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

As technology progresses, infrastructure should be commoditised, especially in Web3, in order to avoid the creation of bottlenecks and gatekeepers. Blockchains are naturally oblivious to off-chain data, so they need oracles to fetch data. However, given their past technical limitations, oracles have failed to provide a decentralised and permissionless framework for data query. SEDA seeks to change this by creating an intent-based modular data layer, which brings off-chain data on-chain, in order for it to be available to any party, regardless of who requested it first.

We were joined by Jasper De Goojier, co-founder of SEDA Protocol, to discuss the oracle landscape and how SEDA aims to decentralise it and make data access permissionless.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Jasper’s background
• High level overview of SEDA
• Oracle use cases
• How SEDA Protocol functions
• Intent-based data availability
• Verifying subjective data & LLM integration
• ZKPs & FHE for data privacy
• Interoperability & bridging
• Roadmap & optimistic oracles
• SEDA token migration
• Chain abstraction

Episode links:

• Jasper De Goojier on Twitter
• SEDA Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/538

Blockchains are, by default, public ledgers containing every transaction recorded by the network. While this ensures transparency, it also violates users’ privacy once an address is linked to an entity. Apart from creating additional risk for self-custody, institutions are also limited by what they can publicly share on a blockchain. As a result, there is great demand and utility for on-chain, compliant privacy, which still requires KYC (& KYT), but protects them through cryptographic constructs. Zero knowledge proofs attest computational integrity, allowing for transactions to be bundled together and their correctness verified, without revealing each individual interaction.

We were joined by Anish Mohammed, co-founder & CTO of Panther Protocol, to discuss the importance of compliant privacy for on-chain transactions, powered by zero knowledge technology.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Anish’s background
• Panther’s value proposition
• UX & on-chain privacy
• Panther’s multi-asset shielded pool architecture
• KYC & KYT
• Shielded zones and transactions
• Zone administrator
• Address mapping
• Roadmap & Panther mainnet
• Target audience & adoption
• Fee model & tokenomics

Episode links:

• Anish Mohammed on Twitter
• Panther Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/537

The monolithic blockchain era appears to be sunsetting. Among the first to contribute to this paradigm shift was Cosmos, which introduced the idea of specialized sovereign blockchains (appchains), made possible by the Cosmos SDK. Nowadays, the modular thesis employs external data availability and even execution solutions, which enables the creation of countless new chains. Each new blockchains comes with its own ‘specs’, and centralised RPC and node providers have to adapt to each chain’s setting. However, the saying ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ applies in this scenario too - we have often witnessed RPC failures during high demand periods. Lava Network aims to provide a competitive marketplace for RPC and node providers, which would compete based on their performance and user feedback.

We were joined by Gil and Yair to discuss Lava Network’s RPC decentralisation in the modular, multi-chain landscape.

Topics covered in this episode:

• High-level overview of Lava Network
• What problem Lava Network solves
• Decentralised marketplace for RPC providers
• Quality of centralised vs. decentralised RPC providers
• Gateways
• Lava Network participants
• Specs & APIs
• Quality of service & provider optimizer
• How services are priced
• Relayers
• Modularity & chain abstraction
• Magma & Lava mainnet

Episode links:

• Yair Cleper on LinkedIn
• Gil Binder on Twitter
• Lava Network on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/536

Prolonged range bound markets are a hallmark of bearmarkets and they usually end up chopping inexperienced or over leveraged traders. Customised structured products offer a solution for market participants that want to limit their downside, but also the upside, by introducing knock-outs at certain levels or triggers. Such custom options, usually with lower probabilistic chances of occurring, naturally come at a discount. This allows traders to hedge their risk, while also betting on certain outcomes or market scenarios.

We were joined by Zhiming Yang, co-founder of Orbit Markets, to discuss crypto derivatives and how TradFi expertise applies to customising structured products for crypto markets.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Zhiming’s background in investment banking
• FX derivative products
• Exotic options
• Crypto structured products
• Custom solutions for crypto miners
• Hedging Uniswap V3 impermanent loss
• Options based on prediction markets
• Managing counterparty risk
• Protocolising structured products
• Differences between TradFi and DeFi

Episode links:

• Zhiming Yang on LinkedIn
• Orbit Markets on Twitter
• Orbit Markets website

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/535

Measuring the social impact of a charitable donation is, oftentimes, an impossible task. Founders Pledge is a non-profit organisation that aims to funnel and streamline donations from successful entrepreneurs in order to maximise their efficiency, based on data and research. Having built a network of nearly 2000 like-minded philanthropists, the vision behind Founders Pledge was to ensure transparency, unbiased assessment, ease of access and incentive alignment for its members. Despite the hurdles of running and scaling a non-profit organisation, Founders Pledge managed to stay true to its values throughout its 10 years of activity. In the end, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

We were joined by David Goldberg, founder of Founders Pledge, to discuss the landscape of charitable non-profit organisations and how data can streamline donations and maximise their social impact.

Topics covered in this episode:

• David’s background
• Founding Founders Pledge
• How Founders Pledge works
• Joining Founders Pledge
• The challenges of managing a non-profit organisation
• Building a great company culture. Hiring process
• Maximising impact
• Assessing non-profit organisations’ efficiency
• Effective altruism
• How philanthropy changed over time
• Pledge Ventures
• Future challenges for Founders Pledge

Episode links:

• David Goldberg on Twitter
• Founders Pledge on Twitter
• Founders Pledge website
• Pledge Ventures

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/534

We are, arguably, still early in the crypto industry, but some people were really…really early. One of them is Lefteris Karapetsas, who joined EthDev in 2014 and contributed to building the Ethereum ecosystem, since before the genesis block. His crypto journey is one for the history books, as after EthDev he joined Slock.it, right around the time of The DAO raise…and hack. Lefteris remained a core supporter of decentralisation and an active member of the Ethereum community, being involved (and delegated) in multiple projects’ governance. More recently, he founded Rotki, an open source portfolio management app that aims to preserve user privacy. 

We were joined by Lefteris Karapetsas, true Ethereum OG, to discuss his 10-year long journey through the Ethereum ecosystem, from joining EthDev (pre-Devcon 0) to founding Rotki.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Lefteris’ background
• Ethereum’s beginnings
• Joining Slock.it
• The DAO r(a)ise and hack
• Ethereum classic hard fork
• Brainbot & Raiden Network era
• Founding Rotki
• Crypto accounting privacy
• The challenges of building a local app
• Rotki membership tiers
• Upcoming portfolio management on Rotki
• Future roadmap for Rotki
• How Ethereum’s culture evolved over time
• Ethereum public good funding. Optimism governance
• Hopes and fears regarding Ethereum’s future

Episode links:

• Lefteris Karapetsas on Twitter
• Rotki on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/533

The Autonolas stack aims to address the ‘A’ in DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation), through its Open Autonomy framework, which enables the creation of autonomous, off-chain services for crypto applications. A key component for ensuring the proper operation of these off-chain autonomous economic agents, is the consensus mechanism. The protocol is overseen by the Governatooorr, the world’s first autonomous, AI-powered governor.

We were joined by David Minarsch, co-founder of Valory, to discuss the ever-changing landscape of AI agents and how they can be used to automate crypto applications.

Topics covered in this episode:

• David’s background and founding Valory
• Agentic AI systems
• Multi-agent systems
• Autonolas’ agent framework
• Collaborative agent economy & composability
• DAO optimisation via autonomous agents
• Potential attack vectors & AI risks

Episode links:

• David Minarsch on Twitter
• Autonolas on Twitter
• Valory on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/532

Web2 file storage relies heavily on centralised entities, which have mostly outgrown their competitors, establishing a quasi-monopoly. The reasons for this are twofold: enormous operating costs and seamless user experience (e.g. social logins and account recovery), which, until recently, could only be solved through centralisation. Add to this the reluctance to change platforms as users need to re-upload their files, and you get an ossified user base. However, data leaks and hacks are a constant threat to users’ privacy, and indicate the disruptive potential of decentralised file storage and sharing.

