Integrating blockchain and traditional web
- 1. Integrating Blockchain and Traditional Web Why it matters to the Enterprise Michael Coon CEO, BUIDLHub mdcoon@buidlhub.com
- 2. Who am I? - 20+ year veteran fullstack developer - Most of my time spent as an Enterprise engineer - Big data - Analytics - Business Intelligence - Automation - DevOps - 2017 found blockchain - Complete pivot to full time blockchain engineer - Created BUIDLHub to simplify integrating traditional and blockchain networks
- 3. Blockchain’s Purpose Why it matters for Enterprise and Innovation
- 4. Gatekeepers and Ground Truth - Will access to retirement records, ESOPs, insurance, or personal healthcare data always be maintained? Who do you really trust? - How do you verify authenticity of news, online content, or identities?
- 5. Blockchain...to the rescue? Automated Agreement on Ground Truth. Spoilers: it’s not a data panacea Consensus depends on how facts are verified and how much agreement exists for that verification. Its primary purpose: Protocol networks vary on consensus algorithms and what they are verifying.
- 6. Blockchains and other DLTs Perspective in 2020 is critical for newcomers Permissioned (public) Blockchain Post-BlockchainDLT Class Consensus Mechanism Examples Pluggable BFT PoW PoS DPoS SPoCKs DAGs Hashgraph Holochain HolochainHashgraphIOTABitcoin, Ethereum LibraHyperledger Fabric Stellar Tezos Flow This is what we’ll focus on.
- 7. Definition: A record keeping system where each record is linked by a bit of information from a previous record so that modifying any record in this “chain” would require modification of ALL record links. Blockchain (n.) -
- 8. Why This is so Fascinating - You can introduce financial incentives and game theory to give the actors unique motivations to participate. Past the theory, interesting possibilities arise... - You can define how networks agree on what gets included in the chain of records.
- 9. What If... Access to the things you use was no longer controlled by a single authority? Past the theory, interesting possibilities arise... Information could be authenticated by its origin, authors, and witnesses? Your personal identity could be verified without disclosing unnecessary info? Your records were guaranteed to always be available?
- 10. Blockchains provide access and ground truth for things we rely on today while ensuring the data exists well into the future
- 12. What is a block? - Each block holds many “transactions”, each one representing an exchange of value or interaction between parties. What goes into each “record” - All the details of blocks and transactions are encoded according to its network protocol. - “Miners” are responsible for verifying contents of a block.
- 13. What are wallets & addresses? - Addresses are on-chain locations derived from public keys Between what are transactions being sent? - Each wallet has public/private key pair. - Private keys used to “sign” transactions - Signatures can be reversed to verify public addresses and thus authenticate ownership.
- 14. What is a Smart Contract? - Beyond balance transfers, transactions can include code. As imagined on the Ethereum network protocol - This code is forever stored on-chain and can be executed using instructions contained in each transaction. - Contracts can maintain “state” using variables manipulated with each transaction. - Smart contracts cannot reach out for data, data must be sent to it.
- 15. What is a token? - A digital asset whose ownership is verified on a blockchain, issued and managed by a smart contract. Don’t get any ideas for a token offering - Most popular platform for issuing and managing tokens is Ethereum, with these token standards: ERC-20: fungible tokens (coins) ex: Miners in the Tellor oracle network receive $TRB. ERC-721: non-fungible tokens ex: a gamer bought a new digital trading card in Gods Unchained
- 16. To Summarize Protocol NetworksBlockchains are agreeing on block contents which are transactions representing exchanges addressesbetween and/ortokens code holding representing smart contracts
- 17. Is it ready for mainstream?
- 18. Maturity ● Equivalent to early internet ○ Like interpreting a website by reading its HTML ● Evolving ecosystem ○ Many changes, many of them not backwards compatible ● Requires a lot of technical knowledge ○ Caters to developers and the DIYer Can I trust the technology that enables trust?
- 19. Compatibility ● Every network has its own protocol and data structure ○ Similar to the PC and Internet standards of 1980’s ● There are ongoing attempts to support cross-chain communications ○ Imagine the Internet without TCP/IP or HTTP ● Network interaction requires specialized “nodes” ○ Probably same as early Internet “terminals” Can I use my current tech stack?
- 20. Data Access ● Insider knowledge required ○ Although quickly evolving, there is no DNS equivalent yet ● Browser is not compatible ○ No standard HTTP/REST APIs to use yet ● Interactions require specialized codecs ○ Each app is a snowflake with specific encoding Can I just read the data that’s there?
- 21. Mitigations How can I still move forward? Maturity - Abstraction is critical - Expect and budget for changes - Pilots and prototypes - Support services, not core mission Compatibility - Align blockchain stack to your problem - Keep up with news and trends - Rely on 3rd party services for now until standards arise Data Access - Look for specific applications and know their API/ABI - Rely on dev tools like Remix and BUIDLHub
- 22. Current Practical Uses for Blockchain
- 23. Practical Uses Right Now Rather than shill more hype, what’s really possible? Access Control - Access Management (ex: Unlock Protocol) - Proving Attendance (ex: POAP) - Subscriptions Employee Stock Option Plans - Stock plans represented as tokens (ex: Quidli) Data Integrity - Record hashes on-chain as time-stamped records of contents Supply Chain - IoT Tracking goods from origin to destination (ex: Dole, Walmart) - Verifying location (ex: FOAM)
- 24. Access Control: Case Study Using NFT’s to grant access to chat rooms An NFT can define privileges Determine what users can do from metadata: (ex: expiration time, permissions, feature controls) Verify ownership to grant access Read an NFT token’s metadata Middleware Solutions How to read smart contract with traditional infra? Real World Example Discord chat server roles based on NFT ownership
- 25. Chatbots ● Chatbots are granted permissions within chat groups and listen to user messages and events. ● You can have them respond to specific “commands” or requests made in the chat. ● You could keep the room free from spammers and bad actors. ● We can also use them to bridge between blockchain and the chat servers.
- 26. Discord - Popular chat platform with gamers and blockchain devs Bridge between blockchain and the chat servers. - Discord “servers” represent chat groups composed of many many “channels” - Channels can be private and require specific roles
- 27. Discord Bots and NFTs POAP approached BUIDLHub to build a bot to verify channel access based on NFTs 1. Event planners configure Discord servers and roles, based on the event metadata. 2. Conference attendees are given physical badges with QR codes that record badge ownership on-chain. 3. Attendees use a utility to verify ownership and create request access token for the Discord bot. 4. Attendee joins the Discord server. And their interaction with the BUIDLHub bot grants access.
- 28. The Value of This - What’s the difference between centralized DB and middleware validator? - Centralized DB is not accessible by external entities. If it goes away, you lose access, period. - Middleware validator is replaceable because it simply reads the blockchain. It’s a library, not a company The solution is resilient: anyone can write a bot to perform similar functions (BUIDLHub is just 100x more convenient) - Privileges can have different meanings for different platforms from the same metadata. - Anyone can grant access privileges. So long as the network is alive, data is available, forever. Potential Uses: Annual Training Requirements University Transcripts SaaS Platform Subscriptions Software Feature Licenses
- 29. KEY POINT: Decentralization is NOT about removing centrally managed servers or DBs. It’s about giving people options!
- 30. How do I experiment with this?
- 31. Integration Strategies Specifically for Ethereum Web3/ethers.js - Low-level API - Create abstracts that wrap these libs - Use Infura as “provider” TheGraph - graphQL access to app data - Access for some, but not all, apps BUIDLHub - No-code middleware automation between blockchain and traditional web Infura - Access to blocks/txns from HTTP endpoint - Easy to get started - FREE
- 32. No-code automation platform that acts as middleware between blockchain and traditional apps. Bbuidlhub.comm
- 33. POAP Demo ● Using NFTs to access resources ● Novel use of blockchain outside of FinTech/DeFi ● Other use cases ○ Confirm mandatory financial or medical training ○ University/class attendance ○ Incentives for employee participation
- 34. Questions?