Support the show, consider donating: 1JqE3eCwn7PeFNZUq6U2LExwxFqGBS9eqM (http://bit.ly/2gl9HIP) In their relatively short lifespan, blockchain technologies have already undergone significant milestones. Bitcoin’s blockchain, often referred to as Blockchain 1.0, features a simple database ledger that records transactions in a chronological order and represents the state of the network to participants. Ethereum, or Blockchain 2.0, introduced the notion of smart contracts. Microsoft’s Bletchley Project introduces a new modular architecture which might mark a new milestone for blockchain technologies. Marley Gray, Principal Program Manager Blockchain at Microsoft, joins us to talk about Microsoft’s approach to blockchain architecture. With enterprise in mind, Bletchley introduces the concept of “Cryptlets”, the core building blocks for introducing a secure middleware tier into blockchain application infrastructure. These computational units, running off-chain, on secure trusted container enclave hardware, could provide trusted data to on-chain smart contract logic. Topics discussed in this episode: - Marley’s background and experience at Microsoft - Why Microsoft is aggressively pursuing blockchain technologies (compared to other large tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc) - Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain-as-a-Service offering - Project Bletchley, its goals and the problems it is trying to address - The primary use cases in which Bletchley may provide value - How Bletchley addresses the issue of deploying consortium style blockchains - What are Cryptlets and how do they relate to Bletchley - How Cryptlets are different from Oracles - How Cryptlets could provide data to Ethereum-style smart contracts Links mentioned in this episode: - Bletchley Whitepaper: https://github.com/Azure/azure-blockchain-projects/blob/master/bletchley/bletchley-whitepaper.md - Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) | Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/blockchain/ Sponsors: - Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io This episode is also available on : - Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/161 - YouTube: http://youtu.be/avAouD1UHH4 - Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-161 Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts. Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

Support the show, consider donating: 192nDuBdNgyUbUn7CAUvHahXXrGXCzpsst (http://bit.ly/1IbzI1w) Christian Decker is a PhD student at ETH Zurich, where he is currently finishing up the world's first PhD thesis entirely about Bitcoin. The computer scientist has been part of the Bitcoin community since 2009 and just recently turned off his last miner after 6.5 years! We talked about the current scalability debate and what his research indicated what blocksize could reasonably be handled today. We also discussed his proposal for Duplex Micropayment Channels. Like the Lightning Network, Duplex Channels use a network of payment channels to enable cheap, instant and trustless offchain transactions. The proposal, which he is currently implementing, is one of the most promising approaches to scaling Bitcoin. Topics covered included: - How losing 9000 btc got him on the front page of the New York Times - The scaling Bitcoin debate and what blocksize could be handled today - How payment channels work and could be used for off-chain transactions - The advantages Duplex Micropayment Channels have with regards to privacy - The differences between Duplex and the Lightning Network - Whether off-chain transactions could work on Ethereum as well Links mentioned in this episode: - Christian Decker's ETH homepage http://bit.ly/1XlB6Wr - A Fast and Scalable Payment Network with Bitcoin Duplex Micropayment Channels [PDF] http://bit.ly/1N4co7k - Bitcoin Meets Strong Consistency [PDF] http://bit.ly/1N4cgVe - Information Propagation in the Bitcoin Network [PDF] http://bit.ly/1YpurwR - Epicenter Bitcoin Lightning Network Episode http://bit.ly/1MxUYCP Sponsors: - Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly at http://ShapeShift.io Show notes: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/106 SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-106 Epicenter Bitcoin is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy - Visit our website: http://epicenterbitcoin.com - Subscribe to our newsletter: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/newsletter - Twitter: http://twitter.com/epicenterbtc