We were joined by Andreas Tsamados & Vijay Krishnavanshi, co-founders of Fileverse, to discuss their decentralised file sharing solution and how they plan to disrupt the Web2 quasi-monopoly.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Returning to the P2P roots of the Internet
• Web2 vs. Web3 user experience (UX)
• Business models for Web2 data
• Decentralising data
• Web3 data storage
• Costs of data storage
• Managing file updates and permissions
• Fileverse use cases
• The business model of Fileverse
• Improving UX
• Future roadmap

Episode links:

• Andreas Tsamados on Twitter
• Vijay Krishnavanshi on Twitter
• Fileverse on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/531

Fully homomorphic encryption, also known as the Holy Grail of cryptography, allows for computation to be performed on encrypted data, without the need for prior decryption. Its blockchain applications would enable programmable, institutional-grade, compliant privacy. With the addition of fhEVM libraries, solidity developers don’t have to worry about the complex cryptography and only decide what layers of the UX should be private.

We were joined by Guy Itzhaki & Guy Zyskind, to discuss fully homomorphic encryption and how Fhenix plans to leverage it to build an end-to-end encrypted Ethereum L2 with compliant privacy.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Guy(s)’ backgrounds and why they chose FHE
• The differences between TEE, MPC, ZK and FHE
• Threshold decryption
• The challenges with FHE. Hardware acceleration. Zama’s fhEVM
• Fhenix architecture
• fhEVM
• Use cases for FHE & composability
• Compliant privacy
• Fhenix roadmap

Episode links:

• Guy Zyskind on Twitter
• Guy Itzhaki on Twitter
• Fhenix on Twitter
• Encryption Day @ ETH Denver (Feb. 28, 2024) registration

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/530

What began as an AI company trying to seek solutions in order to pay remote (unbanked) workers, Near AI became, in 2018, Near Protocol. Its sharded design was inspired by modern database architecture and large language model (LLM) training. Near Protocol aimed to solve the scalability trilemma, through a modular approach, combining data availability sharding with stateless validation. By abstracting away archaic blockchain standards, Near basically enabled decentralised full stack development and, in terms of UX, a distributed custodial solution via chain abstraction and account aggregation.

We were joined by Illia Poloshukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol, to discuss Near’s journey, from AI company to high-throughput L1 blockchain, and how LLM training influenced the modular design choice.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Illia’s background in AI & ML
• Scaling large language models (LLMs) and the role of attention
• Stochastic Parrot vs. Understanding spectrum
• From Near AI to Near Protocol and the role of LLMs
• How Near abstracted the blockchain away and enabled decentralised full stack development
• Defining ecosystem standards to improve UX
• Chain abstraction, account aggregation and interoperability
• Chain threshold signature
• Near’s intent layer
• Near’s modularity, Nightshade sharding & stateless validation
• EigenLayer integration

Episode links:

• Illia Polosukhin on Twitter
• Near Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/529

As Ethereum ‘merged’ to its current proof-of-stake consensus model, the steep (for retail) minimum stake of 32 ETH created a serious risk of centralisation through staking delegation to centralised entities. Lido DAO was envisioned to preserve staking decentralisation, while also providing additional value for staked ETH in the form of liquid staking tokens (LST). However, as its market share reached the first threshold of 33%, concerns have started to be voiced regarding Lido’s own risk of centralisation. Through its dual governance model where stakers can veto $LDO voters, and the upcoming implementation of distributed validator technology (DVT) and community staking module (CSM), the Lido DAO aims to preserve staking decentralisation.

We were joined by Isidoros Passadis, contributor and Master of Validators at Lido DAO, to discuss Ethereum’s current liquid staking landscape, Lido’s governance model and what steps it takes to ensure staking decentralisation.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Isidoros’ background and how he started working at Lido DAO
• Lido’s core architecture and how it ensures decentralisation
• Transitioning from a curated node operator set to a permisionless model
• Distributed Validator Technology (DVT)
• Lido’s dual governance model
• stETH bridging and use cases in DeFi
• How Lido adapts to Ethereum forks & EIPs
• Maximum validator effective balance and minimal staking issuance
• Ethereum vs. Lido governance
• Lido’s approach to MEV
• Restaking & Eigenlayer
• Expanding Lido to other chains
• Lido’s market share and other liquid staking competitors

Episode links:

• Isidoros Passadis on Twitter
• Lido on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/528

10 years ago, Adam B Levine, the host of ‘Let’s Talk Bitcoin!’, decided that it was time to encourage other voices to step onto the crypto podcast scene. Among many applicants, Sebastien and Brian were the only 2 Europeans, so Adam suggested that they teamed up in order to record the pilot episode. On December 20th 2013, Sebastien and Brian released ‘Regulation and the Future of Bitcoin’, which marked the beginning of a 10-year (and counting) long journey. The rest is history.

