Unchained

Ondo's founder died at 32, and now his mother and its ousted president are fighting for control. Katherine, Jessi, and Vy on the succession lesson crypto keeps skipping.

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Ondo Finance co-founder and CEO Nathan Allman died suddenly this summer at 32, leaving the real-world-asset tokenizer with zero sitting directors and two people claiming to run the company: ousted president Ian De Bode, and Allman's mother Kathleen, acting for his estate.

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le use the fight to unpack a problem that has nothing to do with crypto and everything to do with it: what happens when a fast-growing company never writes down a succession plan.

They also cover the White House's new frontier AI oversight framework, which officials confirm exists but will not publish, a proposed FDIC and OCC certification that would let a fintech satisfy every bank's diligence questions at once, and the CLARITY Act's newly scheduled September 15 cloture vote, squeezed into a narrow window before midterms.

Vy Le asks the harder question underneath all three stories: can boundaries this important really be left voluntary?

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Chainlink

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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

Timestamps

🤖 01:40 Jessi on why AI agents are getting great at goals, bad at intent

🏛️ 08:12 Why the White House's new AI framework is finished, but secret

📣 13:42 1inch Aqua: See how the shared liquidity layer works at https://1inch.com/aqua

⚖️ 14:30 Ondo's board hits zero directors after founder Nathan Allman's death

🚌 20:08 KK's 'hit by a bus' rule: the succession plan every startup skips

🏦 27:06 The FDIC's plan to let one fintech certification satisfy every bank

📜 37:51 Why KK is nervous about the CLARITY Act's September cloture vote

🦥 46:16 Crypto good news: robot sloths saving an endangered species
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📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips

A new Ethereum proposal would burn staking issuance to zero once roughly half the supply is staked, and the community had about 48 hours to respond.

Austin Campbell, Chris Perkins, and Seth Ginns of Franklin Crypto discuss whether it is a necessary check on runaway staking or an academic overreach that ignores how institutions actually think about the network.

Hosts:

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

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

Guest:

Seth Ginns - Chief Investment Officer of Franklin Crypto

This clip is from a longer conversation on Ethereum's staking yield fight. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/MhhJAIhkgVM?si=hqg5R4b3rVBNdNlJ

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

Sponsor:

Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com.

Chapters:

🔥 00:20 Austin on the proposal to burn ETH issuance to zero, and who wrote it

⏱️ 02:02 Why a 48-hour comment window has critics saying the process is broken

🎓 03:33 Seth calls the proposal an academic push that skipped real coordination

🍳 04:48 Chris predicts the plan fails because the EF does not control Ethereum

💴 07:13 Chris's yen carry trade warning about messing with ETH's risk-free rate

⚖️ 09:10 Austin's verdict: 48 hours is too short no matter how the vote goes

🗣️ 13:57 Dapplion's pushback from inside the camp: 'you can't bribe me like this'

💰 15:23 Seth defends the $10 billion in institutional ETH flows
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Spark avoided the DeFi hack that hit almost everyone else in April. Cofounder Sam MacPherson lays out why, and where he thinks AI fits into DeFi security.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com

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In April, a hacker widely assumed to be tied to North Korea drained tens of millions from KelpDAO's rsETH market, and most of DeFi took the hit. Spark did not, because it had quietly exited rsETH months earlier.

Sam MacPherson, cofounder and CEO of Spark, joins Laura Shin to unpack the conservative playbook, rate limits, a triple redundant oracle, and a governance process built to move slowly on purpose, that turned a near miss into a footnote while rivals absorbed the damage.

They cover why Spark's TVL climbed more than 50% after the hack, how emergency multisigs and time locks work when Sky's month-long governance process is too slow, and why MacPherson thinks AI will make smart contract audits more reliable, not less.

MacPherson also maps Spark's growing footprint, from Anchorage-backed institutional lending to a new Uniswap stablecoin FX layer, and why he isn't worried about SPK near its all-time low even as the business keeps compounding.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sam MacPherson - Cofounder and CEO of Spark

Timestamps

📣 00:26 Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com

🏦 01:08 What Spark does and how it plugs into the Sky protocol's balance sheet

🛡️ 05:07 Why Sam says Spark's conservative design let it dodge the KelpDAO hack

⚖️ 11:24 How the rsETH exit exposed the tradeoffs in Sky's onchain governance

🎙️ 13:52 Visit 1inch.com to swap tokenized securities, crypto and more. Simple. Secure. Self-custodial. Whatever asset you’re buying - swap it at 1inch.com

💰 17:41 Why Sam thinks DeFi yields are converging toward SOFR, not higher

🤖 20:47 Why Sam says AI cuts both ways for DeFi security after the hack wave

🏛️ 23:26 Why Sky built the subDAO model, and whether it can survive politics

💵 26:58 The stablecoin land grab: Robinhood, Coinbase, and Spark's role in it

📊 30:50 Why Sam isn't worried about SPK trading near its all time low

🚀 32:39 Spark's next chapter: institutional lending and Spark Savings USDT growth
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Onchain vaults now hold $67B. Veda's CEO maps out how they work, and why the SEC just hinted some could be securities.

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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 cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

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SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce warned recently that some crypto vaults could trigger federal securities law, invoking the same Howey Test language crypto has argued over for a decade, just as onchain vaults have quietly become a $67 billion vehicle for parking assets.

Sun Raghupathi, cofounder and CEO of Veda, joins Laura Shin to untangle what a vault actually is, why splitting the infrastructure, curator, and distributor roles matters for the entrepreneurial-effort question Peirce raised, and why he reads her statement as bullish rather than a warning shot.

Raghupathi maps the real risk stack behind vaults, smart contract flaws, the key-management failures behind incidents like KelpDAO and Drift, and the economic risk exposed when Stream Finance blew up and left $285 million in vault exposure.

He also details Veda's Kraken partnership, now scaled past $600 million across 80,000 users, and makes the case that the biggest constraint on vault growth isn't security anymore. It's clarity.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sun Raghupathi - Co-Founder and CEO of Veda

Timestamps

📣 00:41 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

🏦 00:57 What is a vault, and why DeFi needed the primitive

🎢 02:25 Sun's path from an ML PhD to launching Veda

⚙️ 04:43 The three things vault infrastructure must solve: access, control, verifiability

💰 06:45 Where vault yield actually comes from, and how it differs from TradFi

📣 10:57 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

🏗️ 11:03 Veda's role as infrastructure vs. curators and distributors

⚠️ 13:06 What happens when a vault loses money, in the worst case

🛟 16:31 Why Sun is skeptical of vault insurance until a real claim gets paid

🔑 18:08 How to vet vault partners on key management, not just smart contracts

📉 20:28 The Stream Finance blowup and how curator risk-taking has changed since

📊 23:00 The metrics Sun uses to evaluate vault curators

🏛️ 24:31 Why Sun reads Hester Peirce's vault statement on vaults as bullish, not a warning

🦑 28:46 Kraken's $600M vault partnership, and Veda's competitive edge
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A hardware wallet's 5-year-old randomness bug just let hackers drain over $100 million in Bitcoin. How many more waves are coming? Plus, Ethereum's fight over cutting ETH issuance.

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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).

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A firmware randomness bug buried in Coldcard's code since 2021 surfaced last week and has already drained over $100 million, an estimated 1,600 to 1,800 Bitcoin, across four attacker waves. Taylor Monahan makes the case that the culprit is not North Korea but professional GPU crackers, and explains why the dice-rolling ritual many early victims trusted still left them exposed.

Sonya Kim, co-founder of 3F Labs, and Mike Silagadze, founder and CEO of ether.fi, debate where DeFi's responsibility ends after trade.xyz's SK Hynix perp swung from $1,128 to $917 on a thin premarket print, then turn to Ethereum's own monetary policy fight.

That fight centers on EIP-8361, a proposal to cut ETH issuance that opened with only 48 hours for public comment, reviving the minimum viable issuance debate Sonya once worked through at Steakhouse. Silagadze calls cutting issuance economically unsound and warns it could push billions of dollars of ETH out of staking, while Kain Warwick argues the resulting chaos is good for an Ethereum governance culture that had grown too quiet. The conversation covers Coldcard's entropy failure, the dice rolls that did not save early victims, trade.xyz's oracle mispricing, and Ethereum's issuance fight.

Hosts:

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

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

Guest:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sonya Kim - Co-Founder of 3F Labs

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mike Silagadze - Founder and CEO of Ether.Fi

Timestamps

🔓 01:17 Coldcard's 5-year-old entropy bug resurfaces, over $100M in BTC stolen

🕵️ 10:26 Taylor argues it's not North Korea: this hack needs compute, not scams

🎲 21:00 The dice roll debate: why 50 rolls barely saves your seed phrase

📱 27:14 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months with code 'unchained' at https://cape.co/unchained

📉 27:39 SK Hynix oracle glitch on trade.xyz reignites the platform-responsibility fight

🔗 42:24 Aave retreats from multichain sprawl as EIP-8361 issuance fight erupts

🧠 51:26 Mike on why cutting ETH issuance would push billions of dollars of ETH out of staking

🔥 53:05 Sonya's fix: burn fees for the same effect without cutting issuance

🌀 01:05:20 Kain's take: fragmenting the EF into chaos is actually healthy for ETH
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