Unchained
by Laura Shin
Latest episode
Uneasy Money: Why Ethereum's 'Ultrasound Money' Meme Finally Ran Out…
Uneasy Money: Why Ethereum's 'Ultrasound Money' Meme Finally Ran Out…
About this podcast
Crypto assets and blockchain technology are about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity to the Internet of Things. In this podcast, host Laura Shin, an independent journalist covering all things crypto, talks with industry pioneers about how crypto assets and blockchains will change the way we earn, spend and invest our money. Tune in to find out how Web 3.0, the decentralized web, will revolutionize our world.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 1,299 episodes
- Uneasy Money: Why Ethereum's 'Ultrasound Money' Meme Finally Ran Out of Road · 1 h 15 minVitalik is moving on from ultrasound money. Ex-core dev Greg Markou joins Kain and Austin to ask who should make the case for ETH instead…
- The Chopping Block: Vitalik Says ETH Is a Store of Value, the EF's Seppuku License Lawsuit, Jensen Huang and the Alleged Chinese Spy, and McHenry Blames Coinbase · 51 minWelcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest in crypto. Robert is out this week. The hosts…
- Why Bitwise's CIO Says the Blue Wave Won't Derail Crypto's Bull Market · 56 minBitwise CIO Matt Hougan says crypto bottomed in June, argues the blue wave may not matter, and lays out the math behind Bitcoin at $1.6 million…
- The Chopping Block: The Midterm Mega Tsunami, a16z Goes Frontier, the CFTC Clears Equity Perps, and the Fight Over Abliterated AI Models · 56 minWelcome 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 Haseeb is back…
- What the 2026 Midterm Elections Mean for Crypto Regulation and the Clarity Act · 48 minDemocrats won both chambers in a historic midterm wave. Mike Katz and Justin Slaughter on what that means for the Clarity Act, DeFi and crypto's next 2 years…
- Uneasy Money: What the $6B Binance Hack Revealed About Who Can Freeze Stolen Funds · 1 h 17 minThe $6B Binance hack sent stolen funds through Aave. LlamaRisk CEO Adam Sadowski walks through the market freeze and why nothing was taken from the protocol…
- How North Korea Stole $6.3 Billion From Binance in 20 Minutes · 1 h 20 minA compromised developer laptop and 50 pre-signed transactions let North Korea drain $6.3 billion from Binance. Jonty and Pablo Sabbatella trace how it happened…
- The Chopping Block: The Binance Hack, Circle's Fast Freeze, YC's Crypto Wishlist, and ICE Bringing Hyperliquid Perps Onshore · 57 minRob Hadick guest-hosts for a second week with Tom and Robert, joined by Nemil Dalal of Y Combinator. Hours before the show, Binance lost an estimated $5 billion in what looks…
- Bitcoin's Price May Have Bottomed. One Reason Is the AI Debasement Trade · 36 minGalaxy's Alex Thorn argues Bitcoin bottomed in late June. While macro funds exit, sovereign wealth funds buy and AI pushes debasement, he says now makes a good entry point…
- Uneasy Money: Why Anthropic's IPO Governance Has Crypto Veterans Worried · 1 h 21 minAnthropic's S-1 shows the company is still burning cash. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan say the bigger risk is a founder voting bloc that has to vote together…
- Why America's New Cyber Privateers Can't Go After North Korea · 55 minCan the US fight AI-powered hackers and North Korea by deputizing its private sector? Two government veterans explain why the answer is yes and no…
- The Chopping Block: Black October, Banks Blocking AI Agents, Hyperliquid's Blockchain-Not-Bitcoin Moment, and the Visa-Fireblocks Rumor · 50 minWelcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week Rob Hadick of Dragonfly sits…
- PaperTrade Attracted $140M, Then Changed the Rules. Was It a Bait and Switch? · 33 minTraders tried to lose money fast to earn PAPER. Now the token may never be transferable, and one tracker shows staking revenue fell 93% in a day…
- Uneasy Money: Is the Internet Breaking Because Bots Never Get Lazy? · 1 h 16 minA certificate authority's private key was the number 4 for over a year. Kain, Taylor, and Austin on why the internet's trust schemes are cracking…
- How Crypto Can Survive If AI or Quantum Computers Break Its Cryptography · 1 h 1 minJustin Drake says crypto should brace for AI breaking elliptic curves before Q-Day. Project Eleven's Alex Pruden and Conor Deegan weigh in on what's actually at risk…
