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

SolidX Partners CEO Daniel Gallancy joined us for a discussion of Bitcoin, institutional investors and how his company is working on creating a bridge between the two. While there is no question that interest in cryptocurrencies has risen dramatically – also among the financial elite, there is still a big chasm separating the two worlds. With Daniel we explore how it could be bridged, when it will happen and what the consequences could be.

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Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/055

Daniel Peled, CEO of Gems, and Tom Kysar, Marketing Lead at Koinify, join us to talk about a project that aims to revolutionize social messaging.

As one of the first decentralized social networks built on blockchain technology, Gems hopes to put the ownership of the network back in the hands of its users. While large centralized social networks collect your information and sell it to advertisers, Gems is building on a different model in which users only receive solicited messages and get paid when companies advertise to them. Gems is also a cryptocurrency which can be traded between users within its mobile app. The initial crowdsale, organized by Koinify, will run from December 1st to January 5th.

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/054

Keeping Bitcoins safe from theft is probably one of the things Bitcoin holders worry the most about. Historically, there have been a number of recommended best practices like paper wallets, BIP 38 wallet cards and cold storage. Although these remain relatively safe ways to store Bitcoins, implementing these solutions can be complicated and difficult to manage for day-to-day transactions. Recently, some companies have begun introducing multi-signature HD wallet services, where 2-out-of-3 signatures are required to sign transactions. These solutions offer security and usability, with the assurance that Bitcoins will remain safe, and the ability to transact with ease. In fact, the website P2SH.info tracks the adoption of multi-sig, and it has been growing exponentially in recent months.

Which brings us to our guest: Arianna Simpson, an Account Specialist at BitGo, a company that provides a simple multi-signature HD wallet solution for individuals and businesses. We talked to Arianna about BitGo and the services they offer, discuss different use cases for multi-sig HD wallets and make projections about the evolution of the wallet space from different angles.

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/053

Today’s episode is all about Factom, an open source project which aims to solve three core problems which apply to all Bitcoin 2.0 applications: Speed, Cost, and Bloat. Rather than writing every transaction to the blockchain, Factom allows decentralized applications to write blocks of transactions to Factom blocks, which themselves get hashed and stored to the bitcoin blockchain. At its core, Factom provides Proof of Existance, which allows for any digital artifact to be reduced to a hash that proves that artifact’s existance at a specific point in time.

We are joined by Factom CEO, Paul Snow, and President, Peter Kirby, to explore the different applications of Factom as well as the technical workings of this very interesting and promissing project.

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/052