Unchained

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

Meta and Microsoft reported earnings on the same night, and investors sent their stocks in opposite directions.

Chris Galipeau of the Franklin Templeton Institute walks Steven Ehrlich through why Meta got punished for raising its CapEx guidance while Microsoft's Azure growth held steady, then makes the case that the broader AI CapEx boom is still only in its second inning, not a bubble about to pop.

Host:

Steven Ehrlich - Host, Head of Research at Sharplink - https://x.com/Steven_Ehrlich

Guest:

Chris Galipeau - Head Market Strategist at the Franklin Templeton Institute

This clip is from a longer conversation on Fed policy, Iran, AI earnings, and prediction markets. Full episode here:https://youtu.be/BXWq7OPcm24

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

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

Chapters

🎙️ 00:00 Kicking off the Meta vs Microsoft earnings comparison

📉 00:26 Why Meta landed in the 'penalty box' on CapEx guidance

☁️ 01:25 Microsoft's Azure growth number was 'super strong'

💰 02:41 The FAANG-era CapEx inversion nobody saw coming

📊 03:41 How to actually evaluate a company's balance sheet health

🔄 04:52 The circular financing risk, and Steve's 'incestuous' tech giants question

⚾ 07:24 The baseball analogy: still early innings, and why this isn't a bubble
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Privacy is having a moment in crypto. As competition heats up, the pitfalls of the technology around the quantum threat, regulatory risk and more make the trajectory hard to predict.

A counterfeit bug sat undetected in Zcash's Orchard privacy pool for four years, capable of minting an unlimited supply of untraceable coins, illustrating the risks of one of the hottest crazes in crypto.

Joe Andrews, CEO of Aztec Labs, Jarrad Hope, founder of Logos, and Mert Mumtaz, cofounder and CEO of Helius, join Laura Shin to argue the bug is less alarming than what it reveals: cryptographic privacy is difficult to get right, and the industry is racing to get it right anyway, because institutions will not come onchain without it.

They cover Zcash's quantum-recoverable Ironwood upgrade and the turnstile proving the counterfeit coins never moved, Ethereum's sprawling privacy roadmap and the risk it arrives too late, Logos' mixnet built to protect validators from block relays now censoring transactions, and why all three see Canton's private stablecoins as little more than a bank with extra steps.

The fight over what actually counts as privacy on a blockchain is only getting started.

Host

⁠Laura Shin⁠ - Founder, CEO and Host of Unchained

Guest

⁠Joe Andrews - CEO of Aztec Labs

⁠Jarrad Hope - Founder of Logos

⁠Mert Mumtaz - Cofounder and CEO of Helius

Sponsor

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

Timestamps:

🔐 01:52 Why Joe, Jarrad, and Mert think privacy's crypto moment is now

💙 18:18 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

⚖️ 19:14 Why Jarrad says the weak need privacy and the powerful need transparency

🔬 24:49 How zero knowledge proofs actually update encrypted state onchain

🕸️ 33:07 Why 43.7% of block relays now censor, and how Logos fixes it

🐛 36:32 The undetected Zcash bug that could have minted infinite fake coins

🔒 46:32 Mert explains how Zcash's Ironwood upgrade closes the counterfeit hole

🛤️ 51:44 Why Joe worries Ethereum's privacy roadmap might arrive too late

🏦 57:39 Why Mert calls Canton no more private than trusting JPMorgan
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BitMEX shut down without an angry tweet. Offchain Labs CEO Steven Goldfeder joins Kain and Taylor on why dead tokens never get that mercy. Plus, Kyle Samani's Multicoin blowup.

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

Thank you to our sponsors!

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

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

BitMEX shut down after 11 years and crypto Twitter answered with nostalgia. When a token project dies, the same audience spends weeks dragging it.

Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum, joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to work through why. Goldfeder argues crypto's grant-funded, revenue-optional era is over, and explains why Arbitrum licensed its stack so that partners like Robinhood Chain have to keep paying for it, while Base pays Optimism.

They trace the DPRK crewhacking crews now rotating through bridge exploits, debate whether Uniswap's new permissioned pools point toward tokens that carry real investor rights, and ask Goldfeder whether he would trade Arbitrum's open token for a restricted one only a fraction of the world could hold.

The conversation closes on Kyle Samani telling Solana builders that Multicoin, the firm he co-founded, is working against them, and what that says about how much of an ecosystem can rest on a single fund.

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert

Guest:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Goldfeder - Co-Founder and CEO of Offchain Labs

Timestamps

📣 00:47 Cape: Get 33% off six months at https://cape.co/unchained

🪦 01:47 Kain opens wondering whether crypto itself is quietly dying in 2026

📊 03:41 Steven on Arbitrum's project tracking and the 'massive consolidation' hitting L2s

⚔️ 10:03 The proxy war: Robinhood Chain and Base now fight instead of Arbitrum and Optimism

🪦 14:23 Why BitMEX's shutdown felt nostalgic while token deaths trigger real anger

🌉 26:21 Hacks of the week: the DPRK crew behind the AFX perp DEX bridge exploit

👽 32:51 Kain's take: bridges got safer until 'aliens landed' and started hacking again

🏛️ 40:32 Permissioned DeFi: Uniswap's compliance pools and Superstate's equity-like tokens

🎯 57:32 Would Steven trade Arbitrum's open token for a 5% investor-only model?

🥊 01:05:42 Kyle Samani's Multicoin tweet and Solana's VC fight over Hyperliquid
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Vy Le and Jessi Brooks trace an AI agent's sandbox escape back to crypto's own fight over open code. Plus, Plume general counsel Salman Banaei on Clarity's knife's-edge vote math.

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

Thank you to our sponsor!

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

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

An AI agent was told to solve a problem inside a sealed sandbox. Instead it found a way out, went to Hugging Face, and took the answer.

Jessi Brooks argues that episode, Moonshot's open-weight Kimi K3 release, and Apple's trade secrets suit against OpenAI all rhyme with a fight crypto has been having for years: punish the conduct, not the code. Vy Le pushes back on whether open source can be both the disease and the cure.

Then Salman Banaei, General Counsel of Plume and a former SEC and CFTC attorney, joins to map where the Clarity Act's ethics language stands with Ruben Gallego, Thom Tillis, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Adam Schiff, and whether ten Democratic votes exist for cloture.

The conversation covers the open-weights export fight, Apple's case against OpenAI, Hester Peirce's new statement on DeFi vaults and onchain lending, and why a new FATF report makes control, not decentralization, the test that matters.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda

Guest:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Salman Banaei - General Counsel of Plume, Former Head of Policy at Uniswap and Chainalysis, and Former SEC and CFTC Attorney

Timestamps

🌐 04:36 Jessi on why treating Kimi K3's open weights as an export could hit crypto

✍️ 07:47 Why Jessi reads Nvidia's and Anthropic's letters as punish the conduct, not the code

🕳️ 11:41 How an OpenAI agent escaped its sandbox and found answers on Hugging Face

🍎 21:55 Apple sues OpenAI over trade secrets, and one text that could cost it

📣 28:55 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

🏛️ 30:57 Salman Banaei maps where Clarity's ethics language stands in the Senate

🗳️ 41:12 Why Banaei says Clarity's cloture vote is on a knife's edge

🔐 42:43 Peirce's vault statement, split into development, curation, administration

🌍 48:32 Why FATF and Clarity both make control the real test for DeFi regulation

🔮 54:36 What Banaei thinks happens to Clarity if it fails this Congress
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📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips

Jensen Huang had been running the world's most valuable company for years without ever posting on X. When he finally did, it wasn't a hello. It was an open letter arguing that open AI models are a national asset — and within two days the signatory list had doubled to 50 companies.

Anthropic and Amazon still haven't signed. Austin Campbell walks the panel through who did, who didn't, and the fight that broke out underneath it: Nick Carter arguing the government doesn't owe the large labs a business model, an Anthropic researcher publicly needling Huang about open-sourcing CUDA, Andrew Ng calling that a false equivalence, and Joe Weisenthal asking whether any of it is more than virtue signaling.

Then it gets concrete. Lorenzo Valente makes the case that cheap open models aren't actually cheap once you price them per task, and asks why the US has no answer to a DeepSeek raising at a reported $70 billion valuation. Ram Ahluwalia closes with the Wright brothers, who watched Boeing and Lockheed Martin build an industry on their patents and never saw a cent of it.

So can a closed model survive being copied — or is getting copied just what happens?

Hosts:

Austin Campbell, Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern

Ram Ahluwalia, Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida

Chris Perkins, Co-host of Bits + Bips and Head of Franklin Crypto

Guest:

Lorenzo Valente - Director of Research at ARK Invest

This clip is from a longer conversation on the open weight versus closed weight AI fight. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/lMZtZwolaeA?si=16-Z4TP227B2OUJl

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

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

Chapters:

🚀 00:00 Jensen Huang's surprise letter reignites the AI open weight fight

💬 01:05 Nick Carter, Julian Schrittwieser, and David Sacks pile on

🔥 02:53 'Virtue signaling' and what happens if China's open models are permanent

⚖️ 05:15 Lorenzo's balanced take: open models aren't a free panacea

💰 06:28 Lorenzo on DeepSeek and Moonshot AI's reported valuations

✈️ 09:53 Ram's closing case: capitalism, distillation, and the Wright brothers
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