Unchained

Will AI agents use cards or stablecoins? Here’s how two crypto VCs see the agentic future shaping up.

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What happens when merchants are code instead of storefronts? Noah Levine and Robbie Petersen debate whether stablecoins or cards win in an agentic economy, and more importantly, where the profit pools end up.

One sees headless merchants driving a new payment stack; the other warns that front ends never fully disappear. Both agree on this: traditional fraud detection will likely fail against AI behavior patterns, and the rails question masks a deeper problem of regulatory and social inertia.

The outcome hinges on whether permissionless infrastructure can outcompete existing payment incumbents, and whether agentic commerce actually scales beyond niche use cases.

Guest:

• Noah Levine, Partner at a16z

• Robbie Petersen, Junior Partner at Dragonfly

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Chaos Labs’ Omer Goldberg joins the crew to dig into the Resolv Labs exploit. Why was the USR minting function controlled by a single key? And how did audits miss it?

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$25 million extracted and millions more in bad debt across lending protocols.

Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg joins Uneasy Money hosts Kain Warwick, Luca Netz and Taylor Monahan to unpack the Resolv exploit.

They dive into how the exploit reveals DeFi's basic OpSec and risk judgement failings. Omer highlights the various ways it could have been prevented as Tay says protocol audits have become “security theater.”

Kain questions Morpho's curator model after its pools were hit hard as the contagion spread. He also highlights markers that suggest the exploit may have been executed in panic.

Beyond the Resolv exploit, the crew highlights that Aave v4 has made it out of governance, discussing the motivations behind the upgrade and whether the hub and spoke model will impact listing standards.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Guest:

• Omer Goldberg, Founder and CEO of Chaos Labs

Links:

• Unchained:

• Aave V4 Clears First Governance Vote with 100% Support After Months of Internal Conflict

• Stani Kulechov on Why Aave Labs Is Putting Itself at the Mercy of the DAO

• How Aave Labs and the DAO Should Split Ownership of the Brand – Uneasy Money
  

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Trump pulled off a five-day ceasefire nobody expected. Ram calls it the greatest TACO of his career.

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Trump announced a five-day pause on strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure just hours before his own 48-hour ultimatum expired. Oil crashed below $90. Bitcoin surged from $68,200 to above $71,000. Ram called it the greatest TACO of Trump’s career and said the Trump put is officially here.

Meanwhile the Fed held rates steady but the dot plot revealed a historically wide internal split: seven members want zero cuts in 2026 while five want 50 basis points or more. Powell warned inflation isn’t coming down as hoped with projections now at 2.7% for headline. 

And in tech, Elon Musk unveiled a $25 billion chip fab that Ram says is pure fiction while Bezos raised $100 billion to buy manufacturing companies and transform them with AI.

Hosts:

• Austin Campbell, Host of Bits + Bips, Zero Knowledge Consulting

• Ram Ahluwalia, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida

• Chris Perkins, Co-Host, President of CoinFund

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Bitcoin dropped under $69K even as the SEC and CFTC create more clarity for crypto, and agentic commerce looks like it will reshape the sector.

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Bitcoin dropped under $69K after the Fed, ECB, and Bank of England all held rates steady this week, while Australia hiked. Kaiko's Laurens Fraussen joins to explain what's actually happening beneath the surface, from collapsing liquidity to a quiet geographic shift in who's buying.

He also makes the case that agentic commerce could reshape how crypto payments work entirely and we break down why the market mostly shrugged at the latest crypto guidance from the SEC and CFTC.

Host:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview

Guest:

• ⁠Laurens Fraussen, Research Analyst at Kaiko

Links:

Bitcoin, Markets, and the Iran Conflict

• Bitcoin Holding at $70,000 as Iran War Stokes Inflation Concerns — Bloomberg
• These 3 Charts Show Bitcoin’s War-Linked Selloff Keeps Shrinking as Iran Conflict Worsens — CoinDesk
• What Bitcoin’s Falling Hash Rate Might Mean for Prices — CoinDesk
• What’s Next for Bitcoin Price Amid Iran War and Oil Prices Surge — DL News

Central bank rate decisions

• Fed Interest Rate Decision March 2026: Holds Rates Steady — CNBC
• Fed Meeting Recap: Powell Says Inflation Isn’t Coming Down as Much as ‘Hoped’ — CNBC
• Bank Rate Maintained at 3.75%, March 2026 — Bank of England
• ECB, BOE, Swiss National Bank, Riksbank Interest Rate Decisions — CNBC
• ECB Holds Rates, Predicts 2.6% Inflation for 2026 — Central Banking

SEC/CFTC Interpretive Guidance

• SEC Clarifies the Application of Federal Securities Laws to Crypto Assets — SEC.gov
• Joint Interpretation From the SEC and CFTC on Certain Types of Crypto Assets — Free Writings & Perspectives
• SEC Names Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and 13 More Crypto Assets Digital Commodities — FinTech Weekly

Agentic Commerce and Payments

• Stripe-Led Payments Blockchain Tempo Goes Live With AI Agent Protocol — CoinDesk
• Stripe and Paradigm’s Tempo Mainnet Goes Live for Machine Payments — Crypto.news
• Coinbase-Backed AI Payments Protocol Wants to Fix Micropayments but Demand Is Just Not There Yet — CoinDesk
• Google Agentic Payments Protocol + x402: Agents Can Now Actually Pay Each Other — Coinbase
• Google Debuts ‘Universal’ Protocol for Agentic Commerce — PYMNTS
• Coinbase and Cloudflare Will Launch the x402 Foundation — Coinbase
• World Launches AgentKit With Coinbase-Backed x402 to Verify Human Identity Behind AI Agents — CoinDesk

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Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and CPO of Mysten Labs,  walks through how Hashi works and how it differs from the competition. Can it succeed where others have failed?

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Mysten Labs has announced Hashi, a protocol designed to unlock several financial applications for native Bitcoin in a trust minimized way.

Mysten Labs co-founder Adeniyi Abiodun walks through how Hashi works and how it differs from wrapped Bitcoin tokens and L2s.

He says the protocol is built with institutions in mind, highlighting for one that it does not trigger a tax event like alternatives and also comes with low-premium on-chain Bitcoin denominated insurance.

Listen to find out how Hashi manages these and more.

Will Mysten Labs succeed in unlocking Bitcoin's long-desired $1.4 trillion liquidity?

Guest:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-Founder and CPO of Mysten Labs

Links

• Unchained:

• Sui Blockchain Restored After Six-Hour Outage

• Sui-Based Typus Finance Loses $3.4 Million in Hack

• Coinbase’s cbBTC Crosses $1 Billion Market Cap, Deploys on Solana

• New Bitcoin Liquid Staking Protocols Aim to Replicate Lido’s Success

• Kraken Launches Wrapped Bitcoin Token kBTC

• Top Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) Alternatives You Should Know About

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The crew unpacks the significance of the Trade[XYZ] S&P 500 license, why Vanity Fair's recent crypto piece is so controversial and whether the EF is returning to “communism.”

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Trade[XYZ] has obtained a license from the S&P Dow Jones Indices to offer S&P 500 perps on Hyperliquid. A crypto trader lost $50 million in a single Aave swap. A Vanity Fair crypto shoot and article is sparking backlash. And the Ethereum Foundation has unveiled a “new” mandate.

Uneasy Money hosts Kain Warwick, Luca Netz and Taylor Monahan dig into what the S&P license means for crypto with Kain saying it is not priced in yet.

They also debate whether DeFi frontends should block high slippage swaps after the recent Aave swap gone wrong.

Plus, did Vanity Fair intend to mock crypto? Luca shares how he dodged the bullet. Tay explains why OpenSea founder Devin Finzer and his wife got the most heat. Kain lets slip how he found himself on the New York Times for buying Trump's memecoin.

And why Kain does not think the Ethereum Foundation's new mandate matters in the long-run.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Links:

• Unchained:

  • S&P 500 Gets First Officially Licensed Onchain Perpetual, Landing on Hyperliquid

  • Dueling Post-Mortems Reveal How a $50 Million DeFi Swap Went From Bad to Catastrophic

  • Ethereum Foundation Codifies Its Own Obsolescence in New Mandate

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The crew unpacks the Binance case against the Wall Street Journal. Is the lawsuit just for optics? Plus, why crypto can't turn a blind eye to one Aave user's $50 million loss.

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Get started at nexo.com/unchained Binance has sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation over a report that money has flowed from its platform to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. 

DEX in the City hosts Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and Jessi Brooks are joined by Arktouros Partner Jane Khodarkovsky to discuss the sanctions implications of the story, what is at stake in the lawsuit and the burden of proof on Binance. 

Is Binance fighting a losing battle? And could the case backfire amid a parallel DOJ investigation?

Beyond the Binance case, the crew unpacks recent efforts by the CFTC and SEC to provide crypto with regulatory clarity. Find out why KK says the CFTC's recent prediction markets guidance is a “nothingburger” and why a no-action letter to Phantom is not a carte blanche for all crypto frontends.

