Blockchains are an Extinction-Level Event: Emin Gun Sirer
The Defiant1 Touko 2020

Blockchains are an Extinction-Level Event: Emin Gun Sirer

Emin Gun Sirer is a Cornell University computer science professor who has been deeply involved in the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities from the very early days. We talk about how he got started in the field, building a cryptocurrency long before Bitcoin. Gun, as friends call him, then turned his attention to Ethereum, notably catching the bug in The DAO, but failing to alert the community about it.

After years scrutinizing existing blockchains, he’s back at making one himself with AVA, whose testnet launched two weeks ago. He explains the inner workings of this network, the first built over the Avalanche protocol, and how it can process several thousands of transactions per second at latencies of under one second.

He also talks about his plans to release a subnetwork called Athereum shortly after the AVA mainnet launches in July. Athereum will be almost identical to Ethereum; it will replicate its smart contracts and assets, and ETH holders will hold the equivalent amount of ATH. Sirer says the intention is for Athereum to serve as a safety net in case something goes wrong with ETH 2.0. If this sounds like Ethereum’s old friend wants to bring on some serious competition to the second-biggest chain, that’s because he is. Still, he’s quick to highlight he wants Ethereum to succeed and that he’s not after Ethereum dollars, but rather after money flows that are outside of Ethereum.

Jaksot(326)

Ethereum’s “HTTP Moment” with Marissa Posner & Yoav Weiss

Ethereum’s “HTTP Moment” with Marissa Posner & Yoav Weiss

In this episode of The Defiant podcast, Camila Russo sits down in Buenos Aires (Devconnect) with Marissa Foster (Product, Ethereum Foundation) and Yoav Weiss (security researcher, Ethereum Foundation)...

19 Joulu 202540min

Becoming the "Institutions Chain" With Avalanche’s Morgan Krupetsky

Becoming the "Institutions Chain" With Avalanche’s Morgan Krupetsky

In this episode of The Defiant podcast we speak with Morgan Krupetsky, VP of OnChain Finance at Ava Labs, to break down one of the most significant shifts happening in crypto today: the rapid institut...

5 Joulu 202540min

Tokenize Everything: Robert Leshner’s Vision for On-Chain Finance

Tokenize Everything: Robert Leshner’s Vision for On-Chain Finance

Robert Leshner — the mind behind Compound, and now the founder of Superstate — believes the next trillion-dollar shift will come from bringing the world’s assets on-chain.In this episode, Cami sits do...

18 Marras 202522min

​​Is DYOR Dead? Building a Safer Web3 with Alex Katz

​​Is DYOR Dead? Building a Safer Web3 with Alex Katz

In a world of fast-advancing technology, we are told to trust in our own research. But as the crypto space matures, scams and exploits remain a constant presence. When your assets are gone, they are g...

14 Marras 202537min

Avalanche DeFi: the Journey to Bring Institutions Onchain

Avalanche DeFi: the Journey to Bring Institutions Onchain

In the second episode of Ecosystems: Avalanche, we track the protocol’s trajectory, which included a peak valuation of $13 billion, followed by a period of consolidation and strategic redevelopment.Th...

12 Marras 202515min

Inside the PYUSD's takeover of PayPal with May Zabaneh, VP Crypto

Inside the PYUSD's takeover of PayPal with May Zabaneh, VP Crypto

In this conversation, May Zabaneh breaks down PayPal’s move into stablecoins with PYUSD and why it matters for financial inclusion. We explore how PYUSD could lower costs for cross-border payments, de...

7 Marras 202542min

Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin

Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin

In Web3, we find ourselves in an age of digital phantoms, a "click-farm" era where identity is flimsy and easily fabricated. But what if reputation could be real, portable, and valuable? Animoca Brand...

21 Loka 20251h 1min

The AI CEO Era: Breaking Build Bottlenecks with Vibe Coding | Ahmad Shadid

The AI CEO Era: Breaking Build Bottlenecks with Vibe Coding | Ahmad Shadid

In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Vinny sits down with Ahmad Shadid—former quant trader turned founder—who redirected the 2022 GPU crunch into a decentralized GPU network and now leads a bold pu...

17 Loka 202547min