TheCoordinate by Soubhik Deb

Soubhik Deb

TheCoordinate is a long-form research podcast on AI x crypto: digital intelligence meets digital institutions. We unpack consensus, market design, governance, privacy, and tradeoffs with the researchers and builders pursuing work at the bleeding edge of this intersection.

Episodes

  1. Ethereum's Quantum Leap: Lean Ethereum | Justin Drake

    1D AGO

    Ethereum's Quantum Leap: Lean Ethereum | Justin Drake

    Ethereum is starting from the endgame. Episode 4 of TheCoordinate is a deep dive into Lean Ethereum: a clean-slate rethink of consensus, execution, and data availability. I sat down with Justin Drake from Ethereum Foundation to unpack: need for the rewrite,rewrite items: post-quantum security + fast finality,endgame finality (3-slot -> 2-slot -> maybe 1-slot),slot anatomy, networking constraints, and the "SOL slots" meme,real-time ZK proving changing the execution roadmap,censorship resistance with FOSSIL,role of L2s in the world of Lean Ethereum,incentives across proposer, builder, prover, includer, attester. If you’re building on Ethereum or trying to understand where the base layer is headed, this one is for you.

    1h 17m
  2. EP 003 | Roger Wattenhofer, Kobi and Quentin Kniep

    FEB 12

    EP 003 | Roger Wattenhofer, Kobi and Quentin Kniep

    Solana is rewriting its core. Episode 3 of TheCoordinate is about one of the most ambitious protocol upgrades in crypto right now: AlpenGlow, a redesign of Solana's consensus + data propagation stack. I sat down with Roger Wattenhofer, Kobi and Quentin Kniep from Anza Labs to break down: what was structurally limited in TowerBFT + PoH?how AlpenGlow works end-to-end: Rotor (erasure-coded dissemination via relays) + Voter (a dance of fast and slow paths)why they are optimizing for a 20% Byzantine + 20% crash-fault model?what changes for validators + RPCs when votes move off-chain (VAT/fee mechanics, different cost structure, and a smaller ledger footprint)?what 100s-of-ms finality means in practice for MEV, remote validators, and upcoming multi-proposer designs? If you’re building or operating on Solana, this is one of those quiet-but-fundamental stack shifts and you may wanna listen to this episode to learn how this upgrade touches you. This is Episode 3 of TheCoordinate. Hope you enjoy it.

    52 min
  3. EP 002 | Patrick O'Grady and Brendan Chou

    FEB 5

    EP 002 | Patrick O'Grady and Brendan Chou

    What does state-of-the-art blockchain engineering look like in 2026? In Episode 2 of TheCoordinate podcast, I sat down with Patrick O’Grady & Brendan Chou (Commonware) to unpack their Anti-Framework philosophy: build chains by composing optimized primitives—not inheriting a monolithic stack. We go deep on: how Commonware is designed in practice (and how to use it)who it’s for vs Cosmos-style frameworkshow their newest consensus protocol Minimit works (arguably the hottest kid in the consensus neighborhood)what’s coming with ExoWare This is Episode 2 of TheCoordinate. Hope you enjoy it.

    58 min

  4. JAN 30

    EP 001 | Kartik Nayak

    Most people treats consensus protocols as boring and impenetrable. That’s a mistake. Under the hood, there’s an intense race to design faster, higher-throughput, and adversary-resilient consensus protocols. That work directly determines retail UX and explains why Ethereum, Solana, and other L1s obsess over consensus. For Episode 1 of The Coordinate, I sat down with Kartik Nayak, one of the world’s leading consensus researchers, to pull consensus out of the black box and build a first-principles mental model: how consensus actually works, how it evolved over last 50 years, how today’s sprawling protocol families fit together, and what the next frontier of consensus research looks like.This is Episode 1 of The Coordinate. Hope you enjoy it.

    1h 52m
  • 4 Episodes

About

TheCoordinate is a long-form research podcast on AI x crypto: digital intelligence meets digital institutions. We unpack consensus, market design, governance, privacy, and tradeoffs with the researchers and builders pursuing work at the bleeding edge of this intersection.

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