Diamond Rhino

Brady Dale

An explainer show where I talk through what's big, what's changing, what's interesting and what's bad, ever so bad, in the cryptocurrency universe. Every Sunday. www.frontstageexit.com

Episodes

  1. In court, Sam Bankman-Fried got more guilty by the day

    MAR 1

    In court, Sam Bankman-Fried got more guilty by the day

    A jury of his peers found Sam Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts in 2023. Then Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison. In case you’ve forgotten, he launched the crypto exchange that turned out to have a multibillion hole where it’s customer’s money should have been, late in 2022. In recent days, SBF has attempted to exonerate his image in the public and he has sucked up to President Trump on social media as he campaigns for a pardon. It would surprise me immensely if it worked, but his antics gave the journalists who were there to watch his trial a reason to have a reunion of sorts. We didn’t really reunite with each other. Several of them united just with me, over a video call, and all six of them I spoke to are now reunited in this podcast. We revisited the trial, what about it stood out and what we remembered and how convincing we found the prosecution’s case against him (we found it convincing). I’ve been following Sam since the first time I spoke to him amid DeFi summer in 2020. Then after his empire fell apart, I wrote a whole book about the guy. My book, SBF: How the FTX Bankruptcy Unwound Crypto’s Very Bad Good Guy, was the first to hit bookstore shelves. It isn’t the most famous, but it the only one that tells the full length of his story. The others that got attention really only cover about the last 15 minutes of his career, but mine goes back to the start of his days in the crypto trading game, right up through his arrival in U.S. prisons. None of the books so far include in the trial, but this account puts a bunch of perspectives on the trial together. The goal of this dispatch was to look back and talk about what, with time, has become the most memorable parts of the trial — the bits that remain the post compelling. (plus, it’s a fun look under the hood at the reporting process). Just in case time has caused your memories to fade a little, just in case you have started to wonder whether or not we might have been too quick to judge Bankman-Fried, I think this revisiting of his trial should lay any fermenting misgivings to rest. 🖤 To subscribe to Diamond Rhino in a pod player, click on any of these links: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Pocket Casts * Overcast Sources Interviews with: * Andre Breganski, Decrypt; * Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge; * Crystal Kim, now of Investopedia, then of Axios; * Aleks Gilbert, DL News; * Ben Weiss, then of Fortune, now of Fortune and * Katie Baker, The Ringer. Judging Sam: The Hail Mary That Wasn’t, Against the Rules, Nov. 1, 2023 Front Stage Exit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Notes Sam Bankman-Fried is waging a social media campaign for a pardon—but President Trump will not give him one, says the White House, Fortune, Feb 4. 2026 The Year That Cryptocurrency Somehow Didn’t Die, The Ringer, Dec. 19, 2023 Michael Lewis Is Still Defending Sam Bankman-Fried, Institutional Investor, Nov. 6, 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty in FTX fraud case, Axios, Nov 2, 2023 Judge Blocks ‘Going Infinite’ Excerpt as ‘Inadmissible Hearsay’ at Sam Bankman-Fried Trial, Decrypt, Oct 31, 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t recall, The Verge, Oct 30, 2023 The Crypto Whistleblower at the Center of the Sam Bankman-Fried Storm, Rolling Stone, Oct. 23, 2023 Crypto Influencers and ‘Degenerates’ Flock to Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial, New York Times, October, 20, 2023 Caroline Ellison Was Supposed to Shock the SBF Trial. Instead, the Defense Team Has, The Ringer, Oct 16, 2023 SBF trial: FTX lacked funds to meet customer deposits over a year before collapse, witness says,(that forensic accountant) Axios, Oct 18, 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried was a no-good, very bad ex, Axios, Oct. 12, 2023 FTX used random numbers to generate the size of its insurance fund, The Block, October 9, 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried can’t shut up, Fortune, Oct 23, 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried leans on ‘dumb defendant defence’ as he faces life in prison, Decrypt, Oct 5, 2023 SBF overflow rooms wildness, NY Mag, Oct. 2023 Music: “Data Breach” by FASSounds “Bitcoins going up” by SunoMusicShowYouTube From Pixabay Music Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    1h 23m

  2. FEB 22

    Bear market EthDenver, bull market regulators

    🤯 55% off subscription discount subscription offer * lasts forever! Wow! I was not at ETHDenver 2026. It’s the first one I have missed in several years. But I still have a report for you, because I went through a bunch of the talks posted on YouTube that dealt with the evolving regulatory backdrop for the cryptocurrency world. Regulation still seems like the key theme of the moment — to me. Plus, it’s also the most likely to serve as a catalyst for renewed enthusiasm about cryptocurrency. People were talking a ton about agents and ETH on stage this year, too, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that to make the market kick off. Coinbase getting a proper exchange license, at long last, though? That could be a thing. Authorization to raise money selling tokens? Tokens that send profits back to investors with no doubts about getting slapped with a lawsuit? Oh yes. That could be very real. So I continue to follow along with the agencies. Congress is not going to get this done. 🖤 To subscribe to Diamond Rhino in a pod player, click on any of these links: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Pocket Casts * Overcast 📼 Follow up on last week’s ep: Curious about how Bitcoin adapts when price tanks? Sources: All the sources this year came from videos posted on the EthDenver YouTube page. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in ConversationFeb 18, 2026 The Compliance Era: How Tax Regulation Is Reshaping Web3 | Patrick Camuso - Camuso CPAFeb 18, 2026 The Identity Layer: Compliance as Core Crypto Infrastructure | Derek Woods - PersonaFeb 19, 2026 Why TradFi Stablecoins Need DeFi Stablecoins | Gerrit Hall - Curve FinanceFeb 18, 2026 Ethereum: The Next Chapter | Alex Stokes - Ethereum FoundationFeb 19, 2026 Tokenization in 2026: What the Data Says | Dean Khan Dhillon - RWA.xyzFeb 19, 2026 From Boring to Billions: How RWAs Won Crypto, and What's NextFeb 18, 2026 Stablecoins as Infrastructure | Gerrit Hall, Jelena Djuric, DeFi Dave, and Katie TalatiFeb 18, 2026 RWAs: From Experiment to Exponential | Drake Breeding - Circle & Bhaji Illuminati - CentrifugeFeb 18, 2026 Why Policy Needs Cypherpunks | Samuel Jacques Cloutier - Hash DirectorsFeb 20, 2026 — Seriously watch this one 👇 Notes: The Future of Crypto Banking | Jeff John Roberts , Caitlin Long & Rok KoppFeb 18, 2026 Peanut Butter & Watermelon: Financial Privacy in the Digital AgeCommissioner Hester M. PeirceRemarks to the Science of Blockchain ConferenceU.C. BerkeleyAug. 4, 2025 Privacy in the House: Remarks at the Privacy and Financial Surveillance RoundtableCommissioner Hester M. PeirceWashington D.C.Dec. 15, 2025 Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and amended Common Reporting Standard: OECD releases IT format for transmitting information and issues interpretative guidanceOECDOctober 2, 2024 Front Stage Exit is a reader-supported publication. Stick around! Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    38 min

  3. FEB 15

    Economist Paul Krugman agrees: Bitcoin is for Exit

    Imagine my surprise when I started going through crypto crash commentary in mainstream media, news shows and podcasts and found that economist Paul Krugman is on my side on one key point. The commentator, who has always hated Bitcoin, concedes the one use case for Bitcoin that is — in my opinion — its most compelling: Its ability to evade capital controls. Bitcoin is for exit. You can hear him say so in the first couple minutes of today’s episode of Diamond Rhino. Wealth that needs to get out from under a government that’s not working for its owner can escape thanks to Bitcoin. It’s the most rarely used but most powerful use case. If Krugman can see it, does that mean he will come around? No. He’s committed to the bit. In fact, for some reason, after a decade-plus of talking about Bitcoin on the reg, the mainstream media is still treating the most recent massive drop in BTC price just like they have treated the past ones: Bitcoin is useless. We don’t see the purpose. It’s just a story. There’s no intrinsic value. It’s probably over this time. Why are reporters in the west so committed to this bit? Do they love being wrong? Weird flex, bro. In this week’s episode of Diamond Rhino, we go through some of the latest takes on the drop in Bitcoin price from the names you know: CNBC, the FT, The Information and so on. Did you hear any mainstream takes that I should have revisited? How fair do you think I was to these commentators? * Let me know in the comments or email me directly. Note: As ever, I edit clips, but mainly to cut down rambling and for efficiency. I don’t change the speakers’ points or clip to make it look like they said something they didn’t really say. If you disagree, let me know. The fulls segments I used are all linked below. To subscribe to Diamond Rhino in a pod player, click on any of these links: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Pocket Casts * Overcast 🤯 55% discount subscription offer * lasts forever, too! Wow! Keep this site going for cheap! Audio sources BitGo CEO Mike Belshe: The latest bitcoin downturn doesn't bother me too muchCNBC w/ host Morgan BrennanFeb 11, 2026 FT’s Jemima Kelly: Bitcoin’s value is zero and the scarcity argument is pretendPowerLunchJemima Kelly with Kelly EvansFeb 10, 2026 Behind the volatility in crypto: Bitcoin hovering around $69,000, ethereum near $2,000MacKenzie Sigalos speaks with Andrew Ross SorkinCNBCFeb 10, 2026 Bitcoin's Bumpy Ride Continues Trading Around $70,000Isabelle LeeBloombergFeb 9, 2026 Bitcoin Slump Raises Questions About Crypto's PurposeBloombergEd Ludlow talking with Jalak JobanputraFeb 9, 2026 Why the Crypto Story is DyingYueqi YangThe Information. Host Akash Pasricha.Feb. 6, 2025 Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman Calls Bitcoin 'Total Bust'Paul KrugmanHosts: Carol Massar and Tim StenovecBloomberg Businessweek Daily.Feb 5, 2026 Be my BFF? Other sources Is This Crypto’s Fimbulwinter?, by Paul Krugman Bitcoin is still about $70,000 too high, by Jemima Kelly, FT The schtick is in, Front Stage Exit Coming Attractions From the Division of Corporation FinanceJames Moloney, Director, Division of Corporation Finance, SECFeb. 13, 2026 Bitcoin: Addresses with Balance > 1 BTC Russia’s Sberbank plans crypto-backed loans to corporate clients Are we the baddies? — Know Your Meme Bitcoin Hashrate Falls 12% After US Winter Storms Hit Miners Bitcoin: Percent Addresses in Profit Bitcoin Difficulty Chart Bitcoin Hashprice Index Thanks for reading Front Stage Exit! This post is public so feel free to share it. Music in the episode: “Data Breach” by FASSounds “Bitcoins going up” by SunoMusicShowYouTube All from Pixabay Music Thanks for listening! Let me know what you think! Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    42 min

  4. FEB 8

    Quantum Money, the apotheosis of cypherpunk

    This podcast covers a new twist on the intersection of cryptocurrency and quantum computing. It’s got a wow factor. If you think the quantum threat to Bitcoin is controversial, wait until you see what can be uncovered when you start to look into quantum applications. There’s an idea that’s been floating around out there since 25 years before Satoshi dreamed up Bitcoin: Quantum Money. We say BTC works like cash, but that’s not really true. If I hand you a dollar, no one has to witness that. The dollar in your pocket is the proof that you have it. The location of the dollar is the ledger. No one needs to witness a cash transaction. Bitcoin itself witnesses bitcoin transactions. We don’t mind. We like Bitcoin. It’s neutral. But there are trade-offs there. For example, Chainalysis and Elliptic are always watching. They can probably figure out who we are. What if there were an electronic money that didn’t need witnesses? That’s the promise of quantum money. Quantum money allows the creation of objects, like physical coins, that can work over the internet. In fact, it may even be better than the internet? We may not even need wires. This stuff all gets super weird. It’s like peering through Alice’s looking-glass. All of this is completely theoretical. It’s a long way off. But it’s cool enough that maybe, just maybe, it allows a crypto stan to look at the future with less dread. To maybe even look ahead and feel a little dazzled. Were you dazzled? It would be great to hear your thoughts. Front Stage Exit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. To subscribe to Diamond Rhino on mobile, click on any of these links: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Pocket Casts * Overcast Sources The Future is Quantum by Fabrizio Romano Genovese (NeverLocal/QSig/20Squares)Dec 19, 2024Fabrizio Romano Genovese QuantumPunks Meetup Quantum Crypto Acceleration Dec 19, 2024Nicola GregoQuantumPunks Meetup Quantum Punks with Alex and NicolaMay 7 2025Alex Obadia and Nicola GrecoZK Podcast Quantum Cryptography Part 2 Nov. 1, 2023Or SattahZK Podcast Other materials The Quantum Punks Manifesto Quantum Punks Meetups The Quantum Bitcoin Summit Bitcoin and the Quantum Problem – Part II: The Quantum Supremacy, Murmurations II by Nic Carter Bitcoin developers are mostly not concerned about quantum risk, Murmurations II by Nic Carter Restack this baby Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    42 min
  5. As Frontier Tower grows, Network States take root in San Francisco

    FEB 1

    As Frontier Tower grows, Network States take root in San Francisco

    Announcement: I turned on monetization today. It would still be great if readers wanted to support the newsletter. For the first 44 days this is monetized, I’m offering a huge discount: 55% off, forever. Sign up now and it will be $2.25/month or $24.75/year for as long as you want to support this. Today’s show is about a new outpost of crypto culture in San Francisco, where the idea of “Network States” has taken up permanent residence. Some entrepreneurs from Germany have purchased a 16-storey building and they are turning it into their first outpost of a nation of frontier nomads they hope to expand all over the world, ultimately enlisting 13 million citizens. It’s called Frontier Tower. It’s not even a year old, but it’s going strong. Have you heard about the robot fight clubs? Have you heard about Chinese peptide raves? Those were at Frontier Tower. And this thing wants to go over all the world. This is a story where crypto wealth meets urban downtowns in transition and the continued push and pull of visionary tech types and normie neighbors. For me, this caught my attention because I started as a journalist covering innovation in cities. So obviously a startup experimenting in reviving the way urban areas work is going to grab me. And the whole vibe is extremely crypto. So tune in for another exploration of crypto culture, and let me know what you think. To subscribe to Diamond Rhino on mobile, click on any of these links: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Pocket Casts * Overcast Show notes Sources: Ep 62.Dr. PeptidesNET societyJan 19, 2025 Jakob Drzazga of Frontier Tower on Network & City StatesJames of ÂrcJan 9, 2026 Lit 6 - Christian Nagel - Building the Future : The Frontier Tower Visionwith Christian NagelJan 7, 2026 Talk: The Story of Frontier TowerKatia YakovlevaSafetyWingDec 19, 2025 Laurence IonKGRAdbTranshumanist Enlightenment SalonDec 3, 2025 Edge City — What is Frontier TowerKatia YakovlevaNov 13, 2025 Inside Balaji’s Network State Vision | E2145This Week in StartupsJune 30, 2025 Who kills subcultures?OK Banger, Christin Chong and Cameron Armstrong, hostsMay 27, 2025 Silicon Valley’s Plan to Dismantle DemocracyTaylor LorenzMay 30, 2024 Other references: Frontier Tower * On YouTube ‘Market Street is coming back to life’: The tech utopia trying to revitalize Mid-MarketSF StandardMay 15, 2025 Broken $100M dream city haven for utopiansBloomberg San Francisco ChronicleMay 18, 2025 The Tech Baron Seeking to Purge San Francisco of “Blues”April 26, 2024 I Can Tolerate Anything Except The OutgroupSept 30, 2014 ‘Peak SF’ on a Friday Night Is a Robot FightNew York Times2025 Chinese peptides raveJan 3, 2026 Chairman Birb. Geeks, mops and sociopaths.Meaningness Sarah Friend on utopias Other useful material: The Tale of One Tower: SF-Based Vertical Longevity VillageLifespanJuly 29, 2025 How Cities Build Vibrant Tech ScenesNextCitySept 10, 2014 VitaDao Rumors in the towerYouTube Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    53 min

  6. JAN 25

    Crypto will touch grass in 2026 thanks to real world assets

    Real world assets aren’t just a narrative. They are a phase change for the cryptocurrency industry. The new episode of Diamond Rhino breaks all that down. In detail. With charm. But before we get to that… First! If you like the podcast so far, it would be great if you subscribed via one of your favorite mobile pod players. Here’s some helpful links for you to find the show wherever you tend to listen: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Pocket Casts * Overcast * And theoretically any other podcast player as well… Thank you! So. The fate of the crypto markets will no longer be hermetically sealed against the real economy, inside the balances in Coinbase and Kraken accounts or inside Metamask wallets. No, in the real world asset future, on-chain will meet Main Street at scale. The way this has been discussed so far, to me, has sounded like real world assets would just be the new corner of crypto. As if there’s memecoins and NFTs and Bitcoin and now we’ve got real world assets, too. That’s not right. Once real world assets reach adequate scale, the liquidity, the volume growth, the blockchain-to-reality connection, it’s going to reach every corner of this whole market. To research this episode I went through a slew of discussions of real-world assets and it only gave me greater conviction that crypto has not had a real cycle yet. The true cycle will kick in once the real world asset flywheel really begins spinning. Sure this is all bullish, but I see something else, to. There’s a thesis at the end that I’ve been kicking around a while but haven’t talked about too much yet. So come for the breakdown. Stay for the lowdown. Show notes: Unlocking Trillions of Dollars with RWAs (Real World Assets)The DefiantLucas Vogelsang, CentrifugeOctober 16, 2023 Tokenizing Real World Assets — with Robert Leshner of SuperstateBanklessMarch 12, 2024 Unlocking Trillions: Sergey Nazarov On Tokenizing Real World Assets & The White House Crypto Summit Wolf of All StreetsMarch 16, 2025 Are Tokenized Stocks Real?BanklessGabriel Otte, founder of DinariJuly 14, 2025 The State Of DeFi Lending With Mary GooneratneLightspeedMary Gooneratne, LoopscaleAug 19, 2025 The Future of Finance is Tokenized: Ondo’s Vision for RWAsThe DefiantIan De Bode, Chief Strategy Officer at Ondo FinanceSept 2, 2025 State of Crypto 2025: The Latest Data, Trends, and Themes Revealeda16z CryptoOctober 22, 2025 Most Tokenization Projects Fail. Here’s Why One SucceededUnchained — Bits & BipsFigure CEO Mike CagneyDec 20, 2025 Real-World Asset Summit Brooklyn 2025: The Path to $1T OnchainReal World Asset SummitVivek Raman, EtherealizeSep 30, 2025 Real World Asset Summit. Debate 2025 Jenn Senhaji, Chronicle.Sept 18, 2025 Mary Gooneratne, Co-Founder of Loopscale, on 11AM w/ Seed Club11AM Seed ClubMary Gooneratne, LoopscaleSept 12, 2025 Talking Tokenization: Tokenizing the Future of Credit MarketsTalking TokensMary Gooneratne, LoopscaleJan 8, 2026 Other useful materials: Figure Goes Public As HELOC Growth, Marketplace Vision Take Center StageNational Mortgage ProfessionalSept. 12, 2025 Figure’s flash crash sends $13bn worth of blockchain loans flyingDL NewsOct. 27, 2025 Ondo and Pantera Capital earmark $250 million for real-world asset tokenizationAxiosJuly 3, 2025 BlackRock tokenized fund overtakes Franklin TempletonAxiosMay 1, 2024 Centrifuge turns real world assets into loansAxiosSept 23, 2022 Planet Money: We Bought a Toxic AssetNPR2010-2011 And if you’re dying for more, today’s episode is a natural follow up to this one: Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    56 min

  7. JAN 18

    How Bitcoin exit-pilled Joe Rogan, podcasting's everyman

    It seems like the first time Joe Rogan, the mega-podcaster, ever heard about Bitcoin was caught on the mic in a very early episode. That clip can now only be found as a clip other people have posted online, because that old episode, #110, is no longer available from Rogan himself. But it gets shared around often enough. In this podcast episode, I take us through some of the key conversations on the Joe Rogan Experience where he talks about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. By my read (and you can feel free to debate me on this point), what seems to grab Rogan about the original cryptocurrency is more its allegiance to core values than its remunerative potential or the business use cases that appeal to startup founders. Many have said that what will really make this technology appealing for people is better UX, better speed and/or more functionality. Rogan’s story looks different, though, as I go through in the episode. Let me know if you’re convinced. There are clips in here from 2011, 2014, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024. If you put them all together, Rogan goes from: hmm? To, ah-ha!. To, hey… To, oh damn. What he never becomes is a true believer or a hardened critic. He’s just intrigued (and a bit worried). Show notes: Here’s links to all the shows I pulled clips from for this episode, plus some other additional material that I consulted. Joe Rogan Experience #110. The video isn’t watchable any longer. I got the clip from this tweet, and it has some lame background music on it. JRE #446, 2014. The first with Andreas Antonopoulos. JRE #490, 2014. The second with Antonopoulos. JRE #1236, 2019. With Jack Dorsey, when he was still CEO of Twitter (and of Square, which is what’s relevant here) JRE MMA #124, 2022. With Khalil Rountree, MMA fighter. JRE #1921, 2023. Peter Zeihan, geopolitical analyist and author. JRE #2044, 2023. Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO and Worldcoin co-founder. JRE #2234, 2024. Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a16z, web pioneer. Like Rogan: bald. Legendary Twitter thread starts here: Other materials that were useful: How crypto converted Joe Rogan, Daily Coin, April 2025 Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank. 1959 novel. JRE #844. A 3rd with Andreas. Didn’t use it in this episode, though. Jack Dorsey, Marc Andreessen and the Makings of a Crypto Holy War, The Information, 2022 Market Realist, 2022 Central Bank Digital Currency tracker, Atlantic Council On debanking: Court warns FDIC of sanctions over crypto documents (Axios) Crypto firm’s debanking story (Axios) Recommended reading: The Right to Transact, by Zelinar Xy A note on the clips: Some of the clips are clipped within the clip or clipped together, for length, clarity or an excess of explanation. If anyone thinks I warped anything, hit me up. Mostly the clips are just as they appeared, though. Music in the episode: “Data Breach” by FASSounds “Bitcoins going up” by SunoMusicShowYouTube All from Pixabay Music Thanks for listening! Let me know what you think! Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    51 min

  8. JAN 11

    Worldcoin to pit proof-of-humanity against pig-butchers of the lonelyhearted

    Worldcoin has had many lives since it revealed itself in 2021. When we all first heard about it, it was a plan to deliver a crypto basic income to everyone on earth, as fears mounted about what artificial intelligence would do to employment. Then the crypto and biometrics startup started talking more about dealing with deepfakes. Then it became more about ensuring you’re interacting with a real person. But that’s not what 90% of the mental energy that’s been invested in Worldcoin has honestly been about. It’s mostly been about the eyeball scanning. Is the biometric-based campaign good or bad? Is the company’s orb freaky or not? I have always been ambivalent about Worldcoin, but I’ve also secretly suspected I was being a little unreasonable about it, reacting more to its optics than to its fundamentals. So, this episode is my attempt to take an honest look at the project, something I’ve never really done previously. Right now, it seems like the top priority is to just get more people registered for WorldID’s (that is, to get their eyeballs scanned and get them on the network). As you’ll here in the episode, Sam Altman, one of the co-founders, likes to make bets on getting to very large scale. To that end, the company strategists have identified three verticals for growth: Gaming, social and dating. All these verticals are very popular online and all of them have a problem with either bots or people pretending to be someone that they are not. Honestly, the one of these that seems the most compelling to me is online dating. Friends, I’m gonna be honest: I have nothing to say about whether or not you die alone. That’s on you. But I do care about whether or not you get your wallet emptied while looking for someone to spend a little time with. That seems like a problem we should be able to solve as a society. Romance scams cost Americans something like $1.1 billion every year. Pig-butchering has been one of the most vile trends of the last several years. Could WorldID’s eyeball scans throw up a lot of friction for romance scam rings? Probably. It bums me out that widows and perma-singles are getting taken advantage of this way, and it’s nice to see an effort to deploy cryptography to combat it. It opened my mind somewhat to shoving one’s face into one of these orbs. Have I done it yet, though? No. But still. * Unc might need to. And yes, yes, I know that the company doesn’t go by “Worldcoin” any longer. It’s technically just “World,” (operated by the company, Tools for Humanity). That rebranding is right up there with the WeWork switch to “We.” (Do y’all really want to emulate Adam Neumann?) So, have a listen to this latest dispatch of Diamond Rhino. I go through much more than the romance use case, to be fair. What I don’t do is obsessively dwell on the orb. That facet has gotten tons of attention. What you might find encouraging, though, is the way World’s info security guy talks about using cryptography. So come for love, but stick around for discretionary disclosure. Also, if you haven’t gotten enough Brady Dale in your ears and eyes, lately, here are a couple shows I appeared on in recent days. Kate Irwin had me on her new Veda Labs podcast to talk about the year in crypto we are heading into: And the Blockspace Media guys (all CoinDesk alums, like me) had me on to talk about the state of Crypto Media, following upon the Twitter thread I put out a few weeks ago. In my opinion, the most fun part is when all three of us throw shade on the New York Times consistently embarrassing crypto coverage. In fact speaking of the Times: So that’s it for recent appearances. For the sources I consulted for this Worldcoin episode, see below: (aka, show notes) Experience Real Connections with World ID and Match Group Digital identity - weighing the risks of misuse and missed use | Dakota Gruener | TEDxMarrakeshJuly 3, 2019 Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #367Mar 25, 2023 * Here’s what a Sam Altman-backed basic income experiment found (CBS News) At Last ft. Alex Blania and Sam AltmanWorldMay 1, 2025 A New World ft. Alex Blania and Sam AltmanWorldOct 18, 2024 * Introducing AMPC: Another leap in privacy and performance for World ID, Sept 4, 2025 Worldcoin: Most Dystopian Crypto? CoinBureauAug 3, 2023 The Real Reason World Scans Your EyeballsBeInCryptoDec 24, 2025 Reclaiming the panopticon, X essay Why Proof of Humanity Matters in an AI Future Alex BlaniaEmpire PodcastMay 16, 2023 Transforming Government: Digital Identity in IndiaWorld BankJan 13, 2016 Inside India’s Aadhar: The World’s Largest Biometric System ExplainedByteMonkJan 25, 2025 You Can Pre-Order This $15,000 Crypto-Powered Beer Vending MachineCoinDeskSept. 13, 2021 The History and Philosophy of CypherpunkHarry HalpinNov. 12, 2024 World Dune Dashboard I covered a World app, Divine Research, in this story: Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How World recruited its first half a million test usersMIT Tech ReviewApril 6, 2022 Sam Altman’s eye-scanning Worldcoin banned in SpainReutersMarch 6, 2024 Sam Altman’s World pauses operations in Germany as company overhauls iris-scanning stationsDL NewsJuly 10, 2025 All Hail The Orb: Worldcoin - Episode 123Crypto Critics CornerAug 2, 2023Pondering the Orb with Molly WhiteTech Won’t Save Us podAug 17, 2023 Worldcoin Is Older Than Ethereum —Just Not the Eyeball-Scanning OneThe DefiantOctober 26, 2021 Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    52 min

  9. JAN 4

    How to see the sky with Bitcoin

    This is going to be a weird episode of this very new podcast. But if you’ve gone down the rabbit hole of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, then you have tasted the fruit of reasoning from uncertainty. However, cryptocurrency’s epistemic terrain has gotten to be much too easy travel. So come with me to give that conceptual flexibility you learned from embracing decentralized networks a workout by exploring another kind of conceptual terrain: embracing communion with interstellar intelligences. Hopefully, I can convince you that doing so will chart a path to a better world, for everyone, right here, right now. In 2021, George Mason University professor Robin Hanson published a paper, “If Loud Aliens Explain Human Earliness, Quiet Aliens Are Also Rare.” Since then, he’s been making the argument that we can — based on what little we know about the universe so far — make a model that estimates the population of interstellar colonizers across all time and space. As we’ll see in the episode, that doesn’t mean it enables the estimation of all interstellar life. That doesn’t matter though. What matters is that his model and the discussions around it make conceptualizing life, the universe and everything considerably more tractable. At least it did for me. The journey here is about concepts. The key concepts in discussing how to think about interstellar life. That’s the power of what Hanson opened up here. Most discussions you see of UFOs will try to show you evidence that we’ve been visited. I’ve looked at basically all the evidence in the public domain, and I find much of it compelling. But you know what’s really compelling? Thinking it all through. So that’s what I’m going to try to do here. This isn’t about the very sketchy and impossible to reproduce facts. This is about the ideas they have led us to. I very much have a point of view, but I also think this episode should help any open-minded person to refine their own, as well. This episode draws on a lot of material besides Hanson’s paper. Not that many of the clips in this episode were edited for clarity (often to cut out some jargon-filled asides that weren’t really additive to the point in the episode). For more on the sources of many of the clips or topics I discuss in the episode, see below: Grabby Aliens — website devoted to the topic. How Far To Grabby Aliens? Part 1 It’s time to take UFOs seriously. Seriously. (Vox)(paywalled, but you can find it on the Wayback Machine) Three Body Problem Trilogy: Simply Brilliant Astounding modern classic Sci-fi book series “The Apologists,” Tade Thompson (Clarkesworld) See the videos cited in this episode on the blog post for this episode on FrontStageExit.com. Music in the episode: “Data Breach” by FASSounds “Bitcoins going up” by SunoMusicShowYouTube All from Pixabay Music Thanks for listening! Let me know what you think! Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    1h 33m
  10. The Aave dispute, the glory of a DAO, and the discomforts of DeFi growing up

