Web3’s decentralisation is currently limited to smart contracts as they can be verified on-chain. However, until scalability and UX become on par with that of Web2, the only realistic way for crypto to reach mass adoption is threw off-chain dApps. This creates the premise for a security bottleneck in the form of centralised APIs used for on-chain querying. Mel Project aims to expand on-chain security and decentralisation (consensus) to off-chain apps, basically achieving off-chain composability through trustless light clients. Earendil, the backbone of their ecosystem, designed to resist ISP-level censorship, is a decentralized anonymous communication and payment network that enables autonomous applications and true P2P protocols.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Eric’s background and founding Mel Project
- Why Ethereum came short
- Is Infura a security bottleneck?
- Liberating markets (and the Internet)
- Light clients and how Mel Project tackles them
- Use cases
- Smart contracts on Mel Project
- Scaling the ‘world computer’
- Mel Project’s consensus: Streamlet
- Why Mel Project chose an UTXO model
- Earendil & ISP-level censorship resistance
- Roadmap
- The Geph VPN
- Mel Project’s low volatility (stable) coin
- $SYM: PoS token
- Misc.

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Eric Tung on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3WEcf8Y
- Mel Project on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4dl3PJl
- Geph VPN on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4cNGCzv
- Moxie Marlinspike's 'My first impressions of web3' article: https://bit.ly/4cTRxYD
- Streamlet BFT consensus model: https://bit.ly/4dfnIkJ

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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/558

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

#558 Eric Tung: Mel Project – Is Web3 Truly Decentralised?

In 2017, Vitalik Buterin defined the ‘Scalability Trilemma’ which consisted of 3 attributes that every blockchain had to balance depending on its intended use cases: decentralisation, scalability and security. While Ethereum sacrificed scalability in favour of security and decentralisation, others prioritised throughput over the other two. However, a solution was proposed, inspired from Web2 computer science - sharding. Despite the fact that Ethereum’s ossification and significant progress in zero knowledge research led to a shift in Ethereum’s roadmap away from execution sharding towards L2 rollups, there were other L1s that were designed from the get-go as sharded blockchains. One such example was Elrond, who implemented the beacon chain PoS consensus alongside a sharded execution layer. Their recent rebranding to MultiversX alludes to a multi-chain, interoperable ecosystem, in which sovereign chains can communicate in a similar manner to cross-shard transaction routing.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Lucian’s background and founding Elrond (MultiversX)
- Elrond’s validator & shard architecture
- Cross-shard composability
- VMs, smart contracts and transaction routing
- Self sovereignty and modularity
- MultiversX vision
- Roadmap

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Lucian Mincu on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3LQwCK0
- MultiversX on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4fwJkuQ
- xPortal on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4dpqBj8

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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 Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/559

#559 Lucian Mincu: MultiversX – Blockchain Sharding 101

The saying goes that knowledge is power, and this perfectly applies to blockchains due to their innate transparency and immutability. However, raw data could seem, at first, unusable. This is where analytics companies, such as Nansen, play a major role in demystifying blockchain data by labelling it. In turn, curated data holds value as it can give an edge to traders, by tracking ‘smart money’ wallets. In the age of AI, most of the heavy lifting of data analysis is performed by LLMs, but human input is equally valuable for discerning nuances and fine tuning the process.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Alex’s background, from AI to crypto
- Nansen’s values
- Querying blockchain data
- Supported chains
- Ensuring data accuracy
- Generating wallet labels
- The role of LLMs and AI
- Data privacy and monetisation
- On-chain transparency, privacy and ethics
- Roadmap and further enhancements

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Alex Svanevik on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3YCtsku
- Nansen on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3WE2JBB

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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/560

#560 Alex Svanevik: Nansen – AI & Blockchain Analytics

As the crypto industry matures, more sophisticated market participants become involved. As a result, risk management and hedging will evolve to levels seen in TradFi. However, regardless of the preferred market activity, when interacting with a blockchain, every actor competes for the same limited blockspace. Based on demand levels, the cost for securing that blockspace can fluctuate (in the form of miner fees for Bitcoin transactions, or gas fees for PoS blockchains). Therefore, a particular niche of power users could lower these costs by reserving blockspace in advance of elevated demand levels. Alkimiya set out to build just that - a marketplace for blockspace.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Leo’s background
- The vision behind Alkimia
- Market participants for blockspace
- Hedging costs
- Use cases on Ethereum
- Proposer-Builder Separation and preconfirmations
- Reserving blockspace
- Polkadot’s blockspace allocation
- Current market sentiment. ETH vs. SOL

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Leo Zhang on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3MbaJ8u
- Alkimiya on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4dqbdU9

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 Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/561

#561 Leo Zhang: Alkimiya – Blockspace, the Digital Real Estate

Self-custodial wallets often represent the first point of contact for crypto users that venture away from centralised exchanges. As a result, their security and user experience should be paramount. This often explained Metamask’s first mover advantage and the users’ reluctance to change. However, as infrastructure evolves, new wallets are equipped from the get-go with features that are designed for normie adoption, such as: account abstraction, gas fee abstraction, easier on- and off-ramp, etc. Zeal was envisioned as a day-to-day wallet solution, allowing users true freedom to transact, both on-chain, as well as off-chain (i.e. real world spendings).

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Hannes’ background
- Existing wallet solutions and Zeal’s userbase
- Wallet UX, account abstraction and passkeys
- Security assumptions and passkey recovery
- Smart contract interactions
- Zeal’s mobile-first focus
- IBAN & Gnosis Pay integrations
- Capturing market share
- Banking the unbanked
- Gas fees
- Cross-chain interoperability
- DeFi & staking
- Monetisation
- Privacy
- Zeal’s backend
- Growth & business scaling in Web3
- Zealot recruitment

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Hannes Graah on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3YVhjY2
- Zeal on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4dRSjoU

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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/562

#562 Hannes Graah: Zeal – The Day-to-Day Crypto Wallet for EVM Chains

The future is multi-chain, scalable and modular. However, while Cosmos’ IBC set the standard for interoperability, Ethereum’s L2 shift revealed a huge problem of liquidity fragmentation across the many rollups fighting for market share. Polymer aims to bridge the two ecosystems and bring the best of both worlds: Ethereum’s native liquidity and Cosmos’ interoperability, through a modular framework using the OP-stack and IBC.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Bo’s background and the evolution of Polymer
- Scaling limits of L1s vs. L2s
- The ‘endgame’ for rollup frameworks
- IBC
- Interoperability & network topology: 70’s/80’s vs. blockchains
- Polymer hub
- Monomer framework
- Pre-confirmation & finality trade-offs
- Cross-rollup interoperability
- Building appchains with Monomer
- Modularity

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Bo Du on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4e8YyEP
- Polymer Labs on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3yS9sQH

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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 Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/563

#563 Bo Du: Polymer – A New Era for interoperability...on Ethereum!

In this day and age, privacy and confidentiality are more important than ever. Advancements in the cryptographic research of zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs), fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and multi-party computation (MPC) paved the way for computational integrity and confidential computing. While FHE allows for computation to be performed on encrypted data without the need for prior decryption, it is MPC that enables compliance with regulations (e.g. AML). Arcium aims to build a global super computer for parallelised confidential computing, powered by custom MXEs (multi-party computation execution environments).

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Yannik’s background
- Confidentiality & decentralised compliance
- Confidential computing
- TEEs (trusted execution environments) & side-channel attacks
- ZKP vs. MPC vs. FHE
- Arcium’s global super computer architecture
- How Arcium differentiates itself from other privacy protocols
- Use cases
- Censorship risks
- Ecosystem development

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Yannik Schrade on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3TkVY6Z
- Arcium on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4gguJUJ

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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 Sebastien Couture & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/564

#564 Yannik Schrade: Arcium – Parallelized Confidential Computing Network

Interoperability is the holy grail for a multi-chain future or the ‘internet of blockchains’. However, while IBC (inter-blockchain communication protocol) revolutionised permissionless cross-chain transfers, it was Skip Protocol’s Go API that took advantage of Cosmos’ infrastructure (and its numerous messaging protocols), to create an end-to-end interoperability platform, allowing developers to design seamless cross-chain user experiences. 

