Dark Markets

David Z. Morris

0.0 (0)
TECHNOLOGY
UPDATED TWICE WEEKLY

Bleeding-edge finance and technology analyst David Z. Morris, PhD (CoinDesk, Fortune) is your guide to the squirming underbelly of capitalism, where fraud is rampant, markets are irrational, money is imaginary, and the machines are even stupider than the rest of us. davidzmorris.substack.com

17/06/2024

Why Was Alameda Tether's Biggest Client? w/Crypto Critics Corner

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/podcast Dark 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

1h 14m
04/06/2024

Secret Network: From "Privacy Coins" to Confidential On-Chain Computing, w/ Secret Labs CEO Alex Zaidelson

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.com I 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 …

1 hr
16/05/2024

What is West Ham? w/ 0xKitsune

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.com I 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…

1h 7m
22/04/2024

Are Eigenlayer and Ethena Time Bombs ... or is it just Post-Terra Trauma? w/ Bloq CSO Zane Huffman

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.com In 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.html Zane 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.

59 min
14/04/2024

Could TikTok Be Banned? w/Dexter Thomas

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidzmorris.substack.com Dexter 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

1h 28m
02/04/2024

"Gangster Style Behavior": Austin Campbell on Gary Gensler's SEC

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.xyz Zero Knowledge Consulting: zeroknowledge.consulting Follow Austin on Twitter at @CampbellJAustin Follow David Z. Morris on Twitter at @davidzmorris The Dark Markets podcast is edited and with production assistance by Eleanor Pahl - @eleanorpahl Music 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

1h 8m
15/02/2024

Mike Dudas: Forward to Glory

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/mdudas The 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

1h 15m
31/01/2024

Dark Markets Episode 3: Sins of the Mother

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-ftx Sins of the Mother, Part 2: The Theory and Practice of Raising a Criminal: https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/the-theory-and-practice-of-raising Read 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/altusnoumena Copyright 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

45 min
15/01/2024

Tiffany Fong is a Better Journalist than Michael Lewis

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

59 min
31/12/2023

This FTX Victim is Still Fighting

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

1h 18m

10 Episodes

Bleeding-edge finance and technology analyst David Z. Morris, PhD (CoinDesk, Fortune) is your guide to the squirming underbelly of capitalism, where fraud is rampant, markets are irrational, money is imaginary, and the machines are even stupider than the rest of us. davidzmorris.substack.com

Creator

David Z. Morris
Years Active

2023 - 2024
Episodes

10
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© David Z. Morris
Show Website

Dark Markets