick argues the resulting chaos is good for an Ethereum governance culture that had grown too quiet. The conversation covers Coldcard's entropy failure, the dice rolls that did not save early victims, trade.xyz's oracle mispricing, and Ethereum's issuance fight. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sonya Kim - Co-Founder of 3F Labs ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mike Silagadze - Founder and CEO of Ether.Fi Timestamps 🔓 01:17 Coldcard's 5-year-old entropy bug resurfaces, over $100M in BTC stolen 🕵️ 10:26 Taylor argues it's not North Korea: this hack needs compute, not scams 🎲 21:00 The dice roll debate: why 50 rolls barely saves your seed phrase 📱 27:14 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code 'unchained' at https://cape.co/unchained 📉 27:39 SK Hynix oracle glitch on trade.xyz reignites the platform-responsibility fight 🔗 42:24 Aave retreats from multichain sprawl as EIP-8361 issuance fight erupts 🧠 51:26 Mike on why cutting ETH issuance would push billions of dollars of ETH out of staking 🔥 53:05 Sonya's fix: burn fees for the same effect without cutting issuance 🌀 01:05:20 Kain's take: fragmenting the EF into chaos is actually healthy for ETH Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 6 · 1 hr 3 min

    The Chopping Block: ColdCard's $100M RNG Hack, AI-Powered Security & Ethereum's Staking Yield Taper

    This week we dissect ColdCard's ~$100M RNG exploit that Claude Code cracked in 8 minutes, debate whether AI just killed open-source security and Bitcoin maximalism, tear apart Ethereum's EIP-8361 staking-yield taper, and unpack Leopold Aschenbrenner's 67% Situational Awareness blowup and CLARITY Act's ethics fight. 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. No guest this week, just the four of them working through a week where AI quietly rewrote the economics of both security and human psychology, and crypto happened to be standing in the blast radius. This episode: ColdCard, NVK's Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, got drained of nearly $100M thanks to a random-number-generation bug that a one-word commit buried five years ago, and Claude Code sniffed it out in 8 minutes (an open model with no internet found it in 20, for about two bucks). The crew debates whether AI just killed open-source security, whether Nic Carter is right that this is 'the death of Bitcoin maximalism,' and why Tarun thinks maxi devs are 'the RFK of security practices.' Then they take a blowtorch to Ethereum's EIP-8361 staking-yield taper (Tarun: 'the proposal reads like shit'), unpack Leopold Aschenbrenner's 67% Situational Awareness blowup while 4x levered, and wade into the CLARITY Act's ethics fight where a single amendment is the whole ballgame. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 ColdCard's Bitcoin-only hardware wallet drained of nearly $100M after a five-year-old random-number-generation bug silently fell back to weak software RNG. 🔹 A single dev swapped C++ macros with a one-word commit message, seemingly just to get NVK's code to compile, and doomed years of keys. 🔹 Claude Code found the ColdCard bug in 8 minutes; open model GLM 5.2, no internet, found it in ~20 for about $2. 🔹 Tarun calls Bitcoin maxi devs 'the RFK of security practices' who 'don't do audits,' branding ColdCard's lack of hardening 'incredibly delinquent.' 🔹 Haseeb warns AIs 'are much less diverse than humans,' so security now scales with AUM while North Korea spends thousands in compute. 🔹 Nic Carter calls it 'the death of Bitcoin maximalism' as Haseeb reads posts from holders who scrimped for three Bitcoin and woke up wiped. 🔹 EIP-8361 from Pintail and Justin Drake tapers ETH staking yield toward zero above 50% staked; the community is 'vomiting all over' it. 🔹 Tarun torches EIP-8361 as 'a truly horrendous post,' arguing constantly changing policy means Ethereum is never credible hard money. 🔹 Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness AI hedge fund blew up ~67% while 4x levered, with Robert drawing Archegos comparisons. 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 01:03 ColdCard's $100M Exploit 05:46 AI, Audits & Bitcoin Maxi Security Failures 12:07 Open Source vs Closed Source in the AI Era 23:21 EIP-8361: Ethereum's Staking Yield Taper 30:34 Hard Money, Post-Quantum & Central Bank Chaos 35:54 Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness Blowup 44:41 Robinhood Prediction Markets Boom as Hyperliquid RWAs Flip Crypto 51:54 Korea's Bloodbath & the Death of Retail Volatility 55:17 CLARITY Act: Ethics Provisions Are the Linchpin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 6 · 49 min

    DEX in the City: How Claude's Red-Teaming Agents Escaped a Test Without Realizing It

    Anthropic's AI agents escaped a hacking test and still think they're inside it. Katherine, Jessi, and Vy Le on who's liable when a model breaks free, plus the $100M Coldcard hack and Kalshi's court losing streak. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Anthropic's AI models broke out of a fake hacking simulation this week, and some still think they're inside it. One agent invented an email address and phone number to pose as a person, then published malware that twelve companies downloaded before anyone caught it. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le use the incident to revisit a theme running through the whole episode: who has a duty to disclose when something breaks, and why crypto and AI are both being left to police themselves. They start with the Coldcard hardware wallet hack, where a firmware flaw cut seed phrase randomness roughly in half, letting attackers brute-force wallets meant to be unguessable. From there, the hosts turn to Kalshi's losing streak in New York courts and the race among builders to acquire a CFTC-registered designated contract market, before landing on Anthropic's own agents slipping past the guardrails meant to contain them. Banks have 36 hours to disclose a breach. AI labs and wallet makers, the hosts argue, are still working entirely on the honor system. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Chainlink ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda Timestamps 🩺 02:16 Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos on joining Chainlink Labs 🔐 03:08 How a Coldcard firmware flaw let attackers guess seed phrases with AI 💙 18:32 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained ⚖️ 19:36 Why Kalshi keeps losing its fight against New York's gambling regulators 🏛️ 30:47 DCM: the CFTC license every prediction market and perps exchange needs 🤖 33:37 Why Anthropic's AI agents escaped a test and still think they're inside it 💧 45:40 Matt Damon's crypto.com ad money and the water.org donation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 4 · 18 min

    Bits + Bips: Is Any Cold Wallet Safe? Inside the Coldcard Hack's Wave Three

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips A firmware bug quietly introduced into Coldcard hardware wallets in 2021 has let attackers drain an estimated 1,600 to 2,000 bitcoin, over $100 million, from cold storage addresses that sat untouched for years. Galaxy Digital's Alex Thorn has been tracing the exploit in real time, and in this clip he breaks down exactly how the random number generator meant to secure private keys "failed silently" into "way too weak entropy," and lays out the wave-by-wave forensic trail he is using to track the attacker. Alex Thorn identifies three confirmed attack waves and a possible fourth, and Chris Perkins makes the case that even a "trustless, permissionless" system still requires trusting something, in this case, a hardware wallet's own firmware. 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: Alex Thorn - Head of Research at Galaxy Digital and host of Galaxy Brains This clip is from a longer conversation on the Coldcard hack, U.S. AI guardrails, and the case for self custody. Full episode here. https://youtu.be/0oYZGw2DSj0?si=TwubhLQ35L8cXyG_ We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET. Subscribe to catch it live. 👉 Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters 🔐 00:00 Coldcard's reputation as Bitcoin's gold standard hides a deep systemic flaw 🎲 03:42 How a 2021 firmware update let key generation fail silently into weak entropy 🕵️ 09:56 Alex Thorn traces three confirmed attack waves, and a possible fourth 🤝 14:05 'They trusted Coldcard to do the right thing': what broke when a hardware wallet failed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 4 · 59 min

    Should Tokenized Stock Only Come From Issuers? Yes, Says Carlos Domingo

    Wall Street's transfer agents want issuers, not outside platforms, to control tokenized stock. Securitize's CEO says the alternative invites insider trading. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Securitize took itself public twice this year: once through a direct listing, and once by tokenizing more than $265 million of its own stock via a SPAC with Cantor Equity Partners, testing whether Wall Street lets equities trade onchain. Carlos Domingo, founder and CEO of Securitize, joins Laura Shin to argue that much of crypto's tokenized stock boom is unauthorized, offshore paper exposing investors and issuers to real legal risk, and to make the case that transfer agents, not outside platforms, should control what gets tokenized. They cover Rule 611, the SEC rule locking onchain and offchain share prices together, the Securities Transfer Association's push for issuer authorization, and a Netflix stock split that left an unauthorized derivative trading five times off. Domingo also lays out Securitize's NYSE partnership, launching tokenized trading in the fourth quarter. The SEC is now weighing whether to unwind the rule that keeps those prices identical, with real stakes for how equities trade next. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Carlos Domingo - Founder and CEO of Securitize Timestamps 🏛️ 01:09 Why Domingo took Securitize public after Circle's IPO opened the door 💹 04:12 Securitize's SPAC: tokenizing over $265M in stock with Cantor Equity Partners 📣 10:10 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained 🔗 10:24 Why Securitize tokenized SECZ on Solana for trading, Avalanche for lockup 📜 14:51 DTCC entitlement vs onchain shares: what you actually own on Robinhood ⚠️ 16:46 Why owning tokenized versus traditional shares carries real risk ⚖️ 20:53 Why Rule 611 keeps onchain and offchain share prices identical 🧩 28:37 The three models of tokenized equity, and who should authorize them 🚨 34:47 Tom Farley's insider trading warning about unauthorized stock derivatives 🏦 40:10 Why institutions still fear crypto after Celsius, BlockFi, and FTX 🗽 44:02 Inside Securitize's tokenized trading partnership with the NYSE 🪙 50:01 Why Domingo calls Robinhood a partner, not a competitor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 31 · 10 min

    Bits + Bips: Meta Fell 10%. Microsoft Didn't Blink.

