Support the show, consider donating: 3HUdhAYWfkVRxvxeXKjZPTFGMteDJV3P4F (http://bit.ly/1LB1rtI)

Today our guest is Mike Hearn who many of you are familiar with. He's one of the first Bitcoin users and the developer of BitcoinJ, a Java library used by a number of popular Bitcoin wallets such as the Android wallet, Multibit and Hive. Until recently he was working at Google and is now working full-time on Bitcoin, including an interesting crowdfunding platform called Lighthouse.

Links:
- Lighthouse: http://bit.ly/1nmV81R
- Assurance contracts: http://bit.ly/1yovAIN
- Arianna Simpson - Game Theory, Assurance Contracts, and Crowdfunding with Bitcoin: http://bit.ly/1lF1ziq
- Vinumeris: http://bit.ly/1icVLh7
- Mike Hearn talk at Coinscrum 2014 in London: http://bit.ly/1icVQRO 
- BitcoinJ: http://bit.ly/TaRzT0
- BitcoinJ on Github: http://bit.ly/1lCHcnp

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/eb-025
Running time: 1:17:34

Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture and is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, Stitcher and other podcast aggregators.

Website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
Subscribe: http://feed.epicenterbitcoin.com
Subscribe to our Friday newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc
Tip the show: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/tips

EB25 - Mike Hearn: Lighthouse, Assurance Contracts, bitcoinj, Transaction Fees & Core Dev Team

Support the show, consider donating: 33h3KLCFrupqqBaEB9soWQJdgwz7hTbwZG (http://bit.ly/1zdPsvi)

Radko Albrecht joins us to discuss his startup, the Bitcoin-based peer-to-peer lending platform, BitBond. We dove deeply into why Bitcoin-based peer-to-peer lending is such a compelling proposal. We also talked about a lot of the intricacies such as volatility, reputation and loans pegged to fiat currencies. In the final section, we discussed raising venture capital for European Bitcoin startups and how Bitcoin will change the financial industry. Enjoy!

Links:
- BitBond: https://www.bitbond.net/

Show notes: epicenterbitcoin.com/eb-030
Running time: 1:06:40

Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture and is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, Stitcher and other podcast aggregators.

Website: http://www.epicenterbitcoin.com
Subscribe: feed.epicenterbitcoin.com
Subscribe to our Friday newsletter: epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
Twitter: twitter.com/epicenterbtc
Tip the show: epicenterbitcoin.com/tips

EB30 – Radko Albrecht: BitBond, Bitcoin Lending and the Changing World of Finance

*CoinSummit London Conference Series - July 10 and 11, 2014*

In this episode we talk to Olivier Janssens, a Bitcoin early adopter and investor, and his associate Andrew Turner. We discussed Olivier’s recent $100,000 bounty replace the Bitcoin Foundation. He told us why he chose Mike Hearn’s Lighthouse project as the winner of 40% of that bounty and the effect that Lighthouse could have on Bitcoin core development funding. 

We also interviewed Michael Jackson. He’s the former COO of Skype and currently a VC at Mangrove Partners. We discussed the recent EBA opinion paper. We also talked about his experiences with the regulation of new and disruptive technologies from his days at Skype as well as investing in Bitcoin companies. 

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/coinsummit-london-04
Running time: 53:17

Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture and is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, Stitcher and other podcast aggregators.
 
Website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
Subscribe: http://feed.epicenterbitcoin.com
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CoinSummit London – Interviews with Olivier Janssens & Andrew Turner – Michael Jackson

10 years ago, Adam B Levine, the host of ‘Let’s Talk Bitcoin!’, decided that it was time to encourage other voices to step onto the crypto podcast scene. Among many applicants, Sebastien and Brian were the only 2 Europeans, so Adam suggested that they teamed up in order to record the pilot episode. On December 20th 2013, Sebastien and Brian released ‘Regulation and the Future of Bitcoin’, which marked the beginning of a 10-year (and counting) long journey. The rest is history.

On this anniversary episode, our hosts were joined by special guests and friends of Epicenter, to share their favourite moments and fun stories gathered during the 10 years of epicness.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Adam B Levine - Epicenter’s godfather & the early days of Epicenter
- Trent McConaghy - From Ascribe to Ocean. Ahead of the NFT and inscription hype
- Sebastien Buergel - How he got into crypto, early ventures and Meher’s secret
- Griff Green & Lefteris Karapetsas - The DAO hack and Sebastien Buergel’s alleged role
- Sam Jernigan & Anna Rose - From TradFi to ZK
- Jordi Baylina & Ryan Zurrer - Standing in the Epicenter of the storm and the unsung hero of the DAO hack
- Richard Muirhead - The future of zk proofs, privacy and AI

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Adam B Levine on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3NEL3C4
- Trent McConaghy on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RV0PLG
- Sebastian Buergel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3tuvTbP
- Griff Green on Twitter: https://bit.ly/489UyS6
- Lefteris Karapetsas on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RVhsXN
- Sam Jernigan on Twitter: https://bit.ly/48a2geO
- Anna Rose on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3NEaovY
- Jordi Baylina on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3JsyhFb
- Ryan Zurrer on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3KEyjuf
- Richard Muirhead on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3v8wwZ3

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Brian Fabian Crain, Friederike Ernst, Meher Roy & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/527

Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

#527 Epicenter – 10-Year Anniversary Livestream

Prolonged range bound markets are a hallmark of bearmarkets and they usually end up chopping inexperienced or over leveraged traders. Customised structured products offer a solution for market participants that want to limit their downside, but also the upside, by introducing knock-outs at certain levels or triggers. Such custom options, usually with lower probabilistic chances of occurring, naturally come at a discount. This allows traders to hedge their risk, while also betting on certain outcomes or market scenarios.

We were joined by Zhiming Yang, co-founder of Orbit Markets, to discuss crypto derivatives and how TradFi expertise applies to customising structured products for crypto markets.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Zhiming’s background in investment banking
- FX derivative products
- Exotic options
- Crypto structured products
- Custom solutions for crypto miners
- Hedging Uniswap V3 impermanent loss
- Options based on prediction markets
- Managing counterparty risk
- Protocolising structured products
- Differences between TradFi and DeFi

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Zhiming Yang on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3T3tZci
- OrBit Markets on Twitter: https://bit.ly/49AIwS0
- OrBit Markets: https://bit.ly/3uELfv2

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/535

#535 Zhiming Yang: Orbit Markets – Crypto Derivatives and Structured Products

Support the show, consider donating: 3PCV8LKfA9952FTF9Y4wGTUmYikEgHws34 (http://bit.ly/1AHdNNW)

At just 20-years young, Vitalik Buterin is one of the most brilliant minds in the cryptocurrency space. Previously, a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine, he has conceptualized Ethereum, the most radical and ambitious cryptocurrency project since Bitcoin. After raising $18m in a crowdsale, a team of over 30 are working on launching the project by March 2015. In his work on designing a system for the future, he has been grappling with many of the hardest problems in the cryptocurrency space over the past year.

