saitosocial – Saito

Conflux — taking a DAG-based approach to scaling proof-of-work

admin — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 12:51:23 +0000

In this episode we sit down with Conflux’s Péter Garamvölgyi (core developer) and Zhe Tang (operations manager) to hear their thoughts on how to solve the scalability trilemma.

Developed by a group of computer scientists from the University of Toronto (one of show co-host David’s alma maters) and Tsinghua University in Beijing (also home to The Saito Social), the project has garnered attention thanks to the involvement of Dr Andrew Chi-Chih Yao — the only Chinese recipient of the Turing Award — as well as a $35 million funding round last year, which included backing from the likes of Sequoia China.

Join us as we dig into their proposal to combine a DAG data structure with Satoshi’s Proof of Work consensus algorithm as a way of delivering increased throughput — all while seeking to maintain the chain’s properties of security and decentralisation. As always: your co-hosts are Saito’s Richard Parris and David Lancashire. Feedback welcome via info@saito.tech

Sharding for blockchain scalability with NEAR Protocol and Illia Polosukhin

admin — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 10:54:08 +0000

In this episode of The Saito Social we sit down with Illia Polosukhin — co-founder of NEAR Protocol. Illia is an ICPC finalist and has more than ten years of industry experience, including three years at Google where he was a major TensorFlow contributor. NEAR positions itself as a highly scalable, developer-friendly blockchain with the team particularly focused on building a sharded mobile-first protocol.

We first met Illia at the Stanford Blockchain Conference with a follow-up meeting taking place at Tsinghua University in our hometown of Beijing. It was a pleasure to invite him on to our show here in China, to have the opportunity to get a little closer to what NEAR is all about, and to hear his thoughts on proof-of-stake, sharding and scaling.

While visiting, Illia also recorded an episode of NEAR’s Whiteboard Series taking a deep dive in to how Saito works — so look out for that in the future at //nearprotocol.com/blog/

CasperLabs—Bullish on Proof-of-Stake

David Lancashire — Thu, 30 May 2019 10:07:10 +0000

In this episode of The Saito Social we talk with Mrinal Manohar and Steven Nerayoff from Adaptive Holdings — parent company of CasperLabs in New York. CasperLabs is dedicated to the Correct-by-Construction (CBC) proof-of-stake mechanism proposed by core Ethereum developer Vlad Zamfir. It’s an important consensus mechanism in the POS world.

From being early Ethereum supporters who played an important part in helping Vitalik get the project off the ground, our guests have become leading figures in the American blockchain industry. We were delighted to have the chance to host them here in Beijing, not only to learn more about what makes the CBC approach special, but also for a deeper chat about why they are in China and where they see the US and Chinese crypto communities diverging.

Cortex — Neural Networks on the Blockchain

David Lancashire — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 22:55:56 +0000

In our inaugural episode of the Saito Social, Richard and David sit down with Amy Chen from the Cortex project. We were just getting our feet wet recording, but this was a fun show for us because — as it turns out — we had no clue what Cortex was actually doing before we had the chance to talk with Amy. And they’re actually working on something quite smart.

We won’t spoil the show. We hope you like this episode, and the idea of having a podcast that helps bridge the east-west gap in the blockchain space. And if you have any suggestions of people you’d like to hear from in Asia, send us a line and we’ll try to get them on the show. You can reach us at david@saito.tech and richard@saito.tech anytime.