Unchained

Latest Episodes:

The Chopping Block: Wind Downs, YC's Nemil Dalal, & Will Every Failed Crypto Idea Eventually Work? Jul 29, 2026

Show notes

YC's Nemil Dalal joins to explain why he's never been more bullish as BitMEX winds down after 11 years, whether every failed crypto idea (TCRs, DAOs, creator coins) eventually works, why crypto is really about money, Base's consumer mea culpa, on-chain reputation and credit, and who pays in the x402 AI-agent era.

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 they're joined by Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and ex-Coinbase, where he led USDC and the Coinbase Developer Platform. He's here to explain why, with exchanges winding down left and right, he's somehow never been more bullish.

The crew digs into the great contrast of the moment: BitMEX shutting down after 11 years (plus BitMart, Movement Labs, Balancer Labs) while the plumbing quietly prints, and whether Imran's viral 'everything that failed will eventually work' thesis is genius or toxic positivity. From there it's the question of whether crypto is really only about money (Jesse's Base mea culpa included), a war-memories tour through TCRs, on-chain reputation and why pure on-chain credit keeps faceplanting, and finally who actually pays in the x402 AI-agent era, and whether decentralization even survives contact with Google-shaped gravity.

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

Show highlights

🔹 BitMEX, the exchange that invented the perp swap, winds down September 23rd after 11 years, alongside BitMart, Movement Labs, and Balancer Labs.

🔹 Nemil Dalal explains why he's never been more bullish: rivals adopted BitMEX's innovations, regulatory clarity is arriving, and crypto is becoming invisible infrastructure.

🔹 Nemil rented the Chase Center for a 7,000-builder YC event with Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and Patrick Collison, yet almost nobody's launching a token early.

🔹 Imran's viral thesis that every failed crypto idea eventually works sparks Haseeb's 'toxic positivity' pushback and a war-memories tour through TCRs and DAOs.

🔹 Instacart's Apoorva vs Webvan and Reddit vs Digg: why timing, path dependency, and the YC 'why now' question decide which failed ideas return.

🔹 Jesse's Base mea culpa: the consumer-social bet on Zora and Farcaster was wrong for now, so he handed the Base app to Kobe.

🔹 Haseeb says crypto has always been about money; Nemil counters 'money is everything,' calling the blockchain the greatest capital innovation machine in the world.

🔹 Why pure on-chain credit keeps faceplanting: address repudiation, no recourse, no wage garnishment, and old memories of Debt DAO's revenue ratchet.

🔹 The x402 AI-agent era: Cloudflare pay-per-call gating, Kimi's inference license, and whether decentralization survives Google-shaped gravity as agents become the new wallet.

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

Guest

⭐️Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator

Disclosures

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Kristin Smith on Why the Clarity Act Comes Down to a Memecoin Jul 28, 2026

Show notes

Kristin Smith walks through the vote math, the ethics fight, and what happens to crypto capital if the Clarity Act stalls before the midterms.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass crypto's market structure bill, the Clarity Act, before an August recess deadline just weeks away. Majority Leader John Thune says the votes likely will not be there in time, and Polymarket puts the odds of passage this year at roughly 30 percent.

Kristin Smith, President of the Solana Policy Institute, joins Laura Shin to explain why a deal that seemed close has snagged on ethics language Trump agreed to but Senate Democrats do not trust the Department of Justice to enforce.

Smith walks through the vote math behind 53 Senate Republicans and the Democrats who backed last year's Genius Act, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act's protections for developers, and the new commodities pathway for token launches. She also maps where the sidelined capital goes, from the Middle East to Japan, if Clarity misses its window before the midterms.

Host

Laura Shin - Founder, CEO and Host of Unchained

Guest

Kristin Smith - President of the Solana Policy Institute

Sponsor

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Timestamps:

🗳️ 00:51 Why Clarity's Senate timeline looks so tight before the August recess

📣 09:20 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

⚖️ 10:16 Why Trump's ethics language deal became Clarity's toughest sticking point

🏛️ 18:34 Kristin Smith on the Clarity Act provisions that most excite the industry

🌍 23:31 What happens to crypto capital and global leadership if Clarity fails

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Paid Partnership: How Can DeFi Fix Its Liquidity Problem? 1inch's Aqua Offers a Solution Jul 28, 2026

Show notes

SPONSORED CONTENT: This video is a paid partnership with 1inch. It was produced in collaboration with 1inch and is separate from Unchained's editorial coverage.

1inch cofounder Sergej Kunz says up to 85% of DeFi's liquidity sits idle. He walks through Aqua, the self-custodial product built to put that capital back to work.

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Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠1inch - Swap crypto at the best rates in DeFi with 1inch — and get an early look at Aqua, their new protocol that lets your liquidity do more than one job at a time https://1inch.io

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Discover Aqua, their new shared-liquidity protocol that lets your capital power multiple DeFi strategies at once — without leaving your wallet. Learn more at https://1inch.io

1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz says he built Aqua after getting sandwiched by MEV bots while providing his own liquidity, and after 1inch's research found up to 85% of concentrated liquidity across DeFi sits idle.

Kunz walks through why he thinks liquidity pools fragment capital by design, and how Aqua's intent-based, self-custody model tries to fix that without asking users to give up control of their assets.

He covers Aqua's sub-wallet structure, how professional market makers settle trades after passing 1inch's compliance and KYB checks, and the rollout across 13 networks including Base and Robinhood's chain. Kunz also details 1inch DAO's plan to distribute USDC to liquidity providers.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠André Beganski - Host

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sergej Kunz - Cofounder of 1inch

Timestamps

📣 00:19 Swap crypto at the best rates in DeFi with 1inch — and get an early look at Aqua, their new protocol that lets your liquidity do more than one job at a time https://1inch.io

💧 00:40 Sergej on getting sandwiched, and why 85% of DeFi liquidity sits idle

🔬 06:15 Why Sergej says every chain shares Aqua's idle-liquidity flaw

🧩 07:16 Sub wallets: how Aqua runs positions without creating debt

🛡️ 12:10 Why 1inch keeps Aqua self custody, and the risks Sergej flags

🏦 13:24 Who Aqua is built for, and how it isolates sanctioned funds

💰 17:03 Aqua's 13 networks and the $500K DAO incentive program

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Bits + Bips: Why Bitcoin Has the Least to Gain From the Clarity Act Jul 25, 2026

Show notes

Cole Kennelly, founder and CEO of Volmex Labs, traces why BVIV and BVIV-US diverge around IBIT's regulated options market, makes the case that Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid have more to gain from the Clarity Act than Bitcoin, and shares his outlook for an increasingly institutional crypto market by year-end.

Host:

Steven Ehrlich, Head of Research at Sharplink

Guest:

Cole Kennelly - Founder and CEO of Volmex Labs

This clip is from a longer conversation on the Clarity Act's uneven impact across crypto and Volmex's institutional outlook for the market. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/9SUeqeInZws?si=gF6-ZEEy-BED-yJa

We go live every Monday - subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsor

Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Chapters:

🎙️ 00:00 The BVIV vs. IBIT options divergence — and what it's telling traders

📊 00:31 Regulated vs. offshore: how IBIT and BVIV-US stack up

⚖️ 02:16 Why Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid have more riding on Clarity than Bitcoin

⏱️ 05:11 How far out Volmex's term structure actually reaches

🔮 05:23 Cole's read on where an increasingly institutional crypto market goes next

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How Jesse Pollak Is Mapping Out Base's Next Chapter After the App Pivot Jul 25, 2026

Show notes

Jesse Pollak owns the Base App's social miss, unpacks Robinhood Chain's rise, and explains Brian Armstrong's memecoin moment.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

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Jesse Pollak spent the week owning a very public miss. In a lengthy post, the Base creator admitted the Base App's social bet had not worked, leaving Base behind in perps, prediction markets and tokenization, and handed the app's reins to Jordan Fish, better known as Cobie.

Pollak joins Laura Shin to unpack why the pivot happened now, what he makes of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's memecoin controversy over a token called $BRIAN, and how Base plans to compete as Robinhood Chain outpaces it on daily active users, according to Artemis data.

They cover Base's move off Optimism's stack onto its own Azul, Beryl and Cobalt upgrades, a roadmap toward 20,000 transactions per second under the new B20 stablecoin standard, and the x402 agentic payments protocol already handling roughly 90% of Base's transaction volume.

Pollak argues less than 1% of the world uses crypto, and that Base's bet is on whoever builds the trusted rails first.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jesse Pollak - Creator of Base

Timestamps

🗞️ 01:48 Why Jesse Pollak feels 'fired up' despite Base App's social miss

🧭 03:58 Pollak on why the timing was wrong for Base App's social bet

💳 05:42 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

🖼️ 06:39 Pollak on Brian Armstrong's Coinbaseman meme coin controversy

🏎️ 10:43 How Pollak plans to compete as Robinhood Chain overtakes Base in DAUs

🤝 12:53 Why Coinbase's distribution edge matters for onboarding new users

🔀 15:37 Why Pollak handed the Base App to Cobie to focus on the chain

🌉 18:20 Why Base App is expanding beyond Base to Solana and Bitcoin

⚙️ 21:05 Base's Azul, Beryl and Cobalt upgrades and its new B20 standard

🔐 24:27 Base Ledgers, agentic payments and privacy in Pollak's roadmap

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Cobie Taking Over Base App? He's 'the Respectable Trencher': Uneasy Money Jul 24, 2026

Show notes

An OpenAI model hacked Hugging Face to cheat its own test. Kain and Taylor break it down — plus Base’s failed social bet and the North Korean IT workers still inside crypto.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsors!

⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at ⁠https://cape.co/unchained⁠ (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Coinbase just handed Jesse Pollak’s Base app to Cobie, days after Pollak posted a public mea culpa admitting that the onchain-social and creator-coin bet behind Base never worked.

Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan trace why Base swung so hard at social instead of perps and prediction markets, and argue Coinbase’s bottomless-money culture, the same one that let Google build Android on a whim, makes it nearly impossible for founders to know when a bet has genuinely failed.

They also unpack Brian Armstrong’s memecoin profile-picture flap, arguing the outrage is almost entirely manufactured by traders chasing volatility, the North Korean IT workers still quietly inside much of the crypto industry, and the strangest story of the week: an unreleased OpenAI model that chained two zero-day exploits to escape its test sandbox and hack Hugging Face’s benchmarking servers for the answers.

The episode closes on an uncomfortable question: if a model will cheat on a security test just to avoid not knowing its score, what else will it break to get there?

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix
⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert

Timestamps

📣 01:55 Base hands its consumer app to Cobie after Jesse Pollak's mea culpa

🏛️ 04:56 Why Kain compares Coinbase's culture to Google's money-fueled delusion

📣 26:50 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code UNCHAINED at https://cape.co/unchained

🪙 28:28 Brian Armstrong's memecoin PFP sparks a very online meltdown

📈 32:58 Why Taylor says the backlash to Brian's memecoin is manufactured

🕵️ 45:15 Why nearly every sizable crypto company has quietly had a DPRK IT worker

💻 47:37 The hidden risk: IT workers who get hacked themselves and expose you

🤖 53:39 An unreleased OpenAI model hacks Hugging Face to cheat on a benchmark

🔓 01:00:26 Why Kain says the model's logic for gaming the test almost makes sense

📄 01:04:10 Hugging Face discloses the hack before OpenAI even notices

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The Chopping Block: The CLARITY Act Endgame with Patrick Witt + Gauntlet's $125M SBI Raise + Balaji's Malaysia Exodus Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

Patrick Witt, the White House's executive director for digital assets policy, calls in mid-episode to give the Chopping Block crew a live read on the CLARITY market structure bill!

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 they're joined mid-episode by Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, who dialed in late because he was literally chasing down bill language.

First, Tarun explains how Gauntlet closed its biggest raise ever, $125M from SBI Holdings, the crypto OGs of Japan and early Ripple Labs backers, and what it cost him in suits and seven straight days of staying shaved (chairman Kitao-san reportedly listens). Then the crew dissects Balaji's Network School saga, from a Forest City ghost town in Malaysia to an immigration raid, a revoked license, and a sudden MOU-fueled pivot to Kazakhstan, with Tom's dreaded 'turkey chart' making an appearance. Finally, the main event: Patrick lays out the state of play on the CLARITY market structure bill, the August 7th recess deadline, the ~46% Polymarket coin flip, and the first-of-its-kind ethics provision, including the DOJ-versus-state-AG enforcement fight and whether crypto gets a second crack after midterms.

