Episode 311: Mina Co-Founders on Changing Power Dynamics on the Web

Proof-of-PR

In today’s episode, Nikki Del Principe is joined by guests Evan Shapiro and Izaak Meckler. CEO Evan and CTO Izaak are both Co-Founders of O(1) Labs, the team behind Mina.

Mina (formerly Coda Protocol), the world's lightest blockchain powered by participants, deploys recursive zk-SNARKs to ensure the blockchain remains the same size—22 kb—enabling anyone to sync the chain in seconds, ushering in a new era of blockchain accessibility.

We hear how Evan and Izaak became interested in cryptocurrency and the technology behind it in high school and collaborated together on coding projects before bringing O(1) Labs to life. We learn about the transformation of the Coda Protocol to Mina and the importance of community input on the project. Evan and Izaak hope to solve the problems inherent to today’s internet and bring back creative expression through providing developers with the foundation and tooling they need to build Snapps, verifiable SNARK-powered smart contracts. They take us through the technology behind Mina and end the episode by discussing their predictions for the crypto sphere.

Topics covered:

- How Evan and Izaak became involved in cryptocurrency

- Creating O(1) Labs to solve the architectural issues of the crypto space

- The technological and societal impacts of crypto

- The transformation of Coda to Mina

- Formulating Mina's core values

- What it means to be the world’s lightest blockchain-powered by participants

- How Evan and Izaak aim to address the issues of today’s internet with Mina

- Shoutout to the Mina community

- Mina's implementation of Snapps

- The importance of verifiability and transparency

- Predictions for the crypto sphere in 2020 and beyond

Links to Resources:

Mina: https://minaprotocol.com/

Mina on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MinaProtocol

Mina on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/RDQc43H

Join Genesis program: https://minaprotocol.com/genesis