BlockChain Use Cases (not Bitcoin, not identity centric) & Distributed Ledgers?

From IIW

BlockChain Use Case: (not bitcoin, not identity centric) Distributed Ledgers


Wednesday 1E

Convener: Dave Sanford, Kevin Cox

Notes-taker(s): Kevin Cox


Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered:

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:


From Kevin Cox – BlockChain and Welcomer: http://www.welcomer.me/welcomer/blog/2015/9/21/blockchains-and-welcomer

Kevin Cox indicated that there might be lots of better ways to create a distributed ledger. Also there might be specific criteria to identify and differentiate the benefits of decentralization.

There are distributed ledger technologies that pre-date the blockchain, which typically have centralized permission and might or might not be more vulnerable. In particular, Kevin referred to the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) which is part of the ‘permanent web”. Kevin indicated that he thought the content addressable nature underneath IPFS could create some of the same advantages.

IPFS intends to link to blockchain at some point. The certificate transparency database at Google is similar to blockchain.

ERIS is a version of Ethereum without tokens which support smart contracts – focusing more on the checks and balance automation within the contract, than on simply title or value transfer.

Voting systems can be based on block chain – but has to be tailored for the right type of transparency, e.g. want to know what the Senator voted for, don’t want to know what Senator I voted for.

Blockchain may have been used to solve a problem called “homomorphic” encryption: A way to encrypt data such that it can be shared with a third party and used in computations without it ever being decrypted. This would allow untrusted computers to accurately run computations on sensitive data without putting the data at risk of hacker breaches or surveillance.

The reason banks are looking at permission based blockchain systems – is because they want a walled garden and the system would be cheaper to operate – while providing transparency and possibly faster convergence than current systems.

Some talk about ‘supply chain integrity’ uses for blockchain systems.

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