Hello and welcome back to the Chain Reaction podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious.
It’s been an action-packed week, to say the least.
We kicked off today’s episode with a spirited back-and-forth about Fidelity’s plans to bring bitcoin to 401(k)s and regulators’ fears about whether the move will open the floodgates for people to YOLO their retirement savings into a volatile asset class. Anita shared her hot take on why the news could actually be good for non-billionaires, which you can read more about on TechCrunch+.
In other news, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong threw some pointed shade at Apple for its crypto policies on the App Store earlier this week. His company’s stock reached an all-time low a few days later, so … interesting timing.
Obviously, we had to address the elephant in the room — Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy Twitter. Lucas wrote about Twitter’s place as a watering hole for the crypto community in a recent Chain Reaction newsletter, and on the pod, we discussed what a Musk-owned platform would mean for online interaction in web3. We also dove into what this news could mean for Bluesky, a group borne out of Twitter that’s working on building a decentralized social network protocol.
Our Guest: Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire
Shaun Maguire is an investor at Sequoia and, of course, a crypto Twitter personality. We chatted with him about Sequoia’s recent crypto moves, the possibility of a multichain future and whether we’ll ever reach true decentralization at a mass scale or will end up stuck in “Web 2.5” forever.
Having some crypto in your 401(k) is neither irrational nor exuberant
