Unchained

Coinbase's chief policy officer explains why the bank lobby failed to kill stablecoin rewards — and what 'workable compromise' actually means for crypto users.

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

Thank you to our sponsors!

Adaptive Security: Test and strengthen your company’s defenses against AI deepfakes and synthetic identities at adaptivesecurity.com. 

Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained.

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

The Genius Act established that stablecoin issuers could pay rewards to users. The banks said no. For months, the American Bankers Association used the Clarity Act as a pressure point to reverse that decision — tying up a bill that was supposed to govern an entirely different corner of crypto. Now there's compromise language. Coinbase's chief policy officer, Faryar Shirzad, says it's workable. The banks say it doesn't go far enough.

Meanwhile, the Clarity Act itself is racing toward a July 4th deadline, with a Senate Banking Committee markup expected the week of May 14. Ethics provisions around government officials holding crypto assets remain the hardest open question — and, as Shirzad puts it, one entirely above his pay grade.

This is where the biggest crypto legislation in US history actually stands.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


Faryar Shirzad (@faryarshirzad) — Chief Policy Officer, Coinbase

Timestamps
🎙️ 0:00 Introduction
💰 0:43 What the Clarity Act's stablecoin rewards compromise means in practice
🏦 4:04 What the banks got, what crypto kept — and why rewards are still workable
⚖️ 7:51 The American Bankers Association pushes back — is this fight really over?
🔵 13:36 Coinbase One ad: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan
🔒 14:58 Adaptive Security ad: Run deep fake AI generated phishing and vising simulations
📋 15:55 Getting the Clarity Act over the finish line — what's still unresolved?
🔑 18:54 Remaining issues, such as ethics, SEC exemptive relief, whether DeFi apps are money transmitters
🗓️ 28:27 Can the Clarity Act pass by July 4th? What happens if it doesn't?
🌍 32:33 What's next after the Clarity Act — taxes, rulemaking, and global expansion

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

A legal battle over frozen KelpDAO hack funds is forcing DeFi to answer questions it has long avoided.

Thank you to our sponsors!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained.

Multichain Advisors: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at multichainadv.com.

When the Arbitrum Security Council froze $71 million in funds tied to the KelpDAO  hack, it was hailed as vigilante justice. Now lawyers representing families of North Korea's victims are claiming that same money in a New York federal courtroom, as if theft transfers title. 

Meanwhile, an AI agent running on Base got robbed via a prompt injection hidden in Morse code, and Coinbase cited artificial intelligence when announcing 14% layoffs. 

Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, Luca Netz, and Kelsie Nabben, author of Decentralised Digital Security, work through what DeFi's security layer actually is, who gets to decide when to act, and whether any of it survives the arrival of autonomous agents.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins

Guest:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kelsie Nabben, Research Fellow at RMIT University — Author of 'Decentralized Digital Security: Code, Community, Crisis' (2025)

Timestamps
🚀 0:00 Introduction
⚖️ 1:55 The $71M legal battle over Arbitrum-frozen KelpDAO hack funds
🔍 7:44 But legally, are those funds DPRK’s? Would that claim hold up in court?
🏛️ 9:16 Why stealing funds doesn’t transfer ownership
🕵️ 14:15 The vigilante security layer in DeFi: who acts and who hides behind 'decentralization'
🧑‍⚖️ 21:13 Questions the judge asked the first day of the Gerstein case
👮 26:24 When Kain was also sued by Gerstein … and Luca was also served
🔵 35:30 Coinbase One ad: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan
⛓️ 37:01 Multichain Advisors ad: Get help navigating TGEs, go to market, BD, partnerships and more
🤖 37:44 BankrBot prompt-injected via Morse code: the LLM-to-LLM attack surface
🛡️ 43:38 Can DeFi survive the agents? AI security risks and what 'blast radius' means
🏢 59:18 Coinbase's 14% layoff and what it really says about AI and org structure

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

Arthur Hayes sees one force driving markets right now: governments printing money to finance AI and war. He explains why that ends with Bitcoin much higher — and what could derail it.

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

Thank you to our sponsor!

⁠Coinbase One⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠.

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

Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes called the Tehran toll booth scenario in writing — and now it's playing out. Sovereign nations are waking up to the fact that dollar assets don't buy oil when the strait is closed. 

On this episode, Hayes joins Laura Shin to explain why the structural unwinding of petrodollar recycling forces the Fed to print, why an AI deflationary bust could rival 2008 in severity before central banks step in, and why that path ends with Bitcoin substantially higher. 

