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Startups of the Year 2023: How GrainChain Is Leveling the Playing Field

The following curriculum is updated periodically with new modules and readings. The last update was made on August 20th, 2020. If you are interested in learning more about blockchain governance or contributing to our work, reach out to our Chair, Thomas B. Cox , or our Vice Chair, Kirsten Pomales Langenbrunner . Module 1: An Introduction to Blockchain Governance The Role of Governance | Article What is Governance for? | September, 2019 | Video An Introduction to Blockchain Governance with Thomas Cox | Video Blockchain Governance 101 Governance Models and Design | Video Blockchain Governance Models: On-chain and Off-chain | Article Blockchain and Coordination Games: Failures and Focal Points | April, 2019 | Article A Framework for Blockchain Governance Design | Article What is voting for? Module 2: Advanced Concepts in Blockchain Governance Incomplete Contract Theory | Article Incomplete Contracts and Blockchain | Classroom Lecture Asymmetric Information — Cryptoeconomics, Tokenomics, and the Economics of Blockchain Game Theory and Blockchain Governance | Video The Political Economy of Blockchain Governance | Article Introduction to Game Theory (If you aren’t already familiar) | Article Game Theory and Blockchain Stakeholder Alignment in Blockchain Systems | October, 2019 | Video Aligning Stakeholder Incentives in Blockchain Systems | Jan, 2020 | Article A Summary of Aligning Stakeholder Incentives in Blockchain Systems | Research Paper The Governance of Blockchain Dispute Resolution Module 3: An Introduction to Tokenomics The Economics of Blockchains | Article The Blockchain Economy: A beginner’s guide to institutional cryptoeconomics | Article The economics of crypto-democracy | Article Crypto Public Choice Tokenomics (Cryptoeconomics) | Article Economics of Tokenized Incentives 1: Intro to Pay for Performance | Article Economics of Tokenized Incentives 2: Selecting Effective Performance Metrics | Article Economics of Tokenized Incentives 3: Token Value Won’t Align Stakeholders | October, 2018 | Research Paper Crypto Economics — The Top 100 Token Models Compared Module 4: Introduction to Blockchain Consortium Governance Consortium Basics | 2019 A Simple Guide to Blockchain Consortia, Deloitte Consortium Design & Governance | February, 2019 The Politics and Governance of Consortium Blockchains | Research Paper Blockchain Deployment Toolkit, Supply Chain, Consortium Formation Section| 2020 | 2019 So You’ve Decided to Join a Blockchain Consortium? | August 2020 California GovOps Blockchain Report Section IV, Potential Applications Module 5: Use Cases In Action: Scaling Through Governance | 2020 | Article Ve-Chain Governance | 2020 | Article Chronicled Mediledger Governance | 2020 | Webinar Enterprise DLT Live Episode 001 — Susanne Somerville, Chronicled MediLedger | 2019 | Article EOS Mainnet Governance | 2020 | Webinar Enterprise DLT Live Episode 003 — Luis Macias, GrainChain (After Governance Revamp) | 2019 Maersk adds two big shipping firms to its blockchain ledger The Chair's Recommended Reading on Blockchain Governance The following books and courses are exceptional resources for those seeking a greater understanding of blockchain governance and collectives design. , Elinor Ostrom Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , Radhika Iyegnar, Jorden Woods Enterprise Blockchain Has Arrived , Robert Gertner Game Theory and the Law , Michael Suk-Young Chwe Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge: Culture, Coordination and Common Knowledge , Jonas Moberg Beyond Governments , Robert Paul Wolff An Introduction to the Use of Formal Methods in Political Philosophy , Alfie Kohn Punished by Rewards: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes Gordon Tullock; James Buchanan The Calculus of Consent, , David R. Koenig Governance Reimagined: Organizational Design, Risk, and Value Creation , Frederic Laloux Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness , M. Ridley The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation , John Holland Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity , F. A. Hayek Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order Thomas Schelling The Strategy of Conflict, CommunityRule.info About IEEE P2145 Working Group on Blockchain/DLT Governance Blockchain / DLT Governance is a complex topic. The topic is made more difficult by a lack of a shared language. The IEEE P2145 Working Group exists to identify and share a common vocabulary for discussing the governance of shared ledgers, and to eventually draft standards for DLT governance activities (a Process Model), and possibly for defining the maturity of a governance regime (a Maturity Model). P2145 actively seeks participation from individuals plus other standards organizations, blockchain ecosystems, consortia, and other entities in pursuit of our holistic and collaborative approach to standards development. If you represent an organization with an interest in DLT governance standards, please connect with us . through our website. About the IEEE Standards Association The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering. The IEEE Standards Association is an international leader in technology standards creation. Learn more about the IEEE here. Previously published at https://kirstenpomales.com/aug_26_2020.html

Blockchain Governance: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know

The Internet of People uses a new type of cryptographically secured data structure called the graphchain. The main difference between a graphchain and a blockchain is that the first acts as a cryptographically secured data structure, in which no blocks or transactions have to be stored. At the graphchain the information to be stored concerns either nodes or edges of a . The difference with a regular graph is that nodes are identified by a public key and its information is controlled by the corresponding private key holder. Edges represent relationships between the entities controlling nodes and some of these relationships can only be added to the graphchain if they are signed by the private keys of both connected nodes. graph At a graphchain nodes are fully owned by their private key holders and the information stored can only be changed by signing with the respective private key. Edges are co-owned by the entities holding the private keys of the connected nodes. The possible actions they can individually perform on information at the edges is constrained by the relationship type and conditions agreed upon when the relationship was established. In some cases either of the parties might be able to cancel the relationship or change some of its properties. In most relationship types the control resides on the node. predecessor The Internet of People’s implementation of a graphchain distributes the data structure across two different sets of computers or hardware devices in general. All nodes and public edges belong to the first group: a set of devices running on top of an open and public p2p network. All private edges are stored at the devices of the entities holding the private keys of the node. This means that one part of the graph is publicly accessible by anyone and the other part is not. The private part of the graph is fragmented into different devices owned by different entities and external parties can learn about it only with the consent of the owner of that private part of the graph or when the owner privately exposes these relationships to a third party with the purpose of declaring a relationship. predecessor These two sets of edges, the private and public ones are linked together because the Internet of People allows end user devices to keep an open connection to the public network. Anyone with access to the public network can locate a device associated with a graph node and use that open connection to learn more about that piece of the private part of the graph, if granted permission by its owner. The Internet of People’s usage of a graphchain is with the purpose of creating a secure, open and publicly accessible social graph that is user owned and controlled. The end result would be like combining Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and all user databases of all tech giant companies together and expose them publicly on a blockchain-like p2p-network that anyone can use to consume information and create software in a permissionless way. The most important difference with such a combined user database is that end users own and control both their information and their relationships with others across all type of applications. Different apps running at end user devices control different sets of private and public edges and nodes on behalf of end users. This means that a single end user can have multiple nodes on the graph and any amount of private and public edges. All of this is enabled just by using IoP apps for different types of social or business interactions. Thanks to Amadeo Charlé for the editing. If you are interested in learning more about this technology, this list might help you: The Internet of People architecture dissected. “Fermat, the Internet of People and the Person to Person Economy.” Like Bluetooth with global range. “ Introducing Redtooth ” The cornerstone software of the Internet of people. “ The Profile Server. ” The geo-located network that help other services to be geo-localized. “ The Location Based Network. ” [ ](mailto:web@fermat.org?subject=Please invite me to the Fermat Slack Team&body=Hi! I have visited Fermat.org and I am interested to join your slack community. Cheers!) The Internet of People is being built by the Fermat Project . If you like what you are reading, check out our online community on Slack . A bit about me: I am a systems architect who started his career designing and building banking systems. Later I turned into an entrepreneur. Three years ago I and decided I would use the underlying technology to fix the biggest problem we have as humans: “ ”. learned about bitcoin unlimited concentration of power

Introducing the Graphchain

Where is the “be your own bank” dream after almost 10 years of development with the brightest minds on earth? It is almost forgotten. The cryptocurrency industry was hijacked. It happened quite a long time ago, when the flow of venture capital started flowing into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Where are we more than two billion dollars later? We are stuck with a lot of centralized services which dilute the transformative potential of the technology Satoshi gave to the world. Unfortunately a very big percentage of the funding went to the big centralized players of the industry. Just an upgraded version of the current financial system with little chance of producing any change on the status quo. Sadly, very little funding went to standalone wallets or truly decentralized services. There was a small group of people that understood the divergence and stood firm to the original principles of empowering people and allowing them to be their own bank. Although many geeks understood how to handle cryptocurrency, regular people were far from being able to enjoy the benefits. Three years ago we drafted a plan to make Satoshi’s dream come true for everyone. That plan started with the , which creates the underlying infrastructure needed to enable the and ultimately decentralized banks. Now that the Internet of People is on the way, we can start thinking on how to build on top of it the . We have already identified all the problems to be solved and created a roadmap which would make Satoshi proud. Internet of People Person to Person economy Decentralized Bank project Problems to Solve The main problem for non-geek people to be their own bank is that all this crypto technology is very difficult for them and they perceive it as very risky too. Non geeks won’t make a wallet backup, store safely a copy of the wallet.dat, encrypt the wallet.dat file, or write 12 words without mixing things up. They don’t like these cryptic addresses used to send and receive coins either. They feel scared of typos that could lead to money being lost. They will never put a lot of money on their phone, knowing that it can be lost, stolen, the wallet app mistakenly erased, etc. Non geeks will never do cold storage or even understand what it is. It is simply too risky and too difficult in comparison to the perceived benefits. These are the reasons why cryptocurrencies might never get mass adopted, since their real advantage is when you handle and control them by yourself. Even geeks ended up using centralized services instead of standalone wallets. These centralized services are now as regulated as any other financial service providers, killing the disruptive potential of cryptocurrencies and many of it’s advantages. Backups and crypto addresses need to be removed and the user experience needs to be as simple as possible. The risk of holding crypto-currency by yourself needs to be minimized by automation. Vision Imagine a future where you can store any amount of crypto currency without using any centralized service, without backups or cold storage, and without crypto addresses. Imagine that if your phone is lost or stolen it doesn’t matter, because it only contains a tiny part of your wealth. Imagine you have in your smartphone a petty cash wallet that is topped up automatically every time it’s balance is close to zero. Imagine that your wealth is at a multisig vault managed automatically by a network of devices you own and control, automatically, without you doing anything at all. Imagine that in the event of a lost or stolen phone, you use any of the other devices of your private network and eject the stolen one. The network then reconfigures itself with one less device, revoking its signature and moving the petty cash balance to a new account. Only if the thief is an expert and opens your phone before you eject it from the private network you would lose the balance of the petty cash wallet. The real money is on the vault managed by a . Decentralized Bank In order to be super secure, your private network must have the following properties: Have as many devices as you want (up to the limit of IoP multi-sig technology, which should be around 10 times the one of bitcoin). The devices could be anywhere on earth. Nobody should be able to know which devices are part of your private network. With these conditions met, a would be extremely secure and anyone could store any amount of cryptocurrency there. A typical private network would have your mobile phones, tablets, laptops, pcs, some family members pcs at remote locations, etc. Decentralized Bank Being your own bank is Satoshi’s vision. We just refined it based on experience and made it our own. To get to that future first we need to finish the Internet of People. The Internet of People Project Essentially, the Internet of People is a set of technologies: IoP Token, Graphchain, Redtooth and dAPIs. The following is a very high level roadmap of this project: It is a cryptocurrency modeled on bitcoin with some changes to prevent centralization of mining and embedded governance functionality with . For decentralized banks we need to expand the amount of possible signatures of multisig transactions, to better adapt it to the “be your own bank” use case. IoP Token — Cryptocurrency with Democratic Mining: Contribution Contracts This technology creates an open social graph, which allows people to find each other on the internet without ever going through a company’s or any other type of entity’s servers. This is needed to connect your own devices across the world in a secure way. Graphchain — Open Social Graph: This technology enables the pairing of devices over the internet. It allows mobile apps to securely exchange data directly between any two devices. This data for instance could be crypto addresses, enabling crypto-wallets not to show these addresses to end users anymore, and automatically get addresses from counter parties on the wallet’s contact list. Redtooth — Bluetooth over the Internet: This technology enables any device to run different services anyone connected over Redtooth with that device can consume. These services can be about anything: chat, online dating, taxis, you name it. dAPIs — Decentralized APIs: Once the previous technologies are developed, anyone can create Apps both for commercial and social purposes. That means that a whole ecosystem can blossom. All of it enabled by the Internet of People. But the Internet of People also enables other projects that are not simple end user apps. Person to Person Decentralized Bank Project Roadmap This project needs the Internet of People to be ready before it can be implemented. If we add to the Internet of People a few more layers of infrastructure then we would reach Satoshi’s dream of allowing people to be their own bank: This technology enables the setup of a private network of devices owned either by a single user or a trusted group of people over Redtooth and dAPIs. This private network can later be used by apps for multiple purposes, for example to securely synchronize data among devices, or to run a Decentralized Bank. DPN — Decentralized Private Network: This technology creates a multisig vault over a DPN and allows you to store any amount of IoPs on it as secure as any centralized crypto bank or centralized wallet. This is not an APP that someone can open and access the funds. It is an autonomous software that does it’s job automatically. That is the reason why it can run for instance on the devices of many family members, and no one can see or withdraw the funds of individual members except the owners of those funds. It replaces the concept of cold storage by a massive multisig vault which can require up to dozens of devices to sign transactions if needed. Decentralized Bank: This could end up being the most user friendly crypto wallet possible. Its main features include: Petty Cash Crypto Wallet: The wallet can get connected to a Decentralized Bank and be automatically topped up when low on funds. It can easily withdraw large funds from the Decentralized Bank upon user request. It can also deposit funds on the Decentralized Bank when needed. Decentralized Bank Ready: Besides IoP, the wallet can also store bitcoin since it is the single most accepted cryptocurrency, with a large network of merchants, large liquidity and easily exchanged for fiat currencies all over the globe. Note that bitcoins can only be stored at the petty cash wallet, not at the Decentralized Bank. Bitcoin Supported: The wallet must allow end users to easily convert IoP to Bitcoin and vice versa. Funds at the Decentralized Bank are stored in IoPs, and can be converted to Bitcoin on demand before spending from the wallet. IoP to Bitcoin Exchange: For transactions between IoP users, payments are sent to wallet contacts (aliases and pictures), no addresses. End users will never see these long strange strings of characters again. No Crypto Addresses: Conclusion A growing community is helping make Satoshi’s dream come true by building the Internet of People. We are spread all over the world. The graphchain has already been released in beta, and it is currently waiting for the first apps to be developed. The community is working on Redtooth now, and slowly moving towards dAPIs. The IoP tokens are on the market at bittrex.com. You can buy some if you want to support the Decentralized Bank project and make it happen. If we allow regular people to easily and securely store any amount of cryptocurrency at their own Decentralized Bank, IoP tokens might become a very good early investment opportunity. If the concept of decentralized banks and be your own bank resonates with you, come and join us. Help make Satoshi’s dream come to life. Get into our , meet the community, join #decentralized-bank channel and tell us how you can help. slack Thanks to Amadeo Charlé, Guillermo Villanueva, Rich McDowell for their contributions to this piece. If you are interested in learning more about this technology, this list might help you: The Internet of People architecture dissected. “Fermat, the Internet of People and the Person to Person Economy.” The cryptographically secured data structure we use to store profiles and their relationships. “ Introducing the Graphchain. ” Like Bluetooth with global range. “ Introducing Redtooth ” The cornerstone software of the Internet of people. “ The Profile Server. ” The geo-located network that help other services to be geo-localized. “ The Location Based Network. ” Apps that run over Redtooth. “ Person to Person Apps. ” An open map of everyone and how we are related. “ The Web of People ” The way we govern ourselves. “ Fermat Distributed Governance Model ” How the Fermat project was born. “ Fermat’s Inception ” How to enter into the world of mining IoP Tokens. “ IoP Mining ” The Internet of People is being built by the Fermat Project . If you like what you are reading, check out our online community on Slack . A bit about me: I am a systems architect who started his career designing and building banking systems. Later I turned into an entrepreneur. Three years ago I and decided I would use the underlying technology to fix the biggest problem we have as humans: “ ”. learned about bitcoin unlimited concentration of power

The Decentralized Bank Project

The Fermat Project is part of a great story that started at ancient Greece with Pythagoras and of course it also involves Pierre de Fermat. Here I tell the complete story up to the very moment I became part of it. Greek origins Pythagoras had to pay his first student to convince him to study with him. He gave him three oboli (about a penny in today’s money) per lesson until one day he said there was no more money. The student replied that he preferred to pay, provided that they continued with the lessons. The rumor ran through the Greek islands and so the Pythagorean School, also known as the Secret Brotherhood, a philosophical/religious monastic order counting 300 members, was formed. By then counting and calculating had been widely practiced by the Babylonians and Egyptians but the Pythagoreans went far beyond that. “All is Number” was their motto attesting to their conviction that numbers were the key to life itself. Pythagoras strongly believed that relationships between numbers could reveal, through logical demonstration, all the secrets of the universe, hence he started producing his theorems. The Brotherhood walked briskly with his theorems but did nothing to share the secrets of the universe arousing the ire of the people who one day set the school on fire. Despite the desperate attempt of his students to save him, Pythagoras himself died in the fire. The Brotherhood was dispersed until Alexander the Great founded Alexandria and in order to attract scholars to the new city he took the advice of his general, Ptolemy: “Gather the great books; great minds will follow.” Hence the Library of Alexandria was established with the overall aim of collecting every book ever written. Each traveler had their books confiscated upon arrival to Alexandria. They would be handed over to scribes, who made a copy for the owner and sent the original to the library. The extensive collection comprising 500,000 volumes made Alexandria the intellectual capital of the ancient world and as Ptolemy had envisaged attracted the most famous scholars of the era. Euclid was put in charge of the math section and by inventing the “reductio ad absurdum” that is the proof by contradiction, he took the findings of Pythagoras one step further. Anything that would defy logic seemed abominable to Pythagoras and as such was dismissed. Though the Pythagoreans had discovered irrational numbers (pi, or the square root of two) such was their fear of the “unutterable” numbers that their study was immediately forbidden and the disciple who came up with the concept of the “square root of two” was executed. Euclid announced to everyone that Pythagoras was abominable and advocated that irrational numbers would open a new door for mathematics and as such encouraged them to think about them without fear. The First Peer to Peer Network Julius Caesar’s attack on Alexandria marked the demise of the Royal Library as it was burnt down in a devastating fire and the invaluable collection of scrolls was reduced to ashes. In an attempt to win Cleopatra’s heart, Mark Antony bought the entire Library of Pergamos, which had been second only to the Great Library of Alexandria, and presented the 200,000 volumes to Cleopatra. By having done so, Alexandria continued to boast the greatest library in the world until its eradication by Islamic troops entering the city in the 7th century under the leadership of Caliph Omar. The Caliph ordered the destruction of all books on account of either opposing the Koran, which was considered to be heresy or for being superfluous. For years, the water of the public baths of Alexandria was heated using those books to feed the fire. Mathematicians learned their lesson: in order not to disappear, the Brotherhood expanded to everywhere without having a center but its members continued keeping in close contact with each other. This marked the beginning of the mathematical tradition of sharing every doubt, every finding and every gossip with the near and distant colleagues (feedback). Should we call it the first and oldest peer-to-peer network? Soon two separate branches of mathematics i.e., applied mathematics and number theory began to evolve dividing the mathematician community. Those more intrigued by the practical application formed working groups whereas those merely interested in numbers preferred to work alone. Newton accused the representatives of the latter branch of being vulgar ego jugglers, who had been wasting their time teasing each other with riddles which lacked concrete utility. An ardent supporter of that school was a judge in Toulouse called Pierre de Fermat, whose greatest pleasure in life was to play with numbers and then to send little notes about his findings to Descartes and Pascal. When it came to mental calculations such were his skills that Fermat had no inclination to spend time putting them in writing claiming that it would halt his reasoning and hated being asked about the intermediate steps. He was solution -rather than demonstration- oriented and found it appealing to be compared to big names. One day he took the famous theorem of Pythagoras (the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the legs) and concluded that the equation has no integer solutions for powers greater than two. “It is impossible for a cube to be the sum of two cubes, a fourth power to be the sum of two fourth powers, or in general for any number that is a power greater than the second to be the sum of two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain.” he scribbled in the margin of his copy of the ancient Greek text Arithmetica by Diophantus thereby creating one of the most notable puzzles in mathematics driving many mathematicians to insanity until proven three hundred and fifty years later. The Prize In the first two hundred and fifty years it was a puzzle merely for young mathematicians who immediately abandoned it as soon as they had arrived to the conclusion, previously drawn by Gauss, that solving this puzzle would not contribute to the progress of mathematics. It was toward the end of the nineteenth century that a German amateur mathematician Paul Wolfskehl struck by love sickness was on the verge of committing suicide. While waiting for the stroke of midnight to shoot himself in the head he passed the time reading about the latest progress in solving Fermat’s Last Theorem. Touched by a flash of inspiration he began working on the solution and so lost he became in it that morning found him in his library. Even though his approach failed at last the intricate beauty of number theory once again awakened his desire for life. The young Wolfskehl turned out to have more talent for business than for pure numbers and over the years he had become a millionaire, however, he never forgot that night. In order to repay the debt he rewrote his will bequeathing 100,000 Marks to the first person who could solve the puzzle. Following his death in 1906 the Wolfskehl Prize was announced fueling public desire to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, which greatly contributed to the progress of number theory. The Solution A mountain of failed attempts to win the prize had been accumulating in the basement of the University of Göttingen, 621 proofs, all flawed had been sent just within the first year of Wolfskehl’s death. By 1993 no serious mathematician would engage in trying to solve the longstanding riddle of Fermat’s Last Theorem, only fans, mostly inmates and lunatics, persisted. Then in 1993 it was at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, the heart of the world of mathematics (a building created with the intention of bringing together the greatest mathematicians for a week each year, a building with not a single private corner, with offices having no doors and with blackboards even in bathrooms and in the elevator) that a freckled Englishman announced to his illustrious peers that working fully alone for ten years without the aid of a computer he had solved Fermat’s Theorem. Returning from his classes at Princeton University he would sat alone at the table, sometimes even twelve hours, a piece of paper lying in front of him every so often scribbling a formula like the old Fermat did. However, unlike Fermat he diligently noted down not only each and every formula but their endless developments also. Mathematicians say their specialty is an archipelago of small certainties scattered in a sea of ignorance. The real advances in mathematics are made when the bridges connecting these islands are built. In his dissertation Andrew Wiles established so many bridges that the entire history of mathematics could be reconstructed based on that, and that is exactly what the Hindu Simon Singh did by writing his beautiful book entitled Fermat’s Last Theorem. All representatives of number theory are enumerated in that book, however, the most remarkable of all is an unnamed colleague, who when facing Wiles as he was triumphantly leaving the stage addressed him with undisguised obfuscation: “And now that you have taken away the problem, what are you going to give us in return?”. The New Problem The secret of Fermat’s Last Theorem had been deciphered at last, however, even as of today the world is abundant in puzzles, which despite the tremendous advances in technology, are still waiting to be solved. All my adult life I seem to have been attracted to problems the complexity of which would deter even the most enthusiastic experts of the field. Inspired by the difficulty of the task I have always managed to rise to the challenge and sparing no time and energy succeeded in unraveling the mystery surrounding it. After having designed mission critical systems for banks for more than a decade, I found myself in the United Arab Emirates establishing a techno-artistic startup called Nomad Inception boasting a technology which besides having enabled the automated creation of non repetitive Islamic geometric patterns on a scale never seen before also paved the way for new original non repetitive patterns for the first time in five hundred years. Being Argentinean I have absolutely no relation to the Arabic culture, however, my fascination with the amazing intricacy and sophistication of Islamic geometric patterns helped me grasp the secrets of a traditional art form mastered by a handful of artisans only. Solving a thousand-year-old historical puzzle and thereby potentially contributing to the preservation of our cultural heritage is a vastly rewarding experience worth all the effort invested in it. It was in Dubai, where I was setting up my company called “Nomad Inception”. There I first learned about bitcoin and having spotted the excellent opportunity to use this innovation for good my new mission was conceived: Enabling a world where people can freely interact electronically without unnecessary third party interferences. Both for social and commercial interactions. No spying, no censorship, no taking a cut on private transactions between individuals, no mining of private information, no unnecessary middlemen. A world where people are more important than entities like companies and states, a world where people have the choices and the means to interact directly between each other. To get there we need , with data being stored at end user devices and apps built to interact with each other directly, over the Internet but . We need that can run independent of any entity. Creation of such a technology is the new problem to solve. The problem is as complex as it can be and technologies like bitcoin where showing the way and later proved to be crucial to find the solution. direct device to device communication without going through the web or requiring any service from any company or institution Person-to-Person Apps That solution involved finding the islands not yet discovered and building bridges to connect them both with each other and with the entire current archipelago. A Divine Sign I delved into studying the problem with newfound enthusiasm, however, my commitments at Nomad Inception prevented me from devoting all my attention to finding the solution until a business meeting with a Dubai sheik changed my life forever. I am anything but superstitious, however, it goes without saying that the question that sheik asked me upon receiving my business card, was that the word “inception” in Arabic appeared as the company logo, could only be interpreted as a divine sign compelling me to leave Nomad Inception without further delay and turn all my attention to find the solution for this modern day Fermat’s problem. You may wonder what the life-changing question was… “Have you been aware that the word ‘inception’ in Arabic used as your company logo would read ‘bitcoin’ just by adding one dot to it?” If you are interested in learning about the technology that was created so far after the previous story ended, this list might help you: The Internet of People architecture dissected. “Fermat, the Internet of People and the Person to Person Economy.” The cryptographically secured data structure we use to store profiles and their relationships. “ Introducing the Graphchain. ” Like Bluetooth with global range. “ Introducing Redtooth ” The cornerstone software of the Internet of people. “ The Profile Server. ” The geo-located network that help other services to be geo-localized. “ The Location Based Network. ” [ ](mailto:web@fermat.org?subject=Please invite me to the Fermat Slack Team&body=Hi! I have visited Medium.com and I am interested to join your slack community. Cheers!) The Internet of People is being built by the Fermat Project . If you like what you are reading, consider visiting us at our on-line community on Slack . A bit about me: I am a system architect that started his career designing and building banking systems. Later I turned into an entrepreneur. Three years ago I and decided I would use that technology to fix the biggest problem we have as humans: “ ”. learned about bitcoin unlimited concentration of power

Fermat’s Inception

ZenIP 42207: The Turning Point in Horizen's Privacy Token Strategy The recent development in the Horizen ecosystem, particularly ZenIP 42207, marks a significant shift in the network's approach to privacy tokens. ZenIP 42207, proposed on January 4th, 2024, aimed for the complete removal of the shielded pool from the Horizen mainchain. This initiative follows the earlier ZenIP-42204, which began the deprecation of shielded pool access. The move is a response to the changing regulatory landscape around privacy tokens and symbolizes a strategic shift from privacy-centric features. Key Changes and Implications : All functionalities related to shielded transactions, including z-addresses, will be entirely deactivated. This prevents any transaction involving the shielded pool. Disabling of Shielded Transactions : RPC calls like z_sendmany and z_mergetoaddress, specific to shielded transactions, will be deprecated. RPC Calls Removal : Users will receive necessary tools and guides to transfer their assets from the shielded pool before the hard fork. Community support and comprehensive documentation will facilitate this transition. Migration Path for Users : The deactivation will occur via a network upgrade at a specified block height, backed by extensive testing and community preparation. Network Upgrade : Regular updates and guidance will be provided to the community throughout the transition process. Communication and Timeline : ZEN 5.0.0 is slated for release in January and activation in February 2024. Post-activation, shielded transactions, including de-shielding of coins, will not be possible. Important Notice Voting Process and Results : Voting started on January 8th and concluded on January 11th, 2024. Timeline : The Horizen DAO voting used Snapshot and Discourse for governance. Method : The proposal passed with 99.97% votes in favor. Results : The high participation level reflects the community's involvement in Horizen's decision-making process. Community Engagement Next Steps for Users : It's crucial for users with funds in private addresses to transfer them to transparent addresses using Sphere by Horizen or zen-cli before February 2024. Unshielding Funds : Directly unshielding funds to exchange deposit addresses is discouraged. Caution Against Exchange Deposits : Failing to transfer ZEN from shielded pools before the hard fork will result in a loss of assets. Risk of Loss Comparative Analysis Feature/Aspect Pre-ZenIP 42207 Post-ZenIP 42207 Transaction Privacy High (shielded pools) Limited (transparent transactions only) Regulatory Compliance Lower (due to privacy focus) Higher (aligns with evolving regulations) User Experience Complex (due to shielded transactions) Simplified (transparent transactions only) Community Involvement Limited (less governance engagement) Increased (active participation in decision-making) Network Security High (with shielded transactions) Maintained (through transparent ledger) The approval of ZenIP 42207 is a landmark moment in the Horizen ecosystem, demonstrating a proactive response to regulatory changes and a shift in strategic focus away from privacy-centric features. This change, while controversial to some, ensures the network's longevity and compliance with emerging regulations, but also highlights the importance of community involvement and transparent communication in the governance of blockchain projects. The Backbone -Large and Most Decentralized Node Infrastructure One of Horizen's standout features is its massive node network, setting an industry standard for security and decentralization. Employing a multi-tiered node system, each node plays a pivotal role in supporting the network and is duly compensated for its contribution. This unique structure not only reinforces the security of the ecosystem but it also ensures a level of decentralization that is unparalleled in the blockchain space. ZenNode - Democratizing Passive Income Opportunities commitment to inclusivity and accessibility can be seen in its ZenNode program. Designed to empower anyone, regardless of technical proficiency, to run a ZenNode and earn passive income, the program stands as a testament to the platform's democratizing ethos. Whether you are a seasoned tech enthusiast or a novice, hosting nodes through vetted third-party providers offers a quick and straightforward entry point to begin earning node rewards. Horizen's The process is streamlined into three simple steps, emphasizing the platform's user-friendly approach. The Total Active Horizen Nodes dashboard provides real-time visibility into the thriving node network, allowing participants to gauge the network's robustness. Not only this, to further enhance transparency, Horizen provides an Earnings Calculator, enabling users to estimate their potential rewards. ZEN, the Native Cryptocurrency for the Horizen Ecosystem At the heart of the Horizen ecosystem is ZEN, its native cryptocurrency. ZEN introduces an optional privacy feature that puts users in control of their digital footprint. This innovative approach aligns with Horizen's commitment to adaptability and user empowerment in an era where privacy concerns loom large. A Strategic Shift - Responding to Regulatory Dynamics Horizen's recent decision, exemplified by ZenIP 42207, marks a strategic pivot away from privacy-focused features. The proposal, which garnered an overwhelming 99.97% vote share "for," underscores the platform's responsiveness to the evolving regulatory environment around privacy tokens. The complete removal of the shielded pool from the Horizen mainchain is a bold step, reinforcing the project's commitment to compliance and strategic alignment with regulatory shifts. Looking Ahead - Dynamic Future for Horizen As Horizen gears up for the release of ZEN 5.0.0 in January, followed by its deployment on Mainnet in February 2024, the platform continues to shape the future of blockchain technology. The comprehensive removal of the shielded pool, coupled with the continued growth of the node network and advancements in sidechain technology, positions Horizen as a frontrunner in the rapidly evolving blockchain ecosystem. In the spirit of community engagement, the successful voting process for ZenIP 42207 underscores Horizen's commitment to democratic decision-making. As the platform evolves, it invites users to actively participate in discussions on Discord, Discourse, and Twitter, fostering a collaborative environment where the community's voice plays a pivotal role in shaping the platform's trajectory. In conclusion, Horizen's multifaceted approach, spanning from its unparalleled node network to innovative sidechain technology and strategic decision-making, paints a picture of a platform poised for dynamic growth. Whether you are an enthusiast looking to earn passive income through ZenNode participation or you are a developer seeking a scalable and private blockchain solution with Zendoo, Horizen offers a comprehensive ecosystem that adapts to the evolving needs of the blockchain landscape. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our brand-as-author program. Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR

Navigating Privacy Tokens: Horizen's Proactive Compliance Measures with ZenIP 42207

Hi Jagdeep, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind ? Ishan Pandey: Syscoin Hi! I’m Jagdeep Sidhu, Syscoin Lead Core Developer, President of the nonprofit Syscoin Foundation, and CTO of Blockchain Foundry Inc, which is a publicly-traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange. My academic background includes AI, neural networks, and client/server protocols. I saw the world-changing potential of blockchain technology and became involved as a core developer in the industry's earlier days. We have evolved Syscoin over the years since we began the workaround 2013. Jagdeep Sidhu: Syscoin’s first mainnet release took place in 2014, even before Ethereum. It has evolved in harmony with the developments required for it to survive and thrive long term. Much of our research has been put into what an ideal blockchain would look like in the new world where money is replaced with value and we remove intermediaries from all of our day-to-day business processes. What exactly are ‘rollups’ and how have they aided blockchain technology? Ishan Pandey: We consider Rollups, particularly ZK-Rollups, the most promising way for the blockchain industry to scale smart contracts and move forward with the least amount of trade-offs, from a pure decentralization perspective. Jagdeep Sidhu: Understanding the mechanics isn’t required in order to appreciate why they are important. Basically, inside a Rollup, everything functions just like on the Ethereum mainnet but much faster and cheaper, and in a way that is basically transparent to the user. Service providers are given great flexibility in how they handle fees or whether to charge fees at all. This, plus other aspects, make Rollups very adaptable to existing business models and make new ones possible. Plus, the user doesn’t have to interact directly with L1 very much, if at all, while using a Rollup-based service. A little more technically speaking, the idea is that execution work is done off-chain, and some nodes or a sequence of nodes provide a succinct state update to the Ethereum mainchain representing the new state of the rollup. That relatively small state update is like a fingerprint representing perhaps many thousands of executions that have occurred within the rollup. You can almost think of it like Lightning Networks, except involving computation and “state” instead of simple aggregations of value in/out. This might sound like simple hashing to the more technical-minded, but actually accomplishing this properly has required some significant advancements in the field of cryptography. If you want to learn more about Rollups, take a few minutes and read my Medium article titled "The Ultimate Guide to Rollups". There you will learn the basics and gain some understanding of the main types, optimistic and zero-knowledge (ZK), and how they differ. Please tell us a little bit about Syscoin and how it is different from Ethereum. Ishan Pandey: The main point of differentiation between Syscoin and Ethereum is layer 1 security. Ethereum is in the process of shifting to a proof-of-stake model with sharding in order to provide finality and serve on-chain data availability at scale, largely for rollup-based services. In stark contrast, Syscoin's rollup-centric layer 1 design and network can accomplish finality and provide effective resistance to MEV attacks while keeping Bitcoin's proof-of-work paradigm and the hard economics of being merge-mined with Bitcoin’s own network. Jagdeep Sidhu: Also, rapid advancements in the area of zero-knowledge proofs point towards Syscoin likewise fulfilling data availability and light-client security needs at scale within the tried-and-true proof-of-work paradigm. We have a lot of very promising research focused on those two points, and on some other areas surrounding ZKP that I have yet to publicly describe. Syscoin has a very strong focus on providing true scalability without sacrificing proven security and decentralization. It is now possible to achieve that trifecta by way of modular designs and recent cryptographic advancements. Another point of contrast can be seen in the manner in which Syscoin has evolved as a project. I’ll preface this by mentioning that we consider Ethereum's EVM as the "gold standard" for decentralized computation. The Ethereum community contributes immense intellectual capital to the evolution of blockchain technology. However, due to Ethereum's level of adoption and downstream concerns, the project might be seen as a little more rigid and less apt or able to quickly factor the latest cryptographic advancements into its fundamental layer 1 design. On the other hand, the Syscoin project has been much more flexible. This is partly because we recognized very early that the scalability challenges associated with smart contracts still needed solving, and rightly refrained from deploying EVM capabilities back then. We could have just as easily launched support for smart contracts and driven adoption onto our platform prematurely as many alt-Etherea have. Instead we chose an evolution-focused strategy where we factored the best emerging advancements into our layer 1 design over time, while awaiting the emergence of true scaling solutions for computation from academia’s cryptography research. True scalability is emerging now in the form of advancements in the area of Rollups, and those of the ZK/validity proof variety are of particular focus within the Syscoin project. As such, the time arrived in Q4 last year for our EVM layer 1, called NEVM (Network-Enhanced Virtual Machine), which is reflective of Syscoin's modular design. This was deployed to mainnet on December 6, 2021. Any smart contract running on Ethereum can be deployed on Syscoin with 100% compatibility. NFTs are becoming increasingly common, despite the fact that many people are still unsure about how to delve into them. What are your views on NFTs and their ever-rising popularity? Ishan Pandey: There are many potential use cases for digitally representing your unique assets. The fundamental concept of NFTs can extend far beyond quirky digital artwork. Examples include music rights, land deeds, a specific bullion bar that has been assayed and serialized, or an automobile with a VIN. Jagdeep Sidhu: While the concept of NFTs has arguably been around since the early days of Bitcoin as a "colored coin" implementation, Ethereum has made NFTs much more interesting and opened the way to the more recent popularity you see. You will see NFTs become more commonplace in tandem with the evolution of layer 2 scalability. The masses will soon be able to delve into NFTs without necessarily knowing the term "NFT" or even that they are participating in a blockchain transaction. This will come thanks to things like ZK-Rollups and economies of scale enabling ideal user-experiences for GameFi, rollup-integrated metaverses, IoT and eventually smart cities. Web 3.0 is one of the most talked-about and debated technology concepts in recent times. Please explain the decentralization factor that Web 3.0 brings with it. Ishan Pandey: Web 2.0 brought a much-enhanced user-experience over v1, but revealed the problems inherent to centralized control such as censorship, manipulation of records, and exploitation of user data. Web 3.0 is a term that generally refers to the burgeoning field of decentralized digital protocols and services. We are still in the early days of this new stage, but it has already shown itself to be very promising. Our vision of a well-evolved Web 3.0 goes beyond just disintermediation of financial value. It includes you having ownership of your own decentralized digital ID with the ability to control exactly what level of details are divulged on a case-by-case basis. This will be key to things like proof of legal ownership, physical access rights among an IoT within a smart city, the ability to participate in the decentralized voting systems of an honest future, and much more. It's very important that the appropriate underlying protocols and infrastructures are available to support this vision at scale while providing appropriate security guarantees. What motivates Syscoin most as a project is engineering the solutions necessary to fulfil those needs. Jagdeep Sidhu: The development of multi-chain platforms is gaining popularity lately since they help new companies and provide the finest opportunity to enter the crypto sector. Can you give us a detailed rundown of this cross-chain router protocol? Ishan Pandey: The Syscoin project was an early trail-blazer of trustless cross-chain bridging, and we continue to push the boundaries there with new research. A little background… About two years ago we introduced “Syscoin Bridge” to mainnet. Initially, this was a first-class (mutual-chain-aware) integration between Syscoin and Ethereum that used fraud-proof gamification between agents to secure a 2-way peg mechanism between Bitcoin-based tokens and ERC-20s on Ethereum. This effectively brought Dogecoin's previously unfinished "Dogethereum" concept to reality while also extending its functionality to a Bitcoin-based asset layer. Jagdeep Sidhu: Since then we have repurposed this tech to serve as the ideal bridge between base-chain and our new EVM called NEVM, both of which use SYS as their native/gas coin. In this environment our bridge design operates much more affordably compared to bridging directly with Ethereum itself where fees are still quite high. We are now edging into some very interesting cross-chain research that we are not going to elaborate on right now beyond saying it can be potentially game-changing, and that it involves leading-edge cryptography. Look for us to maybe talk more about that in the near future. For the time being, to facilitate liquidity between separate ecosystems, we are utilizing MPC-based bridging solutions through partners like Multichain (formerly known as AnySwap), which has been working quite well to fulfill those needs. What does the roadmap ahead for the crypto ecosystem as a whole? Ishan Pandey: Speaking of the crypto ecosystem as a whole, we are heading into some really exciting and positive times. These times ahead will also be turbulent for a lot of projects because we are just beginning to see ZK-Rollups as an emerging macro-trend in the blockchain industry. Ethereum’s woeful scaling challenges will be largely solved by ZK-Rollups, resulting in a lot of capital returning to Ethereum that had previously moved to other cheaper/faster smart-chains. Some of those alt-Ethereum chains can perhaps become Rollups on Ethereum and/or Syscoin. Syscoin is importantly positioned for this emerging future by providing the same scalability, low fees, and functionality expected of tomorrow’s Ethereum, yet coupled with some very important fundamental security and decentralization characteristics that are absent from Ethereum. In sum, Syscoin is set to be a valuable option for you as a smart contract platform in tomorrow’s world. Jagdeep Sidhu: Disclaimer: The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence, asking the right questions, and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions.

ZK-Rollups are the Most Promising Way for the Blockchain Industry to Scale Smart Contracts 

There is no question that there has been considerable progress and development in the DeFi ecosystem. Still, it is prudent for investors to steer clear at least at the moment as transaction fees guzzle the entire ecosystem. The Ethereum network is now facing the longest congestion due to massive traffic and has reached its most extended bottleneck. August itself saw an aggregate daily transaction cost of $3.68 million. It is a 240 percent rise from the previous month. Participation and fee increases were attributed to new products offering customers with incentives to lock up their tokens to earn high-interest rates. Besides, Forsage, a gas-guzzling Ethereum dapp, which accounted for 13 percent of the Ethereum network activity, has been condemned as a possible Ponzi scam by the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission. An official statement by its SEC on June 30 informed the consumers of the dapp in question, Forsage, to stop using it indefinitely and asked that the operator register formally with the Authority. Ethereum gas network prices hit $15.13 on September 2. I sat down for an interview with Kiran Pachhai, VP of Technology, Elastos. We explored the flaws of the Ethereum network and identified the solutions that different architecture proposes. Hi, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” According to you, what can be the solutions to the current transaction fees problem that Ethereum is facing? Ishan Pandey: The Ethereum blockchain is currently experiencing rather insane gas prices, but unfortunately, this is nothing new and nothing out of the ordinary for Ethereum. This major flaw regarding its inability to scale has already been demonstrated by the once-famous application known as "Cryptokitties". Kiran Pachhai: The application became so popular back in 2017 that it took up a significant amount of space for transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. What we're seeing now is not a new reveal, but rather a byproduct of mass interest in Defi (Decentralized Finance) projects. To put it simply, the more popular Ethereum gets, the less efficient it gets, causing it to significantly slow while charging ridiculous gas fees. The Ethereum team has been working on improving scalability with its upcoming Ethereum 2.0 release for the last few years, yet it may still take a couple of years to fully implement this solution. This timeline, in my opinion, is rather concerning. While the Ethereum platform is poised to potentially solve its scalability issue by the year 2022, Elastos has already solved this issue with its unique mainchain-sidechain architecture. This allows the Elastos platform to integrate any existing platforms as a sidechain, such as Ethereum. This provides a number of key benefits, one of which is the reduction in gas fees by over 1000%. This is an essential improvement and it is available today on Elastos. Ensuring scalability using mainchain and sidechain architecture. That sounds interesting. Can you explain more about how this works? Ishan Pandey: The Elastos platform has a unique mainchain-sidechain architecture. The mainchain is responsible for handling all ELA payments in and out of the system while the sidechains are responsible for providing other decentralized solutions such as a sidechain for smart contracts, a sidechain for Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), and so on. Kiran Pachhai: There can be any number of sidechains running at any time and they are all sandboxed, in a way. For instance, Elastos has an Ethereum sidechain that can run any smart contracts compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine, so it does not require much effort in migrating all of the existing smart contracts from the main Ethereum blockchain to Elastos Ethereum sidechain while also gaining the benefits of low transaction fees. Another key feature is that the mainchain of Elastos is merge-mined with Bitcoin (and any other SHA-256 coins such as Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, etc) and currently amasses around 70% of the total hashpower of Bitcoin, which means this extremely high security is recursively passed down to all the sidechains on Elastos as well. It really is the best of both worlds where you are not sacrificing security for more scalability. One thing to note is that there can be not just one, but multiple Ethereum sidechains running simultaneously on the Elastos platform if the need arises, so the Elastos platform is horizontally scalable. This is really valuable. Applications built on elastOS don’t have access to the traditional internet. Why have you chosen this approach, and what are its advantages and disadvantages? Ishan Pandey: Let’s try to first differentiate between the different terminology - more specifically, Elastos and elastOS. While they’re spelled the same, they mean two different things. Kiran Pachhai: Elastos is a platform that consists of the Elastos blockchain (mainchain and its sidechains), Elastos Carrier (a peer to peer, decentralized and encrypted messaging platform) and Elastos Hive (a storage platform). elastOS is the first ever product that utilizes all 3 components - Blockchain, Carrier and Hive, and packages them into a single application browser. elastOS is the flagship product of Elastos and it is currently available on Android, but will soon be available on iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux in the future. elastOS is unique and is not like other browsers such as Chrome or Brave browsers, because by default, applications running inside the elastOS browser don’t have direct access to the internet. Rather, they have to utilize Elastos Carrier to communicate with the outside world, Elastos Hive to store application and personal data and Elastos Blockchain for interacting with the mainchain and sidechains (such as for smart contracts execution). The Elastos team has taken this approach with their first consumer grade product, elastOS, because you have to assume that there are always bad actors on the internet, therefore by disallowing applications running inside elastOS to have direct access to the internet, it removes a lot of potential attacks such as man in the middle attacks and distributed denial of service attacks. With that said, elastOS is also flexible in that it does allow application developers to whitelist certain addresses if they so choose, but the users using the application will be aware of this whitelist. So if an application wants to truly be decentralized, they are better off using Elastos Blockchain, Carrier and Hive while not relying on any whitelisting of IP addresses. How do you allow different parties to trust each other in a decentralized ecosystem? What are Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)? Ishan Pandey: One of the main problems with the current internet is trust. How do I trust you if I don’t even know who you are? This is the exact problem Decentralized Identifiers try to solve. Kiran Pachhai: On Elastos, every user, every device and every application can have a DID which conforms to the W3C standard. Users can also choose to get certain information such as their name, age, etc verified (or KYC’ed) by a trusted third party. Once this is done, two users, even if they don’t know each other’s names, can decide to talk to each other because they’re both verified by the third party they both trust. This creates an internet of trust. It doesn’t mean you have to submit your personal information for the public to see, but rather having verified DIDs lets you trust each other because the DIDs are signed by someone who you both equally trust. This is just one simple use case of how DIDs can be used. Can you explain what IPFS and Hive are? Why do you need this when blockchain is already storing data? Ishan Pandey: IPFS stands for Inter-Planetary File System and is a peer to peer decentralized storage platform. Hive is an Elastos component that may or may not utilize IPFS. Kiran Pachhai: A lot of applications choose to utilize IPFS because it provides a way for users to store their data in a decentralized manner, however one major drawback to using IPFS for everything is that everyone can see all data that lives on the IPFS platform. This is where Elastos Hive comes in. Elastos Hive provides a semi-decentralized solution whereby users can choose where to store their data, rather than applications deciding for them. An Elastos Hive node can run on a simple Raspberry Pi or somewhere on the cloud and the authentication is handled via DIDs, so no other user can access their data if they’re not authorized to do so. In the background, Elastos Hive node can also be set up to sync their data to some other remote storage service such as Google Drive or Dropbox or even IPFS. So, by doing this, users are in full control of their own data no matter what applications they’re using on the Elastos platform. More importantly, only the user can access their own data. With this, you could build a Facebook clone without a company in between users and the application,  and where you let users decide where to store their Facebook clone data. This is really an important alternative. The possibilities are endless because utilizing Elastos Hive, you could theoretically build any sort of application imaginable. How do you stop Ponzi schemes like Foresage and FairWin from developing applications on a decentralized network? Isn’t regulation such activity against the fundamentals of decentralization? Ishan Pandey: The very idea of a decentralized network is that it’s decentralized. In other words, there is no intermediary to blacklist someone from using their platform. Kiran Pachhai: There will continue to be Ponzi schemes out there, however this risk can be greatly mitigated if you build a decentralized platform with an open identification system with security in mind. This doesn’t mean you have to hand over your personal information to everyone to see. For instance, applications could utilize KYC’ed DIDs to verify someone is over 18 years old without actually knowing their age. This is like a zero-knowledge proof but applied to establish trust between two parties. Everyone can decide to stay anonymous while also being able to verify certain information about each other while transacting with each other. What advice do you have for blockchain developers who are building decentralized applications? Ishan Pandey: My first advice for any developers would be to first realize that smart contracts and decentralized applications don’t mean the same thing. You could certainly decentralize a large part of your application (whether web or mobile) using smart contracts that can not be tampered with, however some part of your application can still be centralized such as when it comes to storing large amounts of data. Kiran Pachhai: Blockchain is not used to store large amounts of data, so the storage solution that is robust and secure is almost as important as the smart contract layer. At the end of the day, it’s all about giving users the choice. Instead of you, the developer, deciding how to deal with users’ data, if you can provide a capability for the user to choose how they want to store their data, that in itself is already way more powerful than simply trying to put everything on the blockchain. Blockchain can be used to make sure the application is secure but at the same time, the smart contract logic that is deployed should also be thoroughly tested and audited before deploying it to production. Also, last but not least, just because you can decentralize an application doesn’t mean you need to. Only decentralize it if there is an added benefit. According to you, in the year 2020, what is the best way for blockchain startups to raise funds? Ishan Pandey: Back in 2017 during the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) craze, anyone could easily create an ICO on the Ethereum blockchain with a simple whitepaper and people were willing to throw money at projects that sounded reasonable. Kiran Pachhai: These days, especially in 2020, the market has matured, and users have gotten smarter, so it’s not as easy to crowdfund a project. This is both good and bad. It’s good regarding scam projects since they cannot simply raise money from investors without anything to show. Yet it’s bad for legitimate projects because they’ll have a hard time being funded initially. I think there may be a compromise somewhere in between. Instead of offering an ICO or something similar, the best solution may be for teams to start something small, for instance by creating a token that starts at 0 on genesis block and then every block, a certain percentage (eg. 15%) is sent to the team treasury while the other 85% is distributed to the community who help bootstrap the system. While this may be a bit risky, it may also be good to give early contributors peace of mind with the fact that there is no constant selling pressure from the tokens that are generated on the blockchain while the early contributors are also rewarded at the same time. This may help in creating a healthy community while also building trust in the blockchain team. What trends and challenges do you see in the year 2020 for the Crypto industry? Ishan Pandey: DeFi hype is real. This is something similar to what happened back in 2017 with the ICO craze. 2020 is all about DeFi projects. While there are some legitimate projects that are trying to solve a real problem, for every legitimate DeFi project, there are 9 other projects that are downright scammy or questionable. Kiran Pachhai: Once the DeFi hype dies down, there will likely be another sector that will be brought to the forefront that utilizes blockchain technology. This cycle may continue to exist until there is regulatory clarity around blockchain and cryptocurrency. As far as challenges, we have been facing the same challenge for the last decade when it comes to blockchain technology and that is the consumer adoption of it. Currently, there are just way too many infrastructure projects being built utilizing blockchain while there are not a lot of applications built with regular everyday users in mind. This will get better with time but if we can solve this problem of making it so easy for users to use decentralized applications that they don’t even realize they’re using blockchain behind the scenes, I would consider that a success for the entire industry. At that point, we can finally move on to the utility of blockchain projects rather than speculation and hype which is prevalent today. The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence by asking the right questions and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions. The material does not constitute any investment, financial, or legal advice. Please do your research before investing in any digital assets or tokens, etc. The writer does not have any vested interest in the company. Interviewer - Ishan Pandey

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