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

We enter dozens of trust relationships ever time we interact with the Web. Browsers, ISPs, DNS providers, cloud hosting companies, all the way down to the handful of people who control certificate root keys; we rely on the integrity of these intermediaries to serve reliable, and accurate information. The concentration of power by any one of these actors threatens to compromise the very foundational principles of the Web. Decentralized technologies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tor, and IPFS seek to reverse this trend. We’re joined by Nick Sullivan, Chief Cryptographer at Cloudflare. Founded less than 10 years ago, the company offers content delivery services (CND), DNS, and DDoS protection to over 12 million websites. The company contributes to open source cryptography libraries, some of which are used by Etherum. They recently launched an IPFS gateway and features which allow users to have strong guarantees as to the integrity of the content. Topics covered in this episode: Nick’s background as a cryptographer and previous position at Apple The Internet’s infrastructure and trust model How Cloudflare is experimenting with IPFS The challenges to hosting static websites with IPFS Cloudflare’s Onion routing service (Tor) and the benefits to users The Roughtime protocol and encrypted SNI Cloudflare’s contribution to open-source cryptography libraries The vulnerabilities of DNS and Cloudflare’s free private DNS service (1.1.1.1) Episode links: Welcome to Crypto Week (article) Roughtime: Securing Time with Digital Signatures (article) Introducing CFSSL - CloudFlare's PKI toolkit (article) End-to-End Integrity with IPFS (article) Introducing the Cloudflare Onion Service (article) Cloudflare's Distributed Web Gateway Nick Sullivan's website 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 Sébastien Couture and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/264

The Ethereum vision has always been to create a world computer. But its scalability and performance limitations have meant that it has fallen far short of that vision. Yet, work on scaling Ethereum has exploded in breadth and complexity over the past years. From variants of PoS, to Plasma / Plasma Cash, sharding, EWASM, BLS signatures, everything has been on the table. While confusing on the surface, underneath a coherent vision for a new Ethereum that will scale near infinitely has emerged. We were joined by Ethereum Researcher Justin Drake to discuss the Ethereum Serenity vision, its core components and the roadmap ahead. A particular focus was the beacon chain, the role of randomness and Verifiable Delay Functions. Topics covered in this episode: Justin’s previous project building on top of Open Bazaar Why he made the switch from application development to Ethereum consensus research The high-level vision for Ethereum 2.0 / Serenity The Ethereum Serenity roadmap to scaling the world computer by 1m times The crucial role of the beacon chain The difference between Ethereum Serenity and Polkadot The role of randomness in making Ethereum Serenity work The limitations of existing trustless sources of randomness How Verifiable Delay Functions can be used to create better randomness The Ethereum Foundation plans to develop an open-source VDF ASIC Episode links: DevCon4 Talk by Justin Drake about VDF & Randomness DevCon4 Talk by Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum 2.0 VDF Research Minimal VDF randomness beacon - Sharding - Ethereum Research Ethereum Project Two Point Oh: Explaining Validators Two Point Oh: The Beacon Chain 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. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/263

Most observers of the ecosystem will probably agree that 2015-2017 were the years of the enterprise blockchain. It was during that time that many startups catering to enterprise were founded and funded, including Monax and Stratumn (where Brian and Sebastien previously worked). For the permissioned blockchain camp, adoption would come in the form of enterprise use cases, arguing that public networks carried too much risk, and lacked needed features like privacy. While much of the hype has subsided, large companies in every sector are forming consortia and leveraging blockchain to provide better process traceability and transparency, and reduce their reliance on third parties. We’re joined by Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of Hyperledger. When Brian was last on the show, he had recently started his role at the Linux Foundation. Now, two years later, Hyperledger has gone from a nascent project to a mature ecosystem of technologies with hundreds of members. With dozens of networks in production, and backed by companies like IBM, Hyperleger is the most widely used blockchain technology for permissioned networks. Topics covered in this episode: The most important developments in Hyperledger in the last two years Hyperledger’s family of technologies Production networks on Hyperledger How Hyperledger Fabric differs from Tendermint and Ethereum The evolution of the enterprise blockchain ecosystem The separation between the permissioned and public blockchain ecosystems Industry use cases for Hyperledger Fabric Brian’s skepticism about ICOs and tokens The growing Hyperledger community and upcoming Global Forum in Basel this December Episode links: Hyperledger website Hyperledger Global Forum http://sdxcentral.com Unbounded - To Network with Networks Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad - Wikipedia 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. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/262

The difficulties of compensating content creators for their work has been a driving force of the web for decades. It gave rise to advertising-driven tech giants like Google and Facebook and contributed to the decline of industries like music and publishing. Coil aims to change this and leverage blockchain and the Interledger Protocol to build a new business model for the web. We were joined by Coil Founder and former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas and Coil Co-Founder Ben Sharifian to discuss their ambitions to change how content is consumed and paid for. Topics covered in this episode: What web monetization is The difference between web monetization and web payments The negative effects of advertising-driven business models What the Interledger Protocol (ILP) is The current state of ILP Why Stefan and Ben decided to leave Ripple and start Coil The case for web monetization as an initial use case for Coil The idea of users paying a fixed bandwidth per second to content creators Possible user experiences that could be built on top of Coil How to bootstrap Coil and get adoption Episode links: Coil Website Coil: Building a New Business Model for the Web Layer 3 Is for Interoperability Talk about Ripple and Coil at TOA18 - Stefan Thomas E92: Stefan Thomas - Understanding Ripple E131: Evan Schwartz & Stefan Thomas - Building the Internet of Payments with Interledger Thank you to our sponsors for their support: The open, decentralized trading protocol for ERC20 tokens using the Dutch auction mechanism. More at epicenter.tv/dutchx. 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/261

It’s that time of year again, Devcon time! Just as the conference was wrapping up, we sat down at the Prague Congress Center for a Devcon4 recap. Join Brian, Friederike, Sebastien, and a surprise guest host as we share our thoughts on the event, and how the Ethereum ecosystem has evolved since we last met in Cancun. Topics covered in this episode: Devcon4 compared to Devcon3 Changes to the Ethereum Foundation management Serenity (Ethereum 2.0) roadmap The shift from HODL to BUIDL The apparent departure of ICOs from the landscape The growth of grant programs Brian’s talk at the Generalized Mining panel This year’s emphasis on security Web3 Summit in Berlin the previous week Episode links: Devcon4 website Devcon3 recap episode from Cancun 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, Friederike Ernst and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/260

From one of the main Ethereum clients, to Polkadot to Substrate; Parity has become exceptional at developing successful open-source blockchain projects. Their latest effort Substrate provides a framework to easily create custom blockchains. Building on cutting-edge technologies like Web Assembly, Substrate also offers automated on-chain upgrades. We were joined by Gavin Wood, who was previously co-founder and CTO of Ethereum and founded Parity. We talked about the early Ethereum days, how Parity got started, Substrate, Polkadot and his views on on-chain governance. Topics covered in this episode: The genesis story of Ethereum Why Gavin prefers reasoning from first principles to reading How Parity shunned Silicon Valley principles to build an developer-driven company Why they decided to work on a scalable blockchain from scratch instead of improving Ethereum An overview of Substrate The relationship between Substrate and Polkadot How Substrate allows switching consensus in a live blockchain Why Ethereum’s governance process is centralized Polkadot and the case for on-chain governance Episode links: Parity Technologies Website Polkadot Website E199 - Peter Czaban - Polkadot: The Internet of Blockchain Networks Substrate: A Rustic Vision for Polkadot by Gavin Wood at Web3 Summit 2018 Substrate in a nutshell What is Substrate? How Polkadot tackles the biggest problems facing blockchain innovators Substrate testnet launched Epicenter episode from 2014 with Gavin Wood about Ethereum & Ether Sale 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. Simplify your hiring process & access the best blockchain talent . Get a $1,000 credit on your first hire at toptal.com/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/259

We’re joined by Monica Quaintance, Head of Engineering and Adoption at Kadena. While most companies providing enterprise solutions focus primarily on permissioned systems, Kadena is building both a public network protocol and private blockchain infrastructure. Their Chainweb protocol will soon launch as a public network and smart contract platform. The company claims their novel approach to proof of work offers enormous gains on transaction throughput, even at scale, while benefiting from the same security as Bitcoin. Alongside Chainwebs, Kadena is building a permissioned protocol more suited for enterprise applications in insurance and finance. Topics covered in this episode: Monica’s background at the SEC The genesis of Kadena and why the founders left JP Morgan Kadena’s unique approach to building both public and permissioned protocols The Chainweb protocol and it’s approach to proof of work The incentive mechanisms in Chainweb How Chainweb protects itself against common attack vectors The PACT smart contract language Kadena’s enterprise blockchain offering The company’s go-to-market strategy and business model Episode links: Kadena Website Chainweb Whitepaper ChainWeb Protocol Security Calculations White Paper Kadena White Paper Confidentiality in Private Blockchain White Paper The Pact Smart-Contract Language White Paper Thank you to our sponsors for their support: The open, decentralized trading protocol for ERC20 tokens using the Dutch auction mechanism. More at epicenter.tv/dutchx. Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks. More at aka.ms/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/258

Building open source software is a collaborative process which relies on good faith and willingness of volunteers. While most of the software we use daily relies heavily on open-source libraries, incentive models are broken. Repo maintainers are eager to see their projects evolve, but have little leverage to encourage developers to contribue. And projects contributors create enormous value by dedicating their time and expertise while getting little in return. Both open and closed-source projects utilize bountied to source engineering talent. Combined with blockchain technologies, there is a potential to create efficient, two-sided markets which align incentives for all participants. We’re joined by Kevin Owocki, who is the Founder of Gitcoin. The Ethereum-based platform leverages the open source community to incentivize and monetize work, remunerating developers for pull requests made to projects. Gitcoin was itself built using Gitcoin and is today facilitating bug bounty payments for dozens of blockchain projects. At the time of writing, over 200 projects have used the platform to distribute over $340,000 in bounties to developers. As Gitcoin continues to grow, the goal is to expand its reach to the broader open-source ecosystem. Topics covered in this episode: Kevin’s background as a software engineer The fundamental challenges in open-source development and funding What is Gitcoin and how it addresses incentive alignment How Gitcoin works from the perspective of both project funders and contributors The platforms usage statistics (projects funded, contributors, bounties paid, etc.) How Gitcoin may be used to fund closed-source bountied and public goods Kevin’s proposal for recurring payments in Ethereum (EIP1337/ERC948) How Gitcoin is funded and the project’s business model Gitcoin’s roadmap moving forward Episode links: Gitcoin website Gitcoin leaderboard and top earners Gitcoin stats 1337 Alliance EIP 1337 - Subscriptions on the blockchain ERC948 - Recurring Subscription Models on Ethereum Delphi Systems Bountysource Thank you to our sponsors for their support: The open, decentralized trading protocol for ERC20 tokens using the Dutch auction mechanism. More at epicenter.tv/dutchx. 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/257

CoinFund is one of the earliest crypto-funds to have taken shape, forming in early 2016. The fund is well known for running an active Community Slack, conducting great podcast interviews with cryptocurrency projects and an emphasis on building network nodes / services. We are joined by Jake Brukhman, CEO, and Alexander Bulkin, Chief Alchemist, to discuss their latest thoughts on investing in the cryptocurrency space. We cover a wide variety of themes such as their opinions on the “fat protocol hypothesis,” thesis on value capture in the cryptocurrency space, their efforts to build network nodes; and their effort to build an open source token-less technology that allows entrepreneurs to launch their blockchains. Topics covered in this episode: Coinfund’s history What is a cryptofund? Coinfund approach to investing in the cryptocurrency space Generalised mining – what it is, and how it offers cryptofunds a competitive advantage The ADAPT toolkit – a tokenless toolkit for rapid blockchain innovation Episode links: CoinFund Slack CoinFund interviews The ADAPT project Fat protocols are not an investment thesis Generalised mining CoinFund Twitter 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. The open, decentralized trading protocol for ERC20 tokens using the Dutch auction mechanism. More at epicenter.tv/dutchx. This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/256

The Tezos whitepaper, published in 2014, anticipated several areas that would become major issues for blockchain networks. Especially around governance and smart contract security, Tezos proposed original solutions. The project later went on to raise $232m in the biggest token sale at the time. Recently, the Tezos network launched as the first of a wave of innovative next-generation blockchain networks. We were joined by Tezos co-founders Arthur and Kathleen Breitman to discuss the history of the project, how the network functions today and how it could develop going forward. Topics covered in this episode: What inspired the original Tezos vision from 2014 The critical importance of formal verification and governance Why Arthur thinks the blockchain scalability problem is overrated The case against decentralized applications Why the ability to evolve and adopt new features is critical for Tezos success Tezos’ Proof-of-Stake and emerging baking ecosystem The Tezos Foundation drama and Johann Gevers The relationship between their company DLS and the Tezos Foundation Episode links: Tezos Website E136 - Tezos – A Self-Amending Crypto-Ledger Tezos Whitepaper The $1 Billion Tezos Blockchain Is Officially Launching Monday Inside the Crypto World's Biggest Scandal | WIRED Tezos 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. Simplify your hiring process & access the best blockchain talent . Get a $1,000 credit on your first hire at toptal.com/epicenter. This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/255