Making America the Crypto Capital of the World | New CFTC Chairman Michael Selig

Ryan and David break down a week where war hit markets, and the safe-haven playbook broke down. Oil spiked, gold failed, bonds sold off, the dollar caught the flight to safety, and crypto somehow bounced right through it. Then they unpack Trump’s public pressure campaign against banks over stablecoin yield, Kraken’s historic Fedwire breakthrough, and why crypto is starting to look less like an outsider and more like part of the financial core. Plus: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon, Erik Voorhees’ private AI push with Venice, fresh Aave governance drama, ZachXBT helping catch the $46M government crypto thief, and the New York Times calling crypto dead right on schedule. --- 📣FIGURE | CRYPTO-BACKED LOANS & ~9% RWA YIELD https://bankless.cc/Figure --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast  🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast  🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 🐇MEGAETH | 1ST REAL-TIME BLOCKCHAIN https://bankless.cc/megaeth --- TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 0:00 Intro 3:22 Chaotic Era: 3 Signals Driving Markets https://imgur.com/UirRpZD https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HDEnyQQWwAAbwf1.jpg https://x.com/TheSalonDon/status/2031478190741328334 https://polymarket.com/event/will-crude-oil-cl-hit-by-end-of-march/?via=bankless https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASREGW https://imgur.com/a/I13P5gv https://www.tradingview.com/chart/1CDu50yK/ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/1CDu50yK/ https://x.com/byheatherlong/status/2029914129654501425 https://x.com/TKL_Adam/status/2029655785282887772 https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2031714633581469751 https://polymarket.com/event/us-recession-by-end-of-2026/?via=bankless https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/jpmorgan-limits-private-credit-lending https://x.com/adamscochran/status/2031718465044701376 https://www.reuters.com/business/blackrock-limits-withdrawals-private-credit-fund-redemptions-mount-2026-03-06 20:44 Kraken + Nasdaq: Tokenized Stocks https://x.com/fintechfrank/status/2030979714001621138 https://x.com/krakenfx/status/2030964578117398617 https://x.com/xStocksFi/status/2030963704024740126 https://x.com/markchadwickx/status/2031068859101565118 https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/2030988246864286036 25:33 DOJ Retries Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm & Treasury Report on Crypto Privacy & Mixers https://x.com/amandatums/status/2031176790484374012 https://x.com/rstormsf/status/2031204201418883256 https://www.bankless.com/read/jay-claytons-crypto-war https://x.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/2030995739795472464 https://x.com/L0laL33tz/status/2031025281532645838 https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/246/GENIUS-Act-Illicit-Finance-Innovation-Congressional-Report-March-2026.pdf https://x.com/theragetech/status/2031349077342859477 36:39 SEC + CFTC Coordination https://x.com/SECGov/status/2031830716628029565 https://x.com/SECPaulSAtkins/status/2031834357082832949 39:05 BlackRock Launches Staked ETH ETF ($ETHB) https://x.com/Bankless/status/2032108386938929322 https://www.ishares.com/us/products/348532/ishares-staked-ethereum-trust-etf 42:10 Across Protocol DAO → C-Corp Proposal https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/across-protocol https://x.com/hal2001/status/2031737518505537907 https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/2031831233722999111 https://x.com/defiignas/status/2031761413006626934 46:58 Polymarket + Palantir Partnership https://x.com/shayne_coplan/status/2032108237932159113 49:31 AI Backlash & Data Center Moratorium https://x.com/SenSanders/status/2031868041940660673  https://x.com/nick_field90/status/2030700617295860074 https://fortune.com/2026/03/09/ai-opinion-poll-democrats-iran-war-president-donald-trump https://x.com/brianstelter/status/2030635638823801333 https://x.com/kevinroose/status/2031397522590282212 55:52 Closing & Disclaimers --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Ethereum underperformed this cycle, and investors are asking the big question: did ETH just skip a cycle, or is something deeper going on? Michael Nadeau joins Ryan to break down where Ethereum sits in the market cycle today, why several of his key indicators suggest ETH is entering a fair value zone, and whether the true macro bottom could still lie ahead. They also unpack why ETH struggled despite improving fundamentals. Mike explains how Ethereum’s L2 roadmap may have improved the network while weakening short-term value capture for the asset itself, and what signals he’s watching (MVRV, supply in