Explore every episode of the podcast Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Konstantin Lomashuk: '#bitcoin is like a #memecoin' - cyber·Fund | 07 Oct 2024 | 01:06:57 | |
Outside of BTC’s cypherpunk movement, the early days of crypto were more or less barren in terms of innovation. However, this presented a huge opportunity for visionaries and angel investors to either launch or back bold projects, recognizing the potential of crypto stretching far beyond than just payments. One of them was Konstantin Lomashuk, co-founder of cyber•Fund which was a key actor in bootstrapping the cybernetic economy. Apart from early investments in Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana and many others, Konstantin recognized the potential threats to the core ethos of decentralisation and also co-founded Lido DAO in order to stave off Ethereum’s centralization risks. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| Celestia: 1Gb Blocks, Rollup Interoperability & Lazy Bridging. Ismail Khoffi & Mustafa Al-Bassam | 30 Sep 2024 | 01:03:48 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| Numerai & Predictoor: How AI Changed Crypto Prediction Markets - Trent McConaghy & Richard Craib | 20 Sep 2024 | 01:20:36 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Skip Protocol: The API for Seamless Cross-Chain Experiences on Cosmos & Beyond - Sam Hart | 13 Sep 2024 | 00:58:24 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Arcium: Parallelized Confidential Computing Network - Yannik Schrade | 06 Sep 2024 | 01:02:10 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Felix Lutsch. | |||
| Polymer: A New Era for Interoperability...on Ethereum! - Bo Du | 02 Sep 2024 | 01:02:19 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. | |||
| Zeal: The Day-to-Day Crypto Wallet for EVM Chains - Hannes Graah | 23 Aug 2024 | 00:55:27 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Alkimiya: Blockspace, the Digital Real Estate - Leo Zhang | 17 Aug 2024 | 00:53:10 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| Nansen: AI & Blockchain Analytics - Alex Svanevik | 09 Aug 2024 | 00:58:06 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. P.S.: Our friends from @nansen_ai have offered us 10 discount codes for 10% off on their professional and pioneer plans! If you are interested in unlocking Nansen's true power, DM us on Twitter (X - @epicenterbtc) and we'll hook you up with a code (FCFS). | |||
| MultiversX: Blockchain Sharding 101 - Lucian Mincu | 02 Aug 2024 | 01:08:49 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. | |||
| Mel Project: Is Web3 Truly Decentralised? - Eric Tung | 26 Jul 2024 | 01:18:06 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| How Gnosis 3.0 Paves the Way for Mass Adoption - Friederike Ernst | 20 Jul 2024 | 01:10:20 | |
One of the OG flag bearers for decentralisation, Gnosis initially set out to build a prediction market on Ethereum. However, unlike the vibrant ecosystem of today, the early Ethereum days were barren. As a result, Gnosis team decided to build out their own infrastructure and tooling to suit their needs. Before long, tools such as Gnosis Safe, Zodiac, etc. were quickly adopted by the entire industry. Nowadays, since the foundation has been tried and tested, Gnosis 3.0 aims to focus on improving consumer dApp UX in order to facilitate widespread adoption. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. | |||
| Ethereum at a Crossroads - Vitalik Buterin (Live from EthCC 7) | 14 Jul 2024 | 00:52:10 | |
We couldn’t miss EthCC 7, nor the chance to chat with Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum’s status quo as an L1 amidst the plethora of L2s competing for market share, and what challenges will most likely arise along the way (e.g. staking decentralisation). Tune in for a captivating discussion on the importance of decentralisation as a last stand of human empowerment in the current geopolitical context and how it could positively impact AI's trajectory. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| ‘Aave v4 Will Unify Cross-Chain Liquidity’ - Stani Kulechov | 05 Jul 2024 | 01:10:48 | |
One of the bluechip DeFi projects and backbone of Ethereum liquidity markets, Aave has recently announced their V4 upgrade proposal, which aims (among others) to unify crosschain liquidity. We were joined by Stani Kulechov, founder & CEO of Aave, to discuss the DeFi (r)evolution since ETH Lend to Aave V4, expanding to non-EVM chains and potentially even building a self-sovereign chain. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Fabric Ventures' Investment Thesis Since the Dawn of Bitcoin to AI - Richard Muirhead | 28 Jun 2024 | 01:09:24 | |
It is one thing to invest in early stage companies, but to do so in a nascent industry that constantly reinvents and rediscovers itself is a whole different venture. Richard Muirhead co-founded Fabric Ventures in 2012 around the thesis of supporting the Open Economy. While at first this meant investing in Bitcoin-related projects, once Ethereum was announced, a new horizon unveiled, filled with tremendous potential. Since then, the Open Economy thesis was adapted to match technological breakthroughs, and it is now centered around artificial intelligence, distributed computing and self sovereignty (over both fungible, as well non-fungible assets). Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Plurality: How Taiwan Managed to Unite Its People Through Tech - Audrey Tang & Glen Weyl | 21 Jun 2024 | 01:01:32 | |
In a world constantly torn by social division amplified by polarizing scissor statements throughout social media, Taiwan conducted a social experiment aimed at strengthening social unity while also embracing diversity. Plurality details how Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang and her collaborators achieved inclusive, technology-fueled growth that harnessed digital tools to provide an antidote to information chaos and warfare. The open-source book is living proof that present global challenges can be solved through democratic solutions that embody a decentralised ethos. We were joined by Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl, co-authors of Plurality, to discuss the social dynamics they studied and how technology can be used to unite rather than divide. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| 'Ethereum Needs Polygon's Aggregation Layer to Scale' - Brendan Farmer & Sandeep Nailwal | 14 Jun 2024 | 01:05:56 | |
As more and more L2s launch promising to scale Ethereum, they end up competing for the same market share, userbase and liquidity. Apart from this harsh reality, crosschain interactions should be as seamless as possible in order to bridge different L2 ecosystems. Polygon envisions a scalable future in which various zero knowledge rollups post their proofs on an aggregation layer before settling on Ethereum, thus lowering latency and transaction costs as crosschain interactions take place expeditiously, without involving the L1 mainnet. We were joined by Sandeep Nailwal & Brendan Farmer, to discuss Polygon’s aggregation layer and how it aims to solve the current fragmentation of Ethereum L2 scaling solutions. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| EthStaker: Ethereum Staking Wars - Nixorokish & Superphiz | 07 Jun 2024 | 01:02:09 | |
In a world where a handful of (centralised) entities hold the majority of staked Ethereum (either directly or via delegation), the network’s decentralisation and security might be in peril. While there are multiple proposals being discussed to address this pressing matter, from reducing issuance after a certain breakpoint (~30% of total ETH being staked) to introducing more severe slashing for colluding entities, education and guidance remain paramount. EthStaker is a community led project whose goal is to guide, educate, support and offer resources for stakers, in order to lower the barrier of entry for solo stakers. We were joined by Superphiz & Nixorokish, to discuss the current Ethereum staking landscape and what challenges need to be addressed to ensure the network’s decentralisation and security. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| PsyDAO: Decentralising Psychedelic Research - Dima Buterin & Paul Kohlhaas | 30 May 2024 | 01:21:46 | |
One could argue that psychedelic research has experienced a similar journey as crypto, in the sense that decentralised communities bound together to fund research where centralised entities refuse to do so. One of the greatest hurdles in modern science is access to research funding, and DeSci aims to provide a solution through decentralised crowdfunding. In addition, IP rights are incontestably attributed with the help of blockchain technology, as they cannot be altered at a later date. However, as the human mind is unique and moulded by each individual’s life story, establishing a causal relationship between consumption and their beneficial or detrimental effects can be extremely biased. We were joined by Dima Buterin & Paul Kohlhaas, to discuss the vast subject of psychedelics (especially in relationship to trauma), how research has progressed and how decentralisation pushes the field forward (DeSci). Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| Crypto ETFs: Trojan Horse or Big Win? - Austin Griffith, Mona El Isa, Peter Van Valkenburgh | 24 May 2024 | 01:12:29 | |
The approval of Ethereum spot ETFs sent shockwaves through the industry as policymakers pivoted abruptly from threatening to veto FIT21 bill, to a pro-crypto discourse. One could say their hand was forced by the imminent US elections, but Ethereum is now officially classified as a commodity, nonetheless. As the regulatory hurdle seems, for the time being, surpassed, one should not forget the values promoted by the crypto movement from the get-go: decentralisation and permissionlessness. However, everyday users tend to overlook these aspects in favour of a more streamlined user experience. As technology evolves and scaling solutions mature, better UI & UX represent crucial goals in the race for end user adoption. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst and Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| Alluvial: Institutional Liquid Staking and Spot Ethereum ETF - Mara Schmiedt | 17 May 2024 | 00:52:41 | |
The massive success of the recently approved spot Bitcoin ETF showed tremendous interest from large institutional players. Even despite negative takes in public appearances, behind the curtain, more and more ‘smart money’ accumulate $BTC, either directly or through ETF shares. The same is to be expected for Ethereum, yet uncertainty still looms due to its proof-of-stake consensus model and, ultimately, staking yield. While crypto natives quickly embraced both ETH staking as well as liquid staking, institutions could not justify the higher risk profile and lack of regulatory compliance. Alluvial and Liquid Collective seek to change this and provide ultrasound infrastructure for enterprise-grade security in liquid staking. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. | |||
| Quadratic Funding and How Gitcoin Raised $60M for Public Goods - Kevin Owocki | 10 May 2024 | 00:48:43 | |
5 years, 20 Grants, 3715 projects crowd-funded and over $60M raised towards public goods funding, from 4.2M unique donations. Gitcoin’s headline numbers are indicative of the massive success their quadratic funding (QF) and public goods funding models (PGF) have seen over the years. With Gitcoin 2.0, crowd-funding is further decentralised, Allo Protocol being open-source and permissionless: any ecosystem treasury can create their own Gitcoin Grants program to help their community fund what matters to them. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Near Protocol: 'Blockchains Cannot Scale Without Sharding!' - Illia Polosukhin & Alex Skidanov | 04 May 2024 | 01:45:33 | |
The initial scaling roadmap for Ethereum featured execution layer sharding. However, the rapid advancements of layer 2 scaling solutions in general, and zero knowledge proofs in particular, caused a restructuring of the original plan. The reason was that rollups would have required less changes made to Ethereum’s base layer, hence lower risks. On the other hand, Near Protocol was designed from the ground up as a sharded system, capable of withstanding billions of transactions simultaneously, without sacrificing decentralisation or security. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. | |||
| 'Is Tether's USDT Safe?' - Paolo Ardoino | 25 Apr 2024 | 01:27:32 | |
Long regarded as an impending black swan, Tether has successfully weathered out the contagion and bank runs caused by Luna’s collapse in the depths of the 2022-2023 bearmarket. Since then, a large portion of Tether’s reserves has been shifted to treasury bills, which are the closest dollar proxy, positioning Tether among the top 20 holders of T-bills, worldwide. However, navigating the Tether FUD was not the first rodeo for Paolo Ardoino, as he has also previously led Bitfinex, which successfully recovered after a $72M hack, back in 2016. The worldwide adoption of USDT, especially in emerging markets and developing economies, serves as a testament to Tether’s commitment to create a product with tangible real-life applications. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Safe: Securing $100 Billion of Crypto Assets - Lukas Schor | 18 Apr 2024 | 01:06:24 | |
What started out as a plan to build prediction markets, Gnosis ended up building crucial Ethereum infrastructure and tooling. Safe is one of its many successes, which originated during the 2017 ICO mania, as a solution for managing the raised capital securely, via a multi-sig. Even back then, the multi-sig model was quickly adopted by the entire industry, as a gold standard for asset security. Smart accounts and ERC-4337 represent the next step towards mass-adoption, through achieving a Web2-like UX. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. | |||
| Saga: 'Ethereum and Solana CAN NOT Scale. Our Chainlets Fix This!' - Rebecca Liao | 11 Apr 2024 | 00:52:10 | |
One of the most important hurdles to mass adoption is represented by blockchain scalability, which also hinders the real-life utility of its numerous applications. While there are different solutions being experimented with, one should not overlook the importance of security and decentralisation. Saga introduces the concept of chainlets, interoperable Cosmos-based sovereign blockchains that share the security of Saga’s mainnet validator set. The majority of their parameters are fully customisable, allowing developers to tweak them towards their own needs. Saga’s main focus is building their very own Web3 gaming ecosystem, providing game devs the scaling needed to unlock their full potential and creativity. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. | |||
| Movement Labs: 'Facebook's MOVE Will Bring Billions of Users to Crypto' - Rushi Manche | 06 Apr 2024 | 00:58:14 | |
