Attracting over 70 of the world's biggest financial institutions to its consortium in just over a year, R3 has accomplished a formidable task. Aiming to rethink the fabric of the financial system, they first conducted experiments testing blockchain platforms for their member and last year began developing their own distributed ledger platform: Corda. The effort to build Corda was lead by R3 CTO Richard Brown and the former Bitcoin developer and R3 lead architect Mike Hearn. In a wide-ranging discussion, we covered the vision of the project and why it represents a radical departure from existing blockchain platforms. Topics covered included:The origin story of R3Why existing blockchain designs didn't meet their needsHow the R3 team lead a design effort to develop a new platform from scratchThe business problem Corda is aiming to solveThe components of Corda's architectureHow Corda handles privacyNotaries and preventing double spendsOpen sourcing Corda and the plan to join Hyperledger Links mentioned in this episode: R3 Corda: What Makes it DifferentIntroducing R3 Corda: A Distributed Ledger for Financial Services (APRIL)Corda: An Introduction (AUGUST)R3 WebsiteE151 - Ian Grigg: Ricardian Contracts and Digital Assets PrehistorySmart Contract Templates: Foundations, Design Landscape & Research Directions Sponsors: Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices JAXX.ioLedger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER at LedgerWallet.com Show notes YouTube SoundCloud Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, S?ƒbastien Couture & Meher Roy.