Bitcoin Masterclasses in Slovenia Day 1: Workshop on Bitcoin blockchain implementation

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In the last session on the first day of his Slovenia The Bitcoin Masterclasses, Dr. Craig Wright held a workshop involving student questions and ideas for implementing the Bitcoin blockchain.

Ideas for implementing Bitcoin blockchain for businesses

“What have we learned so far? What kind of things can we build? How will this help a company?” Dr. Wright begins. He says that later in the workshop they will cover specific industries, such as the food and hotel industry, but for now he is looking for student ideas. He asks them to form eight different groups to brainstorm.

Group one

The first group says they have thought about the food industry and how to implement traceability from farm to table.

They envisioned IoT devices on farms, monitoring everything from water quality to the general environment. The data from these devices can be stored in an overlay network using multicast.

You can have a multicast address assigned by the device controlling the farm, and the multicast address will then be used to broadcast data to group members. Every step, from the cultivation on the farm to the customer consuming the food, could be traced. This includes every time the food changes hands, where it is stored, at what temperature and more.

These networks can almost make use of notification systems. For example, restaurants can be made aware of viruses or other problems in farms along the supply chain. People can be notified of problems in something close to real time.

Group two

Aiming for disruption, this group thought of an alternative to Airbnb. Travelers visiting given cities can join multicast groups where landlords advertise available rooms and apartments. Keys could then be exchanged for access to the accommodation.

This will enable several improvements, including anonymous data for all parties to rate each other and the services offered. Micropayments can also be used to incentivize previous travelers to answer questions about the accommodation.

“Have you thought about what happens if you have group members who always rate something high or low?” asks Dr. Wright. The group member says that they can be punished by making the opinions less valuable. Dr. Wright agrees, but says the results can also be normalized by indicating that a given person typically rates things higher or lower than average. Statistical algorithms make all this possible.

Group three

The third group looked more deeply at how the insurance industry could be revolutionized, particularly in relation to fraud. It’s no secret that the industry is subject to many fraudulent claims – in the US alone, 10% of all claims are false.

The group focuses specifically on the automotive industry, and has imagined a situation where every car part is monitored and tracked on the blockchain. “The car has full traceability,” says the group’s spokesperson.

The advantages of this are many. When the car is sold, the entire history can be made public, which helps determine accurate prices. Car owners who experience faults can be compensated more accurately, saving manufacturers money. Again, warning systems can be used to spot potential problems early and help mechanics figure out what’s going wrong.

Group four

This group tackled peer-to-peer lending. The group’s spokesperson identifies and outlines the main problem: how can a lender trust a borrower to repay them?

Building a reputation-based system on the BSV blockchain can solve this. This can track both user activity and can allow others to vouch for the person. Lenders may also have reputations in such a system.

“What do you think would happen if someone went bankrupt?” asks Dr. Wright. He answers his own question: Full traceability will enable you to determine if they are bankrupt, have moved funds, etc. It can also help determine what kind of activity led to the bankruptcy in the first place.

Dr. Wright imagines how such a system might have changed the outcome in situations like the FTX implosion. It would certainly make it easier to determine exactly what happened.

Group five

The next group looked at micro business investments. They discussed Kickstarter and its problems, such as scammers, centralization, and no verifiable company history to determine viability.

How would they solve this? They wanted to build a system to enable decentralized crowdfunding using smart contracts. These contracts may specify the investment amount, the terms of the investment, the conditions under which the funds will be returned, the timeline for repayments and more.

Dr. Wright suggests several things, and talks about investment contracts that pay off over time. He points to the ICO problem where fraudsters asked for a lot of money up front, and describes how their potential gains could have been reduced by making it so that investment funds are released from escrow after milestones are reached.

Group six

The sixth group dealt with education and training. They imagined how the blockchain could make identification and certificates more easily verifiable.

Hashes of these can be stored on the blockchain, which allows for authentication with confidentiality at the same time.

The group’s spokesperson asks the audience to imagine a CIA agent attending a conference; he wants to prove his credentials without revealing who he works for. Using IPv6 and zero-knowledge proofs, it is possible to use two phones to verify the agent’s credentials without revealing anything else about them, including who they work for.

This group also came up with another idea: crowdfunding on the blockchain. The problems with crowdfunding platforms are well known, such as political deplatforming and outright fraud, and an electronic cash system like Bitcoin can help solve many of them. Things like tokens can be given out as rewards for helping to find given projects or ideas.

Dr. Wright talks about education more broadly. Lamenting the state of the education system and its incentives, he looks back at how things once were: students paid good lecturers, and the less impressive ones did not have a guaranteed income like the great lecturers. He sees a role for crowdfunding in making things better.

Group seven

The Group Seven spokesperson begins by saying that Dr. Wright has already said everything that needs to be said about Twitter. This group concluded that what they learned today could be applied to all social apps.

This group states that a profile can be associated with an IPv6 address that can be used to form multiple groups. For example, the groups you have joined on Facebook (NASDAQ: META) may be associated with your IP address. Likewise, misinformation on social platforms could be greatly reduced if users could find out who posted it and when it was traceable on the blockchain. “Generally, you can use it on anything,” says the group’s spokesperson.

Dr Wright says groups can also be linked to membership. For example, legally qualified people can join groups of more experienced people in their field, watch and learn from them, increase their skills and make themselves more useful. These groups and the various records they produce must be managed.

Group eight

The last group thought about optimizing processes in the tourism industry using blockchain technology.

For example, losing luggage is a common problem when travelling. This group considered assigning non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to each piece of luggage. This can be combined with things like AirTags to enable GPS tracking that can be broadcast on the network. When it comes to pickup, possession of the NFT may allow you to prove that you simply own the baggage.

Another example is using blockchain-based identity to do away with physical passports. Paper passports are outdated, and with the technology discussed in this series, there are alternatives.

Another example would be the issuance of travel miles as tokens that can be traded on secondary markets.

The bigger picture

Looking at the bigger picture, Dr. Wright says it’s all about sharing information and knowing that what we’re sharing is real. It’s also about individual control, for example letting us get recommendations and pitches we care about instead of irrelevant stuff we don’t want to receive. It is about the individual taking back control over their data, traceability and greater security across all systems.

All of this will require the blockchain to scale. Dr. Wright and his team are working to ensure that the blockchain can handle it as applications come.

“All of this can be done today,” he says, pointing to the ideas discussed in the session.

See: Bitcoin Masterclasses with Craig Wright – Confidentiality, Privacy, Anonymity, Party to Party

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