Ethereum BlockchainDisrupting the disruptors and everybody else

Stefaan Ponnet

Stefaan Ponnet

- 2014-2015 : Open services @ city of Antwerp- 2016 : A-Labs, the digital innovation lab at City of Antwerp- Currently involved in Arcade City : city oriented shared economy using

blockchain technology- blocksters.be - Blockchain consultants for hire

The Blockchain : From Bitcoin to Ethereum

Launched in 2008 as a peer-to-peer database ‘Bitcoin’

Chain of transactions

Replicated across all participants

Distributed consensus

“The blockchain’s distributed consensus model is the most important invention since the Internet itself”Marc Andreessen – Andreessen Horowitz

Transactions are bundled in blocks

Solve computation-intensive puzzle to nominate new blocks ( aka Mining )

Solving a puzzle is rewarded by cryptocurrency ( Bitcoin ) to pay for the cost of solving the puzzle

Decentralized

Database grows as long as there are nodes trying to nominate and verify new blocks

No dependency on a singe node - so practically impossible to alter or destroy

Use of cryptography ensures integrity and validity of transactions : efficient to verify if invalid transactions are added

Towards a peer-to-peer computing platform

Blockchain technology : decentralizing and securing transactions

No easy way to specify logic beyond transfer of value between accounts.

Ethereum evolves this concept towards a general purpose peer to peer computing framework

At the heart is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) allowing execution of programmed instructions stored withing the blockchain

Introducing state and transactions

Blocks contain not only latest transactions - but also state of member programs ( contracts )

In every block - it transitions to a new state

Protected against endless loops depending on the number of instructions executed and storage used by the contract

Contracts as accounts

Contract has a permanent address on the blockchain - gets assigned at creation time.

Contract contains a balance of cryptocurrency ( Ether )

If a contract contains no programmed instructions - it behaves as an account and can only send or receive ether from other accounts / contracts.

Contracts as decentralized executable programs

Ether required to call a contract - is consumed along with EVM calls to avoid infinite execution

Execution of a method can change the state of the contract ( fields )

Events : notify interested parties of the occurrence of certain events during lifetime

Contracts live forever on the blockchain

Transaction Network

Blockchains come in different flavours

Token Platform Contract Platform

Blockchains come in different flavours

What Blockchain can do for you and your business

Ethereum as the Universal API Layer

PeoplePeople

CompaniesGovernment

Sensors

Transactions

DAO: Decentralized autonomous organization

Venturecapital

Smart Contract

Voting

Service provider

Revenue

Invest

Dividend

Customers

Pay & Consume

Tokens Order & pay

Product / Service

Produce

Venturecapital

Venturecapital

Venturecapital

Venturecapital

Venturecapital

The “tokenized” style of business

https://coinmarketcap.com/assets/

Ethereum in the government world

Slow adoption

Lack of use cases

But there are huge opportunities !

The opportunities for government - New products and services

Identity can be managed as an asset by citizens themselves ( ex. Uport )

Trust can be tokenized

Reputation can be tokenized

Social behaviour can be incentivized

The opportunities for government - Decentralization

Radical transparancy can improve trust

Citizens can self-organize and form communities on a decentralized system.

Introspection about the raison-d-etre of each government service.

Thank you !

Stefaan Ponnet

@sponnet - stefaan@ponnet.com