Editor’s note: this episode was recorded before the Binance hack.

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news. In this episode:

• Prediction markets keep screwing up around major elections
• Quantum firm Alice and Bob devise a new lower estimate for an ECDLP break
• Google enters institutional crypto custody with Google MPC
• ICE and Trade.xyz plan to bring Hyperliquid perps to the US, pending CFTC approval
• DTCC’s tokenization service goes live on Canton and its private Besu chain
• Who is using Instinct? 
• Who’s behind the anonymous WSJ ad warning companies against tokenized stocks?
• Should public companies be able to opt out of tokenized trading?
• Canton Strategic Holdings plans to tokenize its own shares
• Bitcoin Core discloses three bugs found by an AI security scan
• Does AI make yearlong vulnerability disclosure embargoes obsolete?
• Category Labs unveils Quantum Cadence, a post-quantum consensus protocol
• Can fast blockchains accommodate quantum-safe signatures?
• Strategy shareholders approve daily dividends on its perpetual preferred stocks
• Datavault AI says it can’t withdraw its Bitcoin from Biconomy
• Y Combinator’s latest crypto request for startups
• Why do Kalshi and Polymarket disagree on the midterms?

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Nic on Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell

• Category Labs, Quantum Cadence

• Alex Thorn’s Bitcoin bull case

• Y Combinator, Crypto Request for Startups

• Coin Metrics, 50 Shades of Gray: Explore Pricing

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news. In this episode:

• Marathon Fusion says it has turned mercury into stable gold

• What would commercially viable alchemy mean for Bitcoin’s scarcity argument?

• AI tools uncover a major vulnerability in PHP

• A certificate authority’s private keys turn out to be trivially guessable

• Railway warns developers to revoke their secrets after a cyberattack

• Banks are finding third-party AI agents inside customer accounts

• Who’s responsible when your AI agent acts without instructions?

• The OCC finalizes its GENIUS Act rules

• Stablecoin issuers can’t pay yield directly, but where does that leave third-party rewards?

• a16z reportedly plans to drop “crypto” from its flagship fund’s name

• Ali Yahya is leaving to start a company

• Microsoft, Alphabet, and Goldman Sachs object to tokenized versions of their shares

• Should public companies have a veto over tokenizing their stock?

• Polymarket faces growing pains as Kalshi gains ground

• Are perpetual preferred shares a new source of Bitcoin demand?

• Can compute derivatives give investors a way to short the AI boom?

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Marathon Fusion, Alchemy

• OCC, Final Rule to Implement the GENIUS Act

• Fidelity Digital Assets, Perpetual Preferred Stock: The Newest Demand Catalyst in Bitcoin

• Bitwise, Q4 2026 Staking Report

• Wired, The DEA’s Premier Crypto Detective: Clues Led Straight to Her Own Family

• Bloomberg, Polymarket Investors Push CEO Coplan for Change as Kalshi Gains Ground

• The Wall Street Journal, Want to Short the AI Boom? She Wants to Give You a Way to Bet on Compute Prices

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:

• The OCC publishes its debanking findings on America’s largest banks

• Will the banks’ fixes satisfy regulators?

• Google makes another advance in quantum error correction

• Coinbase lays out its requirements for Bitcoin’s post-quantum migration

• Can Bitcoin’s quantum transition accommodate institutional MPC wallets?

• OpenAI is reportedly in talks to buy Trail of Bits

• Patrick Witt leaves the White House — where does that leave Clarity?

• DWF Labs subsidiaries sue BitGo for $141m over allegedly premature token sales

• Spy chips in reseller-supplied Ledger devices steal recovery phrases

• Ledger announces an Android device with Solana Mobile

• Cboe gets approval for binary options on public company metrics

• The CFTC draws the line between prediction markets and sportsbooks

• Richard Heart is reportedly detained in Istanbul

• What’s NYC Mayer Zohran Mamdani doing with a quantum computer?

Content mentioned in this episode:

• OCC, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for all Americans

• Nic on Convergence: quantum risk and AI-driven advances in math

• Google Quantum AI on magic state cultivation

• Coinbase, Working Together on BTC Post-Quantum Readiness

• Jeff Yan on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with more deals and news. In this episode: 

• Is it appropriate to have AI manage your fantasy league?
• Quant firms are hiring “quals”
• Justin Drake scares everyone in crypto
• Did AI destroy math?
• Why a classical ECDSA break would be worse than a quantum one
• Why we lean forward hash-based signatures for post-quantum
• Why rotating your address doesn’t help now
• Is Bitcoin the “least of our concerns” if ECC breaks?
• Nic makes a new scientific discovery with Astra
• The NFL thinks that gambling should be state regulated
• What’s driving interest in Pokemon cards?

Content mentioned in our episode:

• Coin Metrics, The Death and Life of the Average Memecoin

Check out this episode!

Esther Wong, founder and CEO of Cashi joins the show. Cashi is a stablecoin spending app and cashback card with a global footprint. In this episode we discuss:

• Customer personas and use cases for stablecoin payments
• The future of tokenized equities on chain
• The landscape of layer one and two blockchains and how these platforms converge with global stablecoin applications
• Cashi’s roadmap and plans for the coming year

To learn more about Cashi, visit their website and follow Esther Wong on X.

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• Are OpenAI and Anthropic reenacting the Fat Protocol Hypothesis
• Will AI agents cause bank runs optimizing bank balances for yield?
• If the AI complex bursts does it take down VC?
• Our tribute to Hester Peirce as she retires from the SEC
• The SEC and CFTC publish crypto FAQs
• Vitalik lays out his vision for Ethereum in 2030
• Quantum progress is accelerating
• Illinois delays their crypto transaction tax 
• Is San Francisco better than it was? 

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• How loud are America’s largest data centers?
• What’s wrong with XAI’s data center in Mississippi?
• The Trump admin is reportedly trying to promote dollar stablecoins
• Binance invests in Circle
• We pick up the pieces after Clarity
• Fairshake plans to spend $30m opposing Sherrod Brown in Ohio
• How AI anxiety helps the Democrats
• Sherrod Brown is back to haunt crypto
• Coinbase is listing IPOs now
• Are prediction markets out of step with the original vision?
• BitMEX finally closes its doors
• 52 BTC were saved from the Coldcard hack by white hats
• Is Anthropic privatizing the frontier?
• A White House memo says effective altruism is a cult

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Nic on Substack, How Noisy are America’s Largest Data Centers?

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• How is SBF like Dario?
• The EAs are at it again
• Do we need new regulation to Pace the Frontier?
• Can Anthropic be regulated like a bank? 
• Are baseball cards back?
• Clarity fails at the final hurdle
• Why did Clarity fail?
• Stablecoin yield is still in effect
• The SEC and CFTC are engaging in rulemaking
• Circle launches Arc, their new L1
• Robinhood employees get caught insider trading on Hyperliquid
• Caroline Ellison is back and working for a former FTX portco
• Can AI models leak MNPI?
• A Polish oil company tried to buy sanctioned oil from Venezuela with USDT
• The DOE launches a $250m Quantum computing competition

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for more deals and news. In this episode: 

• We bring back his the theme music
• Anthropic employees think there’s a 10% chance AI destroys humanity
• Was Jacob Coxon astroturfed or real?
• Are Anthropic employees being sincere or cynical?
• Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain is hacked
• What does the Liquid hack mean for privacy coins?
• Hunter Biden launches the $LAPTOP memecoin
• IONQ says they will be able to crack ECC in two years
• Ex Silvergate CEO Alan Lane speaks out
• OpenAI offers a solution to the Navier-Stokes problem 
• Can insider information leak through AI models? 
• Why AI doom is like Pascal’s mugging

Content mentioned:

• Alan Lane, Silvergate’s Voluntary Liquidation

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• We determine the winner of the bad boys theme song competition
• Dwarkesh ignites controversy with his OpenAI hack recap
• What actually happened with OpenAI and Huggingface?
• Gwern’s and Matt Huang’s short story competition
• Will AI make us dumb?
• 200m Americans KYC data has been hacked
• Prediction markets lawsuit heading to SCOTUS?
• Robinhood Chain is taking off
• Strategy is buying Bitcoin again
• Should Members of Congress be paid more?
• Cronos suffers a defi hack
• Revolut gets a bank charter
• Is the stablecoin sandwich cheaper for cross border?
• RSA260 factored – panic?

Content mentioned in the episode:

• GPUworld.com
• Wenxin Du, Three Myths About Payment Innovation

Check out this episode!

Wyatt sits down with Guy Young, founder of Ethena, for Guy’s third appearance on the pod. In this episode:

• What has driven Ethena’s success and durability?
• Where is there demand for other yield assets?
• Where is capital coming from?
• Is full onchain portfolio construction possible today?
• Why tokenize financial products at all?
• Who are the eventual winners?
• How is Ethena positioning to an evolving onchain yield landscape?

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic return for another week of deals and news. In this episode: 

• Matt and Nic consider candidates for the new bad boys intro music
• 39 state banking associations form the BankChain alliance
• Blockstream researchers proposed SHRINCS, a PQ signature scheme for Bitcoin
• How much should depositors care about bank credit risk?
• Kalshi hosts a prediction market on goat grazing regulation
• Are trading bot agents getting good?
• Blockstream proposes SHRINCS for Bitcoin
• Zcash hits an 8-year high
• Treasury designates anyone helping Iran’s crypto sector
• AI watermarking

Bad boys theme song submissions:

• Ian’s song
• Seth’s song

Content mentioned:

• Omid Malekan, The banking lobby’s bad faith campaign to kill the Clarity Act will backfire
• Nic Carter, A Second and Final Eulogy for Bitcoin Maximalism

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic return for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• The boys review SALT Wyoming in Jackson Hole
• Why did Stripe buy Openrouter?
• Stripe says we have entered the Singularity
• People are upset about data centers
• The SEC proposes Reg Crypto governing token issuance
• The CFTC convenes a crypto roundtable in Washington
• FASB proposes treating stablecoins as cash equivalent under GAAP
• World Liberty gets an OCC charter
• Trump should divest his WLF tokens to push Clarity through
• Saylor wriggles out of another jam
• Tether passes a big 4 audit
• The White House issues a “crypto privateer” memo

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• Who is the main character in AI?
• Why are people so mad about datacenters?
• Sherrod Brown is back and he’s running against AI
• Are datacenters being built with Flock?
• Culturally scarce goods and dinosaurs are rallying
• The SEC starts to fill the gap left by the Clarity Act
• FinCEN ends beneficial ownership reporting
• The CFTC charges a $400m Ponzi operator
• Are there successful Ponzi schemers?
• Is Bitcoin at risk from miners transitioning to AI?
• The collapse of the diamond market 

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with more news and deals. In this episode: 

• Why the Coldcard hack is worse than some major exchange and DeFi hacks
• What the Coldcard hack told us about the need for open weight models
• Is self custody over?
• MSTR sells more Bitcoin
• An FBI agent steals $1m in crypto
• NY state sues Kalshi
• Ethereum considers another change to issuance
• Ethereum needs to resist the urge to change monetary policy
• ai16z’s Eliza winds down
• the merit of reading sci fi
• The cofounder of Sui leaves for Anthropic
• Will Anthropic keep the discoveries to themselves?
• The WSJ gets it wrong on Clarity

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• What the novel Hyperion tells us about AI doom
• Situational Awareness liquidates most of its public book after a sharp AI selloff
• Will Leo have a second act?
• Why has AI been selling off?
• Over 1000 BTC stored in Coldcard wallets were stolen due to bad entropy
• Where does self-custody go from here?
• What happened with Coldcard?
• Political winds are shifting against crypto as midterms loom
• Strategy continues to strengthen its balance sheet with MSTR common sales
• An ice cream shop in CA is hedging the weather with Kalshi
• Circle buy’s IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio
• Visions of Bitcoin turns 8 this week 

Content mentioned this episode: 

• Nic and Hasu, Visions of Bitcoin

Check out this episode!

Nic and Matt are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• The Fat Model Thesis
• Are OAI and Anthropic in real trouble with Kimi?
• The Bitcoin Security Consortium is announced to tackle quantum risk
• Galaxy announces their Quantum Readiness Initiative
• Clarity is beleaguered in Washington
• Polymarket and Kalshi keep feuding
• The SEC settles with Coinbase over Gensler’s lost text messages
• We uncover some new documents revealing that Genesis inadvertently kicked off the UST depeg
• Jack Mallers leaves the XXI Capital DAT
• Movement Labs declares bankruptcy
• BitMEX finally winds down their exchange
• Balaji’s Network State is unceremoniously evicted from of Malaysia
• The SEC warns about crypto vaults
• Matt comes around on soccer

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with the deals and news of the week. In this episode: 

• Nic licks his World Cup wounds
• Do Bitcoin Treasury strategies make sense?
• Trying to make sense of Saylor’s “bitcoin rating”
• Trump’s teleprompter operator has been trading on what Trump is going to say in his speeches
• Why do people keep insider trading on prediction markets?
• Clarity Act odds are trickling down
• Strategy shores up their balance sheet
• Is the Bitcoin cycle finally turning?
• Stripe bids for Paypal
• The AI DeFi apocalypse didn’t happen
• Kathy Hochul’s AI datacenter moratorium
• Why is Anthropic running ads suggesting that they could cause extinction
• The DTC is using Canton for it’s tokenized settlement pilot
• Brian Chesky’s AI slop thread debacle
• Jesse Pollak leaves Base
• CBDCs are officially banned federally

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• Strategy sells $216m worth of BTC
• Where does Strategy go from here with STRC?
• Kalshi’s case faces the ban of sports contracts in NY
• TeraWulf signs a massive lease with Anthropic
• BonkDAO’s legal hack
• Vanguard hires a head of digital assets
• Kraken wins arbitration against Mazars for de-auditing them in 2022
• Vitalik lays out a new four year plan
• Polymarket’s 5 minute BTC markets are being manipulated

Content mentioned:

• Settlement Manipulation in Prediction Markets

Check out this episode!

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode: 

• Saylor releases Strategy’s “Digital Credit Capital Framework”
• MSTR stabilizes for now though STRC is still discounted
• Is Saylor transitioning MSTR into a Bitcoin hedge fund?
• Is Strategy doing anything tricky with their mNAV calculation
• The OpenUSD consortium is announced
• Is the Tether and Circle duopoly broken?
• Can stablecoin consortiums work?
• What could cause OpenUSD to fail?
• Trump’s 2025 diclosures include a lot of crypto 
• Binance leaves the EU for now 
• The K-pop DAT ends its digital asset ambitions
• Why the bottom might not be in

Check out this episode!