Unchained

Niklas Kunkel maps where the RWA market is heading next, from Centrifuge and Apollo's CLOs to Galaxy's first tokenized credit product, then turns to a cautionary tale: some SpaceX pre-IPO token buyers never actually owned the shares they thought they had.

Host:

Steven Ehrlich - Host of Bits + Bips and Head of Research at Sharplink

Guest:

Niklas Kunkel - Founder and CEO of Chronicle Labs

This clip is from a longer conversation on crypto oracles, tokenized real-world assets, and Chronicle Labs' work verifying them. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/HW9Cu_E8DnU 

We go live every week - 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 Where the RWA market goes next, from the man building its plumbing: Niklas Kunkel

💰 00:44 The yield trade heating up: why CLOs like Centrifuge's JAAA and Apollo's Acred are suddenly everywhere

🌌 01:14 Galaxy's first tokenized CLO, and why it's a far bigger deal than it looks

🔍 01:56 Trust no one: how Chronicle checks Galaxy's loan book against its own custodian

🔁 03:04 The looping trick that turns a 7% CLO yield into 14% or 21%, and the risk hiding inside it

🏢 03:27 What's coming next: tokenized REITs and equities

🚀 05:28 The SpaceX pre-IPO token question Niklas keeps getting asked

📉 06:06 The catch nobody mentioned: why SpaceX token buyers never actually owned their shares
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Robinhood Chain perps now run on Lighter. Vlad Novakovski maps the revenue split, the USDG collateral risk, and the race for a US perps license.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Robinhood Chain went live last week, and the perpetual futures powering it are from Lighter, the onchain exchange Robinhood backed before Lighter launched its token.

Vlad Novakovski, founder and CEO of Lighter, joins Laura Shin to unpack a partnership he says has been building since he and the Robinhood founder were high school classmates. He details a 50/50 revenue split, why USDG as collateral creates friction for market makers, and how a pending CFTC license would cover Robinhood's own front-end too.

Novakovski also addresses the crowded field forming around US perps, from Kalshi and Coinbase to Kraken and dYdX, and makes the case that onchain volume keeps gaining share even as crypto native tokens lag real world asset perps. His new seat on the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee puts him in the room as regulators decide what a DEX has to look like to operate onshore.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vlad Novakovski - Founder and CEO of Lighter

Timestamps

🤝 01:28 Why Vlad calls the Robinhood Chain deal "12 years in the making" and how the revenue is split

🤓 03:40 How Robinhood perps differs from Lighter's own app

💸 05:03 What if means if USDG is the quote asset on Robinhood's perps and USDC is the quote asset on Lighter

💬 11:04 Novakovski on Lighter's Telegram Wallet deal vs Hyperliquid's builder codes

📣 12:50 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

💼 13:44 Fidelity: Explore crypto and DeFi careers at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

📉 14:31 Why RWA perps are hitting highs while crypto native perp volume cools

⚠️ 18:00 How Lighter prices liquidation risk when tokenized stocks are collateral

🏛️ 21:14 Novakovski on the regulatory pathway DEXs need to move onshore
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Austin Griffith joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to unpack  BonkDAO's $20M governance heist, and Kain's case for giving founders more control.

========================================================

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 single wallet spent $4.4 million buying up Bonk tokens, then used that stake to push through a governance proposal that legally emptied BonkDAO's roughly $20 million treasury a week later, with almost no one watching the vote.

Austin Griffith, Ethereum Foundation developer and creator of Scaffold-ETH and founder of BuidlGuidl, joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to use the heist as a jumping-off point for Kain's real target: ENS. Kain argues founder Nick Johnson should retake control over building and product from the DAO, and makes the case that founder-led execution beats decentralized governance almost every time.

They also cover Vitalik's Lean Ethereum overhaul and why Austin says it will barely change what he builds, the $1 AI audit he launched as a meme for x402 agent payments, Robinhood's new chain and the pay-to-play deals behind it, and why Kain now argues tokens are the wrong way to raise money.

If a founder with total conviction can outperform a DAO built to stop exactly that, the DAO experiment may be further from finished than anyone wants to admit.

Hosts:

⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert

Guests:

⁠Austin Griffith - Ethereum Foundation developer and creator of Scaffold-ETH and SpeedRun Ethereum, and founder of BuidlGuidl

Timestamps

🛠️ 01:32 Why Austin says Vitalik's Lean Ethereum overhaul barely changes his job

📅 08:21 Taylor on why the EF ships huge roadmaps but too little in the short term

🪓 12:56 Austin on surviving the EF's leaner reorg and the wave of departures

💵 15:43 How Austin turned a serious auditing tool into a viral meme

🤝 18:48 x402 skill files: why agents will soon pay other agents for on-tap skills

💙 25:44 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months of privacy first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

🚨 26:41 How one wallet legally voted its way to BonkDAO's $20M treasury

⚖️ 32:57 Why Kain thinks Nick Johnson and ENS should take power back from the DAO

🤖 55:29 Robinhood's new chain and Kain's take on crypto's pay-to-play problem

🪙 58:29 Why Kain says tokens are now the wrong tool to raise money
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Vladimir Novakovski of Lighter joins the Chopping Block crew to untangle one of crypto's oldest debates: what happens when tokens and equity coexist. The gang digs into the Venice/VVV controversy, breaks down Lighter's new Perps integration with Robinhood Chain and the fragmentation questions it raises, dissects the wild BonkDAO governance exploit, and reacts to the eye-popping $2.4 billion in crypto income disclosed in Trump's financial filings.

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, joined this week by special guest Vladimir Novakovski of Lighter.

The crew dives deep into the resurfaced tokens-versus-equity debate sparked by Dragonfly's investment in Venice and its VVV token, with Haseeb making the case that Venice is fundamentally different from Uniswap Labs style structures. Vlad explains how Lighter has approached the same dilemma through programmatic buybacks and a single C corp structure, and the group debates fiduciary duties, Delaware law, and what a merged DeFi/TradFi future for equity and tokens might look like. From there, they unpack Lighter's big Robinhood Chain announcement, including Lighter's new role as the native Perps engine inside Robinhood Wallet, and whether running a separate instance fragments liquidity. The episode wraps with a breakdown of the BonkDAO governance exploit that let an attacker vote themselves $20 million in tokens, and a reaction to Trump's staggering $2.4 billion in pre-tax crypto income revealed in his latest financial disclosure.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 Haseeb breaks down why Venice's VVV token is not equity and not a Uniswap style governance token in disguise

🔹 Vlad explains how Lighter's programmatic buybacks and single C corp structure align token holders and equity holders

🔹 The gang debates Delaware fiduciary law, shareholder primacy, and what happens when buyback capital runs dry

🔹 Vlad lays out the vision of tokenized equity merging with crypto tokens into a single on-chain asset

🔹 Lighter's Robinhood Chain deal goes live with Lighter powering native Perps trading inside Robinhood Wallet

🔹 Vlad addresses concerns about liquidity fragmentation across separate Lighter instances

🔹 BonkDAO gets exploited as an attacker buys governance tokens and votes themselves $20 million

🔹 Robert compares the Bonk exploit to the infamous Beanstalk and Compound Humpty governance attacks

🔹 Trump's financial disclosure reveals $2.4 billion in pre-tax crypto income, sparking a debate on crypto's political future

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate

Guest

⭐️Vladimir Novakovski, Founder of Lighter

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

03:40 Tokens vs equity: the Venice VVV debate begins

06:12 Fiduciary duty, Delaware law, and Lighter's C corp structure

08:00 What happens when buyback capital runs out

12:42 Why Venice launched a token in the first place

19:18 Comparing VVV to BNB and overloaded crypto assets

25:28 Lighter's Robinhood Chain deal and native Perps launch

37:02 BonkDAO governance exploit and the $20M vote

44:02 Lessons from Beanstalk and Compound's Humpty saga

47:09 Trump's $2.4B crypto income disclosure reactions

Disclosures
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For years, Michael Saylor's Strategy was the market's most dependable Bitcoin buyer. Recently, it has done the opposite.

Strategy just sold 3,588 Bitcoin for roughly $216 million, its largest single tranche yet, deepening the question of whether Michael Saylor has become a structural seller instead of a buyer.

Ram Ahluwalia, Austin Campbell, and Chris Perkins break down the STRC dividend mechanics behind the sale, the bull case for a catch-up trade, and the bear case if Bitcoin never rallies back.

Hosts:

Austin Campbell, Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern

Ram Ahluwalia, Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida

Chris Perkins, Co-host of Bits + Bips and Head of Franklin Crypto

This clip is from a longer conversation on Strategy's Bitcoin sale, the stablecoin wars, and the token versus equity debate. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/H3z68SYty0k 

We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET. Subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsor:

👉 Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained  (use code: UNCHAINED).

Chapters:

💰 00:00 Strategy's record $216M Bitcoin sale: the numbers behind the disclosure

📉 01:14 mNAV falls below 1 for the first time, and the STRC dividend framework

🔁 02:31 Why Ram says selling Bitcoin beats issuing more MSTR shares

⚖️ 04:21 The bear case: what happens if Bitcoin doesn't rally from here

✈️ 05:24 Chris on Saylor's three-body problem after a week of conferences in London
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Strategy sold $260M of Bitcoin at a loss to fund dividends. Parker White of Apyx makes the case that it is smarter than it sounds.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Strategy just made its largest Bitcoin sale ever, offloading 3,588 BTC for $260 million at a loss to fund preferred dividends. Days earlier it unveiled a digital capital framework: a 12-month coverage rule, a hiked STRC dividend, and a $10 billion buyback plan. Markets calmed, but the moves raise a question: has Strategy stopped being a Bitcoin company?

Parker White, CFA, founding contributor and chief investment/operating officer at Apyx, pushes back on claims that funding dollar dividends with Bitcoin sales betrays Bitcoin's ethos, framing it as smart capital management. Shin presses him on whether investors now bet on Strategy's team, not Bitcoin.

They unpack short sellers' calculus, the 2027-2029 convertible cliff Matt Walsh pegs near $6.7 billion, and Apyx's apxUSD, a tokenized yield wrapper around STRC and SATA that depegged to 72 cents in the turmoil. White defends Apyx 2.0's redemption model against 'free put option' critics and responds to critic’s contention that Strategy resembles Terra/ Luna or FTX.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Parker White - CFA, Founding Contributor and Chief Investment/Operating Officer at Apyx

Timestamps

🏛️ 02:03 Parker on why Strategy's record Bitcoin sale to fund dividends is smart, not desperate

📋 06:24 How Strategy's new digital capital framework tries to calm the market's nerves

⚠️ 09:59 Laura and Parker spar over whether shorts or Strategy's own missteps sparked the selloff

💵 21:27 Whether prioritizing USD over Bitcoin marks a philosophical flip for Strategy

📣 26:28 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers at Fidelity today at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

🔐 27:10 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code UNCHAINED at https://cape.co/unchained

⏳ 28:09 Why Parker isn't worried about Strategy's looming $6.7 billion convert cliff

🧩 34:56 Parker on how Apyx wraps STRC and SATA into a yield bearing onchain asset

📉 36:38 What caused apxUSD's drop to as low as 72 cents and the liquidity pull

🛡️ 41:10 Parker defends Apyx 2.0's redemption rules against the free put option critics

🔄 47:53 Parker on why comparing Strategy to Terra Luna or GBTC misreads the risk
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Ari Redbord sits down with Katherine, Jessi, and Vy to talk about SEC clarity, the onshore perps boom, and DeFi's opsec problem — plus why the U.S. should hack North Korea back.

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).

The hosts of DEX in the City spend every week breaking down crypto's legal fights. This time, they're the ones answering the questions.

Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, sits down with Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le for a wide-ranging conversation on where crypto's regulatory and security battles are actually headed.

Vy traces her path from SEC enforcement to her case for "tech-neutral" rules: regulators should regulate outcomes, not technology. Katherine explains why DCMs have become crypto's hottest acronym, as true perps and prediction markets move onshore. And Jessi makes her push to stop calling North Korea's hacks "illicit finance" and start naming them a national security threat: Pyongyang, she notes, is funding a weapons program with stolen crypto. Ari goes further — if North Korea can steal hundreds of millions from DeFi, the U.S. should steal it back. Vy pushes back on the panic over the recent hacks: most, she argues, weren't broken smart contracts at all, just sloppy operational security.

The conversation covers SEC clarity, the CFTC's moment, DeFi security, on-chain privacy, and what it really takes to keep the ecosystem safe.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ari Redbord - Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs and Host of TRM Talks

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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
🛡️ 02:29 OFAC's first IRGC-linked exchange sanctions on Zedcex and Zedxion

🧭 05:20 How Vy, Katherine, and Jessi went from the SEC, BigLaw, and DOJ into crypto

🎙️ 14:10 The origin story behind the DEX in the City name and its all-women cast

🏛️ 18:25 Vy on the SEC trading ambiguity for rules, and "tech-neutral" regulation

📈 22:36 Katherine on why DCMs are suddenly crypto's hottest acronym

💙 25:38 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

🩹 26:12 Jessi on reframing illicit finance around victims, not just enforcement

🔐 30:03 Jessi and Vy on Drift, Kelp, and why the recent hacks were ops failures

🕵️ 34:52 Katherine on why privacy is necessary for on-chain markets

🔮 40:04 Lightning round: Jessi on agentic finance, Katherine on perps, Vy on vaults
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Joseph Chalom lays out why Ethereum Institutional exists, how it differs from Etherealize, and why he thinks Michael Saylor is in a pickle.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Sharplink, BitMine, and Joe Lubin spent the past ten days launching two new organizations aimed at convincing Wall Street to build on Ethereum, backing them with commitments from more than fifty institutional supporters.

Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink and a board member of the new Ethereum Institutional, joins Laura Shin to make the case that Ethereum's real competition isn't Solana or Canton. It's inertia: the reluctance of the world's largest institutions to touch financial rails they don't already trust.

Chalom walks through how Ethereum Institutional differs from Etherealize and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, why Robinhood building on Arbitrum still counts as a win for Ethereum, and what it would take for ETH to capture the value flowing through the network as tokenized real-world assets grow past $31 billion. He pushes back on claims that the Ethereum Foundation's culture is broken, then turns to Strategy's preferred stock drama and says plainly that Michael Saylor is in a pickle.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Joseph Chalom - CEO of Sharplink

Timestamps

🚀 01:33 Why Sharplink, BitMine, and Joe Lubin launched Ethereum Institutional

🧭 05:51 How Ethereum Institutional differs from Etherealize and the EEA

🃏 10:15 Chalom says institutional inertia, not Solana, is Ethereum's real threat

💙 14:40 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

💼 15:34 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

🧩 16:20 Why Chalom says Robinhood building on Arbitrum is still a win for Ethereum

⚡ 20:54 Does value actually flow back to ETH the token

🏛️ 24:33 Chalom pushes back on the idea that Ethereum's culture is broken

🤝 29:01 Why Chalom says Sharplink's shareholders and Ethereum's ecosystem are aligned

📉 32:18 Chalom says Michael Saylor is in a pickle over Strategy's preferred stock drama
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Nick Johnson's ENS vote sparked days of backlash. He and co-founder Alex Van de Sande join Uneasy Money to explain what actually happened.

========================================================

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 routine two year renewal for the ENS DAO's Security Council failed on chain this week, and Nick Johnson, founder and CEO of ENS Labs, voted against it with roughly 50% of the active supply. Some users on X have since cast him as the villain seizing a $130 million treasury.

ENS co-founders Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande join Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to untangle what the vote means, and to defend a new proposal handing day-to-day treasury and protocol decisions to a foundation instead of the DAO.

They trace how ENS's governance fight mirrors Aave's, why its treasury has trailed a savings account, why Johnson never trusted ETH-weighted voting, and why his conviction in token governance has weakened.

The conversation lands on the question hanging over every well-funded DAO: once a protocol accumulates enough money to matter, can any voting mechanism decide who controls it?

Hosts:


⁠Kain Warwick⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix


⁠Taylor Monahan⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert

Guests:


Nick Johnson - Founder and CEO of ENS Labs


Alex Van de Sande - Cofounder of ENS

Timestamps

🗳️ 02:14 Kain unpacks whether Nick really controls the ENS Security Council vote

🔥 06:37 Taylor pushes back: is the pile-on on Nick actually fair?

⚔️ 11:30 Kain calls it a DAO governance proxy war, echoing Aave's Stani fight

🍯 15:00 Nick on why a DAO treasury becomes a honeypot for capital allocation

🪙 28:01 Nick on why ETH-weighted voting would have left ENS open to a takeover

⚖️ 32:47 Nick clarifies what the ENS Labs proposal actually changes at the DAO

🏛️ 40:27 Nick argues the DAO should stop trying to run ENS day-to-day

📣 52:04 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

🍴 58:56 Could a fork let Nick walk off with ENS's treasury? Alex says no

🎤 01:13:31 Taylor asks Nick and Alex point blank: why are you still here?
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David Lawant, Head of Research at Anchorage Digital, breaks down why Bitcoin's lack of native yield puts constant pressure on treasury companies, and makes the case that Michael Saylor's playbook is evolving rather than breaking.

Host:


Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview and Head of Research at Sharplink

Guest:


David Lawant, Head of Research at Anchorage Digital

This clip is from a longer conversation on Strategy's Stretch rescue plan and Bitcoin's options market. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/VwBxQTcJeXc 

New Bits + Bips interviews are posted regularly - subscribe to catch the next one.

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 A new Citi report reveals why retail's crypto excitement has quietly collapsed

📉 00:17 Retail's bet on the Mag Seven just hit a multiyear low

😨 01:15 The unsettling reason retail fears Saylor becoming Bitcoin's buyer of last resort

🃏 01:44 Revisiting Saylor's infamous "sell your organs before your Bitcoin" line

🪙 02:34 The yield problem: why Bitcoin generates nothing, while Ethereum and Solana pay

📈 03:06 David on covered calls and the fast rise of synthetic yield strategies

🏛️ 04:39 Saylor, the OG who wrote the playbook on institutional Bitcoin accumulation

⚓ 06:28 Why David says Strategy is quietly weathering the storm better than anyone
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Regulators try to freeze illicit stablecoins, but the money's usually gone before the freeze lands. The hosts on why crypto sanctions keep failing.

Thanks 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).

A new academic paper from researchers across several Chinese universities makes a striking claim: a stablecoin freeze isn't really a freeze until the transaction lands in a block — which means the freeze itself can be front-run, and sanctions enforcement becomes a market-structure problem.

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le — three general counsels who live where law meets code — work through what it means that Tether and Circle now do much of the government's freezing onchain. The paper's numbers unsettle them: by its count, across eight years only nine freezes caught the money midway.

From there the hosts widen out: the SEC and CFTC's joint push to harmonize margin rules, your ChatGPT logs turning up as evidence in the courtroom, the Legion lawsuit testing whether export law can govern who logs in to an AI model, and the Bernstein ruling that made code protected speech.

They close with a sober CLARITY Act update, a new CBDC-ban roadblock tangled in an unrelated veto fight, and why the end of MiCA's transition period in Europe might be the week's real good news.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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
🏛️ 02:32 KK on why the SEC and CFTC margin harmonization matters for crypto perps

🧊 11:39 Vy on ordering power as sanctioning power and the paper behind it

⚡ 14:43 Why a stablecoin freeze can itself be front run

⚖️ 22:09 The third party doctrine and the risk of deputizing crypto's neutral actors

📣 26:40 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained

💻 27:36 Jessi on why AI in the courtroom is really a software control story

🚪 30:13 The Legion lawsuit, export law, and the Bernstein code-as-speech fight

🔒 37:14 ChatGPT logs as courtroom evidence and why your AI chats aren't private

🏔️ 42:20 The CLARITY Act update: why KK is even more bearish on passage

🇪🇺 47:48 Why MiCA's transition deadline is the week's crypto good news
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The crew is joined by Selini Capital’s Jordi Alexander to break down Open USD, the no-fee stablecoin from a 140-firm consortium spanning Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google and Coinbase, all aimed at the Circle and Tether duopoly. Plus Saylor’s new Digital Credit framework for MicroStrategy, the Ansem-fueled memecoin comeback, and ENS reigniting the “DAOs are fake” debate.

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. Joining the panel “at the moment of max pain” is Jordi Alexander, CIO of Selini Capital. First up: MicroStrategy in crisis, with MSTR down about 30% in five days and STRC hitting $71, and Saylor’s answer, a new Digital Credit framework with an 18-month cash cushion and a jumbo dividend hike to 12%. Then the headline story, Open USD: a no-fee stablecoin from a 140-member consortium including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google and Coinbase, built to break the Circle and Tether duopoly.

The back half covers the memecoin comeback around the Ansem coin, and ENS reigniting the “DAOs are fake” debate after Nick Johnson single-handedly blocked a governance vote, before the crew debates whether consortia are just DAOs in a suit. Let’s get into it.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 MSTR falls about 30% in five days and STRC hits $71. Saylor answers with a new “Digital Credit” framework, an 18-month cash cushion, and a jumbo dividend hike to 12%

🔹 Jordi calls the death-spiral panic overblown: “Luna was worthless; you cannot print Bitcoin”

🔹 Tarun stands by “Luna for suits,” comparing STRC’s marketing to Anchor, right down to the AI ad of Saylor escaping the Titanic

🔹 Open USD launches: a no-fee, no-cap stablecoin backed by 140 firms including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google and Coinbase, aimed at the Circle and Tether duopoly

🔹 Circle drops about 7 to 8% on the news, and Tether’s Paolo Ardoino “welcomes” a real competitor, the same bit he ran on Libra

🔹 Haseeb’s take: a 140-member consortium is “a signed petition,” good for expanding the market but not for taking Tether’s or Circle’s turf

🔹 Tarun says it all comes down to the revenue share. Set the wrong rules and someone just farms the rake

🔹 The Ansem coin sparks a memecoin revival, a roughly $100M cap the market hasn’t seen in a long time

🔹 ENS reignites the DAO debate as Nick Johnson blocks a treasury restructuring with about 50% of the vote. Are consortia just DAOs in a suit?

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly 

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

Guest

⭐️Jordi Alexander, CEO of Selini Capital

Disclosures

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:07 The DeSci beef and Tarun’s Ponzi crusade

03:30 MicroStrategy in crisis: Saylor’s Digital Credit reset

09:34 Is STRC still “Luna for suits”?

19:24 Open USD: 140 firms take on Circle and Tether

29:42 Why a 140-member consortium is just a “signed petition”

42:13 Coinbase’s two masters: USDC vs Open USD

47:01 The memecoin comeback and the Ansem coin

51:57 ENS blows up the DAO: Nick Johnson blocks the vote

57:26 DAOs vs consortia, and can AI save governance?
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Laura Shin has reported on crypto scams since the early days and wrote one of the first stories on sim swaps. That did not stop a spear-phishing attempt from getting her to download software and run a terminal command before she caught it.

Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins turn her near miss into a practical defense playbook, then debate whether self-custody still makes sense for anyone with a public crypto profile.

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:


Laura Shin - Founder and Host of Unchained

This clip is from a longer conversation on crypto security and social engineering. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/yKHaE6xMZsE 

We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsors:

👉 Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained   (use code: UNCHAINED).

Chapters:

🎣 00:00 The fake podcast invite that nearly caught Laura Shin

💻 00:26 How far it went: a download, then a terminal command

🛡️ 05:02 Austin's hard rules for when someone puts time pressure on you

🏦 06:36 Why Ram says ETFs now beat self-custody for public figures

🥷 07:39 Chris on getting hacked and losing his Snoop Dogg NFT

🤖 10:41 Why the same playbook is coming for banks via AI voice clones

🦅 11:33 Chris on letting the private sector recover stolen crypto
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Is it Ethereum or bust? Ansgar Dietrichs makes the case that only Ethereum can anchor the financial system, and admits ETH still lacks a clear value story.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

The Ethereum Foundation is deliberately shrinking its role, and five former researchers have launched Ethlabs to take over the work they worry will otherwise go undone.

Ansgar Dietrichs, co-founder of Ethlabs, joins Laura Shin to lay out the split: the Foundation will protect what should not change, while Ethlabs pushes the parts of Ethereum that must evolve. He makes the case that the global economy is moving onchain, and that Ethereum is the only candidate to sit at the center of it, or no one will.

The conversation traces why ETH the asset has been stuck between $1,000 and $5,000 for five years, why Dietrichs thinks EIP-1559 and cheap blockspace were never intentional choices, how Ethlabs divides labor with the Foundation, Etherealize, and Consensys, and what DeFi founders like Uniswap's Hayden Adams actually need. The throughline is a single missing ingredient he keeps returning to: intentionality about what ETH is actually for.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ansgar Dietrichs - Co-founder of Ethlabs

Timestamps

🏛️ 01:26 Why the Ethereum Foundation is stepping back and the gap Ethlabs fills

🌐 04:00 What Ethereum would look like if Ethlabs succeeds

🧱 07:56 Why Ethlabs is scaling the L1 and fixing interop at the same time

🤝 10:48 How Ethlabs divides labor with the EF, Etherealize, and Consensys

📣 18:34 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could shape the future of finance at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

🔐 19:16 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

💸 20:15 Why ETH has been stuck waiting five years for its next act

🔗 24:24 Does L1 activity still drive ETH's value, and why ETH's interop lags

🔥 27:25 Why Ansgar says cheap blockspace and EIP-1559 were never intentional

🪙 33:27 Why being an Ethereum L2 isn't yet the superpower it should be

🦄 36:17 The culture at the EF and what kind of culture Ethlabs will have

🏢 39:41 The accountability loop: a two to three year runway and who Ethlabs serves

🛠️ 45:33 What DeFi founders actually need from Ethereum, per Hayden and others
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Carmen Li thought it was a joke when a perpetual futures marketplace asked her to become the market maker for her own index. It wasn't.

In this segment from Bits + Bips: The Interview, she walks Steven Ehrlich through the requests that alarmed her, a daughter analogy for why trading your own benchmark destroys neutrality, the manipulation risks she sees in crypto's index practices, and why she insists any perp venue on her index be regulated and guardrailed.

Host:


Steven Ehrlich - Host of Bits + Bips and Head of Research at Sharplink

Guest:


Carmen Li - CEO of Silicon Data and Compute Exchange

This clip is from a longer conversation on GPUs, compute markets, and crypto. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/rYDiPneJv20?si=fjS7bSd-bJ6c6tYb 

We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsors


Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Chapters

🤝 00:00 The perp venues circling her index, and the request that immediately felt off

🚩 01:27 The ask she thought had to be a joke: become the market maker of your own index

👧 02:47 Carmen's daughter analogy that nails why trading your own index breaks neutrality

🛡️ 04:47 The guardrails that keep it honest: external audits and hard internal trading rules

🔀 05:36 Why you can't just swap one index for another and keep on trading

⚖️ 06:26 Her one demand for any perp venue building on her index: regulated and ring fenced
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A regulated exchange suing its own regulator almost never happens. The hosts trace why CME did it, and why the CFTC may have better odds than crypto Twitter thinks.

Thanks to our sponsor!


👉 Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠.


👉 Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at⁠ https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED).

CME has sued the CFTC, its own primary regulator, a rare move for a regulated exchange, landing the day after longtime CEO Terry Duffy announced he would step down. The trigger: the CFTC's approval of a narrowly tailored Kalshi Bitcoin perpetual, the first true perp cleared onshore.

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le untangle CME's two arguments, that perps are swaps rather than futures, and that the agency acted arbitrarily by skipping notice and comment and reversing its own prior position in a single day. They weigh whether the case can win, and why the process may matter more than the outcome.

From there, the panel digs into Cboe's prediction-style S&P 500 contracts headed to Schwab's customers and the binary-option-versus-swap line. With a recent poll finding 43% of Americans believe AI could "literally end the human race," Jessi argues crypto can't afford to dismiss the people who become its juries, judges, and voters.

The conversation covers the CME lawsuit, prediction markets arriving on Wall Street, a viral $1 to $5 million crypto legal job, and the growing public backlash against AI.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges.


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda

Timestamps
🏛️ 01:59 Why a regulated exchange suing its own regulator almost never happens

⚖️ 04:38 CME's two arguments, and why "future delivery" could reach the Supreme Court

🧠 12:51 Why process and durability may matter more than the outcome

🚪 19:54 How the Kalshi order opened the floodgates for self-certified perps

📊 23:48 Cboe's S&P 500 prediction contracts head to Schwab, and the binary-option-versus-swap line

🛡️ 33:27 Cape: Stop SIM swaps and get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

💙 34:22 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

💼 35:05 The Pump.fun chief legal officer job and its $1 to $5 million salary

🤖 37:02 Why the AI vibe check has turned bleak and why crypto should care

🐶 47:10 This week's good news: the Marlins hunt for the hot dog meme
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vinny Lingham warned 18 months ago that Michael Saylor would harm Bitcoin more than FTX. Now he maps how the Strategy empire breaks and the one move that could slow the bleed.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Strategy's stock has fallen over 80% from its November 2024 high, its STRC preferred trades well below par, and a fresh $335 million raise has done nothing to restore confidence.

Vinny Lingham, co-founder of Praxos Capital, tweeted in October 2024 that Michael Saylor would do more damage to Bitcoin than FTX. On Unchained, he argues the collapse was always predictable, and that this is not a Ponzi but what he calls a 'Saylor scheme.'

Lingham maps how the empire breaks once MSTR trades at a discount to mNAV, why the 32-Bitcoin sale and the $1.5 billion buyback of 2029 converts blew Saylor's runway, and why $6.7 billion in convertible notes raises default risk by 2028. He also weighs a Soros-style attack theory and the switch to bimonthly dividends.

His fix is the one thing Saylor won't do: stop buying, stop diluting, wait it out. The question is who removes the biggest buyer of Bitcoin, him or the market.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vinny Lingham - Co-founder of Praxos Capital

Timestamps

📉 01:11 Strategy in free fall: why Vinny says the collapse was always coming

🪤 06:24 Why buying back 2029 debt blew Saylor's runway

₿ 07:36 The '32 years of dividends' claim and what a deeper bear market does to it

🏚️ 10:23 How the MSTR empire actually breaks: the discount-to-mNAV trap

🎯 13:35 Why is Strategy faltering? Is it leverage or a Soros-style attack on MSTR?

💙 16:38 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

💚 17:32 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

📆 18:15 Why switching to bimonthly dividends makes the problem worse

⏳ 19:29 The $6.7B convertible-note overhang and the 2028 default risk

🛟 22:07 Can MSTR be saved, and the most likely outcome from here
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An anti-MEV activist spent weeks building 66 fake contracts to trap the sandwich bot jaredfromsubway.eth. Then jared's operators did the one thing nobody expected.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsors!

Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

A new R&D lab called Ethlabs has split from the Ethereum Foundation, backed by Bitmine and Joe Lubin. Its first stated goal is solving a '15 minute finality problem' that none of the hosts can quite explain the point of.

Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Luca Netz ask whether a breakaway staffed largely by ex-EF people can really escape the EF's habits, or just rebuild a smaller version of them. 

Then the conversation turns to fomo's $75M raise from non-crypto VCs, and why a trading app that never calls itself a wallet may have cracked the onboarding flow the rest of crypto keeps getting wrong.

The hosts also trace a CryptoPunks judge ordering a self-represented plaintiff to handwrite filings to stop the AI slop, the anti-MEV activist who trapped sandwich bot jaredfromsubway.eth with 66 fake contracts, and the WSJ's claim that Polymarket paid creators to stage fake winning bets.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Timestamps

🧪 02:06 Ethlabs breaks from the EF: what the new R&D lab is actually for

🤔 03:57 Why the 'fifteen minute finality' framing baffles the hosts

📈 15:40 fomo's $75M raise and why a no-token trading app pulled it off

🧱 21:45 The wallet lesson: why building for trading beats building for custody

💙 30:48 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained

⚖️ 31:44 The CryptoPunks lawsuit where a judge ordered AI-slop filings handwritten

🥪 41:04 What a sandwich bot is and why jaredfromsubway.eth became infamous

🪤 45:34 How an anti-MEV activist trapped Jared with 66 fake token contracts

🏛️ 50:46 Why Jared running to the courts under the CFAA makes no sense

😤 56:36 Kain on the exploiter who cries foul when someone finally steals from him

📺 59:20 The WSJ claim that Polymarket paid creators to stage fake winning bets
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The crew debates whether Saylor's STRC preferred shares are "Luna for suits," unpacks the ETH Labs spin-out and Ethereum Foundation layoffs, breaks down the CME's lawsuit against the CFTC to kill domestic perps, and weighs whether Meta's leaked prediction market Arena is a real threat to Polymarket.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, Saylor's STRC preferred shares, which have broken below their $100 target. Laura argues it's a confidence crisis, Tarun calls it "Luna for suits," and Haseeb pushes back — there's no death spiral, Saylor can just defer dividends and "burn the boat." Then the Ethereum Foundation shakeup: ETH Labs spinning out with seven senior EF members while the EF lays off 20% of its headcount.

The back half covers the CME suing the CFTC to block domestic perps — which Haseeb frames as "suing for the right to not compete" — and Meta's leaked prediction market Arena, where Tom reveals this is Meta's third or fourth attempt at prediction markets. Let's get into it.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 Saylor's STRC preferred shares break below $100 target — Tarun calls it "Luna for suits"

🔹 Haseeb pushes back: no death spiral, no margin calls — Saylor can defer dividends and "burn the boat"

🔹 Tom reveals Strategy execs are cold-calling crypto funds to sell them STRC — "very Luna"

🔹 ETH Labs spins out with 7 senior EF members as the Foundation lays off ~20% of headcount

🔹 CME sues CFTC to block domestic perps — Haseeb: "suing for the right to not compete"

🔹 Haseeb proposes 100-year futures as a workaround to route around the lawsuit

🔹 Meta leaks prediction market Arena — Tom reveals this is Meta's third or fourth attempt at prediction markets

🔹 Tarun argues prediction markets will be viewed as information social networks within five years

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly 

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

Guest

⭐️Laura Shin, Journalist, Author of ‘The Cryptopians,’ Founder and CEO of Unchained

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:10 STRC & Strategy: Saylor "Luna for suits"

12:33 No death spiral — burn the boat

17:06 Strategy execs cold-calling crypto funds

20:06 Ethereum Foundation shakeup & ETH Labs spin-out

27:33 ETH Labs is the ghost of Tomasz

35:20 CME sues CFTC to block domestic perps

44:44 100-year futures as a workaround

50:29 Meta's prediction market "Arena"

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Three years ago, Chris Perkins sat across from Terry Duffy in Congress and made the case for perpetuals. Duffy pushed back — hard. Now Duffy's CME is suing the very regulator that finally allowed them.

The CME argues Bitcoin perpetual futures are really swaps and should carry far more collateral. Chris traces the Dodd-Frank history that created the swap-versus-future divide, and Austin Campbell lays out why picking this fight in a post-Chevron court could backfire on the incumbent. Is a perpetual a swap or a future, and who gets to decide?

Hosts:


Austin Campbell - Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern


Ram Ahluwalia - Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida


Chris Perkins - Co-host of Bits + Bips and Head of Franklin Crypto

This clip is from a longer conversation on tokenization, the AI trade, and the CME's lawsuit against the CFTC. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/oSiOeWq_pKE 

We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live. 

Sponsor


Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Chapters

⚖️ 00:00 The incumbent sues its own regulator: what the CME is actually claiming

📜 01:22 Chris on Terry Duffy, and the testimony fight that set this up

🏛️ 02:12 The Dodd-Frank origin story, traced back to the 2009 G20

⏱️ 03:12 Why a 'swap' costs five days of margin and a future costs two

🌊 04:42 Constrain leverage onshore and watch it flee offshore

⚠️ 05:15 Austin: why the CME should be careful what it wishes for

🧨 06:26 The Dodd-Frank footnote where Congress admits it punted

🤝 08:20 ICE, OKX, and Kraken: where the dance partners line up

🎯 09:12 What the market really needs out of all this
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Was Michael Saylor wrong to sell Bitcoin? Matt Cole breaks from his fellow critics on Strategy, S&P's junk rating on MSTR, and whether the model is breaking.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.


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Strive's Matt Cole had just lived through what he called the most difficult day in the history of digital credit when he sat down to defend it. STRC had touched $82.50, SATA had slipped into the low nineties, and the Bitcoin treasury trade was suddenly the most argued-over corner of crypto.

Cole came from a pension background and built Strive into one of the largest Bitcoin treasury companies around a single conviction: that structured credit can solve an income problem fiat can't. The critics, he argues, can't even agree with each other on what is actually wrong.

Was last week a leverage liquidation or a crack in the model? Did Michael Saylor quietly change his story? And is wrapping Bitcoin in preferred stock a betrayal of its ethos or the bridge most people actually need? Laura Shin pressed on all of it.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matt Cole - Chairman and CEO of Strive

Timestamps

🎙️ 02:07 What Strive is, and why Matt calls SATA the company's main product

🏦 10:16 Could Strive cut SATA's 13% yield without breaking par?

👥 15:45 Who is actually buying SATA, and the one buyer Matt says he's never met

📣 25:15 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers and make the decision that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

🔒 25:58 Cape: Use code unchained for 33% off at https://cape.co/unchained

💧 27:28 What Matt thinks really drove last week's STRC drop, and why SATA didn't follow

🏛️ 31:28 Why Matt won't fault Saylor for selling, and the S&P rating he calls a joke

⚖️ 50:53 Is buying SATA un-Bitcoin? Matt answers the Mallers vs Saylor critique
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Kalshi just brought crypto perps to the US, targeting a $90 trillion offshore market. Its Head of Crypto, John Wang, explains the bet, the risks, and who Kalshi is actually competing with.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠⁠.


⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

The $90 trillion offshore market for crypto perpetual futures just got its first US-regulated entrant. Kalshi — the prediction market exchange that raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation — launched the first CFTC-approved crypto perps, becoming the only domestic exchange approved on launch day.

John Wang, Kalshi's Head of Crypto, joins Laura Shin to map how perpetual futures work, why Kalshi's guarantee fund and segregated accounts differ from what offshore venues provide, and how the exchange plans to compete with Hyperliquid, Coinbase, and Kraken.

Wang pushes back on CME Group CEO Terry Duffy's claim that crypto perps are "a disaster waiting to happen," noting CME's own futures carry higher leverage than Kalshi's platform. He covers the ARCA and Galaxy block trades on Kalshi's prediction markets, insider trading protections built around athlete and congressional staff lists, and the regulatory filings separating Kalshi from perps on equities. Wang estimates only 0.2% of the US has adopted perpetual futures — the real growth has barely started.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠John Wang - Head of Crypto at Kalshi

Timestamps

🎯 02:51 Why Kalshi chose crypto perps as its first product outside prediction markets

🔧 05:15 What a perpetual future is and why traders prefer it over options and standard futures

🤓 11:14 The metric that reveals real demand: Kalshi's ratio of trading volume to open interest

🛡️ 14:19 How Kalshi plans to onboard Americans, and how its risk model differs from Hyperliquid's auto-deleveraging

🏛️ 21:05 Wang on Terry Duffy's claim that crypto perps are 'a disaster waiting to happen'

🎓 23:17 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

📱 24:00 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained

🤝 25:32 How institutions are pitching its perps to institutions — and which ones have so far done trades

🌐 33:09 How Kalshi plans to compete with Hyperliquid, Coinbase, Kraken, and Robinhood

🔍 41:14 How Kalshi attempts to prevent insider trading — and what John thinks about its rivalry with Polymarket

💰 46:16 Kalshi's roadmap after its $1 billion raise at a $22 billion valuation
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The government export-controlled Anthropic's best model. Kain, Luca, and Taylor debate whether Dario talked his way into it and what the shutdown means for every AI lab.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsors!

⁠⁠Multichain Advisors⁠⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at https://multichainadv.com.

========================================================

A reported jailbreak of Anthropic's most powerful model, Fable, triggered US government export controls, and the Uneasy Money hosts argue Dario Amodei's response on the call with the administration made it inevitable. Kain, Taylor, and Luca dig into what Dario got wrong, why a company about to go public had no one in Washington who could speak the government's language, and what it means that the shutdown drew no public backlash.

Porter Stowell, CEO of W3.io and a Coinbase alum, joins for the first half with his read on the exchange's big announcement day: agentic payments on Base, tokenized stocks, and a ground-up trading rebuild. Midway through, Luca drops something unannounced: Igloo has built a financial instrument to list crypto tokens directly on the NYSE as securities, with protocol revenue flowing back to holders.

The episode closes on Strategy, and why Kain thinks selling 32 Bitcoin, then buying back 1,587 two weeks later, exposes the structural risk of a belief-based asset with one dominant buyer.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Guest:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Porter Stowell - CEO of W3.io

Timestamps
🏦 03:16 Porter Stowell on why Coinbase's announcement day signals a real shift in how the exchange competes

💬 06:26 Luca on why Coinbase's core trading product still lags: charts that won't load and page refreshes to buy Bitcoin

🤖 17:40 Porter on why agentic payments on Base is the real sleeper from Coinbase's announcement day

📋 25:10 What "real" means in Coinbase's tokenized stocks launch and whether the custody approach actually differentiates it

💡 34:15 Luca reveals Igloo's instrument to list crypto tokens directly on the NYSE as securities

📣 41:12 Multichain Advisors: Navigate TGEs, go-to-market, and capital markets advisory at https://multichainadv.com

🧠 41:54 What Fable was, why it scared security researchers, and how a reported jailbreak report ended it

⚠️ 48:36 Taylor on why Anthropic's communications with the government made the Fable export control inevitable

🏛️ 57:09 Kain on why the Fable shutdown is the 'first fracture' in AI, and what the lack of pushback means

🌍 01:00:18 Binance's EU license bid in doubt, and Kain's contrarian case that losing Europe is bullish

📉 01:07:32 Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin on June 1 then bought back 1,587: what the panic reaction revealed about Bitcoin's concentration risk
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Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale Investments, argues that speculative retail flows, not geopolitical fundamentals, drove the recent gold and Bitcoin selloffs. His read: momentum chasing built gold from $4,000 to well above $5,000, then rotated out to chips and pre-IPO trades. The underlying deficit-and-debt case for both assets hasn't changed, and he's calling the dip a buy for longer-horizon investors.

He closes with Grayscale's H2 DeFi revenue thesis. Hyperliquid is the clearest proof of concept: a protocol with a clear use case, real revenue, and value returned to token holders. Grayscale applied a discounted cash flow model to Aave and published a price target on the token.

Host:


Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview and Head of Research at Sharplink - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich

Guest:


Zach Pandl - Head of Research at Grayscale Investments - https://x.com/LowBeta

This clip is from a longer conversation on the Fed's hawkish pivot, the SpaceX IPO, crypto winter, and Strategy's preferred equity. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/WIlLtRQidQg?si=ONIIkcPElZFgpa8l 

We go live every Thursday at 12:00pm ET - subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsors


Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Chapters

🔍 00:00 Steve on gold and Bitcoin's worst quarter - what happened during the Iran war

📊 00:57 Why Pandl argues speculation, not fundamentals, drove both the run-up and the selloff

🥇 02:42 The buy case - Pandl on what to do when speculative excess washes out

💡 03:25 Steve asks about second-half assets and Standard Chartered's Uniswap call

💰 03:50 Why Hyperliquid and Aave anchor Grayscale's H2 DeFi revenue thesis
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The federal government pulled Anthropic's Fable 5 offline with no public process — and Jessi Brooks makes the case it's a crypto chokepoint story, not just an AI one.

Thanks to our sponsor!


👉 Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com.


👉 Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

The federal government forced Anthropic to take Fable 5 offline last week, and the justification is still murky. Jessi Brooks makes the case that what began as a cybersecurity story is really a chokepoint story, one crypto has seen before. With no transparent process, no technical experts cited, and no clear legal authority, she argues the administration has effectively invented KYC for AI, raising questions far beyond Anthropic.

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le work through two regulatory moves with real market-structure stakes. The CFTC released a near-300-page proposed rule on prediction markets, amending Rule 40.11 and clearing political event contracts. The SEC moved to repeal Reg NMS Rules 611 and 610E, two-decade-old market pillars.

Vy Le argues the repeal is crypto's real opening: stop forcing AMMs to fit the old rules and start building the replacement, where solver auctions and cryptographic attestations let investors and regulators verify execution in real time. The throughline across the week is the same: when Washington moves this fast and quietly, is crypto the cautionary tale or the fix?

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges.


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda

Timestamps
🤖 03:04 Why the Fable 5 shutdown is a chokepoint story, not just a security one

🔑 09:36 Jessi on why inventing KYC for AI with no process echoes the Gensler era

☢️ 18:48 Why Vy Le puts AI on the threat level of the nuclear bomb

🏛️ 22:36 What the CFTC's near-300-page prediction-markets rule changes in Rule 40.11

📣 34:21 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

📈 36:32 Why the SEC's Reg NMS repeal could clear the way for onchain markets

⚙️ 41:18 Why Vy Le says crypto already built the tools for better best execution

📑 46:42 Why Citi's 'tokenized shares' aren't shares, plus Coinbase's onchain dividends

🦕 51:26 Crypto good news: Jurassic Finance tokenizes dinosaur bones
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The crew breaks down the SpaceX IPO's crypto-like low float dynamics and Hyperliquid's price prediction, debates accredited investor laws and failed tokenized stock allocations, dives into Fable 5's export control shutdown after Amazon flagged a jailbreak to the Treasury Secretary, and argues whether open source AI models will eat frontier pricing.

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. Robert is back after a brief hiatus recording his own podcast, The Pop, for Superstate — and the crew wastes no time roasting him for it before diving into the biggest week of news in recent memory.

First up: the SpaceX IPO, the largest in history, and why it looks eerily like a crypto token launch — 4.2% float, retail getting cut out, and Hyperliquid perps predicting the first-day pop almost to the dollar. The crew debates TradeXYZ's winner-take-all dominance of HIP3 and why building on top of Hyperliquid might be a terrible startup environment. Then they unpack Elon's financial engineering genius — the Cursor acquisition as all-stock crypto playbook, XAI's pivot from failed AI lab to compute reseller, and why Grok is (unanimously) an embarrassing piece of shit.

The conversation shifts to accredited investor laws, SPV dentists, and why every crypto platform failed to deliver SpaceX IPO allocations. From there, Coinbase's massive system update — tokenized stocks, an SEC-registered AI chatbot, combos, and 15-minute markets. Then things get spicy: Robert asks Claude about SBF on air, Sonnet gets it hilariously wrong, and everyone roasts him for not using Opus.

The back half is all about Fable 5 — Amazon's jailbreak discovery, Andy Jassy calling Dario (who didn't pick up), and the export controls that shut down the most powerful commercial AI model ever released. Robert drops his most surprising take: "I am EAC, but this is a dry run of pressing the pause button." The episode closes with a heated debate on whether Chinese open source models will eat frontier AI pricing and a bet that may or may not have been agreed upon. 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 SpaceX IPO breaks records with a 4.2% float — the closest thing to a crypto token launch Wall Street has ever done

🔹 Hyperliquid perps predicted the SpaceX first-day pop almost exactly, with $1.4B in daily volume on a single stock

🔹 TradeXYZ dominates HIP3 as other integrators fold — "HIP3 should be renamed to Trade"

🔹 SpaceX's all-stock Cursor acquisition mirrors the CZ/FTT playbook — Elon learned from crypto

🔹 Accredited investor laws debated after Brian Armstrong calls for reform post-SpaceX IPO

🔹 Every crypto platform that promised SpaceX IPO allocations failed to deliver after the deal went 5x oversubscribed

🔹 Coinbase launches tokenized stocks with real dividends, an SEC-registered AI advisor, combos, and 15-minute markets

🔹 Robert asks Claude about SBF on air — Sonnet 4.6 hallucinates, Opus 4.8 gets it right, model war ensues

🔹 Fable 5 shut down after Amazon flagged a jailbreak to Treasury Secretary Bessent — Dario didn't pick up the phone

🔹 Robert says "I am EAC" but argues the Fable shutdown is a healthy dry run of pressing the AI pause button

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly Disclosures
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For the tenth anniversary of Unchained, Laura reflects on the SBF question she never asked, the Charles Hoskinson beef, and why she may be done with strict neutrality.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠⁠Fidelity⁠⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠⁠.


⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Unchained started as a side project by Laura in 2016, with two interviews recorded on Necker Island. Ten years later, it’s become a network of podcasts and newsletters. Haseeb Qureshi of one of most beloved podcasts on the network, The Chopping Block, chats with Laura about everything from its origins to biggest regrets to her interview style and more.  Plus, she reveals the one regret she has over a question she never got to ask Sam Bankman-Fried after the collapse of FTX.

Haseeb, managing partner at Dragonfly and an effective altruist himself, traces whether EA's moral framework enabled SBF's fraud, or whether SBF simply had ordinary delusions of grandeur. 

