Unchained
658 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsCrypto assets and blockchain technology are about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity to the Internet of Things. In this podcast, host Laura Shin, an independent journalist covering all things crypto, talks with industry pioneers about how crypto assets and blockchains will change the way we earn, spend and invest our money. Tune in to find out how Web 3.0, the decentralized web, will revolutionize our world. Disclosure: I'm a nocoiner.
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Episodes
Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks on Crypto Banks - Ep.196
October 27, 2020 07:45 - 52 minutesBrian Brooks got his start in traditional finance before joining Coinbase in 2018 and is currently the acting comptroller of the currency. In this episode, he discusses: how his background in traditional financial services led him to take a position at Coinbase whether the role blockchain and crypto will likely play in the financial future is being recognized at the federal level whether or not banks have always had the authority to custody crypto for their customers how he expects thing...
How This DOJ Strike Force Hunts Down Cryptocurrency Criminals - Ep.195
October 20, 2020 08:15 - 1 hourMagistrate judge Zia Faruqui, and Jessi Brooks, assistant U.S. attorney in the national security section at the United States Attorney’s Office, have prosecuted several cryptocurrency-related cases, many of them amongst the most well-known. In this episode, they talk about: how they came to be involved in the prosecution of so many cases involving cryptocurrency the nature of civil forfeiture cases the Al-Qassam Brigades case, which led to the largest ever seizure of a terrorist organizat...
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on BitMEX, DeFi and a Token Safe Harbor - Ep.194
October 13, 2020 07:30 - 31 minutesHester Peirce, AKA “Crypto Mom,” was just confirmed to a second term as SEC Commissioner of the Securities Exchange Commission in August. In this episode, she talks about: the reasons for her dissent in the Unikrn Settlement and what she believes would have been a proper penalty the current status of her token safe harbor proposal her thoughts on fair launch projects as opposed to traditional VC-backed tokens her view on how the SEC should view airdrops her thoughts on whether existing ...
Can Solana Seize Marketshare From Ethereum With Serum? - Ep.193
October 06, 2020 08:00 - 1 hourSam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX and Alameda Research, and Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, discuss the Project Serum ecosystem that they are building on the Solana blockchain, and the unique approach to scaling the Solana blockchain is taking. In this episode, they talk about: their backgrounds, and how they became involved in crypto why Solana takes a different approach to scaling and how it is implemented why they think a relatively lower number of nodes is...
Why Bitcoin Now: Andreas Antonopoulos and Dan Held on Bitcoin’s Monetary Policy - Ep.192
September 29, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourAndreas M. Antonopoulos, speaker, educator, and the author of Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum, and The Internet of Money, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and Dan Held, growth lead at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, discuss the core features of Bitcoin's monetary policy, including how it differs from traditional central bank monetary policy, what gives it value and yet how it seems to have derived value from thin air. Plus, we talk about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect Bitcoin. In this epi...
How Matthew Leising Confronted His Suspects in the DAO Attacks - Ep.191
September 22, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourMatthew 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...
Andre Cronje of Yearn Finance on YFI and the Fair Launch: 'I'm Lazy' - Ep.190
September 15, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourAndre 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 ...
Olaf Carlson-Wee: 'If There Is a Money-Losing Exploit, the Money Is Gone' - Ep.189
September 08, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourOlaf 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...
Why Decentralized Trading Has 10Xed in a Few Months - Ep.188
September 01, 2020 08:45 - 1 hourHaseeb 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 exc...
Why Bitcoin Now: Saifedean Ammous on Why Bitcoin is the Most Advanced Form of Money - Ep.187
August 25, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourSaifedean 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...
Why Bitcoin Now: David Chaum and Adam Back Reflect on the Crypto Wars - Ep.186
August 18, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourDavid 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 eCa...
Why Bitcoin Now: The History of Digital Currency - Ep.185
August 11, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourAaron 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 ...
Why The Travel Rule Is One Of The Most Significant Regulations In Crypto - Ep.184
August 04, 2020 08:00 - 1 hourDave 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...
Vitalik Buterin on Ethereum's Five-Year Anniversary - Ep.183
July 28, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourVitalik 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 E...
Camila Russo on the Most Pivotal Moments in Ethereum's History - Ep.182
July 21, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourCamila 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 ...
Why Bitcoin Now: Michael Casey and Niall Ferguson on How Bitcoin Fits in the History of Money - Ep.181
July 14, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourNiall 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. W...
DeFi Yield Farming: Why It's All the Rage But Risky - Ep.180
July 07, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourDan 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...
Why Bitcoin Now: Mike Novogratz and Raoul Pal on 'the Single Greatest Brand' of the Last 10 Years - Ep.179
June 30, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourThis 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...
Chamath Palihapitiya: Why Bitcoin Will Be 'the Category Winner' - Ep.178
June 23, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourChamath 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 fu...
Christopher Giancarlo: Why the US Needs to Have a Digital Dollar - Ep.177
June 16, 2020 07:30 - 54 minutesAt 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 infrastr...
Rep. Warren Davidson: 'I Think Bitcoin Is a Great Store of Value' - Ep.176
June 09, 2020 05:30 - 1 hourU.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 ...
How to Decentralize a Crypto Project Without Harming Security - Ep.175
June 02, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourJesse 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 ...
Ready Layer One: Who Competes With Ethereum? - Ep.174
May 26, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourThis 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 ...
Listen to CZ Compare Binance to Bitcoin - Ep.173
May 19, 2020 07:30 - 50 minutesChangpeng 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...
The Third Bitcoin Halving Just Happened: What Now? - Ep.172
May 12, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourAmanda 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 quantitativ...
El Auge de MakerDAO: Un Viaje Personal - Ep.171
May 06, 2020 07:30 - 36 minutesHi 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 cripto...
DeFi Security: With So Many Hacks, Will It Ever Be Safe? - Ep.170
May 05, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourDan 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 upgradeabi...
tBTC: What Happens When the Most Liquid Crypto Asset Hits DeFi? - Ep.169
April 28, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourMatt 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 necessit...
Why Nothing Is More Viral Than a Store of Value - Ep.168
April 21, 2020 07:30 - 1 hourCathie 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 COV...
The Rise of MakerDAO: A Personal Journey - Ep.167
April 14, 2020 07:30 - 34 minutesMariano 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 underto...
The Most Forkable DeFi Protocols on Ethereum - Ep.166
April 07, 2020 07:30 - 25 minutesKyle 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...
Why Decentralization Isn’t as Important as You Think - Ep.165
March 31, 2020 07:30 - 33 minutesIn 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. ...
Teetering on the Edge: How Black Thursday Exposed the Flaws in the Crypto Markets - Ep.164
March 24, 2020 07:30 - 58 minutesKyle 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 b...
Chris Burniske: A Blank Slate of State - Ep.163
March 17, 2020 07:30 - 38 minutesIn 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 thinki...
Why Africa Is Poised to Be the Next Hub for Crypto Development - Ep.162
March 10, 2020 07:30 - 30 minutesSoona 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 wi...
ETH Denver Fireside Chat With 2 of the Most Crypto-Friendly Governors in the Nation - Ep.161
March 03, 2020 08:30 - 37 minutesIn 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 sta...
The bZx Attacks: Unethical or Illegal? 2 Experts Weigh In - Ep.160
February 25, 2020 08:30 - 1 hourMaya 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 institu...
Democracy in the Age of Cryptography - Ep.159
February 18, 2020 08:30 - 32 minutesSantiago 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 on a World Without Bitcoin - Ep.158
February 11, 2020 08:30 - 30 minutesAlex 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
How Memes Can Help Crypto Go Mainstream - Ep.157
February 04, 2020 08:30 - 24 minutesLinda 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 a...
The Rogue 100: How Cryptocurrency Criminals Cash Out - Ep.156
January 28, 2020 08:30 - 1 hourJonathan 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 a...
Brendan Eich on How Brave Is Working to Decentralize - Ep.155
January 21, 2020 08:30 - 1 hourBrendan 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, ...
Why Catherine Coley Isn't Worried About BNB Being a Security - Ep.154
January 14, 2020 08:30 - 1 hourCatherine 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...
Dragonfly Capital on Why Ethereum Is So Far in the Lead - Ep.153
January 07, 2020 08:30 - 1 hourAlex 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...
Unchained Year in Review: The Best of 2019 - Ep.152
December 31, 2019 08:30 - 1 hourIn 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 borderle...
For Your Normie Friends: Answers to the Most Basic Crypto Questions - Ep.151
December 24, 2019 08:30 - 48 minutesThis 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 us...
Why North Korea Is Interested in Cryptocurrency - Ep.150
December 17, 2019 08:30 - 1 hourPriscilla 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 ...
Yeonmi Park on Why Doing Business With North Korea Is Like Buying a Ticket to a Concentration Camp - Ep.149
December 10, 2019 08:30 - 1 hourIn 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...
How Synthetix Became the Second-Largest DeFi Platform - Ep.148
December 03, 2019 08:30 - 1 hourKain 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-...
Why Coinmarketcap Launched Its Liquidity Metric - Ep.147
November 26, 2019 08:30 - 1 hour - 31.9 MBCarylyne 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...