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A bridging bug cost NEAR Intents $3.8 million. Alex Shevchenko reveals how a coded tweet and a Signal invite encrypted with the attacker's key got the funds back.
========================================================
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Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
========================================================
NEAR Intents halted services after an attacker exploited a bug in its Omni bridging infrastructure and walked off with $3.8 million. Twelve hours after announcing the hack, the team tweeted at the suspect: "We have identified you, sir."
Alex Shevchenko, GM of NEAR Intents, joins Laura Shin to walk through how the attacker got the protocol to credit USDT deposits on BNB Chain that never happened, why NEAR Intents covered the loss from its own pockets, and how a Signal invite encrypted with the attacker's public key opened a private channel that ended with the funds coming back, partly in XMR.
He also lays out how Shield, NEAR Intents' detection system, kept 99% of the more than $50 million tied to the Bitget hack from passing through, and why he thinks shielded Zcash could face Monero's fate.
His argument: crypto that protects thieves can never become the economic backbone its builders want.
Host:
Guest:
Alex Shevchenko - GM of NEAR Intents
Timestamps
🚨 01:43 How an Omni bridging bug let an attacker fake deposits and drain $3.8M
🌐 02:37 What NEAR Intents is, and how it relates to NEAR Protocol and near.com
⚙️ 05:01 How the hack worked and how the identified that it had occurred
💧 09:51 1inch Aqua: Back multiple positions with one token balance at https://1inch.com/aqua
🚔 10:55 Law enforcement, and how NEAR Intents identified a suspect within 12 hours
🔐 17:51 The Penn and Teller playbook: a Signal invite only the attacker could decrypt
🏎️ 22:52 Why Alex says a bug bounty beats hacking, Lambo included
🛡️ 26:24 Shield: how NEAR Intents kept 99% of Bitget hack funds off the protocol
⚖️ 32:07 Does blocking stolen funds make NEAR Intents centralized? Alex says no
🕶️ 40:17 Can shielded Zcash stay clean, or will it follow Monero's path?
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Live from TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun sit down with Balaji Srinivasan and Arthur Hayes.
Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week they are live on the BingX Stage at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, joined by Balaji Srinivasan and Arthur Hayes.
Balaji explains why Network School moved its headquarters to Kazakhstan, which he calls Singapore with space to build, and why courting a country works a lot like enterprise sales when half of all countries have fewer than 10 million people. Then OpenAI drops 700 AI-written math papers and Justin Drake tells crypto to go into bunker mode: Tarun separates theoretical attacks from practical ones, Balaji proposes a social smart contract that would let chains rewind after a cryptographic break, and Arthur pitches the Flop Network as food for AI agents. Finally, Blast and Abstract shut down, nobody booked Marquee this year, and the panel debates whether the L2 era was a necessary search or crypto's version of Chinese ghost cities.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show highlights
🔹 TOKEN2049 is still the one retail mega conference left, even in the first year with no wrapped Lambo out front.
🔹 Balaji says crypto is M&A-ing Western institutions, and that anything holding long-dated Treasuries is wrecked.
🔹 Network School has moved its headquarters to Kazakhstan, which Balaji calls Singapore with space to build: 21 million people, a tie with China and India at the physics Olympiad, about 40% of the world's uranium, and room for 10,000 acres of Arthur Hayes City.
🔹 More than 10 countries bid for Network School. Balaji says courting governments works like enterprise sales, because half of all countries have under 10 million people and a billion dollars goes a long way there.
🔹 Why Hollywood misleads you about the rest of the world, from Borat to Squid Game, and why Balaji splits countries into a descending world and an ascending world.
🔹 The ascending world has murals of Elon and will build Arthur a statue, preferably on a horse, while blue states drive their billionaires out.
🔹 OpenAI drops 700 AI-written math papers with nothing on cryptography, and Justin Drake tells crypto to go into bunker mode by moving funds to addresses that have never signed.
🔹 Tarun says there is still a big gap between a theoretical attack and a practical one, and Haseeb asks who will even tell us when ECDSA is broken.
🔹 Balaji proposes a social smart contract that lets a chain rewind after a cryptographic break, Haseeb says cross-chain dependencies make that far harder than it was five years ago, and Balaji warns that anti-tech is the new anti-capitalism.
🔹 Tom says to watch what people do rather than what they say, and Balaji argues there are hard mathematical bounds on what AI can do.
🔹 Tarun on quantum money, Balaji on blockchains that spend their own token budget trying to hack themselves, and Arthur on the Flop Network as food for AI agents.
