Unchained

Matthew Leising, a reporter at Bloomberg who began covering crypto in 2015, is out with a new book Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All. In this episode, he discusses: the catalyst that led to him writing his new book, which covers the early history of Ethereum and the DAO attack of 2016 why he thought the story of the DAO hack was compelling enough to make a book, and how he went about reporting it the surprising things he learned about Ethereum’s early days and Vitalik the twists and turns during his quest to discover the identity of the DAO attacker why he thinks separate people were responsible for the two biggest DAO attacks his meeting in Tokyo with one of the prime suspects of a copycat DAO attack why he decided to end his story at the Ethereum hard fork and chose not to write about Ethereum Classic what he feels the long-term significance of the DAO and the hard fork has been for Ethereum why he thinks the lessons of the DAO are not being heeded today what he thinks the next chapter of Ethereum will be and how it will unfold the differences he’s found as a journalist covering crypto as opposed to covering more traditional finance and how the book is about more than just the DAO Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com Gods Unchained: https://playgu.co/unchainedpod Episode links: Matthew Leising: https://twitter.com/mattleising Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Out+of+the+Ether%3A+The+Amazing+Story+of+Ethereum+and+the+%2455+Million+Heist+that+Almost+Destroyed+It+All-p-9781119602934 Matt's original Bloomberg article on the DAO attack, "The Ether Thief": https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2017-the-ether-thief/ Excerpt in Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/a-trip-down-the-crypto-rabbit-hole-in-search-of-the-dao-hacker Excerpt in CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/55m-hack-ethereum-down Decrypt's interview with Matt about the book: https://decrypt.co/41952/book-sheds-new-light-on-ethereums-55-million-dao-hack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andre Cronje, the developer of yearn.finance, talks about all things DeFi and the past, present, and future of yEarn. In this episode, he discusses: what Yearn Finance is, and what led him to develop it and eventually open it to the public his history and background, leading up to the development of Yearn the processes and mechanisms involved in yEarn v1 and yEarn v2 why he decided to do a "fair launch" of the YFI token, despite being in debt as a result of building Yearn why he felt that a Decrypt article about him in August was a "horrible hatchet job" why he disagrees with what he sees as the current anti-VC narrative his thoughts on the phenomenal rise in YFI's price and why the price of a YFI token still doesn't matter how and why he decided governance participation would be a requirement for earning tokens in the Balancer/yCurve/YFI pool the governance processes in Yearn and his thoughts on whether or not a Compound-style form of governance would be better how he might mitigate whales dominating the vote what he means by "I test in prod" and how people have misinterpreted his meaning why he briefly walked away from DeFi whether he agrees that YFI could be a new structure to replace existing traditional business structures his response to the allegations by XAR Network whether he would consider moving Yearn to another blockchain his vision for what Yearn can become and how much YFI he currently owns personally Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: http://crypto.com Gods Unchained: https://playgu.co/unchainedpod Episode links: Andre Cronje: https://twitter.com/AndreCronjeTech Yearn Finance: https://yearn.finance https://docs.yearn.finance CoinDesk on Yearn: https://www.coindesk.com/what-is-yearn-finance-yfi-defi-ethereum The Block report on yEarn Finance: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/75189/defis-yield-aggregator-dao-yearn-finance Post introducing $YFI: https://medium.com/iearn/earning-yfi-y-curve-fi-53b5fd347f0f Delegated vaults: https://medium.com/iearn/delegated-vaults-explained-fa81f1c3fce2 V2: https://medium.com/iearn/yearn-finance-v2-af2c6a6a3613 Delphi Digital report on yETH yVault: https://www.delphidigital.io/reports/yeth-now-do-you-understand/ yETH collateralization ratio: https://defiexplore.com/cdp/13972 Tony Sheng newsletter: https://tonysheng.substack.com/p/yfi-ponzinomics Yearn Governance: https://medium.com/iearn/yearn-governance-forum-7b7c9d0300ac yInsure Finance: https://medium.com/iearn/yinsure-finance-a-new-insurance-primitive-77d5d4217896 Delegated funding DAO vaults: https://medium.com/iearn/delegated-funding-dao-vaults-7ab05a63d7ba Siege Rhino question about governance: https://twitter.com/SiegeRhino2/status/1303415750238101504?s=20 Andre’s “Building in DeFi Sucks” post: https://medium.com/@andre_54855/building-in-defi-sucks-b8fdfda0ef58?source=---------17------------------ Andre quits in February: https://decrypt.co/21068/founder-of-promising-defi-project-abandons-the-toxic-cryptosphere Andre close to quitting in August: https://decrypt.co/37995/exclusive-yfi-andre-cronje-broke-quitting-defi What Andre wishes he had known before building Ethereum dapps: https://medium.com/iearn/things-i-wish-i-knew-before-building-ethereum-defi-dapps-cd6bf0f07a16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, goes deep into yield farming, fair launches and how decentralization will upend the traditional notion of the corporation. In this episode, he talks about: when it makes sense for a team to introduce a liquidity mining scheme, and when it doesn't the difference between yield farming and ICOs when it comes to investing his thoughts on YFI, as well as YAM, and the pace at which unaudited DeFi projects are moving forward the three advantages he sees in automated market makers as opposed to centralizedexchanges his thoughts on Uniswap and SushiSwap and why he's not sure Uniswap will make a token his thoughts on fair launches and whether he thinks they will threaten traditional crypto VCs whether the CRV token launch really was instigated by someone unrelated to the team his thoughts on the yEarn yETH vault and what it says about where the DeFi space is going what he sees as the pros and cons of rebasing why he sees projects like YFI as a new kind of corporation whether he thinks Ethereum will scale fast enough to meet the demand already being put on it why he thinks systems like Polkadot are going to expand what is possible in the same way that Ethereum expanded beyond what was possible with Bitcoin whether he thinks the yields from yield farming will pull investors away from staking on Ethereum 2.0 what he thinks DeFi teams should do to improve security Bitcoin on Ethereum and what he believes it could mean for DeFi in the future the chatter around a potential public offering from Coinbase, and what's in store for Polychain in the future Thank you to our sponsor! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Episode links: Olaf Carlson-Wee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olafcw/ Polychain Capital: https://polychain.capital Previous interviews with Olaf on Unchained and Unconfirmed: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-the-first-employee-of-coinbase-launched-a-hedge-fund/ https://unchainedpodcast.com/to-the-moon-and-back-with-polychains-olaf-carlson-wee/ https://unchainedpodcast.com/special-episode-with-cnbcs-crypto-trader-olaf-carlson-wee-on-why-this-crypto-winter-is-different-from-previous-ones-ep-028/ https://unchainedpodcast.com/all-things-cryptoeconomics-pt-1-with-olaf-carlson-wee-and-ryan-zurrer-of-polychain-capital/ Why trading on automated market makers has risen so quickly: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-decentralized-trading-has-10xed-in-a-few-months/ Launch of yEarn/YFI: https://medium.com/iearn/yfi-df84573db81 Dex volume over time: https://defiprime.com/dex-volume YAM recap: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/74810/yam-token-market-cap-collapses-by-more-than-90-flaw YAM team’s plans going forward: YAM Post-Rescue Attempt Update. At approximately 6PM UTC, on Wed August… | by Yam Finance | Aug, 2020 | Medium SushiSwap vs. Uniswap: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sushiswap-takes-on-uniswap-which-should-win-and-why/ Ian Lee of IDEO CoLab Ventures on fair launches vs. VC coins: https://synthesis.substack.com/p/fair-launches-will-disrupt-crypto And on fast-follower forks: https://synthesis.substack.com/p/fast-follower-forks-in-defi CRV token launch: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/74921/the-story-of-the-botched-crv-launch yEarn's yETH vault: https://www.coindesk.com/yearn-finance-yeth-vault-defi-triforce Ethereum's transition to 2.0: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-ethereums-five-year-anniversary/ Security in DeFi: https://unchainedpodcast.com/defi-security-with-so-many-hacks-will-it-ever-be-safe/ Whether Coinbase will do a token offering when it goes public: https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-coinbase-do-a-token-offering-when-it-goes-public/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, and Dan Robinson, research partner at Paradigm, discuss the explosion in decentralized exchange activity on automated market makers from $1 billion earlier this year to more than $10 billion in August. Why trading in automated market makers has 8xed in a few months how automated market makers work, and how specific dexes can specialize for the assets being traded on them why traders would prefer to trade on a dex vs. a centralized exchange how incentivized pools have drawn traders and liquidity why trading on a dex seems can be more appealing than on a centralized exchange why trading on dexes now mirrors trading on Binance in 2017 how "DeFi is the hottest coolest place where people are making a lot of money" the difference between the metrics of liquidity, trading volume and total value locked for a dex why AMMs are capital inefficient what it means that fees paid on Uniswap are about half of those paid on Bitcoin what the purpose of liquidity mining is why Haseeb doesn't think that dexes have network effects and that once professional market makers come in the space, Uniswap will lose market share whether users will use DeFi directly through the dexes or through another interface why Dan thinks that DeFi is now comparable to financial investment in the 1970s whether or not yield aggregators like yEarn make it harder for AMMs to compete what happened with the CRV token launch initial dex offerings or initial DeFi offerings, like the UMA token launch whether, because of the high fees on Ethereum and the how long its transition to Ethereum 2.0 will take, DeFi activity could move to another blockchain such as Solana where DeFi will go over the next few years Thank you to our sponsor! Crypto.com: http://crypto.com Episode links: Haseeb Qureshi: https://twitter.com/hosseeb Dan Robinson: https://twitter.com/danrobinson Haseeb’s post on the rise of AMMs: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/what-explains-the-rise-of-amms-7d008af1c399 Haseeb's post on how Uniswap could be un-bundled: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/unbundling-uniswap-the-future-of-on-chain-market-making-1c7d6948d570 Dex volume: https://defiprime.com/dex-volume Trading volume on centralized exchanges: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/74539/july-by-the-numbers-a-look-at-crypto-exchange-volumes-open-interest-and-miner-revenue Incentivized pools: https://pools.fyi/#/?tag=incentivized Top dexes by trading volume: https://www.coingecko.com/en/dex Ethereum transaction fees: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-transactionfees.html Uniswap website visits 15x in July: https://messari.io/article/uniswap-total-website-visits-grew-15x-in-july Website traffic to DeFi platforms explodes in July: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/74231/defi-platforms-web-traffic-july Fees paid to various crypto projects: https://cryptofees.info Curve reaches $1 billion in TVL: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/75014/curve-becomes-third-defi-protocol-to-hit-1-billion-in-total-value-locked The Block on dex aggregators: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/69468/dex-aggregators-user-experience Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Saifedean Ammous is an economist and the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, which has been translated into 20 languages. In this episode, he discusses: the basic tenets of Austrian economics and why it is the only school where Bitcoin is possible historical examples of currencies and how they lost their monetary value the stock-to-flow model and how Bitcoin fits into that model the three functions, or descriptive properties, of money and why Bitcoin fulfills these functions the concept of sound money the idea of time preference in economics and why he believes it is so important the distinction between debt and money, and why they are not the same the significance of difficulty adjustment and why he believes it is the crowning achievement of Bitcoin why he views Bitcoin as the best store of value humanity has ever invented the metrics he watches when assessing Bitcoin what he thinks is in store for Bitcoin in the future, and whether he still thinks central banks will buy Bitcoin as a reserve currency his thoughts on Ethereum and other digital currencies and his predictions for Bitcoin in the next year Thank you to our sponsor! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Episode links: Saifedean Ammous: https://twitter.com/saifedean Saifedean’s website: https://saifedean.com The Bitcoin Standard: https://saifedean.com/book/ Invest Like the Best episode with Saifedean: http://investorfieldguide.com/ammous/ What Bitcoin Did episode with Saifedean: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/saifedean-ammous-on-understanding-bitcoin-economics Plan B’s stock-to-flow model applied to Bitcoin: https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25 https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/bitcoin-stock-to-flow-cross-asset-model-50d260feed12 Essay on why the stock-to-flow model is wrong: https://www.coindesk.com/why-the-stock-to-flow-bitcoin-valuation-model-is-wrong Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and CEO of xx network, and Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash and the cofounder and CEO of Blockstream, discuss their involvement in digital currency well before Bitcoin existed. In this episode, they discuss: how they each became enamored with the idea of digital currency years before such an idea was widely discussed the crypto wars of the 1990s and the U.S. government’s attempts to control access to advanced cryptography Digicash, the creation of eCash, and the difficulties of implementing the system with the technology available at the time the innovation of blind signatures used in eCash what caused the demise of Digicash, and David's role in that the development of Hashcash and the problems Adam was trying to solve by creating it their initial reactions to learning about Bitcoin for the first time how they think Bitcoin might improve in the future the stock-to-flow Model, and where they believe the Bitcoin price might go next why the Hashcash proof-of-work mechanism became so widely used Thank you to our sponsor! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Episode links: Adam Back: https://twitter.com/adam3us Blockstream: https://blockstream.com Adam's website: http://www.cypherspace.org David Chaum: https://twitter.com/chaumdotcom Elixxir: https://elixxir.io XX Network: https://xx.network Previous Unchained episode on the history of digital currency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-the-history-of-digital-currency/ Wired article on “e-money”: https://www.wired.com/1994/12/emoney/ Translated Dutch article on why DigiCash failed: https://cryptome.org/jya/digicrash.htm Aaron Van Wirdum's Bitcoin Magazine series on the history of digital currency: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum David Chaum's e-Cash: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream Hashcash: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine. Finn Brunton is the author of “Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.” In this episode, they tackle the history of digital currency. Topics include: the motivations behind the earliest attempts to create digital currencies, and who was behind those attempts the Extropian philosophy and how digital currency was born out of it how the cypherpunks came together and eventually began implementing tools that would lead to the creation of digital currencies the problems faced during the development of digital money, from double-spending to privacy, centralization, and spam the development of a public key protocol and why it was so significant the characteristics of earlier forms of digital currency like e-cash, hashcash, b-money, and bit gold, as well as their differences the original purpose of proof-of-work and how it was developed Hal Finney’s essential contributions to the creation of earlier digital currencies, and later, Bitcoin previous implementations of blockchain and how Bitcoin came to reinvent and utilize it which previous digital currencies come closest to Bitcoin and who they think Satoshi Nakamoto is … Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Episode links: Aaron Van Wirdum: https://twitter.com/AaronvanW Finn Brunton: http://finnb.net Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179490/digital-cash Aaron's Bitcoin magazine series on the early days of digital currency: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-if-bitcoin-had-first-draft-wei-dais-b-money-was-it https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-bit-gold-szabo-was-inches-away-inventing-bitcoin Aaron on What Bitcoin Did discussing the stories: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum Breaker Mag Interview with Finn Brunton about his book: https://breakermag.com/new-book-reveals-cryptos-radical-origins/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace, and Siân Jones, Senior Partner at XReg Consulting, give the lowdown on the Financial Action Task Force’s travel rule and how it applies to businesses in the crypto space. They discuss: their background and journey into crypto what the travel rule is the consequences for countries that are not compliant whether the regulation will apply to staking providers in the future the type of companies and transactions that will be covered under the travel rule the type of information that has to be provided how banks comply with the travel rule and whether crypto companies can use the same system the different open standards available for sharing information how the information will get shared between entities who use different travel rule solution providers the “sunrise problem” in which different companies implement their compliance systems at different times the security of user data being shared between different entities how it applies to central bank digital currencies and centralized stablecoins how the rule would affect privacy coins the inherent contradiction between the cypherpunk philosophy and regulatory compliance unintended consequences of the travel rule how the travel rule may play out in the coming years A glossary of terms discussed in the episode: FATF: Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental organization that develops policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing VASP: virtual asset service providers, who are custodial entities that run fiat-to-crypto or crypto-to-crypto exchanges, or run businesses related to transfer and safekeeping of virtual assets and financial services. FinCEN: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the United States federal bureau that analyzes information about financial transactions in order to fight money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes FCA: Financial Conduct Authority, the financial regulatory body of the UK Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com Tezos: https://tquorum.com/ Episode links: Dave Jevans: https://twitter.com/davejevans CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/ Sian Jones: https://twitter.com/COINSULT XReg Consulting: https://www.xreg.consulting/ Financial Action Task Force (FATF): https://www.fatf-gafi.org/ The Osaka conference where crypto got serious about FATF’s travel rule: https://www.coindesk.com/inside-the-osaka-conference-where-crypto-got-serious-about-fatfs-travel-rule Will Osaka be crypto’s Bretton Woods moment? https://forkast.news/will-osaka-be-cryptos-bretton-woods-moment/ InterVASP Messaging Standard: https://intervasp.org OpenVASP: https://openvasp.org OpenVASP white paper: https://openvasp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OpenVasp_Whitepaper.pdf?cache=1 FATF report on “so-called stablecoins”: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/Virtual-Assets-FATF-Report-G20-So-Called-Stablecoins.pdf OKEx’s Korea arm delisted privacy coins: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/39724/okex-korea-delisting-all-privacy-coins-including-monero-zcash-and-dash-as-these-violate-fatfs-travel-rule Some of the potential FATF compliance solutions: Travel Rule Information Sharing Alliance (TRISA): https://trisa.io/ Coinbase’s messaging board solution: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/72293/coinbase-exchanges-fatf-travel-rule-solution CoolBitX: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56853/coolbitx-raises-16-75m-series-b-to-help-crypto-exchanges-comply-with-fatfs-travel-rule Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, shares his thoughts on the five-year anniversary of Ethereum, challenges with ETH 2.0 and criticisms about DeFi. We discuss: his thoughts and feelings ahead of Ethereum’s five-year anniversary how to address the high gas fees on the Ethereum network whether the complexity of Ethereum 2.0 creates a risk for the security of the network whether staking will lead to a higher focus on ETH price and issues such as monetary policy how he looks at the ETH price with its significance for security in Ethereum 2.0 how proof of stake systems can be more democratic whether staking lends itself to the kind of securitization that looks similar to mortgage-backed securities his concerns about DeFi the most optimal way for DeFi projects to distribute their tokens his thoughts about Bitcoin on Ethereum inherent risks to Ethereum users connected to China’s Blockchain Service Network (BSN) his views on DCEP, other CBDCs and Libra the indictment of Ethereum Foundation staff member Virgil Griffith for allegedly helping North Korea to circumvent sanctions how he plans to make the Ethereum Foundation more transparent whether lack of diversity would impact the success of Ethereum in the long term where he would like to see Ethereum in the next five years Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com Tezos: https://tquorum.com/ Episode links: Vitalik Buterin: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin Ethereum: https://ethereum.org/en/ Vitalik’s blog: https://vitalik.ca Median gas price: https://blockchair.com/ethereum/charts/median-gas-price Average gas price: https://blockchair.com/ethereum/charts/average-gas-price Solutions to gas price problem: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-developers-consider-new-fee-model-as-gas-costs-climb Reddit AMA with the Ethereum 2.0 Research team, including Vitalik: https://old.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/ho2zpt/ama_we_are_the_efs_eth_20_research_team_pt_4_10/ Paper on how DeFi lending could undermine security in a POS system: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.00919 Vitalik tweet on yield farming: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1278337657194655744 Abra settlement with SEC and CFTC: https://www.coindesk.com/sec-cftc-hit-crypto-app-abra-with-300k-in-penalties-over-illegal-swaps Maya Zehavi’s comments on what this could mean for DeFi: https://twitter.com/mayazi/status/1282696180741414918 China’s BSN using public chains, including Ethereum: https://www.coindesk.com/chinas-blockchain-infrastructure-to-extend-global-reach-with-six-public-chains Unchained interview about DCEP: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/ Charges against Virgil Griffith: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-arrest-united-states-citizen-assisting-north-korea More on Virgil Griffith case: https://www.coindesk.com/usa-v-virgil-griffith-what-we-know-and-dont-in-the-bombshell-crypto-sanctions-case Unchained interview with human rights activist Yeonmi Park on what life is like in North Korea: https://unchainedpodcast.com/yeonmi-park-on-why-doing-business-with-north-korea-is-like-buying-a-ticket-to-a-concentration-camp/ Unchained interview on why North Korea is interested in cryptocurrency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-north-korea-is-interested-in-cryptocurrency/ Case against Steven Nerayoff: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/two-arrested-extortion-startup-cryptocurrency-company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Camila Russo, founder of The Defiant and author of a new book on Ethereum, "The Infinite Machine," speaks about how currency controls in Argentina got her interested in crypto and explains why she chose to tell the Ethereum story. She discusses: how she started covering the crypto space what it was like living through currency controls in Argentina why she started focusing on Ethereum instead of Bitcoin what’s in her new book, The Infinite Machine the most pivotal moments in Ethereum’s history possible risks to Ethereum 2.0 because of delays whether competing protocols could take market share away from Ethereum the most surprising aspect of the Ethereum story starting her own DeFi-focused media platform, The Defiant why she launched ‘CAMI’ tokens and how they are used the significance of ERC-20 tokens having a higher market cap than ETH her predictions about trends and promising projects in the DeFi space Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com Tezos: https://tquorum.com/ Episode links: Camila Russo: https://twitter.com/CamiRusso The Infinite Machine: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-infinite-machine-camila-russo The Defiant: https://thedefiant.substack.com/ Excerpt from The Infinite Machine on CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/sale-of-the-century-the-inside-story-of-ethereums-2014-premine Decrypt review: https://decrypt.co/35466/the-incredible-story-of-ethereum-the-infinite-machine Camila on what Ethereum has accomplished in five years: https://www.coindesk.com/five-years-on-ethereum-really-is-the-minecraft-of-crypto-finance Hidden Forces podcast with Camila: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rise-ethereum-future-defi-transformation-crypto-media/id1205359334?i=1000484635053 Camila in the Keen On podcast: https://lithub.com/camila-russo-on-ethereum-and-the-future-of-the-internet/ Ethereum 2.0 phase 0 may not go live until 2021: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/71155/eth-2-phase-0-ama-2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the author of numerous books including The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World and most recently, the Square and the Tower: Networks and Power from the Freemasons to Facebook, and Michael Casey, chief content officer at CoinDesk and coauthor of two books on crypto, The Age of Cryptocurrency and The Truth Machine, discuss the history of money and the macro environment for Bitcoin. We cover: how they became involved in crypto historically, what has made things money, or how people have decided that something is money the difficulty of managing fiat currency modern monetary theory and the role of the state in the financial system Satoshi’s message in BTC’s genesis block and what that indicates about Satoshi's intentions with Bitcoin whether a more transparent, blockchain-based financial system could eventually lead to a new financial order how Bitcoin behaves like an option on digital gold, and when it will behave like digital gold whether Bitcoin is simply a reversion to previous forms of money that weren’t controlled by the state how crypto/blockchain and fintech innovation from startups and the Chinese government will affect the USD how a hypothetical war between the US and China would affect the dollar's dominance how China's DCEP could disintermediate banks how Bitcoin fits into all of the different macro conditions facing the global economy whether Libra is going to be the initial gateway getting people into our digital currency world how well the recovery from coronavirus will go, and how it will affect the development of the crypto space in the near-term Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Tezos: https://tquorum.com/ Episode links: Niall Ferguson: http://www.niallferguson.com The Ascent of Money: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/302900/the-ascent-of-money-by-niall-ferguson/ Michael Casey: https://www.michaeljcasey.com Money Reimagined: https://www.coindesk.com/tag/money-reimagined The Age of Cryptocurrency: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250081551 The first episode in the Why Bitcoin Now series: Mike Novogratz and Raoul Pal on 'the Single Greatest Brand' ofo the Last 10 Years: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-mike-novogratz-and-raoul-pal-on-the-single-greatest-brand-of-the-last-10-years/ How Niall got into Bitcoin: http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/finance-economics/bitcoin-may-go-pop-but-its-revolution-will-go-on Niall and Michael at Consensus: https://www.coindesk.com/disruption-money-and-a-world-of-change-feat-niall-ferguson Unchained interview with Chamath Palihapitiya, who believes Bitcoin is a hedge on everything blowing up: https://unchainedpodcast.com/chamath-palihapitiya-why-bitcoin-will-be-the-category-winner/ Carlota Perez at CoinDesk's Consensus: https://www.coindesk.com/video/carlota-perez-on-blockchains-and-technological-revolutions Unchained interview about the DCEP: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/ Unchained interview with Christopher Giancarlo about a digital dollar: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-why-the-us-needs-to-have-a-digital-dollar/ Unconfirmed episode with Michael about Libra: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-it-would-be-good-if-libra-rivaled-the-us-dollar/ Unchained episode with a co-creator of Libra: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dan Elitzer, investor at IDEO CoLab Ventures, and Will Price, data scientist at Flipside Crypto, discuss the yield farming craze. In this episode, we cover: the goals of protocols offering liquidity mining the goals of users yield farming right now whether users of Compound will have much awareness of COMP in the future how Compound is trying to dampen inorganic activity and properly align incentives how incentives in one DeFi protocol can screw up another's such as changes in Compound's liquidity mining program causing Dai to lose its peg whether the activity created by liquidity mining is sustainable and how whether Compound is overvalued and how to determine valuations for DeFi tokens the security risks that come with trying yield farming how teams can keep their protocols safe given the composability of DeFi and the growing number of developments in the space whether the yield farming craze will cause the price of ETH to rise and why the prevalence of stablecoins might prevent that whether new DeFi tokens could push flagging layer 1s out of the top 10 what will happen if even more Bitcoin comes to DeFi how the next big thing in DeFi might be trying to stack yield across protocols and eventually prime brokerage protocols Thank you to our sponsor! Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com Episode links: Dan Elitzer: https://twitter.com/delitzer IDEO CoLab Ventures: https://www.ideocolab.com/ventures/ Will Price: https://twitter.com/will__price Flipside Crypto: https://flipsidecrypto.com Total value locked in Compound: https://defipulse.com/compound What liquidity bootstrapping pools are: https://medium.com/balancer-protocol/building-liquidity-into-token-distribution-a49d4286e0d4 Dan on earning more from borrowing USDT than lending it on Compound: https://twitter.com/delitzer/status/1272642107128164354 Tony Sheng on how yield farming works and how much you can earn from it: https://twitter.com/tonysheng/status/1274393189231689728 And his followup on the risks of yield farming: https://twitter.com/tonysheng/status/1274780457729617920 The purpose of COMP for governance: https://medium.com/compound-finance/compound-community-ownership-ee0ed1252cc3 https://medium.com/compound-finance/expanding-compound-governance-ce13fcd4fe36 Risks of so much BAT being held in Compound: https://twitter.com/spencernoon/status/1276897377446776832?s=20 https://twitter.com/defiprime/status/1277026665952980992?s=20 https://twitter.com/devops199fan/status/1274732220192829441?s=20 Cyrus of MakerDAO concerned about the risks COMP poses to the Dai peg: https://forum.makerdao.com/t/upcoming-comp-farming-change-could-impact-the-dai-peg/2965 Dan Guido and Taylor Monahan on Unchained discussing DeFi security: https://unchainedpodcast.com/defi-security-with-so-many-hacks-will-it-ever-be-safe/ Twitter discussion on whether ETH price will rise due to yield farming: https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1274781676875452421 What will happen to other Layer 1s? https://twitter.com/Shaughnessy119/status/1274376237239189504?s=20 Aquaponic yield farming: https://bankless.substack.com/p/aquaponic-yield-farming Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is the first in a series, Why Bitcoin Now, that takes a deeper dive into Bitcoin and the history of money in the macroeconomic environment of the coronavirus. Mike Novogratz, founder, CEO and chairman of Galaxy Digital, and Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor and Real Vision Group, tell us where they think Bitcoin is going amidst this macro uncertainty and the global crisis due to the coronavirus. We discuss: why Bitcoin’s price hasn't risen in price due to the global turmoil, and instead fell with the rest of the market on Black Thursday why quantitative easing is the catalyst for institutional investors to turn to Bitcoin, but why that takes time, and why registered investment advisors may be on the cusp why they think retail investors will continue to buy Bitcoin despite record unemployment why Bitcoin will benefit from social unrest why any particular country's success in dealing with the coronavirus won’t really lessen the economic impact there whether China's first-mover advantage with the DCEP and its comprehensive enterprise blockchain initiatives will undermine the global dominance of the US dollar why they believe there will ultimately be a dollar-based stablecoin why they believe Libra will be a strong player in the future of stablecoins how election outcomes, and in particular a potential movement to break up Big Tech, could affect Bitcoin and the vision for Web3 whether Ethereum, and staking, will see more adoption from institutional investors why they believe yield farming is ultimately not sustainable, but still profitable the impact the Bitcoin halving will have in this macroeconomic environment Unchained is hiring! Check out our job listing for a remote editorial assistant here! Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Kelman Law: https://crypto.law Stellar: https://www.stellar.org Episode links: Mike Novogratz: https://twitter.com/novogratz Galaxy Digital: https://www.galaxydigital.io Raoul Pal: https://twitter.com/RaoulGMI Real Vision: https://www.realvision.com Unchained interview with Kyle Samani on what happened in the crypto markets on Black Thursday: https://unchainedpodcast.com/teetering-on-the-edge-how-black-thursday-exposed-the-flaws-in-the-crypto-markets/ Unconfirmed interview with Antoine Le Calvez on what happened on BitMEX during Black thursday: https://unchainedpodcast.com/what-happened-on-bitmex-during-black-thursday/ Unchained interview with Chamath Palihapitiya on Bitcoin: https://unchainedpodcast.com/chamath-palihapitiya-why-bitcoin-will-be-the-category-winner/ Brian Armstrong tweet about deposits to Coinbase the same size as the $1,200 stimulus check: https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1250907110730170370?s=20 China's DCEP and blockchain initiative: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/ Unchained interview on Libra: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/ Unconfirmed interview with the Libra Association's Dante Disparte: https://unchainedpodcast.com/libras-dante-disparte-on-why-we-should-trust-a-financial-system-designed-by-facebook/ Unconfirmed interview with Michael Casey on why it would it would be good if Libra rivaled the USD: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-it-would-be-good-if-libra-rivaled-the-us-dollar/ Christopher Giancarlo's digital dollar project: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-why-the-us-needs-to-have-a-digital-dollar/ Ethereum 2.0 staking: https://www.coindesk.com/3-ways-staking-will-upend-the-economics-of-ethereum Unconfirmed with Kain Warwick on COMP's launch: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-comp-5xed-on-day-1-and-what-this-means-for-a-defi-bull-market/ Unconfirmed interview with Tony Sheng on yield farming: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-you-can-double-your-money-or-lose-everything/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chamath Palihapitiya, the CEO of Social Capital and chairman of Virgin Galactic, talks about a wide range of issues, including Bitcoin, COVID, civil unrest, and broad economic trends and forecasts. We discuss: Whether his economic forecasts have shifted throughout COVID Why he believes a debt crisis will occur How he views the success of BTC as a hedge against the ruling class How the economic pendulum will swing back toward consumers Why he doesn't mind if big corporations and hedge funds get wiped out Whether he subscribes to the thesis that Bitcoin is uncorrelated Why the pandemic has not spurred institutional adoption of crypto Why he sees no merit in Ethereum How the economy will become more decentralized in the future and whether blockchain will be a part of it Why he prefers SPACs over ICOs Why he started capital as a service Why he believes the government should bust up large corporations Unchained is hiring! I'm looking for a remote editorial assistant. If you love crypto and have journalism experience, get in touch! https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/ Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Stellar: https://www.stellar.org Kelman Law: https://www.kelman.law Episode links: Chamath Palihapitiya: https://twitter.com/chamath Social Capital: https://www.socialcapital.com/ Turmoil at Social Capital: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/social-capital-founder-gives-his-account-of-turmoil-at-firm https://observer.com/2018/09/chamath-palihapitiya-social-capital-turmoil/ https://medium.com/@chamath/the-reports-of-our-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated-11bcc80ee4ab 2019 interview with Kara Swisher: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/3/4/18247010/chamath-palihapitiya-social-capital-happiness-identity-crisis-kara-swisher-teddy-schleifer-podcast Chamath on Recode Decode in 2020: https://podcastnotes.org/recode-decode/chamath-palihapitiya-kara-swisher-investing/ Fed buying up to $250 billion in individual corporate bonds: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/federal-reserve-begins-individual-corporate-bond-purchases-secondary-market-relief-2020-6-1029309910 CNBC interview where he says Bitcoin is an uncorrelated hedge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gDmcU8bDw https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/12/social-capitals-palihapitiya-bitcoin-is-going-to-1-million-in-the-next-20-years.html SPAC: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-modern-ipo-is-useless-lets-reinvent-it-1506361770?mod=searchresults&page=2&pos=13 China’s blockchain efforts: https://www.coindesk.com/from-banking-giants-to-tech-darlings-china-reveals-over-500-enterprise-blockchain-projects Capital as a service: https://caas.socialcapital.com https://medium.com/social-capital/from-experiment-to-product-capital-as-a-service-one-year-later-6d8b4b9c038b 2019 investor letter: https://www.socialcapital.com/annual-letters/2019 At Stanford GSB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At an event at the NYU Stern School of Business, Christopher Giancarlo, former CFTC Chairman and co-founder of the Digital Dollar Foundation, discusses his proposal for a US central bank digital currency (CBDC), and how that fits into the broader geopolitical environment. We cover: Why he has focused on pushing for a US digital dollar after leaving the CFTC How a US CBDC would be different from other stablecoins How the proposal is designed to build off of the traditional banking infrastructure What pilot programs would look like How a digital dollar would foster economic inclusion even though using the digital dollar requires owning a smartphone How it would handle privacy How the network would be secured Whether the US is falling behind China in terms of central bank digital currencies and blockchain exploration Whether Libra will be a proxy for the digital dollar How COVID-19 has affected the discourse around a digital dollar Whether the election will affect the future of the digital dollar Unchained is hiring! Check out our job listing for a remote editorial assistant here! https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/ Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Kelman Law: https://crypto.law Stellar: https://www.stellar.org Episode links: Chris Giancarlo: https://twitter.com/giancarlo Digital Dollar Project : https://www.digitaldollarproject.org Previous Unchained interview with Chris: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-on-the-craziness-of-becoming-crypto-dad/ Chris and Daniel Gorfine’s WSJ op-ed advocating for a digital dollar: https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-sent-a-man-to-the-moon-we-can-send-the-dollar-to-cyberspace-11571179923 Digital dollars in stimulus bills — March: https://www.coindesk.com/house-stimulus-bills-envision-digital-dollar-to-ease-coronavirus-recession April: https://www.coindesk.com/digital-dollar-reintroduced-by-us-lawmakers-in-latest-stimulus-bill Pew Research on smartphone adoption: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ FDIC survey on the unbanked and underbanked: https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017execsumm.pdf Banks keeping some of customers’ stimulus money: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/stimulus-paychecks-garnish-banks.html Why a digital dollar is politically more feasible at this moment than before: https://www.coindesk.com/the-overton-window-opens-for-a-digital-dollar Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown also proposes digital dollar: https://www.coindesk.com/us-senate-floats-digital-dollar-bill-after-house-scrubs-term-from-coronavirus-relief-plan Philadelphia Fed paper: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/research-and-data/publications/working-papers/2020/wp20-19.pdf Receptivity in Congress to the idea of a digital dollar: https://www.coindesk.com/how-a-flurry-of-digital-dollar-proposals-made-it-to-congress Libra white paper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#cover-letter Congressional hearing on using FedAccounts and for stimulus: https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=406612 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.S. House Representative, Warren Davidson, contextualizes the state of crypto legislation in terms of widespread civil unrest, COVID-19, and global shifts in power. He explains where crypto plays a role in these paradigm shifts and talks about: Why he believes in crypto, and how he came into the space How his Token Taxonomy Act creates regulatory clarity for token issuers What four conditions tokens would have to meet to not be considered securities Other features of the Token Taxonomy Act, including a de minimus exemption for taxes and no taxation of crypto-to-crypto trades How the pandemic and coronavirus-related fiscal stimulus affects the prospects for the Token Taxonomy Act What he thinks about China's blockchain push and its DCEP digital yuan Whether and how that creates a credible threat to US dominance in global markets Whether Libra could be a counterweight How a shift toward digital currencies could undermine the global reserve status of the USD and whether that affects the US's ability to enforce sanctions How outcomes of the upcoming election will affect the potential passage of crypto-friendly regulation Why it is easier for crypto legislation to be more bi-partisan than other bills What help he needs from the industry right now to push along crypto-friendly bills Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Kelman Law: https://crypto.law Stellar: https://www.stellar.org Episode links: Rep. Warren Davidson: https://twitter.com/WarrenDavidson His House page: https://davidson.house.gov Press release on the Token Taxonomy Act: https://davidson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/token-taxonomy-act-address-blockchain-innovation-flight-america Token Taxonomy Act on GovTrack: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr2144 Text of the Token Taxonomy Act: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr2144/text Letter requesting IRS clarify some crypto tax policies: https://www.coindesk.com/us-lawmakers-ask-irs-to-clarify-crypto-tax-rules-around-airdrops-forks-in-new-letter Congressman Patrick McHenry on Unchained discussing his “permanent beta testing” idea for crypto: https://unchainedpodcast.com/congressman-patrick-mchenry-bitcoin-will-be-of-enormous-value/ Unchained interview on the DCEP: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/ Unchained interview with Libra co-creator Christian Catalini: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/ Unchained with Christopher Giancarlo on his proposal for a digital dollar: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-on-the-craziness-of-becoming-crypto-dad/ Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Libra and a digital dollar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-05/mnuchin-powell-see-no-need-for-fed-to-issue-digital-currency Video in which Rep. Davidson says “shitcoin”: https://www.coindesk.com/lawmakers-amp-up-pressure-on-facebook-to-halt-libra-cryptocurrency-development Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson on the Shitcoin Waterfall on Unchained: https://unchainedpodcast.com/meltem-demirors-and-jill-carlson-on-the-shitcoin-waterfall-ep-74/taxes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jesse Walden of Variant Fund, and Robert Leshner of Compound explain all of the problems associated with the decentralizing process in terms of governance and compliance, pulling from their own lessons and their commentary on other projects. We cover: Why projects must start with some level centralization How projects can both monetize and not put their code at risk of being forked How they can decentralize while also maintaining security, especially for composable DeFi projects that may become vulnerable as new technology and new protocols are introduced How and when to distribute the token so as not to attract only speculators and also not trip regulatory wires How Compound’s current governance works, how it is decentralizing, why they decided to use a governance token, and what Compound (the company) will do after full decentralization Why open-sourced projects are still able to extract profits, even after a fork Whether or not teams should have admin keys, such as what was used in response to the bZx attacks Whether or not projects should be upgrade-able What Block.One, which raised $4 billion in an ICO, did right to only pay a $24 million fine to the SEC Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Kelman Law: https://crypto.law Stellar: https://www.stellar.org Episode links: Jesse Walden: https://twitter.com/jessewldn Robert Leshner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rleshner/ A16z Crypto startup school: https://a16z.com/crypto-startup-school/ Compound: https://compound.finance Progressive Decentralization playbook: https://jessewalden.com/progressive-decentralization-a-playbook-for-building-crypto-applications/ What recent moves by the SEC say about mutability when it comes to crypto networks: https://a16z.com/2019/10/22/mutability-sec-recent-cases/ Compound’s $COMP token: https://medium.com/compound-finance/compound-governance-5531f524cf68 More on Compound’s governance token: https://www.coindesk.com/compound-extends-defi-ethos-to-itself-launches-governance-token Unchained discussion about bZx attacks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-bzx-attacks-unethical-or-illegal-2-experts-weigh-in/ Eric Wall tweet storm on admin keys: https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1229198599264907264?s=20 tBTC shutting down: https://twitter.com/keep_project/status/1262483526437556228 More on tBTC: https://www.coindesk.com/bug-forces-shutdown-of-bitcoin-backed-ethereum-token-tbtc Unchained interview about tBTC in which Matt Luongo explains the admin key: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tbtc-what-happens-when-the-most-liquid-crypto-asset-hits-defi/ Is the SEC trying to kill the SAFT? https://www.coindesk.com/with-kik-and-telegram-cases-the-sec-tries-to-kill-the-saft Block.One settlement with SEC: https://www.coindesk.com/eos-maker-block-one-settles-with-sec-over-unregistered-securities-sale Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s Unchained is my panel at Ready Layer One! We talk everything layer one with four key players and projects -- Illia Polosukhin of NEARprotocol, Zaki Manian of Cosmos, Rob Habermeier of Polkadot, and Arthur Breitman of Tezos — to find out how these projects plan to compete with Ethereum and attract developers and users. We discuss: What platforms they are building and at which stage in development they are How they differentiate themselves from Ethereum, and what problems they believe need to be solved How they plan to attract devs in an industry of network effects Whether or not Bitcoin and Ethereum are direct competitors Whether, in the long run, crypto will be more winner-take-all or there will be multiple, interoperable chains How they plan to bring new users into the space How they think the transition to ETH2.0 will shake up the existing blockchain space Take our survey! Tell us what would you like to see from Unchained! Please take a moment to fill out the survey to let us know what you'd like from the show: surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020. Crypto.com has offered our survey respondents a chance to win a metal MCO Visa card -- and Crypto.com will stake these cards indefinitely! Ten lucky winners will enjoy card benefits including free Spotify, free Netflix and 3% back on all spending, and they’ll earn extra interest on their crypto deposit and more! Thanks, Crypto.com! Again, take the survey now: surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020. Unchained is hiring! Come work at Unchained! We have an opening for a remote editorial assistant — find out more about the gig and apply here: https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/ Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Stellar: https://www.stellar.org/ Episode links: Illia Polosukhin: https://twitter.com/ilblackdragon Near protocol: https://near.org Zaki Manian: https://twitter.com/zmanian Cosmos: https://cosmos.network Rob Habermeier: https://twitter.com/rphmeier Polkadot: https://polkadot.network Arthur Breitman: https://twitter.com/ArthurB Tezos: https://tezos.com Near protocol on mainnet: https://near.org/blog/near-mainnet-genesis/ Electric Capital report on the number of developers in Ethereum: https://unchainedpodcast.com/electric-capital-on-the-coins-punching-below-their-weight/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, cofounder and CEO of Binance, and I kicked off the Ethereal Virtual Summit with a fun fireside chat! He talked about Binance’s current operations, its plans for the future, and the crypto industry as a whole. He explains: Why he thought the questions I asked him in our first interview were misleading Whether Libra’s new plans are affecting Binance’s strategy for Venus What impact China’s DCEP will have on crypto Why the confluence of circumstances caused by COVID are a “perfect storm” for crypto, and how this will affect crypto in the long-term Whether the Binance Smart Chain will leech away Ethereum developers and users Why he thinks competition in the industry only grows it How Binance can own CoinMarketCap without affecting its objectivity What he says to the class-action lawsuit against Binance, him and the other cofounders of Binance accusing them of offering unregistered securities How he views the role of Binance in governance in delegated proof-of-state systems, such as when Binance flip-flopped on a contentious hard fork in Steem Where Binance is headquartered Unchained is hiring! Check out the job posting here! https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/ Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Stellar: https://www.stellar.org/ Episode links: CZ: https://twitter.com/cz_binance Binance: https://www.binance.com/en My first interview with CZ: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-binance-became-the-most-popular-crypto-exchange-in-5-months-ep-84/ Details on BUSD: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/38607/binance-launching-its-own-usd-pegged-stablecoin-busd-with-paxos-as-custodian Binance announcement about BUSD: https://binance.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032604131-Binance-Announces-Open-Blockchain-Project-Venus- BUSD marketshare: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-stablecoin-busd-tops-100m-but-lags-behind-rivals Venus as the One Belt, One Road initiative of Libra: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1163364542233006082?s=20 Venus focusing on developing countries: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-is-pitching-its-stablecoin-as-a-government-friendly-libra-competitor Binance’s acquisition of CoinMarketCap: https://www.coindesk.com/binances-coinmarketcap-acquisition-is-a-bet-that-crypto-really-is-for-the-masses 125x leverage: https://www.binance.com/en/blog/393707200802271232/5-Things-You-Need-to-Know-About-Binance-Futures-125x-Leverage The Block report on BNB’s latest token burn: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/62306/a-closer-look-at-binances-bnb-burns Lee et al. vs. Binance: https://www.scribd.com/document/455203877/Lee-et-al-vs-Binance Estimate that Binance earned $46 million in profit in 2018: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/10491/analysis-binance-brought-in-446-million-in-profits-in-2018-despite-the-bear-market Binance used Steem tokens on its exchange to help vote out Steem validators: https://steempeak.com/witness/@ura-soul/ura-soul-witness-update-anarchy-vs-empire-tron-replaces-top-witnesses-and-takes-over-the-steem-blockchain CZ’s initial tweet about the how Binance handled the Steemit fork: https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1234565384327585792?s=20 Binance reverses course: https://www.coindesk.com/steem-will-hard-fork-in-just-hours-over-community-fears-of-justin-sun-power-grab Binance not authorized to operate in Malta: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/56603/binance-is-not-authorised-to-operate-in-malta-says-the-countrys-financial-regulator CZ on Binance not being based in Malta and decentralized: https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1230860647086338048 Binance shut down Shanghai offices: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/47922/binances-shanghai-office-shut-down-following-police-raid-sources-say Links to topics we did not have time to cover: Binance removes all references to Visa from its credit card: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/60886/binance-quietly-scrubs-visa-mentions-from-its-payment-card-website Opening mining pool: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-crypto-exchange-is-launching-its-first-bitcoin-mining-pool Investment in startups in Africa: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-backed-crypto-payments-app-as-race-for-africa-heats-up In-browser trading: https://www.coindesk.com/brave-partners-with-binance-to-develop-in-browser-crypto-trading https://brave.com/binance/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amanda Fabiano, director of Bitcoin mining at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, and Christopher Bendiksen, head of research at CoinShares, discuss the third Bitcoin halving, which occurred hours before the publication of this episode. They discuss: the significance of the halving what effect it could have on price and what Amanda and Christopher think of Dan Morehead's projection that it could reach $115,000 next year how macroeconomic events like the coronavirus and quantitative easing could impact uptake of Bitcoin how the halving could affect miners and hash rate how the halving could influence the environmental impact of Bitcoin why mining was the first activity Fidelity pursued with Bitcoin what they think needs to happen in Bitcoin to foster more adoption why hash rate derivatives will be a crucial step what the outlook is for institutional adoption of Bitcoin plus, is it halving or halvening? Take the 2020 Unchained Podcast survey! I'm doing another survey to find out what you want from the podcasts and how I can make them better! Please take a moment to fill it out here and to tell us at Unchained what you'd like from the show: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020 Plus, Crypto.com has offered our survey respondents a chance to win a metal MCO Visa card -- Crypto.com will stake these cards indefinitely! Ten lucky winners will enjoy card benefits including free Spotify, free Netflix, 3% back on all spending, earn extra interest on their crypto deposit and more! Thanks, Crypto.com! Again, take the survey now! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020 Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Stellar: https://www.stellar.org/ Episode links: Amanda Fabiano: https://twitter.com/_amanda_fab Fidelity Center for Applied Technology: https://www.fidelitylabs.com Christopher Bendiksen: https://twitter.com/C_Bendiksen Coinshares: https://coinshares.com Coinshares’ 5 Popular Bitcoin Halving Theories: https://coinshares.com/research/5-popular-btc-halving-theories Coinshares’ December 2019 Bitcoin Mining Report: https://coinshares.com/assets/resources/Research/bitcoin-mining-network-december-2019.pdf Unconfirmed episode with Dan Morehead: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-bitcoin-price-of-115000-next-year/ Bitcoin stock-to-flow ratio: https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25 Fidelity opens trading to institutional customers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-06/fidelity-said-to-offer-cryptocurrency-trading-within-a-few-weeks Fidelity Digital Assets signs first exchange: https://www.coindesk.com/fidelity-digital-assets-to-sign-up-its-first-crypto-exchange-by-end-of-the-year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, this is an essay by Mariano Conti of MakerDAO that was so popular, personal and relatable, especially to those living in Latin America, that we decided to have Mariano translate it and read it in Spanish. Share it with your Spanish-speaking friends who still don’t understand what crypto is about, to show how it solved real-world problems for at least one person. Mariano Conti, jefe de contratos inteligentes de MakerDAO, nos lee su ensayo sobre su experiencia personal con criptomonedas, desde el punto de vista de un Argentino cuya familia ha experimentado períodos de hiperinflación, y de un freelancer que recibe pagos por su trabajo desde varios países. Mariano describe la evolución de Maker desde Dai de Colateral Único (ahora Sai) hasta Dai Multi Colateral, y también brinda su perspectiva de los eventos del Jueves Negro y las subastas de deuda subsecuentes que el protocolo debió llevar a cabo para regularizar su situación. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dan Guido, cofounder and CEO of Trail of Bits, and Taylor Monahan, founder and CEO of MyCrypto, discuss all the recent hacks in DeFi, how it can be made more safely and who is responsible. We tackle: the Hegic security incident: whose responsibility it was to make sure the contract was secure — the auditor (Trail of Bits) or the team (Hegic) — what Trail of Bits was saying in its audit summary, and how to read between the lines of an audit summary how long an audit should be upgradeability: particularly around when more advanced technology and contracts interface with older technology/contracts centralization vs. decentralization: whether contracts can be made safely while maintaining adhering to the principle of decentralization, why Taylor would prioritize centralization and security, and how teams can create different levels of risk for users bug bounties: why asking what amount they should be is the wrong question the security threats posed by oracles and what a checklist for DeFi teams might look like Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Stellar: https://www.stellar.org Episode links: Dan Guido: https://twitter.com/dguido Trail of Bits: https://www.trailofbits.com Taylor Monahan: https://twitter.com/tayvano_ MyCrypto: https://mycrypto.com Initial tweet by Hegic calling the security issue a typo: https://twitter.com/HegicOptions/status/1253937104666742787?s=20 Hegic tweet saying, “It’s not a security issue”: https://twitter.com/HegicOptions/status/1253954145113038849?s=20 Trail of Bits saying it will no longer work with Hegic: https://twitter.com/dguido/status/1254260725431894020?s=20 Taylor breaks down the audit summary: https://twitter.com/MyCrypto/status/1254058121342803968?s=20 Molly Wintermute’s Medium post on requesting a week audit vs. three-day review: https://medium.com/@molly.wintermute/post-mortem-hegic-unlock-function-bug-or-three-defi-development-mistakesthat-i-feel-sorry-about-5a23a7197bce Unconfirmed episode with Haseeb Qureshi on the Lendf.me attack: https://unchainedpodcast.com/haseeb-qureshi-on-the-unbelievable-story-of-the-25-million-lendf-me-hack/ Unchained interview showing Matt Luongo's approach to kill switches and upgradeability with tBTC: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tbtc-what-happens-when-the-most-liquid-crypto-asset-hits-defi/ Discussion of the bZx attacks on Unchained: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-bzx-attacks-unethical-or-illegal-2-experts-weigh-in/ Issue with Curve contract: https://blog.curve.fi/vulnerability-disclosure/ Compound bug bounty program: https://compound.finance/docs/security#bug-bounty Taylor on “upgradeability makes things more insecure”: https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1222564979657723904?s=20 Synthetix oracle incident, allowing a bot to profit $1 billion: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-synthetix-became-the-second-largest-defi-platform/ Taylor’s tips on how to get more ROI on an audit: https://twitter.com/MyCrypto/status/1254061500244713474?s=20 Tips to follow before getting an audit: https://blog.openzeppelin.com/follow-this-quality-checklist-before-an-audit-8cc6a0e44845/ Resources for security in DeFi: crytic/building-secure-contractsGuidelines and training material to write secure smart contracts - crytic/building-secure-contractsgithub.com https://consensys.github.io/smart-contract-best-practices/ https://forum.openzeppelin.com https://swcregistry.io https://diligence.consensys.net/blog/2020/03/new-offering-1-day-security-reviews/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis, the parent company of Fold and Keep, describes the just-launched tBTC, his plan for a censorship-resistant Bitcoin-Ethereum bridge. He explains his personal reasons for wanting such a platform, why tBTC is different from other versions of Bitcoin on Ethereum, and how it works -- including the process of becoming a signer in minting tBTC, how the system will handle crises, the reason for high collateralization levels, why staking assets are limited, and the necessity of a work token, Keep. He also discusses the economics behind tBTC-backed tBTC, his vision for DeFi, how tBTC could buffer an ETH crash, and the reasoning behind minimal governance mechanisms -- playing into why institutions trust BTC more than ETH. Plus, he contrasts the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities and talks about the possibility of tBTC2.0. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: Matt Luongo: https://twitter.com/mhluongo Thesis: https://thesis.co/ Keep: https://keep.network/ Fold App: https://foldapp.com/ tBTC white paper: https://docs.keep.network/tbtc/index.pdf Initial reveal: https://twitter.com/mhluongo/status/1162481737525583873?s=20 Announcement on Keep blog: https://blog.keep.network/bridging-bitcoin-and-ethereum-b2f9923630a7?gi=5c9040ed3a72 Some criticism of tBTC: https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/1162728205607985152?s=20 Matt on the Breakdown podcast: https://www.coindesk.com/will-defi-matter-in-a-post-coronavirus-world-feat-matt-luongo Matt on Sendwyre podcast: https://blog.sendwyre.com/announcing-tbtc-with-james-prestwich-and-matt-luongo-of-cross-chain-group-c424e2b0b40c?gi=d1e8b53ca80e How tBTC works: https://defipulse.com/blog/what-is-tbtc/ The Block on tBTC: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/55284/inside-tbtc-the-bitcoin-backed-erc-20-token-that-could-go-live-in-march Keep raises $7.7 million: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinoconnell/2020/04/03/coinbase-co-founder-invests-in-project-to-bridge-bitcoin-and-ethereum/#368a6f737df4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cathie Wood, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, and Yassine Elmandjra, ARK's thematic analyst, discuss their investment strategy with disruptive innovation, and how blockchain technology, especially Bitcoin, plays a major role in it. They explain why the unique market circumstances due to the coronavirus have led to more correlation between crypto and the traditional financial markets, but also why, in the long-term, it will ultimately be uncorrelated. We cover why they think crypto in the age of COVID-19 will see new opportunity, and when there will be a recovery of the larger economy. They also share, from an investor standpoint, their growing conviction in Bitcoin due to its long-term value proposition compared to other chains like Ethereum. Plus, we talk about the future outlook for central bank digital currencies, and how Libra will launch, albeit differently, than expected. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: Cathie Wood: https://twitter.com/cathiedwood?lang=en Yassine Elmandjra: https://twitter.com/yassineARK Yahoo Finance interview on ARK’s big ideas for 2020: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/cathie-wood-talks-ark-invests-222723696.html Keynote on State of Digital Assets at Volt Capital summit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2729&v=c50TMCKsktA&feature=emb_logo ARK’s Q&A video conference on COVID-19: https://ark-invest.com/research/bis2020?utm_campaign=BIS%202020&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--kCZDJ0VuIxNViHjN7KR7qOryEusndZqMfNp7JMkD4AIZJCv8otUtZm8YgPdmVYTZb3ylv4ysbxt8fRIUvngkRLcyvIw&_hsmi=85729999&utm_source=hs_email&utm_content=85729999&hsCtaTracking=14ee7e75-5bf4-46f8-8c8c-f5aeb84b32a7%7C5f5d3a43-f10e-4792-92de-96ef495eb5c6 Feature on Cathie Wood: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-18/cathie-wood-s-tesla-bet-puts-ark-invest-in-spotlight Her views on Zcash: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/12660/cathie-wood-on-the-block-the-crypto-revolution-is-coming-jump-on-or-get-out-of-the-way Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mariano Conti of MakerDAO, head of smart contracts at MakerDAO, reads from his essay about his personal experience with cryptocurrency, particularly as an Argentine whose family has experienced periods of hyperinflation, and as a freelancer accepting payment from foreign countries. He describes the evolution of Maker from single-collateral Dai (now Sai) to multi-collateral Dai, and also gives his perspective on the events of Black Thursday and the subsequent debt auctions the protocol undertook to right itself. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: Mariano Conti: https://twitter.com/nanexcool Linda Xie’s essay about crypto memes on Unchained : https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-memes-can-help-crypto-go-mainstream/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital reads from his essay on how defensible each of the major DeFi protocols on Ethereum are, and what that says about Ethereum's defensibility. He evaluates how easy it would be from an effort and capital standpoint to fork each of the major DeFi protocols, and makes a strong case for how and why he thinks protocols like Maker are quite defensible, and why he believes certain dexes are less so. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this essay, Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly Capital explains why he thinks the focus on decentralization can be overhyped. He looks at why decentralization can be important but then makes it clear, by dissecting when it is important and when it’s not, and to whom it does and doesn’t matter, that it isn’t the be-all end-all goal for every endeavor. He talks about which questions we should be asking beyond just, “is it decentralized,” and also explains why that question doesn’t even make sense. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle Samani, managing partner at Multicoin Capital, dissects Black Thursday, March 12, the day the crypto markets plunged twice amid the wider sell-off in the markets due to the coronavirus. He offers several theories for the first price drop that day, how that set off a series of liquidations on various exchanges, and then why liquidations stopped for about 12 hours before the next wave, which triggered the next price slump. He also describes why, at that point, the crypto market structure broke, as arbitrageurs attempted to move collateral from one exchange to another but could not because both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains became congested, setting off a downward spiral particularly in Bitcoin, as miners began turning off equipment due to the falling BTC price. This led, ultimately, to there being $200 million worth of positions to liquidate on BitMEX, but only $20 million worth of bids on the entire BitMEX order book. Then we cover what happened next that ultimately saved the price of BTC dropping to $0 on BitMEXT. Next, we discuss the second fall in prices that day, and how that affected MakerDAO, with congestion on the Ethereum blockchain preventing keepers from being able to liquidate undercollateralized vaults. A clever keeper sent a bid to liquidate a vault with a higher gas price, but realizing that there was no competition, bid $0, walking away with $4.5 million, and a total of $8 million being won this way. We covered how the price of ETH fell to $88 but because oracles weren't properly updating, the last price of ETH on MakerDAO was at $101 — a dollar higher than the $100 where a bunch of liquidations would have occurred, which would have likely put more downward pressure on ETH, resulting in another downward spiral. Kyle also evaluates some of the technical options for preventing these issues in future times of volatility, why many of them aren't promising but what is. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: https://multicoin.capital/2020/03/20/march-12-the-day-crypto-market-structure-broke-part-2/ Links from news recap: Kyle Samani: https://twitter.com/KyleSamani Multicoin Capital: https://multicoin.capital/ Multicoin blog part 1: https://multicoin.capital/2020/03/17/march-12-the-day-crypto-market-structure-broke/ Part 2: https://multicoin.capital/2020/03/20/march-12-the-day-crypto-market-structure-broke-part-2/ Theory that BitMEX’s maintenance was to prevent a collapse in Bitcoin: https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda/status/1238306306043162625 https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/58918/money-2-0-stuff-free-price-auctions How traders took advantage of the roiling markets: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/59172/surfing-the-spread-crypto-market-turmoil-arbitrage More on the liquidations in MakerDAO: https://medium.com/@whiterabbit_hq/black-thursday-for-makerdao-8-32-million-was-liquidated-for-0-dai-36b83cac56b6 https://blog.makerdao.com/usdc-approved-by-maker-governance-as-the-third-collateral-type-of-the-maker-protocol/ MakerDAO weighs emergency shutdown: https://www.coindesk.com/defi-leader-makerdao-weighs-emergency-shutdown-following-eth-price-drop MakerDAO adds USDC as collateral: https://www.coindesk.com/makerdao-adds-usdc-as-defi-collateral-following-black-thursday-chaos Kain Warwick on USDC as Dai collateral: https://twitter.com/kaiynne/status/1239795250882740225?s=20 Eva Beylin on USDC as Dai collateral: https://twitter.com/evabeylin/status/1240039492985085952?s=20 Huobi’s derivatives platform introduces circuit breaker: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/59210/huobis-derivative-platform-now-includes-a-circuit-breaker-function Debate over circuit breakers in crypto: https://twitter.com/TusharJain_/status/1238311534767595520 https://www.coindesk.com/does-crypto-need-circuit-breakers-last-weeks-price-crash-ignites-a-debate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this essay, Chris Burniske of Placeholder Capital talks about what kind of world crypto entrepreneurs are creating and want to be creating with the systems they build. He talks about different kinds of values, the dangers of only pursuing market values, and why crypto has a unique opportunity now to recalibrate those market values and incorporate more of the societal virtues we hold dear. Then he dives into which values he hopes to imbue into crypto networks and how that informs his thinking as a VC in the space. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Soona Amhaz, general partner at Volt Capital, and Yele Bademosi, founder of Microtransaction, explain why they believe Africa is poised to become a hub for crypto development. They give some interesting stats on how crypto is currently used and traded on the continent, plus talk about how these factors interplay with the region’s unique demographics and the status of some of the continent’s fiat currencies to create what could be a unique environment for increased crypto activity. They end with what they think crypto entrepreneurs should be working on to help further that development. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: Soona Amhaz: https://twitter.com/soonaorlater Yele Bademosi: https://twitter.com/YeleBademosi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this fireside chat from ETH Denver, crypto-friendly governors Jared Polis of Colorado and Mark Gordon of Wyoming discuss how they each became interested in crypto and blockchain, how their states became friendly to the industry and how to resolve some of the thornier problems in crypto regulation, such as the state-by-state money transmission licensing regime. We also dive into the details on some of the regulations in their states, such as the regulations that make it possible to hold state-specific ICOs, what types of companies are taking advantage of those, and whether there's a bipartisan attitude toward crypto regulation. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: CO Governor Jared Polis: https://twitter.com/jaredpolis WY Governor Mark Gordon: https://governor.wyo.gov/ CO Governor Jared Polis’s background: https://gazette.com/election/profile-entrepreneur-jared-polis-sees-governor-s-race-as-a/article_af2d0222-c1b2-11e8-8b2b-afa916b3b182.html Governor Polis’s letter to SEC chairman Jay Clayton and then-CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo on crypto regulation: https://www.coindesk.com/lawmakers-renew-calls-us-lead-crypto-innovation Colorado’s Digital Token Act: https://www.coindesk.com/colorado-could-be-next-in-the-race-to-bank-crypto-and-cannabis https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2019a_023_signed.pdf https://thetokenist.io/colorado-signs-digital-token-act-into-law-some-digital-assets-exempt-from-securities-requirements/ Wyoming passes three crypto-friendly laws: https://www.coindesk.com/wyoming-lawmakers-pass-three-bills-in-boost-for-states-crypto-industry Wyoming laws: https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2018/HB0070 https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2019/03/04/what-do-wyomings-new-blockchain-laws-mean/amp/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maya Zehavi, blockchain consultant, and Zubin Koticha, cofounder and CEO of Opyn, discuss the two recent bZx attacks, whether they were hacks or arbs and whether they were unethical or illegal. They also look at whether flash loans are to blame, how much transparency DeFi teams should have about vulnerabilities on their platforms, how much bug bounties should be for DeFi, and whether flash loans means the amount of bug bounties should be higher. We also talk about whether DeFi should institute circuit breakers, when those would make sense, and whether these attacks could happen to anybody or whether bZx isn't up to the standards needed in this community. We also cover how bZx should handle the under-collateralized loans left on their platform, whether Chainlink will be a sufficient solution to prevent these attacks in the future, and whether DeFi insurance should cover these kinds of attacks. Plus, Maya and Zubin explains why they're happy the attacks happened and have made them more optimistic. And Maya reveals why she has a pizza slice emoji in her Twitter profile. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: Maya Zehavi: https://twitter.com/mayazi Zubin Koticha: https://twitter.com/snarkyzk Opyn: https://opyn.co/ Description of first attack: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56171/bzx-exploit-former-google-engineer-explains-how-an-attacker-made-350k-in-single-transaction Description of second attack: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56171/bzx-exploit-former-google-engineer-explains-how-an-attacker-made-350k-in-single-transaction https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/56413/experts-weigh-in-on-bzx-attacks-flash-loans-highlight-the-need-to-improve-defi-security-models https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/56134/defi-lending-protocol-bzx-exploited-a-portion-of-eth-lost Unconfirmed episode about the attacks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-2-defi-attacks-made-almost-1-million-in-profit/ 1inch.exchange blog post: https://medium.com/@1inch.exchange/yes-we-hacked-bzx-fulcrum-but-one-month-ago-3f7e5c437ee3 1inch exchange-Fulcrum dispute: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56579/bzx-attacks-and-1inch-exchange-allegations-heres-what-the-teams-have-to-say Nexus Mutual payouts: https://defirate.com/nexus-mutual-first-payouts/ Nexus Mutual blog post: https://medium.com/nexus-mutual/bzx-flash-loan-event-55753d19e52b Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Santiago Siri, the cofounder and president of Democracy Earth, reads from his essay on how governance and identity change in the age of cryptography. Thank you to our sponsors! Kraken: https://www.kraken.com CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, reads his essay, A World Without Bitcoin. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Linda Xie, cofounder at Scalar Capital, reads her essay on how the crypto community can successfully use memes to help people understand the technology. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ Kraken: http://kraken.com/ Episode links: Linda Xie: https://twitter.com/ljxie Scalar Capital: https://scalar.capital/ Read Linda's full essay at: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-memes-can-help-crypto-go-mainstream/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CSO of Chainalysis, and Kim Grauer, head of research, discuss the company's 2020 Crypto Crime Report, which explores how cryptocurrency criminals, who perpetrate hacks and scams and send out ransomware and more, cash out. We cover how criminals are turning their illicit crypto into fiat currency, why exchanges are a prime avenue for money laundering, and how over-the-counter brokers are playing a large role. They talk about a group of OTC brokers they describe as the Rogue 100, what their transactions look like, and what can be done to help stop criminals from cashing out. Jonathan and Kim talk about the PlusToken scam, the largest Ponzi scheme in crypto and how Chainalysis determined that it was likely driving down the price of Bitcoin. They also explain the trends in exchange hacks and how the most prolific hackers have grown more sophisticated, giving some examples of how the Lazarus Group, a cybercriminal syndicate linked to the North Korean government has become more advanced. Finally, we also discuss ransomware and terrorism financing and what trends they are seeing there. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Episode links: Chainalysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/ Jonathan Levin: https://twitter.com/jony_levin Kim Grauer: https://twitter.com/KimberlyGrauer Previous Unchained interview with Jonathan: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-chainalysis-helps-solve-crimes-jonathan-levin-tells-all-ep-62/ Unconfirmed episode on how Bitcoin led to the demise of the largest child porn site: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-bitcoin-led-to-the-demise-of-the-largest-child-porn-site/ Money laundering report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/money-laundering-cryptocurrency-2019 https://fortune.com/2020/01/15/crypto-criminals-brokers-launder-billions/ Exchange hacks report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks-2019 Unchained interview with Priscilla Moriuchi on why North Korea is interested in cryptocurrency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-north-korea-is-interested-in-cryptocurrency/ Plus Token report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/plustoken-scam-bitcoin-price Terrorism financing report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/terrorism-financing-cryptocurrency-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brendan Eich, CEO and president of Brave, discusses his history in tech prior to crypto, including working at Netscape, how he created Javascript in 10 days and his short stint as CEO of Mozilla, what problems with ads that Brave is trying to solve, and why Brave needs the Basic Attention Token. He explains why Bitcoin wouldn't work for cryptocurrencies on the platform, why they use BAT over stablecoins, and how Brave strips ads from publishers' webpages, but doesn't from Facebook or Google, and how it causes collateral damage to publishers. He talks about how the browser is a middleman, how Brave works with Uphold and why it doesn't require KYC unless the users wants to cash out on his or her Brave rewards. He also explains why he isn't worried that BAT could meet the four prongs of the Howey test, what it will look like when Basic Attention Token is decentralized and why he doesn't know if publishers are earning back in BAT the ad revenue that Brave blocks. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://kraken.com/ Episode links: Brendan Eich: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich Brave: https://brave.com/ Basic Attention Token: https://basicattentiontoken.org/ BAT white paper: https://basicattentiontoken.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BasicAttentionTokenWhitePaper-4.pdf Brave Rewards: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027276731-Brave-Rewards-FAQ Brave privacy policy: https://brave.com/privacy/ https://brave.com/privacy/#dev-detail BAT Growth: https://batgrowth.com Publishers on BAT: https://batgrowth.com/publishers/website Brendan Eich admits Brave is semi-decentralized: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/11/23/brave-blockchain-cryptocurrency-browser/ How Brave hurts publishers: https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html Publishers send cease and desist to Brave: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-browser-brave-responds-cease-desist Whether BAT is necessary for Brave: https://micky.com.au/just-3-9-of-brave-browser-users-have-bat-in-their-wallets/ BAT ICO: https://www.coindesk.com/35-million-30-seconds-token-sale-internet-browser-brave-sells Vitalik blog post on token sales: https://vitalik.ca/general/2017/06/09/sales.html BAT roadmap: https://basicattentiontoken.org/bat-roadmap-1-0/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Catherine Coley, the CEO of Binance US, talks about her background as a foreign exchange trader, how and why she made the leap into crypto, and how she became the CEO of Binance US. We discuss how Binance US differs from Binance, who Binance US's target customers are, how Binance decides which coins to list, what's on Catherine's wish list to regulators, and whether Binance US will be connected to or cut off from the global, open financial system Binance is building. We also cover why Binance US launched with Tether as its stablecoin, why the company is also focusing on BUSD, how they became comfortable using BNB token on the exchange, whether or not they worry that BNB could be considered a security. Catherine talks about whether the company will offer leverage, lending, staking, etc., and where Binance US's future revenue could come from as exchange fees trend to zero. We also cover what Catherine has learned from working customer support for Binance US and and how she compares the US and Asian crypto markets. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained Kraken: https://www.kraken.com/ Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ Episode links: Catherine Coley: https://twitter.com/cryptocoley Binance US: https://www.binance.us/en Binance US on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BinanceAmerica Binance US blog: https://www.binance.us/en/blog Crypto Rating Council: https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-led-crypto-ratings-council-draws-skepticism-from-legal-experts Telegram notice about Grams and Ton: https://telegram.org/blog/ton-gram-notice CZ’s 2020 New Year’s message: https://www.binance.com/en/amp/blog/419417682154909696/Binance-2020-New-Year-Message-Building-Foundations-- Binance US joins Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee: https://www.binance.us/en/blog/419943835304939520/BinanceUS-Joins-the-Executive-Committee-of-the-Chamber-of-Digital-Commerce Multicoin Capital report, Binance is Blitzscaling: https://multicoin.capital/2019/11/07/binance-is-blitzscaling/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Pack, founding partner of Dragonfly Capital, and Haseeb Qureshi, Dragonfly managing partner, talk about why Dragonfly has a global focus, how they choose investments, and why they try to be as agnostic as possible about asset type. They also discuss why most protocols, including Bitcoin, still look like venture bets, why, at the moment, Bitcoin looks like a better investment than anything built on top of Bitcoin, and why Lightning hasn't yet taken off and why they think it won't. We also cover what the future holds for Bitcoin. They explain what they think will happen in the smart contract platform race, why Ethereum is so far in the lead and whether anything will become an Ethereum killer. We also cover Libra, and how Libra affects their investments in stablecoins, why Xi Jinping's "blockchain, not crypto" emphasis is a dead end, whether blockchain-based identity is an investable area, what they think the killer app is or will be and their predictions for 2020. Also, Haseeb, a former professional poker player, describes how poker playing is similar to crypto trading. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained Kraken: https://kraken.com/ Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Episode links: Alex Pack: https://twitter.com/alpackap Haseeb Qureshi: https://twitter.com/hosseeb Dragonfly Capital: https://www.dcp.capital/ Dragonfly Capital’s blog: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research Forbes on Dragonfly Capital’s $100 million initial raise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2018/10/09/new-fund-dragonfly-bridges-china-us-crypto/#572aeb953c9a Venture Beat story: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/09/dragonfly-capital-partners-scoops-up-100-million-for-cryptocurrency-investments/ https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/09/1618445/0/en/Dragonfly-Capital-Partners-Unveils-100-Million-Inaugural-Fund-for-Cryptocurrencies-Bridges-Gap-between-East-and-West.html DeFi cannibalizing POS security: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/how-defi-cannibalizes-pos-security-84b146f00697 Mimblewimble blog post: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/breaking-mimblewimble-privacy-model-84bcd67bfe52 Haseeb’s 2020 article on CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/what-defi-needs-next-year-three-priorities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Best of 2019 episode, I selected the clips that seemed most representative of what crypto was about this year, which I call, The Year Things Got Geopolitical. My only regret is that none of the clips about DAOs lent themselves well to this episode. However, years from now, after we’ve got global stablecoins pinging around the world at a high transactions-per-second rate, the crypto community has made peace with U.S. regulators, and more of our lives seems to take place in the borderless digital world, perhaps we'll find it ironic that DAOs were burbling up right around the same time. Thank you to our sponsors! Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Episode links: Unchained Interview with Vitalik Buterin: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-whether-or-not-ethereum-is-blowing-it/ Unchained Interview with Hester Peirce: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sec-commissioner-hester-peirce-come-talk-to-the-sec/ Unchained Interview with Ted Livingston: https://unchainedpodcast.com/kin-sets-up-5-million-defendcrypto-org-to-take-on-the-sec/ Unchained Interview with Glen Weyl and Santiago Siri: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-blockchains-can-help-create-little-democracies-everywhere/ Unchained Interview with Christian Catalini: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/ Unchained Interview with Martin Chorzempa and Dovey Wan: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/ Unchained Interview with Emily Parker: https://unchainedpodcast.com/crypto-in-china-what-it-really-looks-like/ Unchained Interview with Sandra Ro: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sandra-ro-why-crypto-friendly-laws-are-coming-in-the-us/ Unchained Interview with Patrick McHenry: https://unchainedpodcast.com/congressman-patrick-mchenry-bitcoin-will-be-of-enormous-value/ Unchained Interview with David Andolfatto: https://unchainedpodcast.com/fed-economist-on-the-prospect-of-the-usd-losing-global-reserve-status-who-cares/ Unchained Interview with Yeonmi Park: https://unchainedpodcast.com/yeonmi-park-on-why-doing-business-with-north-korea-is-like-buying-a-ticket-to-a-concentration-camp/ Unchained Interview with Alex Gladstein: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This fall, I had an idea to do a crypto show for my normie friends, and figured I’d release it over the holidays, when maybe my regular listeners would be with the very people in their lives who could benefit from such an episode. I solicited questions from my own real-life friends, edited down the repeats and tried my best to make the explanations as simple as possible. I cover basic explanations of Bitcoin, blockchain and Ethereum, plus we go into questions around mining and electricity usage, and why anyone would use cryptocurrency. I hope this clears things up for some of your friends and family — and gets some of them to go down the crypto rabbit hole. Thank you to our sponsors! Givewell: http://givewell.org/unchained CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Kraken: http://kraken.com Crypto.com: http://crypto.com Episode links: Previous beginner episodes: Crypto 101: https://unchainedpodcast.com/crypto-101-everything-you-need-to-know-about-bitcoin-ethereum-blockchains-icos-and-more/ How to Explain Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain to the Average Person: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-to-explain-cryptocurrencies-and-blockchains-to-the-average-person/ Interviews with Vitalik Buterin: 2017: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-creator-of-ethereum-on-the-big-guy-vs-the-little-guy/ 2019: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-whether-or-not-ethereum-is-blowing-it/ Episode with Wences Casares: https://unchainedpodcast.com/xapos-wences-casares-on-how-bitcoin-makes-a-fairer-world/ Lolli: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-to-get-7-of-your-purchases-back-in-bitcoin/ Cryptocurrency to evade surveillance: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/ KHmap.live interview: https://unchainedpodcast.com/an-interview-with-the-anonymous-developer-of-hkmap-live/ North Korea's interest in cryptocurrency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-north-korea-is-interested-in-cryptocurrency/ Bitwise: https://unchainedpodcast.com/bitwises-latest-plans-to-get-a-bitcoin-etf-approved/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future and non-resident fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, explains North Korean usage of the internet and how it has changed over time, how it is reserved only for the few most senior people in the regime, and what the mobile devices of the other 25 million citizens connects to, and who is watching the activity on those devices. She also describes the various ways North Korea has shown an interest in cryptocurrency, how it's been determined that North Korea is engaging in those activities, such as cryptocurrency exchange hacks and malware, and its seeming interest in Monero. We also discuss how they convert crypto to fiat, and how well the government seems to have connected its cryptocurrency activities with its other real-world criminal networks used for other activities such as smuggling, drugs and counterfeiting cigarettes and US dollars. We also talk about which North Koreans have been trained to carry out such attacks and how and why they carry them out abroad rather than in North Korea. She also covers why Ethereum researcher Virgil Griffith's visit to North Korea, even if he were dispensing "public" information, would have been helpful in a country where everyone but a tiny elite is denied access to the internet. Thank you to our sponsors! Givewell: http://givewell.org/unchained CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Crypto.com: http://crypto.com Episode links: Priscilla Moriuchi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priscilla-moriuchi-410297127/ Recorded Future: https://www.recordedfuture.com Recorded Future on North Korea’s internet activity: https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-internet-activity/ Full report: https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/north-korea-activity.pdf Recorded Future report on North Korea’s interest in cryptocurrency: https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-cryptocurrency/ Full report: North Korea targeting South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges: https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-cryptocurrency-campaign/ Full report: https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/cta-2018-0116.pdf Podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/recorded-future-inside-threat-intelligence/e/52982550 Priscilla on why Virgil’s attendance at a blockchain conference in North Korea was helpful to the regime: https://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-virgil-griffith-cryptocurrencies-bad-idea-analyst-2019-12 Priscilla on how North Korea uses cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions: https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/28/17055762/north-korea-sanctions-bitcoin-nuclear-weapons North Korea’s interest in Monero: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-north-korea-hackers-mine-cryptocurrency-abroad-1515420004 North Korea’s plan to build its own version of the Petro, I mean, Bitcoin: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ae/north-korea-is-building-its-own-bitcoin DOJ Complaint against Virgil: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1222646/download Virgil’s Facebook post inviting others to North Korea: https://www.facebook.com/virgil.gr/posts/10112756681859159 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In light of the questions around whether or not Virgil Griffith's talk at a blockchain conference in Pyongyang could have helped everyday North Koreans, Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, human rights activist, board member of the Human Rights Foundation and author of “In Order to Live, A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom,” talks to Unchained. She tells us about her life growing up in North Korea, how she thought the "dear leader" could read her thoughts, why freedom of thought is not allowed in North Korea, and how a South Korean had to teach her that Kim Jong Il was fat and not starving for the North Koreans, as she had been taught. She talks about what happened after her father was sent to a prison camp for selling copper, silver and nickel, how three generations of her family were then tainted and put in the "hostile" class of the caste system, and how watching the movie Titanic introduced her to the concept of romantic love. She tells the story of how, because of hunger, she fled to China — right into the hands of human traffickers, but decided to stay because of what trash cans in China signified to her, and describes the first time she heard the word "free." She also covers the difficulty of her transition to freedom and how reading George Orwell's Animal Farm was a turning point for her. We discuss why the strategy for liberating North Korea is mostly about getting outside information in, who benefits from tours to North Korea and why lifting sanctions would only help the regime. She also explains why the only people who would have benefited from Griffith's talk would have been North Korean elite, and how any actions in line with what the dictator wants help him maintain power. She says the best ways to improve the situation in North Korea are to boost awareness of what is happening, empower the people there by getting outside information in and helping during the rescue, as 300,000 defectors, most of them women and girls living as sexual slaves, are hiding in China. Thank you to our sponsors! Givewell: http://givewell.org/unchained Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Episode links: Yeonmi Park: https://yeonmi.com/ Yeonmi Park on Twitter: https://twitter.com/YeonmiParkNK Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialYeonmiPark/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yeonmi_park/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpQu57KgT7gOoLCAu3FFQsA Human Rights Foundation: https://hrf.org/ In Order to Live: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318940/in-order-to-live-by-yeonmi-park-with-maryanne-vollers/ One of the first speeches by Yeonmi that went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-gGvLWOZI Yeonmi's TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/yeonmi_park_what_i_learned_about_freedom_after_escaping_north_korea New York Times video op-ed with Yeonmi's message for President Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/north-korea-trump-kim-human-rights.html DOJ complaint against Virgil Griffith: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-arrest-united-states-citizen-assisting-north-korea Economist video on the efforts to get outside information into North Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVRQpfXGQyc&app=desktop Guardian article on North Korean defector activist groups attempting to get outside information into North Korea: https://amp.theguardian.com/global/2016/aug/27/north-korea-defectors-ian-birrell Wired article on getting outside information in: https://www.wired.com/2015/03/north-korea/ The story of Otto Warmbier: https://www.gq.com/story/otto-warmbier-north-korea-american-hostage-true-story South Korean woman shot for crossing line at a resort in North Korea: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/12/korea Unchained interview with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/ Unconfirmed interview with Alex Gladstein: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-first-crypto-war-ep-021/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, talks about synthetic asset issuance platform, which enables people to create tokens that track the price of assets in traditional and crypto finance. We discuss the various types of assets available, why changing the monetary policy helped the ecosystem take off, why people would buy synthetic Bitcoin over Bitcoin itself, and why Uniswap has been pivotal to Synthetix's success. He covers the role the SNX token plays, why people minting synths must be over-collateralized by about 700%, and some of the changes coming down the pike, including futures, tweaks to the inflation rate, and a new oracle system. He also explains what happened when a trader made the system insolvent — and how they negotiated with the trader to keep it alive — how he thinks about decentralization and why the system's governance might one day be handled by a DAO. Thank you to our sponsors! GiveWell: http://givewell.org/unchained Kraken: https://kraken.com/ CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ Episode links: Synthetix: https://www.synthetix.io/ Synthetix on Twitter: https://twitter.com/synthetix_io Kain Warwick: https://twitter.com/kaiynne Havven transforming into Synthetix: https://blog.havven.io/havven-is-transforming-into-synthetix-2fdf727b8892 Synthetix overview: https://blog.havven.io/synthetix-overview-f4a5a6c41210 How Synthetix works: https://www.synthetix.io/how-it-works/ Synthetix lite paper: https://www.synthetix.io/uploads/synthetix_litepaper.pdf Changing monetary policy: https://blog.synthetix.io/synthetix-monetary-policy-changes/ Oracle hack: https://www.coindesk.com/synthetix-trader-rolls-back-broken-trades-that-netted-1-billion-profit Synthetix response to oracle incident: https://blog.synthetix.io/response-to-oracle-incident/ How staking works on Synthetix: https://www.stakingrewards.com/asset/synthetix-network-token https://help.synthetix.io/hc/en-us/articles/360020245314-How-can-I-earn-Synth-exchange-rewards- Reddit complaint by trader who initially made the system insolvent: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/d4edxm/the_synthetix_dapp_deleted_my_balance/ Efforts to resolve the front running problem: https://sips.synthetix.io/sips/sip-6 Synthetix and Chainlink: https://blog.synthetix.io/synthetix-and-chainlink/ Kain’s tweets on the censorship vector stack: https://twitter.com/kaiynne/status/1197265019169169409?s=20 https://twitter.com/kaiynne/status/1197265044204998656?s=20 Unconfirmed episode on Uniswap: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-uniswap-quickly-became-one-of-the-most-popular-dexes/ Defiant interview: https://thedefiant.substack.com/p/theres-a-pipeline-of-etf-like-tokens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carylyne Chan, chief strategy officer at CoinMarketCap, and Gerald Chee, head of research, discuss the history of CoinMarketCap, why the founder Brandon Chez initially focused on circulating supply to calculate market cap, how the ICO craze has changed the way CoinMarketCap defines circulating supply and how the kimchee premium on the Bitcoin price in Korea at the end of 2017 is influencing the future direction of the website. We cover why CoinMarketCap is branching out into other areas such as metrics, blockchain explorers, hosting conferences and more, how the site has made money historically, the demographics, geographical distribution and behaviors of users on the site, and how CoinMarketCap's web traffic is 90% correlated to the Bitcoin price. We talk about the fake volume problem, how CoinMarketCap decided to address it with a new liquidity metric, the new Data Accountability and Transparency Alliance they formed, and why they are working with some of the exchanges identified by Bitwise as being the most egregious in faking volumes, and how those exchanges fare when it comes to CMC's new liquidity metric. We also cover some of the other ways companies have tried to address the fake volume issue, how CoinMarketCap tries to identify the "true price" for any cryptocurrency (and why USDT makes this hard), and what the circulating supply of Ripple should be. Thank you to our sponsors! Kraken: https://kraken.com/ CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ Episode links: CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CoinMarketCap Carylyne Chan: https://twitter.com/carylyne Gerald Chee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerald-chee-8340a0161/ History of CoinMarketCap: https://blog.coinmarketcap.com/2019/05/01/happy-6th-birthday-data-alliance-block-explorers-and-more/ Incident in which CoinMarketCap shaved $100 billion off the total market cap of crypto assets when Chez decided to remove South Korean exchanges from its calculations: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-programmer-at-the-center-of-a-100-billion-crypto-storm-1516708800 CoinMarketCap's new interest for crypto loans page: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/43460/coinmarketcap-now-publishes-interest-rates-on-cryptocurrencies-allowing-users-to-compare-and-choose Bitwise report on fake trading volume: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2019-01/srnysearca201901-5164833-183434.pdf The 10 exchanges Bitwise says have real volume: https://www.bitcointradevolume.com/ CryptoCompare Q3 Exchange Benchmark Report: https://www.cryptocompare.com/media/36569367/cryptocompare_exchange_benchmark_2019_11pdf.pdf DATA: https://coinmarketcap.com/data-transparency-alliance/ Messari benchmarks: https://messari.substack.com/p/more-reliable-cryptoasset-benchmarks Messari report on Ripple’s “circulating supply”: https://messari.io/article/messari-research-ripple-s-market-cap-is-likely-overstated-by-6-1-billion Ripple’s response to Messari report: https://www.coindesk.com/xrp-market-cap-may-be-overstated-by-billions-messari-report-estimates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Martin Chorzempa, research fellow the Peterson Institute, and Dovey Wan, founding partner at Primitive Ventures, discuss China's new blockchain push and the forthcoming DCEP. They cover how the blockchain initiative is part of an effort to set global blockchain standards, how it fits into the larger U.S.-China trade war as well as the threat from Facebook's Libra, and why part of the motivation behind the DCEP may stem from the shadow banking system in China. They also talk about how the DCEP might work, why it aims to be like cash, and ways in which a successful digital currency could be used to help internationalize the renminbi, but why other countries will likely still resist becoming more dependent on China's currency. We also explore what "controlled anonymity" will look like in the DCEP, why it might actually be preferable to transacting via WeChat Pay or Alipay and whether or not Chinese people will become interested in Bitcoin due to this exposure to blockchain technology. Thank you to our sponsors! Kraken: https://kraken.com/ Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Episode links: Martin Chorzempa: https://www.piie.com/experts/senior-research-staff/martin-chorzempa https://twitter.com/ChorzempaMartin Dovey Wan: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan Xi Jinping’s speech: https://www.coindesk.com/president-xi-says-china-should-seize-opportunity-to-adopt-blockchain Cryptography law: https://www.coindesk.com/chinas-congress-passes-cryptography-law-effective-jan-1-2020 China’s 500 enterprise blockchain projects: https://www.coindesk.com/from-banking-giants-to-tech-darlings-china-reveals-over-500-enterprise-blockchain-projects Changchun Mu, the deputy director of the payment and settlement department of the PBOC, on how DC/EP aims to replace the M0 money supply (banknotes and coins): http://www.cf40.org.cn/uploads/newsletter/20190803.pdf Dovey’s article on how the digital yuan will affect the M0 money supply: https://www.coindesk.com/digital-renminbi-a-fiat-coin-to-make-m0-great-again China’s already very digital economy: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/who-likes-facebooks-libra-currency-not-chinese Reaction of Chinese dissident to China’s blockchain push: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-dissident-sees-dark-warnings-in-chinas-blockchain-push Unconfirmed interview with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-the-digital-yuan-could-one-day-be-seen-as-a-blunder/ The commercial entities involved in helping to release the DCEP: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/08/27/alibaba-tencent-five-others-to-recieve-first-chinese-government-cryptocurrency/#95e9d351a516 How they will be involved: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1191807688570626048?s=20 ”Controlled anonymity“: https://twitter.com/ChorzempaMartin/status/1162071943568338944?s=20 Problems that could arise with the DCEP: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3035797/blockchain-endorsement-chinas-xi-jinping-could-lead-fraud-and People with poor social credit banned from buying plane and train tickets: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/china-bans-23m-discredited-citizens-from-buying-travel-tickets-social-credit-system The FT on why China’s currency will not replace the USD: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/09/19/1537329600000/China-s-currency-will-not-replace-the-US-dollar/ 2000 speech by Bill Clinton: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030900clinton-china-text.html?mcubz=2&module=inline Change in plans to eliminate the Bitcoin mining industry: https://www.coindesk.com/sichuan-should-work-to-remain-attractive-to-crypto-mining-policy-advisor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo talks about how his experience of the financial crisis piqued his interest in blockchain technology, why the CFTC thought the introduction of Bitcoin futures would help pop the 2017 Bitcoin bubble, and how "there's no simple answer" to explain when a token goes from being a security to a commodity. He discusses why he believes there needs to be a "refresh" of regulations written decades ago that are difficult to apply in a digital world, why he thinks Libra represents a fundamental generational change and why he thinks the project should be allowed to go forward. We also cover the Chinese digital yuan, why the USD should not assume that its global dominance today will translate into global dominance tomorrow, and his own proposal for a digital dollar, which he dubs "Zelle + JPMorgan Coin." Plus, he gives the behind-the-scenes look at why he decided to speak "as a dad" in the Congressional hearing that made him an overnight crypto celebrity. Thank you to our sponsors! Kraken: https://www.kraken.com CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Crypto.com: http://crypto.com Episode links: Christopher Giancarlo: https://twitter.com/giancarloMKTS https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/JChristopherGiancarlo/index.htm CFTC: https://www.cftc.gov/ Chamber of Digital Commerce: https://digitalchamber.org/ Let the technology evolve before regulating/CFTC is behind on regulating: https://www.coindesk.com/cftc-chair-says-regulator-is-behind-on-blockchain Popping the Bitcoin bubble: https://www.coindesk.com/trump-administration-popped-2017-bitcoin-bubble-ex-cftc-chair-says Talks with Facebook pre-Libra launch: https://www.coindesk.com/facebook-holds-talks-with-cftc-over-globalcoin-cryptocurrency-report The introduction of Bitcoin futures helping to pop the crypto bubble: https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2018/may/how-futures-trading-changed-bitcoin-prices/ Wall Street Journal op-ed proposing a digital dollar: https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-sent-a-man-to-the-moon-we-can-send-the-dollar-to-cyberspace-11571179923 Initial confusion over LedgerX not receiving approval or disapproval within 180 days to launch Bitcoin futures: https://www.coindesk.com/what-happened-why-the-first-us-physical-bitcoin-futures-contracts-havent-launched CoinDesk article with emails from LedgerX on CFTC dispute: https://www.coindesk.com/ledgerx-claims-personal-animus-drove-ex-cftc-chair-to-stall-approvals Commodity Exchange Act: https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/Commodity%20Exchange%20Act.pdf Emails sent from LedgerX to the CFTC: https://static.coindesk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/19-00104-FOIA-Records.pdf Paul Chou’s blog post summarizing what happened: https://blog.ledgerx.com/let-me-set-the-record-straight/ More context from Noelle Acheson on the dispute: https://www.coindesk.com/derivatives-drama-the-unintended-consequences-of-crypto-regulation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christian Catalini, co-creator of Libra and chief economist at Calibra, explains why Facebook made the design choices it made for Libra, reveals whether the team was prepared for the regulatory blowback it received after publishing the white paper, and talks about what it means for Libra now that nearly all the initial payment company members have left the Association. He describes how Facebook defined stability for Libra, whether the Chinese renminbi could ever be added to the reserve the way it is part of the IMF special drawing rights basket, and if so, what the Libra or Calibra would do if the Chinese government tried to censor individuals or transactions in the system. We also cover the tension between the desire to have strong know-your-customer and anti-money laundering processes on the platform but then also to bank the unbanked, who often don't have strong government identification. We also discuss how Facebook will make money from Calibra, what it would take for Facebook to let the Libra Association go forward without it, and why Facebook, which not too long ago was trying to woo China to enter the Chinese market, now says it is the best counterweight to a Chinese digital yuan. Plus, he answers how Facebook and Calibra will handle privacy. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://www.kraken.com/ CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Episode links: Christian Catalini: https://twitter.com/ccatalini Libra: https://libra.org/en-US/ Calibra: https://calibra.com/ Libra white paper: https://libra.org/en-US/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/06/LibraWhitePaper_en_US.pdf Letters to payment companies from Congress: https://www.schatz.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Signed%20Letters%20re%20Libra%20to%20Patrick%20Collison,%20Ajaypal%20Banga,%20and%20Alfred%20Kelly.pdf Mark Zuckerberg's testimony in front of Congress: https://www.c-span.org/video/?465293-1/facebook-ceo-testimony-house-financial-services-committee Reported breakdown of the Libra reserve: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-libra-basket/u-s-dollar-to-be-main-currency-underpinning-facebooks-libra-spiegel-idUSKBN1W522K Calibra — can send money at low to no cost: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/06/coming-in-2020-calibra/ Chargebacks in Libra: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/18/18682838/facebook-digital-wallet-calibra-libra-cryptocurrency-kevin-weil-david-marcus-interview Asian central banks not too open to Libra: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-22/facebook-scaling-back-libra-will-please-asian-central-banks Unconfirmed interview about UN work with blockchain-based vouchers: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-un-world-food-programmes-blockchain-based-food-vouchers-for-syrian-refugees-with-robert-opp/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hunter Horsley, cofounder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management, and Matt Hougan, global head of research at Bitwise, describe their vision for Bitwise, its current funds and indices, as well as how it handles things like forks and airdrops. Then they give their reaction to and interpretation of the SEC disapproval of their Bitcoin ETF proposal, as well as what their focus will be now to try to get a Bitcoin ETF approved. We also discuss their general thesis around how the crypto space will develop, whether or not indices and funds around the top 100 assets will ever make sense, their ideas on how to value these networks and whether or not the company would ever try to compete in the DeFi space. Plus, don't miss our conversation on Bitcoin IRAs. Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/ Kraken: https://kraken.com CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained Episode links: Bitwise: https://www.bitwiseinvestments.com/ Hunter Horsley: https://twitter.com/HHorsley Matt Hougan: https://twitter.com/Matt_Hougan Unchained interview with Spencer Bogart: https://unchainedpodcast.com/spencer-bogart-on-the-20-trillion-in-store-of-value-assets/ Bitwise 10 Private Fund fact sheet: https://static.bitwiseinvestments.com/FactSheet/bitwise10/Bitwise-10-Private-Index-Fund-Investor-Class-Fact-Sheet.pdf Bitwise 10 Offshore Index Fund: https://static.bitwiseinvestments.com/FactSheet/bitwise10-offshore/Bitwise-10-Index-Offshore-Fund-Investor-Fact-Sheet.pdf Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust: https://grayscale.co/bitcoin-trust/ Bitwise Ethereum Fund: https://static.bitwiseinvestments.com/FactSheet/ethereumFund/Bitwise-Ethereum-Fund-Investor-Class-Fact-Sheet.pdf SEC order disapproving the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF proposal: https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nysearca/2019/34-87267.pdf Matt on CNBC discussing the Bitcoin ETF proposal: https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1181309471349526530?s=20 Bitstamp/BitMEX trading manipulation: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1129246233917382656 Jake Chervinsky’s tweet about how the SEC is unlikely to approve a Bitcoin ETF under Chair Jay Clayton: https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1182149164177608704?s=20 Unchained interview with Jake: https://unchainedpodcast.com/all-things-crypto-regulation-with-jake-chervinsky/ SEC commissioner Hester Peirce’s dissent to the disapproval of the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF: https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/peirce-dissent-34-83723 Van Eck’s withdrawal of the Bitcoin ETF proposal: https://www.coindesk.com/vaneck-solidx-withdraw-bitcoin-etf-proposal-from-sec-review Chris Burniske on how to value these networks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-to-value-a-crypto-asset/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congressman Patrick McHenry, or 'Mr. Fintech' to his peers in the House, is announcing the reintroduction of the Financial Services Innovation Act, a bill that would create what he calls "permanent beta testing," or many jurisdictions call "regulatory sandboxes," in which entrepreneurs can apply for regulatory approval to conduct innovative experiments. The bill is intended to get regulators into a position where their default leans more toward yes than no. He describes how this would affect teams that want to conduct ICOs, how it would square with the phenomenon of some token teams trying to raise through Reg A+, and whether it would allow exchanges without BitLicenses to operate in New York. He also discusses what type of digital currency he believes is best suited to compete against a Chinese digital yuan, and says the government is currently looking into whether or not the Federal Reserve has the authority to issue a digital dollar. Thank you to our sponsors! CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained Crypto.com: https://crypto.com Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Episode links: Congressman McHenry: https://mchenry.house.gov/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/PatrickMcHenry The House Libra hearings from July 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ZTkCNW0w8 Financial Services Innovation Act explainer: https://www.alta.org/file.cfm?name=McHenry-Bill-Explainer Introduction of the bill in 2016: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-house-bill-aims-to-set-up-sandbox-for-fintech-innovation-1474539893 https://www.natlawreview.com/article/financial-services-innovation-act-us-wants-sandbox-too Congressman McHenry’s interest in fintech: https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/09/patrick-henry-mr-fintech-interview-000214 CNBC article on how Libra is being slowed by regulation while China’s central bank digital currency speeds ahead: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/china-races-to-launch-a-cryptocurrency-that-could-rival-facebooks.html Fortune article: https://fortune.com/2019/10/16/if-libra-fails-china-wins-the-ledger/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices