The recent Wall Street Journal article that claimed Hamas raised $130 million via cryptocurrency has sparked considerable debate, especially after Sen. Elizabeth Warren used it as her sole source to ask for tighter regulations around crypto. However, the veracity of this claim has come under scrutiny.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the gang welcomes Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who discusses his mission to end the U.S. government’s regulatory overreach of the crypto industry, the parallels between crypto and the biotech industry where he came from, whether “code is law” is an appropriate framework for crypto regulation, how Bitcoin could be a check on the Fed, and how less regulation would actually lead to fewer, not more, instances of fraud like FTX.

NFT expert gmoney says that OpenSea “rested on their laurels” far too long. Can the once-leading marketplace rise again?

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, they explore the enigmatic 'unhinged scale' metric, consider whether recent layoffs could have been anticipated, and examine the challenges facing the NFT market. They also provide a somewhat critical look at the events of the recent BAYC Apefest and share their takeaways on how Solana survived the Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX fiasco.

In this episode of Unchained, Laura does a detailed unpacking of the historic Sam Bankman-Fried trial and verdict with defense lawyer Sam Enzer and former Southern District of New York prosecutor Rich Cooper. They discuss what a thorough job the government did in presenting its case, whether the government will pursue a second trial on campaign finance charges, why it takes so long for sentencing to occur, what the differences between this case and the Bernie Madoff case are, and what Bankman-Fried’s likely sentence will be.

Two Genesis creditors, BJ and Branden, who prefer to use pseudonyms for security reasons, spoke with Unchained about the alleged fraud by the crypto lender and its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG). The discussion is one of the first times Genesis creditors have spoken with a media organization about the situation.

A Manhattan jury took only a few hours to decide that former FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was guilty of defrauding the crypto exchange’s users of billions of dollars.

SBF Day 17 -Closing arguments offered a tale of 2 SBFs with a prosecutor calling him criminally responsible for a huge balance sheet hole but the defense saying he had been villainized for mistakes.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the gang sits down with guest Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures, whose tweet thread pushed the Wall Street Journal to correct its story that Hamas had raised tens of millions in crypto. Carter discusses the challenges in tracking how much crypto Hamas has actually received, the declining prospects for Sam Bankman-Fried’s acquittal, and ongoing dramas surrounding staking protocol Lido and decentralized exchange dYdX.

Prosecutors again pounded away at SBF’s credibility with the former FTX CEO at one point claiming he didn’t look into why Alameda had spent $8 billion of FTX customer funds.

A packed courtroom watched prosecutors pummel former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, highlighting contradictions between his words and actions and a lack of credibility.

Defense lawyer Sam Enzer says Sam Bankman-Fried’s testimony had evasive answers and non sequiturs—but that the defense may now have a good argument for appeal.

In his first testimony in front of the jury, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried presented himself as uninformed about key events prior to FTX’s collapse while blaming other members of the inner circle.

In a recent report, Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, predicted that inflows to spot bitcoin ETFs would rise above $14 billion in the first year following the potential approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission of multiple applications the agency is considering. Thorn called the availability of this product significant because it will give financial advisors and wealth managers accessibility to digital assets in a way that will be acceptable to clients seeking exposure to crypto. He also believes approval of a spot BTC ETF could occur this year before the holidays, and draws comparisons between bitcoin and gold as investment products.

The former FTX founder took the stand in a pre-trial hearing, revealing how he might fare under cross-examination in the actual trial.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the four discuss Bitcoin’s price surge over the past week amid growing optimism that a spot BTC exchange traded fund would win regulatory approval, an erroneous Wall Street Journal story about crypto funding to the terrorist group Hamas and AI, and crypto illiteracy among leading U.S. lawmakers.

James Seyffart, market analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, and Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, feel quite certain a spot Bitcoin ETF will launch in the next few months.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the four discuss – and disagree about – Uniswap’s new fees, SBF trial week 3, and DCG potentially being taken out by the NY Attorney General.

Sam Enzer, a partner at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, told Laura that compelling evidence from Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle had increased the difficulty for the fallen FTX CEO to convince a jury of his innocence. Former FTX head engineer Nishad Singh said that he became suicidal after understanding the full magnitude of FTX’s misuse of customer funds, while ex-chief legal counsel Can Sun helped show how SBF allegedly lied to lawyers.

Former FTX General Counsel Can Sun took the stand, revealing that Sam Bankman-Fried had asked him to find legal justifications for FTX's $7 billion deficit.

On day 11 of the SBF Trial a mix of financial experts and technical witnesses testified, including a notable testimony from accounting professor Peter Easton. His analysis revealed a staggering gap between FTX's liabilities and assets. However, the day was not without controversy as the judge questioned the relevance of some witnesses.

On day 10 of the SBF Trial, the defense aimed to undermine the credibility of ex-FTX head engineer Nishad Singh, who on Monday testified against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Meanwhile, FBI Agent Richard Busick exposed Bankman-Fried's connections to high-profile politicians.

On day nine of the SBF Trial, FTX head of engineering Nishad Singh took the stand again detailing the crypto exchange giant’s alleged financial mismanagement and former CEO and Sam Bankman-Fried’s bullying management style and seeming indifference to his company’s mushrooming debt.

Samson Enzer, partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and Greg Strong, partner at DLX Law, dissect the second week of the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. At this point, the prosecution’s star witness, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, has testified, as well as another prominent insider, co-founder Gary Wang. But both Enzer and Strong believe that it’s already over for the defense, but agree that the only thing that could turn it around is testimony from SBF himself—but that runs the risk of the defendant significantly increasing his sentence.

Zac Prince, former CEO of BlockFi, testified about the risks of lending to Alameda. The defense tried to use his testimony to raise questions about whether Alameda's lenders, like BlockFi, were at fault for their irresponsible lending practices, but didn’t succeed.