The conversation also moves through Charles Hoskinson's disputed PhD claims, the Brian Armstrong interview that never happened, and Laura's emerging conviction that ten years of institutional disillusionment may be pushing her away from the neutrality that built her career.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠⁠Haseeb Qureshi - Managing Partner of Dragonfly - https://x.com/hosseeb

Timestamps

🎙️ 1:46 How Unchained started: Necker Island, first guests, and the year-one sponsor

📰 6:46 Why Laura sold her crypto for journalism ethics and why she bought back in years later

😳 10:45 Why the SBF collapse was Laura's biggest shock in 11 years of covering crypto

🧠 14:24 Laura's 'license to play God' critique of effective altruism and Haseeb's rebuttal

❓ 23:32 The question Laura would have asked SBF after the FTX Collapse and why nobody did

🎤 25:16 Why Brian Armstrong has never been on the show and Laura's neutrality code

📣 30:08 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers and make the decision that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

🌐 30:58 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained

⚔️ 32:19 Laura ranks her worst and best Crypto Twitter brawls

🎭 38:33 Why Haseeb thinks The Chopping Block works best as a play, not a roundtable

🤔 47:06 Laura asks whether she should shed journalistic neutrality after ten years

🗞️ 51:06 Why Laura now believes independent journalism is better for humanity
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The US government issued a Friday-night export control directive against Anthropic's Fable 5, citing a jailbreak that could expose advanced cyber capabilities built into the underlying Mythos model. No statutory authority was publicly disclosed. No comment period was given.

Sam Enzer, Partner and CahillNXT Co-Chair at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, joins Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins to assess the directive's legal standing. Enzer draws a parallel to Gensler-era regulation by enforcement: familiar government power applied to new technology, with no transparent framework. His central question: if export controls can reach an AI model's API, can the same authority reach a US-based DeFi protocol serving foreign nationals?

Austin raises the Choke Point parallel and asks where the limiting principle actually is. Ram argues that restricting software is restricting speech under the First Amendment. Chris warns that national security will always be the trump card unless the industry makes a credible counter-argument.

Hosts:


Austin Campbell, Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern - https://x.com/austincampbell


Ram Ahluwalia, Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida - https://x.com/ramahluwalia


Chris Perkins, Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management - https://x.com/perkinscr97

Guest:


Sam Enzer, Partner and CahillNXT Co-Chair at Cahill Gordon & Reindel

This clip is from a longer conversation on AI export controls, national security, and the First Amendment. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/pEh1zr1pj90 

We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsors

👉 Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com 

Chapters

🤖 00:00 Austin on the Fable 5 export directive: what the ban said and what Anthropic disputes

⚖️ 02:09 Sam Enzer's initial take: a familiar overreach pattern with unfamiliar stakes

📜 05:03 Sam on what's missing from the directive: no public letter, no statutory basis, no comment period

🏛️ 07:06 Austin on the Choke Point parallel and the question the government hasn't answered

🔒 08:40 Chris on national security as the regulatory trump card and what the industry needs to counter it

📚12:21 Ram on why banning a model is the new book burning

🗳️ 18:15 Sam on what the government should do: due process, disclosed authority, and FOIA
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OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceXand the AI IPO cycle face a structural problem: a cheap, capable open source exit is already drawing enterprise users away before either company goes public.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!


⁠Fidelity⁠: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they're hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: ⁠crypto.fidelitycareers.com⁠.


⁠Cape⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

A viral tweet by Tom Shaughnessy, founding partner of Delphi Ventures, identified the most basic way AI could blow up: a 40x subsidy gap between consumer AI subscriptions and enterprise API costs quietly pushing businesses toward open source inference providers at 1% of the price. Citadel Securities published a near-identical thesis shortly after.

Shaughnessy joins Laura Shin to map the implications for the AI IPO wave, starting with SpaceX. Low floats and passive index demand should lift these stocks out of the gate, but public market disclosures will force OpenAI and Anthropic to reveal payback periods, margins, and subscriber numbers for the first time. He also argues OpenAI's reported price cuts target Anthropic's growth metrics before the IPO, not user demand.

The episode also covers the China model wildcard, whether AI model restrictions amount to big brother fearmongering, and whether crypto's tools for capital formation could keep the AGI flywheel from stalling.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


⁠Tom Shaughnessy - Founding Partner of Delphi Ventures and Co-Founder of Delphi Digital

Timestamps

💸 01:10 Why over $600B left crypto in 30 days: AI deal outflows, the SpaceX IPO. and quantum concerns

🧵 04:46 Tom's viral tweet: the 40x subsidy gap hidden in AI subscription pricing

📊 07:51 Why AI IPO filings will force the financials nobody has seen

💡 10:16 Why open source inference will compete with the frontier labs

🏗️ 13:06 Why frontier labs need to own what they create, not collect $200 per month

📣 15:55 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained

📣 17:01 Fidelity: Explore crypto careers that could change your future at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

🌏 18:08 Chinese open source models and why going closed source could help OpenAI

⚔️ 20:58 Why Tom says OpenAI's price cuts target Anthropic's IPO, not users

🤬 22:09 Why AI model censorship is big brother fearmongering

🔗 24:42 Crypto's answer: ICO for open source AI, Nous Hermes, Venice, Grass, Ambient
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Claude Fable 5 refuses security work, Kain Warwick pulls $5,000 of compute from a $200 plan, and Humanity Protocol loses its bridge, token, and treasury to one infected device.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsors!

⁠Multichain Advisors⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at https://multichainadv.com.

========================================================

Anthropic promised Mythos and shipped Claude Fable 5 instead. The model found a four-year-old bug in Zcash's shielded pool that survived multiple expert audits. But when Anthropic shipped the model days later, it was no longer willing to audit smart contracts, bailing the moment a prompt smells like security work.Jailbreakers are already turning a jailbroken Opus 4.8 against it, while white hats sit locked out.

Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Luca Netz weigh the defender's dilemma: builders cannot point the model at their own code, but nobody can prove black hats have not jailbroken their way in —  and, the hosts warn,North Korean threat actors have spent more than six months harvesting AI API keys.

Then Kain runs the numbers on the subsidy: roughly 200 million tokens in four hours on a $200 plan, about $5,000 at API rates, and on the 22nd Fable goes API only as the first unsubsidized frontier model. Plus Pump.fun's bounty marketplace and the Humanity Protocol hack, which left the hosts asking why a 3-of-6 multisig existed at all. When the subsidies stop, who still gets the frontier?

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Timestamps

🤖 00:40 Why Kain says Fable 5 should have been named Fable zero

🛡️ 03:50 Taylor on how Fable downgrades the second anything touches security

🕵️ 10:42Taylor on stolen AI keys,tokens and North Korea's new favorite loot

🧠 15:48 Does Fable reason like a senior engineer? Kain's 100-doc planning test

💸 20:06 How Kain pulled $5,000 of API value from a $200 Claude plan in four hours

🐧 ~33:45 How Igloo budgets $50K a month on AI, and the bot "brain" running the org

📊 44:00 Multichain Advisors: start building real traction with the team behind $50B at https://multichainadv.com

🎪 44:41 Pump.fun's bounty circus: tattoo typo, the Bootywork coin, Luca's steelman

🚨 55:36 How one infected device cost Humanity Protocol its bridge, token, and treasury
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