Ari Redbord @ARedbord

Can the US hack the hackers? 🛡️ @giancarloMKTS pitched crypto privateering at the White House. He and @ARedbord tell @laurashin why the memo that followed targets cartels and scam compounds, not North Korea. unchainedcrypto.com/why-americas-n…

AI Makes Hacking Easy. But Private Hackers Can Now Strike Back at Cybercriminals "This is not a law enforcement threat or even a national security threat. This is civilization level." 🧠 That's how @ARedbord described AI-run ransomware when I asked him to size up this year. He and @GiancarloMKTS made the case for hitting back as fast as the attackers move. Timestamps: 🎬 00:00 Intro 📋 01:01 Unchained Survey: take the listener survey for a free month of Premium at unchainedcrypto.com/survey 🎙️ 02:02 Find Bits + Bips’ new channels and subscribe at youtube.com/@Bitsandbips 🚨 02:40 Why Redbord says AI-run ransomware is now a civilization-level threat 📜 05:29 Letters of marque: how Giancarlo and Perkins proposed reviving them 💰 10:24 Nexo: Generate daily interest on your crypto or borrow funds against your assets at unchainedcrypto.com/go/nexo-podcas… 🏛️ 11:14 How crypto privateering went from an op-ed to a White House memo 🛑 16:50 Why the memo bars privateers from going after Lazarus Group 🕸️ 23:04 What hacking back looks like: scam compound infrastructure and clawbacks 🔓 35:24 PHP bugs and weak eMudhra keys: privateering as risks multiply 🇰🇵 42:14 North Korea: why the government, not privateers, pulls the trigger 🎭 48:59 How companies can catch North Korean IT workers using deepfakes

Russian courts escalated Hydra-linked cases in 2026. No operating market has been shut down. Russian-language darknet markets took about 95% of volume through September (excludes Monero). Read the full TRM analysis: trmlink.info/4zgtcHE

It’s out today! The New Adventures of CryptoDad. Assisted by my son @luke Giancarlo. Already an Amazon top ten book in banking and finance. I know readers will love it. Shop your favorite local book store, Amazon or B&N: barnesandnoble.com/w/the-new-adve…

TRM recently announced Ardence, an AI investigation platform. On TRM Talks, Simon Warren and Lexie Nappi tell @ARedbord how investigators can dial oversight up or down on each case, depending on how much judgment they want to hand to the AI. Lexie's team grades the AI's reasoning against the standard US intelligence analysts follow. Watch ▶ trmlink.info/3VYbKZC

We are thrilled to announce our $8M Series A to connect regulated markets to onchain finance. Predicate enables digital assets to reach every market compliantly. We do this by embedding compliance controls directly into digital assets to block high-risk and sanctioned activity at every transaction. To date, Predicate has: - Screened $1B+ in transaction volume - Evaluated 6M+ transactions against custom compliance policies - Blocked 100K+ non-compliant transactions The round was led by @bcap with participation from @Paxos, @1kxnetwork and @tribecap.

"Yes, I think it's very possible," @giancarloMKTS on whether the US government has already covertly started privateering attacks x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

"In August of this year, the White House actually began a process of enabling ... private sector actors to take up the cudgel ... Now with these more recent hacking, I think that we are going to see further action," @giancarloMKTS on the Trump admin's push to allow privateering to fight cyber attacks. x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

AI could scale 7,500 ransomware attacks to 7 million. TRM Labs' Ari Redbord says cyberattacks that run without humans are now a civilizational threat to critical infrastructure "It's an extraordinary moment really in human history. We are seeing bad actors supercharge their operations with technology." "Over the last decade or so, we've seen North Korea steal billions and billions from the crypto ecosystem. But I think this moment is different, and it's really because of AI." "TRM, in a report last year, said we saw about 7,500 ransomware attacks in 2025. But that was a world where ransomware attacks were human in the loop. In 2026, we've seen end-to-end, human-out-of-the-loop ransomware attacks." "It's not an individual who is required to carry out that attack now. It's a machine, and they're moving at machine speed. That 7,500 attacks could be 75,000 attacks or 7 million attacks." "Hospital systems are the largest target for ransomware and cyberattacks." "This is not a law enforcement threat or even a national security threat. This is civilization level."

Laura Shin @laurashin

a day ago

Is the AI Debt Boom Hitting a Wall? x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

2 1 7 15K 0

Former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo on the White House's hack-back restrictions: the US isn't disarming, just deciding who pulls the trigger "We have it. The question is just who pulls the trigger." "If we wanna go after North Korea, the private sector actors just hand the gun over to a government agency, Department of Defense, others, and they can pull the trigger. So we're not saying we can't go after them." "In the case of a state-sponsored actor, it'll have to come from a federal government law enforcement or military agency, and not the private sector. I think that's just good civics." "We've long ago decided that when it comes to state-to-state conflict, that's something governed by a proper military and officials. We don't have the private sector doing that." "We're not disarming ourselves. We're just deciding, in the case of a state actor, who gets to throw the punch."

Laura Shin @laurashin

a day ago

Is the AI Debt Boom Hitting a Wall? x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

2 1 7 15K 0

"Vulnerabilities discovered are vulnerabilities patched. Ultimately, I feel like we are going to end up with a much more robust ecosystem," @perkinscr97 on "Black October." x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

From the TRM engineering blog: a technical write-up by the engineers who built TRM MCP, the server that lets an analyst's own AI agent work with TRM data. Each tool covers one step of an investigation, calculations stay in TRM's API so answers match the web app, and any write runs only after the analyst accepts it. Read it here: trmlink.info/4il2Qgi

"A lot of the AI companies are working with the government and reporting to the government on the various sources that people are doing that can lead to problems," @giancarloMKTS . x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Should Private Firms Be Licensed to Hack the Hackers? x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo's answer to state-sponsored hackers like Lazarus: revive a constitutional power that lets the private sector hack back "Letters of marque and reprisal are actually in the United States Constitution." "They were frequently issued during the time of the drafting of the Constitution by nation states who were the subject of attacks by other nation states using private actors in a similar way to what nation states are doing today." "It's actually in Article One, which are the powers of the US Congress. Section 8 enables the Congress to issue what's called letters of marque and reprisal, which are basically authorizing contracts for privateers." "In an op-ed in Cointelegraph, Chris Perkins and I said, why not reuse this power?" "Why not modernize it for the 21st century and unleash the awesome innovation capability of our own private sector to respond to these state-sponsored hackers like the Lazarus Group and others." "Hack them back. We've been on defence for years, as the attacks multiply."

Laura Shin @laurashin

a day ago

Is the AI Debt Boom Hitting a Wall? x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

2 1 7 15K 0

Letting private companies hit back at hackers could make the problem bigger Former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo says elected officials should decide how far to go with hack-backs "I think that presidential memo is very prudent in its approach." "I think that was always the flaw, perhaps, in our approach to privateering. Once you unleash the private sector, you trust them to make the judgments as to statecraft that historically should be done by government, certainly elected representatives." "How far do you go, and where do you stop? I think those choices need to be made by elected officials, by hopefully seasoned, serious, well-balanced people, because those choices can be the choice of life or death for a lot of our fellow citizens."

Laura Shin @laurashin

a day ago

Is the AI Debt Boom Hitting a Wall? x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

2 1 7 15K 0

"Some may argue it doesn't go far enough ... but let's see ... I quite frankly think that this has probably got it just about right for the time being," @giancarloMKTS on the Trump admins privateering push x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Europe abolished privateering in 1856. The US never signed on, and the power is still in the Constitution. Can a president revive it for cyber without Congress? @giancarloMKTS and @ARedbord with @laurashin , Monday 5:30pm ET x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Europe abolished privateering in 1856. The US never signed on, and the power is still in the Constitution. Can a president revive it for cyber without Congress? @giancarloMKTS and @ARedbord join me , Monday 5:30pm ET x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

"We are all focused on North Korea within the crypto ecosystem because it's stealing billions from this ecosystem ... The reality is these pig butchering networks, transnational criminal organizations are stealing hundreds of billions a year from small businesses, from individuals," @ARedbord on the effectiveness of the Trump admin's privateering push x.com/i/broadcasts/1…