Ethereum may be one of the most underappreciated assets. In this conversation, Michael McGuiness and Vivek Raman lay out the case for ETH as “productive money”, a monetary asset with the store-of-value properties of gold and Bitcoin, plus the ability to compound through network activity. We unpack the $250K ETH thesis, why traditional DCF models miss the bigger picture, and why Ethereum’s role as the settlement layer for a tokenized economy could unlock massive monetary premium. ------ 📣SPOTIFY...
Apr 21, 2026•1 hr 24 min
Austen Allred joins Bankless to unpack Kelly Claude, the AI agent he has given an LLC, bank accounts, a token, and even a human employee. They explore how Kelly finds software opportunities, ships apps to the App Store, learns through orchestration and factory-style workflows, and why crypto rails may be the missing layer for agent-to-agent commerce. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION M...
Apr 20, 2026•1 hr 15 min
Markets are ripping back to all-time highs, but crypto still isn’t following suit. Ryan and David break down the V-shaped recovery driven by Iran de-escalation, why Bitcoin is still stuck in range, and the growing bull vs bear divide across macro and onchain data. They also unpack Saylor’s STRC “money printer,” the World Liberty DeFi controversy, and the SEC’s surprise ruling that just gave DeFi a major win. Plus: the Bitcoin community’s plan to freeze Satoshi’s coins and what it means for the f...
Apr 17, 2026•1 hr 4 min
Why has the dollar remained dominant despite rising debt, geopolitical strain, and growing challengers? Barry Eichengreen joins Bankless to trace the history of global reserve currencies. From Spanish silver and the Byzantine solidus to sterling and the modern dollar, Barry explains the conditions that make a currency rise, endure, and eventually fall. We explore fiscal discipline, rule of law, military power, gold, China, and crypto to understand what history suggests about the dollar’s future....
Apr 16, 2026•1 hr 17 min
Has crypto already bottomed, or is more pain still ahead? Mike and Ryan break down the bull and bear case in full, from Bitcoin fair value and market structure to global liquidity, AI demand, and the macro risks still hanging over markets. Mike explains why he thinks the setup still looks more like a bear market than a new uptrend, even if the odds are close. It’s a sharp episode on how to navigate a market that could break either way. Michael Nadeau & The DeFi Report: https://x.com/JustDeau...
Apr 14, 2026•1 hr 1 min
Michael Saylor thinks Bitcoin is headed to $21 million, but the real story in this conversation is how he believes it gets there. In his first appearance on Bankless, Saylor breaks down Strategy’s evolving capital machine, why STRC may be the most ambitious instrument the company has built yet, how he thinks about quantum risk without panic, why his view on Ethereum has become more constructive, and what he means when he says the endgame is giving the world an 8% bank account forever. --- 📣SPOT...
Apr 13, 2026•1 hr 38 min
Markets are rallying on a fragile Iran ceasefire, but the real risks may be getting closer. David and Haseeb break down Anthropic’s secretive new AI model and why it could expose vulnerabilities across crypto, from smart contracts to core blockchain infrastructure, plus the growing divide around “Q-Day” and how urgent the quantum threat really is. They also unpack Iran’s unexpected use of Bitcoin in global trade, the White House’s stance on stablecoin yields, and why the market feels stable on t...
Apr 10, 2026•1 hr 7 min
Can Ethereum become one economic zone again? Martin Koppelmann and Friederike Ernst from Gnosis explain how real-time proving and the Ethereum Economic Zone could reconnect fragmented rollups, unify liquidity, and give specialized chains seamless access to Ethereum’s settlement and security. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXYONE | SOLANA STAKING http...
Apr 09, 2026•58 min
NYSE and Securitize are laying the rails to bring real, issuer-backed securities onchain. Michael Blaugrund of NYSE and Carlos Domingo of Securitize break down how blockchain-native equities could work in practice: transfer agents, tokenized issuance, interoperable trading infrastructure, 24/7 markets, and what it will take for public stocks to move from legacy rails to crypto rails. T They also explore how onchain equities could unlock faster settlement, better shareholder utility, and new DeFi...
Apr 07, 2026•1 hr 5 min
What if Bitcoin’s biggest strength becomes its fatal weakness? Nic Carter joins Bankless to unpack why the latest quantum papers changed the threat model, why a 2029 migration window could leave Bitcoin dangerously behind, what a real post-quantum transition would require, and why the fight over Satoshi’s dormant coins may become the most explosive governance battle in Bitcoin history. --- 🎬 DEBRIEF | RYAN & DAVID UNPACKING THE EPISODE https://www.bankless.com/podcast/debrief-bitcoin-has-3-...
Apr 06, 2026•1 hr 14 min
Google just dropped a major quantum warning for crypto, claiming a breakthrough that could accelerate the timeline to breaking Bitcoin and Ethereum’s core security. Ryan and David unpack what changed, how real the threat is, and why the industry may need to act sooner than expected. Plus: Trump signals three more weeks in the Iran conflict and markets shrug it off, a $285M Solana DeFi hack exposes critical flaws, Ethereum’s new plan to unify L2s, and why crypto wallets are rapidly turning into f...
Apr 03, 2026•1 hr 4 min
Three macro forces are converging that almost no one is pricing in correctly. Jeff Park returns to Bankless to lay out what he calls the "certain truths" shaping markets for the next two decades: collapsing demographics across every major economy, wealth concentration that now exceeds even the Gilded Age, and a labor market being structurally hollowed out by AI before robots even arrive. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR...
Mar 30, 2026•1 hr 28 min
We examine the proposed Clarity Act and its impact on stablecoin yields and crypto finance. Ryan and David discuss geopolitical tensions in Iran and their effects on global markets. Highlights include Tom Lee's ETH staking venture, the NYSE's stock tokenization, and emerging quantum computing developments. We also touch on Coinbase’s stock dip, Tether’s auditing, and Fannie Mae's acceptance of crypto as collateral. --- 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless --- BA...
Mar 27, 2026•1 hr 1 min
MIT economist Christian Catalini joins Ryan and David to unpack his new paper, "Some Simple Economics of AGI," which argues that the scarce resource in the AI economy is no longer intelligence but verification: the human capacity to check, judge, and certify that AI output is correct. Christian walks through the two cost curves reshaping every industry (cost to automate vs. cost to verify), explains why entry-level jobs are collapsing first through what he calls the "missing junior loop," why ev...
Mar 26, 2026•1 hr 26 min
NEAR founder and Transformer co-author Illia Polosukhin joins us to break down why today’s AI agents still fall short, what’s missing to make them actually useful, and how IronClaw could unlock secure, private, autonomous AI. We also explore Illia’s bigger thesis: AI becomes the interface, blockchains become the backend, and both reshape how humans, agents, and digital markets interact. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ 🔮POLYMARKE...
Mar 24, 2026•1 hr 18 min
Quantum used to be crypto’s distant sci-fi problem. Justin Drake says it now has a clock. In this episode, we unpack what “Q-Day” actually means, why Justin thinks 2032 is the date the entire industry should be planning around, and why Ethereum is targeting 2029 to get post-quantum ready. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITU...
Mar 23, 2026•1 hr 40 min
Ryan and David break down a historic week for crypto as the SEC and CFTC finally deliver long-awaited clarity, classifying major tokens and reshaping the market. At the same time, Bitcoin is outperforming stocks and gold amid global tensions, raising the key question: is this a real regime shift or just a relief rally? They also cover the rise of prediction markets, the emerging battle for agentic payments (Tempo vs. Stripe/Coinbase), and crypto’s cultural moment with Vanity Fair and the upcomin...
Mar 20, 2026•1 hr 9 min
Tempo Mainnet is live, but this episode isn’t really about just another chain launch. It’s about a bigger claim: that AI agents are about to need native money, and that the internet may need a new payment layer to support them. Georgios Konstantopoulos and Brendan Ryan join Bankless to unpack why Tempo launched with agentic payments front and center, what MPP actually is, how it compares to x402, and why they think machine-to-machine commerce could reshape everything from paid APIs to the busine...
Mar 19, 2026•1 hr 20 min
A deep dive into Trump’s emerging grand strategy and the geopolitical logic behind the Iran conflict. Kamran Bokhari joins Bankless to unpack how the U.S. is trying to reshape the Middle East, manage tensions with China and Russia, and transition from direct intervention toward a new model of burden-sharing, regional power balancing, and global restraint. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https:/...
Mar 18, 2026•1 hr 8 min
The Ethereum Foundation’s new mandate has reignited one of Ethereum’s oldest debates: Should it stay laser-focused on cypherpunk values, or lean harder into adoption, product, and market share? Ryan and David debate CROPS, self-sovereignty, ETH as money, and whether the EF is protecting Ethereum’s soul or holding it back. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐...
Mar 17, 2026•1 hr
The next great battle in finance may not be over stocks, crypto, or even payments. It may be over where the $90 trillion great wealth transfer actually lands. In this episode, Robinhood founder and CEO Vlad Tenev returns to Bankless for a fast-moving conversation on how Robinhood wants to position itself for that generational handoff, why he believes 24/7 markets and tokenization are inevitable, and why the popular narrative around Gen Z as financially reckless misses what he’s seeing on-platfor...
