Unchained

40 Episodes
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By: Laura Shin

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

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Why AI Censorship and Reg NMS Repeal Matter for Crypto Markets: DEX in the City
Why AI Censorship and Reg NMS Repeal Matter for Crypto Markets: DEX in the City episode artwork
Today at 7:26 PM

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.


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👉 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 happe...


The Chopping Block: SpaceX IPO Mania, Fable 5 Export Controls & The AI Privacy Fight
The Chopping Block: SpaceX IPO Mania, Fable 5 Export Controls & The AI Privacy Fight episode artwork
Today at 4:00 PM

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 wast...


Unchained Celebrates 10 Years! Laura and Haseeb Cover Highs, Lows and New Directions
Unchained Celebrates 10 Years! Laura and Haseeb Cover Highs, Lows and New Directions episode artwork
Today at 3:43 AM

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.

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⁠⁠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 y...


Why Sam Enzer Says the Fable 5 Ban Should Worry Crypto
Why Sam Enzer Says the Fable 5 Ban Should Worry Crypto episode artwork
Today at 2:10 AM

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...


Why the AI Business Model Is Cracking and How Crypto Could Help Fix It
Why the AI Business Model Is Cracking and How Crypto Could Help Fix It episode artwork
Last Friday at 4:12 PM

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.

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⁠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. G...


Claude Found a 4-Year Zcash Bug. Now It Won't Audit DeFi: Uneasy Money
Claude Found a 4-Year Zcash Bug. Now It Won't Audit DeFi: Uneasy Money episode artwork
Last Friday at 1:06 AM

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.

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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 lat...


The Chopping Block: Zcash Infinite Mint Bug + AI Hackers vs Formal Verification + NEAR's Agent Vision
The Chopping Block: Zcash Infinite Mint Bug + AI Hackers vs Formal Verification + NEAR's Agent Vision episode artwork
06/10/2026

Mert and Illia autopsy a brutal weekend in crypto: Saylor's $3M test sale that taught him there's no sell button, the Zcash bug Claude found that could've minted unlimited counterfeit ZEC, formal verification as the bulwark against AI attackers, and whether NEAR's agentic commerce vision is real.

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 two heavy hitters: NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin and Helius founder Mert Mumtaz.

We kick things off with the we...


How Claude Found Zcash's Counterfeiting Bug
How Claude Found Zcash's Counterfeiting Bug episode artwork
06/10/2026

For three years, a counterfeiting bug sat live inside Zcash's shielded pool, and no one noticed. Then Taylor Hornby pointed a custom Claude Opus 4.8 agent at the code, and it surfaced the flaw in Orchard that had gone undetected since 2022.

Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins debate what that means for privacy protocols, the rotation away from dead-protocol alts, and why Bitcoin's simplicity may be its strongest security argument yet.

The conversation closes on quantum risk and whether the Lindy effect holds up under the new threat environment.


Hosts:<...


Why Saylor's 'Inoculate' Comment May Be a Signal He'll Sell More Bitcoin
Why Saylor's 'Inoculate' Comment May Be a Signal He'll Sell More Bitcoin episode artwork
06/09/2026

About 80% of STRC holders are retail investors. Glenn Cameron walks through the prospectus, how Saylor's public claims differ from the reality, and why Strategy has no good options.

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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 th...


What Two DOJ Cases Reveal About the Legal Risks of Prediction Markets: Bits + Bips
What Two DOJ Cases Reveal About the Legal Risks of Prediction Markets: Bits + Bips episode artwork
06/07/2026

Steve Sosnick on the ratchet effect in equities, the AI bandwidth parallel, Kevin Warsh’s impossible first week, and why crypto is the unsexy trade right now.

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Equities are near all-time highs, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge just hit a multi-year peak, Iran ceasefire talks are producing a familiar ra...


Is Polymarket's Oracle Problem Getting Out of Hand? - Uneasy Money
Is Polymarket's Oracle Problem Getting Out of Hand? - Uneasy Money episode artwork
06/05/2026

Circle froze $12M in a DeFi pool on a Friday court order, trapping users who had nothing to do with the dispute. . Polymarket couldn't resolve a Strategy market. And MegaETH's apps are defecting. Nothing is simple.

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Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin before the May 31 deadline. It just didn't disclose it until June 1 — and that one-day gap is why a...


Why Mike Dudas Has Zero Exposure to ETH, but Is Bullish on Hyperliquid
Why Mike Dudas Has Zero Exposure to ETH, but Is Bullish on Hyperliquid episode artwork
06/05/2026

Mike Dudas holds zero ETH and sees Hyperliquid as crypto's Tether moment. He also has a clear framework for what makes a token worth buying.

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Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin, worth just $2.5 million, and the market didn't miss it. For Mike Dudas, Managing Partner at 6th Man Ventures, the sale broke the "never sell" promise that sustained the company's premium. He doesn't see how the...


Why MSTR Should Have Sold $2 Billion Instead of $2 Million of Bitcoin
Why MSTR Should Have Sold $2 Billion Instead of $2 Million of Bitcoin episode artwork
06/05/2026

Jeff Dorman on why Strategy's four stakeholder classes are all losing, and why Saylor should have sold $2B of Bitcoin at once instead of $2.5M.

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Strategy’s late-May Bitcoin sale has turned a long-running investor concern into a sharper question: how sustainable is the company’s capital structure if its Bitcoin accumulation strategy now comes with large cash obligations?

Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at Arca, joins Laura Shin to discuss why...


The Chopping Block: Ethereum's Inflection Point w/ Joe Lubin on DATs, CROPS, AI-Driven Exploits, Quantum Threats, and CFTC's Perps
The Chopping Block: Ethereum's Inflection Point w/ Joe Lubin on DATs, CROPS, AI-Driven Exploits, Quantum Threats, and CFTC's Perps episode artwork
06/04/2026

Joe Lubin makes the bull case for Ethereum amid a sea of bearishness. The panel dissects Saylor selling Bitcoin for the first time in four years, the meaning behind 9 senior EF departures, Justin Drake's Q-Day call (50% by 2032), Manuel Araoz declaring all of DeFi unsafe, the ThorChain hack fallout, the Zama/Overnight Finance USDC freeze saga, and the CFTC greenlighting the first US perpetual futures product.


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 Joe Lubin is...


CFTC Approves True Perps and Agentic Finance Gets Real: DEX in the City
CFTC Approves True Perps and Agentic Finance Gets Real: DEX in the City episode artwork
06/03/2026

The CFTC reclassified perps as futures. Katherine and Jessi parse what the ruling actually permits and what it means for Hyperliquid. Plus: if your AI agent gets scammed, who pays?


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The CFTC approved a perpetual Bitcoin futures contract for KalshiEX, and crypto Twitter immediately got it wrong. Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos untangles what actually changed, why the switch from swap to futures classification matters for retail access, and...


Bits + Bips: How the Dimon vs. Armstrong Clash Reveals Crypto at Peak Political Power
Bits + Bips: How the Dimon vs. Armstrong Clash Reveals Crypto at Peak Political Power episode artwork
06/03/2026

Strategy sold BTC. Can its preferred dividend stack survive without Bitcoin growing at least 11.5% year? Plus, they cover Jamie Dimon calling Brian Armstrong “full of shit.”

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Strategy sold Bitcoin for the first time since 2022 — 32 BTC to cover preferred stock dividends. Ram, Austin, and Chris discuss whether that small sale signals a deeper structural tension between equity holders, preferred holders, and Bitcoin itself.

They also covered the news that Anthro...


Bitcoin Stalls, Stocks Soar: The Disconnect That Defines This Cycle
Bitcoin Stalls, Stocks Soar: The Disconnect That Defines This Cycle episode artwork
05/31/2026

Steve Sosnick on the ratchet effect in equities, the AI bandwidth parallel, Kevin Warsh’s impossible first week, and why crypto is the unsexy trade right now.

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Heads up!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Equities are near all-time highs, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge just hit a multi-year peak, Iran ceasefire talks are pro...


Is 'All of DeFi Unsafe'? What You Need to Know About Holding Assets Onchain
Is 'All of DeFi Unsafe'? What You Need to Know About Holding Assets Onchain episode artwork
05/29/2026

A co-founder of OpenZeppelin said he’s urging friends to exit blue chip DeFi. Isaac Patka and Mike Silagadze explain what he got right, what he got wrong, and what needs to change.

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A co-founder of OpenZeppelin set off a firestorm on Crypto Twitter this week by declaring that he now considers all of DeFi unsafe, citing superhuman AI coding agents and the asymmetry between attackers and defenders. 

I...


Uneasy Money: Illia Polosukhin on Why Onchain Commerce Needs Confidentiality
Uneasy Money: Illia Polosukhin on Why Onchain Commerce Needs Confidentiality episode artwork
05/29/2026

Illia Polosukhin, founder of NEAR and co-author of 'Attention Is All You Need,' on why confidentiality will let crypto become daily commerce — plus, some Near lore.

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Before co-founding NEAR Protocol, Illia Polosukhin was on the eight-person Google Brain team that wrote the transform...


Is the Ethereum Foundation Too Out of Touch to Save ETH?
Is the Ethereum Foundation Too Out of Touch to Save ETH? episode artwork
05/28/2026

Vitalik finally said ETH the asset matters. Zak Cole’s reaction: ‘Should have said that five years ago.’ What broken cryptoeconomics mean for Ethereum’s future.

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The Ethereum Foundation has lost a wave of senior people in the span of a few months. A new co-executive director nobody has ever met is cutting budgets and releasing documents with a certain aesthetic.

Vitalik published a post saying ETH the asset is the mos...


The Chopping Block: Ethereum's Identity Crisis, Apostates Speak Out, and Is ETH the Microsoft of Crypto?
The Chopping Block: Ethereum's Identity Crisis, Apostates Speak Out, and Is ETH the Microsoft of Crypto? episode artwork
05/28/2026

Ethereum's midlife crisis hits the podcast as ex-Bankless and ConsenSys insiders unpack ETH's talent exodus, identity spiral, "Microsoft" future, EF shake-ups, and the Solana contender play-all with spicy takes on airdrops, real dev stats, and blockchain adoption drama.

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, it's an Ethereum apostasy spectacular: we're joined by David Hoffman and Max Resnick, who hit the confessional booth to explain why they've left the church of Ethereum. 

We kick off wit...


Why Fintechs May Finally Beat Banks at Their Own Game: DEX in the City
Why Fintechs May Finally Beat Banks at Their Own Game: DEX in the City episode artwork
05/28/2026

Banks are about to lose two of their biggest advantages: custody and payments. A new White House EO opening Fed master accounts to fintechs could be the catalyst.


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A White House executive order is pushing the Fed to open its master account system to fintechs and crypto firms, and the implications are bigger than most people realize.

Ka...


Why the SEC Paused on Its Innovation Exemption for Tokenization: Bits + Bips
Why the SEC Paused on Its Innovation Exemption for Tokenization: Bits + Bips episode artwork
05/28/2026

Citadel and SIFMA lobbied to slow tokenized equity rules. Arjun Sethi calls it 'corporate plumbing.' Chris Perkins calls it a bond future moment.

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Heads up!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Kraken has spent $2.75 billion on acquisitions in the past year, and co-CEO Arjun Sethi says the point is not a bigger exchange. The goal is...


Why Pre-IPO Perps Like SpaceX on Hyperliquid Are Seeing an Upswing
Why Pre-IPO Perps Like SpaceX on Hyperliquid Are Seeing an Upswing episode artwork
05/24/2026

Pre-IPO trading is hot ahead of three big IPOs. Perp volume on Hyperliquid went from $3M to $44M in three months, and SpaceX perps is just the beginning, says Dio Casares of Patagon.

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Pre-IPO perp volume on Hyperliquid grew from $3 million to $44 million in roughly three months.

Anthropic and OpenAI voided secondary shares, sending shockwaves through the pre-IPO marketes. Robinhood launched trust-style tokenized offerings into a gray...


Ethereum Foundation Staff Are Leaving. What Does It Mean for ETH? - Uneasy Money
Ethereum Foundation Staff Are Leaving. What Does It Mean for ETH? - Uneasy Money episode artwork
05/24/2026

Top Ethereum Foundation staff are leaving. Why? Also, Trade.xyz launched a synthetic pre-IPO SpaceX perp on Hyperliquid that further shows RWAs moving onchain.

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


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A synthetic SpaceX perpetual futures contract launched on Hyperliquid ahead of any IPO, jumping 44% before settling back...


The Bond Market Is the Boss Now: Bits + Bips
The Bond Market Is the Boss Now: Bits + Bips episode artwork
05/23/2026

Kevin Warsh wants a smaller Fed balance sheet and fewer dot plots. Noelle Acheson says the bond market won't let him have either. Here's what she expects instead.

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Bond yields are climbing globally while stock markets push higher on AI optimism — and Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter, argues the divergence is not a contradiction but a warning. In her read, inflation was building bef...


Why the Consensus After-Party Set Crypto Back: DEX in the City
Why the Consensus After-Party Set Crypto Back: DEX in the City episode artwork
05/22/2026

KK, Jessi, and Vy Le call out the silence from CoinDesk and industry organizations after the Consensus after-party was held at  E11even. Plus: Clarity’s odds.


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The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9, but Katherine, Jessi, and Vy Le are not popping champagne. 

KK puts passage odds at 35-40%. Vy Le came down from 90% after only two...


The Chopping Block: The CLARITY Act, Hyperliquid vs CME, and the Prediction Market Supreme Court Showdown
The Chopping Block: The CLARITY Act, Hyperliquid vs CME, and the Prediction Market Supreme Court Showdown episode artwork
05/21/2026

Rebecca from Jito Labs joins Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun for a regulation deep-dive covering the CLARITY Act's stablecoin yield compromise and presidential ethics sticking points, CME and ICE's lobbying war against Hyperliquid's RWA perps, the prediction market legal battle heading to the Supreme Court, and whether the SEC's tokenized securities innovation exemption will actually matter.


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, joining us is Rebecca Rettig, Chief Legal Officer at Jito Labs, who's he...


In an AI Agent World, Do Money Markets Win Over Stablecoins? - Bits + Bips
In an AI Agent World, Do Money Markets Win Over Stablecoins? - Bits + Bips episode artwork
05/19/2026

USDC became Hyperliquid's stablecoin infrastructure, and the 30-year broke 5% for the first time since 2008. Austin, Ram, Chris, and Gordon Liao of Circle work through who wins.

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Heads up!

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Coinbase and Circle have moved into Hyperliquid, installing USDC as its aligned quote asset and...


Can Hyperliquid Come Onshore Without Killing What Makes It Special?
Can Hyperliquid Come Onshore Without Killing What Makes It Special? episode artwork
05/19/2026

CME and ICE want regulators to rein in Hyperliquid, which delivers 24/7 derivatives markets that incumbents can't match. Can it be brought onshore?

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CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange have asked the CFTC to regulate Hyperliquid, the offshore perpetuals exchange that has rapidly become one of the largest derivatives venues in the world. The incumbents argue that price discovery is migrating to unregulated territory. Hyperliquid argues that its onchain transpa...


Bits + Bips: The Interview — The $16 Trillion Repo Market Is TradFi’s Central Nervous System. Its Finally Coming Onchain
Bits + Bips: The Interview — The $16 Trillion Repo Market Is TradFi’s Central Nervous System. Its Finally Coming Onchain episode artwork
05/16/2026

The repo market is $16 trillion globally and most people have never heard of it — until the plumbing breaks. Craig Burchell of FalconX and Matteo Pandolfi of Pareto explain how it works and why bringing it on-chain is the next big unlock for DeFi.

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The repo market is $16 trillion globally and it is, as Craig Burchell puts it, the oil that makes everything go. It is also almost entir...


How Hyperliquid Benefits From Its New Deal With Coinbase Over USDC
How Hyperliquid Benefits From Its New Deal With Coinbase Over USDC episode artwork
05/15/2026

Coinbase just became the official USDC treasury deployer on Hyperliquid. Alex Weseley of Artemis explains how this boosts Hyperliquid’s annual revenue by 25%.

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The morning this episode was recorded, Coinbase announced it was acquiring the USDH brand and becoming the official USDC treasury deployer on Hyperliquid — a deal with $150 million in annual revenue implications for a platform that previously earned nothing from its $5 billion USDC float.

A...


Uneasy Money: Why the Broken Pre-IPO Secondary Markets Won't Be Fixed Anytime Soon
Uneasy Money: Why the Broken Pre-IPO Secondary Markets Won't Be Fixed Anytime Soon episode artwork
05/15/2026

Anthropic is voiding secondary market trades. Who gets hurt — WhatsApp scammers, Forge buyers, or the founders? Plus: why continuous synthetic pricing is coming for every pre-IPO company.


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Anthropic and OpenAI are moving to void secondary market trades — and Kain, Tay, and Luca...


DEX in the City: Will the CLARITY Act Pass? Three Crypto Lawyers Give Their Odds
DEX in the City: Will the CLARITY Act Pass? Three Crypto Lawyers Give Their Odds episode artwork
05/14/2026

As a new CLARITY Act draft dropped, KK, Vy, and guest Josh Riezman of GSR give their passage odds and explain the one developer protection provision that matters most.


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A new draft of the CLARITY Act just landed — all 300-plus pages of it — and Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, TuongVy Le, and guest Josh Riezman of GSR didn't wait to dig in. 

On...


Bits + Bips: Why the AI Rally Keeps Growing — and Why Circle Launched Arc
Bits + Bips: Why the AI Rally Keeps Growing — and Why Circle Launched Arc episode artwork
05/13/2026

Ram says the entire market is now one giant AI trade. Chris argues the boom is backed by real fundamentals. Austin asks: is AI creating value for the right companies?

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If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Circle just made history as the first publicly...


Why Arthur Hayes Thinks the AI Bubble Bursting Could Spark a Crypto Bull Market
Why Arthur Hayes Thinks the AI Bubble Bursting Could Spark a Crypto Bull Market episode artwork
05/12/2026

Arthur Hayes sees one force driving markets right now: governments printing money to finance AI and war. He explains why that ends with Bitcoin much higher — and what could derail it.

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Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes called the Tehran toll booth scenario in writing — and now it's playing out. Sovereign nations are waking up to the fact that dollar assets don't buy oil when the strait is cl...


Uneasy Money: Who Owns Stolen Crypto? The $71M Fight Testing DeFi Limits
Uneasy Money: Who Owns Stolen Crypto? The $71M Fight Testing DeFi Limits episode artwork
05/09/2026

A legal battle over frozen KelpDAO hack funds is forcing DeFi to answer questions it has long avoided.


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When the Arbitrum Security Council froze $71 million in funds tied to the KelpDAO  hack, it was hailed as vigilante justice. Now la...


Coinbase's Chief Policy Officer on Why He Believes the Clarity Act Will Pass
Coinbase's Chief Policy Officer on Why He Believes the Clarity Act Will Pass episode artwork
05/08/2026

Coinbase's chief policy officer explains why the bank lobby failed to kill stablecoin rewards — and what 'workable compromise' actually means for crypto users.

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The Genius Act established that stablecoin issuers could pay rewards to users. The banks said no. For months, the A...


DEX in the City: With the Stablecoin Yield Compromise, Can the Clarity Act Get Passed?
DEX in the City: With the Stablecoin Yield Compromise, Can the Clarity Act Get Passed? episode artwork
05/08/2026

Seven lawsuits blame OpenAI for enabling a mass shooting. Could the same legal theory come for DeFi?


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Seven families just sued OpenAI in federal court, arguing ChatGPT was a defective product that helped plan a mass shooting. OpenAI's own safety team flagged the risk eight months earlier and did nothing. The legal theory being tested here, that software developers can be held liable...


A16z Crypto Raised $2.2 Billion for Fund 5. Here's How They Plan to Deploy It
A16z Crypto Raised $2.2 Billion for Fund 5. Here's How They Plan to Deploy It episode artwork
05/07/2026

From AI agents as economic actors to quantum threats and prediction market regulation, Ali Yahya of a16z lays out the investment thesis behind a16z crypto's fifth fund.

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a16z crypto just closed its fifth crypto fund at $2.2 billion — smaller than its previous fund, but the firm says that's deliberate. 

General Partner Ali Yahya argues we are ent...