Unchained

A legal battle over frozen KelpDAO hack funds is forcing DeFi to answer questions it has long avoided. Thank you to our sponsors!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. Multichain Advisors: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at multichainadv.com. When the Arbitrum Security Council froze $71 million in funds tied to the KelpDAO hack, it was hailed as vigilante justice. Now lawyers representing families of North Korea's victims are claiming that same money in a New York federal courtroom, as if theft transfers title. Meanwhile, an AI agent running on Base got robbed via a prompt injection hidden in Morse code, and Coinbase cited artificial intelligence when announcing 14% layoffs. Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, Luca Netz, and Kelsie Nabben, author of Decentralised Digital Security, work through what DeFi's security layer actually is, who gets to decide when to act, and whether any of it survives the arrival of autonomous agents. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kelsie Nabben, Research Fellow at RMIT University — Author of 'Decentralized Digital Security: Code, Community, Crisis' (2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coinbase's chief policy officer explains why the bank lobby failed to kill stablecoin rewards — and what 'workable compromise' actually means for crypto users. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Adaptive Security: Test and strengthen your company’s defenses against AI deepfakes and synthetic identities at adaptivesecurity.com. Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained. ======================================================== The Genius Act established that stablecoin issuers could pay rewards to users. The banks said no. For months, the American Bankers Association used the Clarity Act as a pressure point to reverse that decision — tying up a bill that was supposed to govern an entirely different corner of crypto. Now there's compromise language. Coinbase's chief policy officer, Faryar Shirzad, says it's workable. The banks say it doesn't go far enough. Meanwhile, the Clarity Act itself is racing toward a July 4th deadline, with a Senate Banking Committee markup expected the week of May 14. Ethics provisions around government officials holding crypto assets remain the hardest open question — and, as Shirzad puts it, one entirely above his pay grade. This is where the biggest crypto legislation in US history actually stands. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Faryar Shirzad (@faryarshirzad) — Chief Policy Officer, Coinbase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seven lawsuits blame OpenAI for enabling a mass shooting. Could the same legal theory come for DeFi? Thanks to our sponsor! Coinbase One Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan coinbase.com/unchained Seven families just sued OpenAI in federal court, arguing ChatGPT was a defective product that helped plan a mass shooting. OpenAI's own safety team flagged the risk eight months earlier and did nothing. The legal theory being tested here, that software developers can be held liable for foreseeable misuse of their tools, is the same theory that has been circling DeFi for years. Meanwhile, April ended as the most hacked month in crypto history, with over $600 million stolen in roughly 30 exploits, most of them linked to North Korea and its weapons programs. DeFi United, a $300M relief coalition led by Aave, emerged as the industry's response. KK, Vy, and Jessi unpack what it means when the 'code is law' defense starts to crack, why basic operational security is still not standard practice, and how close the Clarity Act actually is to crossing the finish line. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Veda Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From AI agents as economic actors to quantum threats and prediction market regulation, Ali Yahya of a16z lays out the investment thesis behind a16z crypto's fifth fund. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase One 20% off first year of annual plan + $50 Bitcoin bonus. Offer valid until May 31. coinbase.com/unchained ======================================================== a16z crypto just closed its fifth crypto fund at $2.2 billion — smaller than its previous fund, but the firm says that's deliberate. General Partner Ali Yahya argues we are entering a different phase of crypto's development: one where infrastructure is ready, regulatory clarity is arriving, and the competition for real users has begun in earnest. Two themes sit at the center of a16z's thesis — the collision of crypto and FinTech, and the emergence of AI agents as economic actors. But Yahya's most striking claim may be about blockchains themselves: that performance is no longer a moat, privacy is. And that the chains which get privacy right will accrue stronger network effects than anything the industry has built before. What does a world of privacy-dominant blockchains do to DeFi composability, to security, to the ability to track hackers? And where does the quantum threat actually stand? Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ali Yahya, General Partner, a16z crypto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Missiles in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent jumps 5%. Bitcoin breaks through $80. The Bits + Bips crew reads the geopolitical tape — and explains why crypto is shrugging it off. --- Thank you to our sponsor! Coinbase One — coinbase.com/unchained Heads up! If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Iranian cruise missiles struck commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, Brent jumped 5%, and Bitcoin broke through $80 — all in the same day. The Bits + Bips crew unpacks what the escalation means for crypto and macro positioning, why Ram stays bullish, and whether Paul Tudor Jones is right that Bitcoin is now the best inflation hedge. They also break down the Clarity Act’s yield compromise — with Circle up 16% — and why Austin argues banks may have handed asset managers a structural win. Finally, a U.S. court filing targeting Arbitrum’s frozen North Korean funds raises a bigger question: can you serve legal papers on code, and what does that mean for DAO governance? Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins break it all down. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell (@austincampbell) — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A prediction market trades on outcomes. An information market trades on knowledge. Fielding makes the case for the latter. --- Heads up! If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- What if the biggest constraint on AI is not compute or data, but trust? Ben Fielding, CEO and co-founder of Gensys, spent years as a machine learning researcher before concluding that decentralized hardware was the only path to true scale, and that blockchain was the only technology that could make machines trust each other without human intermediaries. With the launch of Delphi, Gensys's onchain information market built on an OP stack L2, Fielding puts his theory to the test while making the case that prediction markets have been asking the wrong question all along, and that the long tail of markets no one has thought to create yet is where the real opportunity lies. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve Ehrlich, Head of Research at SharpLink and Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ben Fielding, CEO & Co-Founder, Gensys @BenFielding Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

$606 million in DeFi exploits in one month. Two of the space's sharpest risk thinkers debate whether lenders are being paid anywhere close to enough. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Coinbase One 20% off first year of annual plan + $50 Bitcoin bonus. Offer valid until May 31. coinbase.com/unchained Citrea Bitcoin changed how money works. Satya changes how Bitcoin scales. citrea.xyz/unchained ======================================================== One month, $606 million in exploits. And yet DeFi lending yields for blue-chip collateral sit close to SOFR, as if nothing happened. Tom Dunleavy, head of venture at Varys Capital, did the math and concluded that fair risk-adjusted DeFi yields should sit around 12.5%. Adrian Cachinero Vasiljevic, co-founder of Steakhouse Financial, thinks that number paints with too broad a brush, and that for the right primitives, with the right collateral, the market rate might actually be close to correct. Host Laura Shin queries them on the TradFi equations that underpin the debate, the DeFi-specific risks that those equations miss, and on whether depositors are sleepwalking into tail risk they cannot fully see. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tom Dunleavy, Head of Venture, Varys Capital — @dunleavy89 Adrian Cachinero Vasiljevic, Co-Founder, Steakhouse Financial — @adcv_ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pump.fun set fire to $370 million in tokens. Luca lays out the airdrop math that says they should have done the opposite. Thank you to our sponsors!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ MultiChain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create $50B+ in enterprise value for 80+ clients over the past 4 years. They're the partner to help navigate markets. Build real traction today at ⁠multichainadv.com⁠ Pump.fun had a choice with $370 million worth of its own tokens. It burned them. On this week’s Uneasy Money, Luca Netz argues that was the worst option on the table. He lays out the “people’s champ” math that, in his view, could have turned Pump.fun into a $5 billion-a-year business if Alon Cohen had launched the biggest airdrop crypto has ever seen—and bought the tokens back at the bottom. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan also dig into the 137,000 ETH community effort to plug the KelpDAO hole, why Tay thinks Aave—not Layer Zero or KelpDAO—is the key player in DeFi’s latest blowup, and Luca’s blunt new take on whether DeFi yield is even worth the risk right now. Plus: Meta paying creators in USDC, the ghost of Libra, and OpenAI’s leaked AI-native phone. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the era of protocol bailouts upon us? The Chopping Block crew and MegaETH's Shuyao Kong debate Defi United’s community-funded rescue, the KPI vesting experiment shaking up token launches, whether DeFi yields truly underprice risk, and the first major PolyMarket insider trading bust—all delivered with the usual insider banter you won’t hear anywhere else. Welcome 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, the squad is joined by MegaETH co-founder Shuyao Kong, fresh off their headline-making KPI-gated token launch. First, we dive into the whirlwind that is Defi United: a who’s-who of Ethereum OGs and protocols pledging hundreds of millions to fill bailout holes from the massive KelpDAO hack—voluntarily. Are we witnessing a new age of protocol do-gooder vibes or just kicking the moral hazard can down the road? Then, we tear into the “are DeFi yields way too low” debate, prodded by Tom Dunleavy’s viral thread—should degens really be earning more for taking protocol risk, or are the markets just as weird as they seem? Shuyao gives us an under-the-hood look at MegaETH’s radical KPI vesting mechanics, why they made the token vesting play risky pre-TGE, and whether dynamic tokenomics could be the industry’s way forward (with plenty of banter about airdrop farming and governance theater along the way). Finally, we spin through the saga of PolyMarket’s big DOJ insider trading bust: is “insider info” a feature or a bug in prediction markets? All that, history lessons, cynicism, and more—let’s get into it. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Defi United’s “bailout”—how a crowd-sourced effort filled the KelpDAO hack hole and melted crypto Twitter 🔹 Are protocol donations precedent-setting, a warning shot, or just vibes maxing? 🔹 Inside debates about moral hazard, socialized losses, and why kumbaya only works once 🔹 Surprising names (and missing ones!) from the bailout contributor list: Consensys, Mantle, Lido, Arbitrum, Circle, more 🔹 Why airdrop farmers sending dust is the most on-brand thing for crypto 🔹 The “are DeFi yields too low?” debate and why the true risk-free rate may be a myth in DeFi 🔹 MegaETH’s “KPI vesting” tokenomics—how gating TGEs by actual ecosystem milestones might fix launch incentives 🔹 Insight on why pre-TGE KPI mechanics might actually be the future (and why most fail after launch) 🔹 PolyMarket’s first big insider trading bust—when is secret alpha “market info” and when is it treason? 🔹 Vintage history, cyber insurance analogies, and philosophical banter you can only get on TCB Hosts ⭐️ Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️ Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️ Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly Guest ⭐️ Shuyao Kong, Co-founder at MegaETH Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One side wins the OpenAI-Microsoft divorce, Ram calls a 19% earnings growth year 'bananas,' and Chris wants the US to hack back against DeFi exploiters. Here is the full rundown. --- Heads up! If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- Chris Perkins and Ram Ahluwalia cover a lot of ground this week: Iran appears to be seeking a deal to end the Strait of Hormuz blockade as US economic pressure mounts, and the US government just worked with Tether to seize over $300 million in Iranian-linked stablecoins. Bottoms-up S&P earnings estimates are running at 19% year-over-year growth, tech earnings are about to hit, and both hosts think the setup for markets is unusually constructive. They also break down the new Microsoft-OpenAI agreement, the arrest of a special operations soldier for betting on the Maduro raid on Polymarket, and what the Kelp DAO hack means for DeFi's path to institutional adoption. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Microsoft restructured its agreement with OpenAI, and Ram Ahluwalia has a clear verdict: Microsoft won. In this segment from Bits + Bips, Ram explains the three things Microsoft secured from the new deal, walks through the contract-breach context that shifted the negotiating leverage, and argues that Microsoft now holds a free call option on all of OpenAI's future model development, at no additional cost. Chris Perkins (@perkinscr97) — Co-Founder & Managing Partner, 250 Digital Asset Management Ram Ahluwalia (@ramahluwalia) — CEO, Lumida Wealth This clip is from a longer conversation on markets, tech earnings, DeFi security, and prediction markets. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/GE_847Xrj9E We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET — subscribe to catch it live. If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, X, Unchained and wherever you get your podcasts. 🔥 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bits-bips/id1827931786 🔥 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKiSkbYrUOOEEiYQEVPniQ 🔥 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6aSBMrOyi33aVDCULJ9mjN?si=NTLk-jl5QGeytA6-2kxMVQ&nd=1&dlsi=42f0b13dd53c4ba0 🔥X - https://x.com/bitsandbips 🔥 Unchained - https://unchainedcrypto.com/bitsandbips/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People think of Aave and Morpho as competitors. But Morpho only lost $1 million when North Korea drained $300M from a DeFi protocol. The architecture explains why. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! Coinbase One 20% off first year of annual plan + $50 Bitcoin bonus. Offer valid until May 31. coinbase.com/unchained Citrea Bitcoin changed how money works. Satya changes how Bitcoin scales. citrea.xyz/unchained Ether.fi 15% cash back on food and ride apps, 3% on everything else. ether.fi/unchained ======================================================== After North Korea's Lazarus Group drained nearly $300 million from Kelp DAO's bridge, the contagion spread fast, leaving close to $200 million in bad debt on Aave. Morpho, one of the largest lending protocols in DeFi, ended up with about $1 million in exposure. Paul Frambot, co-founder and CEO of Morpho, explains why the protocol's modular, isolated architecture produced a different outcome, and what it reveals about how DeFi lending is supposed to work. He also addresses the ongoing debate over whether DeFi lenders are fairly compensated for risk, the institutional reaction to the hack and what it means for the sector's timeline, the moral complexity of Arbitrum's decision to freeze stolen funds, and why formal verification may be DeFi's last line of defense in an age of increasingly powerful AI. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠Paul Frambot, Co-founder and CEO of Morpho Labs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luke Leasure and Shaunda Devens of Blockworks Research explain how three compounding failures, Kelp's one-of-one bridge signer, Layer Zero's permissive default settings, and Aave's failure to flag it as a collateral risk, set up the conditions for the exploit. Shaunda Devens then breaks down the monolithic pool design that concentrated risk, showing how 98% of rsETH collateral was backing a single leverage looping strategy. This clip is from a longer conversation on the Kelp rsETH hack and its implications for DeFi. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/hJ9X_btsvD0 We go live every Thursday at 12:00 PM ET — subscribe to catch it live. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

KelpDAO’s hackers left telltale signs pointing to one culprit, North Korea. Then, in a surprise move, the Arbitrum Security Council decided to fight back. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! As Bitcoin's application layer, Citrea gives you access to the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable platform and a native stablecoin for Bitcoin, ctUSD. You can now participate in Bitcoin capital markets with lending, privacy, payments, Bitcoin yield, trading and predictions. You get expanded Bitcoin utility without sacrificing its security. Citrea mainnet is live. Put your BTC to work at citrea.xyz/unchained. Ether.fi is giving Unchained listeners 15% cashback on food and ride apps — and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else. Your bank is charging you to use your own money. Laura switched and loves her card! Go to ether.fi/unchained to claim your offer. Nexo is the premier digital wealth platform. Receive interest on your crypto, borrow against it without selling, and trade a range of assets. Now available in the U.S with 30 days of exclusive privileges. Get started at http://nexo.com/unchained ======================================================== In this episode about the hack on KelpDAO that had a broad impact across all of DeFi, Miguel Morel of Arkham, explains what digital fingerprints made it clear North Korea was the likely hacker, plus how it is that Arkham’s users are using the platform to figure out how to get their bad debt out of Aave and when. Then Griff Green, a member of the Arbitrum Security Council, explains some of the reasoning that went into the decision to freeze $71 million of the funds stolen by DPRK, how the surprise move worked technically, and why blockchains are immutable only by social consensus — and how even Bitcoin could be changed by social consensus. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: Miguel Morel, CEO of Arkham Intelligence Griff Green, Arbitrum Security Council Member, Leader of the DAO Security Fund, Co-founder of Giveth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The $300M KelpDAO exploit became a watershed moment for DeFi, and the Arbitrum Security Council voted froze $70M worth of stolen funds. Is this a slippery slope or learning from history? Thank you to our sponsors!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ MultiChain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create $50B+ in enterprise value for 80+ clients over the past 4 years. They're the partner to help navigate markets. Build real traction today at multichainadv.com The largest DeFi hack of 2026 starts with an RPC node. Not a smart contract bug. Not a stolen key. A spoofed node and a forged transaction. And North Korea drained $300 million from Kelp DAO through LayerZero’s bridge in a single block. Then the attacker went to Aave, borrowed against assets that didn’t exist, and created a bad debt crisis that locked Kain out of his own position. That was Friday. By Sunday, North Korea had started laundering. By Tuesday, Arbitrum’s security council had done something no L2 has ever done: frozen $70 million of funds had stolen by upgrading a bridge contract mid-hack. Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, and Luca Netz, with guest Odysseas Lamtzidis, take apart every layer: the DVN architecture flaw, the Aave contagion, the circuit breaker debate, and why the ‘code is law’ era may have just quietly ended. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Odysseas Lamtzidis, Founder & CEO of Phylax Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A $300M bridge exploit is forcing the question DeFi has been avoiding: when users lose money, who is actually responsible — the protocol, the infrastructure provider, or both? Thanks to our sponsors! *⁠ As Bitcoin's application layer, Citrea gives you access to the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable platform and a native stablecoin for Bitcoin, ctUSD. You can now participate in Bitcoin capital markets with lending, privacy, payments, Bitcoin yield, trading and predictions. You get expanded Bitcoin utility without sacrificing its security. ⁠Citrea mainnet is live. Put your BTC to work at ⁠⁠citrea.xyz/unchained.⁠ *⁠ Nexo is the premier digital wealth platform. Receive interest on your crypto, borrow against it without selling, and trade a range of assets. Now available in the U.S with 30 days of exclusive privileges. Get started at http://nexo.com/unchained A $300 million bridge exploit at Kelp DAO has put DeFi's most uncomfortable question back on the table: when users lose money, who is actually responsible? Katherine, Jessi, and Vy dig into the Kelp and Layer Zero finger-pointing and ask whether the industry's core values — permissionlessness, open composability — have become its greatest vulnerability. Then: the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments on prediction markets last week, and the panel's pointed questions signal the case is headed to the Supreme Court sooner than most expect. Finally: American Express just solved three of agentic commerce's hardest problems — identity, mandate, and accountability — with a product that's live today. The crypto industry, which should be leading this race, is watching from the sidelines. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Veda Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Chopping Block crew and guest Monet Supply break down the $200M Kelp DAO bridge exploit, finger-pointing between LayerZero, Kelp DAO, and Aave, the wild “reverse hack” Arbitrum bailout, and what it all means for DeFi lending protocol risk, L2 trust, and the future of socialized losses in crypto. Welcome 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, we’re joined by Monet Supply, DeFi governance OG and current Spark brain, for a front-row seat to crypto’s hack-of-the-week: the $200M “Kelp DAO—LayerZero—Aave” debacle. If you thought DeFi risk was just about liquidations, buckle up. The team untangles the hack mechanics, the musical chairs of collateral across bridges and lending markets, and—most importantly—the prime time blame game: is it LayerZero’s fault for running a single-signer bridge, or did Kelp DAO or Aave drop the ball? We dive deep into the “socialized losses” mess facing Aave depositors (especially on L2s), unpack Arbitrum’s extraordinary move to confiscate coins back from North Korea (yes, really), and debate whether rollups can—or should—aspire to Ethereum’s censorship resistance. Finally, the squad discusses concrete remediation: rate limits, portfolio triage on risky collaterals, and the meta-game of DeFi crisis response. If you want the blunt, unfiltered, and occasionally spicy take on DeFi’s latest chaos, let’s get into it. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights 🔹 Kelp DAO bridge exploit: $200M minted, North Korea fingered, DeFi lending protocols left holding the bag 🔹 Why LayerZero’s single-validator bridge design was a disaster waiting to happen 🔹 The Spider-Man meme comes to DeFi: KelpDAO, LayerZero, and Aave point fingers 🔹 Aave’s socialized losses headache: who eats the bad debt, L1 vs L2 depositors 🔹 Arbitrum’s Security Council “reverse hack” to claw back stolen ETH—feature or bug? 🔹 DeFi lending protocol design flaws, cascading risks, and pooled markets explained 🔹 Remediation: rate limits, fewer LRTs, and the “surface of death” in risk management 🔹 Rollups & L2s: why “Ethereum with training wheels” isn’t always the goal 🔹 What this week means for DeFi precedent, governance, and future hacks 🔹 DeFi’s growing pains: market demands bailouts, but who should actually pay up? Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly Guest ⭐️ Monet Supply, Head of Strategy at Spark Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Digital Asset’s CEO faces pointed questions about Canton’s core claims and admits something surprising about the network’s architecture. ======================================================== As Bitcoin's application layer, Citrea gives you access to the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable platform and a native stablecoin for Bitcoin, ctUSD. You can now participate in Bitcoin capital markets with lending, privacy, payments, Bitcoin yield, trading and predictions. You get expanded Bitcoin utility without sacrificing its security. Citrea mainnet is live. Put your BTC to work at citrea.xyz/unchained. Ether.fi is giving Unchained listeners 15% cashback on food and ride apps — and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else. Your bank is charging you to use your own money. Laura switched and loves her card! Go to ether.fi/unchained to claim your offer. ======================================================== Canton is the chain behind JPMorgan’s deposit token, DTCC, Broadridge’s $400 billion repo book, HSBC, Visa, and a growing roster of the biggest names in global finance. It describes itself as a public permissionless blockchain. But is it? Yuval Rooz, co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset, faces off against Alex Gluchowski, co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs, and Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi in a live debate. The charges range from foundational: Canton cannot enforce financial rules without a trusted third party, its validators are permissioned in everything but name, and there is no universally shared ledger. Rooz fires back on all of it and, at one point, concedes something that may surprise you. If the label matters as much as the technology, this episode will force you to decide what blockchain actually means, and whether that answer has consequences for the institutions staking their infrastructure on it. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Yuval Rooz: Co-Founder & CEO, Digital Asset Haseeb Qureshi: Managing Partner, Dragonfly Alex Gluchowski: Co-Founder & CEO, Matter Labs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The $290 million Kelp DAO hack, attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, has DeFi TVL down $13 billion in 48 hours. Do DeFi's foundational assumptions need to change? --- Heads up! If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, X, Unchained and wherever you get your podcasts. ---- DeFi TVL fell from $99.5 to $86.3 billion in 48 hours after the $290 million Kelp DAO exploit — the latest nine-figure attack attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, this time via a compromised Layer Zero bridge. Meanwhile, a new class of yield-bearing instrument is staking a claim on capital fleeing private credit: Apyx's APY USD, backed by Strategy's STRC preferred stock, launched on Kraken this week with a 12% yield target and $180 million in supply after just seven weeks. Is STRC-backed yield a legitimate financial primitive, or a Bitcoin derivative with extra steps? And as DeFi absorbs yet another devastating security failure, is the industry's core assumption — that incoming transactions should be treated as legitimate — finally due for an overhaul? Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins dig in with Parker White of Apyx and Michael Bentley of Euler. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host of Bits + Bips, Zero Knowledge Consulting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Parker White — @TheOtherParker_ — Founding Contributor, Apyx. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Bentley — @euler_mab — Former CEO, Euler Labs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bitcoin's spot-led rally looks healthy on the surface. But derivatives say conviction is thin. Josh Lim from FalconX on what the market structure is actually telling you right now. --- Thank you to our sponsors! MultiChain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create $50B+ in enterprise value for 80+ clients over the past 4 years. They're the partner to help navigate markets. Build real traction today at multichainadv.com As Bitcoin's application layer, Citrea gives you access to the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable platform and a native stablecoin for Bitcoin, ctUSD. You can now participate in Bitcoin capital markets with lending, privacy, payments, Bitcoin yield, trading and predictions. You get expanded Bitcoin utility without sacrificing its security. Citrea mainnet is live. Put your BTC to work at citrea.xyz/unchained. --- Bitcoin is trading near $75,000, but the market structure around it tells a more complicated story. Implied volatility has collapsed to sub-50, funding rates are negative, and the options market is dominated by sellers, not buyers. Meanwhile, Bitcoin miners are liquidating holdings to fund the transition to high-performance compute, generating a persistent offer just as breakeven retail holders look for an exit. FalconX Global Co-Head of Markets Josh Lim joins Steve Ehrlich to map exactly what is keeping Bitcoin range-bound, where the rotation into ETH and alts is actually coming from, and what signals in derivatives and on-chain data would indicate the market is ready to move. They also get into whether the Clarity Act changes the long-term structure of the altcoin market, how Hyperliquid is being used for institutional RWA arbitrage, and what the quantum threat means not for cryptography, but for trading Bitcoin. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Head of Research, SharpLink Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh Lim — Global Co-Head of Markets, FalconX. Repeat guest; previously covered market structure and institutional crypto flows on Bits + Bips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices