The Chopping Block: Crypto Strategic Reserve, Trump vs. Crypto, Bitcoin’s Future - Ep. 795

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner break down the biggest stories in crypto. This week, we’re joined by special guest Laura Shin to dissect Trump’s Strategic Crypto Reserve fiasco. Why did he name-drop XRP and Cardano first? Was this real policy or just a market pump? Meanwhile, Crypto Twitter is melting down over Trump’s crypto summit guest list—who made the cut, and who got snubbed? Plus, another SEC lawsuit bites the dust, and memecoins look deader than ever. Let’s get into it. Show highlights 🔹 Trump’s Crypto Reserve Announcement – Trump proposes a U.S. Crypto Strategic Reserve, initially boosting XRP, ADA, SOL, BTC, and ETH—only for markets to fully reverse in 48 hours. 🔹 Who Picked These Coins? – XRP & ADA make the list despite having lower adoption than SOL or ETH. Was this a serious policy move or just pay-to-play politics? 🔹 Trump’s 5D Chess or Just a Meme? – Did the Trump team just pick random coins off CoinMarketCap? Or was this an orchestrated move to pay back donors? 🔹 The Crypto Council Drama – Trump’s Crypto Council implodes before launch due to infighting over seats. First summit features Ripple’s Garlinghouse, Michael Saylor, Chainlink’s Nazarov, Brian Armstrong, and Jesse Powell—but no actual protocol founders. 🔹 Is Crypto Being Used for Politics? – Nic Carter calls the plan a grift, saying the U.S. government should not buy altcoins with taxpayer money. Even Bitcoin maxis are skeptical. 🔹 Trump’s Obsession With Bitcoin Prices – Reports claim Trump personally tracks Bitcoin price movements and wants BTC to hit $150K during his presidency—is he manipulating markets? 🔹 The SEC Softens on Crypto? – Enforcement pivots as the SEC drops cases against Cumberland and Kraken. Will the Coinbase lawsuit be next? 🔹 Market Exhaustion Sets In – Despite the noise, traders are tired. The market isn’t buying into Trump’s crypto plans—was this just another empty promise? Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Laura Shin, Journalist, Author of ‘The Cryptopians,’ Founder and CEO of Unchained Disclosures Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:05 Market Reactions to Trump's Announcement 03:25 Skepticism of the Crypto Reserve 07:02 Strategic Value of Crypto Reserve 11:11 Political and Market Implications 18:52 Security Concerns & Future Speculations 31:30 Government Control of Crypto 39:50 Potential Forks & Government Influence 45:37 Crypto Summit & Council Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think people love to sort of pretend that there's like this 5D chess happening.
0:03.6	And I think actually they probably went to like coin market cap and went down like the top 10 assets.
0:07.7	And they're like, what isn't a staple coin?
0:09.7	What isn't B&B?
0:11.2	And it's like, this is the list.
0:12.2	Great.
0:13.2	And then that's how you get this tweet.
0:15.2	Not a dividend.
0:16.2	It's a tale of two pawn.
0:17.2	Now your losses are on someone else's balance. Generally speaking,
0:25.3	air drops are kind of pointless anyways. Unimmed to trading firms who are very involved.
0:30.4	I like that ETH is the ultimate pump. DFI protocols are the antidote to this problem.
0:34.9	Hello everybody. Welcome to the chopping block. Every couple weeks, the four of us get together and give the industry insider's perspective on the crypto topics of the day. So quick intro, first you got Tom, the Defy Maven and Master of Memes.
0:42.3	Hello, everyone.
0:43.9	Next, we've got Tarun, the Gigabrain, and Grand Puba at Gauntlet.
0:47.9	Aloha.
0:49.6	And back on the show, we've got Laura, the CEO of the show.
0:53.3	Ciao. back on the show we've got laura the CEO of the show chow and i'm a see of headhide man at dragonfly
0:57.2	so we're early stage investors in crypto but i want to caveat that nothing we say here is investment
1:00.9	advice legal advice or even life advice please see chopin block that xyz for more disclosures so i thought
1:06.4	last week was a bad week turns out this week was a kind of head fake good week over the weekend,
1:11.5	and then it turns out to be a very bad week because macro still seems to be driving the overall
	...

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