The Decrypting Crypto Podcast

In this week's episode of Off Chain, we do a deep dive discussion into The Merge. We break everything down so that you can understand the following:

• What is The Merge?
• The environmental benefits of The Merge.
• The economic benefits of The Merge.
• What won't get better post-Merge?
• What happens to staked ETH post-Merge?
• Do you need to do anything if you hold ETH pre-Merge?
• What's next after The Merge?

We then discuss the following questions:

• Is The Merge short and/or long term bullish for Ethereum?
• Does this put more pressure on Bitcoin to transition to an energy-efficient consensus mechanism in the future?
• Could this lead to the eventual flippening of ETH/BTC?
• The Merge addresses a lot of things, but it still doesn’t address the issue of decentralization and governance. PoS means that those with the deepest pockets have the largest say in the future of the network, and benefit the greatest from it. Is this acceptable over the long term?

In this week's episode of Off Chain, we cover the following stories:

• Ragnarok (metaverse gaming company) founder admits he lost $1.8mm of treasury funds speculating on ETH (essentially gambling with the treasury).
• Crypto.com accidentally sent woman $10.5M instead of $100, and didn't notice for 7 months.
• Arbitrum executed its much anticipated Nitro upgrade to increase speed and efficiency (on Wednesday).
• Mt.Gox Repayment gets pushed to September, and 137K Bitcoin is on hold.

In this week's episode of Off Chain, we cover the following stories:

• Emergency changes to the BendDAO protocol could result in 600+ liquidations of blue chip NFTs.
• Telegram CEO proposes auctioning usernames & links as NFTs.
• FTX grew revenue 1,000% during the bull market (as shown by leaked financials).
• Crypto Lender Hodlnaut announces police inquiry and 80% staff cut.
• Mercado Libre has launched its own Ethereum cashback token.
• Portuguese banks are shutting down the accounts of crypto exchanges.

In this week's episode, I speak with Preston Johnson, the founder of WAGMI United and co-Chairman of Crawley Town Football Club.

Why am I interviewing the chairman of a professional sports team? Well, they’re doing something a little different. Very different, in fact. This is the story of how a web3 project raised funds to buy an English football team and has grand plans to take them from the fourth tier of English football, all the way to the top.

There's nothing conventional about the way they're running the club.

The fans have a say in the players that the club buys, who they bring in as backroom staff, and can even vote to fire Preston as Chairman if the club isn’t promoted to the next division within two years. Regardless of what you think about crypto, these examples are a great step forward for a local fanbase.

And let’s face it, if you’ve witnessed some of the ways in which English football clubs have been run in the more conventional sense in the past few years, it’s clear that something needs to be done differently.

Will the WAGMI United group be able to turn around the fortunes of Crawley Town? Only time will tell.

If you’re a fan of sports, have an interest in how crypto is being applied in the real world, or well, if you’re a Crawley Town FC fan, I think you’re going to enjoy this episode.

In this week's episode of Off Chain, we cover the following stories:

• Acala Stablecoin aUSD Collapses After Parachain Exploit
• Are the Tornado Cash sanctions a good thing or an attack on privacy?
• Do Kwon gives his first interview since the Luna crash
• Robinhood, Genesis, and Crypto.com make more layoffs.

Bennett Collen, CEO and cofounder of Endstate, is on a mission to bridge the gap between physical and digital goods. In tandem with his cofounder and renowned sneaker designer, Stephanie Howard, they've built beautifully designed sneakers paired with a digital NFT.

Not only does this serve as a proof of ownership but can get you access to exclusive events, give you a digital representation of your sneaker in the metaverse, plus much more.

We dig into the future of physical and digital products, plus dig into the early success that Endstate has seen so far,

In this week's episode of Off Chain, we cover the following stories:

• U.S. imposes sanctions on virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash.
• Coinbase posts a $1B net loss in Q2.
• Tiffany's sells out custom Cryptopunk 'NFTiff' pendants for $50,000 each.
• MoonDAO sent someone to space last week.
• Canada’s second largest pension is tangled up in the Celsius collapse.
• Plus more.

I speak with Gwendolyn Regina, the Investment Director at Binance's BNB Chain. We discuss how the current macro environment is shaping her investment strategy, which sectors Binance is looking to continue to invest in, and what she's most excited for over the next 9-12 months.

In this week's episode of Off-Chain, we cover the following stories:

• A major exploit on the Solana blockchain resulted in ~$6mm worth of SOL/USDC being drained from individual wallets.
• ZB Exchange has lost nearly $5M in suspected hack; pauses withdrawals.
• The Nomad bridge was hacked and $190mm in funds were lost.
• Meta’s Metaverse division lost $2.8B in Q2; What does this mean for their Metaverse vision?
• MicroStrategy Reports $917M Bitcoin Impairment Charge.
• Solana Opens IRL Retail Store and Web3 'Embassy' in New York.

In this week's episode of Off-Chain, we cover the following stories:

• Lido faces runway issues and calls on the DAO (unsuccessfully) to raise more funds.
• US Stablecoin bill has been pushed out until after August recess.
• The UK Government is taking steps on making stablecoins a form of payment.
• The NFT Worlds project is sent into chaos as Minecraft rugs them.
• More bad news for Coinbase, plus much more.