Bits + Bips

Iran's IRGC has reportedly set up a crypto toll system at the Strait of Hormuz, collecting $1 per barrel to $2 million per supertanker in yuan or USDT via Tron. The IRGC moved $3 billion through crypto in 2025 according to Chainalysis, and the Ministry of Defense has begun accepting crypto for arms exports. Is this a gift to US intelligence (freeze and seize) or proof that stablecoins are enabling adversaries? Austin Campbell (NYU Stern, Zero Knowledge Consulting), Ram Ahluwalia (Lumida), and Chris Perkins (CoinFund) also debate the Iran campaign execution, the F-15 pilot rescue, Polymarket's controversial war bets, and whether Trump's rhetoric matches the military strategy. This clip is from a longer conversation on DeFi security, Iran's crypto war machine, and the token fundamentals crisis. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/SKcuC5kqQ7k We go live every Monday at 4:30 PM ET — subscribe to catch it live. Ether.fi is giving Unchained listeners 15% cashback on food and ride apps — and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else. Your bank is charging you to use your own money. Laura switched and loves her card! Go to ether.fi/unchained to claim your offer. Bitcoin’s application layer, Citrea, launched its mainnet, expanding Bitcoin’s utility to privacy, lending, BTC yields, and more. Citrea enables: cBTC: The first trust-minimized Bitcoin on a fully programmable platform. ctUSD: A native stablecoin for Bitcoin, allowing for unified liquidity. Bitcoin Capital Markets bringing demand, and utility to the Bitcoin Network. Explore the Citrea Ecosystem.

The biggest DeFi hack of 2026 wasn't a code exploit. It was a six-month North Korean social engineering campaign that ended with $285M drained from Drift protocol in 12 minutes. Circle had six hours to freeze $232M in USDC moving through its own bridge. Should stablecoin issuers be liable? Is a 2-of-5 multisig really decentralized? Austin Campbell (NYU Stern, Zero Knowledge Consulting), Ram Ahluwalia (Lumida), and Chris Perkins (CoinFund) confront the liability question, Chris's proposal for licensed "neoprivateers," and why US regulators wasted four years not building the framework we need now. This clip is from a longer conversation on DeFi security, Iran's crypto war machine, and the token fundamentals crisis. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/SKcuC5kqQ7k We go live every Monday at 4:30 PM ET — subscribe to catch it live. Bitcoin’s application layer, Citrea, launched its mainnet, expanding Bitcoin’s utility to privacy, lending, BTC yields, and more. Citrea enables: cBTC: The first trust-minimized Bitcoin on a fully programmable platform. ctUSD: A native stablecoin for Bitcoin, allowing for unified liquidity. Bitcoin Capital Markets bringing demand, and utility to the Bitcoin Network. Explore the Citrea Ecosystem. Ether.fi is giving Unchained listeners 15% cashback on food and ride apps — and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else. Your bank is charging you to use your own money. Laura switched and loves her card!Go to ether.fi/unchained to claim your offer.

A nation state hacked a startup and won. The hosts debate who's liable, what's fixable, and what isn't. --- Thank you to our sponsors: Bitcoin’s application layer, Citrea, launched its mainnet, expanding Bitcoin’s utility to privacy, lending, BTC yields, and more. Citrea enables: cBTC: The first trust-minimized Bitcoin on a fully programmable platform. ctUSD: A native stablecoin for Bitcoin, allowing for unified liquidity. Bitcoin Capital Markets bringing demand, and utility to the Bitcoin Network. Explore the ⁠Citrea Ecosystem⁠. Ether.fi is giving Unchained listeners 15% cashback on food and ride apps — and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else. Your bank is charging you to use your own money. Laura switched and loves her card!Go to ⁠ether.fi/unchained⁠ to claim your offer. ---- North Korea just pulled off the largest DeFi hack of 2026, draining $285 million from Drift protocol in 12 minutes through a six-month social engineering campaign that included face-to-face meetings at industry conferences. Circle had a six-hour window to freeze $232 million in USDC moving through its own bridge and didn't act. Meanwhile, Iran's IRGC is reportedly collecting crypto tolls at the Strait of Hormuz in USDT via Tron, and the token market is cracking under the weight of 750,000 issuances since 2020 with the median token down 80% from peak. Ram, Austin, and Chris confront the liability question for stablecoin issuers, whether DeFi's security model can survive nation-state attackers, why Chris is calling for licensed "neoprivateers" to recover stolen funds, and what Franklin Templeton's acquisition of 250 Digital signals about where institutional capital is headed. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host of Bits + Bips, Zero Knowledge Consulting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, President of CoinFund

Charles Schwab’s chief crypto strategist breaks down why traditional finance valuation frameworks, not narratives, are finally taking hold in digital assets. --- Multichain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create over $50 billion in enterprise value for 80+ clients. Services include TGE support, go-to-market strategy, BD, partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, and KOL activations. Visit ⁠⁠https://www.multichainadv.com/⁠⁠ --- Charles Schwab recently hired Jim Ferraioli to build a dedicated crypto research team, a signal that institutions are moving beyond narrative-driven investing and are taking this asset class seriously. In this episode, Steven Ehrlich sits down with Jim to explore how traditional finance valuation frameworks apply to crypto. They discuss Bitcoin’s role as a hedge against monetary debasement (not a safe haven), Jim’s cost-of-production model for valuing Bitcoin, and why Ethereum’s dominance in tokenization matters far more than short-term price action. Most compellingly, Jim argues that today’s Bitcoin prices sit at historical support levels used by the most efficient miners, and that Ethereum’s position as the tokenization standard is nearly unshakeable. If you’ve been waiting for crypto analysis grounded in fundamentals rather than hype, this is the conversation to hear. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠⁠, Head of Research, SharpLink Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jim Ferraioli⁠, Director of Digital Currencies Research and Strategy at Charles Schwab Links: Charles Schwab & Institutional Crypto Research ⁠Jim Ferraioli | Charles Schwab⁠ CoinDesk: ⁠Liquidity Lifts Bitcoin, but 'Halving Cycle' Fears Could Limit Rally, Says Schwab⁠ Nasdaq: ⁠Top 4 Reasons More Americans Are Investing in Crypto, According to Schwab⁠ Ethereum Tokenization & Real-World Assets Coindesk: ⁠The Tokenization Boom: Why Ethereum Remains the Rails for RWA Tokenization⁠ Quantum Computing Risk CoinDesk: ⁠Bitcoin Isn't Under Quantum Threat Yet, but Upgrading Could Take 5-10 Years⁠ ⁠How Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana Are Preparing for the Quantum Threat

Jim Ferraioli, Director of Crypto Strategy and Research at Charles Schwab, applies a GDP-equivalent framework to smart contract platforms: sum the trailing one-year fees across a network, compare that to market cap, and you get a Buffett-indicator-style read on whether it's cheap or expensive. By that measure, Ethereum has traded in a reliable range for years, and it's currently at the low end. But the more interesting argument is structural. Ethereum's fee base has historically been almost entirely tied to crypto market cap growth. Stablecoin usage, liquid staking, lending, trading — all of it moves with the broader market. Tokenization changes that equation. Real-world assets don't care what Bitcoin is doing. And with Ethereum holding the lion's share of tokenized assets — roughly $350 billion including stablecoins, with the next competitor at around $80 billion — it has a first-mover position that is genuinely hard to dislodge. This clip is from a longer conversation he had with Steven Ehrlich on Bitcoin valuation frameworks, zombie protocols, and quantum risk. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/YgDIHGuESJk We go live every Thursday at 12 PM ET. Subscribe to catch it live.

The S&P just closed its worst month since March 2025 at 6,368, marking a fifth straight weekly decline. Moody’s puts recession probability at 50%. Goldman is at 30%. But this isn’t just another pullback: with Brent crude at $116, inflationary supply shocks are compounding the damage in ways that monetary policy tools can’t fix. Ram names his specific buys (Berkshire Hathaway at 1.3x tangible book, Microsoft, Meta at 17.5x forward PE) and his shorts (Caterpillar, John Deere, and the industrials complex he calls “a bubble”). He warns that Bitcoin’s hold at $66K is driven by STRC flows, not a healthy fundamental bid. Austin and Chris debate whether the Clarity Act and institutional adoption are enough tailwind to matter when the macro environment is this hostile. This video is from a longer conversation covering the Iran conflict, bond market constraints, and the Canton vs. Ethereum institutional debate. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/Ui5pI1JxF6s We go live every Monday at 4:30 PM ET. Subscribe to catch it live.

