The Fed dropped its easing bias and half the FOMC penciled in rate hikes. Zach Pandl on what Kevin Warsh's first meeting means for Bitcoin, gold, and Strategy.

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: https://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 https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED).

Kevin Warsh held rates steady at his first FOMC meeting but removed the committee's easing bias — and nine of eighteen participating members wrote down a rate hike for 2026, a bigger shift than markets expected.

Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale Investments and a former Goldman Sachs economist, joins Steven Ehrlich to discuss. Pandl argues that rising real rates are a constraint equity markets are not pricing correctly, and that AI euphoria makes the downside case, not blunts it.

The conversation covers the SpaceX IPO's low-float mechanics, why perpetual futures outperformed tokenized stocks around the IPO, Strategy's preferred equity cracking below $90, and why speculative flows explain gold and Bitcoin's recent turbulence better than fundamentals. Pandl closes with a buy-the-dip case for both stores of value and argues the DeFi revenue story, anchored in Hyperliquid and Aave, will define the second half of 2026.

Host:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Head of Research, SharpLink

Guest:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Zach Pandl - Head of Research at Grayscale Investments

Timestamps 🏛️ 02:32 The Warsh era begins: what the Fed just signaled without saying it 📈 14:39 Rising rates and irrational markets: where this breaks down 💹 16:47 The SpaceX IPO and a crypto déjà vu moment 🎓 22:56 Fidelity's message to crypto's next generation 🏆 25:55 Perpetual futures just proved something important about the SpaceX test ❄️ 27:27 Pandl just made the crypto winter official—here's why ⚠️ 31:30 The problem with Bitcoin as collateral (and no one's talking about it) 🥇 37:03 Gold and Bitcoin diverge: what the Iran conflict reveals 💰 40:01 The DeFi revenue shift nobody saw coming