Eureka Street Creative Podcast

Episode 156 - Tornado Cash is the (scape) GOAT

Good morning!  I woke up this morning to all types of news about Tornado Cash being criminalized in the United States.   Tornado Cash is a tool people in crypto can use to mix their transactions with others to add a layer of privacy to their financial dealings.  People should have every right to this privacy much like people in the 90's had every right to privacy on their computers when the government was trying to impose a clipper chip back door on everyone's PC's.  Also, Tornado Cash is decentralized and open source.  Open source code is free speech!  The U.S. government decided to crack down on the privacy Tornado Cash offers as a tool.  They have created a list of people who have used or use it to monitor them and penalize anyone who interacts with those on the list.  Sounds a bit like like Big Red Mother Russia, right?  Also, there are companies like Elliptic that can do chainalysis and uncover the trail of would-be hackers using Tornado Cash.  So this isn't really about Tornado Cash, is it?  Tornado Cash as a tool for money laundering is just the reason (excuse) to chew away further our dwindling rights to privacy.  

In this video I follow a stream of consciousness about this topic.

 

Sources:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/08/crypto-mixing-service-tornado-cash-blacklisted-by-treasury-department-.html

 

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6949799581501030400/

 

https://decrypt.co/107030/crypto-leaders-decry-tyranny-of-tornado-cash-ban

 

https://hub.elliptic.co/analysis/the-100-million-horizon-hack-following-the-trail-through-tornado-cash-to-north-korea/

 

 

 

 

Episode 155 -You’re turned off by crypto. I get it. Rug pulls and bad user experience. But there’s still hope!

Good morning!  This Saturday morning I reflect on why people, and often times even myself, can't stand crypto and web3.  From rug pulls to bad user experience (UX) design, it seems like we have taken a step back in the name of lofty philosophical ideals of independence and financial autonomy.  Web 2 is soooooo easy!  But convenience is the tool of those who want total control and power.  So how do we get around the difficulty that web3 and the desire for sovereignty bring us?  This difficulty has let in the grifters and scammers to prey on those who are having difficulty learning the web3 language and interface.  Well, first of all, we need to call it out and admit that we are chasing people away and turning people off with our smug commands to DYOR (do your own research)!  After that, we need to figure out how we can make it so ANYONE can use web3.  The steps are being laid and the article I read in the 2nd half by Samantha J. Marin of Bankless DAO states the problem and solution in the most accurate way I can think of.  Thanks Samantha!

 

Sources:

https://freaksnguilds.com/

https://banklesspublishing.com/we-made-the-internet-hard-again/

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-enforcement-action-charging-six-individuals-cryptocurrency-fraud

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-vns/crypto-enforcement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 154 - Shootin’ the breeze with myself about DAO and multisigs

Good morning!  This morning's conversation with myself entails mostly DAOs and DAO tooling.  Specifically Notion, Dework, Gnosis, Parcel, and Utopia.

 

Sources:

https://gnosis-safe.io/

 

https://parcel.money/

 

https://dework.xyz/

 

https://www.utopialabs.com/

 

https://twitter.com/utopialabs_/status/1500987031534530562?s=20&t=xEDgf9xCAd0VLdMFX8eDRA

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 153 - Rambling On About Real Estate and the Blockchain

Good morning!  In this episode I had a hard time making my thoughts come out of my mouth in a coherent manner, but I ended up talking about real estate on the blockchain, augmented reality, peeing in the backyard, the metaverse, and the kid's game MASH. 

Sources:

 

https://www.metaverserights.com/post/crypto-backed-by-hard-assets-like-real-estate-will-succeed

 

https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1550096545294458886

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MASH_(game)

 

 

 

 

Episode 152 - Aztec Network brings VPN privacy for web3 and DeFi

Good morning!  This morning I go poking around the Aztec Network website and blog.  I talk alot about privacy and the account model on Ethereum standard vs the UTXO that Aztec and zk.money bring to the equation.  Of course, all my usual rambling is thrown into the mix.

 

Sources:

https://aztec.network/

 

https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/953.pdf

 

https://docs.aztec.network/how-aztec-works/privacy

 

https://zk.money/

 

https://www.element.fi/

 

https://twitter.com/jonwu_/status/1545173135367888896

 

https://twitter.com/CreativeJack/status/1547902789379952646

 

https://twitter.com/YtzBeno/status/1545513992512315393

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 151 - A little DIY run-through of new L1 AI-driven blockchain called Libonomy

Good morning!  After rambling and beign side-track by the Island Boyz token project for a bit, (fast-forward to 10:00 min mark) I do a little DIY run-through of new L1 AI-driven blockchain called Libonomy ($LBY).  This layer one blockchain uses a consensus engine called Aphelion that is driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning.  The AI accepts nodes into the network, surveys the characteristics of the node and assigns them the most well-suited job inside the consensus network.  This Aphelion consensus engine can be plugged into just about any blockchain.  It's use in Libonomy is the first of its kind.  This show is by far not a comprehensive look at Libonomy and Aphelion, but it is at least a start to get the word in your vocabulary and a place from which you can start your own research. 

 

Sources:

https://libonomy.com/

 

https://libonomy.com/assets/pdf/white-paper-libonomy-v2.0.pdf

 

https://devopedia.org/aphelion-consensus-algorithm

 

https://libonomy.medium.com/what-is-libonomy-9ac79c3a9b30

 

https://twitter.com/Libonomy

 

https://twitter.com/CtyptoEtcNews/status/1543216526865891328

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 150 - The old web 2.0 file extension virus making a Web3 comeback

Good morning!  This morning is a short, and easy episode.  I mainly just wanted to test out a new audio configuration.  I have been trying to troubleshoot the audio issue in the past several episodes and I finally think I got it all fixed.  Anyway, this episode is about the old fake file extension scam/virus.  This is a scam/virus that names a file a .pdf fil in the file name, but in reality the file is a .exe fil or .scr file.  This was a common trojan horse virus method several years ago.  It is now making a resurgence with artists and content creators entering into the web3 space.  Be careful about people sending you zip files or pdf files to show you their portfolio, slide show, branding guidelines, etc...  Even if you know the person, ask if they have opened the file on their machine and where they got the file.  

 

Source:

https://twitter.com/Serpent/status/1540770171069276160

Episode 149 - DARPA creating crypto FUD, but Bitcoin community not having it

Good morning!  This morning I go over a report by Trail of Bits commissioned by DARPA to look for vulnerabilities in crypto, specifically Bitcoin and Ethereum.  A friend of mine brought this Trail of Bits podcast to my attention that talks about this report and the findings that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not as nearly decentralized as their communities claim them to be and go on to state lots of reasons why.  I was a bit concerned as the podcast and the article did indeed work on me.  However, I went on to find a counter-article by Swan Bitcoin that brought to light the incorrect and misleading claims made by Trail of Bits.  I have it all linked below and I will let you decide.  But I will ask you, who has the greater motive for crypto to be found incompetent?  It ain't the crypto community.

 

Sources:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/pentagon-finds-concerning-vulnerabilities-on-blockchain/

 

https://assets-global.website-files.com/5fd11235b3950c2c1a3b6df4/62af6c641a672b3329b9a480_Unintended_Centralities_in_Distributed_Ledgers.pdf

 

https://www.trailofbits.com/

 

https://trailofbits.audio/episodes

 

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2022/02/09/sp020922-the-future-of-money-gearing-up-for-central-bank-digital-currency

 

https://digitaltech.com/data-center-alley-why-70-of-internet-traffic-flows-through-ashburn-virginia/

 

https://www.swanbitcoin.com/fact-check-darpa-funded-report-on-blockchain-centralization/

 

https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1542126740843241473

 

 

Episode 148 - What is Mt Gox and what will happen when 150000 BTC erupt from it?

Good morning!  This morning is all about Mt Gox.  Apparently the entities behind the Mt Gox hack implosion settlement have announced that  they will be releasing 150k BTC onto the market beginning in August.  What does this mean for BTC and the market? Is this a Black Swan event or a buying opportunity?  But first of all, what is Mt Gox?  The crypto world has a ton of internal jargon and significant events that have happened that no one else really knows about and when we talk about it, it can be hard for outsiders to understand.  So in this episode I give a brief history and definition of Mt Gox.

Sources:

 

https://www.bitcoininsider.org/article/174382/150000-btc-could-flood-market-mt-gox-creditors-set-receive-repayment

https://thenextweb.com/news/a-brief-history-of-mt-gox-the-3b-bitcoin-tragedy-that-just-wont-end

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox

https://thebitcoinnews.com/one-billion-dollars-worth-of-bitcoin-to-flood-market-courtesy-of-mt-gox/

https://www.outlookindia.com/business/celsius-network-continues-to-be-in-eye-of-storm-faces-lawsuit-from-former-employee-news-207835

 

 

 

Episode 147 - CBDC’s absolute control, Voyager Bankruptcy, new Lens Protocol Social Graph

Good morning! This morning I talk about a smorgasbord of topics including CBDC's and the elimination of anonymous digital cash and their "absolute control".  All for our protection, of course.  Voyager Digital going completely Chapter 11 on us. Then, for some positive innovation news, Lens Protocol has allowed BankelssDAO members to be whitelisted for their web3 social media NFT handles/profiles.

Sources:

https://twitter.com/AtomicDEX/status/1542201191240712193

https://cointelegraph.com/news/voyager-digital-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-proposes-recovery-plan

https://lens.xyz/

https://www.lensfrens.xyz/eurekajohn.lens