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

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

‘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 aims to become the infrastructure layer for AI apps and the agentic economy. In order to achieve this, scaling was paramount, thus Near is one of the first blockchains to implement execution layer sharding, asynchronous execution and stateless validation, which brought the finality time down to 1.2 seconds, with a block time of 0.6 seconds.Topics covered in this episode:Bowen’s backgroundNear’s pivot from AI to blockchainsThe role of Near OneNear’s tech stack upgradesOptimizing network architectureStateless validation & block pr

The tradition of Epicenter x Vitalik Buterin continued this year as well at EthCC[8], where we got the chance of picking his brain about recent research, interests and Ethereum Foundation’s direction going forward. Join us for a fascinating discussion on biotech and how Vitalik’s Shiba ended up funding it, the utility of blockchains in nowadays society and Vitalik’s view on the Ethereum ecosystem and the Foundation’s response to community requests.Topics covered in this episode:Vitalik’s current interestsHow Shiba Inu funded biotech researchThe Merge and its impactVitalik’s motivation and view on blockchain utilityEthereum Foundation’s changesIs supporting ETH price important for EF?Are L2s incentively aligned with Ethereum L1?Native L2sThe risk of quantum computersEpisode links:Vitalik Buterin on XEthereum on XEthereum Foundation on XEthCC 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 Decentr

Stripe has established itself as a leading payment solution for both enterprises as well as startups and individual sellers. By abstracting away all the complexities of traditional payment rails through simple plug-and-play APIs, Stripe created a facile route for cross-border payments, simplifying e-commerce. Similarly, Stripe’s recent integration of stablecoins could further bolster the adoption of decentralised payment solutions, be them USD or other currency proxies. This allows businesses to reach more markets, at a lower cost, with near-instantaneous settlement.Topics covered in this episode:John’s backgroundStripe’s missionHow Stripe solves the complexity of internet paymentsIntegrating crypto for paymentsSupported blockchainsStripe’s Web3 servicesUpsides of accepting stablecoin paymentsNon-USD stablecoinsMerchant UXExpanding crypto support outside the U.S.On- and off-rampingAcquiring Bridge and PrivyThe best of both worlds: CeFi & DeFiEpisode links:John Egan on XStripe on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis b

While L2 rollups did help scale Ethereum, they also created siloed ecosystems, all fighting over the same liquidity, users and devs. t1 Protocol is building layer-2 infrastructure to achieve seamless cross-rollup interoperability through real-time proving, powered by TEEs. t1's low-latency with 1-second block times provides faster preconfirmations, significantly improving UX, all while maintaining full Ethereum composability.Topics covered in this episode:Can’s backgroundWhy Enigma/Secret Network built on CosmosSolving Ethereum’s liquidity fragmentationt1’s rollup & real-time proving in TEEsSequencer setup inside the TEEDealing with other rollup trust assumptionsIntegrating new L2sPermissionless TEEsPotential attack vectorsTEE alternativesAsset issuance on mainnet vs. L2st1 developmentPartnerships & BDSolana vs. Ethereum UXTEE misconceptionsEpisode links:Can Kisagun on Xt1 Protocol on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks t

As the summer tour of European crypto conferences landed in Berlin, one of crypto’s cradles, we couldn’t miss DappCon 25, where we got to sit with Jerome de Tychey, Nixorokish & Joshua Dávila to discuss Ethereum’s restructure and whether its culture is still relevant to the wider crypto community. Join us for a fascinating discussion on the impact of crypto politicization and how Ethereum’s ecosystem evolved amidst a society with ever-changing values.Topics covered in this episode:Jerome, Nixorokish & Josh backgroundsEthereum Foundation restructuringEthereum’s culture & crypto politicizationDAOs & the evolution of Ethereum’s ecosystemIs privacy still a societal value?User experience & account abstractionFuture hopes for EthereumEpisode links:Jerome de Tychey on XNixorokish on XJoshua Davila on XDappCon 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 Netw

Bitcoin remains an untapped source of net-new liquidity that could be injected into DeFi. This would completely reshape Bitcoin’s utilization from a mere store of value to a liquid asset that can be ported cross-chain and traded like a liquid staking derivative. Lombard’s LBTC builds upon Babylon’s Bitcoin staking primitive and aims to unlock new yield sources for the industry’s leading asset by increasing its DeFi utilization.Topics covered in this episode:Jacob’s backgroundLessons gathered from PolychainFocusing on BitcoinWhy Bitcoin staking is crucial for BTC DeFiBuilding on top of BabylonLBTC mintingSources of BTC yieldPoS inflation and native token incentivesBTC as a trading pair in DeFiLombard chainFuture challenges to overcomeBitcoin L2sLombard milestonesEpisode links:Jacob Phillips on XLombard on XBabylon 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

Apart from incentivising market participants to secure the network through inflationary rewards, many consider staking as an equivalent of stock dividend yield. As a result, although Bitcoin is regarded as digital gold, protocols are looking for ways to increase its utilisation in DeFi and, ultimately, generate yield. Nowadays, while newer networks are struggling to attract investors and sustain a healthy, decentralised validator set, more established blockchains capture the lion’s share of PoS actors. However, in a constant race for profit basis points, centralised consolidation of stakers seems inevitable. Join us for a fascinating discussion on the staking landscape and the challenges it may present to decentralisation.Topics covered in this episode:Increasing BTC utilization through BTC yieldLooping yield productsThe maturation of the staking marketChorus One staking portfolioHow to prevent staking consolidationRetail vs. institutional-grade operatorsSymbiotic, Eigenlayer & restaking yieldEpisode link

After a decade of existence, Ethereum has gone a long way from its initial whitepaper, yet many efforts in scaling and finding product-market-fit have been severely criticized for falling short of their promise. However, despite numerous other ‘Ethereum killers’ being launched over the years, none has managed to attract so many developers and liquidity while sticking true to ethos that (once) powered and united this industry. This year’s ETHPrague plans to confront exactly these existential challenges and steward community culture towards addressing outside criticism and external reality checks. Ethereum’s development, while adapting to market pressures, it always aimed to stick true to its core values in order to remain a technological bedrock for the future of humanity.Topics covered in this episode:The vision for ETH PragueTakeaways from main sessionsHigh-level overview of ETH PragueThe resurgence of PolkadotEuropean crypto summer eventsThe general state of the Ethereum ecosystemCelo’s transition to L2L2 l

We couldn’t miss the Avalanche Summit where we sat down with Emin Gün Sirer, co-founder & CEO of Ava Labs, to discuss the evolution of Avalanche’s ecosystem and how HyperSDK ushers in a scalable, interoperable, multi-chain future. Join us for a fascinating discussion on Avalanche’s approach to decentralisation, scalability & interoperability, and learn why real-world applicability relies heavily on bespoke blockchain solutions.Topics covered in this episode:Gün x Epicenter bromanceHow the Avalanche ecosystem & community evolvedThe future vision for AvalancheScaling Avalanche and the HyperSDKInteroperability and the multi-chain futureDecentralising Avalanche L1sUse cases and institutional adoptionOn-chain privacyAvaCloudThe impact of AI in cryptoGün’s focus in the near futureEpisode links:Emin Gun Sirer on XAvalanche on XAva Labs 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 Decentr

Blockchain architecture is constantly being forced to adapt to new technologies, as well as to meet new demands from users and builders. While the idea of apps building their own chains was first explored by Cosmos, it lacked the support and tooling to see it succeed. Later on, rollups also took the centerstage of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, but due to their general purpose design, it led to a cannibalistic ecosystem. Initia learned from these 2 models and combined the best of both worlds: it built a full-stack framework for a seamless DevEx from the get-go and, more importantly, it designed its tokenomics in order to ensure maximum incentive alignment for its appchains. While the former decision removed the need for each separate chain to reinvent the wheel and risk ending up ‘a jack of all trades, master of none’, the latter ensured that appchains would not extract value away from the L1.Topics covered in this episode:Ezaan’s backgroundFrom building on Terra to InitiaHow Initia is rewriting the appchain the