Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Blockchain And Cryptocurrency

In-person at ETH Denver, crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest crypto news. This week, Kyle Samani, scion of Solana, joins the show.  Show highlights:  why Coinbase decided to launch Base, a layer 2 on Ethereum and whether developers are building on it how Coinbase might make money from it whether it will be a permissioned, KYC’ed chain that requires users to reveal their identities  Kyle's opinion on the allegedly fraudulent operations of FTX, in which his firm, Multicoin Capital, was an investor how due diligence changed in the investing space after the collapse of FTX what the future of Paxos looks like now that its primary source of revenue, BUSD, was impacted why Kyle thinks the latest nearly 20-hour outage of Solana is different from previous outages what he’s excited about in Solana now how Jump, a VC firm, was able to “hack back” $150 million in previously stolen assets after a court order Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dra

Muneeb Ali, co-creator of Stacks, discusses the Bitcoin trend that has everyone – or at least, many Bitcoiners – buzzing: Bitcoin ordinals. Ali explains why it is that they’ve taken up block space, pushed Bitcoin fees higher, and caused controversy in the community. Plus, he explains why the phenomenon has generated excitement about Stacks. Show highlights: how Ordinals technology works to enable NFTs in the Bitcoin blockchain the difference between NFTs in smart contracts platforms like Ethereum vs. NFTs in Bitcoin the way in which the Taproot upgrade allowed Ordinals technology to exist what security measures to take in order to protect one’s Bitcoin NFTs why the Bitcoin maxi community reacted negatively to Ordinals  why Stacks jumped so much in price after the release of Ordinals what Muneeb thinks is the significance of Yuga Labs launching NFTs on Bitcoin Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Railgun DAO  Guest Muneeb Ali, co-creator of Stacks Twitter Previous appearance on Unchained: Bloc

Andy Greenberg, senior writer for WIRED and author of “Tracers in the Dark,” takes us inside the world of crypto-tracing crimebusters and voices the ambivalence of Bitcoin – a cypherpunk creation – eroding financial privacy. Hear how the longtime crypto scribe got law enforcement and sleuthing firms like Chainalysis to open up about their major wins in taking down darknet kingpins. Show highlights: why Andy thought early on that Bitcoin would enable crypto anarchy how blockchain analytics started being used to tackle crime why the IRS Criminal Investigation unit was more open to discussing its techniques  how Andy learned many new things about already well-known stories when writing about them for the book the methods used to bring down the “biggest dark-web drug lord” in history did AlphaBay’s Alexandre Cazes really kill himself in a Thai prison? how researcher Sarah Meiklejohn developed tools to deanonymize Bitcoin  why she’s now uncomfortable that her techniques were adopted by Chainalysis and so

Emily Parker, CoinDesk’s executive director of global content, joins the show to discuss the Asian crypto markets. From Hong Kong to Tokyo, Parker sees bullish signs in recent developments. Hear why she thinks China and Japan are closely watching as the U.S. clamps down on the crypto industry.  Show highlights: how Hong Kong is trying to create a regulated environment for crypto whether Beijing and Chinese officials support Hong Kong’s initiative  what was China’s motivation to make it harder to buy and hold crypto whether Asian countries will lead the next bull run  what the crypto environment looks like in Japan and how it differs from the U.S. how Japan responded to major crypto hacks and meltdowns what Japan is doing in terms of stablecoin regulation and adoption how Japanese authorities are trying to establish guidelines for DAOs whether people in Asia have different attitudes and views toward crypto and investing in general Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Railgun DAO  Guest Emily Parke

Welcome to “The Chopping Block” – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. This week, it’s time for a case study: Special guest Pacman, founder of Blur, explains how his upstart NFT marketplace fought OpenSea and won. Show highlights:  what it’s like to launch a token why Blur was created and what its strategy was for competing with OpenSea why royalties remain a lightning rod in the NFT community how Blur designed its liquidity mining program and the lesson learned from failed designs the reasons why Blur succeeded in the NFT marketplace environment Pacman’s reaction to OpenSea’s decision to not enforce royalties why forking the Blur code won’t work for new marketplace competitors why the NFT market remained strong in the depths of a bear market why Pacman thinks AMMs for NFTs won’t work whether the “death of royalties” is good or bad for the ecosystem Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly  Tarun Chi

