Unchained

The Chopping Block crew and Wintermute’s Evgeny Gaevoy debate whether Canton is truly permissionless, if Ethereum Foundation should double down on cypherpunk ideals or embrace institutions, and how AI-driven attacks are forcing everyone in crypto and open source to rethink security models.

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week we’ve got Evgeny Gaevoy, Founder of Wintermute, known for sharp takes and sharper trades.

First up, the group unpacks the Twitter war over enterprise chain Canton—does it deserve to be called “permissionless”, or is it just TradFi with extra steps? Cue the Solana–Ethereum truce, and a rare moment where every old-school degenerate finds a common enemy. Evgeny makes a strong case for why, despite years of jokes at the Ethereum Foundation’s expense, he thinks they’re finally ahead of the curve by doubling down on cypherpunk roots—even if it makes ETH a little more Linux and a little less Nasdaq.

But does decentralization matter if stablecoins and institutions now control the fork-choice? Haseeb and Evgeny spar over whether Ethereum’s “world computer” vision means inviting in the corporate crowd or keeping the punk sanctuary alive.

The mood shifts as the hosts dig into crypto’s unfolding security meltdown: AI-written hacks, NPM supply chain fiascos, and what that means for the future of open source in crypto. Plus, a fresh new hack (RIP Drift), and predictions on how defensive tech (or lack thereof) will shape the next cycle. Barstool banter, spicy takes, and zero investment advice as always—let’s get into it.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 The Chopping Block crew and Evgeny Gaevoy debate whether Canton is a permissionless blockchain or just TradFi LARPing as crypto  

🔹 Does Ethereum need to double down on cypherpunk “sanctuary” values—or let BlackRock and Circle join the party?  

🔹 Haseeb dismantles the idea that all “tokenized RWAs” on “permissioned” blockchains are equivalent to Ethereum  

🔹 Solana and Ethereum align—briefly!—with both camps skeptical of enterprise “default no” blockchains  

🔹 Circle and Tether’s growing influence: can fork-choice governance still exist if stables dictate the canonical chain?  

🔹 Linux, the open internet, and how crypto’s utopian dreams get co-opted by institutions  

🔹 Drift’s $270M hack highlights the AI-enabled acceleration of exploits and the mounting risks for open-source software  

🔹 AI in security: From North Korean supply chain attacks to open source’s existential crisis  

🔹 Is the future of crypto code closed or open? Zero knowledge proofs vs. code visibility in the LLM era  

🔹 Are we headed for a world where only org-backed, audit-heavy open source survives?

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Guest

⭐️ Evgeny Gaevoy, Founder and CEO at Wintermute

Disclosures
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Former FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller joins the DEX in the City crew to unpack the CFTC's crypto moves. Does the agency have the staffing to achieve its “aggressive” agenda?

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Chair Mike Selig has unveiled an expansive agenda across artificial intelligence, crypto and prediction markets. 

Former CFTC staffer and FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller joins DEX in the City hosts Vy Le and Jessi Brooks to unpack the agenda and answer whether the regulator has the resources to fulfill it.

According to Miller, the agenda could see the agency return to a schedule similar to the Dodd-Frank era under then-Chair Gary Gensler. 

Beyond the CFTC's regulatory moves, Miller also weighs in on the growing bans on the use of prediction markets by certain officials. Find out why he says it is a trend that is likely to continue. Plus, should Canton be segregated from other blockchains?

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TuongVy Le, General Counsel at Veda

Guest:


⁠Ryne Miller, Partner at Morrison Foerster & Former FTX General Counsel

Links:


Unchained:


CFTC Clears Path for Phantom to Bridge Crypto Wallets and Derivatives


CFTC Moves to Rein In Prediction Markets as Industry Booms


SEC and CFTC Move Toward Unified Crypto Rules


Crypto Startup Bet on Its Own Fundraise on Polymarket, Then Apologized


How Prediction Markets Make Espionage So Much Easier — and Risk National Security


Visa Approves Its First Blockchain Governance Proposal, Joining Canton Network as Super Validator

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Google just set a deadline. Quantum computers could break Bitcoin's encryption by 2029. Are blockchains ready?

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Google and Oratomic published quantum computing research on the same day, and together they redraw the timeline for when blockchains need to be post-quantum secure.

Google's paper, co-authored by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, estimates 2029 for breaking the elliptic curve cryptography that protects Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Oratomic's findings are sharper: utility-scale quantum computers may need only 10,000 qubits, not the millions previously assumed, and the company already has 6,000 in the lab.

With 6.7 million BTC in vulnerable addresses and a newly identified 9-minute attack window on unspent Bitcoin transactions, the question is no longer whether blockchains need to migrate. It's whether they can do it fast enough.

Guests:


⁠Alex Pruden, Co-Founder & CEO, Project Eleven


⁠Dolev Bluvstein, CEO of Oratomic

Links:


Unchained:


Q-Day Is Imminent. Can Bitcoin Survive the Quantum Threat?


Solana Deploys Post-Quantum Signatures on Testnet


Is Nic Carter Exaggerating Bitcoin's Quantum Risk? Yes, Says One Core Dev


Research Papers:


Google: Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies Against Quantum Vulnerabilities


Oratomic: Shor's Algorithm with as Few as 10,000 Reconfigurable Atomic Qubits (arXiv)


Caltech: Useful Quantum Computers Could Be Built with as Few as 10,000 Qubits


Companies & Tools:


Project Eleven


Project Eleven: Yellow Pages


Oratomic


BIP 360: Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR)


Standards & Infrastructure:


NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards


Cloudflare: State of the Post-Quantum Internet


Google Quantum AI: Willow & Error Correction


Algorand: Quantum-Resistant Falcon Signatures

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When do oil prices force a ceasefire? Why is crypto holding firm while equities crack? And does Canton or Ethereum win the institutional race?

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Bond market tightening has become the invisible hand constraining every policy decision, from Iran talks to stimulus spending. 

With Brent crude at $107 and the 10-year yield climbing, asset prices face a cascade of headwinds: inflationary supply shocks, tightening financial conditions, and no clear off-ramp for a conflict that the IRGC shows no appetite to negotiate. 

Yet within crypto, a sharper debate is emerging: does institutional adoption demand Canton’s permissioned structure, or can Ethereum survive with real-world assets on a permissionless layer? 

Austin, Ram, and Chris dig into the structural fault lines that the macro backdrop is now exposing, and why market-timing in a conflict where you don’t know who the endgame negotiator is may be the wrong frame entirely.

Hosts:


⁠⁠⁠Austin Campbell⁠⁠⁠, Host of Bits + Bips, Zero Knowledge Consulting


⁠⁠⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida


⁠⁠⁠Chris Perkins⁠⁠⁠, Co-Host, President of CoinFund

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Oil above $100, Qatar's LNG infrastructure in ruins, and a 150-year-old grid buckling under AI-era demand: Sean Murray breaks down why energy has an L1 problem and how Fuse is building the crypto-native fix.

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A $5 billion UK energy company built by Revolut alumni is about to launch a new token, and they already have an SEC no-action letter to back it up. 

But the real story starts with the grid itself. European gas prices are running 50-70% above normal. Multi-billion dollar LNG facilities damaged in recent attacks could take years to repair. And a power grid designed 150 years ago is buckling under AI data centers, EVs, and renewables it was never built to handle. 

Sean Murray, Fuse Energy's crypto lead, joins Steven Ehrlich to lay out why an estimated $70 billion in clean energy has been wasted because the grid can't move it, why that congestion problem mirrors crypto's own L1 scalability crisis, and how coordinating millions of smart home devices through a token-incentivized network could fix it.

Host:


⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich, Head of Research, SharpLink

Guest:


⁠⁠⁠⁠Sean Murray, Head of Special Projects & Crypto Lead, Fuse Energy — Previously part of the Revolut early team; now leading Fuse's crypto strategy and DePIN network launch for a vertically integrated energy company doing ~$500 million in annual revenue across the UK and Europe.

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