Bell Curve

Today's episode of Bell Curve explores the intricacies of blockchain fee markets, from their origins in Bitcoin to modern innovations like Ethereum's EIP-1559 and multidimensional fee markets. Mike is Joined by Pranav and Sam to dive deep into the challenges of balancing spam prevention and positive user experience by analyzing fee structures in major chains like Solana. They unpack the "fee marke...

In today's episode Vance, Michael, and Michael reflect on their 2023 predictions and dive into each major ecosystem's outlook for 2024. They share outlooks on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, gaming, and NFTs. They touch on crypto's evolution, its key players, the reshuffling of top investors, and conclude with each sharing their biggest winners and flops of 2023. Tune in for all of this and muc...

In this bittersweet season finale of Bell Curve Mike and Dan recap key themes from this season. They dive into specific topics like the impact of blocktimes on MEV and innovations in fee market structures. They also hit on rethinking simplistic metrics like TVL for assessing capital efficiency, how execution models like frequent batch auctions can optimize swappers’ experience, and the viability o...

In this episode of Bell Curve, the Myles and Mike dive into the Data Availability (DA) wars and explore potential strategies for DA solutions towards the enhancement of Ethereum Roll-ups. They analyze the trade-offs in choosing between different DA solutions and the influence of significant shifts in the blockchain ecosystem. The also touch on Solana fee markets and how successful applications may...

In this episode, the Bell Curve team returns to explore the recent launch of JTO token airdrop and discuss a Bitcoin NFT hot take. They dive into Jito's future, business model, and link to MEV and liquid staking. The conversation then shifts to Bitcoin NFTs and how they are rapidly gaining attention. Finally, they also talk about a wealth transfer effect in the upcoming years, the role of millenni...

In this episode of Bell Curve, Mike and Dan dive into the world of decentralized derivatives trading with Antonio Juliano, founder and CEO of dYdX. They explore how dYdX leverages the Cosmos SDK to build an app-specific blockchain that aligns incentives between validators, token holders, and traders. They unpack dYdX's journey from Ethereum to Layer 2 to finally their own custom blockchain, detail...

This week's roundup the Michael, Vance, and Michael trio are joined by Sam Hart, the head of product and strategy at Skip Protocol, to cover the biggest news including Binance CEO CZ stepping down, the controversial launch of BLAST L2, and the forking of the Cosmos hub. They also touch on the odds of an institutional rally, Blur market share dominance, and USDT redemptions for fiat, silver, and go...

Qiao Wang from Alliance DAO (a web3 accelerator) joins us to discuss the applications and protocols that are primed to dominate crypto's next cycle. Qiao reviews thousands of crypto startups every year, has an uncanny ability to predict future narratives and is one of my favorite thinkers in the space! In this episode, we discuss why RWAs and payments are crypto's massive opportunity, how speculat...

In today's episode, Mike and Myles dive deep into the emerging world of liquid restaking. They take a deep look into the inner workings of depositing staked ETH into protocols like Eigenlayer to earn additional yield. They discuss competitive dynamics between these protocols, whether this is positive or dangerous for Ethereum, and implications for ETH becoming "crypto native treasuries" that expor...

Today we are diving deep into the world of interoperability and intents. Hart Lambur, co-founder at Risk Labs and UMA, joins us to analyze the trade-offs between different bridge architectures like atomic swaps, canonical bridges, and optimistic bridges. They discuss how intent-based protocols like Uniswap X and Across Protocol are reimagining bridges by introducing third parties to enable faster,...

In today's episode of Bell Curve we are joined by Link Marine legend Chainlinkgod.eth. Mike, Michael, and Vance dive into the past, present, and future of Chainlink. They kick off with Chainlink's community origins in 4chan. They move on to introduce how Chainlink aims to be a decentralized oracle network that securely connects blockchains to external data sources and APIs. They discuss key elemen...

Season 6 | Episode 5 In this episode of Bell Curve we dive into the world of batch auctions with special guests Anna, co-founder of CowSwap, and Ludwig, Founder of Sorella Labs. The team digs into how Cowswap's innovative batch auctions function and how Sorella Labs' Angstrom project tackles LVR for sustainable liquidity. They unpack how app layer innovation and MEV-conscious design can mitigate v...

