Monica Quaintance: Kadena – Public and Permissioned Blockchains that Scale

We’re joined by Monica Quaintance, Head of Engineering and Adoption at Kadena. While most companies providing enterprise solutions focus primarily on permissioned systems, Kadena is building both a public network protocol and private blockchain infrastructure. Their Chainweb protocol will soon launch as a public network and smart contract platform. The company claims their novel approach to proof of work offers enormous gains on transaction throughput, even at scale, while benefiting from the same security as Bitcoin. Alongside Chainwebs, Kadena is building a permissioned protocol more suited for enterprise applications in insurance and finance.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Monica’s background at the SEC
• The genesis of Kadena and why the founders left JP Morgan
• Kadena’s unique approach to building both public and permissioned protocols
• The Chainweb protocol and it’s approach to proof of work
• The incentive mechanisms in Chainweb
• How Chainweb protects itself against common attack vectors
• The PACT smart contract language
• Kadena’s enterprise blockchain offering
• The company’s go-to-market strategy and business model

Episode links:

• Kadena Website
• Chainweb Whitepaper
• ChainWeb Protocol Security Calculations White Paper
• Kadena White Paper
• Confidentiality in Private Blockchain White Paper
• The Pact Smart-Contract Language White Paper

Thank you to our sponsors for their support:

• The open, decentralized trading protocol for ERC20 tokens using the Dutch auction mechanism. More at epicenter.tv/dutchx.
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This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/258