Unchained

• How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other - Ep. 948

  Thank you to our sponsors! Uniswap  Mantle For decades, the internet has worked without a native way to pay for things. Credit cards were bolted on, platforms built their own integrations, and developers had to stitch together complex payment flows to charge even a few cents for anything. But with AI agents now making requests, triggering actions, and needing to pay for data or services instantly, that old patchwork is starting to break. In this episode, Laura Shin speaks with Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering for Coinbase’s Developer Platform, and Sam Ragsdale, founder of Merit Systems, about x402, a new open standard for internet-native payments designed for the AI era. They discuss why AI has revived a decades-old idea, how x402 works under the hood, why devs say the experience is simpler than traditional payments, and how stablecoins make microtransactions economically viable. They also dive into the big debates: no chargebacks, chain-agnostic design, the shift to a foundation, and how this standard could eventually work with fiat as well. Guests: Sam Ragsdale, Founder and CEO of Merit Systems Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform Links: X402 x402scan ERC-8004: Trustless Agents Payments MCP: Bringing Wallets, Onramps, and Payments to Every Agent Google Agentic Payments Protocol + x402: Agents Can Now Actually Pay Each Other Timestamps: 🎙️ 0:00 Introduction 🌐 1:53 What x402 is—and the problem it finally solves for the internet 💳 7:06 How today’s payment rails work vs. how x402 reimagines them 🛠️ 9:06 Why Sam says the developer experience is “fundamentally better” 🔗 10:54 How x402 stays chain-agnostic 🧪 15:25 How Sam got into x402 and what x402scan enables 🚀 19:22 Some of the most interesting early use cases 🪄 23:05 How x402 works on the backend and why users shouldn’t see any of it 🏛️ 26:21 Why x402 is becoming a Foundation + the Cloudflare partnership 🔮 28:10 What the future of payments could look like in an AI-native world 💱 33:05 How x402 could also work with fiat, not just stablecoins 🆓 34:31 How the team is able to charge zero transaction fees ❓ 37:48 Whether x402 can fix the chargeback problem 🔌 42:57 Integrations: Payments MCP and Google A2A 🐶 45:28 How x402 is being used to buy memecoins, and other early apps Sam & Erik love 🤝 50:37 The challenge of reputation and trustless AI agents Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Uneasy Money: ICOs Are Back and Why Airdrops Are Instantly Dumped - Ep. 947

  In this first episode of Uneasy Money, hosts Luca Netz, Kain Warwick, and Taylor Monahan dig into the Balancer hack, Berachain’s centralized response, the sudden return of ICO-style distribution, and why some new drops give away so little.  Luca explains why he thinks generous airdrops are essential for building a real “army,” Taylor breaks down MetaMask’s own thinking on token incentives, and Kain questions whether any of these models still make sense in a sentiment-driven market. Plus, Uniswap’s fee switch proposal and the tea on Velodrome and Aerodrome. Hosts: Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Kain Warwick, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix Taylor Monahan, Security at MetaMask Timestamps: 👏 0:00 Intro 🛑 1:23 The Balancer hack—and why we need more guardrails beyond audits 🐻 10:18 How Berachain’s centralized response raised deeper questions 🚀 19:19 The return of the ICO meta 💰 21:26 Why Luca says big airdrops are essential to building an “army” 🐧 24:24 How Luca designed the PENGU airdrop—including the goal of surpassing DOGE 📉 37:11 What’s the point of airdrops if everyone just dumps? ⚖️ 39:50 Are ICOs actually better than airdrops? 🦊 43:41 How MetaMask designed its rewards system—and what Taylor thinks about incentives 🦄 47:19 Uniswap’s UNIFICATION proposal and what it showed about what drives prices 🔀 49:42 Velodrome + Aerodrome merge—and why Kain says the move is “weird” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Why the Privacy Coins Mania Is Much More Than Price Action - Ep. 945

  In this episode, Josh Swihart, CEO of the Electric Coin Company, which created Zcash, and Harry Halpin, co-founder of Nym, join Laura to delve into why privacy coins have taken off, and why technology is suddenly at the center of conversations involving governments, financial institutions, and national security officials. They discuss what’s actually driving the privacy coin renaissance, why transparent ledgers create risks far beyond user behavior, and how technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and mixnets are reshaping what’s possible onchain. Josh and Harry also break down exchange support, institutional interest, the Zcash DAT, upcoming Zcash upgrades, and whether Ethereum or Solana (or others) can realistically add privacy to chains that were never designed for it. Thank you to our sponsors!  Mantle Uniswap Guests: Josh Swihart, CEO of the Electric Coin Company Harry Halpin, CEO and Co-founder of Nym Technologies Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Teaser Clip 🎙️ 1:14 Introduction 🌅 1:29 The reasons why Harry and Josh say we’re in a privacy “renaissance” 🛡️ 11:00 Why privacy matters, and how Harry first got pulled into the space 🔐 15:59 How zero-knowledge proofs and other privacy technologies actually work ⚡ 21:12 Why Josh started Zcash and what his long-term vision looks like 📊 24:48 The real-world ways Zcash is being used 💸 28:40 How the Winklevoss brothers are backing the new wave of privacy projects 🏛️ 30:12 How centralized exchanges should support privacy 🕵️ 35:56 Why financial institutions are suddenly interested in privacy and why governments see it as a national-security issue 🌐 38:42 How Nym aims to protect metadata and network-level privacy 🪙 44:47 Why Nym has a token and what role it plays 🔭 49:53 What’s coming next for privacy tech and for Zcash 🧱 54:55 Whether Ethereum, Solana, or other L1s can realistically add privacy to chains that weren’t designed for it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Why Crypto Market Structure May Not Pass Until 2027: DEX in the City - Ep. 946

  In this first episode of DEX in the City, hosts Jessi Brooks of Ribbit Capital, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos of StarkWare, and Vy Le of Veda dig into the questions that DeFi keeps forcing the industry to confront. They debate how projects should respond after exploits like the recent Balancer hack, what “programmable risk management” could look like in practice, and why the idea of “pure DeFi” might be more myth than model. They also cover the MIT Brothers trial (and what its mistrial revealed about the law’s limits in crypto) and end with why the long-awaited crypto market structure bill still isn’t close to the finish line. Hosts: Jessi Brooks, Ribbit Capital Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at StarkWare Vy Le, General Counsel at Veda Links: Paper: Trust Without Intermediaries: A Programmable Risk Management Framework for the Future by Jessi Brooks and Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos Paper: Blockchain May Offer The Investor Protection SEC Seeks By Tuongvy Le Timestamps: 👏 0:00 Introduction 🌆 0:43 Welcome to DEX in the City — meet the hosts and the mission ⚙️ 6:16 What “programmable risk management” could mean for DeFi’s future 💥 10:38 How the Balancer hack exposed huge differences in how projects respond to exploits 🧩 17:48 Can “pure DeFi” really exist, or is it just a myth? ⚖️ 22:23 The MIT Brothers trial: why no one paid attention and why it matters 🏛️ 28:26 Inside the Senate’s new crypto market structure bill draft 🕒 33:13 Vy’s prediction on when (or if) the bill finally passes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Bits + Bips: Every Fortune 500 Company Will Be a DAT - Ep. 944

  Follow Unchained On Air on X or YouTube! https://x.com/Unchained_pod https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWiiMnsnw5Isc2PP1to9nNw Check out our sponsor Walrus! https://www.walrus.xyz/ The government’s about to reopen, but the economic cracks aren’t healing. From runaway debt to DATs trading below NAV, markets are feeling the strain of unsolved macro problems. In this week’s Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell and Chris Perkins are joined by Matt Zhang of Hivemind Capital and Felix Jauvin, head of content at Blockworks and host of Forward Guidance, to unpack what happens when policy meets reality. They discuss why a $2,000 “tariff dividend” could ignite inflation, how America’s ballooning debt is constructive for crypto, and why DATs could still have plenty of potential, despite already showing cracks. Plus: the Bank of England’s £20K stablecoin proposal, whether $3 trillion is too low a target for the sector, and a final provocation: is XRP worth more than Ripple equity? Hosts: Austin Campbell, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting Christopher Perkins, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund Guests: Felix Jauvin, Head of Content at Blockworks and Host of the Forward Guidance Podcast Matt Zhang, Founder & Managing Partner at Hivemind Capital Links: CNN: Trump’s shutdown win just landed Republicans with a huge political headache Forbes: A $2,000 Tariff Dividend? Trump’s New Pitch Raises Tax Concerns BeInCrypto: Digital Asset Treasuries Are Collapsing: Lost Confidence Triggers Market Sell-Off FT: Bank of England dilutes planned rules for UK stablecoins CoinDesk: U.S. Fed's Miran Says Policy Needs to Adjust to Stablecoin Boom That Could Reach $3T Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 🏛️ 2:33 The U.S. government will reopen—but the economic damage lingers 💸 11:02 Could Trump’s proposed $2,000 “tariff dividend” spark inflation? 🧩 16:18 Why no one is fixing America’s long-term fiscal problems 🪙 18:59 How runaway debt should  be bullish for crypto 📈 20:52 Finding the “true” risk-free rate 💥 23:00 Why DATs are trading below NAV, and if staking ETFs are the better bet ✅ 31:09 The five ingredients of a successful DAT 📉 38:39 Are DATs fairly priced? 💷 42:45 Why the Bank of England wants to cap stablecoin holdings at £20K per user 🌐 50:45 Is $3 trillion too conservative a forecast for stablecoin growth? ⚖️ 57:41 What’s worth more: XRP or Ripple equity? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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