Unchained

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra were joined by Laura Shin to chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry.    Show topics: Whether crypto optimism is different in Asia than in the United States How Sam Bankman-Fried has been doing some work with US regulators How the CFTC lawsuit against Ooki DAO changed people’s perspe...

Kristin Smith, Executive Director of the Blockchain Association, comes to talk about Tornado Cash, the lawsuit against Ooki DAO, the SEC charges against Kim Kardashian, and crypto legislation.    Show highlights: whether regulators did not understand the implications of sanctioning smart contracts the necessity of having a conversation around financial privacy whether the government wants sanction...

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, discusses his views on crypto regulation, macroeconomics, and the role of FTX in a decentralized industry.    Show highlights: whether the market has already bottomed and the influence of macroeconomics why Sam thinks regulation could have a significant impact on the crypto industry the impact of the Terra collapse, Sam’s thoughts on stablecoins, and the...

Nikhilesh De, CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation, comes to talk about the CFTC lawsuit against Ooki DAO and the potential consequences across the crypto industry.    Show highlights: the enforcement action against Ooki DAO and the CFTC’s arguments behind it whether bZx’s statements that the DAO would be beyond the reach of regulators made it a target for the CFTC whether t...

Zack Guzman, journalist and Coinage host, and Jongbaek Park, partner specializing in blockchain and crypto assets at Bae, Kim & Lee, discuss how the case in South Korea against Do Kwon and TerraForm Labs will likely go, whether Do Kwon is on the run, and what his sentence could be.    Show highlights: Jongbaek’s and Zack’s disclosures regarding Terra how big the Terra phenomenon was in South Korea...

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry.    Show topics: Why the ETH price slumped after the Merge even though it was successful Whether the BTC security model is flawed and why Robert thinks Bitcoin will change Why Tarun thinks Bitcoin won’t change and why he’s beari...

Pat Toomey, U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania, talks about legislation in the crypto industry, how to determine if something is a security, the future of CBDCs, and much more.  Show highlights: the structural differences between crypto tokens and securities why Sen. Toomey is demanding crypto legislation why “regulation by enforcement” does not provide clarity how to determine if a token is decentrali...

In a heated debate, Eric Wall, crypto blogger and investor, and Justin Bons, founder and chief investment officer of Cyber Capital, discuss Bitcoin’s security model, whether there are fundamental flaws in its design, and which is the best consensus mechanism.    Show highlights: why Justin stopped believing in Bitcoin and why he calls it “technically one of the worst cryptocurrencies” how Eric’s v...

Justin Drake, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, talks about the Merge, how this transition affects Bitcoin, where Ethereum’s road map is going, and more.    Show highlights: how Justin was feeling prior to and during the Merge whether the upgrade is complete or there are other things to watch out for why Ethereum has slashing and why it is a better form of removing any attackers the concern a...

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...