11-Person DEX vs Nasdaq: Hype vs Reality
Is an 11-person DEX really “bigger than the Nasdaq”? Kain and Luca Netz weigh the bull case for HYPE against Kyle Samani's 'Binance 2.0' knock. 🎲 New Uneasy Money. 🎧 https://lnkd.in/d7xjc6K9
ETH Lacks Story; Hyperliquid Is DeFi Tether, Solana Stalls
Asked @mdudas of 6th Man Ventures to rate each major L1 in this market. His take: 🔴 ETH: no coherent story, zero exposure at 6th Man 🌊 Hyperliquid: closer to Tether than a competing L1 📉 Solana: performance peaked with memecoins and needs...
MSTR’s Capital Structure Mess Threatens All Stakeholders
😬 @jdorman81 on Strategy's capital structure crisis: no matter which stakeholder class you own, the risks are higher than nine months ago. Every option Saylor has damages at least one class of holder. 🎧 Timestamps: 🐦 01:18 How MSTR was sitting pretty until...
Solana’s Fee Slump Reflects Memecoin Fade, Not Fundamentals
"For Solana it's just been a performance issue. Activity fees peaked early 2025 and have been in a downward trend since. So has the price" Mike Dudas on why Solana is underperforming and where it could go from here "The foundation and...
AI Agents as Customers Blur Legal Liability
On @DEXintheCityPod, @kkirkbos and Jessi Brooks on what happens when your AI agent becomes the customer — and the law has no idea who's liable if something goes wrong. New clip: 🎧 https://t.co/8wmRNy8W5u
CFTC Reclassifies Perps,
Two stories from this week's @DEXintheCityPod that deserve more attention, per @kkirkbos: the CFTC just reclassified perps as futures (so where does this leave Hyperliquid?), and a mystery plaintiff is asking a court to give him 40,000 dormant Bitcoin wallets...
Circle’s Court‑Order Freeze Policy Is Naïve and Dangerous
"This is why Circle saying we only do things when we get a court order, as if courts are somehow going to be the best arbiter of the impact on a stablecoin, it's just so dumb" Kain on why Circle's freezing...
Chain Apps No Longer Drive Token Value, Shows Polygon Solana
@LucaNetz's contrarian take on Uneasy Money: apps on your chain don't accrue value to the token anymore. "Polygon showed us" that, and Solana proved you can have all the activity in the world while token accrual stays "relatively nominal." https://t.co/V0d5t6x9aq
Polymarket’s Ambiguous Question Misleads on MicroStrategy Bitcoin Sale
"Classic Polymarket having a poorly worded thing that wasn't thought through" Kain on the Polymarket MicroStrategy Bitcoin question mess "The actual question is, will MicroStrategy sell any Bitcoin by 05/31/2026? Yes. But it wasn't disclosed until June 1. Because there never is" "If...
Hyperliquid Defies Crash, Hits Fresh All‑Time High
Kain on why Hyperliquid is different: most alts crash 98% then grind back. HYPE only fell ~60% (from ~$50 to ~$20) and is already at a fresh all-time high. In this bear market it's "one of the few things that...
Circle Freezes USDC at Wrong Time, Says Kain
Kain on the Zama freeze: "Circle, who historically are very bad at freezing USDC when we need them, decided that they were going to freeze USDC when we didn't need them to." https://t.co/V0d5t6x9aq
Solana Burn Proposal Backed as Key Success Driver
Luca Netz on Solana's burn proposal: "as a big Solana holder and advocate, I hope this passes." A product that keeps getting better plus a token that barely inflates or deflates is "a recipe for success." https://t.co/V0d5t6x9aq
Even Tiny Bitcoin Sales Signal Big Market Attention
Strategy sold Bitcoin for the first time since 2022. On Bits + Bips, Ram Ahluwalia on why Bitcoin's status as an 'attention asset' makes even a tiny sale matter more than the size suggests. Full episode with Austin Campbell and...
Prediction Market Misses Bitcoin Sale, Exposes Governance Flaws
A $50M prediction market just resolved against black-and-white text in an SEC filing. Polymarket's "Will MicroStrategy sell any Bitcoin by May 31?" is settling "No" — even though Strategy's 8-K shows it sold 32 BTC inside the window. On this...
MSTR Stock Unattractive; Debt and Preferred Safer
"I don't see any scenario where you'd really want to own MSTR stock right now, given how dire the options are" Jeff Dorman ranks the Strategy capital structure from safest to riskiest "In a worst case where MicroStrategy defaults, you'd want to...
Polymarket's Dispute Undermines Credibility Amid Contradictory Evidence
.@jdorman81 on the Polymarket dispute: "It looks bad on Polymarket. It looks bad on UMA and the validators. I don't know how anybody can take a market like this seriously when there is such indisputable evidence that the answer is yes,...
