Don’t blink, because we have a complex continuation of last week, with two topics we ended it
on...The Coinbase IPO & Ethereum Scaling.
So How could these tie in together??
Wouldn’t you like to know?
Well get ready to...cuz it’s time for Chico Crypto!!
So to figure this all out, we have to go way back in History, back to when Ethereum wasn’t
even launched...we have to look at the history of Bitcoin Scaling & large Bitcoin Clubs,
in 2015.
So to begin...the history of Bitcoin Scaling, starts with something called the lightning
network...with the first draft published and co-authored by a very important person.
Joseph Poon
So has Joseph’s creation, Lightning succeeded for BITCOIN?
No not at all...there are still major known vulnerabilities, which Coindesk just covered
in October...and Ethereum is being used as a layer 2 for Bitcoin over the lightning network.
There is over 3.2 billion dollars in Bitcoin moved to Ethereum’s to this day, while the
lightning network, which has had the ability to lockup bitcoin value for a year longer
than ethereum...only has just over 25 million...or not even 1 percent of the TVL.
Lightning has been a failure so far...or people wouldn’t be moving their bitcoin to ethereum
at the rate it's moving.
And this lightning network, when launched in 2018, was hailed as the savior for BITCOIN,
giving it the ability to host LAPPs, lightning apps, bitcoin competitors to ethereum dapps.
And since there have been more than a few built, but you haven’t heard of a single
one, and based on the TVL...no one is using them.
So BITCOIN it got pooned.
Lightning isn’t it...people are looking more towards Ethereum….so I wonder where
poon decided to move after 2016 and the launch of turning complete smart contracts??
Of course Ethereum….
Joseph Poon and Vitalik Buterin authored the Plasma whitepaper, for scalable autonomous
smart contracts.
The plasma framework to scale Ethererum including from the bottom up...which is oh so similar
to the lightning network….Coindesk covered Plasma during it’s hype in August of 2017
and said “The system connects “child” blockchains to the “main” blockchain with
something called “fraud proofs.”
It’s similar to the Lightning Network, an idea Poon put forth a couple years ago for
bitcoin, in that it’s a top-layer interacting with a core blockchain below.
While the Lightning Network was limited to work strictly for payments, Plasma extends
the idea to more complex computations, like ethereum smart contracts”
So before we go any deeper...what’s the problem with lightning & what’s the problem
with plasma?
It all comes down to proof...with Lightning it’s the hashed timelock contract.
What do these do?
They require that the receiver of a payment either acknowledge receiving the payment prior
to a deadline by generating cryptographic proof of payment or forfeit the ability to
claim the payment, returning it to the payer.
Basically a proof there was no fraud….
So how does Plasma work?
In the whitepaper it says “This construction is achieved by composing smart contracts on
the main blockchain using fraud proofs whereby state transitions can be enforced on a parent
blockchain.
Now did this work out?
Well no, I showed in the video last thursday that Plasma ended up being a dud, and the
main research into it came from Plasma Group with Jinglan Wang at the helm and OmiseGo
now OMG network.
So bitcoin got pooned by the lightning network.
Ethereum got poon jinged Plasma.
But now, a third try, an optimistic one with optimistic rollups...taking once again ideas
from plasma, the poon & led by someone who has already failed.
The jing.
HRMM??
Now, history my friends...history.
Both Jing and Poon came out of nowhere and got deeply ingrained with both bitcoin and
ethereum quickly.
Poon dropped the Bitcoin lightning network paper in February of 2015, and as we can see
Jinglan Wang was the executive director of the MIT Bitcoin Expo in May of 2015.
And then, both were at BITCOIN scaling conferences and workshops throughout that year...as we
can see there is poon and Thaddeus Dryja speaking, on the lighting network...the 2 authors...and
then there is jinalan also speaking...her topic?
Perspectives and challenges on interfacing with china.
Then suddenly they both transitioned from Bitcoin to Ethereum at the exact same time,
both becoming deeply involved with core Ethereum members...Joseph Poon and Vitalik co-authored
Plasma, and then Jinglan...heads the research group “moving” the tech forward.
But….MIT, that school becomes VERY important.
Cointelgraph wrote an article in January of this year titled “Did Ethereum Silently
Give Up on Plasma?”
And in it they say “In a reply to Cointelegraph, representatives from Plasma Group (now known
as Optimism who Jinglan heads) noted that there are a “multitude of competent teams
pushing Plasma out,” referring to external organizations such as Matic, the MIT’s Cryptoeconomics
Lab, and Plasm..
MIT working on Plasma too?
I wonder if MIT is gungho on the lighting network as well...well of course MIT is, their
media lab fully researching it to this day, with Joseph Poon’s lightning network paper
co-author, Tadje Dryja.
And Jinglan?
She wasn’t just the executive director the expo’s at MIT.
As we can see from this 5 year old reddit post, she was also the lead developer for
their BITCOIN club.
Now, I really don’t understand exactly what is going on.
But there’s been common denominators with scaling failures throughout crypto history...
Poon and Wang both get deep into the BITCOIN community through MIT, lightning is dropped….and
then they suddenly ditch bitcoin, Poon and Wang, and transition to Ethereum and do the
same damn thing, but call it Plasma.
And here is where things get really interesting....august of 2017, the Plasma whitepaper drops, as we
know Joseph Poon and Vitalik write it.
What happened the month before this Paper was dropped?
OmiseGo ran their ICO in July of 2017, raising 25 million of which TechCrunch covered and
of course their with the OmiseGo team, including Jun Hasegawa in initial Discussions is Joseph
Poon and Vitalik Buterin.
Thus, Vitalik and Poon both became advisors to the project...and we know what Wang Did,
she headed the Plasma Group, which was heading research into the scaling tech, of which OmiseGo
helped “fund” which of course came from that ICO money in 2017
Now the Plasma Group it was founded by Jinglan in 2018...what I find oh so interesting, is
that same year 2018, she did a deep dive AMA with the tokendaily blog, and a question was
asked “ “Which developments in the blockchain space
do you look most forward too?”
And here is what Jing said ‘Oooh I am excited for CBC Casper to get cranking, and also really
looking forward to some dope ass decentralized naming projects to get off the ground!
I would looove to see a TOR with financial incentives, however or whoever implements
that!
I am also a fan of interledger, 0x, lightning, and decentralized prediction markets (augur,
you gonna launch soon or nah?)
So many interesting things she gave away with that one paragraph.
Number 1, she didn’t even mention Plasma as a scaling solution she was excited about...which
I find is hilarious.
You wanna know what she was a fan of though in 2018 over plasma??
She said it...Interledger.
Ya Interledger, the tech used with Ripple XRP.
UGGGHHH BARF??
And in 2018, her True colors showed in my opinion.
July of 2018, she writes a plasma cash blog….hey, nice research.
But then 2 months later she went and wrote this article in september 2018 “An Illustrated
Primer on Cross Currency Swaps in HTLCs...remember hashed time locked contracts???
From Joseph Poon’s lightning?
Well look who she freaking thanks at the bottom….Evan Shwartz...co inventor of the interledger protocol,
aka team da ripple XRP and of course she references the interledger protocol.
Then 1 month later in October of 2018, Interledger’s Evan wrote this blog “Layer 3 is for interoperability”
. Who is thanked at the bottom?
Of course Wang is.
So, obviously Jinglan was more bullish on Interledger over Plasma, and there was a relationship
there….yet she became the head of the group researching plasma and moving it forward???
Does that make sense???
Well none of this does really…..
Or will it??
Well let’s just go back to that Blog Post from Jinglan on Hashed Time locked Contracts...who
else does she thank?
Including saying watch out for their more in depth blog post on the topic?
Dan Robinson….
Dan Robinson, who we can also see worked for Plasma Group, as a research and development
writer...but he also was apart of something else...a research partner at Paradigm...very
important, but let’s go to his announcement blog post, he say’s what he is going to
work on with Paradigm…..
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Plasma, Interledger…
Hrmmmmmm?
So now who is Paradigm.
Well it’s the venture arm of two very importante individuals...Matt Haung and Fred Ehrsam,
co-founder of Coinbase & current board member.
Well first let’s talk about Matt Hauang..he is the son of Haung Qifu, powerful private
investor, a retired hedge fund manager, and a former finance academic at none other than
MIT.
Hedge Fund management...for Goldman Sachs, the Asia Pacific Region, and in the mid 90s,
he personally managed assets that totalled more than China’s GDP.
Now if you go to wikipedia on him, in his research it says…”Additionally, he has
expanded the applicability of auction theory to financial markets...now go back to Jinglan
Wang’s last medium post...it was titled none other than “An Introduction to Auction
Theory: Blockchain Edition” She was trying to bring Chifu’s auction theory to blockchain...obviously,
Matt, Qifu, and her are closely tied….
Well ya, because Paradigm has done some very telling investing.
In January of 2019, Plasma Group and Jinglan got Paradigm to be a part of the 3.5 million
dollar initial funding round with Optimistic roll ups as the goal...Who else has been funded
by Paradigm?
Those using rollups to scale...Uniswap...from their series A round blog post, they say initial
funding was raised by Paradigm...and second round funding included them too, as well as
Coinbase tied Andressen Horowitz.
You won’t find it online, but Paradigm is also heavily invested in synthetix, those
currently in limbo with the optimistic testnet.
And Fred’s company he co-founded Coinbase?
What are they doing?
Well they are supporting Optimistic too…
Although there is one single investment from Paradigm, which is oh so interesting...March
15th 2018, Paradigm led the 9 million dollar raise for Cosmos creator….Tendermint.
Who is the only chain using Tendermint to scale???
BINANCE smart chain, the now EVM compatible chain, with nearly half a billion locked up
in it, downright smothering the others...and many of China’s blockchain projects are
going with Tendermint including China’s own BSN.
I’ll let you finish the story on your own.
Cheers I’ll see you next time!