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

We’re joined by Jeff Garzik, who was among the very first developers to work with Satoshi in the early days of Bitcoin. Later, he was a core developer at Bitpay and even tried to put a Bitcoin node on a satellite in space. Today, he is co-founder at Bloq, a company providing enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure. Bloq recently announced a new project called Metronome that challenges some of the design and governance principles of many public blockchain networks. Metronome is cryptocurrency that sits on top of existing blockchains and aims to allow tokens to easily move from one network to the other. A series of standard blockchain contracts allow for daily descending price auctions to occur automatically, and for users to buy and sell the tokens using a Bancor-like system with built-in liquidity. Topics covered in this episode: Jeff’s background as a web developer at CNN and as a Linux developer His early days in Bitcoin working with Satoshi His thoughts on Bitcoin governance and lessons learned from the Segwit2X episode The lessons learned from founding Bloq What is Metronome and what problem does it aim to solve Metronome’s self-governance and how the system is meant to evolve The different smart contracts which make up Metronome How Metronome allows MTN tokens to move to different blockchains The economics of the protocol and the descending price auction system The upcoming Metronome token sale and development roadmap Episode links: Metronome: The Built-to-Last Cryptocurrency Metronome Owner's Manual Metronome FAQ Metronome Git Repo DSS - Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc The Long Now Foundation Bloq This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/224

That decentralized networks represent a massive investment opportunity is no longer a controversial view. In the last year alone, over 200 funds dedicated to investing in cryptoassets have been created. But the principles and frameworks to understand this new world are still in its infancy. One fund at the forefront of advancing this understanding has been Multicoin Capital. Their Founders Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain joined us to discuss some of the concepts they use to invest in decentralized networks. Topics covered in this episode: Google Glass and the origin story of Multicoin Capital Why the most used smart contract platform will produce the winning store of value Why they are bearish on Bitcoin Why money is best thought of as an adjective not a noun Differentiating between work, payment and burn-and-mint tokens Why work tokens capture network value better than payment tokens The future of Multicoin Episode links: Multicoin Capital Website New Models for Utility Tokens Blockchains: A New Social Order The Smart Contract Network Fallacy The Opportunity for Interoperable Chains of Chains Multicoin Capital Podcast This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/223

Decentralized exchanges have been a holy grail in the cryptocurrency space, since at least the MtGox hack. They promise to derisk the act of exchanging cryptocurrency by leaving custody of funds in the hands of the users. And they should be resistant to regulatory pressure, creating a permissionless way to trade cryptocurrencies. Among decentralized exchange projects, 0x has gained by far the most traction in the short time since launching. Co-founders Will and Amir joined us to discuss the 0x protocol, the emerging 0x economy and the vibrant community they’ve built. Topics covered in this episode: How Will and Amir started 0x The definition of a decentralized exchange and why decentralized custody is key The 0x architecture Why 0x built a protocol and not just a decentralized exchange The role and business model of relayers The 0x token and its economy The 0x governance process Episode links: 0x: The Protocol for Trading Tokens 0x Whitepaper Front-running, Griefing and the Perils of Virtual Settlement (Part 1) Front-running, Griefing and the Perils of Virtual Settlement (Part 2) This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/222

We’re joined by Greg Meredith and Nash Foster of the RChain Cooperative. A fundamentally new kind of blockchain platform, RChain is rooted in a formal model of concurrent and decentralized computation. Powered by the Rho Virtual Machine, and secured by Casper proof-of-stake, RCain is partitioned, or shareded by default, forming a network of coordinated and parallel blockchains. The project, which is formed as a coop, leverages correct-by-construction software development to produce a concurrent, compositional, and massively scalable blockchain. Topics covered in this episode: How Rchain spun out of the Synereo project The primary objectives RChain seeks to establish The fundamental principles of RChain and RLang The concepts of concurrency and parallelism in simple terms How building concurrent systems implies scalability The unique features of Casper consensus in the context of RChain The importance of namespaces in RChain Why this project was started as a cooperative The current status of the project and roapmap Episode links: RChain Website RChain Rholang SDK (v0.1) Released A Visualization for the Future of Blockchain Consensus Introducing Rholang! at Devcon 2 This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/221

Zeppelin Co-Founder and CTO Manuel Araoz joined us to discuss his journey from building one of the first non-financial Bitcoin applications in 2012 to improving development and security practices for Ethereum smart contracts. We discussed the OpenZeppelin framework, a library of audited smart contracts as well as their new project zeppelin_os. Through on-chain, well-vetted and upgradeable smart contracts zeppelin_os aims to make developing Ethereum applications both easier and more secure. Topics covered in this episode: Manuel’s journey in the blockchain space from proof of existence to BitPay to Streamium to Zeppelin Why Manuel moved away from a pure Bitcoin focus to working on Ethereum Why Zeppelin focuses on smart contract security How smart contract security evolved since the start of Ethereum The OpenZeppelin framework of audited Ethereum contracts Why zeppelin_os and standardized, upgradeable on-chain contracts are the next evolutionary step The core component of zeppelin_os: Kernel, SDK and markeplace The ZEP token and its role in zeppelin_os Episode links: Zeppelin Website OpenZeppelin Framework zeppelin_os zeppelin_os Whitepaper This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/220

Hashgraph is a new consensus algorithm that radically differs from proof-of-work as well as proof-of-stake consensus algorithms. While work on Hashgraph begun in 2012, it’s design is radically different from today’s blockchain architectures. The Hashgraph team claims that it has found an optimal consensus algorithm design that will be impossible to significantly improve upon. We were joined by Mance Harmon, who is CEO of the Swirlds, the company developing Hashgraph. Our conversation covered the origin story of hashgraph, how it compares to existing consensus algorithms and how Hashgraph works. Topics covered in this episode: Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon’s long history of building companies together What motivated Leemon Baird to start working on Hashgraph in 2012 The existing categories of consensus algorithms and their problems How Hashgraph consensus combines voting and gossip protocols The performance characteristics of Hashgraph How a public Hashgraph network could look like Episode links: Hashgraph Homepage Hashgraph Whitepaper Hashgraph Consensus - Detailed Examples Sybil Attacks in Hashgraph Hidden Forces Podcast Episode on Hashgraph Lemon Baird's Talk on Hashgraph at Harvard Business School This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/219

Over the past year, cryptoassets have exploded in popularity. From a mere $18bn at the start of 2017, the aggregate market cap of all cryptoassets recently reached $820bn as interest in Bitcoin and its cousins went mainstream. Jack Tatar and Chris Burniske joined us to discuss their new book ‘Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond’. It is one of the first systematic views on cryptoassets from a mainstream investor’s perspective. Topics covered in this episode: How Jack and Chris originally became interested in Bitcoin and cryptoassets Why the term cryptoassets is a good umbrella term for the different kinds of tokens The different categories of cryptoassets: Cryptocurrencies, cryptocommodities and cryptotokens How cryptoassets fit into an overall investment portfolio How to value cryptoassets Whether we are in a cryptoasset bubble and expectations for the future Episode links: Cryptoassets on Amazon Cryptoassets - Book Website Cryptoasset Valuations – Chris Burniske – Medium Why I like the term, “Cryptoassets” – Chris Burniske – Medium The Crypto J-Curve – Chris Burniske – Medium Bitcoins are the best investment in my retirement account - MarketWatch This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/218

A significant part of the modern digital economy, is underpinned by machine learning models that are trained to perform tasks such as facial recognition, content curation, health diagnostics etc. Data to train machine learning models is the essential commodity of this century – a sentiment captured by epithets such as “”Data is the new oil””. Today’s dominant AI paradigm has companies focus their efforts on gathering data from their users in order to train models and monetise usage of the model. This model has many consequences such as loss of privacy for the user, consolidation of data in a handful of large companies, low access to data for startups and a fundamental impossibility of collecting sensitive data such as markers for depression. Our guest, Andrew Trask, is building OpenMined – a platform that merges cryptographic techniques such as homomorphic encryption and multi-party computation and blockchain technology to create the ability to train ML models with private user data. OpenMined will allow AI companies of the future to develop models, have them trained on user data without compromising user privacy, and incentivise users to train their model. We walk through the OpenMined vision and its potential impact on AI business models and AI safety Topics covered in this episode: Challenges with the current AI paradigm OpenMined’s vision to allow training of AI models with private user data How OpenMined works under the hood Applications enabled by OpenMined Current state and OpenMined hackathon Episode links: OpenMined hackathon OpenMined website This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/217

Blockchain technologies are changing the way we think about data archival and storage. For instance, most database systems can only capture the current state of a data set. This means we must rely on secondary backup systems to ensure historical data can remain accessible, a stark contrast from what the most basic of blockchains provide out of the box. Database systems that offer immutability and historical context for data would be greatly beneficial for companies as it would make internal and external audits much less costly and time-intensive. We’re delighted to bring you an interview with Flip Filipowski and Brian Platz. Flip is a veteran entrepreneur whose career spans 50 years, having worked for and founded some of the world’s largest software companies of the 80’s and 90’s. He is also the CEO of SilkRoad Equity and a Founding Partner of Tally Capital. Brian’s background includes having founded A List Appart in 1994, which is among the oldest and most influential web development blogs, and SilkRoad Technologies. Flip and Brian join us to talk about their new company, Fluree. Their product, FlureeDB, is a scalable graph database which provides the benefits of blockchain technologies, such as immutability, replayability and fault tolerance. Currently, in development, the goal for FlureeDB is to support various consensus rules based on the network configuration: private systems, federated (or consortium) clusters, and fully decentralized public networks. Topics covered in this episode: Flip and Brian’s respective backgrounds and entrepreneurial ventures How blockchain will disrupt most major companies that exist today FlureeDB and the problem it is trying to solve How FlureeDB improves compliance procedures for enterprise How FlureeDB can address some of the challenges ahead with regards to GDPR FlureeDB’s technical infrastructure and elementary components The different consensus modes and scalability properties of FlureeDB Why they chose to structure the company as a Public Benefit Corporation FlureeDB’s development roadmap Episode links: Fluree Website FlureeDB Whitepaper Blockchain, Meet Database This episode is hosted by Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/216

The prospect of providing digital cross-border payments for the world’s unbanked and underbanked population has always been one of the key use cases for Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies can be seen as a way for people in developing countries to participate in the global financial market by allowing easy cross-border payments, cheap remittance transactions, and simplified lending options. We’re pleased to be joined by Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO and Founder of BitPesa. BitPesa provides companies in frontier markets with the financial infrastructure to facilitate commerce and payments, where traditional financial markets are known to be fractured and expensive. As an early Bitcoin company founded in 2013, BitPesa is now present in a handful of African countries and provides essential financial services to businesses, allowing them to send and collect payments, and perform quick and affordable Forex trades. Topics covered in this episode: Elizabeth’s journey to Bitcoin and BitPesa BitPesa’s vision and how it compares existing mobile money platforms present in Africa BitPesa’s offering and how it has evolved since the company was founded in 2013 The primary pain points and barriers to doing business in developing African markets Foreign exchange markets in Africa The challenges and opportunities regarding blockchain adoption in African markets The future of Bitcoin as a payment system Episode links: BitPesa Elizabeth Rossiello Describes How BitPesa Slashes International Payment Fees BitPesa Founder Elizabeth Rossiello Keynotes at ConsenSys' Ethereal Summit Elizabeth Rossiello on Twitter This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/215