Ethereum 2.0 is an upgrade to the Ethereum network that aims to improve the network's security and scalability. Recently, we chatted to Danny Ryan about the Merge and switch to Proof of Stake. As a follow up to that episode, we were joined by Dankrad Feist, who heads the sharding and statelessness research at the Ethereum Foundation. We dove deep into the technical infrastructure of how Eth2 addresses scaling through sharding, the pros and cons of data shards vs. execution shards, and how this links up with ZK-rollups. We also talked about the Ethereum state and how the state can be altered for protocol improvements. Topics covered in this episode: Dankrad's background and how he came to work on EthereumAn overview of potential protocol updates and where they’re at right nowData availability shards and the overall concept of sharding in the protocolHow shards are maintained with validators and Proof of StakeHow Rollups work and the vision for their futureThe role of execution shards and what they provide that data availability shards don'tComposability across data shardsStatelessness; what the Ethereum state is and how it is usedWhat is state rent?EVM and parallelizationDankrad's views on the future of Ethereum and what it will bring to the blockchain spaceEpisode links: Episode 393 with Danny RyanEth ResearchEthereum BlogEthereum CommunityEth R&D DiscordEthereum on GitHubEF on TwitterDankrad on TwitterSponsors: Exodus: Exodus the easy-to-use crypto wallet available on all platforms and supporting over 100 different assets. - https://exodus.com/epicenterParaSwap: ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage - http://paraswap.io/epicenterThis episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/397

By default, all transactions made on Ethereum are public. Tornado Cash is a decentralized privacy preserving solution built on Ethereum which adds privacy through obfuscation. Users can place Ether and some stable coins in prescribed increments [1 Eth, 10 Eth, 100 Eth...] into the Tornado Pool. In return, they are issued a private note, with which they can withdraw funds at a later time to a different address. We were joined by Roman Semenov, co-founder of Tornado Cash, to talk about how the protocol works, how it was set up, community governance, and where he sees Tornado Cash's position in the quickly growing privacy ecosystem on Ethereum. Topics covered in this episode: Roman's background and how he got into cryptoThe problem Tornado Cash solves and how the protocol worksWhat tokens are supported and can you swap tokens?Smart contracts and zero knowledgeCosts involved for deposits and withdrawlsWeaknesses of the protocolThe Compliance Tool featureThe regulatory threat to private coins in the futureTornado Cash's roadmap and how they see themselves positioned in the wider ecosystemEpisode links: Tornado.cashDune AnalyticsTornado Cash on TwitterRoman on TwitterSponsors: Exodus: Exodus the easy-to-use crypto wallet available on all platforms and supporting over 100 different assets. - https://exodus.com/epicenterParaSwap: ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage - http://paraswap.io/epicenterSolana: Solana is the high performance blockchain supporting over 50k transactions per second to power the next generation of decentralized applications. - https://solana.com/epicenterThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/395