Support the show, consider donating: 1JUBPSscvZzTEoraGbPkMJeeYUgeWCmuww (http://bit.ly/2eBzrRb) As content becomes more and more abundant and immediately available at our fingertips, our limited attention is a barrier for those whose business it is to attract and harness it. In this context, large (social) media companies understand that attention is a scarce commodity, and, as has been demonstrated, those who control attention wield enormous power over our society. We're joined by Greg Meredith, CTO of Synereo, to talk about how this new Blockchain platform rebuild the attention economy. In a sense, Synereo is to attention, what Bitcoin is to money, in effect, removing intermediaries from the transaction between those who have attention, and those who wish to attract it. Greg, also gives his insights on how functional programming languages could allow for verifiable computational smart contracts. Topics discussed in this episode: - Greg's background as a mathematician and his work on Microsoft's BizTalk Process Orchestration - How he transitioned into the crypto-currency space - What is Synereo and what the project is trying to achieve - Greg's thoughts on the attention economy and how it is fundamentally broken - Synereo's technology stack - How Vlad Zamfir's Casper consensus algorithm influenced Synereo - Rholang, Synereo's functional smart-contracting language - Synereo's economic model and product roadmap Links mentioned in this episode: - Synereo: https://synereo.com - Synereo White Paper: https://github.com/synereo/synereo.github.io/raw/master/whitepapers/synereo.pdf - Logic as a distributive law: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.02247v2.pdf - Quit social media by Dr. Cal Newport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E7hkPZ-HTk - Deep Work by Dr. Cal Newport: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692 Sponsors: - Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER at http://ledgerwallet.com - Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices http://jaxx.io Show notes: http://epicenter.tv/154 YouTube: http://youtu.be/0jRNSEt-D9A SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-154 Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

Support the show, consider donating: 19BvZNBbbSbXXnE2WwWyWp44Zd2yCyCXkr (http://bit.ly/1pKWYkJ) In the short history of the Bitcoin industry, there has been an impressive amount of high profile hacks, ranging from a few hundred thousand to many millions of dollars. In all of these, customers, Bitcoin users, where robbed of their funds because poor security policies, negligence, incompetence, or plain old scamming. Recently, the cryptocurrency conversion service ShapeShift fell victim to a hack in which over $200,000 of company funds were stolen, initially by an employee, and then by a hacker to whom this employee had sold sensitive company information. Luckily, no customers lost any money as ShapeShift does not hold any funds on behalf of users. We talked to ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees who walks us through this captivating ordeal, which sounds like it could be the plot of a movie. He speaks about how the company is trying to recover and what he has learned from this unfortunate event. Topics we discussed on this episode: - How the ShapeShift hack went down - What steps the company has taken to avoid this from happening again - What he learned from the hack - ShapeShift's long-term vision as a company and product - Ethereum's role in their recent growth - His history as an entrepreneur in the Bitcoin space - His views on libertarianism and the long-term impact of Bitcoin on that movement Links mentioned in this episode: - Looting of the Fox: The Story of Sabotage at ShapeShift: https://news.bitcoin.com/looting-fox-sabotage-shapeshift/ - Bitcoin.com podcast - Details of the Shapeshift.io Hack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mYfmj0hY0U - The Slaying of Bearwhale: https://shapeshift.io/bearwhale.html - Erik's Blog: http://moneyandstate.com/ Sponsors: - Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/130 SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-130 Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy. - Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com - Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter - Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

Support the show, consider donating: 1GQWvzN8pDZFugnryQnnanAVBgtpUmbCXu (http://bit.ly/1We4Nbg) Among the dividing themes in the Bitcoin space is the idea of public versus private blockchains. While some argue that private and permissioned blockchains can offer better scalability and lower latency for enterprises, others insist the Bitcoin blockchain will offer the best level of security and robustness longterm. Recently, projects have emerged that propose the best of both worlds by leveraging both off-chain and on-chain transactions. This is the idea behind Openchain, an “open source distributed ledger technology, suited for organizations wishing to issue and manage digital assets in a robust, secure and scalable way.” Openchain uses a client-server model where there is only one authoritative validating node. Read-only observer nodes keep the central node honest by auditing transactions in real time. About every 10 minutes, a copy of the Ledger, and its transactions, is hashed and inserted into a Bitcoin transaction so that it can be fossilised in the blockchain. We’re joined by Flavien Charlon, the one-man operation behind Predictious, Coinprism, the Open Transactions Protocol and now Openchain. We talk about this fascinating new software, which aims to offer enterprises a digital ledger protocol that is highly scalable while enjoying the benefits of the Bitcoin blockchain for immutability. Topics discussed in this episode: - Flavien gives an update on Coinprism and his other projects - The Openchain protocol and what it’s trying to achieve - The technical architecture of Openchain and the client-server model it implements - How Openchain uses the Bitcoin blockchain to “anchor” transactions into every block - Openchain’s consensus model - The ability for Openchain to interoperate with other ledgers and blockchains - Flavien’s thoughts on what the ecosystem might look like in 10 years Links mentioned in this episode: - Openchain: http://openchain.org - Openchain Docs: http://docs.openchain.org Sponsors: - Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly at http://ShapeShift.io - Ledger Nano: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EB09 at http://ledgerwallet.com (valid until 09/30/15) - Hide.me: Protect your privacy and personal data with a free VPN account at Hide.me/epicenter Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/102 SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-102 Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture. - Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com - Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter - Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc

At the Ethereum Devcon, I was impressed by the sheer power of the Ethereum smart contract system. I caught up with Joseph Chow who is developing BTC relay, a set of smart contracts on Ethereum that can verify Bitcoin transactions. BTC relay probably makes Ethereum the first Bitcoin sidechain as it allows the Ethereum blockchain to become an SPV client of the Bitcoin network. Just as your mobile wallet can verify bitcoin transactions without downloading the full blockchain, BTC relay can also perform similar verifications. Topics covered include: What is BTC relay? What are the expected costs of verifying a bitcoin transaction on the Ethereum network? What kind of applications can BTC relay enable? Check it out! Links: BTC relay slides for Ethereum Devcon: https://devcon.ethereum.org/slides/btcrelay_chow.pdf BTC relay GitHub page: https://github.com/ethereum/btcrelay/ - Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com - Subscribe to the podcast: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/ - Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc