The status quo for developers choosing an ecosystem for their blockchain usually revolves around trade-offs: do they go for Ethereum’s network effect, liquidity and decentralisation, or sacrifice some features in favour of a higher throughput. Monad aims to combine the best of both worlds, while not being limited by excessive hardware requirements. Monad built an EVM-compatible L1 from the ground up, completely rethinking execution and consensus, in order to achieve the infamous 10,000 TPS. This extreme scalability is made possible through Monad’s optimistic parallel execution which is asynchronous from consensus. The latter has also been optimized in order to achieve single-slot finality. Monad’s proprietary database architecture allows for states to be stored on SSDs instead of RAM, which ensures that consumer-grade hardware can run a Monad node, further increasing decentralisation. Topics covered in this episode: Keone’s backgroundTradFi vs. DeFi and how Monad was foundedEVM’s network effect vs. other VMsHow Monad aims to improve EVM’s performanceMonadDBMonadBFT - New consensus mechanismAsynchronous executionMEV and proposer-builder separation (PBS)Monad’s throughputFurther scaling and limitationsAlternatives & trade-offsDevExCommunity & ecosystem developmentEpisode links: Keone Hon on XMonad on XSponsors: Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.ioChorus One: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.oneThis episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Bitcoin’s Taproot update paved the way for a new & exciting era for Bitcoin, as it expanded its use case far beyond that of an immutable ledger. However, Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens and, more recently, Runes, have limited functionality compared to what DeFi is capable of, on other smart contract blockchains. BitcoinOS envisions a revolutionary Bitcoin economy that stems from truly programmable tokens, unlocking staking, governance and many other use cases. Using BitSNARK and Grail, BitcoinOS enables Bitcoin “rollups”, which act as execution environments that use BTC as gas fee and inherit security from the L1. The missing link was always a trustless bridge between Bitcoin L1 and any potential L2. And Grail Bridge achieved just that - using zero knowledge cryptography, BTC could be transferred to other chains without relying on other custodians’ trust assumptions. In that sense, Bitcoin block #853626 is historically meaningful as it contains the first-ever onchain verification of a zero knowledge proof, on Bitcoin. A truly programmable smart contract operating system on Bitcoin was no longer a mere concept…it became a reality through BitcoinOS. Topics covered in this episode: Yago's backgroundThe effect of Trump’s election on the crypto industryThe goal behind BitcoinOSThe history of Bitcoin’s programmabilityVerifying ZK proofs on BitcoinTaprootOrdinalsBitSNARK, Grail bridge and Merkle MeshBitcoinOS modularity and sequencingAn impending (r)evolution of the industryBitcoin vs. Ethereum L2 landscapeBringing Bitcoin liquidity to CardanoBitcoinOS roadmapEpisode links: Edan Yago on TwitterBitcoin OS on TwitterSponsors: Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.ioChorus One: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.oneThis episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture.