Stay ConnectedEpicenter brings you in-depth conversations about the technical, economic and social implications of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Every week, we interview business leaders, engineers academics and entrepreneurs, and bring you a diverse spectrum of opinions and points of view.
Epicenter is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Brian Fabian Crain, Friederike Ernst, Meher Roy and Felix Lutsch. Since 2014, our episodes have been downloaded over 8 million times.
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We're joined by Rob Dawson, Head of Product at PegaSys. PegaSys is the protocol engineering spoke of ConsenSys, and the team building Pantheon, a Java implementation of the Ethereum client. The Pantheon client was built from the ground up as both a mainnet, and consortium chain client. Written in Java with an Apache 2.0 license, it benefits from being easily accessible to enterprises, who predominantly use that language. The PegaSys team has built additional features into the Pantheon client like privacy, permissioning, and the ability to deploy chains on IBFT, a consensus algorithm better suited for consortium networks of up to 40 validators. Working closely with other protocol teams (Geth and Parity), and being a founding member of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, PegaSys is also working towards Ethereum 2.0.
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/294
The complex and evolving regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies has been a topic for many years. After a long period of waiting, the SEC started pursuing fraud causes in the last 1-2 years. But the recent lawsuit against Kik is the first time that the SEC goes after a large, non-fraud case.
We were joined by lawyer Stephen Palley to discuss the Kik case, the US regulatory landscape and recent announcement of the Libra cryptocurrency promoted by Facebook.
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/293
This is part two of a two part bonus series. These sessions were recorded at the first Interchain Conversations conference which took place in Berlin on June 13th and 14th, 2019.
The firs part of this bonus episode features the validator panel moderated by Brian Fabian Crain, Co-founder of Chorus One. The panel included Florian Liss of Staking Facilities, Hendrik Hofstadt of Certus One, Aurel Iancu of Dokia Capital, and Jun Soon Kim of stake.fish. The conversation goes into the role of validators beyond staking, ways in which we can avoid too much centralization, and how validators will differentiate in a market which tends towards homogeneity.
The second part of this episode is a governance debate moderated by Sunny Aggarwal. The first topic is on plutocracy and features Jae Kwon and Rigel Rozanski. The second is about revokable governance and features Chris Goes and Jack Jampolin.
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This is part one of a two-part bonus series. These sessions were recorded at the first Interchain Conversations conference which took place in Berlin on June 13th and 14th, 2019.
The first part of this episode is “Epicenter Live,” a live podcast recorded on stage at the event. It features hosts Meher Roy, Sunny Aggarwal, Brian Fabian Crain, and Sebastien Couture. In this conversation, we discuss the topic of blockchain interoperability. We look at how different projects address interoperability and seek to form a picture of how these projects might interact in a multi-blockchain future. We also discuss how these protocols address application comparability and speculate on how they will remain competitive.
The second segment is the opening Q&A between Jae Kwon and Sebastien Couture. Among other things, Sebastien spoke with Jae about the recent Cosmos launch, the Interchain Foundation, and the future of the Tendermint company.
Subscribe to Epicenter for new episodes every week.
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.
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/292
We're joined by Tal Moran, Chief Scientist at Spacemesh. This new consensus protocol is designed to run on home desktop PCs, filling free space on users' hard drives to create a Proof of Space-Time. The goal of this new blockchain protocol is to solve the issues with Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, that is, energy inefficiency on the one hand, and possible centralized plutarchy of rich validators on the other.
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/291
We’re joined by Dominic Tarr, a sailor, and the Founder of Secure Scuttlebutt. This curiously named project has a fascinating approach to creating a truly distributed social network. One might even say that Secure Scuttlebutt is “localized” as it gracefully degrades to Sneakernet, something few blockchain projects can claim. In actuality, the SSB protocol isn’t a blockchain in the traditional sense – each user’s feed acts as a sort of localized chain of posts, signed by their public key, and possibly encrypted for a friend's key to decrypt. When users meet, the system syncs their local databases using a gossip protocol and replicates the data. Encrypted data is transported from peer, to peer, to peer (or friends of friends) until it reaches its intended recipient. User may also optionally rely on public servers to sync data over the internet.
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/290
We’re joined by Dan Robinson, a research partner at Paradigm, and the author the “Rainbow Network” paper. The paper describes an off-chain decentralized synthetics exchange which leverages payment channels. The Rainbow Network is based on the idea that “rainbows are basically just multicolored lightning,” borrowing from the concepts used in the Lightning Network. The protocol relies on trusted oracles and allows participants to trade any type of liquid asset off-chain. All that is necessary to complete a transaction is an on-chain payment channel collateralized by a single asset. Though it is still at the idea stage and has yet to be implemented, the Rainbow Network could have applications in prediction market and as a new type of decentralized exchange.
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/289
A common meme in the cryptocurrency space is that it has the potential to help people in countries where only the rich and powerful access to global financial markets. But ten years after the Bitcoin white paper was released, just how many “unbanked” people has cryptocurrency helped? Some see crypto as a tool to empower vulnerable populations in places where hyperinflation and strict capital controls make day-to-day survival a nearly impossible challenge.
We’re joined by Jill Carlson. Previously at Chain and Tezos, Jill has been writing about the cryptocurrency industry for several years. In 2016 she published a paper titled “Cryptocurrency and Capital Controls” which observes the use of Bitcoin in Argentina. Recently, she co-founded the Open Money Initiative, a research organization which looks into how people use money in closed economies. Their initial focus is on Venezuela where years of economic downturn and strict currency controls have created a humanitarian crisis which has political repercussions well beyond the country’s borders.
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/288
The Ethereum Foundation has played a crucial role in the evolution of the blockchain ecosystem. They pioneered the Swiss foundation structure and ran one of the first token sales. They played a key role in developing the second-most valuable blockchain network and still play a key role in funding research and steering the future of Ethereum.
At the same time, it has been frequently criticized for a lack of transparency, being too slow in funding development and poor financial risk management. Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi joined us to discuss her journey into the space, the role of the Ethereum Foundation and their plans for the future.
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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/287
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