Delft café premieres with EEMCS blockchain euro
delta.tudelft.nl
delta.tudelft.nl
Note this is not a normal blockchain: its an offline-first blockchain [1]. Open source [2].
[1] https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-pouwelse-trustchain-01.html [2] https://github.com/Tribler/trustchain-superapp
By using legally valid digital signatures it is possible to sign agreements which are irrefutable. If you have two parties which sign a contract, it become legally enforceable. Trustchain requires that any block is signed by multiple parties and thus become legally enforceable. Every transaction forms its own "micro-block". Mono-signature transactions are strictly not allowed (e.g. Bitcoin,Ethereum approach). Once signatures are added to a block its valid: instant finality. Weird...
Yes, it's a strange approach, even older then Bitcoin :-) Perhaps its useful. See "bandwidth-as-a-currency" news item in BBC News, 1 Sep 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6971904.stm
Edit: no native token or money creation. Its just fabric for recording transaction micro-blocks. Non-profit. So nothing like Bitcoin at all. So works very well with dApps, Distributed Apps, no smart contracts needed. Scientific publication about Euros, DAO, dApps, passport-grade identity deployment: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3428662.3429744
UK minister of Digital infrastructure only some weeks ago announce their vision, far away from running code and new laws [1]. Dutch secretary-of-state on same days also send his digital ID vision to parliament [2].
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uk-digital-id... [2] https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/det...
Maybe those are some new schemes under that framework?
(I'm currently working on a Paxos-based distributed system for an industrial application, and my client insist in calling that a “blockchain” in all internal communication because, you know “blockchain” sounds cool to them)
It offers tamper-proof micro-blocks, distributed validation, and leaderless governance. So this is more then idle marketing. But you're right, the name "Trustchain" is specifically tailored that government leaders and managers feel trustworthy and cool about it.
I see parallels to the nordics bankid+swish, bank issued id/phone payment system. It's flawless in execution but both the id(!) and the payment part carries a cost picked up by the person accepting money (about $0.12 for each, very bank like). With your way of doing things none of the parts has to cost anything at the reasonable expense of potential double spending.
Various mechanism can be used to ensure integrity. What we implemented specifically is that various witnesses can inspect your Trustchain blocks and co-sign your balance. So any node can act as a digital notary. You can also use a reputation or trust function.
Here is a master thesis from Mathematics on distributed accounting systems. It contains numerous new mathematical proofs around integrity without strong identity assumption; .PDF "On the Sybil-Proofness of Accounting Mechanisms in P2P Networks", https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:6b4011c6...
Reputation and trust can be gamed. Also requiring reputation will slow down adaptation.
I will read this paper in the evening but I don't think you can have Sybil-Proof Accounting on P2P without some tradeoffs.
The double spend problem is not solved.
And how could it be if it works offline. If I have a phone in some state s. Then I can just do the transaction and revert the phone's state back to s and spend the money again.
Every time you create Euros, you simply create a negative balance. If you offline sign multiple I Owe You contracts, you accumulate debt. Just like in the real world, if you sell your house to 12 different banks, you have a (felony-level) problem. We ensure that double spending is detected with certain guarantees. Each micro-block with a transaction within Trustchain needs to be signed by two parties, so each copy is valid. Block hiding attacks wont work then.
The proof-of-work system is very elegant. The emergent properties of mining have created an amazing ecosystem. But slow finality might be a showstopper for mass uptake. