"crypto markets are becoming highly interconnected with the traditional financial sector" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the app for you. It’s an audio education app that brings great in depth courses that are as fun as podcasts but as educational as well, a degr...
Oct 18, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 48
"crypto markets are becoming highly interconnected with the traditional financial sector" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the app for you. It’s an audio education app that brings great in depth courses that are as fun as podcasts but as educational as well, a degr...
Oct 11, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 47
"In this article, I’ll talk about L2s on Ethereum, the state of the current scaling ecosystem, and why I believe running L2s on top of Ethereum is the most economically and technically sustainable scaling solution long term." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the a...
Oct 04, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 46
"In this article, I’ll talk about L2s on Ethereum, the state of the current scaling ecosystem, and why I believe running L2s on top of Ethereum is the most economically and technically sustainable scaling solution long term." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the a...
Sep 27, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 45
"I'll take the opposed, in that I think there is decent precedent to find ETH to not be a security in a post-merge environment. Let's breakdown some specifics:" In this readthrough I'm going to Twitter for the first time to read a 43 long tweet thread (yup - 43 tweets) by @adamscochran , aka Adam Cochran, Partner at CEHV and Adj. Professor of Info Sci/Biz Analysis. He analyzes whether Ethereum's shift to Proof of Stake makes it eligible to be names a security by the SEC and analyzes Ethereum vs ...
Sep 20, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 44
IT'S MERGE WEEK! To celebrate I'm going back to the OG episode for this podcast - Vitalik's article on Why Proof of Stake! On Nov 6th 2020 Vitalik Buterin wrote a short article on why the Ethereum ecosystem is migrating to Proof of Stake (PoS). Despite the shift being planned for years there's a lot of discussion in the ecosystem on why Ethereum is doing this, what are the benefits to PoS over Proof of Work (PoW) and whether this migration is fair to all the players in the ecosystem. -----------...
Sep 13, 2022•18 min
The merge is coming - right next week! Here are some of my recent favorite pieces of content that cover the bull and the bear case. To read: The Complete Guide to Rollups: https://members.delphidigital.io/reports/the-complete-guide-to-rollups The Hitchhiker's Guide to Ethereum: https://members.delphidigital.io/reports/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-ethereum Bankless: https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-arthur-hayes https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-ethereum-unsensored http://podcast.banklesshq...
Sep 09, 2022•6 min
The Bitcoin whitepaper! This is a plain readthrough of the whitepaper. Here is the conclusion of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, if you can understand this section, you've understood the whitepaper: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending. To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network...
Sep 06, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 43
The Bitcoin whitepaper explained! This is a readthrough of the whitepaper interspersed with commentary that breaks down the important parts and offers explanations and meaning. Here is the conclusion of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, if you can understand this section, you've understood the whitepaper: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but...
Sep 06, 2022•55 min•Season 1Ep. 42
"I continue to view the digitization of money as a key theme for the 2020s decade and beyond, both in bottom-up ways (e.g. bitcoins) and in top-down ways (e.g. central bank digital currencies), and am interested to see the directions that it goes in." Today we're reading part 3, the final part, of Lyn Alden's 1:30 hour long article on the state of network. This will be a 3 part series due to length. In the first part we'll cover why a medium of exchange first needs to be built on top of a store ...
Aug 30, 2022•50 min•Season 1Ep. 41
"All manner of individual hardware electronic devices became mostly-obsolete as they became applications on a smart phone. I view the Bitcoin/Lightning stack as being similar. The network is still tiny and has a lot of development work still to do, and nothing is for certain. But to me it looks like a powerful monetary network with a ton of upside potential over the next decade." Today we're reading part 2 of Lyn Alden's 1:30 hour long article on the state of network. This will be a 3 part serie...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 1 min
"If the purpose of sanctions is not to punish, but to change behavior, then it makes no sense to add to the SDN List an immutable smart contract that cannot change its behavior because it has no agency. It is not a person nor is it under the control of any person. By conflating the Tornado Cash Entity and the Tornado Cash Application and adding both to the SDN List, the government has essentially accomplished a ban on Americans using a particular internet tool without any clear prospect that the...
Aug 16, 2022•44 min
"A truly decentralized and permissionless payment network requires its own underlying self-custodial digital bearer asset. If instead it runs on top of the fiat currency system or relies on external custodial arrangements at its foundation, then it is neither decentralized nor permissionless." Today we're reading Lyn Alden's 1:30 hour long article on the state of network. This will be a 2 part series due to length. In the first part we'll cover why a medium of exchange first needs to be built on...
Aug 09, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 38
"Bitcoin is a disruptive new crypto-currency based on a decentralized open-source protocol which has been gradually gaining momentum. Perhaps the most important question that will affect Bitcoin’s success, is whether or not it will be able to scale to support the high volume of transactions required from a global currency system. We investigate the implications of having a higher transaction throughput on Bitcoin’s security against double-spend attacks. We show that at high throughput, substanti...
Aug 02, 2022•49 min
"Tendermint is awesome. The future is now" Today we're diving into the original whitepaper on modern proof of stake blockchains: Tendermint. This paper from 2014 lays the groundwork for many of the proof of stake blockchains that come after and is the basis for the entire Cosmos ecosystem. We'll breakdown why proof of stake over proof of work how consensus is reached and the game models and theory for cooperation in the system. This is a great place to start from when you're exploring what proof...
Jul 26, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 36
When should you use tokenomics in your web3 project? What purpose does a token serve? Let's break down the core 'why' behind adding a token to your project and when you should or shouldn't use a token. This is the core question to ask when you evaluate a projects token or consider using a token in your own project.
Jul 22, 2022•8 min
"We introduce Casper, a proof of stake-based finality system which overlays an existing proof of work blockchain. Casper is a partial consensus mechanism combining proof of stake algorithm research and Byzantine fault tolerant consensus theory. We introduce our system, prove some desirable features, and show defenses against long range revisions and catastrophic crashes. The Casper overlay provides almost any proof of work chain with additional protections against block reversions." Today we're ...
Jul 19, 2022•47 min
"Honest-but-rational or ideologically motivated validators could use this attack to increase their profits or stall the protocol, threatening incentive alignment and security of PoS Ethereum. The attack can also lead to destabilization of consensus from congestion in vote processing." Part 2! Today we're reading through a recent paper that pokes some serious holes in the security of Proof of stake Ethereum. As we get closer to the merge, it's more important than ever to understand the different ...
Jul 12, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Have you heard the sentence "I believe in blockchain just not Bitcoin"? I have - many times. It's usually said by people who have a tech background and want to sound tech savvy but anti crypto. They want to hedge their bets: sound techhie but not crypto fanatics. They're missing the whole innovation that crypto and web3 bring. They're missing all of it.
Jul 07, 2022•6 min•Season 1Ep. 38
"Honest-but-rational or ideologically motivated validators could use this attack to increase their profits or stall the protocol, threatening incentive alignment and security of PoS Ethereum. The attack can also lead to destabilization of consensus from congestion in vote processing." Today we're reading through a recent paper that pokes some serious holes in the security of Proof of stake Ethereum. As we get closer to the merge, it's more important than ever to understand the different attack v...
Jul 05, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 34
A lot has been argued about whether crypto is or isn't an inflation hedge over the past few months. IMO the answer is clear: for any realistic time horizon, yes it is. But to understand why, we need to zoom out and dive into what inflation is and how an inflation hedge acts. Let's explore inflation, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Jul 03, 2022•10 min•Season 1Ep. 33
"So beyond a token, how can web3 protocols and companies build competitive moats that help them capture part of the value they’re creating? Below is a ‘five power’ framework on moats that web3 projects can utilize, beyond tokens." As always, you can support the show by supporting and subscribing to Alpe Audio: 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the app for you. It’s an audio education app that b...
Jun 28, 2022•23 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Today I'm diving deep into the oracle problem with probably the most qualified person out there: Nick Fett, CTO of Tellor protocol. Tellor is a decentralized oracle protocol aimed to help Ethereum based projects solve the oracle problem. As we discuss, the oracle problem is a tough nut to crack, especially in a decentralized manner. It opens up protocols to a whole host of other issues, risk vectors and attack surfaces that developers, builders and investors need to be aware of. This was a fanta...
Jun 21, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 31
"With 'The Merge' coming, up to 64 million total ETH will be available to be staked and become activated within one year. Lido’s size and network effect gives them a major advantage in absorbing this potential inflow as well." __________________________ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the app for you. It’s an audio education app that brings great...
Jun 14, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 30
BFT, aka Byzantine Fault Tolerance, is a key part of distributed systems consensus mechanisms. As we approach The Merge and discussions heat up about Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake, I thought it would be a good time to go back to basics and discuss a core part of any consensus mechanism.
Jun 10, 2022•8 min•Season 1Ep. 30
"We additionally show that high fees paid for priority transaction ordering poses a systemic risk to consensus-layer security. We explain that such fees are just one form of a general phenomenon in DEXes and beyond—what we call miner extractable value (MEV)—that poses concrete, measurable, consensus-layer security risks. We show empirically that MEV poses a realistic threat to Ethereum today." __________________________ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This ep...
Jun 07, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 29
The merge is coming! Don't believe the FUD, things are happening and this blockchain bite, a read of Anthony Sassano's Daily Gwei newsletter is a little primer on the status of the merge. You should subscribe to the Daily Gwei: https://thedailygwei.substack.com/ __________________________ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the app for you. It’s an a...
Jun 03, 2022•7 min•Season 1Ep. 29
"We additionally show that high fees paid for priority transaction ordering poses a systemic risk to consensus-layer security. We explain that such fees are just one form of a general phenomenon in DEXes and beyond—what we call miner extractable value (MEV)—that poses concrete, measurable, consensus-layer security risks. We show empirically that MEV poses a realistic threat to Ethereum today." __________________________ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This ep...
May 31, 2022•51 min
"As in normal economics, the two forces we are most interested in are Supply and Demand. Understanding how those are baked into the tokenomics give us a good sense of how desirable a given token or cryptocurrency should be." __________________________ 👉 Start learning with Alpe: https://link.alpeaudio.com/70to/d895de1 This episode is brought to you by Alpe Audio . Want to learn on the go but need more depth than a podcast? Alpe is the app for you. It’s an audio education app that brings great i...
May 17, 2022•23 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Today is a special episode! We're diving deep into the Liquity protocol with a guest: Robert Lauko, the co-founder of the protocol. Liquity is a great case study in everything we've been discussing these past few months: - The importance of decentralization - Immutability vs governance - DeFi risks and trade offs. I really enjoyed this conversation and hope you will as well. Resources: Liquity protocol docs and information: https://www.liquity.org/ Follow Robert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/r...
May 10, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 26
