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Thursday, September

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29

Agenda:

• Report writing
• Search for independent and dependent variables among the "tensions", as inspired by Kathleen and John W for the report
• Review use case analysis inputs from John W for the report, if available

Attending: ..Attending: Eve, Thorsten, Andrew, Scott S, Kathleen, Matisse

We did a lot of report writing work, directly in the report.

AI: Eve: Ask Scott D if he will take an action to write the "Legal Contracts" section of the report, providing a definition, a short discussion of strengths and weakness of the current way of doing things, and pointers to the other technology and technique sections as appropriate for starters. Bringing in the ethics perspective would also be awesome.

AI: Eve: Ask Thomas if he will take an action to write the "IPFS" section along the lines just above.

AI: Eve: Ask John W if he will take an action to write the "Consent Receipts" section along the lines just above, and either write or find a designee for the "User-Submitted Terms" section.

Others took AIs to fill in other similar report sections on the call; see the report for those.

Everyone please review the report for the latest!

Tuesday, September 27

Agenda:

• Report writing

Attending: Eve, Thomas, Thorsten, Andrew, John W, Jim H, Matisse

We have a LOT of new information sources, including some comparative material, to help us complete our thematic introduction in the report.

(One new source shared on the call: Stellar info.)

Is it meaningful to achieve "transactional empowerment" use cases if you are some way down the path of decentralization, or must you reach 100% decentralization? Andrew suggests that where perfect decentralization can't be achieved, transparency and accountability can shore up the necessarily centralized parts of the system. Having "an authority" (vs. "your peers") detect a transgression requires traditional controls. But, speaking of roles here, depending on what sort of blockchain technology and governance model and blockchain contents are involved, are they really "your peers"? There seem to be a lot of ways that the node miners' interests may not be strictly aligned with yours.

Matisse believes the main value of choosing blockchain for "transactional empowerment" would be smart contracts – being able to withdraw your consent from a contract and, say, get your money back from a smart vending machine. Jim notes that smart contracts are really a different technology from blockchain – based on blockchain technology but a specific application that requires "contract semantics" at the nodes.

Regarding economic efficiencies, a big attraction of Bitcoin use cases has been to make transactions more efficient by removing intermediaries. However, the world has been finding that technical inefficiencies (performance challenges) have arisen.

Specific use cases: currency (a la Bitcoin), certification (a la notary services), smart contracts (a la vending machine, land registry, drone control)... Jim has made the case that smart contracts need to connect to the legal world through both format and semantics. A transactional system presumably must take into account the "business/legal" environment in some fashion, even if just implicitly (say, by referencing certain jurisdictional laws, terms, and concepts). So either a smart contract is a non-contract (the way a contract with a killer would be – though perhaps with consequences less dire!) or it is a true contract precisely by taking into account its surrounding business/legal environment through a standardized format and semantics. It had better be possible for a true "smart contract" to have parties who have the proper rights and responsibilities.

AIs:

• Jim: Share his draft Kantara blog post on the list
• Eve: Take the latest notes and try and squeeze them into the report for review on Thursday
• All: Please review all the resources shared on the list and in the notes before Thursday

Thursday, September 22

Agenda:

• Report writing
  • Search for independent and dependent variables among the "tensions", as inspired by Kathleen and John W for the report
  • Review use case analysis inputs from John W for the report, if available

Attending: Eve, Matisse, Thomas, Colin, Andrew, Marco, Matisse

News: News has hit of an "editable" blockchain technology that Accenture has prototyped. This seems...kind of scammy. They seem to have created a private blockchain. Does it require proof of work? Is it really a blockchain? Why would you want to "accelerate...adoption" of blockchain by removing a key defining feature of actual blockchains? Maybe this makes enterprises feel cool, but tamper-evident ledgers can be done right now without having to involve the "b-word". We pronounce this another b-word: bogus. 

Tension/theme analysis: Can a blockchain be considered "a distributed system" in the formal sense? There are a number of resources we could draw on to analyze its characteristics if so: scalability, transparency, etc. See this article. Matisse supports this analysis, as it's the premise of her PhD. thesis!

A neutral way of stating the columns Kathleen has added on the right that our participants are more invested in, for use-case reasons, would be (all, please offer feedback on this):

• "Balance of control" in transactions (which can include contracts and data sharing) – enabling individuals to rise to the level of a "peer" to traditionally more empowered entities
  • "Transactions" is the broadest possible term in common usage
  • This item is the broad descriptor
• "Granularity of control" ?? in transactions – enabling not a totality of trust and liability but an apportioning that is appropriate
  • Supposedly Bitcoin, a special-purpose blockchain, has protected individuals on this dimension, but each smart contract could still leave individuals open to abuse
• "Dynamism of control" ?? in transactions – enabling individual choice both over time and just-in-time

When is a public blockchain appropriate, vs. a consortium-model blockchain, vs. a private blockchain?

AI: Matisse: Share pointers to papers to let us analyze specific blockchain types for next time.

Next time: Get into both specific blockchain mentions and use case-specific analysis, and try to flesh out the report intro for good and all.

Tuesday, September 20

Agenda:

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