Crypto just went through its biggest crash.

In the wake of “Black Friday,” when $19 billion in positions were wiped out in hours, Bits + Bips hosts Steve Ehrlich and Ram Ahluwalia are joined by Carlos Guzman of GSR and YQ of AltLayer to dissect what really happened.

Was it a coordinated attack exploiting Binance’s oracles? A failure of market structure? Or simply too much leverage waiting for a trigger? Or some combination of the three? The group breaks down how liquidity vanished, why hedges failed, how this flash crash echoed the worst moments of traditional markets, and why the industry urgently needs reform before it happens again.

Aptos

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Steve Ehrlich, Executive Editor at Unchained

Carlos Guzman, Research Analyst at GSR 

YQ, Co-founder of AltLayer

Timestamps:

🔥 0:00  Introduction and ads

⚡ 3:22  First reactions to crypto’s biggest crash ever

💥 5:55  The USDe depeg on Binance. Plus: coordinated attack or market failure?

🧠 12:57  Why Ram calls it a potential “zero-day hack”

📉 15:38  Are perpetuals the riskiest instruments in crypto?

💫 18:38  Huge spreads, no liquidity: where were the market makers?

🏦 22:59  The eerie parallels to a flash crash in U.S. equities 15 years ago

💀 25:01  How both longs and shorts got wrecked, and why perps fail as hedging tools

🔧 29:00  What crypto needs to fix its liquidity problem

🏛️ 33:34  How TradFi solved this years ago, and what crypto can learn

⚖️ 36:25  How systemic leverage makes every crash worse

📜 42:16  Why this proves crypto urgently needs a market structure bill

🚀 47:13  Why Ram says Hyperliquid came out as the winner

🔮 50:14  Outlook for prices and volatility in the coming days

🛡️ 1:00:04  Will insurance funds rise after this?

⏳ 1:02:18  Why YQ says it’ll take a long time to recover from the damage

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When Trump tweeted about 100% tariffs on China, crypto collapsed — $19 billion in liquidations in just hours. 

Altcoins plunged 95%, exchanges froze, and stablecoins depegged. In this special episode, Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol, joins Laura to break down the chain reaction: what really caused the crash, whether insiders knew it was coming, and how infrastructure failures and extreme leverage turned a policy tweet into crypto’s Black Friday.

Thank you to our sponsor, ⁠Aptos⁠!

Guest:

Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol and advisor at Patagon Management

Diogenes’s article on X: "Black Friday: What Happened?"

Jordi Alexander on "What happened?

Stani Kulechov on Aave’s performance

Binance co-founder’s statement 

Timestamps:

💥 0:00 Introduction

⏱️ 1:00 What markets looked like in the hours before the crash

🕵️‍♂️ 3:25 Whether traders on Hyperliquid knew the tariff tweet was coming

📉 5:44 Why altcoins plunged up to 95% and how market makers amplified the move

⚙️ 7:56 How auto-deleveraging kicked in—and why it mattered

💣 13:07 How DATs created hidden leverage that made the system fragile

🏦 14:54 How perps DEXes and CEXes responded differently to the meltdown

🧩 18:09 Was it a coordinated attack—or just market mania?

🤯 25:56 What happened to smaller market makers when liquidity vanished

💥 29:44 How the USDe depeg on Binance triggered cascading liquidations

📊 32:16 Why Ethena “managed it well” and why exchanges don’t ADL their positions

⚠️ 34:04 What caused the USDe “depeg”

🔧 35:22 How infrastructure failures made price feeds unreliable

🚨 37:28 What perps exchanges need to change going forward

⏳ 43:56 Why Diogenes thinks this kind of crash will happen again—and worse

📜 50:20 The “extraordinary rights” LPs hold on exchanges

💱 49:02 How traders should decide where to trade after this

👀 52:19 A rumor about how much Jump lost

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Polymarket scales with Wall Street’s blessing, Kalshi fires up KOLs, and BNB chain melts down as fast as it ran. We dissect Aster’s data drama, the new privacy wave lifting Zcash, and Galaxy One’s glossy yields—what’s smart strategy vs. old mistakes in new clothes?

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, we unpack Polymarket’s jaw-dropper: a $2B raise at a $9B valuation led by ICE (parent of the NYSE), the token tease, and whether prediction markets will eat sportsbooks. We get into the KOL wars (Kalshi vs. Polymarket), the line between paid shilling and product marketing, and what “parlays” look like on prediction platforms. Then: Aster vs. Hyperliquid and DeFiLlama’s delist sparks transparency questions, while BNB Chain’s 72-hour meme-coin supercycle goes boom→bust. Privacy takes center stage as Zcash rips and the “privacy meta” returns. We close with Galaxy One’s 8% yield pitch — BlockFi déjà vu or smarter risk management in a post-CeFi world?

Show highlights

🔹 Polymarket’s $2B at $9B — led by ICE (NYSE parent): why a TradFi giant is backing prediction markets and what integrations could follow.

🔹 Token tease — the crew debates what a Polymarket token could represent amid a CFTC path and U.S. re-entry.

🔹 KOL Wars: Kalshi vs. Polymarket — disclosed influencer marketing vs. “paid shilling,” and where the ethical line actually sits.

🔹 Product vs. Asset promos — why “use this platform” ≠ “buy this ticker,” and the gray zone of shilling specific markets or sides.

🔹 Do prediction markets influence reality? When odds can sway decisions (Fed, elections), and why markets may self-correct before hitting “99%.”

🔹 Sportsbooks in the crosshairs — parlays on prediction markets, Robinhood funnels, and why DraftKings/FanDuel should care.

🔹 Aster vs. Hyperliquid — incentives, wash-trading risk, and DeFiLlama’s delist after suspicious Binance-correlated volumes.

🔹 BNB’s 72-hour supercycle — memecoins moon, CZ’s “not endorsements” tweet, then a brutal boom→bust as bridgers retreat.

🔹 Privacy supercycle — Zcash rips on Naval/Mert momentum; Zashi UX + NEAR intents cited vs. “it’s just flows” skepticism.

🔹 Old coin, new crowd — why ZEC’s age + thin float can turbocharge moves, even with lower on-chain usage than Monero.

🔹 Galaxy One’s 8% yield — comeback arc for BlockFi’s Zach Prince or smarter, public-company-backed risk management?

🔹 CeFi vs. DeFi lending — on-chain transparency, Coinbase’s approach, 60-day gates, and whether unsecured credit is creeping back.

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:08 Polymarket & Shayne Coplan’s Journey to Success

05:28 The Role of Prediction Markets

10:21 Kalshi vs. Polymarket: KOL Wars 

23:56 Sports Betting & Prediction Markets

29:19 BNB Chain's Memecoin Boom and Bust

33:55 Aster and Defi Lama: The Delisting Drama

37:04 Privacy Supercycle: The Zcash Bull Run

50:02 Galaxy One: BlockFi's Comeback?

Disclosures

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The stablecoin race is heating up. With the passage of the U.S. stablecoin law the floodgates have opened. Tether still dominates globally, but Circle, Stripe, and a wave of new “stablechains” are making their move.

In this episode, Dragonfly partner Rob Hadick and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz join Laura Shin to map out how this battle could reshape crypto and payments.

Will ecosystem apps like Phantom and Jupiter keep their own stablecoins? Can Circle’s new Layer 1, Arc, compete with Tether’s network effect? 

Don’t miss it!

Thank you to our sponsors!

Binance

Aptos 

Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly

Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🔥 2:50 What Rob and Mert expect from the coming flood of stablecoins and stablechains

🌐 12:06 How network effects could decide the winners in the stablecoin wars

💵 14:09 Whether Tether’s dominance is here to stay

💱 22:45 Why Forex matters—and why everyone still wants dollars

😎 27:15 Whether Tether even cares about its new competitors

⚠️ 33:18 What Rob calls the biggest existential threat to Tether

🏦 36:00 Can Circle’s new payments chain, Arc, really compete in this environment

🧩 40:42 Why Mert says Circle is in a difficult strategic position

🤝 45:17 How new Layer 1s risk pleasing no one by trying to please everyone

💣 52:55 Whether banks are doomed—and why employees might want to start exiting now

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Bitcoin is hitting new all-time highs—but is this real euphoria, or just a prelude to it? In this double-header episode, we bring you a Bits + Bips roundtable and an in-depth interview on the five companies best positioned to bring crypto onchain.

First, the Bits + Bips crew, Lumida’s Ram Ahluwalia, FalconX’s Joshua Lim, and NYU professor Austin Campbell, break down what’s really driving this crypto rally. Is it dollar debasement, asset revaluation, or just pure animal spirits? 

They debate how close we are to a true blow-off top, how to spot a real market peak, and what shocks could shelve bitcoin in an instant. Plus, their takes on Zcash, Japan, Coinbase’s banking ambitions, and more.

Then, Unchained’s Steven Ehrlich sits down with Ryan Yi, author of the Onchain 5 series, to discuss the five companies that are leading crypto’s push into real-world adoption. 

From Coinbase’s Base app and token plans, to Robinhood’s play for tokenized assets, Stripe’s all-in crypto tech stack, Telegram’s TON-powered mini-app ecosystem, and Binance’s BNB-based loyalty empire, this is the playbook for what going onchain really looks like.

Thank you to our sponsor, Aptos!

Hosts:

Steve Ehrlich, Executive Editor at Unchained

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Guests:

Joshua Lim, Co-Head of Markets at FalconX

Austin Campbell, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting

Ryan Yi, Ex Coinbase, Coinbase Ventures, and CoinFund

Timestamps:

 0:00 Intro

 4:38 What Josh learned at Token2049 about what’s really moving the market

 10:12 How the options market is quietly driving bitcoin’s price

 13:25 Why Ram says this isn’t a “debasement trade,” despite what everyone thinks

 20:29 Whether we’ve hit peak euphoria—or not even close

 23:54 Why Zcash suddenly exploded in price

 26:45 How political changes in Japan are shaping markets

 30:30 How to spot the real market top—and why Austin challenges Ram’s call on stocks beating gold

 35:41 How CME’s 24/7 futures could change crypto trading

 39:20 The signs Ram thinks would signal when the top is in

 43:43 How bitcoin, altcoins, and tech stocks trade together and how they don’t

 47:59 What kind of shock could finally take bitcoin down

 51:34 What to make of Coinbase applying for a banking license

 53:34 Whether Galaxy is trying to become the next crypto super app

 57:59 Why this cycle might play out completely differently

 1:02:04 Why Ram believes banks are about to crush earnings

 1:03:03 The biggest risks investors still aren’t paying attention to

 1:07:56 Meet 5 The Firms Poised to Drive the Next Wave of Crypto Adoption

 1:08:53 Why distribution is the key battleground for the next wave of crypto adoption

 1:12:24 How Coinbase is rearchitecting its platform around Base

 1:15:42 What the upcoming Base token and Base app could unlock for users

 1:19:13 How Robinhood is competing in crypto—and why it might have an edge

 1:25:56 What the tokenization trend means for Robinhood’s future

 1:27:52 Why Stripe is building a crypto tech stack of its own

 1:35:02 Why Telegram’s TON token is central to its survival and growth

 1:41:40 What’s behind TON’s lagging price performance

 1:45:13 How Binance uses the BNB token as a cornerstone of its entire ecosystem

 1:52:43 Why going fully onchain could be the defining strategy for the next generation of companies

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On Monday, bitcoin hit a new all-time high of over $126,000, but Bitcoin’s biggest fight right now isn’t about price; it’s about purpose. 

Since 2023, image files and meme tokens have clogged the network, spiking fees and making everyday payments expensive. Bitcoin Core wants to lift an 80-byte data limit that's existed since 2014. Bitcoin Knots disagrees — and has built code to enforce a different limit. Should Bitcoin stay a payments network, or evolve into a platform that stores everything from NFTs to memecoins to experimental layer 2 protocols?

Blockstream CEO Adam Back and Bitcoin and Lightning developer Chris Guida debate whether removing limits on OP_RETURN protects Bitcoin from what they call “spam,” or opens the floodgates to it.

Plus: the real lesson from 2014 when Vitalik Buterin left Bitcoin, why miners can bypass any filter by renting hash rate, and whether 22% of nodes running different code actually matters in a decentralized network.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Mantle

Aptos

Chris Guida, Bitcoin and Lightning Ecosystem dev and Educator

Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream

Timestamps:

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Arthur Hayes & Tom Lee map the new crypto arms race—Hyperliquid vs Aster, Plasma’s stablecoin rails, and ETH’s DAT-fueled supercycle.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. Live at Token2049 Singapore, we’re joined by Arthur Hayes (Maelstrom) and Tom Lee (Bitmine) to map two battles shaping the next cycle: the Perp DEX war—Hyperliquid’s moat vs. CZ-linked Aster, zero-fee experiments like Lighter, and whether ~$500M/year token unlocks can stay “bullish”—and the race to own stablecoin rails, from Tether-affiliated Plasma’s zero-fee USDT chain to distribution plays like Tempo and Codex. We dig into DATs, mNAV compression, and Tom’s “ETH supercycle,” plus prediction markets (Polymarket vs. Kalshi) crossing into the mainstream and a surprise Zcash revival. If crypto’s future is being decided in trading venues and in money itself, this is where the battle lines get drawn. 

Show highlights🔹 Perp DEX wars — Hyperliquid vs Aster: Binance-linked Aster surges as Hyperliquid’s moat is stress-tested; CEX tie-ups (Bybit–ApeX, Coinbase–Avantis) escalate the fight.

🔹 Arthur Hayes on Hyperliquid: 126x call but sold ahead of ~$500M/yr token unlocks (starting November); “bullish unlocks” depend on sustained dominance + real fees.

🔹 Lighter’s zero-fee perps: Can post-airdrop volume stick, or do profits migrate to HLP/LLP vault strategies as fees compress?

🔹 DATs & ETH “supercycle” — Tom Lee (Bitmine): Communications flywheel, mNAV compression, ~70 ETH DATs with many below NAV; consolidation/unwinds/ETF conversions amid SEC/Nasdaq scrutiny and ZeroG controversy.

🔹 Plasma stablecoin chain (Tether-affiliated): Zero-fee USDT transfers, heavy incentives, Binance Earn distribution—are flows durable vs Ethereum/Tron?

🔹 Prediction markets — Polymarket vs Kalshi: South Park moment; funds cite PMs for shutdown/Fed odds; 2024 election accuracy pushes PMs mainstream.

🔹 Privacy coins & Zcash revival: ZEC rally, Monero 51%-attack mention, and the ongoing listings/compliance tug-of-war.

🔹 Stablecoins to $4T? — Tom Lee: Micropayments + 24/7 rails expand TAM across multiple chains, not just Ethereum.

Hosts⁠

Disclosures⁠

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly
⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

Guest

⭐️ Arthur Hayes, CIO at Maelstrom

⭐️Tom Lee, CIO of Fundstrat Capital & Chairman of Bitmine

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:15 Token 2049 Reflections

03:55 Tom Lee's Role in Ethereum

08:04 Challenges & Future of DATs

13:09 Plasma: Berachain for Stablecoins 

20:06 Perp Dex Wars & Hyperliquid

24:26 Fee Compression

29:59 Kalshi vs. Polymarket

39:52 Zcash & Privacy Coins

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Is gold the ultimate hedge against inflation and sovereign risk? Or are stocks the better long-term wealth builder thanks to innovation and earnings growth?

In this heated and highly entertaining episode, Ram Ahluwalia (Lumida Wealth) and Vinny Lingham (Praxos Capital) dive deep into the macro landscape to debate the relative merits of gold vs. the S&P 500. Along the way, they explore:

Gold’s decentralization vs. Bitcoin

Why share buybacks might be distorting wealth creation

The role of inflation, AI, fiscal dominance, and central banks

The logic behind each of their portfolios

And to make things more interesting? They make a $10,000 bet on whether gold or the S&P 500 will perform better over the 9 months.

Token2049

Binance

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Vinny Lingham, Co-founder of Praxos Capital

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

📈 4:30 Why Ram argues stocks are the stronger long-term play

🥇 7:18 Why Vinny says gold is more decentralized than even Bitcoin

💵 12:08 Why Ram believes earnings make stocks the superior investment

♻️ 16:37 Why Vinny thinks stock buybacks are harmful for society

🌍 27:30 Is this still the best time in history to be alive?

⏳ 33:23 Whether its too expensive now to buy gold

⚡ 40:40 What Vinny predicts will trigger the next major macro crisis

🤝 42:56 The $10,000 bet: gold vs. the S&P 500

🤖 48:33 Whether we’re still early in the AI boom

🎤 54:15 Closing arguments from Ram and Vinny

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Perp DEXs are on fire, with volumes topping $1 trillion a month for the first time. 

Aster, backed by YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), has suddenly vaulted to the top of volume charts, but is its rise organic, or manufactured? 

But while everyone frames the battle as Aster vs. Hyperliquid, Syncracy’s Ryan Watkins and Sunny Shi argue the real fight is much bigger: decentralized exchanges versus centralized giants like Binance. 

Plus: what role Solana will play in the next chapter in the perps DEX wars? And won’t Ethereum even compete? 

Thank you to our sponsors!

⁠Binance⁠

Token2049

Guests:

Ryan Watkins, Co-Founder of Syncracy Capital

Sunny Shi, Investor at Syncracy Capital

Links:

Unchained: 

Nearly $12 Billion in HYPE Token Unlocks Loom Ahead: Maelstrom

Why Hyperliquid Should Cut Its Total Token Supply Nearly in Half

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DoubleZero just launched its mainnet-beta, offering a new type of high-performance fiber network for blockchains, live across 5 continents and already adopted by 20%+ of Solana stake.

Co-founder Austin Federa joins Unchained to walk through:

How DoubleZero creates a dedicated internet for crypto

Who contributes fiber and why they earn the 2Z token

What the SEC’s no-action letter means for crypto and DePIN specifically

And what this could unlock for L2s, onchain trading, and more

⁠Binance⁠

Token2049

Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Introduction and ads: Token2049 and Binance

🌐 0:59 What’s wrong with the public internet—and why crypto needs its own

⚡ 5:28 How DoubleZero is building a dedicated network for blockchains

🌍 7:54 How the physical world gets integrated into the blockchain economy

⏱️ 10:49 Why traders demand more determinism in transaction times

🛠️ 13:09 How anyone can become a contributor to the DoubleZero network

🚫 14:32 Why Ethereum might not be the right fit for this product

💰 16:06 What role the 2Z token plays in the ecosystem

🔥 23:12 Why Jump’s token allocation sparked controversy

⚖️ 27:40 What the SEC’s no-action letter really means for DePIN

🏆 32:59 If DoubleZero succeeds, who will come out on top?

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