The Third Web

Welcome to the Third Web. A podcast about the technologies powering the next generation of human civilisation. I’m your host, Arthur Falls. This podcast is targeted at industry observers looking for a technical examination of issues on the frontier of what has become known as the blockchain space. However, for those less versed in the field, supplementary content will be published in anticipation of each episode. Failing that, I’ll add links in the notes to help along the casual listener. Blockchain technology, and specifically, the idea of a value-transport enabled internet is no longer new. Looking at the recent history of the space, we see a hockey stick of innovation and investment. In 2014, just as the first ICO boom launched, I began producing my first podcast, Beyond Bitcoin. It explored the explosion of new blockchain platforms and other innovations in the space. As exciting as this technology was, common problems existed across all platforms: scaling to support broad adoption, and providing a service the mainstream market would accept. After speaking with Meher Roy and Tim Swanson about these problems in early 2015, the line of questioning that inspired me to create Beyond Bitcoin came to an end. In that final episode, we settled on a view of the future in which a network of blockchains secured by permissioned validators would enable global value transfer. This made more sense than a future based on permissionless blockchain networks and all the challenges that came with them. Then came Ethereum. Infinite functionality paired with an aggressive scaling roadmap reopened the question of what might come next, this time examined in a new podcast, The Ether Review. Two years on, having been immersed in the world of Ethereum, interviewed hundreds of people for podcasts, articles and videos and worked for the largest blockchain centric company in the world - ConsenSys, a disturbing reality has become apparent. We have not moved on from the paradigm of 2014, and the Ethereum scaling roadmap will not provide the performance new use cases need to emerge. In future episodes of The Third Web, we will examine blockchain scaling, and ask the questions: What are the design trends bringing greater transaction supply to the market? What new business models will this enable? What new services can we expect to see, and what products will be built using those services? What will the Third Web really look like? Meher Roy was a virologist working in the vaccines industry when we first spoke in 2014. Today he is focussed full time on the blockchain space and hosts the excellent Epicenter podcast. Tim Swanson was director of market research at R3 for two years and has recently founded his own research company, Post Oak Labs Today we’re wrapping up The Ether Review and kicking off The Third Web. Some of the remarks I make in this episode are overstated and under qualified. Please feel free to critique anything views you disagree with in the comments and if there is sufficient intelligent controversy I’ll revisit the subjects in question in subsequent episodes. That was it! The first episode of The Third Web! A big thanks to Breakmaster Cylinder for the tunes. No social, email, or web accounts just yet but you can reach me on twitter @arthurfalls. Of course you should subscribe on itunes or your favorite podcast manager. this feed will probably still be called The Ether Review but it will update in time. http://www.ofnumbers.com https://www.validitylabs.org https://twitter.com/MeherRoy https://twitter.com/ofnumbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala https://propsproject.com https://soundcloud.com/arthurfalls/beyond-bitcoin-7-trivial-issuance-of-a-useful-asset

