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

Andrew Miller is a computer science PhD student at the University of Maryland who focuses on cryptocurrency. Having gotten involved in Bitcoin in 2011 and focused on cryptocurrencies early in his research work, he is one of the most prolific researchers in the field. Our discussion mainly focused on security aspects of Ethereum including their gas model, Proof-of-Work algorithm and plans to switch to Proof-of-Stake. Topics covered in this episode: How he got involved in doing research on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies The blossoming of academic interest in the topic His work on analyzing Ethereum’s gas model Potential vulnerabilities of the Gas model Ethereum’s PoW algorithm How Ethereum handles the block size limit Episode links: Andrew's University Website Ethereum Analysis: Gas Economics and Proof of Work Overview Ethereum Analysis: Gas Economics Ledger Journal Hawk: Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/111

With over 600,000 views, James D’Angelo’s educational videos at the World Bitcoin Network are among the most popular resources on Bitcoin. Besides his excellent technical explanation, he has also been vocal about the dangers of the increasing centralization of mining. James joined us to talk about his background as a rapper, the World Bitcoin Network, his proposal to use the Bitcoin blockchain to fight climate change and his argument that keeping Bitcoin decentralized would require sacrificing the anonymity of miners. Topics covered in this episode: How he first learned about Bitcoin and started the World Bitcoin Network His proposals on identity and climate change The crucial mistake Satoshi made in designing Bitcoin Why none of the current ideas can solve the underlying problem of the centralization of mining power Why decentralization should be the only design criterion for Bitcoin His Axiom: That anonymity and decentralization of miners are inversely correlated How Identity-based Mining could foster decentralization Episode links: World Bitcoin Network YouTube channel Article about his Sno-Caps proposal to use Bitcoin to fight climate change Sno-Caps Whitepaper Bitcoin Nodes and Noses A new mystery about Satoshi hidden in the Bitcoin block-chain 'Typical American' from James D'Angelo earlier rap band The Goats James D'Angelo's talk 'What is the Bitcoin Revolution?' Bitcoin in Uganda video with James This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/110

Identity is probably one of the most important constructs in our society. In our modern world, protecting one’s identity has become complex, as we no longer rely solely on governments to prove who we are. In addition, most identity sources can be easily compromised. Credit cards and social security numbers weren’t developed with the Internet in mind, and other identifiers such as logins and passwords aren’t well suited truly secure authentication and authorisation. We’re joined by Tim Pastoor, Founder of 2way.io, to discuss how we can improve control of our identities using concepts borrowed from Bitcoin. Tim walks us through how people could better manage different identities and build reputation networks using Identifi, a global address book protocol invented by Martti Malmi, one of the very first Bitcoin users. We also talk what role this system could play in the future as autonomous agents and artificial intelligence become more prevalent. Topics covered in this episode: The history of identity systems and how traditional identity systems are broken How the invention of Blockchain technologies changed the way we think of identity The Identifi protocol and how it works How we can build reputation through Webs of Trust (WoT) The future of identity and how Identifi could provide ID for IoT, robots, autonomous agents and artificial intelligence 2Way.io and what the company is trying to achieve Episode links: 2Way Identifi protocol Identifi service This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/109

The Bitcoin and blockchain industry has been through a lot this year. While the Bitcoin price has experienced relative stability, perhaps indicating slow growth, the space has grown into a rich and diverse ecosystem of startups and open technologies. Through inspiring proof-of-concepts and exciting use cases, blockchain technologies have gained legitimacy as a viable technology to improve transparency, reduce costs and optimise processes, to name a few of it’s benefits. In this episode, all three Epicenter Bitcoin hosts, Brian, Sebastien and Meher, come together to look back on the events which marked the space this past year, and speculate on where thing may be heading in the future. Topics covered in this episode: Shift in focus from Bitcoin to blockchain technologies Public vs. private blockchain debate Bitcoin blocksize debate Media censorship and r/Bitcoin dictatorship Ethereum and it’s flourishing ecosystem Sebastien’s new startup: Stratumn This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/108

Gideon Greenspan, a computer scientist and CEO/Founder of the Israeli startup Coin Sciences, joined us for a discussion of their private blockchain platform MultiChain. Besides diving into the popular question of what’s the point of a private blockchain, we covered his earlier colored coins implementation as well as his view that blockchains are best understood as a novel database paradigm. Topics covered in this episode: How Gideon got involved in the blockchain space Their colored coins implementation MultiSpark and why it failed to get traction Why he saw a market for an open-source private blockchain platform and started MultiChain What mining diversity is and how it is used for consensus in MultiChain How permissions work in MultiChain The issues of privacy in blockchains and why you can’t have auditability and privacy How private blockchains differ from regular distributed databases The five criteria to decide if a project needs a blockchain The problem he sees with smart contract blockchains Episode links: Multichain website Multichain Whitepaper Colored coin protocol CoinSpark Avoiding the pointless blockchain project Private blockchains are more than 'just' shared databases Smart contracts: The good, the bad and the lazy This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/107

Christian Decker is a PhD student at ETH Zurich, where he is currently finishing up the world’s first PhD thesis entirely about Bitcoin. The computer scientist has been part of the Bitcoin community since 2009 and just recently turned off his last miner after 6.5 years! We talked about the current scalability debate and what his research indicated what blocksize could reasonably be handled today. We also discussed his proposal for Duplex Micropayment Channels. Like the Lightning Network, Duplex Channels use a network of payment channels to enable cheap, instant and trustless offchain transactions. The proposal, which he is currently implementing, is one of the most promising approaches to scaling Bitcoin. Topics covered in this episode: How losing 9000 btc got him on the front page of the New York Times The scaling Bitcoin debate and what blocksize could be handled today How payment channels work and could be used for off-chain transactions The advantages Duplex Micropayment Channels have with regards to privacy The differences between Duplex and the Lightning Network Whether off-chain transactions could work on Ethereum as well Episode links: Christian Decker's ETH homepage A Fast and Scalable Payment Network with Bitcoin Duplex Micropayment Channels [PDF] Bitcoin Meets Strong Consistency [PDF] Information Propagation in the Bitcoin Network [PDF] Epicenter Bitcoin Lightning Network Episode This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/106

With Proof-of-Stake (PoS) a blockchain is secured not by spending an external resource such as electricity but by using value internal to the chain itself. The promise of higher security at a lower cost is what also drives Ethereum to plan a move away from Proof-of-Work to PoS in the future. Ethereum researcher Vlad Zamfir, who leads their effort in the complex search for the optimal PoS consensus system joined us for an in-depth discussion of the challenges of PoS, the approach Casper is taking and what consensus in Ethereum land could look like in the future. Topics covered in this episode: How he became interested in consensus and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Why Ethereum plans to switch to the PoS systems Casper in the future What the Long-Range Attack and Nothing-at-Stake problems are and how Casper addresses them How a betting mechanism is used to get validators to reach consensus What centralization pressures exist for validators and what operating a validator will look like The role of security deposits in Casper The difference between Tendermint and Casper Whether forks create big UI/UX issues for Casper Why Casper is very light client friendly Episode links: Introducing Casper - Ethereum Blog Review of Casper, Ethereum’s proposed Proof of Stake Algorithm Casper Protocol Specification Slasher, Ghost and Other Developments in Proof-of-Stake Epicenter Bitcoin Episode 58 with Vitalik Buterin on Proof-of-Stake This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/105

Businesses with the alleged potential to become the next Google are plentiful in Bitcoin-land, but finding actual commercial success is a lot harder. The best example of a commercial success is gift card company Gyft that became known as the first place to give access to a wide range of merchants for bitcoin holders and later achieved the largest exit so far in the crypto space in an acquisition by payments company First Data. Gyft CTO joined us to talk about how he got involved in FinTech, what makes gift cards so interesting and how recently Gyft has been trying to reinvent gift cards by using the power of the blockchain. Topics covered in this episode: Giyom’s early involvement in FinTech in the early 2000s His previous projects Bernal Bucks and Credibles that explored gift cards and alternative currencies Why gift cards are a great place for financial innovation The mechanics of gift cards today and why their security is broken How Gyft Block can improve the security of gift cards using the blockchain Why Gyft moved their gift cards off the Bitcoin blockchain onto private blockchains Giyom’s view on the utility of Bitcoin and private blockchains Episode links: Giyom's blog Gyft’s Giyom Lebleu: Following Linux ‘The Most Likely Path for Bitcoin’ [CoinJournal] Future of Money Interview. Part I. On Credibles and owning digital currencies issued by brands you love Gyft Payments giant First Data acquires Gyft in an effort to bring digital gift cards to the masses [Pando] Gift Block Bernal Bucks Credibles This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/104

One of the concerns confronting the Bitcoin community is that of scaling the transaction throughput rate: How do we go from the current rate of approx. 5 transactions per second to a thousand times that? In this episode, we talk to Emin Gun Sirer and Ittay Eyal from Cornell University regarding Bitcoin NG; a next generation Bitcoin blockchain design that addresses some protocol based limitations preventing Bitcoin from increasing transaction throughput. Their proposal also enables fast (initial) transaction confirmations on the order of 10-20 seconds. Topics covered in this episode: Metrics to measure the security and fairness properties of Nakamoto consensus as implemented in Bitcoin. A network emulation of Bitcoin designed by their team to study properties of Bitcoin network. Technical design of Bitcoin NG Concerns with Bitcoin NG Impact of Bitcoin NG on various stakeholders if it is adopted in the main Bitcoin network. Episode links: Bitcoin-NG White Paper Bitcoin-NG: A Secure, Faster, Better Blockchain Bitcoin-NG and the Blockchain Test bed (Scaling Bitcoin Workshop Slides) This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/103

Among the dividing themes in the Bitcoin space is the idea of public versus private blockchains. While some argue that private and permissioned blockchains can offer better scalability and lower latency for enterprises, others insist the Bitcoin blockchain will offer the best level of security and robustness longterm. Recently, projects have emerged that propose the best of both worlds by leveraging both off-chain and on-chain transactions. This is the idea behind Openchain, an “open source distributed ledger technology, suited for organizations wishing to issue and manage digital assets in a robust, secure and scalable way.” Openchain uses a client-server model where there is only one authoritative validating node. Read-only observer nodes keep the central node honest by auditing transactions in real time. About every 10 minutes, a copy of the Ledger, and its transactions, is hashed and inserted into a Bitcoin transaction so that it can be fossilised in the blockchain. We’re joined by Flavien Charlon, the one-man operation behind Predictious, Coinprism, the Open Transactions Protocol and now Openchain. We talk about this fascinating new software, which aims to offer enterprises a digital ledger protocol that is highly scalable while enjoying the benefits of the Bitcoin blockchain for immutability. Topics covered in this episode: Flavien gives an update on Coinprism and his other projects The Openchain protocol and what it’s trying to achieve The technical architecture of Openchain and the client-server model it implements How Openchain uses the Bitcoin blockchain to “anchor” transactions into every block Openchain’s consensus model The ability for Openchain to interoperate with other ledgers and blockchains Flavien’s thoughts on what the ecosystem might look like in 10 years Episode links: Openchain Openchain Docs This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/102