Unchained

Bitcoin has fallen below $102,000. “Uptober” ended in blood.

But while retail traders are terrified, institutional conversations are heating up.

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins are joined by Teddy Fusaro, President of Bitwise, to unpack the week’s market turmoil.

They dig into why institutions are finally comfortable allocating to bitcoin, how Ripple is building an ecosystem that can’t be ignored, and whether Tether’s staggering $500 billion valuation makes sense.

Plus: the shrinking odds of the CLARITY Act, the merging of TradFi and crypto rails, and why the competition in the payments space is so hot.

Sponsors:

Binance

Mantle

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

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

Christopher Perkins, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Teddy Fusaro, President of Bitwise

Links:

Unchained: 

Ripple Hits $4B Investment Milestone With Palisade Deal

Extreme Fear Returns to Market as Bitcoin Breaks $104k Support

Solana ETFs Draw $44 Million as Bitcoin Funds Bleed $191 Million

Stablecoin Volume on Ethereum Breaks $2.8 Trillion Record in October

Bitcoin ETFs Record $470 Million Outflows Amid Fed Rate Decision

DL News: Clarity Act has 80% chance of passing by 2026: Bitwise

The Block: Tether's annual profits top $10 billion as Treasury holdings swell

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

📈 3:03 Why Ram is still bullish on markets despite recent carnage

💧 6:03 Why a slingshot economy will soon send liquidity back into risk assets

🏦 9:18 How institutional sentiment now differs sharply from crypto Twitter

🚀 16:43 Inside Bitwise’s clever move to launch BSOL

🌊 21:20 Why Chris says “you can’t sleep on Ripple”

🔗 25:28 How TradFi and crypto rails are starting to merge

💳 29:38 Why every company suddenly wants to own the payments layer

💣 30:53 Exlporing Tether’s biggest challenge —and whether it’s worth $500B

📊 39:52 ETFs vs. digital asset treasuries: Teddy’s take

⚖️ 46:48 Why the CLARITY Act is unlikely to pass in 2025

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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, Kaledora Linn, Co-founder and “Empress of RWAs” at Ostium, joins to break down the rise of on-chain equity perps, the funding-rate chaos that hit 365%, and why she believes the next wave of tokenized assets won’t come from exchanges—but from structured liquidity markets.

We dive deep into Ostium’s hybrid CFD model that blends TradFi mechanics with on-chain transparency, explore why most retail traders can’t stomach perp carry costs, and debate what “safe leverage” could look like in an RWA world. The panel also touches on CZ’s presidential pardon and Coinbase’s new Echo platform, connecting the dots between political optics, capital formation, and how crypto’s product design is evolving beyond speculation.

Whether you’re building perpetual DEXs, tokenizing RWAs, or just trying to survive the next funding-rate spike, this episode unpacks how market design, UX, and regulation will shape crypto’s next trillion-dollar frontier.

Show highlights

🔹 Equity Perps, ADL, and UX Reality — Why funding swings as high as 365 percent make traditional perps unusable for mainstream traders, even if they work for short-term speculators.

🔹 Inside Ostium’s RWA Derivatives Model — Kaledora Linn explains how Ostium re-engineered perps into a CFD-style liquidity system to stabilize funding and attract institutional flow.

🔹 CFDs vs. Options — Why trillions in CFD volume dominate global retail markets and how a linear, simple payoff structure beats the complexity of options.

🔹 Market Microstructure and Path Dependence — How thin liquidity and whale-driven order books make on-chain equity markets fragile in early growth stages.

🔹 Funding-Rate Distortions — Tarun breaks down why “delta-neutral” strategies blow up when funding turns asymmetric and leverage resets too quickly.

🔹 From Perps to Products People Actually Use — Haseeb and Kaledora debate how to make RWAs tradeable without the hidden costs of perps.

🔹 Leveraged ETF Paradox — Despite structural decay, leverage products remain popular because of UX, accessibility, and clear narratives—lessons for on-chain builders.

🔹 Predictable Costs Win Power Users — Why whales and market makers prefer stable, knowable carry over yield-chasing chaos.

🔹 CZ Pardon and Optics — The panel dissects political fallout, public perception, and what “clemency for founders” means for crypto’s reputation.

🔹 Coinbase Echo Launch — A new experiment in on-chain crowd sales, retail capital formation, and the post-airdrop meta.

🔹 From Airdrops to Allocations — Why curated, paid token sales may replace “free money” farming to create long-term aligned communities.

🔹 MegaETH and Luxury Distribution Models — The “sorting hat” approach to allocation mirrors art galleries and luxury brands—scarcity and provenance as value signals.

🔹 Go-to-Market Over Purity — Tom and Robert argue that product distribution and user education matter more than perfect decentralization in early RWA markets.

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 

Guest

⭐️ Kaledora, Co-founder at Ostium

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:39 Kaldora’s Crypto Twitter Controversy

03:43 Debate on Perpetuals & Equities

07:20 Funding Rates & Market Dynamics

16:09 CFDs vs. Perpetuals

29:31 CZ's Pardon & Political Backlash

37:42 Trump's Pardon: Optics and Implications

39:06 Crypto's Midterm Impact

41:50 Echo Acquisition by Coinbase

46:11 Crowdfunding Platforms & MegaETH

55:36 Luxury Goods & Token Sales Analogy

Disclosures

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In this episode of Unchained, Laura is joined by Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly, and Sam MacPherson, Co-founder and CEO of Phoenix Labs, to break down the fast-moving world of stablecoins and stablechains.

They discuss Ethena’s USDe $5 billion drop, the rise of “stablecoin-as-a-service” models, the emergence of payment-focused blockchains like Tempo and Codex, and the return of TradFi heavyweights like Visa, Mastercard, and Western Union to the digital dollar race.

From liquidity challenges to regulatory shakeups and tokenized deposits, the conversation explores what it really takes to win the stablecoin wars, and, importantly, whether any of these players can even make a scratch to king Tether.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Binance

Guests:

Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly

Sam MacPherson, Co-founder and CEO of Phoenix Labs

Links:

Previous coverage on Unchained:

Stablecoins Are Popping Up Everywhere. What’s the End Game?

Why Every Chain Suddenly Wants Its OWN Stablecoin - The Chopping Block

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro and ads: Binance

📉 1:09 Why Ethena’s USDe plunged from $15B to $10B

🔮 5:34 Rob’s view on the future of Ethena

💸 7:06 Why Spark exited Ethena despite being an early believer

⚔️ 11:32 Protocol-native stablecoins—and why Rob and Sam disagree about the trend

💡 21:03 What it really takes to win the stablecoin wars + what makes Tempo's strategy “interesting”

💳 32:11 Tether’s USAT launch: can it succeed?

🏦 36:27 How Tether and Ripple are using the same acquisition playbook

🔥 39:40 Plasma’s emissions strategy and whether it’s sustainable

🏛️ 44:10 Inside Circle’s Arc testnet and its 100+ institutional partners

⛓️ 51:08 Codex and the debate: should stablechains be L1s or L2s?

💵 56:42 How Spark aims to stand out in the new wave of stablecoin competition

🏢 1:00:04 Why TradFi players are entering the space with so much strength

🚀 1:06:04 Why Rob remains so bullish on the future of stablecoins

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Gold may have history, but does it have a future?

Former Citi Chief Economist Willem Buiter joins Unchained Executive Editor Steve Ehrlich to argue that gold’s “6,000-year bubble” is long overdue to burst. 

He explains why he thinks central banks should dump their bullion, why Bitcoin isn’t a reliable store of value, and why fully backed stablecoins and central-bank digital currencies could define the next era of money.

He also touches on Trump’s influence on the Fed, tokenized deposits and the future of stablecoins.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Binance

Guest:

Willem Buiter, Independent Economic Advisor, Previously Global Chief Economist at Citigroup

Timestamps:

💰 0:00 Introduction

🏺 0:28 Is gold really in a 6,000-year bubble?

🫧 4:33 Why Willem says some bubbles can last forever

💵 7:16 What to make of the dollar’s debasement and why other currencies aren’t better

🚫 11:56 Why Willem doesn’t believe in Bitcoin as a store of value

🪙 16:32 Why he says fully backed stablecoins could define the future of money

🏦 19:10 Are tokenized deposits a breakthrough or a threat to the monetary system?

🌐 22:36 Why Willem supports central bank digital currencies

🔢 27:51 Will the world end up with hundreds of stablecoins?

📊 31:23 Is the Fed quietly shifting its inflation target to 3%?

⚖️ 33:57 How Trump’s pressure could undermine Fed independence

🚀 37:39 Why Willem is bullish on tokenized assets

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In this episode of Bits + Bips, former BlackRock executive and SharpLink co-CEO Joseph Chalom joins hosts Austin Campbell, Chris Perkins, and Ram Ahluwalia to discuss why the Federal Reserve may move to ease rates despite a “Goldilocks” economy, the growing role of stablecoins in foreign exchange and settlement, and how major banks like JPMorgan and Citi are expanding their use of blockchain. 

The conversation also explores Japan’s first yen-backed stablecoin, the implications of AI for the labor market, and the generational shift that could make crypto wallets the default interface for finance.

Plus, the implications of CZ’s pardon and why it’s “bullish” to have Mike Selig chairing the CFTC.

Sponsors:

Binance

Mantle

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

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

Christopher Perkins, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Guest:

 Joseph Chalom, Co-CEO of SharpLink Gaming, Inc.

Reuters: Fed poised to cut rates this week, with more easing likely on tap

WSJ: Trump Considers Fed Chair Selection by Year-End From Slate of Five Finalists

CoinDesk: Gov. Waller: U.S. Fed to 'Embrace Disruption,' Pitches 'Skinny' Master Account Idea

Reuters: World's first yen-pegged stablecoin debuts in Japan

EF: ERC-8004: Trustless Agents

Bloomberg: JPMorgan to Allow Bitcoin, Ether as Collateral in Crypto Push

Unchained: Trump Pardons Binance Founder CZ

CNBC: Trump names Michael Selig to chair CFTC; Selig cites crypto capital goal

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

💸 3:23 Why the Fed will likely still cut rates despite a “Goldilocks” economy

👷‍♂️ 6:47 Why Joseph says the labor market is at a “moment that matters” as Amazon cuts 30,000 jobs

🏛️ 8:26 What Chris shockingly heard at a recent Fed conference

⚖️ 10:15 What could force the Fed to become hawkish

🚀 12:33 How the Fed is “frontrunning innovation”

💴 14:46 Why Japan’s first fully yen-backed stablecoin, JPYC, is significant

🌍 17:36 Why Chris is so excited about stablecoins disrupting FX markets

🔗 22:55 Why L1 tokens may be the next “strategic commodity”

🏦 26:25 How major banks are joining the stablecoin race

👛 31:33 Why retail adoption could explode in the coming years

🤖 33:37 How AI agents could soon manage our payments

💡 36:34 Why JPMorgan decided to accept bitcoin and ether as collateral

⚖️ 44:04 Was CZ’s pardon fair, and what about “pay to play” concerns

🐂 54:55 Why having Mike Selig chair the CFTC is “bullish” for crypto

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As crypto markets mature, Kraken is transforming from a trading venue into a multi-asset infrastructure platform. 

Co-CEO Arjun Sethi joins to break down the exchange’s expansive strategy: building a vertically integrated derivatives business, pioneering tokenized equities with xStocks, and launching a purpose-built layer 2 chain, Ink, to bridge regulated finance and open DeFi.

Sethi also explains how Kraken responded to the Black Friday crash, the firm’s ADL and margin policies, and what Kraken wants from U.S. policymakers in 2025. Plus: how Kraken's acquisitions of NinjaTrader and Small Exchange could reshape U.S. derivatives, and why this time, tokenization may finally deliver.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Mantle https://www.mantle.xyz/

Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Kraken

Timestamps: 

👍 0:00 Intro

⚡️ 0:15 Kraken’s experience on “Black Friday” and how the team handled the chaos

👥 3:52 Why Kraken uses a co-CEO model and how it works in practice

🧩 7:50 How Arjun and his team kept calm and supported the broader ecosystem during the crash

📈 9:25 What the derivatives boom means for Kraken’s long-term strategy

🛡️ 14:55 Why customer trust and fair risk management are core to Kraken’s DNA

🏛️ 20:26 How the Small Exchange and NinjaTrader deals fit into Kraken’s U.S. expansion plan

🔗 31:44 Why tokenization is finally real this time and how Kraken plans to lead it

⚖️ 53:24 What Kraken hopes to achieve in Washington and what’s next for the company

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Crypto has spent years obsessing over tokens, airdrops, and speculation. But what about the unsexy businesses actually making money?

Arthur Hayes and Adam Schlegel join Laura Shin to talk about Maelstrom's $250M private equity fund targeting crypto's most profitable, yet overlooked, companies, $50M revenue businesses with 50% margins that VCs can't touch and exchanges won't pay cash for.

But while everyone frames this as just another fund, Hayes and Schlegel argue it's actually the missing piece in crypto's maturation: a cash buyer for founders who've done their time and want out without four-year earnouts. 

Plus: Why Asian crypto companies with monster margins get ignored by Western capital.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Binance

Arthur Hayes, Co-Founder of BitMEX & CIO at Maelstrom

Adam Schlegel, Head of Private Equity at Maelstrom

Previous appearances on Unchained:

The Chopping Block: Arthur Hayes & Tom Lee; Hyperliquid vs Aster, DATs & ETH

Arthur Hayes and Hanson Birringer on Hyperliquid’s Success (And What Could Stop It)

Bloomberg: Arthur Hayes’ Family Office Seeks $250M for Buyout Fund

Coindesk: Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom Seeks $250M Private Equity Fund to Acquire Crypto Firms: Bloomberg

Akshat’s tweet announcing the fund

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

📰 1:08 Maelstrom’s $250M private equity fund to buy crypto firms

👤 1:42 Adam’s background and path from Morgan Stanley to Haveli to Maelstrom

💼 3:51 Why Maelstrom believes the next crypto boom is in private equity

📈 4:42 Arthur on how crypto investing evolved from beta → VC → PE

🌏 10:05 Geographic focus: Asia and LatAm’s overlooked crypto firms

🧭 11:49 How Maelstrom evaluates targets and performs due diligence

🛠️ 17:02 Inside Maelstrom’s $250M anchor fund and LP co-invest model

👀 26:01 The types of companies Maelstrom is targeting

⚙️ 30:16 Fund structure and Arthur’s role in Maelstrom PE

📊 36:05 “The four-year cycle is dead”: Arthur on today’s crypto market

💰 39:18 Investor requirements and $5M minimum commitment

🏦 42:09 Coinbase’s Echo acquisition and what it means for exchanges

⚔️ 47:59 The perps war, how DEXs are forcing CEXs toward zero-fee trading

💥 52:18 Binance, ADL liquidations, and leverage risk

🔮 56:27 Prediction markets: Polymarket vs Kalshi vs Limitless

💵 59:06 Stablecoins and rates, why Tether and Circle could lose to Ethena

📈 1:04:15 Who wins the next phase of crypto’s evolution

🔚 1:08:14 Closing thoughts

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This special two-part episode brings together two very different conversations.

In part one, investment manager Lawrence Lepard lays out why he believes the fiat monetary system is structurally unsustainable, what role inflation plays in that system, and how Bitcoin could be the exit ramp, not just from fiat, but from war, debt, and economic manipulation. He discusses gold, stocks, silver, the real estate market, and why he’s betting heavily on Bitcoin.

In part two, I speak with filmmaker James Craig, director of the new documentary Code Is Law, which traces the evolution of the phrase from a meme into a legal defense for some of the most infamous smart contract exploits in crypto. From the DAO to Indexed Finance, Mango Markets and KyberSwap, the film explores whether exploiting code is legitimate — or just theft with better PR.

Lawrence Lepard, Investment Manager at Equity Management Associates, LLC

James Craig, Founder, Director and Producer at Encrypted Films

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Neobanks changed how fintech thinks about money. Now, crypto builders want to do the same, without custody.

In this episode, Itamar Lesuisse, CEO of Ready, and Mike Silagadze, CEO of EtherFi, argue the real shift isn't about "crypto cards," it's about who controls your assets. EtherFi’s and Ready’s self-custodial apps merge saving, spending, and investing. The result: faster settlement, lower fees, and more transparency, but also new challenges around compliance, credit, and security.

Itamar Lesuisse and Mike Silagadze explain how layer 2 networks made crypto cards economically viable after years of failed attempts and how Africa’s FX markets could become the breakthrough use case for crypto banking.

Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com

Thank you to our sponsors!

Mantle

Binance

Guests:

Itamar Lesuisse, Co-founder and CEO of Ready (formerly Argent)

Mike Silagadze, Founder and CEO of EtherFi, and Founder of Top Hat

Links:

The Block: Best crypto cards with token rewards in 2025

Bitcoin Starknet Staking Post by Ready (Formerly Argent) 

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

💳 1:57 What crypto neobanks are, and why they’re suddenly booming

⚖️ 6:19 Custody as the real divide between traditional and crypto banking

🏦 8:07 From Argent to Ready, turning wallets into full neobanks

💳 10:05 Why early crypto cards failed, and how L2 settlement fixed them

💰 18:49 Credit without credit scores: the rise of collateralized cards

🔒 32:52 How smart accounts and recovery improve wallet security

🌍 44:29 Onchain FX and the next profit frontier for crypto banks

🚀 55:36 How self-custody could reach mass adoption

🔚 58:19 Closing thoughts

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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, Helius’s Mert returns to defend Zcash’s ~400% run and the “encrypted Bitcoin” framing, digging into anonymity sets, privacy UX, and why Bitcoiners are so riled up. We then tackle the Tempo bombshell — a ~$500M raise at a ~$5B pre, Stripe/Paradigm ties, Dankrad’s move from the EF — alongside Péter Szilágyi’s letter on EF culture and compensation: public goods priesthood vs. market incentives. Next up: Mert’s “USD Manlet” rethink (why coordinating Solana around one stable is hard, and why pushing USDT to compete with USDC may be the sharper play) plus a gripe-fueled tour of today’s DeFi trading UX. Finally, an AWS-outage autopsy: Coinbase downtime, Base sequencer hiccups, Infura/MetaMask ripple effects, and the case for multi-region/multi-cloud redundancy when real money — and sometimes safety — are on the line. And no, despite the memes, Mert is not launching a DEX.

For more links and Show Hilights - https://unchainedcrypto.com/podcast-chopping-block/the-chopping-block-zcash-400-tempos-500m-shock-ef-pay-firestorm-aws-base-meltdown-feat-mert/

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest

⭐️ Mert, Co-founder & CEO at Helius

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest

⭐️ Mert, Co-founder & CEO at Helius

“One Long Memo” [A Letter To The EF] by Péter Szilágyi

https://gist.github.com/karalabe/a2bc53436f29e0711fe680d59e180f6c 

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:22 Mert a Madman of Solana and now Zcash

05:20 Bitcoin vs. Zcash: A Philosophical Clash

14:35 Tempo Fundraise and Ethereum's Talent Exodus

33:05 Ethereum's Social Layer & Public Goods

34:45 The Importance of Religious Priesthood in Crypto

41:01 The USD Manlet Proposal & Stablecoin Coordination

49:32 AWS Outage & Its Impact on Crypto

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