Base Layer Episode 059 - Akin Sawyerr (Decred)

08/15/19 • 34 min

Akin from Decred joins us on Base Layer for a great overview of the project. Decred forked from the Bitcoin codebase when a proposal for new suite of features to be added to Bitcoin from Company 0 was rejected by the Bitcoin core team. Named btcsuite, these features became the core of the Decred project. Decred’s governance and consensus mechanism relies on a PoW/Proof-of-Stake (PoS) hybrid, which the project regards as a sort of “second authentication factor for consensus” by enabling coin holders to curb potential miner centralization, Decred employs a governance body called the Politeia to guide the project’s direction and fund operations from its treasury. We learn all about their special governance mechanisms and why people are talking about Decred.

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Base Layer Episode 058 - Mike Belshe (BitGo)

Mike Belshe, the CEO and co-founder of BitGo, joins us for the next episode of Base Layer. BitGo, is one of the market leaders in institutional-grade cryptocurrency investment services. Mike is the driving force behind BitGo’s product and business strategy for delivering security, compliance, and custodial solutions for blockchain-based currencies. Prior to founding BitGo, Mike was one of the first engineers dedicated to building Chrome at Google. He is creator of the SPDY protocol and lead author of HTTP/2.0, the internet protocol responsible for loading web pages today. In 2003, Mike co-founded Lookout Software, an email search company acquired by Microsoft, and has held management positions at several startups including Netscape, Good Technology, and Critical Path. Mike and I talk the current state of custody and what the future has for it, insurance and custody and much more.

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Base Layer Episode 060 - Roneil Rumburg (Audius)

Roneil from Audius joins us on Base Layer for episode 60 and it's really a fun one! Aside from an exceptional career that has had stops at places like Kleiner and being early to the blockchain party, Roneil and team are focusing on a use case of blockchains - getting people who create content paid and removing a lot of excesses paid to the "middleman". We discuss how Audius is doing that for content creators and the technology stack involved in decentralizing what has been a legacy centralized system.