We are utilizing storefront space in stores to build a network that helps these stores make additional income

Word on the Block

Or is there more to it? e-Estonia is commonly touted in the Blockchain community as a that utilizes blockchain technology. It is viewed as a haven for EU start-ups, with their e-residency model spread far and wide as a prime example for technological progress. My MA thesis research on Blockchain and the Sustainable Development Goals took me down the rabbit hole on e-Estonia and I found out that e-Estonia, is in fact, technically on blockchain. digital republic not So how did we get here? This article will provide an in-depth look at how e-Estonia was formed, the X-road and will debunk the myth that it uses blockchain technology. Introducing e-Estonia After gaining independence as a , there was a push for modernization in Estonia post-Soviet occupation. This led to several digital reforms in the 1990s and brought Estonia into the digital age. sovereign nation in 1991 Estonia is one of the few countries in the world today to pass legislation declaring internet access a . human right In order to tackle transparency and accountability issues in government, Estonia introduced the program, as a way to provide access to e-government services to as many people as possible. No Citizen Left Behind This program expanded throughout the country to provide more than 700 Public Internet Access Points, and included public Wi-fi. The success of the No Citizen Left Behind program led to the inevitable creation of e-Estonia, which is now considered one of the most advanced e-societies in the world, on par with Switzerland. According to , e-Estonia is: Nathan Heller a coordinated governmental effort to transform the country from a state into a digital society He goes on to say that: e-Estonia is the most ambitious project in technological statecraft today, for it includes all members of the government, and alters citizen’s daily lives. The normal services that government is involved with – legislation, voting, education, justice, health care, banking, taxes, policing and so on – have been digitally inked across one platform, wiring up the nation. Today, are now available to citizens as e-services. These include anything from mobility services, business and finance services to access to health and education records, through what is known as X-Road. 99% of all public services in Estonia The X-Road Project The X-Road allows data to be linked through individual servers with end-to-end encrypted pathways, letting information live locally. In this system, Estonia’s data isn’t centrally stored, and each agency stores their data separately. Data isn’t duplicated yet can still be accessed from authorities and government agencies. X-Road maintains the integrity of the data while simultaneously maintaining confidentiality while still allowing other agencies to access the data. Blockchain and e-Estonia According to e-Estonia, blockchain is applied in Estonia not only through X-Road, but in the following ways: 1. The electronic ID-card system used by the uses blockchain technology to ensure data integrity and mitigate internal threats to the data . In this way every occurrence of data use and misuse is detectable and major damages to a person’s health can be prevented (such as the wrong medicine or the wrong dose) . Blockchain provides real-time alerts to attacks, enabling the government to respond to incidents immediately before large-scale damages occur. allegedly Estonian e-Health Record 2. The Estonian KSI Blockchain technology protects Estonian e-services such as the e-Health Record, e-Prescription database, e-Law, and e-Court systems, e-Police data, e-Banking, e-Business Register, and e-Land Registry The same KSI Blockchain technology is used by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, EU IT Agency, US Defence Department to name a few. Misconceptions About e-Estonia The first major core misconception of e-Estonia lies in the underlying technology, and whether it is apt to call it blockchain at all. Allegations have surfaced online that e-Estonia does not implement blockchain at all, instead, it is an urban myth which gained traction and made its way throughout the internet. According to , since Estonia’s system predates the creation of blockchain technology, there is some disagreement over whether it should even be called blockchain technology at all. It is believed that people misunderstood the use of hash linked time-stamping used in e-Estonia to protect the integrity of data on the Blockchain. The Verge What makes things more interesting is that e-Estonia itself appeared to backtrack and published a report from the (NIIS) about the abuse of the word “Blockchain” on their website. Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions According to this report, X-Road is not on the Blockchain but both utilize similar cryptographic hashing functions for linking data items to each other. According to Kivimäki: Cryptographic hash functions existed well before blockchain so even if both blockchain and the X-Road use them does not mean that X-Road is based on blockchain . It is further alleged that the vendor that provided the technology of e-Estonia, Guardtime, re-branded its offering from hash linked time-stamping to a blockchain technology. Limitations of e-Estonia One of the major limitations that has been identified with e-Estonia is adoptability. Although it is touted as a decentralized haven for digital identity, with access to several e-services, there are still barriers to entry. Currently, only . The issue of adoptability is prevalent because information is still kept either on paper or using standard office software and has not been merged with the X-Road system. 54 out of 925 local databases are connected to e-Estonia There is also the question of financial resources, and whether Estonia plans to continue to invest in providing universal access to all databases and educating all its citizens on how to use them. Since the creation of e-Estonia, paper-based transactional processes are becoming scarcer. The current overall dependency on computer networks in Estonia is at a high level that strong cyber security mechanisms, whether it be through blockchain or through traditional software solutions are critical. After a major hack in 2007, noted that the banking and finance sectors for example, were already so dependent on the e-systems that any security breach or hack would result in devastating repercussions. Priisalu and Ottis Nowadays, if there were to be a breach in the system, there may be a risk of not being able to replace potentially lost transaction processing through put with in any meaningful scale. manual paper-based processing The Future of Blockchain and e-Estonia Estonia, through its creation and promulgation of the digital e-society is on track to becoming one of the most technologically dependant nations currently in the UN. If Blockchain is adopted in the future, it could provide an optimal good governance model which would work in conjunction with X-Road allowing its residents to thrive and setting an example for other UN Nation States. By promoting transparency and ready access to government services, Estonian citizens can trust government institutions and are granted more control of what happens to their data using their ID Card. Blockchain’s key characteristics and attributes are important to furthering greater control and to promote more effective good governance structures. By leveraging blockchain technology, the Estonian government can ensure greater security measures, increased transparency, individual control, a unique digital signature and consensus mechanisms. Citizens can trust the immutability of the blockchain and trust that their information remains safe from potential external hacks or security breaches. Although e-Estonia suffers from problems of adoption and lack of financial resources, the investment and universal adoption of technology has proved positive and trust has remained. In a rapidly technologically developing world, is critical to ensuring trust between various stakeholders of a nation. is Laura Marissa Cullell an MA Graduate of the UN University of Peace in International Law and Human Rights. She wrote her thesis on Blockchain and the Sustainable Development Goals: Utilizing Disruptive Technologies to Promote Human Rights, Peace, and Good Governance. She loves puns, cookie dough, glitter, and reading an obscene amount of books at the speed of light.

Is e-Estonia Built on Blockchain Technologies? [Fact Check]

This post was inspired by a chapter in Andreas Antonopoulos’ incredibly thought-provoking collection of talks, The Internet of Money . I’d highly recommend reading it; he covers a variety of topics on bitcoin and the impact cryptocurrencies will have on society. There’s quite a lot going on in the crypto space right now. ICO’s left and right. Talks of in South Korea. Allegations of a , as well as copied code. And now China is cracking down on not only ICOs and bitcoin miners, but . government-imposed regulations copied white paper centralized exchanges as well But that’s just the bad stuff covered in the media. It sends prices down, so yeah people might be more interested in that. I think there’s a lot more going on that doesn’t quite have a spotlight on it. I’m talking about bullshit projects. A lot of shit is being peddled to investors disguised as innovation — when it’s really business as usual. It’s pretty easy to capitalize on this crypto craze right now. Take your business idea and write up a proposal, sprinkle the word here and there, and voila! If you position it correctly in the market and get enough people excited about it, you’ll have a decent ICO in the near future. blockchain Okay I’m exaggerating, but with all these new blockchain projects being announced, it’s hard to believe that they are all truly innovating. Blockchain is bitcoin with a haircut Let’s define blockchain real quick. It’s a distributed ledger that is immutable and extremely difficult to hack. Let me expand on that a bit, in case. just It’s a record of transactions that doesn’t reside on just one central server — a copy of it lives on every node of the network. And every time transactions are added to this record, it’s broadcasted to everyone, so everyone gets the updates. Once something is recorded, it cannot be taken back — it’s permanent. Everyone that accesses its contents can agree on its authenticity without the need to trust each other. Everyone verifies their own transactions, putting the trust on the network and its consensus algorithm. But there’s so much more to it! It’s open and borderless. It’s above nation-states. And it doesn’t serve any one entity, organization, or institution. There’s no such thing as a good or bad actor, legal or illegal transactions — only transactions. Consensus rules are followed and smart contracts are executed regardless of the motive. And in order for it to protect all these characteristics, a blockchain is highly resilient and censorship-resistant, making it difficult for any colluding actors to do anything fraudulent or take the network down. valid These are the characteristics that make blockchain truly disruptive. technology However, the blockchain isn’t the only technology behind bitcoin. : blockchain, proof-of-work, cryptography, and peer-to-peer network. Without the help of these other technologies, blockchain is nothing more than a data structure — and a somewhat inefficient one at that. It’s not really useful on its own. Bitcoin is the combination of four foundational technologies But “blockchain” and “distributed ledger technologies” are becoming a standardized way of getting investors and the public excited about technology that they might not quite understand. In Andrea’s words: Blockchain is bitcoin with a haircut and suit you parade in front of your board. It’s the ability to deliver a sanitized, clean, comfortable version of bitcoin to people who are too terrified of truly disruptive technology. It’s a buzzword. And a sexy one at that. It seems like anyone can slap the word blockchain on their website, , or half-baked idea and bathe in crypto craze gains. iced tea drink Even Kodak, the camera company who shot itself in the foot when they invented the world’s first digital camera, wants some skin in the game. They were left in the dust on one digital trend, they’ll be damned if they miss another one. So they created their own cryptocurrency called . And guess what? Their stock saw a 92% boost. No surprise there. KodakCoin But hey, maybe they’re on to something. Business disguised as disruptive technology The real problem is that some of these “blockchain” projects aren’t really innovating. You can take their white paper and replace every instance of the word blockchain with database — and it’ll still read the same. It’s business as usual, disguised as innovation. They’re not building decentralized services as much as they are complicating their businesses’ core offering with technology that is, quite frankly, not ready. In case you didn’t know, an application called took the crypto world by storm mid-December, bringing the Ethereum network to a screeching halt. All due to a spike in transactions as people were buying and selling… digital cats. That’s just application that went viral. If someone builds a theme park or arcade for these kittens using the same infrastructure — and not using a side chain or another scalable solution — things will go bad. Cryptokitties one So, many of the projects touting their innovative solutions that “unleash the power of blockchain technologies” will be on a rather leash if they are counting on any kind of scalability in the near future. tight That is, unless they use private blockchains (like Hyperledger) — but then they are literally using a distributed ledger**.** In other words, a database. permissioned Boring! The point of Bitcoin and blockchains is that they remove the need for a centralized authority. They provide trustless, neutral, borderless, and censorship-resistant platforms to exchange value on. If you’re taking a process and shifting the trust to new intermediaries — permissioned blockchains — you’re not innovating. open You’re just a new middleman. You’re using this technology to make the same centralized processes more efficient to improve their bottom line. Looking at you, Ripple. Is this blockchain or bullshit? The next time you’re reading a whitepaper or researching a project, use this checklist to decide whether what you’re looking at is actually innovating. If you can replace every instance of the word “blockchain” with “database” and it still reads the same… it’s bullshit. If it’s not decentralized, open, neutral, borderless and censorship-resistant… it’s bullshit. If it shifts trust from third-parties to new intermediaries, it’s a new middleman, so…. it’s bullshit. Everyone is stumbling around in the dark and reaching out for ways to utilize this technology. There are no margins here, no real path for realizing its true potential. But somewhere, someone will figure it out. And then we’ll start seeing an explosion of creative and truly disruptive ideas. Thanks for reading! I’ve been wanting to write about this space for a while now, and was getting real fed up with some of the b.s. floating around so I thought hey — let me complain about it on Medium. I’ll be writing more developer-oriented posts in the near future. Clap to 50, why don’t you? ✌️️ Tipping is also welcome ETH: 0x46AC3404a54B3Eaf8d3EA687a87EaC3BBfb1bd40

Blockchain or Bullshit?

In this age of constant innovation and reinvention, the word revolution has tended to be overused and misused. However, it is what is happening, especially in the finance world. The finance industry is on the cusp of a revolution, and leading the charge is the groundbreaking concept of Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization. Its revolutionary tag is even more 'solidified' as it is happening side-by-side with the blockchain. This ongoing finance industry shift promises to dismantle the archaic walls that separate Traditional Finance (TradFi) and the burgeoning Decentralized Finance (DeFi) systems. According to , the global RWA tokenization market is predicted to reach $24.8 trillion by 2027, showcasing its rapid growth and immense potential. And so far, it is unlocking boundless possibilities for investors, businesses, and the global financial system. research Real World Asset Tokenization Real-world assets are tangible assets existing in the physical realm, distinct from solely digital ones. Examples encompass physical entities like houses, land, artworks, vehicles, and commodities, as well as financial instruments like loans, bonds, intellectual property, invoices, and intangible assets like loyalty points and carbon credits. Essentially, any asset with demonstrable real-world value and the possibility of ownership qualifies as a real-world asset. The key distinction between traditional RWAs and their blockchain counterparts lies in tokenization. In this context, ownership of RWA is meticulously represented on a transparent and secure blockchain network through digital tokens. These tokens unlock unprecedented functionality compared to traditional RWAs, enabling efficient trading, fractionalization, and access to novel financial opportunities previously unavailable. Imagine tokenizing a slice of prime Manhattan real estate, a Picasso painting, or even a fleet of Teslas. The possibilities are exciting. The RWA tokenization scene is rapidly evolving and has immense potential to transform how we invest, manage, and trade assets. By representing ownership of these assets (tangible and intangible) through digital tokens on a secure, transparent blockchain, RWA tokenization unlocks a plethora of advantages: Increased Liquidity and Fractional Ownership Illiquidity has been a traditional problem in the finance sector. It plagues many investment classes and restricts access as it hinders the efficient allocation of capital. By tokenizing, assets are divided into smaller digital units, allowing for fractional ownership and democratizing access to assets thought to be unattainable investment prospects. For example, an artwork that costs millions can now be divided into thousands of tokens, which allows anyone to own a piece of the masterpiece. This is the service companies like Artfi provide. is a fine art fintech startup on a mission to democratize fine art investing via the tokenization of blue-chip artworks and selling them to the public as NFTs. With this company, it is now possible for a small investor to own $1,000 worth of a $10 million painting. Artfi Enhanced Efficiency and Reduced Friction TradFi processes are notoriously cumbersome and paper-laden, and this is what blockchain technology is streamlining through smart contracts. Automating with smart contracts eliminates manual processing, reduces errors, and expedites transactions, which lowers costs and increases efficiency. EstateX and YieldBricks are examples of companies doing exactly this. Blockchain-based, simplifies real estate investment and management by using tokenization. An investor can now purchase fractional ownership of properties as the required minimum investment threshold is lowered. EstateX With this platform, private individuals can start building their property portfolio with investments as low as $100. The European tokenized real estate market is set to be $1.5 Trillion by 2024. This represents a small fraction of the global real estate market which rose by 5% in 2020 (despite COVID) to $326.5 Trillion. worth What this says is that the global real estate market is more valuable than all global equities and debt securities combined, and worth almost four times GDP, and EstateX is playing in this market. is playing in the core DeFi space. The company provides seamless DeFi pools that tokenize yield via real estate assets. YieldBricks Transparency and Trust The blockchain is built on distributed ledgers that ensure immutable records of ownership and transaction history. Investors can use blockchain technology to confirm the legitimacy and provenance of tokenized assets, reducing financial risk and increasing transparency while also reducing fraud. is a firm doing exactly this. Propy They automate the closing process for all real estate participants to make closing faster, easier, and more secure. The company helps with carrying out real estate transactions using cryptocurrencies. New Possibilities for Asset Classes Beyond traditional investments, diverse asset classes now have innovative use cases because of tokenization. Intellectual property can now be tokenized and monetized, which allows artists, musicians, and inventors to engage directly with their audiences and also capture new revenue streams. Renewable energy projects can be crowdfunded through tokenized offerings, democratizing access to clean energy investments. MultiCurrency-Block Ventures DAO ( ) is an organization that offers expert advisory services in this niche. They provide insights on technology integration, market trends, and regulatory compliance, ensuring optimal project planning and execution for businesses in the RWA ecosystem. The potential of RWA tokenization is irrefutable. It's a rapidly expanding industry, with statistics painting a promising landscape. As of October 2023, the Total Value Locked (TVL) exceeded $2.4 billion, and research by the Boston Consulting Group suggests the combined value of tokenized illiquid assets could $16 trillion by 2030. MCB DAO surpass However, challenges persist. Despite the evolution of regulatory frameworks, spearheaded by governments like Singapore and Dubai, there remain uncertainties. Technological hurdles and infrastructure gaps are further obstacles requiring attention to unleash the potential of RWA tokenization. Addressing these obstacles demands collaborative efforts between policymakers, industry players, and technology providers. This collaboration should focus on establishing clear guidelines, building robust infrastructure, and fostering innovation. Conclusion Forget DeFi drama and meme coins, RWA tokenization is the sleeping giant poised to reshape finance and the blockchain space. Imagine democratized real estate empires, fractional Picassos, and tokenized Teslas all humming on the DeFi engine. I believe RWA tokenization is an unstoppable force bridging the rigidity of TradFi with the freedom of DeFi, and its explosive potential is just waiting to ignite the next big narrative on the blockchain. The future of finance is tokenized, and RWA is the rocket fuel.

Bridging the Gap Between TradFi and DeFi With RWAs on the Blockchain

Blockchain technology is no longer a new word in this digital era. The name prevalently comes to mind anytime Bitcoin cryptocurrency is mentioned in any discourse. Unfortunately, the connection between blockchain and Bitcoin can't be ruptured because the Bitcoin cryptocurrency brought blockchain to the limelight in 2008. For clarity's sake, Bitcoin is a blockchain on its own, while its native cryptocurrency that is used to incentivize miners is BTC—Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency was birthed through one of the several use cases of blockchain in the finance industry. What Is Blockchain? Blockchain is an immutable and decentralized public ledger that records transactions in packs or blocks. It runs on P2P—peer-to-peer— nodes that are interconnected to one another such that the nodes are the storage facility where blockchain stores its blocks of transactions. Each time a transaction occurs on a blockchain, it is recorded by sharing a copy across all nodes in the ecosystem. This explains the timely records of piles of transactions stored in a block. When the block is full, another block is created with the previous block's information, creating a chain link between the preceding and succeeding blocks. Examples of blockchains include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tera, Tron, Polkadot, Cardano, and Ripple, among others. Every blockchain has its consensus mechanism that is used to validate transactions; it can be PoW—Proof of Work—or PoS—Proof of Stake. What Is Bitcoin? Cryptocurrency is a digital currency developed as a medium of exchange on a decentralized network—blockchain. The physical currency is fiat money, while the digital or computerized currency is a cryptocurrency issued and secured cryptographically. Just like countries have their official currency or fiat money as a legal tender for doing business, all blockchains also have their respective cryptocurrency spent in their respective ecosystem. Bitcoin—BTC—is the native cryptocurrency of the Bitcoin blockchain network. It is the trailblazer of other cryptocurrencies that runs on a P2P network and can be transferred without intermediaries. BTC can be gotten in different ways: By purchasing it on crypto exchange platforms By accepting it as a means of settlement for goods and services By mining Bitcoin Mining Bitcoin mining is the process of digitally verifying Bitcoin transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain and adding them to the blockchain's ledger. The bitcoin blockchain uses the PoW mechanism as its consensus mechanism, so mining is done by solving complex cryptographic puzzles to verify blocks of transactions that will be updated on the decentralized blockchain ledger. Solving complex puzzles requires in-depth computing knowledge, strong computing power, and sophisticated equipment. At the end of solving each puzzle, miners or validators are rewarded with BTC for their work. This BTC is then released into circulation and traded on crypto and exchange platforms. Let’s Take a Small Dive Into Consensus Mechanisms A consensus mechanism is when the majority agrees on something or disagrees. Imagine you conduct a survey with 100 different people from different locations about how sweet a particular cookie is. If all 100 say it is sweet or otherwise, their opinion is unanimous, which marks a consensus. The consensus mechanisms employed in all blockchain networks are similar to the example above. In the case of blockchain, miners replicate the audience that took the cookie survey. Back to Bitcoin mining. As mentioned earlier, the consensus mechanism of bitcoin is the PoW, where miners compete to solve complex cryptographic puzzles with their mining machines. Whoever can solve this puzzle faster and produces the winning hash wins the right to add the newly verified transaction data to a block. Such a validator will be rewarded with the native crypto of the blockchain—BTC. What usually determines who wins the right to fill a new block with transaction data is having a mining machine with a high hash rate—i.e., machines that can produce more hashes per second. This can be achieved by having more machines and combining their mining power or getting machines with higher mining power to mine faster than your competitors. This suggestion can be likened to participating in a raffle where having more tickets increases your chances of winning. Now, what if an unscrupulous or malevolent actor has a higher mining power than other miners? Then, a 51% attack is imminent! What Is a 51% Attack? A 51% attack occurs when a malevolent miner in a blockchain network gains control of the blockchain mining power. This means that the miner—in this case, an attacker— will be able to mine faster than other miners because the attacker now controls more than 50% of mining power. Having 51% control—which is the least percentage required to take over a blockchain network—is ominous. Difference Between a 51% Attack and a 34% Attack A 34% attack is known with the Tangle consensus algorithm. The attacker only falsifies the blockchain's ledger by approving or disapproving transactions. In contrast, the 51% attack gives attackers control of a blockchain such that they can disrupt mining and the entire blockchain. Implications of a 51% Attack on Blockchain and Bitcoin When an attacker controls 51% mining power in a blockchain, then the security of such a blockchain has been compromised, leaving the attacker in control of transactions. Below are the implications of what's bound to happen due to a 51% attack: Network Disruption by Delaying Validation of Transactions: The attacker disrupts the blockchain network by attacking the miner's computing resources. In such a scenario, there'll be a delay in the validation and storage of transactions in a block. As a result, the blockchain is hampered, causing the attacker to process transactions faster than the miners or even prevent another miner from adding blocks. Double Spending: Double spending occurs when miners spend their crypto twice on a particular blockchain network. How? Imagine if the attacker had previously purchased a Ferrari 250 GTO with 1,600 BTC; he paid for the car and got the delivery of the vehicle. During a 51% attack on the BTC blockchain, the attacker can reverse the 1,600 BTC transferred to the seller's wallet such that he keeps the car and the BTC. The BTC can then be spent for another purpose. This is known as double-spending. Reduction in Miner's Reward: Since miners are usually rewarded for validating transactions on a blockchain, in the wake of a 51% attack, the attacker steals the shares of other miners, making them earn less than what they're supposed to earn. Diminishes Blockchain's Credibility A 51% attack on a blockchain network will diminish the credibility of such a blockchain. Both miners and investors will not trust the security framework anymore. This might lead to abandoning the project or some exchanges delisting the crypto from their market. Below are the examples of blockchains that have suffered a 51% attack: • BSV—Bitcoin Satoshi Vision—was attacked in August 2021 • ETC—Ethereum Classic—was attacked thrice in August 2020 • BTG—Bitcoin Gold— was attacked twice; once in 2018 and then in 2020 • GRIN was attacked in 2020, the attacker controlled about 58% of GRIN's hash rate • VTC—Vertcoin—was also attacked twice in 2019 How to Prevent 51% Attack i. Limited Hash Power - Blockchains running on the PoW mechanism should limit the hash power of each miner to 50% or lesser. This will pre-empt such an attack ii. Using PoS or DPoS A PoS- Proof-of-Stake- the mechanism is another consensus mechanism for validating blockchain transactions. It is eco-friendly because no power is needed, and it doesn’t require a sophisticated machine. PoS uses coin owners' machines to mine crypto. Investors stake their coins in return for an opportunity to validate blocks. DPoS, on the other hand, means Delegated Proof-of-stake. It is a decentralized PoS where the crypto community appoints validators by voting. If a validator is perceived to be compromising the network, they are also voted out by the community. Conclusion A 51% attack doesn't mean the attacker can send BTC from your wallet or account; it only means the blockchain has been compromised, and double-spending of crypto is imminent. Blockchains like Bitcoin and its contemporaries, with larger mining nodes and hash power, are less likely to be attacked due to the financial cost involved. Photo by on Chris Sabor Unsplash

Understanding 51% Attacks on Bitcoin and Blockchain

Questioning the Obsession with Blockchains and On-Chain Governance with Nic Carter

An interview with Amy Wan, ICO smart contract legal entrepreneur I meet and connect with many inspiring entrepreneurs, innovators, thought leaders and academics, working relentlessly on the blockchain phenomenon. Some of them are in the public light and some are not. I thought it would be great to dive into the minds of such known and unknown blockchain entrepreneurs and innovators. That’s how this interview blog started. This will be a technical interview, so if you are new to Blockchain, you may want to get up to speed with Coindesk. This rendezvous is with ICO smart contract legal entrepreneur Amy Wan. She is a London School of Economics grad and earned her JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Amy is the co-founder and CEO of one of the top ICO blockchain legal startup Sagewise is a dispute resolution infrastructure startup for smart contracts. ‘Sagewise’. In this interview, we will dive deep into the legal nuances of smart contracts. The smart contract protocol was developed and designed by Nick Szabo, later incorporated smart contracts into the blocks that led to distributed-development platform Ethereum. Back in the day, we have heard so much about how smart these smart contracts are and that has really boggled my mind. An inflexible system with no accountability or recourse, especially when it comes to people’s money built on static code copied by legions of developers in building their own ICO somewhat fails at Nick Szabo’s original vision. There will be multiple blockchain iterations in our lifetime and we will get to a place where private key thieves can be held legally accountable. I know smart contracts are supposed to be lawyer-less smart code, but sophisticated multi-sig and DAO hacking had led us to question our lackadaisical approach to security code audits. Vitalik Buterin Thank you Amy for giving us your valuable time and working on some of the challenging and most interesting projects in blockchain. Q. Tell us about your legal background and what you were doing before working on Blockchain. Amy: I’ve had an unusual career that’s spanned government and policy, the private sector, law firms, and startups. I started off doing international trade and regulatory affairs for the federal government in Washington DC; then became general counsel at an early stage startup; and spent some time as a partner at a boutique law firm before finally leaving to start this company. Originally, the company started with the mission of automating myself as a securities attorney — we created software to draft the securities documents that I had previously been drafting manually. But as I started to get calls in late 2016/ early 2017 about ICOs, I began noticing that millions of dollars worth of crypto kept falling into the wrong hands — starting with the DAO hack. While I believe blockchain technology will change the future, I also believe that people and businesses will only transact where there is transactional confidence and certainty — and today, smart contracts provide none. They are riddled with coding errors and security vulnerabilities. What’s more, code is static, but the real world is not. I firmly believe that success of the blockchain industry depends on creating an ecosystem that promotes transactional confidence, which is why we pivoted to create Sagewise, a dispute resolution infrastructure for smart contracts. Q: Suppose I wrote some code on a smart contract with agreeable terms between us and I changed my mind. Can I challenge the smart contract code in a court of law before the terms mature? If I do then who is the plaintiff and who is the challenger (because I wrote the code)? Amy: There are a lot of different questions there. First, we have to define what a ‘contract’ even is. In the legal arena, it’s merely an offer, acceptance, and consideration. It can take any form, whether on paper, orally, or even scribbled on a napkin. A smart contract, on the other hand, is instructions for execution written in code — some have called it a programmable contract, but it may not even necessarily a ‘contract’ as thought of in traditional terms, though it can be one. One of the most important things in a contract is intent. What is each party’s intent? This is where smart contracts become not quite so smart. Perhaps you change your mind, but in a way that I’m still okay with because it fulfills the intent of both parties. It doesn’t really matter who wrote the code — same as when it doesn’t matter who writes a contract. It only matters that both parties agreed to the contract. The ‘plaintiff’ or ‘challenger’, if you will, is whichever party believes that the spirit or intent of the contract is not being fulfilled. Q. Tell us your opinion, from a legal perspective, on how smart is a smart contract? Amy: I believe smart contracts have great potential. At the same time, in order to understand how to effectively use them, one must come to terms with their limitations. Just as lawyers cannot write the perfect disputeless contract, developers cannot write the perfect errorless, disputeless smart contract — especially when they adopt a ‘fail fast and iterate’ mentality. Solidity code is also constantly changing, which causes issues. And even if a smart contract undergoes a security audit, that only detects the presence of bugs, but cannot guarantee the absence of them. Further, we live in a constantly changing world, but humans write static code. I often call lawyers ‘the janitors of society’ — we are the garbagemen that deal with situations when they go bad. And I can foresee so much going bad. Also, smart contacts are also not great in understanding intent. For example, the intent of the DAO was to operate a decentralized fund. The hack against the DAO was not a hack against the code of the smart contract, but against the intent of the smart contract. Perhaps this will become less of an issue when we’ve got sentient AI (which raises a whole suite of other issues), but until then, we still need to rely, in part, on human judgment. Q. What are you doing with Sagewise with regard to your digital jurisdiction? Amy: As we were diving into the dispute resolution problem with smart contracts, it occurred to me that every other industry will fundamentally change over the next decade due to blockchain technology — except law. We’re dragging along this incumbent legal system that evolved in a haphazard way in the absence of technology, and in many ways, in archaic and outdated. So, we thought, why shouldn’t the legal system get a refresh too? We’re using blockchain as the perfect opportunity to architect a legal paradigm that is better suited to today’s complex, borderless economy. One of our advisors Dr. Gillian Hadfield inspired us with her recent book Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy , which addresses this exact subject. It sounds crazy, but the incumbent legal system has only been around for a few hundred years — it served its purpose up until now, but it’s time for a change. Q. Tell us about Sagewise and its token usage. Amy: Sagewise is a dispute resolution infrastructure that provides parties the ability to monitor, freeze, fix, and dispute smart contracts, choose from a variety of dispute resolution vendors, and allow enforcement of such resolutions. Our tokens have a number of different purposes, all aims are incentivizing and disincentivizing certain behaviors. For example, I hate the vexatious litigants the game our current legal system — people who run causing trouble for others. They’re the employees who go around suing every employer for ridiculous reasons, or the tenants that stop paying after the first month because they know it’ll take the landlord a year to kick them out. There are people who literally make a career out of doing this stuff. To combat this problem in our ecosystem, in order to call a dispute, disputers have to stake a certain amount of Sagewise tokens. This forces disputers to have to really care about the dispute and be willing to put skin in the game to call a dispute. If they lose the dispute, they lose their tokens. Q. There is no end to human stupidity and greed. But how can we securely audit our codes without getting hacked in a DAO like situation or a multi-sig hack? Amy: I saw someone say on social media that hackers are the new lawyers — you hire them to help you find a loophole in your contract. Security audits are very helpful, but in some ways, it’s akin to hiring another attorney to review your regular contract. A lawyer cannot address the infinite number of things that might go wrong with a written contract, just as a developer/auditor cannot address the infinite number of things that might go wrong with a smart contract. In the end, I cannot control what types of smart contracts developers decide to code, the quality of their coding, or the quality of the firm that audits the smart contract. All I can do is provide a freeze button and safety net to handle those (hopefully rare) situations in which a smart contract fails. Q. How do you think legal professionals like you can innovate in the blockchain space to bring up the next generation protocols? Amy: The field is wide open — there is a lot to be done, both to change the legal system and also to formulate laws and policy for this brave new world. As a first step though, I think legal professionals need to take the time understand blockchain’s uses and potential implications. ************ Disclaimer: I’m not an investor/advisor or token holder in Sagewise.

Word from the Block Episode 3: Smart Contract

Things move quickly on the internet. Because information and content can now travel instantaneously worldwide, some firms are relocating their whole operations to cyberspace. And yet, the pace at which these firms function is....lagging? Decentralization Decentralization is commonly referred to as the shift of power (and decision-making) from a centralized entity (person, organization, or group) to a distributed network. Decentralized networks attempt to lower the trust that users must place in one another and prevent them from exercising power or control over one another in ways that undermine network operation. Decentralization is one of the most significant transformations of the internet. Because its complicated and systemic structure is implemented to varying degrees in most developing and developed nations. Decentralization impacts several aspects of society, from the structure and quality of governance to national wealth, economic development, and human well-being. Advantages of Decentralization Trustless ecosystem No one must know or trust anyone else in a decentralized (blockchain) network. Each participant of a decentralized has a copy of the same data. Enhances data reconciliation Companies often have to share data with their partners. This data often gets converted and stored in each party's data silos. It often resurfaces and gets transferred further. Each time the data is converted, the possibility of data loss or inaccurate data entering the workstream increases. Thanks to the decentralized aspect of data storage, every entity gets access to a real-time and shared view of the data. Minimizes vulnerability of systems Decentralization may help decrease the sources of vulnerability in systems that rely too much on single players. These flaws may result in systemic failures, such as failure to deliver promised services or inefficient service owing to resource depletion, outages, bottlenecks, corruption, etc. Improves resource distribution Decentralization may also improve resource allocation, resulting in better performance and consistency and a lower probability of catastrophic failure. Smart contracts are essentially algorithms that execute when specific criteria are satisfied and are recorded on a blockchain. They are often used to automate the implementation of an agreement so that all parties may be confident of the conclusion straight away, without the participation of an intermediary. They may also automate a process by activating the next activity when certain circumstances are satisfied. Introduction to DAOs With the growth of the decentralized aspect of the internet, there has been an increase in discussions about DAOs, a word often used in the crypto and blockchain industry. DAO supporters argue it is the next step toward a decentralized future, but what exactly is a DAO, and how do they work? DAO is an abbreviation for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, a fancy term for a group of people who agree to follow a particular set of rules to achieve a shared goal. Those rules are encoded into the organization's code through smart contracts, which are algorithms that execute only when specific criteria are met. Everyone commits to supporting the group, which may serve almost any purpose. There is no centralized governing power, thus the term "decentralized." DAOs have a flattened hierarchy, which means that everyone has a stake, and no individual owns or manages the whole enterprise, as a traditional CEO would. A Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) operates without the need for hierarchical management and can serve a variety of objectives. These groups can create freelancer networks where contracts pool their funds to pay for software subscriptions, philanthropic organizations where members approve payments, and venture capital businesses run by a group. A DAO can be joined in various ways, the most common of which is through token ownership. In essence, DAO ensures the community has control of the organization’s funds and determines the usage of funds. The whole community gets to decide how and where a specific amount of funds will be used and who should be entrusted with the fund’s handling. Presently, DAOs are used for many purposes such as charity, fundraising, investment, borrowing-lending, or collecting NFTs without intermediaries. Some examples are as follows: Moloch DAO (provides grants to Ethereum 2.0 project) Grant Funding – Charity DAO (raises funds for any charitable project) Charity Funding – Metacartel Ventures (makes investments into early-stage DApps) Investment – FlamengoDAO, WhaleDAO (makes investments and collects NFT assets) Collector - MakerDAO, Aave, Uniswap, etc. (perform functions such as lending-borrowing, listing, etc.) Decentralized Finance & Exchanges – Here are some interesting DAO initiatives to look into: : Offers a novel Farm-as-a-Service model. Earn crypto rewards from various blockchain networks while holding just one native token. Metaverse DAO is a DeFi system that allows you to borrow or lend cryptocurrency in return for digital asset collateral. Aave is a cryptocurrency-based media network that focuses on user-generated content. The platform features its token (BXR), the foundation for all advertising on content sites. Blockster : A platform specializing in open-source tools for developing and implementing DAOs. Tools for making governance more accessible are included. Aragon Launching a DAO DAOs are wholly self-contained and transparent. Anyone may see their code because they are built on open-source blockchains. Because the blockchain records all financial transactions, anyone may audit their built-in treasuries. A DAO is typically launched in three stages: Making a smart contract: To begin, a developer or group of developers must create the DAO’s smart contract. After launching, they can only amend the rules specified by these contracts through the governance system. As a result, they must thoroughly test the contracts to ensure that essential aspects are not overlooked. Following the creation of smart contracts, the DAO must decide how to acquire financing and how to implement governance. Tokens are frequently sold to raise funds; these tokens grant holders voting rights. The DAO must be launched on the blockchain once everything has been set up. Stakeholders will now make decisions on the organization’s future. The founders of the organization —individuals who developed the smart contracts — no longer have any influence over the project more than the other stakeholders. DAOs offer significant advantages over traditional organizations since they are internet-native. The lack of trust required between two parties is a significant advantage of DAOs. While a typical organization demands a great deal of faith in the people who run it — particularly on behalf of investors — DAOs just require trust in the code. Trusting that code is easier because it’s open-source and can be thoroughly tested before release. After a DAO is started, the community must approve every action it performs and is totally public and verifiable. Conclusion Briefly: Decentralized Autonomous Organisations are altering our perceptions of how organizations function and how they could work in the future. DAOs, due to their distinct structure, hold the potential to focus on community rather than profit and may enable a more socially aware organization. Realizing DAOs in the real world will require considerable obstacles to be overcome, yet the urge to structure businesses differently exists, and the potential advantages are clear. Also published . here

How the DAO Ecosystem Is Redefining Organizations on the Web

GM. This is Crypto Player One, the daily newsletter on crypto gaming, NFTs, and the Metaverse. We are the protein bars of crypto gaming - sweet and nutritious. This Wednesday comes with: Daily Trivia. Bloomberg's top finance writer talks NFTs and the Metaverse. In Other News. Meme of the Day. Daily Trivia What's the name of the first interactive analog computer game? Scroll down to find out the answer. Bloomberg's Top Finance Writer Talks NFTs and The Metaverse Matt Levine, one of the best finance writers in the world, wrote an entire 40,000-word issue of Bloomberg Businessweek covering all things crypto. This is the second time in the history of Bloomberg that a writer has written a cover-to-cover issue of the magazine. So, as fans of Matt, we had to read it. While he talked about a bunch of stuff that's outside of the scope of this newsletter, he discussed NFTs, the Metaverse, and online communities. Here are the best bits: 1. NFTs Matt points out that most NFTs don't live on the blockchain. How could that be? Well, Matt refers to a by the founder of Signal, Moxie Marlinspike. blog post In the piece, Moxie explains how NFTs contain an URL that points to the data storing your image, but that data doesn't live on-chain. So the NFT links to a server that stores its image, title, and description. And anyone with access to that server can change the NFT. So what does that mean for the NFT space in general? , intellectual property rights and royalties are not enforceable on the blockchain. As we recently found out Many NFT companies sell their projects by offering image rights to the IP or promising to transfer those rights to the holders. But all of that happens off-chain, and it's not legally enforceable. So, in the end, when you buy an NFT, you get a pointer to a piece of digital art. Matt puts it beautifully: "These NFTs may not represent ownership in any particularly binding sense, but they represent a feeling of ownership. The technological and legal connections between blockchain and JPEG and ownership are a bit thin, but the connections are enforced culturally." He gives an example with Bored Apes. It's an online community with its own real-life events and social norms (using a monkey NFT as your Twitter profile pic.) 2. The Metaverse Matt doesn't know what the Metaverse is. Let us help you, Matt. It's a term describing a potential future. A future in which we all live, work and play digitally. He does mention that if indeed that's the future, buying, monitoring, and distributing digital goods online will be important. And we can make all of these goods scarce with NFTs. 3. Online Communities Mark Zuckerberg built one of the most valuable companies in the world, Meta, by focusing on human connection. And now, his pivot to the Metaverse goes to show that his vision is that most, if not all, parts of our lives will take place online. And if crypto has taught us something is that the human social life going online has a sh*t ton of economic value. People form communities online, making them valuable and getting some of that value for themselves. Want to read the entire 40 000 word article? Click here! In Other News The Web3 ticketing company, YellowHeart, launched a metaverse music venue. Oasys, the blockchain focused on crypto gaming, launched its mainnet. Seba Bank has started offering institutional-grade, certified, and audited hot and cold storage custody for blue-chip NFTs. Meme of the Day Answer Tennis for Two Want to Stay On Top of All Things Crypto Gaming and NFTs? Sign up for the daily newsletter - it’s free!

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