Timing and scale: was Athena the cause?

The hosts dive into Bitcoin's volatility below $75K, dissect the explosive CZ vs Star Twitter battle over who caused the 10/10 liquidation cascade, debate the ethics of founder secondary sales with passionate disagreement, and explore the surprising crypto connections in the newly released Epstein files including Tarun's unexpected cameo.

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.

This week, the crew tackles a volatile market with Bitcoin struggling below $75K and explores what's driving the uncertainty. They dive deep into the explosive Twitter battle between Binance founder CZ and OKX's Star over who really caused the catastrophic 10/10 liquidation event that broke crypto's correlation with traditional markets. The conversation gets heated as the hosts debate the ethics of founder secondary sales — with Haseeb taking a surprisingly libertarian stance against his co-hosts. Finally, they explore the unexpected crypto connections in the newly released Epstein files, including Tarun's own amusing cameo and connections to Coinbase, Bitcoin Core developers, and other industry figures.

From market analysis to Twitter drama to moral philosophy, this episode covers the full spectrum of crypto discourse. Let's get into it.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights

🔹 Bitcoin below $75K signals uncertain market conditions with equal odds of hitting $40K or $130K

🔹 CZ vs Star Twitter battle over who caused the catastrophic 10/10 liquidation cascade  

🔹 Athena unwinding timeline analysis challenges Star's claims about Binance's role

🔹 Heated debate on founder secondary sales ethics with sharp disagreements among hosts

🔹 Tarun's unexpected appearance in Epstein files via Quora digest on homomorphic encryption

🔹 Epstein's 2014 Coinbase investment and connections to Brock Pierce revealed

🔹 Bitcoin developers' interactions with Epstein including Adam Back and Jeremy Rubin

🔹 MicroStrategy's break-even position becomes psychological market threshold

🔹 Quantum computing concerns emerge as potential Bitcoin selling catalyst

🔹 Post-10/10 correlation breakdown between crypto and traditional risk assets analyzed

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Disclosures

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