Back in April the Dutch edition of the New Scientist published a special dossier on blockchain. They also interviewed us on the societal effects of blockchain technologies. Read the interview in full here (only in Dutch).
The project #Blockchain4EU is a forward looking exploration of existing, emerging and potential applications based on Blockchain and other DLTs for industrial / non-financial sectors. It combined Science and Technology Studies with a transdisciplinary policy lab toolbox filled with frameworks from Foresight and Horizon Scanning, Behavioural Insights, or Participatory, Critical and Speculative Design. Amid unfolding and uncertain developments of the Blockchain space, our research signals a number of crucial opportunities and challenges around a technology that could record, secure and transfer any digitised transaction or process, and thus potentially affect large parts of current industrial landscapes. This report offers key insights for its implementation and uptake by industry, businesses and SMEs, together with science for policy strategic recommendations.
Source: #Blockchain4EU: Blockchain for Industrial Transformations – European Commission
Save the date ! The Observatory and Forum is organizing a workshop on June 8th about GDPR, data policy and compliance. If you want to participate please register using this form. Confirmations will be sent by waves with additional information about the workshop.
Source: Workshop – GDPR, data policy and compliance | EUBlockchain
Maqta Gateway has developed and launched Silsal — a blockchain-based technology that aims to improve efficiency in the shipping and logistics industry.According to Construction Business News, Silsal will initially be available to freight forwarders and their customers, with the new system being rolled out to “the rest of the trade community as a complementary tool to the existing mPCS (Maqta’s Port Community System).”Using an internal blockchain, Abu Dhabi Ports hopes to reduce paperwork, facilitate real-time status updates and accelerate information exchange.Silsal was developed internally in the Digital Innovation Lab of Maqta Gateway and has been field tested with strategic customers of Abu Dhabi Ports, as Construction Business News reports. CEO of Maqta Gateway Dr. Noura Al Dhaheri commented:
Source: Abu Dhabi Ports Launches First Domestic Blockchain Solution for Logistics
I’m considerably more pro-privacy than I was a few years ago. A few years ago, my position was closer to “in a well-running society it’s probably optimal that everyone sees everything, the value for privacy tech for ordinary people is (i) to let them buy weed, put up beds so people can sleep over in offices, and otherwise circumvent silly regulations, and (ii) to maintain a healthy balance of power, because even if more transparency is good, the government only having the all-seeing eye and everyone else being in the dark would give too much power to the government”.Things that changed my mind, and made me believe that even in a hypothetical perfectly equal and fair society people having some privacy is a good idea include:Reading Robin Hanson and others’ literature on signalling, and seeing just how large a portion of our lives it still is. Basically, I see privacy as a way to prevent signalling concerns from encompassing all of our activity, and creating spheres where we are free to optimize for our own happiness and just our own happiness, and not what other people think about us.Having a deeper understanding of the ways that it’s possible to make other people’s lives suck even as a law-abiding private citizen, and realizing that privacy is an important self-defense tool for those situations.Realizing more deeply that “the people” are not always virtuous, and that social pressure as a mechanism for influencing people’s behavior doesn’t always lead to results I approve of (see: recent string of internet mobs leading to people getting fired for political views). Realizing how bad mainstream media is even today, which makes me more understanding of people’s desire to protect themselves from them.Mass surveillance is problematic because (i) I don’t trust governments and large corporations to have interests that are aligned with us, and (ii) it creates points of centralized data collection that could get hacked, leading to everyone getting that data even if that was never the original intention. That said, in the physical space it’s pretty unavoidable, so we should at least work hard to make the internet a more privacy-preserving place.
PoW 51% Attack CostThis is a collection of coins and the theoretical cost of a 51% attack on each network.
Source: Cost of a 51% Attack for Different Cryptocurrencies | 51Crypto
Cryptocurrency researchers from FECAP University in Brazil have shown that it would take only around $1.5 million to attack the ETC network and still pull a nice little profit. With $55 million dollars, you could effectively bankrupt the currency, netting nearly $1 billion in straight profit.If a party that controlled just 2.5% of the Ethereum hash rate switched to ETC, they’d instantly control over 51% of the total network hash rate. The attack wouldn’t even be absurdly expensive. It’d cost what you would earn mining on the ETH network with 2.5% of the hash rate, which equates to roughly 525 ETH, or $318,000.
In the last few months Balazs was participating in the creation of the Dutch Blockchain Research Agenda for NWO, the Dutch Science Agency.
The Agenda spells out the research priorities, and topics where more interdisciplinary research is needed. To quote the Agenda: “Given the complex fabric of technological and societal questions around blockchain, future research seems to require at least the awareness of this multi-disciplinarity, or even seek collaboration across the boundaries of disciplines. Blockchain research carries many challenges on the level of research design and methodology. As is the case with systems focused research, the proper demarcation of scope of future research projects and programmes is essential. This scope also sets the disciplinary mix that needs to be involved. At the same time, it should be ensured that the required disciplinary progress can happen, especially since different disciplines require research at different time scales.
Since blockchain technology is a moving target, in terms of research methodology one must also consider more exploratory, theory generating,
high risk and open-ended approaches, including tools such as mathematical modelling and analysis, business modelling, techno-economic analysis, functional and non-functional design and testing, action research, simulations and experiments in research labs and living labs, horizon scanning, etc. As this research agenda includes both fundamental and applied research, it requires active involvement from non-academic stakeholders from public bodies, industry, market sectors and the general public.
Another methodological challenge is the futureproofing of research. In such a volatile field, it is often difficult to distinguish issues relevant only in the short term, versus long term blockchain specific problems, versus fundamental research questions that cut across multiple digital technologies and have been and will be with us for decades.
There are several streams of investment that fuel research in the blockchain technology domain. Private investment through venture capital and
ICOs (crowdsourcing) as well as public investment by governments, universities, and research funding bodies should be aligned in a smart way.
In that context it seems inevitable to identify the fields that Dutch academia, research institutes and research departments of Dutch organisations are
best positioned to answer, either because they already excel in certain domains, or because they want to build skills and research capacity through
strategic investment.
The Agenda is now public And can be downloaded from here:
Read file
Blockchain “freezes the future”, argues Hildebrandt, admitting of the two it’s the technology she’s more skeptical of in this context. “Once you’ve put it on a blockchain it’s very difficult to change your mind, and if these rules become self-reinforcing it would be a very costly affair both in terms of money but also in terms of effort, time, confusion and uncertainty if you would like to change that.
Source: What do AI and blockchain mean for the rule of law? | TechCrunch
Vol 5, No 1 (2018): New Economic Analysis of Law
Guest edited by Frank Pasquale (University of Maryland, Law), the special issue on New Economic Analysis of Law features illuminating syntheses of social science and law. What would law & economics look like if macro-, as opposed to micro-, economics were a primary concern of scholars? Do emerging online phenomena, such as algorithmic pricing and platform capitalism, promise to perfect economic theories of market equilibrium, or challenge their foundations? How did simplified economic models gain ideological power in policy circles, and how can they be improved or replaced? This issue highlights scholars whose work has made the legal academy more than an “importer” of ideas from other disciplines—and who have, instead, shown that rigorous legal analysis is fundamental to understanding economic affairs.
Source: Critical Analysis of Law
