Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

Ten years after The DAO hack changed Ethereum forever, Griff Green returns to Epicenter to discuss the next chapter: the DAO Security Fund.

As a co-initiator of The DAO, Griff shares the untold story of recovering funds after the hack, why over 75,000 ETH remained untouched for years, and how its staking yield is now funding public goods for Ethereum security. The conversation also explores a provocative idea: Ethereum is incredibly secure—but still not safe for everyday users.

Topics covered:
1. The inside story of The DAO and its recovery
2. Why the DAO hack may be the only hack where everyone made money
3. The DAO Security Fund and funding Ethereum security
4. Quadratic funding, grants & public goods
5. Why phishing and UX remain Ethereum's biggest weakness
6. Can Ethereum become safer than traditional banks?
7. The future of safer wallets, OpSec, and the Ethereum Economic Zone

If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe for more conversations with the builders, founders and investors shaping the future of crypto.

Links:
Lido: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenter

Sponsors:

Lido V3 introduces stVaults: a modular staking infrastructure that lets builders and institutions deploy custom staking vaults, while staying anchored to stETH as a shared liquidity layer.

Get started building with Lido V3 today: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenter
Block Space Forum: https://blockspace.forum/

NEAR AI Cloud now lets developers deploy OpenClaw—the rapidly growing open-source AI agent platform—inside Trusted Execution Environments, providing hardware-level encryption with cryptographic attestations. With OpenClaw on NEAR AI Cloud, you can run agents with cloud convenience, but without traditional cloud data exposure. No hardware to manage. No trust assumptions required. Learn more at near.ai.

Jason Yanowitz, Co-Founder of Blockworks, joins Sebastien Couture on Epicenter to discuss why crypto is entering its biggest transformation yet. From institutional adoption and the Clarity Act to token transparency, AI, on-chain capital markets and the acquisition of Messari, this conversation explores where crypto is actually heading.

Jason explains why Wall Street is preparing for crypto, why token fundamentals finally matter, how Blockworks acquired Messari, why capital markets are moving on-chain, and why the next crypto cycle could look completely different from previous bull markets.

The conversation also covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, stablecoins, RWAs (Real World Assets), tokenisation, venture capital, crypto regulation, SEC policy, the Clarity Act, Token Transparency Framework, AI, Robinhood, Coinbase, Hyperliquid, self-custody, crypto infrastructure, institutional finance and the future of blockchain adoption.

In this episode:

1. Why Wall Street is preparing for crypto
2. The Blockworks × Messari acquisition
3. The Clarity Act and US crypto regulation
4. Token transparency and the future of crypto markets
5. Stablecoins, RWAs and on-chain capital markets
6. AI's role in the next generation of crypto businesses
7. Why the next crypto cycle will reward real fundamentals
8. Building one of crypto's leading media and data companies

If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe for more conversations with the builders, founders and investors shaping the future of crypto.

Links:
Lido: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenter

Sponsors:

Lido V3 introduces stVaults: a modular staking infrastructure that lets builders and institutions deploy custom staking vaults, while staying anchored to stETH as a shared liquidity layer.

Get started building with Lido V3 today: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenter
Block Space Forum: https://blockspace.forum/

NEAR AI Cloud now lets developers deploy OpenClaw—the rapidly growing open-source AI agent platform—inside Trusted Execution Environments, providing hardware-level encryption with cryptographic attestations. With OpenClaw on NEAR AI Cloud, you can run agents with cloud convenience, but without traditional cloud data exposure. No hardware to manage. No trust assumptions required. Learn more at near.ai.

In this special episode, we revisit a fireside conversation between Vitalik Buterin and Friederike Ernst at DappCon 2026 in Berlin. They explore the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ), a new vision for Ethereum built around synchronous composability, app chains, and real-time proving.

Following the fireside, Sebastien and Friederike break down the ideas behind the EEZ and discuss what this new paradigm could mean for Ethereum's future.

Topics covered include:
• The Ethereum Economic Zone and synchronous composability
• App chains, privacy networks, and prediction markets
• Ethereum as an economic operating system for the internet
• Sequencing, MEV, and shared liquidity across chains
• Enterprise, government, and institutional use cases
• Why this approach differs from Cosmos, Polkadot, and other ecosystem visions
• The future of Ethereum beyond rollup fragmentation

Links:
Lido: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenter

Sponsors:
Lido V3 introduces stVaults: a modular staking infrastructure that lets builders and institutions deploy custom staking vaults, while staying anchored to stETH as a shared liquidity layer.

Get started building with Lido V3 today: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenter
Block Space Forum: https://blockspace.forum/

NEAR AI Cloud now lets developers deploy OpenClaw—the rapidly growing open-source AI agent platform—inside Trusted Execution Environments, providing hardware-level encryption with cryptographic attestations. With OpenClaw on NEAR AI Cloud, you can run agents with cloud convenience, but without traditional cloud data exposure. No hardware to manage. No trust assumptions required. Learn more at near.ai.

In this episode, host Friederike Ernst is joined by Kubi Mensah, CEO and co-founder of Gattaca, the company behind Titan Builder. Kubi sheds light on the highly competitive and often opaque world of Ethereum block building, explaining how Gattaca evolved from a centralized exchange proprietary trading firm to one of the three dominant builders responsible for constructing the vast majority of Ethereum blocks today .
 

 
They dissect the true "journey of a transaction," revealing why over half of all Ethereum transaction value bypasses the public mempool in favor of private order flow auctions and MEV-protection services . Kubi explains the intricate mechanics of top-of-block bidding by high-frequency DeFi arbitrageurs, the necessity of extreme latency optimization, and the "flywheel effect" that makes block building a natural oligopoly . Finally, the discussion turns to the future of the Ethereum roadmap, unpacking how upcoming upgrades like ePBS (enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) and FOCIL (Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists) aim to permanently alter the power dynamics between block builders, validators, and originators .
 
 
Topics

04:15 Transitioning from TradFi Trading to Ethereum Block Building
09:30 Redefining the Builder: Relays and Order Flow Auctions
15:00 Unpacking the Mempool: Public vs. Private Transactions
21:45 The Anatomy of a Block & "Top-of-Block" Arbitrage
27:10 How Builders Pay Proposers to Win Auctions
35:20 The Oligopoly: Why Only 3 Builders Dominate Ethereum
42:15 Trust in the Dark Forest: Handling Searcher Bundles
49:00 The Convergence of Builders and Solvers
55:30 The Impact of ePBS, FOCIL, and Pre-confirmations

Sponsors:

Lido V3 introduces stVaults: a modular staking infrastructure that lets builders and institutions deploy custom staking vaults, while staying anchored to stETH as a shared liquidity layer.Get started building with Lido V3 today: https://lido.fi/stvaults?mtm_campaign=epicenterBlock Space Forum: https://blockspace.forum/

In this episode, host Sebastian Couture is joined by Torab, CEO of Move Industries, to discuss the tension of radical transparency and the decision to scrap Movement's complex L2 architecture in favor of a sovereign L1 powered by the Move VM. He explains how this transition drastically reduced latency and AWS infrastructure costs while improving the builder experience.The conversation explores Movement's core thesis: "Move is for Money". Torab argues that general-purpose L1s are becoming saturated and that Movement's true product-market fit lies in the Global South, serving nations battling currency devaluation.

They discuss the implementation of AI agents for continuous security auditing, the "Move Alliance" for ecosystem financial alignment, and why the industry must move past "decentralization theater" to offer pragmatic, yield-bearing stablecoin products to users who actually need them.

Finally, Torab teases the upcoming roadmap, including institutional-grade yield on USD, BTC, and Gold. Topics

00:00 Intro & Context
04:15 The Movement Turnaround
09:30 Why Movement Pivoted
15:00 The Move VM & Overcoming Developer Friction
21:45 AI Agents for 24/7 Security Audits
27:10 The Global South
35:20 Currency Devaluation & The Demand for Stablecoins
42:15 The Move Alliance
49:00 Pragmatism vs. Decentralization
55:30 Roadmap: Bringing Yield to USD, BTC, and Gold

Episode Links

Torab on X: https://x.com/utorabyou
Movement: https://movementnetwork.xyz/
NEAR: https://near.ai/
Sponsors:NEAR AI Cloud now lets developers deploy OpenClaw—the rapidly growing open-source AI agent platform—inside Trusted Execution Environments, providing hardware-level encryption with cryptographic attestations. With OpenClaw on NEAR AI Cloud, you can run agents with cloud convenience, but without traditional cloud data exposure. No hardware to manage. No trust assumptions required. Learn more at near.ai.