Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner break down the biggest stories in crypto. This week, we’re joined by special guest Quinn Thompson, Master of Macro at Lekker Capital, to dissect Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve. The US government is now officially hodling Bitcoin —Trump’s executive order creates a BTC reserve using seized funds. But markets didn’t buy the hype. Bitcoin tanked, and traders are still questioning what this means for crypto’s future. Meanwhile, the global macro picture is a disaster—stocks are down, trade wars are escalating, and recession fears are mounting.Is this controlled demolition of the economy, or just a side effect of Trump’s economic agenda? And most importantly, what does this mean for crypto? Let’s dive in.

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

Show highlights

🔹 Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve Announcement – The US government officially holds BTC, but it’s not buying more. No new demand—just a change in optics.

🔹 Digital Asset Stockpile – XRP, ADA, SOL? Treasury isn’t sure what it owns, and no guarantee these altcoins stay on the balance sheet.

🔹 Market Reactions – Bitcoin pumped, then crashed. No net buying pressure, just an end to government auctions of seized BTC.

🔹 Trade War Fallout – Tariffs hit Mexico, Canada, EU, and China—S&P 500 posts worst day since 2022, losing $1.4T in market cap.

🔹 Trump’s Endgame? – Is this a controlled demolition of asset prices, or just chaos in motion?

🔹 Crypto’s Liquidity Crunch – The Fed isn’t stepping in (yet), but the macro backdrop is grim. Rate cuts may be the only way out.

Hosts

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly
⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures
⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate

Guest

⭐️Quinn Thompson, Founder & CIO at Lekker Capital

Disclosures