Rethinking Finance as a spot and future contingency management system for assets and liabilities. Blockchains are an improved form of contingency management (precision, automation, lower-risk). The Internet transfers information, and now value; the Internet becomes a contingency management system with programmable money, smart contracts DACs, distributed ledger transactions. Ultimately, blockchain financial networks can automatically and independently confirm and monitor transactions, without central parties like banks or governments.
1. Washington DC, October 2, 2015
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
Economic Theorist
New School, New York NY
melanie@BlockchainStudies.org
Blockchain
Financial Networks
2. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Blockchains: Overview
1
What is it?
Blockchains are secure
distributed ledgers and financial networks
Why is it important?
The next phase of the Internet (value transfer)
(1) Already here: rapid institutional uptake
(2) Pervasive: includes all cash, instruments & contracts
(3) High stakes: re-shuffles existing financial system
4. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks 3
Melanie Swan
Economic Theorist, New School, New York
Founder, Institute for Blockchain Studies
Instructor, Singularity University; Affiliate Scholar, Institute
for Ethics and Emerging Technology (IEET); Contributor,
EDGE
Traditional Markets Background Economic Theory Leadership
http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491
Book: Blockchain:
Blueprint for a New
Economy
5. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Fintech Investment
4
https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/fintech-investment-in-us-nearly-tripled-in-2014-according-to-report-by-accenture-
and-partnership-fund-for-new-york-city.htm
$9.89 billion in 2014, up from $3.39 billion in 2013
6. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
R3 CEV Distributed Ledger Announcement
Shared distributed ledgers $28 Tn in assets
Secure financial-grade ledger, ‘fabric,’ scalable to
hundreds of billions of transactions per day
Benefits: fast-moving, reduce system-wide risk, core
infrastructure development, high-profile, cost savings; could
facilitate regulatory compliance, transparency to consumers
Risks: exclusionary access, fees-to-play; HFT or EDI?; greater
world market interconnectedness and systemic shocks?
5
DTCC annual revenue $1.5 bn; CLS Bank $0.8 bn, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-g-cecchetti/virtual-frenzies-
bitcoin_b_8228444.html; CEV: Crypto 2.0, Exchanges, Ventures (R3’s business lines)
7. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
What is Blockchain Technology?
Secure (cryptographic) distributed ledger system
A ‘giant Google doc spreadsheet’ database of transactions,
independently confirmed and validated by the software system
Secure, transparent, accessible, auditable, available 24/7
Batches (blocks) of transactions posted sequentially (chain)
Prevents double-spend of digital cash
6
8. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Phased Roll-out of Blockchain Technology
Decide: public or private, centralized or decentralized?
Centralized confirmation by U.S. Treasury
Private internal test implementation; modernize current
operations; move traditional ledgers to cryptographic ledgers
Public-facing hybrid implementation; digitize interactions with
external parties; centralized confirmation
Decentralized confirmation by blockchain financial
networks
Automated secure financial network operations obviate need
for centralized intermediaries; software-confirmed transactions
7
Phase II: Automate
Phase I: Modernize
9. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
U.S. Department of the Treasury Mission:
Maintain a strong economy and create economic
and job opportunities by promoting the conditions
that enable economic growth and stability at home
and abroad, strengthen national security by
combating threats and protecting the integrity of the
financial system, and manage the U.S.
Government’s finances and resources effectively
Operate and maintain systems that are critical to
the nation's financial infrastructure
8
10. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
U.S. Treasury Application Areas
9
Currency and Coinage Operations
Government Operations: managing federal finances
Revenue/Expenditure: revenue/tax collection; payment
disbursement and bill-paying
Managing government accounts and the public debt
Securities operations: federal borrowing
Supervisory and Oversight
Supervise national banks and thrift institutions
Consumer protection
Safeguarding Financial Systems
Policy advisory; national security: monitoring, investigation,
enforcement; international interactions
11. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Blockchain Financial Applications
Examples
10
Cash replacement/complement: issue digital
cryptocurrency (e.g.; UScoin, UStoken)
Blockchain Treasury securities operations
Securities: Treasury bonds, bills, notes, TIPS
Register and administer as blockchain-based smart-assets
possibly via smart-contract DACs: issuance, exchange,
redemption, tracking, audit, attestation, interest payments
Secure accounting ledger operations
Internal and governmental operations (Federal Reserve,
Government-sponsored Enterprise (FNMA, FHLMC, SLMA))
Back-office: clearing, settlement, compliance, audit, QA
Front-office: cash, payment, securities operations, contracts
DAC: Distributed Autonomous Corporation – package of smart contracts executing programmed functions as an entity
12. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Application
Digital Identity System
Blockchain-based digital identity cards,
passports
Identity confirmation, validation, assurance
Unify: identity, payment, insurance information
Financial payments, transfers
Income tax, social security transfer payments
Automated pay-in, pay-out
U.S. securities investment
Link to digital health wallet
Technical details
Public and private keys
Data hashing
Multi-factor authentication
11
13. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Blockchain Financial Applications
Advanced
Forecasting, budgeting, reporting
Growth, inflation, monetary policy, sector activity, consumption
Inflows/outflows: tax receipts, transfer payments
Blockchain-based Ricardian contracts
Ricardian contract: A type of value for issuance over the internet, a
contract that defines a set of conditions for the instrument that can be read
by both humans and computers and is signed with the Issuer’s public key
Real-time economic indicators
Economic data and statistics collection and aggregation as
distributed ledger meta data
Open risk-models (transparent, anticipative, big data-predictive)
12
http://www.systemics.com/docs/ricardo/issuer/contract.html
14. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Rethinking Risk per non-linear
causality: Risk Regimes
13
Lloyd’s of London
Sea-faring Trade
Black–Scholes
CAPM, Beta
Efficient Frontiers
Support Vector Machines
Complexity Math
Docker VM Containers
Deep Learning Algorithms
Blockchain
Decentralized
Risk Models1
Black Swan
Risk Models
Classical Portfolio
Theory Risk Models
Traditional Mutuality
Risk Models
Mutual Insurance:
Liability, D&O, Auto,
Life, Health
Actuarial Tables
Extreme Value
Analysis
‘Global warming for Markets’
Higher-magnitude,
increasingly frequent
unpredictable outsized events
‘World is flat’ interconnected
financial markets
New forms of
Exchange
Emergent self-
determined
economies
Economic Model
Plurality
Minimize/maximize
downside/upside exposure
to black swan events
Value-at-Risk
Open Risk Models2
1http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20150914; 2http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2320562
Machine Learning Algorithms
Distributed Consensus
Algorithms
Portfolio Theory
Trinomial Trees
Heteroscedasticity
Convexity
Big Data Crunching
Eigen Values & Matrices
Analysis Tools:
Reflexivity
15. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Rethinking Finance
Internet of Information -> Internet of Finance
14
http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491
What is Finance?
Spot and future contingency management system for
assets and liabilities
Blockchains: improved form of contingency
management (precision, automation, lower-risk)
Internet transfers information, and now value
Internet becomes a contingency management system
with programmable money, smart contracts DACs,
distributed ledger transactions
Blockchain financial networks automatically and
independently confirm and monitor transactions,
without central parties like banks or governments
16. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Distributed ledgers allow a more serious move into the
Automation Economy, via secure value transfer
previously unavailable with the Internet
Fair and orderly transition from the Labor Economy to
the Automation and Actualization Economy
Bigger Picture: Automation Economy
15
Information &
Entertainment
Manufacturing Health
Economics &
Finance
Government &
Legal
Internet: Transfer of Information
Internet: Secure
Transfer of Value
Sectors
17. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Evaluating Blockchain Ecosystem Risk
16
Network Infrastructure
Organizational
Paradigm
Bitcoin and blockchain consensus mechanisms are the
initial but perhaps not final positions in the build-out of
the decentralized value-transfer infrastructure
Decentralization
Consensus
Mechanism
Blockchain-based
Distributed Ledgers
Cryptocurrency
Value-exchange Token
Bitcoin
Platform Level: Current Leader:
18. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Blockchains: Overview
17
What is it?
Blockchains are secure
distributed ledgers and financial networks
Why is it important?
The next phase of the Internet (value transfer)
(1) Already here: rapid institutional uptake
(2) Pervasive: includes all cash, instruments & contracts
(3) High stakes: re-shuffles existing financial system
20. Washington DC, October 2, 2015
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
Economic Theorist
New School, New York NY
melanie@BlockchainStudies.org
Blockchain
Financial Networks
Thank you! Questions?
21. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Private and Public Blockchains
20
http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-consensus-protocols
Charts per: http://www.ofnumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Permissioned-distributed-ledgers.pdf
Public Permissionless Ledgers
• Censorship-resistant (pseudonymous)
• Anonymous validators (network
vulnerable to anonymous attack)
• “Car”
Private Permissioned Ledgers
• Identity known/confirmed, legally-compliant
• Value transfer VPNs, Decentralized SaaS
• “Better horse”
Stellar
22. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Byzantine Generals Problem, Byzantine Fault
Tolerance (BFT), Byzantine Agreement (BA)
Distributed network security problem
Problem: achieving consensus in a distributed network
with potentially faulty nodes
How to coordinate among distributed nodes to come up with a
consensus (a truth state; a common view of the world) that is
resistant to attackers trying to undermine that consensus
How to add new nodes
21
Swan, M. Blockchain Consensus Protocols, 2015, http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-consensus-protocols
23. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Approaches to Consensus/BFT
22
Byzantine Agreement Protocol (synchronous)
Microsoft/Lamport: Paxos (state machine replication)
Google: Chubby (serve strongly consistent files)
POW (Bitcoin) ‘Nakamoto Consensus’ – expensive,
high latency
POS (Tendermint) – requires resource ownership, risk
of ‘nothing-at-stake’ attacks per revoked escrow
Pebble: ARBC (Asynchronous Randomized Byzantine
Consensus)
UT: BAR (Byzantine, altruistic, rational) protocol
Stellar: SCP Quorum Slicing
Other: Prediction Markets (Augur), Meta (Factom)
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/paxos-simple.pdf
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/lorenzo/papers/sosp05.pdf
24. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
POW ‘Nakamoto Consensus’ Shortcomings
Sybil attack-resistant compromise for
decentralized consensus but not the final
solution for distributed network fault-tolerant
security for scalability and performance, key
issues:
1. Expensive, excessive energy consumption
2. Poor scalability for widespread blockchain use
especially for IOT
3. Slow: high latency (1-10 minutes to confirm
transactions); only eventually consistent
23
https://medium.com/a-stellar-journey/on-worldwide-consensus-359e9eb3e949
http://crypto.stanford.edu/seclab/sem-14-15/williams.html
25. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Pebble: Asynchronous Randomized
Byzantine Consensus (Concept)
24
http://crypto.stanford.edu/seclab/sem-14-15/williams.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEgjqIMtVQ
Asynchronous Byzantine consensus for
decentralized networks using cryptographic
randomness, combine
Nakamoto chains (randomness source, Merkle
roots log) with …
conventional consensus techniques (produce
consensus by agreeing upon data transitions
through a new generation of highly-tuned and
optimized conventional consensus protocols) to …
produce fast and scalable decentralized networks
26. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Pebble: Asynchronous Randomized
Byzantine Consensus (Method features)
25
FLP: Fischer, Lynch and Patterson Friedman et al. 2003. Simple and efficient oracle-based consensus protocols for asynchronous
Byzantine systems. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=1353024 Maji et all. Exploring the limits of common
coins using frontier analysis of protocols. 2011. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1987298
Asynchronous (resist attack)
Fully asynchronous (no timing assumptions) and
leader-free (no one node orchestrates)
Randomized (improve efficiency)
Address FLP impossibility result (in asynchronous
networks, if only one node fails, cannot be sure
remaining nodes will reach consensus)
Randomized protocols get around this by
terminating with a probability approaching 1
Need a common source of randomness, so use
blockchains (constant source of randomness;
cannot predict who finds the next hash) to organize
the network
Use deterministic homomorphic threshold
signatures to create cryptographic randomness
without having a trusted dealer
27. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Pebble: Asynchronous Randomized
Byzantine Consensus (Example)
26
http://crypto.stanford.edu/seclab/sem-14-15/williams.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEgjqIMtVQ
Fast-throughput (achieve scalability)
Run massive numbers of binary leader-free
asynchronous randomized consensus protocols
in parallel to quickly agree a combined data set
from the inputs of large numbers of processes
Proof of concept
Focus on messaging efficiency, decentralized
network scalability and confirmation speed
Enable 500 distributed processes to
simultaneously present their data sets to the
group and quickly reach strongly consistent
agreement on an accepted superset
Pass only 0.5-1MB of protocol messages
A network reaching consensus every 5
seconds would have spare bandwidth to
process many thousands of transactions per
second
28. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Stellar: Quorum Slicing (Concept)
27
https://medium.com/a-stellar-journey/on-worldwide-consensus-359e9eb3e949
Objective: distributed consensus
Nodes update their states/ledgers
Avoid Byzantine failure (when individual nodes act
arbitrarily, maliciously or not)
Distinguish between
Quorum: the set of nodes required to reach
agreement across the whole system
Quorum Slice: the subset of a quorum that can
convince one particular node of agreement
Result: federated network of quorum slices,
continually testing the network
Do not need to trust the whole system/network, just
your neighbors, you do not know who to trust
initially, join the network, and try before you trust, the
system grows organically, each party makes a slice
of others from the whole to trust
29. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Federated Quorum Slice Network
28
https://medium.com/a-stellar-journey/on-worldwide-consensus-359e9eb3e949
Resilient network
Overall network health is preserved even if there are a few
bad nodes, and some good nodes slicing the bad nodes
Unanimous consent from the complete set of system nodes is
not required to reach agreement, or tolerate faulty nodes
30. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Stellar graphic novel explains Quorum Slicing
29
https://www.stellar.org/stories/adventures-in-galactic-consensus-chapter-1/
31. October 2, 2015
Blockchain Financial Networks
Stellar: Context of Byzantine Agreement
30
https://medium.com/a-stellar-journey/on-worldwide-consensus-359e9eb3e949
Traditional Byzantine agreement protocol (BAP)
Membership is set by a central authority or closed
negotiation (Sybil attack-resistant)
Update BAP for decentralized group admission
Ripple: publish a ‘starter’ membership list that participants
can edit for themselves
Divergent lists invalidate network safety; users fail to update
Tendermint: base membership on proof of stake
Ties trust to resource ownership; revoked escrow attacks
Stellar: open membership, participants affirm trust
Quorum is still vulnerable to Sybil attack, malicious parties can join
many times and outnumber honest nodes. So majority-based quorums
do not work, but a federated network of quorum slices can
Each node selects and tests quorum slices based on safety and
liveness; voting to accept statements (of network state)