The Chopping Block: Why Solana’s Frequent Downtime Doesn’t Bother Kyle Samani

Welcome to The Chopping Block – in person at Consensus in Austin! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra are joined by guest Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital to chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry.

Show topics:

• why Kyle believes people are too negative about the macro environment 
• how the only crypto product with product-market fit is parties
• what soulbound NFTs are, and what their pitfalls might be
• why Kyle and Robert have a beef between them
• why Kyle has a lot of run-ins with other people in crypto
• how Kyle thinks about Solana’s 12 instances of downtime over the last six months 
• how this has caused problems for SOL held in cold storage
• how Kyle and Robert think projects need to make tradeoffs between stability and adaptability
• why Kyle thinks every layer 1 and 2 will have a major failure over the next several years
• how Kyle thinks EVM chains are value-destructive
• how Tarun thinks zk L2s might be better aligned with the Ethereum ethos
• how Optimism’s market-making partner Wintermute was hacked for $20 million in OP
• why the hacker returned most of the money
• how programming language centralization makes sense
• how the Lummis-Gillibrand bill is a good opening salvo with respect to crypto regulation
• why they believe that being paid for staking is not the same as being paid a dividend
• how disclosure requirements could be onerous for small new projects
• how they think the crypto industry is moving up the learning curve for lobbying 
• why they believe the Lummis/Gillibrand bill will be changed to target stablecoins and DeFi more

EPISODE LINK

Hosts

• Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital
  • https://twitter.com/hosseeb
• Robert Leshner, founder of Compound 
  • https://twitter.com/rleshner 
• Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures
  • https://twitter.com/tarunchitra

Guest

• Kyle Samani, cofounder and managing partner of Multicoin Capital
  • https://twitter.com/KyleSamani?s=20&t=DN1G0CNY7JR11OoXOAFD2g

Show Topics

• Wintermute Compromise
  • Optimism Foundation statement:

• Wintermute statement: 

• https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/06/09/15m-of-optimism-tokens-stolen-by-an-attacker-after-wintermute-sent-wrong-wallet-address/#:~:text=Optimism%20is%20a%20permissionless%20network%20and%20behaved%20as%20intended.&text=Wintermute%2C%20for%20its%20part%2C%20says,make%20the%20protocol%20whole%20eventually.%E2%80%9D

• Osmosis Hack
  • https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/150752/osmosis-dex-on-cosmos-exploited-for-5-million-as-validators-halt-the-network
  • https://twitter.com/stake_fire/status/1534598315441913856?s=20&t=VvGyUlOjGSlhXXUwZvKszw
• Litecoin Delisting
  • https://decrypt.co/102350/crypto-exchanges-delist-litecoin-privacy-feature-concerns
• Solana outage re: durable transactions (12 serious outages this year, about 2 a month)
  • https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/149698/solana-blockchain-suffers-new-network-outage
  • https://solana.com/news/06-01-22-solana-mainnet-beta-outage-report-2
  • Unchained episode with Andre Cronje about Solana’s downtime: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-did-andre-cronje-pull-an-epic-crypto-rug-pull/ 
• Cynthia Lummis & Kirsten Gillibrand presents landmark crypto bill
  • Coindesk Coverage: 

• Legal Memo from DLXLaw: https://dlxlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DLX_FSV-summary_RFIA_060722.pdf
• Lummis-Gillibrand Section by Section Overview (summary by bill authors): https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lummis-Gillibrand%20Section-by-Section%20%5bFinal%5d.pdf
• Responsible Financial Innovation Act (full text): https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lummis-Gillibrand%20Responsible%20Financial%20Innovation%20Act%20%5bFinal%5d.pdf
• Blog post intro (by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) : https://gillibrandny.medium.com/the-responsible-financial-innovation-act-218a764abd6c

• PoolTogether lawsuit and fundraising:
  • https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/26/defis-pooltogether-crowdfunds-legal-defense-with-nft-collection/