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. In this episode, the crew tackles a triple-header of crypto’s growing pains: the bizarre saga of James Wynn—a memecoin gambler whose billion-dollar positions on Hyperliquid ended in public ruin; the Ethereum Foundation’s surprise rebrand into “Protocol” and its sudden embrace of hierarchy; and a bold manifesto from Miles Jennings calling for the end of crypto foundations as we know them. Is radical transparency a feature or a trap? Is Ethereum finally prioritizing execution over vibes? And are foundations just offshore theater—or necessary guardians of decentralization? The gang debates all this and more in a conversation that asks: who’s really in control of crypto—and should they be?
Show highlights
🔹 James Wynn: From $1B to $16 – The infamous Hyperliquid trader wipes out, then begs for donations… and opens new positions days later
🔹 Liquidation Theater – Was Wynn’s downfall market manipulation, a psyop, or just crypto doing what it always does?
🔹 Hyperliquid Transparency Debate – CZ, Jump, and Hyperliquid clash over whether radical openness helps or harms
🔹 Stop-Hunting Season – Tarun explains why onchain liquidation is more deterministic—but not necessarily more malicious
🔹 Ethereum Foundation Rebrands – Meet “Protocol”: a new structure, a new strategy, and maybe… a new hierarchy
🔹 The End of Purge & Surge – Is Ethereum finally abandoning the meme roadmap and focusing on shipping?
🔹 Tim Beiko’s New Role – A surprising centralization of coordination—and why the ETH community seems to like it
🔹 DUCS vs. DUNA – The crew proposes a new Ethereum acronym—and debates Miles Jennings’ push to end the foundation model
🔹 Are Foundations Just Offshore Theater? – Haseeb argues it’s time to kill the Cayman entity and rethink DAO legal structures
🔹 The Legal Marketing Wars – Tarun and Tom debate whether crypto’s governance evolution is genuine—or just “intellectual shilling”