Manuel Aráoz: Zeppelin and the Evolution of Smart Contract Development

Zeppelin Co-Founder and CTO Manuel Araoz joined us to discuss his journey from building one of the first non-financial Bitcoin applications in 2012 to improving development and security practices for Ethereum smart contracts. We discussed the OpenZeppelin framework, a library of audited smart contracts as well as their new project zeppelin_os. Through on-chain, well-vetted and upgradeable smart contracts zeppelin_os aims to make developing Ethereum applications both easier and more secure.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Manuel’s journey in the blockchain space from proof of existence to BitPay to Streamium to Zeppelin
• Why Manuel moved away from a pure Bitcoin focus to working on Ethereum
• Why Zeppelin focuses on smart contract security
• How smart contract security evolved since the start of Ethereum
• The OpenZeppelin framework of audited Ethereum contracts
• Why zeppelin_os and standardized, upgradeable on-chain contracts are the next evolutionary step
• The core component of zeppelin_os: Kernel, SDK and markeplace
• The ZEP token and its role in zeppelin_os

Episode links:

• Zeppelin Website
• OpenZeppelin Framework
• zeppelin_os
• zeppelin_os Whitepaper

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/220