Unchained

Latest Episodes:

Stacks’ Muneeb Ali On Why Bitcoin Is Exciting Once Again - Ep. 612 Feb 23, 2024

Show notes

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Fifteen years after the birth of Bitcoin, the network is now entering an era of remarkable innovation and change, according to Stacks' co-creator Muneeb Ali.

On this episode of Unchained recorded at the Bitcoin Builders conference, Muneeb explores the complexities and advancements within Bitcoin's Layer 1 and Layer 2. He shares his perspectives on what's fueling innovation in Bitcoin's Layer 1 and discusses the implications of Ordinal Inscriptions amid criticism of it by core developers.

He delves into the various scaling solutions within Bitcoin, highlighting how trust assumptions vary among them, and how BitVM could be a 'game changer'. He goes over the advantages of integrating smart contracts on Bitcoin, and why he considers BTC the only true form of monetary asset.

Show highlights:

What's driving innovation in Bitcoin’s L1
How Muneeb feels about Ordinals Inscriptions in Bitcoin, considering the criticism from some core developers
How, in the recent years, research and development in crypto happened outside of Bitcoin, and how that's changing now, according to Muneeb
The different types of scaling solutions in Bitcoin and how the trust assumptions differ in each of them
Why he feels like BitVM is a 'game changer' and what it enables
What the Nakamoto upgrade is on Stacks
The advantages of having smart contracts on Bitcoin, according to Muneeb
Why he says that BTC is the only asset that is money
The challenges to having privacy in Bitcoin

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Guest

Muneeb Ali, co-creator of Stacks
Previous appearances on Unchained:
Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs Are Hot and Getting Hotter. What's the Hype About? - NFT Crypto
Blockstack On Getting Independence From Google, Facebook And Amazon

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Recent news:

Bitcoin L2s:

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The Chopping Block: Starknet's Airdrop, Founder Challenges, and Ethena's Mainnet - Ep. 611 Feb 22, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to The Chopping Block, where crypto experts Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner bring you inside perspectives on critical topics in the crypto world. This week the boys dive deep into Starknet's airdrop controversies, the psychological toll of internet backlash on founders, and the groundbreaking Ethena project inspired by Arthur Hayes. This episode questions the effectiveness of airdrop strategies in user engagement, the resilience founders must muster against online criticism, and Ethena's potential to revolutionize crypto finance with its tokenized cash and carry trade. We also tackle the security threats on platforms like GitHub, the balance between egalitarian distribution versus market dynamics, and the transparency required in token economics. What legal challenges arise from token vesting schedules, and how does Ethena innovate in crypto finance inspired by traditional models? Join us for an insightful exploration of these critical topics, aiming to enrich our understanding of cryptocurrency airdrops, founder resilience, and Ethena's ambitious financial mechanisms within the evolving cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show Highlights

🔹 Starknet Airdrop Controversy: Exploring the backlash and debates over its distribution mechanics.

🔹 The Psychology of Founders Facing Internet Critique: Discussing the impact of public scrutiny on creators.

🔹 Innovation in Airdrop Strategies: Highlighting the need for creativity to engage and retain users.

🔹 GitHub and Security Risks: Addressing the increase in phishing attacks and noise on developer platforms.

🔹 Efficacy of Airdrops in User Engagement: Evaluating how airdrops influence community involvement and loyalty.

🔹 Egalitarianism vs. Market Dynamics: Debating the balance between fair distribution and economic incentives.

🔹 The Complexities of Vesting Periods: Unpacking the discussions around token unlock schedules.

🔹 Legal Nuances of Crypto Vesting: Exploring the regulatory implications and challenges.

🔹 Transparency in Token Economics: The importance of clear policies for investor confidence.

🔹 The Inspiration Behind Ethena: Tracing the origins and motivations for its creation.

🔹 Cash and Carry Trade Basics: Simplifying the concept and its significance in crypto finance.

🔹 Analyzing Ethena’s Yield Mechanisms: Delving into the strategies and risks of yield generation.

🔹 Risk Mitigation in Ethena’s Protocol: Investigating novel approaches to safeguarding assets.

🔹 The Potential Ripple Effects of Ethena: Speculating on the impact of layered financial products.

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder of Compound

Disclosures

Links

“Is the Short Team Lockup for STRK ‘Misaligned’? No, Says Starkware CEO - Ep. 609”: https://youtu.be/0D0Qyw9TeoY
The Uniswap Airdrop - Lessons for the Industry by jhackworth: https://dune.com/blog/uni-airdrop-analysis
“Dust on Crust” by Arthur Hayes: https://ehandbook.com/dust-on-crust-300d4b5cf3ec

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Why the Celestia Team Sees a Future With 10,000 Roll-Ups - Ep. 610 Feb 20, 2024

Show notes

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Celestia, a data availability layer for blockchains, was launched last October to much fanfare. The platform takes a modular approach to blockchains, allowing developers to post data onto it without the need for smart contracts or execution. This makes it extremely useful for scaling roll-ups and other layer two technologies.

Celestia co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam and COO Nick White join Unchained to discuss what Celestia is and how it works, how data availability sampling allows for more scalability, how Celestia compares with other data availability layers, whether Celestia could become a data availability layer for Bitcoin, and comparisons between Celestia and Solana.

Show highlights:

Mustafa’s background and how his project called Lazy Ledger ended up becoming Celestia
Nick’s vision for modular blockchains
Why Mustafa believes in the “10,000 roll-up” endgame
Why Mustafa thinks that gaming and NFT chains work better on a modular blockchain
What Celestia is and how it resembles the publication of an article in a newspaper
What data availability sampling (DAS) is and how it works to ensure that the data is available and accurate for validators
How DAS allows for more scalability
What types of applications can be built with this type of modular architecture
Mustafa’s explanation of the concept of Blob stream and blob space
How a roll-up can be an independent or sovereign layer, not just a layer 2 to a layer 1
How Celestia competes with other DA layers, like the future EigenDA
The role of the TIA token in the Celestia ecosystem
How Mufasa hacked the CIA when he was 16 years old and how he transitioned into crypto
Whether Celestia could become a DA layer for Bitcoin layer 2 roll-ups
Whether Solana could end up becoming an Ethereum layer 2 using Celestia for data availability
The proposal to extend the functionality of Celestia without smart contracts in the base layer

Thank you to our sponsors!

Guests:

Nick White, COO at Celestia Labs
Previous appearances on Unchained: Three Crypto Pioneers on Crypto’s Monolithic vs. Modular Debate
Mustafa Al-Bassam, cofounder and CEO at Celestia Labs

Links

Modular vs. monolithic

Alchemy: Modular vs. Monolithic Blockchains
Visa: Monolithic vs. modular blockchain
Chris Burniske’s tweet on modular vs monolithic
“The horrific inefficiencies of monolithic blockchains” by polynya
Blockworks: A spicy salvo launched in the monolithic vs modular debate
Unchained: What Is the Blockchain Trilemma?

Celestia

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Is the Short Team Lockup for STRK ‘Misaligned’? No, Says Starkware CEO - Ep. 609 Feb 16, 2024

Show notes

Starknet made news this week for announcing what will be the largest initial airdrop by number of eligible addresses ever. But it faced heavy criticism online for many of the details of the airdrop, from the fact that Ethereum solo takers received almost 22% of the distribution to eligibility requirements that users held at least 0.005 ETH in their wallets as of Nov. 15, 2023 to the fact that the token generation event took place almost two years before the unlock date.

Starkware CEO Eli Ben-Sasson joined Unchained to respond to the multiple critiques of the airdrop and discuss why he and the Starknet Foundation decided on the details that they did.

Show highlights:

What the airdrop criteria was and why they decided to make it that way
Why they allocated so much $STRK to Ethereum solo stakers
Eli’s response to the criticism about how little Starknet network participants got in the airdrop
Why the STRK Token Generation Event (TGE) was done in 2022, only to be airdropped two years later
Why Eli believes that even if the unlock of tokens is in two months, it does not indicate misalignment of incentives
Whether Eli will sell his tokens when they become unvested

Thank you to our sponsors!

Guest

Eli Ben-Sasson, CEO of Starkware

Links

Recent coverage of Unchained on airdrops: Jupiter Founder Meow to Critics of JUP Airdrop: ‘Give Me a Break’
Unchained:
Starknet’s Airdrop Plan Sparks Some Praise but Also Outrage
Starknet’s First Token Distribution Will Be Available to Nearly 1.3 Million Addresses
The Defiant: Starknet Faces Backlash Over Airdrop and Team Unlocks
Loomdart’s tweet on the TGE

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The Chopping Block: Navigating the New Era of Crypto Social Media with Farcaster's Insights! - Ep. 608 Feb 15, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and special guest Dan Romero, co-founder of Farcaster, engage in a riveting discussion on decentralized social media and the burgeoning meme coin trend within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This episode offers an in-depth analysis of Farcaster's innovative mechanisms for user engagement and its significant role in shaping the future of social interactions in the crypto domain. We delve into the mechanics behind meme coins, examining their influence on community dynamics, market behavior, and the broader implications for digital asset valuation. Our conversation navigates through the intricacies of decentralized platforms like Farcaster, probing into their potential to disrupt conventional social media models and foster a new era of user-centric, blockchain-enabled online communities. Join us for a comprehensive exploration of these pivotal developments, enriched with Dan Romero's firsthand insights, as we dissect the evolving landscape of social media in the crypto age and the captivating allure of meme coins, all aimed at providing a deeper understanding of their impact on the global cryptocurrency market.

Show Highlights

🔹 Decentralized Social Media Evolution: Exploring the growth and challenges of platforms like Farcaster in the decentralized web landscape.

🔹 User Empowerment in Crypto: Analyzing how crypto-native features on platforms empower users through economic incentives and community building.

🔹 The Rise of Social Tokens: Delving into the emergence of social tokens and their role in fostering online communities and creator economies.

🔹 Interactive Crypto Features: Investigating innovative features like Farcaster's frames and their impact on user engagement and content sharing.

🔹 Sustainable Tokenomics: Discussing the sustainability of token models in social platforms and the potential for long-term value creation.

🔹 Behavioral Economics in Crypto: Understanding the psychological factors driving the speculative nature of meme coins and their market dynamics.

🔹 Decentralization vs. Centralization: Debating the balance between decentralized ethos and the need for centralized governance in crypto platforms.

🔹 The Future of Online Identity: Discussing the evolution of online identities in the context of decentralized platforms and blockchain technology.

🔹 Celebrity and Crypto Synergies: Speculating on the future of celebrity involvement in crypto through personalized tokens and endorsements.

🔹 Cross-Platform Crypto Integration: Exploring the possibilities and challenges of integrating crypto-native features across various social and digital platforms.

🔹 Ethical Considerations in Crypto: Delving into the ethical implications of rapid token creation, distribution strategies, and their impact on unsuspecting users.

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

Guest

⭐️ Dan Romero, Farcaster Co-Founder

Disclosures

Links

Eugene Wei’s “Status as a Service (StaaS)”: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service
Vitalik Buterin’s forum post on DAICOs: https://ethresear.ch/t/explanation-of-daicos/465/1

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How Decentralized Social Network Farcaster Hopes to Eventually Get to One Billion Users - Ep. 607 Feb 13, 2024

Show notes

In the two weeks since Farcaster introduced its Frames feature that allows developers to easily add mini apps to users’ posts, the decentralized social network has become the talk of Twitter, now X, and increased its user base by ten times, according to co-founder Dan Romero.

