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

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

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

  • #165 Wrapping Up The Year and Looking Ahead at What’s to Come
    It's been an eventful year in the blockchain space, for the Epicenter podcast, and its hosts. Brian, Meher and Sebastien look back on 2016 and provide a few personal updates, give their thoughts and insights on how the space evolved, and make predictions on where they feel the industry will go in the next year.
    1 hr 12 min
  • 165 – Brian, Meher & Sebastien: Wrapping Up The Year and Looking Ahead at What's to Come
    Support the show, consider donating: 1JHEaFW3oA7N72MNdALZXgkYcuChifJ81H (http://bit.ly/2iSV5A2)
    It's been an eventful year in the blockchain space, for the Epicenter podcast, and its hosts. Brian, Meher and Sebastien look back on 2016 and provide a few personal updates, give their thoughts and insights on how the space evolved, and make predictions on where they feel the industry will go in the next year.
    Topics discussed in this episode:
    - Brian, Meher and Sebastien give a few updates on their personal lives and professional projects
    - The current state of VC funding in the blockchain space
    - The application of blockchain technologies in enterprise and the corporate development cycle
    - The current state of the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems and provide our thoughts on their respective futures
    - Predictions for 2017 and speculations on how the industry will continue to evolve
    Links mentioned in this episode:
    - Bitcoin Venture Capital Funding: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-venture-capital/
    - Not Just Bitcoin: The Top 7 Cryptocurrencies All Gained in 2016: http://www.coindesk.com/not-just-bitcoin-the-top-7-cryptocurrencies-all-gained-in-2016/
    - Validity Labs: https://validitylabs.org
    - Stratumn Website: https://stratumn.com
    - Tendermint: https://tendermint.com/
    - Cosmos - Internet of Blockchains: https://cosmos.network/
    - Dictator's Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845
    Sponsors:
    - Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io
    This episode is also available on :
    - Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/165
    - YouTube: http://youtu.be/oQA47uWLJ_0
    - Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-165
    Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.
    Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
    1 hr 13 min
  • Ari Juels: Authenticated Data Feeds and Criminal Smart Contracts

    Ari Juels, a Professor at Cornell Tech (Jacobs Institute) and former Chief Scientist of RSA, joins us to discuss his work two of his blockchain-related research topics: Authenticated Data Feeds for Smart Contracts and criminal smart contracts.

    One of the shortcomings of decentralized smart contracts is their inability to retrieve information from the outside world. Smart contracts can’t make API calls to websites and data feeds, but rely on oracles to feed real-world information to the chain. This potentially requires a high trust in the oracle operators. Authenticated data feeds promise to solve the problem by relying on Intel’s novel SGX hardware.

    We also talked about how criminals could use smart contracts to more efficiently conduct crimes such as incentivizing the theft of private keys or even soliciting real-world crimes such as murder.

    Topics covered in this episode:

    • Ari’s background in cryptography and cryptocurrencies
    • The pain points with oracles as we describe them today
    • The idea behind Authenticated Data Feeds
    • The hardware and software architecture of the Authenticated Data Feed model and how hardware isolation works
    • How Authenticated Data Feeds could be used to create criminal smart contracts
    • The differents ways in which criminals could use Authenticated Data Feeds to release bounties for crimes such as private key theft or even murder
    • Countermeasures to fight criminal smart contracts
    • The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (IC3) and its raison d’être

      • Episode links:

      • Ari Juels' website
      • Town Crier: An Authenticated Data Feed for Smart Contracts (white paper)
      • The Ring of Gyges: Investigating the Future of Criminal Smart Contracts (white paper)
      • IC3 - The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts
      • CCS 2016: Criminal Smart Contracts Talk
      • Zero Days: Stuxnet Documentary

        • This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/164

        1 hr 1 min
      • #164 Ari Juels: Authenticated Data Feeds and Criminal Smart Contracts
        Ari Juels, a Professor at Cornell Tech and former Chief Scientist of RSA, joins us to discuss his work on Authenticated Data Feeds for Smart Contracts. These 'Town Crier' feeds would act as bridges between smart contracts and websites, srapping data over TLS and feeding to to a smart contract. Relying on sophisticated hardware enclave technology, one who uses a Town Crier feed would not need to trust its operator as code execution would be guaranteed signed by the hardware.
        1 hr
      • 164 – Ari Juels: Using Hardware Enclaves to Provide Trusted Data to Smart Contracts
        Support the show, consider donating: 14PRgGymfhzY19Jw7x3T9DrXD5Jjxo76JV (http://bit.ly/2hgRr1l)
        One of the shortcomings of decentralized smart contracts is their inability to retrieve information from the outside world. The deterministic nature of Ethereum-style blockchains makes it impossible for them to incorporate functions allowing them to do things such as make API calls to websites and data feeds. Though oracles are often cited as the solution to this problem, they require users to place a high level of trust in their operators, a model which would undermine the very nature of a decentralized smart contract.
        Ari Juels, a Professor at Cornell Tech (Jacobs Institute) and former Chief Scientist of RSA, joins us to discuss his work on Authenticated Data Feeds for Smart Contracts. These 'Town Crier' feeds would act as bridges between smart contracts and websites, scraping data over TLS and feeding to to a smart contract. Relying on sophisticated hardware enclave technology (Intel SGX), one who uses a Town Crier feed would not need to trust its operator as code execution would be guaranteed signed by the hardware.
        Topics discussed in this episode:
        - Ari's background in cryptography and cryptocurrencies
        - The pain points with oracles as we describe them today
        - The idea behind Authenticated Data Feeds
        - The hardware and software architecture of the Authenticated Data Feed model and how hardware isolation works
        - How Authenticated Data Feeds could be used to create criminal smart contracts
        - The different ways in which criminals could use Authenticated Data Feeds to release bounties for crimes such as private key theft or even murder
        - Countermeasures which may prove effective in fighting criminal smart contracts
        - The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (IC3) and its raison d'être
        Links mentioned in this episode:
        - Ari Juels' website: http://www.arijuels.com
        - Town Crier: An Authenticated Data Feed for Smart Contracts (white paper): http://www.initc3.org/files/tc.pdf
        - The Ring of Gyges: Investigating the Future of Criminal Smart Contracts (white paper): http://www.initc3.org/files/Gyges.pdf
        - IC3 - The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts: http://www.initc3.org/
        Sponsors:
        - Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io
        This episode is also available on :
        - Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/164
        - YouTube: http://youtu.be/V5pJL6uJuI4
        - Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-163
        Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.
        Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
        1 hr 1 min
      • Roger Ver: Bitcoin, Liberty and the Scalability Roadblock

        Roger Ver is one of the earliest Bitcoin investors and through his tireless evangelizing of the cryptocurrency became known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’. Roger joined us to discuss Bitcoin’s incredible potential to foster liberty. We also discussed how the current stalemate about how to scale Bitcoin is threatening that potential. And, finally, the mining pool operated by his site Bitcoin.com that is supporting the Bitcoin Unlimited client.

        Topics covered in this episode:

        • How Roger Ver became the first investor in Bitcoin startups
        • What the Bitcoin community was like in 2011
        • The appeal of Bitcoin for voluntaryists
        • Why the scalability stalemate is crippling Bitcoin
        • Bitcoin.com’s new mining pool and support for Bitcoin Unlimited
        • His vision for the future of Bitcoin

          • Episode links:

          • Bitcoin.com
          • Roger Ver Uncut Video
          • Bitcoin Unlimited
          • BLOCKTRAIL | Bitcoin API and Block Explorer
          • Hashrate Distribution Mining Pools & Clients
          • BLOCKTRAIL | Bitcoin API and Block Explorer
          • Roger Ver: TIme to End the Block-Size Blockade
          • Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money

            • This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/163

            1 hr 10 min
          • 163 – Roger Ver: Bitcoin, Liberty and the Scalability Roadblock
            Support the show, consider donating: 1PAXxdeG1cmmtjJKgoR4wK6ukrBqh9JhW9 (http://bit.ly/2gSLOdl)
            Roger Ver is one of the earliest Bitcoin investors and through his tireless evangelizing of the cryptocurrency became known as 'Bitcoin Jesus'. Roger joined us to discuss Bitcoin's incredible potential to foster liberty. We also discussed how the current stalemate about how to scale Bitcoin is threatening that potential. And, finally, the mining pool operated by his site Bitcoin.com that is supporting the Bitcoin Unlimited client.
            Topics discussed in this episode:
            - How Roger Ver became the first investor in Bitcoin startups
            - What the Bitcoin community was like in 2011
            - The appeal of Bitcoin for voluntaryists
            - Why the scalability stalemate is crippling Bitcoin
            - Bitcoin.com's new mining pool and support for Bitcoin Unlimited
            - His vision for the future of Bitcoin
            Links mentioned in this episode:
            - Bitcoin.com: https://www.bitcoin.com/
            - Roger Ver Uncut Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JieIxoBcZM
            - Bitcoin Unlimited: https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/faq
            - Hashrate Distribution Mining Pools & Clients: https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info
            - BLOCKTRAIL | Bitcoin API and Block Explorer: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=1w
            - Roger Ver: TIme to End the Block-Size Blockade: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@rogerkver/time-to-end-the-block-size-blockade-by-roger-ver
            - Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money: http://amzn.to/1LxK5im
            Sponsors:
            - Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io
            - Ledger: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER - http://ledgerwallet.com
            This episode is also available on :
            - Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/163
            - YouTube: http://youtu.be/VUegfo-8HKc
            - Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-164
            Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.
            Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.
            1 hr 10 min
          • Message for LTB Feed Listeners
            Epicenter listeners who subscribe to the show on the LTB Feed probably noticed that they were unable to download the show for the last few weeks. There was an issue with the links we were posting to the LTB website. Well, we're happy to report that the issue has been fixed and that you can now go back an listen to episodes 159, 160, 161 and 162.
            2 min
          • Ned Scott: Steem – The Blockchain-Based Social Media Platform

            Few crypto projects have gotten as much attention and caused as much controversy as Steem. The blockchain-based social media platform launched early this year and managed to gain real user traction building up a vibrant community of contributors. The Steem token quickly entered bubble territory reaching a market cap of almost $400m and losing 90% of its value since.

            Steem Co-Founder and CEO Ned Scott joined us to discuss the ambition of the project and its short tumultous history. We also discussed some of the accusations against Steem and its unorthodox launch.

            Topics covered in this episode:

            • How Steem was launched out of the BitShares community
            • The different components and tokens of the Steem system
            • How Steem rewards content contributors
            • The controversial Steem launch and criticisms of the project
            • Why Steem transitioned from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake
            • The potential disbalance of power due to the Steem distribution
            • How Steem managed to build a vibrant user community

              • Episode links:

              • Steem Website
              • Steemit.com
              • Why Every Blockchain Needs a Constitution
              • Charlie Shrem Article on Steem Launch
              • The History of Steem Launch in Words of Dan Larimer
              • Bitcoin Talk Thread on Steem Launch
              • Bitcoin Stackexchange: What is Steem?

                • This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/162

                1 hr 2 min

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

              From the publisher's feed

              Epicenter brings you in-depth conversations about the technical, economic and social implications of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Every week, we interview business leaders, engineers academics and entrepreneurs, and bring you a diverse spectrum of opinions and points of view.

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