Unchained

Mitchell F. Chan, who released one of the first NFT projects on Ethereum back in 2017, discusses his projects, making art on a blockchain, how NFTs are transforming the traditional art world, and more. Show topics: Mitchell’s art career before NFTs how Mitchell was inspired by Yves Klein’s 1950's work 'Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility’ the story behind Mitchell’s OG NFT art project: ‘Digi...

Merry Christmas (Eve)! For this special episode of Unchained, three other crypto journalists and I discuss their favorite stories from the past twelve months, how they would grade crypto journalism in 2021, and what they are looking forward to covering in 2022. Show highlights: what stories Michael, Michael, Jeff, and I will remember from a ~busy~ 2021  why 2021 is “clearly the biggest year” yet f...

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Jess Symington, research lead at Elliptic, a blockchain forensics company, discusses the massive upswing in DeFi hacks during 2021, resulting in over $10 billion of DeFi value lost. Show topics: the state of crime in DeFi how much value has been lost to exploits whether the majority of hacks are the result of user or developer error the various types of exploits how to confirm when a project did,...

Gabby Dizon, cofounder of Yield Guild Games, discusses his background in gaming, why he started Yield Guild Games, the performance of Axie Infinity, and more. Show topics: how Gabby fell down the crypto rabbit hole what inspired Gabby to co-found Yield Guild Games what Yield Guild Games does how blockchain games improve upon games in the traditional world a real-life story of Yield Guild Games imp...

Jeff Dorman, the chief investment officer at Arca, discusses the recent events surrounding SushiSwap, including CTO Joseph Delong’s departure this week, Arca’s proposal to create a hierarchical management structure for SushiSwap, and why Jeff is still excited about Arca’s investment in SushiSwap. Show topics: what SushiSwap is and how it has performed since its inception how Jeff views SushiSwap’s...

Some of the biggest names in the crypto industry discuss their personal giving philosophies, how blockchain technology could change the dynamics of giving to charity, and which crypto projects are making a lasting real-world impact. Guests include Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital; Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of Alameda Research; and Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos. Show topi...

Ryan Zurrer, founder of Dialectic, a crypto wealth multi-family office, discusses his recent $29 million purchase of Beeple’s Human One and his experience at Art Basel in Miami, along with his thoughts on the NFT space in general. Show highlights: what Human One is and why Ryan purchased it how Ryan and Beeple’s personal relationship factored into the purchase of Human One why Human One is importa...

On Unchained, two co-founders of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, dive deeply into the Solana ecosystem, discussing everything from the price of SOL to the Solana network outage to the competition between Ethereum and Solana. Show highlights: why Raj thinks SOL’s market cap grew from $86 million to $68 billion in less than a year Anatoly’s and Raj’s background and how they found thems...

Maren Altman is a professional astrologer and crypto trader. On Unchained, she discusses her end-of-year price target for Bitcoin, how crypto fits into her natal chart, and how she uses planets to divine the price movement of crypto assets. Highlights: why Maren believes she was born to trade cryptocurrencies how long-term planetary transits explain the rise of cryptocurrency why the transits of U...

Two tokenomics experts, Yan Liberman, co-founder of Delphi Digital, and Viktor Bunin, protocol specialist at Coinbase Cloud, discuss their experiences building tokens, their thoughts on the recent ENS/PSP airdrops, and what “fair” token distribution looks like. Show highlights: the definition of tokenomics what factors (such as utility, fairness, liquidity, security, etc.) token designers are ince...

Will Papper, SyndicateDAO co-founder and ConstitutionDAO contributor, tells the story of how a group of internet friends came together as a DAO to crowdfund a $41 million bid at a Sotheby’s auction for a physical copy of the US Constitution. Show highlights: how Will and other ConstitutionDAO members feel after losing the auction the significance of ConstitutionDAO despite its loss whether Will kn...

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s senior vice president and general manager of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies, discusses PayPal’s crypto game plan, how CBDCs might be implemented, crypto regulations, and more. Show highlights: Jose’s path to becoming the GM of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies at PayPal what factors led to PayPal’s decision to launch its crypto offering what s...

Sam Trabucco, co-CEO of Alameda Research, discusses the different price drivers that led to BTC, ETH, SOL, and LUNA reaching new all-time highs in the past week. Show highlights: why Sam believes no bad news from regulators is good news what effect leverage has on the crypto markets the significance of Bitcoin hitting a new all-time high and the crypto market cap reaching $3 trillion how the appro...

At Non-Fungible Castle 2021, an NFT exhibition in Prague, four NFT experts debate some of the hottest topics in the metaverse, like how to value NFTs, whether insider trading exists, what makes Ethereum-based NFTS so special, and the environmental impact of NFTs.  Guests include Maria Paula Fernandez, co-founder at JPG, Kavita Gupta, cofounder of FINTECH.TV, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, artist, and G...

At Non-Fungible Castle 2021, an NFT exhibition in Prague, four NFT experts discuss the legal implications of NFTs. Guests include Jonathan Victor, product/business development at Protocol Labs; Louis Baudoin, advisor at Monax; Diana Stern, product counsel at Stripe; and Shant Marootian COO at Fractional.art. Show highlights: what users are receiving with the purchase of an NFT how the terms of ser...

Secret Network is a privacy-first, permissionless layer 1 blockchain built for computational privacy. Tor Bair, founder of Secret Foundation, a developer of Secret Network, discusses what makes Secret Network unique, including smart contract privacy, private metadata for NFTs, and how regulators should treat privacy tech in blockchain. Show highlights: how Tor fell down the crypto rabbit hole what...

Do Kwon, cofounder of Terraform Labs, was recently served subpoenas by the US Securities and Exchange Commission during Messari’s mainnet event, leading Kwon and Terraform to preemptively sue the SEC. On Unconfirmed, Kwon discusses: what Terraform Labs does and how it is building its DeFi ecosystem around TerraUSD ($UST) why Terraform Labs created its synthetics protocol, Mirror, and how it works...

Remember the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which caused considerable backlash from the crypto community due to the language regarding “brokers?” Abe Sutherland, an adjunct professor at University of Virginia School of Law, believes another provision tucked inside the bill could end up being a far more significant issue for anyone transacting in digital assets. Show highlights: how Abe fell down...

PlanB, a former institutional investor with 25 years of experience in financial markets turned anon Bitcoin analyst, discusses Bitcoin’s price action, from the macroeconomic drivers to what his models predict for the rest of 2021. Show highlights: PlanB’s background and how he got into Bitcoin what a stock-to-flow model is and how PlanB uses it to predict Bitcoin’s price why PlanB called for a $1...

Andrew Steinwold, managing partner at Sfermion, and John Egan, CEO at L'Atelier BNP Paribas, discuss NFTs and debate the characteristics of the metaverse. Show highlights:  their backgrounds and how they got into NFTs how they each define the metaverse what NFTs have to do with the metaverse how John and Andrew’s depiction of the metaverse differs what John thinks about Facebook’s entrance into th...

Four investors talk about the decentralized web, explain how the crypto industry is improving upon Web 2, and discuss what can be done to increase diversity and financial inclusion within Web 3. Featuring Rik Willard, founder of Agentic Group, Thomas France, co-founder of Cygni Capital, Dylan Hixon, president of Arden Road Investments, and Nick Grossman,general partner at Union Square Ventures . S...

Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, discusses Visa’s crypto game plan, stablecoin regulation, NFTs, and more. Show highlights: Cuy’s background and his journey down the crypto rabbit hole how Visa and cryptocurrency can coexist why crypto companies and fintech companies are similar what Visa is trying to solve for consumers regarding cryptocurrencies how cross-chain payment infrastructure would...

Ryan Gentry, business development lead at Lightning Labs, discusses the latest updates on the Lightning Network, the layer 2 solution for Bitcoin. Highlights: how Lightning Network is bringing Bitcoin to the masses through partnerships with Twitter, Substack, and Paxful what the significance of El Salvador adopting Bitcoin means for the Lightning Network how many nodes are running Lightning Networ...

How does the SEC determine if a token is a security? Why is DeFi particularly hard to regulate? What will regulators do about stablecoins? On Unchained, Greg Xethalis, chief compliance officer at Multicoin Capital, and Collins Belton, founding partner at Brookwood P.C., dive into crypto regulation, discussing securities laws, DeFi regulation, and why the US should be promoting stablecoins rather t...