Mar 16, 2026•1 hr 2 min
Ryan and David break down a week where war hit markets, and the safe-haven playbook broke down. Oil spiked, gold failed, bonds sold off, the dollar caught the flight to safety, and crypto somehow bounced right through it. Then they unpack Trump’s public pressure campaign against banks over stablecoin yield, Kraken’s historic Fedwire breakthrough, and why crypto is starting to look less like an outsider and more like part of the financial core. Plus: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon, Erik Voorhees’ pri...
Mar 13, 2026•57 min
Ethereum underperformed this cycle, and investors are asking the big question: did ETH just skip a cycle, or is something deeper going on? Michael Nadeau joins Ryan to break down where Ethereum sits in the market cycle today, why several of his key indicators suggest ETH is entering a fair value zone, and whether the true macro bottom could still lie ahead. They also unpack why ETH struggled despite improving fundamentals. Mike explains how Ethereum’s L2 roadmap may have improved the network whi...
Mar 11, 2026•57 min
A conversation with new CFTC Chairman Mike Selig on the policy shift behind America’s push to become the crypto capital of the world. We cover the CFTC’s evolving role in crypto, prediction markets, and perpetuals, the end of regulation by enforcement, how the agency is thinking about DeFi and software developers, and why market structure legislation like the Clarity Act could reshape the future of U.S. crypto. ------ 🎬 DEBRIEF | RYAN & DAVID UNPACKING THE EPISODE https://www.bankless.com/p...
Mar 09, 2026•59 min
Ryan and David break down a week where war hit markets, and the safe-haven playbook broke down. Oil spiked, gold failed, bonds sold off, the dollar caught the flight to safety, and crypto somehow bounced right through it. Then they unpack Trump’s public pressure campaign against banks over stablecoin yield, Kraken’s historic Fedwire breakthrough, and why crypto is starting to look less like an outsider and more like part of the financial core. Plus: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon, Erik Voorhees’ pri...
Mar 06, 2026•1 hr 3 min
AI is getting dangerously good at smart contract security. Faster than crypto is ready for. Alpin Yukseloglu joins Bankless to break down EVMBench (built with OpenAI), a benchmark testing whether AI agents can detect, patch, and exploit real fund-draining bugs and why the jump from ~12–13% exploit-finding to 70%+ could rewrite today’s security assumptions. We unpack what that “70%” really means, why crypto’s verifiability is an ideal training ground, why AI labs haven’t prioritized crypto data y...
Mar 05, 2026•1 hr 2 min
Nat Eliason joins to show what it looks like to build a “zero human company” with OpenClaw agents. — led by Felix, an AI CEO that ships products, runs ops, and even manages other agents for support and sales. We unpack how Felix went from an overnight info product to a full marketplace for agent “skills” (Clawmart) and a bespoke service that deploys custom OpenClaw employees for real businesses, hitting nearly $80k in revenue since early February while operating on surprisingly low monthly costs...
Mar 04, 2026•1 hr 35 min
Crypto still feels like a minefield for humans: Haseeb Qureshi argues that’s a clue, not a bug: blockchains and smart contracts are machine-readable systems that AI agents can parse, simulate, and execute far more reliably than people, shifting crypto’s core user from humans clicking through wallets to agents acting on our behalf. We also dig into the two-track future of agent commerce (safe, human-approved flows vs. the wild-west frontier), why major AI labs have avoided crypto training so far ...
Mar 02, 2026•1 hr 13 min
February ends with peak FUD. Ryan and David unpack why crypto is stuck in historic “Extreme Fear” even without a major blowup, and why markets feel like they’ve entered an uncertainty bubble. They break down the Supreme Court striking Trump’s tariffs, Trump immediately finding new legal doors to bring them back, and the looming $150B+ refund fight. Then the “Citrini Crash”: AI doomer scenarios going viral, spooking stocks, and leaving investors terrified that AI will be either not good enough or...
Feb 27, 2026•1 hr 3 min
Crypto’s newest threat isn’t a smart contract exploit, it’s a knock at your door. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Jameson Lopp (Casa) and Beau (former CIA, now safety at Pudgy Penguins) to map the real security landscape for crypto holders in 2026: the phishing traps you’ll see daily, the physical “wrench attacks” that terrify the community, and the practical systems that can make both dramatically less effective. If going bankless is about freedom, this is the playbook for keeping that fre...
Feb 25, 2026•1 hr 43 min