Romero joins Unchained to discuss why Frames has become so popular, the philosophy behind Farcaster and its client Warpcast, why the crypto component behind Farcaster is being kept to a minimum, how Apple’s new Vision Pro could lead to the creation of a 3D social network on Farcaster, how he and his fellow co-founder’s background at Coinbase helped shape their decisions about building Farcaster, and his vision for eventually getting Farcaster to a billion-plus users.

Show highlights:

What Farcaster is and what problems it’s trying to solve
How and why Farcaster uses blockchain technology in the background
How you can use ENS (Ethereum Name Services) for your handles on Farcaster
How the recovery of accounts works on Farcaster and what the security implications are
What Frames is and why it’s significant for developers and creators
What’s controlled by the protocol vs. the client
What Dan imagines could be built with the new Apple Vision Pro
Whether there’s potential for better economics and ways to monetize content in Farcaster
Why Farcaster is on Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2, and whether it could be moved to another network
How they are working to build a more decentralized network
What the future of Farcaster and Frames could look like
How Dan’s background at Coinbase shaped the way in which he decided to build Farcaster
What the strategy is for scaling the platform to the numbers more associated with Web2 social media

Thank you to our sponsors!

Guest:

Dan Romero, Co-founder of Farcaster
Coinbase’s Pragmatic Crypto Culture by Dan Romero

Links

Farcaster architecture

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How Crypto’s Version of 'Survivor' Ended Up With the Most Heartwarming Ending Feb 10, 2024

Show notes

Crypto: The Game captivated a large swath of the crypto community this past week. The game, modeled after “Survivor,” was the brainchild of Dylan Abruscato, Tyler Cagle and Bryan Lee. The intention of the game, which was played virtually but also unfolded in real life, was to ruthlessly vote people off to determine a single winner. Throughout, multiple psy-ops operations created chaos. Despite all that, the competition ended up fostering numerous friendships (including for Unchained reporter Sage Young, whose coverage is below) and resulted in a shocking, but heartwarming ending.

On Friday afternoon, after the winner was announced, we hosted a Spaces with Dylan, the winner, and some of the more notable players, which we’re releasing here. In the discussion, we cover the inspiration for the game, some of the behind-the-scenes surprises, who was causing chaos for various teams and how, and why the winner may be one of the winning-est contestants ever.

Guest:

Dylan Abruscato, founder of Crypto: The Game

Links

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Why One Solana Builder Is Still Optimistic About the Network - Ep. 606 Feb 09, 2024

Show notes

On Tuesday, Solana suffered a network outage, just shy of a year since its last shutdown. The blockchain had to quickly get a new version out and notify its validators to upgrade to it and restart their systems before blocks could be produced again, resulting in downtime of roughly five hours. This was previously something that had happened regularly to the blockchain, but seemed to have been largely addressed over the past year.

Lucas, the CEO of Jito Labs, which builds infrastructure for Solana and staged a highly successful airdrop last year that helped rejuvenate the blockchain, joined Unchained to discuss what caused the outage, whether it’s something that builders on Solana should be concerned about for the future, recent improvements Solana has made to its technology, whether the implementation of Firedancer would have prevented this incident, and the promise of the Solana phone.

Show highlights:

What caused the Solana blockchain’s outage this week
Whether Solana needs to have better quality control
Whether the halt of the network affects the builders in the space
What recent developments in the infrastructure surrounding Solana give Lucas confidence in the network
Whether the Firedancer client that’s now in development would have prevented this week’s outage
The promise of the Solana phone
Whether the network going down presents a setback for the Solana community in terms of recognition and momentum
Whether financial companies will consider using Solana if these issues keep occurring

Thank you to our sponsors!

Guest

Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito Labs

Links

Recent coverage of Unchained on Solana:
Jupiter Founder Meow to Critics of JUP Airdrop: ‘Give Me a Break’
Three Crypto Pioneers on Crypto’s Monolithic vs. Modular Debate
Anatoly Yakovenko on Solana’s Astounding Recovery and Its Future Plans

Outage

Unchained: Solana Back Online Again After Suffering 5-Hour Outage
Matthew Sigel’s explanation for why the outage happened
Mert’s tweet on how Solana prioritizes security over liveness
CoinDesk: Can We All Stop Pretending That Solana Is in Beta?

