Two Big Stories, One Episode

This week on Unchained: two big stories, one episode. First, Jesse Pollak, head of Coinbase's L2 Base, joins to unpack the chaos

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This week on Unchained: two big stories, one episode.

First, Jesse Pollak, head of Coinbase’s L2 network Base, joins to unpack the chaos behind the viral “Coined It” memecoin moment, a tweet-posted status that was turned into a token, hitting $17M in an hour, crashing, then rebounding. It triggered a firestorm on Crypto Twitter. Was it a media experiment or a botched launch? Was there insider trading? And why does Jesse think coins are the future of creator monetization?

Then, we dive into Converge, the recently announced chain backed by Ethena and Securitize, aiming to bridge TradFi and DeFi. Carlos Domingo and Guy Young explain what makes Converge technically novel, why they’re building on Arbitrum and Celestia, and how it could reshape the onchain landscape for institutions.

Also in this episode:

Thank you to our sponsors!

On Wednesday, Coinbase's layer 2 network Base posted a tweet that read: "Base is for everyone," followed by a tweet: "Coined it." That second tweet linked to a page where the post had already been turned into a coin.

Within an hour, the coin hit a $17 million market cap, then dropped to under $2 million, then went back up to over $13 million. Crypto Twitter exploded. Some called it a rug. Others accused insiders of sniping the launch. Coinbase later issued a statement saying that Zora auto-tokenizes content, but Base head Jesse Pollak said that he personally greenlit the post.

So what really happened?

In this episode, Jesse sits down with Unchained host Laura Shin to discuss:

Plus, he explains why he’s okay being the “punching bag.”

Guest

Jesse Pollak is the head of Base, Coinbase's layer 2 network. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jesserepollak.

A month ago, Converge was announced as the new chain backed by Ethena and Securitize, aiming to become a home for tokenized assets and institutional capital.

On Thursday, the teams behind it released the full technical specs. From validator-triggered circuit breakers to 100ms block times and support for yield-generating private credit, Converge is pitching itself as the chain for both TradFi and DeFi.

In this episode, Securitize's Carlos Domingo and Etena's Guy Young join Unchained to explain what's actually novel in this architecture, why they chose Arbitrum and Celestia, and what it will take for institutions to get comfortable onchain.

Plus:

Thank you to our sponsors!

Guest

Carlos Domingo is the founder and CEO of Securitize, a digital securities company. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @carlos_Domingo.

Guy Young is the CEO of Ethena, a blockchain startup. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @guyc_young.

Links