1. 1. Industry-specific blockchains Aron van Ammers Blockstars.io
2. 2. A bit about me Aron van Ammers Active in fintech (more "TECH" than "fin") Background: Model Driven Software engineering, University of Twente
3. 3. A bit about me Background: CTO of I&DT, building Curasoft, SaaS for health care
4. 4. Blockstars.io Incepted 2014 A full-service agency dedicated to designing, developing, launching and managing blockchain businesses Projects MoneyCircles.com AssetCha.in More projects in stealth Consultancy
5. 5. Perspectives I look at (de-)centralized development from a business perspective within an ethical social and environmental context. The development and usage of decentralized systems is in its infancy. Much of what is actually useful and how to apply it is yet to be discovered. Blockchains can range from fully public to fully private, fully open to permissioned, each have their (dis)advantages.
6. 6. Smart contracts on a blockchain Verifiable, incorruptible shared data "The Bitcoin balance of address 1AbCdE.. is 3 BTC" "This land deed is owned by Ms. Jane Doe since March 20, 2011" Verifiable, incorruptible shared logic "The vote has been executed fairly" "The land deed has been transferred to the new owner according to the agreed upon rules" Achieved through a consensus mechanism
7. 7. The technology landscape
8. 8. Public? Private? Decentralized? Fully public blockchains have great merits but also great challenges (see Bitcoin block size debate) "Permissioned blockchain" does not mean: "all open principles of Bitcoin go down the drain" or "slamming the 'blockchain' label on a fully centralized solution"
9. 9. Examples of "traditional" industry-wide systems iDeal payment system: banks working together to achieve something larger XML-EDI systems: structured information interchange between companies in a certain industry Electronic invoicing of insured health expenses (VECOZO)
10. 10. Some ideas Agriculture: traceability of foods from field to mouth Logistics: traceability and interchange of cargo Banking: transfers, settlements Health care: electronic health records Centralized approaches have failed (Dutch national EPD, Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault, ). Maybe the blockchain was a missing link? Health care: financial flows
11. 11. Some first attempts ABN AMRO: internal fork of Ripple (which is not a blockchain but has similarities) http://www.bitcoincongres.nl/, start video at 1:38:00 Industry-wide or company-wide? Blockchain Health (Melanie Swan) Electronic health records, medical document verification http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20140929 IBM ADEPT, Internet of Things PoC with Samsung http://www.slideshare.net/_hd/ibm-adept
12. 12. What could an industry-specific blockchain look like? Shared rulebooks and data are in the blockchain Permissioned commits, public insight Inception: Top-down: consortium of industry bodies, businesses Bottom-up: independent parties create a system that can't be ignored Governance: Voting through smart contracts Membership (who is allowed to commit) Development of the smart contract system itself
13. 13. Opportunities Open, verifiable systems Smoother interaction between organizations Solving the N^2 problem (50 companies talking to each other require 2500 implementations) Lower trust barriers Both for new entrants and incumbents
14. 14. Challenges Unknowns: Infancy of technology, business models, experience Incentive to start: from the perspective of a single business, the system is only useful once it's been realized Privacy of data Publicly verifiable logic and private data are opposing forces Methods for secret sharing and homomorphic encryption are being developed (see also http://enigma.media.mit.edu/) Adoption Borders (where does "this industry" end and the other begin?) Smart contracts might turn into a centralizing factor, not a decentralizing one See Ian Grigg's http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001553.html
15. 15. Takeaway Industry-wide systems are difficult in any case; blockchains and smart contracts might help Blockchains can contribute to more open, verifiable systems even if not fully public Large-scale implementations are quite far away, but when they gain traction, impact will be profound
16. 16. Contact @aronvanammers @blockstarsio Slides will be on: http://www.slideshare.net/Blockstarsio