Chorus One Podcast

This episode Felix is joined by Mirko Schmiedl, Founder of StakingRewards.com, a website focused on displaying various metrics about staking tokens. We dive into what kind of data users of Staking Rewards can currently see, what this data is useful for, as well as what Mirko imagines the site to cover in the future.

Additionally, we talk about the state of Proof-of-Stake and different staking provider models, the research studies the Staking Rewards team has carried out, as well as the difference in interest around staking between the Western world and Asia.

Staking Rewards: https://stakingrewards.com

Staking Ecosystem Case Study: https://blog.stakingrewards.com/staking-ecosystem-case-study/

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In this episode Brendan and Meher interview Dan Robinson, Researcher at Paradigm, who has worked on various cutting-edge topics in the crypto space. We start out exploring Dan's background and the various projects he has worked on before starting at Paradigm and how his extensive collaborations with different topics and actors have led to his most recent position. The episode then dives into the ideas that he has brought forth, specifically Yield Tokens (yTokens).

yTokens are a novel way to lend or borrow any type of asset that is using a design inspired by zero-coupon bonds from the traditional finance world. The yToken design is an interesting building block that allows for the creation various financial instruments, e.g. interest rate swaps. Dan, Brendan, and Meher discuss how yTokens fit into the DeFi stack, risks of the design, as well as thoughts around price oracles for and liquidity of such instruments.

Paradigm: https://www.paradigm.xyz/

Rainbow Network Paper: http://research.paradigm.xyz/RainbowNetwork.pdf

Yield Tokens Paper: http://research.paradigm.xyz/Yield.pdf

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Currently in the blockchain ecosystem most decentralized finance applications are built on Ethereum. Kava is seeking to bring crypto-backed borrowing in the form of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs) to the Cosmos ecosystem. The Kava blockchain is a Maker-style platform built using the Cosmos SDK that enables users to borrow a dollar-pegged stablecoin (USDX) by locking up collateral from different blockchains (BTC, ATOM, XRP) in the system. In this episode, Brian interviews Brian Kerr, CEO of Kava Labs to learn about the history of the project, the core functionalities of the platform, as well as differentiation from Maker, other applications for the Kava platform, and Kava's Binance Launchpad IEO plans.

Kava Website: https://kava.io/

Kava Binance Launchpad IEO Details: https://launchpad.binance.com/en/lottery/775054cbce554a379a26a66fc6787f0c/

Kava Binance Research Report: https://info.binance.com/en/research/KAVA-2019-10-16.html

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Celo is a Proof-of-Stake network focused on usability and financial inclusion in emerging markets. The team is combining innovations that aim to financially empower unbanked people in developing economies. In this episode Brian talks to Marek Olszewski, founder and CTO of Celo Labs. The episode specifically tackles Celo's staking and full node incentive design, but also goes into how Celo built a mobile-first smart contract platform. This includes a lightweight identity protocol that maps phone numbers to public keys, a protocol to create stablecoins through overcollateralization, economic abstraction to allow fee payments in different tokens, an innovative light client protocol, as well as pilot programs that the team of 40 are currently working on in different parts of the world to test out their technologies.

Celo Website: https://celo.org/

Celo Github: https://github.com/celo-org

Polkadot NPoS Podcast Episode: https://chorusone.libsyn.com/2-polkadots-nominated-proof-of-stake-with-alfonso-cevallos

Cosmos Stake Distribution Post: https://blog.chorus.one/stake-distribution-diversification-cosmos/

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This episode recorded during Berlin Blockchain Week is a discussion between Anatoly and Eric from Solana and Brendan and Felix from Chorus One. The conversation covers Anatoly's and Eric's backgrounds and how the founders got together to build Solana. The second part of the conversation then mainly focuses on discussing the value proposition of a blockchain system that can scale without the need for sharding. Finally, the episode goes into Solana's approach to creating a developer ecosystem, as well as the experience of building a validator community leading up to the incentivized testnet competition Tour de SOL.

Solana Website: https://solana.com/

Kyle Samani's Investment Thesis on Solana: https://multicoin.capital/2019/07/30/the-world-computer-should-be-logically-centralized/

Solana Tour de SOL: https://solana.com/tds/

The other Tour de Sol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_Sol

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Arlyn Culwick is one of the pioneers exploring the design of an internet of blockchains. With Blocknet, he is working to realize this vision of the interchain. In this podcast episode, Brendan and Alwyn explore the API ecosystem in Web2, the interoperability technologies that Blocknet is building, as well as details and challenges of their design.

The conversation specifically covers the differences between the Cosmos model and Blocknet's approach, how to move digital assets across chains, DEX scaling and liquidity, as well as the XRouter Beta, a product to orchestrate contracts on any chain to enable interchain dapps.

Blocknet: https://blocknet.co/

XBridge: https://docs.blocknet.co/protocol/xbridge/introduction/ Block DX: https://docs.blocknet.co/blockdx/introduction/

XRouter Beta:https://medium.com/@theblocknetchannel/introducing-xrouter-the-missing-link-between-all-blockchains-d88ddc72eb02

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Avalanche is a novel consensus protocol that is able to scale consensus by using local consensus snapshots and random sampling. In this episode Meher sits down with Kevin Sekniqi, Co-Founder of AVA Labs, who are using the Avalanche consensus protocol as the basis for their smart contract platform AVA. They discuss Avalanche consensus and its key differences to traditional protocols, the layers of the AVA platform, feature-specific subnetworks, plans for the AVA token and the project's timeline.

AVA Labs Website: https://avalabs.org/

Avalanche Paper: https://avalanchelabs.org/QmT1ry38PAmnhparPUmsUNHDEGHQusBLD6T5XJh4mUUn3v.pdf

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In this episode, Felix is joined by Dillon Chen, Co-Founder of Commonwealth Labs, to discuss Edgeware, a smart contracting platform build using Polkadot's Substrate framework. The episode covers the Commonwealth governance framework, what Edgeware is aiming to accomplish, as well as the project's innovative token distribution mechanism and controversies around it. Finally, Felix and Dillon discuss about the state of blockchain governance and various ideas floating around in the space.

Edgeware Website: https://edgewa.re/

Commonwealth Governance Interface: https://commonwealth.im

Straightedge Website: https://straighted.ge/

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This episode is a recording of Brian's talk at BUIDL Asia 2019 in Seoul, South Korea. In the talk Brian covers the state and evolution of Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The talk compares PoS to the DeFi space going into the benefits to composability. It concludes with thoughts on how tokenized staking positions could help PoS to unlock economic potential and innovation.

BUIDL Asia Website: https://www.buidl.asia/

Video Recording of the Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFpj9thyPzU&

Market Size of Decentralized Finance: https://defipulse.com/

Market Size of Proof-of-Stake: https://stakingrewards.com/global-charts

Delegation Voucher Writeup: https://blog.chorus.one/delegation-vouchers/

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In this episode Meher discusses fungible staking positions with Ryan Park of Ellipti, who was also part of the winning team of the Cosmos Seoul Hackatom. Ryan's team is working on the Everett protocol to create staking derivatives that could allow staked assets in the Cosmos ecosystem to be used in decentralized finance applications. The episode explores this design and its implications.

Everett Website: https://www.everett.zone/

Cosmos Seoul Hackatom Winners: https://blog.cosmos.network/cosmos-hackatom-seoul-winners-d6badbd0629b

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