Certified Blockchain Professional - Module 11: Industry Use Cases

As previously discussed, I'm doing the Certified Blockchain Professional course. It is self-directed learning, so I'm going through it at my own pace. In order to consolidate my learning, and help organise my thoughts, I'm blogging about my reflections on each module.

These are mostly notes to myself - but I hope if you find something interesting (or incorrect) that you'll leave a comment.

Where and how will blockchain revolutionise industries? Another hopelessly optimistic chapter.

Can blockchain prevent the "horsemeat" scandal? Transparency of supply chains for consumers and industry. (No, because of the Oracle Problem)

Cost saving; if all participants in food supply chain starting from the source to supermarket share the same blockchain, there is no need to use seperate [sic] IT systems to manage records and inspections.

Ignore the competitive advantage supermarkets have in supply-chain and logistics software.

Ethical sourcing - but, again, how do you tie a chicken's welfare to the box, or the egg, that you buy?

Identity. PKI as the solution to all life's ills. Ignores how hard it is for users to use of manage.

blockchain-based online digital identity allows control over personal information sharing. Users can see who used their data and for what purpose and can control access to it. This is not possible with the current infrastructures which are centrally controlled.

Again, nonsense. This is possible with a centralised system. But what bit of Blockchain prevents someone from viewing data they've previously had access to but you've rescinded?

Zooko's Triangle - name protocols must be human-readable, secure, and decentralised.

Namecoin. A fork of Bitcoin. A way to register key/value pairs. Storage and transfer of keys, 520 bytes(!) of data, and a cryptocurrency. Namecoin is a merged mining protocol. The Namecoin block is created and the hash of it is added to a Bitcoin block. Supposed to solve the "slowness" of DNS - but no mention of speed given.

Post-trade settlement. A possibly useful use-case! Removal of central clearing houses - and other custodians. A shared ledger gives a single view of the truth. Useful for regulators as well.

Decentralised storage. Like any P2P system - but with an incentive to store the file.

ASSIGNMENT

• Read the whitepaper from sovrin at https://sovrin.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Sovrin-Protocol-and-Token-White-Paper.pdf
• What problems does online identity face and how is sovrin aiming to solve them?
  • Self Sovereign Identity. Proving who I am without intermediaries.
  • "Where is the digital equivalent of a passport, driver’s license, or birth certificate that we can just “show” to a website to register, login, or verify our rights and privileges?"
  • Use of W3C Decentralised IDs to *hand wave* put PKI on the Blockchain.
  • Verified credentials. An issuer signs a claim, the owner countersigns the claim, a verifier verifies the signatures. Put it all on a chain.
  • Selective disclosure allows a zero-knowledge proof. E.g. show you're over 18 rather than exact date of birth.