Author Topic: My TEDx Bermuda Presentation on Cryptocurrencies  (Read 7960 times)

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Offline jsidhu

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That was a good presentation! Thanks for sharing it.

At minute 9:05 you said "smart contracts are protocols that can verify and enforce agreements". As far as I know there is no protocol that can do that without the help of humans insofar as, if there is a disagreement that needs to be resolved, either a trusted third party or an oracle (only possible if the content of the contract can be quantified) has to "verify" what is right and enforce the contract or respectively tell the software to enforce it (give the funds stored in the contract to one of the parties). Do you see that any differently?

As for property rights management:  I contend that blockchain technology can only make property rights management more convenient but does not make it possible in the first place. Ahmed can register anything he wants in some blockchain, no once cares if there is no socially and/or forcefully enforced agreement (enforced by a state or the "local community" or or a security company) about what the basis for property rights is ("the law" or "the laws" for the libertarian version).
If we assume that it was enough if Ahmed proved that he once lived on the land in question before the war began in order to regain his land then he would still have problems proving that he lived there if there was no one else that verified it (anybody can make a entry in a decentralized database claiming all kinds of things). But I could see how that would work if it was combined with the reputation solution and many reputable individuals testify that he actually lived there. Overall this is possible today too (reputable individuals can testify in front of a local court/arbitrator), blockchain technology would just digitize it and scale it better.
The blockchain is not corruptible thats the big difference.. essentially notaries are replaced by a reputation system.
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Offline santaclause102

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That was a good presentation! Thanks for sharing it.

At minute 9:05 you said "smart contracts are protocols that can verify and enforce agreements". As far as I know there is no protocol that can do that without the help of humans insofar as, if there is a disagreement that needs to be resolved, either a trusted third party or an oracle (only possible if the content of the contract can be quantified) has to "verify" what is right and enforce the contract or respectively tell the software to enforce it (give the funds stored in the contract to one of the parties). Do you see that any differently?

As for property rights management:  I contend that blockchain technology can only make property rights management more convenient but does not make it possible in the first place. Ahmed can register anything he wants in some blockchain, no once cares if there is no socially and/or forcefully enforced agreement (enforced by a state or the "local community" or or a security company) about what the basis for property rights is ("the law" or "the laws" for the libertarian version).
If we assume that it was enough if Ahmed proved that he once lived on the land in question before the war began in order to regain his land then he would still have problems proving that he lived there if there was no one else that verified it (anybody can make a entry in a decentralized database claiming all kinds of things). But I could see how that would work if it was combined with the reputation solution and many reputable individuals testify that he actually lived there. Overall this is possible today too (reputable individuals can testify in front of a local court/arbitrator), blockchain technology would just digitize it and scale it better. 

Offline speedy

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Great talk Charles!

One thing I still dont get is this idea of putting property deeds on a blockchain (which you talked about in the talk). Blockchains are great for enforcing the rules of information transfer (such as domain names) and transactions etc, but how can they be used to govern what happens in the physical world? Even if the guy has his house deed on the blockchain, dont you still need the government to enforce that and evict squatters? And if i remember correctly, blockchains were invented to make make governments irrelevant.

Offline Ben Mason

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Charles, that was excellent.  You certainly have charisma and eloquence in abundance.

And the general tone of this thread literally lifted my spirits  +5%

charleshoskinson

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I think most of them believed you are 'the smart contract'... in my humble opinion. They like it because of that. They thought smart contracts is hiring good talks like you....

I didn't get paid anything for the presentation. TED never gives honoraria for talks. They did cover my airfare and hotel but I was only there for a total of three days with most of the time spent doing TED stuff. I really like cryptocurrencies and its fun to evangelize.

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I would LOVE to see you run for delegate here. If you brought in some Ethereum folks and got them using BitShares, you might just get enough votes!
Then this would happen to Fuzz if I won: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZpsbGr7s8
« Last Edit: December 05, 2014, 07:42:48 am by charleshoskinson »

Offline donkeypong

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I would LOVE to see you run for delegate here. If you brought in some Ethereum folks and got them using BitShares, you might just get enough votes!

zerosum

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Watched and enjoyed - although there was nothing new to a long time reader of this and other forums.

There were over a thousand people in the audience and only a few of them had ever heard of bitcoin much less things like smart contracts.

I think most of them believed you are 'the smart contract'... in my humble opinion. They like it because of that. They thought smart contracts is hiring good talks like you....

charleshoskinson

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Yes, good job. I actually meant that I enjoyed your talk even though there was nothing new in it to me. It must have been fascinating and insightful for your target audience.

It was a rather overwhelming mob that formed during lunch (first time I ever ate lionfish btw; highly recommend). Most were interested in micro-insurance and better metrics for risk management. Bermuda is a big insurance market in general. Remittances were also an issue they care about as many have to send money to relatives at fairly high rates. You can tell I biased the presentation towards that end.

I think there has been a lot of great work lately in trying to bridge the knowledge gap about cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately, bitcoin isn't capable of supporting these kind of dreams and needs to be carefully replaced. 
« Last Edit: December 05, 2014, 07:36:37 am by charleshoskinson »

Offline onceuponatime

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Watched and enjoyed - although there was nothing new to a long time reader of this and other forums.

There were over a thousand people in the audience and only a few of them had ever heard of bitcoin much less things like smart contracts.

Yes, good job. I actually meant that I enjoyed your talk even though there was nothing new in it to me. It must have been fascinating and insightful for your target audience.

charleshoskinson

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Watched and enjoyed - although there was nothing new to a long time reader of this and other forums.

There were over a thousand people in the audience and only a few of them had ever heard of bitcoin much less things like smart contracts.

Offline onceuponatime

Watched and enjoyed - although there was nothing new to a long time reader of this and other forums.

charleshoskinson

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Honest question here CH - Do you have days that you are not in complete in awe of yourself?

Lol, we are here to talk about the TED presentation. Not how magical I am. I mean if you want to say so Tony I won't stop you.  8)

Totally going to pull a Stan:
« Last Edit: December 05, 2014, 07:15:35 am by charleshoskinson »

zerosum

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What happened to your new coin idea?

I was discussing a hypothetical situation where one takes DPOS and other components of the Bitshares ecosystem and sharedrops litecoin to a new chain. It was meant to be a discussion about how incumbancy value can be transfered and what factors aid or detract from it. Not a fully formed coin idea. Obviously the thread was poorly handled. Moving people off of bitcoin is going to require creativity and some solid data.

Honest question here CH - Do you have days that you are not in complete in awe of yourself?

charleshoskinson

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What happened to your new coin idea?

I was discussing a hypothetical situation where one takes DPOS and other components of the Bitshares ecosystem and sharedrops litecoin to a new chain. It was meant to be a discussion about how incumbancy value can be transfered and what factors aid or detract from it. Not a fully formed coin idea. Obviously the thread was poorly handled. Moving people off of bitcoin is going to require creativity and some solid data.

Offline Shentist

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