In this week's roundup, the Michael power duo dives into the recent market rally and explore its implications in crypto including debt proceedings and VC appetite. They explore the Ethereum ETF approval potentially becoming a reality and the controversy surrounding Wintermute’s CEO Evgeny Gaevoy and the Near Foundation. To close out they discuss the future developments to look out for in the crypt...

In this week's Bell Curve roundup Mike and Myles discuss the return of "token season" - with recent launches like DYDX, Celestia, and Jupiter on Solana. They debate distribution strategies like airdrops, and whether excessive costs are justified. They also discuss Solana's price explosion and admire Solana for its focus on the app developer experience. To close out the duo debate weather the next...

This week on Bell Curve you're going to be hearing an episode of Lightspeed interviewing Jon Charbonneau on how integrated and modular chains are on an inevitable path toward the same endgame. Jon is an investor and the most prolific researcher in the space who understands the nuances and tradeoffs of the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems. In this episode, we cover what SVM adoption means for Solana,...

In today's roundup Michael and Vance join forces to determine if we are finally back. They dive into potential catalysts for the recent price action across the crypto sector, including the end of the rate hiking cycle, the need for recapitalization of degens, and the emerging institutional interest. The two analyze the LayerZero proposal controversy, dubious Hamas fundraising claims, and Arbitrum...

Fisk and Matti, from Zee Prime Capital, join us to discuss the rise of crypto's first superapp. In this episode, we cover the Fappening Thesis (superapp), why everyone invests in middleware, how protocols establish moats, the future of Web3 social, how crypto will impact equality and more! Fisk and Mattie have some of the most eccentric and prescient ideas in crypto - you won't want to miss this o...

The team is back, this week the boys kick things off with Coin Telegraph’s reporting blunder on the Spot BTC ETF that resulted in a BTC price surge of over 8%. We then take stock of TradFi’s potential sentiment shift, New York AG Letitia James suing Gemini, Genesis, and DCG over alleged $1.1bn crypto fraud, and the potential ramifications if GBTC is unable to convert. We then go on to discuss pote...

Season 6 | Episode 4 In today's episode we are joined by Xin Wan, researcher at Uniswap Labs, and Robert Miller, Product Lead at Flashbots, to explore the world of Order Flow Auctions (OFAs). They discuss different OFA designs like Uniswap X, Flashbots MEV-Geth, and traditional order books, analyzing capital efficiency, fairness, and susceptibility to manipulation. Xin and Robert also detail key a...

Kain Warwick, the founder of Synthetix and Infinex, joins us to discuss how permissionless frontends are crypto's next battleground. Crypto has the infrastructure to support the next wave of users, but the user experience is lightyears behind Web2. What can solve this? Permissionless frontends. In this episode, we cover why Kain is building Infinex, the missing piece to get users onchain, crypto's...

This week Michael and Myles dive deep on all things Ethereum Enshrinement. The two kick things off with Credible Neutrality, reviewing centralization risks vs overloads governance. The guys then go on to discuss user experience as the guiding uniting principle and look at the gradation of protocol proximity; what should and should not be enshrined and why. We then challenge and defend the varying...

Season 6 | Episode 3 Today we dive into the world of central limit order books and automated market makers with DEX builders Eugene Chen, co-founder of Ellipsis Labs, and Doug Colkitt, co-founder of Crocodile Labs. The team explores how factors like gas costs, latency, and modular "hooks" are shaping the evolution of onchain trading and DEX designs. The conversation then explores taking DEX compon...

With the opening of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial this week, the fellas kick things off with their thoughts on Michael Lewis’ controversial new book‘Going Infinite’, which explores the story of FTX’s collapse. The guys then take stock of Vitalik’s latest proposal around Enshrinement, and whether the logic should be natively implemented in the core code of L1s. We then discuss Stride’s potential plan...

Season 6 | Episode 2 In this season's first guest interview we dive into the world of LVR. We are joined by Alex and Jason to unpack key elements of LVR including what it is, mitigation methods including auctions and dynamic fees, and why solving LVR is important. They discuss what 3 sources of information are key to understanding LVR and explore the impacts of transferring wealth from token stake...

This week the team take stock of Binance; what may be going on and the potential ramifications. We review the regulation win for Coinbase, as approval is granted for retail perpetual futures trading. We dive deep on Rollups-as-a-Service (RaaS). Mike explains why he’s been ‘Pudgy Pilled’. We review the current state of the SEC/Crypto relationship saga, where we are with ETH Futures ETFs, the upcomi...