Classical, monolithic blockchains are inherently limited in their throughput due to their single-thread execution architecture. Modern VMs attempt to solve this issue through parallelisation being implemented from the get-go. Movement Labs employs the Move-VM to build a ZK L2 rollups on Ethereum, thus also deriving its security. Through parallel execution threads, Movement achieves a theoretical TPS of 160,000 while also ensuring sub-cent transaction fees. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. | |||
| Wintermute: 'Avoid These Trading Mistakes!' Secrets of a Market Maker - Yoann Turpin | 30 Mar 2024 | 01:21:36 | |
Market makers help create more efficient markets and liquid order books, by positioning themselves on the receiving end of a trade that other market participants are unwilling to fill. Quantitative analysis is crucial in determining their position and size. Wintermute defines itself as a tech-first company that also became one of the largest spot market making firms in Web3. From angel investing in Web2, to market making in Web3, Yoann Turpin (co-founder of Wintermute) has a vast experience in both tech products & financial markets. He shares what differentiates good traders and how he approaches investing, trading and market making. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. | |||
| Gearbox Protocol: 'DeFi Is Boring, Let's Reinvent Credit' - Ivan & Mikael Lazarev | 23 Mar 2024 | 01:19:03 | |
Credit is a widely used term, which could essentially be summarised as “more capital so you can do whatever you want”. In DeFi, there are numerous ways of getting exposure to an asset in a leveraged manner: from looping to perpetuals and margin trading, the possibilities are endless (especially when you also account for synthetic versions). Gearbox Protocol aims to create a universal, composable, on-chain ‘credit layer’, through credit account abstraction. This approach simultaneously addresses three concerns: liquidity, security and, ultimately, user experience (UX). Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. | |||
| Humayun Sheikh: Fetch AI – Decentralising AI Economies | 16 Mar 2024 | 00:57:53 | |
While large language models (LLMs) are rather passive from an economic perspective on their own, AI agents offer a preview of what truly autonomous AI applications can achieve. Fetch.ai aims to create a platform for economic interactions in the AI economy, where participants can provide many different kinds of stake, ranging from purely financial, in the form of cryptocurrency tokens, to utility based, in the form of data sets that LLMs can be trained on. It thus creates a supply chain that links different actors of the AI economy. We were joined by Humayun Sheikh, co-founder & CEO of Fetch.ai, to discuss AI economic models and how LLMs can be integrated by agentic systems as a foundation for autonomous AI apps. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/539 | |||
| Jasper De Goojier: SEDA – Intent-Based Modular Data Layer | 09 Mar 2024 | 00:54:30 | |
As technology progresses, infrastructure should be commoditised, especially in Web3, in order to avoid the creation of bottlenecks and gatekeepers. Blockchains are naturally oblivious to off-chain data, so they need oracles to fetch data. However, given their past technical limitations, oracles have failed to provide a decentralised and permissionless framework for data query. SEDA seeks to change this by creating an intent-based modular data layer, which brings off-chain data on-chain, in order for it to be available to any party, regardless of who requested it first. We were joined by Jasper De Goojier, co-founder of SEDA Protocol, to discuss the oracle landscape and how SEDA aims to decentralise it and make data access permissionless. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/538 | |||
| Anish Mohammed: Panther Protocol – Zero-Knowledge Compliant Privacy in DeFi | 02 Mar 2024 | 01:09:21 | |
Blockchains are, by default, public ledgers containing every transaction recorded by the network. While this ensures transparency, it also violates users’ privacy once an address is linked to an entity. Apart from creating additional risk for self-custody, institutions are also limited by what they can publicly share on a blockchain. As a result, there is great demand and utility for on-chain, compliant privacy, which still requires KYC (& KYT), but protects them through cryptographic constructs. Zero knowledge proofs attest computational integrity, allowing for transactions to be bundled together and their correctness verified, without revealing each individual interaction. We were joined by Anish Mohammed, co-founder & CTO of Panther Protocol, to discuss the importance of compliant privacy for on-chain transactions, powered by zero knowledge technology. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/537 | |||
| Gil Binder & Yair Cleper: Lava Network – Decentralising RPC and Node Providers | 23 Feb 2024 | 00:54:43 | |
The monolithic blockchain era appears to be sunsetting. Among the first to contribute to this paradigm shift was Cosmos, which introduced the idea of specialized sovereign blockchains (appchains), made possible by the Cosmos SDK. Nowadays, the modular thesis employs external data availability and even execution solutions, which enables the creation of countless new chains. Each new blockchains comes with its own ‘specs’, and centralised RPC and node providers have to adapt to each chain’s setting. However, the saying ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ applies in this scenario too - we have often witnessed RPC failures during high demand periods. Lava Network aims to provide a competitive marketplace for RPC and node providers, which would compete based on their performance and user feedback. We were joined by Gil and Yair to discuss Lava Network’s RPC decentralisation in the modular, multi-chain landscape. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/536 | |||
| Zhiming Yang: Orbit Markets – Crypto Derivatives and Structured Products | 17 Feb 2024 | 01:07:41 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/535 | |||
| David Goldberg: Founders Pledge – Maximising Charity Efficiency & Impact | 10 Feb 2024 | 01:02:39 | |
Measuring the social impact of a charitable donation is, oftentimes, an impossible task. Founders Pledge is a non-profit organisation that aims to funnel and streamline donations from successful entrepreneurs in order to maximise their efficiency, based on data and research. Having built a network of nearly 2000 like-minded philanthropists, the vision behind Founders Pledge was to ensure transparency, unbiased assessment, ease of access and incentive alignment for its members. Despite the hurdles of running and scaling a non-profit organisation, Founders Pledge managed to stay true to its values throughout its 10 years of activity. In the end, where there’s a will, there’s a way. We were joined by David Goldberg, founder of Founders Pledge, to discuss the landscape of charitable non-profit organisations and how data can streamline donations and maximise their social impact. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/534 | |||
| Lefteris Karapetsas: Rotki – From Ethereum Devcon 0 to Building Rotki | 03 Feb 2024 | 01:11:24 | |
We are, arguably, still early in the crypto industry, but some people were really…really early. One of them is Lefteris Karapetsas, who joined EthDev in 2014 and contributed to building the Ethereum ecosystem, since before the genesis block. His crypto journey is one for the history books, as after EthDev he joined Slock.it, right around the time of The DAO raise…and hack. Lefteris remained a core supporter of decentralisation and an active member of the Ethereum community, being involved (and delegated) in multiple projects’ governance. More recently, he founded Rotki, an open source portfolio management app that aims to preserve user privacy. We were joined by Lefteris Karapetsas, true Ethereum OG, to discuss his 10-year long journey through the Ethereum ecosystem, from joining EthDev (pre-Devcon 0) to founding Rotki. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/533 | |||
| David Minarsch: Autonolas – Autonomous AI Agents | 27 Jan 2024 | 01:06:53 | |
The Autonolas stack aims to address the ‘A’ in DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation), through its Open Autonomy framework, which enables the creation of autonomous, off-chain services for crypto applications. A key component for ensuring the proper operation of these off-chain autonomous economic agents, is the consensus mechanism. The protocol is overseen by the Governatooorr, the world’s first autonomous, AI-powered governor. We were joined by David Minarsch, co-founder of Valory, to discuss the ever-changing landscape of AI agents and how they can be used to automate crypto applications. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/532 | |||
| Andreas Tsamados & Vijay Krishnavanshi: Fileverse: A Trustless Stack to Decentralize Knowledge and Collaboration | 19 Jan 2024 | 01:08:19 | |
Web2 file storage relies heavily on centralised entities, which have mostly outgrown their competitors, establishing a quasi-monopoly. The reasons for this are twofold: enormous operating costs and seamless user experience (e.g. social logins and account recovery), which, until recently, could only be solved through centralisation. Add to this the reluctance to change platforms as users need to re-upload their files, and you get an ossified user base. However, data leaks and hacks are a constant threat to users’ privacy, and indicate the disruptive potential of decentralised file storage and sharing. We were joined by Andreas Tsamados & Vijay Krishnavanshi, co-founders of Fileverse, to discuss their decentralised file sharing solution and how they plan to disrupt the Web2 quasi-monopoly. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/531 | |||
| Guy Itzhaki & Guy Zyskind: Fhenix – FHE-powered End-to-End Encrypted Ethereum L2 | 12 Jan 2024 | 00:58:36 | |
