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

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

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

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03/27/2025: Angie Kappel - Tariff uncertainty chips away at consumer & business confidence

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Some of Associated Bank's most well-respected financial leaders offer their analysis of current events in the financial world. You won't want to miss these conversations. From discussing local commercial real estate to assessing national and global economic trends to dissecting political implications on the banking industry – anything is fair game.

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 #hedging