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Strange Water Podcast

Latest episodes

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Mar 28, 2024 • 1h 1min

Decentralized Resiliency: The Story of BadgerDAO w/ Spadaboom (BadgerDAO)

Guest: Spadaboom (Twitter: @Spadaboom1) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) The conversation aims to sift through the noise surrounding DAOs by telling the story of BadgerDAO. BadgerDAO, co-founded by Spadaboom in 2020, aims to facilitate the use of Bitcoin as collateral on other blockchains, thereby accelerating its integration into decentralized finance (DeFi). The discussion will cover BadgerDAO's history, its contributions to DeFi, the challenges it faced, including a significant hack, and its latest project, eBTC, which marks a new chapter for the protocol by promoting broader and more accessible BTC adoption in DeFi.
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Mar 21, 2024 • 1h 9min

Crypto's Service Industry: A Survival Guide w/ Kevin Simback (Delphi Labs)

Guest: Kevin Simback (Twitter: @KSimback) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) Kevin Simback, COO of Delphi Labs, shared insights on the diverse range of professional services crucial for web3 companies, including law firms, accounting, and marketing agencies. Joining an accelerator program can streamline the process of identifying and accessing these services, saving time and resources for founders. This conversation highlights the complexities of building a business beyond technological innovation, emphasizing the importance of effectively outsourcing tasks to specialized professionals. Furthermore, it explores how blockchain technology could reshape the relationship between companies and professional service providers in the future.
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Mar 14, 2024 • 1h 6min

Block Building and the MEV Supply Chain w/ Kubi Mensah (Titan Builder)

Guest: Kubi Mensah (Twitter: @kubimensah) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) Ethereum was not built to address the value extraction that quickly became rampant. Flashbots, introduced in 2020, addressed issues of front-running and value extraction in Ethereum transactions by redirecting value towards network participants. This sparked a crisis within the Ethereum community, leading to a transformation of its roadmap and the concept of the "dark forest paradigm." Kubi Mensah, Co-Founder of Gattaca, provides insights into Titan Builder's role in the MEV (Miner Extractable Value) supply chain, shedding light on its complexities and future implications for Ethereum's development.
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Mar 7, 2024 • 1h 4min

Upgrading Smart Contracts with Native Data Analysis w/ Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh (Lagrange Labs)

Guest: Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh (Twitter:@Ismael_H_R) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) I am a strong advocate of the modular blockchain thesis, recognizes the power of scaling blockchains by removing the non-critical parts of blockchain computing out of the scare space that is the blockchain’s virtual machine. Up until today, modular blockchain basically refers to rollups and data availability, but we are entering a new era. What comes next? Modular database and access to big data tools. Today’s guest is the CEO and Co Founder of Lagrange Labs, Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh, which aims to enable smart contracts to access big data tools while preserving blockchain's guarantees, heralding a more expansive vision for the modular blockchain thesis.
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Feb 29, 2024 • 1h 5min

The Next Chapter of Modular Blockchains: Decentralized RPC w/ Gil Binder (Lava Network)

Guest: Gil Binder (Twitter: @xgilxgil) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) A blockchain computer is a network of physical computers running the same virtual machine, ensuring synchronization through constant communication and a crypto-economic system like proof of stake. Users interact with the blockchain by accessing their local copy of the virtual machine, making changes that are synced across the network. While ideally all users would operate their own nodes for direct access to the blockchain computer, this isn't always feasible due to resource requirements, leading to the emergence of centralized RPC services like Infura and Alchemy. However, reliance on centralized services poses a threat to the decentralized nature of blockchain computers. Gil Binder, co-founder and CTO of Lava Network, discusses solutions to this issue by decentralizing the RPC layer, highlighting the importance of modularizing the entire World Computer for a more inclusive and resilient blockchain ecosystem.
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Feb 26, 2024 • 1h 10min

Building Blockchain's Emergency Response Layer w/ Bobafetador (Drosera)

Guest: Bobafetador (Twitter: @Bobafetador) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) Imagine: two founders of a decentralized exchange (DEX) experience a successful launch with over $1 billion in deposited assets, only to later discover a major security breach where 60% of their Total Value Locked (TVL) is withdrawn in a single transaction. Reflecting on their oversight, they realize the necessity of a rapid response system to identify and mitigate such threats. In the current landscape, building such systems has become feasible due to advancements in technology, notably showcased by Drosera, a decentralized incident response protocol. This protocol, discussed in-depth by its co-founder and CTO Bobafetador, highlights the importance of robust security measures in the blockchain environment, especially for projects managing significant asset values.
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Feb 22, 2024 • 1h 3min

The Frontier of Intellectual Property: Programmable IP w/ Jason Zhao (Story Protocol)

Guest: Jason Zhao (Twitter: @jasonjzhao) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) Today's conversation delves into the intersection of intellectual property law and the digital age, highlighting the challenges of enforcing outdated regulations in an online and international context. While existing legal frameworks struggle to adapt to modern mediums and platforms, there's a glimmer of hope in leveraging blockchain technology, particularly Ethereum, to establish an internet-native property layer. Jason Zhao, co-founder of Story Protocol, today's guest, offering insights into their initiative to revolutionize intellectual property infrastructure with over $50 million in funding. The episode explores how Story Protocol aims to integrate with existing IP systems and the potential implications of blockchain-native IP combined with artificial intelligence.
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Feb 19, 2024 • 1h 11min

Polygon's Next Chapter: Aggregated Blockchains w/ Brendan Farmer (Polygon)

Guest: Brendan Farmer (Twitter: @_bfarmer) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) In 2022, Vitalik discussed the transformative impact of zkEVMs on crypto, highlighting their evolution from theoretical concepts to tangible scaling solutions for Ethereum. A year later, multiple zkEVM implementations had reached mainnet, rendering zkEVMs less of a novelty and shifting the focus of discussions to practical scalability challenges. Brendan Farmer, Co Founder of Polygon and Co Head of Polygon Zero, joined a podcast to address these challenges and present the AggLayer, a solution aimed at addressing fragmentation in the rollup-centric blockchain landscape. This conversation offered insights into the future of blockchain scaling and Ethereum, marking it as a particularly enlightening discussion.
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Feb 15, 2024 • 1h 7min

Facilitating the Modular Blockchain Revolution w/ Amrit Kumar (AltLayer)

Guest: Amrit Kumar (Twitter: @maqstik) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex) In the crypto community, "modular blockchain" has become a common buzzword, but its precise definition is often overlooked. Unlike traditional monolithic blockchains like Ethereum, which rely on a decentralized network for computation, modular blockchains aim to scale by distributing tasks to specialized environments, reducing costs and increasing speed. For instance, complex financial transactions like borrowing USDC against ETH collateral on Aave can be offloaded to external environments where calculations are simpler, leveraging technologies like fraud proofs and zk cryptography for trust. Implementing modular blockchains presents challenges due to the need for numerous integrations and choices, but builders like AltLayer Chief Operating Officer Amrit Kumar are working on tools to ease this transition. AltLayer focuses on simplifying the deployment of flexible and customized blockchains and appchains, addressing important concerns like data availability and restaking in the process.
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Feb 12, 2024 • 1h 8min

How Introducing Competition Fixes De-Fi w/ Anna George and Andrea Canidio (CoW Protocol)

Guests Anna George and Andrea Canidio discuss CoW Swap, a platform for complex exchanges. They talk about its success, roadmap, and over $1B in monthly trading volume. They explore the impact of MEV on blockchain decentralization, layer 2 solutions, function maximizing AMM, and the use cases of Car Swap protocol.

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