CFTC, AI On‑Chain Commerce, and NY Bitcoin Wallet Unpacked
The CFTC weighing in on perps. AI agents doing onchain commerce. A wild NY bitcoin wallet case. @kkirkbos, Jessi Brooks, and @TuongvyLe12 break it all down live - today at 12pm ET. Join us on: X - https://t.co/7sagHQ6Qjo https://t.co/VLoyTSrcfu
Anthropic IPO Raises Concerns Over Market Saturation
On the Anthropic IPO: "What does this mean when you have so much issuance hitting the market at the same time?" 🎯 -- Ram Ahluwalia https://t.co/nJp1YfxP5r
Three‑multisig Architecture Proposed as DeFi Baseline
A co-founder of OpenZeppelin said he’s telling friends and family to exit blue chip DeFi. Mike Silagadze’s response: “Stop with the decentralization theater.” Isaac Patka: This three-multisig architecture should be the baseline. New Unchained: https://lnkd.in/dixRARpY
Crypto Platforms Unlock Global, On‑chain Access to US Stocks
.@arjunsethi is calling it a shadow stock exchange running on permissionless rails 🕶️ Hyperliquid sitting at $2.5B in open interest. TradeXYZ doing $22B in volume. Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon all trading onchain. People just want access and leverage to US stocks...
White House Pushes Fed for Crypto Master Accounts
The White House is pushing the Fed to consider opening master account access to crypto and fintech firms. KK Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le walked through what it could mean for banks, stablecoins, and who controls the dollar. On...
Three Multisig Safeguards: Fast Pause, Timed Updates, Delayed Collateral
"To stop the bleeding, you have a fast freeze. To update parameters, a short time lock. To upgrade contracts, a long time lock" Isaac on the three multisigs every DeFi protocol should have "You should have a very low threshold emergency pause...
Use Hardware Wallets and Blue‑chip Protocols for DeFi Safety
Tips for DeFi users who want to transact onchain: "Don't use hot wallets. Use hardware wallets or a large, trusted custodian. And don't interact with protocols that are new, unless you are an extreme power user. Use blue chip protocols." --...
Fast Freeze, Short Timelock, Long Timelock: Protect Users
🔥🔥🔥 "To stop the bleeding, you have a fast freeze. To update parameters, you have a short timelock, to upgrade your contracts, you have a long timelock." -- Isaac Patka giving amazing advice on how teams should set up their...
User Safety Requires Multisig Timelocks, Not Just Decentralization
"It's not against the principles of decentralization to protect users. "You shouldn't have one multisig with no timelocks that can instantly upgrade the contracts and change behavior. That's not a decentralization issue. That's a user safety issue." -- Isaac Patka Tune...
Pope’s AI‑Crypto Encyclical Ties Directly to Bitcoin Whitepaper
The first American pope released an encyclical on AI and crypto, and Austin Campbell made the case on Bits + Bips that it connects directly to the Bitcoin white paper. Genuinely one of the more unusual conversations the show has...
Emerging‑Markets Drive 24/7 Global Capital Market Vision
Arjun Sethi of Kraken laid out the most complete vision I've heard for what a 24/7 global capital market actually looks like. The emerging-markets demand story is not a side note — it's the whole thesis. New Bits + Bips...
DeFi Security Unpacked: Experts Reveal Real Threat Landscape
On Tuesday, Manuel Araoz tweeted that he considered “all of DeFi unsafe,” sparking an intense conversation about how safe DeFi is in the age of AI and in-person social engineering by DPRK. On the next episode of Unchained, Laura Shin...
Crypto Needs Private Stablecoins Beyond Volatile Zcash
"Privacy might feel great when Zcash is up 30%. It doesn't feel great when it's down 30%. We need private stablecoins" Kain on the obvious thing in crypto that nobody has landed yet "I went down the Zcash rabbit hole and the...
Agentic Economy Demands On‑Chain Privacy, Says Ill
Illia Polosukhin is one of the eight authors behind "Attention Is All You Need", the transformer paper that kicked off the modern LLM era. He's also co-founder of NEAR Protocol, and this week he's arguing that the agentic economy can't...
EF Board Needs Seasoned Business Leaders to Drive Change
Greg Markou on what the EF board needs: "We need like grownups in the room... you need to have somebody that actually understands businesses at scale to come in and say, 'okay, there's like some things we have to change.'" https://t.co/rZFZ5GVcxk
FDIC Insurance Remains Bank Edge as Stablecoins Expand
"What is going to differentiate a traditional bank from a nonbank permitted payment stablecoin issuer? We're getting to that point" Katherine on what's left that separates the two under the Genius Act "FDIC insurance. There's definitely going to be a sector of...
Ethereum's Identity Crisis: CROPS Framework Guides Future Direction
Ethereum is going through an identity moment. The Ethereum Foundation has lost several key researchers in recent months. Vitalik Buterin responded with the CROPS framework — Censorship Resistance, Capture Resistance, Open Source, Privacy, Security — and a vision of a...
Pre‑IPO Perps Offer Cleaner Structure Than Tokenized Spot
I spoke with Dio Casares ( @diogenes ) about why pre-IPO perps are structurally cleaner than tokenized spot — the risk is of being auto-deleveraged, which people accept. An SPV that someone set up wrong is a different problem entirely....
