How To Spot A Blockchain BS’er

All too often I am confronted with someone who claims to be a “Blockchain Expert” (this is usually a 90 minute online course that costs about $100) or a “Blockchain Enthusiast” or “ICO Advisor” that doesn’t actually know anything other than some buzzwords. To quickly filter out the people who don’t know what they are talking about, I wrote this little quiz. Feel free to use it, take the answers out of course before you give it to your prospective “expert”.

Do you know Ethereum?

? Name 2 ERC token types and their use ?

• ERC20

ERC20 guarantees the token created to have simple transferability among wallets and contracts. There are three functions: ‘transfer’, ‘transferFrom’ and ‘allow’ that must exist in every ERC20 contract. People can simply use ‘transfer’ to send their tokens and if someone wants to spend token reside in a contract, the contract must first ‘allow’ the spender before the spender can ‘transferFrom’ token from that contract.

• ERC223

Backwardly compatible with ERC20, but merges the token transfer function among wallets and contracts into one single function ‘transfer’. The biggest change is that ERC223 no longer allow token to be transferred to a contract that does not allow token to be withdrawn.

• ERC721

Represents a non-fungible token, used by CryptoKitties — think of it like a beanie baby or trading card, each one has a variable value.

• ERC948

Subscription protocol — for both subscription and unsubscription

? What language do you write Ethereum smart contracts with ?

• Solidity

? What language is that language based on ?

• JavaScript

? Name one of the Ethereum test networks ?

• Rinkeby
• Ropsten
• Morden
• Olympic

General Blockchain Knowledge

? Name 3 different types of “proofs” used in various popular blockchains ?

• Proof of Work
• Proof of Stake
• Proof of Space
• Proof of Capacity
• Proof of Time
• Proof of Elapsed time
• Proof of Importance

? Name 3 different popular blockchains (not cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin forks) ?

• Bitcoin
• Ethereum
• Qtum
• Hyperledger — Sawtooth
• Hyperledger — Fabric
• Hyperledger — Iroha
• Cardano
• Nem

? Describe the difference between a Permissioned vs. Permissionless blockchain ?

• Permissioned is a private blockchain, permissionless is public

? What is the name of the data repository where hashed and encoded blocks are stored ?

• A Merkle Tree or Hash Tree