profit, the 200-week moving average) as he looks for the next expansion phase. Michael Nadeau & The DeFi Report: https://x.com/JustDeauIt https://thedefireport.io/ --- 📣GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/Galaxy --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast  🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast  🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 🌍 WORLD | FULLY ONCHAIN EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/world --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 3:50 The History of ETH Cycles 5:41 Analyzing Performance Trends 8:32 The Impact of L2 Roadmap 10:24 Roadmap Decisions & Market Perception 15:50 Valuation Metrics Explained 20:08 Disparities in Valuation Methods 23:22 Navigating Market Conditions 26:14 Nation-State Metaphor & Valuation 27:45 Revenue and Economic Impact 33:42 DEX Volumes & Their Implications 37:25 Stablecoin Supply on Ethereum 38:09 Cycle Metrics & Analysis 44:22 Fair Market Value Insights 50:40 Evaluating ETH for the Portfolio --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

A conversation with new CFTC Chairman Mike Selig on the policy shift behind America’s push to become the crypto capital of the world. We cover the CFTC’s evolving role in crypto, prediction markets, and perpetuals, the end of regulation by enforcement, how the agency is thinking about DeFi and software developers, and why market structure legislation like the Clarity Act could reshape the future of U.S. crypto. ------ 🎬 DEBRIEF | RYAN & DAVID UNPACKING THE EPISODE https://www.bankless.com/podcast/debrief-making-america-the-crypto-capital-of-the-world ------ 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast  🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast  🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 🌍 WORLD | FULLY ONCHAIN EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/world ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:33 Mike’s Background 4:25 Commodity Markets Transformation 7:31 Commodity Definition 10:56 The Role of the CFTC 11:56 Prediction Markets 17:48 Navigating New Markets 20:34 Are Prediction Markets CFTC Territory? 24:45 Insider Trading vs Information Advantage 28:25 Trump’s Conflict of Interests 29:21 Clarity Act 36:58 Project Crypto 39:37 Defining Intermediary 43:32 Exchanges vs L2s 45:50 No More Wells Notices 50:17 The New CFTC & SEC 54:51 Making America the Crypto Capital of the World 57:08 Best of the Clarity Act 59:04 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Mike Selig https://x.com/ChairmanSelig  CFTC https://www.cftc.gov/  ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Ryan and David break down a week where war hit markets, and the safe-haven playbook broke down. Oil spiked, gold failed, bonds sold off, the dollar caught the flight to safety, and crypto somehow bounced right through it. Then they unpack Trump’s public pressure campaign against banks over stablecoin yield, Kraken’s historic Fedwire breakthrough, and why crypto is starting to look less like an outsider and more like part of the financial core. Plus: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon, Erik Voorhees’ private AI push with Venice, fresh Aave governance drama, ZachXBT helping catch the $46M government crypto thief, and the New York Times calling crypto dead right on schedule. --- 📣FIGURE | CRYPTO-BACKED LOANS & ~9% RWA YIELD https://bankless.cc/Figure --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast  🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast  🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 🌍 WORLD | FULLY ONCHAIN EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/world     --- TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 0:00 Intro 2:54 Wartime Markets: US / Israel vs Iran + Market Reaction https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2028229365440344419 https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2028426099474981156 https://x.com/BullTheoryio/status/2029251045885665465 https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2029274787474743761 https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index 12:33 Polymarket Becomes the Biggest Winner https://x.com/PolymarketStory/status/2028863241942671865 https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-iranian-regime-fall-by-march-31/?via=bankless? https://polymarket.com/event/will-reza-pahlavi-lead-iran-in-2026/?via=bankless? 