In a fascinating discussion, we covered:
- How Ethereum has evolved since the white paper
- The problems of Proof-of-Work
- Why Proof-of-Stake is the future of consensus protocols
- Why his main focus has been on consensus issues and scalability
- Why Bitcoin will never be stable enough to price things in
- The flawed ideology of ‘Bitcoin maximalism’ that prevents people from considering Proof-of-Work alternatives

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Ethereum: http://ethereum.org
- How to get started: Your first DApp in under one hour: https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/1402/how-to-get-started-your-first-dapp-under-one-hour
- Ethereum Proof-of-Concept 7: https://github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum/wiki
- Proof of Stake: How I Learned to Love Weak Subjectivity: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-love-weak-subjectivity/
- Slasher: A Punitive Proof-of-Stake Algorithm: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/01/15/slasher-a-punitive-proof-of-stake-algorithm/

Sponsors: 

- Gems: http://getgems.org
- Shapeshift: https://shapeshift.io
- Fairlay: http://fairlay.com

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/058
YouTube: http://youtu.be/qPsCGvXyrP4


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
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EB58 – Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum, Proof-of-Stake, The Future Of Bitcoin

Support the show, consider donating: 38viPCsCkr2BRc77g6SJDWKR1tnhH7Mb82 (http://bit.ly/1LAj5h7)

Every quarter, CoinDesk releases its excellent State of Bitcoin Report proving an accurate benchmark of where the Bitcoin ecosystem stands. We were very fortunate to be joined by the man who compiles the State of Bitcoin Report, Garrick Hileman. As an economic historian at the London School of Economics and a frequent contributor to CoinDesk, Garrick is best know as an expert on Bitcoin and other currencies.

The topics we covered included:
- The recent $5m hack on Bitstamp
- Startup activity and VC investments
- The continually slumping Bitcoin price
- Merchant and user adoption
- What we should look forward to in 2015

We would like to pay our respects to the 17 innocent people who lost their lives in the recent terror attacks in Paris. Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones. Je suis Charlie!

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Garrick's Website: http://www.garrickhileman.com
- Stake of Bitcoin 2015 Report (CoinDesk): http://www.coindesk.com/state-bitcoin-2015-ecosystem-grows-despite-price-decline/
- New Index Ranks Argentina 'Most Likely' to Adopt Bitcoin (CoinDesk): http://www.coindesk.com/argentina-most-likely-adopt-bitcoin/

Sponsors: 

- Shapeshift: https://shapeshift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/061
YouTube: http://youtu.be/bAZbr3ru1kU


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB61 – Garrick Hileman: CoinDesk's State of Bitcoin 2015, Ecosystem Grows Despite Price Decline

Support the show, consider donating: 3JkHB5g6XGVmBTSj5UrNvpg1uYHeYifToC (http://bit.ly/1LAkunQ)

When it comes to Bitcoin, Tim Swanson is known to many as the man who sees the glass half empty. Whether or not that's true, it's fair to say that Tim has critical opinions about Bitcoin and questions many of the assumptions held by those who wish to see it succeed. A researcher and educator, he is the author of several books including "Great Wall of Numbers: Business Opportunities and Challenges in China" and "Great Chain of Numbers: A Guide to Smart Contracts, Smart Property and Trustless Asset Management". He also blogs about Bitcoin, economics and various other topics at OfNumbers.com. He currently serves as an advisor to Hyperledger and is Head of Business Development at Melotic.

We covered a lot of topics on this episode: 

- True cost of Bitcoin transactions
- Bitcoin as a niche technology Vs. Bitcoin maximalism
- Consensus-as-a-service and semi-trusted networks
- Hyperledger, a decentralised ledger platform
- Melotic, a digital asset exchange
- Bitcoin's adoption as a payment system
- Trusted transparency in mining
- Remittances

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Tim's Blog: http://bit.ly/1BsrS1N
- Dave Hudson's Blog: http://bit.ly/1H1cKhS
- Slicing data: what comprises blockchain transactions?: http://bit.ly/15Df2Cy
- OP-ED: The Rise and Rise of Lipservice: Viral Western Union Ad Debunked: http://bit.ly/1ynbnQ4
- A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now?: http://bit.ly/1thK2Dd
- Architecture of Internet Money: http://bit.ly/1ynbv1Y
- The Marginal Cost of Cryptocurrency: http://bit.ly/1K6kgUW
- Some Crypto Quibbles with Threadneedle Street: http://bit.ly/1EqO00f
- A Note on Cryptocurrency Stabilisation: Seigniorage Shares: http://bit.ly/1yOxnYX

Sponsors: 

- ShapeShift: https://shapeshift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/063
YouTube: http://youtu.be/zF2YwOnH-CA


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB63 – Tim Swanson: The Bitcoin Hype Buster

Support the show, consider donating: 3PVXyxtfq7kHLRES353WXydBMdmSATuido (http://bit.ly/1DRyaKs)

Adam B. Levine, the “Spiritual Grandfather” of Epicenter Bitcoin and Editor-in-Chief of Let's Talk Bitcoin, joins us to share is “crazy” passion for information and cryptocurrency. Never shy when it comes to talking about complicated subjects, Adam divulges his ideas about the next iteration of the experimental Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network and his newly launched standalone token vending machine, SwapBot. Adam also opens up about his role as the Chief Visionary Officer of CoinPowers and why it ultimately failed as a project. We also get Adam’s take on the future of crowdfunding and what role he sees himself playing within the crypto community moving forward.

We covered a many of topics on this episode:

- The integral part Adam played in the creation of Epicenter Bitcoin
- How the Let’s Talk Bitcoin podcast show and network were born
- The Tokenly Platform
- The recent discontinuation of certain LTB Network shows
- LTBCoin and the problems it aims to solve
- Tokens Vs. cryptocurrencies
- Content monetization and crowdfunding

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Let's Talk Bitcoin: http://letstalkbitcoin.com
- LTBCoin: http://ltbcoin.com
- SWAPBOT Prototype: http://letstalkbitcoin.com/vend
- Tokenly Project: https://github.com/tokenly/tokenly-cms

Sponsors: 

- ShapeShift: https://shapeshift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/064
YouTube: http://youtu.be/p7ZeA6932eI


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB64 – Adam B. Levine: Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network, LTBCoin, Monetizing Content & Crowdfunding

Support the show, consider donating: 3JwpaKcFGsbS632fcwZWYUQubHQZ24brer (http://bit.ly/1zdmQCy)

Backbone to the financial system? Powering decentralized technology? The first true world currency? There is probably who hasn’t dreamt of a world ten years from now when Bitcoin would be all those things. The promise of cryptocurrencies are enormous, but will Bitcoin really emerge as the winner? And how can we reconcile this grand vision for Bitcoin with an ecosystem where projects launch new coins and blockchains every day?

The one project that rekindles those Bitcoin dreams and paints a potential path to Bitcoin’s ultimate success are sidechains. Developed by Adam Back, Greg Maxwell and several other Bitcoin core developers, sidechains aims to allow the permissionless, rapid innovation of alt chains, but using the established monetary base and network of Bitcoin.

It’s a complex project, but with Blockstream founders and sidechains visionaries Adam Back and Greg Maxwell we couldn’t have had better companions on our journey into understanding the coming Bitcoin-Sidechains-Macrocosm. Topics included:

- The motivation behind sidechains
- The concept of digital scarcity
- Concerns about the security of sidechains
- Different stages of sidechains from federated pegs to merged mining to block extension

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Blockstream: http://www.blockstream.com/
- Sidechains white paper: http://www.blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf
- Saving Bitcoin From Destruction: http://blog.bettercrypto.com/?p=1003

Sponsors: 

- ShapeShift: http://shapeshift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/065
YouTube: http://youtu.be/jE_elgnIw3M


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB65 – Adam Back & Greg Maxwell: Sidechains Unchained

Support the show, consider donating: 3MUpiVGuzDeGUyQLLcxFN8QGSbbEBZaqpq (http://bit.ly/1Basjj9)

Is Bitcoin secure from attacks that could destroy the currency? To a large part, this is determined by how expensive it is to carry out an attack and by the potential profits the attacker could generate. Ideally, an attack is so expensive to carry out that no profit-driven attacker would engage in it.

But in this episode, Brian argues that the cost of attacking Bitcoin will likely decrease in the future and the ability to short Bitcoin and thus benefit from an attack will increase dramatically. We take an in-depth look at the anatomy of such an attack including:

- How an attacker would need to go about shorting bitcoin
- How the kamikaze mining pool could be used to bribe miners to join the attacker
- Why all profit-driven miners will have an incentive to join the attack, whether or not they believe it will succeed
- Why the block halving in 2016 could be an exceptionally dangerous time for Bitcoin, since an attack would be cheap to execute and likely to succeed
- How a gradual decrease of the block reward, instead of the 4-year halving rhythm would reduce risk

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Bitcoin Development Mailing List Thread - Death by halving: http://bit.ly/1Ch3Qdx

Sponsors: 

- ShapeShift: http://shapeshift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/068
YouTube: http://youtu.be/aTH43WRpqe8


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB68 – Kamikaze Attack, Block Halving And The Perils Of Proof-Of-Work

Support the show, consider donating: 3HqLKkYSjzx6zmPN6jFt2R9XYw5BpooPjX (http://bit.ly/1bxn7fA)

When one is busy driving a technological and societal revolution forward, complying with complicated regulatory requirements is rarely a top priority. Yet, the reality is that at this stage the often ambigious and rapidly evolving regulatory landscape can have an outsized impact on the fate of cryptocurrency startups and on the adoption/integration into existing systems.

Epicenter Bitcoin Regulatory Correspondent and founder of COINsult Siân Jones joined us for an update on the state of Bitcoin regulation in a variety of jurisdiction.

Topics included:
- The recent statement by the UK’s treasury on digital currencies
- How the Isle of Man keeps pioneering a cryptocurrency-friendly environment
- The stance of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) towards Bitcoin
- The insanity of the looming BitLicense rules and difficult-to-predict consequences they may have

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- COINsult: http://bit.ly/1jrH1er
- UK HM Treasury: Digital Currencies - Response to the Call for Information http://bit.ly/1BJ3rvn
- Isle of Man Introduces Regulation for Bitcoin Businesses http://bit.ly/1Ny79Q3
- California Bill Proposes License Requirement for Bitcoin Businesses http://bit.ly/1F98Dfq
- Bitlicense Comment Period Closes http://bit.ly/1DdcNDY

Sponsors: 

- Buy and sell alt coins instantly with http://ShapeShift.io

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/072
YouTube: http://youtu.be/qvX7pFO0N4Q


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB72 – Siân Jones - Cryptocurrency Regulation Update: UK, Isle Of Man, California, Bitlicense

Bitcoin’s security and reliability as a store of value are undeniable. However, its liquidity remained untapped for too long due to a lack of trustless bridges and native smart contract capabilities. As BTC is only native to Bitcoin’s L1, any attempt to include it in DeFi relies on the trust assumptions of third party custodians that wrap it.
Build On Bitcoin (BOB) aims to expand Bitcoin’s functionality by integrating it with Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities. BOB operates as an OP Stack L2 with a hybrid design incorporating ZKPs, Bitcoin staking, and Ethereum for data availability. By functioning as a rollup, BOB processes transactions off-chain and batches them for settlement on Bitcoin and Ethereum, significantly improving transaction speed and reducing costs compared to Bitcoin’s base layer.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Alexei’s background
- Setbacks for Bitcoin DeFi
- Bitcoin bridges
- BitVM
- BOB operators and trust assumptions
- BOB architecture & Bitcoin staking
- Bitcoin LSTs
- The future of Bitcoin DeFi

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Alexei Zamyatin on X: https://bit.ly/4hsqSDn
- Build on Bitcoin on X: https://bit.ly/3Dlg2Bs

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus One: Chorus On is among the world's largest node operators, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks
This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/589		

#589 Alexei Zamyatin: Build on Bitcoin – Combining Bitcoin's Security With Ethereum's Versatility

#590 Anatoly Yakovenko: Solana – From On-Chain Nasdaq to the Pump Fun Craze

"While DeFi’s ultimate goal is to provide an alternative for TradFi, blockchain gaming caters to retail masses, onboarding millions of users to crypto through incentives and fun gameplay. The greatest success story in Web3 gaming thus far has been, without a doubt, Axie Infinity. Apart from creating an engaged community whose early adopters also experienced rags-to-riches stories, it kickstarted an entire movement around play-to-earn gaming. Many have tried copying it, yet most of them failed. Axie Infinity managed to design a sustainable economy that combined NFTs and fungible tokens. The result was the first gamified crypto mining event, at scale. In order to accommodate such a massive demand, in a time when L2 rollups were still in R&D, Sky Mavis founded Ronin, a gaming-oriented Ethereum sidechain. The community that formed around Axie Infinity created a tremendous network effect, solidifying Ronin’s PMF as a gaming powerhouse. Before long, many up-and-coming titles migrated to Ronin, and the growth effects in all their key metrics (i.e. DAUs, transactions, revenue, etc.) further fuelled the flywheel.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Jeff’s background
- Cryptokitties
- Joining Axie Infinity and how it evolved
- Monetizing Axie’s economy
- The recipe for successful blockchain games
- Building Ronin, the gaming L1
- On-chain vs. off-chain game elements
- Community building
- Ronin’s economy & composability
- Most suitable gaming genre for Web3
- AI x gaming
- Crypto gaming investments
- Ronin’s current state and future roadmap
- Axie’s upcoming MMO