A settlement with Kraken, a proposed custody rule, and lawsuits against Paxos and Terraform Labs. “This week has been a very long year,” said Polygon Labs Chief Policy Officer Rebecca Rettig. She joins Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal to interpret what’s going on with the SEC. Is it just one big push to cripple the crypto industry? “The fact that we’re all … trying to read tea leaves speaks to a failure in the system that relies upon one-off enforcement actions rather than a public rulemaking process,” said Grewal. Show highlights: how the implosion of FTX sped up regulatory actions  whether the SEC will go after other staking services why the statement that crypto firms should just register with the SEC is “disingenuous” what seems to be behind the decision to target the BUSD stablecoin whether SEC enforcement actions will be detrimental to innovation in the U.S. what features would make stablecoins securities why the SEC is alleging that the UST stablecoin is a security why “expansion of ju

Mike Selig, counsel at Willkie Farr, has plenty to talk about this week, with a slew of actions from Gary Gensler’s SEC putting the future of crypto in the U.S. in question. From Kraken’s custodial staking settlement to action against BUSD issuer Paxos, the former CFTC law clerk voices concern that coordination among regulators could choke off the industry’s growth. Hear how Selig thinks Gensler’s SEC is working to bring crypto markets “within the regulatory perimeter.” Show highlights: whether regulators are using the FTX case to go against crypto as a whole what likely caused the NYDFS action against Paxos for BUSD whether there’s a coordinated effort to undermine the crypto markets how issuers could argue that stablecoins aren’t securities why there are limited implications for staking as a whole after Kraken’s SEC settlement how the regulators are “discouraging access and participation in crypto markets at the banking level” the differences between Gary Gensler’s SEC and that of his predecessor, J

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. This week, Polygon Chief Legal Officer Marc Boiron joins the show to examine the SEC’s recent enforcement ramp-up. why Marc thinks NYDFS coming after Paxos is the most interesting thing to analyze in the SEC-BUSD spat whether the SEC and NYDFS actions against Paxos were coordinated  whether a stablecoin is a security and why the SEC might be inclined to go after Paxos how a stablecoin could resemble a money market fund whether the SEC action against BUSD consolidates Tether's dominance why Robert is nervous about the ramifications of the Paxos situation for all of crypto the unique characteristics of Kraken's staking services that led to settlement with the SEC the meaning of the settlement for other custodial staking services and staking in general why Robert voted in favor of the Uniswap governance proposal why Haseeb is fine with how a16z voted in t

Erin West, Deputy District Attorney of California’s Santa Clara County, has heard firsthand tales of scammers preying on victims for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She joins the show to explain the scamming technique known as “pig butchering,” how it is estimated to have raked in tens of billions worldwide, and why it has led to suicide in some cases. West makes the case for why victims need empathy and how law enforcement is working with exchanges to claw back scammed funds. Show highlights: Erin’s background and how she started investigating crypto crimes what exactly the “pig butchering” method entails — and why it’s called that what kind of people scammers are targeting the devastating stories that have arisen from these crypto scams fresh intel on where the fraudsters are located whether the scammers may be connected to foreign governments  how the victims are often turned away by U.S. law enforcement agencies how Erin’s agency was able to return almost $1 million to victims late last year w

Chris Blec, DeFi researcher and founder of the Blec Report, explains why he believes the involvement of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in a contentious Uniswap governance proposal flies in the face of crypto’s core value: decentralization. He argues that the venture capital firm’s ability to potentially sway the vote in favor of a portfolio company undermines claims that DeFi is “people-powered.” The vote, which is not yet concluded, is the latest venue for people to debate the merits of DeFi governance and whether one token really should equal one vote. Show highlights: why a16z decided to vote against a key section of the Uniswap governance proposal the problem Chris sees with the current design of DAOs whether there is a parallel to be drawn between TradFi and DAO governance why Chris says people are mistaken when they think about the goals of crypto VC whether the fact that some VCs control so much voting power goes against the ethos of decentralization how Chris thinks VCs are funding lobbyist groups

Lawrence Zlatkin, VP of Tax at Coinbase, and Shehan Chandrasekera, Head of Tax Strategy at CoinTracker, give a full accounting of everything U.S. crypto traders should be aware of as we inch closer to April 18. The two tax experts discuss the latest on how the IRS is approaching crypto taxation, going deep on everything from staking rewards to NFT royalties. Just a heads up: This interview is meant for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial or tax advice. Show highlights: what’s new this year when it comes to reporting crypto transactions why staking is now firmly on the IRS’s radar how capital gains tax works for crypto the types of crypto transactions that are taxable as income the five situations where a crypto user incurs a taxable event the types of crypto activity that are not taxable what crypto holders can do to make tax time easier the IRS forms you need for various types of crypto transactions typical mistakes that crypto users make when it comes to filing th

Welcome to “The Chopping Block!” – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. This week, they cover: why Bitcoin maximalists are mad about Bitcoin NFTs why Robert thinks Bitcoin is not a good blockchain on which to build things why Canto, a layer 1 blockchain, surged in price and activity and why Haseeb is anti-Canto how Ethereum will have multi-dimensional fee structures  what the role of applications in generalized blockchains should be and why they think they shouldn't be enforced at the base layer the accusations against the LayerZero team and their response the battle to provide the bridging services to Uniswap Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures Robert Leshner, founder of Compound  Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital Links Disclosures Bitcoin NFTs:  The Block: What are Bitcoin NFTs Ordinals and how do they work? BTC: Co

Following the release of Celsius' examiner report, Kadhim Shubber, an investigative reporter at The Financial Times, dives into the controversial business practices of the lender, how the company inflated the CEL token, the use of customers' money, and much more. Show highlights: how Celsius used investors’ money to prop up the price of CEL the reasons why Celsius inflated the CEL token where the money to pay rewards to investors came from blatant misstatements from Alex Mashinsky and how his team tried to cover him how the company leveraged Bitcoin to fill the hole in its balance sheet who was responsible for Celsius' shady business practices Celsius' poor investment decisions whether Mashinsky is at risk of facing criminal charges Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Guest Kadhim: Twitter Links Final report of Shoba Pillay, examiner Financial Times: Crypto lender Celsius misused customer funds for years, examiner finds Unchained: 7 Revelations From Celsius’ Examiner Report CoinDesk:

Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, and Miller Whitehouse-Levine, Policy Director of the DeFi Education Fund, offer insider takes on how lawmakers and regulators are viewing crypto after FTX’s catastrophic failure. Both expect heightened activity in the U.S. from what they’re calling the “Crypto Congress.” Will this be the year for stablecoin regulation? Is DeFi still in the crosshairs? What about Ripple’s fight with the SEC? The two crypto policy experts look to the U.S. and beyond for what regulatory battles lie ahead in 2023. Show highlights: why the current environment in Washington makes it difficult to pass new legislation whether the opinion of members of Congress on crypto has changed in the aftermath of FTX’s alleged fraud how Elizabeth Warren and others are using the FTX collapse to prove their anti-crypto stance whether it’s possible to prevent a fallout like FTX from ever happening again why Miller believes that this year Congress will be “absolutely obsessed” with crypt

Welcome to “The Chopping Block!” – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. This week, Flashbots co-founder Phil Daian joins the show to go deep on what maximal extractable value (MEV) means and how it’s shaping the Ethereum ecosystem. Show highlights: how Phil started working in MEV and why he believes it resembles 'Alice in Wonderland' Phil's definition of MEV and when he realized this was an actual problem how Flashbots was born the story of how Vitalik didn't care about sandwich attacks at the time Uniswap was released whether it's possible to minimize MEV via more competition the never-ending debate about whether MEV should be accepted why Tarun thinks the concept of fair ordering is against nature  how Bitcoin uses social norms to solve its weaknesses  how Google is being called out in court for creating auction to front run its customers how Flashbots worked prior to and after Ethereum's Merge why Flashbots complies with OFAC sanc

Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments, gives an overview of his firm’s case against the SEC, which has denied requests to turn Grayscale’s bitcoin trust into an exchange-traded fund (ETF). With oral arguments kicking off March 7, Sonnenshein lays out what a worst-case “tender offer” would entail and whether DCG CEO Barry Silbert has any say over GBTC’s fate.  Show highlights: why Grayscale charges higher fees than, say, the average ETF what Grayscale will do if it loses its case against the SEC why Grayscale has not filed for Regulation M relief Michael's comments on Gemini liquidating 31 million shares of GBTC the reason behind the October 2022 timing of Grayscale changing GBTC's “authorized participant” the relationship between Grayscale and DCG, and Barry Silbert's involvement in Grayscale's operations why the trust agreement of GBTC was changed Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Guest Michael Sonnenshein: Twitter Links CNBC: Court sets date for oral arguments in Grayscale's ch

Welcome to “The Chopping Block!” – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. This week, they covered: why the markets were up so much recently how and why Genesis entered into bankruptcy why the hole in DCG's financials are potentially much bigger than previously reported the differences between the bankruptcies of FTX and Genesis whether 3AC founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies will find success with their new exchange what will happen to GTBC now that a huge portion has already been liquidated whether Tarun is predicting "the start of a new supercycle" the large percentage of vested SOL held by the FTX estate how SBF is still trying to win the public  Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures Robert Leshner, founder of Compound  Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital Links Disclosures Genesis:  Bloomberg: FTX Bankruptcy Judge Backs Com

James Block, crypto skeptic and author of the Dirty Bubble Media newsletter, rose to prominence with a timely post predicting FTX’s insolvency. The blogger, a doctor by day, explains why he sees crypto as an unregulated morass of would-be securities and outright “Ponzi schemes.” From an early interest in Tether to connecting the dots on Celsius, Block explains why he does what he does and why almost all of crypto is just “regulatory arbitrage.” Show highlights: how James got into crypto and why he started writing about the space why James chose "Dirty Bubble Media" for the name of his publication the problems with the legitimacy of crypto projects the reasons to be bearish on Coinbase why the question of whether Bitcoin has intrinsic value is highly subjective whether every token in crypto is a scam and whether regulations will hit stablecoin issuers hard how FTX used tokens to create fictitious value worth billions of dollars  why Celsius and FTX were closely linked, and the difference between both

Maria Shen, partner at Electric Capital, unpacks the venture firm’s latest Developer Report. Hotly anticipated among crypto observers, the annual report captures which chains developers are building on. Despite 2022’s price carnage, the report finds developer interest remains strong. Ethereum is the leading chain by far but EVM-compatibility is emerging as a major force in winning developers’ hearts and minds. Shen unpacks Bitcoin’s stability, Terra’s implosion, and many more insights from crypto’s open-source code repos. Show highlights: why the report "undercounts" developers and how it defines active developers how developers represent a fundamental measure of the health of emerging technologies like crypto the meaning of developer numbers going up even when prices plummet why in recent years the speed of developer growth jumped so drastically what happened after the number of developers reached an all-time high in June 2022 the role of Terra in the decline of developer activity in 2022’s second hal

From 3AC to FTX (and possibly more to come), it’s boom times for those trading crypto bankruptcy claims. Thomas Braziel, founder and CEO of 507 Capital, gives a crash course on bankruptcy law, offering the latest updates on the FTX, Celsius, and Three Arrows Capital cases. Plus, insight on how 2023 could finally be the year Mt. Gox creditors get (some) closure. Show highlights: how Tom got into crypto with the Mt. Gox bankruptcy and whether "crypto distressed" is an emerging asset class how buying bankruptcy claims is also a way to buy crypto assets at a discount how to determine how much value creditors are owed in a crypto bankruptcy what the marketplaces for buying and selling claims are like whether it's possible to tokenize bankruptcy claims whether crypto tokens should be treated as property what is likely to happen when Mt. Gox creditors are returned their BTC the importance of Celsius' separation of custodial assets vs. assets in interest-bearing accounts the likelihood of Celsius being acqu