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips Meta and Microsoft reported earnings on the same night, and investors sent their stocks in opposite directions. Chris Galipeau of the Franklin Templeton Institute walks Steven Ehrlich through why Meta got punished for raising its CapEx guidance while Microsoft's Azure growth held steady, then makes the case that the broader AI CapEx boom is still only in its second inning, not a bubble about to pop. Host: Steven Ehrlich - Host, Head of Research at Sharplink - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich Guest: Chris Galipeau - Head Market Strategist at the Franklin Templeton Institute This clip is from a longer conversation on Fed policy, Iran, AI earnings, and prediction markets. Full episode here:https://youtu.be/BXWq7OPcm24 We go live every Thursday - subscribe to catch it live. Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters 🎙️ 00:00 Kicking off the Meta vs Microsoft earnings comparison 📉 00:26 Why Meta landed in the 'penalty box' on CapEx guidance ☁️ 01:25 Microsoft's Azure growth number was 'super strong' 💰 02:41 The FAANG-era CapEx inversion nobody saw coming 📊 03:41 How to actually evaluate a company's balance sheet health 🔄 04:52 The circular financing risk, and Steve's 'incestuous' tech giants question ⚾ 07:24 The baseball analogy: still early innings, and why this isn't a bubble Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 31 · 1 hr 3 min

    Zcash, Ethereum, Aztec, Canton and More: Which Chain Will Win the Privacy Race?

    Privacy is having a moment in crypto. As competition heats up, the pitfalls of the technology around the quantum threat, regulatory risk and more make the trajectory hard to predict. A counterfeit bug sat undetected in Zcash's Orchard privacy pool for four years, capable of minting an unlimited supply of untraceable coins, illustrating the risks of one of the hottest crazes in crypto. Joe Andrews, CEO of Aztec Labs, Jarrad Hope, founder of Logos, and Mert Mumtaz, cofounder and CEO of Helius, join Laura Shin to argue the bug is less alarming than what it reveals: cryptographic privacy is difficult to get right, and the industry is racing to get it right anyway, because institutions will not come onchain without it. They cover Zcash's quantum-recoverable Ironwood upgrade and the turnstile proving the counterfeit coins never moved, Ethereum's sprawling privacy roadmap and the risk it arrives too late, Logos' mixnet built to protect validators from block relays now censoring transactions, and why all three see Canton's private stablecoins as little more than a bank with extra steps. The fight over what actually counts as privacy on a blockchain is only getting started. Host ⁠Laura Shin⁠ - Founder, CEO and Host of Unchained Guest ⁠Joe Andrews - CEO of Aztec Labs ⁠Jarrad Hope - Founder of Logos ⁠Mert Mumtaz - Cofounder and CEO of Helius Sponsor ⁠Cape⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at ⁠https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED). Timestamps: 🔐 01:52 Why Joe, Jarrad, and Mert think privacy's crypto moment is now 💙 18:18 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained ⚖️ 19:14 Why Jarrad says the weak need privacy and the powerful need transparency 🔬 24:49 How zero knowledge proofs actually update encrypted state onchain 🕸️ 33:07 Why 43.7% of block relays now censor, and how Logos fixes it 🐛 36:32 The undetected Zcash bug that could have minted infinite fake coins 🔒 46:32 Mert explains how Zcash's Ironwood upgrade closes the counterfeit hole 🛤️ 51:44 Why Joe worries Ethereum's privacy roadmap might arrive too late 🏦 57:39 Why Mert calls Canton no more private than trusting JPMorgan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 31 · 1 hr 11 min

    Should Crypto Tokens Come With Investor Rights? - Uneasy Money

    BitMEX shut down without an angry tweet. Offchain Labs CEO Steven Goldfeder joins Kain and Taylor on why dead tokens never get that mercy. Plus, Kyle Samani's Multicoin blowup. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at ⁠https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== BitMEX shut down after 11 years and crypto Twitter answered with nostalgia. When a token project dies, the same audience spends weeks dragging it. Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum, joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to work through why. Goldfeder argues crypto's grant-funded, revenue-optional era is over, and explains why Arbitrum licensed its stack so that partners like Robinhood Chain have to keep paying for it, while Base pays Optimism. They trace the DPRK crewhacking crews now rotating through bridge exploits, debate whether Uniswap's new permissioned pools point toward tokens that carry real investor rights, and ask Goldfeder whether he would trade Arbitrum's open token for a restricted one only a fraction of the world could hold. The conversation closes on Kyle Samani telling Solana builders that Multicoin, the firm he co-founded, is working against them, and what that says about how much of an ecosystem can rest on a single fund. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Goldfeder - Co-Founder and CEO of Offchain Labs Timestamps 📣 00:47 Cape: Get 33% off six months at https://cape.co/unchained 🪦 01:47 Kain opens wondering whether crypto itself is quietly dying in 2026 📊 03:41 Steven on Arbitrum's project tracking and the 'massive consolidation' hitting L2s ⚔️ 10:03 The proxy war: Robinhood Chain and Base now fight instead of Arbitrum and Optimism 🪦 14:23 Why BitMEX's shutdown felt nostalgic while token deaths trigger real anger 🌉 26:21 Hacks of the week: the DPRK crew behind the AFX perp DEX bridge exploit 👽 32:51 Kain's take: bridges got safer until 'aliens landed' and started hacking again 🏛️ 40:32 Permissioned DeFi: Uniswap's compliance pools and Superstate's equity-like tokens 🎯 57:32 Would Steven trade Arbitrum's open token for a 5% investor-only model? 🥊 01:05:42 Kyle Samani's Multicoin tweet and Solana's VC fight over Hyperliquid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 30 · 57 min

