The Chopping Block: The Ledger Hardware Implant, a Listening Device at OpenAI, Papertrade's 1000x House, and the Death of Technical Moats

Tarun Chitra (0:00)

Can you explain to me as a bar owner what happened? I was like, you buy liquor from a distributor, right? When you buy a foreign liquor, you can't really buy it direct from the manufacturer because like US rules don't let you. So imagine North Korea bought the liquor distributor and then just like poisoned every bottle you got. That's like basically what this attack is.

Tom Schmidt (0:20)

Not a dividend.

Tarun Chitra (0:21)

It's a tale of two quants.

Haseeb Qureshi (0:23)

Now, your losses are on someone else's balance sheet.

Tom Schmidt (0:25)

Generally speaking, air drops are kind of pointless anyways.

Haseeb Qureshi (0:28)

I mean, it's trading firms who are very involved.

Tarun Chitra (0:31)

I like that.

Robert Leshner (0:33)

DeFi protocol is part of the antidote to this problem.

Haseeb Qureshi (0:37)

Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Chopping Block. For a couple of weeks, the four of us get together and give the industry insider's perspective on the crypto topics of the day.

We'll click intros. First, you got Tom, the DeFi maven and master of memes.

Robert Leshner (0:47)

Hello, everyone.

Haseeb Qureshi (0:49)

Next, you got Tarun, the Gigabrain and Grandpuba at Gauntlet.

Robert Leshner (0:53)

Yo.

Haseeb Qureshi (0:55)

Next, you got Robert, CryptoCarnasur and Tsar of Superstate.

Robert Leshner (0:58)

Smooth evening to you.

Haseeb Qureshi (1:02)

I am Haseeb, the head hype man at Dragonfly. We are early stage investors in crypto, but I want to caveat that nothing we say here is investment advice, legal advice, or even life advice. Lisey Chopping Block at XYZ for more disclosures.

So, boys, we are at, well, it's a late night recording, and we're all a little bit tired, but we'll try to get you the sweet, sweet alpha that you're looking for. It is just about the wrap up of Token2049, which is the biggest crypto conference in the world. At this point, over 25,000 attendees in Singapore from over 160 countries. It was a little bit of a different tone than previous Token2049s.

I think it was Arthur Hayes who talked about this when we were doing our last episode on stage at Token, is that the number one index of the quality of Token is Marquee, which is the biggest nightclub in Singapore, which is at the bottom of the Marina Bay Sands. And normally it's booked out every single night by some or other shit coin. This year, Marquee was a normal nightclub during all of Token, which is a sign of the times. And then there were a lot more suits and institutional talking points. And you had Jenny Johnson from Franklin Templeton, and you had Adina Friedman from Nasdaq being on stage, making announcements to what was once a very crypto DJing crowd. So it was a very different event. I don't know, Tom and Tarun, you guys are out there. What were your takeaways from Token Week?

Tom Schmidt (2:32)

I mean, I feel like this is what the industry has kind of become over the past two years, and this feels like the year where people realized it.

Last year felt very LARPy in some ways, not even just this conference, but just the industry overall where people didn't want to open their eyes to the fact that this was happening. And then sometimes you meet these people who are like the last Japanese soldier trying to tell you about their new layer one blockchain. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? So I don't know, this felt more like a realization of the thing that was already happening.

Haseeb Qureshi (3:00)

Yeah, last year Token was right before 1010 So like last year's Token still felt like a party. This Token does not feel, it didn't feel like a party. I mean, there were obviously some events, but they were so low key compared to what I think of Token events as, where it's like, okay, yeah, come meet us at a bar or like we'll do dinner and like someone will be talking the entire dinner with a mic in their face. Like that, it was very different character of events than what previous years felt like.

Tarun, what was your experience?

Tarun Chitra (3:32)

I think succinctly the number one way I would describe it is I saw zero Lambos. I think that was sort of my, but the no Lambos feeling was sort of very apparent.

I think the other thing that's interesting-

Haseeb Qureshi (3:47)

Is that good or is that bad? How do you feel about the lack of Lambos?

Tarun Chitra (3:51)

I personally prefer it, but I would say that also means there's not this type of like general ambulance in the air, like the animal spirit stuff. There's instead the like bean counter vibe, like everyone's like-