E07 - Tornado Cash and The Merge; Bryan and Jeff Roundtable 1

Bryan Ventura is here for our first roundtable; Bryan is a lawyer specializing in blockchain and Web3. Today we're covering two main topics:

• Tornado cash - what is it and why was it sanctioned - and the downstream effects of platform level censorship along with freedom of expression and how open source code fits in.
• Then we dive into Eth2.0 (I still call it that) - The Merge - we talk about some of the history of proof of work transitioning to proof of stake ethereum and what people are expecting afterwards.
• We wrap up with a shoutout to Roger Ver and Zuckerberg's metaverse.

Timestamps:
00:00 intro
00:57 Tornado cash intro
06:27 OFAC & US regulatory influence
09:27 Circle censoring USDC tx
13:30 Multiple identities & dusting accounts
17:08 freedom of speech 
23:51 Dutch jailed the founder
25:57 contributing to open source
27:18 FATF virtual asset guidance
32:56 is code speech
38:26 Eth2.0, the merge & the history of PoW
45:46 merge performance & fees
51:20 validators
55:37 deflationary distribution of ETH
59:15 Roger Ver
1:01:11 metaverse
1:13:20 fin

Some notes from the show:

• What is Tornado Cash 
• Sanctions 
• Roman Semenov 
• Chainalysis report & Lazarus North Korean hacking group 
• Bernstein v. Department of Justice 
• Developer jailed for 90 days 
• Stable Diffusion 
• Dall-e 
• pgp privacy 
• Github's co-pilot 
• Ethereum difficulty bomb 
• Otherside land mint fees 
• Ethereum nodes 
• Futureverse 
• Horizon Worlds 
• paper cheques 
• Zuckerberg on Lex 

Contact Bryan:

• LinkedIn
• MinterEllisonRuddWatts

Find Jeff:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn 

The BCNZ Pod:

• Website https://podcast.blockchain.org.nz/
• YouTube 
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Spotify 
• iHeartRadio 

Media & Sponsorship Enquires:

• team@blockchain.org.nz 

Recorded at blockheight 752817. The BCNZ podcast was founded in 2022 by Jeff Nijsse and Bryan Ventura.