Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

We were joined by Mark S. Miller, Chief Scientist at Agoric. Mark is a computer scientist who has done ground-breaking work on many topics relevant to blockchain and smart contracts going back decades.

We discussed his visionary 1988 Agoric papers, which explored how markets could be applied to the world of software. We also covered how his view of smart contracts, which focused on secure bilateral agreements complements and converges with blockchain. Finally, we covered his new company Agoric and their conceptualization of higher order smart contracts.

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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/286

We're joined by Mike Pieciak, President of the NASAA. Not to be confused with the space agency, the North American Securities Administrators Association brings together state, provincial, and federal securities regulators in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. This relatively unknown organization helps align the financial regulation policies of over 50 agencies across North America and coordinates enforcement action in cross-border cases. In 2018, the NASAA launched “Operation Cryptosweep” in which over 200 ICOs and cryptocurrency-related investment products were investigated for potential investor fraud.

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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/285

We're joined by Griff Green, one of the founders at Giveth. The organization, which emerged out of the ashes of the DAO, aims to create a better model for charitable work. Operating as a Dapp, Giveth aims to bring new governance models in the nonprofit space. The goal is to create better incentives for donors and charity workers, in all types of social good projects.

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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/284

At the core of the Web 2.0 stack lies the REST API. It's the fiber which allows frontend applications to communicate with their backend counterparts, as well as the services on which they depend. But the API model is highly constrained and inflexible. The API is divorced from the data model, which creates a number of restrictions and inefficiencies. Most blockchain clients, including Geth, Parity and Bitcoin Core, use a JSON-RPC model which suffers from similar issues. Several Ethereum DApps maintain high-availability, centralized data indexes which sit between the client and the blockchain. Thought user experience is greatly improved, the practice means most of the ecosystem relies on centralized infrastructure.

We're joined by Yaniv Tal, Project Lead at The Graph. The project aims to create a scalable marketplace of robust and high-availability blockchain data indexes. Relying on the modern GraphQL data query language initially developed by Facebook, The Graph allows developers to make complex queries to a robust and high-availability data infrastructure. Launched as a hosted service earlier this year, The Graph plans to move to a decentralized model in the future.

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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/283

Human beings have a penchant for creating lists. We make lists for things like the top music artists at any given time, the best restaurants in the world, companies which people can trust, and the most wanted criminals. Lists take many forms. They can be maintained by a single authority, or curated by a crowd. But almost always, they remain in the custody of a central party. Token Curated Lists propose a model by which a) the content of lists are decentralized, and b) contributors are incentivized to curate their content according to social consensus.

We’re joined by Simon de la Rouviere, an independent researcher and blogger. Previously, Simon was one of the first employees at ConsenSys and founded Ujo Music. He also contributed to the ERC20 token specification and has written about blockchain and token economics since 2014. In recent months, Simon’s research has focused on Token Curated Registries (or TCRs), and the economics of curation markets.

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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture and Meher Roy . Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/282

The shipping container brought standardization to the way we move goods around the world. Similarly, TCP/IP packets normalized how information transits over computer networks. Today, blockchains remain siloed ecosystems and interoperability is practically non-existent. A new wave of third-generation blockchain protocols aims to change this. In this new paradigm, blockchains communicate natively and value moves seamlessly from one network to another. One of those projects is Cosmos.

We’re joined by Ethan Buchman and Sunny Aggarwal of Cosmos. With its recent mainnet launch, we discuss how the network is running and address potential issues relating to governance and centralization of power.

Disclaimers:

– Cosmos (All in Bits) is a sponsor of the podcast.

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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/281

Dogecoin was born from the association of two browser tabs: one was an article about the popularity of the doge meme, and the other, CoinMarketCap. The idea quickly gained traction on Twitter, and before long, a new cryptocurrency was born. Dogecoin gained adoption as a tipping currency, the community took part fundraising for charities and other causes, perhaps most notably sending the Jamaican bobsled team to the Sochi Winter Olympics.

We’re joined by Jackson Palmer, co-creator of Dogecoin. Though he has left the project, Jackson shares the story of how he created the most popular meme cryptocurrency as a joke.

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This episode is hosted by Sébastien Couture and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/280