Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Blockchain Video and Podcast

CNI has now posted the video of my 20-minute talk Blockchain: What's Not To Like? to YouTube and Vimeo. Here is the YouTube version:



Gerry Bayne interviewed me at the Fall CNI meeting for CNI's podcast series. The 20-minute conversation is a companion piece to the talk. The podcast is on the Educause SoundCloud channel.

I made one, easily spotted, mistake in the interview when I said $3,000 instead of $300,000. But other than that I'm happy with both the video and the podcast.

4 comments:

David. said...

Compare and contrast Nicholas Weaver's Enigma talk Cryptocurrency: Burn It With Fire! with mine.

David. said...

Gregory Aharonian aptly illustrates the deceptive nature of blockchain marketing with an example from IBM:

"A recent Coindesk article reports on an IBM blockchain "breakthrough":

IBM completes a blockchain trial tracking a 28-ton shipment of oranges
...
For the pilot, IBM created an electronic bill of lading, or e-BL, which helped reduce and speed up administrative processes “to just one second” as the document flow is automated, the company claims --- while the standard paper-based procedure takes five to seven days.

Greg is a patent attorney and points out that:

"This sentence is proof of why you can't trust some blockchain promoters. For over 30 years, there has been an international standard for the (secure) exchange of electronic business information - EDI - Electronic Data Interchange. IBM has been a key player in the development of this standard. For example, here is a link to a 1991 European Patent owned by IBM dealing with a method to make it easier for businesspeople to use EDI
...
One part of the EDI world is an ANSI standard for electronic bills of lading: ANSI X12 EDI 211."

David. said...

Tim Cotten's Russia’s Bitcoin Hacking Funds shows that the supposed anonymity of Bitcoin is threadbare:

"This article explores the reconstructed blockchain history of indicted Russian hackers whose Bitcoin addresses were referenced indirectly in two separate indictments brought by the U.S. Department of Justice concerning interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the public leak of Olympic drug-testing results, along with annotations within the redacted 2019 Mueller Report.

Links between their Bitcoin payment histories and originating cryptocurrency exchanges, like CEX.io and BTC-e.com, as well as the connections between previously undiscovered payment histories and destination services, such as SpectroCoin.com, the hack of Mt.Gox, and seemingly abandoned Bitcoin balances, are explained in-depth."

David. said...

Listening to "bitcoin evangelists" can be bad for your wealth. Michael Sheetz reports that SoftBank's Masayoshi Son got caught up in the bitcoin frenzy and reportedly lost $130 million:

"Son made the investment in late 2017 the report said, near the digital currency's record high near $20,000 in December of that year. Bitcoin has traded around $5,000 in recent weeks. While it is unknown exactly how much bitcoin Son bought, he sold early last year after the speculative digital currency's value collapsed.

The move reportedly followed Son receiving a recommendation by a "bitcoin evangelist." SoftBank had bought the investment firm of that person earlier in the same year, the report said."