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

One of the best known memes in crypto is: 'Not your keys, not your coins'. This usually resurfaces whenever a (custodial) centralised exchange is hacked or goes bust altogether. Although Web3 provides the infrastructure for self custody, this often shares the fate of Pandora. Self-custody requires increased security measures, from both end-users, as well as application developers. Web3 wallets are...

Back in 2017, there was no DeFi as we know it today, yet MakerDAO were already envisioning and building towards what they thought to be a certainty. The backbone of DeFi is represented by stable coins, and MakerDAO quickly understood this: they set out to build a decentralised stable coin, $DAI (and its precursor $SAI). Being collateral-backed, the smart contract needs to know the value of that co...

Data immutability and transparency are key features that define a blockchain’s public ledger. However, while transactions are indeed transparent, information surrounding the blockchain’s infrastructure layer is not readily available. Since Ethereum’s Merge to PoS and the introduction of staking delegation, actionable data on the validator and client status quos became crucial for the wellbeing of...

Zero knowledge proof systems have found tremendous cryptographic utility in scaling blockchains, due to their ability to prove computational integrity, succinctly. However, despite recent advancements in ZKP R&D, their construction still requires special prover circuits. Their complexity is what gatekeeps zero knowledge technology to a select few astute teams. =nil; Foundation aims to challeng...

Apart from its numerous financial applications, blockchain technology could also disrupt the gaming industry, causing a paradigm shift towards true digital ownership, one that would create new incentive models for both players, as well as developers. Up until recently, technological barriers seemed cumbersome for most game developers, but the advancements of layer 2 scaling solutions made on-chain...

Social media revolves around content creation, and while the content itself could be tokenised through NFTs, SocialFi aims to take it a step further. The recently released friend.tech app went to show that users might be interested in something more than just content - creator shares. This implicitly links back to handles and profiles, and we can slowly start to unveil the primitives of social med...

The maximal extractable value (MEV) problem, if left unchecked, could represent an existential threat to Ethereum’s core values. One might argue that it is a natural result of solving market inefficiencies, but it entices to centralisation and collusion in order to extract the highest amount of value. Additionally, through front-running and back-running, it creates unnecessary overhead, which caus...

From the very beginning, Cosmos set out to provide an alternative to the monolithic blockchain architecture proposed by Ethereum. Cosmos SDK was the cornerstone of this vision, as it allowed developers to spin up blockchains effortlessly. Its modularity enabled custom, self-sovereign chains to become a reality. And, instead of being a jack of all trades, those chains were centred around a sole pur...

What started out as Matic Network, in 2017, and later rebranded to Polygon, in 2021, it is now facing another major milestone: Polygon 2.0. Apart from a tokenomics update, their plans include building an aggregation layer for every scaling solution that will settle on Ethereum. This will not only provide crucial rollup interoperability, but it will also further offload Ethereum by recursively comb...

After a 2021 frothy bull market, NFTs are currently experiencing the depression phase of the market cycle. However, despite the fact that only NFT art has truly found its product-market fit, NFTs in general represented the consumerist moment for crypto. In addition, they also provided a solution for tokenising real world assets (RWA) and intangibles, potentially penetrating markets worth hundreds...

Ethereum scaling solutions often resort to tradeoffs, sacrificing security or decentralisation in favour of scalability. However, zk rollups hold the potential of increasing throughput, while also inheriting the layer 1’s security. This is achieved through zero knowledge validity proofs, which are published on Ethereum mainnet. The final hurdle remains the sequencer decentralisation. zkSync was de...

The recent history of L2s has shown that there doesn’t need to be ‘one chain to rule them all’ or an ‘ETH killer’. Instead, a healthier approach would be to find the best solution for a specific need, taking into consideration any potential tradeoffs. Avalanche has done just that, focusing from the get-go on delivering high transaction throughput, using their unique subnet architecture, consensus...

We couldn’t miss EthCC 6 and we got to sit down with Vitalik Buterin to discuss hot topics from the Ethereum ecosystem: MEV, staking derivatives, privacy, decentralisation and future interoperability. Ethereum’s merge to proof-of-stake brought with it the emergence of liquid staking derivatives (LSD). Similarly to mining pools in proof-of-work consensus models, staking pools could pose a risk to E...

Blockchains are secured through the economic incentives offered to their validators/miners. The more robust the network effect among validators, the more difficult it is for that blockchain to be compromised. However, building a truly decentralised and reliable validator set is not a trivial task. As a result, hub and spoke ecosystem designs like Cosmos’ (and even Polkadot’s), aim to share the mai...

Stablecoins represent the backbone of DeFi, allowing complex financial applications to be protected from external volatility. From fiat-backed to algorithmic, there are multiple approaches to issuing and backing stablecoins. While US regulations are looming over the crypto industry, Monerium released a fully regulated on-chain euro stablecoin, the EURe, enabling direct SEPA transfers, on- and off-...

Layer 2 zero knowledge roll-ups have initially been used for achieving private transactions on blockchains. However, past simple transfers, interacting with a public smart contract posed a serious challenge. As research and technology evolved, proof construction became much more efficient, enabling zk-powered scalability. There is a variety of pros and cons for each type of proof system, but given...

As institutional money set their eyes on crypto, some degree of centralisation and regulation was inevitable. However, the key aspect is to limit it to access gateways and not affect protocols’ decentralisation. Recent events have shown that price manipulation is easily achieved in conditions of low liquidity, hence regulated fiat on- and off-ramps will, in the end, also benefit retail consumers....

As Epicenter hits the 500 episode milestone, our hosts look back on almost 10 years of crypto developments, analysing the good, the bad and the ugly. What projects & narratives have surprised our hosts? Has Bitcoin failed in becoming a reliable store of value? Will ZK proofs provide the much needed solution to AI’s alignment problem? Last but not least, are we still early? Get ready for a fascinat...

In order to achieve true transaction privacy, it is not enough to encrypt or build ZK proofs for transaction bundles, as long as the underlying blockchain uses an account-based model. Aztec is building a ZKVM that superposes an UTXO model, so that balances are constantly updated as new, untraceable, log entries. The upcoming Aztec 3 aims to enable privacy-preserving smart contracts, using a hybrid...

As crypto evolves, it becomes clearer that the future will be multi-chain. Presently, moving funds between different blockchains is frustrating...to say the least. The current bridging solutions are prohibitive from a UX perspective, mainly due to how finality is reached across different blockchains. This translates to long wait times and anxiety when interacting with new protocols, caused by the...

Ethereum's merge and transition to a proof-of-stake consensus implied switching from proof-of-work mining to transactions being validated by entities that have an economic stake in the network. Proof-of-stake distributed networks are subject to complex game theory models (e.g. slashing). Distributed validator technology (DVT) enables a more modular validator stack at every level: key pairs, hardwa...

Public transaction history in blockchains represents one of their key features which, alongside immutability, aim to provide an alternative to CeFi. However, this transparency comes at a price: privacy. As a result, different solutions have been proposed, that preserve privacy while maintaining all the other benefits of blockchain technology, but there currently isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to...

As the second Avalanche summit drew to a close, Sebastien Couture and Sunny Aggarwal sat down with Emin Gün Sirer for a fascinating conversation exploring future innovation narratives in crypto. Longtime friend of Epicenter, Ava Labs' founder and CEO shared his unique insights on the industry, from both a founder, as well as a former academia perspective. Given Avalanche's consensus & architecture...

When it comes to top-tier VCs, very few equal Andreessen Horowitz' (a16z) impressive portfolio, which stretches over both Web2 and Web3. Their crypto venture arm includes investments in most industry verticals, from infrastructure projects to NFTs and blockchain gaming. Constructing such a solid investment thesis requires conviction in the long-term prospects of the industry, as well as an influen...

The end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 were marked by centralised institutions failing: from CEXes to CeFi itself, contagion spread quickly in over-leveraged and opaque entities. Amidst this chaos, (crypto)people turned their hopes, once again, to DeFi. However, in lack of traditional enforcing mechanisms, not even battle-tested decentralised lending protocols could find a solution to provide under...