Camila Russo on Ethereum's biggest origin stories

Episode 2 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Defiant founder Camila Russo.

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The crypto bull market in 2017 inspired journalist Camila Russo to tell the story behind the creation of Ethereum.

Russo's book, "The Infinite Machine," has caught the attention of Ridley Scott, whose production company Scott Free Productions has signed on to co-produce the film adaption. Ridley Scott is best known for helming such blockbusters as "Gladiator", "Alien", "Blade Runner", "Thelma & Louise", among many others.

In this episode of The Scoop, Camila Russo recounts how her personal experience using crypto in South America showed her the advantages of decentralized systems and shares some striking revelations from time spent researching the origins of Ethereum.

According to Russo, an important early dispute among Ethereum's eight cofounders centered around Ethereum's business model:

"It was, 'Are we are we building a foundation to encourage building on top of this open source platform?' or, 'Are we building a for-profit company that's going to make tons of apps on top of this protocol?' . . . At the end of that, Vitalik had to make the call, and he decided that this would be a nonprofit foundation."

One takeaway Russo hopes readers get from her book is the idea that "there is an alternative being built," when it comes to things like the internet (web3) and our financial system (DeFi).

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As of yet, there is no release date for the film adaptation of "The Infinite Machine," although the community has created an NFT collection to raise funds for the film.

During this episode, Chaparro and Russo also discuss:

  • Why Vitalik Buterin is an effective leader.
  • What is left for Ethereum to accomplish.
  • How the book got picked for a film adaptation.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network, NordVPN

About Circle
Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com to learn more.

About Railgun
RAILGUN is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let RAILGUN’s Zero-Knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance, and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with RAILGUN SDK and be sure to check out RAILGUN with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more.

About Flare
Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetisation models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network

About NordVPN
NordVPN is essential for keeping crypto transactions secure, hiding your IP address and protecting your devices from hackers and data theft. Get premium cyber-security on up to 6 devices for the price of a cup of coffee a month. Get your exclusive NordVPN Deal and try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee: Visit https://nordvpn.com/thescoop


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Authors

Davis Quinton is the Director of Podcasts at The Block and runs our flagship podcast called The Scoop, hosted by Frank Chaparro. Since joining The Block as an 'intern' in early 2022, he has worked closely with leaders across departments to translate The Block's written content into engaging multimedia formats. He holds a degree in Social Research & Public Policy from New York University in Abu Dhabi and is based in Sydney, Australia.
Frank Chaparro is Host of The Scoop podcast and Director of Special Projects. He also writes a biweekly newsletter. Chaparro started his career at Business Insider, where he specialized in the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street, market structure, and financial technology. Soon after joining Business Insider out of Fordham University, Chaparro was interviewing top finance and tech executives, including billionaire Mark Cuban, “Flash Boys” star Brad Katsuyama, Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly, and New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley. In 2018, he become a sought after reporter in the crypto world, interviewing luminaries such as Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of Gemini, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, and Fundstrat head Tom Lee. For inquiries or tips, email [email protected].

Editor

To contact the editor of this story:
Madhu Unnikrishnan at
[email protected]