Vitalik Buterin joins us for an in-depth conversation at EthCC 4 in Paris. During his keynote presentation, he expressed his hope for Ethereum to go beyond DeFi as he wishes to see more non-financial applications built on the platform. From better social media platforms to novel approaches for funding public goods, from his perspective, Ethereum has the potential to change the world for the better, beyond financial applications. Topics covered in this episode: How has the past year been for Vita...
Jul 29, 2021•55 min•Ep. 402
EthCC is back and stronger than ever! Despite the pandemic, ongoing travel restrictions and sanitary passes, the Ethereum France team hosted the fourth edition of the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris. Over 1,000 people attended the week-long affair, which saw an impressive number of side events and, as always, legendary parties. For many attendees, it was their first conference since last year's edition, and the first time they were able to embrace their fellow Etherians since the beginnin...
Jul 24, 2021•42 min•Ep. 401
Recently launched Osmosis is a Cosmos based and IBC enabled AMM protocol that allows for a high level of customization by liquidity providers. As the main dex on the Cosmos network, Osmosis provides liquidity for IBC-enabled Cosmos assets like AKT and ATOM for the first time. Head of the Osmosis development team, Sunny Aggarwal, joined us for a chat about why the protocol was built and the problem it solves, the wider Cosmos ecosystem, and the roadmap for the protocol. Topics covered in this epi...
Jul 16, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 400
Originally started with a focus on prediction markets, Gnosis has done innovative work around automated market makers (AMMs) and decentralized exchanges for years. The latest protocol launched by the Gnosis team is CowSwap. CowSwap introduces various innovations that could improve user experience, reduce gas costs, reduce the effects of MEV and result in better outcomes for retail traders. We were joined by Felix Leupold, software developer at Gnosis to discuss CowSwap and the future of decentra...
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 399
Centrifuge is an open and permissionless protocol built on Polkadot and Ethereum that unlocks collateral for DeFi. Centrifuge allows for the tokenization of real world assets such as invoices, real estate, or goods, and puts them on the blockchain. This allows users to borrow against these assets from investors. Investors lend dai in exchange for an interest rate that depends on the borrower and the asset used as collateral. We were joined by Lucas Vogelsang, CEO & Centrifuge Co-founder, and...
Jun 30, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 398
Ethereum 2.0 is an upgrade to the Ethereum network that aims to improve the network's security and scalability. Recently, we chatted to Danny Ryan about the Merge and switch to Proof of Stake. As a follow up to that episode, we were joined by Dankrad Feist, who heads the sharding and statelessness research at the Ethereum Foundation. We dove deep into the technical infrastructure of how Eth2 addresses scaling through sharding, the pros and cons of data shards vs. execution shards, and how this l...
Jun 22, 2021•55 min•Ep. 397
zkSync is a trustless protocol for scalable low-cost transactions on Ethereum. It's also the only zkRollup protocol which supports EVM smart contracts. Alex Gluchowski is co-founder of Matter Labs, and co-creator of zkSync. We spoke with Alex in depth about how the protocol works and the potential for a highly scalable transaction and application layer on Ethereum. Topics covered in this episode: Alex's background and how he got into the crypto space An overview of existing Ethereum scaling solu...
Jun 15, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 396
By default, all transactions made on Ethereum are public. Tornado Cash is a decentralized privacy preserving solution built on Ethereum which adds privacy through obfuscation. Users can place Ether and some stable coins in prescribed increments [1 Eth, 10 Eth, 100 Eth...] into the Tornado Pool. In return, they are issued a private note, with which they can withdraw funds at a later time to a different address. We were joined by Roman Semenov, co-founder of Tornado Cash, to talk about how the pro...
Jun 08, 2021•41 min•Ep. 395
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. They let us tokenize things like art, collectibles, even real estate. They can only have one official owner at a time and they're secured by the Ethereum blockchain. And they have taken the crypto space by storm is recent months. Showtime is a NFT social media network where creators & collectors showcase their digital art. It reads all marketplaces and instead of buying and selling, you can comment,...
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 394
Ethereum will switch from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) likely already later this year in a much anticipated upgrade to Ethereum 2. The switch to PoS aims to make Ethereum both more secure and more sustainable by securing the network through Ether instead of mining. A second Eth2 update will address scaling through sharding at a later time. Danny Ryan, Researcher with Ethereum Foundation, has been a major driving force behind the Eth2 project. He joined us for a progress update and...
May 27, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 393
Alchemix is a DeFi protocol that enables users to create self-repaying loans. Users deposit collateral (DAI) to take out a loan in Alchemix's native synthetic stablecoin, alUSD. Alchemix then uses the DAI deposits and puts them into the Yearn protocol to earn yield and over time, that yield automatically pays off your debt. We were joined by Alchemix co-founder Scoopy Trooples, who gave us a deep look into how the protocol works, alUSD and the ALCX token, and what is coming out soon with V2. Top...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 392
Curve is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) that lets users and other decentralized protocols exchange stablecoins (DAI to USDC for example) with low fees and low slippage. Unlike exchanges that match a buyer and a seller, users transact with the smart contract itself. By providing a flatter curve targeted for relatively stable pairs, Curve has established the lead position for these markets. Curve is also leveraging its own token CRV to incentivize long-term adoption of the protocol and decentrali...
May 13, 2021•53 min•Ep. 391
Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-1559 is a proposal to make several tightly coupled additions to Ethereum’s transaction fee mechanism. Central to the design is a base fee, which plays the role of a reserve price and is meant to match supply and demand. Every transaction included in a block must pay that block’s base fee (per unit of gas), and this payment is burnt rather than transferred to the block’s miner. The base fee is adjusted after every block, with larger-than-target blocks increasin...
May 07, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 390
Flashbots is a research and development company focussed on Miner Extractable Value (MEV). MEV is the profit a miner can make through their ability to arbitrarily include, exclude, or re-order transactions from the blocks they produce. Flashbots has created a fork of the ethereum geth client, MEV-geth, to allow miners to exploit MEV, currently run by 80% of miners. Co-founders of Flashbots, Stephane Gosselin and Phil Daian, recently joined us to chat about the protocol and to deep dive into the ...
Apr 28, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 389
Trevor McFedries joined us for a fascinating chat about his background in the football and music industries, and how this led him into crypto. Trevor is the cofounder of Brud, a technology startup specializing in artificial intelligence and media. At Brud, they create social media personas with the help of CGI technology, the most well known being Lil Miquela. Lil Miquela is a sentient robot navigating life in LA -- and has millions of followers on instagram. Trevor also started Friends With Ben...
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 388
Bitcoin just got smarter. This episode is brought to you by RSK, the Bitcoin-based smart contract platform leading the DeFi for Bitcoin revolution. Be part of the future while building your personal wealth with the Bitcoin you already have. RSK is a secure smart-contract platform that enables decentralized applications secured by the Bitcoin Network to empower people and improve the quality of life of millions. The platform incorporates a Turing Complete Virtual Machine to Bitcoin. RSK believes ...
Apr 19, 2021•1 hr 9 min
The ability to move Bitcoin on other chains isn't a new idea, and many are trying to overcome the technical limitations which make this a technically challenging feat. The latest representation of Bitcoin on Ethereum is tBTC, a fully-backed ERC-20 token representing bitcoin collateral. tBTC is fully decentralized and relies on Keep Network, a decentralized multi-party computation which enables cross-chain bridging. We were joined by Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis (the team behind tBTC and Keep Netwo...
Apr 14, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 387
1inch Exchange is a DEX aggregator routing cryptocurrency purchases through different DEXs to reduce slippage and get a better conversion rate for the user compared with just using a single DEX. The platform launched its governance token, 1INCH, in December 2020. We were joined by Co-founder of 1inch Sergej Kunz to chat about how 1inch works, how the 1INCH token provides liquidity to their liquidity platform, its integration with platforms such as Uniswap, and the roadmap from here. Topics cover...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 386
Zubin Koticha, CEO & Co-founder of Opyn, joined us again on the show to give us an update on Opyn v2. Opyn v1 was focused on insurance. It's successor, Opyn v2, offers a more traditional options infrastructure. We discuss the problems of building trustless options infrastructure: choice of collateral, partial collateralization and efficient trading mechanisms for options. Topics covered in this episode: An overview of Opyn v1 and the different options created by DeFi users How options in DeF...
Apr 01, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 385
Liquity is a decentralized borrowing protocol that allows you to draw interest-free loans against Ether used as collateral. In addition to the collateral, the loans are secured by a Stability Pool containing LUSD and by fellow borrowers collectively acting as guarantors of last resort. Liquity as a protocol is non-custodial, immutable, and governance-free. We were joined by Robert Lauko, CEO & Co-founder, and Kolten Bergeron, Head of Growth, of Liquity. We chatted about how the protocol is b...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 384
KeeperDao is an on-chain liquidity underwriter for DeFi that combines yield farming and profits single-block arbitrage. The mining pool for Keepers incentivizes a game theory optimal strategy for cooperation among arbitrageurs. Their goal is to capture profit opportunities and distribute them to the various participants involved. We were joined by Joey Zacherl, Co-founder of KeeperDAO, to chat about what the protocol does and its mission, the grim triggering strategy, the ongoing hiding game, an...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 383
NFTs are a new paradigm that opens possibilities for new types of interactions. In digital art, it has caught on like wildfire and is transforming how people think of ownership. Alex Salnikov has been immersed in the crypto world for many years and recognized the potential of NFTs. He created Rarible, an NFT marketplace that has seen rapid growth. But the vision of Rarible is to be more an open transaction protocol for NFTs and serve many different markets. He joined us to discuss the different ...
Mar 11, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 382
Julien Bouteloup is a serial entrepreneur, Ethereum developer and addict of crazy innovative ideas. He started his entrepreneurial career building websites and selling hardware technologies at age 14. Today he is involved with many projects including Stake Capital, Rekt, Curve Finance, and he advises several crypto companies. Julien strives to bring to light the dark side of crypto. As DeFi grows, so do the number of questionable projects and ethical concerns around certain practices. Julien joi...
Mar 03, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 381
Namebase is a top-level domain (TLD) name registrar that operates on the Handshake blockchain. It creates an ecosystem of TLDs that may be bought and sold using an on-chain auction mechanism. It takes a different approach to other decentralized domain name systems as Namebase is compatible with the ICANN namespace, the organization governs domain names globally. Users may register TLDs that don't yet exist in the ICANN namespace, like .epicenter or .ethereum, for example, creating the opportunit...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 380
Stacks is an open-source network of decentralized apps and smart contracts. It is a Layer-1 blockchain that connects to Bitcoin. Stacks uses a Proof of Transfer mining mechanism with bidding and staking capabilities. Clarity is the programming language used, a Turing-incomplete language which aims to give developers a safe way to build complex smart contracts where the code itself clearly shows what the program will do when run. Muneeb Ali is the CEO and Co-founder of Hiro Systems, one of the co...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 379
Radicle is a decentralized platform for code collaboration. It's built on Git and is an open-source decentralized alternative to platforms like GitHub. Tools like Radicle are an essential component of the decentralized technology stack and will enable DAOs to commit code through governance. Co-founders Alexis Sellier & Eleftherios Diakomichalis joined us to chat about why they felt it was important to create Radicle and how it fits into the DAO ecosystem with a more accessible governance sys...
Feb 10, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 378
Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) emerged from the Indian startup scene in 2020. It's a decentralized notification protocol that enables DApps to send push notifications to Ethereum wallet users. EPNS also provides incentives to users that opt-in for push notifications, creating the possibility for an ecosystem communities around topic-centric channels. We are joined by Harsh Rajat, Project Lead and Co-founder of EPNS. We chatted about why and how the protocol was built, its technical st...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 377
Aaron Wright is a professor at Cardozo Law School and Co-founder of OpenLaw. Before this he was a successful entrepreneur, having sold his first company to Wikia - the for-profit version of Wikipedia. Today Aaron is a renowned thought-leader in the blockchain space at the forefront of DAOs. Last year OpenLaw launched The LAO, a DAO on Ethereum for investors looking to earn returns on Ethereum-based projects. Aaron joins us to share his expert legal knowledge on all things DAO, and discuss his la...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 376
During the DeFi Summer of 2020, YAM Finance launched with a bang, and had its share of ups and downs within its first couple of days. It started out as an experiment to bring together some of the more innovative ideas in the space. It sparked a movement which brought massive attention to yield farming, and started the food token craze. After a bug was discovered in the v1 contract, many thought the project was dead. But no, the team and community have been working diligently to bring the protoco...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 375
The new year has brought with it a new bull run. This is great news for crypto holders, but at what cost? Will this bring with it a number of negative implications such as regulatory push back and privacy battles? Listen as the five hosts of Epicenter come together for an in-depth chat to share their predictions for the crypto space in 2021. Topics covered in this episode: Each of our hosts share how 2020 went for them In-depth individual predictions on where things are headed with the current b...
Jan 12, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 374
