Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies - Peter Van Valkenburgh: Towards Sound Bitcoin Policy

Peter Van Valkenburgh: Towards Sound Bitcoin Policy

05/09/17 • 70 min

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

Coin Center is a non-profit in Washington DC that focuses on research and advocacy issues facing public blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Their aim is to protect users and foster innovation through achieving sound policies and regulations.

Director of Research Peter Van Valkenburgh joined us to discuss the work of the center and the most pressing regulatory issues facing the industry today.

Topics covered in this episode:

The origins and objectives of Coin Center
How to judge the success of Coin Center
Why Peter is more bullish on permissionless than permissioned blockchains
The three areas of blockchain regulation: Consumer protection, anti money laundering and securities
His view about ICOs
Why people should pay attention to money transmission regulations

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/182

Director of Research Peter Van Valkenburgh joined us to discuss the work of the center and the most pressing regulatory issues facing the industry today.

Topics covered in this episode:

The origins and objectives of Coin Center
How to judge the success of Coin Center
Why Peter is more bullish on permissionless than permissioned blockchains
The three areas of blockchain regulation: Consumer protection, anti money laundering and securities
His view about ICOs
Why people should pay attention to money transmission regulations

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/182

Previous Episode

Carl Bennetts & Jarrad Hope: Status – The Mobile Ethereum Client

The road to mainstream adoption of blockchain technologies is a long one. Although the user experience of wallets has greatly improved since the dark days of command-line only interfaces, decentralized applications continue to struggle with onboarding non-technical users.

Jarrad Hope and Carl Bennetts, join us to discuss Status, a mobile Ethereum client which aims to turn the standard wallet experience on its head. At its core, Status is a mobile instant messenger client that leverages the Whisper protocol for secure peer-to-peer communication. Through its familiar messaging interface and elegant design, users can chat and send Ether directly in the app. As the first implementation of Ethereum’s Light Client Protocol, users may also use decentralized applications such as uPort, Gnosis and Aragon on their mobile phones. Built as an open source project, Status’ developer platform also allows developers to easily port their Dapps to the app.

Topics covered in this episode:

Jarrad and Carl’s background and journey to the Ethereum space
Status’ vision for a friendly, mobile Dapp client
Status’ technical architecture
How Status leverages Ethereum’s Light Client and Whisper protocols
The Status user experience and feature set
Jarrad and Carl’s views on privacy and how Status fulfils their goal of privacy by default
The long term vision for a Status Network
The project’s roadmap and business model

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/181

Next Episode

Alex Van de Sande & Nick Johnson: ENS – A Global Naming System for Ethereum

Naming systems are an important component of any networked information system. It’s difficult to imagine how the Internet could have been adopted by the masses had it not been for the Domain Name System, which translates machine-readable IP addresses into human-readable domain names. Blockchains, with their long and complex address formats, suffer from a similar problem. One might think a solution would be to apply the same naming system architecture we have for the public Internet to public blockchains. But DNS, in the eyes of many, is a largely flawed system. Centrally controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet domain names are vulnerable to censorship and barriers to entry are kept artificially high – registering a new Top Level Domain (ex: .epicenter) costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We’re joined by Alex Van de Sande and Nick Johnson to discuss their approach to creating an open, secure and decentralized naming system for the Ethereum Network. The Ethereum Naming System (ENS) allows users to register .eth domain names, which can be used in supporting Ethereum wallets and clients. Names are reserved by placing a deposit in a smart contract and can be mapped to any Ethereum addresses. So rather than sending funds to 0x8cd...0935, one would simply need to type a memorable name like epicenter.eth into their wallet. Backed by the Ethereum Foundation, ENS will likely become the defacto standard for name registration in Ethereum.

Topics covered in this episode:

Alex and Nick’s respective backgrounds and roles in the Ethereum Foundation
How the Internet’s Domain Name System works
The problems and pain points with DNS and how it is governed today
What is ENS and what problems it is addressing
The ENS auction system and how names are registered
The different parties involved in ENS
ENS’s technical architecture and governing smart contract
The current governance model of ENS and future plans for increased decentralization of governance
ENS’s economic model and technical roadmap

Episode links:

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/183