THE BENEFITS OF USING BLOCKCHAIN - Andreas Antonopoulos | London Rea

        

THE BENEFITS OF USING BLOCKCHAIN - Andreas Antonopoulos | London Rea

 

             we talked earlier the blockchain itself what would you think it's going to be used in in the future and what is it just obvious that it's not gonna be used in or it's just being thrown out there because it's a buzzword so to me I think one of the important things to realize is what is important about a blockchain and what capabilities does its enable and I've talked about the five pillars and you can add a few more maybe talk about the seven pillars but so the the pillars of a blockchain that I care about are it has to be open meaning that you should be able to access it and use it without any vetting or authorize a ssin or setting up an account just downloaded software participates in the network no one gets to tell you no you can't be part of this so it has to be open it has to be borderless this is an internet technology is fundamentally borderless where you come from where you are does not matter it has to be neutral blockchain technology let's give an example of payments it does not care who the source is who the destination is what the value is it routes from one end to the other just like the Internet doesn't care about source destination or content that neutrality is a critical component for freedom as well as very very rapid innovation and the development of new capabilities .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     It has to be censorship resistant meaning that no one should be able to stop a transaction from happening whether that's a payment or some other form of transaction or block people from participating in the system and so it should be resistant does not mean censorship proof you can shut down parts of it you can de neige deny disrupt access to parts of it some of the time you can't disrupt all of it all of the time just like the Internet some parts of it go down like last week Google had a really big hiccup sometimes you can't access certain sites from certain places but eventually determined people always find a way to get around these restrictions and find the clear path no matter where they are no matter what they're trying to do and that's important I also think it has to be  public so the system has to be open and everyone should be able to four verified which means it's also transparent in terms of payments you also need privacy without privacy then many of the other features become weak like if you don't have sufficient privacy then you can't prevent it from doing a transaction but you can be punished afterwards right because if I get a million pounds in Bitcoin to my account and it's public information. 

          That I might be able to be found out or taxed 

or something after the fact I'll give you an even simpler example if I send money to someone who is a citizen of Iran I'm in violation of the State Department's and Treasury rules okay it's a felony right that's as simple as that but also you know if you buy an inhaler from the Silk Road or something else like that buy something that is perfectly legal in the country where you are you know perfectly a little bit to consume but is illegal in another country that you have an association with or that you visit later right okay so that's my privacy is important privacy is important because even in free countries because it's a fundamental human right but it's even more important in non free countries because in those countries your political associations can be very easily not only scrutinized but also disrupted by control over finance okay a couple other things is that we mentioned everything then all right think I mentioned everything and and and immutable is one of the characteristics that we see in Bitcoin than others which is once you've recorded something on the blockchain it can't be erased from history or reversed immutability is a characteristics that builds over time so if I make a transaction now for the next hour or so it could probably with a bit of effort get reversed after it's had six confirmations as we call it in Bitcoin.

           six 10-minute periods have passed six  blocks have been mined it's pretty much guaranteed to stick around after a day it is immutable the probability of reversing that transaction has dropped so low I've made this prediction I say you know in our generation we say it's as good as written in stone and our children will say it's as good as on a blockchain you know okay it cannot be changed and that brings some very important application so you can do things like proof of existence I can  record a document and say this documents  existed on this date and once that's recorded on the blockchain after a day I can always prove look on that date it .