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Summary This episode is the second part of our two-part review of Ontology (this is a link to the first part). It’s important to indicate that there’s no particular listening order associated with these two episodes. Therefore, having listened to one of them is not a prerequisite to jumping into the other one and vice versa. Overview Ontology is a decentralized platform, which was founded by Li Jun, who is also the co-founder of OnChain. The platform comes with a set of protocols and modules - which are its building blocks. Combining those blocks enables designing and building decentralized bridges between the real world and its digital counterpart. Moreover, the individual components are in no way immutable - they are subject to constant enhancement, and new, improved ones can be added at any point. Just as in LEGO kits, combining these various units does not require deep understanding of the very intricate internal workings of each one of them. What’s really important is how they operate together, and how they can be combined to form higher-level structures. As we build higher levels in such way, there emerges a hierarchy which has a more holistic nature to it. The associated behavior to this abstract structure comprises a complete set of features, and, ideally, this final product enables some form of improved user experience. Despite the fact that the various notions and meanings of trust greatly rely on our very own self-preservation mechanisms, decentralized, open-source platforms, such as Ontology, enable efficient, large-scale trust rebalancing. The latter can be achieved via embedding decentralized connecting components within existing centralized structures and institutions. Topics Our discussion touches upon a number of topics such as, but not limited to: Ontology’s architecture, including the various protocols and modules involved; the interconnection between open source and large-scale trust decentralization; open source and the future of humanity; the concept of trust graphs; the nefarious aspects of closed-source software; software engineering priciples embedded in Ontology’s fractal design; open source + decentralization = empowered society; fake news and its roots explained by evolutionary psychology; token metrics and minting. Feedback As usual, we look forward to your comments, ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism! Enjoy! :) N.B.: I was a bit sick during the recording of episode 6, and as a result, the voice quality is not exactly stellar. I believe this doesn’t interfere significantly with the presentation though. Episode 5: Ontology - Overview and Use Cases Episode Notes [Book] “Linked”, by Albert-laszlo Barabasi: https://amzn.to/2rTFypm [Book] “Emergence”, by Steven Johnson: https://amzn.to/2k9kqqQ [Book] “Sapiens”, by Yuval Noah Harari: https://amzn.to/2ID2OT2 [Book] “In the Plex”, by Steven Levy: https://amzn.to/2xZGjCR [Book] “Flowers for Algernon”, by Daniel Keyes: https://amzn.to/2wWroJ4 Ontology website: https://ont.io/ Ontology whitepapers: https://ont.io/documents Ontology on Github: https://github.com/ontio OnChain: https://www.onchain.com/en-us/ –, Episode 5: Ontology - Overview and Use Cases: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/podcast/2018/05/26/episode-5-ontology-overview-and-use-cases.html –, World’s Soccer/European Football Transfer Network: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/assets/images/world_soccer_transfer_network.png “Facebook emotion experiment sparks criticism”, BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28051930 “Facebook Tinkers With Users’ Emotions in News Feed Experiment, Stirring Outcry”, The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html “The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple diagram”: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram “Obama 2012 campaign ‘sucked’ data from Facebook, former official says”: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/03/20/obama-2012-campaign-sucked-data-from-facebook-former-official-says.html “It’s Possible Facebook App Could Be Listening To You”, Huffington Post: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/christopher-wylie-its-the-possible-facebook-app-could-be-listening-to-you_uk_5abcc5e0e4b03e2a5c79ad70 “Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems”, Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5?IR=T “It’s time for third-party data brokers to emerge from the shadows”, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-third-party-data-brokers-to-emerge-from-the-shadows-94298 “How to turn off Windows 10’s keylogger (yes, it still has one)”, PCWorld: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html “Microsoft bashes Chrome browser over battery life via Windows 10 notifications”, Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/microsoft-edge-notifications-battery-power-usage-chrome/ “Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens”, Wired: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion “Amondawa tribe lacks abstract idea of time, study says”, BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711 “Brazil’s Pirahã Tribe: Living without Numbers or Time”, Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/brazil-s-piraha-tribe-living-without-numbers-or-time-a-414291.html “The societies that survive without money”, Virgin: https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/societies-survive-without-money “Pirates of Silicon Valley”, a 1999 TV film : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley “Triumph of the Nerds”, a 1996 TV documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds Black Mirror - Nosedive (Season 3, Episode 1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive#Plot “The Emergence of 4D Printing”, TED Talks: https://www.ted.com/talks/skylar_tibbits_the_emergence_of_4d_printing “You Know These Studies are Good Since They’ve Been Reviewed … by a Dog”, BigThink: https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/you-know-these-studies-are-good-since-theyve-been-reviewedby-a-dog EtherDelta DEX: https://etherdelta.com/ Switcheo Network DEX: https://switcheo.exchange/ “Ontology Holds First European Meetup in London”: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/ontology-holds-first-european-meetup-in-london-8f9eb50bbdfc “THEKEY - Summary of the Key Questions Raised during the AMA for the Progress Report on 20th April”, Medium, @thekeyvip: https://medium.com/@thekeyvip/thekey-summary-of-the-key-questions-raised-during-the-ama-for-the-progress-report-on-20th-april-ac019cffa37f “Ontology Launches VBFT, a Next-Generation Consensus Mechanism”: Medium, @ontologynetwork: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/ontology-launches-vbft-a-next-generation-consensus-mechanism-becoming-one-of-the-first-vrf-based-91f782308db4 “Ontology Launches Smart Contract Tool SmartX”, Medium, @ontologynetwork: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/ontology-launches-smart-contract-tool-smartx-611a6065f3f1 “The First Version of the Ontology Roadmaps”, Medium, @ontologynetwork: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/the-first-version-of-the-ontology-roadmaps-8760c96e50b5 “Ontology pre-release v0.8 of MainNet on GitHub”: https://neonewstoday.com/general/ontology-pre-release-v-08-of-mainnet-on-github/ “Ontology Announces the Triones Node Incentive Model”: https://medium.com/ontologynetwork/triones-node-incentive-model-dbcb175f4728 “Ontology Triones Seed Node Application Terms”: https://info.ont.io/trionesintro/en PageRank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank> “Neo’s Consensus Protocol: How Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance Works”, https://steemit.com/neo/@basiccrypto/neo-s-consensus-protocol-how-delegated-byzantine-fault-tolerance-works “Proof-of-Stake (POS) outperforms Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (POW)”, https://hackernoon.com/is-bft-consensus-effective-for-proof-of-stake-blockchain-implementations-dc01f429d225

Summary This episode is the first part of a two-part review of the Ontology platform which was founded by Jun Li, who is also a co-founder of OnChain. In this episode, we present an overview of the Ontology platform. The listeners will get to learn what the unique characteristics of the project are and why its potential impact could literally affect our society, in its entirety, and change it for the better. Topics Our discussion touches upon a number of topics such as, but not limited to: our 60-second pitch of Ontology; overview of Ontology as a next-generation “operating system”, which could run on top of our society; whether the Ontology ecosystem have the potential to prevent future large-scale abuses of user data, such as that of Cambridge Analytica; the feasibiltiy of implementing a holistic, decentralized world wide web using Ontology’s various frameworks and protocols. Feedback As usual, we look forward to your comments, ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism! Enjoy! :) Episode Notes [Book] “Future Crimes”, by Marc Goodman: https://amzn.to/2keku8B [Book] “Operating System Concepts”, by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter B. Galvin, Greg Gagne: https://amzn.to/2kc0vaQ [Book] “Code”, by Charles Petzold: https://amzn.to/2IO20Kn [Book] “Windows Internals (6th ed., Part 1)”, by Mark E. Russinovich: https://amzn.to/2KFrtTr [Book] “Windows Internals (6th ed., Part 2)”, by Mark E. Russinovich: https://amzn.to/2IxSVGa Ontology website: https://ont.io/ Ontology whitepapers: https://ont.io/documents Ontology on Github: https://github.com/ontio OnChain: https://www.onchain.com/en-us/ Semantic Web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web Fermat’s Library - Bitcoin whitepaper (annotated): https://fermatslibrary.com/s/bitcoin Fermat’s Library - Ethereum whitepaper (annotated): https://fermatslibrary.com/s/ethereum-a-next-generation-smart-contract-and-decentralized-application-platform RSS (web standard): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS Atom (web standard): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(Web_standard)#Atom_compared_to_RSS_2.0 Nokia 3310: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3310 “How much are you worth to Facebook?”, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/28/how-much-are-you-worth-to-facebook “It’s time for third-party data brokers to emerge from the shadows”, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-third-party-data-brokers-to-emerge-from-the-shadows-94298 “How Companies Learn Your Secrets”, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 “What’s Even Creepier Than Target Guessing That You’re Pregnant?”, Slate: https://www.slate.com/blogs/how_not_to_be_wrong/2014/06/09/big_data_what_s_even_creepier_than_target_guessing_that_you_re_pregnant.html “Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 1st quarter 2018 (in millions)”, Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ “Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens”, Wired: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion “China’s social credit system has blocked people from taking 11 million flights and 4 million train trips”, BusinessInsider : https://www.businessinsider.in/chinas-social-credit-system-has-blocked-people-from-taking-11-million-flights-and-4-million-train-trips/amp_articleshow/64255175.cms Inception, a 2010 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception#Plot Black Mirror - Nosedive (Season 3, Episode 1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive#Plot The Orville - Majority Rule (Season 1, Episode 7): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orville#Episodes Community - App Development and Condiments (Season 5, Episode 8): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Development_and_Condiments

In this tutorial-style episode, we’re going to go over the various steps that are required for setting up a ZenCash secure node. The discussion will be limited to a very high level, with the purpose of giving you a rough idea of the magnitude of the associated workload. Summary In a couple of sentences, ZenCash secure nodes enable reward entitlement for operators. Said nodes solve challenges, associated with computational validation of shielded transactions within the ZenCash blockchain. And this happens via a form of staking. Minimum requirements 42 ZEN for staking. An extra 0.5-0.8 ZEN for transaction costs and secure node “gas”. Domain-name ownership. Static IP (either IPv4 or IPv6 will work). 4 GB RAM. 15 GB SSD hard-drive space. 64-bit processor. A clean install of a 64-bit Linux-based OS on the secure node server. Challenge solution within the time limit of 5 minutes. Relevant entities “Local” ZenCash wallet for staking. “Remote” server for secure node hosting. Dedicated domain name, as a point of access. External to your secure node, challenge allotting “overlord”. The set of all remaining secure nodes. Episode 3: Scams 101 Episode Notes Associated blog post by Crypto Jerônimo: TBA YouTube video tutorial by Crypto Jerônimo: TBA Crypto Basic Podcast - ZenCash 101: https://www.cryptobasicpodcast.com/home/zencash Crypto Basic Podcast - CryptoConvos: Robert Viglione: https://www.cryptobasicpodcast.com/home/robertviglione ZenCash Discord server: https://discord.gg/xNngUvV “Zen White Paper”: https://zencash.com/assets/Zen-White-Paper.pdf “Zen Application Platform: Tiered Node System and Sidechains to Decentralize the Network”: https://zencash.com/assets/files/Zen-Application-Platform-Whitepaper.pdf ZenCash Secure Nodes - global tracker: https://securenodes.na.zensystem.io/ –, Episode 3: Scams 101: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/podcast/2018/04/22/episode-3-scams-101.html Purchase inexpensive domain names via NameCheap: https://www.namecheap.com “Countdown to Zero Day” by Kim Zetter: https://amzn.to/2I7yIGO “How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet, the Most Menacing Malware in History”, Wired: https://www.wired.com/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-deciphered-stuxnet/ “Stuxnet attack forced Britain to rethink the cyber war”, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/may/30/stuxnet-attack-cyber-war-iran Stuxnet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet WebHostingTalk forums - Dedicated Hosting Offers: https://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=36&sort=threadstarted OVH VPS provider (mispelled as “OVN” in the episode recording): https://www.ovh.com Linode VPS provider: https://www.linode.com/ Her, a 2013 movie with Joaquin Phoenix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)#Plot –, Episode 2: Numerai: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/podcast/2018/03/31/episode-2-numerai.html Port forwarding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_forwarding StarCraft: Brood War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft:_Brood_War GitHub issue - “Challenge was resolved successul, but shown as failed”: https://github.com/ZencashOfficial/secnodetracker/issues/12 GitHub issue - “permanently decommissioning a secure node”: https://github.com/ZencashOfficial/secnodetracker/issues/53 Creating SSH public and private keys in Linux-based systems: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SSH/OpenSSH/Keys Creating SSH public and private keys in Ubuntu-based systems (alternative explanation): https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-ssh-keys-on-ubuntu-1604 Creating SSH public and private keys in CentOS: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-ssh-keys-on-centos7 Creating SSH public and private keys in Windows via puttygen (containing embedded video tutorials): https://www.ssh.com/ssh/putty/windows/puttygen Creating SSH public and private keys in Windows via puttygen (with extended explanation): https://winscp.net/eng/docs/ui_puttygen Creating SSH public and private keys in Mac OSX: https://docs.joyent.com/public-cloud/getting-started/ssh-keys/generating-an-ssh-key-manually/manually-generating-your-ssh-key-in-mac-os-x Creating SSH public and private keys in Mac OSX (alternative explanation): https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/ContributionWorkflowGuide/Appendix/OSX/SSHKeyOSX.html Creating SSH public and private keys in Mac OSX (another alternative explanation): https://help.github.com/articles/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent/#platform-mac TLS certificates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#Digital_certificates Inter-server migration of secure nodes: https://www.zen-solutions.io/migrating-from-one-vps-provider-to-another/

In this episode, intended to be a part of mini-series, we’re going to be reviewing some of the most common crypto-related scams, such as phishing, pumps-and-dumps and exit scams. Summary Scams and confidence tricks rely almost entirely on limitations and “blindspots” in human cognition and psychology, and those are exploited by malicious individuals or groups. That’s why I’ve decided to spend a significant portion of this episode on discussion these key aspects, because introspection, I believe, can be one of the most effective tools to equip oneself with, nowadays. All security-related scenarios and contexts and characterized by asymmetry, where the attacking side usually needs to find just one single hole in the system in order to declare success, whereas the defending side needs to be able to cover the entire constellation of intersection points, which directly translate to attack vectors. As saddened and disheartened all fair players can be at times, due to the ongoing high frequency of nefarious activities, we all need to take serious steps towards educating the wider crypto audience in any suitable opportunity. That’s why I’ve opted to reshuffle my episode recording order a bit, and give priority to today’s topic. In general, there’s really not that much to say in the form of side notes on 101-level scams. The episode content pretty much covers most important aspects I wanted to bring to your attention, in the context of the associated topics. Scam Repository In addition to the audio content and accompanying notes, I’ve decided to create a section on my website, dedicated to keeping track of important scams to look out for, and having a sort of compilation in a single place, so that they can be referenced easily. I invite you all to contribute with ideas and suggestions for keeping the repository as up-to-date and useful as possible. This can be done via the usual communication channels, namely our email or Discord server. Episode Notes Advance-fee scam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam Shell game with three cups and a small ball: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_game “John McAfee says his Twitter account was hacked”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42502770 Tweets by the hijackers of John McAfee’s account: https://cointelegraph.com/news/mcafee-warns-of-advanced-hacking-after-twitter-account-hijacking Summary of the phishing and attempted stealing incident on Binance: https://support.binance.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001547431 Binance’s $250k hacker bounty: https://medium.com/binanceexchange/binance-hacker-bounty-58845d860afd Verge’s appeal for donations from its users: https://twitter.com/vergecurrency/status/976929958185652227/photo/1 Verge’s donation address, as referenced on one of their blockchain explorers: https://verge-blockchain.info/address/DLv25ww5CipJngsKMYemBTBWH14CUpucxX “Is Suppoman a scammer?” - a YouTuber’s review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_LAN0Bt-n4 Crypto Jerônimo’s Musings’ Scam Repository: https://crypto-jeronimo.github.io/scams Latest details on the BitGrail “hack”: https://cointelegraph.com/news/strange-twists-and-turns-of-nano-and-bitgrail-since-the-150-mln-hack Nano’s official statement, presenting their side of the story: https://medium.com/@nanocurrency/official-statement-regrading-bitgrail-insolvency-ed4422bf274b The lame “Over and Out” PR gimmick by an obscure Germany-based ICO: https://cointelegraph.com/news/in-apparent-exit-scam-ceo-of-german-startup-is-over-and-out-after-50-mln-ico

