A blockchain standards group made up of hundreds of businesses and tech development members has unveiled its first specification for enabling the development of peer-to-peer, decentralized networks explicitly for automating corporate transactions.
The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) last week released the Enterprise Ethereum Client Specification 1.0, an open-source framework to speed business transactions, boost privacy for contracts and create a faster, more efficient business transaction workflow.
The EEA Specification and its architecture stack is based on blockchain components developed by the Ethereum Foundation, the organization behind the world's second most valuable cryptocurrency: Ether.
By using the EEA's new specification, developers can write code that enables interoperability between businesses and their customers, either over a permissioned or public blockchain. The specification sets up a framework for setting up permission to join a blockchain network.
"You think about where Ethereum currently sits. It has great core competencies around value transfer, sending people Ether. It's created the standard for fundraising through token offerings [initial coin offerings]," said Tom Lombardi, EEA's head of market development. "But the goal of the alliance is to build a framework where we can use Ethereum, which has the largest developer based in the world, in a corporate setting.
"These large companies have compliance hurdles, legal hurdles and certain levels of bureaucracy where they have to check all the boxes before they can use a technology like this," Lombardi said.
The blockchain specification and its architectural stack promises greater transactional efficiency because it allows data to be taken "off-chain," or outside the primary blockchain ledger and processed in a separate database behind a firewall. The primary blockchain is then only used to validate completed transactions and can create a separate hash to represent the data offline for privacy and security.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 22 2018, @12:42PM (15 children)
Another buzzword that get VCs all excited but most of the times means jack shit in an actual business context.
Why a blockchain is needed to create a "faster, more efficient business transaction workflow" is beyond me. Or rather, the phrase is pretty typical of marketing rah-rah aimed squarely at angel investors who have no clue what they invest in, so long as the Powerpoint contains the right buzzwords-du-jour.
The only valid use of a blockchain in this context would be accountability. But efficiency and speed are certainly not gonna be helped by an enormous electronic ledger that requires cryptographic functions to parse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:25PM
So. Make of that what you will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:32PM (11 children)
So much of the corporate world is managing the logistics of the paper trail, not only for avoiding theft but also for maintaining compliance with regulators. The amount of analog resources (including millions of who human beings) are put to this soul-crushing task, and even then the results are suspect.
You are laughably underestimating the potential gains from converting the whole world's logistics to what is basically a bunch of "git" repos, some of which can even be opened up to maintenance by anybody on the planet.
On this issue, your mind is small that it makes me shake my head in pity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:39PM (5 children)
Give us a concrete example, instead of a management on drugs vibe.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:18PM
I don't owe you anything, and I don't want anything from you.
Keep your head stuck in the sand, just like all the other people who laughed at "the cloud" and every other innovation that has become before.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:48PM
I don't owe you anything, and I don't want anything from you.
Keep your head stuck in the sand, just like all the other people who laughed at "the cloud" and every other innovation that has become before.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:05PM
I don't owe you anything, and I don't want anything from you.
Keep your head stuck in the sand, just like all the other people who laughed at "the cloud" and every other innovation that has become before.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:08PM
I don't owe you anything, and I don't want anything from you.
Keep your head stuck in the sand, just like all the other people who laughed at "the cloud" and every other innovation that has become before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:05PM
some suit from credit suise was interviewed b/c they had a blockchain conference and he said they(credit suisee or the whole industry?) were going to save billions (per quarter?) due to getting to fire all the mid level paper pushers. i say bring it on. fuck all those bankster scum with their degree in usury.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:24PM (4 children)
So much of the corporate world is about partial revelation of information, likelihood of discovery during audit, disclosure of what is provably required, and more than that: commonly accepted practices of partial disclosure and partial compliance.
Bad car analogy: In today's world, there are speed limits, but very few drivers actually obey them. The technology exists (and has existed for decades) to efficiently identify over-the-speed-limit vehicles and their drivers and automatically enforce punitive measures, up to and including impounding the offending vehicle and arresting the driver within hours of observing an infraction, yet we all seem to agree that 100% enforcement of the law to ensure 100% compliance is not what we really want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:29PM (2 children)
Expose the State for the overbearing, thieving, authoritarian knuckle-draggers that they are, and thereby force real structural changes to the way society is organized.
You know what? The speed limit on this road should be 45 MPH, not 35 MPH, and we have the data to prove it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:47PM (1 child)
The best kind of liberty: forced structural change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:10PM
A bullet to the brain, or acquiescence to facts. Your choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:27AM
If people started driving the speed limit, the state would be bankrupt in a couple of months. They even admit to setting the speed limit 10-20 km/h lower than what they want people to drive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:03PM
"But efficiency and speed are certainly not gonna be helped by an enormous electronic ledger that requires cryptographic functions to parse."
yes it will because they are talking about replacing humans with software. they just don't like to say that.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:25PM
Another buzzword that get VCs all excited but most of the times means jack shit in an actual business context.
The best example being that iced tea company from a while back:
$24 million iced tea company says it's pivoting to the blockchain, and its stock jumps 200% [cnbc.com]
If that doesn't scream "bubble" I don't know what does!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @12:49PM (22 children)
Does anyone here know to what degree the Ethereum IP is open vs protected / patented? I know the original bitcoin is free, while bitcoin cash is going for patents.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Snow on Tuesday May 22 2018, @03:02PM (7 children)
Bitcoin Cash is open source just like bitcoin is. People are free to build upon that if they choose. They can patent their additions. Saying Bitcoin Cash is going for patents is false.
If you want to make the argument that nChain is trying to patent things and allow them to be used freely on the BCH chain (which hasn't happened), then I would counter that with blockstream owning patents around Segregated Witness (which has happened).
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @03:21PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:02PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:12PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:17PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:22PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:13PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:37PM
... in threads about blockchain stuff, and he always has something stupid or ignorant to say.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jdavidb on Tuesday May 22 2018, @03:34PM (13 children)
Just the nChain company and their main engineer. Most of the rest of the Bitcoin Cash community doesn't believe in patents or any sort of intellectual property.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:05PM (12 children)
Thanks, I watched an nChain video once upon a time - the (pompous ass of an) nChain spokesperson sort of attempted to subsume the Bitcoin Cash brand for themselves.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:40PM (11 children)
I assume you are talking about Craig Wright. He's no spokesperson. He's the founder of nChain. He has also claimed to be Satoshi, but failed to provide proof.
Craig is a smart guy who knows a lot about crypto. He also likes to make HUGE claims and them back them up with little more than hot air. Anything Craig says should be taken with heaps of salt.
I have not seen any indication that anyone is trying to 'subsume' the Bitcoin Cash brand.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @07:05PM (10 children)
I was watching more in entertainment than academic learning mode, but how you describe Craig Wright does fit the guy I saw (he was one of a number on some crazy multi-site video-conference webinarish thing.) Anytime he spoke during that presentation he left the impression that he, personally, was Bitcoin Cash - calling the shots, telling how it is, etc. Clearly, he's not representative of the entire Bitcoin Cash community, but he was heavy on the Bitcoin Classic community bashing.
The thing I watched was recorded ~9 months ago and promised "big things" in the next 6 months - which, if they have happened, do not seem to have rocked the world yet.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday May 22 2018, @07:54PM (9 children)
Those 'big things' have yet to happen. Classic Craig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @08:35PM (8 children)
Yeah, the other thing I read from him was: he doesn't give a damn about the democratization of the system - RaspberryPi nodes GTFO, we have simulated block sizes up to 1GB and the system works fine, it doesn't matter that only a few people will be able to afford the equipment necessary to implement the network, etc. etc. Like you say, he's a bright guy, but he reminds me of some other bright (and enormously rich/successful/powerful) people I've met talked with over the years: they don't know what they don't know - there are huge gaps in their understanding of the world at large and how successfully some new ideas will roll out - they may have sound logic, their ideas may even prove out on balance sheets, cost benefit ratios, etc. but there are some things that just won't fly for other reasons that they don't seem to even be aware of. Not that I (or anyone else) is any better - none of us knows everything we don't know.
I wish it was fresher in my mind - most of what Craig said seemed at least plausible, but then he dropped one enormous turd of an idea that just wouldn't fly in any world I have known, and he seemed to genuinely believe it was not only the future, but imminent.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday May 22 2018, @08:59PM (7 children)
RaspberryPi nodes can GTFO. I don't see the point in crippling a new technology so that it can be run on shitty hardware.
I don't give a shit if my mom can't run a node on her 10 year old computer.
I don't give a shit if someone who can only get dial-up service can't run a node.
Hell, I don't even give a shit if you need a data center quality Internet connection to run a node (one day...).
All that matters is: a) can it be shut down by a 3rd party? b) can a 3rd party censor transactions
If Bitcoin (or Bitcoin Cash or whatever) requires petabytes of storage and gigabit links and dozens of CPUs to run, that's fine. Banks can run nodes. Large businesses can run nodes. Governments can run nodes. That doesn't weaken Bitcoin. It would still be impossible to censor/shut down.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @09:28PM (6 children)
Oh, I don't disagree with the Pi's GTFO, but if you're going to require a node to have ridiculously spec'ed (say $50K+) hardware and/or network connectivity just to be able to participate in the network, that is changing the nature of the beast, and moving it away from some of the roots that were key to its first 8 years of success. This wasn't the giant turd.
If you're going to put it back into the hands of a few large and well known entities, why not just issue the blockchain mutually signed by a majority of the players' published public/private key pairs and be done with POW for nonces? If it's running in those class of installations, it's not like they're going to let Hugo Drax sign on anonymously from his secret lair and start transacting with them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday May 22 2018, @10:25PM (5 children)
That is not changing the nature of the beast. That was always the plan.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/287/ [nakamotoinstitute.org]
PoW requires actual, physical inputs. You need mining hardware, electricity and time. Some other signature based system (Proof of Stake, trusted nodes like MasterNodes, etc) do not have any physical input so a group could theoretically collude and instantly overwrite the entire chain. Proof of work means that if you want to try rewrite the chain, you need to surpass the work already in the existing chain - a much higher barrier.
Regarding large nodes and exclusivity. Running a node doesn't do anything for the security of the network. Your node at home doesn't secure the blockchain. All it does is independently verify it. That is something that you can offload onto someone else. If 1000 different University say it's good and 100 different governments say it's good and 10,000 different business say it's good, then it's probably good. If you don't believe them, then you can lay out the $50K or whatever an independently verify it. No one will stop you.
If you have 10,000's of nodes being run by large entities, it would be very very difficult to get all those different players to collectively refuse transactions from a specific source.
But really, all that is moot anyways, because it's the miners that actually choose what transactions make it into a block -- not the nodes.
*****
As a side note, the only transaction censoring that I am aware of ever happening in Bitcoin, was implemented by a Bitcoin Core Developer (LukeJr).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2ityg2/warning_bitcoin_address_blacklists_have_been/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 22 2018, @11:26PM (4 children)
So, if it costs $50K+ entry fee to operate a mining node, doesn't that concern you even a little bit that the exclusive club of big players (like banks) will move the system in directions that benefit them, and take advantage of people who do not have the buy-in capability? Sidenotes not withstanding:
when mining becomes an exclusive club, behaviors will inevitably change.
Yes...ish. Forgive me if I ramble: If you've transacted with a POS or other type of chain without the "chain with the most work wins" component to it, then an individual or group could write their own version of history starting back before your transaction up to the present, but that would not invalidate your transaction on the chain you transacted with. In this "alternate chain" coins could be spent differently, your receipt of coin transaction could be missing (would be if transactions require offer and acceptance), but as long as you have a copy of the chain you have worked with, you know that transaction history was valid - all the stakeholders signed off release and acceptance of funds correctly, otherwise your chain would not have validated in the first place.
Option A: The alternate history chain is just an artifact of separated islands of processing, all transactions in both chains were made by honest players who did not double-spend - the two chains can be merged without conflict and your value will remain, unaltered.
Option B: players have been double spending, the transactions look valid in their respective chains, but if the two chains are merged there will be one or more double-spends. The big problem with Option B is when honest players have been transacting on both chains, somebody has been burned by the double-spend. If a single bad actor goes and rewrites history giving his coins to (other aspects of) himself instead of others, who would have any incentive to pick up his alternate history and extend it?
The trick, as I see it, is to widely advertise the "one true chain" implicitly invalidating transactions which contradict it. As long as honest players can obtain reasonably recent copies of the "one true chain" then any alternate history chains with double-spends in them should be easily ignored, identifiable by their lack of authentication; signature by master nodes, or some consensus of well known or otherwise trusted nodes, should be sufficient to establish what is the "one true chain" with the same oft-repeated caveat of: if >50% of the trusted nodes defect and start endorsing an alternate history, then users won't know which is the "one true chain."
The only difference I see for POW is that it is prohibitively expensive to overtake 51% of the (present) mining capacity (might not have been inconceivable in 2009), whereas with trusted nodes the real-world cost of standing up a large number of non POW type nodes is much less, if they can achieve trusted status without some real-world cost. Harking back to the "Bitcoin uses more electricity than Austria" article, linking trust to something other than expenditure of electrical power would seem to be a noble goal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:05AM (3 children)
How could they? You outline the attack vector below. It has everything to do with hash power, and nothing do to with the number of nodes. The relatively small number of miners(pools) /is/ a major problem. A different attack vector could be to infiltrate the development team and steer from the inside out.
It already is.
Agreed 100%. I had never really thought about how a PoS double spend would go down in the detail you provided. Thanks for that. It's interesting that you would have 100% cryptographic proof if someone tried a double spend attack. It still doesn't necessarily get your coins back, but it would cause a ruckus.
Philosophically, I feel that Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash are founded on the PoW method, and I feel that it should remain that way forever. To most of us BCHers, the whitepaper is gospel. The white paper is bitcoin and bitcoin is the white paper. That is the vision.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:36AM (2 children)
This is my biggest concern for any system going forward - it evolves (devolves?) into politics, and without meaningful participation by "the unwashed masses", "the unwashed masses" will get screwed.
As a brand, I agree completely. Forgive me if I wish them to wither and shrink into obscurity so that we might use the POW energy for literally anything else, I hope they can be replaced by something that provides equal or greater value, with dramatically reduced costs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday May 23 2018, @02:41AM (1 child)
My comment to infiltrate the dev team was tongue in cheek.
I believe it already happened. The original devs were either bought or pushed out. I've been watching the bitcoin scene fervently since 2013. Bitcoin was stolen.
Here is a taste:
https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/informative_btc_vs_bch_articles/dl8v4lp/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 24 2018, @03:39PM
Thanks for that... it was pretty obvious in 2013 that "big money" had come to play, and that's going to steamroller the early dev group.
I had a similar thing happen in my first "real job" at a small company, we broke new ground in the polysomnograph analysis area in the early 1990s, showing things that the big players hadn't conceived of yet: they were still making bank with recording pens on boxes of folding paper, and their idea of computerization was to reproduce that pen-on-paper experience as closely as possible. We were selling automatic computation of interesting parameters that had traditionally been done by hand on paper taking hours, of course done in seconds by the computer. By 1995, our small company had a team of 3 working on the product and the competition finally rumbled to life and started throwing teams of 30 at the same product space - of course we were overwhelmed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:37PM (13 children)
I think the implications of public ledgers are still sinking in. Isn't this a lot like making everyone's bank account statements public? You can see how the FBI would like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:18PM (5 children)
Nah, man, it's all secret key codes and random shit... no way anybody could track that.
- Dread Pirate Roberts
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:26PM
So, fuck you and your ilk's endlessly ignorant noise.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:49PM
So, fuck you and your ilk's endlessly ignorant noise.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:20PM
So, fuck you and your ilk's endlessly ignorant noise.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)
So, fuck you and your ilk's endlessly ignorant noise.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @08:37PM
I'm gonna go ahead and reply even though your spamming merits scorn instead.
Anonymity was a big benefit that many people used to promote Bitcoin. It is mostly if not totally false, there is no anonymity in the public ledger since every transaction can be tracked to specific wallets. Your anonymity is safe up until you make any transaction that can be tied back to yourself, or even your general location such as "bought a burrito with BTC on 8th ave on 5/22/18". There are schemes to split transactions into hundreds of different bits, but that is not a level of complexity that someone with a decent computer can't track and put back together.
Instead of just spewing hate at people you think are ignorant you might want to try discussion. Maybe one of you has info the other would find useful, maybe both of you would learn something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:24PM (5 children)
You can make as many "accounts" as you like.
You can swap "accounts" privately in a way that isn't recorded.
You can conceal the number of owners of a multi-signature "account".
You can use cryptographic methods that allow computation without revealing the values involved.
Also, there's no reason why all activity must be public; your coffee purchase need not be protected by the full power of a public ledger like the one the Bitcoin Network manages. Instead, what really needs it is the consolidation of 100s of thousands coffee purchases as one single settlement at the end of a day, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:31PM (4 children)
Call me when your end-of-day consolidation of hundreds of thousands of coffee purchases comes up systematically short by 30%, and you can't prove jack because all the defrauding parties are concealed by non-recorded privately swapped cryptographic methods.
You will want proof of funds ASAP, some trusted source who assures you in some believable way that your daily losses from fraud will be at some acceptable level.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:46PM
There is the possibility of a private blockchain managed as a Bitcoin sidechain.
Also, besides that, you can use a second-level solution like the Lightning Network to manage consolidation according to rigorous, computed accountability.
You're outclassed, Doofus. You don't know what you're talking about, Doofus.
GOD! Fuck off, SoylentCrap.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:23PM
There is the possibility of a private blockchain managed as a Bitcoin sidechain.
Also, besides that, you can use a second-level solution like the Lightning Network to manage consolidation according to rigorous, computed accountability.
You're outclassed, Doofus. You don't know what you're talking about, Doofus.
GOD! Fuck off, SoylentCrap.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @05:16PM
There is the possibility of a private blockchain managed as a Bitcoin sidechain.
Also, besides that, you can use a second-level solution like the Lightning Network to manage consolidation according to rigorous, computed accountability.
You're outclassed, Doofus. You don't know what you're talking about, Doofus.
GOD! Fuck off, SoylentCrap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:12PM
"some trusted source"
some bankster scum? no thanks. also, your weak concerns are already being accounted for by many projects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @06:09PM
yes, the ones that have no privacy built in are the surveillance state's wet dream. projects like monero are their worst nightmare. once again, it's up to us poor dumb bastards to make the right choice.