DeFi vs. CeFi: A Year of Memes and Misadventures

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the year 2022 in the crypto industry and share their biggest winners and losers of the year, what were the best mechanisms, the biggest surprises and the best memes, and their predictions for the upcoming year.

Show topics:

• why stablecoin bulls performed so well in 2022, as well as journalism, DeFi, and the EVM
• how the reputation of the industry suffered tremendously in 2022
• how Solana had to endure multiple hacks and challenges and whether it’s having its “ETH moment” 
• whether ETH is the only crypto with good tokenomics
• why MEV has seen such a massive adoption, even if it’s technically not good for crypto 
• why the investment landscape changed so much in June
• whether Arbitrum is the winner among layer 2s on Ethereum and the role of retroactive airdrops
• why so many lending companies went bust this year
• whether proof of reserves is a useful concept
• whether developers will go back to build on Ethereum rather than alternative layers 1s

• Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital
• Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures
• Robert Leshner, founder of Compound 
• Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital

Links

Last year's episode:

The Chopping Block... 2021 in Crypto: The Biggest Winners, Biggest Losers, and Best Memes - Unchained Podcast

FTX:

• The Chopping Block: Can Exchange CEOs Like SBF Be Crypto True Believers?
• The Chopping Block: FTX: The Biggest Collapse in the History of Crypto?
• The Chopping Block: Why Lenders Didn't Liquidate Alameda When It Was Underwater
• The Chopping Block on FTX/Alameda: Is Sam Bankman-Fried 'Crypto Kanye'?
• The Chopping Block: SBF Wants to Win in the Court of Public Opinion. Will He?
• The Chopping Block: Was FTX a Scam From the Very Beginning?

Tornado Cash

• The Chopping Block: Why DeFi May Be Over-Complying With Tornado Cash Sanctions
• The Chopping Block: Did OFAC Overstep by Sanctioning Tornado Cash?

Solana

• The Chopping Block: Anatoly Yakovenko on Why Solana Is Building the SAGA Phone
• The Chopping Block: Why Solana’s Frequent Downtime Doesn't Bother Kyle Samani

Terra:

• The Chopping Block: Kevin Zhou on Why He Knew Terra Would Crash 
• The Chopping Block: Does the New Terra Have Any Chance? 

Others:

• The Chopping Block: Here’s What Was So Bad About Three Arrows Capital 
• The Chopping Block: SBF on a Crazy Week of Bitfinex, Wormhole and ENS Drama 
• The Chopping Block: Do Kwon Pitches a Decentralized NFT Publishing Service
• The Chopping Block: Did Andre Cronje Pull an Epic Crypto Rug Pull? 

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