    Has Control Replaced Decentralization as DeFi's Legal Test? - DEX in the City

    Vy Le and Jessi Brooks trace an AI agent's sandbox escape back to crypto's own fight over open code. Plus, Plume general counsel Salman Banaei on Clarity's knife's-edge vote math. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== An AI agent was told to solve a problem inside a sealed sandbox. Instead it found a way out, went to Hugging Face, and took the answer. Jessi Brooks argues that episode, Moonshot's open-weight Kimi K3 release, and Apple's trade secrets suit against OpenAI all rhyme with a fight crypto has been having for years: punish the conduct, not the code. Vy Le pushes back on whether open source can be both the disease and the cure. Then Salman Banaei, General Counsel of Plume and a former SEC and CFTC attorney, joins to map where the Clarity Act's ethics language stands with Ruben Gallego, Thom Tillis, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Adam Schiff, and whether ten Democratic votes exist for cloture. The conversation covers the open-weights export fight, Apple's case against OpenAI, Hester Peirce's new statement on DeFi vaults and onchain lending, and why a new FATF report makes control, not decentralization, the test that matters. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Salman Banaei - General Counsel of Plume, Former Head of Policy at Uniswap and Chainalysis, and Former SEC and CFTC Attorney Timestamps 🌐 04:36 Jessi on why treating Kimi K3's open weights as an export could hit crypto ✍️ 07:47 Why Jessi reads Nvidia's and Anthropic's letters as punish the conduct, not the code 🕳️ 11:41 How an OpenAI agent escaped its sandbox and found answers on Hugging Face 🍎 21:55 Apple sues OpenAI over trade secrets, and one text that could cost it 📣 28:55 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained 🏛️ 30:57 Salman Banaei maps where Clarity's ethics language stands in the Senate 🗳️ 41:12 Why Banaei says Clarity's cloture vote is on a knife's edge 🔐 42:43 Peirce's vault statement, split into development, curation, administration 🌍 48:32 Why FATF and Clarity both make control the real test for DeFi regulation 🔮 54:36 What Banaei thinks happens to Clarity if it fails this Congress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 29 · 12 min

    Bits + Bips: Does Capitalism Doom Every Closed AI Model to Get Copied?

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips Jensen Huang had been running the world's most valuable company for years without ever posting on X. When he finally did, it wasn't a hello. It was an open letter arguing that open AI models are a national asset — and within two days the signatory list had doubled to 50 companies. Anthropic and Amazon still haven't signed. Austin Campbell walks the panel through who did, who didn't, and the fight that broke out underneath it: Nick Carter arguing the government doesn't owe the large labs a business model, an Anthropic researcher publicly needling Huang about open-sourcing CUDA, Andrew Ng calling that a false equivalence, and Joe Weisenthal asking whether any of it is more than virtue signaling. Then it gets concrete. Lorenzo Valente makes the case that cheap open models aren't actually cheap once you price them per task, and asks why the US has no answer to a DeepSeek raising at a reported $70 billion valuation. Ram Ahluwalia closes with the Wright brothers, who watched Boeing and Lockheed Martin build an industry on their patents and never saw a cent of it. So can a closed model survive being copied — or is getting copied just what happens? 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: Lorenzo Valente - Director of Research at ARK Invest This clip is from a longer conversation on the open weight versus closed weight AI fight. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/lMZtZwolaeA?si=16-Z4TP227B2OUJl We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET. Subscribe to catch it live. Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters: 🚀 00:00 Jensen Huang's surprise letter reignites the AI open weight fight 💬 01:05 Nick Carter, Julian Schrittwieser, and David Sacks pile on 🔥 02:53 'Virtue signaling' and what happens if China's open models are permanent ⚖️ 05:15 Lorenzo's balanced take: open models aren't a free panacea 💰 06:28 Lorenzo on DeepSeek and Moonshot AI's reported valuations ✈️ 09:53 Ram's closing case: capitalism, distillation, and the Wright brothers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 29 · 1 hr 7 min

    The Chopping Block: Wind Downs, YC's Nemil Dalal, & Will Every Failed Crypto Idea Eventually Work?

    YC's Nemil Dalal joins to explain why he's never been more bullish as BitMEX winds down after 11 years, whether every failed crypto idea (TCRs, DAOs, creator coins) eventually works, why crypto is really about money, Base's consumer mea culpa, on-chain reputation and credit, and who pays in the x402 AI-agent era. 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 they're joined by Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and ex-Coinbase, where he led USDC and the Coinbase Developer Platform. He's here to explain why, with exchanges winding down left and right, he's somehow never been more bullish. The crew digs into the great contrast of the moment: BitMEX shutting down after 11 years (plus BitMart, Movement Labs, Balancer Labs) while the plumbing quietly prints, and whether Imran's viral 'everything that failed will eventually work' thesis is genius or toxic positivity. From there it's the question of whether crypto is really only about money (Jesse's Base mea culpa included), a war-memories tour through TCRs, on-chain reputation and why pure on-chain credit keeps faceplanting, and finally who actually pays in the x402 AI-agent era, and whether decentralization even survives contact with Google-shaped gravity. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 BitMEX, the exchange that invented the perp swap, winds down September 23rd after 11 years, alongside BitMart, Movement Labs, and Balancer Labs. 🔹 Nemil Dalal explains why he's never been more bullish: rivals adopted BitMEX's innovations, regulatory clarity is arriving, and crypto is becoming invisible infrastructure. 🔹 Nemil rented the Chase Center for a 7,000-builder YC event with Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and Patrick Collison, yet almost nobody's launching a token early. 🔹 Imran's viral thesis that every failed crypto idea eventually works sparks Haseeb's 'toxic positivity' pushback and a war-memories tour through TCRs and DAOs. 🔹 Instacart's Apoorva vs Webvan and Reddit vs Digg: why timing, path dependency, and the YC 'why now' question decide which failed ideas return. 🔹 Jesse's Base mea culpa: the consumer-social bet on Zora and Farcaster was wrong for now, so he handed the Base app to Kobe. 🔹 Haseeb says crypto has always been about money; Nemil counters 'money is everything,' calling the blockchain the greatest capital innovation machine in the world. 🔹 Why pure on-chain credit keeps faceplanting: address repudiation, no recourse, no wage garnishment, and old memories of Debt DAO's revenue ratchet. 🔹 The x402 AI-agent era: Cloudflare pay-per-call gating, Kimi's inference license, and whether decentralization survives Google-shaped gravity as agents become the new wallet. Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures Guest ⭐️Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 28 · 30 min

    Kristin Smith on Why the Clarity Act Comes Down to a Memecoin

    Kristin Smith walks through the vote math, the ethics fight, and what happens to crypto capital if the Clarity Act stalls before the midterms. The Senate needs 60 votes to pass crypto's market structure bill, the Clarity Act, before an August recess deadline just weeks away. Majority Leader John Thune says the votes likely will not be there in time, and Polymarket puts the odds of passage this year at roughly 30 percent. Kristin Smith, President of the Solana Policy Institute, joins Laura Shin to explain why a deal that seemed close has snagged on ethics language Trump agreed to but Senate Democrats do not trust the Department of Justice to enforce. Smith walks through the vote math behind 53 Senate Republicans and the Democrats who backed last year's Genius Act, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act's protections for developers, and the new commodities pathway for token launches. She also maps where the sidelined capital goes, from the Middle East to Japan, if Clarity misses its window before the midterms. Host Laura Shin - Founder, CEO and Host of Unchained Guest Kristin Smith - President of the Solana Policy Institute Sponsor Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Timestamps: 🗳️ 00:51 Why Clarity's Senate timeline looks so tight before the August recess 📣 09:20 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained ⚖️ 10:16 Why Trump's ethics language deal became Clarity's toughest sticking point 🏛️ 18:34 Kristin Smith on the Clarity Act provisions that most excite the industry 🌍 23:31 What happens to crypto capital and global leadership if Clarity fails Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 28 · 23 min

    Paid Partnership: How Can DeFi Fix Its Liquidity Problem? 1inch's Aqua Offers a Solution

    SPONSORED CONTENT: This video is a paid partnership with 1inch. It was produced in collaboration with 1inch and is separate from Unchained's editorial coverage. 1inch cofounder Sergej Kunz says up to 85% of DeFi's liquidity sits idle. He walks through Aqua, the self-custodial product built to put that capital back to work. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠1inch - Swap crypto at the best rates in DeFi with 1inch — and get an early look at Aqua, their new protocol that lets your liquidity do more than one job at a time https://1inch.io ======================================================== Discover Aqua, their new shared-liquidity protocol that lets your capital power multiple DeFi strategies at once — without leaving your wallet. Learn more at https://1inch.io 1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz says he built Aqua after getting sandwiched by MEV bots while providing his own liquidity, and after 1inch's research found up to 85% of concentrated liquidity across DeFi sits idle. Kunz walks through why he thinks liquidity pools fragment capital by design, and how Aqua's intent-based, self-custody model tries to fix that without asking users to give up control of their assets. He covers Aqua's sub-wallet structure, how professional market makers settle trades after passing 1inch's compliance and KYB checks, and the rollout across 13 networks including Base and Robinhood's chain. Kunz also details 1inch DAO's plan to distribute USDC to liquidity providers. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠André Beganski - Host Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sergej Kunz - Cofounder of 1inch Timestamps 📣 00:19 Swap crypto at the best rates in DeFi with 1inch — and get an early look at Aqua, their new protocol that lets your liquidity do more than one job at a time https://1inch.io 💧 00:40 Sergej on getting sandwiched, and why 85% of DeFi liquidity sits idle 🔬 06:15 Why Sergej says every chain shares Aqua's idle-liquidity flaw 🧩 07:16 Sub wallets: how Aqua runs positions without creating debt 🛡️ 12:10 Why 1inch keeps Aqua self custody, and the risks Sergej flags 🏦 13:24 Who Aqua is built for, and how it isolates sanctioned funds 💰 17:03 Aqua's 13 networks and the $500K DAO incentive program Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 25 · 9 min

    Bits + Bips: Why Bitcoin Has the Least to Gain From the Clarity Act

    Cole Kennelly, founder and CEO of Volmex Labs, traces why BVIV and BVIV-US diverge around IBIT's regulated options market, makes the case that Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid have more to gain from the Clarity Act than Bitcoin, and shares his outlook for an increasingly institutional crypto market by year-end. Host: Steven Ehrlich, Head of Research at Sharplink Guest: Cole Kennelly - Founder and CEO of Volmex Labs This clip is from a longer conversation on the Clarity Act's uneven impact across crypto and Volmex's institutional outlook for the market. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/9SUeqeInZws?si=gF6-ZEEy-BED-yJa We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live. Sponsor Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters: 🎙️ 00:00 The BVIV vs. IBIT options divergence — and what it's telling traders 📊 00:31 Regulated vs. offshore: how IBIT and BVIV-US stack up ⚖️ 02:16 Why Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid have more riding on Clarity than Bitcoin ⏱️ 05:11 How far out Volmex's term structure actually reaches 🔮 05:23 Cole's read on where an increasingly institutional crypto market goes next Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 25 · 27 min

    How Jesse Pollak Is Mapping Out Base's Next Chapter After the App Pivot

    Jesse Pollak owns the Base App's social miss, unpacks Robinhood Chain's rise, and explains Brian Armstrong's memecoin moment. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Jesse Pollak spent the week owning a very public miss. In a lengthy post, the Base creator admitted the Base App's social bet had not worked, leaving Base behind in perps, prediction markets and tokenization, and handed the app's reins to Jordan Fish, better known as Cobie. Pollak joins Laura Shin to unpack why the pivot happened now, what he makes of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's memecoin controversy over a token called $BRIAN, and how Base plans to compete as Robinhood Chain outpaces it on daily active users, according to Artemis data. They cover Base's move off Optimism's stack onto its own Azul, Beryl and Cobalt upgrades, a roadmap toward 20,000 transactions per second under the new B20 stablecoin standard, and the x402 agentic payments protocol already handling roughly 90% of Base's transaction volume. Pollak argues less than 1% of the world uses crypto, and that Base's bet is on whoever builds the trusted rails first. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jesse Pollak - Creator of Base Timestamps 🗞️ 01:48 Why Jesse Pollak feels 'fired up' despite Base App's social miss 🧭 03:58 Pollak on why the timing was wrong for Base App's social bet 💳 05:42 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained 🖼️ 06:39 Pollak on Brian Armstrong's Coinbaseman meme coin controversy 🏎️ 10:43 How Pollak plans to compete as Robinhood Chain overtakes Base in DAUs 🤝 12:53 Why Coinbase's distribution edge matters for onboarding new users 🔀 15:37 Why Pollak handed the Base App to Cobie to focus on the chain 🌉 18:20 Why Base App is expanding beyond Base to Solana and Bitcoin ⚙️ 21:05 Base's Azul, Beryl and Cobalt upgrades and its new B20 standard 🔐 24:27 Base Ledgers, agentic payments and privacy in Pollak's roadmap Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 24 · 1 hr 11 min

    Cobie Taking Over Base App? He's 'the Respectable Trencher': Uneasy Money

    An OpenAI model hacked Hugging Face to cheat its own test. Kain and Taylor break it down — plus Base’s failed social bet and the North Korean IT workers still inside crypto. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at ⁠https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Coinbase just handed Jesse Pollak’s Base app to Cobie, days after Pollak posted a public mea culpa admitting that the onchain-social and creator-coin bet behind Base never worked. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan trace why Base swung so hard at social instead of perps and prediction markets, and argue Coinbase’s bottomless-money culture, the same one that let Google build Android on a whim, makes it nearly impossible for founders to know when a bet has genuinely failed. They also unpack Brian Armstrong’s memecoin profile-picture flap, arguing the outrage is almost entirely manufactured by traders chasing volatility, the North Korean IT workers still quietly inside much of the crypto industry, and the strangest story of the week: an unreleased OpenAI model that chained two zero-day exploits to escape its test sandbox and hack Hugging Face’s benchmarking servers for the answers. The episode closes on an uncomfortable question: if a model will cheat on a security test just to avoid not knowing its score, what else will it break to get there? Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert Timestamps 📣 01:55 Base hands its consumer app to Cobie after Jesse Pollak's mea culpa 🏛️ 04:56 Why Kain compares Coinbase's culture to Google's money-fueled delusion 📣 26:50 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code UNCHAINED at https://cape.co/unchained 🪙 28:28 Brian Armstrong's memecoin PFP sparks a very online meltdown 📈 32:58 Why Taylor says the backlash to Brian's memecoin is manufactured 🕵️ 45:15 Why nearly every sizable crypto company has quietly had a DPRK IT worker 💻 47:37 The hidden risk: IT workers who get hacked themselves and expose you 🤖 53:39 An unreleased OpenAI model hacks Hugging Face to cheat on a benchmark 🔓 01:00:26 Why Kain says the model's logic for gaming the test almost makes sense 📄 01:04:10 Hugging Face discloses the hack before OpenAI even notices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 23 · 52 min

    The Chopping Block: The CLARITY Act Endgame with Patrick Witt + Gauntlet's $125M SBI Raise + Balaji's Malaysia Exodus

    Patrick Witt, the White House's executive director for digital assets policy, calls in mid-episode to give the Chopping Block crew a live read on the CLARITY market structure bill! 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 they're joined mid-episode by Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, who dialed in late because he was literally chasing down bill language. First, Tarun explains how Gauntlet closed its biggest raise ever, $125M from SBI Holdings, the crypto OGs of Japan and early Ripple Labs backers, and what it cost him in suits and seven straight days of staying shaved (chairman Kitao-san reportedly listens). Then the crew dissects Balaji's Network School saga, from a Forest City ghost town in Malaysia to an immigration raid, a revoked license, and a sudden MOU-fueled pivot to Kazakhstan, with Tom's dreaded 'turkey chart' making an appearance. Finally, the main event: Patrick lays out the state of play on the CLARITY market structure bill, the August 7th recess deadline, the ~46% Polymarket coin flip, and the first-of-its-kind ethics provision, including the DOJ-versus-state-AG enforcement fight and whether crypto gets a second crack after midterms. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Patrick Witt dials in mid-episode after literally chasing bill language, laying out the CLARITY market structure bill and its August 7th recess deadline. 🔹 Polymarket puts CLARITY at roughly 46%, a coin flip, after passing the House 294-134 last July and stalling in the Senate. 🔹 The first-of-its-kind ethics provision bars officials and spouses from issuing digital assets, forcing existing holdings into blind trusts or divestment. 🔹 The live fight: White House wants DOJ enforcement, Democrats want 50 state attorneys general, which Patrick warns invites politically motivated lawsuits. 🔹 Tarun breaks down Gauntlet's $125M raise from SBI Holdings, his biggest ever, closed after seven straight days of suits and staying shaved in Japan. 🔹 SBI, the crypto OGs of Japan and early Ripple Labs backers, bets on capital shifting from syndicated VC toward TradFi giants funding DeFi liquidity. 🔹 Balaji's Network School goes from a Forest City ghost town in Malaysia to an immigration raid, a revoked license, and an MOU-fueled pivot to Kazakhstan. 🔹 Robert says Balaji 'picked the wrong dance partner' building a network state on foreign soil; Tom warns of the dreaded 'turkey chart.' 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 Guest ⭐️ Patrick Witt, Executive Director, President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:59 Tarun's $125M Gauntlet Raise from SBI Holdings 06:32 Balaji's Network School: Malaysia Raid to Kazakhstan Exit 13:57 Patrick Witt Joins: CLARITY Bill State of Play 16:14 The First-of-Its-Kind Presidential Ethics Provision 19:53 DOJ vs State Attorneys General Enforcement Fight 23:36 The Big Three: Ethics, Law Enforcement, and the Ag Title 30:54 Patrick's National Guard Deferral and Short-Handed Crypto Bench 33:11 Polymarket's Coin Flip and Post-Midterm Odds 39:04 After CLARITY: SBR Bill, Tax Provisions, and What's Next 42:44 Wrap: Hosts React to Robert's Hopium Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 23 · 49 min

    DEX in the City: How Kalshi’s Rough Week Became a Federal Fight for Prediction Markets

    The CFTC pulled a power last used in the Carter era to rescue Kalshi. Katherine, Jessi, and Vy Le on what it means — plus Japan’s crypto tax cut and DTCC’s tokenization leap. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Kalshi had a rough week. Sued by Michigan, hit with a restraining order, then rescued by a CFTC emergency power invoked only four times in the agency’s history, most recently during Jimmy Carter’s Cold War grain embargo. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le untangle how a fight over sports event contracts became a battle over federal preemption, why Kalshi also pulled its flight cancellation contracts under public pressure, and the insider-trading allegation swirling around a Trump teleprompter operator. They also cover Japan’s new financial instruments law, which cuts crypto’s tax rate from as high as 55% to a flat 20% and is already pulling Amazon Japan’s delivery drivers onto yen stablecoins. Then there’s DTCC’s live settlement of tokenized securities with JPMorgan, Goldman, and BlackRock, which Vy Le argues could end the era of synthetic wrapper tokens. And the Clarity Act, still stuck on ethics and yield disputes as the midterms eat into Congress’s calendar. The episode closes on a rare bright note: pseudonymous investigator ZachXBT turning impersonation memecoins into charity donations for Venezuela’s earthquake victims. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda Timestamps 📱 00:40 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained 🎙️ 01:04 Kalshi's rough week begins: how a Michigan lawsuit over sports contracts became a federalism fight 🗂️ 06:34 Why the CFTC's break glass emergency power has only been invoked four times ever ⚖️ 14:40 Why Kalshi pulled its flight cancellation contracts under public backlash 🕵️ 18:40 The insider trading allegation involving Trump's longtime teleprompter 🇯🇵 21:39 Japan's new law cuts crypto taxes to a flat 20 percent 🏦 35:12 DTCC's live settlement of tokenized securities with JPMorgan, Goldman, and BlackRock 🏛️ 43:44 Why Clarity's odds are shrinking as the midterms eat into Congress's calendar 🤝 46:11 ZachXBT turns impersonation meme coins into charity for Venezuela's earthquake victims Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 22 · 12 min

    Why You Can't Opt Out of the AI Guardrails Race

    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips/ Austin Campbell's claim that Claude Fable 5 cracked the decades-old Jacobian conjecture opens onto a bigger question: why AI's real-world impact on health care is still lagging. The conversation turns to battlefield drones in Ukraine, the national security stakes of AI guardrails, and why Chris Perkins thinks finance-style regulation could make AI more trustworthy, not less useful. 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 Chapters: 🧠 00:36 Austin on what actually forces AI adoption in health care beyond the hype 🔢 02:02 Austin's claim that Claude Fable 5 solved the Jacobian conjecture, a 90-year-old math problem 🩺 03:21 Ram: doctors are already using AI for diagnostics, but the promise is still ahead of reality 💰 05:41 Why Ram says AI adoption is self financing, citing Eli Lilly 🛩️ 06:15 AI on the battlefield: Ukraine's drone-based warfare shift 🛡️ 07:23 Austin's national security question: is opting out of the AI race even possible 🏛️ 09:39 Chris makes the case for finance style, principles-based AI regulation ⚔️ 10:24 Austin: there is no way to opt out of the AI guardrails race This clip is from a longer conversation on AI adoption, national security, and financial regulation. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/YN0Pje70YtE?si=HVVnRCmYt3Q-G_qc We go live every Monday at 4:30 pm ET - subscribe to catch it live. Sponsor: Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 21 · 54 min

    How Lyn Alden Will Take on Bitcoin DATs and Private Equity With Orange Juice

    Lyn Alden raised $40M to launch Orange Juice, a holding company that buys cash-flowing businesses and layers Bitcoin on top, not another pure-play treasury bet. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). ======================================================== Lyn Alden just raised $40 million to launch a Bitcoin-backed holding company that skips the trade most of crypto is chasing. Rather than build another pure-play Bitcoin treasury stock, Orange Juice buys cash-flowing, unglamorous businesses and layers a Bitcoin treasury on top at the parent-company level. Lyn Alden, cofounder of Orange Juice and a partner at Ego Death Capital, frames it as a countercyclical alternative to procyclical treasury companies, and she does not spare Strategy from criticism. She compares Orange Juice's structure to Berkshire Hathaway and argues Strategy let its dollar reserve fall too far, weighing in as Laura invokes Michael Saylor's 'sell a kidney' line and STRC's slide to near $85 against its $100 target. She also addresses BIP-110's inscription debate and Bitcoin's quantum computing threat, questioning whether the community’s resistance to change is a strength or a liability. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lyn Alden - Cofounder of Orange Juice and Partner at Ego Death Capital Timestamps 🍊 00:56 Lyn Alden lays out the $40M raise behind Orange Juice's core thesis 💵 08:06 Why Lyn Alden targets cash-flowing firms over VC backed startups 📱 11:17 Cape: get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained 🏦 12:16 How keeping the Bitcoin treasury at the parent level avoids procyclical risk 🪖 25:37 How Orange Juice handles a bleeding company and Ruben Zweiban's Navy SEAL background 📈 32:15 Why Lyn says going public aids liquidity, retail access, and tax deferral ⚠️ 39:15 Why Lyn is critical of Strategy's capital structure and Saylor's kidney line 🗑️ 47:40 Why Lyn views Bitcoin inscriptions as spam despite BIP 110's technical limits ⚛️ 50:47 How Lyn assesses the quantum computing threat to Bitcoin's security Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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