We’re joined by Igor Barinov, the tech lead of the POA Network. The POA Network achieves a reduction in transaction costs by many orders of magnitude by having a set of trusted validators. All validators must be US public notaries, so their identities are known and legal recourse against them can be taken in the offchain world. We also talk about the xDai network, which enables Dai transactions on a POA chain: Dai are transferred into a smart contract on the mainnet and then become available to be transferred at much lower cost on the POA Network. Similarly, they can be transferred out of the xDai network and become available again on the mainchain. We talk about use cases, governance, and limitations.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • Igor’s background and how he got into blockchain
  • The POA network setup and how to become a validator
  • What informs design decisions and how to find suitable notaries
  • The consensus mechanism on the POA Network
  • The role of the POA token
  • The xDai network and its purpose
  • The role of the DPOS token
  • Use cases of POA and xDai Networks

Episode links:

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This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/299