The Future of Blockchains & Decentralization

Editor's Notes

• #4: Tokens coordinate efforts in the network and motivate responsible participation
• #15: Blockchain adoption will help boost the confidence of the general public in the technology and, ultimately, speed up the inevitable transformation of tomorrow’s economy. Or should I say the day after tomorrow’s economy?
• #16: Cross-border commerce. Free from tariffs, duty fees, governmental regulations, and all the other rules that complicate and stifle the movement of goods and services from one country to another, blockchain is essentially borderless. This not only simplifies and secures such commerce, it also dramatically reduces the cost and time that these transactions customarily take.
• #18: Setup micropayment channel network to keep most transactions off the blockchain. Examples: Raiden Network & Lightning Network Overall state of Blockchain is separated into different “shards”, Each part of the state is stored and processed by different nodes in the network. Each shard only processes a small part of the state and does so in parallel. Execute computations off-chain in a way that is secure and verifiable. Moving the computations and verification process off the blockchain into a separate protocol, can achieve high transaction throughput. Directed Acyclic Graph don’t require every node to process every transaction in a linear fashion. Another DAG-based approach, SPECTRE protocol, uses DAG of blocks and mines DAG blocks in parallel to allow for more throughput and higher transaction times.
• #19: Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange establishes a shared secret between two parties. This can then be used to exchange messages privately over a public network. The sender and receiver can share ECDHM addresses publicly, then use their shared secret to derive anonymous Bitcoin addresses. These address can only be revealed by those in possession of the secret. The only thing publicly visible is the reusable ECDHM addresses. Therefore, a user doesn’t have to worry about transactions being traced. Type of group signature allowing a member of a group to anonymously sign a message on behalf of the group zk = zero-knowledge. Doesn’t require knowledge of the information to prove that the information exists; SNARK: Succinct Non-interactive Adaptive ARgument of Knowledge. “Succinct” means a succinct proof that can be verified quickly. “Non-interactive” means doesn’t require the verifier to interact with the prover. Instead, the prover can publish their proof in advance, and a verifier can make sure it’s correct. “Adaptive argument of knowledge” means a proof of knowledge of some computation. ZK-STARKs resolve one of the primary weaknesses of Zk-SNARKs: its reliance on a trusted setup. They’re also simpler because they rely purely on hashes and information theory, and are more secure against quantum computers since they don’t use elliptic curves or exponent of exponent assumptions. Code Obsfurcation TEE guarantees code and data loaded inside is protected with respect to confidentiality and integrity. This trusted environment runs in parallel with the user-facing operating system, but is intended to be more private and secure than the user-facing OS.