Levered up, doubled down

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Ever since Celsius halted withdrawals last month, it seems like a new crypto project has been going under almost daily, with Peter Thiel’s Vauld and publicly traded Voyager being two of the latest. While crypto downturns have certainly taken place before, this time around, it seems like things are different because of how intertwined the whole ecosystem has become — illustrated by many of these struggling firms’ link to the highly-levered hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital.

Hello and welcome back to the Chain Reaction podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious.

This week, my co-host Lucas was out, so my colleague on the TechCrunch crypto team, Jacquie Melinek, joined me to chat about the latest bankruptcy filings in the crypto world and how so many companies fell so far, so fast, all at the same time.

We considered whether FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried is the savior crypto needs right now — a web3 Jamie Dimon, if you will. We also unpacked the incentives behind crypto asset managers’ ongoing squabble with the SEC over a U.S. bitcoin spot ETF and why it’s gotten so heated.

Our guest: Entropy founder Tux Pacific

I talked this week with Tux Pacific, a trans, anarchist entrepreneur who dropped out of college to teach themselves cryptography. Pacific just raised $25 million in seed funding from a16z and other VCs. They joined us to chat about what it’s like to raise venture capital as an anti-capitalist, what they think is wrong with how digital currencies are typically stored and why decentralization is so crucial to crypto’s success.

Chain Reaction podcast episodes come out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. PDT. Subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.