Unchained

Latest Episodes:

The Chopping Block: Why DeFi May Be Over-Complying With Tornado Cash Sanctions - Ep. 392 Sep 03, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi and Tom Schmidt chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Jill Gunter, the empress of Espresso, also joined the conversation.

Show topics:

Whether product management is the new consulting
What is going to happen with macroeconomics and whether monetary policy is data-driven
Why Jill’s faith is getting renewed, especially after listening to Fed authorities
The TL;DR on the Ava Labs conspiracy story
Why the industry needs a decentralized RPC
The role of Flashbots and Ethermine in censoring transactions
Potential over-compliance from the biggest crypto projects on how to deal with sanctioned addresses
Whether social slashing allows Ethereum to stay uncensored
The importance of educating regulators on crypto
What Haseeb thinks lawyers would recommend to Coinbase about validating transactions from sanctioned addresses
The significance of both transactional and application-layer privacy
How stablecoin providers need to implement some basic levels of privacy
Why corporations do not run Ethereum and whether users are pro-OFAC restrictions

Hosts

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital
https://twitter.com/hosseeb
Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital
https://twitter.com/tomhschmidt

Guest

Jill Gunter

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jillrgunter

Episode Links

Tornado Cash

Treasury Press release
Tornado Cash developer arrested
Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets
Crypto exchange dYdX blocked accounts that received funds from Tornado Cash
What the sanctions mean for privacy coins
Celebrities get dusted
Previous coverage of the Tornado Cash Sanctions on Unchained:
Is TRM Labs Blocking Addresses From DeFi Protocols? Ari Redbord Says No
Tornado Cash Sanctioned. Did the Government Overstep Its Bounds?
The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash?

Ava Labs Accusations:

Social Slashing and Censorship on ETH

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How a16z’s New NFT Licenses Hope to Solve Rights Problems for Creators and Buyers - Ep. 391 Sep 02, 2022

Show notes

Miles Jennings, general counsel at a16z crypto, talks about its new “can’t be evil” NFT licenses and how they help to solve many problems within the NFT industry. Show highlights:

what “can’t be evil” NFT licenses are and what problems they solve
what can these licenses achieve for content creators
which are the five rights that the licenses address
whether the NFT licenses help resolve hate speech issues for creators
why a16z described its licenses as “can’t be evil”
how these licenses will be enforced
how anyone buying NFTs should now be able to understand what they are buying
why previous attempts to create standardized NFT license didn’t succeed
why Miles thinks these new NFT licenses are going to succeed

Thank you to our sponsors!

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Messari: https://mainnet.events/

Guest Miles

Twitter: https://twitter.com/milesjennings

“Can’t be evil” NFT licenses:

a16z article: https://a16zcrypto.com/introducing-nft-licenses/
Miles’ thread: https://twitter.com/milesjennings/status/1564991860824674305?s=20&t=pJEE9HfA9DnC_9PlsGelEw
Wiki article: https://www.nftstandards.wtf/NFT/NFT+License

Previous coverage on Unchained:

What legal rights NFTs come with: https://unchainedpodcast.com/what-exactly-do-you-get-when-you-buy-an-nft-three-lawyers-discuss/
Understanding intellectual property rights with NFTs: https://unchainedpodcast.com/excited-about-your-bored-ape-or-crypto-punk-make-sure-you-understand-your-ip-rights/
Punk 6529 on how rights helped Bored Apes succeed: https://unchainedpodcast.com/punk6529-on-the-significance-of-bored-ape-yacht-club-and-cryptopunks/

IP issues around prominent NFT collections:

Galaxy Digital report on NFT owners being misled about rights: https://decrypt.co/107827/bored-apes-moonbirds-misled-buyers-nft-ip-rights-galaxy-digita
CryptoPunks gets IP rights: https://decrypt.co/107184/as-cryptopunks-nft-owners-get-commercial-rights-yuga-hopes-to-secure-their-legacy-as-artwork
Bored Apes’ more permissive license helps it become more valuable than Crypto Punks: https://www.thedefiant.io/bored-apes-yacht-club-cryptopunks-copyright-fight
Moonbirds controversy ignites after move to CC0 license: https://www.thedefiant.io/moonbirds-cc0-license-nfts

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Given the Sanctions on Tornado Cash, Is Ethereum Censorship Resistant? - Ep. 390 Aug 30, 2022

Show notes

Show highlights:

the legal meaning of the OFAC sanctions on Tornado Cash and why it is causing complications
how legislation is built for the fiat world, and how in DeFi and crypto there’s no clarity
how miners have changed their behavior prior to the Merge
whether a proof of work chain or a proof of stake chain would be more censorship resistant
whether laws apply to validators in a PoS chain
the ways in which the government could provide more clarification
the different entities involved in Proof of Stake
the liabilities for each entity in PoS and what secondary liability is
how the task of the bidder can be described as a mathematical optimization problem
whether Lido is exposed to US regulations
how long would it take for a large staker like Coinbase to stop being a validator
how a user-activated soft fork works and the conditions in which a fork could happen
whether social slashing is enforceable considering it is not in the protocol
the likelihood of Ethereum becoming a permissioned system
the role of Flashbots’ relay code and what it means for Ethereum’s censorship resistance
how DeFi’s exposure to US-based institutions can affect the likelihood of the chain complying with sanctions
whether DAI is just wrapped USDC
how MakerDAO is trying to be more independent of USDC
why US-based companies will choose a conservative path, considering the lack of guidance
the importance of educating the regulators
how cash and crypto are the only remaining private payment methods

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://avax.network

a16z: https://link.chtbl.com/HObAJQDL?sid=unchained

Andrew

Twitter: https://twitter.com/propelforward

Martin

Twitter: https://twitter.com/koeppelmann

Previous Coverage of the Tornado Cash Sanctions on Unchained:

Is TRM Labs Blocking Addresses From DeFi Protocols? Ari Redbord Says No: https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-trm-labs-blocking-addresses-from-defi-protocols-ari-redbord-says-no-ep-387/
Tornado Cash Sanctioned. Did the Government Overstep Its Bounds?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tornado-cash-sanctioned-did-the-government-overstep-its-bounds-ep-384/
The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-did-ofac-overstep-by-sanctioning-tornado-cash-ep-386/

Social Slashing and Censorship on ETH

Axios summary of the situation: https://www.axios.com/2022/08/23/how-transactions-might-be-censored-after-ethereum-changes-next-month

BitMex research on how the sanctions affect Ethereum: https://blog.bitmex.com/ofac-sanctions-ethereum-pos-some-technical-nuances/

Ethermine banning transactions: https://twitter.com/takenstheorem/status/1560690035955011585?s=20&t=59hWdhr8_O-hYA8uYnZJ8w

Nic Carter’s article: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/25/if-ethereum-starts-slashing-it-burns/

Eric Wall’s article on social slashing: https://ercwl.medium.com/the-case-for-social-slashing-59277ff4d9c7

CoinDesk article: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/23/as-censorship-on-ethereum-begins-could-this-open-sourced-code-help-counter-it/?outputType=amp

Hetzner banning Ethereum users: https://twitter.com/koeppelmann/status/1563146729314467840?s=20&t=ubFhCQqrQyHKfflgMHEmJw

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With the Merge, Will Ethereum Take Over Bitcoin’s Title as Digital Gold? - Ep. 389 Aug 26, 2022

Show notes

Travis Kling, Chief Investment Officer at Ikigai Asset Management, talks about how ETH changes after the Merge, what factors are going to affect its price action, and whether it can decouple from traditional assets.

Show highlights:

how the supply and demand dynamics of ETH will change after the Merge
why he believes the Merge is the most significant catalyst in crypto history
what the risks are in terms of price action
whether there is an estimate of how much ETH will be locked up and how this lockup resembles Mt. Gox’s BTC
the impact that being a deflationary asset will have on the price of ETH and whether it will actually become deflationary after the Merge
how activity levels have been decreasing in the Ethereum network
whether ether is underpriced or overpriced, and how to evaluate it
how institutional money is sitting on the sidelines at the moment after all the de-leveraging events that happened this year
how the Merge affects BTC’s narrative and value-proposition
how institutions have never been more interested in ether
what the futures market is saying about the price action of ether
whether ETHPoW has any value and how to trade it
how macroeconomics has been impacting the crypto markets and whether ETH can decouple from the macro setups

Thank you to our sponsors!

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Messari: https://mainnet.events/

Travis

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Travis_Kling

ETH Post-Merge ETH Dynamics:

Ultra sound money dashboards: https://ultrasound.money/
Dune dashboards on the Merge: https://twitter.com/DuneAnalytics/status/1562021273575751680?s=20&t=HELDvcJ6gI3Z5RmVsGHdiA
Cumberland on the Ethereum dynamics after the Merge: https://res.cloudinary.com/drw/image/upload/v1661351279/comm-cumberland/uploads/The_Ethereum_Merge_-_Derivative_Market_Opportunities_Changes_to_SupplyDemand_Dynamics_1_zwearq.pdf
Miles Suter on the implications of the Merge: https://twitter.com/milessuter/status/1560070819518234624?s=20&t=qjolzcydMY_nTU__vZNciQ
Robert Leshner on the Ethereum Merge: https://twitter.com/rleshner/status/1559727104903757826?s=20&t=cKkI7b_Hj7dDe0DKmgP13g
The triple point asset: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/ether-a-new-model-for-money
Previous coverage of Unchained:
- Is ETH on Its Way to Becoming Ultra-Sound Money? Yes, Says Justin Drake: https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-eth-on-its-way-to-becoming-ultra-sound-money-yes-says-justin-drake/
- Why Kevin Zhou Believes Ethereum Will Have 3 Forks After the Merge: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-kevin-zhou-believes-ethereum-will-have-3-forks-after-the-merge-ep-381/
- Why Ethereum’s Merge Was Delayed and Why It Won’t Reduce Gas Fees Much: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-ethereums-merge-was-delayed-and-why-it-wont-reduce-gas-fees-much/

ETH Trade

Whether Ethereum’s Merge is priced in: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/22/is-ethereums-merge-priced-in/
Arthur Hayes on the ETH trade: https://blog.bitmex.com/eth-flexive/
ETH flips Bitcoin open interest: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/08/01/ether-flips-bitcoin-in-options-market-for-the-first-time/
“Max bidding” by Arthur Hayes: https://cryptohayes.medium.com/max-bidding-7a1c56c1cd07
Gauntlet’s view on the Merge: https://medium.com/gauntlet-networks/gauntlets-view-on-the-merge-7c79e39e4b59

Macroeconomics

Arthur Hayes on USD liquidity conditions and how it affects assets:https://cryptohayes.medium.com/teach-me-daddy-33e7a66dfe76
Adam Cochran on the Fed’s QT: https://twitter.com/adamscochran/status/1562077260819173378?s=20&t=Jh2DRYu-nr2mRg_4kJEFqA
Pantera Capital’s newsletter: https://panteracapital.com/blockchain-letter/ethereum-tightening-more-than-fed/

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Why Is Ethereum Trying to Maximize Value From Users? Two Sides Debate - Ep. 388 Aug 23, 2022

Show notes

Stephane Gosselin, cofounder and chief architect of Flashbots, and Uri Klarman, CEO of bloXrouteLabs, joined Unchained to discuss everything about MEV, an especially important topic now with the Merge coming.

Show highlights:

what MEV is, how it works under Proof of Work
some examples of MEV, like frontrunning and arbitrage
how MEV is a rabbit hole full of monsters
the role of Flashbots in the MEV industry and how Flashbots enabled a reduction of gas fees for users
how MEV-geth functions and how it relates to auctions systems
how bloXroute, Uri’s company, is working with MEV
where Stephane and Uri disagree on MEV, despite agreeing on many fundamental things
how MEV changes with the implementation of Proof of Stake
what MEV-Boost is and the problems it solves
what proposer-builder separation is and the motivation behind this idea
whether DeFi would flourish more if there wasn’t frontrunning and why MEV-Boost doesn’t prevent it
what externalities MEV-Boost or proposer-builder separation (PBS) would solve for users
how MEV exists in other industries and in traditional finance
why Flashbots’ own investors would rather trade on a fair-sequenced rollup than on Flashbots
how the number of MEV extractors has been decreasing and whether this would end up centralizing MEV
whether exploiting certain types of MEV is illegal
how other chains are trying to solve frontrunning, like Osmosis with threshold encryption
what are the levers that can be pulled to solve MEV, according to Uri
how eradicating MEV can positively affect the price of ETH, and by how much
whether validators can potentially share MEV profits with users
how to determine if a network has a good MEV supply chain

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://www.avax.network/

a16z: https://link.chtbl.com/HObAJQDL?sid=unchained

Show Links Uri:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uriklarman

Stephane:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegostep

Previous coverage of MEV on Unchained:

The Debate Over Ethereum MEV: Should It Be Minimized or Boosted?: https://laurashin.bulletin.com/the-debate-over-ethereum-mev-should-it-be-minimized-or-boosted
The Other Side(s) of Ethereum's MEV Argument: https://laurashin.bulletin.com/the-other-side-s-of-ethereum-s-mev-argument

MEV

What is MEV: https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/mev/#:~:text=Maximal%20extractable%20value%20(MEV)%20refers,of%20transactions%20in%20a%20block
Proposer-Builder separation: https://www.alchemy.com/overviews/proposer-builder-separation
Uri’s blog post: https://medium.com/@uri_61495/flipping-the-table-on-the-mev-game-dc31df8baaf7
MEV Profit sharing validators: https://www.recvc.com/mev-2-0-the-rise-of-mpsvs/
Panel conversation mentioned in the episode (39:53): https://youtu.be/UKfBFV1TuEM?t=2393
Sealed auction design: https://ethresear.ch/t/mev-sgx-a-sealed-bid-mev-auction-design/9677
Priority Gas Auction (PGA): https://www.mev.wiki/terms-and-concepts/priority-gas-auctions#:~:text=What%20is%20a%20priority%20gas,up%20fees%20for%20other%20users.
Dune’s dashboard - amount of MEV extractors: https://dune.com/queries/1171509
The MEV Game of the Crypto Economy: Osmosis' Threshold Encryption vs. SGX of Flashbot?: https://mirror.xyz/infinet.eth/SFjR1H1-RMnKoIoPjqkxpauVPrLYGqLHQP1dY9FHvx4
Bank of International Settlements report on MEV: https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull58.pdf

Flashbots

Flash Boys 2.0 paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1904.05234.pdf
Flashbots Dashboard: https://dashboard.flashbots.net/
Flashbots auctions: https://docs.flashbots.net/flashbots-auction/overview
Flashbots relay open source: https://twitter.com/hasufl/status/1559908331145265156?s=20&t=gtHe5sVetxQXVKfZL2VMYg
MEV Boost: https://www.alchemy.com/overviews/mev-boost
MEV in ETH PoS: https://writings.flashbots.net/writings/mev-boost-call-for-testing

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Is TRM Labs Blocking Addresses From DeFi Protocols? Ari Redbord Says No - Ep.387 Aug 19, 2022

Show notes

Ari Redbord, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, talks about the sanctions on Tornado Cash, and the role of blockchain analytics tools in crypto.

Show highlights:

Ari’s background as a federal prosecutor and his work for the US Treasury
why regulators sanctioned Tornado Cash, according to Ari
why the Ronin hack was important for regulators to start taking DeFi hacks more seriously
the fact that for the first time the Treasury Department sanctioned software
whether the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) messed up
whether regulators understood the impact on regular users
the role of TRM and blockchain analytics tools in mitigating risk
how decentralized applications use tools like the ones provided by TRM to comply with regulations and to block addresses
why, if Ari were a regulator, he would focus on regulation guidance
whether the sanctions on Tornado Cash are unconstitutional
what the future of privacy in crypto looks like and whether the government is going after privacy technologies

Thank you to our sponsors!

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ari

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARedbord

Tornado Cash

Treasury Press release:
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20%E2%80%93%20Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department,since%20its%20creation%20in%202019
Tornado Cash Sanctioned: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/08/crypto-mixing-service-tornado-cash-blacklisted-by-us-treasury/
Developer arrested: https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/
TRM Labs blog post:
https://www.trmlabs.com/post/how-defi-platforms-are-using-data-from-trm-labs-to-respond-to-tornado-cash-sanctions
Tornado Cash post on compliance: https://tornado-cash.medium.com/tornado-cash-compliance-9abbf254a370
Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/
Second Coin Center article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/analysis-what-is-and-what-is-not-a-sanctionable-entity-in-the-tornado-cash-case/
Coin Center may challenge the US Treasury's decision to sanction Tornado Cash: https://decrypt.co/107475/coin-center-tornado-cash-ban-court
Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets: https://www.theblock.co/post/162172/circle-freezes-usdc-funds-in-tornado-cashs-us-treasury-sanctioned-wallets
Crypto exchange dYdX blocked accounts that received funds from Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/11/crypto-exchange-dydx-blocked-accounts-that-received-even-small-amounts-from-tornado-cash/
The possibility of forking Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/10/cloning-tornado-cash-would-be-easy-but-risky/
What the sanctions mean for privacy coins: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/09/what-the-tornado-cash-sanction-means-for-privacy-coins/
Tornado Cash laundered $1.5 billion, according to Elliptic: https://hub.elliptic.co/analysis/tornado-cash-mixer-sanctioned-after-laundering-over-1-5-billion/
Celebrities get Dusted: https://decrypt.co/es/107090/tornado-cash-dusts-public-wallets-jimmy-fallon-brian-armstrong-steve-aoki-logan-paul
Previous Coverage of Unchained:
Tornado Cash Sanctioned. Did the Government Overstep Its Bounds?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tornado-cash-sanctioned-did-the-government-overstep-its-bounds-ep-384/
The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-did-ofac-overstep-by-sanctioning-tornado-cash-ep-386/

** For more episode links and details visit the Unchained website **

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The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash? - Ep. 386 Aug 18, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Laura Shin, host of Unchained and author of The Cryptopians, also joined the conversation.

Show topics:

What Tornado Cash is and why it got sanctioned by the OFAC
The difference between Tornado Cash and blender.io
Whether privacy is dead as a category and whether regulators are going after it
How these sanctions have a negative impact on the funding of privacy projects
How people within the industry can have different points of view, even when they understand the technology
Whether the ban of Tornado Cash only means that malicious groups will just go and use other protocols
Why regulation by enforcement sucks
The asymmetry between the government’s sanction and the effort needed to push it back.
What changes after the Merge for ETH in terms of centralization
Whether some MEV solutions make Ethereum more centralized
Why MEV is intrinsic to blockchains and whether it is impossible to get rid of it
Why Proposer-Builder Separation is helpful for the network
Whether MEV is illegal and the plausibility of major exchanges not extracting MEV
Why Facebook has an MEV extraction business model, according to Tarun
How some NFT exchanges are not enforcing royalties
What Sudoswap is and how it works
How the royalties were there to bootstrap the supply side of NFTs
Why Tarun thinks music NFTs will never happen
The economic reasoning around royalties
The differences between NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Magic Eden
Whether NFTs have a real-world use
How Dragonfly’s acquisition of Metastable brought Laura some old memories

