Unchained

The weeks leading up to Pump.fun’s ICO were contentious: accusations that it was extractive, debates over decentralization, and outrage over allocations. 

In the end, the company pulled off the third-largest ICO in crypto history, raising $600 million in 12 minutes.

The day of, Solana barely flinched under the load, and onchain platforms like Hyperliquid and Raydium left CEXes looking outdated.

In this episode of Unchained, Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly and Joe McCann of Asymmetric join Laura to break down:

Whether this marks the return of ICOs

The objections to the small ($10 million) airdrop to creators

How Pump.fun’s ambitions could reshape memecoins, and maybe Solana itself

And why TikTok might not need to worry just yet

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

Xapo Bank

Ledn

Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner of Dragonfly

Joe McCann, Founder, CEO & CIO of Asymmetric

Previous coverage on the ICO: Pump.fun’s $1 Billion ICO Has Caused Controversy. Can It Succeed?

Unchained:

Pump.fun Becomes Third Largest ICO, Raises $600M in 12 Minutes 

PUMP Traders Make Big Options Bets on the Token Surging Past Its ICO Price

Pump.fun Draws Backlash After Confirming PUMP ICO

SolanaFloor’s tweet on LetsBonk’s stats

The Block: Pump.fun makes first acquisition, purchases Solana-based copy-trading wallet tracker Kolscan

Dune Analytics Twitter thread on the PUMP ICO stats

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🚀 3:43 Why Joe says Pump.fun is one of the best crypto businesses he’s seen

📈 6:04 Whether this heralds the return of ICO mania

😤 7:11 Why the raise triggered backlash from parts of the crypto community

💸 8:32 Whether PUMP’s valuation can really be justified

⚙️ 12:10 How the exchange-first design created issues—and why others may copy it

📊 16:15 Whether PUMP’s distribution model helped or hurt its credibility

⏳ 21:43 Why the decision to have no token lockups sparked debate

👾 24:40 What kind of traders actually bought into the ICO

⚡ 32:56 Whether Solana’s performance makes it the new home for ICOs

🏦 37:50 Why Coinbase sat this one out

🔮 44:07 Where PUMP’s price might be headed in the medium term

📉 48:37 How Pump.fun lost some momentum—and what that says about the space

🧠 55:14 How Pump.fun plans to spend its $600 million war chest

📵 57:21 Whether Pump.fun can really take on Facebook

🔥 1:01:46 Why Joe still believes memecoins are just getting started

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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. In this episode, the gang is joined by Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, for a wide-ranging conversation on crypto’s next big frontier: tokenized stocks. From Robinhood’s controversial attempt to tokenize SpaceX and OpenAI shares to the legal and structural hurdles around pre-IPO derivatives, the crew dives deep into what it really takes to bring Wall Street on-chain. They also unpack the regulatory momentum behind the Genius and Clarity Acts, the return of ICO mania with Pump.fun’s $1B token raise, and the absurdly viral drama of Suitgate on Polymarket. Is this a new era of regulated innovation—or are we just recreating old problems on new rails? Tune in for sharp takes, legal insight, and a few laughs along the way.

Show highlights

🔹 Tokenized Stocks Take Center Stage – Robinhood, SoFi, and Republic dive into pre-IPO trading; is this a financial revolution or regulatory chaos?

🔹 Coinbase’s Legal Strategy – Paul Grewal reflects on Coinbase’s battles with the SEC and what it took to survive crypto’s darkest legal hour

🔹 Pre-IPO Derivatives vs. Real Ownership – The crew debates whether retail is getting access or getting played

🔹 Robinhood vs. OpenAI – The tokenized equity stunt that triggered a corporate backlash and raised eyebrows across the industry

🔹 24/7 Markets, Finally? – Why crypto-native trading hours could break traditional finance

🔹 Pump.fun’s $1B ICO – The return of ICO mania? The team dissects crypto’s most profitable meme machine

🔹 Are Tokenized Stocks Useful Yet? – Tarun challenges the hype: where’s the real utility?

🔹 The Clarity & Genius Acts – Crypto legislation heats up in Washington—can the industry lock in meaningful reform?

🔹 Suitgate Explained – Zelensky’s outfit spawns a scandal on Polymarket: was it a suit or not?

