Avoiding the pointless blockchain project | MultiChain

If your requirements are fulfilled by today’s relational databases, you’d be insane to use a blockchain.

So am I saying that blockchains are useless? Absolutely not. But before you embark on that shiny blockchain project, you need to have a very clear idea of why you are using a blockchain. There are a bunch of conditions that need to be fulfilled. And if they’re not, you should go back to the drawing board. Maybe you can define the project better. Or maybe you can save everyone a load of time and money, because you don’t need a blockchain at all.

 

Source: Avoiding the pointless blockchain project | MultiChain

Blockchain Protocol Analysis and Security Engineering 2017 | Cyber Initiative

The conference will explore the use of formal methods, empirical analysis, and risk modeling to better understand security and systemic risk in blockchain protocols.  The conference aims to foster multidisciplinary collaboration among practitioners and researchers in blockchain protocols, distributed systems, cryptography, computer security, and risk management.

Source: Blockchain Protocol Analysis and Security Engineering 2017 | Cyber Initiative

In digital we trust: Bitcoin discourse, digital currencies, and decentralized network fetishism\

This paper outlines how the digital currency and network technology of bitcoin functions and explores the context from which it emerged. Bitcoin was conceived in 2008 as an attempt to alleviate trust in government and banks which was at a low during this period of financial crisis. However, with bitcoin trust does not dissipate, rather it shifts. Trust moves from trust in banks or states to trust in algorithms and encryption software. There is a move from conventional trust in the gold standard—“In Gold We Trust”—to the trust announced on U.S. currency—“In God We Trust”—to trust in software and networks—“In Digital We Trust”. The hyperbole of bitcoin discourse is deemed to be an expression of the Californian Ideology, which itself often conceals a right-wing agenda. The paper analyses the hype behind the celebration of decentralised digital networks. It proposes that a form of network fetishism operates here. The failure of bitcoin as a currency (rather than as a hoarded commodity in an emergent bubble) and as an idea might be attributed to the failure to see how ultra-modern digital networks conceal very traditional consolidation of power and capital. The rise and fall of bitcoin, in terms of its original ambition, serves as a cautionary tale in the digital age—it reveals how ingenious innovations that might challenge power and the consolidation of capital become co-opted and colonised by capital. Finally, the paper offers a discussion of the possible progressive uses of the digital technology bitcoin has facilitated.

Source: In digital we trust: Bitcoin discourse, digital currencies, and decentralized network fetishism | Palgrave Communications

The Scalability of Trustless Trust

Permission-less blockchains can realise trustless trust, albeit at the cost of limiting the complexity of computation tasks. To explain the implications for scalability, we have implemented a trust model for smart contracts, described as agents in an open multi-agent system. Agent intentions are not necessarily known and autonomous agents have to be able to make decisions under risk. The ramifications of these general conditions for scalability are analysed for Ethereum and then generalised to other current and future platforms.

Source: [1801.09535] The Scalability of Trustless Trust

iqdupont.com

Quinn DuPont studies human and social dimensions of cybersecurity, cryptography, and code. He is cur­rently a post­doc­toral Re­search As­so­ci­ate at the School of In­for­ma­tion, Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton. He has a PhD in In­for­ma­tion Sci­ence (Toronto), and is an ALA-ac­cred­ited li­brar­ian (West­ern), with a decade of in­dus­try ex­pe­ri­ence as a Se­nior In­for­ma­tion Spe­cial­ist at IBM, an IT con­sul­tant, and a us­abil­ity and ex­pe­ri­ence de­signer. His cur­rent re­search fo­cuses on eth­i­cal prac­tices of com­puter se­cu­rity re­searchers, and cryp­tocur­rency and blockchain tech­nolo­gies. He is a mem­ber of the Stan­dards Coun­cil of Canada and ISO blockchain stan­dard­iza­tion com­mit­tees, and the IEEE Blockchain Ini­tia­tive

Source: iqdupont.com

Control over Blockchain Network by Aleksei Gudkov :: SSRN

Abstract

One of the key problems of blockchain technology is lack of control of users, organized societies, and state authorities over the transactions and asset on the decentralized network.

The distributed ledger and blockchain are interesting as an example of new technology, which is the rule not only for users but also for governments. Technology-driven rules can be viewed as a technological law for blockchain users and legislative authorities. No legal regulation can change the anonymity or immutability of blockchain. Only another technology could turn the situation around. This is a lesson for every lawyer to learn not only the law but the scope of technology.

The purpose of the article is an analysis of modern determinants of control distribution over assets, transactions, and decentralized organizations on blockchain distributed network.

The article shows how control appears in a variety of different situations on blockchain network. Examples range from the individual and organizational control to control over the networking system discussing the possibilities of the participants to exercise control.

On the base of the legal cases, the ability of controlling shareholder, directors, managers, governments, stakeholders and users of crypto-communities to control the organization, transactions and assets are discussed.

Keywords: control, blockchain, decentralized organization, virtual organization

Gudkov :: SSRN

Blockchain could reshape the world – and the far right is one step ahead | Josh Hall | Opinion | The Guardian

Unchain, a large bitcoin and blockchain convention based in Hamburg, seems to have a potential answer. Along with speakers from blockchain startups, cryptocurrency exchanges and a company that purports to offer “privately managed cities as a business”, the conference programme also features Alice Weidel, listed on the site as an “economist and bitcoin entrepreneur”.In fact, Weidel is the co-leader of Alternative für Deutschland, which recently became the third largest party in Germany’s Bundestag. Weidel’s election campaign in 2017 was the party’s breakthrough moment, and what many have seen as a watershed in German politics – the return of far-right, populist ethno-nationalism to the federal parliament.

Source: Blockchain could reshape the world – and the far right is one step ahead | Josh Hall | Opinion | The Guardian