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

A smart contract’s rigid rule system represents a double-edged sword. ‘The Code is Law’, but what happens when rogue large language models or AI agents bend the Law? Can smart contracts be weaponised to serve a criminal agenda? In his ‘Oracle’ novel, Ari Juels explores this thesis and issues an eery warning regarding the blockchain x AI intersection. In this imminent future, oracles play a crucial role, allowing LLMs to push data on-chain or smart contracts to pull off-chain data.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Criminal Smart Contracts
• Oracle x LLM convergence
• Preventing malicious intents through oracle systems
• AI x crypto use cases
• DAOs
• Entropy in voting behaviours
• Dark DAOs
• TEEs & private smart contracts
• MEV & proofs of transaction ordering
• Future blockchain research

Episode links:

• Ari Juels on Twitter
• 'The Oracle: A Novel' by Ari Juels
• Chainlink on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Bitcoin’s lack of native programmability, coupled with advancements in zero knowledge cryptography, has led to rollups being explored as a substitute for an execution layer. Citrea’s approach involves using Bitcoin as a data availability & settlement layer for their zero knowledge rollup. These rollups not only lower transaction costs, but they also enable smart contracts to use Bitcoin’s L1 security and further incentivise miners to secure the chain despite halving rewards. In order to inherit Bitcoin’s security, zk proofs are inscribed in Bitcoin blocks.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Orkun’s background
• Inscriptions, BitVM and zk rollups on Bitcoin
• Optimistic bridging
• Sequencer
• Programmability solutions on Bitcoin
• BitVM development
• Citrea ecosystem development
• cBTC vs. custodial wrapped BTC
• There is no second best!
• PoW, halving block rewards and how rollups incentivise miners
• Citrea’s efficiency & fee reduction
• Bitcoin as an inflation hedge

Episode links:

• Orkun Mahir Kilic on Twitter
• Citrea on Twitter
• BitVM

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch.

Inspired by Cosmos’ IBC ethos, Anoma takes interoperability a step further, from VM (virtual machine) to IM (intent machine). While traditional dApps that run on virtual machines require step-by-step instructions to achieve a desired outcome, Anoma’s universal intent machine design allows users to simply define their end-results which are then aggregated and an optimal combination of intents is selected - cross-chain, simple, elegant. Moreover, intents also enable on-chain privacy, a concept explored by Namada.

Topics covered in this episode:

• The vision behind Anoma
• OS for decentralised applications
• What is Anoma?
• Building dApps with Anoma
• Native generalised intents
• Anoma’s L1 blockchain
• The importance of decentralisation
• On-chain privacy
• Namada
• The collapse of the banking system
• Roadmap

Episode links:

• Adrian Brink on Twitter
• Anoma on Twitter
• Namada on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

In a world where everyone chases every basis point of marginal return, core values are often overlooked. The emergence of liquid staking protocols made stake delegation a norm rather than an exception. The hassles of running their own node and dealing with slashing risks were often too much of a burden for regular users. Dappnode offers both hardware and open-source software solutions for home stakers which are as facile to implement as a plug-n-play device. Their newly released Dappnode Smooth aims to offer the advantages of staking pools (via smart contracts), without centralisation risks.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Eduardo’s and Pol’s backgrounds
• Founding Dappnode
• Dappnode userbase
• Supported networks
• Dappnode’s tech stack
• Setting up Dappnode
• Dappstore
• Updating nodes
• Dappnode hardware usage percentage
• Dappnode Smooth
• Solo staking vs. liquid staking
• Distributed validator technology (DVT)
• Restaking
• ETH issuance
• Future roadmap for Dappnode

Episode links:

• Eduardo Antuna on Twitter
• Pol Lanski on Twitter
• Dappnode on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

One of the best known educators in the space and OG Bitcoin maxi, Dan Held joined us to discuss his crypto journey from entrepreneur to marketing & growth specialist and why he decided to start the Asymmetric Bitcoin DeFi Fund. Although initially a contentious topic, the emergence of Ordinals revealed Bitcoin’s untapped potential, sparking tremendous interest for Bitcoin L2s and DeFi on the ‘mother chain’. Apart from bringing new utility to the highest liquidity blockchain, the new-found demand for blockspace significantly increased fees, thus incentivising miners to further secure the chain despite halving rewards.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Dan’s background
• ZeroBlock
• Increasing marketing reach
• ZeroBlock acquisition & marketing at Kraken
• Asymmetric Bitcoin DeFi Fund
• Bitcoin’s history: NFT & DeFi emergence
• OP_CAT & trustless bridging
• Bitcoin ‘governance’, forks & BIPs
• Usecases for DeFi on Bitcoin
• Bitcoin block reward subsidy and long-term security

Episode links:

• Asymmetric on Twitter
• Dan Held on Twitter
• Blockchain.com on Twitter
• Taproot Wizards on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

From a cross-platform media company, to launching their own conference and, more recently, an advisory branch, Blockworks has seen and done it all. We couldn’t miss Permissionless III, one of the largest crypto conferences in the US, where we sat down with Jason Yanowitz to discuss emerging trends in the industry and where the attention might shift over the coming months.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Blockworks’ evolution
• The crypto conference landscape
• Blockworks advisory
• Apps & infrastructure
• Regulations
• ZK & AI
• Stablecoins
• Podcasting

Episode links:

• Jason Yanowitz on Twitter
• Blockworks on Twitter
• Permissionless on Twitter
• Empire Podcast on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Friederike Ernst & Sunny Aggarwal.

Outside of BTC’s cypherpunk movement, the early days of crypto were more or less barren in terms of innovation. However, this presented a huge opportunity for visionaries and angel investors to either launch or back bold projects, recognizing the potential of crypto stretching far beyond than just payments. One of them was Konstantin Lomashuk, co-founder of cyber•Fund which was a key actor in bootstrapping the cybernetic economy. Apart from early investments in Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana and many others, Konstantin recognized the potential threats to the core ethos of decentralisation and also co-founded Lido DAO in order to stave off Ethereum’s centralization risks.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Konstantin’s background
• cyber·Fund & cybernetic economy
• Entrepreneurship vs. angel investing
• Delegating tasks and scaling businesses
• Lido’s origin story
• Lido DAO proposals and improvements
• Solana vs. Ethereum
• The evolution of Ethereum’s economy
• Konstantin’s other areas of interest
• AI’s risk of centralization
• The impact of AI on crypto
• How CyberFund invests in new narratives

Episode links:

• Konstantin Lomashuk on Twitter
• cyber·Fund on Twitter
• P2P org

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

As Ethereum’s roadmap shifted to a rollup-centric approach, a plethora of rollups have been launched, to the point where L3s have been conceptualized. Celestia sits at the forefront of modularity as it aims to replace the monolithic blockchain architecture with specialized layers that are more suited for scalability and customization. As a result, Celestia strictly focuses on data availability to accommodate the recent rollup expansion, as data storage represents the largest portion of fees on L2s. The Lemongrass upgrade lays the foundation for further use cases being enabled through Celestia, mainly revolving around interoperability and zk proof enabled ‘lazy bridging’. 

Topics covered in this episode:

• The vision behind Celestia
• Rollup architecture
• Centralised sequencers and the role of fraud proofs
• Celestia’s market share
• Rollkit & sovereign rollups
• Governance & light clients
• The importance of decentralisation: L1s vs. rollups
• Celestia’s data availability capacity
• Latency & Celestia block times
• Interoperability & ‘lazy bridging’
• The Lemongrass upgrade
• On-chain economics & value accrual
• Interchain accounts on Celestia
• Crypto’s mainstream adoption
• Future roadmap

Episode links:

• Mustafa Al-Bassam on Twitter
• Ismail Khoffi on Twitter
• Celestia on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Prediction markets were one of the first use cases of smart contracts, yet their popularity only recently spiked, following Polymarket’s social media spread. However, while prediction markets are generally zero-sum games, the rise of AI models trained on large datasets led to AI-powered prediction feeds and hedge funds. Crypto offers a unique array of use cases as it allows data scientists to not only share their data sets and models with complete privacy, but also access decentralised computing and model training. While Predictoor employs Ocean’s data infrastructure to run AI-powered prediction bots on lower timeframes, Numerai developed its own AI hedge fund for stocks, that recently also expanded to crypto (Numerai does not trade cryptocurrencies, and Numerai’s Hedge Fund(s) have no relation to Numerai Crypto).

Topics covered in this episode:

• Predictoor & Numerai overview
• Prediction markets
• Prediction feeds
• Prediction markets in TradFi and other use cases
• Implementation of Ocean’s tech in Predictoor
• Predictions vs. Futures
• Market participants
• Numerai hedge fund
• Numerai’s trust assumptions
• The role of AI
• The evolution of AI and how it might solve market inefficiencies
• Numerai crypto and how it differs from Predictoor
• Predictoor x Numerai collaborations
• The future of prediction markets

Episode links:

• Trent McConaghy on Twitter
• Richard Craib on Twitter
• Predictoor on Twitter
• Numerai on Twitter
• Ocean Protocol on Twitter
• Oasis Protocol on Twitter

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Interoperability is the holy grail for a multi-chain future or the ‘internet of blockchains’. However, while IBC (inter-blockchain communication protocol) revolutionised permissionless cross-chain transfers, it was Skip Protocol’s Go API that took advantage of Cosmos’ infrastructure (and its numerous messaging protocols), to create an end-to-end interoperability platform, allowing developers to design seamless cross-chain user experiences.

We were joined by Sam Hart, head of product at Skip Protocol, to discuss the challenges of interoperability across Cosmos & Ethereum, and how Skip:Go API & Skip:Connect push the crosschain boundaries towards end user adoption.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Sam’s background
• The Other Internet
• Skip Protocol: bringing seamless interoperability to Cosmos
• Monetization for Skip:Connect & Skip:Go
• The Skip:Connect oracle and how Cosmos chains pull data
• Cross-chain MEV
• MEV blockers
• Ethereum vs. Cosmos ecosystem development and activity
• Ethereum bridges vs. Cosmos IBC
• Cross-chain interoperability
• Skip’s multi-chain expansion

Episode links:

• Sam Hart on Twitter
• Skip Protocol on Twitter
• The Other Internet

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: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.