Why Phantom Is Launching Perps + Why Bit Digital Ditched BTC for ETH - Ep. 866

In the first half of this dual episode, Phantom co-founder Brandon Millman joins Unchained to break down why his Solana-first wallet is launching perpetual swaps, and why it chose to integrate with Hyperliquid over any Solana-native option.

Then, Bit Digital’s Sam Tabar explains why the public company ditched its profitable Bitcoin mining business, went all-in on ETH, and what happened when he told Michael Saylor.

FalconX

Sam Tabar, Chief Executive Officer of Bit Digital, Inc

Brandon Millman, CEO and co-founder of Phantom

Phantom

Unchained: Phantom Wallet Launches Direct Perpetual Trading With Hyperliquid

Phantom blog post: Introducing Phantom Perps

Dragonfly’s Austin Marrazza tweet

Bit Digital

The Block: Bit Digital swaps entire treasury into Ethereum, says it's now a top public ETH holder after a $173 million splurge

Treasury companies

Unchained: 

These 4 Crypto Treasury Companies Are Primed for a Price Crash

BitMine Crashes 39% After It Files to Raise $2 Billion for More ETH

Timestamps: Phantom

🎬 0:00 Intro

⚡ 1:36 Why Phantom is launching perps—and why now was the moment to do it

💥 6:08 How they landed on 40x leverage

💸 7:48 How Phantom plans to make money from its new trading product

🚫 8:50 Why U.S. users are left out (for now)

🔗 10:36 Why Hyperliquid won out over Solana-native DEXes

⚔️ 12:55 Whether wallets and dapps are headed for a showdown

🪪 17:22 Why Brandon believes wallets will be the new gateway to crypto

📱 18:45 How social features could redefine the wallet experience

🌅 22:45 What Brandon hopes Phantom becomes over the next five years

Timestamps: Bit Digital

💥 26:35 Why Bit Digital ditched Bitcoin for Ethereum—and how Gary Gensler played a role

💰 28:31 How they walked away from a profitable BTC mining business

🪙 32:58 Why Sam says there’s no better home for stablecoins than Ethereum

🗣️ 34:09 What came out of Sam’s surprising conversation with Michael Saylor about crypto treasuries

🤔 37:10 Whether ETH’s value accrual model needs a fundamental rethink

📈 42:21 How Bit Digital plans to ramp up its ETH accumulation

🧠 44:40 What their new AI venture is really aiming to do

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