Unchained

Legacy social media platforms lock you in, control your audience, and exploit your data.

Farcaster aims to fix those problems. But how can it attract developers and users in an already saturated media environment? 

Developer Ecosystem Lead Linda Xie joined the show to explain:

How Farcaster addresses social media’s structural flaws

How Farcaster’s mini-app ecosystem is helping to grow the user base

The most popular apps taking off on the platform

How the whole crypto community could benefit from gathering on Farcaster

Why she believes crypto communities belong on open, portable networks

And why her family’s history helped her grasp the significance of Bitcoin in 2011

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

Bitwise

Linda Xie, Developer Ecosystem Lead at Farcaster

Previous coverage of Unchained on Farcaster and social media:

Farcaster Wants to Win Over Crypto. Here’s How It’s Different From ‘Crypto Twitter’

Ethereum Accounts to Post on Social Media More After Criticism

How Decentralized Social Network Farcaster Hopes to Eventually Get to One Billion Users

What is Warpcast Wallet?

Farcaster’s Snapchain

Farcaster’s mini-apps

Understanding Farcaster: A Sufficiently Decentralized Social Graph Protocol

Timestamps:

🤝 0:00 Introduction

🤯 3:55 How an unusual situation in her family got Linda crypto-pilled

⚖️ 7:57 How building legitimacy at Coinbase was crucial for the industry

🪜 10:20 Xie’s journey from VC to founder

🌐 13:04 How crypto’s adoption has evolved around the world

🔍 16:44 Why Linda decided to build and focus on Farcaster

🔧 23:31 How Farcaster addresses social media’s structural flaws

👀 31:14 How mini-apps build Farcaster’s user base

💲 37:32 Why Warpcast Wallet is a “game changer,” according to Linda

❓ 40:19 How Snapchain is used for storing data

👷 44:29 What types of developers the Farcaster ecosystem attracts

💡 45:20 How Linda aims to make Farcaster easy to understand

✨ 49:50 Linda’s favorite Farcaster mini-apps

😀 55:10 Attracting the whole crypto community to Farcaster

Thank you to our sponsors!Guest:
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Coinbase revealed on Thursday that cybercriminals bribed overseas customer support contractors to steal sensitive customer data as part of a $20 million extortion scheme. While no funds or private keys were compromised, customer names, addresses, and ID documents were exposed for nearly 1% of the company’s 8+ million “monthly transacting users,” according to a blog post.

The story raises tough questions for the entire industry. Is KYC making users more vulnerable? Can human error ever be fully eliminated? And is crypto’s real security problem… people?

Security experts Jameson Lopp, James Wester and Alexander Leishman delve into:

What went wrong at Coinbase

Why human vulnerabilities are still crypto’s biggest risk

Whether KYC makes the problem worse

What companies should do next to protect their users

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

Thank you to our sponsors!

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Guests

Jameson Lopp, Co-founder and CTO at CASA

James Wester, Research Director at Javelin

Alexander Leishman, CEO and CTO at River

Links

Coinbase’s blog post: Protecting Our Customers - Standing Up to Extortionists

Coinbase’s SEC filing

Commentary: 

Vance Spencer’s tweet

Armani Ferrante’s tweet

Timestamps:

🎙️ 0:00 Introduction and ads

🔓 2:30 How hackers tricked Coinbase’s offshore support and why humans remain security’s weakest link

🗂️ 6:49 What customer data was leaked and how hackers use it

🎯 13:14 How attackers prey on targets at weak moments

🌍 20:47 Should Coinbase move customer support back to the U.S.?

🛑 26:35 Why KYC protocols might be making users more vulnerable, not safer

🛡️ 28:48 The best defenses companies can implement to protect users

📰33:49 Weekly News Recap

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Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra break down the biggest stories in crypto. This week, we’re joined by one of the most iconic anons on Crypto Twitter: Mosi, aka @vanacharma. Known for calling out sketchy tokenomics and vaporware valuations, Mosi joins the crew for a ruthless teardown of market maker games, OTC dumps, and the “hallucination yield” driving this cycle’s worst bets. From the $60M Movement Labs fiasco to OTC pump schemes and the collapse of community trust, the gang goes deep on why crypto’s market structure is broken—and what it’ll take to fix it. If you’ve ever wondered how the sausage gets made in crypto token launches, this one’s for you.

