Blockchain Explained by an Expert on five different progressive levels. By : WIRED
The five levels are Child, teenager, college student, graduate student and expert.
This research was contacted by Bettina Warburg, co-founder of Animal Ventures, She is a researcher of transformative technologies. She's cool. Let's hit it!
I think it was Einstein who said that if you cannot explain anything to a child, then you also don't get it. We test all levels here, explaining to all levels thoroughly!
Blockchain : Been on the market for sometime now, this technology allows us to decentralise trades. Blockchain is the key technology behind bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies. Blockchain allows us to do our trades much more peer to peer, cutting out the greedy middleman.
Level 1
5 year old pepper
Of course we start with the cute child. This is how it went.
Blockchain Expert (Warburg) : We are going to talk about Blockchain.
Pepper : What's Blockchain?
BE : That's a really good question. It's a way that we can trade. Do you know what trading is ?
Pepper : Its when you give away most of what you got right?
BE : That certainly does happen. Check this out, there's a technology that I'm working on that allows you to trade with any kid around the world! How about that?
Pepper : O'yeah? That's cool, I'd probably trade off staff I don't like much.
BE : yeah, give your used toys to the less fortunate right? It's always been about the store, or knowing the person to trade through right? With Blockchain you don't need the store or to know that other person.
Pepper : (whispers) For Real, For Reals?
BE : (whispered back) Yeah baby, for reals
Level 2 Teenager
13 year old IAN
BE : Ian, do you know what Blockchain is ?
IAN : No
BE : Have you ever traded or sold anything?
IAN : I am actually selling my PC on eBay right now.
BE : Why eBay?
IAN : The trust levels and credibility baby
BE : How about I tell you that Blockchain is life where you sell and buy staff without needing to pay eBay or any middleman. Like your connection to God, direct, no middleman.
IAN : Sounds cool, where do I sign up and how does it work?
BE : It's basically a network that connects computers that all have the same history of transactions. Instead of it being one company that has all the power, the power is in the people and you could have it too. And it gets validated by everyone.
IAN : where's the security in this ?
BE : Blockchain uses cryptography that basically encode all of the transactions, it's a tech trust thing like how you trust your electricity to work your phone and PC.
IAN : Ok Sexy, you got me there. Let's say you trade apples, I mean you got nice apples. So you'd just a bunch of endless numbers representing the transaction?
BE : Yeah, You know your apples! So Blockchain like this big ledger, that tracks all the transactions being traded except that instead of it being owned by one or several companies, it's owned by everyone on the network.
IAN : Cool Apples!
Level 3 College student
ALI REUBENSTONE
Economics and Finance Student
BARUCH COLLEGE
BE : Let's Talk about bitcoin alright?
ALI : What's that? The word kinda sounds familiar
BE : About a while ago we used to Bater trade right? I give you some apples and you give me some papayas right? As we moved more distance between us, middleman became a lot right? Like stores, banks, to cover the distance between supply and demand right? Blockchain cuts out the middleman, no need to waste you money on small fees and extra charges. You own the power!
ALI : So, you want get rid of the middleman?
BE : That's not relevant, we got BTC, ETH, and other cool coins that they can buy into and not need a middleman themselves.
Some people think BTC is Blockchain, just to clarify that BTC is an asset, a currency, a cryptocurrency on the Blockchain and Blockchain is the network hosting these type of currencies.
ALI : verification and security?
BE : For sure, we got KYC (Know Your Customer). Something you'll learn to not like as you test out different platforms to you liking.
Level 4, Grad student
Valentinas Rudy
Economics PHD student
BE : You look like you know about BTC. Let's talk Blockchain?
Rudy : If we have a transaction on the Blockchain it is logged and verified by the third party/Blockchain. The transaction only goes through if the Blockchains match up. This is logged in a larger for further transactions.
BE : You know the drills!
Rudy : The way technology is coming through, we will have to rewrite a lot of rules in economics and the whole market at large!
BE : Players and player mindset gets more advanced. Entire new concepts will be written to include machines and other entities in the market.
Rudy : Also when we talk about BTC we also talk about scams, thefts and lost BTCs, that brings distrust. Something to educate people about, awareness.
BE : Thats right! What's your view on the current Blockchain state?
Rudy : Blockchain is still being adapted by the world and it's able to do so much more to introduce much better transparency levels especially in the world of corruption. A lot of growth is still to be had.
BE : Yup, the future is pretty much Blockchained already!
Level 5 Expert
Finn Brutton
Historian, New York University
BE : What's your technical definition of Blockchain?
Finn : Blockchain is a persistent transparent append only ledger. It's a system that you can add data to and not change previously added/ existing data. It does this through a mechanism of creating concensus or distributed data between parties that do not need to trust each other but they just need to trust the mechanism at which their concensus has arrived at. In the case of Blockchain, they realize on some form of challenge such that one actor on the network is able to solve this challenge consistently. The Blockchain randomizes the process and in theory ensures that no one can force a Blockchain to accept a particular entry on the ledger that others have disagreed to with one that relies on the mechanism for peer to peer network that maintain updates to the ledger and then verify in such a manner that it is impossible to defraud and impossible to alter after the fact!
BE : Do you see it as a new discipline of kinds or where are we going to see Blockchain in action?
Finn : First I mean just so like as an example, one thing that I think about a lot in terms of Blockchain applications is electricity. The next generation of distributed smart grid technology effectively.......
BE : [Interludes] we are working on that
Finn : Yeah, it's this fruitful area of research and you can find yourself looking 20 years out, where you have all these electrical cars. With all these batteries, like that's essentially a distributed peak, load power grid right? Like the cars are getting plugged in and unplugged all the time, you got this mechanism that is able to automatically and autonomously be distributing power according to batteries that are scattered throughout the grid for purposes that their owners don't need to be aware, you begin to have something that looks like a much more viable society. Still with much more electricity needs but is able to base that much more on renewables to make up the difference during peak load periods or during difference in weather that is able to have power much closer to where it's needed rather than having to be distributed over long distances. That's something that would be an enormously hard problem to solve and Blockchain makes that possible.
BE : A lot of people are seeing blockchain on the news and seeing the initial coin offerings and monetisation opportunities around Blockchain, they get excited and some of that excitement is real and should be encouraged. Some of this excitement is hype, how do you feel about the hype?
Finn : ICOs (initial coin offerings) are epic! For me they examplified that the problem that we are having at this exact moment is is the pump and drums, the scams and the gold rush mindset around ICOs. True understanding of Blockchain applications should be well adopted.
BE : Absolutely, we need more information outlets about the wide utility of Blockchain. It's not all about the money, it's about getting to the next level. Blockchain phones, flawless, blockchain care, flawless, Blockchain drones, connected and incorruptible!
Finn : real world Blockchain applications and studies are needed. A definite must! There's so many nightmares that are going on in the world and are easily solved by the right application of blockchain.
BE : Definitely, Blockchain is the fix that we need, especially to these human errors that result in crime, death, damages, costs, discomfort and other levels of life. Blockchain being an incorruptible system, it definitely makes it very good to solve many of the corruptive lifestyles that we have adapted!
The experts went at each other like ham. To listen to the rest of the conversation, check it out on the WIRED CHANNEL!!!
It's absolutely delicious and fun to watch!!!