Base Layer David Nage

Kevin joins us on Base Layer to give us a great breakdown on Ava Labs! AVA's mission is to democratize financial markets and bridges all blockchain platforms together into one interoperable ecosystem; they provide the ability to build your own custom blockchains or to digitize any assets with arbitrarily complex rulesets. Kevin discusses the different consensus algo's from Nakamoto, Classical to Avalanche, their own consensus algo. They tout the ability to get to 5000 transactions per second (TPS) so we discuss how, the use of DAG's and how they could fit in the climate focused investors toolkit these days. 

Stani joins us on Base Layer to discuss Aave - a project that everyone seems to be talking about right now. Aave is an Open Source and Non-Custodial protocol to earn interest on deposits & borrow assets and has emerged in the DeFi space as a player. We discuss this move from matching lenders & borrowers in digital assets to pooling assets; we discuss the collateral and different digital asset Aave is working with. More importantly we also discuss the underwriting of those different digital assets, the scoring methodologies and why they are working with Chainlink with their smart contract and oracles who main the lending pools. So much in this one...

Jalak joins us on Base Layer and it's an amazing discussion with an investor who has been active in the digital asset/blockchain world for over 6 years. We discuss the changing narratives from the early days to now, the geographic niche's of certain projects like Bitpesa vs what it takes for global adoption, Libra and DCEP as big stories of 2019 and the work she's doing with local politicians in NYC to make a "public Venmo" and much more. 

Alex joins us on Base Layer to talk more about zero knowledge proofs and what they are doing at Matter Labs. Initially found by a tweet from Ari @ BlockTower, Matter Labs recently revealed their vision for ZK Sync: a trustless scaling and privacy solution for Ethereum based on ZK Rollup". We discussed that in heavy detail, including tx receipts but also addressed Matter Labs mission which they discussed in their blog: "A successful solution to the scaling problem in public blockchains is not only a matter of high transaction throughput. It must also be defined as the ability of the system to meet the demands of millions of users without sacrificing decentralization. The prerequisites of mass crypto adoption  include high speed, low cost, smooth UX, and privacy." All this and more with Alex from Matter Labs.    

Zhuoxun joins us on Base Layer to tell us all about dydx. dydx is building a decentralized exchange for margin trading and eventually derivatives. With dYdX users can trade, borrow, and lend any supported asset. dYdX is powered by smart contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain, which eliminates the need to trust a central exchange while trading. We discuss the overall maturation of DEX's and also spend time discussing how smart contracts & oracles factor in this very exciting aspect of DeFi. Capital markets are also maturing in digital assets; powerful financial products like margin and derivatives are essential. They empower traders to better manage risk, more efficiently allocate capital, and express more complex opinions on price and volatility. 

Bart joins us for the 100th episode of Base Layer and it's truly an amazing conversation to listen to. Bart has a storied career following early stage technology and he talks about how he and his brother, both gamers, found themselves in Bitcoin and blockchains about 7 years ago. Via their family office they wanted to invest via funds that were following the technology but when they couldn't find the right one they started Blockchain Capital. After 80+ investments in the space we had a detailed conversation about the change in narratives, the technology, the people coming in, valuation and much more. Also we discussed Blockchain Capital's 2020 predictions which include the beginnings of what could be some sizable M&A. The predictions can be found here