15:20 Pentagon vs Anthropic: AI is Military Tech https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2027958511334723716 https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/2027488317286351266 https://x.com/BullTheoryio/status/2027626521217929683 https://x.com/ns123abc/status/2028642962196811791 https://app.ventuals.com/trade/anthropic 23:57 Kraken Gets Fedwire Access (First Crypto Bank) https://x.com/krakenfx/status/2029206389957009419 https://x.com/SenLummis/status/2029195363119173710  https://x.com/dgt10011/status/2029241024069910558 https://bpi.com/bpi-statement-on-kraken-master-account https://x.com/jespow/status/2029262374499434919 https://x.com/mikeippolito_/status/2029213224625963310 31:37 Trump vs Banks Over Stablecoin Yield https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2028955180650099117 https://x.com/EricTrump/status/2029309823423009211 https://x.com/coinbureau/status/2029067345055105162 https://polymarket.com/event/clarity-act-signed-into-law-in-2026/?via=bankless? https://x.com/RonwHammond/status/2028960282450567547 https://x.com/intangiblecoins/status/2029554248883839324 40:03 Private AI + Crypto: Erik Voorhees’ Venice https://x.com/ErikVoorhees/status/2029352394317029871 https://x.com/ErikVoorhees/status/2029387068384678014 https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/venice-token https://x.com/steipete/status/2028578713126707547 https://x.com/ErikVoorhees/status/2029399902011224272 47:30 Aave Governance Drama https://governance.aave.com/t/aci-is-leaving-aave/24205 https://governance.aave.com/t/temp-check-aave-will-win-framework/24055/137 50:11 TradFi Moves Into Crypto (NYSE + OKX) https://www.theblock.co/post/392397/nyse-parent-ice-invests-in-crypto-exchange-okx-at-25-billion-valuation-amid-tokenized-stocks-push-fortune 51:10 Million Bitcoin Milestone https://x.com/JoeConsorti/status/2028931445125706171 52:09 X Money (Elon’s Payments Wallet) & SpaceX Bitcoin Treasury https://x.com/abskoop/status/2029088219858346446 https://x.com/dagaadit/status/2029256180644659379 https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/03/01/spacex-s-usd780-million-bitcoin-stack-now-down-to-about-usd545-million-ahead-of-ipo-filing 54:42 ZachXBT Catches $46M Crypto Thief https://x.com/BecauseBitcoin/status/2029585484960145866 https://x.com/zachxbt/status/2029577374057296175 https://x.com/zachxbt/status/2014685299025060154 58:13 South Korean Police Leak Crypto Wallet Seed https://gizmodo.com/south-korean-police-lose-seized-crypto-by-posting-password-online-2000728191 1:00:33 NYTimes Says “Crypto Is Dead” Again https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/opinion/crypto-trump-bitcoin-clarity-genius.html https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/2027392307050188828 1:02:10 Closing & Disclaimers --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

AI is getting dangerously good at smart contract security. Faster than crypto is ready for. Alpin Yukseloglu joins Bankless to break down EVMBench (built with OpenAI), a benchmark testing whether AI agents can detect, patch, and exploit real fund-draining bugs and why the jump from ~12–13% exploit-finding to 70%+ could rewrite today’s security assumptions. We unpack what that “70%” really means, why crypto’s verifiability is an ideal training ground, why AI labs haven’t prioritized crypto data yet, and what a 24/7 blackhat vs whitehat AI arms race means for DeFi. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast ⚡ EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 AI’s exploit leap: 12% → 70% and the “Superhuman auditors” 7:02: Staring at the singularity without losing your mind 10:31 Agency » doom: the Thiel framing 19:10 What’s most at risk (and what’s safer) 23:37 What EVMBench actually is (benchmark + harness) 27:03 Why exploiting is the key: killing false positives 29:24 AI gets “good at crypto” fast: verifiability 30:56 What “70% exploit rate” really means 33:32 Why AI labs avoided crypto (it’s not technical) 43:38 Blackhat vs whitehat: how the race plays out 47:21 Agents and “payments at the speed of light” 51:02 EVM vs Solana: network effects 56:18 AI formal verification as an endgame 58:06 EVMBench V2: expanding the frontier 59:54 Why Alpin stays in crypto --- RESOURCES Alpin Yukseloglu https://x.com/0xalpo EVMBench https://paradigm.xyz/evmbench --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Nat Eliason joins to show what it looks like to build a “zero human company” with OpenClaw agents. — led by Felix, an AI CEO that ships products, runs ops, and even manages other agents for support and sales.  We unpack how Felix went from an overnight info product to a full marketplace for agent “skills” (Clawmart) and a bespoke service that deploys custom OpenClaw employees for real businesses, hitting nearly $80k in revenue since early February while operating on surprisingly low monthly costs. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast ⚡ EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0.24 Nat’s Background 6:30 Felix 11:43 Real Businesses vs Memecoins 14:23 Felix’s Employees 18:06 Felix’s Business 31:26 How Customized is Felix? 38:17 Felix’s Business Risks 40:12 Can OpenClaw Replace Knowledge Workers? 43:38 Claw Mart 48:49 Felix’s Expenses 51:15 Nat’s Role 56:39 Felix’s Discord 1:03:19 Citrini Doomer Scenario 1:13:04 Hiring Your First Agent 1:16:19 General AI Assistants 1:19:50 AI Friends 1:22:39 The AI Agent Frontier 1:26:52 Crypto x AI 1:31:53 What’s Next 1:34:27 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Nat Eliason https://x.com/nateliason  Felix Craft https://x.com/FelixCraftAI  Felix Dashboard https://felixcraft.ai/dashboard  Claw Mart https://www.shopclawmart.com/  Crypto Confidential: Winning and Losing Millions in the New Frontier of Finance https://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Confidential-Winning-Millions-Frontier/dp/0593714040  ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Crypto still feels like a minefield for humans: Haseeb Qureshi argues that’s a clue, not a bug: blockchains and smart contracts are machine-readable systems that AI agents can parse, simulate, and execute far more reliably than people, shifting crypto’s core user from humans clicking through wallets to agents acting on our behalf. We also dig into the two-track future of agent commerce (safe, human-approved flows vs. the wild-west frontier), why major AI labs have avoided crypto training so far (liability), how agent-driven discovery could rewrite DeFi competition, and what this means for Dragonfly’s investing playbook. ------ 🎬 DEBRIEF | RYAN & DAVID UNPACKING THE EPISODE https://www.bankless.com/podcast/debrief-haseeb-quereshi-cryptos-not-made-for-humans-its-for-ai ------ 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast ⚡ EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://bankless.cc/TDRpro ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:42 Why Crypto’s Not Made for Humans 17:49 How AI Agents Think 28:51 Why Crypto x AI is Unexplored 32:58 The Botconomy & OpenClaw 43:42 How Long Until the Frontier is Here? 50:07 How Crazy Does it Get? 1:06:00 AI Thinks Crypto’s Cringe 1:10:31 Dragonfly’s New 650M Fund 1:13:05 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Haseeb Qureshi https://x.com/hosseeb  Dragonfly https://www.dragonfly.xyz/  ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

February ends with peak FUD. Ryan and David unpack why crypto is stuck in historic “Extreme Fear” even without a major blowup, and why markets feel like they’ve entered an uncertainty bubble. They break down the Supreme Court striking Trump’s tariffs, Trump immediately finding new legal doors to bring them back, and the looming $150B+ refund fight. Then the “Citrini Crash”: AI doomer scenarios going viral, spooking stocks, and leaving investors terrified that AI will be either not good enough or far too good. Plus: fresh allegations that Jane Street helped accelerate Terra’s collapse, Meta’s stablecoin reboot for its billions of users, ZachXBT’s Axiom insider trading exposé, Hyperliquid’s new DC policy push, Robinhood’s retail venture fund, Coinbase’s 24/5 stocks rollout, and the Pentagon’s ultimatum to Anthropic over AI guardrails. --- 📣FIGURE | CRYPTO-BACKED LOANS & ~9% RWA YIELD https://bankless.cc/FigureCBL --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast  🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast  ⚡EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria  🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix  🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://bankless.cc/TDRpro    --- TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 0:00 Intro 2:51 Extreme Fear & the “Uncertainty Bubble” https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index https://x.com/xeer/status/2025867669707043156 https://x.com/Evan_ss6/status/2026363413610238032 https://thedefireport.io/research/uncertainty-bubble https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/2024862913761001477 https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2026067372604371286 https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2026040229535047769 https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2026028854461047220 https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-citrini-post-is-just-a-scary https://x.com/mattshumer_/status/2021256989876109403 https://x.com/intangiblecoins/status/2027011410627027024 26:24 Was Jane Street Behind the 2022 Crypto Winter? https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/jane-street-accused-of-insider-trading-that-helped-collapse-terraform-659e6993 https://x.com/OGDfarmer/status/2026343910923006123 https://x.com/hasufl/status/2026246191550193756 https://x.com/davidzmorris/status/2026286018643603749 https://x.com/1914ad/status/2026757796390449382 35:29 Meta Revives Stablecoin Plans https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/02/24/mark-zuckerberg-s-meta-is-planning-stablecoin-comeback-in-the-second-half-of-this-year 39:49 ZachXBT Exposes Insider Trading at Axiom https://x.com/zachxbt/status/2025917891678523644 https://polymarket.com/event/which-crypto-company-will-zachxbt-expose-for-insider-trading/?via=bankless? https://x.com/zachxbt/status/2027016064534757659 https://x.com/zachxbt/status/2027016170126323925 50:40 Hyperliquid DC Policy Center, Robinhood VC, & Coinbase 24/5 stocks & ETFs trading https://x.com/jchervinsky/status/2024116520427651480 https://x.com/vladtenev/status/2026028297822588941 https://x.com/coinbase/status/2026303315382870364 55:49 AI Watch: Pentagon vs Anthropic https://x.com/DeItaone/status/2027028927756054670 https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2026382701562048545 https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2026329054887239697 1:02:33 Closing & Disclaimers --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Crypto’s newest threat isn’t a smart contract exploit, it’s a knock at your door. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Jameson Lopp (Casa) and Beau (former CIA, now safety at Pudgy Penguins) to map the real security landscape for crypto holders in 2026: the phishing traps you’ll see daily, the physical “wrench attacks” that terrify the community, and the practical systems that can make both dramatically less effective. If going bankless is about freedom, this is the playbook for keeping that freedom without turning into your own security team. --- 📣ROCKET POOL | PERMISSIONLESS STAKING https://bankless.cc/Rocketpool --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast ⚡ EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://bankless.cc/TDRpro --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 2:45 The 2026 threat landscape: third parties, privacy, then physical 8:07 Most likely vs most dangerous: phishing vs wrench attacks 17:23 Minimize attack surface + separate your money by risk 20:27 The “3-wallet” model: daily spend, risky ops, deep cold vault 25:08 Hot vs cold: the $1k rule + don’t sign when you’re not sharp 30:01 Social engineering defense: authenticate everything, trust nothing inbound 36:22 Password managers + the 2FA ladder (passkeys/YubiKeys win) 45:05 “Dedicated signing machine” and air-gapped thinking 47:30 Wrench attacks: how targets are found + what the attacks look like 52:50 Why France stands out (and what Dubai’s data shows) 57:37 “Zero Crypto at Home”: multisig + geography + time delays 1:12:27 Duress wallets: why they don’t reliably work 1:16:38 Home hardening checklist: cameras, lights, panic buttons, doors/windows 1:30:59 Onchain privacy reality + tax software pitfalls 1:37:40 Is this a setback for the Bankless vision? --- RESOURCES Jameson Lopp https://x.com/lopp https://casa.io/ Beau https://x.com/beausecurity https://beausecurity.substack.com/ RSA’s Article - Zero Crypto at Home https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/2016572587363520933 --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Ethereum’s next big leap might not look like a single “flip the switch” moment—but it could change how the chain verifies everything. In this episode, Ansgar Dietrichs comes back to unpack the ZK EVM: why “re-executing every block” has been Ethereum’s hidden scaling tax, how real-time proofs finally make a different verification model viable, and what it would take to transition safely without sacrificing the verifiability that keeps Ethereum credibly neutral. They explore the three true bottlenecks of blockchain scaling (compute, IO, bandwidth), the roadmap from optional proofs to mandatory proofs, and why client diversity could look radically different in a ZK-native future. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast ⚡ EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://bankless.cc/TDRpro --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:43 Ethereum’s Biggest Upgrade 4:35 The Core Idea: Verify Blocks Without Re-Executing 10:40 From Bitcoin’s “Verify Cheaply” to Verifying Full Execution 16:22 Cryptography 2.0: Proving Arbitrary Computation 22:56 Scaling All 3 Constraints: Compute, IO, Bandwidth 32:33 Why Ethereum Has Been “Slow” by Design 38:29 3× Per Year: Scaling Now, Not Someday 41:28 ZK Isn’t About Faster Blocks (But Speed Still Improves) 46:33 Rollout Plan: Optional Proofs → Mandatory Proofs 49:59 Dependencies: Block-in-Blobs, Repricing, New State Trees 54:14 Security Reality Check: Performance → Security → Production 1:01:24 Client Diversity in a ZK World 1:10:51 Timeline: ZK Ethereum, Around 2030 1:16:31 Second-Order Wins: L2 Bridging and Beyond Crypto 1:20:49 Closing: Build the Boring Infrastructure, Enable the Apps --- RESOURCES Ansgar Dietrichs https://x.com/adietrichs --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures