Saylor's Lesson, Zcash's Crash & AI Coming for Crypto - The Chopping Block

Description

Mert and Illia autopsy a brutal weekend in crypto: Saylor's $3M test sale that taught him there's no sell button, the Zcash bug Claude found that could've minted unlimited counterfeit ZEC, formal verification as the bulwark against AI attackers, and whether NEAR's agentic commerce vision is real. Show highlights 🔹 Saylor sold 32 BTC for the first time in four years as STRC trades below $100 par -- Mert calls it a distraction from real crypto innovation 🔹 AI security researcher Taylor Hornby used Claude Opus 4.8 to discover an infinite mint bug in Zcash's Orchard ZK circuit -- Zcash dumped 50%+ before recovering 🔹 Emergency soft fork patched the Zcash vulnerability within days; Ironwood migration and formal verification coming mid-July to prove no exploit occurred 🔹 Illia argues AI-powered attackers have permanent asymmetric advantage -- DeFi hacks accelerated since Opus 4 launched in November 🔹 Tom's "boats vs spaceships" analogy: crypto code must move from "roughly airtight" to mathematically sealed or it will be exploited 🔹 Mert on DeFi survival: "Many battles will be lost, but the war will be won -- I'm long math" 🔹 NEAR Protocol hit $240M in single-day trading volume on Friday's bloodbath -- a deflationary day for the NEAR token 🔹 Illia pitches NEAR Intents as "outcome specification" -- agents negotiate, sign contracts, and settle on-chain across borders 🔹 Mert remains skeptical on agents-on-chain but calls NEAR "one of the most underrated teams in crypto" 🔹 Polymarket pricing Zcash exploit probability in single digits; market rebounded 40%+ off lows to mid-$400s Hosts ⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly ⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly Guest ⭐️ Mert, Co-founder & CEO at Helius ⭐️ Illia Polosukhin, Co-founder of NEAR Protocol Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:17 Weekend Crypto Meltdown & Bitcoin Crash 02:52 Saylor, STRC & the DAT Death Spiral Fears 11:51 "No Sell Button" — Saylor's Lesson Learned 13:14 Zcash Bug: 50% Crash Explained 20:30 The Fix: Ironwood Pool & Formal Verification 23:11 AI vs Crypto Security: The Attacker Advantage 27:21 What Is Formal Verification? 30:07 Spaceship-Grade Smart Contract Security 31:36 OPSEC, Oracles & Anomaly Detection 36:08 Cypherpunk Dilemma: Stop the Hack or Not? 38:37 Will DeFi Survive? Long Math 42:49 NEAR's AI Agents & Intents Vision 48:43 Is Agentic Commerce Real? Mert's Skepticism _______________________________________________________ #bitcoin #ethereum #crypto #cryptocurrencies ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subscribe to our channel! Website → https://unchainedcrypto.com Unchained Daily Newsletter (FREE!)→ https://unchainedcrypto.beehiiv.com/subscribe/ Unchained X → https://x.com/unchained_pod Apple → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1123922160?ls=1 Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/1cJrrfGY1SKBIRn5noKSAf?si=6SI4qIcRTEO7EhOe0V9n4w RSS Feed → https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LSHML4761942757 Unchained: Your no-hype resource for all things crypto!