Fully homomorphic encryption, also known as the Holy Grail of cryptography, allows for computation to be performed on encrypted data, without the need for prior decryption. Its blockchain applications would enable programmable, institutional-grade, compliant privacy. With the addition of fhEVM libraries, solidity developers don’t have to worry about the complex cryptography and only decide what layers of the UX should be private. We were joined by Guy Itzhaki & Guy Zyskind, to discuss fully homomorphic encryption and how Fhenix plans to leverage it to build an end-to-end encrypted Ethereum L2 with compliant privacy. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/530 | |||
| Illia Polosukhin: Near Protocol – From AI to High-Throughput Blockchain | 06 Jan 2024 | 01:28:47 | |
What began as an AI company trying to seek solutions in order to pay remote (unbanked) workers, Near AI became, in 2018, Near Protocol. Its sharded design was inspired by modern database architecture and large language model (LLM) training. Near Protocol aimed to solve the scalability trilemma, through a modular approach, combining data availability sharding with stateless validation. By abstracting away archaic blockchain standards, Near basically enabled decentralised full stack development and, in terms of UX, a distributed custodial solution via chain abstraction and account aggregation. We were joined by Illia Poloshukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol, to discuss Near’s journey, from AI company to high-throughput L1 blockchain, and how LLM training influenced the modular design choice. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/529 | |||
| Isidoros Passadis: Lido DAO – Staking Decentralisation for Ethereum and LSTs in DeFi | 30 Dec 2023 | 01:30:53 | |
As Ethereum ‘merged’ to its current proof-of-stake consensus model, the steep (for retail) minimum stake of 32 ETH created a serious risk of centralisation through staking delegation to centralised entities. Lido DAO was envisioned to preserve staking decentralisation, while also providing additional value for staked ETH in the form of liquid staking tokens (LST). However, as its market share reached the first threshold of 33%, concerns have started to be voiced regarding Lido’s own risk of centralisation. Through its dual governance model where stakers can veto $LDO voters, and the upcoming implementation of distributed validator technology (DVT) and community staking module (CSM), the Lido DAO aims to preserve staking decentralisation. We were joined by Isidoros Passadis, contributor and Master of Validators at Lido DAO, to discuss Ethereum’s current liquid staking landscape, Lido’s governance model and what steps it takes to ensure staking decentralisation. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/528 | |||
| Epicenter - 10-Year Anniversary Livestream | 23 Dec 2023 | 02:25:11 | |
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 covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Brian Fabian Crain, Friederike Ernst, Meher Roy, Felix Lutsch and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/527 | |||
| Aki Balogh: DLC Link – Self-Wrapped Bitcoin (dlcBTC) | 16 Dec 2023 | 01:04:03 | |
gnosis.ioUnlike Ethereum ‘programmable money’, Bitcoin lacks native smart contracts by design. In an attempt to expand Bitcoin past its store of value narrative, wrapper contracts provided wBTC on other chains for DeFi applications. However, wBTC does not directly represent the native asset and it is, therefore, subject to potential exploits. DLC Link introduces a novel approach, by allowing entities to self-wrap dlcBTC. We were joined by Aki Balogh, co-founder of DLC Link, to discuss discreet log contracts, their trust assumptions and what they mean for Bitcoin’s use cases and liquidity. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/526 | |||
| Yat Siu: Animoca Brands – From NFTs & Blockchain Gaming to the Open Metaverse | 09 Dec 2023 | 01:10:55 | |
When it comes to NFTs and blockchain gaming, very few companies can rival with Animoca Brands’ early conviction, investment thesis and time horizon. They understood early on that community building and network effects are the core pillars for a true paradigm shift in gaming. However, culture and narratives transcend the boundaries of gaming, becoming social phenomena. Animoca’s latest undertaking, the Mocaverse, aims to unite communities in a truly open metaverse. We were joined by Yat Siu, chairman of Animoca Brands, to discuss the importance of digital culture in our modern-day lives and how NFT ownership unlocks community building in the open metaverse. Topics covered in this episode:
Episode links: This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/525 | |||
| Marek Olszewski & Rene Reinsberg: Celo – The Mobile-First High-Throughput Blockchain | 01 Dec 2023 | 01:07:15 | |
