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

Human beings have a penchant for creating lists. We make lists for things like the top music artists at any given time, the best restaurants in the world, companies which people can trust, and the most wanted criminals. Lists take many forms. They can be maintained by a single authority, or curated by a crowd. But almost always, they remain in the custody of a central party. Token Curated Lists propose a model by which a) the content of lists are decentralized, and b) contributors are incentivized to curate their content according to social consensus. We’re joined by Simon de la Rouviere, an independent researcher and blogger. Previously, Simon was one of the first employees at ConsenSys and founded Ujo Music. He also contributed to the ERC20 token specification and has written about blockchain and token economics since 2014. In recent months, Simon’s research has focused on Token Curated Registries (or TCRs), and the economics of curation markets. Topics covered in this episode: Simon’s background and interest in blockchain, music, and economics Bonding curves as a mechanism for continuous token issuance Curation markets and how they relate to bonding curves Practical applications of curation markets The connection between curation markets and cultural memes Token Curated Registries and their applications The role of TCRs as a crypto economic primitive The economics and game theory of TCRs Simon’s recent project “This Artwork is Always for Sale” Episode links: Simon de la Rouviere – Medium Bancor’s Smart Tokens vs Token Bonding Curves – Medium Introducing Curation Markets: Trade Popularity of Memes & Information (with code)! – Medium Ujo Music This Artwork Is Always On Sale – Medium This Artwork Is Always On Sale Simon de la Rouviere – Twitter This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture and Meher Roy . Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/282

The shipping container brought standardization to the way we move goods around the world. Similarly, TCP/IP packets normalized how information transits over computer networks. Today, blockchains remain siloed ecosystems and interoperability is practically non-existent. A new wave of third-generation blockchain protocols aims to change this. In this new paradigm, blockchains communicate natively and value moves seamlessly from one network to another. One of those projects is Cosmos. We’re joined by Ethan Buchman and Sunny Aggarwal of Cosmos. With its recent mainnet launch, we discuss how the network is running and address potential issues relating to governance and centralization of power. Disclaimers: – Cosmos (All in Bits) is a sponsor of the podcast. – Brian is a former employee of Tendermint (All in Bits) and founder of the Cosmos validator Chorus One. – Sunny, is a regular host on Epicenter and founder of the Cosmos validator Sikka. – All participants in this interview are Atom holders. Topics covered in this episode: The Cosmos vision and how it differs from Polkadot and Ethereum 2.0 Building Cosmos and the “Game of Stake” The Cosmos governance process and current proposals Voter participation in the Cosmos governance model The role of validators and the importance of decentralization of power Validator market economics, related inherent issues, and centralization risks The Cosmos SDK and how it differs from Substrate The Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) Protocol The role of the Interchain Foundation moving forward Episode links: Cosmos website Cosmos SDK websitt Cosmos SDK (GitHub) Cosmos blog Sunny Aggarwal on Twitter Ethan Buchman on Twitter Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/281

Dogecoin was born from the association of two browser tabs: one was an article about the popularity of the doge meme, and the other, CoinMarketCap. The idea quickly gained traction on Twitter, and before long, a new cryptocurrency was born. Dogecoin gained adoption as a tipping currency, the community took part fundraising for charities and other causes, perhaps most notably sending the Jamaican bobsled team to the Sochi Winter Olympics. We’re joined by Jackson Palmer, co-creator of Dogecoin. Though he has left the project, Jackson shares the story of how he created the most popular meme cryptocurrency as a joke. Topics covered in this episode: Jackson’s background and early interest in cryptocurrency The Dogecoin origin story The uniquely charitable nature of the community and The Dogecoin Foundation How the currency became widely used for tipping The NASCAR sponsorship and Moolah exchange scam The technological choices which went into early versions of Dogecoin Dogecoin’s unique monetary policy and economics Jackson’s thoughts on Doge Ethereum and the state of the project Why Jackson stepped away from the project and his thoughts on the crypto space Jackson’s other projects and YouTube channel Episode links: Jackson Palmer's website Dogecoin Github “Not actually capped at 100 billion?” GitHub issue Moolah, The Divisive Startup Heavily Involved In The Dogecoin Community, Is Closing Down – TechCrunch Excerpts from the Moolah Scam - YouTube Complete conversation with Mintpal/Moolah's ""Alex Green"" AKA Ryan Gentle AKA Ryan Kennedy - YouTube Epicenter episode 5 Jackson Palmer - Twitter Jackson Palmer - YouTube Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. Join the most interoperable ecosystem of connected blockchains. Learn more at cosmos.network/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Sébastien Couture and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/280

In the early days of Bitcoin, much of the community’s focus was around payment and getting merchants to adopt cryptocurrencies. Although the technology and narratives have evolved, some projects continue to embrace that original vision of peer-to-peer business, where merchants and their customers interact directly, and if they so wish, anonymously. We’re joined by Brian Hoffman and Washington Sanchez of OpenBazaar. Since we last interviewed Brian in 2015, the project has grown to become a mature decentralized marketplace where people come together to buy and sell products and services anonymously with crypto. Its polished interface and reputation system gives users a similar experience to that of using eBay, but without fees or the risk of censorship. Topics covered in this episode: Brian and Washington’s respective backgrounds The origins of OpenBazaar as the Dark Market project The history and evolution of OpenBazaar since their last appearance on episode 67 How OpenBazaar managed to survive all these years and how the vision has evolved over time Who uses the platform and to what ends How it compares to traditional dark markets like The Silk Road OpenBazaar’s position on deplatforming and how it responds to pressure to censor content How OpenBazaar works under the hood as a collection of decentralized technologies The company’s business model and future plans Episode links: OpenBazaar website Dark Market project on GitHub Episode 67 of Epicenter with Brian Hoffman Trust is Risk Brian Hoffman, Twitter Washington Sanchez, Twitter Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Join the most interoperable ecosystem of connected blockchains. Learn more at cosmos.network/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Sébastien Couture and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/279

Three years ago, a mysterious txt file signed by a pseudonymous Tom Elvis Jedusor was dropped in the Bitcoin-Wizards IRC channel outlining a proposal called Mimblewimble. It proposed a novel way of combining many ideas from Bitcoin research in order to create a new blockchain protocol that will be highly scalable and increase privacy, while still using the same cryptographic assumptions as Bitcoin. A few months later this project was picked up by another pseudonymous individual who started working on an implementation he called Grin. Grin slowly began to draw attention from the Bitcoin community and got a lot of traction. We join Michael Cordner (Yeastplume) and Daniel Lehnberg, two of the core developers of the Grin blockchain. In this episode we discuss some topics around Grin’s cypherpunk origins, privacy and scalability features, no-premine fair start, and interesting monetary policy. Topics covered in this episode: Origins of the Mimblewimble proposal and the prior work it draws upon Andrew Poelstra’s contributions to improving and fixing the original proposal Scalability and fast sync times achieved through mimblewimble’s UTXO set compression How UTXO compression when combined with the Dandellion p2p protocol can increase privacy Changes in user experience from Bitcoin to Mimblewimble Beginning of the Grin project as an implementation of the Mimblewimble protocol Comparision to BEAM, a competing Mimblewimble implementation Innovating on fair Proof of Work through dual Cuckoo Cycle Grin’s Monetary Policy and the Mining Fair Start Episode links: MimbleWimble Origin Andrew Poelstra's Improved Paper Introduction to Grin Grin for Bitcoiners Grin Newsletter Michael Cordner on Twitter Daniel Lehnberg on Twitter Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/278

Amaury Séchet is the lead developer of Bitcoin ABC, the largest client for the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Amaury first got started with Bitcoin in 2010 and closely followed the Bitcoin block size debate as it progressed through the early years of Bitcoin. Predicting the eventual failure of SegWit2x, Amaury was part of the original team that helped coordinate the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, timing it with the activation of SegWit on the main Bitcoin blockchain. We discuss with Amaury the roadmap for Bitcoin Cash, especially with regards to their approach to scalability. We cover many of the novel features the Bitcoin Cash development teams are innovating on such as Canonical Transaction Ordering and Avalanche Pre-Consensus, as well as cover some of the more juicy drama that plagued the Bitcoin Cash community in late 2018, leading to split off of Bitcoin SV. Topics covered in this episode: Block Size Debates in Bitcoin Origins of Bitcoin Cash and the Fork Year 1 Technical Development of Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin ABC vs Bitcoin SV Future Roadmap Episode links: Bitcoin Cash Roadmap Graphene Whitepaper Avalanche Post-Consensus The Case for Canonical Transaction Ordering Bitcoin ABC vs Bitcoin SV Hashwar Bitcoin NG Episode EthCC Meetup Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Join the most interoperable ecosystem of connected blockchains. Learn more at cosmos.network/epicenter. Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/277

Amaury Séchet is the lead developer of Bitcoin ABC, the largest client for the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Amaury first got started with Bitcoin in 2010 and closely followed the Bitcoin block size debate as it progressed through the early years of Bitcoin. Predicting the eventual failure of SegWit2x, Amaury was part of the original team that helped coordinate the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, timing it with the activation of SegWit on the main Bitcoin blockchain. We discuss with Amaury the roadmap for Bitcoin Cash, especially with regards to their approach to scalability. We cover many of the novel features the Bitcoin Cash development teams are innovating on such as Canonical Transaction Ordering and Avalanche Pre-Consensus, as well as cover some of the more juicy drama that plagued the Bitcoin Cash community in late 2018, leading to split off of Bitcoin SV. Topics covered in this episode: Block Size Debates in Bitcoin Origins of Bitcoin Cash and the Fork Year 1 Technical Development of Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin ABC vs Bitcoin SV Future Roadmap Episode links: Bitcoin Cash Roadmap Graphene Whitepaper Avalanche Post-Consensus The Case for Canonical Transaction Ordering Bitcoin ABC vs Bitcoin SV Hashwar Bitcoin NG Episode EthCC Meetup Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/276

Artificial Intelligence is often misunderstood. And much like blockchain, those who fiercely stand by the technology believe it will change the world for the better. Others fear the negative repercussions it could bring it and would rather see it disappear. We’re joined by Ben Goertzel. Ben’s interest in AI and robotics date back to his childhood and he has made these his life-long passion and work. He is the CEO of SingularityNET, a company building a marketplace for AIs which leverages blockchain. He is also Chief Scientist at Hanson Robotics who has brought us the now famous Sophia robot. When he’s not building blockchains and robots, he leads the OpenCog open-source AI framework and is Chair of Humanity +, an organization which focuses on technology and ethics. Topics covered in this episode: Ben’s background as a mathematician and his lifelong passion for AI and robotics What is AI, AGI and machine learning, and how these technologies differ What is the killer application for AI The problem of data and power centralization as it relates to AI AI safety and with what we should be most concerned when it comes to AI dominance Hanson Robotics and the Sophia robot How blockchains and AI are relevant to each other The role of AI in blockchain governance and the potential for AI systems to compete amongst each other What is SingularityNET and what the company is building Episode links: Ben Goertzel's Website SingularityNET website SingularityNET whitepaper Ben Goertzel portraied in Silicon Valley Ben Goertzel's Website Creating Internet Intelligence Accelerando Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Simplify your hiring process & access the best blockchain talent . Get a $1,000 credit on your first hire at toptal.com/epicenter. Join the most interoperable ecosystem of connected blockchains. Learn more at cosmos.network/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/275

We’re joined by Alexey Akhunov, an independent Ethereum researcher. Alexey has been working on an ambitious project called TurboGeth. As the name implies, it is a version of Geth which features a number of speed and performance optimizations. Alexey also leads the state rent working group of the Ethereum 1.x project. Ethereum 1.x came out of Devcon when core developers began to realize that the full migration to Serenity would likely take several years. The team hopes to bring progressive improvements to Ethereum in parallel to the development of Serenity. Topics covered in this episode: Alexey’s background as a computer scientist The story behind TurboGeth and how it differs from the original Geth client The speed and performance optimizations of TurboGeth, as well as its trade-offs What is Ethereum 1.x in the context of Ethereum 2.0 (Serenity) Which people and projects are part of Ethereum 1.x What is state rent and why it may be beneficial to Ethereum Implementing state rent in Ethereum 1.x and 2.0 eWASM and how it can be introduced in Ethereum 1.x and 2.0 The future of Ethereum and the progress towards Serenity Episode links: Alexey Akhunov on Medium TurboGeth talk at Bevcon4 Ethereum State rent for Eth 1.x pre-EIP Ethereum state rent - rough proposal State Rent proposal version 2 (rushed) Ethereum state rent proposal 2 ETH Roadmap AMA EthCC EthCC Epicenter Meeup Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/274

When the Lightning Network (LN) was conceived in 2015, it was quickly embraced by the Bitcoin community as the way to dramatically scale Bitcoin’s capacity. There was an expectation of LN being available quickly. Instead, development proceed more slowly in the background with different teams contributing to a standard specification. That spec is now almost ready and last year interest and early activity on the LN increased dramatically. We were joined by Christian Decker, a core engineer at Blockstream, where he works on their LN client. We discussed the history and progression of the LN and what remains on the road to scaling Bitcoin. Topics covered in this episode: How Christian ended up writing the world’s first PhD on Bitcoin The vision of the Lightning Network How the Lightning Network evolved in the last 4 years Approaching the 1.0 specification The current state of the network Why centralization concerns around hubs are often misguided eltoo and the future of lightning network The case against other chains being better layer 1 networks than Bitcoin Episode links: Lightning Network Whitepaper Christian Decker - Scaling Bitcoin with Duplex Micropayment Channels Joseph Poon & Tadge Dryja - Scalability and the Lightning Network Blockstream - Lightning Network A Simplified Update Mechanism for Lightning and Off-Chain Contracts Lightning Network Specifications on Github Thank you to our sponsors for their support: Simplify your hiring process & access the best blockchain talent . Get a $1,000 credit on your first hire at toptal.com/epicenter. Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/273