Hosts

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital
https://twitter.com/hosseeb
Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital
https://twitter.com/tomhschmidt
Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures
https://twitter.com/tarunchitra

Laura

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurashin

Episode Links

Tornado Cash

Treasury Press release:

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20%E2%80%93%20Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department,since%20its%20creation%20in%202019

Developer arrested: https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/

Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/

Second Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/analysis-what-is-and-what-is-not-a-sanctionable-entity-in-the-tornado-cash-case/

Coin Center may challenge the US Treasury's decision to sanction Tornado Cash: https://decrypt.co/107475/coin-center-tornado-cash-ban-court

Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets: https://www.theblock.co/post/162172/circle-freezes-usdc-funds-in-tornado-cashs-us-treasury-sanctioned-wallets

Crypto exchange dYdX blocked accounts that received funds from Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/11/crypto-exchange-dydx-blocked-accounts-that-received-even-small-amounts-from-tornado-cash/

The possibility of forking Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/10/cloning-tornado-cash-would-be-easy-but-risky/

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Coinbase CPO Surojit Chatterjee Explains Why He Believes the Exchange Will Win- Ep. 385 Aug 16, 2022

Show notes

Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer at Coinbase, comes to talk about what products Coinbase is building, how it can thrive in such a competitive landscape, how to onboard billions of users into crypto, and much more.

Show highlights:

how Surojit got into crypto and ended up at Coinbase
what sets Coinbase apart from the competition
how to bring billions of customers to crypto
Surojit’s mental model of a bridge between the fiat world and the crypto world
how Coinbase is integrating its main app with Web3
whether crypto can become a utility rather than an investment asset
how Coinbase is building a product in such a way that it attracts even “crypto-native” people
what happened with Coinbase NFT Marketplace’s failure and whether the company will keep investing in NFTs
whether Coinbase has lost crypto-embedded people among its employees
how the partnership with BlackRock indicates how far crypto has come
the amount of money that institutions could potentially pour into crypto
how Coinbase will prevent itself from having the largest percentage of staked ETH
how the company is monetizing the Coinbase wallet and what would happen to revenue if the trading volume were to move from the exchange to Coinbase wallet swaps
why Coinbase is suffering a decline in trading volume
whether Coinbase can compete with newer exchanges like FTX and Binance and why Surojit still thinks Coinbase will win
why it is important to keep investing and building through this crypto winter
Surojit’s take on the frontrunning of coins about to be listed on the platform
why the Howey test (which determines whether something is a security) is outdated
how Coinbase understands securities, and whether the firm thinks the tokens listed on the platform are securities
how can Coinbase compete with decentralized exchanges like Uniswap
why Surojit is worried about regulatory clarity and stablecoins
how hacks and security give the crypto industry a bad reputation
what Surojit’s dreams are for the industry

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://www.avax.network/

Show Links

Surojit:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/surojit

Coinbase Q2 2022 Earnings:

NFT Marketplace:

Coinbase NFT launch: https://decrypt.co/99561/coinbase-nft-marketplace-150-users-first-day-public
NFT Market data: https://dune.com/Marcov/0x-NFT-Market
Gamestop NFT stats: https://dune.com/dataisking420/gamestopnft-stats
Gamestop’s performance against Coinbase: https://decrypt.co/105069/gamestop-ethereum-nft-sales-dwarf-coinbase-nft

Partnerships

** For more episode links and details visit the Unchained website **

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Tornado Cash Sanctioned. Did the Government Overstep Its Bounds? - Ep. 384 Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, talks about Tornado Cash, why it was sanctioned, and what this means for privacy in crypto.

Show highlights:

what Blender.io is and how it relates to Tornado Cash
how hackers have used Tornado Cash to launder money
whether the Office of Foreign Assets Control made a mistake, according to Jerry
how Americans were affected by the sanctions
why Jerry believes OFAC should have done an analysis to estimate how many people would be impacted by its decision
whether the sanctions should have been aimed at North Koren wallets and not the protocol
whether the sanctions are unconstitutional and whether Coin Center will litigate this
how Jerry believes Circle freezing USDC complicated everything
what the famous people who received 0.1 ETH from random accounts via Tornado Cash should do
what would happen if someone forked the Tornado Cash code and deployed a copycat smart contract to a new address
whether the sanctions signal the beginning of a privacy war on crypto
how regulators are applying the same traditional rules with crypto as they use with centralized entities

Thank you to our sponsors!

1inch: https://1inch.io/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Jerry

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jerrybrito

Tornado Cash

Tornado Cash Sanctioned: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/08/crypto-mixing-service-tornado-cash-blacklisted-by-us-treasury/

Coin Center’s article authored by Jerry Brito and Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/

Circle freezes USDC in sanctioned wallets: https://www.theblock.co/post/162172/circle-freezes-usdc-funds-in-tornado-cashs-us-treasury-sanctioned-wallets

The possibility of forking Tornado Cash: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/08/10/cloning-tornado-cash-would-be-easy-but-risky/

What the sanctions mean for privacy coins: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/09/what-the-tornado-cash-sanction-means-for-privacy-coins/

Tornado Cash laundered $1.5 billion, according to Elliptic: https://hub.elliptic.co/analysis/tornado-cash-mixer-sanctioned-after-laundering-over-1-5-billion/

Celebrities get Dusted: https://decrypt.co/es/107090/tornado-cash-dusts-public-wallets-jimmy-fallon-brian-armstrong-steve-aoki-logan-paul

Hacks linked to Tornado Cash

Ronin: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/15/ronin-hack-north-korea-linked-to-615-million-crypto-heist-us-says.html

Harmony: https://decrypt.co/104138/north-korean-attackers-behind-100m-harmony-hack-report

Crypto.com: https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-hack-nso-group-security-news/

Nomad: https://decrypt.co/106459/crypto-bridge-nomad-exploited-190m-frenzied-free-for-all

Previous Coverage of Unchained: Will the Nomad Mass Looting Change How Law Enforcement Treats DeFi Hacks?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-the-nomad-mass-looting-change-how-law-enforcement-treats-defi-hacks-ep-382/

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The Chopping Block: How to Manage MakerDAO, With Hasu and Rune - Ep. 383 Aug 11, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Hasu, the gourmand of governance and Rune Christensen, chief mischief maker at MKR, discuss how to manage a DAO, their respective visions for MakerDAO, and much more.

Show topics:

What MakerDAO is, how DAI works and whether it is the “central bank” of DeFi
How the visions for MakerDAO of Hasu and Rune differ
Whether Maker should only hold highly liquid collateral assets
Hasu’s mental model of DAI as eurodollars
The role of real-world assets in backing DAI
What the purpose of a DAO is and how it differs from a legal entity
Whether people behave in their purest form within a DAO
How DAI can create positive externalities and make a better world
How crypto holders are not only in it for the money but also for the philosophy
What the “decentralized stablecoin trilemma” is
Whether there’s a need for dollar-denominated collateral for DAI to work
What “clean money” is according to Rune
Why Rune thinks having a single council is not viable due to the political risks and whether the solution is to have multiple councils
How to keep the principal-agent problem in check, according to Hasu
Why Hasu believes council members wouldn’t pursue their own interests and go against the benefit of MKR token holders
Whether a council would be corruptible and the dangers that it entails
What kind of interests should be represented in the council
Whether Maker can create more synthetic assets
The iron law bureaucracy and how it relates to governance
How to design the DAO to be steered in alignment with the token holders
Whether ossification is a feature to be pursued, and where innovation happens
How complexity is very expensive for an organization