Unchained

Niklas Kunkel maps where the RWA market is heading next, from Centrifuge and Apollo's CLOs to Galaxy's first tokenized credit product, then turns to a cautionary tale: some SpaceX pre-IPO token buyers never actually owned the shares they thought they had.

Host:

Steven Ehrlich - Host of Bits + Bips and Head of Research at Sharplink

Guest:

Niklas Kunkel - Founder and CEO of Chronicle Labs

This clip is from a longer conversation on crypto oracles, tokenized real-world assets, and Chronicle Labs' work verifying them. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/HW9Cu_E8DnU

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

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 Where the RWA market goes next, from the man building its plumbing: Niklas Kunkel

💰 00:44 The yield trade heating up: why CLOs like Centrifuge's JAAA and Apollo's Acred are suddenly everywhere

🌌 01:14 Galaxy's first tokenized CLO, and why it's a far bigger deal than it looks

🔍 01:56 Trust no one: how Chronicle checks Galaxy's loan book against its own custodian

🔁 03:04 The looping trick that turns a 7% CLO yield into 14% or 21%, and the risk hiding inside it

🏢 03:27 What's coming next: tokenized REITs and equities

🚀 05:28 The SpaceX pre-IPO token question Niklas keeps getting asked

📉 06:06 The catch nobody mentioned: why SpaceX token buyers never actually owned their shares
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Robinhood Chain perps now run on Lighter. Vlad Novakovski maps the revenue split, the USDG collateral risk, and the race for a US perps license.

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Robinhood Chain went live last week, and the perpetual futures powering it are from Lighter, the onchain exchange Robinhood backed before Lighter launched its token.

Vlad Novakovski, founder and CEO of Lighter, joins Laura Shin to unpack a partnership he says has been building since he and the Robinhood founder were high school classmates. He details a 50/50 revenue split, why USDG as collateral creates friction for market makers, and how a pending CFTC license would cover Robinhood's own front-end too.

Novakovski also addresses the crowded field forming around US perps, from Kalshi and Coinbase to Kraken and dYdX, and makes the case that onchain volume keeps gaining share even as crypto native tokens lag real world asset perps. His new seat on the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee puts him in the room as regulators decide what a DEX has to look like to operate onshore.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vlad Novakovski - Founder and CEO of Lighter

Timestamps

🤝 01:28 Why Vlad calls the Robinhood Chain deal "12 years in the making" and how the revenue is split

🤓 03:40 How Robinhood perps differs from Lighter's own app

💸 05:03 What if means if USDG is the quote asset on Robinhood's perps and USDC is the quote asset on Lighter

💬 11:04 Novakovski on Lighter's Telegram Wallet deal vs Hyperliquid's builder codes

📣 12:50 Cape: Get 33% off six months of privacy first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

💼 13:44 Fidelity: Explore crypto and DeFi careers at https://crypto.fidelitycareers.com

📉 14:31 Why RWA perps are hitting highs while crypto native perp volume cools

⚠️ 18:00 How Lighter prices liquidation risk when tokenized stocks are collateral

🏛️ 21:14 Novakovski on the regulatory pathway DEXs need to move onshore
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Austin Griffith joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to unpack BonkDAO's $20M governance heist, and Kain's case for giving founders more control.

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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 single wallet spent $4.4 million buying up Bonk tokens, then used that stake to push through a governance proposal that legally emptied BonkDAO's roughly $20 million treasury a week later, with almost no one watching the vote.

Austin Griffith, Ethereum Foundation developer and creator of Scaffold-ETH and founder of BuidlGuidl, joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to use the heist as a jumping-off point for Kain's real target: ENS. Kain argues founder Nick Johnson should retake control over building and product from the DAO, and makes the case that founder-led execution beats decentralized governance almost every time.

They also cover Vitalik's Lean Ethereum overhaul and why Austin says it will barely change what he builds, the $1 AI audit he launched as a meme for x402 agent payments, Robinhood's new chain and the pay-to-play deals behind it, and why Kain now argues tokens are the wrong way to raise money.

If a founder with total conviction can outperform a DAO built to stop exactly that, the DAO experiment may be further from finished than anyone wants to admit.

Hosts:

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

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

Guests:

⁠Austin Griffith - Ethereum Foundation developer and creator of Scaffold-ETH and SpeedRun Ethereum, and founder of BuidlGuidl

Timestamps

🛠️ 01:32 Why Austin says Vitalik's Lean Ethereum overhaul barely changes his job

📅 08:21 Taylor on why the EF ships huge roadmaps but too little in the short term

🪓 12:56 Austin on surviving the EF's leaner reorg and the wave of departures

💵 15:43 How Austin turned a serious auditing tool into a viral meme

🤝 18:48 x402 skill files: why agents will soon pay other agents for on-tap skills

💙 25:44 Cape: Get 33% off your first six months of privacy first mobile service at https://cape.co/unchained

🚨 26:41 How one wallet legally voted its way to BonkDAO's $20M treasury

⚖️ 32:57 Why Kain thinks Nick Johnson and ENS should take power back from the DAO

🤖 55:29 Robinhood's new chain and Kain's take on crypto's pay-to-play problem

🪙 58:29 Why Kain says tokens are now the wrong tool to raise money
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Vladimir Novakovski of Lighter joins the Chopping Block crew to untangle one of crypto's oldest debates: what happens when tokens and equity coexist. The gang digs into the Venice/VVV controversy, breaks down Lighter's new Perps integration with Robinhood Chain and the fragmentation questions it raises, dissects the wild BonkDAO governance exploit, and reacts to the eye-popping $2.4 billion in crypto income disclosed in Trump's financial filings.

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, joined this week by special guest Vladimir Novakovski of Lighter.

The crew dives deep into the resurfaced tokens-versus-equity debate sparked by Dragonfly's investment in Venice and its VVV token, with Haseeb making the case that Venice is fundamentally different from Uniswap Labs style structures. Vlad explains how Lighter has approached the same dilemma through programmatic buybacks and a single C corp structure, and the group debates fiduciary duties, Delaware law, and what a merged DeFi/TradFi future for equity and tokens might look like. From there, they unpack Lighter's big Robinhood Chain announcement, including Lighter's new role as the native Perps engine inside Robinhood Wallet, and whether running a separate instance fragments liquidity. The episode wraps with a breakdown of the BonkDAO governance exploit that let an attacker vote themselves $20 million in tokens, and a reaction to Trump's staggering $2.4 billion in pre-tax crypto income revealed in his latest financial disclosure.

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

Show highlights

🔹 Haseeb breaks down why Venice's VVV token is not equity and not a Uniswap style governance token in disguise

🔹 Vlad explains how Lighter's programmatic buybacks and single C corp structure align token holders and equity holders

🔹 The gang debates Delaware fiduciary law, shareholder primacy, and what happens when buyback capital runs dry

🔹 Vlad lays out the vision of tokenized equity merging with crypto tokens into a single on-chain asset

🔹 Lighter's Robinhood Chain deal goes live with Lighter powering native Perps trading inside Robinhood Wallet

🔹 Vlad addresses concerns about liquidity fragmentation across separate Lighter instances

🔹 BonkDAO gets exploited as an attacker buys governance tokens and votes themselves $20 million

🔹 Robert compares the Bonk exploit to the infamous Beanstalk and Compound Humpty governance attacks

🔹 Trump's financial disclosure reveals $2.4 billion in pre-tax crypto income, sparking a debate on crypto's political future

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, Founder & CEO of Superstate

Guest

⭐️Vladimir Novakovski, Founder of Lighter

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

03:40 Tokens vs equity: the Venice VVV debate begins

06:12 Fiduciary duty, Delaware law, and Lighter's C corp structure

08:00 What happens when buyback capital runs out

12:42 Why Venice launched a token in the first place

19:18 Comparing VVV to BNB and overloaded crypto assets

25:28 Lighter's Robinhood Chain deal and native Perps launch

37:02 BonkDAO governance exploit and the $20M vote

44:02 Lessons from Beanstalk and Compound's Humpty saga

47:09 Trump's $2.4B crypto income disclosure reactions

Disclosures
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For years, Michael Saylor's Strategy was the market's most dependable Bitcoin buyer. Recently, it has done the opposite.

Strategy just sold 3,588 Bitcoin for roughly $216 million, its largest single tranche yet, deepening the question of whether Michael Saylor has become a structural seller instead of a buyer.

Ram Ahluwalia, Austin Campbell, and Chris Perkins break down the STRC dividend mechanics behind the sale, the bull case for a catch-up trade, and the bear case if Bitcoin never rallies back.

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

This clip is from a longer conversation on Strategy's Bitcoin sale, the stablecoin wars, and the token versus equity debate. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/H3z68SYty0k

We go live every Monday at 4:30pm 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).

Chapters:

💰 00:00 Strategy's record $216M Bitcoin sale: the numbers behind the disclosure

📉 01:14 mNAV falls below 1 for the first time, and the STRC dividend framework

🔁 02:31 Why Ram says selling Bitcoin beats issuing more MSTR shares

⚖️ 04:21 The bear case: what happens if Bitcoin doesn't rally from here

✈️ 05:24 Chris on Saylor's three-body problem after a week of conferences in London
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