Pre‑IPO Perps Bypass Legal Risks of Secondary Shares
I spoke with Dio Casares (@diogenes) of @patagon about why Anthropic and OpenAI voided secondary shares before their IPOs — and why, structurally, pre-IPO perps sidestep almost all of those problems. It’s an inside look at why pre-IPO perps avoid the...
SpaceX Perp Spikes, Ethereum Founders Flee, DeFi Hacks
A synthetic SpaceX perp jumps to $216 before any IPO. Multiple senior Ethereum Foundation figures leave. Three DeFi hacks in four days. @kaiynne and @tayvano_ unpack it all on Uneasy Money. 🎧 Timestamps: 🚀 01:01 SpaceX pre-IPO perps go live on Hyperliquid —...
US Quantum $2B Bet Amid Aggressive Crypto Regulation
In today's Unchained Daily newsletter: 🔬 The US just made a $2B quantum bet, and Bitcoin may be on the clock 🏛️ Hours later, a bill moved to lock US bitcoin for 20 years 📋 Blockchain.com is finally eyeing a...
DeFi Week: SpaceX Valuation, Oracle Deal, Bridge Failures
SpaceX trading at a $2.5T implied valuation on Hyperliquid. Polymarket signing Nasdaq as oracle. Grok drained by a Morse code tweet. Bridges bleeding again. @kaiynne, @tayvano_, and @LucaNetz break down DeFi's loudest week. Today at 4pm ET Join us on: X - https://t.co/AohKSQ3UXI YouTube -...
Iran Unveils Bitcoin‑settled Insurance, Eyeing $10B Revenue
In today's Unchained Daily newsletter: 🇮🇷 Iran launched "Hormuz Safe," a Bitcoin-settled insurance platform for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, claiming it could generate $10 billion in revenue 🟧 Strategy bought 24,869 bitcoin for roughly $2 billion, pushing total...
Hyperliquid's Licensing Hurdles Raise Decentralization Questions
"In the US, Hyperliquid needs three licenses. Can they do it? Yes, but can they reconstitute the liquidity of the offshores exchange? Unclear. "If they were to fully decentralize and say Hyperliquid is just code and tech, then shouldn't anyone be...
Stablecoins Emerging as Marginal Treasury Buyers, Extending Durations
This narrative of stablecoins being the marginal buyer of Treasuries reflects the shift in long-dated duration in the market. 💯 -- Gordon Liao, who used to work at the Fed Board https://t.co/diucbra2xz
Hybrid HyFi Blends DeFi with Essential Institutional Paperwork
.@_CraigBirchall coined a term on @bitsandbips: HyFi — half DeFi, half CeFi. His argument: on-chain repo that works for institutions probably needs some paperwork alongside the smart contracts, and forcing it to be fully programmatic is the thing most likely...
Coinbase Leverages Hyperliquid’s Global Reach to Boost USDC
Coinbase and Hyperliquid are both going after the everything exchange. So why is Coinbase staking HYPE? Alex Weseley: Coinbase can't compete with Hyperliquid's no-KYC global reach, but it can leverage it to grow USDC distribution worldwide "Coinbase is very certain in its...
Draft CLARITY Act Adds ‘Specific Intent’ Shield for Crypto Developers
The new CLARITY Act draft adds a “specific intent” standard that would prevent crypto developers from being charged for creating software. The bill needs to pass before the Memorial Day recess. Three crypto lawyers give passage odds on @DEXintheCityPod. @kkirkbos @TuongvyLe12...
Hyperliquid Retains 50% Perps Share Amid Downturn
🎯 "Hyperliquid commands a very comfortable 50% share of the perps market, even through this crypto downturn. It's proven itself through a barrage of attacks on its market share." Late 2024 the whole space bet against Hyperliquid. Every exchange backed perp...
Hybrid On‑chain Repos: Paper + Contracts Boost Scalability
The DeFi purists will hate this. On-chain repo doesn't need to live entirely in a smart contract. Sign the paper, then let smart contracts run the rest. That's the version that actually scales. "It doesn't all necessarily have to be done...
Yield Receipts Masquerade as Stablecoins, Not the Same
"Ethena, Spark, syrupUSDC, these are receipts for a yield sharing strategy. Sometimes people consider them stablecoins. They're not." 🪙 USDe, USDS, syrupUSDC are not stablecoins. They're yield strategy receipts wearing a stablecoin costume. The industry keeps calling them the same thing...
Circle's Token Presale Boosts Stock, Raises Value‑Accrual Question
Circle is the first public company to run a token presale, and its stock went up on the news. Ram Ahluwalia, Austin Campbell, and Chris Perkins ask the one question that matters: where does the value actually accrue? On Bits...
Founder’s Lesson: Lock Down Equity with Strict Operating Agreement
"There were actually five co-founders of Pudgy Penguins. The fifth one tried to sell equity behind my back to a group of dumpers" Luca on the story he's never told and the operating agreement lesson every founder needs to hear "He was...
Crypto Buyers Differ Fundamentally From Traditional Finance Buyers
"The crypto buyer is not the TradFi buyer." 👀 -- Luca on Circle's ARC pre-sale https://t.co/iwMNlcEv6Y