I recently went to the Sydney Blockchain workshops and took some notes for beginners (like me). Overall it is about digitizing value transfer by cutting out the middle man, but new middle men already emerge (those who enable the blockchain).

• two functions for blockchain: register ownership and rails for transfering items
• function of smart contracts: machine 2 machine consensus protocol
• economists have largely overlooked blockchain tech, BUT blockchain is not an info tech but a governance tech, fundamentally changing the nature of our economy by offering new coordination systems
• tracking and ensuring providence, enabling makers to receive royalties from each step that their work gets passed on and/or remixed. I felt reminded of the academic referencing system, just in tech.
• In order to implement trust into the technology, companies, such as ethereum provide “smart contracts”, which are programs/codes that rule/exercise which action can and cannot be performed with items on a specific blockchain. This reminded me of creative commons, just digital.
• arguments are about open and closed ledgers (blockchains), close ledgers being referred to as the AOL of the blockchain.
• debates around hacking and control, about repeating the same mistakes as with the internet when capitalist companies co-opt the technology (and we don’t have as much unattended time as we had with the internet, because big banks are already capitalising on the blockchain, reinventing their identity in order to become the new middle man). So, the audience was quite divided between coders/anarchists and managers/bankers.
• no consensus yet how to scale
• problems with efficiency versus capturing the actual complexity of an item (Joi Ito, MIT)
• balance if inclusion and efficiency also relevant in terms of WHO and HOW MANY take part
• blockchain as an opportunity to move away from basic double entry bookkeeping
• too many laws still pre internet time
• tussle between privacy and security, what are the relevant decisions and negotiations
• ICANN for blockchain needed to counter Gov
• very early stage still
• blockchain as a way to consider context (smart contracts)
• ethereum can create markets, these can then be markets in markets
• offline and online economies can integrate (catallaxy)
• ethics of autonomous systems a huge question (do devices have rights like companies? whats human responsibility?)
• law is centralised at the moment, can smart contracts decentralise the law? (asks Ele)
• beware of network imperialism, commones are selfish too
• Merkle Tree interesting model to understand how blockchain can be politically and architecturally decentralised yet logically centralised

INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE – Bettina Warburg (Palo Alto)
The IFTF just announced the blockchain futures lab. Keyword Crypto economy. Research into Practical applications of blockchain principles with commercial value w/ Boston consulting. Viable experiments w corporate sector. Interested in universities.

ASCRIBE – Greg McMullen
Ascribe creates an ownership later of the Internet attempting to give IP back to digital creators. We could use their technology for emerging idea that staff worry about giving away. I know there are other platforms for this too. Ascribe also helps finding infringing copies of the registered IP. Imogen Heap tiny human is an example for how it works. License content on blockchain and invite people to remix. One can track derivative work. (Like academic peer review?)
Also monegraph a platform like this.PLANTOID – Filipa de Primavera (Harvard)
digital certificates a problem because international jurisdiction is different on what’s public domain and what can’t be. Individual can use blockchain as a registry to ascertain what other people have said what the legal status is. Cc.ascribe.io. Blockchain enables tracking who is using your assets.
Ccrypto equity interesting keyword
“Pay for production not for consumption”PLANTOID is a platform for Blockchain-based art: people fund artists for a specific art piece, based on open source software, copyleft, another artist can remix the work and original author is rewarded and recognised. It’s not about IP protection but about maximise dissemination of artwork to be remixed because then more funds are collected. Royalties go back to original artists and new artists.COLONY.io
is a collaboration platform based on a new business model or game principle of micro transactions or micro tipping, giving reward for contributions.

BACKFEED
another platform that tries to improve trustless interactions by building on ethereum