- Ledger Wallets Were Drained of $100 Million. Is Self-Custody Still Safe? · 45 minA hidden implant read Ledger seed phrases off the screen and sent them out over an eSIM. Mark Karpelès and SEAL 911's Jonty discuss what that means for self-custody…
- Uneasy Money: Why Ledger's Supply Chain Became a Nearly $100M Target · 1 h 18 minA Ledger reseller's devices shipped with a hidden LTE modem inside. Taylor Monahan lays out how it passed the genuine check and why panicking now costs more…
- The Chopping Block: The Ledger Hardware Implant, a Listening Device at OpenAI, Papertrade's 1000x House, and the Death of Technical Moats · 58 minThe boys regroup after TOKEN2049. Ledgers sold through CryptoBilis, an authorized reseller in Malaysia, came with an LTE implant that read seed phrases off the screen, an OpenAI…
- Why Crypto Buybacks Are 'the Wrong Way to Allocate Capital' · 60 minARK Invest's Lorenzo Valente says quantum fears and the Ledger hack are speeding up the death of self-custody, that Ethereum has to pick a lane, and buybacks are “crazy.”…
- How NEAR Intents Identified a Suspect and Got Its Stolen Funds Back · 46 minA bridging bug cost NEAR Intents $3.8 million. Alex Shevchenko reveals how a coded tweet and a Signal invite encrypted with the attacker's key got the funds back…
- The Chopping Block: Live at TOKEN2049 feat. Balaji Srinivasan & Arthur Hayes on Kazakhstan, Crypto Bunker Mode, and the L2 Shutdowns · 42 minLive from TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun sit down with Balaji Srinivasan and Arthur Hayes. Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi…
- How OpenAI's Math Dump Has Crypto Rethinking Its Cryptography: Uneasy Money · 1 h 19 minJustin Drake told holders not to panic. Ben DiFrancesco says if AI weakens elliptic curves, the clock is how fast Chinese models catch up…
- THORChain Says It Can't Block North Korean Laundering. Is That True? · 1 h 11 minIn this spicypost-Bitget hack debate, THORChain co-founder Chad Barraford says the protocol can't block laundering. Taylor Monahan points to the halts it has used before…
- Paid Partnership: How Nexo Wants You To Build Wealth Using Crypto · 24 minSPONSORED CONTENT: This video is a paid partnership with Nexo. It was produced in collaboration with Nexo and is separate from Unchained's editorial coverage. Nexo is a digital…
- The Chopping Block: Bitget's 387 Million Dollar Hack, Kalshi's Cooked Perps Volume, and Agentic Bank Runs · 1 h 5 minNorth Korea takes $387 million from Bitget and moves it through THORChain while NEAR's Shield freezes what it can, a Consensys validator hack tests whether staking was ever the…
- Uneasy Money: The $388M Bitget Hack Started With a Security Vendor · 1 h 23 minTaylor Monahan ties the Bitget hack to North Korea and the crew asks why THORChain still avoids the scrutiny Tornado Cash got…
- Is Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP Coin a Scam? He Says the Wallets Prove It Isn't · 55 minHunter Biden walks through the $LAPTOP launch, when thin liquidity sent the token to a $317 billion market cap in a minute, and why he says it isn't a scam…
- DEX in the City: The Hosts Sign Off With Their Best Advice for Women in Crypto · 56 minIn their final episode on Unchained, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le share the advice they give women entering crypto. Plus, Vy on the Senate meeting after…
- How Bitget Is Chasing $388 Million in Stolen Funds After a Zero-Day Hack · 1 h 6 minBitget lost $388 million — and days later, CEO Gracy Chen says scammers posing as a major investment team targeted her. ========================================================…
- Why the Crypto Market Cap Could Reach $50 Trillion This Cycle · 49 minRan Neuner argues crypto has finally found product-market fit, and a BlackRock report on AI agents and blockchain rails convinced him the thesis may be much bigger than he…
- Why Kalshi's Timeline Fight Put Its ETH Perp Volume Under a Microscope: Uneasy Money · 1 h 9 minKalshi's ETH perp did half a billion in volume on $3 million in open interest. Kain and Taylor lay out why that isn't necessarily wash trading. Plus, Austin joins as co-host…
- Bits + Bips: Is Bitcoin Finally Being Priced on Fundamentals? · 13 min📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips Quick favor: We're deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times…
- How Zcash and NEAR Are Driving This Crypto Bull Run · 56 minZcash and NEAR are both ripping this week, and Illia Polosukhin and Mert Mumtaz say privacy is the reason why. Is this how the “Bitcoin DeFi” vision comes true?…
- Crypto's Clarity Act Collapses. Two Days Later, the SEC Introduces Its Innovation Exemption · 35 minDays after Clarity failed, the SEC granted a major exemption for tokenized stocks. The Digital Chamber’s Cody Carbone explains whether agencies can replace the law…
- Uneasy Money: What Crypto's Gensler Years Say About the AI Slowdown Debate · 1 h 14 minDelphi Ventures founding partner Tommy Shaughnessy tells Kain and Taylor the AI slowdown talk is a moat against cheap Chinese models. Plus, why the Clarity Act died…
- The Chopping Block: CLARITY Dies on the Senate Floor, Hunter Biden's LAPTOP Rug, & the AI Pause Pact · 1 h 0 minThe boys get together in person as CLARITY falls short with 47 votes. They break down what comes next, Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP token collapse, the Robinhood/Hyperliquid case…
- Bits + Bips: Would AI Rules Box Out Everyone but the Frontier Labs? · 16 min📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips In one week, OpenAI said its agents solved a Millennium Prize problem, a…
- Guy Young on Why Ethena Launched a Neobank on Top of Its Stablecoin · 52 minEthena's Guy Young explains why the companybuilt a neobank that pays 6% in yield, 5% cash back, and never tells users they're holding self-custodial stablecoins instead of…
- Should Stock Tokens Be Limited to KYC'd Users? Or Be Tradeable by Anyone? · 39 minThe SEC's next tokenization rule could force platforms to get issuer sign-off for stock tokens first. Securitize’s Brett Redfearn lays out what's actually at stake for Wall…
- Uneasy Money: Is OpenAI Training on Your Private Chats to Win the AI Race? · 1 h 21 minAlex Thorn and Jon join Kain and Taylor to unpack a Bitcoin hack, two new frontier models, and why nobody trusts their AI chats anymore…
- The Chopping Block: FOMO's Co-Founder Defends the Memecoin Trenches, Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP, and AMC vs Robinhood · 1 h 3 minFOMO co-founder Paul Erlanger joins Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun to answer last week's unc takes on memecoins: why a fully transparent social graph beats copy trading, how FOMO became…
- Bits + Bips: AMC's CEO Calls Robinhood's Stock Tokens 'Vile.' · 19 min📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips AMC's CEO spent the holiday weekend calling Robinhood's tokenized AMC shares…
- How GenLayer Is Building a Court System for Disputes Between AI Agents · 1 h 0 minAlbert Castellana and Arthur Hayes walk through how GenLayer resolves an AI agent's dispute in minutes, for cents, without a single human judge involved…
- Why the Question Over How to Regulate Perps Has Turned Into a Fight · 32 minThe CME is suing its own regulator over how perps get classified, and the ruling decides who in the US can trade them. Three lawyers make the case for futures over swaps…
- Uneasy Money: Inside the AI Agent Scandal That Cheated, Then Covered Its Tracks · 1 h 18 minOpenAI's AI agents already had the exam answers. So why did they hack Hugging Face anyway? Kain, Tay, and Austin Griffith explain…
- The Chopping Block: Robinhood Chain's Memecoin Mania and Tokenized Stocks · 1 h 2 minLaura joins Haseeb, Tom, and Tarun to unpack Robinhood Chain's surge, the strange fusion of stock tokens and memecoins, the damage speculative entertainment can do to retail…
- Bits + Bips: Is Kalshi Headed to the Supreme Court Next? · 12 min📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips A Ninth Circuit panel ruled 3-0 that Nevada can enforce its gambling laws…
- How Cory Klippsten Would Decide How to Secure Bitcoin Post-Coldcard · 43 minBitcoin rallied 23% after Bessent's debt-buyback comments and settled near $80K. Swan's Cory Klippsten weighs in on what ETF inflows and onchain exchange moves really mean…
- How Tokenized Stocks Could Undercut Interactive Brokers' 77% Profit Margin · 32 minCoinbase just launched fully backed tokenized stocks on Base. Dromos Labs’ Alex Cutler says they’ll chip away at Interactive Brokers "77% profit margin."…
- The Chopping Block: Crypto's Rebound, Reg Crypto, and AI Router Wars · 54 minThe crew sizes up Bitcoin's rebound, the fight to bring Hyperliquid onshore, the SEC's new token fundraising framework, and why Stripe's OpenRouter deal could make AI inference…
