Social media revolves around content creation, and while the content itself could be tokenised through NFTs, SocialFi aims to take it a step further. The recently released friend.tech app went to show that users might be interested in something more than just content - creator shares. This implicitly links back to handles and profiles, and we can slowly start to unveil the primitives of social media. Lens Protocol predates the friend.tech venture, in both timeline, as well as scope. While social media became synonymous with monopolistic central entities, Lens Protocol aims to build the decentralised bedrock for Web3’s social layer. These primitives would not only be interoperable with any Web3 application, but they would redefine content creation, feed generation and monetisation. We were joined by Stani Kulechov, founder of Lens Protocol & Aave, to discuss decentralised social graphs and how to leverage smart contracts to build the primitives for Web3's social layer. Topics covered in this episode: The vision behind LensLens V2 and smart contract capabilitiesSocial media development platformDefining the Web3 social media primitiveFeed generation algorithm on LensIntegrating on-chain and off-chain infrastructureThe tragedy of the commons in decentralised social mediaCan a public good architecture also accommodate private goods?Growth model, sponsored transactions and monetisationGovernance and decentralised social mediaEpisode links: Stani Kulechov on TwitterLens Protocol on TwitterAave on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/512

From the very beginning, Cosmos set out to provide an alternative to the monolithic blockchain architecture proposed by Ethereum. Cosmos SDK was the cornerstone of this vision, as it allowed developers to spin up blockchains effortlessly. Its modularity enabled custom, self-sovereign chains to become a reality. And, instead of being a jack of all trades, those chains were centred around a sole purpose, thus transforming them into appchains. In turn, as the ecosystem grew, appchains had to be interoperable with one another, but this was already a core feature of Cosmos, via IBC. Before Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap, appchains were thought to be a much-needed scaling solution. However, with the advancements of zero knowledge technology, the Cosmos SDK now faces another set of challenges as it navigates the market demand for L2 scaling solutions. We were joined by Marko Baricevic, Cosmos SDK product lead, to discuss the development philosophy behind the Cosmos Hub and how appchains evolved over time. Topics covered in this episode: Marko’s backgroundCosmos SDK’s history and high-level overviewCosmos SDK modules and VMsEthereum’s & Cosmos’ development philosophiesCosmos SDK value prop and use casesCosmos SDK vs. other frameworks (e.g. Substrate)Token value accrual and the fragmentation dilemmaUsing the Cosmos SDK to build rollupsCosmos SDK vs. Avalanche’s HyperSDKAdoption of fraud proofs and validity proofs by the Cosmos SDKEpisode links: Marko Baricevic on TwitterCosmos on TwitterCosmos SDK on TwitterInterchain Foundation on TwitterBinary Builders on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Meher Roy & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/510