Unchained

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins tackle a packed agenda: from the fairness of Binance’s listing fees to the ways in which DeFi didn’t perform well during the “Black Friday” crash, why Tempo’s $500 million raise might have been a political ploy, and the growing war over stablecoin dominance.

The trio debates whether Bitcoin is undervalued compared to gold, why Ethereum’s 10-year track record gives it an edge, and whether today’s Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) are just froth, or the permanent backbone of institutional crypto.

Plus: Austin makes a bold prediction about the stablecoin that will dominate by 2040.

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

Binance Listing Fee Drama

Unchained: 

Binance Listing Fee Fight: What’s a Fair Price to List on the Top Crypto Exchange?

Binance Claims It Does Not Profit From Token Listings

Jesse Pollak (Base) chimes in

Tempo & Dankrad

Fortune: Exclusive: Stripe-backed blockchain startup Tempo raises $500 million round led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital and Greenoaks

Ethereum core dev Dankrad Feist joins Tempo

Reactions:

Ryan Adams (Bankless): Tempo will optimize for itself, not ETH.

Nick Almond: Not a death sentence for ETH

Breadguy: Big loss. Dankrad was a major L1 scaling advocate.

Black Friday

Dan Wilson: 3 big lessons post-crash

Gold vs. BTC

GOLD/BTC up ‎23.5% in past month

Bitcoin Is Undervalued vs. Gold

DATs

Bloomberg: Huobi Founder Li Lin Set To Launch $1 Billion Ether Accumulator - Bloomberg

CoinDesk: Ripple Set to Enter Corporate Treasury Business With $1B Acquisition of GTreasury

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

💸 3:39 Binance listing fees — fair price for distribution or pay-to-play?

🏛️ 10:19 What is the best way to go public?

⚔️ 11:57 How exchanges really compete behind the scenes

💥 15:00 “Black Friday”: why Chris calls it catastrophic — but with a silver lining

🧱 24:52 What the industry must fix to prevent another meltdown

💵 30:15 How Tempo’s $500M raise represents peak frothiness

🚨 39:12 Is Dankrad’s exit from the Ethereum Foundation a red alarm for ETH?

🔮 43:07 Austin’s bold prediction: which stablecoin wins by 2040

🥇 46:17 Is Bitcoin undervalued compared to gold?

🏗️ 52:21 Why DATs are here to stay despite the market carnage

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Last Friday, billions evaporated in a liquidation cascade—and nobody knows exactly what happened because centralized exchanges won't share the data.

In this sponsored episode recorded at Aptos' NYC event, Aptos CEO Avery Ching says if their Decibel perpetual exchange had been live, traders would have seen every order, every spread change, every liquidation in real-time onchain. But while critics argue existing perp DEXs like Hyperliquid are already decentralized, Ching says most still match orders off-chain in black boxes.

Avery explains why Decibel (launching Q1 2026) will be different, how 500 million Indian users are coming to crypto through Reliance Jio's Jiocoin, and why Aptos partnered with World Liberty Financial despite VCs calling it "garbage in your living room."

Guest:

Avery Ching, CEO & Co-Founder, Aptos

The Composable Global Exchange Engine, by Avery Ching, CEO Aptos

Aptos Post: The fully onchain trading engine built by Decibel Foundation

Previous coverage of Unchained on Black Friday: Crypto’s Black Friday Was Its Largest Liquidation Ever. What the Hell Happened?

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🧭 0:33 How Aptos evolved from Meta’s Libra/Diem project

💡 2:27 Aptos’ vision for global trading engine and everyday crypto use

💾 10:11 What Shelby is and how it supports AI, creators, and enterprise use.

🎥 12:22 Aptos’ new media partnership with NBCUniversal

⚡ 14:46 Avery’s vision for a future when blockchains are widely used 

🧩 16:10 What Decibel is and how it aims to bring perps fully onchain

🔎 17:58 What would have changed if Friday’s crash was onchain

💵 24:12 Why Aptos partnered with World Liberty Financial on USD1

🇮🇳  28:46 How the Reliance Jio deal expands Aptos’ reach in India

🌏 30:46 How Aptos is building enterprise adoption across Asia

🏦 32:59 Why Aave launched its first non-EVM deployment on Aptos

🛡️ 36:42 What Aptos learned from recent market turmoil

🔚 42:18 Closing thoughts and Avery’s vision for onchain transparency

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Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix and Infinex, is returning to Ethereum Layer 1 with a bold new experiment: a perpetuals DEX built directly on mainnet. In this episode, he joins Laura to explain why Synthetix is taking this contrarian step, how its hybrid “optimistic order book” can run efficiently on Ethereum’s slower block times, and why he believes the future of trading will move fully on-chain.

Warwick also discusses the tradeoffs behind using USDT, what it will take to match centralized exchange performance, and his “super app” vision for how DeFi platforms could finally outcompete CEXs.

Thank you to our sponsor, ⁠Binance⁠!

Guest:

Kain Warwick, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

Links:

The Superapp Thesis by Kain Warwick

Blockwork’s Dan Smith on Spreads for ETH-USD

Timestamps:

🔥 0:00 Introduction and ads: Binance

⚙️ 0:56 Why Synthetix is launching a perps DEX directly on Ethereum mainnet

⏳ 5:18 How a perpetuals exchange can even work on slow Ethereum block times

🔍 10:34 How transparency will differ from other onchain trading venues

🏗️ 13:53 Why Kain believes being on Ethereum mainnet still matters

🧱 17:00 The challenges of operating on L1—margin posting, gas costs, and more

⚔️ 21:43 How Synthetix plans to compete in an overcrowded perps DEX landscape

💣 24:33 How liquidations on an Ethereum perp DEX would play out during a Black Friday-like crash

🕵️‍♂️ 29:32 How traders could maintain privacy while staying fully decentralized

🌐 31:57 Why a perps DEX on mainnet could reshape Ethereum DeFi

💵 34:25 Why Synthetix is using USDT—despite its centralization risks

🏦 37:28 Which premium assets will serve as collateral

📱 39:36 Inside Kain’s “super app” vision for DeFi’s next evolution

🏁 50:31 Why Kain is fired up about Synthetix’s upcoming trading competition

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When CJ Hetherington revealed the token listing terms Binance allegedly offered his startup, the crypto world exploded.

In this episode, CJ, founder of prediction market app Limitless, and his investor Nick Tomaino of 1confirmation join Laura to discuss why he went public, how Binance responded, and what the incident reveals about the power dynamics between exchanges and builders.

The conversation tackles how retail gets dumped on, why transparency is the next frontier for crypto, and why both guests agree that the “revolution won’t be centralized.”

Guests:

CJ Hetherington, CEO/CO-Founder at Limitless Labs

Nick Tomaino, Founder and General Partner at 1confirmation

Binance Claims It Does Not Profit From Token Listings

Timestamps:

🔥 0:00 Introduction

🗣️ 2:24 Why CJ decided to reveal Binance’s alleged listing terms

🏗️ 8:44 Why he built Limitless on Base

🤝 9:11 Whether Base coordinated with CJ before he went public

💥 13:04 How the crypto world reacted to CJ’s viral tweet

🧨 15:00 Whether Binance exploits projects and founders

💸 18:06 How short-term founders dump on retail investors, per CJ

📢 23:18 Binance’s response—and why they called CJ’s claims false

🔍 25:38 Why CJ and Nick say Binance needs far more transparency

⚠️ 30:42 Whether CJ fears retaliation for calling out the world’s biggest exchange

🤔 33:48 Why he doesn’t buy Binance’s claim that its policies “protect users”

💫 39:36 Why Nick is urging crypto founders and users to “believe in something”

🚀 42:03 CJ’s plan to build an “army of token holders” and make Limitless succeed

🪙 48:25 Inside Limitless’s community token sale

📈 50:34 What Nick learned from Polymarket’s rise as an early investor

👀 54:10 Coinbase adding BNB to its listing roadmap

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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, Doug Colkitt, Founder Ambient Finance & Founding Contributor at Fogo, joins us as one of the wildest weekends in crypto history drags us back on air: a record $19B+ in liquidations, gas spiking toward $400, exchange APIs wobbling, and ADL ripping through perps as hedges vanished. We unpack what ADL actually does, why delta-neutral farmers got nuked, and how Binance’s USDe and staked ETH/SOL pegs snapped amid index design and mint/redeem gaps—followed by refunds. We get into HLP vs. LLP (vaults vs. winning traders), the Hyperliquid “whale” short ahead of the tariff tweet, cross-margin reflexivity that torched alts, and why market makers wore outsized pain. Then we zoom out to infra: sequencers, force-inclusion in practice, and the case for on-chain clearing plus real insurance funds before the next

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 Record wipeout — $19B+ liquidations, 1.6M traders rekt, gas spiking to ~$400 while major exchanges wobbled.

🔹 ADL, decoded — What happens when perps run out of counterparties; socialized losses, P&L/leverage ranking, and why hedges vanished.

🔹 Delta-neutral nuked — Cross-venue long/short farmers turned naked as ADL picked off one leg first.

🔹 Binance peg breaks — USDe to ~$0.68 on Binance, staked ETH/SOL snapped; refunds >$250M after index/oracle and mint-redeem gaps.

🔹 Flows vs. “attack” — Earn users rushing to USDT + copy-trade momentum likely amplified the depeg more than cunning index games.

🔹 DeFi vs. CeFi — Perp DEX performance broadly comparable; transparency gaps in ADL policies and liquidation mechanics laid bare.

🔹 Vaults vs. traders — HLP vs. LLP outcomes show who platforms chose to protect in tail events—and the retention risks of clipping winners.

🔹 OI collapse — Hyperliquid open interest ~15B → ~6B; cross-margin reflexivity helped nuke alts far worse than BTC.

🔹 Why it felt one-sided — Market-maker/API failures and risk misallocation made typically “safe” actors eat outsized losses.

🔹 The whale short — A massive Hyperliquid short pre-tariff tweet sparks insider-vs-coincidence debate.

🔹 Infra faceplants — Sequencers down, force-inclusion in theory only, docs offline—while base L1s largely kept ticking.

🔹 What to fix — On-chain clearing, real insurance funds, sane ADL ranking, robust mint/redeem, and better index/oracle design before the next shock.

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

⭐️ Doug Colkitt, Founder Ambient Finance & Founding Contributor at Fogo

 ⁠⁠Disclosures⁠⁠ 

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:11 $19B+ Liquidated

04:35 Personal Experiences & Reactions

08:30 Understanding Auto De-leveraging (ADL)

14:37 Binance & USDe Incident

23:19 DeFi vs CeFi Performance

26:05 Zero-Sum & Greedy Algorithms

34:26 Vaults & Trader Protection

39:43 Market Reactions & Trader Sentiments

44:33 Infrastructure Failures & OI Collapse

46:56 Insider Trading Allegations & Market Manipulation

52:14 Future of Perpetual DEXs

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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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