    12/21/2025

    The Aave dispute, the glory of a DAO, and the discomforts of DeFi growing up

    Show notes https://epicenter.tv/episode/337-aave-unlocking-access-to-capital-with-flash-loans?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://youtu.be/jXPncidkzvw?si=jmLctp8z7AF8xvuC https://www.youtube.com/live/eFjimvV_HWI?si=HyJ6zmw09ZDnIz6C https://youtu.be/M-O11MPtEgg?si=hJY00iSAVHRFx0vH https://youtu.be/ma0ws1n1Ags https://youtu.be/04FeBtV_m3s https://www.youtube.com/live/RUCAgrTkfps?si=Ihapgypd770vtk9Y Aave.com DefiLlama EthLend ICO Compound launch on Techcrunch Andre Cronje: DeFi Expressionist Compound COMP bug Chart by @sonyasunkim Bunni story Balancer flash loan stoy DL News Morpho story Lens starts getting talked about Confirmed in February @jessyfries Uniswap v3 description DL News story on the Aave front end stuff Stani K on X: How Aave will win Aave Changelog Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    1h 14m

  11. 12/14/2025

    XRP's consensus model truly blows my mind

    Steelmanning XRP on Diamond Rhino with Brady Dale http://www.frontstageexit.com/ Welcome to the first episode of Diamond Rhino, which should come out every Sunday. Let me know if I got anything horribly wrong, and please bear with me as I get my workflow down. I learned a lot doing this episode. Next one should go better. Sound clips came from these videos: XRPL Foundation - Consensus https://youtu.be/k6VqEkqRTmk XRPL Foundation - Nodes and validators https://youtu.be/JjaVDXPqnbA XRPL Foundation - Tokenization https://youtu.be/Oj4cWOiWf4A David Schwartz Stanford Blockchain Conference 2020 https://youtu.be/W15S28tmo5o Brad Garlinghouse on the Future Of Ripple, XRP, & Crypto | Live From Ripple Swell 2025 https://youtu.be/z5HP7xNbANc https://open.spotify.com/episode/5cnb0S3e2hvFdk0Urd14Je News and other text media referred to in this episode: Archive link to the funding announcement in WSJ https://archive.ph/C7h9a The race to replace Bitcoin — Observer https://observer.com/2015/02/the-race-to-replace-bitcoin/ When Howey Met Gary https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/speech-hinman-061418 Coverage of the Hinman Speech https://www.axios.com/2023/06/13/sec-officials-expressed-concern-about-digital-assets-policy-messaging-in-2018 https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/06/13/hinman-emails-reveal-2018-speech-on-ether-drew-input-from-multiple-sec-officials XRP Scan - Unique Node List https://xrpscan.com/validators University research post https://cryptoslate.com/ripple-grants-2-million-university-kansas-funds-29-universities-blockchain-crypto-research User notes the UNL isn't editable at the node level https://www.fastbull.com/news-detail/ripple-cto-drops-major-xrp-unl-clarification-details-news_6300_0_2025_4_5977_3 EOS worst fears https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2019/09/19/everyones-worst-fears-about-eos-are-proving-true Ripple report on all its acquisitions this year https://ripple.com/insights/building-the-one-stop-shop-for-digital-asset-infrastructure/ Some additional critique of Ripple Consensus https://cryptobern.github.io/noconsensusripple/ Music in the episode: "Data Breach" by FASSounds https://pixabay.com/music/electro-data-breach-112775/ "Ever Flowing" by ItsWatr https://pixabay.com/music/future-bass-ever-flowing-12277/ "Bitcoins going up" by SunoMusicShowYouTube https://pixabay.com/music/american-roots-rock-bitcoins-going-upsuno-music-show-youtube-194491/ All from Pixabay Music Thanks for listening! Let me know what you think! Get full access to Front Stage Exit at www.frontstageexit.com/subscribe

    1 hr
  • 11 Episodes

About

An explainer show where I talk through what's big, what's changing, what's interesting and what's bad, ever so bad, in the cryptocurrency universe. Every Sunday. www.frontstageexit.com

Information

  • Creator
    Brady Dale
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Brady Dale
  • Show Website
    Diamond Rhino