Unchained

Tushar Jain and Mike Ippolito make the bull case for Solana as competition heats up.

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With Ethereum refocusing on L1 and Hyperliquid adoption growing, Solana is arguably facing stronger competition than ever. Can it thrive still?

Multicoin co-founder Tushar Jain and Blockworks co-founder Mike Ippolito share several reasons to be excited about Solana, including Alpenglow and anticipated market microstructure design flexibility.

Find out why Tushar and Mike say Firedancer has not been a flop despite seemingly low adoption, why they don't see block building issues stopping Solana from challenging Hyperliquid, and why they say the network doesn't have to do anything to specifically attract AI agents. Plus, why they both believe that the RWA race is too early to call despite Ethereum's dominance.

Meanwhile, with Alpenglow still months away, Mike says the wait doesn’t matter — for the next 12 to 18 months BD and marketing matter more than tech for adoption.

Guest:


Tushar Jain, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital


Previous appearances on Unchained:


Solana Rejected Inflation Reduction-Here's Why


CoinFund's Jake Brukhman and Multicoin's Tushar Jain on Generalized Mining 


Binance Hack: Should the Threat of Reorgs Be Used to Deter Hackers?


Multicoin on the 1 Thing Crypto Teams Miss in Their Quests for Success


Mike Ippolito, Co-Founder at Blockworks

Links:


Unchained:


Ethereum Lets Go of the Rollup Story. Here Are the 6 Tokens That Benefit


Jump Crypto’s Firedancer Goes Live on Solana Mainnet


BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why.


When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?


Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain


Pump.fun Cashed Out $436M Since Mid-October: Lookonchain


Zora Shocks Base Community With Solana Pivot

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Robinhood's Coy Garrison and Seong Seog Lee join the crew to unpack the Robinhood Chain launch strategy.

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Robinhood's proposed chain for the trading of tokenized assets is live in testnet.

In this DEX in the City episode, Coy Garrison, Robinhood's deputy general counsel on crypto, and Robinhood Crypto Head of Product Seong Seog Lee walk hosts Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and Jessi Brooks through the thinking behind the blockchain's testnet launch and why it is important that it supports tokenized equities out of the gate.

Beyond the Robinhood Chain testnet launch, KK and Jessi discuss OpenAI and Paradigm's EVMbench tool and why it highlights the need for a safety-first approach. “AI and crypto are in the same room now, but the room's sort of on fire,” Jessi says.

Don't miss how a man accidentally gained remote access to 7,000 robot vacuums in 24 countries with AI-written code.

KK and Jessi also dig into the Terraform Labs estate's lawsuit against Jane Street. Is there any real credibility behind the lawsuit? Listen to find out!

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Hosts:


⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital


⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare

Guests:


⁠⁠⁠Coy Garrison, Senior Director and Deputy General Counsel, Crypto at Robinhood


⁠⁠Seong Seog Lee, Head of Product at Robinhood Crypto

Links:


Unchained:


Robinhood Pushes Deeper Into Tokenization With Layer 2 Testnet Launch


Inside Robinhood’s Big Super App Plan: ‘There’s Still a Lot of Work to Be Done’


OpenAI and Paradigm Launch EVMbench to Stress Test AI on Smart Contract Security


Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain


When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?


Terraform Estate Targets Jane Street in Explosive Terra Collapse Lawsuit


DeFi Platforms Could Get ‘Innovation Exemption,’ SEC Chair Says


SEC Quietly Eases Capital Rules for Stablecoins

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Explore how AI could reshape crypto and finance, redefining traditional systems and introducing new threats. As AI-powered agents promise efficiency, Haseeb, Tom, Tarun, and guest Illia Polosukhin critique Citrini's controversial predictions on a global financial crisis and consider whether AI might just save or further complicate crypto's role in the economy.

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto.

Joining us is Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and contributing author to the original transformers paper that’s revolutionized AI.

Buckle up as we delve into AI’s burgeoning role in the crypto world, dissect the sensational claims from Citrini’s article predicting an AI-triggered financial crisis, and explore the potential of agentic coding in reshaping traditional systems.

Let’s get into it!

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

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest⭐️ Illia Polosukhin, Co-founder of NEAR Protocol

Disclosures

Links:

THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS by Citrini and Alap Shah

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:06 AI Agents Meet Crypto

08:06 Dark Forest Threat Model

15:31 How Close Are We

18:41 AI Coding Risks in Crypto

27:27 Citrini 2028 Crisis Explained

35:01 Demand Shock Missing Money

37:55 Automation Limits and Human Value

44:13 AI Zero Days and Botnets

51:40 Escrow Courts and Enforcement

56:05 Illia on Vibe Coding Future
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DATs may be collapsing, AI agents may be overhyped, but Omid Malekan thinks the strongest case for crypto has nothing to do with either.

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Bitcoin is below $63,000, digital asset treasuries are under pressure, and the debate over whether crypto markets are bottoming or breaking down is splitting the hosts. 

Ram is skeptical of institutional demand when he looks at the 13F data from institutions filing SEC reports. Chris is on the phone with institutions all day and is bullish. 

Omid Malekan, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, comes in with a longer lens: he admits he contributed to the DAT hype cycle, has doubts about agentic commerce that remind him of the metaverse in 2021, and thinks the strongest argument for crypto is not a product or a token but a fact about how nation-states treat their own citizens. 

The conversation also covers tokenized bank deposits, the SEC's updated broker-dealer guidance on stablecoins, and what it means that the Supreme Court just struck down Trump's tariffs.

Hosts:


⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida


⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting


⁠⁠Christopher Perkins⁠⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund

Guest:


⁠Omid Malekan, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School

Links:


Unchained:


Bitcoin Slips Below $63,000 as Fear Deepens


Bitcoin Dips Below $65,000 as Tariff Uncertainty Weighs on Risk


White House Talks Make Progress on Stablecoin Yields but No Deal Yet


SEC Quietly Eases Capital Rules for Stablecoins


SCOTUS: Supreme Court strikes down tariffs


Citrini: ⁠THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS

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Jansen Teng announces  Virtuals’ new humanoid robotics accelerator. Is this the next frontier for the AI agent meta?

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Virtuals Protocol has announced the launch of Eastworld Labs, an AI accelerator to make it easier for builders to deploy humanoid robots.

Virtuals Protocol co-founder Jansen Teng unpacks the idea behind the program, how it would work and what it hopes to achieve. He also addresses questions about how to prevent damage to remotely controlled robots, how to address backlash to robots taking jobs, and whether Virtuals views OpenClaw as a competitor.

Will human relationships eventually be replaced by AI agents?

Guest:


⁠⁠⁠⁠Jansen Teng, CEO & Co-Founder of Virtuals Protocol

Links:


Unchained:


⁠⁠⁠⁠Virtuals Ecosystem Sees Boost After Team Reveals Details of Buyback-and-Burn Program


⁠⁠⁠⁠Want to Hire an AI Agent? Check Their Reputation Via ERC-8004


When AI Agents Take Over, What Does a Post-Human Economy Look Like?


How Nansen’s New Trading Agent Makes It Easier to Follow the Smart Money Onchain


How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other


Uneasy Money: How the Increasingly Better AI Agents Are Being Used Onchain

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