The Chopping Block: If Vitalik Is the Pope of Crypto, Is Justin Sun the Inverse Pope? - Ep. 590

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2024

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. This week, they are joined by Laura Shin, the host of Unchained, to discuss the latest post from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who argues that crypto needs to get back to its idealistic cypherpunk roots. Is Vitalik the Pope of crypto, as Haseeb argues, and is there even a need for such an exemplary-type figure? And how do other influential crypto folks like Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko and Tron’s Justin Sun fit into this dynamic? The gang also discusses the likely imminent approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. and what it might mean for Bitcoin’s price and Ordinals Inscriptions. Show highlights: Who won the group’s bet on what the circulating supply of PayPal’s stablecoin, PYUSD, would be at the end of the year The Orbit Bridge hack and how the potential involvement of North Korea could be a problem for the industry How Vitalik’s post urging for a return to the cypherpunk ideals sparked a debate within the community Whether Vitalik is like “the Pope of crypto” and whether there’s even a need for one Why it’s so important to keep the cypherpunk ethos, according to Tarun Why Tom believes, after reading Vitalik’s post, that the wrong lessons are being learned How Vitalik and Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko could represent the religious leaders of two different approaches Whether Justin Sun is the “inverse of Vitalik” How GBTC holders are the most impacted ones given that the spot Bitcoin ETFs will be created and redeemed in cash Whether the SEC is picking favorites in the Bitcoin ETF landscape What could happen to the price of BTC if the ETF is approved Whether the rise in Bitcoin’s price will increase fees so much that it crowds out Ordinals Inscriptions Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures Guest Laura Shin, journalist, author of ‘The Cryptopians,’ founder and CEO of Unchained Disclosures Links Cypherpunk ideals Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again by Vitalik Buterin Quotes on Vitalik’s post on X Business Insider: 'Heed these words of warning:' Ethereum founder threatens to leave if the crypto community doesn't grow up The Block: Solana Labs CEO: It ‘doesn’t really matter’ if the network goes down again Spot Bitcoin ETF Unchained: 77% of Financial Advisors Are Waiting for a Spot Bitcoin ETF to Offer Their Clients How Much Money Will Flow Into Bitcoin ETFs? Here’s One Projection Should First-Time Bitcoin Investors Buy Now or Wait for the ETF? Signs Increasingly Point to January Approval of Spot Bitcoin ETF Applications Why The Spot Bitcoin ETF Is a Big Deal Deciding on Bitcoin: Should New Investors Jump In Now or Wait for an ETF? CoinDesk: Michael Saylor Commences Plan to Sell $216M Worth of MicroStrategy Stock Options PayPal’s PYUSD bet: The Chopping Block: Curve Crisis Concludes With a Whimper, PayPal’s PYUSD Raises New Questions Orbit Bridge hack Unchained: Orbit Chain Announces 'Significant Clue' in $81 Million New Year's Eve Hack The Block: Orbit Chain's bridge reportedly hacked for $81.5 million Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you read what Vitalik is talking about of like what are the things that he wants us to go back to it's things like you know
0:06.0	thinking about governance again from first principles or thinking about
0:09.3	quadratic funding or public goods funding this kind of stuff is what he generally points to or you
0:14.7	know enshrining privacy even further as opposed to, and he's in a way he's sort of dismissing
0:19.8	to some degree the bank the bank, you know Tron, super low fees, all that kind of stuff that Tron is actually doing,
0:26.9	despite the fact that, yes, Justin Sun is not the paragon of decentralization,
0:30.4	but he's the practical guy who's getting stable coins in the hands of people in emerging markets.
0:35.0	Not a dividend. It's a tale of two quand.
0:38.0	Now your losses are on someone else's balance.
0:40.0	Generally speaking, aircrafts are kind of pointless anyways.
0:43.0	I named trading firms who are very involved.
0:46.0	I like 8th of the ultimate problem.
0:48.0	D-5 protocols are the antidote to this problem.
0:51.0	Hello everybody, welcome to the chopping block.
0:54.0	Every couple weeks the four of us get together and give the industry insiders perspective on the
0:57.4	crypto topics of the day.
0:59.4	So quick intros, first you got Tom, the Defy Maven and Master of Memes.
1:02.4	Hello. Next we've got Taroon, the Defy Maven and Master of Memes.
1:02.8	Hello.
1:03.8	Next we've got Taroon, the gig-of-brain and Grand Pouba at Gauntlet.
1:07.0	Yo.
1:08.0	And joining us today we have Laura, the CEO of the show.
	...

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