Unchained

Democrats won both chambers in a historic midterm wave. Mike Katz and Justin Slaughter on what that means for the Clarity Act, DeFi and crypto's next 2 years.

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Quick favor: We’re deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what’s worth paying for.

Our ⁠⁠listener survey⁠⁠ takes five minutes, it’s anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8.

— Laura

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Democrats swept both chambers of Congress in the midterms, winning the popular vote by 13 points, according to Justin Slaughter. For an industry still waiting on a market structure law, the question is what a Democratic Congress now does with crypto.

Slaughter, Senior Advisor at Paradigm and Board Member of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, and Mike Katz, Partner of Leading Frontier Tech at Manatt, join Laura Shin to explain why the Clarity Act looks dead, what a House Financial Services market structure bill may contain, whether SEC and CFTC rules survive, and how Elizabeth Warren at Senate Banking could steer oversight of the Trump family's crypto deals.

They also cover the banks' pressure on Genius Act rulemaking, a Texas data center pause and what it means for Bitcoin miners, and why Fairshake spending $56 million against Sherrod Brown, who still won, may force crypto to rethink its political strategy before 2028.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mike Katz - Partner of Leading Frontier Tech at Manatt

Justin Slaughter - Senior Advisor at Paradigm and Board Member of the Long-Term Stock Exchange

Timestamps

🎬 00:00 Intro

📋 00:28 Unchained Survey: tell us what Unchained should do next in the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey

🎙️ 01:30 Bits + Bips: search Bits + Bips and subscribe to the weekly crypto and macro show at https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips

🌊 01:46 What a Democratic sweep of both chambers means for crypto's next 2 years

📜 06:52 Why Justin says Clarity looks dead and what a House Dem bill could contain

🏛️ 10:24 Will Atkins' SEC and Selig's CFTC crypto rules survive a Democratic Congress?

💼 14:26 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt

🪑 15:16 What Warren at Senate Banking and Brown at Ag could mean for crypto

🔍 27:01 How Democrats could probe the Trump family's crypto deals and World Liberty

🪙 37:22 Why Mike warns banks could use the new Congress to hobble the Genius Act

⚡ 40:18 What Texas governor-elect Hinojosa's data center pause means for Bitcoin miners

💰 43:15 Fairshake's $56M bet against Brown: why Justin calls super PACs 'a crutch'
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The $6B Binance hack sent stolen funds through Aave. LlamaRisk CEO Adam Sadowski walks through the market freeze and why nothing was taken from the protocol.

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

Thank you to our sponsor!

Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients.

Find out more at⁠⁠⁠ Nexo⁠⁠⁠.

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

Quick favor: We’re deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what’s worth paying for.

Our ⁠listener survey⁠ takes five minutes, it’s anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8.

— Laura

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North Korean hackers pulled roughly $6 billion out of Binance, and within minutes Tether and Circle were freezing stablecoins as the attackers raced to swap into ETH, routing part of the haul through Aave.

Adam Sadowski, CEO of LlamaRisk, Aave's risk provider, joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to walk through the overnight market freeze, why nothing was stolen from Aave, and whether anyone should be able to deposit $1 billion and borrow all the ETH in a single block.

They also cover Aave's 4-of-7 guardian multisig, AI agents hunting for exploits, why Kain says there is no such thing as the price of an asset, how an AI model helped Synthetix recover 9 million stolen SNX, and Taylor's warning after THORChain processed nearly $200 million for North Korea despite an FBI callout. Once a protocol has the power to stop a theft, can it still choose not to?

Hosts:

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

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

Guest:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Adam Sadowski - CEO of LlamaRisk

Timestamps

🎬 00:00 Intro

📋 00:22 Unchained Survey: complete the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey

🎙️ 01:17 Bits + Bips: search Bits + Bips and subscribe to our weekly crypto and macro show at https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips

🚨 01:49 The $6B Binance hack and how Tether and Circle froze funds in minutes

🔍 10:16 How the Binance hacker routed $60M in USDT through Aave to borrow ETH

⚖️ 14:16 Should anyone be able to deposit $1B and borrow all the ETH in one block?

💰 23:18 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt

🤝 24:00 Why Kain ranks the Binance response among crypto's best anti-heist efforts

🛡️ 27:51 Aave's guardians, risk stewards, and the race against AI exploit agents

🧩 31:40 Why Kain thinks adding complexity is the most dangerous move for Aave

📈 37:23 Who decides the price? Oracles, tokenized stocks, and Chainlink CRE

🪙 44:57 How an AI model found Synthetix a way to recover 9M stolen SNX

⛓️ 54:42 How a one-block Ethereum reorg made THORChain double spend mid-hack

🚔 01:00:41 Why Taylor fears the FBI callout could send Thor node operators to prison

🏦 01:07:24 A French bank heist, ZachXBT, and the $30M that couldn't be frozen
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A compromised developer laptop and 50 pre-signed transactions let North Korea drain $6.3 billion from Binance. Jonty and Pablo Sabbatella trace how it happened.

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

Thank you to our sponsor!

Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients.

Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply.

With Election Day on November 3, crypto voters could make the difference in close races. Check where candidates stand on crypto, verify your registration, and make your voting plan at Stand With Crypto’s Voter Hub.

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

Quick favor: We’re deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what’s worth paying for.

Our ⁠listener survey⁠ takes five minutes, it’s anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8.

— Laura

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

North Korea only needed 20 minutes to take $6.3 billion from Binance in the largest hack in history, not just crypto history. According to Binance, one of the attack vectors started with a compromised developer laptop, which ultimately led to the attackers being able to sign transactions from the exchange's hot wallets.

Jonty, founder of Pangolin Intelligence, and Pablo Sabbatella, founder of Opsek, trace how an EIP-7702 upgrade let the hackers sweep those wallets, why roughly 43% of the funds were frozen compared with less than 3% after Bybit, and how Circle, Tether, Arbitrum's Security Council and Aave responded. They also debate how decentralized THORChain really is, why the FBI named THOR node operators, and how TraderTraitor lures developers with fake job interviews.

With Chainalysis tying nearly 89% of this year's reported hack losses to North Korea, Pablo and Jonty lay out the security and anti-laundering steps the industry could take before the next attack.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guest:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jonty (tanuki42) - Founder of Pangolin Intelligence

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pablo Sabbatella - Founder of Opsek

Timestamps

🎬 00:00 Intro

📋 00:26 Unchained Survey: complete the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey

🚨 02:08 How North Korea took $6.3 billion from Binance in about 20 minutes

🔑 07:51 Why the EIP-7702 delegation made the drain faster

💰 17:35 Nexo: earn daily interest on your crypto or borrow against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt

🗳️ 17:52 Stand With Crypto: see where candidates stand on crypto and make your voting plan at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/standwithcrypto-yt

⛓️ 18:31 Which chains were hit and where exchange signing infrastructure fails

🏦 23:00 Should Binance have held $6 billion in hot wallets?

🧊 29:18 Why Circle and Tether moved fast to freeze the stolen funds

🏛️ 35:38 How the hackers borrowed nearly 20,000 ETH on Aave

🔄 40:37 Is Binance liquidity helping launder funds through THORChain?

⚖️ 45:51 How decentralized is THORChain after a three-vote halt?

🚔 54:19 What the FBI naming THOR node operators signals

🤖 01:02:33 Why the laundering trail looks machine-driven

🕵️ 01:06:06 Who TraderTraitor is and how fake job interviews hack developers

🛡️ 01:13:00 What the industry should change to stop North Korea
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Rob Hadick guest-hosts for a second week with Tom and Robert, joined by Nemil Dalal of Y Combinator. Hours before the show, Binance lost an estimated $5 billion in what looks like the largest hack in crypto history, Circle and Tether froze funds faster than anyone expected, YC lays out its crypto Request for Startups, and ICE signs with trade.xyz to bring regulated perps built on Hyperliquid's technology to US customers.

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

Show highlights

🔹 Rob Hadick is back for a second week, and Nemil Dalal of Y Combinator returns as a repeat guest.

🔹 The hosts planned to skip hacks this week. Three hours before the show, Binance was hit for an estimated $5 billion, three times the largest hack in crypto history.

🔹 Tom says the attack looks tied to how Binance managed EIP-7702 delegation, letting an attacker generate signatures and withdraw funds by proxy.

🔹 Circle and Tether froze the stolen stablecoins within hours. Nemil says the USDC team literally practiced for moments like this.

🔹 Tom compares freeze requests to social media takedown requests: Circle can't adjudicate thousands of claims a day, but a call from Binance is high signal.

🔹 Robert asks why, four and a half years after 2022, no team has shipped a genuinely different architecture for DeFi protocols, even as the forest gets darker.

🔹 Rob says his stablecoin and TradFi crossover founders barely felt the hack, and Nemil warns that every financial crisis is about interconnection.

🔹 Nemil runs through YC's crypto Request for Startups: tokenization, new financial primitives, agents that need APIs, and raising capital for AI on-chain.

🔹 Rob calls it the bull run, but not the bull run the crypto people want. Nemil says he has to steal that.

🔹 Robert asks if it's better to build pre-cool or post-cool, and rules that crypto is post-cool, which makes it pre-cool again.

🔹 Nemil says every personal agent will have a credit card, while stablecoins win where payments are global and micro, like Cloudflare's pay-to-crawl.

🔹 ICE signs a definitive agreement with trade.xyz to bring regulated perps built on Hyperliquid's technology to US customers, pending CFTC approval.

🔹 Stan Druckenmiller tweets about Hyperliquid, and Robert says nobody likes ADL, Druckenmiller least of all.

🔹 Robert argues perps are a superior form factor to dated futures for everything, and that the institutional gap is credit risk.

🔹 Robert marvels that crypto went from Byzantine generals to talking about credit risk.

Hosts

⭐️Rob Hadick, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tom Schmidt, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate

Guest

⭐️Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y CombinatorDisclosures

Timestamps

00:00 Cold Open

00:30 Intro

01:42 The $5B Binance Hack

04:40 Circle's Fast Freeze

10:57 Where's the New DeFi?

19:48 YC's Crypto Wishlist

26:38 The Wrong Bull Run

36:53 Is Crypto Just AI Rails?

40:18 ICE x Hyperliquid

51:45 Perps vs. Dated Futures
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Galaxy's Alex Thorn argues Bitcoin bottomed in late June. While macro funds exit, sovereign wealth funds buy and AI pushes debasement, he says now makes a good entry point.

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

Thank you to our sponsor!

Put your crypto to work with Nexo: earn daily interest or borrow funds against your assets on one platform trusted by more than 10 million clients.

Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-sn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Geo-restrictions, eligibility and terms apply.

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

Quick favor: We’re deciding what Unchained does next; new shows, stream times, what’s worth paying for.

Our listener survey takes five minutes, it’s anonymous, and I read the write-in answers myself. Everyone who finishes it gets a free month of Premium, Unchained or Bits + Bips, your pick. Open through Sunday, November 8.

— Laura

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

Bitcoin has now traded five or six weeks above its 50-week moving average. In every prior bear market, Alex Thorn says, that signal meant the bottom was already in, and he believes this one came in late June.

Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, walks Laura Shin through his essay "Why Now Is the Time to Add and Hold BTC," including 13F filings showing Millennium and D.E. Shaw cutting Bitcoin ETF exposure while Mubadala and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management added, and long-dormant coins waking up at 34,000 BTC a month in 2026, down from 67,000 in 2024.

He argues a $40 trillion national debt and a credit-funded AI buildout make the debasement case stronger than at the October high, then names the tripwires that would break his thesis, from a sustained drop below the 50-week average to a quantum computer. With conferences full of tokenization panels, being long Bitcoin may be the contrarian trade.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guest:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex Thorn - Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy

Timestamps

🎬 00:00 Intro

📋 00:29 Unchained Survey: complete the listener survey at https://unchainedcrypto.com/survey

🎙️ 01:28 Bits + Bips: search Bits + Bips and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@Bitsandbips

🧭 01:50 Why Alex says retaking the 50-week average means Bitcoin bottomed in June

🏦 06:36 Who sold and who bought: macro funds out, sovereign wealth funds in

💳 12:19 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at https://unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcast-yt

🐋 13:09 Why fewer old coins are waking up in 2026, and what that means for supply

💵 16:42 Why Alex says the debasement case is stronger than at the October high

🕵️ 19:56 Why Alex sees Bitcoin as an exit from an AI-powered surveillance state

🧱 23:48 Why Alex sees the tokenization boom as a contrarian signal to buy Bitcoin

⚠️ 29:31 The tripwires that would invalidate Alex's bottom call

🎯 34:09 Alex's $125K target and his $250K call for the end of 2027
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