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Blockchain is a Utility for the World - Dublin Tech Summit Feb 2017
Bruce Pon discusses the potential of blockchain as a universal utility akin to electricity, emphasizing its role in driving innovation and economic growth. He outlines the emerging decentralized computing stack, which includes technologies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and envisions a future where decentralization facilitates the digitization of value in society. The document highlights the importance of integrating such technologies into various applications to create a global utility.
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Blockchain is a Utility for the World - Dublin Tech Summit Feb 2017
- 1. Database for thePlanet Dublin Tech Summit - February 16, 2017 - Bruce Pon @brucepon Blockchain is a Utility for the World
- 2. What is aUtility? http://situationalintelligence.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Water-treatment-plant.jpg @brucepon
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- 4. JACK BIRNS/THE LIFEPICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES @brucepon
- 5. - Erik Brynjolfsson Electricityis … a general purpose technology General purpose technologies drive most economic growth, because they unleash cascades of innovations, like lightbulbs and, yes, factory redesign. @brucepon
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- 7. What makes blockchaina utility? @brucepon
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- 9. Why is thisimportant? @brucepon
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- 16. An emerging decentralizedcomputing stack @brucepon
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- 21. STORAGE Value Bitcoin, ZCash Database InterplanetaryDB File System InterplanetaryFS AnEmerging Computing Stack @brucepon
- 22. PROCESSING Ethereum STORAGE Value Bitcoin, ZCash Database InterplanetaryDB File System InterplanetaryFS AnEmerging Computing Stack @brucepon
- 23. NETWORKS PLATFORMS PROCESSING Ethereum STORAGE Value Bitcoin, ZCash Database InterplanetaryDB File System InterplanetaryFS AnEmerging Computing Stack @brucepon
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- 25. How decentralization technologiescan be used @brucepon
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- 34. The Internet Drovethe Digitization of Information
- 35. Decentralization technology allows TheDigitization of Value • Next big wave of digitization • Weave into the fabric of our society • A global utility for the world @brucepon
- 36. Database for thePlanet Dublin Tech Summit, Feb 16, 2017 Bruce Pon @brucepon Blockchain is a Utility for the World
Editor's Notes
- #2 What is a utility? Turmoil in the world. How blockchain fits in A decentralized computing stack
- #3 In 19th Century Germany, 50% of newborns died before their 5th birthday. Every second baby. 500 out of every 1,000 babies. Today, it’s less than half a percent (0.5%). Only 5 out of every 1,000 babies. What was the miracle solution to bring the mortality rate down so low? Water treatment plants and indoor plumbing. They reduced mortality by 99% from water borne diseases. And in one century, billions of lives have been saved because of this unglamorous but essential utility. It’s hard to believe that 2.5 Billion people on earth still don’t have it. https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality/
- #4 4,000 years ago, in Babylon, a days work bought 10min of light - candles made from animal based fat. This means that for 99.9% of humanity’s existence, the cost of light was too expensive to do anything at night. When the sun went down – so did we. Today a day’s work buys 100,000 min. – 7 full days. It’s ten thousand times cheaper because of electricity. Electricity has fundamentally changed our lives in so many other ways. It powers our communication networks around the globe allowing us speak to our loved ones from anywhere. We can be entertained through TV and radio broadcasts. Electricity powers our transportation systems – mass transit, our planes and trains so that we can move around. And it powers our factories and a complex supply chains so that we can have the material wealth that has exploded in the past 50 years. Electricity is a utility for the world. @planetmoney #534 Impacts work, transportation, food, social lives http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/science/importance-of-electricity-how-it-changed-peoples-lives.html http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/25/306862378/episode-534-the-history-of-light http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/this-post-is-hopelessly-long-w/
- #5 Our roadways, railways and public transport systems are utilities. We’ve gone from having to pay $100 to move one ton one mile in the 1800s to $0.03 on rail today, $0.35 on roads. The cost of transport has dropped 1,000 times because we have a common utility of the roads and railways that criss-cross our nations. https://outrunchange.com/2015/02/24/transportation-costs-dropped-95-in-the-1800s/ http://richardtorian.blogspot.de/2012/01/cost-per-ton-mile-for-four-shipping.html https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_03_21.html https://www.wired.com/2016/06/happy-60th-birthday-interstate-highway-system-look-awful/ http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDRS/Resources/477365-1327525347307/8392086-1327528510568/WDR09_12_Ch06web.pdf
- #6 All of these examples are fundamental inventions that are so important to humankind, we call them general purpose technologies. General purpose technologies are so important, so rare, that there have been only about 25 of them in the history of mankind. They are special because they unlock waves of innovation across the entire society and economy for decades and centuries after they’ve been discovered. When they are released, people don’t really know what to make of them. First, people just try to imperfectly shoehorn them into replicating existing processes and activities. But this means that they work “worse” than the legacy systems they replaced. Then gradually, as the infrastructure catches up, a paradigm shift happens and people start to grasp the power to rethink entire processes and system. Finally, people stop thinking about the technology as being new, and build it into everything – as if it were a utility.
- #7 We’ve seen this firsthand with the internet. First, it was email in the early 90’s. Then eCommerce. Then search. Social. Mobile. Internet of Things. And it keeps going. All powered by the utility of the Internet. And it has made the cost of communications down a million times cheaper. You can send millions of emails a day if you want. All you need is a connection. The internet has also helped to drive the digitization of information and data so that old industries like retail, hoteling and taxis are being remade and whole new industries are possible like the Internet of Things and driverless vehicles. The Internet is a utility. It has connected us like never before. In 1929, a Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy postulated that every single person on earth was no more than 6 degrees of separated from anyone else. With the internet and via our friends at facebook – we now know that the degree of separation for any 2 people on earth is 3.5. The Prime Minister. A kid in Africa. Antarctica. – combined with Moore’s Law for storage, we can now store more on a thumb drive than on 20,000 Compaq computers from 1996. https://research.fb.com/three-and-a-half-degrees-of-separation/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation.
- #8 The next general purpose technology, the next killer utility for the world – is blockchain. I’ll tell you why. Since the dawn of time, if two people wanted to transact – it was purely buyer beware. Someone could rob you while the transaction was taking place. You had to inspect the goods yourself, not knowing the provenance or history of the thing you were buying. Once the deal was done and both parties separated, if the product broke. You had no recourse. Naturally, over the millennia, we built systems of trust and middlemen to reduce the risk. To the point now, where our entire economy, society and government is based on intermediaries. Each having a role of trust to play in the system, each causing a little bit of friction, each making the cost of transactions a bit more expensive – all in the name of TRUST. For capital markets, insurance, shipping, ad networks, government records – and many other processes, there’s 10 or more intermediaries between a buyer and seller, the two parties who want to transact. What is blockchain? A technology which enables us, to a very high degree of certainty, to ensure the integrity of a given piece of information. This is done by distributing the task of ensuring integrity to a decentralized group of participants that individually evaluate and then reach a consensus on the information being consistent with its intended state. Essentially a distributed digital ledger or public distributed database. Each time a set of records, known as a block, is added to the ledger/database, it is time-stamped, digitally signed and linked to the signature of the previous block, forming a chain of blocks, hence the name blockchain. (The blockchain is a ledger that records everything that happens to a collection of data known as a "block" in a chronological order or "chain".) Database, cryptography and a method to reach agreement or consensus – that’s it. That’s a blockchain. Blockchains rely on cryptography to allow a set of computers to make changes to a global record without needing a central actor. Since each change to a blockchain is made simultaneously across the whole network, no information is lost and because changes cannot be undone the system maintains its transparency. A special key is needed to make changes to each block, so individuals can keep their records safe by protecting that key. So how is it different from a database? It’s not just a technical solution added on top of a database, it is a system of integrity that the network shares. Everyone owns it, can write to it, can check and verify against it – and it lives on everyone’s computers but isn’t centrally controlled. What does this allow? Assets can actually live on the network, in full control of the bearer, the person with the password to the wallet. The removal of the middleman to cuts costs in almost every sector. As a currency this is an important feature because it allows users to be sure their digital money is one of a kind, the same way each note in your wallet is unique. For enterprise, the value is to have unique assets – whether informational, energy, financial or otherwise. "Blockchain tech will be the way we create assets because it allows you to transfer digital information without copying," says Adam Ludwin, chief executive of Chain.com, which builds blockchain networks. Blockchain can be used to track the history of all sorts of information and maintain its value, so, for example, doctors could use it to update medical records.
- #9 Blockchains are Trust engines. Blockchains are based on having a global network of computers that work together to maintain the truth – for physical, financial, energy and intellectual assets, processes and data. This is fundamentally useful for several reasons. It allows us to reduce the cost of asset transfer by 1,000x. It drives the digitization of assets. Which, like the internet helped to digitize the world’s knowledge. It’s going to connect the physical world to the digital world and impact $100 trillion in value. It’s setting the ground for the next Google, Facebook and Amazon. Most importantly, It allows you to truly own your assets, processes and data – without needing any middleman, bank, government or trusted third party. Imagine a global computer for …
- #10 If you look around, there are many problems in this world. Many have to do with TRUST.
- #11 Our rights to privacy, the right to be forgotten and protections from surveillance are threatened as never before from state and non-state actors. Can we own our Identity and data?
- #12 What sites we visit, who are friends are, what we like - is being sold to ad networks – with no transparency or control from us.
- #13 We’re losing trust in government, fueling the rise of nationalist and populist parties, who, do exactly the wrong things to help people adjust to the new reality. Killing job training and education programs, rejecting science, ignoring climate change research, closing borders, scapegoating minorities and those most vulnerable
- #14 … abrogating trade agreements and unions that bring benefits for all, essentially sleepwalking into the technological maelstrom that all countries around the world face.
- #15 People are losing trust in our economic systems. We’ve seen income and wealth inequality reaching heights not seen in 100 years. http://www.economist.com/node/21564556
- #16 We are connected as never before. We need trust in our world. But the trust in government & institutions, is decreasing – through surveillance, corruption and misguided populism. Trust in banks and the financial system are low since the crisis of 2008, the bailouts and the jumbo-sized compensation. Trust in business and political leaders is waning. Trust in people is decreasing - we have hostile tribes who are suspicious of one another. The trust we have, is very fragile. Without trust, our society breaks apart.
- #17 Blockchain and decentralized technologies are trust engines. They also allow people to take back their assets, ideas, and data, where they control it fully. And by doing so, blockchain will up-end the world. A lot of business models are going to disappear. They are going to automate trust. Blockchains can help people take back some control and herald new paradigms for storing and transferring value. People call them blockchain, DLT. We call it decentralization technology, part of an emerging decentralized stack. We’re still at the very beginning of the journey and new paradigms are being worked on right now, but decentralization technologies will up-end existing systems and processes.
- #18 The digital world knows no boundaries. It’s global. We now have a set of technologies that allow, not only information, but assets to be stored and transferred, independent of any authority or government.
- #19 Another is Ethereum – which leads to the promise of a fully decentralized, programmable economy running in the cloud. Digitization of business processes that trigger value exchange by leveraging sensors in the physical world Fully digital organizations Self-sustaining organizations wholly in the digital world
- #20 Ipfs, the interplanetary file system is decentralized file storage
- #21 Our very own product, BigchainDB powers the Interplanetary Database – a global database and decentralized computing engine that allows you to manage your data unlike any other blockchain – better performance, cheaper and with query capabilities. It’s built on top of MongoDB, so it inherits many of the features that allow enterprises to quickly operationalize their blockchain use case. We think that having access to BigchainDB is so important to drive innovation, that we’ve built a non-profit foundation so that people can access a global network. IPDB – the Interplanetary Database. Essentially a global utility, like the internet, to facilitate the registration and transfer of assets. It’s a decentralized network of nodes that power a global database on top of BigchainDB – including organizations such as the Internet Archive and the blockchain community – people dedicated to protecting an open internet with blockchain technology. We designed it with the assistance of some of the leading minds in the space, including the architects of the modern DNS, the global decentralized database that runs the internet. With IPDB, you can get up and running quickly with your proof-of-concept via IPDB to test out new ideas - put encrypted health records, private data and identity information markers. The data is globally accessible but with control restricted to the people you want to see. Our testnet is up and running this week, so if you want to have early access to BUILD your prototype, visit our homepage and request access. Knowing the source of data, you can buy it, license it, sell it What about for IP or private data? Genome information?
- #26 Blockchain and decentralized technologies are trust engines. A lot of business models are going to disappear. They are going to automate trust. They also allow people to take back their assets, ideas, and data, where they control it fully. We’re still at the very beginning of the journey and new paradigms are being worked on right now, but decentralization technologies will up-end existing systems and processes.
- #27 Identity – in the hands of government, hospitals, facebook, linkedin With blockchain, you can own your identity. Birthdate, citizenship, genetic and biometric information, social graph and professional graph, health data Imagine being able to grant access to the specific person, the specific information for the specific time that you want to. Where you control who advertises to you or at least you can charge for it.
- #28 Our ideas are now digitized and can’t be sold as they used to be. Musicians used to get $50k per $1 mil of sales, 5%. With streaming, they get $50. 1,000x less. @alextapscott #next47 #blockchain
- #29 Monetize your Intellectual Property photos, art, designs, writings, music, film Blockchain allows for a global registry of copyrights, trademarks, logos and patents. With a global registry that anyone can look up, you could license your work and reverse the trend where ideas are priceless but not worth paying for. Old Image http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/hacking-creativity/img/researchMap.jpg
- #30 Priceless datasets for the world are at risk – our climate and scientific data – from climate change deniers and those who ignore the global warming reality.
- #31 Logistics and Shipping Supply chain Raw materials Manufactured goods Bringing trust across oceans so that we get things faster, at a lower price – knowing the true provenance and history of every object we buy.
- #32 M2M communication Energy & power systems Devices and sensors on mobile phones, in our bodies on our vehicles Imagine a future where your: Fridge ordering groceries for you. Vehicles checking themselves into service Automatic balancing of energy grids and energy generation.
- #33 Markets - proxy voting, Share issuance and transfers, custodial services Trading Where corporations are accountable to their shareholders, and buyers and sellers can come to an agreement and close trades faster.
- #34 Banking & Insurance back office reconciliation cross border payments Anti-money laundering Know-your-customer Claims management Data sharing Hundreds of billions can be saved from banking, payments and insurance if everyone operates from a common truth. 1/3rd of costs of a bank are because of reconciliation. This goes away with blockchain.
- #35 Blockchain drives the digitization of value – assets, data, processes. The Internet The internet helped to drive digitization of the world’s knowledge and freed it to be shared and searched by anyone on earth. It helped to spawn billion dollar companies that we all know and use - household names such as Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and others. It gave the traditionally powerless, a voice to express their complaints and discontentments. It helped to make the powerful, even more connected to the global community. We rely so heavily on the Internet now, that having access to the Internet is like having access to air and water –when we don’t have it, we feel lost and disoriented.
- #36 Blockchains will completely insinuate itself in all facets of our society over the next 30 years. It represents the next wave of digitization that will fundamentally alter our relationship to anything of value. And, it will have a similar, if not greater impact on our world, as the internet has. If you could have been there as the Internet was just getting going – in the mid-1990’s what would you have done? Today, we’re at the cusp of another wave of digitization that will dwarf the Internet. Why is this? Because blockchains allow the digitization of value. - Reduction of cost 1,000x ($50 > $0.05 > $0.00005) - Increase of speed 10,000x (5d > 5s) - New business opportunities (Email, Information Transparency, Social connections, Economics – Logistics / Supply Chain) - Massive automation – AI, business processes, robotics – potential for millions of jobs to be lost, displacement – medium / highly paid workers, not just manual or low cost labour.
- #37 Decentralization technologies will weave itself into our economy. It will be just there. Like a utility. A general purpose technology that spans across industries and will cause cascading innovation for the next 100 years. Upending business models. Creating new business models. Replacing human and institutional trust with digital trust. Extending the power of technology deeper into our society and who we are. Join us. Sign up for ipdb and start hacking. If you’re less technical, learn about blockchain - because Life is about to get way more interesting.