Welcome to epicenter. This is episode 4. 73 is the show that talks about the Technologies projects and people driving decentralization and the blockchain revolution. I'm suggesting with Joe. I'm here with my co-host. Brian Crane, and Felix louche. How's it going guy? Very good. Pretty good, A little tired. But looking forward to this, I think we're all a bit tired. We all have a little eyes. I can see it. It is early though but we are today.
Going to discuss you know, this is kind of our year-end wrap up episode. It's coming towards the end of the year and well I guess it's safe to say lots of happened this year. And we're going to go over all of that and hopefully make some sense of it. And hopefully make some sense of what's coming in the future that is, if there is a future to be had, but before we That I'd like to first talk about our sponsor this week. Tallyho Tallyho is an open source wallet, redefining the
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be quiet, a resume. So I actually did that. What kind of kyc is going on these days? Seriously. Oh my God. That's that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Wow. Well so you know, we came here to talk about like look back on the last year and you make some sense of what's going on now and what the sentiment is and how that might affect the future for the industry. And so, yeah, I think I'm not really sure where to start. I mean, like, lots of great things happen.
This year, you know, like the merge happened which, which was huge. I feel like it was eclipsed by a whole bunch of other stuff but at least it is like the ecosystem. Not that I roll in. But then, of course, there was like the Luna collapse which Huge blow to the ecosystem and like I think just like General confidence in the space affected, lots of teams also
like tangibly. And then, you know, we thought we were kind of out of the woods and then well, this happens like the FTX fraud debacle whatever you want to call it. And now like Luna is just, you know, pales in comparison. I feel like, I feel like Luna was like a minor events. Compared to what? What this will. This will provoke in terms of potential backlash on the ecosystem and just like regulation and just overall, trust being degraded in the technology and also just like
the space generally. Do you guys sort of agree with with that thesis? Yeah. I I'm not sure like one of the things that's like so I've had a Financial Times subscription for the last maybe three years or something, I don't know. And I Tend to sort of check out the crypto articles a little bit in there and especially the comment section and it was always pretty skeptical.
I would say this is a time maybe last year where there was a little bit more balanced, you know, there was like some people who are like, yeah, I know it's actually some interesting stuff happening and there was a little bit of that but then I feel like this year, you know, earlier this year it just changed her. I mean one is the articles are Mostly - but the comment section is basically just this is a complete scam like this is all a gigantic scam. It has to like died.
There was an interesting article, I read like some months ago where I mean, maybe like a month ago, something like that. But it was basically like, hey, really should stop trying to regulate this crypto thing because this crypto thing is just a scam and I like regulating it. You're giving it to some sort of legitimacy that it doesn't deserve, but as we've seen now with FTX collapse and stuff like
that, it's kind of isolated. It doesn't sort of effect, you know, the real economy and do the real bank. So like, let's just, you know, segregate it. Say that, like, none of the financial institutions are allowed to touch this sort of dumpster fire and then it will just sort of diatone death there and that's sort of, they were the way to go and you know, all of Of the comments were like,
that makes so much sense. Finally someone is saying, finally, someone is like saying it out loud and like so and I saw this threat from Zuzu which is another bizarre thing.
No, because the guy is basically also seems like a bit of a scammer know with his three hours Capital where they were, you know, trying to borrow money like when they were already in solvent and like, I guess it looks like lying about their assets by making stuff up. And so it was interesting, you know, how and how they're like briefly disappeared and then, you know, come back like a month later and two months later like giving sharing wisdom about the other scammers and stuff like
that, but I think I think I read somewhere he's trying to raise another fun. I heard that this was read that somewhere to. Yeah, I don't know if that's true but one of the things he did say that I actually I felt was quite accurate, which is basically that Anunnaki.
I feel see very much reflected in this kind of financial times you know, type commentary that I think for a lot of people like outside of crypto and you know, let's say in the traditional Financial system or it descriptive thing, it's just like one huge scam. Like it's all and so then if SF TX and like s You know, Sam brankwyn free dance of doesn't look any worse than any of the rest, right?
Anything, anything maybe slightly better because he was at least, like, giving some money away to its even if it wasn't his money to some kind of causes. So I feel that Ellison explains a little bit. Maybe that, you know, two people, the Crypt of being there's like big difference, right?
There's like a lot of great things and then they're like someone like SPF was like complete fraud and roll, like, find it be Azar that they sort of that he doesn't get treated like this complete fraud in the mainstream media but I think if you look at it kind of through that lens kind of makes sense. Yeah, I don't know what that all means. I would say in the times, you know, that I've been in crypto is just now, I guess, nine and a half years or something like
that. This is the most negative. I think that the opinions that I feel like you see about crypto in The Wider media and world I feel like the most - that they've ever been. Yeah. I was just going to say I was reading a treat this morning it's because they're there was this I think this this confusion or people people were somewhat surprised that the people in the audience when so as SPF that this interview At this New York Times event and people were applauding him.
And but what what this what this tweet was was like a screenshot of some article, but we're basically that was claiming that the people were applauding him for for essentially like having destroyed crypto. It was, you know, they were applauding him to congratulate him or you know, to like uphold them as like some sort of a good person but it was in fact because You know, because like he was, he was act like sort of
destroying this dumpster fire. Like finally destroyed this dumpster fire and it's like okay. Yeah, like the kind of makes sense. I wish I could find the Tweet but I can't find any more anyway but yeah I mean yeah. Felix. What do you think? Yeah, I guess I actually like related to the financial times thing.
I've followed a little bit, the Reddit communities over time, and they've also been switching a lot in Into more out, the soul, the scam, you know, like it's pretty negative sentiment for sure. I think overall though, I guess you know, the killer use case for crypto is finance or defy. And I think that propped up a lot of the market create a lot of Leverage, right? And then these these people like, actually Luna is full of Leverage, right?
As we have his full of Leverage, Zuzu, every one of those in there. They're like the loud voices, I guess. And Obviously, when the market as a whole changes Bama, come stay get washed out which should
actually be a good thing. But in this case I guess it takes with it a bunch of innocent people but I guess that that's kind of what happened and it's not super surprising if you look at it in hindsight because I guess as we have is was actually his first cycle basically he came in and 2019, it was a bear market and I think he said somewhere in interview the When we expected was a 30% drawdown or something, which is obviously not what happened, he should have looked at the crypto
charts, you know. Yeah. So so, but yeah. I guess, you know, then these are the things that people see, right? The big highest of big close, but I guess in parallel, we have all this technology being built but that's not really being talked about in the mainstream Media or because I guess the use cases are just also Limited to the finance thing. And so I'm not super surprised that this is, the sentiment in The Wider sense, but I guess. Yeah.
To me, still nothing much has changed about the fundamentals. I think, I think we all underestimate the amount of understanding that people outside our bubble have about this stuff. And like, even even people who are kind of informed about Finance, So I'll give an
example. I was in Dubai last week and we were at this alternative an alternative investment manager Summit. And you know, a lot of the folks here are obviously like smart and like educated about finance and about markets and about yeah, the whole Space of Finance like tri-five but also fintech and overwhelmingly the people I spoke with had like no notion or like very fuzzy Notions about that Sting ssion between C Phi, FTX type platforms, like
Finance, Etc. - was a sponsor. They're also, by the way. And like, defy. Yeah, I've had to have several conversations where, you know, really coming back to First principles and like explaining what the difference is between like a decentralized finance platform and and I can FTX type platform and it was kind of surprising, you know, You know, I would talk to people and like start and I felt I was kind of losing them as I really had. No.
Wait like I need to come back in time to explain things from it from first principles. And and so it's kind of like not surprising that like the media. I mean, the media is even less informed. Yeah. I like I think that's one of the biggest challenges here is the like crafting narratives that that are accurate, that make sense, and that that differentiate between like what what F DX is and what Defy is Yeah. I mean they may be little bit too.
I guess what, Phoenix, and what you said now did? This was the interesting thing is that Indie Fighters basically like no leverage. If anything, I think Luna was like a one system where you could say there was a kind of like Leverage mechanism or you have this kind of feedback mechanism, that kind of was like, Leverage, like and, and I guess what we did see is that low Luna guiso. It's because of that, it because it just allows a kind of explosive growth. That is really hard when you
don't have that. And then but in defy you basically almost don't have that at this point. Maybe it's going to come probably. It's going to come at least increasingly so. But then you've had people build these systems on top which were all centralized and off chain, and then they were basically, you know, running kind of high delivery. The fractional Reserve System or like, lending money to each other and using it as collateral to lend more money and buy more
and and in in the end right? For the most part, this was really like a big deal leveraging. Now, big deleveraging with also, a big amount of fraud mix in there, right? Because I think there's a lot of lying about, oh, not leveraged when they were lying about how much leverage there was. But yeah, I think in the long, We're on of course there isn't healthy aspect to it.
I think block 5 is especially a good example of that, right, where when they put out these Financial results of block fight some point, they were like published and they lost like I think was like 200 million in, you know 2020 2021 like the two years or something like that and have like a thousand people in this company all doing this. This interest account. So it's just like and even in the bull market, right? The lost so much money and, you know, see that's just like a
really bad business. Like that was, you know, I don't think there was like fraud there as as much as crappy business that then relied on like you know, lots of venture funding, lots of risks. But kind of being in denial about the risk, they were actually having And then, you know, where market and it gets wiped out. And of course, that's a good thing in some level 2, right? Because it think what what remains is going to be much healthier. But pretty painful in the
process. Yeah, I mean but block fire was like this, you know, respected company. You know, I mean like to some extent ft x as well but I think even more so I mean from my perspective like even more so block Phi in terms of and mutation it's going to space for a long time. I mean like at some point even we were like a block by would be a good sponsor for epicenter.
You know, I mean I was a user of block fire and I did recommended sometimes, I mean, I felt like when Celsius went down, it was like kind of very clear like, yeah, I know you don't want to be in this vein and so, you know, I guess I didn't end up, you know, managed to get out. And I think most of tweeted at some point like, hey, You in one of these centralized lending things like, get out if anyone's still is, right? I think this was some Still Standing highly.
Highly recommend taking money out of that. Yeah. I mean, like again, I think it comes down to a lot of like, understanding of what these things are and education. And like, I'll give you an example, like like Zen go. For instance is a wallet that I recommend to a lot of people and that I use, you know, on my phone is stuff like great, you know, NPC wallet. Then in Zengo, it's like a earn interest on your crypto and you just, like move your crypto over to this line.
That could be like people. I think. Like, most people don't know where they're putting their money, they're just have like some application. They've downloaded. They bought some crypto. Someone told them about it. And then they end up using some service that like is centralized may be doing leveraging isn't regulated? I mean, I think the the Issue. Here it comes down to like we need to regulate like we need to regularly centralized crypto actors in the same way that we
regulate financial institutions. Like that that it seems like the only solution that makes sense like a crypto lining platform or a crypto exchange is just a traditional Finance business running on like a new asset class.
Right? Yeah. I think it's ironic that like SPF was trying to get the defy front-ends regulated but actually the centralized actors are the ones that need the Regulation and defy system kind of works the way it is and doesn't need separate regulation in my opinion to because obviously everything is transparent and you can check how the systems work, how solvent they are, and there cannot be any extra liabilities of chain for for defy system. So I think yeah, definitely
agreed to that. What's your sense that? My biggest fear here and I think we'll certainly see some of that is this lack of Separation in the narrative right between C5 platforms and defy platforms will end up hurting defy because it will also get regulated or it will like regulations will apply to it. That don't make sense for it. I haven't kept up on Mica so much in the last, like, six months. Probably should.
But, you know, from like some conversations I've had with people Who are close to that issue. You know, there's a desire to accelerate passing of mica, probably apply pretty strict regulations to stable coins and, and, and I think probably like defy some, some parts of defy will end up having some of the same constraints to see fi even though it doesn't make sense for them from like a practical or
operational perspective. Yeah, I mean, of course, there's also the big question of like, why, you know why you did a regular in the first place? Right, is it to actually, you know, reduce risk for people and maybe little bit. But, you know, I think mostly it's because they are regularly. This government's central banks are just worried about losing control and did defy thing is more threatening then you know some centralized platform that you can more regulate.
So I think if they can like try to crack down on that then you know they're there they'll try Now, maybe you one thing where I have sort of like a question mark of, I'm not sure about which way it's going to go or like the events of this year. Like what do they make more likely? Because I think on on one level it's also ties into my earlier point right II. Think for many people bit crypto, looks a lot less threatening.
Now, you know, because that the asset size is like Much smaller, you know, a bunch of people lost money, but it's, you know, it's these crypto people anyway, right? And if you don't like Krypton, a bunch of crazy people whose money and like, well, you know, bad bad luck, who do I care? And it didn't really affect normal Financial system. I didn't, there was no kind of contagion.
So then it's like, okay. Are you really going to spend all of this time diving into this complex thing to try to regulate it? Or you just gonna like the whatever? Now of course if there's like I guess it's not going to be like one or the other but I do think the kind of Market contraction bear Market is is unbalanced going to make regulation like less likely. But yeah I feel full of course. Let's say Mica things that are
in work over the years. It's not like you're gonna stop that and it's not like more relations and still Cummings but they think that was also I feel what which is something that I did not expect. And that was interesting this year, I would say most people in crypto that I spoken to her.
In the last year's, they were more of the opinion that, you know, we had these early crypto adopters and they are more technically Savvy and they're more interested in the technology and, and and they will be more likely to use, you
know, Hardware wallet or like self custodial. wallets and then you know you're going to have all these new people coming in and they're much more of an issue Beyond you know coinbase or finance and they use some centralized product but of course this year we've seen We have seen the risk of that and the Pains of that, right? And you know, we see more people I think moving towards custodial or you know, where people do
self custody. And I think when you think of the regulation, that's also something where it's probably going to be way easier if you do self custody. You couldn't have more control and maybe you could use stuff that you wouldn't be able to use other way. Guys. So, I do feel hopeful that that sort of trend is, there were actually a lot more crypto is goes back to like, why was this in the first place where people actually control their own assets.
They control their own private keys, they, you know, initiate their own transactions and that's, of course, really good. Yeah. Yeah, I think I follow Oriole again. Touch talking about Sango here, they're not a sponsor but I do I just do love that wallet in in days after FTX like their their installs just like went up like crazy. I think also Ledger probably had a lot of orders right after after the FTX thing. I mean, let's hope so. Alright.
Alright, let's talk about stuff, all this stuff. What? Else. Yeah, let's talk about what else you guys think was most important this year, or like, what did you feel? Is when we look back in the future on 20/20, to what will people kind of think? Oh, that, that, that happened in that, that ended up having a big impact, or was the beginning of something significant? Yeah, I guess the obvious one that we kind of already mentioned is probably the
etherium merge. So, I guess it's like the huge event of like kind of finally moving to proof of stake for the theorem and it also like going that smoothly that it kind of didn't make the news I guess that's also the didn't you then you think that the new cycle you need like something to go wrong to be on people's minds and but over all right it's impressive how that went down and now how it's all working because it's It, I guess the first we weren't really sure.
Right proof of stake was running. The picture was running quite a while almost two years now with without any like actual transactions.
And it wasn't really clear how it would look if this entire defy ecosystem of billions of dollars would move across and just seeing that that worked and that such a big transition can work in a distributed system I think is is something that is very impressive and probably I don't, If something like this would happen again in the future, or maybe it also proves that like, we can do these kind of decentralized upgrades to our systems at such a big scale. So I think that's kind of my
main one. I'm not sure if you guys. Yeah, probably, hopefully agree. But definitely, I think that was a huge, huge, huge event, and yeah. Congratulations to everyone involved. I guess that's like an endless amount of organization and people in Evolved, I guess know. We had course on were also working on that and like I mean we of course this was already right? Any theorem white paper at the end of 2013, is that go? It's going to move to proof of stake. And I remember, I think we did
like podcast with metallic. And I think maybe 2015 or something, he's like, it's like six months or something or five months episode 58. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So maybe it's 224. Did you say six months back then? Yeah. But we also did like animals, we did like lightning episodes like 2015 and they're like, yeah, three months lightning is alive. And you have take more like six
years, whatever five years. But yeah I know they they had this but in the end it succeeded I mean it was very successful in in many aspects I guess the he's a sort of lingering question probably mostly around. You know this flash pot. Amy Censorship, you know, like, obviously it's way better in terms of the economics of the theorem having proved, right? So it's good for either holders, you know, because there's less die Lucian. And that's a great thing.
And the energy impact is gone down like dramatically and and sort of game. Theoretically, the security has gone up. I think it's going to be very positive for aetherium. When, when more and more kind of, institutional interest comes Back because the whole of like Energy Efficiency Green Block Chain, is going to be huge right there. I think that would be a massive, massive advantage that if your mum's going to have over Bitcoin and but at the same time, I just hope.
Yeah. Also the separation of proposals Builders. And, you know, now we have that. I think a huge percentage right off, is there in validators or following this ofac sanctions list? I guess that's another thing. We didn't add it to the topics for the think the So cash things, actually, a significant investment of this year as well. Yeah.
So that that does raise the question of yeah, like, the censorship resistance is I think a big, big question and challenge for theorem, that that is ahead is the ignorant Community trying to remedy this. Yeah, I think they do have now as a sort of on the theorem roadmap like censorship resistance. So I think it's very at least.
There is a I think That this is something that's necessary and you know, they're going to work towards and is an explicit goal so that like something like okay the tornado Cashmore contract. Transactions are being censored to that or something like that. That's not possible. So I think at least as a goal, I think there's consensus on that and there's like research towards that. I'm not sure. I think there are like ideas for how to address it not super.
Up-to-date with like what the idea is are and how long it's going to take and how well they're going to work and what are the other side effects of those ideas?