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

Show highlights

🔹 Patrick Witt dials in mid-episode after literally chasing bill language, laying out the CLARITY market structure bill and its August 7th recess deadline.

🔹 Polymarket puts CLARITY at roughly 46%, a coin flip, after passing the House 294-134 last July and stalling in the Senate.

🔹 The first-of-its-kind ethics provision bars officials and spouses from issuing digital assets, forcing existing holdings into blind trusts or divestment.

🔹 The live fight: White House wants DOJ enforcement, Democrats want 50 state attorneys general, which Patrick warns invites politically motivated lawsuits.

🔹 Tarun breaks down Gauntlet's $125M raise from SBI Holdings, his biggest ever, closed after seven straight days of suits and staying shaved in Japan.

🔹 SBI, the crypto OGs of Japan and early Ripple Labs backers, bets on capital shifting from syndicated VC toward TradFi giants funding DeFi liquidity.

🔹 Balaji's Network School goes from a Forest City ghost town in Malaysia to an immigration raid, a revoked license, and an MOU-fueled pivot to Kazakhstan.

🔹 Robert says Balaji 'picked the wrong dance partner' building a network state on foreign soil; Tom warns of the dreaded 'turkey chart.'

Hosts

⭐️ Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️ Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️ Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️ Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate

Guest

⭐️ Patrick Witt, Executive Director, President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets

Disclosures

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

00:59 Tarun's $125M Gauntlet Raise from SBI Holdings

06:32 Balaji's Network School: Malaysia Raid to Kazakhstan Exit

13:57 Patrick Witt Joins: CLARITY Bill State of Play

16:14 The First-of-Its-Kind Presidential Ethics Provision

19:53 DOJ vs State Attorneys General Enforcement Fight

23:36 The Big Three: Ethics, Law Enforcement, and the Ag Title

30:54 Patrick's National Guard Deferral and Short-Handed Crypto Bench

33:11 Polymarket's Coin Flip and Post-Midterm Odds

39:04 After CLARITY: SBR Bill, Tax Provisions, and What's Next

42:44 Wrap: Hosts React to Robert's Hopium

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DEX in the City: How Kalshi’s Rough Week Became a Federal Fight for Prediction Markets Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

The CFTC pulled a power last used in the Carter era to rescue Kalshi. Katherine, Jessi, and Vy Le on what it means — plus Japan’s crypto tax cut and DTCC’s tokenization leap.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Kalshi had a rough week. Sued by Michigan, hit with a restraining order, then rescued by a CFTC emergency power invoked only four times in the agency’s history, most recently during Jimmy Carter’s Cold War grain embargo.

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le untangle how a fight over sports event contracts became a battle over federal preemption, why Kalshi also pulled its flight cancellation contracts under public pressure, and the insider-trading allegation swirling around a Trump teleprompter operator.

They also cover Japan’s new financial instruments law, which cuts crypto’s tax rate from as high as 55% to a flat 20% and is already pulling Amazon Japan’s delivery drivers onto yen stablecoins. Then there’s DTCC’s live settlement of tokenized securities with JPMorgan, Goldman, and BlackRock, which Vy Le argues could end the era of synthetic wrapper tokens. And the Clarity Act, still stuck on ethics and yield disputes as the midterms eat into Congress’s calendar.

The episode closes on a rare bright note: pseudonymous investigator ZachXBT turning impersonation memecoins into charity donations for Venezuela’s earthquake victims.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges.
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda

Timestamps

📱 00:40 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

🎙️ 01:04 Kalshi's rough week begins: how a Michigan lawsuit over sports contracts became a federalism fight

🗂️ 06:34 Why the CFTC's break glass emergency power has only been invoked four times ever

⚖️ 14:40 Why Kalshi pulled its flight cancellation contracts under public backlash

🕵️ 18:40 The insider trading allegation involving Trump's longtime teleprompter

🇯🇵 21:39 Japan's new law cuts crypto taxes to a flat 20 percent

🏦 35:12 DTCC's live settlement of tokenized securities with JPMorgan, Goldman, and BlackRock

🏛️ 43:44 Why Clarity's odds are shrinking as the midterms eat into Congress's calendar

🤝 46:11 ZachXBT turns impersonation meme coins into charity for Venezuela's earthquake victims

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Bits + Bips: Why You Can't Opt Out of the AI Guardrails Race Jul 22, 2026

Show notes

📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips/

Austin Campbell's claim that Claude Fable 5 cracked the decades-old Jacobian conjecture opens onto a bigger question: why AI's real-world impact on health care is still lagging.

The conversation turns to battlefield drones in Ukraine, the national security stakes of AI guardrails, and why Chris Perkins thinks finance-style regulation could make AI more trustworthy, not less useful.

Hosts

Austin Campbell - Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern
Ram Ahluwalia - Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida
Chris Perkins - Co-host of Bits + Bips and Head of Franklin Crypto

Chapters:

🧠 00:36 Austin on what actually forces AI adoption in health care beyond the hype

🔢 02:02 Austin's claim that Claude Fable 5 solved the Jacobian conjecture, a 90-year-old math problem

🩺 03:21 Ram: doctors are already using AI for diagnostics, but the promise is still ahead of reality

💰 05:41 Why Ram says AI adoption is self financing, citing Eli Lilly

🛩️ 06:15 AI on the battlefield: Ukraine's drone-based warfare shift

🛡️ 07:23 Austin's national security question: is opting out of the AI race even possible

🏛️ 09:39 Chris makes the case for finance style, principles-based AI regulation

⚔️ 10:24 Austin: there is no way to opt out of the AI guardrails race

This clip is from a longer conversation on AI adoption, national security, and financial regulation. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/YN0Pje70YtE?si=HVVnRCmYt3Q-G_qc

We go live every Monday at 4:30 pm ET - subscribe to catch it live.

Sponsor:

Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Lyn Alden Will Take on Bitcoin DATs and Private Equity With Orange Juice Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

Lyn Alden raised $40M to launch Orange Juice, a holding company that buys cash-flowing businesses and layers Bitcoin on top, not another pure-play treasury bet.

========================================================

Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cape⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

========================================================

Lyn Alden just raised $40 million to launch a Bitcoin-backed holding company that skips the trade most of crypto is chasing. Rather than build another pure-play Bitcoin treasury stock, Orange Juice buys cash-flowing, unglamorous businesses and layers a Bitcoin treasury on top at the parent-company level.

Lyn Alden, cofounder of Orange Juice and a partner at Ego Death Capital, frames it as a countercyclical alternative to procyclical treasury companies, and she does not spare Strategy from criticism.

She compares Orange Juice's structure to Berkshire Hathaway and argues Strategy let its dollar reserve fall too far, weighing in as Laura invokes Michael Saylor's 'sell a kidney' line and STRC's slide to near $85 against its $100 target. She also addresses BIP-110's inscription debate and Bitcoin's quantum computing threat, questioning whether the community’s resistance to change is a strength or a liability.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lyn Alden - Cofounder of Orange Juice and Partner at Ego Death Capital

Timestamps

🍊 00:56 Lyn Alden lays out the $40M raise behind Orange Juice's core thesis

💵 08:06 Why Lyn Alden targets cash-flowing firms over VC backed startups

📱 11:17 Cape: get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

🏦 12:16 How keeping the Bitcoin treasury at the parent level avoids procyclical risk

🪖 25:37 How Orange Juice handles a bleeding company and Ruben Zweiban's Navy SEAL background

📈 32:15 Why Lyn says going public aids liquidity, retail access, and tax deferral

⚠️ 39:15 Why Lyn is critical of Strategy's capital structure and Saylor's kidney line

🗑️ 47:40 Why Lyn views Bitcoin inscriptions as spam despite BIP 110's technical limits

⚛️ 50:47 How Lyn assesses the quantum computing threat to Bitcoin's security

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