🔹 Market Manipulation, Oracles & Meme Justice – Prediction markets meet internet chaos in the wildest crypto dispute of the week

⭐️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 

Special Guest

⭐️Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase

Timestamps

00:00 Intro feat. Paul Grewal

01:23 How Coinbase Beat the SEC

04:49 Robinhood, OpenAI & the Pre-IPO Stock Craze

19:38 Crypto Regulation in 2025: Clarity & Genius Act

24:39 Why the Clarity Act Could Define Crypto’s Next Decade

27:10 Pump.fun’s ICO: Memecoin Mania or Market Maturity?

32:25 Suitgate on Polymarket: A Wild Crypto Scandal

39:19 The Future of Prediction Markets

Disclosures

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In the first half of this dual episode, Phantom co-founder Brandon Millman joins Unchained to break down why his Solana-first wallet is launching perpetual swaps, and why it chose to integrate with Hyperliquid over any Solana-native option.

Then, Bit Digital’s Sam Tabar explains why the public company ditched its profitable Bitcoin mining business, went all-in on ETH, and what happened when he told Michael Saylor.

FalconX

Sam Tabar, Chief Executive Officer of Bit Digital, Inc

Brandon Millman, CEO and co-founder of Phantom

Phantom

Unchained: Phantom Wallet Launches Direct Perpetual Trading With Hyperliquid

Phantom blog post: Introducing Phantom Perps

Dragonfly’s Austin Marrazza tweet

Bit Digital

The Block: Bit Digital swaps entire treasury into Ethereum, says it's now a top public ETH holder after a $173 million splurge

Treasury companies

Unchained: 

These 4 Crypto Treasury Companies Are Primed for a Price Crash

BitMine Crashes 39% After It Files to Raise $2 Billion for More ETH

Timestamps: Phantom

🎬 0:00 Intro

⚡ 1:36 Why Phantom is launching perps—and why now was the moment to do it

💥 6:08 How they landed on 40x leverage

💸 7:48 How Phantom plans to make money from its new trading product

🚫 8:50 Why U.S. users are left out (for now)

🔗 10:36 Why Hyperliquid won out over Solana-native DEXes

⚔️ 12:55 Whether wallets and dapps are headed for a showdown

🪪 17:22 Why Brandon believes wallets will be the new gateway to crypto

📱 18:45 How social features could redefine the wallet experience

🌅 22:45 What Brandon hopes Phantom becomes over the next five years

Timestamps: Bit Digital

💥 26:35 Why Bit Digital ditched Bitcoin for Ethereum—and how Gary Gensler played a role

💰 28:31 How they walked away from a profitable BTC mining business

🪙 32:58 Why Sam says there’s no better home for stablecoins than Ethereum

🗣️ 34:09 What came out of Sam’s surprising conversation with Michael Saylor about crypto treasuries

🤔 37:10 Whether ETH’s value accrual model needs a fundamental rethink

📈 42:21 How Bit Digital plans to ramp up its ETH accumulation

🧠 44:40 What their new AI venture is really aiming to do

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In this episode of Bits + Bips, we examine how rising global trade tensions could impact macro conditions, the Fed’s next move, and market stability. We also explore how investors should position themselves with inflation cooling and an uncertain policy path at the Fed.

We then look at what’s happening on the crypto side: volume shifting to tokenized public equities, the growing number of corporate stablecoin plans, and whether the promise of tokenization is matched by meaningful traction.

Joining hosts Joe McCann, Ram Ahluwalia, and Steve Ehrlich is Rob Hadick of Dragonfly, who shares his perspective on product-market fit in crypto, shifting market structure, and where real adoption may emerge.

Sponsor:

Bitwise

Joe McCann, Founder, CEO, and CIO of Asymmetric

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Steve Ehrlich, Executive Editor at Unchained

Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly

LINKS:

WSJ:

Trump Faces Crucial Week for Reaching Trade Deals

EU Still Hopes for Initial U.S. Trade Deal Before Deadline

Reuters: Japan, South Korea face 25% tariffs as Trump ramps up trade war in letters to 14 nations

CNN: Trump announces new tariffs of up to 40% on a growing number of countries

University of Washington: OBBB Signed Into Law

Unchained: 

OpenAI Says Robinhood’s Stock Tokens Are Not Equity

Tron Is Now More Expensive Than Ethereum. Will That Hurt Justin Sun’s New Company?

AI Crypto Tokens Swoon as Nvidia Reaches a New All-Time High

CoinDesk: CoreWeave to Acquire Core Scientific in $9B All-Stock Deal

The Block: Bit Digital swaps entire treasury into Ethereum, says it's now a top public ETH holder after a $173 million splurge

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🎭 2:05 Why Ram sees the tariff drama as more theater than substance

🎌 7:09 Whether Trump is leveraging tariffs ahead of Japan’s elections

📉 8:17 How low inflation is pressuring Jerome Powell and the Fed’s next move

⚠️ 12:06 Why Rob says the market feels “fragile” right now

🪙 14:52 Whether bitcoin has truly matured into a macro asset

🛡️ 22:16 How to hedge in an uncertain landscape, and what to make of Elon’s political pivot

💵 30:05 Whether Elon Musk is preparing to launch a stablecoin on X

📊 32:26 Why digital asset treasury companies are so volatile, and how these deals really work

🧱 39:44 How the tokenization race is unfolding, and whether innovation is keeping up

🧠 47:47 How to think about investing in the tokenized assets and stablecoin narrative

🕳️ 1:01:47 Whether tokenized equities have any real killer use

⛏️ 1:03:54 What the CoreWeave-Core Scientific deal signals for bitcoin mining

📈 1:13:08 Whether we’re still in a bull market, and if now’s the time to take advantage of dip opportunities

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The race to bring users onchain is heating up, but the competitors couldn’t be more different.

Coinbase, a crypto-native giant with deep infrastructure and institutional partnerships, is going head-to-head with Robinhood, a retail-focused fintech now making aggressive moves into tokenized assets and blockchain rails.

Their visions overlap (tokenized stocks, perpetuals, custom chains) but the strategies, philosophies, and user bases differ sharply.

In this episode, Laura speaks with Diogenes Casares (Klyra Protocol) and Ryan Yi (ex-Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund) to unpack:

How these two companies will compete

What levers they have to increase their profits

How Base became a liquidity black hole for Ethereum

Why Coinbase may have already won the “flows” game

And how stablecoins, social, and tokenization could decide the winner

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

Bitwise

Ledn

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

Ryan Yi, ex Coinbase, Coinbase Ventures, and CoinFund

Unchained:

Hyperliquid Reignited Interest in Crypto Perps. Can Coinbase and Robinhood Capitalize?

Robinhood Is Building Its Own Layer 2 Blockchain

Why the Arbitrum Stack Won in the Race to Support Robinhood Chain

Why Perps Will 'Eat the World' + Tokenized Stocks - Bits + Bips

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🏦 4:17 What really separates Coinbase and Robinhood’s strategies

🛠️ 6:43 How Robinhood’s new chain should try to compete with Base

🔥 14:49 Why the competition between Robinhood and Coinbase is heating up fast in the U.S.

🤔 16:44 Whether Robinhood can catch up to Base’s head start and network effects

🧱 23:48 Why both companies chose to build on Ethereum—and what that signals

📉 36:04 How launching perps in the U.S. could reshape the landscape for both companies

🎮 44:43 How social features and gamification could give one app an edge

🎯 51:31 Why Robinhood is already working with prediction markets and Coinbase isn’t

💰 55:40 How their product differences impact profits and positioning

🤝 1:05:11 Why Ryan believes Coinbase should’ve acquired Circle

🔌 1:10:48 Why Stripe might be eyeing a crypto integration

📊 1:13:57 How Base benefits with small-cap tokens

🚀 1:18:46 Why Ryan says we’re at a real inflection point for crypto

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Today, we’ve got two very different stories in one episode.

First, Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs, joins Unchained to explain why Robinhood is rebuilding its product on the Arbitrum tech stack, what it says about crypto’s evolution, and how this could finally bridge Web2 and Web3.

Then, Calvin Hamilton breaks down the bizarre $59 million bet on whether President Zelensky wore a suit — and why vague rules, a fateful tweet, and one protocol’s vote could damage Polymarket’s reputation.

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

Focal by FalconX

Ledn

Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs

Calvin Hamilton, Polymarket bettor on the ‘yes’ of the Zelensky dispute.

Unchained: Robinhood Is Building Its Own Layer 2 Blockchain

Robinhood’s presentation at ETHcc: To Catch A Token

Rob Hadick’s tweet on tokenized stocks 

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🚀 1:44 Why Robinhood chose Arbitrum and how much control they really have

🧑‍💻 6:38 How Arbitrum Stylus could power better UX for Robinhood and beyond

🌊 10:26 Why liquidity fragmentation is still a major unsolved problem

🧲 11:41 What makes MEV capture so attractive to big players like Robinhood

🏆 13:48 Why tokenized stocks might be the “big prize” on Arbitrum

🌐 16:12 What it means to be part of the Arbitrum ecosystem

📊 18:02 How tokenized equities could change investing and what the risks are

🏛️ 21:11 Why the Arbitrum DAO stands to gain from this partnership

🔧 22:17 How Steven thinks fragmentation can be fixed more easily than most believe

🌉 25:52 Where the crypto-TradFi convergence is headed next

💬 29:40 Why Steven defends Ethereum and calls out the critics of L2s

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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, we’re joined by Jon Charbonneau and Ryan Watkins to unpack the bombshell news of Robinhood Chain—an Arbitrum-based network debuting tokenized U.S. stocks, 3× crypto perps, and that head-scratching $500 K liquidity cap. From riffing on whether proof-of-stake yields are just “money in a box,” to debating Solana’s first U.S. staked ETF, to sizing up the looming perp wars between Robinhood and Coinbase, the crew maps a common thread: corporate chains and regulatory work-arounds are colliding with crypto’s decentralization ideals, forcing builders, traders, and even ETF hawks to rethink where real security, fairness, and opportunity will live next.

Show highlights

🔹 Robinhood Chain Revealed – Why the trading-app giant paid up to launch an Arbitrum-based “Robinhood Chain,” starting with 24/5 perpetuals and tokenized U.S. stocks, plus a rumored $500 K–liquidity cap that has Crypto Twitter howling.

🔹 Tokenized-Stock Gold Rush – From Tesla and SpaceX pre-IPO shares to on-chain S&P stalwarts: does 24/7 trading finally make equity tokens stick, or is it just another CFD in disguise?

🔹 Perps Arms Race – Coinbase’s 5-year “quasi-perp” futures vs. Robinhood’s 3×-leverage launch vs. Hyperliquid’s 20× turbo deck—who wins the battle for retail flow?

🔹 Solana ETF First-Mover – RexShares files a staked-SOL C-Corp ETF, beating BlackRock to the punch and testing Wall Street’s appetite after ETH’s lukewarm debut.

🔹 Proof-of-Stake Reality Check – The crew dismantles the “economic security” myth, asks whether validator cartels make inflation rewards pointless, and floats proof-of-governance as the next model.

🔹 Hyperliquid vs. The World – Why a single Tokyo data center is eating CLOB volume, what zk-rollup challengers are planning, and how latency games redefine “decentralized exchange.”

🔹 $2 B Prediction-Market Beef – Paradigm-backed Kalshi clashes with PolyMarket after a viral “little rats” tweet; inside the influencer war and the CFTC license flex.

🔹 Conference FOMO No More – New-York-privileged hosts roast ETH CC in Cannes and declare the age of fly-to-France crypto tourism officially over.

🔹 Reg-Tech vs. Fin-Tech – From transfer agents to T+1 settlement: why outdated TradFi plumbing, not blockchains, still blocks global access to U.S. securities.

🔹 Super-App Skepticism – The panel pokes holes in “super-app” buzzwords and explains why sequencing—product-first, chain-later—matters more than catchy slogans.

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

Guests

⭐️ Ryan Watkins, Co-Founder of Syncracy Capital

⭐️ Jon Charbonneau, Co-founder & General Partner at DBA

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

02:59 Robinhood Chain

15:05 Debate on Tokenized Stocks

27:18 Perpetuals (Perps) in the Crypto Market

37:15 Robinhood's New Crypto Traders

39:26 The Solana ETF Approval

41:17 Understanding Staking and ETFs

43:36 The Future of Proof of Stake

46:20 Governance in Ethereum and Other Chains

56:26 Corporate Chains and Validator Selection

01:04:31 Polymarket vs. Kalshi

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Crypto is bleeding into traditional finance faster than anyone expected.

In this episode of Bits + Bips, the hosts dig into Robinhood’s move into tokenized stocks and perps, what’s actually holding back tokenized equities, and why perps might “eat the world.” 

Plus, they talk crypto ETFs, altcoin summer, and whether staking in ETFs is the next big unlock.

Sponsors:

Bitwise

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Noelle Acheson, Author of the “Crypto Is Macro Now” Newsletter 

Guest:

Timestamps

🎬 0:00 Intro

👔 2:25 Tom’s path from Jane Street to crypto 

💸 5:50 Why Jito’s yield model works + the importance of market makers

📊 12:47 Whether tokenized U.S. stocks actually solve anything for investors

🌍 31:47 Why Tom says “perps are going to eat the world”

🏦 39:25 How perps could sneak their way into traditional finance

📉 41:43 Whether perps are a better instrument than futures

🧠 50:51 Why James thinks we’re heading into an altcoin ETF summer

📥 56:01 How liquid staking is critical in the context of ETFs with staking

📈 1:05:06 Why the S&P 500 keeps hitting all-time highs

⚠️ 1:07:43 Ram lays out the risks of 1% interest rates

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Fill out our short Unchained survey and earn a chance to win a FREE one-year subscription to Bits + Bips Premium 😏

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Lido just rolled out one of the most ambitious governance overhauls in DeFi: a dual governance system designed to give power back to stakers—and make it harder for malicious proposals to pass.

But what does it actually do?

And could it make Lido the safest place to stake ETH?

Hasu, a strategic advisor at Lido, and Lido co-founder Vasiliy Shapovalov join Unchained to break it all down.

How the dual governance model works

Whether this dilutes LDO token value

What this means for DeFi, and if others will follow

Whether this might get institutions off the sidelines

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

Thank you to our sponsors!

Bitwise

Guests:

Hasu, Strategic advisor to Lido and Strategy lead at Flashbots.

Vasiliy Shapovalov, Co-founder of Lido

Unchained: Lido DAO Enables Dual Governance, stETH Holders Can Trigger ‘Rage-Quit’ Mode

Learn more about the topics discussed:

How Liquid Staking Works

What Are Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) in Ethereum?

What Is Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and How Does It Work on Blockchains?

What Is Distributed Validator Technology?

Timestamps:

🎬 0:00 Intro

🧩 2:07 What problem Lido’s new governance model is actually solving

⚙️ 7:33 How dual governance works—and why it’s such a big shift

🚀 15:32 Why Hasu says this changes everything for Lido

🧠 22:20 What the team had to weigh when designing the system

🛡️ 30:26 How Lido built in resistance to attacks

📉 32:02 Whether this system weakens the value of the LDO token

🗳️ 38:58 How they’re thinking about fixing DeFi’s voter apathy problem

🏦 45:29 Whether institutions will see this as a positive sign and embrace stETH

🌐 48:01 How this compares to Sky’s “emergency shutdown”—and whether DeFi will follow suit

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The state of Texas just passed a law that creates a $10 million strategic Bitcoin reserve.

Laura talks to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, who helped drive this new law. He explains how bipartisan support made it possible, why this might be the start of a broader trend, and what’s next for public Bitcoin ownership in the U.S.

We get into:

The logic behind the $10 million number

Why custody and compliance are key

Whether California or Illinois could ever do something similar

And how other states are reacting

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

Thank you to our sponsors!

FalconX

Ledn

Guest:

Lee Bratcher, President and Founder of the Texas Blockchain Council

Texas Blockchain Council

Bloomberg: Texas Gov. Abbott Signs Bill to Create State Bitcoin Reserve

Unchained: Senator Cynthia Lummis on Why Crypto Now Has Bipartisan Support

Timestamps:

🎬0:00 Intro

🏛️ 2:12 How the idea for a $10M strategic Bitcoin reserve became law in Texas

💰 5:42 Why lawmakers settled on $10 million—and what that number really means

🔐 8:59 How Texas plans to custody its bitcoin, and why it matters

📉 10:59 Why the bill includes language about using derivatives for BTC

🏦 12:12 What exchange the state might use to actually buy the bitcoin

🗳️ 14:59 Who owns crypto in Texas—and whether politics play a role

🤝 18:05 Why Bitcoin isn’t such a partisan issue in the Lone Star State

🧡 22:20 How Lee Bratcher got orange-pilled into Bitcoin

📜 24:38 Why Lee thinks the Lummis-Gillibrand bill could pass, and the future of bitcoin bonds

🌎 27:45 Which state might be next to adopt a Bitcoin reserve law

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