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

Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-1559 is a proposal to make several tightly coupled additions to Ethereum’s transaction fee mechanism. Central to the design is a base fee, which plays the role of a reserve price and is meant to match supply and demand. Every transaction included in a block must pay that block’s base fee (per unit of gas), and this payment is burnt rather than transferred to the block’s miner. The base fee is adjusted after every block, with larger-than-target blocks increasing it and smaller-than-target blocks decreasing it.Tim Roughgarden is a Professor of Computer Science and member of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. Tim did an extensive game theoretical review of EIP-1559 and joined us to chat about what the proposal is trying to do and why, and how it is doing it.Topics covered in this episode:What Tim's research focuses on and how he became involved with blockchainWhat made him interested in the fees problemThe current fee system on Ethereum - the first-price auction and base feeEIP-1559 - the problem it solves and how it does itIncreasing and decreasing of block sizesThe threat of miners colluding to drive down base feesDeep dive into how the proposal worksWhat are some alternatives to EIP-1559Episode links:Tim RoughgardenEIP-1559 on GitHubAn Economic Analysis of EIP-1559Tim on TwitterSponsors:Solana: Solana is the high performance blockchain supporting over 50k transactions per second to power the next generation of decentralized applications. - https://solana.com/epicenterExodus: Exodus the easy-to-use crypto wallet available on all platforms and supporting over 100 different assets. - https://exodus.com/epicenterParaSwap: ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage - http://paraswap.io/epicenterThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/390

Flashbots is a research and development company focussed on Miner Extractable Value (MEV). MEV is the profit a miner can make through their ability to arbitrarily include, exclude, or re-order transactions from the blocks they produce. Flashbots has created a fork of the ethereum geth client, MEV-geth, to allow miners to exploit MEV, currently run by 80% of miners.Co-founders of Flashbots, Stephane Gosselin and Phil Daian, recently joined us to chat about the protocol and to deep dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly of MEV.Topics covered in this episode:Stephane and Phil's backgrounds and how they got into cryptoWhat led them to creating Flashbots and what it doesWhat is Miner/Maximal Extractable Value (MEV)A technical deep dive into how the project works with miners and searchersThe progress on the SGX solutionSpam attacks and reorgs on FlashbotsPhil's reply to the perspective that MEV extraction is theftWhat is Generalized Frontrunning?How MEV differs at L1 vs L2What's the plan for Flashbots going forward?Episode links: Flashbots on GitHubFlashbots on MediumMEV...what do?Stephane on TwitterPhil on TwitterSponsors: Exodus: Exodus the easy-to-use crypto wallet available on all platforms and supporting over 100 different assets. - https://exodus.com/epicenterParaSwap: Give ParaSwap a try at https://paraswap.io/epicenter. This URL will allow you to claim a 50% refund on gas fees for your first swap of at least 1 Eth. This offer is available until May 1st 2021 and refunds will be made every Friday starting April 9th, 2021*Terms and conditions apply. - Solana: Solana is the high performance blockchain supporting over 50k transactions per second to power the next generation of decentralized applications. - https://solana.com/epicenterThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/389

Trevor McFedries joined us for a fascinating chat about his background in the football and music industries, and how this led him into crypto. Trevor is the cofounder of Brud, a technology startup specializing in artificial intelligence and media. At Brud, they create social media personas with the help of CGI technology, the most well known being Lil Miquela. Lil Miquela is a sentient robot navigating life in LA -- and has millions of followers on instagram.Trevor also started Friends With Benefits, a gated online community on a private discord server with a community token. We talked with Trevor about the increasingly immersive social media experience, the future for creators and the future of organizations.Topics covered in this episode:Trevor's background in football and music, including his time working at SpotifyAn overview of BrudWho is Lil Miquela?How do these fictional characters fit into the 'real world'?How Trevor got into cryptoThe Friends with Benefits communityTrevor's views on the future of DAOsBrud's experience with VCs as opposed to crowdfundingTrevor's take on NFTs and Lil Miquela's NFT dropThe cultural impact of crypto to society and what the future looks likeEpisode links:BrudLil MiquelaFriends with BenefitsFriends with Benefits on TwitterTrevor on TwitterSponsors:Solana: Solana is the high performance blockchain supporting over 50k transactions per second to power the next generation of decentralized applications. - https://solana.com/epicenterExodus: Exodus the easy-to-use crypto wallet available on all platforms and supporting over 100 different assets. - https://exodus.com/epicenterParaSwap: Give ParaSwap a try at paraswap.io/epicenter. This URL will allow you to claim a 50% refund on gas fees for your first swap of at least 1 Eth. This offer is available until May 1st 2021 and refunds will be made every Friday starting April 9th, 2021*Terms and conditions apply. This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/388

Bitcoin just got smarter. This episode is brought to you by RSK, the Bitcoin-based smart contract platform leading the DeFi for Bitcoin revolution. Be part of the future while building your personal wealth with the Bitcoin you already have. RSK is a secure smart-contract platform that enables decentralized applications secured by the Bitcoin Network to empower people and improve the quality of life of millions. The platform incorporates a Turing Complete Virtual Machine to Bitcoin. RSK believes that new use cases are necessary in order for Bitcoin to become the leading global cryptocurrency, and that adding smart-contract capabilities is key to secure that future. It also provides other enhancements to the network such as faster transactions and better scalability, features that they also believe will enable new usage scenarios.We chatted to Adrian Eidelman, Co-founder of RSK, about the vision they have for the project, how it works on a technical level, and how you can become involved.Visit rsk.co/openfinance to find out how you can put your Bitcoin to work.Topics covered in this episode:The journey of RSK since they were last on the show 5 years agoThe vision they have for RSKThe building blocks of the projectRSK's 2-way pegHow merged mining worksRSK's compatibility with EVMProjects being built on RSKHow you can get involvedEpisode links: WebsiteDevelopers PortalPublic Slack WorkspaceGithubPublic community discussionsRSK on TwitterAdrian on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/B005

The ability to move Bitcoin on other chains isn't a new idea, and many are trying to overcome the technical limitations which make this a technically challenging feat. The latest representation of Bitcoin on Ethereum is tBTC, a fully-backed ERC-20 token representing bitcoin collateral. tBTC is fully decentralized and relies on Keep Network, a decentralized multi-party computation which enables cross-chain bridging. We were joined by Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis (the team behind tBTC and Keep Network) to chat about the tBTC technology, his vision for the future of interoperability and value propositions of different chains.Topics covered in this episode:- Matt's background - how he got into crypto and his experience in the space- The Keep Network - dencetralized multi-party computations- Why trustless minting of tBTC is important- tBTC and its security model- Dark DAOs and vote buying- The merge between Keep Network and NuCypher- What other mergers are being looked at for the future- Matt's views on the idea of BTC existing as tokenized asset on Ethereum and other chainsEpisode links: - [Thesis](https://thesis.co/)- [Keep](https://keep.network/)- [tBTC](https://tbtc.network/)- [Keep Discord](https://discord.com/invite/wYezN7v)- [Thesis on Twitter](https://twitter.com/thesis_co)- [Keep on Twitter](https://twitter.com/keep_project)Sponsors: - ParaSwap: Give ParaSwap a try at paraswap.io/epicenter. This URL will allow you to claim a 50% refund on gas fees for your first swap of at least 1 Eth. This offer is available until May 1st 2021 and refunds will be made every Friday starting April 9th, 2021 - Terms and conditions apply. - Solana: Solana is the high performance blockchain supporting over 50k transactions per second to power the next generation of decentralized applications. - https://solana.com/epicenter- Exodus: Exodus the easy-to-use crypto wallet available on all platforms and supporting over 100 different assets. - https://exodus.com/epicenterThis episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: [epicenter.tv/387](https://epicenter.tv/387)

1inch Exchange is a DEX aggregator routing cryptocurrency purchases through different DEXs to reduce slippage and get a better conversion rate for the user compared with just using a single DEX. The platform launched its governance token, 1INCH, in December 2020.We were joined by Co-founder of 1inch Sergej Kunz to chat about how 1inch works, how the 1INCH token provides liquidity to their liquidity platform, its integration with platforms such as Uniswap, and the roadmap from here.Topics covered in this episode:Sergej's background and how he got into blockchainHow slippage is used in the 1inch protocolThe liquidity protocol usedThe integration between Uniswap and 1inch network and the new restrictions with Uniswap v3Their AMM protocol, MooniswapThe aggregation that 1inch has focused on and its defensibilityThe function of the 1inch token and where it is headed in terms of governanceHow 1inch plan to implement DAOHow 1inch deal with the regulatory impacts of DEXes1inch's stance on Ethereum gas costsEpisode links: 1inch website1inch blog1inch on TwitterSergej on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/386

Zubin Koticha, CEO & Co-founder of Opyn, joined us again on the show to give us an update on Opyn v2.Opyn v1 was focused on insurance. It's successor, Opyn v2, offers a more traditional options infrastructure. We discuss the problems of building trustless options infrastructure: choice of collateral, partial collateralization and efficient trading mechanisms for options.Topics covered in this episode:An overview of Opyn v1 and the different options created by DeFi usersHow options in DeFi workWhat is new in Opyn v2How the oracle specification worksCapital efficiency - nesting options for collateralizationFungibility of different optionsWhat makes Opyn different to other option platforms?Options and the AMM designEpisode links:OpynEpicenter Episode 344 - OpynA beginner's guide to options: Opyn v2YieldSpaceOpyn GitHubOpyn on TwitterZubin on TwitterSponsors:ParaSwap: If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out paraswap.io/epicenter. ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage. *Terms and conditions apply. This episode is hosted by Sunny Aggarwal & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/385

Liquity is a decentralized borrowing protocol that allows you to draw interest-free loans against Ether used as collateral. In addition to the collateral, the loans are secured by a Stability Pool containing LUSD and by fellow borrowers collectively acting as guarantors of last resort. Liquity as a protocol is non-custodial, immutable, and governance-free.We were joined by Robert Lauko, CEO & Co-founder, and Kolten Bergeron, Head of Growth, of Liquity. We chatted about how the protocol is built and the mechanisms used, how to borrow, and the stability pool and liquidations.Topics covered in this episode:Robert and Kolten's backgrounds and how they got into cryptoWhat led Robert to create LiquityWhat Liquity is and the liquidation mechanism usedThe function of the stability poolThe process of existing troves taking on the debt of undercollateralized trovesLiquity vs Compound & MakerDAOLUSD redemptionsHow the Recovery mode worksThe purpose of the LQTY tokenHow the algorithmic monetary policy worksEpisode links: LiquityLiquity docsLiquity on MediumLiquity on GitHubRobert on TwitterKolten on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Sunny Aggarwal & Zubin Koticha. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/384

KeeperDao is an on-chain liquidity underwriter for DeFi that combines yield farming and profits single-block arbitrage. The mining pool for Keepers incentivizes a game theory optimal strategy for cooperation among arbitrageurs. Their goal is to capture profit opportunities and distribute them to the various participants involved. We were joined by Joey Zacherl, Co-founder of KeeperDAO, to chat about what the protocol does and its mission, the grim triggering strategy, the ongoing hiding game, and the roadmap for the future.Topics covered in this episode:Joey's background and how he got into cryptoAn overview of VolleyFireWhat KeeperDAO does and its missionHow KeeperDAO users pool funds to to profit from on-chain arbitrage and liquidation opportunitiesThe grim trigger and hiding game strategiesKeeperDAO integrations and gas costsThe KeeperDAO governance roadmapThe ROOK tokenCan keepers carry out malicious attacks?Episode links: KeeperDAOKeeperDAO on MediumThe KeeperDAO whitepaperKeeperDAO on TwitterJoey ZacherlThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/383

NFTs are a new paradigm that opens possibilities for new types of interactions. In digital art, it has caught on like wildfire and is transforming how people think of ownership. Alex Salnikov has been immersed in the crypto world for many years and recognized the potential of NFTs. He created Rarible, an NFT marketplace that has seen rapid growth. But the vision of Rarible is to be more an open transaction protocol for NFTs and serve many different markets.He joined us to discuss the different NFT use cases and how NFTs can scale and function in a multi-chain world. It's a great conversation at the unfolding of a new paradigm.Topics covered in this episode:Alex's background and how he got into cryptoHow Rarible was created and why they decided to focus on NFTsWhat are NFTs and how are they different to other cryptocurrenciesWhat’s driving the massive growth of NFTs right now?The link between owning an NFT and legal ownershipHow does Alex see NFTs and Rarible evolving in the futureHow NFTs work on a technical level, storing metadata securely, and the costs of minting NFTsThe roadmap of Rarible as a marketplace and the challenges associated with itEpisode links: RaribleRarible on MediumRarible on OpenSeaRarible on Twitter Alex on Twitter This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/382