When do oil prices force a ceasefire? Why is crypto holding firm while equities crack? And does Canton or Ethereum win the institutional race? --- Thank you to our sponsor: ⁠Nexo⁠ — the premier digital wealth platform. Receive interest on your digital assets, borrow against them without selling, and trade a wide range of cryptocurrencies all in one place. Now available in the US with 30 days of exclusive privileges for new clients. Get started at ⁠nexo.com/unchained⁠. ---- Bond market tightening has become the invisible hand constraining every policy decision, from Iran talks to stimulus spending. With Brent crude at $107 and the 10-year yield climbing, asset prices face a cascade of headwinds: inflationary supply shocks, tightening financial conditions, and no clear off-ramp for a conflict that the IRGC shows no appetite to negotiate. Yet within crypto, a sharper debate is emerging: does institutional adoption demand Canton’s permissioned structure, or can Ethereum survive with real-world assets on a permissionless layer? Austin, Ram, and Chris dig into the structural fault lines that the macro backdrop is now exposing, and why market-timing in a conflict where you don’t know who the endgame negotiator is may be the wrong frame entirely. Hosts: ⁠Austin Campbell⁠, Host of Bits + Bips, Zero Knowledge Consulting ⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida ⁠Chris Perkins⁠, Co-Host, President of CoinFund

With European gas prices running 50-70% above normal, Steven Ehrlich sits down with Sean Murray, Head of Special Projects and Crypto Lead at Fuse Energy, to map the cascade: why gas, not oil, drives what consumers pay for electricity; how the Strait of Hormuz closure and the attack on Qatar's LNG processing facility are rippling through fertilizers, jet fuel, and copper markets; and why Sean argues the long-term supply disruption is being badly underpriced by markets worldwide. Multi-billion dollar facilities don't come back in months. This clip is from a longer conversation on energy markets, DePIN, and Fuse Energy's token launch on Solana. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/RMXJsFT15UA We go live every Monday at 4:30 PM ET — subscribe to catch it live.

Jeff Bezos is raising $100 billion for Project Prometheus to acquire manufacturing companies and transform them with AI. Mark Zuckerberg is building a personal AI CEO agent to bypass management layers at Meta. The question: where does AI value actually accrue? Ram Ahluwalia argues the consumer wins. Venture capital is subsidizing the real economy through tools like Claude that lose money but deliver massive productivity gains. Chris Perkins says people are resilient and will adapt the way influencers emerged from the internet era. The conversation takes a darker turn when Ram warns that declining birth rates combined with cheap robots lower the cost of conflict. When soldiers cost $8,000 at scale, the calculus for war changes entirely. This clip is from a longer conversation on Iran, the Fed, and AI. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/8Pr-oa4N0Bo?si=rfIKIOHRIjYQSWIh Follow @bitsandbips

Elon Musk announced TeraFab, a $25 billion joint chip fabrication venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI targeting two-nanometer process technology. Ram Ahluwalia calls the entire thing bullshit. TSM has invested hundreds of billions to build chip fabs. Tesla generates $3-6 billion in free cash flow. The math doesn’t work without massive dilution. Jensen Huang himself has said data centers in space don’t make sense. Meanwhile Chris Perkins argues that AI layoffs across crypto and tech are a “beautiful excuse” for companies that need to restructure. Ram counters that net engineers are actually being hired, and the companies cutting the most are spending the most on Nvidia GPUs. This clip is from a longer conversation on Iran, the Fed, and AI. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/8Pr-oa4N0Bo?si=WWmYw2LcxkOS9DAV Follow @bitsandbips

Coinbase x402 has processed $34M. Tempo just launched its mainnet. Steven and Laurens discuss how the agentic commerce war is shaping up, why stablecoins are the infrastructure layer underneath it, how to tell real adoption from inflated metrics, and what happens when AI agents start getting scammed.

Ram calls industrials a bubble that's already popped — Caterpillar at 35x PE, hedge funds still deleveraging, and no real capitulation yet. Austin and Chris push back.

General Spider Marks has a brother-in-law who's Iranian — and what he says about why 93 million Persians won't rise up should reframe how investors are reading this war.

A retired U.S. Major General just explained why Iran's navy is at the bottom of the Gulf — and why the Strait of Hormuz was never actually at risk.

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