Best Shargel Podcasts (2024)

1
Motion: Bitcoin mining is good for the grid (Lee Bratcher vs. Ben Hertz-Shargel) 1:15:39

2y ago1:15:39

1:15:39

Guests: Lee Bratcher (twitter.com/lee_bratcher) Ben Hertz-Shargel (twitter.com/benhertzshargel) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Bitcoin mining is good for the grid.” Bitcoin advocates think bitcoin is a good invention for many reasons, one of which is that it makes the power grid more robust. In 2021, Senator Ted Cruz of…

1
Motion: We should always reduce MEV on blockchains (Ed Felten vs. Tushar Jain) 1:09:38

2y ago1:09:38

1:09:38

Guests: Ed Felten (twitter.com/edfelten) Tushar Jain (twitter.com/TusharJain_) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “We should always reduce MEV on blockchains." Generally speaking, MEV or Miner Extractable Value is a way for miners to derive additional revenue by executing transactions based on information in the mem pool. Fo…

1
Motion: Web3 is worse than Web2 (Liron Shapira vs. Kyle Samani) 1:22:40

2+ y ago1:22:40

1:22:40

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan Guests: Liron Shapira (twitter.com/liron) Kyle Samani (twitter.com/kylesamani) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Web3 is wo…

1
Motion: The industry is growing out of the Fat Protocol Thesis (Jeff Dorman vs. Joel Monegro) 1:36:55

2+ y ago1:36:55

1:36:55

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan Guests: Jeff Dorman (twitter.com/jdorman81) Joel Monegro (twitter.com/jmonegro) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “The indus…

1
Motion: DAOs are better than corporations (Kain Warwick vs. Edmund Schuster) 1:17:04

2+ y ago1:17:04

1:17:04

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan Guests: Kain Warwick (twitter.com/kaiynne) Edmund Schuster (twitter.com/Edmund_Schuster) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “…

1
Motion: Toxic maximalism is great for Bitcoin (Giacomo Zucco vs. Paul Sztorc) 1:34:31

2+ y ago1:34:31

1:34:31

Guests: Giacomo Zucco: twitter.com/giacomozucco Paul Sztorc: twitter.com/truthcoin Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Toxic maximalism is great for bitcoin.” I hear many no-coiners say that “the worst thing about bitcoin is the bitcoiners.” They are referring to their negative encounters with staunch bitcoin believers on so…

1
Motion: It's a bad idea to make Bitcoin compulsory tender (George Selgin vs. Yves Bennaïm) 1:43:06

2+ y ago1:43:06

1:43:06

Guests: Yves Bennaïm: twitter.com/ZLOK George Selgin: twitter.com/georgeselgin Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “It's a bad idea to make Bitcoin compulsory tender.” If you’re somewhat into crypto, you must have heard about El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law that has made Bitcoin a legal tender in addition to USD. With an asterisk. …

1
Motion: Algo and fractional stablecoins are flawed (Bennett Tomlin vs. Sam Kazemian) 1:16:41

2+ y ago1:16:41

1:16:41

Guests: Bennett Tomlin (twitter.com/bennetttomlin) Sam Kazemian (twitter.com/samkazemian) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Algo and fraction stablecoins are flawed.” A good stablecoin can sustainably hold its peg, and recover quickly from a premium or discount. This is a basic requirement for stablecoins. An obvious desig…

1
Motion: Security is about maximizing the minimum set of colluding miners (Anatoly Yakovenko vs. Dankrad Feist) 1:26:22

3y ago1:26:22

1:26:22

Guests: Anatoly Yakovenko (twitter.com/aeyakovenko) Dankrad Feist (twitter.com/dankrad) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Security is about maximizing the minimum set of colluding miners.” This is a mouthful. The minimum set of colluding miners is the smallest cartel of dishonest block producers you need to attack a networ…

1
Motion: The US urgently needs to catch up on Central Bank Digital Currency (Robert Hockett vs. Lawrence White) 1:34:43

3y ago1:34:43

1:34:43

Guests: Bob Hockett (twitter.com/rch371) Larry White (twitter.com/lawrencehwhite1) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “The US urgently needs to catch up on CBDC.” Central Bank Digital Currencies are sort of like government-run Paypal accounts. They allow the government to do scalpel-like fiscal policies more easily, such as …

1
Motion: Trustless smart contracts for Bitcoin is impossible without forking (Ruben Somsen vs. Muneeb Ali) 1:47:12

3y ago1:47:12

1:47:12

Guests: Ruben Somsen (twitter.com/SomsenRuben) Muneeb Ali (twitter.com/muneeb) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Trustless smart contracts for bitcoin are impossible without forks.” A few projects have been known to try to bring smart contracts to bitcoin. But are they doing this in a way as you understand it? This episode…

1
Motion: NFTs are dumb (Edmund Schuster vs. Andrew Steinwold, co-host: Maria Shen) 1:14:38

3y ago1:14:38

1:14:38

Guests: Edmund Schuster (twitter.com/edmund_schuster) Andrew Steinwold (twitter.com/andrewsteinwold) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Special co-host: Maria Shen (twitter.com/mariashen) Today’s motion is “NFTs are dumb.” Non Fungible Tokens have taken the world by storm. A transaction in NFT is a transaction in some sort of digital ownershi…

1
Motion: Ethereum is too early for institutional money (Lyn Alden vs. Qiao Wang) 1:05:42

3y ago1:05:42

1:05:42

Guests: Lyn Alden (twitter.com/lynaldencontact) Qiao Wang (twitter.com/qwqiao) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Ethereum is too early for institutional money.” Quite a few institutions have voted with their feet on Bitcoin. This ranges from corporate treasuries to money managers. At what point will Ethereum catch the atte…

1
Motion: Diem is a glorified Paypal (David Gerard vs. Bryce Weiner) 57:54

3y ago57:54

57:54

Guests: David Gerard (twitter.com/davidgerard) Bryce Weiner (twitter.com/bryceweiner) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Diem is a glorified PayPal.” Diem of course used to be called Libra. It’s a cryptocurrency floated by Facebook in 2019. It was a big deal back then. A global borderless currency for 2 billion install base…

1
Motion: Tether has always been acting in bad faith (Bennett Tomlin vs. Larry Cermak, co-host: Patrick McKenzie) 1:15:51

3+ y ago1:15:51

1:15:51

Guests: Bennett Tomlin (@bennetttomlin) Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Patrick McKenzie (@patio11, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Tether has always been acting in bad faith.” This topic is very relevant for today’s markets because Tether is simultaneously an incredibly important, if not the most important, source of on…

1
Motion: Bitcoin is a scam (Jorge Stolfi vs. Lyn Alden) 1:25:57

3+ y ago1:25:57

1:25:57

Guests: Jorge Stolfi (@jorgestolfi) Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Bitcoin is a scam.” At the time of recording and release, Bitcoin reached its all time highs. And it just seems that every few weeks, a traditional financial institution or a well-known investor is announcing their interest in the orang…

1
Motion: Legally speaking, tokens are more like commodities than like securities (Lewis Cohen vs. Gabriel Shapiro) 1:15:00

3+ y ago1:15:00

1:15:00

Guests: Lewis Cohen (@NYcryptolawyer) Gabriel Shapiro (@lex_node) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Legally speaking, tokens are more like commodities than like securities.” Today’s guests are two legal experts in crypto space. One of them will argue that token transactions on the post-ICO, secondary market should for the most part b…

1
Motion: Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization, II (Evan Shapiro vs. Anatoly Yakovenko) 46:24

3+ y ago46:24

46:24

Guests: Evan Shapiro (@evanashapiro) Anatoly Yakovenko (@aeyakovenko) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization.” This is a follow-up debate, or you can think of it as a re-match. Previously Emre from O(1) Labs also debated Anatoly from Solana on this very topic …

1
Motion: Tether will likely get crushed by authorities in the next two years, thanks to its shady practices and defiance against regulators (CasPiancey vs. Matthew Graham) 54:57

3+ y ago54:57

54:57

Guests: CasPiancey (@caspiancey) Matthew Graham (@mattysino) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Tether will likely get crushed by authorities in the next two years, thanks to its shady practices and defiance against regulators.” In this debate about the controversial pioneer stablecoin, we talked about pending lawsuits, a lack of regu…

1
Motion: ZK rollup has a better set of security/scalability tradeoff than optimistic rollup (Alex Gluchowski vs. John Adler, co-host: James Prestwich) 1:26:30

3+ y ago1:26:30

1:26:30

Guests: Alex Gluchowski (@gluk64) John Adler (@jadler0) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) James Prestwich (@_prestwich, special co-host) Today’s motion is “ZK rollup has a better set of security/scalability tradeoff than Optimistic rollup.” Rollups are a class of layer-2 Ethereum scalability solutions. They allow an off-chain aggregation of transaction…

1
Motion: Yield Farming is an innovation (Haseeb Qureshi vs. Meltem Demirors, co-host: Tarun Chitra) 58:07

3+ y ago58:07

58:07

Guests: Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb) Meltem Demirors (@melt_dem) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Tarun Chitra (@tarunchitra, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Yield farming is an innovation.” Yield farming, or liquidity mining, refers to a newly popularized practice of DeFi protocols, where the protocols incentivize usage with reward tokens. The trend…

1
Motion: Blockchain analysis companies are bad for bitcoin (Alex Gladstein vs. Dave Jevans) 1:14:48

3+ y ago1:14:48

1:14:48

Guests: Alex Gladstein (@gladstein) Dave Jevans (@davejevans) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Blockchain analysis companies are bad for bitcoin.” Blockchain analysis companies are effectively on-chain detectives. They help exchanges and other financial institutions detect and monitor money-laundering activities and therefore stay i…

1
Motion: Today's blockchains can't increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization (Emre Tekişalp vs. Anatoly Yakovenko, cohost: Uri Klarman) 1:16:38

3+ y ago1:16:38

1:16:38

Guests: Emre Tekişalp (@etekis) Anatoly Yakovenko (@aeyakovenko) Hosts: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Uri Klarman (@uriklarman, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization.” Today’s guests are from two different public blockchains Coda and Solana. The CEO of Bloxroute came on as spec…

1
Motion: Scalability is impossible without sharding and layer-2 solutions (Georgios Konstantopoulos vs. Anatoly Yakovenko, cohost: Tarun Chitra) 1:42:57

4y ago1:42:57

1:42:57

Guests: Georgios Konstantopoulos (@gakonst) Anatoly Yakovenko (@aeyakovenko) Hosts: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Tarun Chitra (@tarunchitra, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Scalability is impossible without sharding and layer-2 solutions.” Today’s discussion is highly technical in nature and I’m glad to have Tarun as my co-pilot. Between the two deb…

1
Motion: Nation-state attack on Bitcoin is an unresolved ticking time-bomb (Mike Kelly vs. Hasu) 1:31:37

4y ago1:31:37

1:31:37

Guests: Mike Kelly (@mikekelly85) Hasu (@hasufl) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Nation-state attack on the bitcoin network is an unresolved ticking time bomb.” In this thorough and fascinating debate, we covered these topics: The motivations of nationstate attacks The mechanisms of nationstate attacks The aftermath of nationstate …

1
Motion: Corporate bailouts and capital market rescues make sense, II (Jonathan Padilla vs. Nick White) 1:14:56

4y ago1:14:56

1:14:56

Guests: Jonathan "JP" Padilla (@JPadillaCA) Nick White (@nickwh8te) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “I largely approve the US government’s fiscal and monetary response to the ongoing economic crisis.” We recently had another debate on a similar topic, between Qiao Wang and Jimmy Song. While Qiao argued for the pro-establishment view…

1
Motion: Corporate bailouts and capital market rescues make sense (Qiao Wang vs. Jimmy Song) 1:46:10

4y ago1:46:10

1:46:10

Guests: Qiao Wang (@qwqiao) Jimmy Song (@jimmysong) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) We all know the dominant crypto-native perspective on corporate/Wall Street bailouts — as generally anti-intervention, both fiscally and monetarily. But it’s important to hear the other side, if only to kick the tires of your own beliefs. After all, many smart people …

1
Motion: Ethereum 1.0 can scale (Uri Klarman vs. Mrinal Manohar) 1:31:40

4y ago1:31:40

1:31:40

Guests: Uri Klarman (@uriklarman) Mrinal Manohar (casperlabs.io) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) The guests we have today have close ties to Ethereum. One is actively working on a solution to scale the 1.0 version. The other was an early investor in Ethereum. In this episode, I learned about: An interesting layer-0 approach to improve the performance…

1
Discussion: Baseline ("Permission-less Chain" for enterprise) vs. Corda ("Permissioned Chain" for enterprise) (John Wolpert vs. Richard Brown) 1:02:15

4y ago1:02:15

1:02:15

Guests: John Wolpert (@jwolpert) Richard Brown (@gendal) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s session is about enterprise blockchain and features a co-founder of Baseline protocol and CTO of R3. The former is building an enterprise solution on a public blockchain, whereas the latter is doing so on a private blockchain. So you will learn about the …

1
Motion: The future of blockchain will be an oligopoly of public blockchains (Illia Polosukhin vs. Zaki Manian) 1:02:05

4y ago1:02:05

1:02:05

Guests: Illia Polosukhin (@ilblackdragon) - debating FOR the motion Zaki Manian (@zmanian) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) In a world where decentralized applications proliferate, will these applications be built on top of a few or many public blockchains? Exploration of this topic would help us understand the merits of …

1
Motion: POS will overtake POW (Kevin Sekniqi vs. Tarun Chitra) 1:41:28

4y ago1:41:28

1:41:28

Guests: Kevin Sekniqi (@kevinsekniqi) - debating FOR the motion Tarun Chitra (@tarunchitra) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “POS will overtake POW.” This is an important topic for a few reasons. First, from an investor’s perspective, this is another angle of evaluating BTC vs its challengers, which by a…

1
Motion: China Will Lead the World in Blockchain Innovation (Matthew Graham vs. Avichal Garg) 1:18:15

4y ago1:18:15

1:18:15

Guests: Matthew Graham (@mattysino) - debating FOR the motion Avichal Garg (@avichal) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “China will lead the world in blockchain innovation.” With a huge market, vast amount of capital, loose regulations (in a de facto sense anyway), deep bench of talent and prowess for imi…

1
Motion: Bitcoin Halvening is Priced In (Jason Williams vs. Christian Keroles) 1:13:21

4y ago1:13:21

1:13:21

Guests: Jason Williams (@JWilliamsFstmed) - debating FOR the motion Christian Keroles (@ck_SNARKs) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Bitcoin halvening is priced in.” Halvening, or halving, refers to the regularly scheduled reduction in the supply of new bitcoins to reward miners. This happens roughly eve…

1
Motion: DeFi is DeFicient (Udi Wertheimer vs. Haseeb Qureshi) 1:26:36

4y ago1:26:36

1:26:36

Guests: Udi Wertheimer (@UdiWertheimer) - debating FOR the motion Haseeb Qureshi (@Hosseeb) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion concerns DeFi, or decentralized finance. The vision of decentralized finance is financial markets such as borrowing/lending and trading without intermediaries. The hope is this will i…

1
Motion: Tokenization and Smart Contracts are Useful Ideas (Emin Gün Sirer vs. Edmund Schuster) 1:35:18

4+ y ago1:35:18

1:35:18

Guests: Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) - debating FOR the motion Edmund Schuster (@Edmund_Schuster) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion concerns tokenization and smart contracts. Smart contracts' value proposition is to facilitate programmable transactions of tokens, in a manner that is decentralized, transparen…

1
Motion: Bitcoin will Attain Global Store of Value Status in 2040 (Jimmy Song vs. David Gerard) 1:20:05

4+ y ago1:20:05

1:20:05

Motion: Bitcoin will Attain Global Store of Value Status in 2040. Guests: Jimmy Song (@jimmysong) - debating FOR the motion David Gerard (@davidgerard) - debating AGAINST the motion Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) This debate touches upon one of the most fundamental value proposition of cryptos. If any crypto can attain the status of digital gold, th…

1
Announcing The Blockchain Debate Podcast 2:05

4+ y ago2:05

2:05

Each episode invites two industry experts to debate a blockchain related motion. The debate winner will be determined based on changes in pre-debate and post-debate motion poll results. For example, if according to Twitter polling, 30% agreed with motion A before the release of the debate, and 35% agree afterwards, then the "for" debater effected a…

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