The founders of Attores, Gorang Torvekar and David Moskowitz discuss their notion of “smart contracts as a service”. The platform is currently being piloted by nanyang polytechnic in Singapore as a digital diploma registry. This is being extended into a full professional network platform called Indorse, which ran an ICO earlier this year. In addition to the above we discuss the birth of the Ethereum Kovan testnet, which has it’s origins in a pub, just outside the Attores/Ethereum Foundation/Digix co-working space in Singapore. http://www.attores.com/ etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Current solutions for decentralized data processing like Golem or Truebit provide part of a data services solution. Storj, Filecoin, Sia, and others offer storage solutions. Streamer tokenizes the value in streams of Data. Using the same interface for both data delivery and payment, Streamr hopes to create a two sided market for data. This rounds out the basic data services portfolio, operating synergistically with existing projects. CEO Henri Pihkala and COO Risto Karjalainen explain. etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Element Group is a full service investment bank for the crypto-token markets. Stan Miroshnik has a background in traditional finance. After watching the crypto-markets form, Stan and his colleagues began working to understand these new markets and build a traditional finance business to serve the space. We discuss the maturity of the companies using the token launch fundraising mechanism, and those investing in the tokens. Stan sees an emerging market with strong similarities to traditional capital markets and opportunities for institutions used to investing there. The entry of organizations like Element Group into the crypto-asset space indicates the fulfillment of the prophetic prediction of a super fluid economy Joe Lubin expounded in an episode of Beyond Bitcoin three years ago. It is also a harbinger of a stable paradigm for Ethereum: Capital markets 2.0 etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Today we hear from Ted Livingston, who founded Kik interactive in 2009 to address the problem of chat between blackberry, android and iPhone. Since then their chat app, Kik, has exploded in popularity, experiencing use by up to 40% of US teenagers. In 2015 Tencent, the builder of Chinese chat giant Wechat, purchased a 5% stake in the company at a Billion dollar valuation. A move that some are saying has anointed Kik as the Wechat of the west. It’s interesting to see the youth focus with One Direction leading their award winning marketing campaign of 2014 . Kik is a somewhat anonymous platform, with it’s own economy in which stickers are traded and users can be charged for access to certain chat rooms. By launching the Kik in-app currency, Kin, as a cryptocurrency, Kik interactive aims to enable the Kik micro-economy to grow independently and organically. The Token launch ended recently with nearly one hundred million USD equivalent raised. No surprises there. What is interesting is that registered contributors numbered over 10,000 and resided in over 100 countries, indicating that the currency is indeed broadly distributed compared to other tokens. Though, my guess is it’s concentrated in the hands of speculators, rather than the 15 million community participants. This episode was recorded over two months ago so it’s interesting to look back from the other side of the Token Launch and see Ted’s claims of broad distribution validated. kin.kik.com consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Between re-constructing TheDAO and building his own governance platform Governex (once Boardroom), ConsenSys developer Nick Dodson is building a portfolio of powerful Ethereum based tools. Disappointingly, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance instantiation of Governx is not up for discussion. However, we do dig into the abstract structure of governance tools, data-driven design, the flaws of The DAO, and what can be salvaged from that project. Ares DAO is a joint project between Nick and shadowy Ethereum community member Dino Mark. By applying the research conducted during the development of Governex, and lessons learned from watching DAOs in the wild, the two man team has repaired and refactored TheDAO. In doing so curators have been removed, direct democracy has been implemented, and the proposal deposit has been raised significantly. The team plan to launch a charity DAO to test the Ares DAO’s functionality. We also chat about the demise of the nation state and the role of tribalism in the evolution of blockchain governance. consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In today's long overdue, landmark episode we are joined by an international panel of leaders in fin-tech and blockchain law: Claire Wivell, Hannah Glass (Australia), Alex Simms (New Zealand), Peter van Valkenburgh (USA), and James Duchenne (USA/Mauritius) The theme for the discussion was regulatory sandboxes — frameworks for enabling businesses to operate in a deregulated environment. The goal is to allow legislative bodies to develop an understanding of new businesses before regulating them. We have seen a successful example in the United Kingdom, but Australia’s efforts to replicate this have not been so successful. Claire Wivell explains why. We follow this with a discussion of the unique environments of Australia, Mauritius, Singapore and Dubai. New Zealand unfortunately is not so interesting at this stage (both Alex Simms and myself have independently been involved in some interesting conversations since this episode was recorded so watch this space). We conclude that a US regulatory sandbox is impossible due to the interaction of federal and state legislation and the complexity of their enforcement agencies. However, there is hope if a bright line can be defined between the regulation of custodial and non-custodial businesses consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Lee Weiss of the US law firm BernsWeiss discusses the Coinbase/IRS dispute. The dispute began in November 2016, when the IRS summoned Coinbase to hand over data about all users who were active on the exchange from 2013 to 2015, with a view to investigating the tax compliance of individuals who have transacted in cryptocurrencies. On behalf of one or more anonymous Coinbase users, BernsWeiss took the issue to court and was recently granted permission to argue against the summons, which among other things demanded access to users’ public and private keys. If complied with, this would effectively give the IRS access to all customer funds, making it a clear and easy target for hackers. This is an unprecedented use of the John Doe summons procedure, which was intended for situations where the IRS has identified specific tax avoidance but can’t identify the specific parties who have engaged in that illicit conduct. If determined to be legal, this summons would set a precedent under which the IRS could demand the same from other exchanges. BernsWeiss intends to continue fighting this massive government overreach unless and until the IRS can identify a specific subset of taxpayers who it is reasonably certain are engaging in tax avoidance. After the hearing, the government removed the request for private keys, now only requiring public keys. The IRS also voluntarily narrowed the scope of the summons to only cover individuals who engaged in virtual currency transactions in excess of $20,000 in a given year. This figure is likely arbitrary, and suggests that the government is simply trying to gather as much information as possible rather than engaging in a specific investigation. This case illustrates the lack of understanding about these new financial instruments within government. With this summons, the IRS effectively places virtual currencies into the “inherently suspicious” tax avoidance category with things like large transactions, questionable tax shelters, and other mechanisms which are clearly designed to avoid taxes and typically don’t have a legitimate purpose - unlike cryptocurrencies. Berns Weiss LLP - www.law111.com twitter.com/BernsWeiss consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

David Bailey, CEO of BTC Media, discusses the recent shutdown of BTC-e and its mysterious connection to the MtGox hack which led to the exchange’s demise in 2014. He also introduces Po.et, a revolutionary proof-of-existence blockchain platform. The arrest of Alexander Vinnik and seizure of the BTC-e website by the FBI in late July shed some long-awaited light on the cold case of the 650,000 bitcoins which went missing from MtGox over several years from 2011 to 2013. Upon his arrest, WizSec released a comprehensive report detailing their findings on the matter, and stating that “Vinnik is [their] chief suspect for involvement in the MtGox theft (or the laundering of the proceeds thereof).” Bailey also talks about BTC Media’s partnership with Po.et, whose proof-of-existence mechanism uses hashing to allow media producers to timestamp and license their content in an unalterable system which will verify and automatically issue digital ownership. Po.et combines this timestamp with metadata about the published content to build an open ledger of media assets which includes information such as the original URL, the word count, the author’s name and the publisher. Po.et also enables split-equity and payments terms for writers whose work is published by BTC Media, as well as different licensing agreements. Other use cases include the re-monetization of old content and individual profile management systems for employees of media outlets. The Po.et platform will ultimately build a digital fingerprint of each author’s history and preserve their portfolio on a blockchain, revolutionizing the way in which digital content is published, leveraged and monetized. twitter.com/davidfbailey btcmedia.org twitter.com/_poetproject po.et consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2 Read more about the developing timeline of the MtGox and BTC-e connection (medium.com/@liesleichholz/mtgox-btc-e-and-the-missing-coins-a-living-timeline-of-the-greatest-cyber-crime-ever-f94fbb1eb42) & the lasting regulatory legacy of the hack (https://etherreview.info/mtgoxs-lasting-regulatory-legacy-a21960867600)

Luka Müller and Dianne Schepers of MME - the Swiss law firm famous for running the Ethereum crowdsale - discuss jurisdictional constraints, Crypto Valley, novel crypto-asset classes and the “second wave” of tokenization. With 25 previous “token generating events” and 60 pending projects, MME is a clear leader in the crypto law realm. The firm is now welcoming a “second wave” of clients; companies from the legacy economy which are seeking ways to enter the blockchain world through tokenizing their pre-existing equity. In this discussion Luka outlines some of the major distinctions between US and Swiss law in relation to token issuance, looking at securities law, donations, and the commonly used foundation model. These and other regulatory differences, compounded by the stable and already-decentralized nature of Swiss government, make Switzerland the ideal jurisdiction for Crypto Valley, the rapidly growing successor to Silicon Valley based in Zug, a financial center. Alongside its long list of clients, MME is now focussed on creating Blockchain Crypto Property (BCP) standards. The final BCP paper, to be published in August, will classify tokens under a range of asset classes and outline a quality checklist for various token models. These standards will simplify risk assessment and ensure that tokens issued in Switzerland will be globally listable and tradeable. mme.ch twitter.com/MME_Switzerland consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Juan Benet and Jesse Clayburgh of Protocol Labs, and Ryan Zurrer of Polychain Capital, discuss the Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT). Inspired by Y Combinator’s “Simple Agreement for Future Equity”, the SAFT standardizes the legal framework surrounding token issuance and governs the nature of the transactions involved (i.e. the deployment of capital and distribution of tokens). The complex legal environment surrounding tokens, especially in the US, has led many entrepreneurs to choose to leave Silicon Valley because they can develop the technology better elsewhere. Those who remain in the US have had to compromise on the optimization of their models in order to comply with legacy regulatory frameworks. Recognising these limitations, and seeking to mature the ecosystem beyond such models, several interested parties (including Protocol Labs, AngelList and CoinCenter) have worked together to create standard legal agreements for this novel asset class. Essentially, a SAFT represents a promise for future tokens at a fixed price. The agreement can be structured so that investors receive these tokens when the network launches, or with inbuilt vesting to incentivise continued support by investors. The development of the SAFT model involved consultations with the foremost legal experts at the intersection of cryptocurrencies, securities law and regulatory compliance. By simplifying token issuance and the requisite compliance concerns, it provides an essential bridging of the gap between current technological progress and future regulation. protocol.ai twitter.com/protocollabs twitter.com/juanbenet twitter.com/jesseclayburgh polychain.capital angel.co/polychain-capital twitter.com/ryanzurrer consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Juan Benet and Jesse Clayburgh of Protocol Labs, and Ryan Zurrer of Polychain Capital, discuss CoinList, a platform for token-backed networks to raise money through pre-launch token sales. While planning the Filecoin token sale, the team at Protocol Labs developed a method of accreditation for US investors in order to comply with securities law. Realising the importance of such a system for the whole ecosystem, they partnered with AngelList to develop this into a platform on which other projects can host their token pre-sales. The end result, CoinList, streamlines the complicated token launch process for developers and investors alike. By supporting a wide variety of sale mechanics, contracts, and pricing schemes within a standard set of requirements, the platform allows developers to focus on optimising their projects instead of spending time on convoluted compliance processes. Its focus on simplifying due diligence reduces complications for developers while “filtering out the signal from the noise”. With the ability to clear transactions simultaneously across fiat and cryptocurrencies, and the aim of hosting high-quality and high-integrity projects, CoinList opens up the token ecosystem to an influx of capital from a range of new investors. It gives these investors visibility into the progress of a sale, a clear quality checklist for each token, and a record of their previous investments and the requisite legal agreements. The significant institutional capital still pushing into the cryptocurrency space highlights the demand for such a versatile yet user-friendly platform at this time. With its solutions to regulatory uncertainty, costly compliance and the current knowledge barrier to investing, CoinList is well-placed to bring in the era of Web 3.0 coinlist.co twitter.com/coinlist angel.co twitter.com/angellist protocol.ai twitter.com/protocollabs twitter.com/juanbenet twitter.com/jesseclayburgh polychain.capital angel.co/polychain-capital twitter.com/ryanzurrer consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

David Sønstebø, co-founder of IOTA, discusses this next-generation post-blockchain platform designed to serve as the backbone for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). IOTA is a groundbreaking new open-source distributed ledger that does not use a blockchain. Its innovative new quantum-proof protocol, known as the Tangle, gives rise to unique new features like zero fees, infinite scalability, fast transactions, secure data transfer and many others. Because the Tangle uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) instead of a blockchain, users automatically act as validators, allowing transaction validation to become an intrinsic property of utilising the network. Each transaction requires the sender to verify two previous transactions, resulting in infinite scalability while avoiding the validation centralization that is common with existing consensus mechanisms. IOTA is also developing a novel standard for embedding minuscule ASIC chips in all IoT devices. These chips perform nominal proof-of-work hashes in order to prevent spam and Sybil attacks, and because the network is partition-tolerant and only eventually consistent, brute force hashing attacks are prevented. With a transaction volume limited only by the speed of light, IOTA is a promising new solution to the limitations presented by blockchains. iota.org twitter.com/iotatoken twitter.com/davidsonstebo consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2 IOTA white paper: iota.org/IOTA_Whitepaper.pdf Directed Acyclic Graph: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*F-rjJqQ1PyF8dOnjOaiLFg.png

Xander Dunn and Richard Craib discuss Numerai, a new kind of hedge fund built by a network of data scientists. The Numerai platform crowdsources machine learning by releasing encrypted data sets to data scientists, incentivising them to develop machine learning algorithms to analyse the data. Scientists then bid their predictions to the hedge fund by staking funds, and are paid returns in Numeraire, the platform’s native cryptocurrency, for correct predictions. By abstracting its financial data to be only machine-readable, Numerai ensures that human biases and overfitting are overcome, and that short-term and long-term returns are equally weighted. With the ultimate goal of “owning all of the money in the world”, the Numerai hedge fund has high hopes for the future. numer.ai etherreview.info twitter.com/xanderai twitter.com/richardcraib https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In today’s discussion we look at the legality of raising money through token launches, the potential risks involved, and approaches to improving the safety of these new bearer assets. We also examine the term ICO in depth and find that terminology, while relevant is second to the nature of the offer and state of the project involved. Following the discussion is an interview With Peter Van Valkenburg recorded at Devcon2, applying the Howey test to The DAO. weekinethereum.com etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

What?! Another Erik Voorhees podcast?!!! In this, the sixty seventh episode of The Ether Review, we set out to understand Prism, Shapeshift’s new non-custodial synthetic asset built on the Ethereum network. In reviewing this episode I feel I was unsuccessful in achieving this. However, the peripheral conversation about Erik’s view of the space is extremely enlightening, especially writ large in his positioning of Shapeshift. The Bitcoin scaling debate, the future of digital assets, the financial world’s response — it’s all here. Some of this interview was geared to fit Shapeshift’s messaging, not something you’ll hear on TER very often. None the less, it’s fun to hear such an astute thinker and communicator knock some soft ball questions out of the park. etherreview.info shapeshift.io https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees http://www.weekinethereum.com/ itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2 Letstalkbitcoin.com thebitcoinpodcast.com

After a stunning token launch Gnosis has become a classic example of the hope for greater and more powerful decentralized applications. Founder Martin Köppelmann walks us through the projects genesis, growth, and road to success itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ethe…id899090462?mt=2 https://twitter.com/koeppelmann

In Brief: A walkthrough of the pressing legal issues in blockchain today. Over the last few months a varying group of legal professionals from New Zealand, Australia, and the USA have been meeting to discuss current events, challenges, and peculiarities in the interaction between blockchain and law. As facilitator I suggested we might record the sessions. This is the first to be published. Attendees: Hannah Glass: Solicitor, King & Wood Mallesons Matt Corva: Law and Business, ConsenSys Alex Sims: Associate Professor, Head of Commercial Law, The University of Auckland Liesl Eichholz: Studying Master of Laws, University of Otago Arthur Falls: Host of The Ether Review, State Change, Director of Media, ConsenSys https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In Brief: Swarm City, once Arcade City, is one of the most ambitious, and controversial projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. Having shed their founder, the remaining team have made considerable development progress. More than just a would be ride sharing DApp, Swarm City aims to provide an exchange infrastructure for any two sided market. Swarm City Mayor Bernd Lapp and Architect Michael Thuy discuss the deeper intricacies of 2 sided market transactional infrastructure in a social setting. We also look at Swarm City’s stage of development and the rollout practices of the Swarm City team. Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In Brief: Tokenizing fiat currency in a way that is compatible with our existing financial infrastructure and legislation is no easy feat. The consequences however reach across the entirety of industry, the economy, and society. Nick Addison is the CTO of AgriDigital, an agricultural finance company first covered in episode 45 of TER. As part of his work at AgriDigital, Nick is researching ways to port the existing financial infrastructure into the blockchain age. It’s not easy, but as the inventory of tools grows, so do the number of possible solutions to the problems Nick has uncovered. In this episode we look at a prospective architecture for a Digital Australian Dollar (DAD), the problems with implementing that architecture and the consequences of making such a transition. It’s a great tour through the solution space of today. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Matt Hale of Divvi is the first speaker in the second half of the conversation we began last week. Divvi is a Sydney based decentralized energy market startup. The huge scale of residential solar deployment makes Australia a uniquely appropriate environment for this kind of solution. We also look at the challenges of breaking into the highly regulated and cartel run infrastructure space. Secondly Luke Anderson, describes the dilemma of selecting blockchain as an appropriate solution to a problem. The Sydney Ethereum community is huge, possibly the largest geographically concentrated group of Eth heads in the world. It’s a geographical location well worth paying attention to.

Last week I was honoured with the privilege of representing New Zealand at the inaugural ISO/TC-307 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies standards committee meeting. The event was hosted by the secretariat, Standards Australia. 18 nations attended. While at the meeting, blockchain legend Nick Addison wrangled together a who’s who of blockchain entrepreneurs for a round table discussion. We convened in the media room at the international convention center. The group grew piecemeal over the course of three hours during which we discussed everyone’s projects and the state of blockchain in Australia. The attendees were: Tim Bass of Block 8 Bok Khoo of the Internet, and Bok Consulting Sam Brooks CTO of Veredictum Russell Mclernon of Rexmls Luke Anderson of Sigma Prime Sergei Sergienko of Chronobank Matt Hale of Divvi I’ve split the conversation into two episodes so the next will be coming up soon. Before we get stuck in, I want to draw your attention to the Blockchain NZ conference and the Auckland and Wellington Blockchain Meetups. Things are gathering pace down here and with Vitalik soon to grace our shores with his presence, the whole country is abuzz. You can pick up conference tickets at a discount by following the link in this episode's notes at etherreview.info. I’ll be there and everyone will be invited to my place for a barbecue in the days following. So let’s hear from they guys in Sydney. First up we have Tim Bass, on joint real estate investing, then Bok Khoo on decentralized exchanges and derivatives markets. After some general chat Sergei discusses Chronobank and Russell explains Rex before we move into discussions about usability, insurance and end user friendly key management. Finally Sam outlines the processes behind the operation of Veredictum. etherreview.info

Today we hear first from Joe Reed who won the Seattle IPFS / Ethereum Hackathon in February. His entry Matriarch expands on the ERC20 compliant Minime token, using it as a basis for crowdfunded MeDAOs. It’s an avant-garde idea and compliments his decentralized reddit project, Community. Then Gabriel Mitchell of ethereumclothing.com raises the subject of branding in cryptocurrency. These interviews have been buried in my content bank for months now and it’s fun to sometimes unearth gems. Short interviews with people from the Ethereum community are great in that they yield insights that would not otherwise percolate to the surface of popular discourse. Also, it’s fun to plug community merch while having a productive conversation. https://etherreview.info/

By now word of the Andreessen-Horowitz/Union Square Ventures investment in the digital asset hedge fund Polychain Capital was reached far and wide across the cryptoverse. Among other things, this interview with founders Olaf Carlson-Wee and Ryan Zurrer explores the questions that must be asked while establishing a long term crypto portfolio. Much of the discussion is especially pertinent in light of the recent ETH jump and fork concerns with Bitcoin.

Ever wished for a final login, a final app? The last user name you would ever need, the last thing you would ever need to download? The Ethereum mobile client Status promises just that and it’s release is just around the corner. Founders Jarad Hope and Carl Bennetts join us to explain. Nick Szabo’s blog Post: Money, Blockchains and Social Scalability https://medium.com/r/?url=http%3A%2F%2Funenumerated.blogspot.co.nz%2F2017%2F02%2Fmoney-blockchains-and-social-scalability.html etherreview.info

Charlie Shrem and Jason Granger explain the Mainstreet investment fund. A limited partnership which distributes it’s revenues to addresses associated with self verified token holders. A separate company, Intellisys, manages the fund. The intricate problem solving required to create a legal token on the Ethereum blockchain that is backed by traditional investments, is fascinating. Mainstreet started accepting funding on the 27th, so this episode is coming out a bit late. You can links to both Mainstreet and Intellisys in the episode notes. etherreview.info

In Brief: On today’s episode Kenny Rowe joins to discuss: Maker DAO Governance The decision making around forks DAOs in relation to stable value tokens The double token model of stable token platforms Community diversification as it relates to application development The serfdom of the attention economy Bitcoin on telephone poles Friction in fundraising rails The magic of technology Kenny Rowe has been a part of the Maker DAO team since shortly after its inception. Initially a community organizer, Kenny has become more involved in the governance of Maker. This is the second time he has appeared on TER, the first being in early 2016. If you would like to learn more about Maker check out this episode. The Steemit article “Help Emma fight cystic fibrosis” can be found here. Kenny’s good will and spirit of experimentation is infectious, and this is a particularly meandering and enjoyable conversation. Content: Kenny Rowe, Arthur Falls etherreview.info

In Brief: Stas Oskin, Wings founder, explains how DAOs can be packaged for use by startups outside the blockchain space. Learning from others mistakes, the team at Wings are building a platform with the ability to vet, fund and launch DAOs based on input from its community. The idea of decentralized due diligence is powerful and if the mechanisms perform as expected, we may see a more refined crop or projects emerging as a result. Especially interesting is Wings’ aspiration to use the ambitious RSK platform. While the project was delayed considerably, RSK intends to use Bitcoin’s blockchain and mining network combined with a group of trusted parties to secure sidechains. In particular, a sidechain operating the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Hopefully this will happen with the RSK launch this summer/fall, in the mean time, pressure from groups waiting to use the platform have resulted in an early launch on the Ethereum network. Content: Stas Oskin, Arthur Falls etherreview.info

In Brief: If there is one thing we learned in 2016 it’s that building a secure, stable, decentralized application is difficult. One of the responses to the problem has been the Open Zeppelin smart contract framework. Open Zeppelin is really a community of developers 300 strong. Collectively they have built the framework over time in a similar fashion to Truffle or Dapple. In addition to maintaining the Open Zeppelin framework, the community audits smart contract deployments like the Golem, First Blood, and Wings token launches. Content: Demian Brenner, Arthur Falls etherreview.info

In Brief: From better signature schemes for blockchains, to quantum preparedness, to novel cryptography like zero knowledge proofs and threshold signatures, Dan Boneh takes us on a tour of cryptography in our age. Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, Dan Boneh, has been working in the field of cryptography for over 25 years. During which time he has co-developed a signature scheme known as BLS Signatures. This was an opportunity to have some real questions answered, or more accurately, anticipated, by a master of the field. * Signature aggregation: http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/abstracts/aggsurvey.html * Verifying Bitcoin exchange solvency: http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/abstracts/provisions.html * Non-crypto applications of quantum computing: https://research.google.com/pubs/QuantumAI.html Post-quantum cryptography: https://www.amazon.com/Post-Quantum-Cryptography-Daniel-J-Bernstein/dp/3540887016/ Content: Dan Boneh, Arthur Falls https://medium.com/the-ether-review Subscribe on iTunes

In Brief: In spite of the tumultuous public life of it’s founder, the sharing economy project is evolving and moving forward rapidly. We’ve just seen the end of a successful token launch and an all star advisory board informing new leadership fronting a strong dev team. Arcade City is back on the road. Three members of the post-Chris David team: Bernd Lapp, Michael Thuy, and Stephan Ponnet discuss the status and future roadmap of Arcade City. What was once thought of only as a ride sharing App has been reimagined as a network of services modeled after games, all using the ARC token. Content: Bernd Lapp, Michael Thuy, Stephan Ponnet, Arthur Falls Subscribe on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-e%E2%80%A6id899090462?mt=2

In Brief: Round 2 of the biggest hackathon in blockchain is nearing it's apex. On the 22nd of December a winner will be announced. Today the man behind the hack.ether.camp virtual accelerator, Roman Mandeleil looks back over the last two months of competition and explains how the platform operates. Then we hear from some of the leading contestants: Once artchain has been established, the art market can be securitized, which has heretofore been an impossibility. This is the Blockchain Revolution. Together, with the new consensus artchain can provide, we can build a coalition of art industry professionals and participants facing the future of mutual self-regulation of transactions and provenance. The art industry is rife with undetected fraud. Currently, the art market suffers from incompleteness of information due a lack of trust among its participants. Establishing the authenticity of art assets is expensive and often disputed which leads to artificially raised costs of conveyancing in an attempt to protect ‒ imperfectly ‒ against fraud. Project Oaken - Smart Cities/IIot Gateway Prototype by Ethembedded.com Oaken is a secure, autonomous, machine to machine platform built to provide the underlying infrastructure(hardware & software) needed to power smart cities. This infrastructure is made up of a suite of projects, individually called ACORNS. The Decentralized Court The decentralized court would act as an opt-in legal crypto-institution. Parties would select the court to arbitrate their contracts in case of disputes. Dispute will be first handled by arbitrators, but parties will have the possibility to appeal to a jury system. Both arbitrators and jury members will have game theoretical incentive to arbitrate disputes in an honest manner. Content: Roman Mandeleil, Worthy Contestants, Arthur Falls https://hack.ether.camp/scoreboard iTunes: https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-ether-review%2Fid899090462%3Fmt%3D2

In Brief: Tezos is a blockchain based smart contract platform that incorporates protocol level governance, modular design, and a functional scripting language. Pretty much the shopping list of features the Ethereum community is looking for. Yes, Yes, I know this is supposed to be a show about Ethereum, but examining emerging platforms is the best way to understand what the people with the deepest understanding would like to see changed in the protocol. Tezos is modular, designed to enable drop in replacement of most components without hard fork, it has a built in governance mechanism, and it uses a functional scripting language. These three elements are emerging as the most desirable traits missing from the Ethereum protocol. With EIP#86/EIP#96 Ethereum will move closer to what Tezos aspires to be. For now though these younger, more nimble upstarts can help show is what is possible with blockchain based smart contract platforms. Content: Kathleen Breitman, Arthur Falls https://twitter.com/breitwoman https://tezos.com/ https://medium.com/the-ether-review https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In today's episode we compare two books by William Mougayar: Opening Digital Markets (1997), and The Business Blockchain(2016). We also discuss the Steemfest conference which took place in Amsterdam last month. William Mougayar is an entrepreneur, venture advisor and angel investor, who previously held senior positions at Hewlett-Packard and Cognizant. He is the founder of Startup Management (http://startupmanagement.org/) where he blogs and curates on start-ups and the cryptocurrency economy. http://steemfest.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Opening-Digital-Markets-Strategies-CommerceNet/dp/0070435421/ https://www.amazon.com/Business-Blockchain-Practice-Application-Technology/dp/1119300312/ https://twitter.com/wmougayar Content: William Mougayar, Arthur Falls Subscribe on iTunes (https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-ether-review%2Fid899090462%3Fmt%3D2) & Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/arthurfalls)

In Brief: Melon is a protocol and asset management software suite for setting up and managing portfolios containing cryptocurrencies. It achieves this through the use of the Polkadot blockchain network. Raison D’etre: Polkadot, designed by Gavin Wood, is like an internet of blockchains. It is the communication protocol that Melon needed to manage digital assets across multiple blockchains. Right now there is no safe way to give the ability to secure and manage digital assets to another entity. Evidenced by the ongoing occurrence of hacks on digital asset exchanges - $70M in the Bitfinex hack alone. There is also no sure way to determine the performance of portfolio managers in the digital asset space. Melon solves these problems: by allowing portfolio owners to maintain control of the digital assets contained therein, while allowing a manager to adjust the exposure to each asset. By tracking the performance of individual asset managers using the provability, provable history of the Polkadot protocol. What factors have converged to create a need for Melon? There is already a wealth of valuable digital assets emerging as a result of the development of blockchain. The digitization of securities like Overstock equity represent yet another new class of digital asset. To fully take advantage of the correlation properties, fluidity, programmability, and low counterparty and custodian risk these assets have to offer, infrastructure is needed to allow traditional financial roles to exist in the digital world. Content: Mona Elisa, Reto Trinkler, Arthur Falls http://www.melonport.com/ http://polkadot.network/ https://twitter.com/perham83 https://twitter.com/reto_trinkler Subscribe on iTunes: https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-ether-review%2Fid899090462%3Fmt%3D2

In Brief: The DAO hacker and Geth attacker have left a trail of evidence that can provide high quality identifying information about their persons. Bok Khoo is an actuary in the finance industry and software enthusiast. Recently Bok has turned his interest toward blockchain forensics. In particular tracing malicious actors on the Ethereum network. https://www.bokconsulting.com.au/blog/100-tricky-stick-puzzles-disrupt-the-ethereum-devcon2-conference-in-shanghai/ https://www.bokconsulting.com.au/blog/the-ongoing-ethereum-attacks/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/58hhry/the_ongoing_ethereum_attacks_work_in_progress/ https://www.bokconsulting.com.au/blog/the-dao-hackers-booty-is-on-the-move/ Content: Bok Khoo, Arthur Falls

**In Brief:** Chinese multinational, Wanxiang Group, has purchased over 700 hectares of land on which to build a smart city where it plans to experiment with blockchain based systems. Wanxiang Group is a Chinese multinational focused primarily on automotive parts manufacturing. Recently Wanxiang has been moving into finance and agriculture. Now, with the establishment of the Wanxiang Blockchain Labs research organization and Fenbushi Capital investment fund, Wanxiang is making big moves into the blockchain space. To add to the intrigue, the group recently purchased 770 hectares of land in the Chinese province of Hangzhou where it plans to build a “smart city”. The goal is to house it's many employees in a setting that makes use of it's technological portfolio. Andy Dan, Project Manager of Wanxiang Blockchain Labs joins to discuss what is quickly becoming the most epic of blockchain stories. http://www.blockchainlabs.org/ http://fenbushi.vc/ Content: Andy Dan, Arthur Falls

Sometimes the urge to layer in-jokes into a podcast title is impossible to resist. . . and then 24hrs later you change it. The effort to understand the significance of type based and functional programming languages led me to the Urbit project. This attempt to re-design the internet is one of a number of technologies that have evolved alongside blockchain and address some of the same problems. The Urbit developer's focus on mechanical perfection is a sensibility worth observing. The first title was in reference to Mike Goldin's tweet about deterministic finite automata: https://twitter.com/voidsnax/status/712044031090540545 This from the Urbit website: "We believe controlling your own data, code and identity is the definition of digital freedom. We believe everyone needs digital freedom, not just a few hackers. We believe the only tool needed to solve this problem is a general-purpose server made for human beings. Your urbit is your cryptographic identity, personal archive, application platform, and device hub. It's as easy to manage as an iPhone." Content: Galen Wolfe-Pauly, Curtis Yarvin, Arthur Falls Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In many ways still a frontier nation, Australia's style of innovation is practical and direct. Three of the startups covered in todays interviews come from industries outside of tech, each looking to blockchain to solve a problem unique to their industries. Finhaus Labs, a research and consulting team offers supporting services and friendly advice to these, and the rest of the local blockchain business community. Interviews: Nick Addison, Finhaus Labs Connor Svendsen, independent Emma Weston, Full Profile. Full Profile is a first purchase agricultural finance provider using a blockchain rail to minimize first payment counterparty risk for producers. Tim Lea, Veridictum. Veridictum is a video piracy prevention tool focussed on the theft of content on social media. Tim Lea is the author of Down the Rabbit Hole: Discover the Power of the Blockchain John Pellew, Othera. The team at Othera aim to enable the sale of credit backed tokens on the Ethereum public blockchain and provide tools for tracking the provenance and measuring the yield and risk profile of each asset. Content: Nick Addison, Connor Svendson, Emma Weston, Tim Lea, John Pellew Additional music provided by Dreamers Delight https://twitter.com/naddison https://twitter.com/emmamweston https://twitter.com/timothylea2 http://downtherabbithole.news/ http://othera.com.au/ http://finhaus.com.au/ http://www.fullprofile.com.au/ http://www.veredcitum.io/

Core samples from oil wells can be worth more than gold. BHP Billiton, one of the largest mining companies in the world, is piloting a program to track their custodianship and provenance using IPFS and Ethereum. Not only is this an interesting use case, but it is also the first time we have seen a production deployment of both IPFS and Ethereum. If you would like to contact Tyler, please email me at the address mentioned in the podcast. https://twitter.com/FreeMyVunk https://twitter.com/arthurfalls Content: Arthur Falls, R. Tyler Smith PHD Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Dominic Williams is a cryptographic researcher focussed on scaling and the representation of real world assets in digital form. Dfinity, Dominic’s infinitely scalable virtual machine, is simple, and extremely powerful. This is the third time I’ve interviewed Dominic. The first was for the final episode of Beyond Bitcoin. Dominic enters at the 1hr 32min mark to explain Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance. The second was in February 2016 on The Ether Review to discuss his work on synthetic digital assets. Today, we hear about the aforementioned Dfinity. http://dfinity.network/ https://soundcloud.com/arthurfalls/beyond-bitcoin-27th-and-final-an-architecture-for-the-internet-of-money https://www.etherreview.info/2016/02/16/ether-review-16-dominic-williams-synthetic-assets/ https://twitter.com/dominic_w https://twitter.com/arthurfalls Content: Dominic Williams, Arthur Falls Subscribe on iTunes: https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-ether-review%2Fid899090462%3Fmt%3D2

What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine, what design trends and decisions influence its operation and what does that mean for Ethereum the platform? Today we dive deep. There is a debate around whether the flexibility of the imperative paradigm of programming language design or the verifiability of the functional paradigm are more appropriate for the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Martin is in the functional camp which he believes can make Ethereum a more robust and powerful platform. The EVM itself is often overlooked as a black box, but is one of a tripartite of technologies including the consensus mechanism and the distributed ledger, whose design is interdependent. Exploring the relationship between these components is an interesting way to gain a deeper understanding of everyone's favourite world computer. Content: Martin Lundfall, Arthur Falls Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Between August 24th-26th, a group of leaders in blockchain thought, business, and advocacy met at the Tapscott’s lodge in Muskoka, Canada. The goal of the meeting was to discuss strategies of stewardship and governance of the blockchain space. Currently, the Chamber of Digital Commerce is the most prominent advocacy group. Founder & President, Perianne Boring joined Don and Alex Tapscott, on the eve of the event to discuss their goals. http://www.muskokagroup.org/ https://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_how_the_blockchain_is_changing_money_and_business http://blockchain-revolution.com/ http://www.digitalchamber.org/ Content: Don Tapscott, Perianne Boring, Alex Tapscott, Arthur Falls Be sure to subscribe on iTunes: exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fit…Fid899090462%3Fmt%3D2

In Brief Zooko Wilcox has more than 20 years of experience in open, decentralized systems, cryptography and information security, and startups. He is recognized for his work on DigiCash, Mojo Nation, ZRTP, “Zooko's Triangle”, Tahoe-LAFS, BLAKE2, and SPHINCS. He is also the Founder and CEO of Least Authority. He sometimes blogs about health science. . In recent years, progress in the area of zero knowledge proofs has made it possible to construct a blockchain whose miners can verify transactions, or state changes, without seeing the information contained in those transactions. Many of the individuals developing these tools have joined Zooko to form the Zcash company. Zcash aims to be a truly anonymous cryptocurrency, but more than just a currency, it is the first step toward managing privacy on public blockchains. Recently, at the Cornell University blockchain hackathon, Zcash team members participated in a successful effort to include an implementation of zero knowledge proofs known as ZKsnarks into an ethereum client running on a test net a monumental achievement in blockchain anonymity. In addition to this, the Zcash team are using the BTCRelay codebase to construct ZRelay, a bridge between the Zcash, Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains. The final third of this episode is a casual discussion of the culture of the field of cryptography roughly between 1990 and 2000. https://z.cash Chain analysis tools: Blockchain.info OTX.me live.ether.camp Chain analysis services: Elliptic: https://www.elliptic.co/ Chain Analysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/ A very limited article on the history of cryptography but a conclusion worth skipping to: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/41/a-brief-history-of-cryptography The Cypherpunk FAQ: https://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/cyphernomicon.txt Wikipedia links: Phil Zimmerman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann David Chaum:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chaum History of cryptography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cryptography#World_War_II_cryptography Great Forbes article on the dismay some mathematicians feel at the dominance of the NSA in their field of employment: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/05/mathematicians-urge-colleagues-to-refuse-to-work-for-the-nsa/#2f02244c6c2e Content: Zooko Wilcox, Arthur Falls Be sure to subscribe on iTunes: https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-ether-review%2Fid899090462%3Fmt%3D2

In Brief Blockchain is a recent innovation, cryptocurrency is not. From the mid 80s to the end of the Dot Com Boom in the late 90s, cryptographers and developers tackled many of the problems we are encountering today in this new era of digital currency. Pelle Braendgaard is a veteran search engine webmaster (AltaVista) and participant in the cryptocurrency space of the early nineties. Back then, the Crypto Finance Conference, held in Aguila was the epicenter of the community. A tremendous amount of progress was made but the Dot Com crash and terror attacks of 9/11 caused a halt to almost all progress. It was not until the emergence of Bitcoin that the wheels again began to turn. Pelle takes us on a tour of forgotten knowledge and reaffirms some basic principles which the Ethereum community has lost sight of: What is a contract really? “It’s something that came out of - you could call it an open source community of business people over thousands of years . . . It’s not a piece of paper, it’s not a piece of code, but it’s actually a relationship with multiple parties where each party has some kind of duty, some kind of obligation and then some kind of right in exchange. That’s what a contract is . . . it’s more an ephemeral concept” Blog.stakeventures.com etherreview.info Content: Pelle Braendgaard, Arthur Falls Be sure to follow the show on iTunes & Soundcloud https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2 https://soundcloud.com/arthurfalls

Jaan Talinn is the founder of Skype and Kazaa and long time angel investor. More recently, Jaan has concerned himself with preventing the destruction of humanity. Strong Artificial intelligence is the least understood of threats and this is Jaan's chief concern. slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/30/ascended-economy cser.org futureoflife.org etherreview.info Content: Jaan Tallinn, Siri, Arthur Falls

Crypto guru Emin Gün Sirer wraps up the DAO hack and hard fork. While the entire episode is over for the main Ethereum chain, some questions remain unanswered. After speaking with Emin, the intrigue seems to have only deepened. Note: River Keefer is in fact in his final year hackingdistributed.com initc3.org twitter.com/el33th4xor twitter.com/arthurfalls etherreview.info Content: Emin Gün Sirer, Arthur Falls

Lucius Gregory Meredith, chief technology officer at Synereo is a mathematician and cryptocurrency expert. The Synereo platform began as a decentralized social network but out of a need for smart contracts, high scalability, and concurrent transactions, the project has become something much more than a replacement for facebook. Greg’s work is fascinating and novel, and frankly I don’t do it justice in this interview. Interested listeners should follow up on the provided links. What lead me to Synereo however was not the tech, but the idea that conversations about the direction of development could be conducted by users, on the platform in question itself. This would filter the noise of open forums like Reddit and Twitter, where uninvolved parties have equal voice. After we’ve heard from Greg, Jake Brukhman of CoinFund discusses investment in the cryptocurrency space. The CoinFund blog is one of the most insightful and impartial out there, driven by the research their team conducts. We occasionally syndicate CoinFund content on ConsenSys Media - it’s definitely worth a read. synereo.com Coinfund.io Content: Lucius Gregory Meredith, Jake Brukhman, Arthur Falls Additional music for today’s episode was provided by Dreamers Delight

The threat of Ethereum regulation as a result of the DAO fiasco raises the question: At its core, is blockchain a financial technology? The Crypto project is viewed by many to be an effort to safeguard mankind's future. Vinay Gupta says it’s time to realign the crypto project with human survival rather than human greed. Topics Covered: Will Ethereum become regulated and merge with Fintech? Is this a bad thing? In the event of a global financial collapse, have we built an infrastructure which will benefit the many, or enable the few to hide their wealth? Is the anarcho-capitalist/crypto-anarchist dream fading in favor of more pragmatic views? Rather than finance, should we focus on problems like climate change and global popular representation? And what about provably fair online dating? https://twitter.com/leashless https://twitter.com/arthurfalls Content: Vinay Gupta, Arthur Falls

Julian Zawistowski, of Project Golem explains the distributed computing platform he and his team at Imapp are producing. The first alpha, Brass Golem will be released in weeks. The Imapp organisation itself is an interesting organization worth having a look at. Before we get to Golem however, Wall Street veteran Caitlin Long explains what blockchain can offer to financial institutions, regulators, and the Wall St as a whole. https://caitlin-long.com/ http://golemproject.net/ http://imapp.pl/en/index https://twitter.com/caitlinflong https://twitter.com/julianofimapp https://twitter.com/arthurfalls Content: Caitlin Long, Julian Zawistowski, Arthur Falls