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Jeff Zirlin on X: https://bit.ly/4iNP0C4
- Axie Infinity on X: https://bit.ly/4iILkld
- Ronin Network on X: https://bit.ly/3XyXHYn
- Sky Mavis on X: https://bit.ly/4cbiHdQ

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/591"			

#591 Jeff Zirlin: Ronin – How Axie Infinity Kickstarted the Blockchain Gaming Revolution

Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake created a unique set of conditions (i.e. lack of protocol-level delegation, 32 ETH requirement, long exit queues, etc.) that led to Lido’s liquid staking model to gain huge traction, significantly eclipsing other LSD providers on native PoS chains. stETH added on-demand liquidity, bypassing withdrawal windows, while also increasing DeFi utilization and increasing yields. Moreover, by allowing users to stake any amount of ETH in pools, it removed the requirement for 32 ETH increments, ultimately improving decentralisation through long tail distribution of individual stakers. Lido V3 introduces modular stVaults which enable staking customization. This allows professional actors, such as institutional stakers, to have granular control over validators, MEV and other parameters, diversifying their investment strategies.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Hasu’s background
- Discovering Lido
- Liquid staking and the early days of Lido
- Why liquid staking gained traction on Ethereum
- The evolution of Lido
- Initial decentralisation concerns and the importance of dual governance
- Restaking
- Lido V3 and vaults
- Institutional staking & ETFs
- Ethereum’s ‘crisis’ and its values

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Hasu on X: https://bit.ly/4cd2LHP
- Lido on X: https://bit.ly/4c9EaUq

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/592			

#592 Hasu: Lido – Ushering in Institutional Staking Through stVaults

Namechain is an L2 developed by ENS Labs, to enhance the scalability and efficiency of managing decentralized identities on Ethereum. It is designed to work in tandem with ENS V2, which introduced a hierarchical registry system for more efficient subdomain management and custom resolvers. A key vision for Namechain is to unify multi-chain user identities, creating a ""digital identity chain"" that simplifies how users interact with the broader blockchain ecosystem. This is achieved through features like L2-to-L2 bridging, which allows users to initiate ENS-related activities from various Ethereum Layer 2 networks, not just Namechain itself.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- High level overview of ENS
- Crosschain functionality through CCIP Read
- Domain squatting
- Onboarding ENS users via Paypal and Venmo
- Google & GoDaddy integrations
- ENS V2 upgrade & Namechain
- Transferring tokens from Namechain to L1
- Sequencer security assumptions
- Scalability
- New features & use cases
- ENS roadmap & metrics
- Ethereum ecosystem status

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Nick Johnson on X: https://bit.ly/423M4eG
- ENS on X: https://bit.ly/44kaWjH

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/593		

#593 Nick Johnson: ENS – V2 Cross-Chain Domains & Namechain

Tally is a software platform designed to support tokenized organizations, particularly Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and crypto communities. It provides tools for launching tokens, governing protocols, and enabling staking to foster community participation and growth. Tally facilitates onchain governance, allowing transparent and decentralized decision-making for managing funds, grants, and protocol upgrades. It powers major blockchain ecosystems like Arbitrum, ZKsync, Uniswap DAO and Wormhole DAO by providing interfaces for proposal creation, voting, and staking. The Tally Protocol further enhances this by offering a liquidity layer for governance tokens, that allow token holders to earn staking rewards while retaining voting rights and participating in DeFi.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Dennison’s background
- Has crypto won?
- Does privacy still matter?
- The vision behind Tally
- The evolution of DAOs
- Are grassroots DAOs viable?
- Corporate vs. DAO PMF
- How developer activity & contributors evolved
- Tally’s roadmap
- ICO vs. IPO

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Dennison Bertram on X: https://bit.ly/3Gb6Lgd
- Tally on X: https://bit.ly/4jgz4Zo

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/594			

#594 Dennison Bertram: Tally – The Software Layer for Tokenized Organizations

With an extensive experience in traditional money markets, Maple Finance was envisioned as an institutional capital marketplace which combines the transparency & capital efficiency of blockchains with the regulatory framework of TradFi. Unlike many DeFi protocols that require over-collateralized loans (e.g. Aave), Maple also specializes in under-collateralized lending, enabling greater capital efficiency for institutional borrowers. With over $6b in loans since its inception, Maple plans to further expand its offerings by including RWAs as collateral assets.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Sid’s background
- The vision behind Maple Finance
- Maple’s tech stack
- Deciding risk profiles
- Over-collateralized vs. under-collateralized loans
- Assets accepted as collateral
- Deploying to other blockchains
- Institutional appeal
- Managing defaults
- RWA
- Converging DeFi & TradFi
- Biggest challenges
- Exciting upcoming trends
- Future roadmap
- Crypto correlation or decoupling?

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Sid Powell on X: https://bit.ly/3EEKp6q
- Maple Finance on X: https://bit.ly/3Yiuv8l

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/595			

#595 Sidney Powell: Maple Finance – On-Chain Institutional Yield & Lending Markets

Founded by former Meta Diem team members, Sui is a high-performance, layer-1 blockchain designed for horizontal scaling and low-latency transactions. It uses an object-centric data model and the Move programming language to enable transaction parallelization which can handle >200,000 txs/s. Sui’s goal is to combine the benefits of blockchains with Web2’s security & frictionless UX. From account abstraction & ZKLogin, to on-chain storage & data availability solutions like Walrus, Sui rebuilds the Google/AWS stack, fully on-chain and composable.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Adeniyi’s background, from Libra to Sui
- Sui’s long-term vision
- The tech stack of Sui & its primitives
- ZKLogin & account abstraction
- Object-based approach
- Transaction processing & parallelization
- DevEx on Move vs. EVM vs. SVM
- Consensus & scalability
- MEV
- Gaming & SuiPlay
- DeFi on Sui
- Walrus data storage
- Nautilus
- Future roadmap

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Adeniyi Abiodun on X: https://bit.ly/3YlFTk1
- Mysten Labs on X: https://bit.ly/4cSR61j
- Sui on X: https://bit.ly/4cS5tDf
- Walrus on X: https://bit.ly/3YnlMlo

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/596			

#596 Adeniyi Abiodun: Mysten Labs – How Sui Leverages Move to Build the Composable Web3nternet

