Adventures in Blockchain

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In this week's episode of Adventures in Blockchain, Charles Max Wood interviews Eric Berry and Kevin Owocki, discussing open source sustainability using blockchain. Eric Berry is a panelist on Sustain Our Software podcast and runs Codefund. Kevin is the co-founder of Gitcoin. Our guests start by explaining what each of their companies does and how they help sustain open source.  Kevin explains that Gitcoin is a place you can get coin if you are a software engineer working in open source. Their mission is to support open source software. Kevin discusses how blockchain creates new hope for open source sustainability. One project Kevin introduces that helps move them towards their goal is called bounties. Bounties allow engineers to collect cryptocurrency for work they do in opensource.  Codefund is an ethical advertising platform that is specifically run to grow and sustain open source. Eric shares how they do this by inviting bloggers, application builders, and other maintainers,  to put a small bit of code on their sites that specifically advertise what they are doing. This allows them to receive passive revenue constantly without having to spend time marketing. Gitcoin and Codefund are related, Kevin and Eric share the story of how they started helping one another. When Kevin was building Gitcoin he met Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and was invited to join ConsenSys. Using his work with ConsenSys as a stepping stone Gitcoin was able to level up. At this point, Eric reached out to Kevin because he was looking for a way to more easily distribute funds.  Next, the panel considers how sustaining open source is made easier through open source. In the blockchain ecosystem, there is a lot more liquidity and a lot less bureaucracy. Kevin explains that when people think of blockchain they only see bitcoin prices and miss all the potential that the blockchain has.  There are many problems paying people with “real” currency. For example, credit card companies take fees, transfer money across borders is difficult and worst of all there are knowledge workers that don’t have access to a stable financial system like in parts of Africa. By using the blockchain to pay these great developers can work for western companies and in open source. Eric shares how he uses the blockchain to pay maintainers and advertisers. The inbound advertisers at Codefund are already using eth and dai, which is easily turned around to pay their publishers. Currently, it is not all done on the blockchain, Eric explains what it looks like paying everyone. Codefund's goal is to eventually be completely on the blockchain and to be constantly paying their maintainers.  Taxation is something discussed on this weeks Sustain Our Software, Eric brings it up in hopes of hearing Kevin’s take on taxation in the blockchain. Kevin explains that he wrote an EIP or Ethereum improvement proposal, block reward funding for open source maintainers. The blockchain has miners who receive coin for the work they do. Those miners use an algorithm to show proof of work. Open source maintainers do work for the blockchain as well and his proposal says that maintainers should receive coin for what they do for the blockchain. The problem that some have with this idea is that it is hard to prove the software they are writing will directly impact the blockchain or that it even got done. The panel considers ways to prove the value created by maintainers and how paying maintainers show them they are valued. Burn out is a big obstacle for the maintainability of open source. Everyone has responsibilities, to family and other things and its a shame when those doing open source have to quit because they can’t meet those responsibilities. The panel discusses ways that we can help maintainers not burn out. They also talk briefly about entitlement in open source, Kevin introduces his no asshole policy. Charles asks Kevin to explain how Gitcoin’s bounty network works. The architecture...

In this episode of Adventures in Blockchain our panel is joined by a special guest. Clément Lesaege is a blockchain developer working at Kleros. Kleros resolves disputes using a decentralized arbitration system and smart contracts.  Clément shares some examples of how their smart contracts work with outside data.    Gregory McCubbin, ever the teacher, breaks down what Clément means when he is talking out how Kleros is using smart contracts. Smart contracts are an agreement when something happens it there is a specific outcome, all of which happens in a trustless and decentralized way. ICO or Initial Coin Offering is the example Gregory shares as a very simple use case for smart contracts handled within the chain.    Kleros is solving a problem when a source outside of the blockchain is used such as an escrow service. Clément explains how a disputation is handled. Jurors are chosen at random, they then vote on the dispute and the smart contract carries out the verdict. The panel discusses how the blockchain handles all this in a decentralized way. Charles Max Wood expresses how wonderful this would have been back in his freelancing days.    While Charles can see how this would all be very useful he needs help understanding how all this happens in a blockchain and asks Clément why they chose to build this in a blockchain. Clément explains that in the blockchain everything is transparent which helps avoid bribery by the parties involved. Also, the smart contracts carry out the sentence automatically, the cryptocurrency is moved around a soon as a verdict has been reached by the jurors. This is a lot less complicated than in the real world, where receiving money after a verdict has been reached in a real court can take a while and get messy.    Kleros works as a plugin and can be adapted to the needs of the users. The panel discusses the various use cases including escrow and freelancer fees. Clément shares some of the projects currently using Kleros. Kleros is used in token registries to keep people from making fake tokens and scamming others out of their cryptocurrency.    The panel expounds on the possibilities blockchain provides for escrow services. Escrow can be locked away for months at a time not earning any interest, Gregory considers the benefits if instead of doing that,  people put that money into a stable cryptocurrency that is gaining in APR. The panel considers how this would improve the escrow model and incentivize the adoption of blockchain in escrow services.    Clément finishes this week’s episode by introducing the two new exciting apps they are currently working on at Kleros. He shares resources for learning more about kleros, how to become a juror and how to learn more about token registries.  Panelists

• Gregory McCubbin
• Charles Max Wood

Guest

• Clément Lesaege

Sponsors  

• Adventures in DevOps
• The Freelancers Show
• React Round Up
• CacheFly

Links

• https://tokens.kleros.io/tokens 
• https://kleros.io 
• https://twitter.com/clesaege?lang=en 
• EthCC 2: Clément Lesaege

Episode Summary   In this episode of Adventures in Blockchain the panel discusses privacy in the blockchain. Privacy is a hot topic right now in the blockchain world and is an issue that a lot of people are trying to solve. This is a problem in both public and private blockchains.   Bruno starts by addressing the misconception that private blockchains mean that your data is private. He explains that that private means that you are taking control of the infrastructure and maintenance of the blockchain. Privacy is possible in public and private blockchains. Bruno corrects these misconceptions by describing the blockchain as a large database and just like in any other database you need to be careful in securing your data.    The main problem in the blockchain is that anyone on the network can see what you are doing. Bruno explains how zero-knowledge proofs can help. Zk-SNARK’s or Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge help you know when you have a valid transaction without actually having to run it. The panel talks about what this means for privacy.    The panel takes a step back to define public and private blockchains. Public blockchains, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin are run and maintained by the public. Public blockchains are not ideal for business who need to keep certain data secure. Private blockchains work better for business because a large corporation can run and maintain its own blockchain. They use permissions to control who in their corporation can see what in their blockchain, while the public has no access to their blockchain.   The panel gives advice on how to know if a blockchain is the best solution for your needs. They warn that even those blockchain is new and shiny is not everything should be put on a blockchain. Start by deciding if you need a blockchain and then what you want from your blockchain.    The pros and cons of blockchain implementation are considered. The centralized element of private blockchains makes them less secure while public blockchains are very secure. Private blockchains don’t have the same monetary incentive for maintenance. Privacy and throughput of public blockchains are cons that are seeing some improvement.    The issue of sending digital currency privately is getting close to being solved. Roman Storm built a dapp, tornado cash, that allows a roundabout way to achieve that anonymity in achieving private cryptocurrency transactions. It allows cryptocurrency to be placed in a mixer, a type of smart contract, along with other users that when pulled back out is no longer traceable back to the user.    The panel gets a little sidetracked off of privacy for a minute as they discuss experimenting with new use cases for blockchain. They discuss the Dubai smart city project. The implications the blockchains may have in the voting systems or medical records. With blockchain still being young, there are a lot of unexplored avenues that could benefit from the blockchain.     Gregory considers the adoption rate of the blockchain and cryptocurrency’s effect on the world. People are using cryptocurrency to send funds internationally. The financial world is working hard to keep up by lowering wire transfer rates. The panel wonders what killer app needs to be made to drive adoption forward. Gregory talks about decentralized finance apps that get users competitive interest rate on cryptocurrency, better privacy, and faster transfer speed. Bruno considers how regulations that prevent testing are slowing progress in blockchain experimentation.  Panelists

• Gregory McCubbin
• Bruno Duarte Brito
• Charles Max Wood

Sponsors  

• The Freelancers Show
• Views on Vue

Episode Summary   In this episode of Adventures in Blockchain, the panel reveals some of the tough things or “gotchas” to look out for when getting started with blockchain. Gregory McCubbin works with public blockchains while Bruno Duarte Brito works with private blockchains. They both have very different stories of getting into blockchain development, so they wonder what gotchas they will have in common.   To start, Gregory shares his journey getting into blockchain. His first interest in blockchain happened when he began to take notice of the cryptocurrency prices. So Gregory bought some cryptocurrency, he suggests this to anyone getting into the blockchain. He explains that buying cryptocurrency is a great way to learn and eventually understand the fundamentals of how a blockchain works.    After buying some cryptocurrency, Gregory decided he wanted to learn how to start his own projects in the blockchain. That is when he noticed the first “gotcha”, the lack of educational material available to developers and what an opportunity that could be for him. To help solve this problem he started Dapp University, which has free YouTube videos and a boot camp for more in-depth learning.    Next Bruno shares the story of his journey to the blockchain. He explains how his journey was less conventional than Gregory, having never bought cryptocurrency. His story begins when he was hired at a startup that had a blockchain project and no one to run it. Bruno, interested in learning blockchain offered to head the project. This project led him to Hyperledger and private blockchains.    Bruno agrees with Gregory that the lack of educational content available is a “gotcha” in the blockchain world. He also shares another “gotcha”, explaining how hard it was for him to wrap his mind around a decentralized infrastructure after working with apps with centralized infrastructures for his whole career. Bruno explains how hard it was using Hyperledger alone in the beginning and that when they began to use IBM blockchain as well it helped him grasp the concept of decentralization better.     Gregory and Bruno consider the pain of getting set up in the beginning, but they also consider how the tooling has improved in the short time since they started in the blockchain. They discuss the out of the box features that make it easier to get started in the blockchain.    The next “gotcha” the panel discusses is the constant evolution of the blockchain. The panel explains that since the blockchain is still young it is constantly changing, which while it’s exciting and cutting edge it can also be dangerous to your code with possibly breaking changes. The panel warns listeners to keep in mind that you will constantly have to adapt when using blockchain frameworks.   Continuing the discussion about breaking changes, the panel explains how updates work differently than other languages. With the data being immutable, developers can not decide to not update their apps. The panel compares how updates work differently in public and private blockchains. Gregory explains how blockchain frameworks are pretty good at warning developers about changes to the code, seeing as how they don’t want to break anything.     The evolution of the blockchain world isn’t all bad, the panel discusses what they see in the future of blockchain. Bruno thinks that more people will come to the blockchain bring with them great ideas and hopes to see better prediction testing. Gregory explains that tools and frameworks are always being changed and improved. Ethereum 2.0 and the innovation of infrastructures are the examples he references.    The panel ends with advice for those developers new to the blockchains and gives them a few things to remember while getting started.    Panelists

• Gregory McCubbin
• Bruno Duarte Brito

Sponsors  

Sponsors

• CacheFly

Panel

• Gregory McCubbin
• Roman Storm

Joined by Special Guest: Zachary Belfordr Summary Zachary Belfordr, from Ethereum Classic, joins the panel to discuss Ethereum classic. First, he shares the origin story of Ethereum classic then he explains his role at ETC Labs and what they do. The panel asks Zachary about funding at ETC labs and why Infura does not support Ethereum Classic. Zachary discusses what is being done to try and solve the long synchronization times in Ethereum classic. The 51% attack on Ethereum Classic is considered; the panel discusses how much a 51% attack would cost and what can be done to prevent these types of attacks. Zachary shares some of the exciting dapps being used in Ethereum Classic and considers the future of blockchain technology. The episode ends with Zachary’s story of how he got into the blockchain and some advice for those who are new to the blockchain.    Links

• https://ethereumclassic.org/
• https://etclabs.org/
• https://infura.io
• https://www.ethercluster.com/
• https://dappdirect.net/
• https://twitter.com/belfordz 
• https://github.com/belfordz 
• https://github.com/etclabscore/pristine 
• https://github.com/etclabscore/ 
• Join The Blockchain Developer Bootcamp
• https://www.facebook.com/Adventures-in-Blockchain-1180850735452512/

Sponsors

• CacheFly

Panel

• Gregory McCubbin
• Roman Storm
• Bruno Duarte Brito

Joined by Special Guest: Johann Eid Summary Johann Eid from Chainlink joins the panel to discuss the exciting things they are doing in the Blockchain. To help the listeners better understand what they are doing at Chainlink, Johann explains what smart contracts are and how they relate to oracles. Oracles feed smart contracts real-world data; Johann explains the difference between a centralized and decentralized oracle. The panel discusses the benefits of a decentralized oracle network, which is what Chainlink is building.    Chainlink has announced that Google is one of the great companies integrating, the panel discusses Google’s interest in Blockchain and how the integration will affect smart contract creators. Johann shares other Chainlink successes, such as decentralized finance, what people are doing with it and why they need decentralized oracles. The panel discusses the growth of Chainlink, the challenges they had to overcome and the future exponential growth they expect as smart contract adoption grows. Referencing last week's episode about earning passive income the panel and Johann discuss the possibilities for passive income through Chainlink and how to make that happen. Johann gives listeners resources to get started and encourages all developers to try Chainlink then share Chainlink with everyone.  Links

• https://docs.chain.link/docs/welcome-to-chainlink
• ABC 006: How To Earn Passive Income As A Blockchain Developer
• https://github.com/smartcontractkit/chainlink
• https://twitter.com/provablethings/status/1103603438884192256?s=20
• https://twitter.com/chainlink?lang=en
• https://www.reddit.com/r/Chainlink/ 
• https://discordapp.com/invite/rCUqTAC
• Join The Blockchain Developer Bootcamp
• https://www.facebook.com/Adventures-in-Blockchain-1180850735452512/

Sponsors

• CacheFly

Panel

• Gregory McCubbin
• Roman Storm
• Bruno Duarte Brito

Summary The panel explains a couple of ways to earn passive income in the blockchain. The first is building applications or dapps (decentralized applications) on the blockchain that charges users a very small fee for the services. Gregory McCubbin explains how a transaction works on the blockchain and how it requires cryptocurrency to be spent in order for a transaction to take place. Roman Storm shares his experience with his multisender app. Roman explains how his multisender app allows users to send tokens to a mass of recipients with ease giving him a very small amount of ether in return for this service. Gregory explains why users would be so eager to use the app and save time and pain. Without Roman’s app, development-able users would have to write their own code to send multiple transactions at once and those users without the knowledge to write their own code would be forced to send each transaction manual which would take hours in many cases. Gregory also points out that people are there to spend money and are used to paying fees when it comes to handling money. Bruno Duarte Brito and Roman discuss how this all works with walleting and maintaining security.    The second way to earn passive income is to become a validator. Gregory starts by explaining that a miner was someone who helped run the blockchain by creating new records, finalizing transactions or writing it to the blockchain. The new consensus algorithm uses validators, which Gregory tells us anyone can do, you don’t have to be a developer to be a validator. Roman explains how validators run nodes, receiving block rewards and transactions fees in return for their services. The panel discusses ways to become a validator. Becoming a validator in a well-established blockchain can be tricky without a lot of capital but Roman and Gregory give a few ways to get your foot in the door, including helping a current validator with security and attracting someone with capital with your skills running a node. Becoming a validator for a new blockchain may seem like is the suggestion the panel gives; if that blockchain takes off you can see a great return. Bruno and Roman discuss what is involved in running a validator service, what it looks like, how it works, and the cost involved. Roman explains that it is very important to research potential networks as each of them varies in what they want in a validatory and suggests that everyone give it a try even if only on a test network because there is so much developers can learn about the blockchain just by running a node.  Links

• https://multisender.app/ 
• Join The Blockchain Developer Bootcamp
• https://www.facebook.com/Adventures-in-Blockchain-1180850735452512/

Sponsors

• CacheFly

Panel

• Gregory McCubbin
• Roman Storm

Joined by Special Guest: Sean Li Summary Sean Li introduces Fortmatic, what they are about and some of the things you can do with Fortmatic. Fortmatic’s origin story is shared and Sean shares some of the challenges he is facing as co-founder. The most exciting products in the blockchain space are discussed. Sean gives advice for developers new to blockchain. The panel considers “Massive blockchain adoption” and seek Sean’s perspective on the subject. The panel shares an invitation for listeners to check out Fortmatic. Links

• https://fortmatic.com/
• https://twitter.com/fortmatic?lang=en
• https://github.com/seanli
• https://twitter.com/_seanli
• https://metamask.io/ 
• Join The Blockchain Developer Bootcamp
• https://www.facebook.com/Adventures-in-Blockchain-1180850735452512/

Sponsors

• CacheFly

Panel

• Gregory McCubbin
• Roman Storm
• Bruno Duarte Brito

Joined by Special Guest: Erni Augusto Summary Erni Augusto, a JavaScript developer at htmlcoin, joins the panel to share his experience at htmlcoin, what it means to be a hybrid coin and what can be done with it. Using for blockchain for medical records is discussed; Erni shares details of how to check out what htmlcoin is doing with this. Erni shares how the infrastructure works at htmlcoin and technical details of what htmlcoin is using. The panel discusses the 2017 51% attack at htmlcoin and other attacks. Erni discusses his challenges joining the htmlcoin team and learning about decentralization. The panel discusses why someone would want to buy htmlcoin and how to use it. Links

• https://htmlcoin.com/ 
• https://althash.org/ 
• https://medium.com/
• https://www.reddit.com/ 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/erni-souza/
• https://www.facebook.com/Adventures-in-Blockchain-1180850735452512/