Unchained
Podcast

Unchained

by Laura Shin

412 episodes

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. Disclosure: I'm a nocoiner.
Ask about UnchainedAnswers are grounded in this source's posts from the last 30 days.

Recent Posts

412 posts
Paid Partnership: How Nexo Wants You To Build Wealth Using Crypto

The insights provide no specific ticker, price target, or near-term trade; treat crypto adoption as a long-term theme, not a forecast of returns. Before using Nexo yield or lending products, independently verify rates, fees, custody, collateral requirements, and liquidation rules—the interview was a paid partnership and its claims were not independently verified. Avoid borrowing against volatile crypto to fund investments or expenses unless you can withstand losses and potential liquidation.

The Chopping Block: Bitget's 387 Million Dollar Hack, Kalshi's Cooked Perps Volume, and Agentic Bank Runs
  • Consider moving excess cash from low-yield checking accounts into U.S. Treasuries or T-bills, after accounting for liquidity needs, taxes, and settlement timing.
  • Treat Bitget cautiously after the reported $387 million hack: verify current withdrawal access and independent security and solvency updates, especially since the speakers endorsing it disclosed an investment.
  • Avoid treating staking as risk-free; before staking ETH, check whether your provider covers operational disruptions, missed rewards, or slashing—no ETH price target was provided.
  • Defer investment decisions on Kalshi until the reported CFTC investigation and planned end to liquidity incentives clarify how much of its trading activity is sustainable.
Uneasy Money: The $388M Bitget Hack Started With a Security Vendor
  • Treat Bitget as a heightened counterparty risk after the reported $388 million hack; wait for independent forensic findings before relying on its assurances.
  • Consider ETH only as a long-term, execution-dependent investment, and monitor whether planned upgrades ship and attract developers and applications.
  • Avoid or thoroughly scrutinize RUNE exposure given concerns raised about THORChain’s governance, emergency controls, and links to laundering flows.
  • NVDA may benefit from continued AI demand, but the discussion offered no valuation or price target—assess its financials and current price before investing.
  • Treat prospective OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs as speculative: no confirmed price or timeline was given, so evaluate spending, revenue, competition, and valuation before committing.
Is Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP Coin a Scam? He Says the Wallets Prove It Isn't

The discussion offers no high-conviction buy recommendation or price target for the assets mentioned. Treat LAPTOP as highly speculative: verify its token allocations, vesting, and liquidity before considering it, and account for launch-liquidity problems and uncertain exchange listings. No actionable trade is established for BTC, ZEC, Hyperliquid, or politically associated meme coins. Be cautious about 1inch Aqua liquidity provision, since fees are not guaranteed and the segment was sponsored.

DEX in the City: The Hosts Sign Off With Their Best Advice for Women in Crypto

The discussion provides no specific BTC, ETH, or crypto price targets or buy/sell recommendations, so there is no high-conviction trade to act on. Treat crypto as a volatile, regulation-sensitive sector, and assess projects individually by their use case and risks. Before using 1inch Aqua or other liquidity products, verify how they work and consider potential losses; fees are not guaranteed.

How Bitget Is Chasing $388 Million in Stolen Funds After a Zero-Day Hack
  • Treat Bitget as a watchlist item, not an IPO opportunity yet: no firm listing date or ticker is available, and assess its security upgrades, recovery progress, and protection-fund transparency before considering exposure.
  • Don’t infer a buy or sell signal for BTC, ETH, or the other named tokens from this incident; the insights provide no price targets or asset-specific catalysts.
  • If considering 1inch Aqua or other DeFi liquidity provision, account for the risk of loss and the possibility of earning no fees; the cited idle-liquidity estimate does not guarantee better returns.
Why the Crypto Market Cap Could Reach $50 Trillion This Cycle
  • Consider Bitcoin (BTC) as the highest-conviction crypto holding in the discussion, based on its scarcity and established network; the $250,000 figure is a conditional scenario, not a firm target.
  • Ethereum (ETH) offers exposure to tokenization, but watch for sustained user activity and whether its speed and cost limitations improve.
  • Treat Zcash (ZEC) as a higher-risk privacy-focused bet: the cited $700–$2,000 range is speculative, and protocol security remains a key risk.
  • For Solana (SOL) and Hyperliquid, look for measurable growth in tokenization, AI-agent transactions, and fee-generating usage before relying on the long-term thesis.
Why Kalshi's Timeline Fight Put Its ETH Perp Volume Under a Microscope: Uneasy Money
  • NEAR is the strongest actionable crypto theme discussed: consider it for exposure to cross-chain services and private AI, but verify adoption and revenue before investing; no price target or timeframe was provided.
  • Treat ETH, ZEC, and BTC as market observations, not trade signals—the discussion offered no specific buy/sell recommendations or price targets.
  • Before using Kalshi or Polymarket, assess genuine liquidity and trading incentives rather than relying on headline volume; reported activity did not prove misconduct.
  • If providing liquidity through 1inch Aqua, weigh its potential capital efficiency against liquidity-provider risks, and do not assume fees are guaranteed.
Bits + Bips: Is Bitcoin Finally Being Priced on Fundamentals?
  • Bitcoin (BTC) has reclaimed its 50-week moving average, with a reported weekly close of $81,160; consider a cautious, staged entry only if it sustains weekly closes above that level.
  • Treat the bullish signal as unconfirmed: monitor ETF inflows and U.S. buyer demand, and avoid shorting given Bitcoin’s sharp volatility.
  • Avalanche (AVAX) rose nearly 50% in seven days, but with no price target or details on the cited announcements, avoid chasing the surge and reassess whether momentum holds.
How Zcash and NEAR Are Driving This Crypto Bull Run
  • NEAR (NEAR) is the clearest infrastructure watchlist opportunity: track growth in NEAR Intents and confidential DeFi adoption, rather than chasing its reported 69% weekly surge; cross-chain and smart-contract risks remain.
  • Zcash (ZEC) offers exposure to privacy demand and cross-chain use, but its reported 32% weekly gain is not a buy signal; monitor the NU7 upgrade and whether real usage grows.
  • Treat NU7’s planned reduction in Zcash block times from 75 to 25 seconds as a catalyst to watch, not a completed improvement; Project Acheon’s scale and quantum-resistance goals remain longer-term plans.
  • No price targets or direct buy recommendations were provided for ZEC, NEAR, BTC, ETH, or SOL.
Crypto's Clarity Act Collapses. Two Days Later, the SEC Introduces Its Innovation Exemption

Coinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) represents a strong near-term opportunity, as the failure of restrictive federal legislation allows the company to aggressively expand high-yield stablecoin rewards to drive subscription growth and customer retention. Investors can capitalize on a new five-year Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) exemption by targeting compliant, 1-to-1 backed stock tokens and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) while avoiding prohibited offshore synthetic stock derivatives. Holding digital cash in compliant stablecoin yield programs continues to offer a distinct yield advantage over standard regional bank deposits for the foreseeable future. Conversely, avoid anticipating digital token catalysts for equities like AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (AMC), where corporate opposition legally blocks shares from listing on onshore tokenized securities venues.

Uneasy Money: What Crypto's Gensler Years Say About the AI Slowdown Debate

Investors should watch Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) for a potential strategic pivot toward open-source AI infrastructure, which carries an estimated 20% upside catalyst driven by the monetization of its massive private data ecosystem.

Consider building a position in Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) to capitalize on accelerating enterprise demand for data sovereignty and secure, self-hosted intelligence systems over centralized subscription models.

In the digital asset space, Chainlink (LINK) represents a leading institutional investment after securing the Wyoming FRNT stable token partnership over competitors thanks to its enterprise-ready SOC 2 compliance.

Favor established cloud and open-infrastructure providers like Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) over closed AI labs, which are facing severe margin compression and compute burn from low-cost open-source alternatives.

Investors seeking long-term growth should maintain structural exposure to the broader cryptocurrency market via mainstream channels like IRAs and RIAs to capture an anticipated multi-year expansion cycle with up to 10x upside potential.

The Chopping Block: CLARITY Dies on the Senate Floor, Hunter Biden's LAPTOP Rug, & the AI Pause Pact

Maintain a core long-term position in Bitcoin (BTC) as an essential macro hedge against systemic financial risks and technological disruption.

Reallocate Artificial Intelligence investments toward enterprise adoption, data infrastructure, and cybersecurity hardening rather than speculative foundation models, while monitoring upcoming public listings like the Anthropic IPO.

Concentrate decentralized finance capital into dominant market leaders like Uniswap and Hyperliquid while divesting from legacy trading protocols that are losing market share.

Utilize tactical, short-term positions in privacy-focused assets like Zcash (ZEC) to capture upside during windows of heightened regulatory uncertainty.

Avoid capital destruction by strictly steering clear of celebrity-backed meme coins such as Laptop Token (LAPTOP) and new token launches with thin initial liquidity pools.

Bits + Bips: Would AI Rules Box Out Everyone but the Frontier Labs?

Investors should maintain long exposure to NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) to benefit from sustained, multi-year semiconductor demand driven by its current Blackwell and upcoming Vera Rubin chip architectures.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) offers a durable large-cap AI investment, leveraging strong organic cash flows to aggressively self-fund its computing infrastructure without relying on outside financing.

Investors seeking frontier AI growth should prepare for upcoming pre-IPO opportunities with Anthropic, which is positioned alongside OpenAI to lead the high-margin enterprise AI market for at least the next three years.

In the digital asset sector, monitor capital-efficient Decentralized Finance (DeFi) infrastructure like 1inch, as the rollout of 1inch Aqua aims to unlock roughly $540 million in underutilized market liquidity.

Guy Young on Why Ethena Launched a Neobank on Top of Its Stablecoin

Investors seeking high cash yields can allocate to USDe via the newly launched Ethena Pay neobank to earn a boosted 6% dollar savings rate backed by institutional-grade assets. This setup provides an attractive high-yield cash alternative to traditional bank accounts while enabling everyday spending through the Visa network. For growth-oriented token exposure, consider Avalanche (AVAX), which was chosen as the exclusive blockchain infrastructure powering all Ethena Pay payment rails. Additionally, AVAX benefits from a multi-year catalyst as it serves as the payout token for a team-funded 5% consumer card cashback program, driving non-speculative, real-world transaction demand.

Should Stock Tokens Be Limited to KYC'd Users? Or Be Tradeable by Anyone?

Investors should position for the rapid growth in Real World Assets (RWA) by prioritizing compliant Issuer-Sponsored Tokenization (IST) over high-risk synthetic wrappers.

Monitor Robinhood Markets, Inc. (HOOD) as an aggressive first-mover expanding global retail access to tokenized assets, while keeping a close watch on pending regulatory frameworks.

Prepare for institutional capital inflows across DeFi infrastructure by tracking platforms like Aave, Morpho, and LoopScale as tokenized equities gain mainstream regulatory clarity.

Avoid trading offshore synthetic stock tokens, such as unregulated derivatives tied to AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), due to extreme pricing dislocations up to 60 times underlying asset values and heightened counterparty default risks.

Uneasy Money: Is OpenAI Training on Your Private Chats to Win the AI Race?

Following the recent major security exploit on the Liquid Network, investors should prioritize holding native Bitcoin (BTC) directly over bridged assets like Liquid Bitcoin (LBTC) to eliminate smart contract risk. Decentralized finance participants should explore 1inch (1INCH), as the launch of 1inch Aqua offers enhanced yield opportunities by activating historically idle liquidity. Long-term tech investors should target open-source AI infrastructure and private inference platforms like Venice, which are positioned to capture market share from closed-source providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. Finally, retail investors must exercise strict risk management by steering clear of highly volatile memecoins like Laptop Token (LAPTOP) that face severe boom-and-bust drawdowns.

The Chopping Block: FOMO's Co-Founder Defends the Memecoin Trenches, Hunter Biden's $LAPTOP, and AMC vs Robinhood

Investors should monitor Robinhood (HOOD) as its native Robinhood Chain emerges as a significant growth driver, capturing roughly $600,000 in daily revenue fueled by retail demand for tokenized equities.

To capture decentralized finance yields, look into emerging launchpads like Ponds and Stonk.fun, which are innovating by pairing speculative trading pools with yield-bearing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) like Treasury bond ETFs.

Investors seeking exposure to late-stage private companies can utilize platforms like Hyperliquid to trade synthetic perpetual contracts on pre-IPO equities.

Exercise strict caution and avoid capital allocation to political meme coins such as $LAPTOP across the Base and Solana ecosystems, where roughly 95% of retail traders lose money to rapid liquidity extraction and dilution.

For thesis discovery, consider tracking verified on-chain portfolios on social trading platforms like FOMO, which reward transparent track records and longer holding periods.

Bits + Bips: AMC's CEO Calls Robinhood's Stock Tokens 'Vile.'

Investors looking to profit from rising retail trading activity should consider platform infrastructure plays like Robinhood Markets (HOOD) and Coinbase Global (COIN), which are capturing high-margin fee revenue from global demand for tokenized equities and perpetual futures. In contrast, investors should avoid holding individual meme coins and speculative crypto tokens, as analysts warn 99.99% will eventually fall to zero due to a complete lack of intrinsic cash flows. Exercise extreme caution with AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) following its recent headline-driven 21% jump to $3.07, as these price spikes remain detached from core business fundamentals. Finally, anyone trading offshore tokenized stocks should note that these synthetic debt products only track share prices and do not confer direct equity ownership or corporate voting rights.

How GenLayer Is Building a Court System for Disputes Between AI Agents

Participate in the Flop Protocol (FLOP) testnet and airdrop campaign in Q4 to position for early token allocations ahead of its planned public trading launch in Q1 Next Year. Track the token generation event for GenLayer (GEN) arriving before year-end to capture validator staking yields and network fees in the AI-powered dispute resolution market. Accumulate established decentralized arbitration assets like UMA (UMA) and Kleros (PNK), which are primed to capture high-value appeal fees as human backstops to automated systems. Gain broader exposure to the multi-trillion-dollar Agentic Commerce theme by investing in foundational infrastructure layers and high-volume transaction networks like Base.