This document provides an overview of blockchain technology and applications, protocols, tokens, and ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). It begins with the speaker's bio and then defines the basics of blockchain technology. It discusses how blockchain enables decentralized coordination between parties without a central authority. It provides examples of toy apps like CryptoKitties and decentralized media marketplaces. It outlines considerations for developing decentralized applications and discusses community-driven development models like ICOs. The document aims to explain key concepts related to blockchain technologies and their applications.

1. TOWARDS BLOCKCHAIN
ENABLED APPLICATIONS
PROTOCOLS, TOKENS, ICOS & REGULATIONS
Michael Zargham, PhD
@mzargham
www.block.science

2. Speaker Bio
• Founder and CEO and BlockScience
• Contributor & Advisor, ODEM
• Contributor & Advisor, Sweetbridge
• Contributor, Mad Network
• Founder and Chief Scientist at 50X Ventures
• Former Director of Data Science and Architect of
Data & Decision Systems at Cross MediaWorks
• PhD in Systems Engineering, UPENN; studied
Decentralized Optimization and Decision Science
• Academic expertise in optimal and stochastic
Control Theory, Game Theory & Applied Math
• Quantitative Analyst and Decision Systems
Engineer since 2005.

3. @mzargham
BLOCKCHAIN BASICS

4. Blockchain Technology
• Also called decentralized ledger technology (DLT)
• In general, a blockchain network defined by
• A data structure: the “ledger” but can be generalized, i.e. for the Ethereum network the data
structure is the state of the EVM
• A set of methods which operate on the data structure; in the simplest case this is a
transaction sending tokens from one address to another
• A consensus protocol: set of rules for agreeing on the true state of the data structure, based
on verifying the validity of transactions
• A community: the set of agents (human or machine) which are participating in the network;
lightweight clients may broadcast transactions but full nodes are required to participate in
validation process (consensus protocol)

5. Act Locally, Agree Globally
https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/11/15/merkling-in-ethereum/https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper

6. @mzargham
BLOCKCHAIN:
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

7. Modes of Coordination
Centralized Authority Coordination Peer to peer coordination
Local Nodes
Central Authority

8. Centralized Coordination Services
“Gig-economy” platform marketplaces
• Airbnb (host, guest)
• Uber (driver, rider)
• Taskrabbit (service provider, consumer)
“legacy” two sided markets
• Credit Cards (merchants, cardholders)
• Operating Systems (developers, end users)
• HMOs (Doctors, patients)
“Attention” platforms, Sharing and Social Media
• Twitter/Facebook (poster, reader)
• Youtube (uploader, viewer)
Centralized Authority Coordination
Central Authority
Note that while the economic activity may be decentralized the businesses and software enabling that activity are centralized

9. Decentralized Coordination Services
Protocol Level Decentralized services
• Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) - Bittorent
• Decentralized Ledgers - Bitcoin, etc
• Decentralized Virtual Machines - Ethereum
The Protocol Level is a set of tools for building
applications or even for building components for
more complex applications
• for example, Civic and uPort provide self
sovereign identity services built on top of the EVM
• IPFS provides secure decentralized file storage by
combining a Decentralized Ledger with DHT
Peer to peer coordination
Local Nodes

10. @mzargham
TOWARDS APPLICATIONS

11. Toy App Example: Crypto-kitties

12. Example: Digital Media Marketplace, LBRY

13. Example: Digital Media Marketplace, LBRY
Material from
Circa, Q2 2016

14. Decentralized Application
Front End User Interface
Decentralized (Self-sovereign) Identity Decentralized Payment System
Core functionality for dApp
Application Token
Private or
Permissioned
Data Layer
(Thin) Centralized Backend
- Basic business logic
- ML microservices
- Application data
- APIs to other systems
- Other Oracles
Users of all roles

15. Application Complexity Rises
Decentralization becomes less Black and White
Software
Centralized Decentralized
Centralized
Traditional fiat subscription
SaaS Software
SaaS Software with
Tokenized ownership/
member model
Decentralized
Enterprise private network
coordinating across silos
Fully Decentralized
Network with simple utility
token or no token
Business Model
C
C
D
D

16. @mzargham
COMMUNITY DRIVEN
DEVELOPMENT

17. What is an ICO
Key Concepts:
• Token Generation Event (TGE)
• Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT)
• Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
• Airdrop

18. Sample ICO Timeline
These days there a tons of entities giving advice on ICOs, its safe to say nobody is right because the regulatory
environment is still uncertain (at least in the US). This presentation should not be construed in anyway as legal advice.

19. Whitepapers and Technical Specs

20. Utility Tokens
Generally Accepted Definition of Security
• Investment of Money
• Dependence on a common enterprise
• Expectation of Profits
• From the Efforts of Others
Utility Token is a not a formal legal definition
Rather the term is used to in the community to
mean “not a security”

21. Sample Materials

22. @mzargham
QUESTIONS?