Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Blockchain And Cryptocurrency

Kevin Zhou, cofounder of Galois Capital, and Jesse Powell, cofounder of Kraken, talk about why FTX collapsed, the warning signs, and whether it’s a catalyst for self-custodial adoption.  Show highlights: the root causes of the FTX collapse, according to Jesse and Kevin whether there were warning signs of all the risks that were to come the importance of learning from mistakes, even for new people in the space Kevin's response to the stuck funds in FTX the debate about utilitarianism and SBF's effective altruism whether the philosophy behind founders matters Kevin's and Jesse's theories of how FTX and Alameda lost billions of dollars how Alameda and FTX's books were commingled  whether people will start using self-custodial wallets whether the fall of FTX vindicates BTC maximalism whether regulation has been beneficial or harmful for American customers the role of venture capital firms and their "mixed incentives" Take Unchained's 2022 survey!   Unchained is doing its annual survey. Tell us how

Wassielawyer, a lawyer specializing in restructuring and insolvency, explains the first declaration from new FTX CEO John Ray in the company’s bankruptcy case.  Show highlights: why CEO Ray said there's been a complete failure of corporate controls in FTX how there was no separation of accounts between Alameda and FTX whether FTX US customers are in a better position to recuperate their assets why FTX's Bahamas unit is seeking protection under chapter 15 of the US bankruptcy code why there's a jurisdictional battle, according to Wassie whether the Bahamian government is responsible for letting deposits out of the platform how former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is trying to save the company  Take Unchained's 2022 survey!   Unchained is doing its annual survey. Tell us how you think we’re doing and how we could improve, whether it be on the podcast, in the newsletter, or in our premium offering. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!  Thank you to our sponsors!Crypto.com Ava Labs DeFi Saver Wassielawyer

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra were joined by Laura Shin, CEO of the show, to chop it up about the collapse of FTX.  Show topics: Haseeb's explanation of the blowup of FTX whether FTX was a Ponzi scheme Sam Bankman-Fried's strategy to become a billionaire the weird sale of Serum, a project backed by SBF the lack of proper accounting practices in FTX and Alameda whether FTX did not have a proper and large enough security team  the likelihood that FTX’s volume numbers are fake  why Haseeb thinks this is one of the biggest catastrophes in venture history the role of media in building SBF's character and the revindication of journalism whether venture capital firms run propaganda for their portfolio companies whether VC culture enabled this collapse to happen the story of how Sam convinced Tom Brady to invest in FTX the debate about effective altruism and whether SBF's EA caused his mistakes whether FTX's failure will set the crypto indu

Wassielawyer, a lawyer specializing in restructuring and insolvency, and Thomas Braziel, founder and CEO of 507 Capital, talk about the bankruptcy of FTX.  Show highlights: what the bankruptcy process of FTX is expected to look like why FTX got to the the point of filing for bankruptcy protection why Wassie thinks Alameda is dead why FTX filed for bankruptcy in the US given that it's a Bahamian company how FTX's balance sheet is composed and whether it includes Alameda whether Justin Sun will be dragged into the bankruptcy how FTX's terms of service differ from Celsius’s and Voyager’s how the $600 million hack affects the bankruptcy proceeding whether it's worth it to spend millions of dollars in law firms to go after the hacked money what's the impact of the 192 million FTT tokens that were printed Saturday night what will happen with the fork of Serum and the forked tokens the consequences for all the projects that FTX invested in why Wassie thinks that tokenizing the liabilities could be a go

 Erik Voorhees, founder of ShapeShift, and Jordan Fish, aka Cobie, crypto investor and host of UpOnly, talk about the collapse of FTX.  Show highlights: the links between FTX and Alameda what kickstarted the blowup of FTX why Erik and Cobie think that Bankman-Fried's behavior was “sociopathic” why the $10 billion hole is so shocking to Cobie considering the advantages that FTX had as a company whether this would have ever happened if the prices hadn’t plummeted in the bear market the tension between advocates of privacy and those who want to limit criminal activity why Erik believes that SBF’s donations to both political parties are bribery whether regulators can prevent an exchange from collapsing whether Changpeng Zhao did a better job at investigating FTX than anyone at the SEC the likelihood that this will result in criminal charges how blockchain technology is the solution to the problem of centralized exchanges doing things in the dark Tether’s decision to freeze USDT owned by FTX Erik’s r

