Unchained Ep. 896: The Chopping Block

Trump’s $22B “Gold Paper” DeFi Launch, Buybacks & Garbage Coins
Date: September 4, 2025
Host: Laura Shin
Panelists: Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, Tarun Chitra

Overview

In this roundtable episode, the Chopping Block crew delves into the explosive launch of World Liberty Financial, a DeFi project closely linked to Donald Trump and his family, which debuted with a claimed $22 billion valuation. The panel offers skeptical, humorous, and incisive takes on the token's mechanics, political implications, industry parallels, and the ever-blurring line between meme coins and “serious” crypto projects. They also discuss the U.S. government putting GDP prints on-chain, meme coins as political merch, and regulatory shifts that may open U.S. markets to global crypto exchanges. Throughout, the group reflects on how norms, products, and user habits in crypto may (or may not) cross-pollinate with traditional finance.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. World Liberty Financial: A $22 Billion Dumpster Fire?

• Token Launch Details (03:08–08:54)
  • Debuted across Binance, OkX, Bybit, and Bitget.
  • $22B fully diluted valuation; $6B circulating market cap; heavy trading ($2.5B in 24h).
  • Massive gas fee spikes on launch; confusion over the true circulating supply.
  • Trump family owns 22% of the token and 75% of the presale cash ($440M).
  • “Gold paper” instead of a whitepaper, co-written by Trump’s sons.
  • Disputed promise over AAVE partnership and token allocation.

"World Liberty Financial is like the garbage got into your living room and now it's just there. It's like, oh, yeah, we have a gold paper written by the president's sons, and the biggest holder is Justin Sun, and we're buying back the token even though we have no revenue..."
— Haseeb Qureshi (00:00)

• Criticisms & Transparency Concerns
  • Opaque token allocation and buybacks with unclear funding sources.
  • Team-led buybacks after price drops, despite lack of sustainable revenue.
  • Largest backer is Justin Sun; insiders control significant supply.

"There's no way that 24% of the supply is floating like that... originally there was going to be 5% floating and now how exactly is 24% out there?"
— Haseeb Qureshi (15:07)

• Meta-Industry Observations
  • Parallels drawn to bored apes/NFT cycle: high on hype, low on substance.
  • Questions over whether it’s a meme coin in disguise or a real protocol.

"It just feels like bored apes to me, where it's like a kind of thing that exists to get made fun of... I'm too jaded by these kind of things that there's no real substance behind that have high valuations."
— Tarun Chitra (09:09)

2. Political Meme Coins: Trend or Gimmick?

• Gavin Newsom’s 'Trump Corruption Coin' (19:00–24:00)
  • Newsom proposes a meme coin to spoof/trump Trump's project (polymarket odds at 36% he'll follow through).
  • Panel agrees that Dem coins lack product-market fit; Republicans better at “branded stuff.”
  • Satirical suggestions for coin names: “G Money,” “G Coin,” “Newscum.”
  • Discussion morphs into how meme coins function as political merch and where trends might go next.

"I think the difference is... Democratic voters don't buy hats, are they gonna buy the meme coin?"
— Tarun Chitra (21:41)

3. GDP Prints On-Chain: Bureaucracy Meets Blockchain

• US Commerce Department Posts Data On-Chain (25:43–33:00)
  • GDP now posted across 9 blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc.) using Chainlink and Pyth.
  • Panel applauds bureaucracy experimenting with blockchain but struggles to identify pressing use cases.

"What problem does this solve? Like, I love that this is happening because it shows that you have bureaucrats somewhere in the Commerce Department using blockchains... but I don't think anyone asked for this..."
— Robert Leshner (26:47)

• Historical irony: left-leaning crypto projects from past cycles wanted “CPI-pegged” stablecoins but never saw this reality coming.
• Suggestion: government should offer an “X Prize” for creatively using GDP data on-chain.

"I think they should have announced in parallel...an X Prize...whoever uses this data in the most interesting way..."
— Robert Leshner (30:32)

4. Regulatory Shifts: US Markets Reopening to Global Crypto?

• CFTC’s FBOT Path (Foreign Board of Trade Registration) (34:50–39:33)
  • FBOT could allow non-US exchanges to operate under US regulatory oversight, offer derivatives to US clients.
  • Not a quick fix for Binance/Bybit, but possibly a new avenue for re-onshoring services.

"You have to onshore to US regulation and US and ex US businesses can do that by submitting to US jurisdiction."
— Robert Leshner (37:47)

• Spot Crypto Trading on Legacy Exchanges (39:33–42:16)
  • NYSE/NASDAQ/CME possibly moving towards spot crypto trading.
  • Discussion of risks, liquidity moats, and what happens to ETFs.
  • Panel expects traditional products like ETFs will remain entrenched due to UX, liquidity, habits.

5. Everything Apps & the Future of Finance

• Finance Platform Convergence (41:23–54:57)
  • Coinbase and Robinhood are both moving toward being “everything apps” for all financial products.
  • Traditional brokers have added crypto, but users largely stay loyal to crypto-first platforms for those assets.
  • "Boxed" mindsets: people mentally separate “fun/yolo” money from their conservative investable assets.

"Overwhelmingly people seem to want to buy and sell their crypto through Coinbase or Robinhood or a few places even when almost everywhere will offer you to buy and sell crypto...I don't know why, I wouldn't have predicted that five years ago..."
— Haseeb Qureshi (42:16)

• New battlefront is competitive UX, yield, and incentives as lock-in approaches diminish.
• Debate over whether being able to move assets between products/exchanges makes things safer or scarier.

6. Security, Trust, and TradFi vs. Crypto Mindsets

• Should People Move ETFs to Crypto Platforms? (54:01–61:12)
  • Haseeb expresses deep skepticism about keeping “safe” assets like ETFs on crypto exchanges due to hacking threat and irreversibility of crypto-native withdrawals.

"I think crypto exchanges are like some of the biggest honeypots in the world. I used to work in anti-fraud... you want to keep as little of value on crypto exchanges all the time, because they are such massive honeypots..."
— Haseeb Qureshi (55:34)

• Other panelists counter: as protections for TradFi assets port over, crypto platforms might become equally trustworthy, especially for younger, crypto-native generations.

"I think it's just more like if I'm a crypto founder...I'm trying to make this thing so...everyone who's 21 who's like never going to buy an ETF anywhere near someone who has an 'E' in their name or like has a name like Fidelity..."
— Tarun Chitra (57:25)

• The consensus veers towards generational and psychological divides: young users will likely keep merging behaviors, while some “boomers” will remain cautious.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It's a tale of two Kwan." — Tarun Chitra jokes about the two high-profile Kims/Kwons in crypto history (00:17).
• "Now your losses are on someone else's balance." — Haseeb, referencing the hot-potato nature of quick-rich crypto stories (00:19).
• "The Aristocrats of crypto... what more can we stack to offend?" — Tom and the panel riff on how World Liberty intentionally flaunts every possible controversy (12:07).
• "If you can withdraw crypto, then it's like 70, 80% that you can monetize for cash. Which means your incentive to hack this account goes way, way up." — Haseeb Qureshi on why security models differ for ‘Everything Apps’ (59:00).
• "I feel like the whole stock issuance process compared to, like, calling the Mint function... is ridiculous." — Tarun Chitra, contrasting TradFi and DeFi (51:31).
• "The Chopping Boomers have reared their head again." — Tarun, summarizing the recurring generational tension in the episode (61:15).

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and panel catch-up: 00:33–03:01
• World Liberty Financial token launch breakdown: 03:08–08:54
• Substance vs. hype in political tokens: 09:09–12:53
• Journalist “offense stacking” and project skepticism: 12:07–15:33
• Thanksgiving “crypto” conversation forecast: 17:13–18:51
• Gavin Newsom’s meme coin response & political merch: 19:32–24:10
• US GDP on-chain news & use-case debate: 25:43–33:09
• CFTC FBOT regulatory opening & implications: 34:50–39:33
• Spot crypto on legacy exchanges & ETF debate: 39:49–41:23
• Financial “Everything Apps” and user lock-in: 41:23–54:57
• Panel debate: Should TradFi assets move to crypto exchanges?: 54:01–61:12

Tone & Takeaways

The Chopping Block panel mixes sharp skepticism with playful banter and industry insider candor. The overall mood is world-weary but still intellectually curious, with panelists oscillating between amusement, exhaustion, and reluctant admiration as they deconstruct the latest crypto excesses and trends. For the “nocoiner” listener, the episode provides a warts-and-all look at how crypto’s promise rubs up against its grifty tendencies, and why the boundary between meme and utility remains as fluid—and fraught—as ever.