Taiko is a decentralized, Ethereum-equivalent (type I) rollup scaling solution which uses ZK technology. Taiko's goal is to scale Ethereum efficiently while maintaining security and decentralization. Being a type I zkEVM, Taiko retains full Ethereum equivalence, which creates a seamless DevEx, although this comes at the expense of UX as slower proof generation is the main trade-off. Moreover, in order to stay true to its decentralised ethos, Taiko operates as a based rollup, meaning that transaction sequencing is performed by L1 validators.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Joaquin’s background
- Loopring and Taiko’s beginnings
- The 4 types of zkEVMs
- Taiko's zk circuits vs. Polygon’s
- Based sequencing
- Data availability and blob commitment
- Ethereum’s role in the future
- The L2 landscape and its compromises
- Sequencer security model
- Dealing with MEV
- Based preconfirmations & Taiko ecosystem UX

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Joaquin Mendes on X: https://bit.ly/3EKiL8e
- Taiko on X: https://bit.ly/4m1xht3
- Loopring on X: https://bit.ly/42RjzS0

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/597		

#597 Joaquin Mendes: Taiko – Scaling Ethereum in a Decentralised Manner

As society evolves, so do its values and principles, but is that desirable for technology that seeks to build the most reliable, trustless and censorship resistant global settlement layer? Ever since the rise in popularity of Solana with its inflow of retail capital in a memecoin gold rush, Ethereum became even more criticized for sticking true to its core values despite the completely divergent demands of market participants. Moreover, the rollup centric scaling roadmap seemed to further silo attention and cause liquidity fragmentation, driving away value from Ethereum mainnet. As institutional demand is expected to grow with the introduction of staking ETFs, a new executive leadership took charge of Ethereum foundation to help steer the protocol’s narrative at the intersection between community demands and Ethereum’s ethos.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Hsiao-Wei’s & Tomasz’ backgrounds
- How they became co-executive directors of Ethereum Foundation
- Ethereum Foundation’s role moving forward
- Decision making in Ethereum Foundation
- Shaping Ethereum’s narrative
- The layer 2 landscape
- Scaling Ethereum as the global settlement layer
- Sharding
- Rollup scalability & their trade-offs
- What values drive adoption
- L2 interoperability
- Future goals

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Hsiao-Wei Wang on X: https://bit.ly/3GPPw4w
- Tomasz Stańczak on X: https://bit.ly/433ybOh
- Ethereum Foundation on X: https://bit.ly/4iWtPNe
- Ethereum on X: https://bit.ly/4iUpkCT

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/598			

#598 Hsiao-Wei Wang & Tomasz Stańczak: Ethereum Foundation – Humanity’s Shared World Computer

We couldn’t miss the Avalanche Summit where we sat down with Emin Gün Sirer, co-founder & CEO of Ava Labs, to discuss the evolution of Avalanche’s ecosystem and how HyperSDK ushers in a scalable, interoperable, multi-chain future. Join us for a fascinating discussion on Avalanche’s approach to decentralisation, scalability & interoperability, and learn why real-world applicability relies heavily on bespoke blockchain solutions.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Gün x Epicenter bromance
- How the Avalanche ecosystem & community evolved
- The future vision for Avalanche
- Scaling Avalanche and the HyperSDK
- Interoperability and the multi-chain future
- Decentralising Avalanche L1s
- Use cases and institutional adoption
- On-chain privacy
- AvaCloud
- The impact of AI in crypto
- Gün’s focus in the near future

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Emin Gün Sirer on X: https://bit.ly/3ST1QDD
- Avalanche on X: https://bit.ly/3ZyCYEU
- Ava Labs on X: https://bit.ly/3Fr7mdJ

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/600			

#600 Emin Gün Sirer: Avalanche – The Multi-Chain Avalanche

Blockchain architecture is constantly being forced to adapt to new technologies, as well as to meet new demands from users and builders. While the idea of apps building their own chains was first explored by Cosmos, it lacked the support and tooling to see it succeed. Later on, rollups also took the centerstage of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, but due to their general purpose design, it led to a cannibalistic ecosystem. Initia learned from these 2 models and combined the best of both worlds: it built a full-stack framework for a seamless DevEx from the get-go and, more importantly, it designed its tokenomics in order to ensure maximum incentive alignment for its appchains. While the former decision removed the need for each separate chain to reinvent the wheel and risk ending up ‘a jack of all trades, master of none’, the latter ensured that appchains would not extract value away from the L1.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Ezaan’s background
- From building on Terra to Initia
- How Initia is rewriting the appchain thesis
- Initia’s enshrined liquidity & vested interest program (VIP)
- Metrics & Initia’s bet on crypto innovation
- Solving liquidity fragmentation
- Delphi’s involvement in Initia
- Future roadmap

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Ezaan Mangalji on X: https://bit.ly/3YQ25Tw
- Jose Macedo on X: https://bit.ly/4j7HPnE
- Anil Lulla on X: https://bit.ly/3EYqcsx
- Initia on X: https://bit.ly/43eoCe4
- Delphi Digital on X: https://bit.ly/43iibqt
- Delphi report on Initia: https://bit.ly/44GZkaN

Sponsors: 
- Chorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/599

#599 Anil Lulla, Ezaan Mangalji & Jose Maria Macedo: Initia – Incentively Aligned Appchains

Support the show, consider donating: 37GWXKviy7rGpJnBCnb9s7pLUrtTQ16Fr4 (http://bit.ly/1EMsTG0)

Peter Thiel argued in his book 'Zero to One' that the way to build a great and highly profitable company is to build a monopoly. But with decentralized technologies, there is a real question whether these monopolies can be built or whether the monopolies will end up being publicly owned goods (like Bitcoin) that can't be monetized directly. 

William Mougayar, who is an experienced tech executive and angel investor, has been writing extensively about these issues and was one of the investors in OB1, the venture-backed company launched by the founders of the decentralized market place Open Bazaar. He joined us for a discussion of the cryptocurrency space, Ethereum, Open Bazaar and monetizing decentralized technologies. 

Topics covered included:
- Bitcoin as the new, thin cloud
- His long-term predictions about where the space is going
- What kind of business models are the most promising
- Why he chose to invest in OB1, the company behind Open Bazaar
- What the state of Venture Capital in the cryptocurrency space is


Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Predictions in Cryptography, Blockchains and Consensus Protocols http://bit.ly/1giM8gJ
- The Old Cloud is Dead, Welcome the New Cloud http://bit.ly/1H3AZGk
- The Business Imperative Behind the Ethereum Vision http://bit.ly/1JPRgms
- An Operational Framework for DAOs http://bit.ly/1NKQKr4
- Union Square Ventures: Introducing OB1 http://bit.ly/1S1YCFe
- Peter Thiel: Competition is for Losers http://on.wsj.com/1NKRbS8

Sponsors: 

- Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly at http://ShapeShift.io
- Vaultoro: Trade gold to Bitcoin instantly and securely starting at just 1mg at http://vaultoro.com

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/086
YouTube: https://youtu.be/ROQDaagEDi8


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB86 – William Mougayar: The Business Of Decentralization

Support the show, consider donating: 3CdLCDLSg5XdrzZyHkXemFjiC5f6jeFa7P (http://bit.ly/1MoBlf1)

Amidst all the discussion of alternative uses of blockchains, it is often forgotten that the very first fork of Bitcoin, Namecoin, pursued a daring vision for a decentralized, censorship-resistant internet. Greg Slepak, co-founder of the okTurtles Foundation joined us for an interesting discussion of DNS, Namecoin and how blockchains can be used to decentralize the internet.

Topics covered included:
- What DNS is and the role it plays in the architecture of the internet
- What man-in-the-middle attacks are and why certificate authorities offer poor protection
- How certificate authorities, SSL, IP routing and VPNs work
- Why the current model is broken from a privacy and security perspective
- How Namecoin and the blockchain could enable a decentralized and more secure internet
- The security risks when online identity is tied to a private key and how they could be mitigated
- What DNSChain is and what projects okTurtles is working on


Links mentioned in this episode: 

- okTurtles Foundation http://bit.ly/1SJq76Q
- Namecoin Primer http://bit.ly/1S6KxM4
- Namecoin Website http://bit.ly/1fzrus2
- Airplane Wifi is not safe http://bit.ly/1fzdqyX
- DNSChain demo http://bit.ly/1DIC2uS

Sponsors: 

- Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EB09 at http://ledgerwallet.com (valid until 09/30/15)
- CoinCap: Crypto-currency market cap rankings, charts, and more coincap.io/#/

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/089
YouTube: http://youtu.be/TRSg20jOGKg

Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB89 – Greg Slepak: The Turtle Crawl Towards Internet Decentralization

Support the show, consider donating: 3JE6C12CPukvgaFXqjTd2ZSkrv23Evr45T (http://bit.ly/1gmt1Tw)

Close to two years after the initial whitepaper, the revolutionary Ethereum network has finally launched. The decentralized smart contract platform is, without a doubt, the most exciting cryptocurrency project since Bitcoin. The versatile platform with its turing-complete scripting language aspires to power the distributed applications of the future.

Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin joined us for the second time to discuss the Frontier Launch, future plans for scalability, governance and the road ahead for the organization and the protocol.

Topics covered included:
- Ethereum's frontier launch and the upcoming development stages
- The plans for how to create a scalable blockchain architecture
- The thinking around transitioning to proof-of-stake
- The state and new board of the Ethereum Foundation
- How Ethereum's development will be funded in the longer term
- His thoughts on the governance of Ethereum and Bitcoin
- When private blockchains make sense and if Ethereum
- What mistakes were made during the development of Ethereum

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Sponsors: 

- Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EB09 at http://ledgerwallet.com (valid until 09/30/15)

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/091
YouTube: https://youtu.be/3uvbIyzsCLY


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
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EB91 – Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum Frontier Launch, Scalability And The Road Ahead

Support the show, consider donating: 1EqgzpehmNYtqMComGDjeEiqn15Wq2rA9Z (http://bit.ly/1MrXWFB)

Permissionable blockchains have gained much attention from enterprise this past year, and specifically, the traditional fiance and FinTech sectors. As new protocols emerge and the technology is matures, it is becoming apparent they are simply a new class of database, one which integrates business logic (smart contracts) and a consensus layer (PoS, PoW, etc). 

Casey Kuhlman is the CEO of Eris Industries, a company which specialises in building permissioned blockchain systems for enterprise. Their aim is to deliver the technologies which enable companies to easily build and deploy applications which make use of blockchain and smart contract technologies.

Topics we discussed include:

- Casey’s impressive background as an engineer, Marine soldier, lawyer and startup founder
- Eris Industries and what the company is trying to achieve
- Permissionable blockchains and their usefulness in industrial applications
- Smart contracts, how to explain them and legal status
- How blockchains can be used to revolutionize the way organizations construct business processes
- The idea of Blockchains-as-a-Service
- The various use cases for blockchain technologies  

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Eris Industries: https://erisindustries.com/
- 2Gather: https://github.com/eris-ltd/2gather

Sponsors: 

- Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/112
YouTube: https://youtu.be/DFASeUsR2dU


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB112 – Casey Kuhlman: Permissioned Blockchain And Disrupting Industrial Application Design

Support the show, consider donating: 15zDNoYpwY5MF76vZxGyKJ7ppdSBrNUotP (http://bit.ly/1Pt2zpa)

As blockchain technologies mature, new protocol specifications are emerging, which take unique approaches to software design and how consensus is achieved. We have talked about Multchain and OpenChain in the past, but Tendermint promises to be a viable solution for many permissioned blockchain use cases. It’s design is modular, meaning that the application layer (smart contract) and the consensus layer are completely independent. This provides added flexibility and allows for business logic to be written in practically any programming language. In addition, its unique approach to consensus, a round-robin Proof-of-Skate algorithm, is much better suited for permissioned blockchain scenarios than Proof-of-Work. 

Meher and Sebastien talk to Tendermint co-founders, Jae Kwon, Dustin Byington and Ethan Buchman, about this promising new blockchain protocol and how it is different from other projects we’ve seen so far.

Topics covered in this episode include:

- How Tendermint came to be and how it has evolved since its creation
- Smart contract programming and the Tendermint Socket Protocol (TMSP)
- How Tendermint makes use of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
- Tendermint’s approach to PoS consensus and its scalability benefits
- Use case for permissioned and public blockchains
- Future plans and business models

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Tendermint: http://tendermint.com/
- Tendermint for fast settlements: http://tendermint.com/posts/tendermint-for-fast-settlement/
- Tendermint vs PBFT: http://tendermint.com/posts/tendermint-vs-pbft/
- Tendermint specification: https://github.com/tendermint/tendermint/wiki

Sponsors: 

- Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER at http://ledgerwallet.com

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/113
YouTube: https://youtu.be/EfFVh1DIKds


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB113 – Jae Kwon, Dustin Byington & Ethan Buchman: Tendermint - Private Modularized Blockchains

Support the show, consider donating: 1L94F3FJcSqCqx1F11nXbhRM7f8pj6PDm2 (http://bit.ly/1PzJOw5)

Vinay Gupta has been a programmer, 1990s cypherpunk, 'resilience guru', Ethereum release coordinator and currently collaborates with Consensys to mainstream smart contract technology. He also invented the Hexayurt, a cheap and resilient architectural structure for disaster-stricken communities. 

Recently, Vinay has become a thought leader in the cryptocurrency space. He is famed for his eloquence and ability to distill the crypto-finance technological paradigm into easy big-picture visualisations. Check out this podcast for some unique insights into technology, politics and history.

Topics covered included:
- His work on resilience. The connection between resilience and cryptocurrencies
- A history of the cypherpunks - who they were, what they believed in and why they failed.
- Why smart contracts matter? What is special about them?
- The impact cryptocurrencies will have on capitalism
- Why cryptocurrencies could be a great tool to explore basic income

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Vinay Gupta - Dangerous Old Men: cypherpunk's failure, Ethereum's success http://bit.ly/1ZHGlpU
- Vinay Gupta - Resilience Guru | London Real http://bit.ly/1Ss64xT
- Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps http://bit.ly/1n6U3Rw
- Vinay Gupta | Computers that just work | State of the Net 2015 http://bit.ly/1lo7HOV
- Vinay's site re.silience.com http://bit.ly/1QiSA6g

Sponsors: 

- Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/114
YouTube: https://youtu.be/hTuGoRdm5wo


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB114 – Vinay Gupta: From Lawyer Capitalism To Programmer Capitalism

Support the show, consider donating: 12nTPUunDNLqyxxTMsCGghqND1MUYGgFEk (http://bit.ly/1Ozq0ci)

The idea that in the future tokens will play a crucial role in networks and organizations to incentivize decentralized collaboration and reward contribution is not new. It's the original decentralized autonomous organization idea that has informed many projects that have been on the podcast (Swarm, Ethereum, Factom, Storj, etc). For Matan, the vision originally led to found decentralized ride-sharing application LaZooz. One year ago, he left LaZooz to found Backfeed, which is building the tools that so far have been missing to make mass collaboration without a central party possible. 

Topics covered included:
- How he became interested in blockchains and started the ridesharing application LaZooz
- Backfeed's vision for a social operating system for decentralized organizations
- The role of reputation, proof-of-value and tokens in Backfeed
- The applications Backfeed is currently building
- The business of model of Backfeed

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Backfeed website http://bit.ly/1TkgZJw
- Backfeed: An Introduction for Mere Mortals http://bit.ly/1nuzS0B
- Matan Field DevCon Talk about Backfeed http://bit.ly/1UmNogV

Sponsors: 

- Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER at http://ledgerwallet.com
- Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/115
YouTube: https://youtu.be/SsCxgez1XBo
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-115


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
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EB115 – Matan Field: Backfeed And The Social Operating System For Decentralizde Organizations

Support the show, consider donating: 19ACvaz7TKaMmJ9W1tsTELUv2rK9R5YbZP (http://bit.ly/1Jvi5QP)

The problem around content monetization is one which content producers are constantly trying to solve. At the core of this problem is a mismatch between supply and demand. Content, which is increasingly abundant, is captured by human attention, which is in limited supply. The volume of content being produced is growing at staggering rates while total human attention remains flat. 

Our guest, Maciej Olpinski, argues that the current content monetization model is outdated, broken and is in need of an overhaul. Previously at Google and YouTube, Maciej has a broad understanding content monetization models and lays out a vision for open marketplaces for attention using blockchains. He argues that content discovery systems like the Google Page Rank algorithm and Facebook's News Feed could be replaced by open networks based on the mechanics of Bitcoin. 

Topics covered in this episode include: 

- How the current content monetization model works and why it's broken
- The inner workings of content discovery
- The economics of content discovery
- Open marketplaces for attention and reputation
- New web-native business models for content discovery

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Maciej's blog http://www.maciejolpinski.com/

Sponsors: 

- GTEC: Apply now to enter the GTEC Blockchain Contest and win prizes worth €50k epicenterbitcoin.com/gtec
- Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/120
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-120


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
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EB120 – Maciej Olpinski: Solving The Economic Mismatch Between Content And Attention

Support the show, consider donating: 1M4uVFEs7Ug9y5K35ynLJ5znEtxfrtCQ8d (http://bit.ly/1O3JyUy)

For orthodox Bitcoiners central banks are often seen as the incarnation of evil. But , alas, in the case of two Carribean central banking economists the feeling of reprehension wasn't reciprocated. Winston Moore and Jeremy Stephen were formerly associated with the Central Bank of Barados and fascinated by the potential of cryptocurrencies, they explored the consequences of their central bank holding Bitcoin as part of their international reserves. They joined us for a discussion of central banking, the pecularities of monetary policy in a small island nation and what Bitcoin could bring to the equation.

Topics covered included:
- The function of central banks
- The role international reserves hold for central banks
- The peculiar challenges of central banks of small island nation states
- How speculative attacks on central banks work
- Why central banks may want to hold cryptocurrencies as part of their portfolio
- How Bitt plans to issue Barbados Dollar using the Bitcoin blockchain and the open asset protocol


Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Paper on inclusion of cryptocurrencies in international reserve portfolio of Central Bank of Barbados [PDF] http://bit.ly/1TZ5usp
- Barbados Cryptocurrency Startup Bitt http://bit.ly/21gzMpV
- Bitt launches Barbados Dollar on blockchain http://bit.ly/1paq3FS
- Winston Moore's Website http://bit.ly/24LBnsm
- Jeremy Stephen's Website http://bit.ly/1Ym5vWC
- EB Episode 83 with David Andolfatto on Fedcoin and central bank issued cryptocurrencies http://bit.ly/1W2Isib

Sponsors: 

- Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/121
YouTube: https://youtu.be/8v0WCo1zGkU


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB121 – Winston Moore & Jeremy Stephen: Barbados, Bitcoin And Central Banking

Support the show, consider donating: 18ZSe3qvW3rCc9ScS5BjQYmcPYPzuAJu5X (http://bit.ly/1Rp226M)

We're joined by Brock Pierce, Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, investor and all around emblematic figure of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Brock tells his story, from his early beginning a entrepreneur in his teens, to the massively successfull video game industry businesses he built in the early 2000s.

As Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, he gives us his perspective on how the Foundation's role has evolved over time and its areas of focus going forward. Brock also weighs in the recent debates around governance and block size.

Topics covered included:
- The lemonade-stand beginnings of Brock's entrepreneurship story
- How he became involved in gaming and pioneered the sale of digital goods
- The 400,000-strong professional gamer supply chain he built in China
- His first contact with Bitcoin and the initial concerns he had
- Blockchain Capital and how he ended up investing in dozens of Bitcoin startups
- The blocksize debate and whether Bitcoin needs an explicit governance process
- The future of the Bitcoin Foundation

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- This Week in Startups with Brock Pierce http://bit.ly/1LASaYZ
- The Finanser Interview with Brock Pierce http://bit.ly/22rSrEX
- Blockchain Capital http://bit.ly/1Mj6iWT
- Brock Pierce – Bitcoins Are The Digital Gold 2.0 http://bit.ly/1Zkc9gv

Sponsors: 

- GTEC: Apply now to enter the GTEC Blockchain Contest and win prizes worth €50k epicenterbitcoin.com/gtec

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/123
YouTube: https://youtu.be/8HJvDzgfvh0


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB123 – Brock Pierce: From Digital Goods To Digital Currency

Support the show, consider donating: 1GW6t1vzHkN28F8agdW6vBqBxc9dKvad3B (http://bit.ly/1Rp3LZM)

The challenges Bitcoin's wild volatility represents for achieving mass adoption have made the necessity for stable cryptocurrencies apparent long ago. With Ethereum applications, the problem is even more apparent as many use cases from predcition markets to insurance are impractical using the even more volatile ether. Maker DAO is an ambitious attempt to solve the problem by building a bank-like system to issue a value-stable currency on Ethereum.

Rune Christensen joined us to discuss the need for Maker and the complex system to guarantee stability.

Topics covered included:
- Why money is the most successful product ever
- What makes stablecoins are necessary
- The different components of Maker such as the stablecoin Dai, the token MKR and the role they play
- Why Maker needs insurance against black swan events
- Maker's different planned stages of increasing decentralization
- The MKR token sale and its value proposition for investors

Links mentioned in this episode: 

- Maker DAO http://bit.ly/1USiCjv
- Maker DAO Whitepaper http://bit.ly/1WTK7qD
- Maker DAO DevCon Talk http://bit.ly/25tHuSi
- EB60 with Robert Sams: Volatility and the Search for a Stable Cryptocurrency http://bit.ly/1SiKKX0

Sponsors: 

- Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER at http://ledgerwallet.com

Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/124
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-124


Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
 
- Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com
- Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

EB124 – Rune Christensen: Maker Dao Ethereum's Decentralized Central Bank

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A significant part of the modern digital economy, is underpinned by machine learning models that are trained to perform tasks such as facial recognition, content curation, health diagnostics etc. Data to train machine learning models is the essential commodity of this century - a sentiment captured by epithets such as ""Data is the new oil"". Today's dominant AI paradigm has companies focus their efforts on gathering data from their users in order to train models and monetise usage of the model. This model has many consequences such as loss of privacy for the user, consolidation of data in a handful of large companies, low access to data for startups and a fundamental impossibility of collecting sensitive data such as markers for depression.

Our guest, Andrew Trask, is building OpenMined - a platform that merges cryptographic techniques such as homomorphic encryption and multi-party computation and blockchain technology to create the ability to train ML models with private user data. OpenMined will allow AI companies of the future to develop models, have them trained on user data without compromising user privacy, and incentivise users to train their model. We walk through the OpenMined vision and its potential impact on AI business models and AI safety

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Challenges with the current AI paradigm
- OpenMined's vision to allow training of AI models with private user data
- How OpenMined works under the hood
- Applications enabled by OpenMined
- Current state and OpenMined hackathon

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- OpenMined hackathon: http://hackathon.openmined.org/
- OpenMined website: https://openmined.org/

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/217
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/m5p5UFAboqc
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-217

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#217 Andrew Trask: OpenMined – A Decentralised Artificial Intelligence Platform

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ETH: 0x8cdb49ca5103Ce06717C4daBBFD4857183f50935 (https://epicenter.tv/tipeth)

Since he started blogging as Two Bit Idiot in 2013, Ryan Selkis has been both industry insider and industry critic. Consistently calling out excesses and abuses, but also maintaining his sights on the long-term potential. 

He recently founded Messari, a project that aims to bring more transparency and fairness to the industry. Messari has narrowed in on siloed, inaccurate and incomplete data as a key factor that allows insiders to profit at the expense of the public. We talked about the various ways in which Messari tackles that problem, ranging from a community-led effort to gather project data to the ambitious goal of a token-curated registry of stand-up projects.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Ryan's start into the crypto industry as pseudonymous blogger Two Bit Idiot
- His insights from being the Digital Currency Group's first employee
- CoinDesk and the challenges of journalism in crypto
- Why poor and inaccurate information benefits industry insiders at the expense of retail investors
- Messari's mission to lead a self-regulatory effort for the crypto industry
- How an open, distributed crypto data library could help create a fairer playing field
- The plans for Messari's token-curated registry of projects following reporting standards
- The economics and game theory around the Messari token and TCR

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Messari - Crypto News, Pricing, and Research: https://messari.io/
- Introducing Messari: An Open-Source EDGAR Database for Cryptoassets: https://medium.com/tbis-weekly-bits/introducing-messari-an-open-source-edgar-database-for-cryptoassets-46fec1b402f6
- Messari Whitepaper: https://messari.github.io/tcr/whitepaper.pdf
- A token to self-regulate tokens. But really.: https://medium.com/@twobitidiot/a-token-to-self-regulate-tokens-but-really-a61da77e6a7b
- Cryptoasset network value, market cap, rankings & metrics | OnChainFX: https://onchainfx.com/
- Ryan Selkis (@twobitidiot) | Twitter: https://twitter.com/twobitidiot
- Messari Community Analyst Application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DxH-QgSn57BzGC_qAsIElF5UJGg_b10jplqbRs798fQ/viewform?edit_requested=true

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/247
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/x8zTE5I1kGU
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-247

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#247 Ryan Selkis: Messari - Bringing Transparency and Self-Regulation to the Blockchain Industry

The concept of a decentralized exchange has been a holy grail in the cryptocurrency space for many years. Many attempts have been made, but most decentralized exchanges suffered from central points of failure, poor user experience and little liquidity.

Launched during Ethereum's DevCon 2018, Uniswap is one of the first fully decentralized exchanges and managed to become the leading DEX very fast. We were joined by Uniswap Founder Hayden Adams to discuss Uniswap's unique model, the different participants in the protocol and the importance of decentralized exchanges for the blockchain space.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- How Hayden's exploratory project to learn smart contract development took off and became Uniswap
- How Uniswap works and its different participants
- The advantage of an automated exchange instead of using order books
- The role of liquidity providers in Uniswap
- Feedback loops that can make Uniswap markets popular or collapse
- The challenging economics of liquidity shares
- Addressing Arthur Hayes' criticism of decentralized exchanges
- Why Uniswap didn't create a tokeneconomic monetization model

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Uniswap Exchange Protocol: https://bit.ly/2MVWl8i
- Uniswap Whitepaper: https://bit.ly/2MTouN6
- Uniswap: Getting Started & Documentation: https://bit.ly/2FiCdqt
- Unisocks Exchange: https://bit.ly/2IQYi0u
- Distributed 2018: Presentation about Decentralized Exchanges by Arthur Hayes (BitMEX): https://bit.ly/2XpvIMI
- Buidl Asia 2019 Conference in Seoul, Korea on July 22-23: https://bit.ly/2FipiF8
- HackAtom Seoul on July 19-21: https://bit.ly/2KXaGP7

Sponsors: 
- Azure: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks - http://aka.ms/epicenter
- Trail of Bits: Trust the team at the forefront of blockchain security research - https://trailofbits.com

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/292

#292 Hayden Adams: Uniswap – An Automated Decentralized Exchange for Ethereum

Epicenter is a podcast about the technologies, projects & people driving decentralization and the global blockchain revolution.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sebastien Couture and Meher Roy. Every week, we find the most interesting people in the industry for in-depth discussions about their projects, ideas and stories.

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