Show highlights

🔹 $60M Movement Meltdown – How a token deal gone wrong became crypto’s latest fiasco and dragged down one of the cycle’s most hyped L1s.

🔹 Anon vs. Everyone – Iconic CT anon @vanacharma breaks down the float games, OTC dumps, and tokenomics illusions plaguing the industry.

🔹 Market Makers or Middlemen? – When is liquidity real, and when is it just backdoor exits? We unpack how MM incentives are getting abused.

🔹 Hallucination Yield & Vapor Valuations – Why funds chase tokens with the fakest traction — and what happens when reality hits.

🔹 Are VCs to Blame? – The crew debates whether investors are complicit in these token games or just bad at picking founders.

🔹 Pump, Dump, Repeat – How OTC discounts, fake float, and circular trading fuel a Ponzi-like system hiding in plain sight.

🔹 Why Retail Gets Burned – Most people never stood a chance. We walk through how asymmetric info and hidden unlocks wreck public buyers.

🔹 Can This Be Fixed? – Haseeb and Mosi clash on the path forward: enforceable disclosures, exchange oversight, or do-nothing chaos?

🔹 Self-Regulation Is the Only Way Out – Before the SEC nukes everything, the industry must grow up. Here’s where that starts.

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

Guest

⭐️ Mosi, Just a Kid from Africa

Timestamps 

00:00 Intro

01:22 Mosi’s Crypto Philosophy

03:13 Market Structure Issues in Crypto

08:07 OTC Deals & Market Manipulation

15:36 Fixing the Market Structure

23:56 Self-Correcting Market Dynamics

29:19 VC Incentives and Market Impact

36:08 Retail vs. Institutional Investors

52:26 Superstate's Vision for Onchain Equities

Hosts
Disclosures

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After the U.S. and China announced a 90-day pause on tariffs, signaling a massive de-escalation of the trade wars, markets rallied. 

In this week’s Bits + Bips, the panel covers the biggest macro and crypto forces in motion right now:

Will US-China tariff reset reshape the global economy, or just kick the can down the road?

America’s ballooning deficit and why politicians are spending like it’s wartime.

Why some think ETH has a unique lane to outperform.

How policymakers ignore the power of the crypto community at their own risk.

Plus: Saylor copycats, Solana’s risk-reward balance, and whether stagflation or recession is still in the cards.

Sponsors:

Bitwise

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Steve Ehrlich, Executive editor at Unchained

Guests:

Peter Tchir, Head of Macro Strategy at Academy Securities

Zach Pandl, Head of research at Grayscale

POLITICO: Trump: The EU is ‘nastier than China’

David Bailey and Bitcoin-Native Holding Company Nakamoto Announce Merger with KindlyMD® to Establish Bitcoin Treasury

Unchained: Michael Saylor Copycats Rush to Win the Solana Rat Race. Can Lightning Strike Twice?

Reuters: Brokerages Scale Back Recession Odds After U.S.-China Trade Truce

White House: Joint Statement on U.S.-China Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva

McKinsey: Chinese Consumption Amid the New Reality

CBS: U.S. Could Face Default by August if Congress Doesn't Address Debt Ceiling, Bessent Says

Stablecoin bill drama

Unchained:

Why the Senate Stablecoin Bill Stalled & What It Means for Crypto

Tether in the Clear? Yes, Under This New Republican-Led Senate Stablecoin Bill 

Stablecoin Bill Stalls in Senate as GOP Cries Foul Over Dem Resistance

A House Hearing on Crypto? More Like a Big, Partisan Fight

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Intro

🇨🇳🇺🇲 3:27 The significance of the U.S.-China tariff pause

🌎 8:55 Is this a global economic reset or just kicking the can down the road?

🧑‍💼 20:23 Has Bessent beaten Navarro in the Trump trade tug of war?

💔 23:11 Whether the U.S.-China relationship is heading for a permanent split

🏦 30:22 Is the U.S. heading for a debt default in August?

🎭 38:37 Why more are copying Strategy’s bitcoin playbook

🚀 44:53 ETH’s explosive short squeeze caught traders off guard. Can it continue?

🏛️ 52:47 How stablecoin policy suddenly became major political battleground

⚠️ 1:00:20 Are there still stagflation and recession risks?

Hosts:Links

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The Movement Labs scandal exposed more than just one bad deal –  it pulled back the curtain on a widespread problem in crypto: how some market makers, founders, and VCs play games to make money — whether the project succeeds or not.

In this episode, Laura speaks with José Macedo of Delphi Labs, Omar Shakeeb of SecondLane, and Taran Sabharwal of STIX to explain:

How market makers are supposed to work, and how they operate in crypto

Why insider selling is more common than you think

How projects like Movement, Mantra, and others exploit launch day hype

Whether VCs often enable this behavior with side deals that retail never hears about

And what the industry needs to do to fix this broken system

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

Bitwise

José Macedo, founder at Delphi Labs

Omar Shakeeb, cofounder of SecondLane

Taran Sabharwal, founder and CEO of STIX.

Movement Labs:

Unchained: How MOVE’s Contracts Put a Pump and Dump Into a Legal Agreement

CoinDesk: Inside Movement’s Token-Dump Scandal: Secret Contracts, Shadow Advisers and Hidden Middlemen

Market making:

The Chopping Block: Can Crypto Clean Itself Up? Market Structure, Trust, and Regulation 

Mantra Founder Is Burning 150 Million Tokens. Would He Try to Get Them Returned?

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Intro

🤝 1:51 What Omar’s and Taran’s companies do

🎭 3:40 How market making works and how crypto twists the model

⚠️ 9:35 Why crypto’s market maker incentives are broken by design

🛠️ 16:25 What it would take to fix shady market maker behavior

🚩 26:20 How some founders exploit launch day hype to dump on retail

🧠 38:11 Did Mantra’s JP pull off a “genius” move or manipulate the market?

🔍 42:22 Whether crypto traders do any research before apeing in

💸 52:48 How founders are incentivized to dump their own tokens

🏦 59:09 Why VCs may be fueling this problem with insider deals

📉 1:02:37 What crypto needs to learn from traditional finance

✅ 1:06:13 The biggest fixes the industry must prioritize to stop these scams

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Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, and special guest Evgeny Gaevoy of Wintermute break down the biggest stories in crypto. This week: the $38M Move token dump exposes the shady side of market making, with shocking incentives that blurred the line between liquidity support and pure exit liquidity. We dig into what really happened, why major VCs looked the other way, and how the entire token launch playbook might be broken. Evgeny joins to give the market maker’s perspective — and to answer the question: how many more of these sh*t shows are still lurking beneath the surface?

Show highlights

🔹 $38M Token Dump Exposed – How Movement Labs’ shady deal with Web3Port revealed the dark side of crypto market making.

🔹 Market Makers or Exit Liquidity? – Inside the incentive structure that let a market maker dump tokens and split profits with the foundation.

🔹 VCs Looked the Other Way – Why top investors backed Movement Labs despite red flags — and what it says about crypto due diligence.

🔹 Rushi Gets Fired – The Movement Labs CEO is out after weeks of denial. But was the rest of the team complicit too?

🔹 Wintermute’s Evgeny Speaks Out – The biggest market maker in crypto weighs in on shady deals, dump mechanics, and transparency failures.

🔹 Airdrops, Float Games, and Retail Rugging – We dissect how token launches get manipulated behind the scenes — and who really pays.

🔹 The Case for Disclosure – Why Haseeb argues crypto needs mandatory public disclosures for market making agreements — before regulators step in.

🔹 Self-Regulation or SEC Crackdown? – Can the industry grow up on its own… or are we begging for another wave of securities enforcement?

🔹 Crypto’s Trust Crisis – Without transparency, the entire token model risks collapse. This episode lays out how to fix it.

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

Guest

⭐️ Evgeny Gaevoy, Founder and CEO at Wintermute

Inside Movement’s Token-Dump Scandal: Secret Contracts, Shadow Advisers and Hidden Middlemen by Sam Kessler 

🔗https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/04/30/inside-movement-s-token-dump-scandal-secret-contracts-shadow-advisors-and-hidden-middlemen 

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:19 Movement Labs Scandal: Inside the Market Maker Mess

06:26 How Crypto Market Making Really Works

10:54 Rigged from the Start?

17:25 Who Knew What? Movement Labs and the Industry Fallout

25:57 Why Crypto Needs a Market Maker Disclosure

34:45 Transparency vs. Manipulation

38:02 Do Market Makers Control Token Prices?

51:51 The Crypto Market Structure Bill: What’s at Stake

59:18 Can We Fix Crypto Before It Breaks?

