This Week on Unchained: Bitcoin’s Bloodbath, Perps, Miners Chase AI, MegaETH

Good Sunday! Here’s what we unpacked this week on Unchained:

• ⚙️ Bitcoin Miners Turn to AI – Are miners reinventing themselves or just chasing the next hype cycle?

• 📊 Will Perps Take Over Finance – Brett Harrison is betting Wall Street’s ready for crypto’s favorite product.

• ⚡ MegaETH’s Real-Time Dream – Can it finally make crypto feel as fast as Web2?

• 💔 Bitcoin Below $100K – Retail’s scared, whales are circling. Is this the shakeout before the next leg up?

• 📈 Bits + Bips: Reasons for Hope – As fear peaks, institutions may be quietly positioning for the rebound.

• 🔐 The Chopping Block: DeFi in Crisis – Balancer hacked, chains rolled back, chaos everywhere. What happens next for decentralization?

Bitcoin Miners Are Pivoting to AI. How Does It Impact Crypto? Bits + Bips

As Bitcoin mining margins tighten, miners are repurposing their massive data centers for AI and high-performance computing. But how much is substance and how much hype?

As profitability tightens and competition soars, many Bitcoin mining companies are turning to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) to stay relevant. In this week’s Bits + Bips, host Steve Ehrlich sits down with John Todaro, Managing Director, Crypto & HPC/AI Equity Research at Needham & Company, and Kevin Dede, Senior Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright, to unpack the pivot that’s reshaping an entire corner of the crypto industry.

They discuss how miners are courting AI clients, why Wall Street is suddenly valuing them like data infrastructure plays, and what this means for Bitcoin’s long-term security model. The conversation dives deep into hashprice trends, investor signals, power constraints, and whether these companies can truly deliver on the AI promise — or risk stretching too thin.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Will Perps Eat All of Finance? Ex-FTX.US CEO Brett Harrison Bets Yes

Perpetuals revolutionized crypto trading. Now ex-FTX.US President Brett Harrison wants to bring them to Wall Street.

Crypto’s most controversial trading product might be Wall Street’s next obsession.

In this interview, Brett Harrison, former president of FTX.US and founder of Architect Financial Technologies, joins to explain how he’s aiming to take perpetual futures — crypto’s 24/7 leveraged trading engine — to traditional markets like stocks, commodities, and FX.

Will this be the next big shift in global finance?

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

MegaETH Just Had Its Public Sale. Can It Succeed in Building a Web2-Like Experience?

MegaETH’s oversubscribed token sale just wrapped. Its founders explain their plans to build the first real-time blockchain and why they skipped an airdrop.

Most new blockchains promise to scale. MegaETH promises to feel instant.

Fresh off its public sale, for which allocations were revealed on Thursday, the team behind MegaETH joins Unchained to explain why they’re calling it the world’s first real-time blockchain.

Co-founder Shuyao Kong and ecosystem lead Amir Almaimani walk through their decision to build as a layer 2 on Ethereum, not a competing layer 1, and why they think the real opportunity is creating onchain experiences that feel like Web2 apps.

The pair also dive deep into the tokenomics behind $MEGA, from sequencer rotation to proximity markets, and defend their choice to skip an airdrop in favor of “skin-in-the-game” token distribution.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, PumpFun, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Why the Crypto Markets Seem Down Bad as Bitcoin Dips Below $100K

Retail’s out, smart money’s watching. Is this the bottom or the blastoff?

Bitcoin’s bleeding again and sentiment is collapsing.

But if you’ve been around for a few cycles, this kind of pain might look familiar.

In this episode of Unchained, Laura sits down with Yann Allemann, Co-founder of Swissblock, and Joe Vezzani, CEO of LunarCrush, to unpack the latest market wipeout, and whether it’s a signal of exhaustion or opportunity.

From retail’s record-breaking bearishness to the unwinding of crypto’s DAT mania, they explore why the market feels bearish and what that might mean for what’s coming next.

They also dive into the likelihood of a blow-off top, the resurgence of privacy coins, the risk in digital asset treasury companies, and even why some think we could see new all-time highs before the year ends.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Bits + Bips: Reasons to Be Optimistic After Bitcoin Falls Toward $100K

What if “extreme fear” is actually the start of something new?

Bitcoin has fallen below $102,000. “Uptober” ended in blood.

But while retail traders are terrified, institutional conversations are heating up.

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins are joined by Teddy Fusaro, President of Bitwise, to unpack the week’s market turmoil.

They dig into why institutions are finally comfortable allocating to bitcoin, how Ripple is building an ecosystem that can’t be ignored, and whether Tether’s staggering $500 billion valuation makes sense.

Plus: the shrinking odds of the CLARITY Act, the merging of TradFi and crypto rails, and why the competition in the payments space is so hot.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, PumpFun, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

The Chopping Block: Code, Chaos & Consequences — What the Balancer Hack and Rollback Debates Mean for Crypto’s Future

The Chopping Block breaks down DeFi’s Black Friday carnage — Balancer v2 hacked, chains frozen, Stream Finance vaporized — and why even “safe” yield isn’t safe at all.

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, the crew breaks down DeFi’s Black Friday: a brutal week that saw the $120 million Balancer v2 hack, the collapse of Stream Finance, and a market-wide panic that reminded everyone — nothing in crypto is risk-free.

They dive into how one of DeFi’s oldest, most audited contracts failed, why smaller chains froze or rolled back transactions, and what it means for decentralization as Berachain, Sonic, and Polygon took emergency action. The panel debates whether the Balancer attacker used an AI “vibe-coded” exploit, how Ethereum might one day face its own rollback dilemma, and why privacy chains like Zcash may be the last true cypherpunk strongholds.

In the second half, they unpack the off-chain losses behind Stream Finance’s XUSD blow-up, the contagion risk across Euler, Silo, and Morpho, and the hard lessons for “yield-chasing” DeFi vaults. The gang closes with advice for founders weathering the storm — from Tarun’s “cockroach mindset” to Haseeb’s reminder that crypto’s long-term fundamentals haven’t changed.

Whether you’re building in DeFi, securing smart contracts, or surviving the next credit unwind, this episode lays bare the harsh truths — and enduring resilience — of crypto’s frontier markets.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

In Case You Missed It 👀

Are Investors in Ripple’s $500 Million Raise Just Buying Discounted XRP?

The company raised funds at a $40 billion valuation. But it already owns $80 billion worth of XRP.

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