.@ethereumJoseph told us not to call it the Second Foundation but also told us SharpLink, BitMine, and ConsenSys are becoming Ethereum's "decentralized commercialization engines" sooooo Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:06 Saylor Sells BTC & Market Panic 05:07 STRC Death Spiral & DAT Risks 07:07 Ethereum Foundation Exodus & CROPS 13:04 The "Not Second Foundation" Debate 17:58 Quantum Q-Day: 50% by 2032 23:47 Is All of DeFi Unsafe? 31:11 ZK Composability & Bridge-Free Architecture 34:19 Security Deployment Lag & AI Arms Race 40:18 Anti-Fragility & Formal Verification 47:36 Zama USDC Freeze & Privacy vs Courts 50:33 CFTC Perps Approval & Hyperliquid at $75 55:53 Hyperliquid's Distribution Flywheel 01:00:46 Joe Lubin's Ethereum Bull Case 🔥Stay updated with all the latest hot takes by following and subscribing to @_ChoppingBlock and @unchained_pod! 🎥 YouTube: youtu.be/hf_6Ge1m-OU 🎧 Spotify: bit.ly/3wiIOyy 🍎 Apple: bit.ly/3w9HQ7J 🎙 Podcast Home: choppingblock.xyz

Amidst the market meltdown, we brought @ethereumJoseph on to defend ETH. We talked Saylor's folly, death spirals, quantum threats, AI exploits, and Hyperliquid eating the world. Here's his take on why it's not over for Ethereum yet ⤵️

AI has impacted everything, from how we source to how our judgment compounds, and especially how a small team covers the surface area of a larger one. We proactively built tools to only get stronger as the AI frontier advances. Read more here: etherealvc.substack.com/p/ho…

Every quarter, we step back to stress-test our conviction against what's actually measurable onchain. Here's our data report on the digital asset landscape from earlier this year, and where we think founders should be building: etherealvc.substack.com/p/re…

Look no further for a real world privacy use case

Darkbloom just completed a major network upgrade! BIG UPDATE: We’re moving from Research Preview to Public Alpha. In the last month: - 1000s of provider signups, 250 live providers at peak - 600M tokens served With this upgrade, performance is up 30–200% across key metrics like TTFT, TPS, and total tokens served. The goal is simple: private, low-cost inference, powered by idle Macs. We’re starting with Gemma 4 and GPT-OSS, then slowly ramping up to larger models as we load test and scale over the next 2 weeks. Providers: go to darkbloom [dot] dev, scroll to down, and run the install command. Thank you to everyone who has been running nodes, giving feedback, and helping us build this network. Waking up the world’s sleeping compute!

Crypto privacy might become one of the BIGGEST trades of this cycle. Institutions want to move trillions onchain. They literally can't do it on fully transparent blockchains. Imagine your bank's entire balance sheet visible to the whole world. Not happening. That's why privacy infrastructure like ZK tech, Aztec, and Zcash are suddenly catching fire again. FT @_MinTeo @BitcoinJesusETH Tune in to know more ⏱ TIME POINTS ⏱ 00:00 – Intro 01:17 – Min Teo’s Crypto Journey 05:36 – Why Ethereal VC Is Winning 10:00 – Top Crypto Sectors for 2026 11:44 – Privacy: Crypto’s Next Big Trend? 15:28 – Sponsor: Cape 16:13 – Sponsor: Nexo 16:51 – Aztec & Private Blockchains 19:15 – Where Privacy Value Accrues 22:30 – Why Institutions Need Privacy 25:00 – AI Agents & Crypto Payments 28:50 – Cross-Chain Investing Explained 30:43 – Sponsor: Pharos 31:26 – Regulation & Crypto Adoption 35:40 – How Top VCs Pick Winners 37:43 – Final Thoughts & Outro

Programmable intelligence needs programmable institutions. @sreeramkannan on the AI x crypto intersection: "AI is just programmable intelligence. If you have programmable intelligence, you can't work with soft, squishy, legal, slow regulated institutions." "We believe that this intersection — that programmable intelligence needs programmable institutions, smart contracts, and the ability to engage in contracts, own property — all of these things are really powerful."

April was an important stress test for how we think about security in DeFi. We believe DeFi’s application layer has matured faster than its control plane, and share our perspectives and recommendations on the topic here: etherealvc.substack.com/p/de…

We're happy to present our 2026 outlook. This year is already taking shape, and the opportunity space for founders is even wider than anticipated. If you're building in any of these areas, we would love to talk to you. etherealvc.substack.com/p/th…

Building @etherealvc with this dream team (@ethereumJoseph @sean_sacha @bees_neeth @obstropolos @christian_stlou @GNSPS) and our community of exceptional founders has been the biggest privilege of my life. We're doubling down on crypto and the evolution of money and value onto blockchains, during the most exciting transition of the internet. h/t to @jeffjohnroberts for the feature and happy star wars day!

Trendsetters $CHIP

We are excited to announce we are joining the Nvidia Inception Program! As we scale our compute and security capabilities in orbit, the #NVIDIAInception program will help to accelerate development of our infrastructure. Ad astra! 🚀

After eight years of building @AztecNetwork, the network is about to go live at Alpha. My co-founders @zac_aztec and @arnaudschenk are moving to @aztecFND to steward the protocol, while I am returning to my roots: building privacy products people actually use.

Utexo has raised $7.5M from @tether, @BigBrainVC, and @PortalVentures to bring USDT natively on Bitcoin. After more than a decade, USDT is finally coming home.

we have raised a $6m seed to keep rebuilding money on modern rails we don't like traditional banking, or traditional announcement videos oh and btw, huge feature updates coming soon. powered by @arbitrum

I’ve been in crypto a long time. I’ve never worked harder on anything. A year with @gregthegreek, @tarunchitra, and @mdcieri37 building credit rails for machines. This is the play of the decade. robvc.com/research/the-turin…