But I think at a high level ride it, I guess you know this Mev topic came up pretty late right basically defy summer 2021, maybe even or 2020 and then flash was already building this tool to democratize it and then as a side effect because they are building this tool and running it themselves, they get a lot of traction with it. And kind of centralized this RPC layer to some degree that that everyone is using meth boost.
And then, yeah, this tornado. Cash thing happens in parallel, which probably also no one really saw coming like this, and it somehow ended up with them obviously, having to make the choice that they will include essentialist, because they're a US company. And I guess it's just kind of a matter of time though, because the goals, like you said, Brian, they are there. And many people are working towards that. I think even the flash but
seemed themselves, right? Allow others to run re layers. It's just that their relayer has been Eating based on kind of the traction it already had with, with Searchers and validators beforehand. So it's just generating more income so, but you can already see it going down a little bit with like other three layers coming in and some of them not following this, the sanction list and I guess with, when the full proposal build a separation is there, I feel like it would
be addressed surgically. It's just a matter of timing in some degree and yeah good to see that. You know people realize the importance of it.
I really enjoyed this. This panel from def con that we released a couple of weeks ago, the FedEx moderated and there was a pretty I would like not heated, but someone somewhat disagree and conversation between Shriram from, I can layer and field ion of flash pots and I really like the way that tree ROM framed it which was essentially, you know, the validators beyond the obvious like validating Blocks and making sure blocks are like technically valid.
They're simply they should simply, you know, be a testing transactions and and notarizing those transactions is basically they just like a test of like the state of a block and like published a block to the Chang and I thought that was like an interesting way to frame the the topic of credible neutrality and
in the context of validators. Yeah I think like the ecosystem which is should Do everything it can to arrive at that goal where validator is simply just like a testing transactions, as not doing any sort of essential shape or like choosing what transaction should make it in the block or not. Yeah, I guess in the end, the thing is like, who chooses it? Then, you know, I guess you need someone to build a block or somehow to have this order, I guess in proposal the
separation. You just have this build a role and then it's kind of like Outsource to them to do this. Which I don't know if you change my just shifts the responsibility I guess and I'd end up being more centralized to it because I think at least it seems like a high likelihood. If you can have some specialized Builder which may be pretty complex role that then you end up having you know, to three parties that are like making all the blocks right?
Like yeah validators you already have quite a few in a sense, right? Like companies that do it. Builder is definitely I don't see how it how it can. I'd be probably gonna be less confidence. I agree. Are you guys thinking about this? Of course. What's your philosophy on this? I mean, maybe Felix you're a darling, that's racist. Yeah, we can't give away our competitive Advantage. You. Yeah. I think I guess I think also one thing that definitely happened is that it's kind of like over a
compliance. I would say in for some of the people that they like, just Kind of put the censorship list in practices even though there's no one really asked them maybe and I think that is probably too much. I think we definitely chorus, right. Our philosophy is that we need the censorship resistant. We need a decentralized ecosystem and I guess we would
support that. But obviously, if like there is like, super clear regulatory guidance, you can't do this and we probably wouldn't do it. But I guess our maybe at least then we would try to like engage with The Regulators to the extent possible for us. And convince them of the need of this. I guess it's already. What we would support now but yeah I do feel that some of the organization's maybe over complied to this and yeah. So so I think we would avoid this.
I mean that's also build my personal view of how we internally afraid. Yeah. And including, of course, right ofac is a u.s. paying, right? This really applies to u.s. person so that then you have like non us Organizations kind of complying to that is. I think I'm sorry but I think the fatf guidelines probably include ofac sanctions list and therefore anyone who wants to comply with fatf guidelines? Probably will you know if ATF is like not a regulatory thing, right?
They basically it's not but if they do have tremendous influence on the way Banks and other institutions, Matush ins and anyone who interacts with financial system works, I mean, maybe the cofactor, something, it does not apply sure it is. Yeah, but I think fatf in their guidelines probably includes ofac or like, though, faction sanctions list.
No, no, I'm not sure about this. But, I mean, I think if you're that, I mean, I think fatf I mean again, I also I'm not an expert on this at. All right, so maybe I'm wrong, but I think fatf day, He has like guidance that you in different countries, have to do some sort of money, you know, you know money, laundering controls and whatnot, but then but yeah if 80, they're all factoring is like US Treasury Department. You know, declaring some
countries being like, you know, I mean most is around countries right there off acting, right? It's mostly like oh you can't deal with Iran because the US isn't like your own but for example, that doesn't apply to European companies, they can do. If we were on, I guess where it becomes tricky.
Is it, let's say if your European bank but you sort of relying on, you know, access to the Ico connections, with the US financial institutions, then you're like okay maybe we also have to comply with this even though technical doesn't apply because we're worried about like our us counterpart. He's dancing. Like what we don't deal with you or like losing access to some kind of you know, us financial services that they need, right? So I think in different
Industries, Financial industry. I think, definitely this kind of effect stuff ends up getting adopted by non us organizations. Just because they're scared of like having losing access to the US. Yeah, yeah. I think you're right. I mean, if it dif does have, I'm looking here like countries that they monitor and like also the EU publishes a list of either blacklisted or don't call blast Bliss. But basically it's like black fur. Two countries.
So what? Yeah, with regards to like aetherium, and I think like in the continuation of our conversation here, with regrets to etherium, you guys had written here. Z KV, M, and eigen layer. Why are you so excited about these two things? I think these were, like, for my perspectives. I was on a bunch of etherium conferences this year too, and I guess I'm following quite closely.
So, if you like these, are the two Big Innovative or like interesting things that happened in the theorem ecosystem this year. I mean, CK, evm. I guess it's just like a very technological advance and quite advanced in that space. It seems so that you know, you can fully basically right normal, evm solidity code and in NZ K. So I guess that might like change the way We see decentralized applications are how they work and how they scale and privacy components of it.
So I think that could be just a big game changer in that sense. And I mean, yeah, just impressive how fast this ZK is based also, moving, I guess, which we also saw over the last two years, three years, right? I guess it has been really like a Cambrian explosion of all these cryptographic advances. And I think it's like slowly moving into. Yeah, practice in the crypto. With with actual actual applications around it and yeah, I guess that's exciting.
I mean I'm personally not even you know, you don't know, you don't even know what to expect, right? It's I think some of the killer apps will come from this, from ZK stuff in general, right? That because their, you actually can do things that you couldn't do really before in the, in the C5 or of chain world. And so, I'm quite excited about Out that I don't know. Yeah. What do you guys think about like zero knowledge in general? Maybe or I guess the KVM specific.
Yeah. I think it's I mean like I think it's super cool. I mean I think one thing that crypto has accelerated, ZK research in a way that no other technology or industry has in the last year's and and there's all these really interesting and cool use cases.
So like I was talking with like, penumbra a couple weeks ago and, you know, it just like blew my mind that, you know, in the more like an IBC ecosystem, you Use penumbra to execute transactions in IBC in like non ZK zones, but you're sort of executing those transactions from the literal penumbra, right? Like you are in the shadows and you're executing your transactions and like things like that, like, give me super
excited about crypto. Yeah. We're we're I have doubts about it like usability and this is always a challenge and you know, for a lot of privacy preserving Technologies and applications Is often the case that there are used by like a small niche of people who are, you know, very passionate about the stuff and it rarely makes its way into. Like, I think the mainstream at least I don't have any good examples of that. So yeah, I hope that is to sail
as to sell. Ya SSL is one example as cells is one good example, but like things like signal and stuff like that, but SSL was implemented as a kind of infrastructure layer. And you know, in that in that sense SSL was implemented. To protect private party payment information. You know in the early days of the web in the 90s like they build https SSL to protect
credit card data. And you know, this could be where also where ZK plays a huge role is like protecting people's financial information for that though, you need like a massive kind of adoption of crypto as a starting point and then implementation that would allow people to remain private and the transactions. I mean, I guess is EK thing,
right? Has like several Dimensions, I'm a, you know, there is that they kind of scalability aspect, which I guess is probably where, like most of the activities at the moment and I think that's seems pretty promising. I guess they're seeing to be like issues. There's a lot of complexity there right and I think a lot of open questions still. I like you know how well is that going to work? I am personally especially excited. I think kind of Sebastian.
What were you brought up? Is the whole privacy thing because I think this is like a huge. Huge, huge issue is really the biggest issue. I think in crypto today is like a lack of privacy and I think it's gonna it's very scary, right? Because all of this information is here and you will be able to go back in time, and it will all still be here.
And now if you see like, Ai and all of the progress here, like, I think you can kind of have to assume that everything will be fully known about, you know, what were all your wallet addresses? What is everything that you were doing? And probably kind of soon. And that's just like, hmm. You know, really not great. Right? Because I think that's, I mean, from a private security perspective, right? Like makes it vulnerable to being like robbed and attacked
from that perspective. Of the government cracking down on stuff. It makes it, you know, if you know there's some doll and you can just figure out who are all the token holders and like pretty easy to shut down the doll. And, and I'm definitely worried that the pro, I mean, of character's perspective. He attacks is it. No, to pretty sure, I mean, II, still think this is going to be the main way that That governments are going to like crack down on crypto.
I think it's going to be through taxation. You know, that they're basically going to be like you've been saying this for years. Yeah, I think it's going to happen. I feel like pretty confident on that because it's just gonna be so easy, you know? Like you're gonna have all of the data given the tax rules and given how crypto works. It's basically inevitable. That almost everyone didn't pay the taxes correctly and then you
can go after them and you. Even have to amend any new rules regulations, you can find them, you can make make their lives to pain. And I am worried that the progress. When it comes to privacy Tech in crypto is very slow. It's not great. Like we are nowhere near having kind of privacy preserving crypto. I think that's like, how far is that way? Five years more? Like, it's far away, like scalability will kind of Solving, right. But privacy not at all.
And I think I didn't mean there is like a linear growth of these of these Technologies and like people building use cases and people trying to adopt them and stuff. But then they're like, you know, you're mentioning SSL up until like the early 2010s. I think it was like 2011-2012 or maybe even earlier most websites did use a cell you use SSL when you interact with your bank to do when you went to the payment
portal. But when you were just like logging And whatever you weren't using SSL and then Google decided that it was a good idea for everyone to start using SSL. And since Chrome was one of the major browsers and most used browsers on the internet. They, they basically like force everyone to start using SSL because if you didn't use SSL one your website would be not rank so well in SEO. And then the other reason was that you would get like this big
kind of like red warning. This website is not secure Etc and so like that forced the whole industry to move Justice out and it'd be great if we had like Like some sort of forcing event in crypto wear like some, you know, application that was used by lots and lots of people would sort of impose privacy on on users, but that we're not at a scale yet. We're like enough, people are using crypto and also crypto super fragmented where, you know, there's like tons of
wallets. Nothing is very few standards across different ecosystems. I mean like you have standards and etherium, you don't have the same standards and Cosmos or in Solana or anything else. It's hard. Like I was I was talking to those most about this yesterday and it's like the fragmentation at the at the wallet layer and also at the infrastructure that makes you very difficult to create like industry-wide standards. Yeah well I mean did the issues like you mean someone creates an
application that's like private. I know let's say someone creates a private decks it's like okay that's nice but now if all of my address is are like the anonymised and I'm like moving something in. There. And then, like, taking something out. Like, how much does it really help? Right? Like know that much, maybe it helps with something. So I maybe helps with, like, I don't know, phones are more comfortable to trade because you maybe can't like blink, some trays.
So maybe there are some things like that, right? But I think that, you know, that the fundamental privacy super hard, right? I mean I guess private transact like this sort of private payments like Z Cashman era, have it. You know, that, that I guess seems like, you know, achievable and maybe the technology is kind of there for that, but then smart contract interactions and, like, defy, and like cross chain and so hard or anythi stuff. I will use a good now. It is already doing it.
Well, see if your network was just like kind of fell apart. No, it's just like a sgx. I mean They I guess okay, I don't know exactly. But I guess some of the history was you can. Now I'll all of this food.
I think all of these three. I mean I'm I also have not so I have not super closely read about this so I may be wrong but what I did kind of it was basically there's some like there was some sgx vulnerability that basically allows anyone to go back through like all of the History of that of the Singapore chain and like the anonymize, like everything. You could like decrypt. Yeah, sure, yeah. I think something like this. I'm not sure if that's still
possible or definitely. I think there is like a new architecture where I guess the mitigated it and from now going forward it would not be like that but until its next thing, happens would be a big event. Yeah, I mean for now yeah, I guess that's also the issue with this technology, right? That will not be in production for a long before you. Yeah, you need to have like a certain time. It's running to Understand if it's really like non exploitable, like I guess the kind of Lindy effect.
So I do agree that everything would be like five plus years out. I think though, right? If you can have private computation or like on the smart, then then it does we met. Now you can do private entities and you can do whatever, right? It doesn't really limit you if you can do it, like generalized. I guess that's what the KE VM and these kind of things are trying to do. Right here is a list of the stream your teachers here.
As DX dot fail and one of the like the top thing is secret Network and then I guess like some DVD technology that got I got pwned. But yeah, this is just came out like a couple days ago, okay. Well, my my meta rats and ftes are now doxxed. How about? Yeah, how about that. Secret system. Let's yeah. Maybe some of the interesting things here. I think, you know, obviously, well, I'll be there. I think like there's been some
progress, but it's also been. I feel like it's been a little sluggish, the whole, like, Adam 2.0 thing over the last couple of. Well, I guess, like, two months has been a little bit draining, I feel like on the, on the community and I'm not really sure like where things go from here. It's unclear to me.
Now like I feel like there's a, there's a lot of questions around what is the future of the hot like more so than then like when we were having these debates and yeah, like I guess interchange Security's going to get implemented fairly soon. But as for all of the other features that that were included in this in this white paper, you know, the Mev staff, the the allocator, all these other things feel like were a long.
Time away from from seeing these things being implemented or like at least some progress being made on this front. What are your thoughts on where where the cosmos top is heading? I mean, notnot that this is the entire cost of Sikhism, but how did you come out of that? Hold the bridge. Yeah, I mean, I guess, first of all, you have any calls most, I feel like Cosmic ecosystems doing super well, like lots of new chains and, like, lots of activity.
The interest from VCS is increased a lot this year. So there is like, funding. I think it's up, like, I don't know. Much. But like pay a huge amount. So I think kosmas ecosystem, your looks were bullish. Now when it comes to the cosmos, hop on some level. This is there was always this this question for a long time. This man just question of like what's the cause of the top? For me?
They was this kind of idea back in the white paper of this IBC routing Hub, but people didn't really seem to like believe in that so much and that hasn't happened. Happened and I guess it doesn't, you know it, IVC at this point, as much more like point-to-point connections, which of course has like big advantages to. And so I think it's unlikely at this whole routing hop thing comes and of course that has kind of been I think abandoned more or less and then.
Yeah. But then it was like, okay, what's the Hop for indigenous security right? Is is obviously coming. Alright, seems to be coming, right, progressing, well and stuff, and there's like demand. So I think this is pretty good. Right?
Like, that's something that I think was away less certain before, and now it seems like, you know, very likely including like a whole bunch of, like, solid things that want to deploy on it. So, I think from that point of view, like the Hub looks like better than a year ago, right? Nowadays, of course, the question of like, how much value does interchange security bring? And, you know, does it kind of justify the market cap of atoms? Because I think to some extent,
Adam has been treated as this. You by Adams and you have some kind of, you know, expose you to the cosmos ecosystem, even though that's not not really true or it may be true to some extent. But you know, it doesn't like someone builds a chain on Cosmos and it succeeds doesn't necessarily mean it. Any any value to its atoms? I think the whole atom 2.0 thing. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how things are going to progress.
Writer. Yeah, I mean if you like the discussion was very vibrant and vigorous and very engaged and I think that's what's good. You know, I did have a lot of reservations around the, I think, the way to proposal has done, which I guess was shared by others. So it kind of got rejected any end of those wet clothes. Yeah, and I do feel like coming back with more, you know, more actually concrete, limited clear prop, Proposals, you know, it's the right way to let's see, let's see.
But I would say, overall I feel the cosmos Hub has progressed in the last year, although maybe not as much and as fast as one would have hoped. Yeah. Felix. Yeah, I would agree to all this. I think the it's also kind of what it's not too surprising, right? Because it's such a decentralized system and there. So hard to convince everyone of
something. And I mean, a lot of the things in the past, even before all this have struggles to to gain the right like traction, that that other ecosystems are other like centralized more, centralized layer ones or ecosystems have less problems with because there is, I guess, just one United, like company organization that kind of pushes forward with with a certain direction. So yeah, I think in this case, I do agree that it's a chain. Security seems to at least have that traction.
I think that the issue then is right into chain security can be implemented by every Cosmos own and a lot of the zones also or change plan to kind of offer security to some some other chains. Like I think F most for example, or I actually probably almost everyone that was Moses wanting to also interchange secure chain. So I do kind of believe that there will also be this, this mesh security system in the long run.
And that, like, you know, chains provide security to each other both being a provider and the kind of consumer. So in that sense, I guess it again, questions a little bit, what that means for the cosmos job, if that's the future by overall, I think the ecosystem developing very fast. A lot of people entering the cosmos ecosystem. Like almost everyone we speak to or like, I guess we're also very heavy in the in the Customs ecosystem, but still, you know,
you see a lot of teams coming. In that that weren't really native or new to crypto from other web to or threat Phi and they start building in Cosmos. I think that's extremely bullish and we've really seen a lot of new teams like that emerge and
yeah, super excited for that. I guess, you know, I don't know what your guys thoughts are on that traction, that the customers has and I think also that application-specific, I guess story overall, it seems to like Like be adopted even by other ecosystems like if you're in with L2 stuff. So I do think Cosmos on the right path and first is the long in that sense. I think the I think I Echo your sentiments about the like just tons of people coming into the
ecosystem. What I think is really exciting about that is we have all these people who are coming to the ecosystem, that weren't in Cosmos before, like through, these are like new people. They just like found about found out about it on their own and now they're using the technology and they're using. To build things that they think
are interesting, or valuable. And it's bringing all this, these new ideas, and it's kind of like diversity of people backgrounds to the space that, you know, makes for like really good Innovation. And like like like good with lots of great ideas coming into the space, just generally. And yeah like the app the app chain thesis seems to be. Also picking up in other spaces as well.
I wonder like the thing that I'm struggling to to to like wrap my head around right now is how the action thesis in the modular thesis sort of come together, you know? Do they are start overlapping at some point. Do act chains you merge or slowly become you know more modular either through shared security by Outsourcing may be like parts of the settlement or data availability to other to other kind of infrastructure layers.
And yeah I think like this whole Space is Super interesting to me and I find that any Innovation and like any kind of new design patterns happening in the spaces. You know, is great because like, we get to see, we get to figure out which, which is the best way to build the stuff, such as it scales and it could be usable and like it, you know, remains secure and maybe also, by scaling it.
And by modularizing it. At some point, we can start putting in more like ZK & Privacy layers that that's spread out across the whole ecosystem. I totally think right there. That this experimentation is yeah. What makes Cosmo so strong, right? And then you can have like one chain to like a certain thing little different way and if it works out right others will adopted. So I guess this emergent properties is a very strong starting point and yeah, then let's see.
When Celestia comes along and all these things how that will change the space? I have definitely excited for that. I think also you know like from some of the new teams like Say and there. So there's also like talks of layer 2 on Cosmos, you know? So basically that kind of this structure also being adopted in Cosmos and maybe other VMS so that that seems interesting. Brian. I know you won't talk about her bit. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah.
I mean, it's definitely someone things I've been most excited about this year and Yeah, I mean we've done some podcasts about it too. And, you know, said that conference in Miami and September I think which was pretty great and, you know, he is, I mean, he's like an old project right? That's been kind of developing for a long time but I think has evolved into more of a like a vibrant ecosystem with other companies.
And I think there is you know, the crypto synergies are also becoming coming more up. You know, some example if that Glued, you know, Oak Bar where, you know, building basically a ZK, roll-up blockchain on orbit. It's kind of like an ATM roll up, but like, honor bit and using like, you know, smart contracts are written in the kind of herb it language. So, it's pretty powerful, right? Because you could write like your application in this as long with your smart contracts.
And of course, the way orbit applications work is that they're running on people's servers, right? So you and that Times have been quite relevant when you tie it in with some of the things we talked about before around. You know, trying to crack down on front ends and regulating defy. And there was, I think, just two weeks ago, a few weeks ago, I saw someone show like a demo of, you know, them having the units of pain and running on Urban right? Because.
Yeah, that's pretty powerful, right? Because you could just take the phone and deploy in an herb it and then people can sort of run their own. Front ends and it faced with that and then you don't really have that ability to regulate front-ends anymore. So I do think that it's it's a more resilient way of addressing some of these issues around, you know, some privacy, right?
Like you can you can have a lot more privacy this way to and you can have more control it could it could be more censorship resistant so I do expect that we know we're going to see a lot more of that. Urban still kind of early as an ecosystem, so it's probably another year or more until that kind of stuff really starts working. But, you know, I think it's it's coming and and I think it will end, it could end up becoming like, you know, very powerful,
right? Becomes kind of dislike operating system layer for crypto. There's also one thing actually there is Is a very in a way one of the best arguments I think for urban and crypto is I want to play this, you know, big criticism of crypto where you did the signal founder Moxie. Marlinspike wrote this article it was this is a few months ago and was very widely. Shared my first impressions of web 3 we can put the link in the show notes but it's basically he you know he was like okay this
crypto thing is nice. Well he's Like to talk about all this decentralization. And and maybe there is that kind of decentralization like, you know, on the blockchain level. But then when people actually interface with this stuff, right? It's using some RPC note that like you kind of trust or at the very least are like tracking all your data and you don't have any privacy and he's like, what is
this bullshit? And he talks a lot about like, you know, here people don't want to run their own server. Has and never will. And so he's basically says, like cake ripped or without people running their own servers. Like doesn't make sense because you still trusting others. And and of course that's exactly what they were but it is addressing right to make it really easy for people through on their own server. Yeah.
I think it took going to become very important and you know, a tremendous area of like Innovation and growth and sort of merging of, I think orbiting crypto that's going to happen in the next year. Year, two years, three years. Not not to like dive deep into make this a are B. Dive, deep, deep dive. But can you, can you run like a turbot server on your phone or something like that?
Or is it something that's possible to do on on this sort of device or is it have to be like an always-on kind of thing or that you know, where you're either running on a computer in your house or like on a Raspberry Pi? Yeah. Well if it doesn't work it has to be on when you use it right away. When you rely on it, so you could have it run on your computer. I mean, you can do that, right? And then you could just I mean, it's definitely, it definitely works. In terms of you know, Gmod
resources needs. Totally, totally suitable to run on on someone's computer. Maybe you could run it on a phone. I don't think that is possible today, but maybe you could, the issue of that, though, is if you're using like a SAS product, We're using some application and then it into in the interfaces with like a server, right? Then it may be the applications on your phone or on your
computer or somewhere else. Then you need that server to be running and you know, that service may be on AWS and buy some company. So like you can rely on that that works. So when you in irbid world, let's say now you have a smart contract app it into you wanted to use on your coat and on your phone. Another times using on your computer and stuff, you will want to speak. Like you basically want to make
API calls to your server. And if the server, like, let's say if you have it on your computer and then you computer's not running and now you have an urban app on your phone, you can use the app anymore because it can talk to the server, right? Because the computer is not running. So the a I think it's going to depend on like what are you using it for? I can give you like let's say using it for like I'm just I'm doing The transactions River
bit, right? And I have it on my home computer and I'm just putting it out when I'm doing crypto transactions and otherwise like I think that should actually work fine. But if you use it if you want to use it as a more, I mean that ambition of herb is much larger right? To do a lot more things, then I think you do need to have the always-on thing. Could you just have to State be synced?