With an average block time of 5 seconds and sub-cent transaction gas fees, Celo focuses on scalability and ease of access in order to bring DeFi to those that need it the most. Celo’s vision of ensuring equal access is reflected through their mobile-first design, aiming to disrupt legacy TradFi. The upcoming transition to an L2 rollup aims to tap into Ethereum’s security, while maintaining minimal costs through Celo’s scalability and EigenLayer’s data availability solutions. We were joined by Marek Olszewski & Rene Reinsberg to discuss Celo's mobile-first approach to building a low-fee, high-throughput blockchain with real-world applications, and their transition to an Ethereum L2. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/524 | |||
| Rand Hindi: Zama - Fully Homomorphic Encryption in Blockchain Applications & Privacy | 24 Nov 2023 | 00:59:21 | |
Homo- (Greek prefix meaning ‘same’); -morphic (Greek suffix meaning ‘having a specific shape/form’) We were joined by Rand Hindi, CEO of Zama, to discuss fully homomorphic encryption solutions, how they differ from ZKPs & MPC, and how they can be leveraged to ensure compliant programmable privacy. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/523 | |||
| Ye Zhang: Scroll - EVM-compatible ZK rollup | 18 Nov 2023 | 01:11:57 | |
"The advancements of zero knowledge proving technology, hardware acceleration and proof recursion have significantly increased the efficiency of EVM-compatible zk provers. As a result, the former tradeoff in efficiency implied by EVM-compatibility is gradually improving. Translating Ethereum’s virtual machine bytecode ensures seamless scaling for applications, without the need for additional audits and security compromises. We were joined by Ye Zhang, co-founder of Scroll, to discuss the EVM-compatible zero knowledge landscape and how Scroll aims to stay true to Ethereum’s values and community. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/522 | |||
| Charles d'Haussy: dYdX V4 - Decentralised Perpetual Exchange on a Cosmos Appchain | 10 Nov 2023 | 01:12:39 | |
Leading decentralised perpetual exchange, dYdX V4 recently migrated to Cosmos to build its own sovereign appchain, in order to provide its users a much better trading experience, while continuing to deliver DeFi innovations (e.g. permisionless markets). By having full control over the appchain’s parameters, the dYdX DAOs can shape the future of the protocol, starting from the very bedrock, ensuring proper distribution and incentives for the validator set. From early adopter of L2 zero knowledge proofs (STARKs), to building its own Cosmos appchain, dYdX has proven once again to be a trailblazer for new technologies. We were joined by Charles d’Haussy, CEO of dYdX Foundation, to discuss dYdX V4’s recent migration to a Cosmos appchain and what challenges it solves in terms of: order book decentralisation, validator distribution and user experience. Topics covered in this episode:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/521 | |||
| Nick Johnson: ENS - Multichain ENS Domains and Decentralised Identities | 04 Nov 2023 | 01:06:11 | |
The very nature of Ethereum addresses, expressed as random hexadecimal character strings, represents a big hurdle for mass adoption, as they are not human-readable. ENS domains were envisioned to not only solve this and provide a seamless UX, but to also be the cornerstone of on-chain identities. However, in the current multichain landscape, a plethora of decentralised naming services arose, which led to a heterogeneous domain name pool. As a result, ENS aims to expand to L2s and non-EVM chains, attempting to provide consistency, in order to further reduce user friction and limit conflicting domain names. We were joined by Nick Johnson, founder of ENS, to discuss the current state of decentralised naming services from a multichain and L2 perspective, and how these ultimately tie into decentralised identities. Topics covered in this episode:
Episode links: This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/520 | |||
| Simon Harman: Chainflip - Native cross-chain AMM | 27 Oct 2023 | 01:03:59 | |
While competition fosters innovation, the proliferation of different blockchains has resulted in the fragmentation and isolation of liquidity within each ecosystem. Early attempts to address this issue primarily involved bridges and wrapped assets. Unfortunately, these solutions were often vulnerable to hacks and exploits, and the value of wrapped assets was contingent on the security of the wrapper contract, rather than the underlying asset. Cross-chain swaps of native assets hold the promise of resolving liquidity fragmentation, but numerous technological challenges must be overcome to make them as seamless as same-chain swaps. We were joined by Simon Harman, founder of Chainflip, to discuss multi-chain liquidity fragmentation and how Chainflip’s JIT AMM (Just in Time) aims to solve this, by providing cross-chain native swaps. Topics covered in this episode:
Episode links: This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/519 | |||