Arthur Hayes, cofounder of BitMex, discusses how he’s trading the Merge, the impact of macroeconomic policy in the markets, his career as a writer, and much more. 

• how crypto is reconfiguring how humans do finance over the internet
• why Arthur initially thought Ethereum was worthless 
• how NFTs allow users to trade human culture and will unlock trillions of dollars of value
• why Ethereum doesn’t even need to be deflationary
• whether other layer 1s can take some market cap from Ethereum
• why Arthur thinks that a successful Merge is understated and why this is a valid reason for hedging
• why he thinks an Ethereum proof of work chain won’t succeed and how Arthur will trade ETHPoW
• why LDO, Lido’s token, is a riskier bet but has more potential gains
• how he believes the Shanghai upgrade will impact ETH’s price
• whether the Merge affects BTC’s narrative as digital gold and whether the inflation hedge theory of Bitcoin still holds
• why Bitcoin is a measure of USD liquidity and why the Fed rates don’t matter as much as everyone thinks
• whether hedge funds and institutional investors would want to invest in crypto given the high correlation with traditional markets
• what Arthur believes the impact of a potential US recession would be on the crypto markets 
• why he believes the real economy is not relevant to the financial markets
• whether algorithmic stablecoins are doomed to fail
• how the credit cycle works and how it repeats again and again
• Arthur’s method for identifying good projects to invest in
• how Arthur became such a good writer
• whether BTC is money and the religious aspect of the Bitcoin culture

Crypto.com

Ava Labs

a16z

• Twitter

• With the Merge, Will Ethereum Take Over Bitcoin’s Title as Digital Gold?
• Why Kevin Zhou Believes Ethereum Will Have 3 Forks After the Merge
• Post-Merge, If Lido Becomes Dominant, What Does That Mean for Ethereum?

• Eth-Flexive
• Ether, a double digit shitcoin

• Adam Cochran on the Fed’s QT

• Whether Ethereum’s Merge is priced in

• Cumberland on the Ethereum dynamics after the merge 
• Miles Suter on the implications of the Merge

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Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi and Tom Schmidt chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Jill Gunter, the empress of Espresso, also joined the conversation. 

Show topics:

Hosts

Guest

Jill Gunter

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jillrgunter

Episode Links

Tornado Cash

Ava Labs Accusations:

Social Slashing and Censorship on ETH

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Miles Jennings, general counsel at a16z crypto, talks about its new “can’t be evil” NFT licenses and how they help to solve many problems within the NFT industry. Show highlights:

• what “can’t be evil” NFT licenses are and what problems they solve
• what can these licenses achieve for content creators
• which are the five rights that the licenses address
• whether the NFT licenses help resolve hate speech issues for creators
• why a16z described its licenses as “can’t be evil”
• how these licenses will be enforced
• how anyone buying NFTs should now be able to understand what they are buying
• why previous attempts to create standardized NFT license didn’t succeed
• why Miles thinks these new NFT licenses are going to succeed

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Messari: https://mainnet.events/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/milesjennings

• a16z article: https://a16zcrypto.com/introducing-nft-licenses/

• What legal rights NFTs come with: https://unchainedpodcast.com/what-exactly-do-you-get-when-you-buy-an-nft-three-lawyers-discuss/

• Galaxy Digital report on NFT owners being misled about rights: https://decrypt.co/107827/bored-apes-moonbirds-misled-buyers-nft-ip-rights-galaxy-digita 
• CryptoPunks gets IP rights: https://decrypt.co/107184/as-cryptopunks-nft-owners-get-commercial-rights-yuga-hopes-to-secure-their-legacy-as-artwork 
• Bored Apes’ more permissive license helps it become more valuable than Crypto Punks: https://www.thedefiant.io/bored-apes-yacht-club-cryptopunks-copyright-fight 
• Moonbirds controversy ignites after move to CC0 license: https://www.thedefiant.io/moonbirds-cc0-license-nfts

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Show highlights:

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://avax.network

a16z: https://link.chtbl.com/HObAJQDL?sid=unchained

Andrew

Twitter: https://twitter.com/propelforward

Martin

Twitter: https://twitter.com/koeppelmann

Previous Coverage of the Tornado Cash Sanctions on Unchained:

Social Slashing and Censorship on ETH

Axios summary of the situation: https://www.axios.com/2022/08/23/how-transactions-might-be-censored-after-ethereum-changes-next-month

BitMex research on how the sanctions affect Ethereum: https://blog.bitmex.com/ofac-sanctions-ethereum-pos-some-technical-nuances/

Ethermine banning transactions: https://twitter.com/takenstheorem/status/1560690035955011585?s=20&t=59hWdhr8_O-hYA8uYnZJ8w

Nic Carter’s article: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/25/if-ethereum-starts-slashing-it-burns/

Eric Wall’s article on social slashing: https://ercwl.medium.com/the-case-for-social-slashing-59277ff4d9c7

CoinDesk article: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/23/as-censorship-on-ethereum-begins-could-this-open-sourced-code-help-counter-it/?outputType=amp

Hetzner banning Ethereum users: https://twitter.com/koeppelmann/status/1563146729314467840?s=20&t=ubFhCQqrQyHKfflgMHEmJw

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Travis Kling, Chief Investment Officer at Ikigai Asset Management, talks about how ETH changes after the Merge, what factors are going to affect its price action, and whether it can decouple from traditional assets. 

• how the supply and demand dynamics of ETH will change after the Merge
• why he believes the Merge is the most significant catalyst in crypto history
• what the risks are in terms of price action 
• whether there is an estimate of how much ETH will be locked up and how this lockup resembles Mt. Gox’s BTC
• the impact that being a deflationary asset will have on the price of ETH and whether it will actually become deflationary after the Merge
• how activity levels have been decreasing in the Ethereum network 
• whether ether is underpriced or overpriced, and how to evaluate it
• how institutional money is sitting on the sidelines at the moment after all the de-leveraging events that happened this year
• how the Merge affects BTC’s narrative and value-proposition
• how institutions have never been more interested in ether 
• what the futures market is saying about the price action of ether
• whether ETHPoW has any value and how to trade it
• how macroeconomics has been impacting the crypto markets and whether ETH can decouple from the macro setups

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Messari: https://mainnet.events/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Travis_Kling

• Ultra sound money dashboards: https://ultrasound.money/

• Whether Ethereum’s Merge is priced in: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/22/is-ethereums-merge-priced-in/

• Arthur Hayes on USD liquidity conditions and how it affects assets:https://cryptohayes.medium.com/teach-me-daddy-33e7a66dfe76

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Stephane Gosselin, cofounder and chief architect of Flashbots, and Uri Klarman, CEO of bloXrouteLabs, joined Unchained to discuss everything about MEV, an especially important topic now with the Merge coming. 

Show highlights:

• what MEV is, how it works under Proof of Work
• some examples of MEV, like frontrunning and arbitrage
• how MEV is a rabbit hole full of monsters
• the role of Flashbots in the MEV industry and how Flashbots enabled a reduction of gas fees for users
• how MEV-geth functions and how it relates to auctions systems
• how bloXroute, Uri’s company, is working with MEV
• where Stephane and Uri disagree on MEV, despite agreeing on many fundamental things
• how MEV changes with the implementation of Proof of Stake
• what MEV-Boost is and the problems it solves
• what proposer-builder separation is and the motivation behind this idea
• whether DeFi would flourish more if there wasn’t frontrunning and why MEV-Boost doesn’t prevent it
• what externalities MEV-Boost or proposer-builder separation (PBS) would solve for users
• how MEV exists in other industries and in traditional finance
• why Flashbots’ own investors would rather trade on a fair-sequenced rollup than on Flashbots
• how the number of MEV extractors has been decreasing and whether this would end up centralizing MEV
• whether exploiting certain types of MEV is illegal
• how other chains are trying to solve frontrunning, like Osmosis with threshold encryption
• what are the levers that can be pulled to solve MEV, according to Uri
• how eradicating MEV can positively affect the price of ETH, and by how much
• whether validators can potentially share MEV profits with users
• how to determine if a network has a good MEV supply chain

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://www.avax.network/

a16z: https://link.chtbl.com/HObAJQDL?sid=unchained

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/uriklarman

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegostep

• The Debate Over Ethereum MEV: Should It Be Minimized or Boosted?: https://laurashin.bulletin.com/the-debate-over-ethereum-mev-should-it-be-minimized-or-boosted

• What is MEV: https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/mev/#:~:text=Maximal%20extractable%20value%20(MEV)%20refers,of%20transactions%20in%20a%20block

• Flash Boys 2.0 paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1904.05234.pdf

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Ari Redbord, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, talks about the sanctions on Tornado Cash, and the role of blockchain analytics tools in crypto. 

Show highlights:

Thank you to our sponsors!

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ari

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARedbord

Tornado Cash

 ** For more episode links and details visit the Unchained website **

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Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Laura Shin, host of Unchained and author of The Cryptopians, also joined the conversation. 

Show topics:

Hosts

Laura

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurashin

Episode Links

Tornado Cash

Treasury Press release: 

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20%E2%80%93%20Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department,since%20its%20creation%20in%202019

Developer arrested: https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/

Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/

Second Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/analysis-what-is-and-what-is-not-a-sanctionable-entity-in-the-tornado-cash-case/

Coin Center may challenge the US Treasury's decision to sanction Tornado Cash: https://decrypt.co/107475/coin-center-tornado-cash-ban-court

Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets: https://www.theblock.co/post/162172/circle-freezes-usdc-funds-in-tornado-cashs-us-treasury-sanctioned-wallets 

Crypto exchange dYdX blocked accounts that received funds from Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/11/crypto-exchange-dydx-blocked-accounts-that-received-even-small-amounts-from-tornado-cash/

The possibility of forking Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/10/cloning-tornado-cash-would-be-easy-but-risky/

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Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer at Coinbase, comes to talk about what products Coinbase is building, how it can thrive in such a competitive landscape, how to onboard billions of users into crypto, and much more. 

Show highlights:

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://www.avax.network/

Show Links

Surojit: 

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/surojit

Coinbase Q2 2022 Earnings:

NFT Marketplace:

Partnerships

** For more episode links and details visit the Unchained website **

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Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, talks about Tornado Cash, why it was sanctioned, and what this means for privacy in crypto. 

• what Blender.io is and how it relates to Tornado Cash
• how hackers have used Tornado Cash to launder money
• whether the Office of Foreign Assets Control made a mistake, according to Jerry
• how Americans were affected by the sanctions
• why Jerry believes OFAC should have done an analysis to estimate how many people would be impacted by its decision
• whether the sanctions should have been aimed at North Koren wallets and not the protocol
• whether the sanctions are unconstitutional and whether Coin Center will litigate this
• how Jerry believes Circle freezing USDC complicated everything
• what the famous people who received 0.1 ETH from random accounts via Tornado Cash should do 
• what would happen if someone forked the Tornado Cash code and deployed a copycat smart contract to a new address
• whether the sanctions signal the beginning of a privacy war on crypto
• how regulators are applying the same traditional rules with crypto as they use with centralized entities

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jerrybrito

Tornado Cash Sanctioned: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/08/crypto-mixing-service-tornado-cash-blacklisted-by-us-treasury/

Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/

Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets: https://www.theblock.co/post/162172/circle-freezes-usdc-funds-in-tornado-cashs-us-treasury-sanctioned-wallets 

Crypto exchange dYdX blocked accounts that received funds from Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/11/crypto-exchange-dydx-blocked-accounts-that-received-even-small-amounts-from-tornado-cash/

The possibility of forking Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/10/cloning-tornado-cash-would-be-easy-but-risky/

What the sanctions mean for privacy coins: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/09/what-the-tornado-cash-sanction-means-for-privacy-coins/

Tornado Cash laundered $1.5 billion, according to Elliptic: https://hub.elliptic.co/analysis/tornado-cash-mixer-sanctioned-after-laundering-over-1-5-billion/

Celebrities get Dusted: https://decrypt.co/es/107090/tornado-cash-dusts-public-wallets-jimmy-fallon-brian-armstrong-steve-aoki-logan-paul

Hacks linked to Tornado Cash

Ronin: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/15/ronin-hack-north-korea-linked-to-615-million-crypto-heist-us-says.html

Harmony: https://decrypt.co/104138/north-korean-attackers-behind-100m-harmony-hack-report

Crypto.com: https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-hack-nso-group-security-news/

Nomad: https://decrypt.co/106459/crypto-bridge-nomad-exploited-190m-frenzied-free-for-all

Previous Coverage of Unchained: Will the Nomad Mass Looting Change How Law Enforcement Treats DeFi Hacks?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-the-nomad-mass-looting-change-how-law-enforcement-treats-defi-hacks-ep-382/

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