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In the past few years, we witnessed the development of multiple smart contract languages – Solidity, Viper, Michelson, Scilla etc. These languages need to enable developers to write correct, predictable behavior smart contract code. Each language development effort therefore ends up spending resources into building formal verification toolsets, compilers, debuggers and other developer tools.

In this episode, we are joined by Grigore Rosu, Professor of computer science at UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) for a deep dive into the K framework. The K framework is mathematic logic and language that enables language developers to formally define all programming languages; such as C, Solidity and JavaScript. Once a language is formally specified in the K framework, the framework automatically outputs a range of formal verification toolsets, compilers, debuggers and other developer tools for it. Updates to the language can be made directly in K. This technology has massive implications for smart contract programming language development, and formal verification efforts in the blockchain space.

We also cover his efforts to express the Ethereum virtual machine using the K framework, and to develop a new virtual machine technology, called IELE, specifically tailored to the blockchain space. Check out the episode to understand a game changing technology in the formal verification and smart contract safety space.

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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/239

With the rise of smart contract technology, we’ve become acutely aware of the need for smart contract code to accurately reflect the intentions of its author; and for the code to have certain (safe) behaviors in all circumstances. Creating the languages and software tools to enable ordinary developers to write safe contracts has become an intense research endeavor in the cryptocurrency space.

Scilla is a Turing incomplete intermediate level language; inspired from the paradigms of functional programming and formal verification; that makes it easy for smart contract developers to automatically prove statements about smart contract behavior. For example, Scilla could allow a future multi-signature smart contract author to mathematically prove that funds in that contract would always be retrievable by certain addresses (and never get stuck like the Parity incident). The ability to mathematically prove such safety properties of the smart contract has the potential to be an enabling invention prior to widescale use of this technology.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Amrit Kumar and Dr. Ilya Sergey to discuss Scilla, the smart contract language of the upcoming Zilliqa blockchain. In a previous episode, we’ve already covered the vision and technical approach of Zilliqa to solve the transaction scalability problem of permissionless blockchains. This episode focuses specifically on their smart contract language development efforts.

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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/238

As a society, we have organized as tribes, hierarchies, and markets to accomplish the most impressive of achievements. Human cooperation and collective organization are present at nearly every significant milestone in the history of human civilization. As we move towards an increasingly connected and automated society and economy, there will become a need for decentralized infrastructure which enables companies and markets to make fast decisions at scale.

We’re joined by Matan Field, CEO of DAOstack, a new platform that aims to become the operating system for collective intelligence. DAOstack is building a toolset to allow decentralized governance and building self-organizing collectives at scale.

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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/237

Aragon Founder Luis Cuende joined us to discuss their work on building tools for decentralized governance. We covered the origins of his deep drive, why this is a crucial fight for humanity and the tools that Aragon has built.

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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/236

The rise of Binance is one of the most astonishing stories in the blockchain space. Within less than a year of its launch, Binance has become the most popular crypto exchange trading over $2bn per day. In the past quarter, Binance made profits of $200m, likely the fastest company ever to reach this success.

Binance Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) joined us to discuss why he started Binance and the extraordinary organization they built. We discussed the role of the Binance token, how their strong commitment to values helped build a loyal community, and how he sees the organization evolve in the future.

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Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/235