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi and Tom Schmidt were joined by Nic Carter, reformed Bitcoin Maxi, and Laura Shin, CEO of the show, to chop it up about Binance’s buyout of FTX.  Show topics: Haseeb's tl;dr of Binance's possible acquisition of FTX whether Alameda is the new Three Arrows Capital the implications of FTX's collapse for regulators and lawmakers what will happen to all the companies that lent money to Alameda Sam Bankman-Fried's emergency effort to raise billions of dollars whether there could be criminal charges against FTX why FTX was not as profitable as other derivative exchanges what the probabilities are of Binance actually buying FTX whether the enterprise value of FTX is negative Tom's concerns about the concentration in the industry how FTX's implosion will impact crypto venture capital firms whether Solana can survive without SBF's support how the lack of transparency kicked off this situation and how blockchains help solve this issue Hosts

Lyn Alden, founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, and Udi Wertheimer, a recovering Bitcoin maxi, talk about Bitcoin Maximalism, how Bitcoin is developing, and what’s the future of Bitcoin’s security model.    Show highlights: What the definition of Bitcoin maximalism is whether BTC maximalism is toxic whether Vitalik Buterin is still a bitcoiner and how Bitcoiners became the 'token police', according to Udi why Lyn thinks Bitcoin has been attacked by the media since the beginning the attacks by Bitcoin maximalists on Nic Carter and Andreas Antonopoulos how adoption kicked in during previous cycles and why it benefitted BTC what the different types of Bitcoiners are what developments are being made around Bitcoin the importance of Bitcoin being permissionless what the use cases for Bitcoin are and whether it’s still a highly speculative asset whether people care about using decentralized payment tools how Lyn defines ‘ultra sound money’ and why she thinks that Bitcoin is better at that than ETH

 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: Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter – and its effect on DOGE the irony that people working in centralized companies want to decentralize Twitter whether Twitter is going to become like Facebook why Twitter has been the most pro-crypto among big tech companies why Tarun thinks Binance Pay is an impressive product whether it is possible to run a decentralized social media for billions of users the debate between Sam Bankman-Fried and Erik Voorhees about crypto regulation whether crypto exchange CEOs are true believers in the philosophy of crypto why Haseeb believes Sam Bankman-Fried is a very honest person how Reddit used a simple strategy to gain massive adoption whether it is necessary to rebrand NFTs Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures

Nick Hansen, cofounder and CEO of Luxor Technologies, talks about the Bitcoin mining industry, why some miners are struggling while others are succeeding, and the next steps for the industry.    Show highlights: the current state of the Bitcoin mining industry why miners have the lowest margin environment ever why there are so many mining rigs sitting latent how to calculate the profitability of mining cryptocurrency why miners are not moving to other countries for lower energy prices what the impact of a Core Scientific bankruptcy would be whether finance pools to aid struggling miners are helpful why some miners are succeeding in this environment whether Bitcoin miners can adopt renewable resources and help with the transition to green energy  how the mining industry is going to change in the following years Take the Unchained Podcast survey for 2022! Unchained is doing its annual survey. Tell us how you think we’re doing and how we could improve, whether it be on the podcast, in the newsletter,

Sterling Crispin, artist and software developer and Holly Herndon, host of the Interdependence podcast, talk about the problems that creators face, some potential solutions, and the debate over creator royalties.  Show highlights: how Holly and Sterling got into crypto how Holly used the Holly Plus Project to pay royalties how NFTs change the economic experience of being a creator how creators make money and why it is so difficult for most of them whether NFT royalties are necessary for artists why creators are the ones that should decide to charge royalties or not how the enforcement of royalties also occurs in the traditional art world whether NFT royalties only benefit big players vs. smaller creators what shifts could make paying royalties a norm, the way paying for music streaming became a norm over piracy other solutions to helping creators earn from their work besides NFT royalties whether NFT creators should use blocklists whether people objecting to blocklists can be hypocritical about d

Avraham Eisenberg, blogger at DeepFi Value – more commonly known as the Mango Markets attacker – shared his insights about the exploitation of code, his personal story, and why there’s hatred directed towards profitable traders.    Show highlights: Laura’s description of the Mango Markets exploit the way in which code gets used in a different way from the original intention why Avi decided to return part of the funds he got from exploiting Mango Markets Avi’s clarification of a misconception regarding the bad debt of Mango Markets the difference between arbitrage trades and exploits why people making profitable strategies are hated, according to Avi how Avi got into crypto and the story of his failed online business  whether it is possible to run non-zero-sum games what he thinks of Compound’s decision to pause activity on illiquid assets     Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Ava Labs   Avi Twitter DeepFi Value    Mango Markets exploit Explanation of the exploit “Highly profitable trading s

Eric Wall, crypto blogger and investor, and Udi Wertheimer, a recovering Bitcoin maxi, discuss everything about Bitcoin Maximalism, whether BTC can survive, and whether Ethereum constitutes a threat for Bitcoin.    Show highlights: how Eric and Udi got involved with Bitcoin what Bitcoin was like in the first days how Bitcoin maxis appear to have a script to engage in discussions the philosophy behind Bitcoin maximalism why Eric believes Bitcoin maximalism is like a “weird cult” how Eric thinks that the BTC community has an unspoken rule forbidding criticisms whether Bitcoin has lost intellectual power why people have recently been turning away from Bitcoin maximalism why the poor Bitcoin culture doesn't mean it's the end for Bitcoin, according to Eric the perception of the Lightning network and how people are not interested in faster blockchains whether Bitcoin should increase the use cases of the blockchain, like DeFi, NFTs, and stablecoins El Salvador's adoption of BTC and whether it had an impa

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: Everyone’s impression of Laura’s interview with Do Kwon The importance to differentiate failure and fraud The Mango Markets hack and whether code is law What happened with the BNB hack and the concerns it raised about decentralization Magic Eden’s decision to enable optional royalties and the debate about NFT royalties How creators are going to find a way around the royalties, according to Robert Whether NFTs should be treated as securities 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 Episode Links Laura’s interview with Do Kwon:Do Kwon of Terra: ‘It Was Never Really About Money or Fame or Success’ Hacks Mango Markets Mango Markets $42M Reimbursement Pro

Fat Man Terra, the anonymous Twitter account dedicated to bringing Do Kwon to justice, reacts to my recent interview with Do Kwon and says what he thinks it revealed about his personality.  Show highlights: why Fat Man Terra created the Twitter account whether Terra was used to enrich insiders how Fat Man believes Do Kwon evaded questions in the interview with Laura whether Do lied about Chai to misrepresent the success of UST and LUNA why Fat Man believes some people will never admit wrongdoing what he thinks of Do’s response to the stories of people losing everything and whether he is actually sorry what he calls Do’s lack of transparency about his history what he believes is the need to make an example out of the collapse of Terra and Do’s failure Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Fat Man Terra Twitter  Laura’s Interview with Do Kwon Other Coverage of Unchained on Do Kwon and Terra: How Will the Legal Case Against Do Kwon Play Out in South Korea? Do Kwon Is Backing UST With Bitcoin – An

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Host Haseeb Qureshi partnered with Zhuoxun Yin, cofounder of Magic Eden, to debate Unchained host Laura Shin and Li Jin, cofounder at Variant Fund, on the topic of NFT Royalties.  Show highlights: What NFT royalties are Why Laura believes zero NFT royalties is a bad business decision prioritizing short-term needs over long-term ones and that it will turn creators off from the industry How charging royalties is not sustainable, according to Haseeb Why royalties are the best mechanism to align incentives between creators and holders, according to Li The technical limitations of NFT royalties on a general-purpose blockchain like Ethereum or Solana How to align incentives between NFT creators and holders Why the prices of NFTs would go up if royalties are not enforced Whether the NFT market will change in the future Whether it is possible to create a standard that enforces royalties in a smart contract The creators’ reaction to Magic Eden moving to optional royalties The

Do Kwon, cofounder of Terraform Labs, discusses the charges against him, gives a message to Terra victims, answers allegations about potential fraud and non-transparent business practices, and much more. Show highlights: whether Do finds the charges based on the Capital Markets Act legitimate  why he doesn’t want to discuss his location whether the South Korean government is lying about the accusations against him what happened with the BTC held by the Luna Foundation Guard whether Do regrets being so arrogant in his tweets what he would say to the people who lost huge amounts of money in Terra or family members of people who committed suicide due to its collapse the decision to set Anchor’s yield near 20%  why Terra had a large SDT pre-mine that was not proactively disclosed whether Do’s actions show he didn’t think that the algorithmic mechanism was sufficient to keep UST pegged to the dollar whether Terraform Labs cashed out $2.7 billion using Degenbox why there were no disclosures about Chai t

Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, comes to talk about the SEC probe into Yuga Labs, how to determine whether something is a security, and Coin Center’s lawsuit against the US Treasury over the sanctions on Tornado Cash.  Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, comes to talk about the SEC probe into Yuga Labs, how to determine whether something is a security, and Coin Center’s lawsuit against the US Treasury over the sanctions on Tornado Cash.  Show highlights: whether there’s an over-reliance on the Howey Test and how a token being non-fungible doesn’t mean it’s not a security what constitutes an investment contract and how it works in the Metaverse the consequences for NFT holders and issuers if the NFTs are considered securities why Coin Center is suing the US Treasury over the Tornado Cash sanctions Who the plaintiffs are whether this lawsuit differs from the one Coinbase is supporting how to solve the issue of bad actors like North Korea using tools s

Zaki Manian, cofounder of Sommelier Protocol and cofounder of Iqlusion and Jack Zampolin, founder of Strangelove Ventures, discuss everything about Cosmos, the new white paper, and how to improve MEV capture for ATOM holders. Show highlights: how Jack and Zaki got involved with crypto and Cosmos what the Sommelier protocol is, the role of Iqlusion, and what Strange Love does the basics of Cosmos and application-specific blockchains (ASB) why would a project choose to be an ASB rather than an application on a blockchain whether Cosmos can achieve network effects the reasons behind launching a new white paper for Cosmos why the team decided to pursue interchain security whether there would be an increase in fees with so many chains relying on the Cosmos Hub for security how much economic value the Cosmos Hub will end up securing if the proposal gets passed how the Cosmos Treasury could be used to fund development the role of the Interchain Scheduler to capture MEV whether centralized exchanges are g

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 perspectives about the regulator Whether the lawsuit could make all DeFi illegal and the role of DAOs to coordinate governance The SEC settlement with Kim Kardashian for $1.26 million, Gensler’s video explaining the case and whether it was a publicity stunt Why Tarun would fire almost everyone at the CFTC and the SEC to hire more technical people How the NFT QQL collection censored a marketplace in its code What the whole purpose of NFTs is, according to Haseeb The debate around NFT royalties and their enforcement How a huge portion of the blocks in Ethereum are generated by Flashbots and whether it represents a

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 sanctions compliance at the base layer the reasons behind the CFTC lawsuit against Ooki DAO  why the SEC settled charges with Kim Kardashian and whether it was a publicity stunt the chances of the different crypto bills becoming law why Kristin thinks stablecoin legislation won’t come this year whether the CFTC being the main regulator of crypto settles the question of crypto being securities or commodities Thank you to our sponsors!   1inch Crypto.com   Kristin Twitter      The lawsuit against Ooki DAO Previous coverage of Unchained on Ooki DAO: Why the Ooki DAO Case Could Hurt Participation in DAOs CFTC Filing