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Hyperliquid has become the breakout perp exchange of crypto. But is the market missing its biggest competitor? Delphi’s Flip and DeFi investor Will Price join David to make the case for Lighter, a ZK-powered Ethereum L2 with zero-fee retail trading, white-glove distribution, real-world asset perps, and a token buying back revenue at a surprising rate. Is LIT just a Hyperliquid beta trade, or is it one of the most underpriced bets in onchain finance?

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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET

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🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE

https://app.okx.com/join/USBANKLESS

🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW

https://go.metamask.io/BL-Pod-Download

🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD

https://bankless.cc/brix

🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

https://thedefireport.io/bankless

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

3:05 Why Lighter Is Different

5:32 ZK Rollup Advantages

6:46 Charging Traders, Not Retail

12:07 Fairness Without MEV

14:50 Why Hyperliquid Can’t Copy

18:03 Distribution Beyond Crypto

22:08 Latency & Flow Quality

26:50 Technical Edge Across the Stack

30:31 RWAs & Pre-IPO Markets

34:07 U.S. Perps Market Play

36:05 Back-End For Big Brokers

38:28 Bootstrapping Liquidity

41:54 Lighter As A Platform

46:34 Token Value & Buybacks

50:11 Market Cap Versus FDV

53:02 Valuing LIT Properly

57:51 Cracked Team & Better Comms

58:13 Joining The Lighter Community

58:51 What Comes Next

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RESOURCES

Will Price

https://x.com/will__price

Trevor Flipper

https://x.com/trevor_flipper

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

AI is quickly becoming the interface through which people think, work, and make decisions—but most users have no idea how much personal data they're handing over in the process. Jon and Jesse from Venice join David to make the case for privacy-first AI, explain why Venice is aiming to become a mainstream consumer AI brand, and explore how $VVV and DIEM transform inference into a crypto-economic primitive.
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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:
🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET
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🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE
https://app.okx.com/join/USBANKLESS
🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW
https://go.metamask.io/BL-Pod-Download
🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD
https://bankless.cc/brix
🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:12 Why Private AI Matters
3:01 The AI Data Honeypot
6:07 Venice’s Consumer AI Ambition
8:01 Beating the Big AI Labs
10:19 Model Aggregation and Agentic Chat
12:29 Open Source, Closed Source, and Private Grok
17:14 Who Actually Needs Private AI?
21:58 Venice’s User Base
23:53 What Drove Venice’s Recent Growth
27:21 $VVV, DIEM, and Tokenized Inference
29:00 Where Venice Gets Its Compute
32:17 Bonding Curves and DIEM Monetary Policy
39:14 Real Tokenomics, Not Just a Pie Chart
45:46 AI Agents Need Inference to Exist
52:54 ShapeShift DNA Inside Venice
55:53 Regulation, AI, and Individual Rights
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RESOURCES
Jon ShapeShift
https://x.com/JonShapeShift
Jesse Proudman
https://x.com/jesseproudman
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Bitcoin is bleeding, STRC is off peg, and Saylor’s “never sell” machine is facing its first real confidence test. David and Haseeb unpack whether Strategy can survive without selling BTC, why Bitmine’s ETH play may be stronger but riskier, and what select token strength, U.S. perps, and Coinbase’s Ethena deal reveal about crypto’s next phase.

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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET

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🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE

https://app.okx.com/join/USBANKLESS

🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW

https://go.metamask.io/BL-Pod-Download

🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD

https://bankless.cc/brix

🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

https://thedefireport.io/bankless

---

TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES

0:00 Intro

1:37 Saylor & Strategy Confidence Test

https://x.com/zerohedge/status/2061418482344849785 

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2062475802252365980

https://x.com/glxyresearch/status/2062518531128746000

https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/2062499179239215390

13:26 DATs Underwater & Bitmine Preferred Offering

https://x.com/lookonchain/status/2062011412965405059

https://x.com/zoomerfied/status/2062288919853490553

34:19 Major Weakness & Select Token Strength

40:45 U.S. Perps Get Greenlit

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/05/28/u-s-cftc-opens-crypto-perp-door-with-approval-of-first-regulated-firm

53:41 Coinbase Invests in Ethena

https://www.theblock.co/post/403403/coinbase-invests-ethena-open-market-purchase-ena-flags-new-partnership

57:13 Closing & Disclaimers

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Crypto policy in Washington has gone from punchline to power center. David sits down with Ron Hammond, Head of Policy and Advocacy at Wintermute, for a rare inside look at how crypto actually moves through DC: the SBF era, Elizabeth Warren’s anti-crypto army, Gary Gensler’s SEC, bank lobby pressure, Trump’s crypto conflicts, the Clarity Act fight, and why privacy and self-custody may be the next major battleground.

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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

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🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW
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🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD
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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless

---
TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Becoming “Captain Crypto” in DC
4:03 From Joke to Serious Political Force
6:19 Why Crypto Punches Above Its Weight
10:28 How SBF Captured Washington
13:26 The FTX Fallout in Capitol Hill
16:25 Elizabeth Warren and Crypto’s Proxy Wars
19:04 How DC Letters Actually Get Written
25:33 How Powerful Is the Crypto Lobby?
27:28 Who Is Playing on Crypto’s Side?
31:01 Democrats, Gensler, and the 2024 Lesson
35:07 The Gensler Era and Prometheum
41:21 Will Warren Ever Pivot?
43:20 Trump, the Crypto Ball, and World Liberty
49:30 Will the Clarity Act Pass?
53:30 Privacy, Self-Custody, and the Next Front
56:23 The Social Side of Crypto in DC

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RESOURCES

Ron Hammond
https://x.com/RonwHammond

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

What happens when every payment, wallet, and onchain interaction becomes searchable by governments, companies, adversaries, and AI? Josh Swihart, founder and CEO of Zcash Open Development Lab, joins David to explain why Zcash is having a major privacy comeback, how ZODL and the Zashi wallet helped unlock real shielded adoption, why the shielded pool may be the most important ZEC metric, and what it will take for private money to become too big to kill.

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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

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🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE
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🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW
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🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD
https://bankless.cc/brix

🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless

---
TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro
4:17 Privacy in the AI Era
6:19 Crypto’s Missing Privacy Layer
9:49 The Political Fight for Privacy
14:42 Can Crypto Retain Privacy?
16:47 From Zashi to ZODL
19:48 The Zcash Reawakening
21:41 Balaji, Funding, and the Mission
24:49 Product Market Fit for Shielded ZEC
27:51 ZODL's Role in the Zcash Stack
29:36 The Zcash Roadmap
32:56 What Is ZEC and is it Undervalued?
36:56 The Shielded Pool Explained
45:12 The $25M ZODL Raise
47:16 Compliance and Shielded ZEC
51:25 Institutions vs Cypherpunk Values
53:58 Personal Privacy in an AI World

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RESOURCES

Josh Swihart
https://x.com/jswihart

ZODL
https://x.com/zodl_app

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures