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Raising $150m+ through its toke sale, ‘The DAO’ has become the most notable decentralized application to date. The ambitious goal of the project is to form an decentralized organizations that efficiently makes investment decisions and generates a return for the token holders. Computer Science professor Emin Gün Sirer and researcher Vlad Zamfir joined us to discuss the various security issues with the daring project and why they’ve called for a temporary moratorium on funding proposals. Topics covered in this episode: How the DAO works What the role of the curators is What splits are and how they became a way to withdraw funds Why the DAO has a bias towards approving proposals How attackers could ‘stalk’ token holders when withdrawing their funds How the DAO can be upgraded Episode links: A Call for a Temporary Moratorium on The DAO Blog Post A Call for a Temporary Moratorium on The DAO Full Paper PDF EB132 – Stephan Tual: Building A Universal Sharing Network On Ethereum And A $150M DAO Understanding the DAO Accounting The DAO website Meher's 'split DAO' reward token attack This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/134

One of the problems often cited when talking about cryptocurrencies is their level of volatility compared to traditional fiat currencies. This makes most cryptocurrencies a poor instrument for storing value, and introduces complexities when making purchases in fiat amounts. Stable cryptocurrencies include mechanisms which allow them to stay pegged to fiat currencies like the US Dollar or Euro. They present a number of advantages, and, in addition to taking the headache out of making purchases, can be used by cryptocurrency traders who need a stable unit of account for hedging their assets. We talk to brothers Pascal and Julien Hamonic, Core Members of the Nu team about the NuBit stable cryptocurrency. Similarly to the mechanisms that keep our body temperature stable, NuBits relies upon the introduction of new coins into circulation when demand increases, and for coins to be taken out of circulation when demand drops. Shareholders (NuShareholder) vote on these measures as the network relies on custodians who bring liquidity into the market in exchange for dividends, and on speculators who “”park”” coins in exchange for potential returns when demand increases again. Topics covered in this episode: What is NuBits and what is the goal it is trying to achieve The different components of Nu (NuBits, NuShares) The economic mechanisms behind the $1.00 USD peg Who are the different participants in the network (NuBits users, NuShareholders, custodians) The important role of custodians in providing liquidity to the network The consensus model used in Nu The initial allocation of NuBits and NuShares The governance mechanisms in Nu Episode links: Nubits NuBits Whitepaper This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/133

In this episode we welcome back Stephan Tual, the COO of Slock.It, a German startup working at the intersection of the Internet of Things and the Ethereum blockchain. Slock.It’s small team also wrote the smart contracts that power ‘The DAO’, a decentralized capital management entity that recently raised north of $160 million for investing into Ethereum based projects. ‘The DAO’ has been featured in many mainstream news outlets, such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Economist. The interview explores the vision, motivation and challenges behind both ‘The DAO’ and Slock.It. Topics covered in this episode: Stephan’s background and role as CCO at Ethereum Foundation. What is ‘The DAO’ and how it relates to Slock.It. DAOlink and the business opportunity of enabling interactions between DAOs and traditional firms. Opportunities, assumptions and challenges for ‘The DAO’. Vision and products of Slock It – Univeral Sharing Network and the Ethereum computer. Episode links: Slock It Website The DAO The DAO on Github The DAO Whitepaper Why I’ve Resigned as a Curator of the DAO Is The DAO going to be DOA? This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/132

One of the foundational problems in payment networks is that they are mostly uninteroperable. This problem exists at all levels, from consumer payment solutions like PayPal, to national and multi-national banks. This complexity is brought on by the proprietary nature of payment networks, and moving value from one to another requires a negotiation between parties on which common payment network to use in a transaction. We saw similar problems in the early days of the Internet, assembled around protocols which allow for data to be routed and move between networks in a standardized way. We’re joined by Stefan Thomas and Evan Schwartz, co-creators of Interledger. This neutral protocol would bring the same level of interoperability we know take for granted around the flow of data, to payments, thus allowing money to move freely across networks. A market maker, who holds accounts in both networks, would receive funds in escrow from a sender, and move funds to an escrow account with the receiver, getting paid by the sender when he shows the proof the funds were delivered to the receiver. Topics covered in this episode: What is Interledger and what problem is it trying to solve Interledger’s architecture How connectors and routing works, and how we may compare it to the way data flows on the Internet Cryptographic Escrow and its role in Interledger Requirements for payment solutions to become Interledger compatible Interledger’s community group at the W3C How Interledger applies to micropayments Ripple’s role in Interledger Episode links: Interledger Interledger Whitepaper Interledger + WebTorrent - Demo by Evan Schwartz Interledger Architecture Interledger Github Interledter Slideshare Ripple Lab Episode 92 with Stefan Thomas This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/131

In the short history of the Bitcoin industry, there has been an impressive amount of high profile hacks, ranging from a few hundred thousand to many millions of dollars. In all of these, customers, Bitcoin users, where robbed of their funds because poor security policies, negligence, incompetence, or plain old scamming. Recently, the cryptocurrency conversion service ShapeShift fell victim to a hack in which over $200,000 of company funds were stolen, initially by an employee, and then by a hacker to whom this employee had sold sensitive company information. Luckily, no customers lost any money as ShapeShift does not hold any funds on behalf of users. We talked to ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees who walks us through this captivating ordeal, which sounds like it could be the plot of a movie. He speaks about how the company is trying to recover and what he has learned from this unfortunate event. Topics covered in this episode: How the ShapeShift hack went down What steps the company has taken to avoid this from happening again What he learned from the hack ShapeShift’s long-term vision as a company and product Ethereum’s role in their recent growth His history as an entrepreneur in the Bitcoin space His views on libertarianism and the long-term impact of Bitcoin on that movement Episode links: Looting of the Fox: The Story of Sabotage at ShapeShift Bitcoin.com podcast - Details of the Shapeshift.io Hack The Slaying of Bearwhale Erik's Blog This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/130

As the blockchain field continues evolving rapidly, Sebastien, Meher and Brian take some time to discuss the current environment and the longer term implications of blockchains. We discussed how smart contracts could affect the pace of innovation and the competitiveness of industries. We also talked about the role DAOs will play and what we can take away from the current DAO crowdsale and its connection with Slock.it. Topics covered in this episode: How companies running on smart contracts could impact the pace and cost of innovation A smart contract-based insurance example Why smart contracts and blockchains will challenge our understanding of organizations The current state of DAOs Slock.it and the DAO crowdsale Episode links: Maciej Olpinski's Blog Slock.it The DAO EB108 - The Big Chain Powwow This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/129

When Jed McCaleb discovered Bitcoin, there didn’t even exist an online marketplace to trade the cryptocurrency yet. The experienced founder who had earlier started file sharing site eDonkey, acted fast and started the first Bitcoin exchange MtGox which he later sold to now-infamous Mark Karpeles. Jed later founded the pioneering Ripple project before leaving to start Stellar. We discussed his journey through the industry and the ambitious plans Stellar has to create an open financial system that will give access to financial services to a much broader spectrum of humanity. Topics covered in this episode: Jed’s early involvement in the industry and founding of MtGox and subsequently Ripple Why Jed left Ripple and started Stellar How Ripple and Stellar differ The Stellar Consensus Protocol Why the organization behind Stellar is a non-profit foundation Stellar’s focus on developing markets and Nigeria in particular The role and distribution of Stellar’s currency Lumen Episode links: Stellar Website Stellar Consensus Protocol Bitcoin-Lumen Giveaway Stellar Graphic Novel Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/128

We were joined by repeat guest Anthony di Iorio, a definite contender for having (co-)founded the most projects in the blockchain space including Ethereum, Kryptokit, Decentral and Jaxx. We got an update on the vibrant Toronto blockchain scene and Decentral. The main discussion revolved around the new wallet Jaxx that is simultaneously a Bitcoin and Ethereum wallet and takes a significant step towards a more unified and accessible cryptocurrency experience. Finally, we discussed his recent appointment as Chief Digital Officer at the Toronto Stock Exchange / TMX Group and the upcoming trade show Blockchain World Expo. Topics covered in this episode: Update on Decentral and Kryptokit How the Jaxx wallet Unique UI challenges of Ethereum wallets The role of community in bringing innovation to corporates His role as Chief Digital Officer at the TMX Group The upcoming Blockchain World Expo in Toronto Episode links: Jaxx Bitcoin and Ethereum wallet Decentral Decentral.tv Blockchain World Expo This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/127

One of the major drawbacks of Bitcoin is its low transaction throughput. Maxing out only a handful of operations per second, there have been many proposals to scale it up so that it can compete with existing distributed database technologies. As the blockchain’s demand continues to increase, it’s unclear if the Bitcoin protocol will ever be able to handle thousands, if not millions of transactions per second. BigchainDB is taking a different approach. Rather than trying to scale up blockchain technology, it starts with a big data distributed database, RethinkDB, and adds blockchain features and characteristics. Trent Mcconaghy, Co-founder and CTO of Ascribe and BigchainDB, joins us to talk about how this protocol may become to databases, what IPFS and Ethereum are to distributed filestorage and computing, respectively. Able to perform more than one million writes per second and capacities in the petabytes, BigchainDB has the ambition to become the world’s public database platform. Topics covered in this episode: A brief update on Ascribe since Trent was last on the show The motivations behind BigchainDB and that problems it’s trying to solve How BigchainDB plans to solve the typical scalability bottlenecks found in blockchain protocols BigchainDB’s capacity, performance and latency characteristics BigchainDB’s consensus model, applied to RethinkDB Potential application for BigchainDB, in both centralised and decentralised application stacks Episode links: BigchainDB BigchainDB Whitepaper Ascribe Left Gallery 23vivi This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/126

The relatively new concept of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), is often praised as a new type of organizational structure that has no identifiable owner or owners, and whose actions are automated and determined solely by a pre-defined set of rules. Views on DAOs differ widely. On one hand, members of the Bitcoin/blockchain space often portrayal them as AI-like swarm organisms, free from the shackles of nation-states, and that can act at will regardless of laws or regulation. On the other hand, legal experts caution that, like corporations, DAOs and their creators could be held liable in civil lawsuits, and that they may be served a hard dose of reality when they end up in court. We are joined by Florian Glatz, attorney, researcher and software developer (not to mention the proud owne r of the awesome domain name blockchain.lawyer). We discuss some of the basic legal concepts surrounding contracts and in what ways smart contracts may or may not fit within our existing legal framework. We also dive deep into DAOs, and address some of the challenges they may pose in the near and distant future. Topics covered in this episode: The history of innovation in law How merchant law (Lex Mercatoria) emerged in the 13th century How we can define smart contracts The legality of smart contacts The need for natural language contracts vs. contracts which are written in code Decentralized Autonomous Organizations The Slock.it DAO What would happen if one tried to sue a DAO Episode links: Florian's Website What are Smart Contracts? In search of a consensus Smart Contracts, Platforms and Intermediaries How to Sue A DAO How to Incorporate a DAO This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/125