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How blockchain is decentralized and not.

Australia's Digital Transformation Agency has been researching potential government uses for blockchain.

“Our position today, and this is an early write-up, is that blockchain is an interesting technology that would be well worth being observed, but without standardisation and a lot more work, for every use of blockchain that you would consider today there is a better technology,” Mr Alexander told the hearing.

. . .

“We’re not saying that blockchain doesn’t have potential but today, without standardisation, there is the challenge of blockchain becoming a little fragmented. When we get to the standardised blockchain then the opportunities for it will grow.”

Workforce-readiness focused compendium of how edtech innovations align with preparing students for jobs.

We must be careful to distinguish between blockchain ledgers and proof-of-work, because they are separate things that just happen to have been combined to make Bitcoin. There are energy-efficient ways of managing blockchain ledgers, such as proof-of-stake algorithms. Some of these algorithms are already being implemented by rival cryptocurrency schemes

. . .

PoW is obscenely wasteful, consuming more electricity than all of Ireland to generate an endless stream of mathematical garbage.

Bando "Blockchains for Social Good": links funzionanti:

https://ec.europa.eu/research/eic/index.cfm?pg=prizes_blockchains

https://ec.europa.eu/research/eic/pdf/infographics/eic_horizon-prize-blockchains.pdf

This is so true. Still looking for an application that can benefit from this concept.

Join me in annotating @mweller's thoughtful exercise at thinking through the last 20 years of edtech. Given Martin's acknowledgements of the caveats of such an exercise, how can we augment this list to tell an even richer story?

私有鏈技術：關鍵問題是怎麼獲得共識才結鏈？

Not sure if I understand this correctly. Does this mean the number of transactions that a blockchain-powered network can process is equivalent to the number of transactions that the slowest node in the network can process? If so, I haven't heard such limitation.

Bitcoin mining uses a lot of electricity -- currently as much as Ecuador.

The cryptocurrency network Ethereum recently announced that it will try "proof of stake" rather than "proof of work".

A good primer on decentralization

Ethereum is the way the internet should have been. I absolutely feel they are the forerunners of the future. Would love to see mozilla spearhead ethereum related projects.

Twenty five hundred years ago the pressure of trade forced the minting of the first coins. Eleven hundred years ago the weight of all those coins forced the printing of paper money. Seven hundred years ago the challenges of international trade forced the development of bills of exchange. And fifty years ago the mainframes gave birth to the credit revolution.

Right now we’re on the cusp of a similar revolution. Because our smartphones want our money. They don’t want to have to talk to a bank for an authorisation. They just want to hand over the cash. But they can’t, because we haven’t got money that fits into a smartphone. Yet.

Sometime in the next few years, one of these big central banks is going to introduce its own blockchain-based money — blockchain money issued by a government. It’s been nicknamed ‘fedcoin’.

This is obviously a mistake as it is sufficient to put the address (or its hash value) on the chain, the data (of any size) being stored on something like IPFS. Blockchains were initially designed to store transactions not content — the discussion about the size of the block was about the number of transactions that could go in a block... Things evolved with new systems like https://www.bigchaindb.com/ and the landscape of blockchain-like technologies will continue to grow and diversify...

Agree! Such structured and shall-be-interoperatable data can plug with recommendation engine for guided learning path. possible?

Agree X 1000.

I initially thought that it would make sense to have a learner's identity on the chain, and include all of their evidence of work with their credentials. These could be docs, PDFs, videos, audio, apps, games, etc. This of course is an untenable process.

I think that having identity on a distributed ledger technology, with links out to the domain of the learner, that houses/hosts all of this evidence would possibly make sense.

I also think that we need to identify ways & means to archive this evidence (which would not live on the chain) so that evidence doesn't disappear.

If we're using these technologies to address the problem of orphaned badges, what happens when the evidence is orphaned as well?

Please note that some would suggest that we don't really need the evidence...we only need the documentation of that moment in time the learner was issued the credential as evidence of work that was completed. I see that point...but also think that building up an eportfolio, or domain of one's own and connecting this to a distributed ledger technology with read/write access on the past of the individual would be awesomesauce. :)

I think we still need to look at possibilities to make this blockchain and distributed ledger technologies possible. In my thinking it would be putting your identity on a distributed chain, and then linking out to evidence, credentials, etc. Yes, this will take time, space, and money. Hopefully we can learn from bitcoin, ethereum, and others to develop something that metastasize into a mess.

I also appreciate the need to allow anyone, regardless of where they live, or means to do so, with the ability to read/write to the ledger.

Well stated. One of the narratives that we've heard again and again by ed technologists recently is that blockchain and distributed ledger technologies will take the humans out of the process and replace them with machines. I definitely disagree with this assessment, and think that you're correct that there is (or will be) as need for "continuous social negotiations" that are transparent, and can be audited/revised as well.

Agreed. I think one of the other concerns embedded in this is that we bring our own value systems into this work as we code, develop, and spread this work. Our individual values might not be the value systems of the collective whole.

Agreed. I think there are also challenges as we work to ensure that we don't reify some of the problems from the past. Just by "putting some blockchain into it" doesn't mean that things will be better. We need discussions and decisions about what we want/need in education, and how blockchain and distributed ledger technologies might address this.

Blockchain misconceptions and the Future of Education

The Web Beyond: How blockchain identity will transform our world

No use cases, but conflicting opinions from experts

DAO, a venture capital fund based on Ethereum cryptocurrency, was hacked, and ether coins valued at about $55M were fraudulently transferred. This article gives some details of the hack.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/investment-fund-based-on-digital-currency-to-wind-down-after-alleged-hack-1466175033 The account with the stolen ether coins has been frozen, and they plan to undo the fraudulent transactions. But this itself is disturbing to some, as part of the idea behind cryptocurrency is lack of a central authority.

The creators of DAO proclaimed that the code is the contract. So if no laws were broken in the course of the hack, one could argue that the transfer is legitimate under those terms. https://medium.com/@Swarm/daos-hacks-and-the-law-eb6a33808e3e

Apparently there are new attacks already. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4ot3z8/dao_is_under_attack_again/

The uncanny mind that built Ethereum - Vitalik Buterin invented the world’s hottest new cryptocurrency and inspired a movement — before he’d turned 20.

Key problem that includes "the DAO"

MIT Media Lab and use of the Bitcoin Blockchain and not Ethereum (or other alternatives) to get it running.

http://certificates.media.mit.edu/

In bitcoin, these coins obviously refer to monetary units. But, it would be interesting to see how these would be adjusted given new information.

In the case of credentialing, this could be assessments, observations, certifications, credentials, etc.

The "digital signatures" could come from trusted parties, colleagues, peers, etc. Depending on the framing of the system...it could be anyone. With these signatures, it could link back to their own values and identify more information about the individual/organization offering the signature.

Once again, in the initial framing of bitcoin, it appears that the idea is to utilize technology (i.e., blockchain) to make transactions over a digital channel without involving established, trusted parties (e.g., banks).

This is interesting. Much of the pushback about blockchain and bitcoin comes from questions about "trust" and issues with auditing/editing/revising information from the past.

It seems like (at least with the initial framing here by Nakamoto) "they" recognize a need for "reversal" of information/data/values and also an increased need for "trust" in the model.

This system may work well for financial transactions, but what happens when we build a "proof-of-work chain" for other information/data?

At its base, it seems like a "proof-of-work chain" using a database propagated by peer-to-peer technologies.

Questions about who is the "we" in this document.

This is getting mentioned more and more in an open science context.

This post seems to have gotten the conversation started across some important sites about the idea of a federal backed cryptocurrency in the US.

Explanation of blockchains by Jeni Tennison.<br> https://twitter.com/JeniT

http://theodi.org/blog/impact-of-blockchains-on-privacy<br> Potential privacy issues of blockchain applications.

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies<br> https://www.coursera.org/course/bitcointech

PeerTracks, a music streaming and retail platform company, is the first outfit to use the brand new MUSE network, in partnership with CCEDK and OpenLedger.

http://www.peertracks.com/faq.php<br> https://www.openledger.info/<br> https://www.ccedk.com/about

The concept of trust, in the sociological and economic sense, underlies exchange. In the 15th-17th centuries, the Dutch and English dominance of trade owed much to their early development of instruments of credit that allowed merchants to fund and later to insure commercial shipping without the exchange of hard currency, either silver or by physically transporting the currency of the realm. Credit worked because the English and Dutch economies trusted the issuers of credit.

Francis Fukuyama, a philosopher and political economist at Stanford, wrote a book in 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, on the impact of cultures of trust on entrepreneurial growth. Countries of ‘low trust’ have close family culture who limit trust to relations: France, China, S. Italy. Countries of ‘high trust’ have greater ‘spontaneous sociability’ that encourages the formation of intermediate institutions between the state and the family, that encourage greater entrepreneurial growth: Germany, England, the U.S. – I own the book and (shame on me!) haven’t yet read it.

I thought of this article in those contexts – of the general need for trusted institutions and the power they have in mediating an economy, and the fascinating questions raised when a new facilitator of trust is introduced.

How do we trust? Across human history, how have we extended the social role of trust to institutions? If a new modality of trust comes available, how does that change institutional structures and correspondingly the power of individuals, of institutions. How would it change the friction to growth and to decline?

Prior to reading this article, I had dismissed Bitcoin as a temporary aberration, mostly for criminal enterprises and malcontents. I still feel that way. But the underlying technology and it’s implications – now that’s interesting.

In any reporting on a controversy in science or technology a journalists job is first and foremost to find out whether there’s overwhelming support for one side among experts and if there is to report that straightforwardly.

I don't know enough about bitcoin to have an opinion about this controversy. Regardless of that, this is a very good point. "Impartial" shouldn't mean giving equal credence and equal time to fringe viewpoints -- unless they are coming from some noteworthy experts with strong evidence.

Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, says they need to increase the blockchain size immediately.<br> http://belshe.com/2016/01/18/bitcoin-blocksize-and-the-future/

http://r3cev.com/s/Watermarked-tokens-and-pseudonymity-on-public-blockchains-Swanson.pdf

Yet if a network is comprised of known and trusted entities with legal, off-chain obligations to fulfill, then you have a set of different security assumptions to build around. And in the case of financial institutions, a feature such as proof-of-work via mining, which is currently core to public blockchains is an unnecessary and even redundant.

This paper explores several of the drawbacks and challenges of using public blockchains for securing off-chain titles and concludes that these types of networks are not fit-for-purpose for globally regulated financial institutions.

Ethereum is 'a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts.' ... Here, we're sharing some simple instructions on how to get started with Ethereum

https://ethereum.org/<br> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum