Blockchain podcasts

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I came across this list of Crypto podcasts recently. The list is so long, it is practically useless.

I googled to see what would be 5-10 high quality podcasts on blockchains. I worked with those shorter lists.

I found that many of the recommended podcasts are coming from the finance angle, and some of them are mostly for speculating on coins for investing. I hated most of those.

Another type of podcasts were from people who got involved in the area with Bitcoin (through the Bitcoin magazine and conferences). I didn't like those podcasts either as these guys tend to be fanatical, and also not very technical. But since they are in the field and trenches, I did not write them off completely and listened to some select episodes.

Overall I am disappointed with the quality of the podcasts in this domain. Please recommend me good podcasts you are aware of. There should be 3-4 gems among this huge list of podcasts. (Epicenter and Unchained was sort of OK.)

"Block Zero" podcast by Kevin Rose (of Digg fame) stood out in the list. I knew this was going to be good, because Kevin Rose is a good communicator, smart guy, and a newcomer to the scene. I listened to 5 episodes from Block Zero,  here is what I make of it.

  1. Blockchain people have a problem with buying into their own propaganda. I think the reason why blockchain people are so self-unaware is because money distorts their judgment. They have all the incentive to see only the good things about their platform and only bad things about other platforms.
  2. And yes, blockchain people have money (or potential money). They are able to raise millions of dollars either via VC or token sales, but I don't think what they build matches what they raised.
  3. All the blockchain people in the podcasts said "We are a platform, all other services/applications can plug to us."  Everyone wants everyone else to integrate into their platform.
  4. As a result there is an abundance of platforms but no clear killer application. Previously, people would say "but this is trustless" when asked about what is the application. Now the word thrown around is DeFi (which is not even a word). The value proposition of blockchains in finance or decentralized finance is not clear. It is interesting.. One application I liked (from episode 1) was the use of Bitcoin for donations. If you give Bitcoin as donation, you can track how it is actually used as it is spend. Yes, this suggest using the total transparency in the chain works, and lack of privacy as a feature rather than treating it as a bug. Haha, trackable money.  

Again, my stance on blockchain work is that I am very happy that there is activity here. I think something good will come out eventually from this activity. This is already a net gain for distributed consensus field.

Comments

adaszko said…
I can recommend https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/.
March 9, 2020 at 4:00 PM
Unknown said…
I recommend Andreas M. Antonopoulos's youtube channel, a lot of techonical material there. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJWCJCWOxBYSi5DhCieLOLQ
March 31, 2020 at 12:40 AM
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