Dark Markets

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are investigative reporters for Protos.com and cohosts of the venerable Crypto Critics Corner podcast. They join David Z. Morris to discuss evidence that Alameda Research was arbitraging the stablecoin Tether to users in Asia, at huge scale, and possibly in service of illegal activity.We also dig into the deeper connections between the FTX group and Tether, including their shared efforts to buy Farmington State Bank ("Moonstone Bank"), and gain access to the U.S. FedWire system.Other topics include:* Why the notorious Crypto Critics actually think Bitcoin is “super cool.”* The implications of American monitors tracking activity on Binance.* Deltec Bank’s reliance on Chinese capital.* Why nuanced critical thought is dying on the Internet.Find more episodes of the Dark Markets podcast at: https://davidzmorris.substack.com/podcastDark Markets is produced by Eleanor Pahl and features music by Altus Noumena. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidzmorris.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.comI sat down with my old friend Alex Zaidelson to talk about his current work as CEO of Secret Labs. He and his team, along with other related projects, are working to shift the conversation about on-chain privacy to focus on what they call “confidential computing.” While “privacy coins” like Monero and Beam (where Zaidelson was formerly CEO) are focused …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.comI sat down with notorious foxboy and international currency expert 0xKitsune to talk stablecoins, community, and crypto risk. Kits is pseudonymous and appears here as an avatar. Premium Subscribers listening through the Substack App will get a bonus 15 minute segment on the philosophy and mindset of crypto traders.Topics covered in the main ep: - Why Bo…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.comIn today's show, we dive into the risks of two major new DeFi products: The restaking protocol Eigenlayer and the yield-producing stablecoin Ethena.We get insights from a top-tier degen: Bloq CSO Zane Huffman. Huffman walks us through the time a restaking protocol blew up on BNB, and its consequences.But Zane also thinks worries about these protocols may be getting amplified because of recency bias - specifically, the memory of the collaps of the TerraUSD stablecoin. But Terra, he argues, has almost nothing in common with the way Ethena, or Eigenlayer, work.Finally, premium Dark Markets subscribers get a bonus section, with Zane discussing his take on crypto trading strategies - and which ones are more reliable than mere gambling.Read Vitalik Buterin's thoughts on Restaking: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/05/21/dont_overload.htmlZane Huffman can be found on Twitter at @jeffthedunker.His portfolio at Bloq includes Vesper (@vesperfi) and Metronome (@metronomedao).His substack can be found at https://greenjeff.substack.com/Dark Markets is hosted by David Z. Morris, @davidzmorris.Dark Markets is edited by Eleanor Pahl.Music is by Altus Noumena.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.comDexter Thomas is a Pulitzer- and Emmy-winning journalist who has worked for the L.A. Times, and is the former anchor and correspondent for Vice News Tonight. He is also a PhD social scientist who met host David Z. Morris through their shared research and writing on Japanese Hip-Hop. In this episode, Dexter and David talk about the U.S. push to ban TikTok; whether it's a good idea to get a PhD (maybe not), and, in a bonus section for premium subscribers, what it was like to work at Vice almost to the very end.You can find Dexter as @dexdigi on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch.https://www.twitch.tv/dexdigi

Austin Campbell is founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting, and a former risk and asset manager for JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Paxos. We sat down to peel back the curtain on who Gary Gensler really is: an ambitious careerist who, as far back as his time at the CFTC, cared more about immediate results than big-picture consequences.Now, Campbell says Gensler’s freewheeling campaign against crypto is opening a Pandora’s Box that threatens the very underpinnings of the U.S. economy. Under his theory of crypto, securities laws could be used to go after not just Pokemon collectors, but U.S. public sector unions, or pretty much anything that a future President doesn’t like.Subscribe to the Dark Markets newsletter at darkmarkets.xyzZero Knowledge Consulting: zeroknowledge.consultingFollow Austin on Twitter at @CampbellJAustinFollow David Z. Morris on Twitter at @davidzmorris The Dark Markets podcast is edited and with production assistance by Eleanor Pahl - @eleanorpahlMusic is by Altus Noumena. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidzmorris.substack.com/subscribe

Mike Dudas is founder of The Block, one of the top cryptocurrency news sites. He’s since launched 6th Man Ventures, a crypto-focused fund, and LinksDAO, a global distributed golf club working towards a decentralized structure.He joins David to discuss legislative attacks on crypto; the end of Bitcoin Maximalism; his harrowing brush with Sam Bankman-Fried; and why 2024 will be a big year for Solana.Mike’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mdudasThe Block: https://www.theblock.co/LinksDAO: https://linksdao.io/6th Man Ventures: https://6thman.ventures/ This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidzmorris.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes for Dark Markets, January 31, 2024:Read the original essay “Sins of the Mother” at Dark Markets: https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/sins-of-the-mother-how-the-8b-ftxSins of the Mother, Part 2: The Theory and Practice of Raising a Criminal: https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/the-theory-and-practice-of-raisingRead Barbara Fried’s 2013 Essay “Beyond Blame” in the Boston Review: https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/barbara-fried-beyond-blame-moral-responsibility-philosophy-law/Read more: “Rationalism vs. Empiricism” from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/Subscribe to the Dark Markets newsletter: Davidzmorris.substack.comFind more Music by Altus Noumena: https://soundcloud.com/altusnoumenaCopyright David Z. Morris and Altus Noumena, 2024 This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidzmorris.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, David interviews Tiffany Fong – an investor activist and independent journalist whose extended post-arrest interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried played a major role in unpacking what happened in the FTX collapse.Tiffany first entered the public eye in 2022 as a victim of the Celcius collapse and alleged fraud, becoming a conduit for leaks from the company. She then interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried for many hours while he was on house arrest in Palo Alto, helping uncover specific crimes – and more importantly, gaining insight into how Sam’s brain worked.We talk about her experience stumbling into journalism, what it was like watching Sam on trial, and why both Sam’s parents and Krissy Mashinsky hate her so damn much.Subscribe to the Dark Markets newsletter at davidzmorris.substack.com.Find Tiffany on Twitter at @tiffanyfong_, on YouTube and Instagram at @TiffanyFong, and on Twitch at @tiffanyfongtv. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidzmorris.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidzmorris.substack.com/subscribe