Hebrew University academics Aviv Zohar and Yonatan Sompolinski joined us to discuss their research at the forefront of blockchain technology. We talked about their early proposals for scaling Bitcoin using the GHOST protocol, which later inspired Ethereum. And then we discussed SPECTRE and a new type of network based on directed acrylic graphs (DAG). DAGs abandon the blockchain data structure to allow constant generation of blocks that later get merged achieving block times of seconds and throughput many orders of magnitudes above current blockchain network.
Topics covered in this episode:

How Aviv Zohar wrote one of the first academic papers on Bitcoin in 2011
The GHOST protocol and how it could allow much faster block times
The difference between what Ethereum built and the GHOST protocol
Why DAG (Directed Acrylic Graphs) have massive advantages over blockchains
Towards massive on-chain scaling and speed with the SPECTRE Protocol
Their view on existing DAG-based networks like IOTA and Byteball

Episode links:

SPECTRE Medium Post
SPECTRE (full paper)
Accelerating Bitcoin's Transactions
Inclusive Blockchain Protocols
On Bitcoin and Red Balloons
Aviv's Website
Yonatan's Website

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/192