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Unchained

Laura Shin
Unchained
Latest episode

1217 episodes

  • Unchained

    Why You Can't Opt Out of the AI Guardrails Race

    2026/07/22 | 12 mins.
    📢 Bits + Bips has its own channel now — full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips/

    Austin Campbell's claim that Claude Fable 5 cracked the decades-old Jacobian conjecture opens onto a bigger question: why AI's real-world impact on health care is still lagging.

    The conversation turns to battlefield drones in Ukraine, the national security stakes of AI guardrails, and why Chris Perkins thinks finance-style regulation could make AI more trustworthy, not less useful.

    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

    Chapters:

    🧠 00:36 Austin on what actually forces AI adoption in health care beyond the hype

    🔢 02:02 Austin's claim that Claude Fable 5 solved the Jacobian conjecture, a 90-year-old math problem

    🩺 03:21 Ram: doctors are already using AI for diagnostics, but the promise is still ahead of reality

    💰 05:41 Why Ram says AI adoption is self financing, citing Eli Lilly

    🛩️ 06:15 AI on the battlefield: Ukraine's drone-based warfare shift

    🛡️ 07:23 Austin's national security question: is opting out of the AI race even possible

    🏛️ 09:39 Chris makes the case for finance style, principles-based AI regulation

    ⚔️ 10:24 Austin: there is no way to opt out of the AI guardrails race

    This clip is from a longer conversation on AI adoption, national security, and financial regulation. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/YN0Pje70YtE?si=HVVnRCmYt3Q-G_qc

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

    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).

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
  • Unchained

    How Lyn Alden Will Take on Bitcoin DATs and Private Equity With Orange Juice

    2026/07/21 | 54 mins.
    Lyn Alden raised $40M to launch Orange Juice, a holding company that buys cash-flowing businesses and layers Bitcoin on top, not another pure-play treasury bet.

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

    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).

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

    Lyn Alden just raised $40 million to launch a Bitcoin-backed holding company that skips the trade most of crypto is chasing. Rather than build another pure-play Bitcoin treasury stock, Orange Juice buys cash-flowing, unglamorous businesses and layers a Bitcoin treasury on top at the parent-company level.

    Lyn Alden, cofounder of Orange Juice and a partner at Ego Death Capital, frames it as a countercyclical alternative to procyclical treasury companies, and she does not spare Strategy from criticism.

    She compares Orange Juice's structure to Berkshire Hathaway and argues Strategy let its dollar reserve fall too far, weighing in as Laura invokes Michael Saylor's 'sell a kidney' line and STRC's slide to near $85 against its $100 target. She also addresses BIP-110's inscription debate and Bitcoin's quantum computing threat, questioning whether the community’s resistance to change is a strength or a liability.

    Host:

    ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

    Guests:

    ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lyn Alden - Cofounder of Orange Juice and Partner at Ego Death Capital

    Timestamps

    🍊 00:56 Lyn Alden lays out the $40M raise behind Orange Juice's core thesis

    💵 08:06 Why Lyn Alden targets cash-flowing firms over VC backed startups

    📱 11:17 Cape: get 33% off your first six months with code unchained at https://cape.co/unchained

    🏦 12:16 How keeping the Bitcoin treasury at the parent level avoids procyclical risk

    🪖 25:37 How Orange Juice handles a bleeding company and Ruben Zweiban's Navy SEAL background

    📈 32:15 Why Lyn says going public aids liquidity, retail access, and tax deferral

    ⚠️ 39:15 Why Lyn is critical of Strategy's capital structure and Saylor's kidney line

    🗑️ 47:40 Why Lyn views Bitcoin inscriptions as spam despite BIP 110's technical limits

    ⚛️ 50:47 How Lyn assesses the quantum computing threat to Bitcoin's security
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  • Unchained

    How a Surprise Clarity Act Vote Could Move Crypto Prices

    2026/07/18 | 6 mins.
    If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips on its dedicated channels. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, X, Unchained and wherever you get your podcasts.

    🔥 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bits-bips/id1827931786

    🔥 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKiSkbYrUOOEEiYQEVPniQ

    🔥 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6aSBMrOyi33aVDCULJ9mjN?si=NTLk-jl5QGeytA6-2kxMVQ&nd=1&dlsi=42f0b13dd53c4ba0

    🔥X - https://x.com/bitsandbips

    🔥 Unchained - https://unchainedcrypto.com/bitsandbips/

    A White House meeting on Clarity Act ethics is happening in real time, Polymarket's odds on passage have slid from 75% in May to under 40%, and GSR's Andy Baehr explains why he still thinks a vote would catch the market off guard.

    Host:

    Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview and Head of Research at Sharplink

    Guest:

    Andy Baehr - Managing Director of Asset Management at GSR

    This clip is from a longer conversation on whether crypto's best week in months signals a real rally or another relief bounce. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/CQGwPj9bz3w

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

    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).

    Chapters:

    🏛️ 00:00 Right now: a White House meeting on Clarity Act ethics, and why the stakes just got higher

    🗳️ 00:24 The key math question: 60 votes means winning over seven Democrats

    🚀 01:28 The August 7 deadline that could send the market into overdrive

    🎙️ 02:38 Baehr's warning: the longer this drags on, the less likely it gets done

    📉 03:22 Clarity Act odds have cratered from 75% to under 40% since May, what changed

    💥 04:24 The market isn't pricing in passage, and Baehr thinks that's a mistake
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  • Unchained

    Why Cap Cuts Its Stabledrop Rewards From $11M to $4M: Uneasy Money

    2026/07/17 | 1h 29 mins.
    Cap's founders on shrinking their Stabledrop from $11M to $4M — plus a $23M hack traced toward North Korea, a BarnBridge governance exploit, and Kain's case to force weak L2s to become their own L1s.

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

    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).

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

    Cap committed to a roughly 11 million dollar Stabledrop in February, promising early users stablecoins instead of tokens. A delayed token sale raised less than hoped, and the reward shrank to about 4 million, forcing a fast rewrite of who got paid.

    Benjamin Sarquis Peillard, Founder and CEO of Cap, and Weso of Cap join Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to walk through a restructuring that made yield-token holders whole, left farmers without a windfall, and argue points programs are an uncapped marketing expense many projects cannot afford.

    The conversation widens into EthSystems, a new Ethereum Foundation spinout backed by Joe Lubin, SharpLink and BitMine, Jesse Pollak handing Base product leadership to Cobie, Robinhood Chain's Morpho integration, and whether Ethereum mainnet undercharges L2s.

    They revisit BarnBridge's SEC-era DAO structure, a dormant governance exploit, a MetaMask and Revoke.cash delegation tool, and a 23 million dollar Ostium hack Taylor traced toward North Korea.

    Kain closes with a Three Mile Island analogy: complex systems fail not from one mistake, but from small shortcuts compounding at once.

    Hosts:

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

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

    Guests:

    Benjamin Sarquis Peillard - Founder and CEO of Cap

    Weso - Co-Founder of Cap

    Timestamps

    🪂 01:30 Benjamin and Weso explain how Cap's Stabledrop plan fell apart post-TGE

    💸 08:05 Weso on why uncapped points programs turn into runaway marketing spend

    🐦 21:31 Kain and Taylor on crypto Twitter's algorithm flip after a year of exile

    📱 24:17 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months of privacy-first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

    🏛️ 25:09 Why EthSystems, the newest EF spinout, splits Kain on bullish or bearish

    🤝 30:20 Taylor on Jesse handing Base app duties to Cobie and what it signals

    🎰 36:28 Robinhood Chain's memecoin surge, Morpho ties, and the Cashcat backstory

    ⚖️ 41:17 Is Ethereum undercharging L2s? Kain makes the case for pushing costs to L1

    🔓 55:51 BarnBridge's SEC-era DAO, this week's governance exploit, and the Revoke.cash fix that stops it

    ☢️ 01:11:31 The Ostium hack: North Korea-linked actor, stolen keys, oracle compromise

    💥 01:26:24 Closing rapid-fire: Euler's recovery and an old Vyper compiler bug revisited
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  • Unchained

    Why Robinhood Chain Saw Memecoins Take Off Before Real World Assets

    2026/07/17 | 29 mins.
    Two weeks after launch, 85% of Robinhood Chain's trading is memecoins and just 1% is RWAs. Johann Kerbrat says that doesn’t change the strategy.

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

    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).

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

    Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told CNBC on July 2 that real-world assets, not memecoins, were the future of crypto on Robinhood Chain. Two weeks after launch, the numbers disagree: roughly 85% of daily trading on the chain is memecoins, while tokenized RWAs sit at about 1%.

    Johann Kerbrat, Vice President and General Manager of Robinhood Crypto, joins Laura Shin to argue the split is not a problem. He makes the case that building the chain permissionless was deliberate, and that memecoin trading through CashCat and PumpFun brings the liquidity RWAs will eventually need.

    Kerbrat also defends building the chain's lending and margin system on USDG over USDC or Tether, walks through the separate, unshared liquidity instance behind Robinhood's new perps product with Lighter, and addresses Robinhood's 63% quarterly drop in crypto transaction revenue. His answer: Robinhood Chain was never meant to smooth out that swing, and the real test is whether tokenization can outrun regulation.

    Host:

    ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

    Guests:

    ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Johann Kerbrat - Vice President and General Manager of Robinhood Crypto

    Timestamps

    🐸 01:06 Why memecoins are 85% of Robinhood Chain's DEX volume, not RWAs

    🚀 05:35 Why PumpFun listing Robinhood Chain tokens was the result of their strategy

    🔐 09:33 Where Robinhood's responsibility ends and the permissionless chain begins

    📣 11:12 Cape: Use code UNCHAINED for 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained

    ⚡ 16:17 Why Robinhood built a separate Lighter instance for its perps

    💵 20:24 Why USDG, not USDC or Tether, backs Robinhood Chain's lending and margin

    📉 23:23 Does the chain mitigate the 63% swing crypto can have on Robinhood's earnings?
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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About Unchained
Crypto 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.
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