The recent history of L2s has shown that there doesn’t need to be ‘one chain to rule them all’ or an ‘ETH killer’. Instead, a healthier approach would be to find the best solution for a specific need, taking into consideration any potential tradeoffs. Avalanche has done just that, focusing from the get-go on delivering high transaction throughput, using their unique subnet architecture, consensus protocol and warp messaging. HyperSDK continues this conviction, offering a framework for developers to spin up customisable, high performance virtual machines. We were joined by Patrick O’Grady, VP of Engineering at Ava Labs, to discuss HyperSDK and how it enables building customisable, high performance VMs on Avalanche subnets. Topics covered in this episode: Patrick’s backgroundAvalanche’s consensus protocolSubnetsAvalancheGo design conceptsWarp messagingStaking and subnet validatorsHyperSDKHyperSDK vs. Cosmos SDKAvalanche throughput parametersCustom solutions for developersEpisode links: Patrick O'Grady on TwitterAva Labs on TwitterAvalanche on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Meher Roy & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/506

Blockchains are secured through the economic incentives offered to their validators/miners. The more robust the network effect among validators, the more difficult it is for that blockchain to be compromised. However, building a truly decentralised and reliable validator set is not a trivial task. As a result, hub and spoke ecosystem designs like Cosmos’ (and even Polkadot’s), aim to share the main hub’s validator set and security to their ‘consumer’ chains (parachains in Polkadot’s case). Neutron relies on interchain queries, interchain accounts and interchain (replicated) security to deliver the most secure CosmWasm smart contract platform in the Cosmos ecosystem. We were joined by Avril Dutheil, GM at Neutron, to discuss Neutron’s smart contract platform and how it leverages replicated security (ICS) and interchain accounts (ICA). Topics covered in this episode: Avril’s background and the value prop behind NeutronPractical examplesInterchain accounts and different use casesInterchain securityAtom hub vs. Polkadot relay chain. Onboarding and security modelsOffboarding Cosmos consumer chainsReplicated security vs. Modular blockchainsNeutron’s token utility and governanceEpisode links: Avril DutheilNeutron on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/504