Like, it couldn't you say, like, have the state, like the encrypted State just sink to say like iCloud and then your Phone just as always kind of sinking in the same way that you use like a Google Drive sitting there thinking you're a bit server to the iCloud and then you seeking the phone from
there. Yeah. I don't know, like, I don't know what like, I mean I suppose data in there and there must be like some packages, but if you are thinking, like if you have your, your orbit note on your phone and then you sinking into the cloud and then you like sinking, like you. If that from your phone, then why not just run it in the cloud? Like what's the point of your eye? I think is like to, I think is like, basically two paths,
right? One is that you you having you hosting it with a third party in the crowd or if you're hosting your third party who guarantees reliability and stuff. So we have been actually working on that, of course one but to like build this. And I think the other option is that you're going to have like Like a device, like a hardware device that's like on, you know, in this also company working on this. This one called native planet
looks really cool. But you know, we basically have something you can just plug in at home and then there's your orbit thing. And, you know, you'll be able to connect with it and can always be on or they could be more
limited use case, right? If you say like I'm going to use it for crypto and you know I just use it when I use it and then it runs on my computer and otherwise is off and And I think that actually makes a lot of sense also, because maybe you won't want to segregate it, right? Maybe you'd have like, one herb, it where like you doing a
communication stuff. Maybe have another one where it's like, crypto transactions, and that you want on your own computer at home and it's just wrong sometimes. So maybe something like that. Could make sense. Overall though it's easier to run. Like if you would say just compare like a irbid nodes or ship or whatever it's called with with, with a etherium validator or something you think. Yeah. I think it's much easier to run it. Yeah, definitely.
And even if you go down right, you don't really have immediate like when you could use at all, also you don't have to sit. There's nothing to think, right? There's no like State. Yeah, Status, yeah. Do you have upgrades or something for the irbid software on this? Yeah. But they're all automated like you don't have to do anything. But then who decides. What's the upgrade or how this just well, I think depends on
the kind of upgrade, right? But I think the apps can upgrade themselves right or If you have a more like, if it's like a whole network level of upgrade, and I think that, you know, this kind of like a governance body that would have would have to vote on you know if there's like some very low level upgrade but that those are, I mean the whole design of it is that this is like those would be extremely rare events or like you get to the point where it like that never happens.
I think that's gonna be my Christmas Vacation project. I'm going to install an herb, it sir. Iran. My I've got a little server here in the house, right? Tries to put up, is there anything else we we want to want to talk about here? I think we covered most of it. Yeah. Oh yeah, there was Solana. Yeah. Solana came fell short and maybe just your thoughts on, what's, what's going on with Solana. And what is the future of this ecosystem? Given the pain.
They're suffering. Yeah, I think it's like a big. Trial by fire right of the whole community and the resilience of the ecosystem. I do think there's a lot of like developers on their right? There's the apps. There is teams that are doing interesting work and I do think will come out stronger from from it funnily enough. Right there was the breakpoint conference. The second one this year just before they whole FDX.
Collapse. I felt you know, their stuff going on. There are even like one of the first ecosystems or I think actually maybe the first outside of The theorem that is working on client diversity in a serious way, ride with jump building, this fire dancer client, that will essentially also improve the performance of Salon, even more and kind of, finally even like create a spec for what's
Alana is, I guess. Also improved the actual Solana Labs client itself so I think that that's very mature, sign of maturity. And yeah. So overall, I think quite exciting here to stay and keep building. Keep building. I think that's I think that's probably a good note to end on and certainly the sentiment that a lot of people who are building have right now, you know, beyond the fight and everything.
Yeah. I think the overwhelming narrative that I see on a crypto Twitter and, you know, people who are coming in the podcast, everything is like, just got to keep building. And I mean, like, we've been through this before already and we built and let me build a bunch of stuff during those. Those those bear markets and out of all that work and Innovation and came in the applications. So yeah I think just keep on battling. Yeah. Absolutely, I think nothing
really has changed, right? It's just I mean a lot has changed and nothing has changed when it comes to like the why and where's it all going and stuff? It's I think it's the same and it's just a long journey, right? Like I mean we are still alive. I mean, we talked about the Privacy thing went what? Okay? And I think everyone was always aligned that, okay? Privacy is essential the needs to be privacy or pretty much
everyone. But then we'll also like, oh, it's like five years off, 10 years old, right? So I think for crypto to the really like realize its potential, you know, it's another, you know, it's 10, 20, 30, 40 years had still like it's a long long time but still so exciting so much happening and so cool to work on.
Yeah, I mean, I think like, we're still super early and I keep telling us the people, you know, like look at 15 years ago where the web was and like in 50 like 15 years ago, we didn't have, you know, secure websites, we were still using flash to do video. You know, there was like no unified experience between browsers and certainly not between mobile and desktop. Yeah.
Like maybe it was like a mess. I mean, I was building on the web 15 years ago and like, it was really hard and there were all these problems that That we didn't know how to solve and we solve them in the last 15 years. And, you know, we think that like we've always had, you know, flashy mobile phones. Like we forget that 15 years ago like building on the web was a shit show and it didn't scale very well.
And and then that yeah, massive investments in infrastructure and tooling and and standards allowed us to get to where we are now. And we're still at only 60% of the population using the web other worlds population, you know, so yeah, it's a long game. Yeah guys. This has been great and I wish you both happy year and holidays and also to all our listeners. Thanks for tuning in and thanks for being here for with us for yet another year. And we'll do this again next year.
Yeah, thanks so much looking forward to episode 500. Yeah, it's coming soon. All right. Bye-bye yeah, cool. Thanks so much. Everyone and enjoy your holidays. Thank you for joining us on this week's episode. We release new episodes every week. You can find And subscribe to the show on iTunes Spotify, YouTube SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcast. And if you have a Google home or Alexa device, you can tell it to listen to the latest episode of the epicenter podcast, go to
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