Forbidden Controller Lore [Real] - Isaac Sheff & Christopher Goes
Fri Jan 30 2026
Is interop finally solved? In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Isaac Sheff (Senior Research Scientist) and Christopher Goes (o-founder) of Heliax about the Anoma protocol and explore how Anoma thinks about interop. In particular we discuss Isaac's research on Controllers [the authoritative state machine that orders transactions for a resource, preventing double-spends]. We begin the episode discussing Isaac's background as a consensus researcher and his prior work on Heterogeneous Paxos. We then dive into controllers and compare them to IBC, and discuss we you need different trust models for blockchains, databases, and computers. Thereafter the episode gets quite technical as we discuss the nuances of Anoma's resource model, controller tags, and next concepts called shared & causal resource history. Next we explore how controllers utilize ZK proofs for tag reduction and attestation. Finally we discuss the novel emergency override condition which one can think of as a generalization of Plasma (Ethereum), how controllers unlock private bridging, and the affordances they provide application builders who want to build distributed applications.
Timestamps
(00:00) - Consensus researchers
(04:26) - What are controllers?
(08:50) - Product perspective and revisiting IBC
(12:52) - Why you need different trust models
(19:24) - Unbundling ordering, execution & storage
(24:30) - The Anoma state model is based on resources
(29:03) - Controller Tags and double spends
(34:34) - Shared and Causal Resource History
(36:53) - Controllers are different than IBC
(40:13) - You get interop for free
(43:05) - Controllers love ZK
(47:34) - Controllers and trust assumptions
(50:45) - Emergency override condition (EOC)
(56:10) - Generalization of Plasma
(58:50) - Controller interop with existing EVM chains
(1:03:09) - Intents in Ethereum
(1:04:22) - Private bridging
(1:06:33) - Affordances for application designers
(1:10:17) - Blockchains can be useful for more than finance
DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.
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Is interop finally solved? In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Isaac Sheff (Senior Research Scientist) and Christopher Goes (o-founder) of Heliax about the Anoma protocol and explore how Anoma thinks about interop. In particular we discuss Isaac's research on Controllers [the authoritative state machine that orders transactions for a resource, preventing double-spends]. We begin the episode discussing Isaac's background as a consensus researcher and his prior work on Heterogeneous Paxos. We then dive into controllers and compare them to IBC, and discuss we you need different trust models for blockchains, databases, and computers. Thereafter the episode gets quite technical as we discuss the nuances of Anoma's resource model, controller tags, and next concepts called shared & causal resource history. Next we explore how controllers utilize ZK proofs for tag reduction and attestation. Finally we discuss the novel emergency override condition which one can think of as a generalization of Plasma (Ethereum), how controllers unlock private bridging, and the affordances they provide application builders who want to build distributed applications. Timestamps (00:00) - Consensus researchers (04:26) - What are controllers? (08:50) - Product perspective and revisiting IBC (12:52) - Why you need different trust models (19:24) - Unbundling ordering, execution & storage (24:30) - The Anoma state model is based on resources (29:03) - Controller Tags and double spends (34:34) - Shared and Causal Resource History (36:53) - Controllers are different than IBC (40:13) - You get interop for free (43:05) - Controllers love ZK (47:34) - Controllers and trust assumptions (50:45) - Emergency override condition (EOC) (56:10) - Generalization of Plasma (58:50) - Controller interop with existing EVM chains (1:03:09) - Intents in Ethereum (1:04:22) - Private bridging (1:06:33) - Affordances for application designers (1:10:17) - Blockchains can be useful for more than finance DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.