Unchained Podcast Episode 937 Summary

Episode: The Chopping Block: When Wall Street Meets DeFi — How Equity Perps and RWAs Redefine Leverage On-Chain
Host: Laura Shin
Date: November 1, 2025

Overview

This episode of The Chopping Block dives deep into the integration of traditional financial instruments, particularly equities, into decentralized finance (DeFi) via perpetuals (perps) and real-world assets (RWAs). The panel examines the pros and cons of on-chain equity perps, the market structure challenges they introduce, and the parallels between DeFi and TradFi (traditional finance). It also covers hot topics like the political drama of CZ’s pardon, and the significance of recent M&A moves in the crypto space.

The guests include Tom (Defi Maven), Tarun (Gauntlet), Kaldora (Ostium), and Haseeb (Dragonfly). Together, they explore how DeFi is reimagining leverage, access, and capital formation, while candidly debating the pitfalls, lessons, and the evolving landscape.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. On-Chain Equity Perpetuals and RWAs

• What Are Equity Perps and RWAs?
  Ostium lets users trade derivatives referencing stocks and indices (RWAs) on-chain via a perp-like product.

• The Funding Rate Debate:

  • Kaldora’s tweet about a 365% funding rate on NASDAQ perps sparked community outrage and debate over the viability and fairness of the current market structure.
    • "At the time when I snapshotted it, it was 365%. So people were up in arms." — Kaldora [04:51]
  • High funding rates, while reflecting market imbalance, undermine the premise of holding perps long-term.
    • "You kill the demand in the first place from the normie audience, which is this sort of North Star." — Kaldora [21:34]
  • Tarun and Tom highlight that short-term speculation dominates perp usage, so long-term holding costs may not matter to most.
    • "The point is people do want to speculate with leverage on a short term time horizon." — Tom [22:35]

• Perps vs. CFDs (Contracts for Difference):
  Kaldora explains that CFDs dominate retail trading outside the US and are simpler than options.

  • "CFDs do trillions in notional volume a month... the largest retail derivatives market for TradFi assets." — Kaldora [16:12]

• Market Dynamics, Arbitrage, and UX:
  The group notes that perps work well in crypto's high-volatility markets but create issues for equities because funding rates are too volatile and infrastructure to arbitrage is lacking.

  • "People want to trade the simpler instrument if they can." — Kaldora [16:30]
  • "In the equities case they happen more frequently than the kind of crypto version." — Tarun [13:33]

2. Experiments, Product-Market Fit & Future of On-Chain Equities

• Experimentation is Key:
  There is consensus that running real-market experiments is essential to discover what works, rather than prematurely debating tech design.

  • "People should just run the experiments. I don't know why we have to neck beard before people play around." — Tarun [14:32]

• Retail Demand vs. Whales:
  While most retail users don’t care about funding rate intricacies, large traders (whales) quickly adjust their behavior based on variable funding costs.

  • "We've had hundreds of conversations with freighters where... people changing their behavior on the platform because of the variability of our funding rates." — Kaldora [29:00]

3. Political Optics: CZ’s Pardon and Crypto’s Image

• CZ’s Controversial Pardon:
  The episode covers the news cycle surrounding Binance founder CZ’s (Changpeng Zhao) pardon by President Trump, its impact on the industry’s perception, and the swirling accusations of political favoritism and corruption.

  • "I did feel like I, I, I did talk to reporters and I feel like I kind of deflated the story a little bit..." — Tom [33:38]
  • "This is actually a very funny kind of thing. I've also seen there's a couple European countries have this Golden Visa thing..." — Tom [34:03]

• Impact on Crypto Reputation:
  The group notes that the event—which was supposed to be a regulatory closure—ended up backfiring in the media and brought unwanted political scrutiny to crypto.

  • "I think this is actually quite bad for crypto because this has really animated people in a way I was not expecting." — Haseeb [39:03]
  • "Add that to the meme coin and all the other... bad optics just doesn't stop." — Haseeb [41:08]

4. Echo, Coinbase, and the New Era of Capital Formation

• Coinbase Acquires Echo:
  The panel analyzes Coinbase's $375M acquisition of Kobe’s crowd sale platform Echo (plus a $25M NFT), positioning Coinbase deeper into token launch and capital formation territory.

  • "Part of this also just seems like a bet on more aggressive token issuance clarity..." — Tom [43:55]

• Crowdfunding, Token Allocation, and 'Luxury Good' Meta:
  The discussion covers the dichotomy in launch dynamics: feast-or-famine sales, strategic community allocation, and the risks of over-distribution vs. exclusivity.

  • "Most things are just... not like evenly distributed. They usually fall on one end or the other end of the spectrum." — Kaldora [46:13]
  • "The history of crypto is someone invents something new, some experiment, it works extremely well and then everyone just copies them until all the alpha's gone..." — Tom [67:58]

• ICOs, Community Alignment, and Optimal Ownership:
  The panel explores whether mass airdrops, tight curation, or a “middle class” of token owners best aligns community and project incentives. The analogy to the luxury goods and fine art world is invoked to explain exclusivity and social signaling of limited allocation.

  • "If you make it, you know, if you race a massive round, you give like a 70% discount to your round, you open your, you know, echo..." — Kaldora [54:56]
  • "You can't just walk into a gallery... and be like, I want this piece of art. They're going to vet you and figure out, okay, are you a person who buys and then flips..." — Tom [57:33]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Reaction to Twitter Backlash:
  "Thank you to the haters because it drove more attention to us than we've ever had." — Kaldora [01:51]

• On the Funding Rate Problem:
  "You as a trader might be subject to funding rates that could wildly swing in one way, one direction or another... Which ruin sort of like gets to the very heart of what actually the whole premise is around why people would want to trade these instruments." — Kaldora [06:25]

• On Political Optics:
  "I actually, I do think that the prosecution against CZ was kind of like he got four months...What the fuck is four months." — Haseeb [36:09]

• On Capital Formation as ‘Luxury Goods’:
  "It's more like an auction. It's a sorting hat." — Haseeb & Tom [68:32–68:41]
  "A lot of it is... it's about creating artificial scarcity." — Kaldora [61:19]

Key Timestamps

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Welcome & Introductions | Meet the panel, Kaldora’s Twitter drama | 00:29–02:51 | | What Are Equity Perps and RWAs? | Defining the products and funding rate issues | 03:28–07:20 | | CFD vs. Perp Dynamics, User Experience | CFDs in TradFi; impact on demand & liquidity | 16:07–22:28 | | Funding Rate Volatility & Market Experiments | Running experiments, market structure, retail vs. whales | 14:32–29:30 | | CZ's Pardon & Political Impact | Scandal, public perception, media/political fallout | 29:30–41:08 | | CoinBase Acquires Echo, Crowd Sales Meta | Capital formation, Echo, parallels to art/luxury goods allocation | 43:24–56:47 | | Distribution Strategy & Community Alignment | Scarcity, curation, middle class of token owners, analogy to IPO/bookbuilding | 55:36–65:03 | | Art World vs. Token Launches | Provenance, exclusivity, luxury good analogies | 65:03–68:41 |

Closing

The episode wraps with Kaldora sharing details on Ostium’s differentiated approach to RWAs on-chain, inviting listeners to try the platform. The discussion concludes with reflections on the “sorting hat” approach to allocation, the increasing sophistication in capital formation, and DeFi’s ongoing experiments with importing and reinventing TradFi concepts on-chain.

For Further Exploration

• Check out Ostium for on-chain perps with RWAs: stocks, indices, metals, and more.
• Follow Kaldora on Twitter and Telegram: @Kaldora
• Watch The Chopping Block for more industry insider debates on Unchained.

This summary highlights the episode’s rich debate, capturing the evolving relationship between Wall Street and DeFi, and how equity perps, community alignment, and political drama are reshaping the future of on-chain finance.