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

Blockchains operate as a public ledger, ‘disclosing’ the entire transaction history and associated data to everyone. While verifiability and traceability are key traits, as blockchains gain global adoption, those very features hinder the process. Self custody, on-chain identities, corporate strategies, transaction history, private deals, all represent highly sensitive information that call for provable confidentiality. Fully homomorphic encryption has long been considered the ‘holy grail’ of cryptography as it enables computation to be performed on encrypted data without the need of prior decryption. This basically translates to true end-to-end encryption, both on-chain and off-chain. As cryptographic research advances, so does the scalability and applicability of FHE. As a result of more than 5 years of work, Zama has now released Zama Protocol, which enables confidential smart contracts on top of any L1 or L2 using FHE, without any additional execution burden. By encrypting all ciphertexts with the same public key, FHE ensures composability and seamless integration across different blockchains and applications, making it a true cross-chain confidentiality layer. Through parallel execution, Zama Protocol already surpasses Ethereum’s throughput, yet future roadmap includes open-source development of FPGA & ASIC in order to scale it even further, to accommodate faster, non-EVM chains.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Zama’s progress in FHE
• Zama's confidential blockchain Protocol
• Security guarantees of MPC coprocessors
• Maintaining a healthy operator set
• Slashing and governance
• Zama’s throughput
• Open-sourcing FPGA & ASIC development
• The Zama token & its implications
• Zama’s public testnet
• Private voting
• Zama funding
• Regulations
• Expanding use cases beyond blockchains
• Future goals and expectations

Episode links:

• Rand Hindi on X
• Zama on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Built primarily for institutional-grade clients,  Pareto delivers customizable on-chain credit markets designed to expand DeFi liquidity and TradFi tokenization through structured yield strategies tailored to diverse risk profiles. Pareto allows its users to construct individualized credit lines in specific risk-ajusted tranches, with custom: interest rates, lockup periods, withdrawal cycles, reserve ratios, etc. In addition, Pareto’s USP is an yield-bearing synthetic stablecoin, fully backed by major stablecoins, that can be deployed into a diversified portfolio of liquid, short- and long-term credit, thus increasing capital efficiency.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Matteo’s background
• Idle Finance yield optimization
• Pivoting to Pareto
• Institutional borrowers in early DeFi
• Competitive advantage of Pareto
• Outsourcing underwriting
• Managing defaults
• Customized lending
• KYC requirements
• Timeline terms ‘marketplace’
• USP, Pareto’s synthetic yield-bearing dollar
• Legal framework & credit allocators
• USP yield, liquidity & integrations
• ‘Opaque’ credit vs. DeFi
• Pareto smart contracts and redeems
• Success in on-chain credit markets

Episode links:

• Matteo Pandolfi on X
• Pareto
• Pareto on X
• Idle Finance on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

In an age when AI models are becoming exponentially more sophisticated and powerful, how does one ensure that proper results are being generated and that the AI model functions in desired parameters? This pressing concern of AI alignment could be solved through cryptographic verification, using zero knowledge proofs. ZKPs not only allow for verifying computation at scale, but they also confer data privacy. Lagrange’s DeepProve zkML is the fastest in existence, making it easy to prove that AI inferences are correct, scaling verifiable computation as the demand for AI grows.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Ismael’s background and founding Lagrange
• AI x crypto convergence
• ZKML use cases
• AI inference verifiability
• AI safety regulations
• Revenue accruing tokens
• Pitching Lagrange to enterprise clients
• Assembling a dedicated team
• Cryptography research

Episode links:

• Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh on X
• Lagrange on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture.

Inspired by Urbit’s minimal assembly language, Nockchain fuses Urbit’s vision of sovereign computing with a novel proof-of-useful-work consensus mechanism, creating a blockchain where every computation fuels progress and scaling. The crypto-economics behind Nockchain’s zkVM incentivise competition between zero knowledge provers, ultimately bootstrapping ZKPs as a new computational commodity.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Logan’s background
• Urbit’s values
• Nock, Urbit's minimal assembly language 
• Use cases for zk proofs
• Nockchain’s zkVM efficiency
• Useful proof-of-work
• Launching Nockchain
• Future roadmap for Nockchain
• Building apps on Nockchain
• Store of value vs. revenue generation
• The impact of quantum computing

Episode links:

• Logan Allen on X
• Zorp on X
• Nockchain on X
• Urbit on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Universal Market Access (UMA) was founded by 2 ex Goldman Sachs traders that wanted to make global markets universally accessible through financial smart contracts that used synthetic assets on Ethereum. However, this was taking place long before the massive boom of DeFi summer of 2020. As a result, UMA shifted to building an optimistic oracle to power prediction markets as a decentralised ‘truth machine’, thus expanding oracle use cases. Through game theoretic models, UMA managed to properly incentivise its token holders to act as voters, rewarding them for good predictions & disputes, and vice versa. Later on, Hart Lambur also co-founded Across, an intent-based optimistic bridge that set out to create a seamless UX for unifying EVM chains. Through their solver network, Across managed to achieve fast (as low as 2 seconds) and cheap bridging, abstracting away crosschain complexities, without any security tradeoffs.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Hart’s background
• Universal Market Access, from synthetic assets to oracles
• Building Across
• UMA’s optimistic oracle
• Incentivizing voters & resolving disputes
• Dealing with invalid outcomes
• Optimistic security assumptions
• UMA x Across dual token interactions
• Across’ intent-based bridge
• Pricing mechanism & solver competition
• ZK settlement
• Bridging fragmentation
• Abstracting & unifying cross-chain bridging
• Bridging between rollups
• UMA & Across governance systems

Episode links:

• Hart Lambur on X
• Across Protocol on X
• UMA Protocol on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Founded in 2018, Dragonfly has quickly become one of the most prestigious crypto VCs. Dragonfly was one of the first to adopt a global approach to backing founders and disruptive tech, all while building a strong brand that allowed them to secure top-tier deals. Join us for a fascinating discussion with Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, to learn the secrets behind running a top-tier crypto VC and what made Dragonfly succeed where others have failed.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Haseeb’s background, from poker to crypto
• Effective altruism
• Crypto investment
• Developing judgement
• The vision behind Dragonfly
• Consensus vs. non-consensus deals
• KPIs
• People, Product & Markets
• Thoughts on the current crypto market
• The evolution of crypto VCs
• Advice for crypto founders
• The importance of discipline
• Is the golden era of crypto investing sunsetting?

Episode links:

• Haseeb Qureshi on X
• Dragonfly on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

‘Attention Is All You Need’, co-wrote by Illia Polosukhin in 2017, laid the foundation for arguably one of the most consequential tech breakthroughs in our recent history. 1 year later, Illia founded Near AI, which later became Near Protocol. They were visionaries ahead of their time and, although AI took several more years before becoming a viable product, the experience of scaling databases would later prove valuable and applicable in blockchain world. As a result, Near Protocol aims to become the infrastructure layer for AI apps and the agentic economy. In order to achieve this, scaling was paramount, thus Near is one of the first blockchains to implement execution layer sharding, asynchronous execution and stateless validation, which brought the finality time down to 1.2 seconds, with a block time of 0.6 seconds.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Bowen’s background
• Near’s pivot from AI to blockchains
• The role of Near One
• Near’s tech stack upgrades
• Optimizing network architecture
• Stateless validation & block propagation
• Sharding & asynchronous execution
• Message passing between shards & shard ‘equality’
• Challenges of implementing stateless validation
• Applications benefiting from Near’s finality speed
• Intent-based infrastructure
• AI use cases on Near
• Expanding Near’s ecosystem
• Development challenges
• Near’s vision and goals

Episode links:

• Bowen Wang on X
• Near One
• Near on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

The tradition of Epicenter x Vitalik Buterin continued this year as well at EthCC[8], where we got the chance of picking his brain about recent research, interests and Ethereum Foundation’s direction going forward. Join us for a fascinating discussion on biotech and how Vitalik’s Shiba ended up funding it, the utility of blockchains in nowadays society and Vitalik’s view on the Ethereum ecosystem and the Foundation’s response to community requests.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Vitalik’s current interests
• How Shiba Inu funded biotech research
• The Merge and its impact
• Vitalik’s motivation and view on blockchain utility
• Ethereum Foundation’s changes
• Is supporting ETH price important for EF?
• Are L2s incentively aligned with Ethereum L1?
• Native L2s
• The risk of quantum computers

Episode links:

• Vitalik Buterin on X
• Ethereum on X
• Ethereum Foundation on X
• EthCC on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sebastien Couture.

Stripe has established itself as a leading payment solution for both enterprises as well as startups and individual sellers. By abstracting away all the complexities of traditional payment rails through simple plug-and-play APIs, Stripe created a facile route for cross-border payments, simplifying e-commerce. Similarly, Stripe’s recent integration of stablecoins could further bolster the adoption of decentralised payment solutions, be them USD or other currency proxies. This allows businesses to reach more markets, at a lower cost, with near-instantaneous settlement.

Topics covered in this episode:

• John’s background
• Stripe’s mission
• How Stripe solves the complexity of internet payments
• Integrating crypto for payments
• Supported blockchains
• Stripe’s Web3 services
• Upsides of accepting stablecoin payments
• Non-USD stablecoins
• Merchant UX
• Expanding crypto support outside the U.S.
• On- and off-ramping
• Acquiring Bridge and Privy
• The best of both worlds: CeFi & DeFi

Episode links:

• John Egan on X
• Stripe on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

While L2 rollups did help scale Ethereum, they also created siloed ecosystems, all fighting over the same liquidity, users and devs. t1 Protocol is building layer-2 infrastructure to achieve seamless cross-rollup interoperability through real-time proving, powered by TEEs. t1's low-latency with 1-second block times provides faster preconfirmations, significantly improving UX, all while maintaining full Ethereum composability.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Can’s background
• Why Enigma/Secret Network built on Cosmos
• Solving Ethereum’s liquidity fragmentation
• t1’s rollup & real-time proving in TEEs
• Sequencer setup inside the TEE
• Dealing with other rollup trust assumptions
• Integrating new L2s
• Permissionless TEEs
• Potential attack vectors
• TEE alternatives
• Asset issuance on mainnet vs. L2s
• t1 development
• Partnerships & BD
• Solana vs. Ethereum UX
• TEE misconceptions

Episode links:

• Can Kisagun on X
• t1 Protocol on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.