On this anniversary episode, our hosts were joined by special guests and friends of Epicenter, to share their favourite moments and fun stories gathered during the 10 years of epicness.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Adam B Levine - Epicenter’s godfather & the early days of Epicenter
• Trent McConaghy - From Ascribe to Ocean. Ahead of the NFT and inscription hype
• Sebastien Buergel - How he got into crypto, early ventures and Meher’s secret
• Griff Green & Lefteris Karapetsas - The DAO hack and Sebastien Buergel’s alleged role
• Sam Jernigan & Anna Rose - From TradFi to ZK
• Jordi Baylina & Ryan Zurrer - Standing in the Epicenter of the storm and the unsung hero of the DAO hack
• Richard Muirhead - The future of zk proofs, privacy and AI

Episode links:

• Adam B Levine on Twitter
• Trent McConaghy on Twitter
• Sebastian Buergel on Twitter
• Griff Green on Twitter
• Lefteris Karapetsas on Twitter
• Sam Jernigan on Twitter
• Anna Rose on Twitter
• Jordi Baylina on Twitter
• Ryan Zurrer on Twitter
• Richard Muirhead on Twitter

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Brian Fabian Crain, Friederike Ernst, Meher Roy, Felix Lutsch and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/527

gnosis.ioUnlike Ethereum ‘programmable money’, Bitcoin lacks native smart contracts by design. In an attempt to expand Bitcoin past its store of value narrative, wrapper contracts provided wBTC on other chains for DeFi applications. However, wBTC does not directly represent the native asset and it is, therefore, subject to potential exploits. DLC Link introduces a novel approach, by allowing entities to self-wrap dlcBTC.

We were joined by Aki Balogh, co-founder of DLC Link, to discuss discreet log contracts, their trust assumptions and what they mean for Bitcoin’s use cases and liquidity.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Aki’s background and switching from AI to crypto
• Discrete Log Contracts (dlc)
• Trust assumptions in dlc
• BTC bridges and dlc attesters
• The non-fungibility of dlcBTC
• Potential regulations
• Current status and roadmap
• Other BTC bridges

Episode links:

• Aki Balogh on Twitter
• DLC Link on Twitter
• Epicenter's 10-year anniversary live stream

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/526

When it comes to NFTs and blockchain gaming, very few companies can rival with Animoca Brands’ early conviction, investment thesis and time horizon. They understood early on that community building and network effects are the core pillars for a true paradigm shift in gaming. However, culture and narratives transcend the boundaries of gaming, becoming social phenomena. Animoca’s latest undertaking, the Mocaverse, aims to unite communities in a truly open metaverse.

We were joined by Yat Siu, chairman of Animoca Brands, to discuss the importance of digital culture in our modern-day lives and how NFT ownership unlocks community building in the open metaverse.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Yat’s background and Animoca Brands’ interest in NFTs
• Digital culture & narratives
• Animoca Brands’ investment thesis
• Blockchain & NFT adoption by Web2 brands
• Financial inclusion & financial literacy
• Ownership & play-to-earn gaming: East vs. West
• NFT use cases & IP rights
• Interoperability
• Decentralisation & the value of ownership
• Mocaverse
• Long-term vision & the open metaverse

Episode links:

• Yat Siu on Twitter
• Animoca Brands on Twitter
• Sandbox on Twitter
• Axie Infinity on Twitter

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/525

With an average block time of 5 seconds and sub-cent transaction gas fees, Celo focuses on scalability and ease of access in order to bring DeFi to those that need it the most. Celo’s vision of ensuring equal access is reflected through their mobile-first design, aiming to disrupt legacy TradFi. The upcoming transition to an L2 rollup aims to tap into Ethereum’s security, while maintaining minimal costs through Celo’s scalability and EigenLayer’s data availability solutions.

We were joined by Marek Olszewski & Rene Reinsberg to discuss Celo's mobile-first approach to building a low-fee, high-throughput blockchain with real-world applications, and their transition to an Ethereum L2.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Rene’s and Marek’s backgrounds
• Celo’s design principles
• Celo’s scalability
• Mobile compatibility for blockchains and dApps
• Wallet UX
• Stablecoins as gas token & transaction confirmation times
• Optimising mobile accessibility
• SocialConnect & off-chain social identifiers
• Celo’s transition to an Ethereum L2
• Single block finality in an optimistic rollup
• Sequencer decentralisation
• Lowering costs of settling on Ethereum via EigenDA
• Credit Collective & Impact Market
• Mento DAO
• The future of Celo

Episode links:

• Marek Olszewski on Twitter
• Rene Reinsberg on Twitter
• Celo on Twitter
• MiniPay on Twitter
• cLabs on Twitter
• Credit Collective on Twitter
• Impact Market on Twitter
• Mento Labs on Twitter

Sponsors:

• dYdX Foundation: The recently launched dYdX chain features new governance and token economics, that empower stakers and promote validator decentralisation. Bridge your DYDX tokens and contribute to the evolution of dYdX chain, fully permissionless and community driven. - https://bit.ly/47kqG59

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/524

Homo- (Greek prefix meaning ‘same’); -morphic (Greek suffix meaning ‘having a specific shape/form’)
Intuitively, one could deduct that homomorphic encryption indicates that the initial data and the encrypted result (cipher) could share the same form. Based on this property, it can be inferred that computation can be performed on the encrypted data, without prior decryption. By decrypting the result, you get the same output as the computation performed on the unencrypted data. While homomorphic encryption can be either additive or multiplicative, fully homomorphic encryption supports both types of operations. Unlike ZKPs, which are proofs of computational integrity, fully homomorphic encryption allows for encrypted data computation, without revealing additional information about the original data. This could provide the missing link for ensuring private transactions on blockchains’ public ledgers.

We were joined by Rand Hindi, CEO of Zama, to discuss fully homomorphic encryption solutions, how they differ from ZKPs & MPC, and how they can be leveraged to ensure compliant programmable privacy.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Rand’s background and his interest in privacy
• Meeting Pascal and founding Zama
• Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE)
• Zero knowledge proofs vs. Multi-party computation vs. Fully homomorphic encryption
• Taking fully homomorphic encryption 'mainstream'
• Zama’s products
• fhEVM
• How multi-party computation would secure fhEVM
• Multi-key homomorphic encryption & functional encryption
• Deploying an FHE rollup
• FHE use cases
• Privacy
• Zama’s business model

Episode links:

• Rand Hindi on Twitter
• Zama on Twitter
• Fhenix on Twitter

Sponsors:

• dYdX Foundation: The recently launched dYdX chain features new governance and token economics, that empower stakers and promote validator decentralisation. Bridge your DYDX tokens and contribute to the evolution of dYdX chain, fully permissionless and community driven. - https://bit.ly/47kqG59

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/523

"The advancements of zero knowledge proving technology, hardware acceleration and proof recursion have significantly increased the efficiency of EVM-compatible zk provers. As a result, the former tradeoff in efficiency implied by EVM-compatibility is gradually improving. Translating Ethereum’s virtual machine bytecode ensures seamless scaling for applications, without the need for additional audits and security compromises.

We were joined by Ye Zhang, co-founder of Scroll, to discuss the EVM-compatible zero knowledge landscape and how Scroll aims to stay true to Ethereum’s values and community.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Ye’s background in zk research
• Hardware limitations for zk tech
• Founding Scroll
• Why Scroll went for EVM compatibility
• Efficiency of EVM- vs. non-EVM-compatible zk provers
• The timeline of ideating Scroll
• Scroll mainnet launch
• Building the Scroll community
• Scroll token
• Sequencer decentralisation
• Data availability, validiums and security tradeoffs
• L2 bridges and interoperability
• Roadmap

Episode links:

• Ye Zhang on Twitter
• Scroll on Twitter

Sponsors:

• dYdX Foundation: The recently launched dYdX chain features new governance and token economics, that empower stakers and promote validator decentralisation. Bridge your DYDX tokens and contribute to the evolution of dYdX chain, fully permissionless and community driven. - https://bit.ly/47kqG59

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/522

Leading decentralised perpetual exchange, dYdX V4 recently migrated to Cosmos to build its own sovereign appchain, in order to provide its users a much better trading experience, while continuing to deliver DeFi innovations (e.g. permisionless markets). By having full control over the appchain’s parameters, the dYdX DAOs can shape the future of the protocol, starting from the very bedrock, ensuring proper distribution and incentives for the validator set. From early adopter of L2 zero knowledge proofs (STARKs), to building its own Cosmos appchain, dYdX has proven once again to be a trailblazer for new technologies.

We were joined by Charles d’Haussy, CEO of dYdX Foundation, to discuss dYdX V4’s recent migration to a Cosmos appchain and what challenges it solves in terms of: order book decentralisation, validator distribution and user experience.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Charles’ background, from Asia to CEO of dYdX
• dYdX’s history and V4’s transition to a Cosmos appchain
• How perpetual futures work
• dYdX supported assets and permissionless markets
• DeFi innovations vs. CEX UX
• The current state of dYdX V4’s alpha mainnet
• dYdX validator dynamics & order book decentralisation
• dYdX’s DAOs & governance
• Mitigating MEV (feat. Skip Protocol)
• Migrating to Cosmos
• Astropolis
• The intersection of crypto & AI

Episode links:

• Charles d'Haussy on Twitter
• dYdX on Twitter
• dYdX Foundation on Twitter
• Charles' Astroprolis Keynote (Cosmoverse Istanbul)
• Cosmos on Twitter

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/521

The very nature of Ethereum addresses, expressed as random hexadecimal character strings, represents a big hurdle for mass adoption, as they are not human-readable. ENS domains were envisioned to not only solve this and provide a seamless UX, but to also be the cornerstone of on-chain identities. However, in the current multichain landscape, a plethora of decentralised naming services arose, which led to a heterogeneous domain name pool. As a result, ENS aims to expand to L2s and non-EVM chains, attempting to provide consistency, in order to further reduce user friction and limit conflicting domain names.

We were joined by Nick Johnson, founder of ENS, to discuss the current state of decentralised naming services from a multichain and L2 perspective, and how these ultimately tie into decentralised identities.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Nick’s background and ENS history
• The plethora of decentralised naming services
• ENS use cases
• Interacting with Web2 DNS
• L2 compatibility for ENS via CCIP Read
• ENS wrapper and subdomains
• CCIP Read
• Bridging ENS to non-EVM L2s
• Coinbase’s cb.id
• ENS and on-chain privacy OPSEC
• Account abstraction
• The future of ENS
• Governance

Episode links:

• Nick Johnson on Twitter
• ENS on Twitter

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/520

While competition fosters innovation, the proliferation of different blockchains has resulted in the fragmentation and isolation of liquidity within each ecosystem. Early attempts to address this issue primarily involved bridges and wrapped assets. Unfortunately, these solutions were often vulnerable to hacks and exploits, and the value of wrapped assets was contingent on the security of the wrapper contract, rather than the underlying asset. Cross-chain swaps of native assets hold the promise of resolving liquidity fragmentation, but numerous technological challenges must be overcome to make them as seamless as same-chain swaps.

We were joined by Simon Harman, founder of Chainflip, to discuss multi-chain liquidity fragmentation and how Chainflip’s JIT AMM (Just in Time) aims to solve this, by providing cross-chain native swaps.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Simon’s background
• (Legacy) Bridging vs. Threshold Signature Scheme
• Chainflip’s Just in Time (JIT) AMM vs. Uniswap’s V3/X
• Providing liquidity on Chainflip
• Slippage and UX
• Deciding trading pairs
• Chainflip validators
• Validator stake auctions
• Governance
• Roadmap and bootstrapping liquidity

Episode links:

• Simon Harman on Twitter
• Chainflip on Twitter

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/519