He also breaks down his current highest-conviction positions: Hyperliquid, Zcash, and NEAR, and explains why he's deploying into what he calls maximum disillusionment in private crypto equity.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:


Arthur Hayes — CIO, Maelstrom

Timestamps

🚀 0:00 Why Arthur thinks all wars, including the Iran War, are inflationary

🌍 3:01 How the Iran war is causing demand for US treasuries to decline

💙 10:17 Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained

🪖 12:18 How the Iran War is eroding the dominance of the petrodollar

📊 16:11 Why Arthur watches WTI futures — and when 'all hell breaks loose'

⏸️ 18:16 Why Arthur considered Q1 “a no-trade zone” and his approach to Q2

🏦 20:20 Kevin Warsh as Fed chair: why Arthur says he's a neutral variable

🌏 22:43 How Asia perceives the Iran war and the US-China AI race

🤖 26:28 Two catalysts that Arthur believes could end the AI bull market

💥 31:42 What Arthur sees as a coming AI agentic deflationary bust

😂 36:32 How Arthur actually invests in AI stocks: buy first, research later

🔵 38:42 The Hype thesis: why Hyperliquid got tokenomics right

⚖️ 45:11 Why Zcash is Arthur's largest position outside Bitcoin

🔗 48:24 NEAR as the next shitcoin: the Zcash-Near integration thesis

🔐 50:26 On-chain risk, the Kelpout hack, and what teams get wrong

🏢 53:12 Maelstrom update: fundraising and why now is the right time to deploy
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ram says the entire market is now one giant AI trade. Chris argues the boom is backed by real fundamentals. Austin asks: is AI creating value for the right companies?

---

Thank you to our sponsor!

Coinbase One: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained.

Heads up!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips, since the show will migrate there in a few weeks. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and wherever you get your podcasts.

----

Circle just made history as the first publicly traded company to run a token presale, raising $222 million from BlackRock, Apollo, ICE, and a16z at a $3 billion valuation — and the stock went up.

At the same time, Coinbase reported a $394 million loss, cut 700 jobs, and suffered a five-hour outage. 

Ram, Austin, and Chris work through what's really happening: whether Circle's Arc is the institutional payment rail the industry has been waiting for or a financial engineering play, whether Coinbase's troubles are cyclical or structural, and whether the AI-driven market rally is a bubble forming or a fundamental shift that makes the dotcom comparison wrong.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell (@austincampbell) — Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management

Timestamps
🚀 0:00 Introduction and Iran ceasefire update
🛢️ 1:02 What Ram and Chris are watching in oil and Hormuz
📊 4:49 Why markets are shrugging off geopolitical noise
🤖 13:25 Ram on why the market is all one giant bet on AI
💬 16:03 Is the AI rally a bubble or a fundamental shift?
🏦 27:04 Circle launches Arc: could its token compete with its own stock?
📉 40:21 Coinbase: were the layoffs due to AI or the bear market?
🎭 48:26 What it says about the industry that Consensus’s afterparty was at E11even The Crypto Industry’s Maturity Problem

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

As a new CLARITY Act draft dropped, KK, Vy, and guest Josh Riezman of GSR give their passage odds and explain the one developer protection provision that matters most.

Thanks to our sponsor!

Coinbase One

Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan

⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠

A new draft of the CLARITY Act just landed — all 300-plus pages of it — and Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, TuongVy Le, and guest Josh Riezman of GSR didn't wait to dig in. 

On this episode they break down the specific developer protection provision in the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act that introduces a specific intent standard for charging developers, debate passage odds, and explain why Circle releasing a token as a public company signals a real shift in how the SEC thinks about the security/token distinction. 

They also unpack Chair Atkins' remarks at the SEC's AI+ Expo — a speech Vy argues shows the SEC and Congress are now in lockstep on modernizing securities regulation for on-chain infrastructure — and why, for the first time, that infrastructure includes vaults.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at StarkWare. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges.


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Veda

Guest:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh Riezman — Chief Legal and Strategy Officer, GSR

Timestamps

⚖️ 0:00 Intro — new CLARITY Act draft drops; why there’s still a lot of work to do

📜 5:27 Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Aact developer protections and why the “specific intent” standard is so important 

🏦 11:06 How TradFi actually feels about crypto market structure legislation

📊 14:45 What CLARITY must achieve: the US as the center for crypto innovation and the security/commodity line

🎰 18:11 Lightning round — passage odds: KK at 35%, Vy at 90%, Josh at 45%

🌸 21:32 Does the recent M&A wave, massive VC raises and Circle's Arc token presale mean it’s crypto spring?

💙 27:41 Coinbase: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at coinbase.com/unchained

📈 29:39 The least bearish bear market in history — RWA wave and institutional onchain demand

♀️ 33:41 The E11even controversy: ‘Maybe we should just not have strippers at official events.’

🎤 34:56 SEC Chair Paul Atkins'  speech recognizing that onchain infrastructure can achieve the same goals as TradFi rails 

📚 43:00 The education gap: most legislators still at Bitcoin-level crypto knowledge

🤖 46:46 AI good news: Redmod AI system may detect pancreatic cancer early
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices