Introducing Signaling Theory, a new podcast by Rex Kirshner (LogarithmicRex). Signaling Theory cuts through crypto’s noise to find the real signals. Host Rex Kirshner joins builders, thinkers, and researchers who are shaping the space for deep, nuanced and informed conversations. Curiosity first, signal over noise.
New Episodes every Thursday
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts
More info: SigTheory.com

In this final episode of the Strange Water Podcast, join us as we announce our exciting acquisition by Blockworks, the end of Strange Water, and the launch of our new podcast, Expansion. We have a fantastic interview with (Expansion cohost) nosleepjon and Blockworks cofounders Mike Ippolito and Jason Yanowitz on all things Expansion and modular blockchains. Thank you for being part of our adventure, and we can't wait to take you along on the next one with Expansion!

Twitter: @ExpansionPod_

Apple: http://apple.co/4bGKYYM

Spotify: http://spoti.fi/3Vaubq1

YouTube: @expansionpod

Guest: Will Griffiths (Twitter: @mrwillgriffiths)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Today's episode features Will Griffiths, General Manager of Animoca Brands' Motorverse. Learn how Animoca Brands is pioneering digital property rights for gamers with their innovative car-centric gaming ecosystem. We discuss the Motorverse's key pillars, including meaningful ownership and true interoperability, and explore the future of web3 gaming.

Guest: Alex Pruden (Twitter: @apruden08)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Join us as we chat with Alex Pruden, Executive Director of the Aleo Foundation, about Aleo's innovative, privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain. We explore the transformative power of Zero-Knowledge cryptography, which enables private interactions on the blockchain while maintaining permissionlessness and verifiability. Discover the implications of Aleo's embedded prover network and its impact on the ZK ecosystem.

Guest: Alejo Pinto

Host: Rex (Twitter: LogarithmicRex)

Today’s guest is Alejo Pinto, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of Pontem Network. Based in Aptos, Pontem collaborates closely with the Aptos Foundation, developing innovative products like Liquidswap and Pontem Wallet. Gain insights into the Aptos ecosystem and explore the future of the L1 blockchain landscape, the key players in crypto, and the evolving role of Bitcoin.

Guests: Harrison Hines (Twitter: @harris0nhines) and Parsa Ghadimi (Twitter: @ParsaIsBack)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Dive into the world of edge networks on today's episode of Strange Water Podcast. Learn how edge networks optimize web content delivery by leveraging geographically distributed servers, reducing latency for users worldwide. Explore the evolution of CDNs into edge networks and discover Fleek Network's innovative approach to decentralized edge infrastructure. Join us as we chat with Fleek's Co-Founder and CEO Harrison Hines and CTO Parsa Ghadimi about the future of web infrastructure and the challenges facing traditional edge networks.

Guest: Rushi Manche (Twitter: @rushimanche)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Dive into the turbulent world of cryptocurrency's first major bubble as we explore the rise and fall of Facebook's ambitious Libra project, now known as Diem. Despite its demise, it left behind a valuable legacy in the form of the Move smart contract language, heralding a new era of security in blockchain development. Join us as Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche unveils their groundbreaking vision to harness Move's potential in a $38MM initiative, promising both technological innovation and community support. Discover how Movement Labs aims to “make blockchain security sexy.”

Guest: Prabal Banerjee (Twitter: @prabalbanerjee) Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

In this episode, we delve into the critical question of how participants in a blockchain network can ensure the availability of data in newly proposed blocks. Without this assurance, malicious transactions could go undetected, posing significant risks to the network's integrity. Our guest, Prabal Banerjee, Co-Founder of the Avail Project, offers insights into how Avail addresses this data availability problem and lays the groundwork for a more scalable and decentralized blockchain infrastructure. Join us for a deep dive into the next generation of data availability solutions and the broader vision of unifying Web3.

Data Availability 101: https://blog.availproject.org/data-availability-what-is-it/

Guest: Christine Kim (Twitter: @christine_dkim)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

I believe that Ethereum is the pinnacle achievement of the open source movement, describing it as an intricate, globally-built, and continuously evolved system through voluntary contributions. Christine Kim plays a crucial role in this ecosystem, attending All Core Developers calls, documenting them, and making the insights accessible to the public. Through her contributions, the discussion delves into the meticulous process behind Ethereum hard forks, providing a deeper understanding of the core development processes that guide the evolution of Ethereum. This conversation underscores the profound impact of open source values on Ethereum's development trajectory.

Guest: Austin King (Twitter: @0xASK)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

This episode begins with the emergence of rollups as isolated spaces that, while offering quicker and cheaper transactions, risk fragmenting this shared ecosystem, potentially diminishing Ethereum's value. The question then shifts to address concerns about the proliferation of rollups, with forecasts suggesting the deployment of at least 10,000 by the end of 2024, raising questions about the future cohesion of Ethereum's ecosystem. Omni Network, co-founded by Austin King, which aims to integrate the expanding Layer 2 landscape, ensuring seamless asset movement and preserving Ethereum's foundational shared space concept. This network proposes a solution to maintain Ethereum's core value despite the fragmentation caused by rollups.

Guest: Spadaboom (Twitter: @Spadaboom1)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

The conversation aims to sift through the noise surrounding DAOs by telling the story of BadgerDAO. BadgerDAO, co-founded by Spadaboom in 2020, aims to facilitate the use of Bitcoin as collateral on other blockchains, thereby accelerating its integration into decentralized finance (DeFi). The discussion will cover BadgerDAO's history, its contributions to DeFi, the challenges it faced, including a significant hack, and its latest project, eBTC, which marks a new chapter for the protocol by promoting broader and more accessible BTC adoption in DeFi.

Guest: Kevin Simback (Twitter: @KSimback)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Kevin Simback, COO of Delphi Labs, shared insights on the diverse range of professional services crucial for web3 companies, including law firms, accounting, and marketing agencies. Joining an accelerator program can streamline the process of identifying and accessing these services, saving time and resources for founders. This conversation highlights the complexities of building a business beyond technological innovation, emphasizing the importance of effectively outsourcing tasks to specialized professionals. Furthermore, it explores how blockchain technology could reshape the relationship between companies and professional service providers in the future.

Guest: Kubi Mensah (Twitter: @kubimensah)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Ethereum was not built to address the value extraction that quickly became rampant. Flashbots, introduced in 2020, addressed issues of front-running and value extraction in Ethereum transactions by redirecting value towards network participants. This sparked a crisis within the Ethereum community, leading to a transformation of its roadmap and the concept of the "dark forest paradigm." Kubi Mensah, Co-Founder of Gattaca, provides insights into Titan Builder's role in the MEV (Miner Extractable Value) supply chain, shedding light on its complexities and future implications for Ethereum's development.

Guest: Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh (Twitter:@Ismael_H_R)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

I am a strong advocate of the modular blockchain thesis, recognizes the power of scaling blockchains by removing the non-critical parts of blockchain computing out of the scare space that is the blockchain’s virtual machine. Up until today, modular blockchain basically refers to rollups and data availability, but we are entering a new era. What comes next? Modular database and access to big data tools. Today’s guest is the CEO and Co Founder of Lagrange Labs, Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh, which aims to enable smart contracts to access big data tools while preserving blockchain's guarantees, heralding a more expansive vision for the modular blockchain thesis.

Guest: Gil Binder (Twitter: @xgilxgil)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

A blockchain computer is a network of physical computers running the same virtual machine, ensuring synchronization through constant communication and a crypto-economic system like proof of stake. Users interact with the blockchain by accessing their local copy of the virtual machine, making changes that are synced across the network. While ideally all users would operate their own nodes for direct access to the blockchain computer, this isn't always feasible due to resource requirements, leading to the emergence of centralized RPC services like Infura and Alchemy. However, reliance on centralized services poses a threat to the decentralized nature of blockchain computers. Gil Binder, co-founder and CTO of Lava Network, discusses solutions to this issue by decentralizing the RPC layer, highlighting the importance of modularizing the entire World Computer for a more inclusive and resilient blockchain ecosystem.

Guest: Bobafetador (Twitter: @Bobafetador)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Imagine: two founders of a decentralized exchange (DEX) experience a successful launch with over $1 billion in deposited assets, only to later discover a major security breach where 60% of their Total Value Locked (TVL) is withdrawn in a single transaction. Reflecting on their oversight, they realize the necessity of a rapid response system to identify and mitigate such threats. In the current landscape, building such systems has become feasible due to advancements in technology, notably showcased by Drosera, a decentralized incident response protocol. This protocol, discussed in-depth by its co-founder and CTO Bobafetador, highlights the importance of robust security measures in the blockchain environment, especially for projects managing significant asset values.

Guest: Jason Zhao (Twitter: @jasonjzhao)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

Today's conversation delves into the intersection of intellectual property law and the digital age, highlighting the challenges of enforcing outdated regulations in an online and international context. While existing legal frameworks struggle to adapt to modern mediums and platforms, there's a glimmer of hope in leveraging blockchain technology, particularly Ethereum, to establish an internet-native property layer. Jason Zhao, co-founder of Story Protocol, today's guest, offering insights into their initiative to revolutionize intellectual property infrastructure with over $50 million in funding. The episode explores how Story Protocol aims to integrate with existing IP systems and the potential implications of blockchain-native IP combined with artificial intelligence.

Guest: Brendan Farmer (Twitter: @_bfarmer)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

In 2022, Vitalik discussed the transformative impact of zkEVMs on crypto, highlighting their evolution from theoretical concepts to tangible scaling solutions for Ethereum. A year later, multiple zkEVM implementations had reached mainnet, rendering zkEVMs less of a novelty and shifting the focus of discussions to practical scalability challenges. Brendan Farmer, Co Founder of Polygon and Co Head of Polygon Zero, joined a podcast to address these challenges and present the AggLayer, a solution aimed at addressing fragmentation in the rollup-centric blockchain landscape. This conversation offered insights into the future of blockchain scaling and Ethereum, marking it as a particularly enlightening discussion.

Guest: Amrit Kumar (Twitter: @maqstik)

Host: Rex (Twitter: @LogarithmicRex)

In the crypto community, "modular blockchain" has become a common buzzword, but its precise definition is often overlooked. Unlike traditional monolithic blockchains like Ethereum, which rely on a decentralized network for computation, modular blockchains aim to scale by distributing tasks to specialized environments, reducing costs and increasing speed. For instance, complex financial transactions like borrowing USDC against ETH collateral on Aave can be offloaded to external environments where calculations are simpler, leveraging technologies like fraud proofs and zk cryptography for trust. Implementing modular blockchains presents challenges due to the need for numerous integrations and choices, but builders like AltLayer Chief Operating Officer Amrit Kumar are working on tools to ease this transition. AltLayer focuses on simplifying the deployment of flexible and customized blockchains and appchains, addressing important concerns like data availability and restaking in the process.