"Radar Summit" entries
The 3Ps of the blockchain: platforms, programs and protocols
There is a burgeoning landscape around the blockchain’s decentralized consensus protocol technologies.
Although it may be early to baptize new buzz lingo like “Blockchain as a Service” (BaaS) or “Blockchain as a Platform” (BaaP), there is a burgeoning landscape of various implementations and activity in and around the blockchain’s decentralized consensus protocol technologies.
I’ve already covered the blockchain’s sweet spot as a development platform in “Understanding the blockchain,” so it is no surprise that its landscape will be made up of platforms, protocols, and (smart) programs.
Breaking-up the bitcoin-blockchain paradigm
In a perfect world, we would have a single blockchain and a single cryptocurrency. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards, whether it is technically feasible or not. Although wide-scale adoption and a critical mass of users aren’t there yet, the market is signaling for a diversification of choices, some based on the bitcoin currency and its blockchain protocol, and others not. Read more…
Regulation and decentralization: Defending the blockchain
Andreas Antonopoulos urges the Canadian Senate to resist the temptation to centralize bitcoin.
Editor’s note: our O’Reilly Radar Summit: Bitcoin & the Blockchain will take place on January 27, 2015, at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Andreas Antonopoulos, Vitalik Buterin, Naval Ravikant, and Bill Janeway are but a few of the confirmed speakers for the event. Learn more about the event and reserve your ticket here.
We recently announced a Radar summit on present and future applications of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. In a webcast presentation one of our program chairs, Kieren James-Lubin, observed that we’re very much in the early days of these technologies. He also noted that the technologies are complex enough that most users will rely on service providers (like wallets) to securely store, transfer, and receive cryptocurrencies.
As some of these service providers reach a certain scale, they will start coming under the scrutiny of regulators. Certain tenets are likely to remain: currencies require continuous liquidity and large financial institutions need access to the lender of last resort.
There are also cultural norms that take time to change. Take the example of notaries, whose services seem amenable to being replaced by blockchain technologies. Such a wholesale change would entail adjusting rules and norms across localities, which means going up against the lobbying efforts of established incumbents.
One way to sway regulators and skeptics is to point out that the decentralized nature of the (bitcoin) blockchain can unlock innovation in financial services and other industries. Mastering Bitcoin author Andreas Antonopoulos did a masterful job highlighting this in his recent testimony before the Canadian Senate:
“Traditional models for financial payment networks and banking rely on centralized control in order to provide security. The architecture of a traditional financial network is built around a central authority, such as a clearinghouse. As a result, security and authority have to be vested in that central actor. The resulting security model looks like a series of concentric circles with very limited access to the center and increasing access as we move farther away from the center. However, even the most outermost circle cannot afford open access.