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Our Berlin bureau chief sits down with the increasingly popular co-leader of the Alternative for Germany, the furthest-right of the country’s seven main political parties. How viable are her policy plans? The startup behind a reusable missile that could change American warfare (10:08). And, the quirkiest segments we have run in 2023 (18:31).
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Sahil Patel has lived in Atlanta for 12 years now, but has made a lifetime of leaving Atlanta... and the coming back. He attended undergrad in ATL, and in 2011, started a company called ER Express, which centered around patient scheduling. After building the company, he sold it for a successful outcome for him, for his team, and for the buyer. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 daughters, and loves to play music and play socer. He plays guitar in a rush cover band called the Atlanta Rush Hour, and used to play soccer competitively.
In the past, Sahil was a client of his current venture. In leading ER Express, he saw great value in a tool to predict conversion. He liked it so much, that after he sold his company and moved on, he wanted to join the team - and take it to the next level.
This is the creation story of Spiralyze.
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For decades there was a phone service in Northern California that would read you the time and date if you dialed POP-CORN, the letters that represented 767-2676. That service went dark back in 2007, and Bay Curious listener George wants to know why. In this nostalgic episode, we take a romp through the innovative technlology that powered time-and-date services, and meet the beloved voice behind POP-CORN, Joanne Daniels.
Additional Reading:
Reported by Christopher Beale. This episode was made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Suzie Racho, Christopher Beale and Katie McMurran. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan, and the entire KQED Family.
We are going back in our archives for this year before this podcast to share some stories that we think are special.
This episode is sponsored by the Stellar Community Fund
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In this installment of "The Protocol," hosts Brad Keoun, the founding editor of The Protocol Newsletter, and tech journalists Sam Kessler and Margaux Nijkerk, explore the following stories:
TOPIC | Events
Zuzalu
This invite-only gathering of 200 people in the Mediterranean marina town of Lustica Bay has been taking place since late March and wraps up this week, featuring official sessions on zero-knowledge cryptography, twice-a-day jumps into the Adriatic Sea, and the chance to get face time with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Curve hack, DeFi existential crisis
Curve, a leading decentralized exchange on Ethereum, was hacked for more than $70 million in July. Questions continue to linger around the platform's long-term viability and potential contagion risk.
Ethereum Validator Withdrawals
Following last week's milestone Shanghai upgrade, we moved to wind down CoinDesk's Ethereum validator project, but it could be a week before the 32 ETH we staked (about $67,000 worth) hits our wallet. C. Spencer Beggs, our director of engineering, breaks down the technical steps he's taken.
TOPIC | New Technology - Projects
Account Abstraction was Fire at the start of 2023
Account abstraction – a concept recently embraced by Visa – could make Ethereum wallets significantly more user-friendly.
Worldcoin
World ID has added integrations with Shopify, Minecraft, and Reddit alongside a slew of developer-focused updates that could expand the OpenAI founder's blockchain-based "proof-of-personhood" service to more users.
Bitcoin Ordinals
In the historic auction house's first-ever sale of the Ordinals inscriptions known as "NFTs on Bitcoin," a batch of three pixelated images from a mushroom-themed collection drew about $450,000, or roughly five times the highest estimates.
PROTOCOL VILLAGE SEGMENT
TOPIC | INDUSTRY TRENDS - BUSINESS SIDE
Layer2 Mania
Users will be able to bridge their ETH starting Thursday, with the official launch of the main network on Aug. 9.
Crypto Winter / Legal -Regulatory: SBF gets charged | Binance + CZ
The alleged fraudster and ex-FTX CEO acted "in good faith," Bankman-Fried's attorney said in an emotional closing argument.
ZK Teams
Polygon Labs, a developer of scaling networks for Ethereum, has shifted toward "Polygon CDK," a blockchain-development kit powered by zero-knowledge cryptography. The older "Polygon Edge" was used by Dogechain, in an unofficial effort to build a Dogecoin-oriented smart-contracts network.
EPISODE LINKS |
Zuzalu Is 2 Months in Montenegro With Crypto Elites, Cold Plunges, Vitalik Selfies
As Curve Averts DeFi Death Spiral, Fiasco Exposes Serious Risks
CoinDesk Winds Down Ethereum Validator ‘Zelda,’ and We Now Wait to Get Money Back
Ethereum Upgrade Could Make It Harder to Lose All Your Crypto
'Bitcoin NFT' Hysteria Comes to Sotheby's as Super-Mario-Style Mushroom Character Tops $200K
Sam Altman Is Bringing Worldcoin's Controversial Eye-Scanning Orb to Reddit and Microsoft
Coinbase Sets Public Launch of ‘Base’ Layer 2 Blockchain for Next Week
Sam Bankman-Fried on Verge of Tears as His Lawyer Concludes Defense
Polygon Stops Work on 'Edge,' Used to Build Dogechain, as Focus Turns to ZK
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The Protocol has been produced and edited by senior producer Michele Musso and our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “Take Me Back” by Strength To Last.
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In the week of the solstice – the shortest or longest day of the year depending on your latitude - Unexpected Elements brings you tales of darkness and light.
We hear about the dark history of sensory deprivation studies and why up until now, we’ve been in the dark about light’s role in the fairly fundamental process of evaporation.
We’ll be shining a light on the darkest oceans, meeting the fantastical creatures who can turn their bodies into flashlights.
Our Under the Radar story this week also comes from the sea as we discover how fish skin is helping to treat burn victims in Brazil.
We have an Ask the Unexpected question about why we don’t sneeze when we’re asleep, and more of your emails and voicenotes about obscure sports, tunnel living and earworms.
We even find time to wonder why the Brazil nut isn’t called the Bolivia nut.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Camilla Mota and Chhavi Sachdev
Producer: Ben Motley, with Dan Welsh
February 2024 will mark the tenth anniversary of Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory in Crimea and the Donbas and two years since its full-scale invasion.
While military assistance from Ukraine’s allies has been gradual and cautious, retaliatory sanctions have been impressive. "The sanctions imposed against Russia beginning in late winter 2022 were sweeping, historic and rolled out with stunning rapidity,” writes Christine Abely in The Russia Sanctions: The Economic Response to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
Yet, until now at least, most Russians have been insulated from their effects. As the war reaches an attritional stalemate and Putin waits for NATO's resolve to fracture, the sanctions and their lagged effects are taking on critical importance.
Christine Abely is an assistant professor at New England Law in Boston. Previously, she taught at Boston University School of Law after a career at Massachusetts law firms specialising in business litigation, and international trade and sanctions law. While she has published papers on sanctions, food and sports law, The Russia Sanctions is her first book.
*The authors' book recommendations are Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests by Agathe Demarais (Columbia University Press, 2022) and The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson (Princeton University Press, second edition 2016).
Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room podcast series.
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