Focus areas - HackMD

--- tags: Welcome to web3, tezos title: Focus areas --- ## History - Bitcoin whitepaper - Cypherpunks - Double spending problem - Ethereum - Smart Contracts Platform ## Cryptography ## Tokens - Tokens vs. cryptocurrencies - In everyday speech, by 'cryptocurrency' or 'coin' we usually mean a representation of value that is built into the protocol layer of a blockchain. - In contrast, when we talk about 'tokens', we usually mean representations of value built above the protocol, as smart contracts in the application layer of a blockchain. - These definitions however are not hard and fast, and you may come across people referring to bitcoins (which are the protocol-level currency of the Bitcoin network) as 'tokens', or to more popular ERC-20 (application-layer) tokens on the Ethereum network as 'coins'. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this usage, but it's relatively rare compared to the division described above. - Token standards - Colored bitcoins - ERC-20 - FA1.2 - FA2 - Stablecoins - A stablecoin is a cryptographic token engineered to track the value of a fiat currency, or an explicit or implicit reference goods basket. It is called a 'stable' coin in contrast to the price volatility of untethered crypto tokens. Stablecoins can be pegged by a centralized market maker / issuer, or through a decentralized market making mechanism - USDT being an example of the former, and DAI of the latter. - Security token - A token that represents a 'paper asset', such as an share in a venture, a unit of debt, or some kind of derivative or synthetic asset. As such paper assets and their markets are highly regulated by states, the use of security tokens often falls under complex regulatory regimes. - Utility token - A token that, in contrast to security tokens, does not represent a paper asset, but an internal unit of exchange meant for use within a certain application ecosystem. It's a concept similar to reward points, gift cards, casino chips, video game currencies, etc. They generally fall under more loose regulatory regimes than security tokens. - NFTs - A Non Fungible Token (NFT) is a single token that represents a specific, unique 'thing', material or non-material. An NFT can represent many things, such as the 'original copy' of digital artwork in an abstract manner, ownership of a certain copyright license on a specific digital artwork, the ownership of a unique physical object held in storage by a custodian, etc... - Semi-Fungible tokens - Semi-fungible tokens, usually also lumped under the umbrella of NFTs, are 'classes' of tokens that represent equivalent, but specific 'things'. If they represent art, they are similar in concept to unnumbered signed copies. An unnumbered signed Picasso copy, discounting for condition, is equivalent to other unnumbered signed copies of the same series, but not equivalent to any other piece of art, or even to any other Picasso. Therefore 'semi-'fungible. - Fungible tokens - All tokens that represent liquid amounts rather than unique things are called fungible tokens. This includes cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, utility and security tokens among others. An ounce of gold is fungible with any other ounce of gold. A bitcoin is fungible with any other bitcoin. A Microsoft share is fungible with any other Microsoft share. A Lufthansa mile is fungible with any other Lufthansa mile. - Social token ## Protocol - What is a protocol - L1 - L2 ## Application layer - Smart Contracts - A smart contract is a computer program that implements and enforces a social or legal contract. The classic example for explaining smart contracts is a soda vending machine (the example was famously used by smart contract pioneer Nick Szabo). The vending machine has both soda and change in it, buy it prevents people from taking out soda without paying for it, or from taking out more change than they are due. - Smart contracts that run on a blockchain are auditable, and thus potentially trustable, as their code is public, authenticated and enforced by the blockchain. - Dapps - Distributed Applications, that include a blockchain-based smart contract component to enforce critical business logic. Note that not the entire application runs on the blockchain. ## Interoperability - Bridges - Application level ## Decentralisation - Maximalists - Maximalists are people who believe that a certain blockchain ('Bitcoin maximalists', 'Ethereum maximalists'), or cryptoeconomy as a whole ('crypto maximalists') are destined to become the dominant underpinning of human economy and society at a global scale, eventually displacing other systems such as states, banks, etc. - In the case of maximalists of a specific blockchain platform, this is expressed specifically in competition with and to the detriment of other blockchain platforms. ## Storage ## Privacy - Public blockchains - A public blockchain is maintained by an open community of validators, and is freely accessible to any participant who has the open source software implementing the blockchain protocol. As the name implies, all information saved on a public blockchain is public, and freely accessible to anyone at any time. - Private blockchains - A private blockchain is maintained by a closed group, such as a consortium of businesses or by government entities, closed off from public access, and usually implements private channels for handling sensitive data. Private blockchains provide a much lower degree of decentralization (sometimes, no decentralization at all) than public ones. - GDPR ## Wallets ## Digital Identity - SSI - ## Middleware ## DAOs ## NFTs ## DeFI - Exchanges - - AMM - # Web for the Arts and Cultures ### 45 min intro These below are the planned text on the actual slides. - What we'll be talking about - How is 'Web3' different from 'Web2'? - What does it mean for art and culture? Intro to the creation of Bitcoin (Jantine) - cypherpunk - economical crisis - double spending issue - - A little history: from Web1 to Web3 - 'Web1' 1993 - 2009 (Mosaic launch to Geocities USA shutdown) - Small static websites and 'forums' networked by 'portals' - Decentralized and egalitarian - many small gardens run by individuals - 'Global village,' a sense of innocence and community - 'Web2' 2004-20xx (Facebook launch to ...?) - Social networks - Easier for non-technical individuals to share content - Distribution centralized in the hand of a few corporations - End of the 'global village' myth - 'Web3' 2015-2xxx (Ethereum launch to ...?) - Bitcoin -> Ethereum - Distributed Applications (DApps) powered by DLT - Re-decentralization of content distribution - Community empowerment - Distributed Ledger Technology and Blockchain - Sources of trust - Personal relationships (non-systematic) - Personal interactions - Requieres trust - Doesn't scale - Trust system - Institutions - Requires trust - Scales - Trustless system - Ledger technology - Does not require trust - Enables personal interactions - Scales - Verifiable record (Jantine) - Ownership (certificate) - Data minisation (GDPR, principle) - Public vs private - Privacy (revealing) - Distributed Applications - Smart contract: a computer program that runs 'on' a ledger - Example (Nick Szabo): Soda vending machine - DLT makes the smart contract auditable - Auditability makes it trustable - Always be cautious - Backdoors and hacks - Upgradable smart contracts - Some key terms (Jantine) - Cryptocurrencies, tokens - Token standards (for example NFTs) - DAOs (Distributed Autonomous Organizations) - Clarifying commonly held beliefs - Crypto is anonymous / private - We're all going to live in the Metaverse - NFTs are bad for the environment - Crypto is just a toy for rich tech bros ### Extensive intro - Let's unpack: What is a ledger? - Information is a bad store of value (antiscarce) - Legal ownership is information: a story of changes of ownership - Value is being included in the story - A ledger is a formalized way of telling that story - What does it offer? - Trusted platform without a single trusted operator - No one entity or person owns or controls the platform - 'Administrators' are no longer omnipotent - Distributed tracking of ownership - Automated social agreements - The plug in the wall - Digital democracy, Ehud Shapiro (2018) - The Web1 / Web2 online platform as feudal fiefdom - Online communities are under constant threat - Destruction of their written history - Destruction of their shared space - Destruction of the community itself - Web3: many plugs in many walls - Examples for community resiliency in Web3 (Steem / Hive) - Community records and tools are public - Public blockchain - IPFS or other public hosting - Open source tooling - Challenges - Community trauma, 'loss of innocence' - Intellectual property (esp. names) - Anatomy of a distributed application - DLT-based components (smart contracts) - Distributed, non-DLT components (eg. IPFS) - Centralized, user-redeployable components - Integration with centralized systems - ‘DLT: Distributed Ledger Technology - Ledger: a formalized ‘story’ of changes of ownership - Extended definition: a formalized story of changes according to rules (eg. chess game) - Distributed ledger: a ledger kept by multiple independent entities - Blockchain: A specific technology that realizes a distributed ledger - Blocks of ledger entries (eg. money transfers) - Chained together chronologically through mathematical proofs - Introduction of blockchain and Web3 (why it came, what is decentralisation, what is ownership, what is peer to peer, what are autonomous entities, what is it today, what are the new models it brings, what blockchain is good for or not) - Commonly held truth vs. trusted arbiters of truth - Natural limits of social consensus - Technical consensus through mathematics and game theory - Web3 is digital commons technology - ideology around Web3 - alternatives exist (environmental impact, diversity, equity) - unpacking the myth and misconceptions around Blockchain and Web3 - Cryptocurrency is a “valuable piece of code”? - Code (information) is antiscarce - Ledger as a story; value as inclusion in the story - Statuts of data - It’s not ‘on the blockchain’, it’s ‘anchored to the blockchain’ - Security and privacy - It’s called a ‘public blockchain’ for a very good reason - hype (NFTs, Metaverse) - ‘Metaverse’ - Too much focus on 3d - 3d supermarket vs. Amazon - Non-physical community spaces have long existed - Early XX. century romantic writers, shared worlds - Late XX. century fandom, zine culture, alternate reality games - Early internet, text-based virtual spaces - Usenet - IRC - MUD/MUSH - Pre-web2 mature internet, forums and portals - Web2, social media - People may call it ‘metaverse’, but it’s just ‘the internet’ - What are smart contracts? - What is an interface? - Decentralization in practice - (E. Shapiro - plug in the wall) - example of hic et nunc - alternative ways of value creation: revenue streams, empowering communities - introduction of the concept of human coordination (definition, what are the new social models coming from Web3, governance / human coordination, tokens, one art related example)