Attendee Question: How does blockchain technology deal with bots?
Answer (Adam Gravitis): Bots, or any automated script, can be a healthy part of any blockchain ecosystem. Most blockchain systems have inherent properties designed to make spam-like behavior expensive.
Attendee Question: What are your thoughts on Bitmainās denial of using hardware ASICBOOST? How do you think this revelation will influence other mining pools when it comes to the scaling debate?
Answer (Toufi Saliba): No comment on the denial, but certainly concerning that PoW is exploited. PoW used in Bitcoin was necessary, although not sufficient. As you know other elements were crucial in the design. The necessity is for the entire system to rely on a universal method, i.e. burning energy that is needed for the node to have vote in the system. Assuming the effort involved for the hashcash as part of the PoW is not subject to manipulation or algorithmically resolvable by some parties in the system but not all parties. This assumption will not live forever, in fact some folks (ASICBOOST) exploited back in 2014 and filed for a patent on a design that can reduce the amount of energy needed and therefore have significant advantage if utilized by some of the nodes not all of them.
Attendee Question: There is an unlimited amount of prime numbers, a quantum computer would be able to find the next number, making bitcoin analogous to striking gold (creating new money out of nothing).
Answer (Toufi Saliba & Adam Gravitis): Many cryptosystems today that protect trillions of dollars of property are, in theory, vulnerable to an attack made by a sufficiently large quantum computer. It remains unclear how practical quantum computers will be ready for this task, or when such an attack might become practical. Dismissing any technology on the basis that it might, in theory, have quantum-related vulnerabilities seems at this point rather premature. There are a lot of work being done for Quantum proofing for blockchains and other systems. however they are theoretical and can only be tested by simulations, so you never know with 100% certainty until then, but you could mitigate to a very high degree of certainty and that is being done. More work can certainly be appreciated.
Attendee Question: Why are 80% of the Bitcoin transactions done in China? Could you explain what miners are for the Blockchain technology? Why are mot miners Chinese?
Answer (Toufi Saliba): Miners are effectively friction. Given how costly they are, they constitute a lot of friction. Any organism in the universe with a lot of friction will not move as fast as an identical organism with less friction. Now why are they for a vast majority in China, this is mainly because of the cost of electricity, hardware, setup, management, real estate etc. is more likely to be economical in China. Some give the explanation of political interest of China to control the future of blockchains and thatās why the government subsidized the electricity. Maybe true, I havenāt seen evidence of the latter, but the former is a fact. They can both be true, but the former is definitely true.
Attendee Question: In your opinion, what are some research areas needed for blockchain (other than security) ?
Answer (Toufi Saliba & Adam Gravitis): Scalability, Transaction Cost and Security: many blockchain systems rely on global consensus for their entire ledger and this doesnāt scale either bandwidth-wise or processing-wise. Currently one blockchain that I know of is working on all 3 combined in a Ledgerless distributed setting, itās called Toda Protocol.
Attendee Question: Do you think that current blockchain providers might reach a standard? Do they really need to or they can coexist together?
Answer (Toufi Saliba): They will likely coexist together, but we are expecting a protocol that will likely be or at least look closer to the Toda Protocol than Bitcoin. We see Bitcoin similar to FTP but the world need HTTP for the web to exist. Lastly when HTTP existed, billions of web pages existed. So yes, absolutely blockchains will co-exist. Not sure they will still be called blockchain, or if the Toda Protocol will be copied and called something else, but we do know we are heading in that direction of less friction, more security and more scalability.
Attendee Question: Any thoughts on the Hyperledger open source project that was not mentioned so far : https://www.hyperledger.org/
Answer (Toufi Saliba): Yes Hyperledger is great onso many levels when it comes to a ledger based blockchain. However, given that it is permissioned, some argue that it becomes the weakest point and given the cost associated in running the blockchain, it could have been done in a database while achieving the same results at a lower cost. No opinion on whether this is true or false, I think eventually because IBM is behind it will see some inevitable traction. People still manufacture and sell Fax machines, does not mean it is the opportunity we have been waiting for. In the same time, some of the intelligent folks IBM hired, will eventually see opportunity in working with smarter blockchains architecture and protocols by design and not by the force of a big company.
Attendee Question: With blockchain, if someone gets my PKI, is it game over? How do I protect against this key failure point? What research is going on in this area?
Answer (Toufi Saliba & Adam Gravitis): In the ārawā case, absolutely. Providers such as CoinBase and others are trying to soften these hard edges to act as intermediaries and allow key recovery and other desirable properties. However, they themselves become an extremely attractive target for attacks. I have seen some hardware Wallets that do great job at this stuff, check out Ledger Blue or ledger Nanao at Ledger Wallet. There are many others. What Iād like to see, and Iāll instigate building it if I have to, same as I did with Toda Protocol is a decentralized protocol that by design allow people to control their identity in a one-way stream, where an individual can march towards unlocking keys if they are who they say they are and not the other way around. Check out Brad Chunās whitepaper on identity blockchain and his company at mootipass, definitely many steps closer in the right direction.
Attendee Question: With cryptocurrency, there is a clear incentive for miners (i.e. receiving currency). How are similar incentives created in non-currency application domains?
Answer (Toufi Saliba & Adam Gravitis): Most attempts at non-currency applications of blockchain have used a currency blockchain as a sort of substrate which allows the processing of transactions to continue with the same incentives. It would be interesting to think about how this could work without such a substrate. Current suggestions I have seen, charging fees similar to Gas in Ethereum.
Attendee Question: Please comment on the adaptability of blockchain for transparent āreportingā of completed transactions and in-process state snapshots. I am thinking of the example of logistics management (tracking of managed supply chains).
Answer (Adam Gravitis): I havenāt seen anything in this direction yet, but itās an obvious use-case. The underlying blockchain protocol would need to support automatic reporting of transactions to specified āparticipantsā - and thatās something Iām involved with.
Attendee Question: Like a VCS canāt a blockchain be split into two parallel truths?
Answer (Adam Gravitis): This is true for all of the ledger-based blockchains Iām aware of, however, there are ledgerless blockchains where this could only happen in a much more minor way.
Attendee Question: Making transactions immutable is great for the seller but doesnāt this take away significant protection and leverage from the consumer (who may be buying a lemon)?
Answer (Adam Gravitis): This is no different than cash transactions, except for the exposure of the seller to physical retaliation. For blockchain transactions involving untrusted merchants, consumers may be driven to use on-demand escrow services. I expect some equivalent of ābetter businessā standards will evolve in this direction.
Attendee Question: Who controls the rules of a blockchain controls the money supply, which can then be manipulated. Analogous to gold, is this ethical? The gold marked can be manipulated.
Answer (Adam Gravitis): Thereās a bit of game theory going on: holders of the currency agree that it has value as long as certain rules are followed. Those rules are typically established at the outset. Participants generally agree to punish or ignore those who do not abide by the rules, therefore rule-breakersā currency generally becomes worth nothing unless they transact properly. In some systems, a majority or super majority might be able to change the rules in one sweeping update. So, who controls the rules of a blockchain? Nobody and everybody. I havenāt the slightest idea if thatās ethical.
Attendee Question: Comparing Bitcoin now to the potential of blockchain, may be likened to AOL in the early days. Who knows how things will change in five years?
Answer (Toufi Saliba): I find protocol comparisons are closer to what we will be experiencing. Think of current ledger based Blockchains are like FTP while HTTP is yet to come.
Attendee Question: How does blockchain technology deal with bots?
Answer (Adam Gravitis): Bots, or any automated script, can be a healthy part of any blockchain ecosystem. Most blockchain systems have inherent properties designed to make spam-like behavior expensive.
Attendee Question: Computational burden of transaction commitment is not linear as the ledger ages, how does this effect influence long term viability of a given ledger? What is the per transaction cost curve over time and how does that compare with traditional ledgers?
Answer (Adam Gravitis & Toufi Saliba): This is an important area for improvement, however several solutions spring immediately to mind which could eliminate the need to keep an increasingly long ledger without sacrificing security. Privacyshell has built one of those ledgerless systems that are truly distributed and decentralized and do not depend on special miners. That approach will have 99% less friction than existing system and not higher friction is in existing ledger based Blockchains.
Attendee Question: What protects the history of a blockchain?
Answer (Adam Gravitis): The history of a blockchain is protected, implicitly, by the nature of the chain itself.
Attendee Question: Maintaining a register is central but just one small function of what the financial industry does. They provide conversion of credit to cash; they make loans; Call centers for customer questions, etc ; guarantees for remote transactions, privacy, etc. The block chain only provides a register. If block-chain is disruptive, who takes over these roles?
Answer (Adam Gravitis): My personal take on this important question is that blockchains create an environment where it is possible for a more diverse group of organizations to take on those roles - for better or worse!
Attendee Question: Iām surprised ZeroCoin didnāt make the list, it certainly is a technical improvement over BitCoin. Was ZeroCoin at least considered during the research phase or was the focus more about social trends?
Answer (Toufi Saliba): There are 1000+ blockchains out there that claim technical enhancement over Bitcoin. however, it is marginal, although 100 of them made the $2M+ Market cap and few over $1B. The reality remains that the world needs a solution not 20% better, but at least 100000000% better when it comes to performance and Iām not just adding zeros.
Attendee Question: How long do you think it will take for the many technologies that enable Blockchain will start consolidating into the clear winners?
Answer (Toufi Saliba): Very good question, hard to tell how long. But I know for sure, the blockchain that will deliver on blockchain promises is closer to TODA than Bitcoin. (TODA is another specie of blockchains all together) Mainly because it is distributed and decentralized. Bitcoin like protocols are replicated ledgers not distributed. Although they call the DLT Distributed Ledger Technology, they arenāt.