# The Chopping Block: Wind Downs, YC's Nemil Dalal, & Will Every Failed Crypto Idea Eventually Work? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/unchained-5662698/the-chopping-block-wind-downs-yc-s-nemil-dalal-will-every-failed-crypto-idea-eventually-work Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/unchained-5662698/the-chopping-block-wind-downs-yc-s-nemil-dalal-will-every-failed-crypto-idea-eventually-work.md Podcast: [Unchained](https://stenobird.com/podcast/unchained-5662698) Published: 2026-07-29T12:30:00+00:00 Episode link: https://pdrl.fm/98e0b1/traffic.megaphone.fm/LSHML1745552827.mp3 Audio file: https://pdrl.fm/98e0b1/traffic.megaphone.fm/LSHML1745552827.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unchained-5662698/episodes/the-chopping-block-wind-downs-yc-s-nemil-dalal-will-every-failed-crypto-idea-eventually-work Duration seconds: 4028 ## Resource YC's Nemil Dalal joins to explain why he's never been more bullish as BitMEX winds down after 11 years, whether every failed crypto idea (TCRs, DAOs, creator coins) eventually works, why crypto is really about money, Base's consumer mea culpa, on-chain reputation and credit, and who pays in the x402 AI-agent era. Welcome to The Chopping Block ā€“ where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week they're joined by Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and ex-Coinbase, where he led USDC and the Coinbase Developer Platform. He's here to explain why, with exchanges winding down left and right, he's somehow never been more bullish. The crew digs into the great contrast of the moment: BitMEX shutting down after 11 years (plus BitMart, Movement Labs, Balancer Labs) while the plumbing quietly prints, and whether Imran's viral 'everything that failed will eventually work' thesis is genius or toxic positivity. From there it's the question of whether crypto is really only about money (Jesse's Base mea culpa included), a war-memories tour through TCRs, on-chain reputation and why pure on-chain credit keeps faceplanting, and finally who actually pays in the x402 AI-agent era, and whether decentralization even survives contact with Google-shaped gravity. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights šŸ”¹ BitMEX, the exchange that invented the perp swap, winds down September 23rd after 11 years, alongside BitMart, Movement Labs, and Balancer Labs. šŸ”¹ Nemil Dalal explains why he's never been more bullish: rivals adopted BitMEX's innovations, regulatory clarity is arriving, and crypto iā€¦ ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unchained-5662698/episodes/the-chopping-block-wind-downs-yc-s-nemil-dalal-will-every-failed-crypto-idea-eventually-work/transcription-requests` ā€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/unchained-5662698/the-chopping-block-wind-downs-yc-s-nemil-dalal-will-every-failed-crypto-idea-eventually-work.md` ā€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.