The Top Things Investors Need to Know Before Buying Crypto Tokens
Across Protocol wants to retire its token in exchange for equity. Is the DAO model structurally broken?
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With Across Protocol proposing to retire its ACX token in favor of equity, a long-simmering question in crypto governance is finally breaking into the open: do token holders actually have meaningful ownership, or just the illusion of it?
As the regulatory environment under the new U.S. administration shifts dramatically from the Gensler era, the structures that crypto teams were forced to build may now be working against the very communities they were meant to serve.
Ryan Yi, founder of Onchain Group, and Felipe Montealegre, co-founder and CIO of Theia, have studied these incentive structures closely, and what they have found is uncomfortable. From PumpFun's suppressed valuation to the perverse incentives baked into token buyouts, this conversation examines whether the DAO model was ever built to last, and what governance actually needs to look like if crypto is going to compete with global finance.
Guests:
Ryan Yi, Founder of Onchain Group
Felipe Montealegre, Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Theia
Links:
Read our Aave deep dive here
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Base Will Likely Have a Token: Why Now, Who Wins, and How Big It Gets - Ep. 904
Base just crossed its own Rubicon. After months of saying “no token,” Jesse Pollak now says Base must decentralize and is “exploring” a token. What changed?
On this episode, Proof of Play’s ICO Beast and former Coinbase Ventures investor Ryan Yi unpack why “exploring” is the operative word, how policy (the Clarity Act) could shape the rollout, and what a points-driven airdrop might look like.
We dig into governance realism (what Coinbase will and won’t give up), token utility and valuation math, and how a Base↔Solana bridge could ignite a fight for DeFi liquidity while Solana keeps winning Gen-Z consumers.
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Guests:
Ico Beast, Merchant of Narratives at Proof of Play
Ryan Yi, Ex Coinbase, Coinbase Ventures, and CoinFund
Links:
Unchained:
Base Starts to Explore a Native Token
LayerZero Fought the Sybils and Airdropped Its Token. Did the Team Win?
Why the War Over the USDH Ticker on Hyperliquid Is Bullish for Crypto
Timestamps:
🎬 0:00 Intro
😲 1:32 Why Ryan says this step feels right but is also “shocking”
🧐 3:21 Why Base announced it was exploring a token rather than just launching one
🛠️ 5:19 How Ryan views Base’s decision to stay committed to Ethereum
📊 7:43 What Ryan thinks a fair token allocation would look like
⚖️ 13:43 How the Clarity Act could shape a Base token rollout
🎁 16:23 Will Coinbase distribute through an ICO, an airdrop, or something else?
📈 23:32 Why ICO Beast has a different take on the right allocation
🛡️ 26:10 Why sybil filters will be critical for Base
💡 27:50 What the Base token’s utility could be—and how to value it
🌉 37:24 What the announced Base ↔ Solana bridge could mean
⚔️ 42:08 Whether Ethereum and Solana are heading for a DeFi liquidity war
🔥 45:25 How competition across crypto companies is heating up
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Coinbase and Robinhood Are Converging, but Who Wins the Onchain Fintech War? - Ep. 864
The race to bring users onchain is heating up, but the competitors couldn’t be more different.
Coinbase, a crypto-native giant with deep infrastructure and institutional partnerships, is going head-to-head with Robinhood, a retail-focused fintech now making aggressive moves into tokenized assets and blockchain rails.
Their visions overlap (tokenized stocks, perpetuals, custom chains) but the strategies, philosophies, and user bases differ sharply.
In this episode, Laura speaks with Diogenes Casares (Klyra Protocol) and Ryan Yi (ex-Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund) to unpack:
How these two companies will compete
What levers they have to increase their profits
How Base became a liquidity black hole for Ethereum
Why Coinbase may have already won the “flows” game
And how stablecoins, social, and tokenization could decide the winner
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Bitwise
Ledn
Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol and advisor at Patagon Management
Ryan Yi, ex Coinbase, Coinbase Ventures, and CoinFund
Unchained:
Hyperliquid Reignited Interest in Crypto Perps. Can Coinbase and Robinhood Capitalize?
Robinhood Is Building Its Own Layer 2 Blockchain
Why the Arbitrum Stack Won in the Race to Support Robinhood Chain
Why Perps Will 'Eat the World' + Tokenized Stocks - Bits + Bips
Timestamps:
🎬 0:00 Intro
🏦 4:17 What really separates Coinbase and Robinhood’s strategies
🛠️ 6:43 How Robinhood’s new chain should try to compete with Base
🔥 14:49 Why the competition between Robinhood and Coinbase is heating up fast in the U.S.
🤔 16:44 Whether Robinhood can catch up to Base’s head start and network effects
🧱 23:48 Why both companies chose to build on Ethereum—and what that signals
📉 36:04 How launching perps in the U.S. could reshape the landscape for both companies
🎮 44:43 How social features and gamification could give one app an edge
🎯 51:31 Why Robinhood is already working with prediction markets and Coinbase isn’t
💰 55:40 How their product differences impact profits and positioning
🤝 1:05:11 Why Ryan believes Coinbase should’ve acquired Circle
🔌 1:10:48 Why Stripe might be eyeing a crypto integration
📊 1:13:57 How Base benefits with small-cap tokens
🚀 1:18:46 Why Ryan says we’re at a real inflection point for crypto
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