Decrypt Asia - Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Podcast

We managed to catch the very busy Ella Zhang, Head of Binance Labs, on the sidelines of a conference in Singapore to get all the scoop about Binance Labs, what her team has been up to and what they plan to achieve going forward. Tune in to hear about: * Ella’s very interesting background and how she came to be a part of Binance Labs * Mandate of Binance Labs * Three key pillars – incubation, fellowship and direct investment * Fellowship – https://medium.com/binance-labs/introducing-the-binance-labs-fellowship-270521d2e99d [https://medium.com/binance-labs/introducing-the-binance-labs-fellowship-270521d2e99d] * How does the incubation program work? * Season 1 of Binance Labs incubation: https://medium.com/binance-labs/season-1-binance-labs-incubation-program-buidlers-season-1-ec34b601ccd [https://medium.com/binance-labs/season-1-binance-labs-incubation-program-buidlers-season-1-ec34b601ccd] * Season 2 of Binance Labs Incubation: https://www.binance.com/en/blog/342988062870470656/Binance-Labs-Reveals-13-Startups-in-its-Incubation-Program [https://www.binance.com/en/blog/342988062870470656/Binance-Labs-Reveals-13-Startups-in-its-Incubation-Program] * What is the investment focus and how has the team’s investment thesis evolved over a period of time * How does Ella think about overall portfolio construction * Drawing from the lessons of the popping of the 2000 internet bubble and outlook on the industry going forward

Following our discussion with Matic Network, we speak to the CEO of Skale Labs which is also trying to build a layer 2 solution to solve the problem of Ethereum Scalability. Tune in to hear about: * Evolution of enterprise software – on-premises > cloud > open-source * Importance of community for open-source software * Implications of AWS going down and how Blockchain technology plays in ensuring 100% uptime * Ethereum Scalability * Why Skale Labs chose to go down the side-chain path * What is a network of side chains and what are elastic side chains? * Consensus mechanism for each of the network of side chains * Interactions between the side chains and the main chain * DApps building on Skale Labs and Skale Innovator Program * Plans for Asia * Competitive landscape for scalability projects

Following our discussion with the Zilliqa team, we decided to speak to another Blockchain Protocol that is trying to solve the problem of Scalability through Sharding. Hear Nick White, one of the co-founders of Harmony, tell us about what is unique about their Project as well as the IEO that took place recently on the Binance Launchpad. Tune in to hear about: * What is sharding? * Difference between Transaction Sharding and State Sharding * How does Harmony achieve State Sharing * How does the overall Harmony Network look like? * How does Staking work in the Harmony ecosystem, what are the rewards and what does it take to be validator? * Governance * What DApps are building on Harmony, what is the process to port over from Ethereum or another Blockchain to Harmony? * Binance token sale and roadmap * Plans for Asia

We speak to Diego Gutiérrez Zaldívar, CEO and co-founder of Rootstock or RSK (https://www.rsk.co/) and RIF Labs (https://www.rifos.org/). Rootstock, most famously, is known for putting smart contract functionality on the Bitcoin Blockchain. Tune in to hear about: * Diego’s interesting background and how he got into crypto * What Rootstock is and the concept of Merge Mining? * How Rootstock helps the Bitcoin miners by generating additional returns for them (related to the concept of Merge Mining)? * Why should DApps build on RSK? * What is RIFOS and how did it come about? * Why is RIFOS important – note, it integrates things like storage, name service, data feeds, etc to make it easier to develop DApps * Rootstock’s plans in Asia * Diego’s mantra for surviving in crypto – The rougher the weather is, the calmer you have to be

We speak to Dan Shin, Co-founder of Terra (https://terra.money/). Prior to Terra, Dan is most notably known for being the Founder and Chairman of TMON (http://www.tmon.co.kr). TMON or Ticket Monster is a Unicorn out of South Korea which was started in 2010 and had a mobile first approach to e-commerce. Now Dan is launching a stable coin that aims to drive adoption through his experience and networks in the e-commerce industry. Tune in to hear about: * Going on the mainnet and what that’s like (funnily, we spoke a couple of hours after Terra hit mainnet) * Different kinds of stable coins why Terra took the algorithmic route * How Terra is trying to drive REAL ADOPTION * How Terra maintains price stability and the role that Luna token plays in that * What is Seigniorage and how Terra is benefiting from it * Go-to market strategy through Terra Alliance comprising Carousell (https://sg.carousell.com/), Qoo1o (https://www.qoo10.sg) etc. + incentives to use Terra * How the user journey for using Terra token would look like on e-commerce platforms * Tech aspects – Building on Tendermint (https://www.tendermint.com/), on boarding validators * Dealing with Regulatory aspects including the failed Basis project (https://www.basis.io/) * Partnerships with Tomochain (https://tomochain.com/), Klaytn (https://www.klaytn.com/) etc