Plus, is it time for crypto to consider best execution rules as an Aave user loses $50 million in a DeFi swap gone wrong?

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare

Guest:

• Jane Khodarkovsky, Sanctions expert

Links:

• Unchained:

• CFTC Moves to Rein In Prediction Markets as Industry Booms

• SEC and CFTC Move Toward Unified Crypto Rules

• Dueling Post-Mortems Reveal How a $50 Million DeFi Swap Went From Bad to Catastrophic

  
  

• Vy Le's paper on on-chain best execution:

• Fairness by Design: Verifiable Execution in On-Chain Markets

  
  

• This week's good news:

• Tech boss uses ChatGPT to create cancer vaccine to save dying dog

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Across Protocol wants to retire its token in exchange for equity. Is the DAO model structurally broken?

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With Across Protocol proposing to retire its ACX token in favor of equity, a long-simmering question in crypto governance is finally breaking into the open: do token holders actually have meaningful ownership, or just the illusion of it? 

As the regulatory environment under the new U.S. administration shifts dramatically from the Gensler era, the structures that crypto teams were forced to build may now be working against the very communities they were meant to serve. 

Ryan Yi, founder of Onchain Group, and Felipe Montealegre, co-founder and CIO of Theia, have studied these incentive structures closely, and what they have found is uncomfortable. From PumpFun's suppressed valuation to the perverse incentives baked into token buyouts, this conversation examines whether the DAO model was ever built to last, and what governance actually needs to look like if crypto is going to compete with global finance.

Guests:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Ryan Yi, Founder of Onchain Group

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Felipe Montealegre, Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Theia

Links:

• Read our Aave deep dive here

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Crypto insiders debate the Ethereum Foundation’s new “CROPS” mandate: is the EF losing touch with builders, why does Solana keep pulling startups away, and what will it actually take for Ethereum to stay ahead? Expect a candid conversation on governance, comms, and crypto culture wars.

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week we’ve got plenty of firepower with special guests Taylor Monahan (formerly of MetaMask, now a security sensei) and Bankless impresario David Hoffman. The crew digs into the Ethereum Foundation’s freshly dropped “CROPS” manifesto — a 38-page PDF full of cypherpunk values, new acronyms, and debate fuel.

What does it really say about where Ethereum is headed? Is EF finally embracing “sanctuary tech,” or just giving startups another reason to choose Solana? Who deserves credit for Ethereum’s growth: the Foundation, the community, or the market?

Expect sharp takes on EF’s endless comms problems, why L2s aren’t a cure-all, and whether crypto culture matters as much as the tech. It’s a spicy, insider-heavy episode — so grab your popcorn and dive in.

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

Show highlights

🔹 Ethereum Foundation’s new CROPS mandate—what it says, what it avoids, and why it sparked a vibe war  

🔹 Is Vitalik’s “sanctuary tech” vision pushing builders away or just keeping Ethereum pure?  

🔹 The never-ending battle between “cypherpunks” and “pragmatists” in Ethereum’s governance  

🔹 Why Ethereum’s “bad comms” tradition keeps causing existential crises  

🔹 Solana’s support playbook: How culture, not tech, is dominating the builder mindshare  

🔹 Are new projects ditching Ethereum L1 for Base, Arbitrum, and Solana—and does platform risk even matter now?  

🔹 Should EF just stick to research, or actually help grow the ecosystem? And what does “supporting builders” actually mean?  

🔹 Can you keep your values if you don’t win? The hard truths of crypto capitalism  

🔹 Lessons from Defi Summer, NFT mania, and what L2 drama says about ecosystem incentives  

🔹 Haseeb goes “political”: Why virtue-signaling and simple narratives are killing real debate

Hosts

⭐️ Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️ Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️ Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest

⭐️ Taylor Monahan, Security expert & Host of Uneasy Money
⭐️ David Hoffman, Host of Bankless

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:51 EF Mandate Explained

03:23 Pragmatists vs. Cypherpunks

05:13 Tay’s Middle Ground

08:54 David Reads Between Lines

13:51 Tom & Tarun Push Back

18:20 EF Factions & Solana Shadow

24:13 Does Ethereum Want Growth

31:01 Virtue Signaling

35:35 Where to Build Now

39:16 Solana Support vs Ethereum Stability

42:12 EF Promotion & Builder Support 

47:54 Goldilocks Time Horizons

51:10 Ethereum Soul and Body

56:03 Does EF Leadership Matter?

01:02:45 Stewardship and Market Failures

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Ram is bearish on equities, oil is keeping the Fed frozen, and Bitcoin is holding up anyway. The hosts debate whether crypto has bottomed or whether worse is still ahead.

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Three weeks into the Iran conflict, oil is keeping inflation elevated, rate cuts are getting pushed out, and hedge funds are being forced to sell good names just to reduce exposure. So why is Bitcoin holding up? 

Ram sees a market on the right shoulder of a bubble, with industrials like Caterpillar at 35x earnings and no real capitulation yet in equities or private credit. Chris is watching trading desks pick up the “short-gold, long-Bitcoin” trade, and sees Ethereum's fundamentals quietly strengthening. Austin wants to know what happens to DeFi the day a major stablecoin gets compromised on a censorship-resistant chain with no network-level controls. 

And all three are asking the same question investors need answered now: does the Iran conflict end fast enough to stop oil from triggering a true inflationary regime, or is a harder correction still ahead?

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Christopher Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

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For the first time in a geopolitical crisis, bitcoin held its ground while safe havens faltered. But can it keep holding if the VIX moves from yellow to red?

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The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Oil is past $100 a barrel. The traditional safe haven playbook, from treasuries to gold, is failing to perform the way it should. And yet bitcoin is up 4% since the conflict started, holding steady in a tight range that Andy Baehr, newly installed as managing director of asset management at GSR, calls "base camp." 

What signals should investors watch to know if the next move is up or down? Why does the VIX suggest calm when the world feels anything but? And why might the tokenization boom be built on demand that doesn't exist yet? 

Baehr, who spent years constructing the crypto index ecosystem at CoinDesk, brings a structural lens to a market moment where nothing is where it should be.

Host:

• ⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview

Guest:

• Andy Baehr, Managing Director of Asset Management, GSR

Links:

Bitcoin = Safe Haven

• Is Bitcoin Now a Safe-Haven Asset? If So, Then It Could Be Hugely Undervalued at Just $70,000

• How Bitcoin and Gold Reacted Differently to the Iran War Shock

Hyperliquid Oil Perps

• The Hottest New Crypto Trade Is 24/7 Oil Futures

• Crypto Markets Track War Risk as Iran Conflict Endures

Tokenization

• Wall Street Pushes Tokenized Stocks, but Institutions Aren’t Eager to Trade Them

• Nasdaq Partners With Kraken in Plan for 24/7 Tokenized Stock Trading
  

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Sid Powell and Paul Frambot on why Apollo, Cantor, and Coinbase are quietly building their financial products on DeFi rails, and what it means for lending. 

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Onchain lending used to be a crypto-native curiosity. Now Cantor Fitzgerald is extending credit facilities through it, Apollo Global Management is acquiring governance tokens, and Coinbase users are borrowing against Bitcoin to buy houses, all running on DeFi protocols operating in the background.

Maple Finance CEO Sid Powell and Morpho co-founder Paul Frambot sit at the center of this shift, and they have very different reads on what it takes to make institutional adoption real. 

What are the actual limits to onchain lending growth right now? Does the DeFi mullet model work for everyone, or only for specific use cases? And as DAOs across the industry stumble under the weight of public governance, what structures actually let a protocol move fast without losing trust? 

This conversation gets into the mechanics, the trade-offs, and the deals that are quietly redrawing the lines between DeFi and traditional finance.

Guests:

• ⁠Paul Frambot, Co-Founder & CEO at Morpho Labs

• ⁠Sid Powell, CEO & Co-Founder of Maple Finance

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The crew digs into Hyperliquid's phenomenal rise. How did the perp DEX become TradFi's 24/7 casino?

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Hyperliquid is having its mainstream moment like Polymarket in 2024 and OpenSea in 2021. Amid the U.S.’s war on Iran, the platform has become a popular venue for speculators to express their market opinions.

Uneasy Money hosts Kain Warwick, Luca Netz and Taylor Monahan dig into choices that have allowed Hyperliquid to succeed where many others before it have failed. In a single sentence: not putting ideology over the product's goals.

Kain says the protocol may become unassailable in the future even as Luca says HYPE is bound to be a top five crypto by market cap.

The crew also discusses Pudgy Penguin's new open world game Pudgy World. Luca says “crypto rails have to be a tech stack not a hook” explaining why the game relegated crypto to the background.

Plus, how Across Protocol's move to pivot to only equity highlights the broken nature of tokens. Has Luca cracked the problem?

Listen to find out!

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Links:

• Unchained:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oil Becomes the Hottest Trade on Hyperliquid

• Hyperliquid Launches $29 Million Policy Push in Washington

• Uneasy Money: Hyperliquid’s Dilemma After 10/10: Protect Itself or Its Users?

• The Aave DAO Is Collapsing. Is the Token Still a Good Investment?

• Uneasy Money: Why the AI Singularity May Already Be Out of Our Hands

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The crew discusses whether prediction markets enable “Bloomberg terminal espionage,,” wonder how to regulate markets that could be on anything, dive into why the OCC is saying no to stablecoin yield and more.

The SEC has submitted guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto to the White House.

DEX in the City hosts Jessi Brooks, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and TuongVy Le dig into what the proposal could mean for the crypto industry and whether it could be enough to provide developers regulatory clarity as anticipated market structure legislation stalls. Why is the agency submitting guidance to the White House?

Plus, KK explains why current regulatory efforts could lead crypto to resort to more “come at me bro” legal tactics and Jessi covers why the industry may regret the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Chevron deference.

Beyond the SEC's recent crypto regulatory move, the crew discusses the arrest of the son of a government contractor alleged to have stolen the U.S.’s bitcoin, what the DOJ's planned retrial of unresolved charges against Roman Storm suggests and why banks are up in arms over Kraken's “skinny” Fed master account.

They also discuss why the crypto industry should tighten up security as Iranian groups target U.S. banking services and tech infrastructure.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• ⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠, General Counsel at Veda

Links:

• Unchained:

  • ⁠SEC Sends Crypto Securities Framework to the White House

    Blame Exchanges for Holding Up the Market Structure Bill? - DEX in the City

    DOJ Pushes for Retrial of Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm

    Kraken Wins Direct Access to the Fed’s Payment System

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Crypto OG Erik Voorhees joins The Chopping Block crew to dissect the future of agentic payments, the eternal war for privacy, memecoin-fueled AI drama on Moltbook, and why your next DeFi user might just be your OpenClaw agent—plus, a candid look at crypto's core and how AI turns software engineering existential.

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, we’re joined by none other than Erik Voorhees, legendary crypto pioneer and founder of Venice, for a no-holds-barred discussion on the wild convergence of AI, crypto, and the meme coin casino. Erik unpacks his journey from anti-surveillance crusader to AI entrepreneur, why Venice is all-in on privacy and free speech for LLMs, and how “provable privacy” is a Sisyphean technical challenge.

The crew breaks down OpenClaw’s agent drama, memecoin carpet-bombing of Moltbook, and Meta muscling in on AI social networks. We debate agentic payments (will your first paying customer soon be a bot?), the true game theory behind state surveillance, and why crypto’s greatest killer use case might actually be building tools for robots instead of humans. Plus: existential crises for software engineers, why “AI alignment” is a philosophical dead end, and the childlike glee (or open psychosis) of trading OpenClaw war stories at AI meetups.

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

Show highlights

🔹 Erik Voorhees traces his journey from crypto OG to Venice AI founder, fighting for privacy and free speech  

🔹 Explainer: Why all big AI labs store your prompts — and how Venice’s model tries to break the surveillance cycle  

🔹 The crew tears into "agentic payments" hype and asks if crypto was really made for humans — or just robots  

🔹 OpenClaw, Moltbook, and memecoin floods: Welcome to the unholy spawnpoint of AI agents and CT scam culture  

🔹 Meta acquires Moltbook—what happens when agent societies meet social networks (and meme coins ensue)  

🔹 AI alignment isn’t as hard as they said—until agents start “optimizing” in the wild (and mining your GPU for crypto)  

🔹 Existential crisis time: Why software engineers feel like Paul Bunyan fighting tunnel machines  

🔹 Crypto’s endgame: DeFi legos for agents, not just degens—will AI really build its own protocols?  

🔹 The game theory of state surveillance and why institutions, not individuals, are the ultimate privacy adversary  

🔹 "Provable privacy” isn’t just trust, it’s math—Venice’s plan to win over the tinfoil crowd

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest
⭐️ Erik Voorhees, Founder of Venice.ai

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:16 Erik’s Origin & Venice.AI’s Mission

03:51 Censorship Future

08:58 Proving Privacy With TEEs

11:44 Frontier Models Tradeoffs

15:02 Agents & Crypto Payments

18:22 OpenClaw Provider Drama

22:24 Moltbook Meta Acquisition

29:16 Exponential AI Moment

33:00 Alibaba Agent Breakout

37:06 Alignment Reality Check

39:22 Who Understands LLMs?

41:48 Engineers Facing Disruption

47:55 AI Psychosis Meetups

54:24 Pro Models & Pricing

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A U.S. Army Major-General on what markets got wrong about Iran, whether the Strait was ever really at risk, and what the new U.S. strike doctrine signals to China.

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Bits + Bips is spreading its wings

Starting soon, new episodes will only be published on our brand‑new feeds.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Click the links below.

1. ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

2. ⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

4. ⁠⁠X⁠⁠

2. Smash Follow or Subscribe.

3. 🎉 Done.

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Oil briefly traded above $119 a barrel. Iran threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the single chokepoint that carries roughly 20% of global oil supply. And then, just as fast, prices started pulling back, after Trump said the conflict was "almost completely over." 

But what is actually happening on the ground, what did markets get right, and what are they still missing? 

We bring in U.S. Army Major-General James "Spider" Marks, who spent over 30 years in the U.S. Army, serving as senior intelligence officer through the LA riots, the Balkans, Korea, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and who culminated his career as commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center. With a conflict still unfolding, a regime in flux, and markets trying to price it all in real time, there may be no better person to ask.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠⁠⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Christopher Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Guest:

• James "Spider" Marks, U.S. Army Major-General

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Rob Hadick and Gracy Chen dig into Bitget's universal exchange shift as more crypto exchanges look to become an “everything app.” Plus, Gracy lets slip details of U.S. plans and how it ties to its transfer of BGB ownership.

Bits + Bips is spreading its wings

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Bitget since September has said it is much more than a centralized cryptocurrency exchange.

Dragonfly General Partner Rob Hadick and Bitget CEO Gracy Chen peel back Bitget's universal exchange branding to reveal the trends driving the company's expansion and really that of other exchanges both in TradFi and crypto.

The main takeaway? “Users want a place to trade everything.”

Gracy also teases Bitget's U.S. market entry plans and lets slip the real reason the company transferred ownership of BGB. 

Plus, why Gracy is not so optimistic about AI agents materially impacting the crypto market and what Rob says needs to happen for altcoins to accrue value again. He says it is no longer a market where everything goes up and down together.

Guests:

• Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly

• Gracy Chen, CEO at Bitget, previous appearances on Unchained:

• Why All Financial Institutions Are 'All Systems Go' on Stablecoins

• Stablecoins Are Popping Up Everywhere. What's the End Game?

• When a Crypto Treasury Company Is and Isn't Worth a Premium

• Why Crypto Has 'a Good Setup' for the Long Term Right Now: Bits + Bips

Links:

• Unchained:

• Inside Robinhood’s Big Super App Plan: ‘There’s Still a Lot of Work to Be Done’

• Coinbase Launches Stock Trading and Prediction Markets

• Crypto’s Black Friday Was Its Largest Liquidation Ever. What the Hell Happened?

• Uneasy Money: Why Peter Steinberger and Non-Crypto People Hate the Crypto Mob

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Joseph Chalom and Danny Ryan discuss the institutional outlook on Ethereum and why it is “the only game in town.”

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The institutions are here and they may have already picked their preferred blockchain. 

Sharplink Gaming CEO Joseph Chalom and Etherealize co-founder Danny Ryan discuss the institutional outlook on Ethereum. They say the network is the only chain being discussed by institutions thinking about tokenization, dismissing Solana as a possible contender. They explore what this means for ether and why anticipated upgrades only strengthen the case.

Meanwhile, Danny maintains that L2s are still part of the Ethereum roadmap, albeit agreeing with Vitalik that they need to evolve.

Plus, why Joseph thinks privacy will unlock Ethereum's next DeFi wave and why Danny sees AI agents as the salve to crypto's UX woes, though he calls the current activity “a toy.”

Guest:

• ⁠Joseph Chalom, President/CEO at SharpLink Gaming Inc.

• Danny Ryan, Co-Founder & President of Etherealize

Links:

• Unchained:⁠⁠

  • ⁠Vitalik Targets Block Building as Ethereum Prepares Glamsterdam Upgrade

    Vitalik Buterin Lays Out Quantum Defense Plan for Ethereum

    Can Solana Edge Out Ethereum to Win the AI Agent & RWA Race?

    Ethereum Researchers Outline Seven Forks Through 2029 in New “Strawmap”

    BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why.

    Want to Hire an AI Agent? Check Their Reputation Via ERC-8004

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The Aave DAO collapsed — but might that be good for Aave? (But bad for the token?) Plus, how the feud between the U.S. government and Anthropic helped the AI company.

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The Aave civil war appears to be at an end with key members of the DAO rage quitting and leaving Aave Labs standing as the sole protocol contributor. 

Uneasy Money hosts Kain Warwick, Luca Netz, and Taylor Monahan explain why the Aave DAO's messy collapse is a death knell for the DAO system. Ironically, they wonder — could this be good for Aave, but bad for the token?

The crew also wades into ZachXBT's recent Axiom investigation and how the on-chain detective has become “a vigilante for hire.” 

They also cover all the insider trading claims and fights around prediction markets involving the Iran War and Mr. Beast, and “Kalshi jail.” Kain suspects another reason for the U.S. government's rift with Anthropic. Luca, an Anthropic investor, says he wished Dario had taken the government's deal, but that Sam Altman needs to “take the Zuck playbook.”

Meanwhile, is Anthropic nerfing OpenClaw?

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• ⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert

• ⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Links:

• Unchained:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Aave Governance Fight Escalates Ahead of $51 Million Funding Vote

  Uneasy Money: Why the AI Singularity May Already Be Out of Our Hands

  How Aave Labs and the DAO Should Split Ownership of the Brand – Uneasy Money

  ZachXBT Alleges Axiom Employee Misused Internal Data

  Uneasy Money: Why Peter Steinberger and Non-Crypto People Hate the Crypto Mob

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Analysts Will Clemente, Joe Vezzani and Marcus Wu share their Bitcoin outlook amidst war. Plus, Will shares his thesis on Gen Z’s future, and Marcus previews his Bitcoin game theory model.

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• ⁠Nexo

• ⁠Crypto Tax Girl

Bitcoin's price has largely held steady despite President Donald Trump's escalation of hostilities with Iran. Is this the bottom signal the market has been waiting for?

STIX investments chief Will Clemente, LunarCrush co-founder Joe Vezzani and Delphi Digital Research Analyst Marcus Wu explain why it looks like Bitcoin is bottoming, why a 10/10-style crash would have happened in crypto even without the Binance glitch, and why, regardless of the Jane Street rumors, it’s not beyond Wall Street to manipulate an asset.

They also address speculation that Jane Street has been suppressing Bitcoin's price and how AI's rapid advancement could impact crypto in light of Citrini Research's article and Jack Dorsey's Block layoffs.

Don't miss Joe's reasoning on why Trump could come to the market's rescue and Will's thesis on why zoomers face four unique financial and technological challenges. Plus Marcus also previews his new game theory model for trading the Bitcoin market.

Guest:

• ⁠Marcus Wu, Research Analyst at Delphi Digital

• Joe Vezzani, Co-founder and CEO of LunarCrush

• Will Clemente, Investments at STIX

  • Previous appearances on Unchained:

  • Bitcoin Crashed Below $100K, But Smart Money Is Buying the Dip

  • Strong Hands Aren't Selling Bitcoin. So Who Is? - Ep. 183

  • Arthur Hayes and Will Clemente on the 2024 Bitcoin Halving

  
  

Links:

• Unchained:⁠⁠

  • • Why Gold Rose and Bitcoin Tumbled on Japan Bond Turmoil

    • Is Nic Carter Exaggerating Bitcoin’s Quantum Risk? Yes, Says One Core Dev

    • Bitcoin Rebounds as ETF Inflows Return, Jane Street Speculation Swirls

    • Terraform Estate Targets Jane Street in Explosive Terra Collapse Lawsuit

    • Crypto’s Black Friday Was Its Largest Liquidation Ever. What the Hell Happened?

    • Will’s essay

    • Climbing a Broken Ladder: A message to my fellow Zoomers

    • Marcus’s Bitcoin game theory model

    • Bitcoin Game Theory on Delphi Digital

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The crew discusses whether prediction markets enable “Bloomberg terminal espionage,,” wonder how to regulate markets that could be on anything, dive into why the OCC is saying no to stablecoin yield and more.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

• ⁠⁠Fuse: The Energy Network

Prediction markets are in the spotlight again. On one hand adoption appears to be growing as the Nasdaq has announced plans of entering the space. On the other hand, they scrutinize markets that pose a national security risk. 

In this DEX in the City episode, hosts Jessi Brooks, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and TuongVy Le discuss suspected insider trading activity around a market tied to the strikes on Iran. Beyond ethical concerns about betting on war, they grapple with the definition of “a death market” and ask whether all prediction markets around an individual are death markets. 

The big question: How can these markets on literally any possible event be policed?

Plus, is Jane Street manipulating the Bitcoin market? Why the OCC is saying NO to stablecoin yield and the takeaway from Jack Dorsey's Block layoffs.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• ⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare

• ⁠⁠TuongVy Le, General Counsel at Veda

Links:

• Unchained:

  • Nasdaq Eyes Prediction Markets With SEC Filing

  • Bitcoin Rebounds as ETF Inflows Return, Jane Street Speculation Swirls

  • ZachXBT Alleges Axiom Employee Misused Internal Data

  • White House Talks Make Progress on Stablecoin Yields but No Deal Yet

  • DEX in the City: Insider Trading and Crypto: What the Law Actually Says

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Crypto’s vibe check time: Jez (izebel_eth) joins the crew to dissect whether idealism is RIP, if cypherpunks should abandon hope, how Memecoins and asset mayhem changed the game, why prediction markets are both truth engines and regulatory minefields, and where real permissionless finance is actually winning in the middle of global chaos.

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 the gang is joined by super-perpetuals-junkie Jez for a spicy look at whether crypto has lost its soul — or if things are just getting interesting. Is crypto’s vibe shift just growing pains, or did Memecoins and jaded traders nuke our idealism for good? The crew rehashes dreams of cypherpunk glory, debates the “death of the dream,” and gets existential about crypto’s place in a world where everything is either a commodity, a meme, or a permissionless financial machine. Plus: War in Iran sends TradFi running, but DeFi markets are live, and prediction markets step up just as the regulators get weird. Enough nostalgia — 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

🔹 Jez and Tarun’s crypto origin story: from MIT outcast to NFT party degens.

🔹 Has crypto really lost its soul, or just shed its rose-tinted glasses? The hosts debate.

🔹 The rise and rise of Memecoins, rampant speculation, and Solana’s culture shift.

🔹 Do “return to cypherpunk” calls matter—or is this what crypto winning looks like?

🔹 Why stablecoins, perps, and DeFi are actually success stories (despite maximalist whining).

🔹 AI eating crypto’s lunch: the “everything on the blockchain” promise gets a reality check.

🔹 Real world chaos, onchain price discovery: Iran war, commodities, and DeFi’s 24/7 edge.

🔹 Prediction markets—Kalshi vs. Polymarket—tripped up by the ambiguous reality of war and death.

🔹 CFTC, insider trading, and whether banning informed bets is just protecting “the fish.”

🔹 The future: agents, open-source AI, and keeping the door open for true permissionless finance.

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest

⭐️ Jez, Legend
Disclosures

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:07 Jez x Tarun Lore

03:24 Cynicism & Rug Culture

09:00 Back To Cypherpunk Roots?

14:37 Compromises & Reality

23:36 Intermediaries Coexist

25:23 Gates Closing Fears

28:10 Stablecoins & Policy

29:24 Agents As Middlemen

30:28 Microfinance to DeFi Agents

31:57 Open Source AI and Crypto Control

32:41 Iran War DeFi Price Discovery

33:57 Why Perps Beat TradFi

37:21 Kalshi vs Polymarket Dispute

44:31 Are Prediction Markets Just Toys?

50:50 Insider Trading Crackdown

54:15 Adverse Selection and Market Design

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A major war broke out in the Middle East, but Bitcoin didn’t break. One veteran investor says that price action reveals something important about where crypto stands today.

---

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The U.S. and Israel have struck Iran, killing Ayatollah Khamenei, and markets are still calibrating. Oil is climbing toward $100, yields are confounding textbook expectations, and when news first broke, Bitcoin dropped to around $63,000 before recovering to roughly $70,000 during Monday's session. Equity futures that opened sharply lower also reversed, ending roughly flat vs. Friday's close. What does that price action actually mean? Is the crypto bounce a sign of structural resilience, or is it moving in lockstep with a broader risk recovery? 

In this episode, Steven Ehrlich sits down with Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly Capital, a veteran crypto venture investor managing hundreds of millions of dollars to work through what the Iran conflict actually means for digital assets. They also get into the stalled Clarity Act that could be crypto's biggest catalyst of the year, the rise of on-chain derivatives markets, and why one of the largest crypto-focused funds believes now is one of the best moments in history to be building in this space.

Host:

• ⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠

Guest:

• Rob Hadick, General Partner, Dragonfly

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US and Israeli strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader and initially rattled markets. But does the subsequent market calm reflect genuine resilience or a dangerous underpricing of what comes next?

---

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Bits + Bips is spreading its wings

Starting soon, new episodes will only be published on our brand‑new feeds.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Click the links below.

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2. ⁠Apple⁠

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4. ⁠X⁠

2. Smash Follow or Subscribe.

3. 🎉 Done.

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Over the weekend, US and Israeli forces conducted coordinated strikes on Iran under an operation called Epic Fury, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and triggering retaliatory missile attacks across the Gulf region. 

Markets absorbed the shock in ways that surprised almost everyone: bitcoin briefly dropped and recovered to $70,000, gold touched $5,400, oil surged, and the VIX held in the low 20s while equities finished roughly flat. 

In this episode of Bits + Bips, Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins discuss whether the market is correctly pricing this as a contained regional conflict, or is something larger being missed? What does crypto's stability in a weekend war say about its role as an asset class? And with the Clarity Bill stalling again over stablecoin yield, and Anthropic handing the Pentagon to OpenAI, is the window for principled positioning in both crypto and AI closing faster than anyone admits?

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

• ⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

• ⁠⁠⁠Christopher Perkins⁠⁠⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

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A former Clinton and Biden foreign policy advisor saw it before it happened. Now the question is what investors do next.

Hours after this episode was recorded, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in what analysts are calling the most significant U.S.-Iran escalation in decades.

Charles Myers, Founder and CEO of Signum Global Advisors and a former senior foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, had just sat down with Steven Ehrlich to discuss the geopolitical landscape and what it means for investors. 

What he said about Iran during that conversation is now raising serious questions about what comes next, and the investment implications are far from settled.

In this episode, Myers also addresses whether the "sell America" trade is overdone, where oil is heading, the future of AI funding, and whether Bitcoin can actually function as a safe haven when the world is on fire.

Hosts:

• ⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview

Guests:

• ⁠Charles Myers, Founder and CEO, Signum Global Advisors

Links:

Iran strike / military action:

US strikes Iran — https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-iran-attack-02-28-26-hnk-intl 

US-Iran nuclear talks — https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/us-iran-nuclear-talks-trump-military-buildup-attack-missiles-rcna260764 

Largest US military buildup in the Middle East since the early 2000s — https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/02/26/us-military-assembles-largest-force-of-warships-aircraft-in-middle-east-in-decades/ 

Oil markets:

Oil prices surge after Iran strike — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/28/iran-us-attack-oil-market-economy.html 

Trump’s energy strategy: targeting oil in the low $50s — https://www.axios.com/2026/02/28/us-iran-attack-energy-oil-prices 

Sell America / US safe haven:

Global investors question US safe haven status — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/28/markets-brace-for-impact-following-us-military-strikes-against-iran.html 

The “Sell America” trade, explained — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-02/sell-america-trade-why-investors-are-questioning-us-assets 

Venezuela / Monroe Doctrine:

Maduro government and the US oil deal — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/05/maduro-overthrow-could-pave-the-way-for-us-oil-companies-to-recover-venezuela-assets.html 

The return of the Monroe Doctrine under Trump — https://www.cfr.org/articles/oil-power-and-the-climate-stakes-of-the-u-s-move-in-venezuela 

OpenAI / AI:

OpenAI raises $110 billion — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/open-ai-funding-round-amazon.html 

Stargate: OpenAI and SoftBank’s AI moonshot — https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/

Prediction Markets:

Polymarket Iran strike odds — https://polymarket.com 

Insider trading on Polymarket: the Maduro bet — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_strikes_in_Venezuela 

Stablecoins / GENIUS Act:

The GENIUS Act and stablecoin regulation — https://www.gibsondunn.com/the-genius-act-a-new-era-of-stablecoin-regulation/

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MegaETH's Namik Muduroglu joins the Uneasy Money crew to discuss how the industry can fix token incentives, the continued escalation of the Aave civil war and more.

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An article from Boost CEO Brian Flynn sparks conversation about whether tokens are dead. The Aave civil war continues to escalate. China is trying to reverse engineer Claude even as Anthropic faces off against the U.S. government.

In this episode of Uneasy Money, hosts Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan are joined by MegaETH founding team member Namik Muduroglu to discuss how to fix token incentives, whether there is a happy ending in sight for Aave. 

They also discuss the geopolitical risks that come with AI and the technology's rapid rate of advancement. Is the Singularity already out of our hands?

Plus, ZachXBT's teased announcement and Ethereum's “strawmap.”

Don't miss Kain's plan to fuse Claude with his Unitree dog and why Namik is a closet AI doomer.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• ⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠, Security Expert

Guest:

• ⁠Namik Muduroglu, CSO & Founding Team at MegaETH

Links:

• Unchained:

• ⁠Uneasy Money: Why Token Holders Have No Rights & Why Every DAO ‘Has Failed’

• ⁠Why MegaETH Is Delaying Its Token and Rejecting Credible Neutrality

• ⁠Aave Governance Fight Escalates Ahead of $51 Million Funding Vote

• How Aave Labs and the DAO Should Split Ownership of the Brand – Uneasy Money

• Uneasy Money: Why Peter Steinberger and Non-Crypto People Hate the Crypto Mob

• ⁠Ethereum Researchers Outline Seven Forks Through 2029 in New “Strawmap”

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Tushar Jain and Mike Ippolito make the bull case for Solana as competition heats up.

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With Ethereum refocusing on L1 and Hyperliquid adoption growing, Solana is arguably facing stronger competition than ever. Can it thrive still?

Multicoin co-founder Tushar Jain and Blockworks co-founder Mike Ippolito share several reasons to be excited about Solana, including Alpenglow and anticipated market microstructure design flexibility.

Find out why Tushar and Mike say Firedancer has not been a flop despite seemingly low adoption, why they don't see block building issues stopping Solana from challenging Hyperliquid, and why they say the network doesn't have to do anything to specifically attract AI agents. Plus, why they both believe that the RWA race is too early to call despite Ethereum's dominance.

Meanwhile, with Alpenglow still months away, Mike says the wait doesn’t matter — for the next 12 to 18 months BD and marketing matter more than tech for adoption.

#UN1047

Guest:

• Tushar Jain, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital

• Previous appearances on Unchained:

• Solana Rejected Inflation Reduction-Here's Why

• CoinFund's Jake Brukhman and Multicoin's Tushar Jain on Generalized Mining 

• Binance Hack: Should the Threat of Reorgs Be Used to Deter Hackers?

• Multicoin on the 1 Thing Crypto Teams Miss in Their Quests for Success

• Mike Ippolito, Co-Founder at Blockworks

Links:

• Unchained:
  

  • Ethereum Lets Go of the Rollup Story. Here Are the 6 Tokens That Benefit

  • Jump Crypto’s Firedancer Goes Live on Solana Mainnet

  • BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why.

  • When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?

  • Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain

  • Pump.fun Cashed Out $436M Since Mid-October: Lookonchain

  • Zora Shocks Base Community With Solana Pivot

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Robinhood's Coy Garrison and Seong Seog Lee join the crew to unpack the Robinhood Chain launch strategy.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

• ⁠MultiChain Advisors

Robinhood's proposed chain for the trading of tokenized assets is live in testnet.

In this DEX in the City episode, Coy Garrison, Robinhood's deputy general counsel on crypto, and Robinhood Crypto Head of Product Seong Seog Lee walk hosts Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and Jessi Brooks through the thinking behind the blockchain's testnet launch and why it is important that it supports tokenized equities out of the gate.

Beyond the Robinhood Chain testnet launch, KK and Jessi discuss OpenAI and Paradigm's EVMbench tool and why it highlights the need for a safety-first approach. “AI and crypto are in the same room now, but the room's sort of on fire,” Jessi says.

Don't miss how a man accidentally gained remote access to 7,000 robot vacuums in 24 countries with AI-written code.

KK and Jessi also dig into the Terraform Labs estate's lawsuit against Jane Street. Is there any real credibility behind the lawsuit? Listen to find out!

Save $100 with Crypto Tax Girl!

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• ⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare

Guests:

• ⁠⁠⁠Coy Garrison, Senior Director and Deputy General Counsel, Crypto at Robinhood

• ⁠⁠Seong Seog Lee, Head of Product at Robinhood Crypto

Links:

• Unchained:

  • Robinhood Pushes Deeper Into Tokenization With Layer 2 Testnet Launch

  • Inside Robinhood’s Big Super App Plan: ‘There’s Still a Lot of Work to Be Done’

  • OpenAI and Paradigm Launch EVMbench to Stress Test AI on Smart Contract Security

  • Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain

  • When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?

  • Terraform Estate Targets Jane Street in Explosive Terra Collapse Lawsuit

  • DeFi Platforms Could Get ‘Innovation Exemption,’ SEC Chair Says

  • SEC Quietly Eases Capital Rules for Stablecoins

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Explore how AI could reshape crypto and finance, redefining traditional systems and introducing new threats. As AI-powered agents promise efficiency, Haseeb, Tom, Tarun, and guest Illia Polosukhin critique Citrini's controversial predictions on a global financial crisis and consider whether AI might just save or further complicate crypto's role in the economy.

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 us is Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and contributing author to the original transformers paper that’s revolutionized AI.

Buckle up as we delve into AI’s burgeoning role in the crypto world, dissect the sensational claims from Citrini’s article predicting an AI-triggered financial crisis, and explore the potential of agentic coding in reshaping traditional systems.

Let’s get into it!

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

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest
⭐️ Illia Polosukhin, Co-founder of NEAR Protocol

Disclosures

Links:

THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS by Citrini and Alap Shah

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:06 AI Agents Meet Crypto

08:06 Dark Forest Threat Model

15:31 How Close Are We

18:41 AI Coding Risks in Crypto

27:27 Citrini 2028 Crisis Explained

35:01 Demand Shock Missing Money

37:55 Automation Limits and Human Value

44:13 AI Zero Days and Botnets

51:40 Escrow Courts and Enforcement

56:05 Illia on Vibe Coding Future

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DATs may be collapsing, AI agents may be overhyped, but Omid Malekan thinks the strongest case for crypto has nothing to do with either.

Thank you to our sponsors:

• ⁠⁠Fuse: The Energy Network⁠

Bitcoin is below $63,000, digital asset treasuries are under pressure, and the debate over whether crypto markets are bottoming or breaking down is splitting the hosts. 

Ram is skeptical of institutional demand when he looks at the 13F data from institutions filing SEC reports. Chris is on the phone with institutions all day and is bullish. 

Omid Malekan, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, comes in with a longer lens: he admits he contributed to the DAT hype cycle, has doubts about agentic commerce that remind him of the metaverse in 2021, and thinks the strongest argument for crypto is not a product or a token but a fact about how nation-states treat their own citizens. 

The conversation also covers tokenized bank deposits, the SEC's updated broker-dealer guidance on stablecoins, and what it means that the Supreme Court just struck down Trump's tariffs.

Hosts:

• ⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

• ⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

• ⁠⁠Christopher Perkins⁠⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Guest:

• ⁠Omid Malekan, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School

Links:

• Unchained:

• Bitcoin Slips Below $63,000 as Fear Deepens

• Bitcoin Dips Below $65,000 as Tariff Uncertainty Weighs on Risk

• White House Talks Make Progress on Stablecoin Yields but No Deal Yet

• SEC Quietly Eases Capital Rules for Stablecoins

• SCOTUS: Supreme Court strikes down tariffs

• Citrini: ⁠THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS

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Jansen Teng announces  Virtuals’ new humanoid robotics accelerator. Is this the next frontier for the AI agent meta?

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Virtuals Protocol has announced the launch of Eastworld Labs, an AI accelerator to make it easier for builders to deploy humanoid robots.

Virtuals Protocol co-founder Jansen Teng unpacks the idea behind the program, how it would work and what it hopes to achieve. He also addresses questions about how to prevent damage to remotely controlled robots, how to address backlash to robots taking jobs, and whether Virtuals views OpenClaw as a competitor.

Will human relationships eventually be replaced by AI agents?

Guest:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jansen Teng, CEO & Co-Founder of Virtuals Protocol

Links:

• Unchained:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Virtuals Ecosystem Sees Boost After Team Reveals Details of Buyback-and-Burn Program

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Want to Hire an AI Agent? Check Their Reputation Via ERC-8004

• When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?

• How Nansen’s New Trading Agent Makes It Easier to Follow the Smart Money Onchain

• How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other

• Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain

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Matt Corallo says “the community that exists at the time” will make decisions on how Bitcoin deals with the threat of quantum computing.

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When it comes to the quantum computing threat to crypto, the focus is often on Bitcoin and for good reason. The blockchain lacks a defined governance structure and the vulnerability around Satoshi's and other abandoned and lost coins is far greater than on any other chain.

Furthermore, influential figures like Nic Carter have accused developers of sleeping at the wheel.

Bitcoin Core contributor Matt Corallo argues that it won't take much to make the network quantum-resistant and, contrary to popular narrative, says work is already underway.

Find out why Corallo says quantum-proofing Bitcoin requires only two steps ”you burn old lost coins, you burn anyone who hasn't migrated.”

Guest:

• ⁠Matt Corallo, Open Source Engineer at Block/Spiral

Links:

• Unchained:

• ⁠Why Bitcoin Developers Are Not Incentivized to Talk About the Quantum Threat⁠

• ⁠Q-Day Is Imminent. Can Bitcoin Survive the Quantum Threat?⁠

• ⁠Solana Deploys Post-Quantum Signatures on Testnet⁠

• ⁠Cracking Bitcoin Encryption Is Getting Much Easier, Google Says

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LayerZero’s Bryan Pellegrino joins to unpack Base's decision to leave the OP Stack, Zora's migration to Solana and more.

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Coinbase's Base is making a shock move away from Optimism's OP Stack.

In this Uneasy Money episode, LayerZero Labs CEO Bryan Pellegrino joins hosts Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to unpack whether this is the right move for Base and what it could mean for Optimism.

Beyond Base's big move, the trio also discuss Zora's Solana migration, whether Coinbase was wrong to initially pursue a super app strategy with Base App, Peter Steinberger joining OpenAI, the launch of Zero blockchain and OpenAI's EVMbench.

Will OpenAI's acqui-hiring of Peter prove to be a “generational fumble” for Anthropic? And can crypto fix its brand problem?

Also, learn why the rise of AI agents have Kain and Tay confident that open source will win in the end.

Hosts:

• ⁠Kain Warwick⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• ⁠Taylor Monahan⁠, Security Expert

Guest:

• Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs

Links:

• Unchained:

• Zora Shocks Base Community With Solana Pivot

• ⁠⁠BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why.

• ⁠⁠LayerZero Launches ‘Zero’ Layer 1 as Citadel, ARK Buy ZRO

• ⁠⁠How Zero Blockchain Cracked 2 Million TPS and Is Still Decentralized

• ⁠⁠Uneasy Money: Are Institutions Creating a New Crypto Meta?

• ⁠⁠Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used OnchainVitalik Rethinks Ethereum’s L2 Playbook, Calls for Shift Toward Native Rollups

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Stani Kulechov unpacks Aave Labs’ “Aave Will Win” proposal, explaining why the company wants the DAO to have power over its finances.

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Aave Labs has proposed a “Aave Will Win” framework that will direct all revenue to the DAO to bring the protocol under “a token-centric model.”

In this episode, Aave founder Stani Kulechov explains why Aave Labs is putting its funding at the mercy of the DAO and how the framework could drive DeFi innovation.

Plus wen Aave v4? And is Aave Labs’ requested budget too much?

Guest:

• Stani Kulechov, Founder of Aave Labs

• Previous appearances on Unchained:

• Why Aave's Founder Is 'More Bullish on Ethereum Than Anything Else’

• Why the Founders of Aave and Sky Are Still Bullish on Ethereum DeFi

• Satoshi, Shorter Blocks, & Secret Plot - The Chopping Block

• Stani Kulechov on Why Aave Is So Successful - Ep.212

Links:

• Unchained:

• Aave Revenue Overhaul Sparks Governance Clash

• Aave Labs Proposes Off-Protocol Revenue Sharing With Token Holders

• The Chopping Block: Aave Civil War + Flow Hack + Coinbase Super-App

• Aave’s Rushed Governance Vote Draws Backlash

• How Aave Labs and the DAO Should Split Ownership of the Brand – Uneasy Money

• Uneasy Money: Why Token Holders Have No Rights & Why Every DAO ‘Has Failed’

• ‘Poison Pill’ Proposal Calls for Aave DAO to Take Over Aave Labs

• AAVE Holders Question if DAO Quietly Redirected Revenue Away From Treasury

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Dragonfly raises a $650M Fund IV amid crypto's institutional vs retail sentiment gap, the industry exodus including Kyle Samani's departure from Multicoin, OpenClaw's OpenAI acquisition and crypto Twitter harassment, X402 payment standards for AI agents, Polymarket's controversial 5-minute Bitcoin betting markets, and the brewing federal vs state regulation battle over prediction markets.

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 episode kicks off with major news: Dragonfly just closed their $650 million Fund IV, making them one of the largest crypto VCs not through growth, but because others have downsized. The timing feels surreal — they keep raising right when markets dump, creating the biggest gap between institutional optimism and retail sentiment Haseeb has ever seen.

But money flowing in contrasts sharply with talent flowing out. Kyle Samani left Multicoin, Arianna Simpson departed A16z Crypto, and several other crypto veterans are moving on. The crew unpacks what this "great resignation" means for an industry that feels like it's shifted from pioneer phase to settler phase.

Then they dive into the OpenClaw saga — the viral AI coding assistant that got acquired by OpenAI, but not before its creator almost deleted it due to harassment from crypto Twitter demanding he launch a token. This leads to a deep discussion on X402 payment standards and why AI agents might prefer crypto over credit cards.

Finally, they debate Polymarket's controversial 5-minute Bitcoin betting markets and the brewing legal battle between federal and state regulation of 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 🔹 Dragonfly raises $650M Fund IV while other crypto VCs face "mass extinction" and downsizing 🔹 Kyle Samani's departure from Multicoin signals crypto's shift from pioneer to settler phase 🔹 Industry exodus includes Arianna Simpson, Toshi from Ethereum Foundation, and other veterans 🔹 OpenClaw creator almost deleted viral AI tool due to crypto Twitter harassment over tokens 🔹 X402 payment standard emerges as walletless protocol for AI agent transactions 🔹 OpenAI acquires OpenClaw through separate foundation structure, not direct acquisition 🔹 Polymarket launches controversial 5-minute Bitcoin up/down markets sparking gambling debate 🔹 CFTC chair files amicus briefs defending prediction markets against state regulation attempts 🔹 Federal vs state jurisdiction battle intensifies over event contracts vs sports betting classification 🔹 Institutional sentiment remains bullish while crypto native sentiment hits historic lows 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 Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:04 Dragonfly Closes $650M Fund IV 03:26 Institutional vs Retail Sentiment 06:14 Bear Markets as Opportunity 13:48 Kyle Samani’s Exit 21:44 OpenClaw Gets ‘Acquired’ by OpenAI 24:03 Token Pressure & Harassment 25:05 Is OpenClaw Actually Useful? 31:01 Why Open Source Will Move Faster Than Big Labs 33:13 Agents, Memecoins, and the Dark Incentives 37:40 Why Crypto Payments Beat Credit Cards 40:09 Polymarket’s New 5-Minute Markets 49:43 State Gambling Laws vs CFTC Federal Preemption

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The crew tackles everything from the CFTC's controversial stance on prediction markets to the real-world impacts of rising crypto crime.

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The CFTC has announced an innovation council, Chair Mike Selig has asserted that prediction markets are under the agency's ambit, SBF wants another trial and Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping is casting crypto in a negative light.

In this episode of DEX in the City, hosts Jessi Brooks, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and TuongVy Le discuss how the distribution of the CFTC's council highlights industry's need for better gender equity, why Selig's stance on prediction markets triggers “a huge constitutional debate,” why SBF's push for a new trial is so dangerous for crypto, and whether the crypto industry can do more to mitigate crime.

Find out why SBF's search for a new trial has far reaching effects beyond his case. Plus, can crypto tackle crime without sacrificing its benefits?

If you want your crypto taxes done carefully — not guessed — Crypto Tax Girl is offering $100 off one-on-one crypto tax services.

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Hosts:

• ⁠Jessi Brooks⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at StarkWare

• ⁠TuongVy Le⁠, General Counsel at Veda

Links:

• SEC and CFTC Signal United Front on Crypto

• Trump Won’t Consider Pardon for SBF: Report

• DEX in the City: How Crypto Exchanges May Be Holding Up the Market Structure Bill

• How Ripple is Helping Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity to Unlock Crypto Philanthropy

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The Mag 7 have committed over $700 billion to AI infrastructure, but the companies building the models may never capture the value.

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The BLS just quietly revised away 862,000 jobs, and real-time inflation trackers now peg price growth below 1%, less than half of what official figures report. 

If the Fed is steering monetary policy with stale data, investors need to ask what else the models are getting wrong. 

At the same time, the Mag 7 have committed more than $700 billion to AI infrastructure, with Anthropic alone projecting $1 trillion in revenue within five years. Is that conviction or the early stages of a debt cycle nobody is pricing? 

And then there is the institutional side of crypto: BlackRock's BUIDL fund just landed on Uniswap with $2.4 billion in assets, Apollo acquired $90 million in Morpho tokens, and AI agents are already settling micropayments in stablecoins. 

Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Christopher Perkins sit down with Truflation’s CEO Stefan Rust to ask whether the numbers we trust are telling us the truth.

Hosts:

• ⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

• ⁠Austin Campbell⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

• ⁠Christopher Perkins⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Guest:

• Stefan Rust, Founder and CEO of Truflation

Links:

• Unchained: 

• BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why.

• Apollo Moves Into DeFi Lending With Morpho Token Deal

• UNI Spikes on BlackRock DeFi Move, Then Gives It All Back

Macro:

• NBC: U.S. had almost no job growth in 2025

• PBS: Inflation measure falls to nearly five-year low as gas prices fall and housing costs cool

• Crowdfund Insider: Secretary Of The Treasury Scott Bessent Calls Out Truflation's Inflation Numbers At Senate Banking Hearing

AI CapEx:

• Amazon, Google And Others Are Pouring $700 Billion Into AI CapEx, Top Analyst Explains Why This Makes It 'Hard' To Bet Against Nvidia

• CIO: Data center capex to hit $1.7 trillion by 2030 due to AI boom

• Reuters: OpenClaw founder Steinberger joins OpenAI, open-source bot becomes foundation

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The crew unpacks BlackRock buying UNI, ARK, Citadel, DTCC, the Intercontinental Exchange and other TradFi players backing Zero, , Vitalik's thoughts on AI, and more. 

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AI safety chiefs are leaving, BlackRock's launching on Uniswap and buying UNI, LayerZero launches “the last blockchain” with institutional backing, Kaito is launching attention markets, Base is abandoning social and Vitalik has some thoughts on AI.

Hosts Kain Warwick, Luca Netz and Taylor Monahan unpack these and more in yet another packed episode of Uneasy Money.

Find out why Kain thinks the Uniswap and LayerZero news point to a new meta reminiscent of DeFi Summer. Plus, is Coinbase's Base playing it too safe? And is Vitalik fighting a losing battle?

Hosts:

• Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

• Kain Warwick, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• Taylor Monahan, Security at MetaMask

Links:

• Unchained:

• ⁠LayerZero Launches ‘Zero’ Layer 1 as Citadel, ARK Buy ZRO⁠

• ⁠How Zero Blockchain Cracked 2 Million TPS and Is Still Decentralized⁠

• ⁠Vitalik Buterin Pushes Back on the ‘Race to AGI,’ Outlines Ethereum-Led AI Path⁠

• ⁠When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?⁠

• ⁠Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain⁠

• ⁠Uneasy Money: Why Crypto Still Can’t Overcome Its ICO Struggles

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The market structure bill introduces a "control" test for DeFi protocols. The problem: nobody agrees on what control means.

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Peter Van Valkenburgh of Coin Center sits down with Jessi Brooks and Vy Le to confront a question that will determine which DeFi projects can operate in the United States and which ones can't. 

The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act creates a carve-out for non-custodial developers, codifying the principle that if you never hold customer funds, you shouldn't need a money transmitter license. Simple enough on paper. 

But Vy presses on the hard cases: what about an admin key, an upgradeable vault, or a pause function built for security? Where exactly does "non-custodial" end and "control" begin? 

Meanwhile, Jessi raises the tension the industry rarely wants to discuss. The DOJ just charged cartel brokers moving money through crypto, yet simultaneously dismantled its own enforcement teams. 

If Congress clears developers, who pursues the actual criminals? The answer matters for every builder, investor, and victim watching this play out.

Hosts:

• Jessi Brooks, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• TuongVy Le, General Counsel at Veda

Guest:

• ⁠Peter Van Valkenburgh, Executive Director of Coin Center

Links:

• ⁠​​Crypto Market Structure Bill Clears Senate Committee — But the Hard Part Is Still Ahead⁠
• ⁠Senators Move to Curb Passive Stablecoin Yields in Market Structure Push⁠
• ⁠Mastercard in Talks to Buy Zerohash for $2 Billion: Report⁠
• ⁠How the GENIUS Act Creates a Built-In Advantage for Banks and Deposit Tokens⁠
• ⁠How Nansen’s New Trading Agent Makes It Easier to Follow the Smart Money Onchain⁠
• ⁠How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other⁠
• ⁠Reading is Fundamental⁠
• ⁠Stablecoin for Babies

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Namik Muduroglu and Amir Almaimani walk through MegaETH's launch strategy and why they are delaying the TGE.

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Months after its oversubscribed initial coin offering, MegaETH's mainnet is live. But the project is not launching its token just yet. 

In this Unchained podcast episode, MegaETH strategy chief Namik Muduroglu and Head of Ecosystem Amir Almaimani break down the Ethereum Layer 2 chain’s launch strategy, including its decision to delay TGE.

They also explain how the MegaETH is navigating the current market slump and how it is positioning USDM as its long term moat. Plus, why they believe credible neutrality is a “losing strategy.”

Guests:

• Namik Muduroglu, CSO & Founding Team at MegaETH

• Amir Almaimani, Head of Ecosystem of MegaETH

• Previous appearances on Unchained:

• MegaETH Just Had Its Public Sale. Can It Succeed in Building a Web2-Like Experience?

  
  

Links:

• Unchained:

• Ethereum Lets Go of the Rollup Story. Here Are the 6 Tokens That Benefit

• MegaETH Plans Return of All Pre-Deposit Funds

• MegaETH Just Had Its Public Sale. Can It Succeed in Building a Web2-Like Experience?

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Are bitcoiners underestimating the quantum threat to Bitcoin? That's the question Castle Island Ventures Partner Nic Carter has posed with some recent posts gauging the views of several leading Bitcoin developers on quantum computing.

To help answer the question, Unchained reached out to Ethereum Foundation Researcher Justin Drake and Michigan University Professor Chris Peikert. In this episode, Justin and Chris, who is one of the foremost experts on lattice cryptography, break down the quantum computing threat to crypto and the potential timelines.

Justin theorizes that Bitcoin developers may not be incentivized to talk about the quantum computing risk while still saying that a number of smart people are already taking it seriously and that may be enough.

Conversely, Chris highlights the constraints that come with uncertainty around risks and timelines.

Listen to find out what they conclude. Plus, could AI do crypto in before quantum computers?

Guests:

• Justin Drake, Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation

• Chris Peikert, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan

Links:

• Ethereum and Optimism Lay the Groundwork for a Post-Quantum Future
• Q-Day Is Imminent. Can Bitcoin Survive the Quantum Threat?
• Solana Deploys Post-Quantum Signatures on Testnet
• Cracking Bitcoin Encryption Is Getting Much Easier, Google Says

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What happened to Bitcoin on Feb. 5? And why does the apex crypto continue to underperform?

DeFi Development Corp investment chief Parker White has some theories. In this Unchained podcast episode, Parker walks Laura Shin through them as they gain traction on X.

At the center of it all is non-crypto Hong Kong fund and another fund that may be executing a ‘Big Short’-style trade using derivatives.

Listen to find out why Parker is so convinced.

Guest:

• Parker White, COO/Chief Investment Officer at DeFi Development Corp

Links:

• Bitcoin Mining Gets a Rare Reset as Weaker Players Drop Out
• Why Bitcoin Is Down, Plus the Rare Bright Spot in Crypto: Hyperliquid
• Crypto Sentiment Is Down Bad. The Reality Is Far Different, Says Ryan Watkins

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

Figure is giving away $25,000 in USDC. Deposit into Democratized Prime, earn ~9% APY hourly—and every $1 you keep in for 25 days is 1 entry.

Enter here

---

Bitcoin slid toward $60,000 on Feb. 5 in a brutal, cross-asset selloff that hit gold, equities, and crypto alike. With leverage unwinding and basis trades breaking, long-time bitcoin holders are distributing to institutional buyers who, by 13F data, are mostly underwater. The mood across digital assets is bleak.

Against that backdrop, Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures argues that key Bitcoin narratives have quietly failed—and warns that developers’ inaction on quantum risk could open the door to institutional control. If devs don’t act, Carter says ETF giants like BlackRock will.

The panel then widens the lens: declaring the token-centric VC model dead, debating whether AI now rivals the industrial revolution, and stress-testing it all across topics ranging from Solana vs. Hyperliquid to Japan’s political shift and MrBeast’s fintech play.

---

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Hosts:

• Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

• Austin Campbell, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

• Christopher Perkins, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Guest:

Nic Carter, Founding Partner at Castle Island Ventures

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LayerZero Labs is making bold promises with its coming Zero Blockchain. 2 million transactions per second per node. A thousandth of a penny per transaction. No compromises to decentralization. The big question is how?!

In this Unchained podcast episode, LayerZero Labs CEO Bryan Pellegrino explains how the team was able to crack scalability by fixing blockchain storage and rethinking the crypto industry's approach to zero knowledge technology.

With the blockchain already boasting partners such as Citadel Securities, DTCC and ICE, will Zero be the blockchain institutions decide to build on?

Guest:

• Bryan Pellegrino, Co-founder & CEO of LayerZero Labs

Links:

• LayerZero Foundation Buys Back 5% of ZRO Token Supply From Early Investors
• PayPal’s PYUSD Integrates LayerZero to Expand Across Blockchains
• The LayerZero/Wormhole Bidding War Shows How to Value a Crypto Business
• LayerZero Fought the Sybils and Airdropped Its Token. Did the Team Win?

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The ERC-8004 standard for trustless AI agent interactions is finally live on mainnet!

In this Unchained episode, Ethereum Foundation AI Lead Davide Crapis joins to explain what the standard is, how it works, how it’s protected against manipulation, and what's next.

Listen to find out his most interesting experience building the project and tips for builders looking to start businesses around AI agents.

Guest:

• Davide Crapis, AI Lead at Ethereum Foundation

Links:

• How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other
• Uneasy Money: How Ethereum May Have One-Upped Bitcoin in One Big Way

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Vitalik Buterin just dropped a bombshell: the L2 vision no longer makes sense. Meanwhile, AI coding agents are going parabolic.

In this monster episode of Uneasy Money, Ethereum Foundation Head of Developer Growth Austin Griffith and Optimism co-founder Karl Floersch join hosts Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to unpack the reasoning behind Vitalik's remarks and debate whether Ethereum needs L2s to pull institutions.

They also take a deep dive into the OpenClaw and Moltbook craze and Austin shares how he has different agents running on different machines, including one that texts his wife good morning everyday. Is “AI the new UI?”

Hosts:

• Kain Warwick, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

• Taylor Monahan, Security Expert, Metamask

Guests:

• Austin Griffith, AI Lead at Ethereum Foundation

• Karl Floersh, CTO of OP Labs

Links:

• Vitalik Rethinks Ethereum’s L2 Playbook, Calls for Shift Toward Native Rollups
• How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other

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In one week, OpenClaw agents have gotten their own social networking platform, launched cryptocurrency tokens and built a site to rent humans.

In this episode of Unchained, DAIS Global Chair Michael Casey and The Exponentialist co-founder David Mattin explore what Moltbook reveals about the direction of the AI trend, how AI could impact jobs and what a post-human economy looks like. Will Bitcoin be the currency of the future?

Don't miss Michael's sovereign AI thesis and how Mattin believes we can navigate the transition to a post-human society.

Hint: “lean into your weirdness.”

Guests:

• Michael Casey, Chairman of DAIS Global

• David Mattin, Co-founder of The Exponentialist

Links:

• How Nansen’s New Trading Agent Makes It Easier to Follow the Smart Money Onchain
• How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other
• Check out David's newsletter New World Same Humans

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If you’re looking for help with crypto taxes, Crypto Tax Girl is offering $100 off for Unchained listeners.

They provide personalized crypto tax reports and tax returns, and availability before April 15 is limited.

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The White House is intervening in the fight over stablecoin yield. And AI agents are… organizing?

In this special episode of DEX in the City, Zerohash CEO Edward Woodford joins hosts Jessi Brooks and Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos to unpack the White House meeting to resolve disputes over the CLARITY Act and the Moltbook craze.

Listen to find out why Edward thinks CLARITY should have a narrower focus and what he thinks is more important than the yield debate. Plus why Jessi thinks the crypto industry is pinning too much hope on the bill.

Don't also miss Edward's rationale behind rejecting $2B from Mastercard and KK's awkward interaction with a teacher after offering to teach crypto at her son's school.

Meanwhile, as AI agents proliferate, where does accountability lie?

Hosts:

• Jessi Brooks, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital

• Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at StarkWare

Guest:

• Edward Woodford, Founder and CEO of Zerohash

Links:

• ​​Crypto Market Structure Bill Clears Senate Committee — But the Hard Part Is Still Ahead
• Senators Move to Curb Passive Stablecoin Yields in Market Structure Push
• Mastercard in Talks to Buy Zerohash for $2 Billion: Report
• How the GENIUS Act Creates a Built-In Advantage for Banks and Deposit Tokens
• How Nansen’s New Trading Agent Makes It Easier to Follow the Smart Money Onchain
• How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other
• Reading is Fundamental
• Stablecoin for Babies

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Bitcoin's collapse is accelerating. Continuing a descent that began last week, the asset this week has all the price progress made under the Trump administration. The price action begs the question why amid greater adoption and support.

In this episode of Unchained, FalconX Head of Markets Joshua Lim highlights two main reasons for Bitcoin's regression and offers his outlook for the year. Is it 2022 all over?

Plus, how gold's run resembles GameStop in 2021 and why Hyperliquid is a bright spot amid market weakness.

Guest:

• Joshua Lim, Head of Markets, FalconX

Links:

• Bitcoin Sinks as Markets Price In a More Hawkish Fed
• Has Bitcoin Failed to Live Up to the Digital Gold Narrative?
• Why HYPE Is Up While Every Other Crypto, Including Bitcoin, Is Down

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Crypto markets are under severe pressure, with Bitcoin sliding into one of the most oversold conditions in its history and Ethereum following closely behind. In this episode of Bits + Bips, Steve Ehrlich sits down with Fairlead Strategies founder Katie Stockton to walk through what the charts are actually signaling amid the selloff.

They discuss why oversold does not automatically mean a bottom, how technicians look for downside exhaustion, and what needs to change before confidence returns for Bitcoin and ETH.

Hosts:

• Steven Ehrlich, Host, Bits + Bips

Guests:

Katie Stockton, Founder and Managing Partner, Fairlead Strategies

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