The Blockchain

A very short introduction to blockchain technology, its promises and possible perils. (Talk at betahaus Hamburg, October 2016)

Transcript

4. Blockchain ≠ Bitcoin
5. “If you still view Bitcoin as a techno/anarchic/utopian/libertarian model for consumer payments, you haven’t been paying attention.” Jonathan Libov
6. Blockchain Technology Crypto- currencies Bit- coin
7. anything Anything Consensus Cryptography Cryptography
9. So what?
10. organizationally organizationally centralized decentralized logically Banks centralized logically Excel E-mail decentralized organizationally organizationally centralized decentralized logically Banks centralized logically Excel E-mail decentralized organizationally organizationally centralized decentralized logically Banks Blockchain centralized logically Excel E-mail decentralized
11. “The web was designed to be decentralised so that everybody could participate. Instead, we’ve got these silos. […] The proposal is, then, to bring back the idea of a decentralised web. To bring back power to people.” Tim Berners-Lee
13. Or…
18. “I have made use of this feature and have rightfully claimed 3,641,694 ether, and would like to thank the DAO for this reward.” “The Attacker”
19. “Any and all explanatory terms or descriptions are merely offered for educational purposes (…). The DAO’s code controls and sets forth all terms of The DAO Creation.” Original Terms & Conditions of The DAO
21. “Although the word ‘contract’ is used in The DAO’s code, the term is (…) not being used as a legal term of art. The term is a programming convention, not a representation that the code is in and of itself a legally binding and enforceable contract.” Current Readme for The DAO Framework
22. Or…
23. “Trust disrupted.” Techcrunch, 10.10.2016
24. “Once trust becomes abundant, the (possibly extreme!) consequence could be that it finally frees up the state of the world to begin changing fast.” Alex Danco
25. “We are talking about some fairly cutting edge computer science here. [Blockchain] is still very much a work in progress. A computer science experiment. And a very ambitious one too.” Fred Wilson
26. “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” Bill Gates
27. Or…
29. Sources http://whoo.ps/2016/08/31/a-junior-vc https://www.ft.com/content/eb1f8256-7b4b-11e5-a1fe-567b37f80b64 http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/the-future-of-the-web-looks-a-lot-like-bitcoin http://continuations.com/post/105272022635/bitcoin-clarifying-the-foundational-innovation-of https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/09/a-decentralized-web-would-give-power-back-to-the-people-online/ http://pastebin.com/CcGUBgDG https://github.com/slockit/DAO https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/10/watch-the-first-episode-of-our-new-series-trust-disrupted-bitcoin-and-the-blockchain/ https://medium.com/swlh/emergent-layers-chapter-4-some-speculation-about-the-future-7964d89dc1c3#.3hj33vp02 http://avc.com/2016/10/trading-rd/ http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/PCWorld/story?id=5214635