Hosts
DisclosuresLinks

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The crypto industry is fixated on the U.S. Senate.

On Thursday, lawmakers failed to advance the GENIUS Act, the most significant federal stablecoin bill to date. But the story isn’t over. 

Behind the process is a drama about potential presidential conflicts, shifting political alliances, and unresolved policy questions.

In this episode, Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association and Amanda Tuminelli, executive director and CLO of the DeFi Education Fund, break down:

Why the bill stalled but isn’t dead yet

The role Trump’s crypto ties are playing

Whether Democrats who once backed crypto are turning away

Why advocates are still pushing for a deal this year

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

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Mantle

Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association

Amanda Tuminelli, executive director and CLO of the DeFi Education Fund

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Intro

📉 2:01 Why the Senate blocked the vote but the bill isn’t dead yet

🔄 5:17 Why some pro-crypto Democrats suddenly flipped

⚖️ 8:08 Key differences between the two competing GENIUS Act proposals

🔄 14:18 Whether lawmakers are starting to shift their crypto stances

🤝 16:05 Can the Senate overcome divisions and get this across the finish line?

🏛️ 18:14 How Trump’s crypto ties are shaping the legislative battle

⏳ 20:46 Is the August deadline already slipping out of reach

📝 22:39 Combining stablecoin and market structure bills 

🎉 25:59 Why Kristin says it’s a relief not to have to deal with Gensler anymore

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On Thursday, Coinbase announced its acquisition of Deribit in a $2.9 billion deal, the largest merger in the crypto industry to date.

In this episode, Owen Lau, executive director and senior analyst at Oppenheimer, delves into why Deribit was such a coveted prize, what this deal means for the global derivatives landscape, and how Coinbase is using its position as a public company to cement its dominance.

Plus:

The importance of Coinbase paying mostly in stock and barely touching its cash

How the derivatives market dwarfs spot trading, and is only getting bigger

What this means for CME and smaller crypto exchanges

And how Base, Coinbase’s L2, fits into the long game

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

Thank you to our sponsors!

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Mantle

Guest

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Intro

📢 2:26 What this record-breaking $2.9B deal really means for crypto

🔥 4:39 Why Deribit was the most sought - after acquisition target in the space

📊 5:59 How the derivatives market became bigger than spot — and what’s next

⚔️ 10:16 What this move signals for CME and how the competitive landscape shifts

🛡️ 12:08 Will this deal make crypto safer for everyone?

💸 16:28 Why Coinbase used mostly stock and why that matters

📈 18:59 How the deal changes Coinbase’s revenue outlook going forward

🚀 22:15 Whether Coinbase is building the “WeChat of the U.S.” financial system

🔗 24:32 The role of Base in Coinbase’s future 

🤝 25:48 Why M&A is heating up across crypto right now

⚖️ 27:35 How ongoing regulatory uncertainty still casts a shadow

🧠 28:12 What investors should keep in mind when evaluating the risks and rewards

📰 30:40  Crypto News Recap

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Crypto doesn’t reward fundamentals. It rewards attention. So what does that say about how investors, like Warren Buffett, would fare today?

In this week’s Bits + Bips, the crew dissects what’s really behind this rally, why Ethereum’s sentiment problem may run deeper than roadmap delays, and how the stablecoin bill turned into a political tug of war.

Plus:

Apple and NFTs: why this matters more than people think

Whether tariffs are about politics or actual policy

Why Bessent is “the best” in the Trump administration

And why Buffett’s era may be ending, with Portnoy rising in his place 😬

Sponsor:

Bitwise

James Seyffart, Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence

Alex Kruger, Founder of Asgard

Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida

Katalin Tischhauser, Head of Research at Sygnum Bank

Macro 

Bloomberg: Trump Suggests Some Trade Deals May Come as Soon as This Week - 

Asymmetric Market Update™️ #29

May 2025 Newsletter: A Trade Breakdown - Lyn Alden

Stagflation bears are wrong?

Reuters: Dollar slips as Taiwan dollar surge sparks revaluation talk

WSJ: 

Tariffs Threaten Semiconductor Supply Chains, Chip-Equipment Maker Warns

Bessent’s oped: Trump’s Three Steps to Economic Growth

Buffett on Tariffs

Buffet: The Natural Course of Government is to make Currency worth less overtime

ETH pivot

Unchained: 

Ethereum Gave Away Too Much for Too Long. Will Its Pivot Be Enough?

Ethereum Ecosystem Shifts Toward User Focus

Ethereum Developers Vote EOF Out of Fusaka Hard Fork

Vitalik Buterin Proposes Replacing Ethereum Virtual Machine

The Block: 

Vitalik and new Ethereum Foundation co-executive directors outline updated board structure, mission

Vitalik Buterin- and StarkWare-backed Kakarot reveals alternative Ethereum ZK stack, targeting real-time STARK proofs on Layer 1 by end of 2025

CoinDesk: Ethereum Could Supercharge Transaction Speed to 2,000 TPS Thanks to Bold New Proposal

Simplifying the L1 by Vitalik Buterin

Stablecoin bill:

POLITICO: Why the Senate crypto bill is in turmoil

Latest on the Senate's "GENIUS Act" by Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy 

Timestamps:

🚪 0:00 Intro

👋 1:01 Katalin’s background

📦 3:40 The real motive behind tariffs, according to Katalin

😬 11:43 What the market is forgetting to price in

🇪🇺  18:57 How Europe views Trump’s trade moves

🤝 21:33 Trump thinking that U.S. companies are cutting bad deals with China

🧠 26:04 Why Bessent’s op-ed made waves, and why Alex calls him the smartest in Trump’s crew

📉 29:13 The collapse in U.S. manufacturing employment, despite a surge in production

🧓 33:12 Buffett’s exit and his old-school take on tariffs in a new-school market

🌀 39:46 Will Ethereum’s pivot actually improve the price?

⚖️ 51:28 The impact of the political mess around the stablecoin bill

💸 53:53 Ripple’s attempted Circle acquisition and why Ram wouldn’t touch XRP

🍎 1:00:43 Importance of Apple quietly opening the door to NFTs and crypto sales

💱 1:03:34 What’s up with the Taiwanese dollar

💻 1:06:05 Why adding tariffs to chips could backfire big time

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After years of underperformance, Ethereum is trying to change course, from scaling the layer 1 to potentially dumping the EVM. In this episode, Tarun Chitra and Max Resnick break down each of these new changes, analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Is this a reset that can save Ethereum’s market position and price? Or has the protocol given away too much for too long?

They dive into:

Whether the gas limit increase changes everything

What went wrong with Ethereum’s economics and solo staking politics

Max’s view on “the single most important” change Ethereum needs to make

How ETH could claw back value from layer 2s

What Max would do if he ran Ethereum

Whether this pivot is too little, too late

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

Bitwise https://bitwiseinvestments.com/ciomemo

Tarun Chitra, CEO and Co-Founder of Gauntlet

Max Resnick, Lead economist at Anza

Unchained: 

Ethereum Ecosystem Shifts Toward User Focus

Ethereum Developers Vote EOF Out of Fusaka Hard Fork

Vitalik Buterin Proposes Replacing Ethereum Virtual Machine

The Block: 

Vitalik and new Ethereum Foundation co-executive directors outline updated board structure, mission

Vitalik Buterin- and StarkWare-backed Kakarot reveals alternative Ethereum ZK stack, targeting real-time STARK proofs on Layer 1 by end of 2025

CoinDesk: Ethereum Could Supercharge Transaction Speed to 2,000 TPS Thanks to Bold New Proposal

Simplifying the L1 by Vitalik Buterin

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Introduction

🛠️ 2:05 Why Ethereum had to pivot and what triggered the urgency

📈 7:16 Why raising the gas limit could actually be a big deal

💻 9:12 Whether Ethereum devs are too idealistic

⚡ 19:02 How Solana managed to outperform Ethereum at the base layer

👨‍🏫 24:09 Why Max feels Vitalik’s proposals focus on outdated technology 

🔧 27:57 The growing gap between Ethereum research and its execution clients

👍 35:02 The ONE thing Max thinks Ethereum is doing well

⚖️ 40:38 Did “credible neutrality” push Ethereum down the wrong path?

🌀 48:23 Will the new Ethereum R1 rollup succeed? 

🔀 52:53 What the new updates mean for layer 2s and their value proposition

📉 1:02:58 Whether ETH is finally due for a price reversal

🎯 1:09:12 Why Ethereum should take a page from Trump’s strategy playbook

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