ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Joe Lubin makes the bull case for Ethereum amid a sea of bearishness. The panel dissects Saylor selling Bitcoin for the first time in four years, the meaning behind 9 senior EF departures, Justin Drake's Q-Day call (50% by 2032), Manuel Araoz declaring all of DeFi unsafe, the ThorChain hack fallout, the Zama/Overnight Finance USDC freeze saga, and the CFTC greenlighting the first US perpetual futures product.
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 Joe Lubin is stepping in to make the bull case for ETH on what he admits is a tough day to be bullish.
We open on Strategy's first Bitcoin sale in four years and whether the STRC preferred stock structure is "an algorithmic stablecoin with too many steps," as Tarun puts it. Joe pivots to pitching Ether DATs, then we get into the Ethereum Foundation's brain drain -- nine researchers gone, CROPS as the new mandate, and a mysterious new developer organization taking shape behind the scenes. The episode's meatiest block covers DeFi security: Justin Drake warns Q-Day is 50% likely by 2032, Manuel Araoz says all of DeFi is unsafe, ThorChain's been offline for two weeks post-hack, and the panel debates whether we're entering a rough 12-24 months where attackers outrun defenders. We close on Hyperliquid's all-time highs and the CFTC opening the door to US perps.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show highlights
🔹 Strategy sold 32 BTC for the first time in four years as STRC falls below $100 par – Tarun calls it "an algorithmic stablecoin with too many steps"
🔹 Joe Lubin pitches Ether DATs as a safer model than Strategy – ~3% staking yield, no leverage, and "permanent capital" for the ecosystem
🔹 Nine senior Ethereum Foundation members departed in 2026 including Tim Beiko and Barnabe Monnot as Vitalik reframes EF around CROPS mandate
🔹 Joe reveals SharpLink, BitMine, and ConsenSys in talks to become Ethereum's "decentralized commercialization engines" – "there's only one foundation" but new nodes are forming
🔹 Justin Drake puts Q-Day at 50% by 2032 and calls NIST's 2035 timeline "a joke" after Google's quantum circuit breakthrough
🔹 Crowdsourced reverse engineering of Google's withheld quantum circuit improved results 12-13% using LLMs as a grinding tool
🔹 OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Araoz declares all of DeFi unsafe and advises friends and family to exit Aave, MakerDAO, and Compound
🔹 ThorChain remains offline two weeks after $10.8M hack – claims they disclosed the same vulnerability 17 days before the exploit
🔹 Zama's cUSDC contract frozen by Circle via court order in Overnight Finance dispute, highlighting privacy protocol limitations on freezable stablecoins
🔹 Hyperliquid hits $75 and flips Solana in FDV as CFTC approves Kalshi's BTCPERP – the first regulated US perpetual futures product
Hosts
⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly
⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures
⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly
Guest
⭐️Joe Lubin, Co-Founder of Ethereum, Founder & CEO of ConsenSys
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:06 Saylor Sells BTC & Market Panic
05:07 STRC Death Spiral & DAT Risks
07:07 Ethereum Foundation Exodus & CROPS
13:04 The "Not Second Foundation" Debate
17:58 Quantum Q-Day: 50% by 2032
23:47 Is All of DeFi Unsafe?
31:11 ZK Composability & Bridge-Free Architecture
34:19 Security Deployment Lag & AI Arms Race
40:18 Anti-Fragility & Formal Verification
47:36 Zama USDC Freeze & Privacy vs Courts
50:33 CFTC Perps Approval & Hyperliquid at $75
55:53 Hyperliquid's Distribution Flywheel
01:00:46 Joe Lubin's Ethereum Bull Case
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