Unchained

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 response to Bitcoin maximalists who say FTX was caused by altcoins whether it is a mistake for exchanges to issue their own tokens how big the contagion could be in the industry why nobody should leave a significant amount of their net worth in a centralized exchange Erik’s message to regulators whether SBF was aligned with the values and the ethos of crypto Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Ava Labs DeFi Saver Erik: Twitter ShapeShift Previous Unchained episodes: Why ShapeShift’s Erik Voorhees Thinks Toxic Bitcoin Maximalism Is Bullshit Shapeshift’s Erik Voorhees on How Crypto Will Separate Money and State Cobie: Twitter Substack UpOnly Previous Unchained episodes: Cobie and Chris Burniske on How to Navigate a Crypto Bear Market Episode Links Previous coverage of Unchained: Sam Bankman-Fried on How to Prevent the Next Terra and 3AC The Chopping Block: FTX: The Biggest Collapse in the History of Crypto? FTX Collapse: FTX Tapped Into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Setting Up Its Downfall SBF’s video talking to regulators Unchained coverage: FTX May File for Bankruptcy After Binance Walks Off the Deal FTX Needs $8B to Meet Investor Withdrawals: Report Tron Founder Justin Sun Says He Is Working With FTX on a Solution US DOJ Joins SEC and CFTC Probe of FTX FTX-Issued Wrapped Solana Tokens Could Add to DeFi Contagion: wBTC Creator Sequoia Capital Writes Off $214M FTX Investment to Zero Binance’s dropped deal with FTX CZ’s announcement SBF’s announcement Binance’s merkle-tree proof-of-reserves Unchained coverage: Binance Set to Buy FTX Amid Liquidity Crisis SBF’s Net Worth Plummets 94% In One Day: Report There are Rumors that Alameda Went Down With 3AC in Q2 Alameda Owes More Than $30M in DeFi Debt Coinbase and Genesis Declare No Exposure to Collapsing FTX  Binance Might Have Triggered a Liquidity Crisis as FTX’s Main Wallet Lost 290K ETH in Two Days Binance to Liquidate Millions Worth of its FTX’s Token Holdings FTX’s Stablecoin Reserves Hit One-Year Low Alameda’s Balance Sheet Sparks Controversy Crypto regulation Industry Leaders Debate How to Regulate DeFi Bankless debate between SBF and Erik Voorhees  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Nov 20221h 6min

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 Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital Guests Nic Carter, reformed Bitcoin Maxi Nic’s proof of reserves Laura Shin, author, host of Unchained Episode Links Previous coverage of Unchained:Sam Bankman-Fried on How to Prevent the Next Terra and 3AC Acquisition of FTX CZ’s announcement SBF’s announcement Binance’s merkle-tree proof-of-reserves Unchained coverage: Binance Set to Buy FTX Amid Liquidity Crisis SBF’s Net Worth Plummets 94% In One Day: Report There are Rumors that Alameda Went Down With 3AC in Q2 Alameda Owes More Than $30M in DeFi Debt Coinbase and Genesis Declare No Exposure to Collapsing FTX  Binance Might Have Triggered a Liquidity Crisis as FTX’s Main Wallet Lost 290K ETH in Two Days Binance to Liquidate Millions Worth of its FTX’s Token Holdings FTX’s Stablecoin Reserves Hit One-Year Low Alameda’s Balance Sheet Sparks Controversy Crypto regulation Industry Leaders Debate How to Regulate DeFi Bankless debate between SBF and Erik Voorhees  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Nov 20221h 4min

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 whether Bitcoin’s security model needs to be fixed  why being able to run a node is essential for censorship resistance 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 Chainalysis Minima   Udi: Twitter Substack Previous Unchained episodes: Why Bitcoin Maximalism Is ‘Like a Shitcoin Community’   Lyn: Twitter Website Previous Unchained episodes: How Will Inflation Impact Crypto? Is Ethereum a Good Investment?  Why Bitcoin Now: Meltem Demirors and Lyn Alden on the Perfect Conditions for Bitcoin Episode Links Previous Coverage of Unchained: Is Bitcoin Doomed to Fail? Eric Wall and Justin Bons Face Off Arthur Hayes, Former Ethereum Skeptic, on Why the Merge Makes Him Bullish on ETH  With the Merge, Will Ethereum Take Over Bitcoin’s Title as Digital Gold?  Bitcoin’s culture and security Bitcoin Maximalism Is Dead, Long Live Bitcoin Maximalism by Pete Rizo Setting the record straight by Nic Carter The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin Culture by Paul J. Dylan-Ennis Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution by David Chapman Surprisingly, Tail Emission Is Not Inflationary by Peter Todd Justin Bons’ thread on BTC security model A (brief and incomplete) history of censorship in /r/Bitcoin by John Blocke Ultra sound money Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Nov 20221h 30min

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 Robert Leshner, founder of Compound  Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital Episode Links Twitter acquisition What Are the Potential Impacts of Musk’s Twitter Purchase? Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, will receive between $50 million and $100 million from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Vitalik Buterin said Musk’s idea of charging $8 a month for a blue check on Twitter could “damage the blue check's anti-scam role.” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said he would join Twitter’s board if Elon Musk asked him to.  Crypto regulation Industry Leaders Debate How to Regulate DeFi Bankless debate between SBF and Erik Voorhees  Alameda’s Balance Sheet Sparks Controversy Trojan Horse of NFTs? Reddit Onboards 3M Wallets as Trading Volume Soars Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Nov 202258min

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, or in our premium offering. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!    Thank you to our sponsors!Crypto.com Ava Labs DeFi Saver   Nick Twitter Luxor Technologies   Episode links   Troubled miners: Bondholders of Troubled Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Said to Be Working With Lawyers A Huge Glut of Bitcoin Mining Rigs Is Sitting Unused in Boxes Bitcoin Miner Iris Energy Says Some Machines Aren't Covering Financing Costs Bitcoin Miner Argo Blockchain Fears Negative Cash Flow as $27M Raise Fails Bitcoin mining hosting company Compute North filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection   Miners currently weathering the storm: Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Spends Millions on Equipment as Others Struggle Amid Market Conditions Bitcoin Miner Stronghold Digital Completes Debt Restructuring Digihost Bucks Bearish Trend Among Bitcoin Miners, Remains Cash-Flow Positive Crypto Miner Marathon Digital Mines Record 615 Bitcoin in October  Green energy:Solar-Powered Bitcoin Miner Aspen Creek Raises $8M Despite Bear Market   Finance Pools: DeFi Platform Maple Finance Aims to Help Struggling Bitcoin Miners With $300M Lending Pool Binance Pool To Support BTC Mining Industry With a $500M Miner Lending Project   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Nov 202236min

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 decentralization  whether creators can build their own marketplaces how a profit-sharing model among creators could work Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Chainalysis Minima Sterling: Twitter Website Blog post: NFTs and Crypto Art: The Sky Is not Falling Holly: Twitter Podcast Holly's AI Video Episode Links Previous episodes of The Chopping Block debating NFT Royalties: The Chopping Block: Two on Two Debate: NFT Royalty Throwdown! The Chopping Block: Was This Gary Gensler’s Most Liked Tweet? The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash? NFT Royalties Magic Eden Magic Eden Moves to Optional Royalties and Heats Up the Debate MetaShield Solana Could Get Enforceable NFT Royalties Via New Metaplex Standard Why NFT royalties are almost impossible to enforce on-chain Galaxy Digital report showing that Nike and Yuga Labs earned the most in NFT royalties. Royalties in NFTs: Yes, no, and why? Royalties Chaos Shows Ethereum NFT Market 'More Serious' Than Solana: Fidenza Artist Tyler Hobbs Artists’ Royalties by BlackBox.art On Royalties by foobar Kyle Samani thread on verticalization Potential solutions Collector Royalties Collector Royalties Eligibility Expansion — Aug ‘21 How do they work Profit Sharing Cardinal Labs Metaplex Standard Exchange Royalties Guarantee NFTs for n00bs: A brief history of tokens and tulips, NFT aesthetics, energy dramas, fan  brigades, social tokens and the metaverse with Daniel Keller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Nov 20221h 10min

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 strategy” Twitter thread Mango Markets $42M Reimbursement Proposal Passes Mango Markets Exploiter Returns $67M After Revealing His Identity Mango Markets Hacker Proposes Keeping $70M ‘Bad Debt’ As Bounty Solana’s Mango Markets Sees $100M Drained in DeFi Exploit Previous discussion of Mango Markets on Unchained: The Chopping Block: 'Code Is Law' Is 'Obviously Not How Anything Works Ever'   Avi’s online business storyCompound Votes to Pause Activity for Illiquid Crypto Assets   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Okt 202234min

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 impact what happens to internet subcultures and how the behavior of Bitcoiners could be predicted whether Ethereum is a threat to Bitcoin Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Chainalysis web3 with a16z     Udi: Twitter Eric: Twitter Medium   Episode Links   Previous Coverage of Unchained: Is Bitcoin Doomed to Fail? Eric Wall and Justin Bons Face Off Arthur Hayes, Former Ethereum Skeptic, on Why the Merge Makes Him Bullish on ETH  With the Merge, Will Ethereum Take Over Bitcoin’s Title as Digital Gold?   Bitcoin Culture and Security The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin Culture by Paul J. Dylan-Ennis Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution by David Chapman Surprisingly, Tail Emission Is Not Inflationary by Peter Todd Justin Bond’s thread on BTC security model A (brief and incomplete) history of censorship in /r/Bitcoin   Ultra sound money   El Salvador: Previous Coverage of Unchained: Bitcoin in El Salvador: Why Would Cypherpunks Support Government-Mandated Bitcoin Adoption? El Salvador’s Bitcoin Paradise Is a Mirage by Nelson Rauda     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Okt 20221h 24min