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The Chopping Block: Is Farcaster the Web3 Social Layer? - Ep. 605 Feb 08, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news and with special guest, and Farcaster aficionado Ted! This episode zooms in on Farcaster Frames: How are they revolutionizing the platform? We examine Farcaster's transformation and its impact on the future of social media: Can Farcaster redefine decentralized communication? Delving into its user base, we ask: What makes Farcaster's community unique? How do airdrop strategies and global hub distribution shape its ecosystem? And what's next for decentralized social networks like Farcaster? Join us for an insightful discussion on these pivotal questions impacting the crypto sphere.

Show Highlights

🔹 Farcaster frames launch: Revolutionizing user engagement in crypto communities.

🔹 Social Media Evolution: Farcaster's Rise from Niche Network to Powerhouse.

🔹 Global dynamics: Farcaster's u.s. focus vs. Lens' worldwide appeal.

🔹 Decentralized platforms: the unique soul of Farcaster and Lens communities.

🔹 Airdrop strategies: boosting Farcaster's growth and user engagement.

🔹 From social networks to media: Farcaster's balancing act.

🔹 Overcoming adoption barriers: user reluctance vs. Farcaster's innovations.

🔹 A shift in content, authenticity and interaction on Farcaster.

🔹 Expanding Farcaster's ecosystem globally.

🔹 Farcaster's vision: the future of decentralized social networks.

🔹 Discovering Farcaster: overcoming hesitation, embracing curiosity.

Hosts

➡️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

➡️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

➡️Robert Leshner, Founder of Compound

Guest

⭐️ Ted, the Farcaster Fangirl #1

Disclosures

Links

Why Farcaster Frames are important: How a failed Facebook bet is coming to fruition in Web 3 By Antonio García Martínez

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2 Lawyers on How the U.S. Can Finally Regulate DeFi - Ep. 604 Feb 06, 2024

Show notes

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Trying to regulate DeFi is a huge challenge because in a truly decentralized system, there should be no centralized actors to make and enforce rules for. This could make combating illicit finance challenging since traditionally, regulation has been targeted at centralized intermediaries. Yet Rebecca Rettig, Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Polygon Labs; Michael Mosier, the co-founder of boutique law firm Arktouros; and Katja Gilman, senior lead for public policy at Polygon Labs, published a paper last week that proposes to do just that.

Rebecca and Michael join Unchained to discuss what prompted them to write the paper, what the difference is between "onchain CeFi" and "genuine DeFi," how targeting high-risk wallets can be one part of the solution, how critical communications transmitters (CCTs) are another piece of the puzzle,and what next steps they are pursuing.

Show highlights:

The motivations behind their paper and Michael and Rebecca’s legal backgrounds
Why Michael views the Bank Secrecy Act as outdated in the context of DeFi
How critical KYC and AML compliance is for the integrity of DeFi
What Rebecca identifies as the principal risks in the DeFi sector
Why their proposal targets the protocol layer for effective DeFi regulation
How "onchain CeFi" differs fundamentally from "genuine DeFi"
Whether a decentralized protocol can be effectively regulated when controlled by a DAO
How if DeFi were to be classified as critical infrastructure by the Cyber and Information Security Agency (CISA), it would impact the sector
Whether the critical components of blockchain networks, such as RPCs, can be regulated effectively
How categorizing wallets based on risk can be one part of the solution to fighting illicit finance
Why Rebecca considers Tornado Cash a prime example of “genuine DeFi”
What steps Rebecca and Michael plan to take next following the publication of their paper

Thank you to our sponsors!

Guest:

Rebecca Rettig, Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Polygon Labs
Previous appearances on Unchained:
Just a Coincidence? Coinbase and Polygon Lawyers See Bad Omens in SEC Crackdown
Kik’s Surprising Move in Its Lawsuit With the SEC
Michael Mosier, cofounder of Arktouros PLLC

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