Today is the 8th birthday of Unchained!
When I published the first episode of the podcast, I had no idea that I was starting a media company. It’s been an amazing eight years and I still have as much fun with the podcast as I did back then.
How it started (2016):
BTC was $700; ETH was $18
Donald Trump was running for president
The Bitcoin community congregated on BitcoinTalk and Reddit (and the nascent Ethereum community on Skype and Slack)
The industry was getting ready for the second-ever Bitcoin halving
Gary Gensler was the CFO of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign
How it’s going (2024):
BTC is $65,000; ETH is $3,400
Donald Trump is running to be the “crypto president”
The crypto community congregates on Twitter (aka X), Telegram and Discord
Bitcoin’s fourth halving took place on 4/20!
Gary Gensler is the Voldemort of crypto
Also, on June 14, 2016, the DAO hack was just around the corner, and the attacker was in preparation mode. He used this day to exchange 7.4 BTC ($3,650) for roughly 24,500 DAO tokens and 52 ETH—the tokens used in the hack three days later. (If you haven’t yet read my investigation into the hacker’s identity, definitely check out my book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze.)
Over the years, some of my favorite episodes have been my first interview with CZ, my interview with Wences Casares, my post-collapse interview with Do Kwon, the recent interview with Kyle Davies, my first interview last winter with Martin Shkreli, and one I did with Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson where the phrase “shitcoin waterfall” was used liberally. Would love to hear from you in the comments of this thread what some of your favorite episodes have been.
Btw, Unchained shares a birthday with someone already mentioned a few times in this thread: Donald Trump! As well as Boy George, Steffi Graf and Lang Lang.
For a long while, Unchained was mainly a podcast, but we’ve slowly been growing our news operation with more articles and videos, brought The Chopping Block in under our umbrella, and recently launched a new show, Bits + Bips. Please tell us what you’d like to see from Unchained next.
Finally, thank you to everyone who has supported Unchained along the way. Whether you’re a podcast listener, video watcher, article or newsletter reader, social media follower, sponsor, business partner, source who has helped me get scoops or secure interviews for podcasts, or just a friendly face at conferences, I am beyond grateful for all the support I’ve received from everyone in this wild, fun, creative, forward-thinking, genius, futuristic community. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have stumbled upon work that I love so much, and I’m excited to keep growing and sharing news, stories, interviews, books, and other creative works with all of you. I hope Unchained continues to be your no-hype resource for all things crypto.
Here’s to many more years!
Laura
