It has been a while since I've updated the blog on what's been percolating in my noggin on the blockchain front. Here's a rundown.
First off, it turns out that my new friend Mark Jeffrey is putting together folks and had a really good turnout in Santa Monica. The oven is warm, and although what's baking for the most part is only half-baked, it does smell delicious. I met a few really sharp folks to bounce ideas off of and this has turned out to be a really good workout. I'd say there were about seven rows of seven seats across at MetaX meat space and a lot of good questions and energy was maintained by the half dozen speakers that entered the lightning round. I would say that I'm prepared to give a shout next time as I review the following paragraphs with my crew at Full 360.
So what's new and big in my mind about the blockchain technologies has more to do with what kind of database a distributed database essentially is and why that would be advantageous over a centralized database. What we do every day is create multi-tier data-centric applications. So we have an idea of what it means to manage data across 'platforms' as it were, using specialized data stores on a purpose driven basis. But still it operates as one system in a secured private space belonging to one entity who is extracting value from its use and control. But why use a decentralized data store? That's the big question. When I answer it, I will naturally be drawn to build a hybrid. Why not control an analytic portal against public blockchains? That's my inclination.
Eric Chung is the founder of the Dapp Developer's Bootcamp. I intend to spend a day learning EVM and all that in the beginning of September just before the launch of Destiny. I will also be attending Big Data Day this summer and BlockCon in the fall. But what my first instinct told me about Solidity, the new Dapp language that I expect is edging out Geth (dunno really) is why we should trust entirely new languages to write smart contracts. Why not simply write extensions to better known languages to promote adoption? So I hope to answer that question by the fall.
Beyond that here are a few idea areas.
Decentralized Organization
This is going to be huge and falls naturally in my management consulting wheelhouse. I'm going to work with Marc Danziger to flesh this out, as soon as he liberates some time away from the Drama in NYC he must deal with in his new gig. As that settles down, we'll be able to brainstorm a good deal of powerpoint and charge a fee. I'm looking forward to associate myself with this chitlin circuit, because I hella know how to present. Don't believe me, just watch.
The Dark Side
Another good friend of mine knows very well what happens to bad actors who get busted. So I will like to help out when he too gets less busy. Whatever sidechains can do for train of custody looks to be a brilliant application for the court system and registry of bad actors.
Common Adaptation
There are fewer than 20 ATMs in Los Angeles from which one can buy and sell bitcoin. I'm not sure about other cybercurrencies but if this technology is going to take off, then somebody is going to have to dare the 13 year old boy to eat the first oyster. Talking about eating the first oyster sounds like an act of desperation if you're not thinking specifically of 13 year old boys. We will have to find the daring youth in this. Where are they. What do they want? Also, how does anyone valuate labor markets? There could be a laborcoin.
Loyalty Exchanges
eBay was a no-brainer. But how do you ebay all of the various coupons and pseudo-currencies of the world? There used to be something I think called 'Belly' in the Hawaiian restaurant I used to go to. I gathered a bunch of Belly points and now they have disappeared. There's got to be a better way to establish a market for marketing loyalty. It just happens that Full 360 knows a lot about loyalty systems. I think we can do something here.
If this gains adoption, one idea is that a charity portal would be useful for metered giving to non-profits. Of all the things that need transparency and proper care and feeding of contributors, that whole ecosystem of charitable organizations could most definitely benefit. At some point if the right legislation is passed, providers of blockchain transparency will have a sinecure similar to those companies who provide core banking software.
Triple Entry Ledger Accounting
This is, to my lights, going to be the future auditor's best friend. So good in fact, that it is reasonable to expect a great deal of resistance as well as off-books trickery. In any case there will be IOT gas costs for which bot-farmers will not tolerate cheating. So there are certain accounting for latency in transaction that will be very useful to understand, a redefinition of suspense accounting, if you will. Fast suspense. Along with this comes high speed inter-transaction accounting. I wish I could remember where that paper was that I read. Damn me for not putting it in Evernote.
Reference Data
When I was at the New York Banking Summit a couple years ago, the hot topic was the new regulatory requirements for risk accounting. Banks that are not hedge funds, if my guess is correct owing to my time on Wall Street, make some ballsy moves without fully accounting for what might be the blowback. Big partners roll that way. At any rate, these new regulations forced them to consider Spark over their sluggish HDFS. They clearly were not doing daily reviews of their portfolios but running on the guts of the masters of their universes. Clever perhaps but not wise - the equivalent of running corporate books off Excel which is a lot more common than anyone would think. At any rate, the smartest guys there said public, reference data would be a goldmine if somebody could figure how to do it. You guessed it. The answer is blockchain.
Tax Coins
You and I both want transparency in government spending. The enemies of sloth are ever present. But we just might chase them down.
McLabor Coins
So the idea here is that you firstly can make coins behave like shares in an ETF. The intellectual property then is the masterminding of the algorithm that prices those puppies against this or that option on this or that indicator. Same as it ever was, except allow the public to trade themselves, and then take the gas money as your reward. In the case of McLabor, somebody needs to index that which is human labor vs bot labor by industry by manual function. A global index of manual labor would be a wonderful thing. It will modernize the third world and make the infrastructure advantage of certain western countries more obvious than it already is. But I like the idea of working from home in some other real estate market with a climate similar to Los Angeles. Perhaps off the Agean.
That's a head full of ideas. You heard it here first.
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