Pump.fun’s $370M Burn Was a Mistake, Says Luca Netz: Uneasy Money

Unchained

Laura Shin

Business News, News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2026

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Pump.fun set fire to $370 million in tokens. Luca lays out the airdrop math that says they should have done the opposite. Thank you to our sponsors!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ MultiChain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create $50B+ in enterprise value for 80+ clients over the past 4 years. They're the partner to help navigate markets. Build real traction today at ⁠multichainadv.com⁠ Pump.fun had a choice with $370 million worth of its own tokens. It burned them. On this week’s Uneasy Money, Luca Netz argues that was the worst option on the table. He lays out the “people’s champ” math that, in his view, could have turned Pump.fun into a $5 billion-a-year business if Alon Cohen had launched the biggest airdrop crypto has ever seen—and bought the tokens back at the bottom. Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan also dig into the 137,000 ETH community effort to plug the KelpDAO hole, why Tay thinks Aave—not Layer Zero or KelpDAO—is the key player in DeFi’s latest blowup, and Luca’s blunt new take on whether DeFi yield is even worth the risk right now. Plus: Meta paying creators in USDC, the ghost of Libra, and OpenAI’s leaked AI-native phone. Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone, I'm Kang Warwick and welcome to Uneasy Money because what happens on chain never stays on chain.
0:06.0	Before we start, nothing you hear on UnEasy is financial advice. We're just three builders talking about what's happening on chain and we want you to always do your own research before I begin.
0:14.0	You can find all our disclosures at UnchainCrypto.com slash uneasy money.
0:19.0	And before we begin, here's a word from the sponsors that make the show possible.
0:25.1	Multi-Chain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create 50 plus
0:30.4	billion dollars in enterprise value for 80 plus clients over the past four years.
0:35.8	They're the partner to help navigate markets. Build
0:38.8	real traction today at multi-chain ADV.com.
0:42.8	All right. Hey guys, I'm here with my co-host, Taylor Monaghan, Gertie Expert, and Luca Nets,
0:51.3	CEO of Pungy Penguins, who is an avatar today because he was disfigured in
0:57.7	an Antarctic plane crash, unfortunately, last week while he was visiting Antarctica.
1:03.6	So we'll just have to make do with static image of him this week, which will be fine.
1:10.0	Welcome, guys.
1:10.8	How you doing?
1:12.5	I'm rocking and roll and a little disfigured, little chop up,
1:16.6	but you guys can see my penguin, so happy to be here.
1:20.8	Nice, nice.
1:22.9	So, speaking of people being chopped up and disfigured, Defy, how are we doing?
1:32.3	So the Kelpdow hack we talked about last week, all of the other hacks we talked about the other weeks.
1:43.8	There have been and continue to be
1:47.1	almost daily fify hacks but um this this kelpdow hack in particular given the fallout um and the
1:56.1	impact on ave the freezing of various markets and, you know, all of the different people and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Laura Shin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Laura Shin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.