This is an introductory episode where the listeners will get a chance to learn about the host, his background and why he’s decided to finally start a new podcast. Summary Want to learn more about your favorite host, Crypto Jerônimo? About his vision of the blockchain future? His favorite recommended resources for beginners? Well, look no further! This episode answers all of this and quite a bit more. Sit back, relax and enjoy! :) Why Xora? … and not a “traditional” co-host? you ask. Well, I’ll tell you why. Do you find this YouTube video surreal and Orwellian? I do. But not only that. I also value people’s time and believe that employing a “human puppet” to parrot away a script would not be the best use of that person’s time. Xora has enabled the production of very nice and conversational episodes just as well. Aside from the occasional firmware upgrade, I do not intend to replace her for a human replica :) Episode Notes The voice of the “AI” co-host, Xora, was created1 using the gTTS Python package: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/gTTS Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos (Paperback copy): https://amzn.to/2jQLzi1 Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos (free online version): https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook Explain Blockchain podcast web site: https://explainblockchain.io/2 Crypto Basic podcast web site: https://www.cryptobasicpodcast.com/ For an example script for TTS generation, please, refer to this code snippet. ↩ Crypto Jerônimo’s Musings was, in fact, born out of inspiration by Peter Ullrich’s amazing podcast, and its deep technical level of detail and academic flavor of delivery. ↩

This is an episode on the super cool Machine-Learning-powered hedge fund, Numerai. Summary Numerai is a global equity long-short hedge fund, which specializes in relatively long time-range investments, on the scale of 6-9 months. They’re interested in more finely granular moves, that are at the level of individual stocks; they aim to identify anomalously-priced stocks, and thus exploit price discrepancies. One might argue that their essential task is to restore market efficiency. Collaboration in finance is largely uncommon and impractical due to the competitive edge that is characteristic to the kind of predictive modeling that is associated with the area. Numerai addresses this via running rounds of successive Machine Learning competitions for the purpose of crowdsourcing predictions, which then serve to form trading decisions on the traditional markets. Key Insights A meta-model that combines crowd-sourced, pre-filtered proxies for trading decisions. Data anonymization and ensemble learning enable extremely difficult to outperform meta-model. A cleverly designed auction mechanism which crowdsources auxiliary metadata about the submitted models, namely the corresponding degree of confidence, by introducing clear financial incentive, via Numerai’s own ERC20 token. Exchanges As of the time of recording this episode, Numeraire (NMR) was listed on the following exchanges: Bittrex Upbit Paradex DDEX CryptoDerivatives Episode Notes Numerai website: https://numer.ai/ Numerai whitepaper: https://numer.ai/whitepaper.pdf Numeraire (NMR) markets: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/numeraire/#markets Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/ Log Loss metric: https://wiki.fast.ai/index.php/Log_Loss Numeraire ERC20 smart contract: https://github.com/numerai/contract Deep Learning, by Ian Goodfellow (Hardback copy): https://amzn.to/2Ie20Uf Deep Learning, by Ian Goodfellow (free online version): https://www.deeplearningbook.org/1 Auction Mechanism The figures from the example, presented in the episode, were as follows: Prize pool: $1000 Alice: bid = (c=5 NMR, s=1000 NMR), p = $200, t = 1, d = 0 NMR, w = $200 Bob: bid = (c=1 NMR, s=200 NMR), p = $200, t = -1, d = 200 NMR, w = $0 Carol: bid = (c=0.5 NMR, s=500 NMR), p = $1000, t = 1, d = 0 NMR, w = $800, where c denotes confidence, s - stake, t - model result, d - tokens destroyed, w - actual winnings, and p = s/c - potential winnings. The actual reward is calculated as R[i] = min(p[i], r), where i denotes the potential winnings of the ith participant (ranked in descending order of confidence); and r denotes the remaining prize pool amount. The free electronic version of the book is, in fact, only available in HTML format, rather than PDF (the latter was originally indicated in the recording). ↩