Bankless

The Fed may no longer be a one-person institution, and markets are not ready for the consequences. Jim Bianco joins David Hoffman to unpack Kevin Warsh's emerging 12-voter Fed, the end of forward guidance, and the counterintuitive case that higher short-term rates could actually pull long-term yields lower. They also explore sticky inflation, why balance sheet reduction cannot happen overnight, how AI capex is reshaping the economy, why the AI bubble may look more like 1998 than 2000, and why Bitcoin needs more strong crypto rather than deeper dependence on Wall Street and Washington.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 A New Fed Takes Shape
4:34 Warsh's Good Family Fight
10:16 The End of Forward Guidance
17:07 Markets Learn to Price Ambiguity
22:29 Why Rate Cuts Raised Long-Term Yields
26:42 Inflation Changes the Vote
30:42 Rates or Balance Sheet?
35:00 The Case for Higher Rates
41:07 AI Capex and the Economy
49:17 Warsh's AI Deflation Bet
53:51 The Bubble Comes Later
1:02:00 Gold, Bitcoin, and Debasement
1:07:04 Strong Crypto vs Weak Crypto

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RESOURCES

Jim Bianco
https://x.com/biancoresearch

Jim’s podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhq-IKbzpDs&list=PLdyJxdkS1yBU

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

EtherFi is expanding from a crypto-native neobank into a broader financial account built around DeFi. Mike Silagadze joins David to break down the next version of the product, including tokenized stocks and metals, Aave V4-powered credit, yield-bearing balances, global fiat rails, and a much more normie-friendly experience.

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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 EtherFi’s Next Act
4:20 Stocks, Yield, and Credit
9:48 Building Beyond the Crypto Casino
16:05 Tokenized Assets and Aave V4
22:03 How EtherFi’s Lending Market Works
26:32 EtherFi Summer and What Comes Next
30:05 From Fiat Rails to Crypto Payments
37:05 ETHFI Buybacks, Privacy, and the Endgame

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RESOURCES

Mike Silagadze
https://x.com/MikeSilagadze

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
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Bitcoin’s latest fork died after just two blocks. Ryan and David unpack what the failure says about Bitcoin maximalism, why Saylor keeps selling BTC, Robinhood Chain’s breakout, and Fidelity’s push to bring staking yield to Wall Street.

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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

https://thedefireport.io/bankless

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

3:21 Bitcoin Markets: Inflation, Gold, Saylor & the Bottom

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2087525891911893362

https://capitalwars.substack.com/p/china-restarts-her-great-debasement

https://thedefireport.io/research/did-the-u-s-treasury-just-implement-a-qe-lite-policy

https://x.com/saylor/status/2086785552355860895

22:12 Bitcoin’s Failed Fork

https://x.com/ercwl/status/2086079471853985980

https://x.com/lopp/status/2086512275012075811

https://x.com/nic_carter/status/2086108921689682213

32:43 Robinhood Chain Takes #1

https://x.com/AvgJoesCrypto/status/2086889992035717166

https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/robinhood-chain-network-overview

https://x.com/vladtenev/status/2087407743028355336

40:46 FOMO vs Pump

https://x.com/stacy_muur/status/2087206916447670564

https://x.com/seyong/status/2087210357370577394

https://www.bankless.com/read/the-pump-vs-fomo-rivalry

https://fomo.family/

45:39 Clarity Act Faces Trouble

https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/2085543590583836678

https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-08-11-whats-next-for-clarity-act-september-brings-tough-road-ahead-411465

https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-08-11-sec-crypto-rules-token-safe-harbor-td-cowen-411455

https://polymarket.com/event/clarity-act-signed-into-law-in-2026

47:55 Fidelity Bets on Staked ETH

https://x.com/CoinDesk/status/2087475561316622745

53:00 Venice Revenue Keeps Climbing

https://x.com/AustinBarack/status/2087336389654270398

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

What if staking a token could keep an AI agent thinking? NEAR cofounder Illia Polosukhin joins David to explain NEAR’s new staking-powered inference model, where yield funds access to confidential and verifiable AI. They unpack how NEAR AI Cloud, IronClaw, Intents, and the NEAR token fit into one integrated economy for autonomous agents, why AI outputs may need cryptographic proof when money is at stake, and how GPU compute could become a liquid global market.

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📊BITGET | TOKENIZED STOCKS 2.0
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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Private, Verifiable AI
4:57 Why AI Outputs Need Proof
9:13 From Staking Yield to Inference
16:16 NEAR’s Integrated AI Stack
20:01 NEAR as AI Money
24:27 Autonomous Businesses
28:51 Partners and Real-World Uses
33:26 What NEAR Ships Next
38:01 Where AI Value Accrues
40:56 The AI Operating System
48:07 Turning Compute Into a Market
51:48 Closing Thoughts

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RESOURCES

Illia Polosukhin
https://x.com/j0hnwang

Near revenue
https://revenue.near.org/

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Ethereum’s latest staking proposal is sparking backlash across DeFi. Aave founder Stani Kulechov and EtherFi CEO Mike Silagadze join David to break down why stake tapering could push ETH yield toward zero, weaken solo staking, drive capital out of DeFi, and make ETH less attractive to institutions. They debate Ethereum’s monetary policy, whether the network is overpaying for security, and why trying to make ETH more like Bitcoin could undermine what makes Ethereum valuable in the first place. Subscribe for more conversations from the frontier of crypto.

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📊BITGET | TOKENIZED STOCKS 2.0

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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

https://thedefireport.io/bankless

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TIMESTAMPS

Intro 0:00 

0:09 Ethereum’s Staking Debate

2:41 Stani’s First Reaction

7:48 Mike’s Centralization Concerns

14:37 DeFi Under Pressure

17:15 Stani on Yield and Cash Flow

24:54 The Case for Vanilla Ether

27:20 Mike Pushes Back

34:27 Issuance and Monetary Policy

35:16 Minimum Viable Issuance

40:47 Institutions Need Predictability

46:10 Conservative Yield, Not Zero

47:46 Legitimacy and Process

52:54 Final Verdict on the EIP

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RESOURCES

Stani Kulechov

https://x.com/StaniKulechov

Mike Silagadze

https://x.com/MikeSilagadze

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures