🎙️ METACAST: Top Crypto Podcasts of October 2023

Hello, everyone!

Check a quick overview of what we’ve been listening to last month!

TL;DR

• Legal experts discuss the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, its implications, and the impact on the jury’s decision.
• Vitalik Buterin discusses public goods, favorite projects, and the vision of a public goods hyperstructure.
• Venkatesh Rao and Tim Beiko from the Ethereum Foundation talk about their favorite projects, and what’s coming next.
• Danny Ryan discusses the risk of liquid staking DAOs for Ethereum.
• Ben Edgington discusses the staking DAO Lido.
• Sergey Nazarov talks about Chainlink’s CCIP.
• Daimo talks about building a stablecoin app on Coinbase’s Layer 2
• Jonas Sieferth, RetroPGF Lead at Optimism Foundation, explains Retroactive Public Goods Funding, badgeholders, voting, and more.
• Zero Knowledge Podcast episodes cover RISC Zero, Succinct Proofs, the security of ZK systems, and MPC advancements in recent years.
• Guy Young discusses Ethena’s synthetic dollar (eUSD).
• Evgeny Yurtaev talks about Zerion’s Web3 wallet UX.
• Niklas Kunkel explores Chronicle, Ethereum’s first-ever oracle.
• Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, discusses human coordination history and the move towards a digital renaissance.
• The Defiant Podcast discussions include Ethereum staking, Real World Assets (RWAs), Layer 2 scaling with Aurora Labs, and the future of crypto and DeFi with Spencer Bogart.
• A roundtable discussion on the wildest things crypto VCs have invested in.
• Ethereum Kuala Lumpur recordings are available.
• And much more!

Green Pill

• Why Public Goods are Good with Vitalik Buterin: Joining the Green Pill podcast is Vitalik Buterin, who needs no introduction. Kevin and the Co-Founder of Ethereum cover everything Public Goods: Favorite Projects, Leverage Points for Builders and the Vision of a Public Goods Hyperstructure.

• Summer of Protocols: Past, Present & Future with Venkatesh Rao & Tim Beiko: Program Director Venkatesh Rao and Ethereum Foundation Leader Tim Beiko cover the Inception of the Summer of Protocols as well as their Present Favorite Projects and what’s coming next.
• Optimism RetroPGF Round 3 with Jonas Sieferth: Joining the podcast is Jonas Sieferth, RetroPGF Lead at Optimism Foundation. In this episode, they define Retroactive Public Goods Funding and its market dynamics, cover badgeholders, voting and impact evaluation. They also go deep into what it means to be part of the Public Goods Multicellular Organism.

• Moving Towards a Fourth Generation Civilization with Michel Bauwens: Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation and author of Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto dives deep on the Foundation’s Inception, the history of human coordination and how we’re moving towards a Digital Renaissance.

Web3 Builders

• From 0xPARC To Base’s Venmo W/ Daimo: The hosts are joined by Daimo, a payments startup building a stablecoin app on top of Base, the L2 from Coinbase. We talk about 0xPARC, the TAM for a consumer-focused stablecoin app, the infra behind it (looking at your ERC-4337) and what it is like to build a crypto app for mobile.
• Holding Lido Publicly Accountable W/ Ben Edgington: The hosts talk with Ben Edgington, principal product manager at Consensus for the Teku client. They discuss his book and newsletter before jumping in and going through the recent back and forth over staking DAO Lido.

Holding Lido Publicly Accountable W/ Ben Edgington by Web3 Builders

Unchained

• Why These Lawyers Say It’s Over for SBF–But His Only Hail Mary Is to Testify: Attorneys Samson Enzer and Greg Strong say Caroline Ellison’s testimony against Sam Bankman-Fried was damning. They agree one thing could turn it around: SBF’s own testimony. However, that runs the risk of increasing his sentence.

• How Heated Sidebars During the SBF Trial Could Impact the Jury’s Decision: Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, discusses why Caroline Ellison’s testimony has been the most critical in the case so far, why sidebars in the courtroom can get heated, and whether SBF might testify as a final Hail Mary for the defense.
• SBF’s Lawyers Could Be Annoying the Judge. How Might That Impact the Trial?: Sam Enzer, partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and Brian Klein, partner at Waymaker, discuss the strategies that the defense and prosecution appear to be using, and why the testimonies from FTX software developer Adam Yedidia, FTX cofounder Gary Wang, and others to come will be so damaging for the defense.

• Did Sam Bankman-Fried Have Intent to Defraud FTX Investors?: Joshua Ashley Klayman, Senior Counsel, U.S. Head of FinTech and Head of Blockchain & Digital Assets at Linklaters, discusses the prosecution and defense’s impassioned opening statements and surprising witness testimonies that are piecing together how FTX came crashing down.

• SBF Trial: How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Lawyers Might Try and Win His Case
• SBF Trial, Day 1: Possible Witnesses Include FTX Insiders, Big Names in Crypto, and SBF’s Family
• SBF Trial, Day 2: DOJ: Sam Bankman-Fried ‘Lied’ His Way to ‘Wealth, Power, and Influence’
• SBF Trial, Day 3: Why a True Believer in FTX Flipped Once He Learned One Fact
• SBF Trial, Day 4: SBF’s Lawyers Annoy Judge Kaplan, While Wang Reveals Alameda’s Special Privileges
• SBF Trial, Day 5: SBF’s Defense Finally Found Its Legs, But Can It Counter Caroline Ellison?
• SBF Trial, Day 6: Caroline Ellison Recalls ‘The Worst Week of My Life’
• SBF Trial, Day 7: In SBF Trial, Did the Defense Lose Its Opportunity With the Star Witness?
• SBF Trial, Day 8: Former BlockFi CEO Adds Credibility to Fraud Charges
• SBF Trial, Day 9: Nishad Singh Describes Former FTX CEO as a Bully and Big Spender
• SBF Trial, Day 11: How Alameda Got FTX Into a $9 Billion Hole
• SBF Trial, Day 12: Former FTX General Counsel Speaks Out Against SBF

The Chopping Block:

• The Chopping Block: Gabriel Shapiro on Why Sam Bankman-Fried May Be a ‘Sociopath’
• The Chopping Block: Michael Lewis Swindled, SBF’s Effective Altruism Ruse, Ethereum Protocol Enshrinement

Bankless

• Danny Ryan’s Case Against Lido: Danny Ryan is a coordinator at the Ethereum Foundation. He’s been on Bankless many times before. Usually, we’re talking about the Ethereum roadmap and what’s coming next. This time we’re talking about something different…a risk to Ethereum that Danny sees. A little over a year ago, Danny wrote a blog post titled “The Risk of LSDs”… discussing the various risk vectors that a dominant LSD presents to Ethereum…even naming Lido specifically in the process.

• Sergey Nazarov on Chainlink’s CCIP: Sergey Nazarov is the co-founder of Chainlink. Chainlink, you might know as the price oracles for DeFi providing DeFi with the data it needs to know prices. More ambitious than just prices, Chainlink is aiming to become the interoperability layer between all of TradFi and all of DeFi, acting as a gateway between on-chain and off-chain data.

• Lyn Alden’s Masterclass On Money: When we think of people to walk us through the history of money and where it’s all headed, it’s hard to think of a guest more qualified than Lyn Alden. This episode is a masterclass where we answer seemingly simple questions like “What is Money?” to the future of money and how Lyn thinks the next great transfer of wealth will play out.

• Cryptodollars Are the New Eurodollars with Nic Carter: Cryptodollars are the new Eurodollars. What are Eurodollars, though? Nic Carter is a partner at Castle Island Ventures, Fidelity alumni, co-founder and board member of Coin Metrics, and a prolific writer of editorials and academic articles alike, Nic is also a believer that the halvening is always priced in, he’s a stablecoin connoisseur, an onchain wizard, and an unlicensed vespa driver.

• The Bull Case for $LINK (Chainlink) | ChainLinkGod & Fishy Catfish: Chainlink’s community is anything but weak. The Bankless hosts brought on two of Chainlink’s most prominent community members, ChainLinkGod, a Chainlink Community Ambassador, and FishyCatfish, a miner, investor, and all-around crypto enthusiast. The two of them are here to give us the bull case for $LINK.
• Is the Crypto Bull Market Back? with Up Only’s Ledger: On the show today is Ledger. Ledger is no stranger to market cycles and is here to answer the question… Are we back? Join them as they walk through charts, discuss market catalysts, and get a full breakdown of how Ledger is navigating these market conditions.
• The US Government is Trying to Kill Crypto | Miller Whitehouse-Levine and Jason Schwartz: The new IRS proposals could effectively destroy DeFi and other crypto use cases. The good news? We can change this. 5 minutes is all it takes to leave a comment and get the interpretation delayed. In this episode, we bring on Miller Whitehouse-Levine of the DeFi Education Fund and tax lawyer Jason Schwartz to discuss the proposed rules and their catastrophic implications.

• Crypto in Hong Kong with Sandy Peng: Sandy Peng is here to tell us what crypto is like on the other side of the world, walking us through regulations, and adoptions and bringing us fully up to speed on the landscape in Hong Kong. For many of us, this episode is a 0 to 1 moment in understanding crypto in Hong Kong and more broadly China.
• Scroll zkEVM Mainnet Launch with Sandy & Toghrul: The roll-up wars are alive well! Scroll just launched their zkEVM to Ethereum mainnet. We invited Scroll’s Co-Founder, Sandy Peng and Scroll’s Senior Researcher, Toghrul Toghrul Maharramov to the show. In today’s episode, they discuss why Sroll is exciting, and how it is different than other rollups. what’s next, and of course, wen token.
• Introducing Rainbow Wallet Browser Extension With Mike Demarais: Mike (Rainbow) Demarais is the co-founder of Rainbow Wallet who is here to walk us through Rainbow’s newest creation, the browser extension.

• What the ETH Futures Approvals Mean for Crypto with Eric Balchunas: Several, yes that’s right, not 1, not 2, but several ETH Futures ETFs launched last month for the first time in the U.S.! What does this mean for crypto? Volumes have been surprisingly low. Is it a surprise? Will volumes pick up? Regardless, of whether they do or don’t, what do all of these ETH ETFs mean for crypto? Are Bitcoin ETFs next? The hosts brought on Eric Balchunas to help us answer the above and much more. is an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence focused on exchange-traded funds. Eric is an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence focused on exchange-traded funds.
• The 2023 Recession with Coinbase’s David Duong: Joining us today is the Head of Research at Coinbase, David Duong, and macro is on the menu. They’re talking yield curves, election fears, US equities, and whether macroeconomics is even real. And finally, David walks us through the recession. Is it delayed, is it canceled, is it already here?

Rollups:

• ROLLUP: BTC ETF Rumors | Uniswap Fee Switch | SBF Trial Continued
• ROLLUP: SBF Trial Underway | ETH ETFs Are Here | Ripple Wins Again
• ROLLUP: SBF vs Caroline Ellison | Sam Altman on Joe Rogan | ETH Predictions

Zero Knowledge

• Episode 296: Zeth, Bonsai and RISC Zero with Brian and Jeremy: Host Anna Rose and co-host Nico Mohnblatt catch up with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle from RISC Zero. Together they delve into the current status of the project, breaking down the components of the stack, from the innovative RISC Zero zkVM leveraging the RISC-V instruction set architecture to the Bonsai proving service and the intriguing Type Zero zkEVM, Zeth. They also touch on their design methodology, how the system components integrate and future developments for RISC Zero.
• Episode 295: Return to MPC with Nigel Smart: Anna Rose is joined by Nigel Smart, Professor at KU Leuven and Chief Academic Officer at Zama to discuss the advancements in MPC over recent years. Nigel unpacks core components of MPC systems, including garbled circuits, secret sharing, and FHE. They discuss both systems-level applications like DKGs and Threshold Signature Schemes and actual real-world deployments. Throughout the episode, they also discuss how MPC and ZK differ, but how they can be used together to enhance each other’s capabilities.

Episode 295: Return to MPC with Nigel Smart - ZK Podcast

• Episode 294: Succinct Proofs and Linear Algebra with Guillermo and Alex: Host Anna Rose and co-host Kobi Gurkan chat with Alex Evans and Guillermo Angeris about their new research paper on Succinct Proofs in Linear Algebra. The paper introduces a framework that simplifies the construction of succinct proofs and offers a toolkit of useful techniques. Their conversation also covers the use of randomized reductions in zero-knowledge proofs, the security of the FRI protocol, and the potential applications of the framework in other systems.
• Episode 293: Exploring Security of ZK Systems with Nethermind’s Michał & Albert: Anna Rose interviews Michał Zając and Albert Garreta from the Nethermind team. They discuss the origin story of Nethermind and its role in the ecosystem today. They also delve into the cryptography research being done at Nethermind, including their work on proving the security of FRI-based protocols, identifying security issues with Fiat-Shamir, exploring topics like ZK malleability and aggregation, and building SNARKs over rings.

Episode 293: Exploring Security of ZK Systems with Nethermind's Michał & Albert - ZK Podcast

Epicenter

• Guy Young: Ethena — USDe Synthetic Dollar via Delta-Neutral Staked Ethereum Hedging: The hosts were joined by Guy Young, co-founder of Ethena, to discuss the stablecoin landscape and their synthetic eUSD, backed by staked ETH and its inverse perpetual swap.

• Evgeny Yurtaev: Zerion — Web3 Wallet UX 2.0: The hosts were joined by Evgeny Yurtaev, co-founder & CEO of Zerion, to discuss the challenges of building a Web3 wallet and how Zerion aims to improve user experience, while still maintaining security.

• Niklas Kunkel: Chronicle — Ethereum’s First-Ever Oracle: The hosts were joined by Niklas Kunkel, founder of Chronicle, to discuss the challenges and tradeoffs that oracles regularly face, and how Chronicle is solving them, continuing the ethos of early MakerDAO.

The Defiant

• Ethereum Staking: Centralization Risk, Lido vs Rocket Pool, $RPL + $RETH Utility: Darren Langley is the general manager of Rocket Pool which provides liquid staking services for ETH holders. Liquid staking on Ethereum has been a major trend this year as it enables ETH holders to earn rewards by staking on the Ethereum network while additionally allowing stakers to seek financial opportunities with their staked ETH. In this conversation, they will get into the Rocket Pool story since their ICO, details of what it takes to become an Ethereum validator and node operator, the utility of their native token, the issue of centralization among liquid staking protocols, and more.

• Unlocking Trillions of Dollars with RWAs (Real World Assets): Lucas Vogelsang is the founder of Centrifuge, a credit platform that brings Real World Assets on-chain. Real World Assets (RWAs) have been a growing sector in DeFi over the last year. In this conversation, they’ll talk about how RWAs bridge the gap between tradfi and DeFi, how the process of beginning on institutional lenders and matching with real-life borrowers works, what protections are in place in case of loan defaults, and what the future looks like for this sector.

• “Layer 2s and AppChains Will Converge”: Aurora Labs CEO Alex Shevchenko: Alex Shevchenko is the CEO of Aurora Labs, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution built on Near. Alex has a doctoral degree in math and physics. Today, we get into the details behind Aurora Labs, the difference between Aurora Cloud and the Aurora EVM, how they have survived the market crash, Alex’s vision of Ethereum Layer 2s, his conviction in an AppChain future, and so much more.
• Blockchain Capital’s Spencer Bogart on the Future of Crypto and DeFi: Spencer Bogart is a partner at Blockchain Capital. Spencer has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of decentralized technologies and digital assets over the last decade. They get into his journey impact in the blockchain sector, their investment thesis around the controversial WorldCoin, how he’s continued to thrive among many economic downturns and get into their recent news of a $580 million for two new funds.

MISC

• Ethereum Kuala Lumpur recordings are out.
• 5 Wildest Things Crypto VCs Have Invested In — Blockcrunch Roundtable 001: In this new format, Jason is joined by Sanat, an Investor at Dragonfly to discuss all things crypto — from latest market developments, their investment experiences and future outlooks For this episode, they discussed the top 5 wildest crypto ideas that were funded, and dived into.

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