Saylor's Lesson, Zcash's Crash & AI Coming for Crypto - The Chopping Block

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  June 10, 2026 at 15:00  |  56:31  |  Unchained (Chopping Block)
Speakers
Mert Mumtaz — CEO, Helius
Ilia — Co-founder, NEAR Protocol
Haseeb — Managing Partner, Dragonfly

Summary

The panel discusses the weekend crypto sell-off triggered by Saylor's small BTC sale and STRK concerns, the Zcash infinite-mint bug found with AI, the need for formal verification as defense against AI attackers, and NEAR's growing AI-agent commerce narrative along with its strong volume and deflationary token dynamics.

  • Market bloodbath over the weekend, Bitcoin briefly below $59K, recovery above $62K.
  • Saylor sold 32 BTC, testing the market, and STRK traded below $100 par, raising MicroStrategy fears.
  • Zcash suffered a >50% dump after AI-assisted discovery of an infinite-mint bug in its Orchard ZK circuit.
  • Emergency soft fork disabled the bug, and a migration to a new formally verified Ironwood pool is planned for mid-July.
  • Ilia argues AI attackers have permanent asymmetric advantage, making formal verification essential.
  • NEAR's agentic commerce vision uses intents to enable trustless AI-agent negotiations and cross-border settlement.
  • NEAR did $240M in single-day volume on Friday, achieving a deflationary day, with intents and privacy features driving traction.
  • Mert calls NEAR one of the most underrated teams in crypto, while remaining skeptical on agents-on-chain.
Ideas
Mert Mumtaz Helius 20:32
Long Zcash after formal verification
Zcash is rolling out a new Ironwood shielded pool with formal verification by three separate teams, which will make that same class of supply-counterfeiting bugs much less likely and bring the ZK protocol as close to mathematically perfect as possible. The migration will provide proof that no exploit occurred, and formal verification becomes table-stakes in the AI age, making Zcash a safer and stronger privacy asset.
ZEC HIGH
Ilia Co-founder, NEAR Protocol 43:43
Long NEAR as AI-agent on-chain leader
NEAR is building the infrastructure for AI agents and trustless commerce by combining AI (single-player interface) with blockchain (multiplayer settlement). NEAR Intents enable outcome specification, cross-chain swaps, private intents, and cross-border FX. Volume reached $240M in a single day, making it a deflationary day for the NEAR token, and as more real commerce and trading flow on-chain, buybacks will increase, making NEAR increasingly deflationary.
NEAR HIGH
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This Unchained (Chopping Block) video, published June 10, 2026, features Mert Mumtaz, Ilia discussing ZEC, NEAR. 2 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Mert Mumtaz, Ilia  · Tickers: ZEC, NEAR