Epicenter - Learn About Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin And Distributed Technologies

Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin joins Friederike Ernst to discuss why we are at the "end of a supercycle," a chaotic transition period where legacy institutions are finally adopting blockchain rails not just for efficiency, but for survival. They explore the "inevitable convergence" where the US government may actively rely on stablecoins to absorb debt, effectively using crypto to extend the lifespan of the dollar. At the same time, banks scramble to compete with self-custodial wallets. Joe also details the structural evolution of Consensys, from an "organic blob" incubating projects like Gnosis to a focused software powerhouse. He differentiates Linea from competitors by highlighting its commitment to permissionless innovation where anyone can deploy a rollup without a "sign-off". He shares his vision for MetaMask evolving into a user-owned "full-service bank. Topics00:00 Intro & Paradigm Shift04:15 Crypto-Anarchy vs. Enterprise10:30 Banks & Stablecoins16:0

Quantum computing is often dismissed as a distant sci-fi future, but Ethereum OG John Lilic and Oxford physicist Stefano Gogioso argue the timeline is shrinking fast with roadmaps converging around 2030. In this episode, they break down the "woeful" state of quantum readiness in crypto, explaining how Shor's algorithm could eventually shatter the elliptic curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin and Ethereum.They also explore the terrifying concept of "harvest now, decrypt later," which implies that encrypted data and privacy coins like Monero may essentially be compromised already. Finally, they introduce "Quantum Money," a revolutionary form of digital cash developed by Stefano’s startup NeverLocal, which relies on the laws of physics rather than blockchain consensus to prevent double-spending.Topics00:00 Intro03:00 John’s Quantum Awakening08:00 Defining Quantum Computing13:30 Logical Qubits Explained18:15 Crypto’s "Woeful" Readiness23:30 "Harvest Now" Thre

“DevConnect 2025 was about touching and feeling Ethereum IRL”Nathan Sexer, lead of the DevConnect 2025 and Events team at the Ethereum Foundation, gives a peek into the largest iteration of Devconnect ever, with 20,000 attendees, and why the team pivoted to a "World's Fair" format, creating tangible districts for DeFi and Privacy to let attendees truly "touch and feel" the ecosystem.The conversation gets real about the friction of the physical world. He explained why Argentina’s crypto-native culture makes it the perfect host, how hyperinflation fueled bottom-up adoption, and even the venue-wide internet failure became an accidental "feature," breaking the on-screen silos and pushing genuine face-to-face connections.A massive geopolitical win was how the team worked with the government to issue 1,000+ visas for attendees from over 130 nationalities to make this event in the true spirit of borderless crypto.The Ethereum Foundation is heading to Mumbai in 2026! The goal for Ind

At DevConnect 2025, Sebastian and Friederike speak with Peter Van Valkenburgh about the rapidly evolving battle for digital rights. Peter challenges the industry's comfort with transparency, arguing that "transparency will destroy neutrality." He uses the history of SWIFT to illustrate how a once-neutral messaging system was captured by geopolitical interests because it wasn't "technically blind" to the data it processed. He argues that for blockchains to survive as global settlement layers, they must be "actually blind" to transactions, making neutrality a technical reality rather than a policy choice.The conversation turns to the aggressive legal tactics currently deployed against developers. Peter highlights the Pereira Bueno case, where prosecutors charged MEV searchers with wire fraud for being "dishonest validators" a concept Peter argues completely undermines the game-theoretic security of permissionless networks. He also breaks down the mixed bag of Tornado Cash litigation. While the sanctions against

Captured live at Cosmoverse 2025, this episode brings host Sebastian in conversation with Michael (better known as Cryptocito, Cosmos investor via Cito Ventures) and Magnus (@0xMagmar, Co-CEO Cosmos Labs). Against a backdrop of institutional gravitas, central banks mingling alongside Revolut executives, the conversation traces Cosmos' arc across five Cosmoverses, from Medellín's raw developer fervor to the polished, enterprise-oriented event unfolding here. It's a marker of the ecosystem's maturation, one that demands Cosmos "grow up" to weave itself into the fabric of global finance, governance, and economies beyond its insular origins.Magnus lays out Cosmos Labs' forward path: Systematically acquiring and refining homegrown innovations, such as the EVM rebuild over six months into a core stack component and consolidating privacy primitives from projects like Secret Network and Penumbra into seamless, enterprise-grade tools. These advancements, long championed by Cosmos builders, now stand ready for institut

Brian Fabian Crain and Michael Egorov, Curve Finance founder, discuss Curve's origins: solving inefficient DAI/USDC swaps after MakerDAO borrows by creating a DeFi AMM for stablecoins and LSTs. It hit 1M TVL with a bonding curve concentrating liquidity at 1:1, more effective for pegged assets than Uniswap. Features grew to include BTC wrappers, stETH pairs, and crvUSD (a CDP stablecoin with reversible liquidations & a peg-keeper). Governance uses veCRV: Locking CRV grants voting power proportional to lock duration, a mechanism now refined in Yield Basis. Yield Basis solves impermanent loss in volatile pools (e.g., BTC/crvUSD). Users deposit BTC; the protocol borrows crvUSD, pairs it at 2x leverage (50% debt/equity), and uses LP tokens as collateral. This gives 1:1 asset tracking, while fees accrue from auto-rebalancing arbitrage. Simulations show 20%+ APY (may decline as BTC volatility drops) under a $50B TVL cap. It complements Curve by directing veCRV incentives to crvUSD pools, enhancing liquidity, fee

Sci-fi titan Neal Stephenson, whose Snow Crash coined the term 'metaverse' and Cryptonomicon, which foreshadowed crypto in 1999, joins Friederike to discuss his "hard sci-fi" method: building immersive, consistent worlds, not prophecy. He's now co-founder of Lamina1, aiming to restore Web1's ethos and give creators IP sovereignty with direct micropayments, breaking free from Web2's "walled gardens."Neal unpacks Web3's promise like "intent-casting" flipping ad models while citing its critical traps: abysmal UX, criminal stigma, and the "soul-crushing" risk of just upgrading incumbent systems.Spotlighting Lamina 1's game "Artifact," he argues Web3's true success will be measured when the technology becomes invisible and safe, proving its value by restoring sovereignty to its users and creators, rather than through speculative hype.Topics discussed in this episode:(00:00) Introduction to Decentralization and Blockchain(01:20) The R

As blockchain tech gets co-opted by legacy players for efficiency gains, has the revolution lost its edge? Crypto philosopher Paul Dylan-Ennis and Jito's Head of Governance, Dr. Nick Almond, join Friederike to probe this shift from 2017's visionary DAOs to today's Telegram-negotiated votes and whale capture. Rooted in philosophy and complex systems, they unpack mind-hacking risks via data micro-targeting, the polycentric bulwarks (full nodes, prediction markets) shielding against cultural flips, and why epistemic tools could fortify crypto against real-world censorship. Their call: Reclaim the ethos through event evangelism and normie outreach for grassroots empowerment.Topics discussed in this episode:0:00 - Introduction1:32 - Nick's journey: Physics to DAOs3:59 - Paul's path: Philosophy to crypto counterculture5:54 - Crypto's shift from niche to incumbent tool7:37 - Governance as crypto's "soul"10:54 - Early DAOs vs. today's backroom reality11:45 - Diluted ideas &am

Brave has spent a decade building a privacy-first browser that empowers users with tools like ad-blocking and fingerprinting protection, now serving 100 million monthly active users. Security engineer Kyle Den Hartog joins Friederike to unpack the centralization traps in digital identity from email's spam-driven dominance to one-size-fits-all DeFi lending rates and how Brave counters them with BAT's user-rewarding ad model, zero-knowledge personalization, and wallets that act as privacy guardians. Kyle warns of on-chain transparency's risks to consumer behavior, advocates for intent-based "vendor relationship management" advertising, and draws historical lessons on censorship's chilling effects amid rising regulations like EU chat controls. He shares Brave's vision for seamless private payments and user-controlled algorithms to reclaim the open web from Big Tech monopolies.Topics discussed in this episode:IntroductionKyle's background in security and identityWhy identity and privacy matterThe history and cent

In this episode, Sebastien is joined by Jelena Djuric, co-founder of Noble, a generic asset issuance chain built for the Cosmos ecosystem. Jelena shares her journey into crypto, which began with an interest in political science, leading her to discover Bitcoin's potential. She describes the origins of Noble, created to solve a critical need within Cosmos: a native, fungible source of liquidity like USDC.Before Noble, assets were often bridged in fragmented ways, creating poor user experiences. Noble was designed as a simple, secure, and neutral "asset issuance hub," a purpose-built chain for natively issuing assets and distributing them throughout the Cosmos network via IBC.Jelena emphasizes that Noble is intentionally "boring," with a minimal feature set to reduce the attack surface. It operates with a proof-of-authority consensus model to meet the compliance needs of asset issuers like Circle. Jelena also discusses the importance of CCTP for moving USDC between Cosmos and other ecosystems, with Noble as the

In this episode, Sebastien Couture is joined by Benjamin, the founder of CAP, a stablecoin protocol designed to provide insured yield. The protocol features two main products: CUSD, a digital dollar, and stCUSD, its staked, yield-bearing version. Yield is generated through an "allocation engine" where third-party operators borrow from the protocol's reserve to execute yield strategies. To ensure user deposits, these operators must be vouched for by restakers on protocols like Symbiotic. If an operator defaults, the restakers who vouched for them are slashed, protecting the stablecoin holders' funds. This model shifts risk from the end-user to the restakers, who have a bilateral relationship with the operators they underwrite, often backed by legal agreements.Topics covered in this episode:Benjamin's background and perspective on ChinaJourney into crypto and stablecoinsHot Take: Stablecoins are not as safe as you thinkThe evolution of stablecoin modelsHas DeFi forgotten about decentraliza

TradFi FX markets are slow, expensive and often lack liquidity for direct swaps between different world currencies, having to route through USD pairs. While crypto could technically solve pairing through AMM pools, those needed to be arbitraged in order to reflect TradFi rates. With 15 fully-backed stablecoins, Mento is building the largest FX infrastructure, bringing world currencies onchain through its robust multi-currency stablecoin platform. In order to provide traders with accurate real-word FX rates, Mento employs FPMM (fixed-price market makers) which gather offchain data from multiple oracles. Instant settlement, cross-border, at a fraction of a cost of conventional remittance providers, while also avoiding traditional banking limitations.Backed by strong on- & off-ramp integrations, Mento also caters towards day-to-day use cases, empowering locals and businesses to diversify their FX exposure without the hurdles of TradFi. Mento enables smooth cross-currency transactions without traditional bank

Without a doubt, the introduction of stablecoins has vastly increased overall crypto liquidity, adoption and real-world use cases as they offered a safe haven against the industry’s volatility, especially during bearmarkets. However, despite being extremely efficient, the main stablecoin actors (i.e. Circle & Tether) are centralised entities. Many attempts have been made to create a reliable decentralised stablecoin, but regulations and the resounding collapse of Terra’s UST have only pushed towards more established, yet centralised, variants.f(x) is a new generation CDP (collateralised debt position) protocol that offers on-chain perpetual trading for BTC & ETH with near-0 funding rates and a novel liquidation mechanism which protects users against hard liquidations. The leverage component is powered by emitting fxUSD, the protocol’s decentralised stablecoin, which boasts robust peg-keeping mechanisms, the main one being fxSAVE’s stability pool. The fxSAVE strategy bestows nearly 10% APY to the yield

Euler is a DeFi lending protocol built around the idea of permissionless modularity, enabling users to lend and borrow almost any crypto asset with flexible, permissionless pools, tailored to individual risk profiles. Moreover, Euler Vault Kit (EVK) and Ethereum Vault Connector (EVC) enable the creation of custom lending vaults which, in turn, can be used as collateral for other vaults. Earlier this year Euler also announced EulerSwap, a new DEX with a built-in AMM powered by Euler’s lending infrastructure and integrated with Uniswap v4’s hook architecture. EulerSwap integrates directly with Euler’s lending vaults, allowing assets to be used across multiple pools. This turns the lending protocol into a shared liquidity layer, improving capital efficiency across the ecosystem via swaps, lending yield or collateral for borrowing other assets.Topics covered in this episode:Michael’s backgroundThe history & vision behind EulerThe Euler hackEuler V2Euler vs. other lending protocolsDiversifying offeringsVariabl

Blockchains operate as a public ledger, ‘disclosing’ the entire transaction history and associated data to everyone. While verifiability and traceability are key traits, as blockchains gain global adoption, those very features hinder the process. Self custody, on-chain identities, corporate strategies, transaction history, private deals, all represent highly sensitive information that call for provable confidentiality. Fully homomorphic encryption has long been considered the ‘holy grail’ of cryptography as it enables computation to be performed on encrypted data without the need of prior decryption. This basically translates to true end-to-end encryption, both on-chain and off-chain. As cryptographic research advances, so does the scalability and applicability of FHE. As a result of more than 5 years of work, Zama has now released Zama Protocol, which enables confidential smart contracts on top of any L1 or L2 using FHE, without any additional execution burden. By encrypting all ciphertexts with the same pub

Built primarily for institutional-grade clients,  Pareto delivers customizable on-chain credit markets designed to expand DeFi liquidity and TradFi tokenization through structured yield strategies tailored to diverse risk profiles. Pareto allows its users to construct individualized credit lines in specific risk-ajusted tranches, with custom: interest rates, lockup periods, withdrawal cycles, reserve ratios, etc. In addition, Pareto’s USP is an yield-bearing synthetic stablecoin, fully backed by major stablecoins, that can be deployed into a diversified portfolio of liquid, short- and long-term credit, thus increasing capital efficiency.Topics covered in this episode:Matteo’s backgroundIdle Finance yield optimizationPivoting to ParetoInstitutional borrowers in early DeFiCompetitive advantage of ParetoOutsourcing underwritingManaging defaultsCustomized lendingKYC requirementsTimeline terms ‘marketplace’USP, Pareto’s synthetic yield-bearing dollarLegal framework & credit allocatorsUSP yield, liquidity &

In an age when AI models are becoming exponentially more sophisticated and powerful, how does one ensure that proper results are being generated and that the AI model functions in desired parameters? This pressing concern of AI alignment could be solved through cryptographic verification, using zero knowledge proofs. ZKPs not only allow for verifying computation at scale, but they also confer data privacy. Lagrange’s DeepProve zkML is the fastest in existence, making it easy to prove that AI inferences are correct, scaling verifiable computation as the demand for AI grows.Topics covered in this episode:Ismael’s background and founding LagrangeAI x crypto convergenceZKML use casesAI inference verifiabilityAI safety regulationsRevenue accruing tokensPitching Lagrange to enterprise clientsAssembling a dedicated teamCryptography researchEpisode links:Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh on XLagrange on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the lau

Inspired by Urbit’s minimal assembly language, Nockchain fuses Urbit’s vision of sovereign computing with a novel proof-of-useful-work consensus mechanism, creating a blockchain where every computation fuels progress and scaling. The crypto-economics behind Nockchain’s zkVM incentivise competition between zero knowledge provers, ultimately bootstrapping ZKPs as a new computational commodity.Topics covered in this episode:Logan’s backgroundUrbit’s valuesNock, Urbit's minimal assembly language Use cases for zk proofsNockchain’s zkVM efficiencyUseful proof-of-workLaunching NockchainFuture roadmap for NockchainBuilding apps on NockchainStore of value vs. revenue generationThe impact of quantum computingEpisode links:Logan Allen on XZorp on XNockchain on XUrbit on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds 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 - gnosis.ioChorus One: one of the largest

Universal Market Access (UMA) was founded by 2 ex Goldman Sachs traders that wanted to make global markets universally accessible through financial smart contracts that used synthetic assets on Ethereum. However, this was taking place long before the massive boom of DeFi summer of 2020. As a result, UMA shifted to building an optimistic oracle to power prediction markets as a decentralised ‘truth machine’, thus expanding oracle use cases. Through game theoretic models, UMA managed to properly incentivise its token holders to act as voters, rewarding them for good predictions & disputes, and vice versa. Later on, Hart Lambur also co-founded Across, an intent-based optimistic bridge that set out to create a seamless UX for unifying EVM chains. Through their solver network, Across managed to achieve fast (as low as 2 seconds) and cheap bridging, abstracting away crosschain complexities, without any security tradeoffs.Topics covered in this episode:Hart’s backgroundUniversal Market Access, from synthetic asse

Founded in 2018, Dragonfly has quickly become one of the most prestigious crypto VCs. Dragonfly was one of the first to adopt a global approach to backing founders and disruptive tech, all while building a strong brand that allowed them to secure top-tier deals. Join us for a fascinating discussion with Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, to learn the secrets behind running a top-tier crypto VC and what made Dragonfly succeed where others have failed.Topics covered in this episode:Haseeb’s background, from poker to cryptoEffective altruismCrypto investmentDeveloping judgementThe vision behind DragonflyConsensus vs. non-consensus dealsKPIsPeople, Product & MarketsThoughts on the current crypto marketThe evolution of crypto VCsAdvice for crypto foundersThe importance of disciplineIs the golden era of crypto investing sunsetting?Episode links:Haseeb Qureshi on XDragonfly on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the laun