Unchained

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, Helius’s Mert returns to defend Zcash’s ~400% run and the “encrypted Bitcoin” framing, digging into anonymity sets, privacy UX, and why Bitcoiners are so riled up. We then tackle the Tempo bombshell — a ~$500M raise at a ~$5B pre, Str...

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins tackle a packed agenda: from the fairness of Binance’s listing fees to the ways in which DeFi didn’t perform well during the “Black Friday” crash, why Tempo’s $500 million raise might have been a political ploy, and the growing war over stablecoin dominance. The trio debates whether Bitcoin is undervalued compa...

Last Friday, billions evaporated in a liquidation cascade—and nobody knows exactly what happened because centralized exchanges won't share the data. In this sponsored episode recorded at Aptos' NYC event, Aptos CEO Avery Ching says if their Decibel perpetual exchange had been live, traders would have seen every order, every spread change, every liquidation in real-time onchain. But while critics a...

Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix and Infinex, is returning to Ethereum Layer 1 with a bold new experiment: a perpetuals DEX built directly on mainnet. In this episode, he joins Laura to explain why Synthetix is taking this contrarian step, how its hybrid “optimistic order book” can run efficiently on Ethereum’s slower block times, and why he believes the future of trading will move fully on-chai...

When CJ Hetherington revealed the token listing terms Binance allegedly offered his startup, the crypto world exploded. In this episode, CJ, founder of prediction market app Limitless, and his investor Nick Tomaino of 1confirmation join Laura to discuss why he went public, how Binance responded, and what the incident reveals about the power dynamics between exchanges and builders. The conversation...

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, Doug Colkitt, Founder Ambient Finance & Founding Contributor at Fogo, joins us as one of the wildest weekends in crypto history drags us back on air: a record $19B+ in liquidations, gas spiking toward $400, exchange APIs wobbling, and...

Crypto just went through its biggest crash. In the wake of “Black Friday,” when $19 billion in positions were wiped out in hours, Bits + Bips hosts Steve Ehrlich and Ram Ahluwalia are joined by Carlos Guzman of GSR and YQ of AltLayer to dissect what really happened. Was it a coordinated attack exploiting Binance’s oracles? A failure of market structure? Or simply too much leverage waiting for a tr...

When Trump tweeted about 100% tariffs on China, crypto collapsed — $19 billion in liquidations in just hours.  Altcoins plunged 95%, exchanges froze, and stablecoins depegged. In this special episode, Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol, joins Laura to break down the chain reaction: what really caused the crash, whether insiders knew it was coming, and how infrastructure failures and extre...

Polymarket scales with Wall Street’s blessing, Kalshi fires up KOLs, and BNB chain melts down as fast as it ran. We dissect Aster’s data drama, the new privacy wave lifting Zcash, and Galaxy One’s glossy yields—what’s smart strategy vs. old mistakes in new clothes? Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about t...

The stablecoin race is heating up. With the passage of the U.S. stablecoin law the floodgates have opened. Tether still dominates globally, but Circle, Stripe, and a wave of new “stablechains” are making their move. In this episode, Dragonfly partner Rob Hadick and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz join Laura Shin to map out how this battle could reshape crypto and payments. Will ecosystem apps like Phantom...

Bitcoin is hitting new all-time highs—but is this real euphoria, or just a prelude to it? In this double-header episode, we bring you a Bits + Bips roundtable and an in-depth interview on the five companies best positioned to bring crypto onchain. First, the Bits + Bips crew, Lumida’s Ram Ahluwalia, FalconX’s Joshua Lim, and NYU professor Austin Campbell, break down what’s really driving this cryp...

On Monday, bitcoin hit a new all-time high of over $126,000, but Bitcoin’s biggest fight right now isn’t about price; it’s about purpose.  Since 2023, image files and meme tokens have clogged the network, spiking fees and making everyday payments expensive. Bitcoin Core wants to lift an 80-byte data limit that's existed since 2014. Bitcoin Knots disagrees — and has built code to enforce a differen...

Arthur Hayes & Tom Lee map the new crypto arms race—Hyperliquid vs Aster, Plasma’s stablecoin rails, and ETH’s DAT-fueled supercycle. 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. Live at Token2049 Singapore, we’re joined by Arthur Hayes (Maelstrom) and Tom Lee (Bitmine) to map two battles...

Is gold the ultimate hedge against inflation and sovereign risk? Or are stocks the better long-term wealth builder thanks to innovation and earnings growth? In this heated and highly entertaining episode, Ram Ahluwalia (Lumida Wealth) and Vinny Lingham (Praxos Capital) dive deep into the macro landscape to debate the relative merits of gold vs. the S&P 500. Along the way, they explore: Gold’s dece...

Perp DEXs are on fire, with volumes topping $1 trillion a month for the first time.  Aster, backed by YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), has suddenly vaulted to the top of volume charts, but is its rise organic, or manufactured?  But while everyone frames the battle as Aster vs. Hyperliquid, Syncracy’s Ryan Watkins and Sunny Shi argue the real fight is much bigger: decentralized exchanges versus ce...

DoubleZero just launched its mainnet-beta, offering a new type of high-performance fiber network for blockchains, live across 5 continents and already adopted by 20%+ of Solana stake. Co-founder Austin Federa joins Unchained to walk through: How DoubleZero creates a dedicated internet for crypto Who contributes fiber and why they earn the 2Z token What the SEC’s no-action letter means for crypto a...

This week on Unchained, we’ve got a double-header. First, Zach Abrams, CEO of Bridge (acquired by Stripe), unveils Open Issuance, a platform designed to let any company launch its own stablecoin. He explains why the stablecoin duopoly is ending, why fragmentation won’t slow adoption, and how stablecoins could pair with AI to reshape global money movement. Then, Kenny Li, co-founder of Manta Networ...

Crypto’s bull run may be far from over, but the battleground is shifting.  On this week’s Bits + Bips, Bill Barhydt of Abra and Robert Leshner of Superstate join Ram Ahluwalia and Steven Ehrlich to debate:  The current state of the markets with a looming government shutdown  SWIFT’s move to build on Linea, an Ethereum layer 2 Hyperliquid vs Aster The future of perps vs. spot  Why some DATs are sta...

 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 Farooq Malik, co-founder and CEO of Rain, as two parallel wars erupt across crypto: the Perp DEX war between Hyperliquid and the CZ-backed Aster, and the deepening battle for stablecoin dominance. As Aster rockets to...

How do stablecoin-first blockchains win distribution? Does TVL actually map to value? And why speculation may become the default language of online culture. In this 3-part episode, we explore three different important stories. Segment 1: CoinFund’s Seth Ginns explains how newly launched stablecoin chain Plasma aims to compete, plus why the “stablecoin race” with Circle and Stripe is just beginning...

Crypto investors love to throw around “FDV” as if it’s the ultimate measure of value. But what if that number is more misleading than helpful?  In this episode, DBA’s Jon Charbonneau explains his proposal to cut Hyperliquid’s supply by nearly half, why he believes FDV overstates real valuations, and how outdated tokenomics are holding projects back.  We also cover whether the Hyperliquid team shou...

Markets had a flood of liquidations on Monday, and traders lost over $1.5 billion in positions. So, why are liquidations spiking? Is this a warning or a blip?  Also, could a flood of DAT issuance be setting the stage for not just a crypto winter, but a crypto “nuclear” winter? If so, hedge funds and market structure could accelerate the pain.  This week on Bits + Bips, Steven Ehrlich, Ram Ahluwali...

In this episode, Cyber Capital’s Justin Bons and Codex’s Haonan Li challenge the new orthodoxy: whether payments chains should be alt L1s or Ethereum L2s, how “neutrality” and finality matter for real-world transactions, and why fragmentation could make or break onchain dollars.  We dig into Stripe’s Tempo (and its permissioned start), what it would take for L2s to reach true decentralization, and...

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 Gordon Liao, Chief Economist at Circle, to dissect the Stablecoin Wars. From Circle’s Arc and Stripe + Paradigm’s Tempo, to Solana’s native stablecoin push and Hyperliquid’s deal, we unpack why everyone suddenly wants...

This week on Bits + Bips, hosts Steve Ehrlich and Ram Ahluwalia speak with Blockchain.com’s Nic Cary and Franklin Templeton’s Max Gokhman. We talk about how the potential Base token would alter the L2 landscape, and who should capture the value if Coinbase becomes the backbone for DeFi. Also, whether Web2 and TradFi giants will buy their way onchain, why privacy infrastructure is overdue, and how...