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

Thank you to our sponsors!
    • Fidelity: Fidelity has been building in crypto and DeFi since 2014 — now they’re hiring. Explore career opportunities at one of the most forward-thinking names in finance here: crypto.fidelitycareers.com.
    • Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn’t your wallet, it’s your phone number. Cape is America’s privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Robinhood Chain went live last week, and the perpetual futures powering it are from Lighter, the onchain exchange Robinhood backed before Lighter launched its token.

Vlad Novakovski, founder and CEO of Lighter, joins Laura Shin to unpack a partnership he says has been building since he and the Robinhood founder were high school classmates. He details a 50/50 revenue split, why USDG as collateral creates friction for market makers, and how a pending CFTC license would cover Robinhood’s own front-end too.

Novakovski also addresses the crowded field forming around US perps, from Kalshi and Coinbase to Kraken and dYdX, and makes the case that onchain volume keeps gaining share even as crypto native tokens lag real world asset perps. His new seat on the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee puts him in the room as regulators decide what a DEX has to look like to operate onshore.

Host:

    • Laura Shin – Founder, CEO and Host of Unchained

Guest: