Not Your Crypto Podcast

Justin & Michael

This one is for the curious engineer that wants to learn about the how’s and why’s of blockchain. Join us every two weeks when we publish our discussions of foundational concepts in decentralised computing and the world of blockchains. Each episode will range in style from technical deep dives to half baked philosophical analysis of the tech. We’re not experts, just two random security engineers and the hope is that you learn as we learn and strive for a higher resolution mental model on why blockchains are a big deal. Ideas welcome at notyourcryptopodcast at gmail.com

  1. You know nothing, John Snow

    APR 11

    You know nothing, John Snow

    The jokes just write themselves with this one. In this episode, we bumble our way through an overview of Zero Knowledge Proofs, another entry in cryptography’s long line of mind benders. ZKPs come from one of the most consequential decades in history for nerds like us. Forget Classic Rock and the emergence of Hip Hop, the cryptographers were the ones really cooking from the mid 70s to the mid 80s, with incredible bangers like Public Key crypto, Diffie-Hellman key exchange, Cryptographic Hashing, and of course the beautiful Merkle Trees that gave us our blockchains. After that though, ZKPs were kinda shelved. But if there’s one thing crypto and Web3 have been good at, it’s inventing new abstract problems that need a nifty technical solution. So what are ZKPs, how do they work, and what do they unlock for the builders? We can’t promise you’ll come away from this episode knowing a lot, but hopefully it’s more than Zero. It’s worth a shot.

    1h 1m
  2. Balancing Act

    JAN 27

    Balancing Act

    Building on top of a gnarly bug in some dex math, an attacker constructs a flashswap strategy that leaves a crypto protocol’s liquidity pools drained of over a hundred million dollars. Wait wait wait, haven’t we seen this before? Don’t worry, this isn’t Cetus Part 4. Instead, we’re talking about the November 2025 hack of Balancer. You see, when Balancer was doing its math on your transaction, there was one small step that would always round a number down. A small thing maybe, but when you’re a galaxy brain hacker with all the tools of defi at your disposal, you’ll find a way to lever that up into millions of dollars. Let’s find out how.

    59 min
  3. It's getting chilly outside

    2025-12-17

    It's getting chilly outside

    We continue to be mostly uninterested in the ebbs and flows of the crypto market, but if we’re not yet in a winter, crypto has at least had a significant frost. That, combined with the looming end of year, inclines one to reflection. In this episode, we look back at the big product developments this cycle, and cast our exacting judgement - are we any closer to a decentralised internet? And does that still mean anything? Call us idealists, but that vision is one old acquaintance that shall not be forgot. For anyone who listened this year, thank you, and see you in 2026, when we’ll see if this winter of our discontent is made glorious summer. At the least, we’ve got some hacks queued up to yap about.

    1h 21m
  4. Governance comes at you fast

    2025-11-24

    Governance comes at you fast

    Our brains may have finally recovered from researching liquidity pool formulae for the Cetus episodes, so let’s pop another defi hack off the stack and see what we got. In April of 2022 (ancient history I know), an algorithmically backed stablecoin protocol called Beanstalk was drained to the tune of 181 million dollars. But that's not even close to the biggest number you’ll hear in this episode. What was the vulnerability? I’ll bet there was a juicy one in that smart contact. Well... not really? You see, the attacker flashloaned themselves 1 billion (!!!) dollars, then staked that in the beanstalk contract and minted a supermajority of the governance token supply. With that control they could immediately force through emergency proposals, including two of which they had prepped a day earlier to drain the funds. Bueller? Bueller?? Maybe don’t take that day off, cause governance comes at you fast.

    54 min
  5. Bringing Crypto to the Laundromat

    2025-10-25

    Bringing Crypto to the Laundromat

    When stuff gets hacked, there’s a lot of focus, rightfully, on the exploit. How did it happen? Which smart contract had a vulnerability? How’s it get fixed? The exploit, though, is just a small part of the story. By and large, attackers don’t want to degen with a massive bag of tokens. They want something more useful - no offense to the crypto heads. That means they need to cash out. But you can’t just roll up to a centralized exchange and click a few buttons. They’ll ask too many questions, and will freeze your funds before they give you the cash. So, what’s a hacker to do? In this episode, we return to the ByBit hack, still the largest on the books. The attacker wants to exchange and move their crypto in a way that’s difficult for observers to trace. That’s not a simple task on a public ledger. So what do they reach for? Let’s find out.

    55 min
  6. Are DAO's DOA?

    2025-09-20

    Are DAO's DOA?

    Betteridge’s law aside, DAOs have been around for nearly as long as you could code on the blockchain (which, I guess, hasn’t been that long). In fact one just called “The DAO”, and its associated hack, was one of the defining events of early crypto. DAOs are decentralized organizations that you participate in by voting with a governance token that you own and stake. But, this is crypto, and everything is an asset. That includes not just your token, but also your vote. So, what if you sold it? In this episode, we explore the consequences of the vote delegation market, where voting power in DAO governance is bought and sold. Board positions. Community fund disbursements. Protocol updates. All for sale - but what’s the price? A wise man once said show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome. It’s not always quite that simple, but crypto sure gets close.

    43 min
  7. Selfish Mining: All You Need is a Bit of Luck

    2025-09-06

    Selfish Mining: All You Need is a Bit of Luck

    51% attacks have always been an animating theme in blockchain security. Since the integrity guarantees come from distribution, how do they break when one player gets the majority of the hashrate? Well, that was the question facing the Monero community in August after an actor entered the game, rained hashpower from the sky, and (very) publicly pulled off a six block reorg of the chain. But immediately after the announcement of a successful 51% attack hit the TL, another narrative emerged, claiming the numbers didn’t add up. No one saw the hashrate pass 50% of the network. And, you see, reorgs can happen at significantly less than 50%. In this episode, we cover selfish mining, the events around Monero in mid August, and the unique approach to Proof-of-Work that let it all come together. Sometimes, all you need is a bit of luck.

    42 min
  8. I'll take that crypto back please

    2025-08-23

    I'll take that crypto back please

    So, just over 200 million dollars is gone from Cetus’ liquidity pools. Damn. Time to call the insurance broker and make a claim. Just play it cool on the phone. Right? Wrong, of course. In crypto, the exploit is just the first shot fired. The ambush that takes you off guard. Keep your head up, and you’ll find that the attacker still has a long road ahead of them to navigate their massive bag through the ecosystem and cash out. And that ecosystem, well, it isn’t inclined to make things easy. When every validator, and every stake holder is against you, every second counts to get your bag out before you get frozen, or worse. This is the story of an ecosystem coordinating to recover the funds it lost. But how does that happen? And what does it mean when, acting together, it can seize tokens from an address? We’re glad to be back and philosophizing. Just don’t ask us how liquidity pools work again.

    50 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

This one is for the curious engineer that wants to learn about the how’s and why’s of blockchain. Join us every two weeks when we publish our discussions of foundational concepts in decentralised computing and the world of blockchains. Each episode will range in style from technical deep dives to half baked philosophical analysis of the tech. We’re not experts, just two random security engineers and the hope is that you learn as we learn and strive for a higher resolution mental model on why blockchains are a big deal. Ideas welcome at notyourcryptopodcast at gmail.com

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