Unchained

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Emin Gün Sirer, the emperor of Avalanche, also joined the conversation Show topics: Gün’s take on the Ava Labs conspiracy story and whether there was any truth in the videos The impact of the Merge on ETH issuance and energy...

Kevin Zhou, co-founder of Galois Capital, and Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of Wintermute, discuss how to trade the Ethereum Proof of Work fork, what the market is telling about the Merge, and whether the Merge affects Bitcoin.    Show highlights: what will happen at the time of the Merge according to Kevin and whether there’s uncertainty when the ETH Proof of Work chain will emerge and how that...

  Preston Van Loon, cofounder and Ethereum core developer at Prysmatic Labs, talks about the Merge, its impact on an environmental level, and why he is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Treasury Department over Tornado Cash.    Show highlights: what the Merge is on a technical level and what its impact will be  whether the proof of stake consensus mechanism makes the network more decentralize...

Arthur Hayes, cofounder of BitMex, discusses how he’s trading the Merge, the impact of macroeconomic policy in the markets, his career as a writer, and much more.    Show highlights: how crypto is reconfiguring how humans do finance over the internet why Arthur initially thought Ethereum was worthless  how NFTs allow users to trade human culture and will unlock trillions of dollars of value why Et...

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi and Tom Schmidt chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Jill Gunter, the empress of Espresso, also joined the conversation.    Show topics: Whether product management is the new consulting What is going to happen with macroeconomics and whether monetary policy is data-driven Why Jill’s faith is g...

Miles Jennings, general counsel at a16z crypto, talks about its new “can’t be evil” NFT licenses and how they help to solve many problems within the NFT industry. Show highlights: what “can’t be evil” NFT licenses are and what problems they solve what can these licenses achieve for content creators which are the five rights that the licenses address whether the NFT licenses help resolve hate speec...

Show highlights: the legal meaning of the OFAC sanctions on Tornado Cash and why it is causing complications how legislation is built for the fiat world, and how in DeFi and crypto there’s no clarity  how miners have changed their behavior prior to the Merge whether a proof of work chain or a proof of stake chain would be more censorship resistant whether laws apply to validators in a PoS chain th...

Travis Kling, Chief Investment Officer at Ikigai Asset Management, talks about how ETH changes after the Merge, what factors are going to affect its price action, and whether it can decouple from traditional assets.    Show highlights: how the supply and demand dynamics of ETH will change after the Merge why he believes the Merge is the most significant catalyst in crypto history what the risks ar...

Stephane Gosselin, cofounder and chief architect of Flashbots, and Uri Klarman, CEO of bloXrouteLabs, joined Unchained to discuss everything about MEV, an especially important topic now with the Merge coming.  Show highlights: what MEV is, how it works under Proof of Work some examples of MEV, like frontrunning and arbitrage how MEV is a rabbit hole full of monsters the role of Flashbots in the ME...

Ari Redbord, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, talks about the sanctions on Tornado Cash, and the role of blockchain analytics tools in crypto.    Show highlights: Ari’s background as a federal prosecutor and his work for the US Treasury why regulators sanctioned Tornado Cash, according to Ari why the Ronin hack was important for regulators to start taking DeFi hacks more seriously...

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Laura Shin, host of Unchained and author of The Cryptopians, also joined the conversation.    Show topics: What Tornado Cash is and why it got sanctioned by the OFAC The difference between Tornado Cash and blender.io  Whether...

Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer at Coinbase, comes to talk about what products Coinbase is building, how it can thrive in such a competitive landscape, how to onboard billions of users into crypto, and much more.    Show highlights: how Surojit got into crypto and ended up at Coinbase what sets Coinbase apart from the competition how to bring billions of customers to crypto  Surojit’s me...

Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, talks about Tornado Cash, why it was sanctioned, and what this means for privacy in crypto.    Show highlights: what Blender.io is and how it relates to Tornado Cash how hackers have used Tornado Cash to launder money whether the Office of Foreign Assets Control made a mistake, according to Jerry how Americans were affected by the sanctions why Jerry...

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Hasu, the gourmand of governance and Rune Christensen, chief mischief maker at MKR, discuss how to manage a DAO, their respective visions for MakerDAO, and much more.    Show topics:   What MakerDAO is, how DAI works and whe...

Layne Haber, Co-founder of Connext Network, discusses the Nomad bridge hack, how it happened, and what can be done to prevent these exploits.    Show highlights: what Nomad is and how it works how the hack occurred and what the vulnerability was how much TVL the protocol had and how much of it was drained why the Nomad hack was unique how this exploit resembled the DAO hack on Ethereum the bounty...

Kevin Zhou, co-founder of Galois Capital, comes to talk about the possibility of a Proof of Work chain on Ethereum after the Merge, the LUNA death spiral, how he plans to play the Merge, and much more...    Show highlights: how Kevin got started in crypto  what Galois Capital is and what its investment thesis is why Kevin was more vocal than most about the possibility of the LUNA death spiral whet...

Lyn Alden, founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, and Mauricio di Bartolomeo, cofounder of Ledn, discuss how inflation could affect the digital asset industry. Show highlights: how Mauricio’s upbringing in Venezuela and firsthand experience with inflation led him to Bitcoin what a “long-term debt cycle” is and why Lyn thinks the 2020s could be similar to the 1930s and 1940s the difference betwe...

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Balaji Srinivasan discusses his latest book, “The Network State, how different digital tools like crypto will help empower network states, and analyzes how crypto fits into the current political environment.    Show topics: wh...

Marisa Tashman, policy counsel at Blockchain Association, analyzes the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to name nine tokens as securities and investigate whether Coinbase lists securities. Show highlights:  why the SEC named tokens as securities in an insider trading case where no exchanges or token teams are listed as defendants  what happens if the Coinbase insider trading...

Two crypto law experts, WassieLawyer and Adam Levitin, analyze the bankruptcies of 3AC, Celsius, and Voyager. Show highlights: the difference between Voyager and Celsius “custody” and “earn” deposits why Celsius commingling customer custody and earn deposits could make it harder for creditors to get their money back what similarities and differences the Voyager and Celsius bankruptcies have how Ch...

Adam Cochran, partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, discusses the impact of 3AC’s impending liquidation. Show topics: why 3AC founders (and family members) are listing themselves as creditors what the “corporate veil” is and why it matters regarding 3AC where retail investors stand in the pecking order of creditors  why Adam doesn’t believe we know the full story about 3AC’s downfall, despite liquidato...

Nelson Rauda, Salvadoran journalist for El Faro, comes to talk about the impact of Bitcoin in El Salvador, the needs of Salvadoran people, Bitcoin City and the Bitcoin Bond, and much more.    Show highlights: Nelson’s story and how he began covering BTC what kind of politician and president Nayib Bukele was before BTC what the financial reality was for Salvadoran people before the implementation o...

In a highly educational conversation, Wassielawyer, a lawyer specializing in restructuring and insolvency, discusses the bankruptcy and liquidation of Three Arrows Capital, plus sheds light on similar processes unfolding with Celsius and Voyager. Show highlights: Wassielawyer’s experience as a lawyer and his professional background what the liquidation process looks like and what drives a company...

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Anatoly Yakovenko, Tsar of Solana, joins the show to discuss the use cases of Solana, whether it’s actually a blockchain, how Solana scales, and much more!    Show topics: What Anatoly thinks of Andre Cronje's opinion that Sol...

Ryan Berckmans, Ethereum investor and community member, and Alexandre Bergeron, Bitcoin investor, discuss Lido’s dominance as a liquid staking provider, whether that issue can be resolved, and how it could be a centralizing force for Ethereum. Show highlights: what stETH is, what the uses cases are for stETH, and why it is important how Lido had a first-mover advantage and how that kicked off netw...