The Blockchain Debate Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Motion: Trustless smart contracts for Bitcoin is impossible without forking (Ruben Somsen vs. Muneeb Ali) May 28, 2021

Show notes

Guests:
Ruben Somsen (twitter.com/SomsenRuben)
Muneeb Ali (twitter.com/muneeb)
Host:
Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Trustless smart contracts for bitcoin are impossible without forks.”

A few projects have been known to try to bring smart contracts to bitcoin. But are they doing this in a way as you understand it? This episode explores this question. We pitted a bitcoin developer against the founder of Stacks, and you can draw your own conclusions after listening.

We discussed:
* How Stacks differentiates itself from other projects that also operate at the intersection of bitcoin and smart contracts.
* Whether there is a trustless way to fully utilize bitcoin on the STX chain.
* The robustness of the reward mechanism for staking STX (or “stacking”) in return for rewards in BTC.
* We also went off course a bit and spent a significant amount of time discussing adoption of Stacks in the bitcoin community, since Stacks introduced yet another altcoin, generally not something welcomed by the bitcoiners.

If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.

Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Stacks 2.0 Whitepaper: https://blog.stacks.co/stacks-2-whitepaper
Ruben Somsen’s work: tiny.cc/somsen
Spacechain explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY8CDEpg5_U
Unhashed podcast: https://www.unhashedpodcast.com

Guest bios:
Ruben Somsen is a self-proclaimed Bitcoin Sorcerer. He does protocol design in order to enhance Bitcoin. He has previously proposed softchains, statechains and spacechains for Bitcoin. He also helps maintain the bitcoin-dev mailing list, and is co-host of the Unhashed Podcast. Lastly, he is organizer/founder of the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup.
Dr. Muneeb Ali is the founder of Stacks, a decentralized network that brings apps and smart contracts to Bitcoin. He serves as the CEO of Hiro a company that builds developer tools for the Stacks blockchain. He has raised $75 million USD in funding from investors like Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator, Lux Capital, Winklevoss Capital, and others.

Motion: NFTs are dumb (Edmund Schuster vs. Andrew Steinwold, co-host: Maria Shen) Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

Guests:
Edmund Schuster (twitter.com/edmund_schuster)
Andrew Steinwold (twitter.com/andrewsteinwold)
Host:
Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)
Special co-host: Maria Shen (twitter.com/mariashen)
Today’s motion is “NFTs are dumb.”

Non Fungible Tokens have taken the world by storm. A transaction in NFT is a transaction in some sort of digital ownership. Or as the Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine put it, “digital ostentation.” As the new owner of the NFT of a song or a jpeg, you don’t have exclusionary access to the 0’s and the 1’s that make up the digital object. But there is still scarcity ascribed to the thing you’re buying, because the seller promises to only do this transaction a small number of times.

So as a buyer, you may feel good about a special bond you have now formed with the seller - in general an artist. Or you can signal to the world that you have deep enough pockets to have made such a transaction.

In our debate today, on one side, we have a London School of Economics professor who is both a staunch no-coiner and an NFT bear. On the other, we have a founding partner of a NFT dedicated fund that started in 2019. Our cohost is from a renowned crypto fund, an NFT advocate and a collector herself. So this will be interesting.

If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.

Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Listen-along transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/NnA9YEyInkE
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Edmund Schuster: http://edmundschuster.com/
Andrew Steinwold’s podcast: https://twitter.com/zima_red
Andrew Steinwold’s NFT & Metaverse newsletter: http://andrewsteinwold.substack.com
Maria Shen at Electric Capital: https://www.electriccapital.com/team/maria-shen
NBA Topshot: https://nbatopshot.com/
Opensea (NFT sale platform): https://opensea.io/
Beeple’s $69M NFT sale: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million
Twitter thread questioning whether NFT is true un-censorable: https://twitter.com/jonty/status/1372163423446917122

Guest bios:
Edmund Schuster is an Associate Professor of corporate law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In October 2019, he published the paper “Cloud Crypto Land” that discusses inherent obstacles in the legal system that prevent blockchain systems and smart contracts from being truly useful. He is a self-declared no-coiner.

Andrew Steinwold is a managing partner of an NFT-focused crypto fund named Sfermion. He also publishes content about the NFT world via his newsletter and podcast, both named Zima Red. He thinks “NFTs are eating the world.”

Maria Shen is a partner on the investment team at Electric Capital, a well-known crypto fund. NFTs are part of their scope of investment. She is the author of the well-followed crypto developer report.

Motion: Ethereum is too early for institutional money (Lyn Alden vs. Qiao Wang) Feb 24, 2021

Show notes

Guests:
Lyn Alden (twitter.com/lynaldencontact)
Qiao Wang (twitter.com/qwqiao)
Host:
Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Ethereum is too early for institutional money.”
Quite a few institutions have voted with their feet on Bitcoin. This ranges from corporate treasuries to money managers. At what point will Ethereum catch the attention of non-crypto native capital allocators? Our debaters today are Lyn Alden and Qiao Wang, both well known in crypto circles. Lyn wrote a well-researched article arguing that from an institutional perspective, Ethereum feels like an unfinished product and isn’t likely to pick up significant interest in the short run. Qiao has been looking at Ethereum as an investment in its early days, and it’s fair to say he has been a perma-bull.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
By the way, we're planning episodes on CBDC, centralized lending versus de-centralized lending, the fad of NFT or non-fungible tokens, whether Bitcoin is good for America and whether Bitcoin is good for the environment.
So if you're interested or know someone that would be interested in debating, please feel free to DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
"Listen-along" transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/aDjpT7gmJCn
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Lyn's investment strategy website: https://lynalden.com
DeFi alliance: https://defialliance.co/
Grayscale ETHE trust: https://grayscale.co/ethereum-trust/
John Pfeffer paper on crypto value accrual: https://medium.com/john-pfeffer/an-institutional-investors-take-on-cryptoassets-690421158904

Guest bios:
Lyn Alden runs an investment research service for both retail and institutional investors at LynAlden.com. Her focus is on fundamental investing with a global macro overlay, with a specialization in currency differentials and equity valuations. She also manages financial operation of an aviation simulation research facility.
Qiao Wang is a macro and crypto investor. He is one of the founders for DeFi Alliance, an accelerator for decentralized finance projects. Previously, Qiao Wang helped build Messari, a startup aiming to create Bloomberg for the crypto markets. Prior to that, Qiao was a quantitative trader. He ran R&D teams and helped build two trading businesses at IMC and Tower Research.

Motion: Diem is a glorified Paypal (David Gerard vs. Bryce Weiner) Jan 26, 2021

Show notes

Guests:
David Gerard (twitter.com/davidgerard)
Bryce Weiner (twitter.com/bryceweiner)
Host:
Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Diem is a glorified PayPal.”
Diem of course used to be called Libra. It’s a cryptocurrency floated by Facebook in 2019. It was a big deal back then. A global borderless currency for 2 billion install base is a game charger for commerce and remittances, and would have implications on capital control. There were some very high profile congressional hearings held on this matter with Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg. This also supposedly accelerated the adoption of CBDC by certain countries.
So, what are the ambitious promises and regulatory constraints around Diem? What are the politicians’ biggest concerns on Diem? Will it end up getting reduced to a PayPal? How will Facebook make money from this? Our two guests will cover all of the above.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Diem official page: Diem.com
Summary of Zuckerberg congressional testimony on Libra: https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/23/zuckerberg-testimony/
David Gerard's book on Diem "Libra Shrugged: How Facebook tried to take over the money": https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/
Tao network: https://tao.network/

Guest bios:
David Gerard is the author of two crypto books, “Libra Shrugged: How Facebook tried to take over the money” and "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum and Smart Contracts." He is a no-coiner, and writes a popular no-coiner newsletter also named “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain.”
Bryce Weiner is a former Fortune 500 developer with over 20 years of software engineering experience, with nearly a decade in cryptocurrency development and monetization. He is the lead developer of the Tao smart contract network and the CEO of US-based exchange AltMarket.

Motion: Tether has always been acting in bad faith (Bennett Tomlin vs. Larry Cermak, co-host: Patrick McKenzie) Jan 12, 2021

Show notes

Guests:
Bennett Tomlin (@bennetttomlin)
Larry Cermak (@lawmaster)
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11, special co-host)
Today’s motion is “Tether has always been acting in bad faith.”
This topic is very relevant for today’s markets because Tether is simultaneously an incredibly important, if not the most important, source of on-ramp liquidity for crypto, and a controversial, legally-challenged, blackbox operation that make market participants worry about their undesirable dealings and, worse, imminent collapse.
We previously had a similar debate on this with Matthew Graham from Sino Global Capital vs Cas Piancey, the independent crypto commentator and Tether skeptic. So definitely check that out.
Today’s debaters are Larry from the Crypto publication and Bennett Tomlin, another crypto commentator and Tether skeptic. The episode was also co-hosted by Patrick McKenzie, who also did extensive independent research on Tether.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Paper claiming unbacked Tether drove BTC price:
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066
Papers dispelling the above notion:
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175876
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3508006
Patrick McKenzie comprehensive history of Tether: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/
Bennett Tomlin blog: https://bennettftomlin.com/
The Block publication: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/
Amy Caster Tether timeline: https://amycastor.com/2019/01/17/the-curious-case-of-tether-a-complete-timeline-of-events/

Guest bios:
Bennett Tomlin regularly publishes articles about fraud in the crypto space via his blog. His dayjob is data scientist and fraud investigator in the pharmacy benefits area.
Larry Cermak is Director of Research and Analysis at The Block, a crypto research, analysis and news outlet geared toward institutional investors.
Patrick McKenzie is a Tokyo-based entrepreneur and commentator. He wrote a thorough recount of the Tether controversy on his personal website. Patrick works for the Internet at Stripe. All comments are his own.

Motion: Bitcoin is a scam (Jorge Stolfi vs. Lyn Alden) Jan 01, 2021

Show notes

Guests:
Jorge Stolfi (@jorgestolfi)
Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact)
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Bitcoin is a scam.”
At the time of recording and release, Bitcoin reached its all time highs. And it just seems that every few weeks, a traditional financial institution or a well-known investor is announcing their interest in the orange coin.
Simultaneously, some skeptics continue to insist that this is all a mirage.
There seems no better time to visit this fundamental topic on the boundary of our entire industry.
Today’s debaters include a computer science academic and a macro investor. I am especially appreciative for the former to appear on this show and be willing to engage. Outside perspectives can be very sobering at times.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Paper claiming unbacked Tether drove BTC price:
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066
Papers dispelling the above notion:
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175876
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3508006
Tracker of institutional interest in Bitcoin: https://bitcointreasuries.org/
Preston Byrne on why BTC is not a literal ponzi but is its own category of scam: https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/
Lifting BTC 21m cap via soft fork: "extension record" trick ala SegWit: https://np.reddit.com/r/bitcoin_uncensored/comments/43w24e/raising_the_21_million_btc_limit_with_a_soft_fork/

Debater bios:
Jorge Stolfi is a computer science professor at the State University of Campinas in Brazil. His specialty includes computer vision, image processing, function approximation methods, graph theory, computational geometry and other fields. He is a vocal opponent of Bitcoin. In 2016, he submitted a letter to the SEC outlining what he perceives as similarities between Bitcoin and fraudulent penny stocks or ponzi schemes. Jorge received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1988.

Lyn Alden runs an investment research service for both retail and institutional investors at LynAlden.com. Her focus is on fundamental investing with a global macro overlay, with a specialization in currency differentials and equity valuations. She also manages financial operation of an aviation simulation research facility.

Motion: Legally speaking, tokens are more like commodities than like securities (Lewis Cohen vs. Gabriel Shapiro) Dec 24, 2020

Show notes

Guests:
Lewis Cohen (@NYcryptolawyer)
Gabriel Shapiro (@lex_node)
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Legally speaking, tokens are more like commodities than like securities.”
Today’s guests are two legal experts in crypto space. One of them will argue that token transactions on the post-ICO, secondary market should for the most part be regulated like commodities and not securities. He will argue that the tokens changing hands in said capital markets do not themselves represent securities, because they don’t capture the same rights as conferred in the primary transaction. He laid out his thoughts in the paper “Ain’t Misbehavin’: An Examination of Broadway Tickets and Blockchain Tokens,” which will be included in the show notes.
And of course, the other guest vehemently disagrees on this point.
Throughout the debate, we also cover the SEC vs Kik case and Ripple’s security status.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Lewis Cohen's paper: "Ain’t Misbehavin’: An Examination of Broadway Tickets and Blockchain Tokens": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3501764
SEC vs XRP: https://www.coindesk.com/xrp-untradeable-sec-security
SEC vs Kik: https://www.coindesk.com/kik-sec-ruling
Lewis Cohen: https://dlxlaw.com/who-we-are
Gabe Shapiro blog: https://lex-node.medium.com/

Debater bios:
Lewis is co-founder of the New York based DLX law firm. His main focus is blockchain, tokenization, and other new capital raising techniques and structures. He was previously a partner at two of the Global 25 law firms, and his practices included securitization and other complex structured financings.
Gabe is partner of the San Francisco based law firm Belcher, Smolen & Van Loo LLP. He has published several pieces diving deep into US Securities Law, in which he shares his vision and philosophy for how Tokenized Networks should be regulated. His specialty also includes M&A transactions for high tech corporate clients.

Motion: Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization, II (Evan Shapiro vs. Anatoly Yakovenko) Dec 24, 2020

Show notes

Guests:
Evan Shapiro (@evanashapiro)
Anatoly Yakovenko (@aeyakovenko)
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization.”
This is a follow-up debate, or you can think of it as a re-match. Previously Emre from O(1) Labs also debated Anatoly from Solana on this very topic on the show. So make sure to check that out if you’re interested.
Here are some of the topics we covered:
* the inherent shortcoming of proof-of-stake in guaranteeing the canonical chain for a new full node
* why some chains have been designed to disallow rollback beyond certain point
* How Evan thinks faster synching process for new full nodes will allow further decentralization
* Why Anatoly thinks trustless synching doesn’t solve the Byzantine Generals Problem
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

Solana: https://solana.com/
Coda: https://www.codaprotocol.com/
Weak subjectivity explained: https://academy.binance.com/glossary/weak-subjectivity
Long range attacks: https://blog.positive.com/rewriting-history-a-brief-introduction-to-long-range-attacks-54e473acdba9
Coda article on mental model of Scalability-per-unit-of-Decentralization: https://codaprotocol.com/blog/solving-the-scalability-trilemma
Byzantine general's problem: https://medium.com/coinmonks/a-note-from-anthony-if-you-havent-already-please-read-the-article-gaining-clarity-on-key-787989107969

Debater bios:
Evan is CEO of O(1) labs which operates Mina protocol, previously known as Coda protocol. He used to be an engineer at Mozilla and Personal Robotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University.
Anatoly is founder and CEO of Solana, a layer-1 public blockchain built for scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security, and in particular, without sharding. He was previously a software engineer at Dropbox, Mesosphere and Qualcomm.

Motion: Tether will likely get crushed by authorities in the next two years, thanks to its shady practices and defiance against regulators (CasPiancey vs. Matthew Graham) Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

Guests:
CasPiancey (@caspiancey)
Matthew Graham (@mattysino)
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
Today’s motion is “Tether will likely get crushed by authorities in the next two years, thanks to its shady practices and defiance against regulators.”
In this debate about the controversial pioneer stablecoin, we talked about pending lawsuits, a lack of regulatory framework for Tether to work with from the outset that cornered them into the way things are for them, how Tether issuance is affecting bitcoin prices, why Tether dominates stablecoin market cap despite its troubles, and more.
Today’s debaters include CasPiancey, a long-time and vocal Tether skeptic; and Matthew Graham, the founder of a well-known Asia-based crypto fund.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
I hope you will enjoy listening to this debate. Let’s dive right in!
Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

UT Austin paper suggesting correlation between Bitcoin price and Tether issuance: https://archive.is/fMboo
Paper #1 showing no correlation between Bitcoin price and Tether issuance: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3508006
Paper #2 showing no correlation between Bitcoin price and Tether issuance: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165176518302556
New York Attorney General case against Tether: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ny-attorney-general-sues-bitfinex-210643545.html
Tether lawsuit from crypto traders: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-traders-lawsuit-claims-bitfinex-tether-cost-market-over-1-trillion

Debater bios:
CasPiancey is an independent investigator and reporter of business and financial fraud. He writes regularly about projects, exchanges and scams in crypto.
Matthew is CEO of Sino Global Capital. He has seven years of mainland China investment banking experience with a focus on representing international technology companies in China for strategic partnership and investment. Matthew has been involved in blockchain since 2013, first slowly, then all at once. As Managing Partner of Sino Global's Liquid Value blockchain fund Mr. Graham invests in blockchain technology with strategic relevance for China. Significant 2020 investments include primary market deals such as FTX, Serum, Mintbase, Mask Network; and secondary market deals such as Solana and Nexus Mutual.

Motion: ZK rollup has a better set of security/scalability tradeoff than optimistic rollup (Alex Gluchowski vs. John Adler, co-host: James Prestwich) Nov 04, 2020

Show notes

Guests:
Alex Gluchowski (@gluk64)
John Adler (@jadler0)
Host:
Richard Yan (@gentso09)
James Prestwich (@_prestwich, special co-host)
Today’s motion is “ZK rollup has a better set of security/scalability tradeoff than Optimistic rollup.”
Rollups are a class of layer-2 Ethereum scalability solutions. They allow an off-chain aggregation of transactions inside a smart contract. Users can transact inside the contract with security guarantees, and they will settle to the mainchain at some future point.
ZK and optimistic rollups are different in the way they ensure the validity of these transactions that are being kept off-chain.
The ZK approach uses math. It bundles the transactions, compresses them, and adds a zero-knowledge proof that indicates the validity of the state transitions. When the transaction is sent to the mainchain, the block is verified by the attached zero-knowledge proof.
The optimistic approach uses economic incentives. An operator publishes a state root that isn’t constantly checked by the rollup smart contract. Instead, everybody hopes that the state transition is correct. However, other operators or users can challenge the validity of the transactions, revert the incorrect block, and slash malicious operators.
We compared the two approaches from the standpoint of security, usability, capital efficiency of exits and more.
Today’s debaters are John Adler and Alex Gluchowski. John is the proposer of the original construction of the optimistic rollup and cofounded Celestia, and Alex is implementing a ZK rollup at Matter Labs. Our co-host James Prestwich is a security consultant and auditor for solidity contracts, among many other things.
If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.
If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.
Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.
Source of select items discussed in the debate:

Coindesk's layman guide for rollups: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-dapps-rollups-heres-why
Alex Gluchowski on the difference between the two rollups: https://medium.com/matter-labs/optimistic-vs-zk-rollup-deep-dive-ea141e71e075
John Adler explains optimistic rollup: https://medium.com/@adlerjohn/the-why-s-of-optimistic-rollup-7c6a22cbb61a
Celestia: https://celestia.org/
Fuel Labs: https://fuel.sh/
Matter Labs: https://matter-labs.io/

Debater bios:
Alex Gluchowski is co-founder of Matter Labs, currently working on scaling Ethereum with zkSNARKs. He was previously CTO of PaulCamper, an online platform for sharing campervans and caravans in Europe.
John Adler is co-founder of Celestia and Fuel Labs. He is the original proposer of the optimistic rollup construction. He previously did layer-2 research at ConsenSys. Interestingly, he is a self-proclaimed blockchain skeptic.
James Prestwich founded cross-chain solution company Summa, subsequently acquired by the layer-1 blockchain firm Celo. He previously founded Storj, a decentralized cloud storage provider.

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