Hasu, strategic advisor to Lido, and Tarun Chitra, founder of Gauntlet, explain everything about staked ETH, aka stETH, how it should be priced, Lido’s market dominance, and much more. Show highlights: the role of Lido, what stETH is, and what its benefits are whether Ethereum’s lack of delegated proof of stake contributes to the need for stETH why stETH is not mispriced and why it doesn’t necessarily have to be worth 1 ETH the inherent risks associated with stETH how there was not enough liquid...
Jul 05, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 370
Badiucao, Chinese artist and activist, talks about the importance of NFTs for political activism, the role of China in his career as an artist, the significance of blockchain technologies to resist censorship, and much more. Show highlights: why Badiucao became an artist and how the censorship in China brought him to NFTs how Badiucao only learned about Tiananmen Square when he was 22 years old why Badiucao took up work as a preschool teacher in Australia how anonymity is important for Chinese a...
Jul 01, 2022•41 min•Ep. 369
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, Taylor Monahan, matriarch of Metamask, joins the show to discuss the contagion of major crypto firms, the bear market, SBF saving crypto, and much more! Show topics: The importance of UX and security How Three Arrows Capital’s practice of borrowing to leverage their bets has caused a crisis for crypto lenders that rippled ou...
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 368
Shaun Maguire and Michelle Bailhe, partners at Sequoia, discuss their long term view and thesis about crypto, what do they look for to invest in a crypto project, the takeaways from the blowup of Terra, the insolvency of crypto companies, and much more. Show highlights: what is Sequoia’s long term view and thesis about the crypto industry how different our lives will look in 20 years from now due to blockchain technology how Sequoia had to adapt to invest in this new asset class and what are the...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 367
Derek Hsue, cofounder at Reverie, discusses the recent controversial decisions by Solend DAO and Bancor, the importance of establishing processes for black swan events, and whether decentralized governance truly exists. Show highlights: what situation prompted Solend to feel it was in jeopardy what Solend DAO’s response was to that situation why Derek views it as “the nuclear option” why the proposal sparked an outcry from the crypto community whether this issue could have been prevented or mana...
Jun 24, 2022•37 min•Ep. 366
Caroline Pham, commissioner at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, discusses how we should build a regulatory framework for crypto assets, whether the SEC and CFTC should work together, what were the consequences of the Terra collapse, and much more. Show highlights: how Cmr. Pham got started in crypto and became a CFTC commissioner the importance of the regulatory strategy around crypto what crypto’s role is in the financial system how bitcoin is a sort of money outside of the tradition...
Jun 21, 2022•58 min•Ep. 365
Mika Honkasalo, independent crypto researcher, discusses what is happening with Celsius and Three Arrows Capital, the importance of having proper risk management, and the contagion effects on the industry. Show highlights: why is it so significant that Celsius paused withdrawals what is stETH and why is it important to understand the Celsius situation how the Luna/UST debacle started a contagion effect in the crypto space why Celsius’s investors won’t bail the company out what will happen to Cel...
Jun 17, 2022•40 min•Ep. 364
Olta Andoni, deputy general counsel at Ava Labs, and Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs at TRM Labs, discuss the Terra stablecoin meltdown, implications for impending international regulations, and the history of stablecoin regulation internationally. Topics covered include: What the most important legal issues are for the Terra meltdown How the Terra implosion will trigger more regulation of the space How regulators seemed to think stablecoins should be regulated even before Terr...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 363
Welcome to The Chopping Block – in person at Consensus in Austin! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra are joined by guest Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital to chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. Show topics: why Kyle believes people are too negative about the macro environment how the only crypto product with product-market fit is parties what soulbound NFTs are, and what their pitfalls might be why Kyle and Robert have a beef between them ...
Jun 13, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 362
Lewis Cohen, lead attorney at DLx Law LLC, joins to discuss the recently proposed Lummis-Gillibrand bill, the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, which he helped shape. In this episode, we cover: how Lewis was impressed by Gillibrand’s and Lummis’s offices’ hard work and bipartisanship how the bill creates a new definition for an “ancillary asset” with split oversight responsibilities between the CFTC and the SEC how the bill proposes a test of managerial centralization as a determinant of dis...
Jun 10, 2022•41 min•Ep. 361
Glen Weyl, RadicalxChange Foundation founder and political economist & social technologist at Microsoft Special Projects, and Puja Ohlhaver, strategist at Flashbots, discuss “soulbound tokens” and their implications for collaboration and social organization in a variety of spaces. Topics covered include: how Glen got involved in crypto, wrote a book, and came to co-write a paper with Vitalik Buterin how Puja studied economics and got in touch with Glen in pursuit of a middle ground between left ...
Jun 07, 2022•59 min•Ep. 360
Jason Gottlieb, a crypto attorney and partner at Morrison Cohen, discusses the insider trading case being built by the US Department of Justice against former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain. Show topics: why Nathaniel is being charged with wire fraud and money laundering instead of insider trading what makes NFT insider trading different from usual insider trading indictments why an employee’s “duty of confidentiality” can be important when building an insider trading case whether the money...
Jun 03, 2022•42 min•Ep. 359
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. Since Robert Leshner couldn’t make it, Laura also decided to hop on the show too! Show topics: how Terra is trying to rebuild what its value proposition is why Laura is surprised at how fast Do Kwon began shitposting again how teams affected by the Terra collapse, like Delphi Digital and Mars Protocol, are responding how its implosion will a...
Jun 02, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 358
Sunny Aggarwal, co-founder of Osmosis Labs, talks about how Osmosis is being built, the innovations that are coming, the reasons to use app chains, and much more. Show highlights: how Sunny got into crypto how the DAO hack turned him off Ethereum at first how the scaling issues with Ethereum got him interested in the Cosmos vision of app-chains why he is interested in Proof of Stake what the vision of Cosmos is how Sunny compares the evolution of blockchains with human evolution why he thinks th...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 357
Coy Garrison, former counsel to SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce and partner at Steptoe & Johnson, discusses the role of regulation in the crypto industry and what the SEC could be doing to make crypto a better space. Show notes: how Coy started working with crypto why Coy decided to leave the SEC why recent comments by SEC chair Gary Gensler made him hopeful in how the SEC approaches crypto how the crypto industry has grown and evolved over the years whether the regulations are impeding innovatio...
May 27, 2022•37 min•Ep. 356
Cobie, co-founder of Lido and UpOnlyTv, and Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder Ventures, talk about surviving a crypto bear market, the Terra collapse, lessons they’ve learned from their mistakes, and much more. Show highlights: whether Chris and Cobie think crypto is in a bear market why Chris says these are the times to buy what effect the Terra debacle will have on the crypto industry why Chris was expecting UST to blow up why Chris thinks there is going to be another massive liquidation ...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 355
Tascha Che, founder of Tascha Labs, unpacks the Terra/Luna debacle and reveals what she believes are the five main takeaways from its collapse. Here are some highlights from the show: how stablecoin issuers make money what caused Terra’s downfall why Tascha is bullish on algo stablecoins whether she believes undercollateralized stablecoins can work how fast market cap expansion without actual network effect equals death for stablecoins why she doesn’t believe a stablecoin’s network effects mean ...
May 20, 2022•41 min•Ep. 354
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. On this episode, Kevin Zhou, the CEO of Galois Capital and long-time critic of UST, also joined the conversation. Show topics: the UST depeg and Terra collapse Kevin on what it was like being one of the earliest naysayers of LUNA why Kevin believes that UST initially depegged and became a “fear cascade” how Galois Capital traded the UST depe...
May 19, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 353
Nic Carter, general partner at Castle Island Venture, Eric Wall, former Chief Investment Officer of Arcane Assets, and Erik Voorhees, founder of ShapeShift, discuss what happened with the TerraUSD (UST) and LUNA fiasco, Do Kwon’s responsibility, the impact on the crypto ecosystem, and much more. Show highlights: how Erik used to feel that algo stablecoins were impossible and why he changed his mind why Eric considers that the demand for UST was tied to a sh*tcoin why Nic didn’t think LUNA would ...
May 17, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 352
Jon Wu, head of growth at Aztec Network, recaps a historically chaotic week in the Terra ecosystem that saw $UST depeg, Anchor depositors flee, and $LUNA fall 99%. Show highlights: how $UST, $LUNA, Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), and Anchor Protocol are supposed to work why Jon compares the Terra blockchain with VISA, LFG with the Fed, and Do Kwon with Jerome Powell how a previous $UST de-peg foreshadowed this week’s dystopian price action how a bitcoin short seemed to have kickstarted $UST’s depeg...
May 13, 2022•51 min•Ep. 351
Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, and Ben Jones, cofounder and chief scientist at Optimism Foundation, discuss the current state of Ethereum Layer 2s, Optimism’s new governance structure, why Synthetix chose to build on Optimism, and more. Show topics: what Optimism and Synthetix are how zero-knowledge rollups differ from optimistic rollups why Synthetix decided to build on Optimism what makes L2s more enticing to build on than other L1s how Optimism’s governance is going to change with the la...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 350
Eric Golden, the owner of BAYC #7560 and host of Web3 Breakdowns, discusses the Otherdeed NFT drop that stalled Ethereum and burned over $150 million worth of ether. Show topics: what the Otherdeed mint is Why Yuga Labs had buyers undergo a know-your-customer process in order to mint the NFTs why Eric was pretty certain a gas war was imminent in the hours leading up to the mint how KYC’d addresses played into the Otherdeed mint what Eric thought about Yuga Labs’s decision to scrap a Dutch auctio...
May 06, 2022•41 min•Ep. 349
Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. On this episode, Andre Cronje, the recently retired (sort of) DeFi developer, also joined the conversation. Show topics: why being doxxed led to Andre retiring (sort of) from crypto Andre’s response to Robert who calledl his departure from DeFi “an epic rug pull” why Andre is back – and why he is working on “regulated” crypto...
May 05, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 348
André Allen Anjos, who is better known as the crypto-friendly artist RAC, and David Greenstein, co-founder of Sound.xyz, a web3 music platform, analyze the current state of the web3 music scene and discuss how artists can leverage web3 tools to get paid at fair market value for their art. Show highlights: RAC’s experience in the traditional music industry why David believes music is the most undervalued sector in the world – and how Sound and crypto can help value it correctly the different type...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 347
Chris Perkins, president of CoinFund, a web3 investment firm, discusses his experience at the Crypto Bahamas conference before diving into an FTX.US proposal that would allow for direct trading of crypto derivatives in the US – which appears to be rocking the boat of certain regulators in D.C. Show topics: Chris’s two biggest takeaways from his Crypto Bahamas experience how Chris’s experience at Lehman Brothers and Citi prepared him for crypto what issues arise via the plumbing of traditional fi...
Apr 29, 2022•39 min•Ep. 346
Amy Wu, head of FTX ventures and gaming initiatives, discusses her role at FTX, what problems need to be addressed in the web3 gaming world, and her thoughts on APE and Yuga Labs as a board member of Apecoin DAO and investor in Yuga Labs. Show highlights: what Amy does at FTX how her background investing in gaming prepared her for her role at FTX Amy’s vision for FTX’s gaming studio how FTX is helping gaming studios get into web3 and NFTs why Amy thinks blockchain games are the evolution of the ...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 345
Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, discusses a proposed rule by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that has massive implications for the free-speech rights of crypto software developers in the US. Show highlights: why an SEC proposal changing the definition of “exchange” could violate the right to free speech of US crypto developers whether the SEC is going after DeFi on purpose – as its 200+ page proposal never mentions crypto or DeFi what precedent Peter has fou...
Apr 22, 2022•43 min•Ep. 344
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. On this episode, Laura Shin, the host of Unchained and author of The Cryptopians, also joined the conversation. Show topics: how people have responded to The Cryptopians why traditional publishers were reticent to publish the story revealing the alleged DAO attacker’s identity what lessons can be learned from North Korea’s alleged involvemen...
Apr 21, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 343
Two policy experts, Chris Lehane, chief strategy officer at Haun Ventures, and Niki Christoff, the founder of Christoff and Co., discuss how the crypto industry has performed in Washington and how it can better educate more regulators and politicians about the technology. Show highlights: Niki and Chris’ background how Niki and Chris would grade the performance of crypto companies in Washington what parallels Chris can draw between crypto in the 2020s and FAANG in the mid-90s whether having a pl...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 342
Tim Beiko, the Ethereum Foundation coordinator for core developers, discusses his recent estimation that Ethereum’s merge, where the network transitions from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, will be delayed until the second half of 2022. Show topics: what the Ethereum merge is why an upcoming difficulty bomb could force developers to delay the merge what shadow forks are and how they affect the decision to go forward with the merge how network difficulty is used in Ethereum to keep a balance bet...
Apr 15, 2022•36 min•Ep. 341