We were joined by Sam Hart, head of product at Skip Protocol, to discuss the challenges of interoperability across Cosmos & Ethereum, and how Skip:Go API & Skip:Connect push the crosschain boundaries towards end user adoption.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Sam’s background
- The Other Internet
- Skip Protocol: bringing seamless interoperability to Cosmos
- Monetization for Skip:Connect & Skip:Go
- The Skip:Connect oracle and how Cosmos chains pull data
- Cross-chain MEV
- MEV blockers
- Ethereum vs. Cosmos ecosystem development and activity
- Ethereum bridges vs. Cosmos IBC
- Cross-chain interoperability
- Skip’s multi-chain expansion

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Sam Hart on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3XFmGK1
- Skip Protocol on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3TrEwgY
- The Other Internet: https://bit.ly/4gCqt2n

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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/565

#565 Sam Hart: Skip Protocol – The API for Seamless Cross-Chain Experiences on Cosmos and Beyond

Prediction markets were one of the first use cases of smart contracts, yet their popularity only recently spiked, following Polymarket’s social media spread. However, while prediction markets are generally zero-sum games, the rise of AI models trained on large datasets led to AI-powered prediction feeds and hedge funds. Crypto offers a unique array of use cases as it allows data scientists to not only share their data sets and models with complete privacy, but also access decentralised computing and model training. While Predictoor employs Ocean’s data infrastructure to run AI-powered prediction bots on lower timeframes, Numerai developed its own AI hedge fund for stocks, that recently also expanded to crypto (Numerai does not trade cryptocurrencies, and Numerai’s Hedge Fund(s) have no relation to Numerai Crypto).

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Predictoor & Numerai overview
- Prediction markets
- Prediction feeds
- Prediction markets in TradFi and other use cases
- Implementation of Ocean’s tech in Predictoor
- Predictions vs. Futures
- Market participants
- Numerai hedge fund
- Numerai’s trust assumptions
- The role of AI
- The evolution of AI and how it might solve market inefficiencies
- Numerai crypto and how it differs from Predictoor
- Predictoor x Numerai collaborations
- The future of prediction markets

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Trent McConaghy on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Zzx6My
- Richard Craib on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3ZwN363
- Predictoor on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4dfH6h6
- Numerai on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3MPJvEJ
- Ocean Protocol on Twitter: https://bit.ly/47BI5qE
- Oasis Protocol on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3zr9MpC

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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/566

#566 Richard Craib & Trent McConaghy: – How AI Changed Crypto Prediction Markets

As Ethereum’s roadmap shifted to a rollup-centric approach, a plethora of rollups have been launched, to the point where L3s have been conceptualized. Celestia sits at the forefront of modularity as it aims to replace the monolithic blockchain architecture with specialized layers that are more suited for scalability and customization. As a result, Celestia strictly focuses on data availability to accommodate the recent rollup expansion, as data storage represents the largest portion of fees on L2s. The Lemongrass upgrade lays the foundation for further use cases being enabled through Celestia, mainly revolving around interoperability and zk proof enabled ‘lazy bridging’.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- The vision behind Celestia
- Rollup architecture
- Centralised sequencers and the role of fraud proofs
- Celestia’s market share
- Rollkit & sovereign rollups
- Governance & light clients
- The importance of decentralisation: L1s vs. rollups
- Celestia’s data availability capacity
- Latency & Celestia block times
- Interoperability & ‘lazy bridging’
- The Lemongrass upgrade
- On-chain economics & value accrual
- Interchain accounts on Celestia
- Crypto’s mainstream adoption
- Future roadmap

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Mustafa Al-Bassam on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3ZKjGxu
- Ismail Khoffi on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3TLSjza
- Celestia on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3TJUzXx

Sponsors: 
- 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 - 
- 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/567

#567 Celestia – From 1Gb Blocks of Data Availability to Interoperability and 'Lazy Bridging'

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.

New tracks tagged #cryptocurrrency