Epicenter Podcast
@epicenterbtc • 18,524 subscribers
We interview founders, builders, and thought leaders in the blockchain & crypto-finance industry - Hosts @seb3point0 @crainbf @tw_tter
Videos
New Episode: Inside Nansen's AI Trading Agent Platform Alex Svanevik 🐧, CEO of Nansen 🧭, joins Friederike Ernst 🦉 to discuss Nansen's massive evolution from an on-chain analytics platform to a full-stack AI trading powerhouse. Alex explains why raw blockchain data is now a commodity and how Nansen maintains its edge through deterministic and inferred address labeling. They dive into why vanilla LLMs break on crypto data, the upcoming launch of predictive Smart Money 2.0, and how Nansen Gym allows AI agents to backtest trading strategies by time-traveling through historical on-chain events. Topics 00:00 Nansen's Pivot to Agentic Trading 04:15 On-Chain Data Processing 10:30 Inferred Address Labeling 16:00 Immutable Nature of ENS 24:45 Ultimate On-Chain Trading OS 33:20 Why LLMs Fail at Blockchain 42:15 Smart Money 2.0 51:40 Nansen Gym 58:30 The Open Source AI Boom Episode Links👇
Epicenter Podcast28,507 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 Scaling the Agentic Internet Friederike Ernst 🦉 chats with Bowen Wang, Head of Protocol @ Near One, about blockchain scaling, AI, and how NEAR Protocol sets the ground for AI-native apps & the agentic economy. ‘Attention Is All You Need’, co-wrote by Illia Polosukhin in 2017, laid the foundation for arguably one of the most consequential tech breakthroughs in our recent history. 1 year later, Illia founded Near AI, which later became NEAR Protocol. They were visionaries ahead of their time and, although AI took several more years before becoming a viable product, the experience of scaling databases would later prove valuable and applicable in blockchain world. As a result, NEAR Protocol is one of the first blockchains to implement execution layer sharding, asynchronous execution and stateless validation, bringing the finality time down to 1.2 seconds, with a block time of 0.6 seconds. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 3:30 - Bowen’s background 4:47 - Near’s pivot from AI to blockchains 8:26 - The role of Near One 9:13 - Near’s tech stack upgrades 13:39 - Optimizing network architecture 17:08 - Stateless validation & block propagation 21:10 - Sharding & asynchronous execution 29:12 - Message passing between shards & shard ‘equality’ 35:51 - Challenges of implementing stateless validation 41:05 - Applications benefiting from Near’s finality speed 44:18 - Intent-based infrastructure 47:10 - AI use cases on Near 52:27 - Expanding Near’s ecosystem 54:43 - Development challenges 57:55 - Near’s vision and goals
Epicenter Podcast66,601 просмотров • 11 месяцев назад
New Episode: Inside The Anatomy of Ethereum Kubi Mensah, CEO of Gattaca (Titan Builder), joins Friederike Ernst 🦉 to pull back the curtain on Ethereum’s most secretive and competitive sector: Block Building. Kubi explains how Titan captures nearly 50% of Ethereum’s block production and why the industry naturally gravitates toward a builder oligopoly. The conversation dives into the "fair exchange" problem, the dark forest of private mempools, and why the upcoming FOCIL upgrade is crucial for preserving Ethereum’s censorship resistance by breaking the builder monopoly on transaction inclusion. 00:00 Gattaca’s Origin in Proprietary Trading 05:15 Reality of Block Building 10:30 Public vs. Private Mempools 16:00 Why 50%+ of Transactions are Private 24:45 Anatomy of an Ethereum Block 33:20 Why Block Building Naturally Centralizes 42:15 Trust & Private Order Flow 51:40 Builder-Solver Convergence 58:30 ePBS, FOCIL, and the Future of Ethereum Episode Links👇
Epicenter Podcast12,697 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад
New Episode: Bringing All Your Assets to Crypto? Chris Yin, CEO of Plume Network, joins seb3point0 to argue that the first wave of RWAs failed because it tried to bring blockchain to TradFi instead of bringing the real world to crypto. He discusses how Plume is building an L1 specifically for RWA composability, turning illiquid assets into yield-bearing DeFi. Finally, they tackle how to build a global market that maintains "ball control" for crypto natives as the institutions arrive. Topics 00:00 The RWA Buzzword 05:15 From VC to Founder 10:30 Why Most RWAs are Worse On-Chain 16:00 Stablecoin as the North Star 24:45 Why Build a Custom L1? 33:20 Tokenizing Brazilian Credit & Oil 42:15 The "Serial Ape" vs. The Institutional Era 51:40 Why TradFi Assets Aren't Loopable. 58:30 Preserving Crypto Principles in a Regulated World Episode Links👇
Epicenter Podcast20,697 просмотров • 4 месяцев назад
🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 ENS V2 Cross-Chain Domains & Namechain Friederike Ernst 🦉 chats with nick.eth about ens.eth' V2 upgrade and Namechain, their upcoming L2 zk rollup designed to enhance scalability and improve cross chain UX. Namechain is an L2 developed by ENS Labs, to enhance the scalability and efficiency of managing decentralized identities on Ethereum. It is designed to work in tandem with ENS V2, which introduced a hierarchical registry system for more efficient subdomain management and custom resolvers. A key vision for Namechain is to unify multi-chain user identities, creating a "digital identity chain" that simplifies how users interact with the broader blockchain ecosystem. This is achieved through features like L2-to-L2 bridging, which allows users to initiate ENS-related activities from various Ethereum Layer 2 networks, not just Namechain itself. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 2:47 - High level overview of ENS 4:10 - Crosschain functionality through CCIP Read 10:15 - Domain squatting 14:07 - Onboarding ENS users via Paypal and Venmo 16:43 - Google & GoDaddy integrations 18:01 - ENS V2 upgrade & Namechain 25:43 - Transferring tokens from Namechain to L1 26:48 - Sequencer security assumptions 29:38 - Scalability 32:35 - New features & use cases 36:50 - ENS roadmap & metrics 40:09 - Ethereum ecosystem status
Epicenter Podcast29,686 просмотров • 1 год назад
🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 The Rise & Rise of Solana Brian Fabian Crain & koeppelmann.eth 🦉💳 chat with toly 🇺🇸 about Solana's ecosystem and its evolution as a high-throughput chain, from the original vision of bringing TradFi on-chain to the pump.fun craze. Solana needs no introduction. Ever since its inception, it pushed throughput scaling on a single chain, without the need of sharding or rollups. Despite its ups and downs that culminated at the bottom of the bear market after the FTX crash, it managed to not only survive, but build a vibrant community around crypto's (arguably) most prominent PMF (thus far). Join us for a fascinating discussion and learn about Anatoly's take on controversial topics such as MEV, concurrent block leaders (the equivalent of Ethereum's PBS proposal), L2 rollups, Solana economics, how to tackle potential exploits and more. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 3:55 - How the original Solana vision turned out 7:53 - What makes blockchains valuable 11:22 - MEV & program writable accounts 17:09 - Concurrent block proposers 26:39 - Current bottlenecks for scaling Solana 29:15 - Mainnet vs. L2 rollups 35:54 - Firedancer upgrade 39:22 - Halting the network vs. rollbacks 42:30 - Solana’s scaling roadmap 45:14 - DoubleZero 47:35 - Worst hacks on Solana 51:35 - UI exploits, Bybit hack and smart contract security 59:19 - Solana economics and the SIMD-0228 proposal 1:07:08 - Future improvements 1:13:18 - Use cases for blockchains 1:14:45 - Solana mobile
Epicenter Podcast30,751 просмотров • 1 год назад
New Episode: How Will Stablecoins Replace Traditional Banking Zach Abrams, CEO Bridge, joins Friederike Ernst 🦉 to discuss why stablecoins are the first "economically rational" winner in payments over the last decade. He explores how Bridge (now acquired by Stripe) is building the bridge (no pun intended) to turn stablecoins into the primary global payment infrastructure and move it beyond mere trading and into core financial services. Notably, they dive into why the current stablecoin duopoly (USDC/USDT) hinders adoption via high fees and why the next phase of fintech will see wallets replace traditional bank accounts entirely. Episode Links 👇
Epicenter Podcast11,684 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 Lido V3: Ushering in Institutional Staking Through stVaults Brian Fabian Crain chats with Hasu⚡️🤖 about the evolution of liquid staking on Ethereum, why Lido succeeded, and its upcoming V3 update, at the dawn of ETH staking ETFs. Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake created a unique set of conditions (i.e. lack of protocol-level delegation, 32 ETH requirement, long exit queues, etc.) that led to Lido's liquid staking model to gain huge traction, significantly eclipsing other LSD providers on native PoS chains. Lido V3 introduces modular stVaults which enable staking customization. This allows professional actors, such as institutional stakers, to have granular control over validators, MEV and other parameters, diversifying their investment strategies. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 4:23 - Hasu’s background 22:09 - Discovering Lido 27:46 - Liquid staking and the early days of Lido 31:07 - Why liquid staking gained traction on Ethereum 35:43 - The evolution of Lido 40:58 - Initial decentralisation concerns and the importance of dual governance 45:48 - Restaking 52:46 - Lido V3 and vaults 58:39 - Institutional staking & ETFs 1:03:39 - Ethereum’s ‘crisis’ and its values
Epicenter Podcast19,848 просмотров • 1 год назад
Ep 621: Is Blockchain Still a Revolution or Becoming Another Upgrade? Friederike Ernst 🦉 chats with polar (Paul Dylan-Ennis, crypto philosopher) and Nick Almond (Dr. Nick Almond, Jito's Head of Governance) about how blockchain started as a rebel tool for the power of the people. Now it's mostly helping old-school giants get faster, pushing out the original cypherpunk vibe. Back in 2015-2017, we had smart ideas like anti-spam voting. Today? It's all secret Telegram chats, whale bosses, and fake "votes" decided behind closed doors. Governance is the soul of crypto, designed to distribute power evenly. But ignored, it lets insiders and scammers take over. Ads and data tricks can flip loyalties, so big money could hire non-rebels to slowly kill the culture. Fight back with "polycentric" setups: Spread decisions across teams, nodes, and global believers. Tools like prediction markets spot viral BS early, beating censorship. polar suggests reminding newbies about cypherpunk roots at conferences; Nick Almond urges real-world apps for "normies" to spark hope and break echo chambers. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 1:32 - Nick's journey: Physics to DAOs 3:59 - Paul's path: Philosophy to crypto counterculture 5:54 - Crypto's shift from niche to incumbent tool 7:37 - Governance as crypto's "soul" 10:54 - Early DAOs vs. today's backroom reality 11:45 - Diluted ideas & human workarounds 1:03:44 - Elevating better leaders & social consensus tools 1:05:05 - Hacking minds: Post-ideological vs. cypherpunk 1:07:21 - Polycentric defenses & full node bedrock 1:10:50 - Advice: Evangelize at events & outreach to normies Gnosis: Gnosis has built a 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 This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.
Epicenter Podcast12,588 просмотров • 8 месяцев назад
🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 The First 1 Gigagas/second Stack for Sovereign Rollups Friederike Ernst 🦉 chats with Hilmar | ser.eth about the limitations of Ethereum blockspace and why sovereign modular rollups are a much needed expansion to finally bring off-chain applications, on-chain. One of the most limited blockchain resources is blockspace. From Bitcoin’s Blocksize Wars to Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, a common denominator seems to have emerged in the form of rollups. Furthermore, advancements in zero knowledge proofs have enabled trustless bridges, which are a cornerstone to onboarding liquidity to any blockchain. Abundance is the first rollup-as-a-service platform that is able to scale to 1 gigagas/second throughput, enabling true blockchain end-user applications. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 2:57 - Gelato’s pivot to rollup-as-a-service platform 7:13 - Sovereign rollups 13:51 - Enshrined bridges and settlement proofs 20:31 - Abundance and 1 Gigagas/second rollups 26:24 - Modularity 31:31 - Security assumptions 38:25 - Sequencer (de)centralisation 44:20 - Social consensus 46:36 - Celestia’s DA layer bandwidth 49:12 - Ethereum native rollups 1:01:11 - Decentralisation and censorship-resistance
Epicenter Podcast20,088 просмотров • 1 год назад
🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 The Infinite Garden: Humanity’s Shared World Computer Friederike Ernst 🦉 chats with hww.eth | Hsiao-Wei Wang & Tomasz K. Stańczak, co-executive directors of Ethereum Foundation, about Ethereum.org's enduring commitment to its foundational principles and the pressures it faces in a rapidly evolving blockchain landscape. 💭As society evolves, so do its values and principles, but is that desirable for technology that seeks to build the most reliable, trustless and censorship-resistant global settlement layer? Ever since the surge in popularity of Solana due to its inflow of retail capital in the memecoin gold rush, Ethereum.org became even more criticized for sticking true to its core values despite the completely divergent demands of market participants. Moreover, the rollup centric roadmap seemed to further silo attention and cause liquidity fragmentation, driving away value from Ethereum mainnet. Ethereum Foundation's response, under its new leadership, is to double down on scaling both L1 mainnet and data availability through blobs, while improving UX and interoperability across L2s and the application layer. This suggests a pragmatic shift to address market demands without abandoning core values. Don't forget to RT & follow Epicenter Podcast! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 4:09 - Hsiao-Wei’s & Tomasz’ backgrounds 7:08 - How they became co-executive directors of Ethereum Foundation 11:39 - Ethereum Foundation’s role moving forward 20:31 - Decision making in Ethereum Foundation 24:08 - Shaping Ethereum’s narrative 30:15 - The layer 2 landscape 37:58 - Scaling Ethereum as the global settlement layer 44:41 - Sharding 47:56 - Rollup scalability & their trade-offs 56:36 - What values drive adoption 1:01:00 - L2 interoperability 1:06:10 - Future goals
Epicenter Podcast15,803 просмотров • 1 год назад
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