🔹 Blast and Abstract shut down, and Arthur reports that Marquee, fully booked all week last year with half a million Singapore dollar minimum spends, has not had a single booking this year.
🔹 Balaji says every failed L2 was part of a search worth running, Arthur jokes that it was all a search for Base and Robinhood Chain, Tarun calls the L2s Chinese ghost cities that can at least be demolished, and Haseeb tallies the middlemen that make running one so expensive.
Hosts
⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly
⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly
⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures
Guests
⭐️Balaji Srinivasan, Founder of Network School
⭐️Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom & CEO of Flop Labs
Disclosures
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Justin Drake told holders not to panic. Ben DiFrancesco says if AI weakens elliptic curves, the clock is how fast Chinese models catch up.
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Quick favor: We’re deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what’s worth paying for.
Our listener survey takes five minutes, it’s anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
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OpenAI released 722 math papers, and Justin Drake followed with a "don't panic" tweet suggesting large holders consider moving funds, setting off a wave of speculation that elliptic curve keys might soon be easier to brute force.
Ben DiFrancesco, Founder and CEO of ScopeLift, joins Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Austin Griffith to separate rumor from risk. DiFrancesco puts low odds on the rumors but argues crypto would get hit first, patch fastest, and could leave traditional finance as the worse place to hold money, with Chinese open-weight models setting the clock. Monahan untangles the 0.36 ETH MetaMask staking incident that got pulled into the speculation.
They also cover ZachXBT's undercover investigation of a DPRK money launderer, the NEAR Intents hacker sending funds back, and a push for Swiss authorities to intervene at Safe. DiFrancesco closes with a warning for token teams: the regulatory excuse for skipping value return is going away.
Hosts:
Kain Warwick - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix
Taylor Monahan - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert
Austin Griffith - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation
Guest:
Ben DiFrancesco - Founder and CEO of ScopeLift
Timestamps
🔐 01:57 Why Justin Drake’s ‘don’t panic’ tweet has crypto eyeing its cryptography
🦊 06:12 Taylor on the MetaMask staking incident and the 0.36 ETH that tipped it off
🧮 14:03 Ben on why even a worst-case ECC break wouldn’t mean instant theft
🏦 20:04 Why Ben thinks TradFi, not crypto, could be the worse place to hold money
🤖 25:02 How AI models went from flubbing 2+2 to formalizing hard math
💧 30:45 1inch: See how LPs can back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt
🔙 31:49 How the NEAR Intents hacker ended up sending the money back
🕵️ 37:07 ZachXBT went undercover with a DPRK money launderer: what he found
😤 51:25 Why instant outrage is the tell for launderers and Sybil farmers
🏗️ 56:11 From Gnosis’s 2017 ICO to Safe, the multisig securing $100B+
⚖️ 01:02:23 The push for Swiss intervention at Safe and what it actually claims
🗳️ 01:08:12 Ben on how regulatory fear warped DAOs and why value return matters now
🧱 01:17:12 Blast and Abstract shut down: too many L2s, and never build a wallet
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In this spicypost-Bitget hack debate, THORChain co-founder Chad Barraford says the protocol can't block laundering. Taylor Monahan points to the halts it has used before.
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Thank you to our sponsor!
Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com
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Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
========================================================
The Bitget hack reignited a fight on crypto Twitter: should chains that can stop North Korea from laundering stolen funds actually do it? THORChain, which DPRK hackers keep using to reach Bitcoin, landed at the center of it.
Chad Barraford, co-founder of THORChain, argues the protocol cannot respond fast enough without redesigning it to be more centralized. Security expert Taylor Monahan counters that THORChain has acted before when its own protocol was at risk, and that routes made up almost entirely of stolen funds could simply be switched off.
Laura Shin presses on the closed-source signing library, four operators running 39 nodes, why validators left after Bybit, ZachXBT's undercover look at a launderer pitching THORChain, Tornado Cash-style legal risk, and fee spikes after the KelpDAO and Bitget hacks.
Barraford's answer to the biggest hypothetical is simple: if enough node operators want to block laundering, it gets blocked.
Host:
Guests:
Taylor Monahan - Security Expert and Co-host of Uneasy Money
Chad Barraford - Co-founder of THORChain
Timestamps
⚖️ 01:56 The Bitget debate: should chains that can block laundering do it?
🧱 04:10 Why Taylor says THORChain has been 'making this excuse' for years
⏸️ 10:48 THORChain paused for 5 weeks for itself. Why not for stolen funds?
🪙 19:15 1inch Aqua: See how LPs can back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt
🏦 20:15 Is THORChain an intermediary? The custody critique of its TSS vaults
🚪 24:32 Why did validators leave after Bybit? Chad and Taylor disagree
🧪 39:36 Does THORChain pass Chad's own decentralization litmus test?
🕵️ 47:59 ZachXBT's undercover probe: a launderer's 'Thor cross-chain' pitch
🏛️ 57:24 Could THORChain face a Tornado Cash-style case? Chad's legal defense
🛡️ 01:05:05 NEAR's Shield stopped $50M in laundering. Could THORChain copy it?
💸 01:05:57 Does THORChain profit from stolen funds? The fee spike debate
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SPONSORED CONTENT: This video is a paid partnership with Nexo. It was produced in collaboration with Nexo and is separate from Unchained's editorial coverage.
========================================================
A new report revealed that affluent investors aren't using crypto to build wealth. Nexo US COO Neil Steinhardt explains how the platform aims to fix that.
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About two-thirds of the affluent investors Nexo surveyed own crypto, but fewer than 5% have fully integrated it into how they build long-term wealth, according to the company's new report, The Future of Digital Wealth.
Neil Steinhardt, COO of Nexo US, walks host Ryan S. Gladwin through the report's Crypto Integration Index and why he says friction, not conviction, is holding investors back. He covers why Argentina has the highest ownership but the lowest integration, and how incoming regulatory clarity has brought Nexo back to the US.
Steinhardt also details how Nexo's crypto-backed credit lines work, what he heard from advisors at a registered investment advisor conference, and why a $35 trillion to $106 trillion wealth transfer could land with a generation that has high conviction in digital assets.
He closes on why he thinks CeFi lenders, which he says outpaced DeFi lenders for the first time in Q2, are positioned for the convergence of TradFi and crypto.
Host:
Guests:
Neil Steinhardt - COO of Nexo US
Timestamps
🔎 01:04 Why Neil says friction, not conviction, keeps crypto out of wealth plans
🧮 02:48 Inside Nexo's Crypto Integration Index
🌎 05:01 Other factors preventing crypto from integrating into wealth plans
🤝 06:50 How Nexo fixes friction in wealth building
⚖️ 08:27 How incoming regulatory clarity has brought Nexo back to the US
💳 10:15 How Nexo's crypto-backed credit lines work
👵 15:06 The coming wealth transfer to a generation with high crypto conviction
🏛️ 18:03 Investment advisors aren't advocating for crypto, here's how to change that
🏎️ 19:31 Nexo's card program and why Neil says wealth means experiences
📈 22:35 Why CeFi lenders outpaced DeFi lenders in Q2
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North Korea takes $387 million from Bitget and moves it through THORChain while NEAR's Shield freezes what it can, a Consensys validator hack tests whether staking was ever the risk-free rate, a quant named Benny shows Kalshi's perps volume was cooked, and Apollo warns that AI agents are coming for your checking account.
Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week the three of them record from a self-serve podcast studio in Amsterdam.
Bitget loses 387 million dollars to North Korea's Lazarus Group and pays every claim from its user protection fund, but the stolen funds raise a harder question: THORChain lets them through while NEAR's Shield freezes them, so which one is actually decentralized? (Dragonfly is an investor in Bitget and NEAR.) Then a Consensys validator compromise tests staking as the risk-free rate, Robert prices insurance on US Treasuries at 35 basis points, a quant named Benny exposes Kalshi's perps volume, and the crew takes apart Apollo's warning about agentic bank runs, from Robert's one basis point checking account to Tarun's agent filing his insurance claims.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show highlights
🔹 Bitget loses about 387 million dollars to North Korea's Lazarus Group, and its 460 million dollar user protection fund covers every claim, so there is no contagion.
🔹 The stolen funds run through THORChain while NEAR's Shield freezes around 500K and refuses to route more than 100 million, which reopens the question of what decentralization actually requires.
🔹 Robert wants only the two extremes, fully neutral infrastructure or deliberate censorship, and nothing in the middle. Haseeb counters that everything between a centralized exchange and Uniswap already is the middle.
🔹 Haseeb argues property rights mean more than valid state transitions, and that anomaly detection can enforce them in a way that is still neutral and programmatic.
🔹 Tarun explains why cross-chain intents, with their solvers and RFQs, are where all the fights happen.
🔹 A Consensys validator compromise forces a mass exit, and Robert says staking was never the risk-free rate, only the best possible one. He looks up US CDS at 35 basis points and puts Ethereum validation risk at about five.
🔹 Would Ethereum roll back an unfair slashing? Haseeb says it would to protect stakers. Robert says only if transactions were corrupted.
🔹 A quant named Benny exposes Kalshi's perps volume, 3 million of open interest against hundreds of millions in daily volume, and Kalshi ends its liquidity incentives as the CFTC reportedly investigates.
🔹 Robert on why market maker rebates are normal, and how paying makers in equity for volume made Kalshi's go so wrong.
🔹 On Apollo's agentic bank runs: Robert earns one basis point on his checking account, Tarun's agent finds 1,700 dollars in health insurance overcharges, and the panel argues the whole economy is about to look like DeFi.
Hosts
⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly
⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures
⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate
Disclosures
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:42 Bitget loses $387M to North Korea
07:08 Should chains freeze hacked funds?
15:35 Chains as laboratories of democracy
21:44 The hidden premium on janky chains
27:13 Consensys compromised: is staking still risk-free?
30:53 Pricing and hedging validator risk
40:24 Kalshi's perps volume
44:17 How Kalshi's rebates went awry
53:07 Apollo's agentic bank runs
56:04 A banking system built on consumer laziness
1:02:46 SVB-style runs at agent speed
1:02:46 SVB-style runs at agent speed
1:05:01 Homo economicus is back
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Taylor Monahan ties the Bitget hack to North Korea and the crew asks why THORChain still avoids the scrutiny Tornado Cash got.
========================================================
Thank you to our sponsors!
Visit 1inch to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn
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Quick favor: We’re deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what’s worth paying for.
Our listener survey takes five minutes, it’s anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
========================================================
Attackers took $388 million from Bitget without ever getting its private keys. Opsek founder Pablo Sabbatella explains that the way in was a zero-day in a third-party security product the exchange relied on.
Sabbatella, who now sits on Arbitrum's Security Council, joins Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Austin Griffith to trace the hack. Monahan attributes it to North Korea's TraderTraitor group and flags how fast the funds left Arbitrum, while the hosts ask why THORChain, which has halted its chain and reallocated balances before, still handles stolen funds.
They also cover NEAR's SHIELD anomaly detection, reports of rogue AI agents hacking outside systems, whether retail should get the upside of a $2 trillion Anthropic IPO, and Vitalik Buterin's 2030 roadmap for Ethereum.
Warwick's case: the harder the problem, the more superintelligence helps, and Ethereum is one of the hardest problems there is.
Hosts:
Kain Warwick - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix
Taylor Monahan - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert
Austin Griffith - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Builder Enablement at Ethereum Foundation
Guest:
Pablo Sabbatella - Founder at Opsek
Timestamps
🚨 02:32 How Bitget got hit for $388M and covered the losses
🛡️ 08:24 Why Pablo says a third-party security product was the way into Bitget
🕵️ 11:22 Taylor ties the hack to North Korea and highlights their rush to exit Arbitrum
❄️ 13:34 Pablo on why security councils restart the freeze debate every time
⛓️ 14:17 Why Kain says THORChain can't claim it's like Bitcoin and Ethereum
🧭 30:24 How NEAR's Shield blocks funds using behavioral anomaly detection
📣 34:51 1inch: See how 1inch Aqua lets LPs back multiple positions with one token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt
🤖 36:16 Rogue AI agents are hacking outside systems as the labs eye IPOs
🔓 39:11 Why Pablo thinks the AI labs want to regulate open-source models
📈 48:55 Kain's case for letting retail take the risk on a $2T Anthropic IPO
🧱 01:05:47 Why Kain calls Vitalik's 2030 roadmap the most bullish Ethereum read in years
🏪 01:19:18 Pablo asks whether Ethereum's real challenge is commercial, not technical
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Hunter Biden walks through the $LAPTOP launch, when thin liquidity sent the token to a $317 billion market cap in a minute, and why he says it isn't a scam.
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Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
========================================================
In June, Hunter Biden replied to a small account on X that "fiat is a sham" and the banking class is corrupt. His next move was $LAPTOP, a memecoin he says has the opposite tokenomics of the $TRUMP token.
Hunter joins Laura Shin to trace his path into crypto, from the UN World Food Programme’s digital wallets for refugees (originally covered on Unchained in 2018) to The Internet of Money. He walks through $LAPTOP's first minutes, when a market maker seeded about $5,000 of liquidity and the token briefly showed a $317 billion market cap, and answers critics who call it a scam.
He also lays out the token's prediction market burn mechanism, argues the Clarity Act died because the administration wouldn't bend on ethics rules covering the Trump family, and challenges Elizabeth Warren for siding with the banks.
Host:
Guest:
Hunter Biden - Artist, Author, and Recovery Advocate
Timestamps
🎨 01:26 How a blockchain-related initiative at the UN World Food Programme led Hunter to crypto
🏛️ 07:34 Why Hunter says most Democrats only know crypto through Trump's 'grift'
💧 12:47 1inch Aqua: See how LPs back multiple positions with one balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt
💻 13:46 Why Hunter launched $LAPTOP and what he says went wrong at its debut
🔍 21:14 Hunter answers critics who call $LAPTOP the scam he accuses Trump of
🎲 23:52 How $LAPTOP's built-in prediction market burns tokens or funds charity
⚖️ 33:35 Hunter's case against World Liberty Financial and the Trump family business
🗳️ 46:47 Can Democrats revive the Clarity Act if they take back Congress?
🏦 50:01 Why Hunter can't understand Elizabeth Warren siding with the banks
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In their final episode on Unchained, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le share the advice they give women entering crypto. Plus, Vy on the Senate meeting after FTX.
========================================================
Thank you to our sponsor!
Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com
========================================================
Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
========================================================
After more than a year of amplifying women's voices in crypto, DEX in the City is signing off from Unchained, and its hosts skip the week's news to share the advice they give people trying to break into the industry.
Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le debate whether lawyers need to be on X, why "getting into crypto" now means learning perps, tokens, and prediction markets at once, and why Katherine believes women in male-dominated rooms have to be the adult in the room.
Vy recounts breaking down in a Senate office days after FTX collapsed, a story she says she had barely told anyone, and what it taught her about separating the technology from the people who abuse it. Jessi recalls begging the FBI around 2016 to take cases involving terrorists using Bitcoin, a measure of how far the industry has traveled since institutions laughed it off.
Host:
Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Chainlink
Jessi Brooks, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital
Vy Le - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda
Timestamps
🎙️ 01:48 Why the hosts are skipping the news for their final episode on Unchained
🧭 03:25 Jessi's case against 'getting into crypto,' and the debate over X
⚖️ 12:15 Why KK tells women in crypto they have to be the adult in the room
🪞 16:45 Jessi on 'don't lose yourself,' and Vy on why the loudest critics aren't the majority
💧 23:40 1inch Aqua: Back multiple liquidity positions with the same token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-yt
🌊 24:54 How the hosts keep marching through crypto's roughest stretches
💔 29:22 Vy on why crypto can't be your whole identity, and her Senate meeting after FTX
🏰 36:13 The strangest crypto moments: Versailles, a Florida offsite, North Korea
🙌 45:10 The women and allies the hosts credit for paving the way
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Bitget lost $388 million — and days later, CEO Gracy Chen says scammers posing as a major investment team targeted her.
========================================================
Thank you to our sponsor!
Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com
========================================================
Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what's worth paying for. Our listener survey takes five minutes, it's anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who takes it can enter a drawing for a free year of Unchained Premium or Bits + Bips Premium. Open through Sunday, October 18.
— Laura
========================================================
On September 24, attackers used a zero-day in a third-party security product to slip fraudulent withdrawal commands into Bitget's wallet system, pulling out about $388 million across chains from Ethereum and XRP to Zcash.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen joins Laura Shin to reconstruct the attack, from test transfers that stayed under risk thresholds to her team's call to switch wallets back on mid-attack and sweep hot and warm funds into cold storage. She lays out how the exchange's protection fund covered users and why reopened withdrawals showed an early net inflow.
Then comes the industry response. Tether, Circle, and NEAR Intents froze funds, THORChain declined her request, and only $632K is frozen so far. Chen also describes scammers impersonating an investment firm to target her after the hack. Her case that "permissionless doesn't mean neutral" puts a hard question to DeFi.
Host:
Guest:
Gracy Chen - CEO of Bitget
Timestamps
🚨 01:50 How attackers used a third-party zero-day to fake withdrawal commands
❄️ 07:15 Why Bitget switched wallets back on mid-attack to sweep funds to cold storage
💧 14:30 1inch Aqua: See how LPs back multiple positions with the same token balance at http://unchainedcrypto.com/go/1inch-sn
⛓️ 15:37 Why the hackers were able to transact even after withdrawals were paused
🧊 19:04 How Tether, Circle, and NEAR Intents froze funds, and why recovery is harder
🕵️ 24:05 ZachXBT's shift on the Bitget hack and his earlier pump-and-dump claims
🛡️ 30:01 NEAR Intents vs. THORChain: does permissionless mean neutral?
💰 41:55 Why Bitget built its protection fund in 2022 and how it covered the loss
🎭 48:17 How scammers posed as an investment team to target Gracy after the hack
📈 01:01:32 A net ETH inflow after withdrawals reopened, and whether the IPO is still on
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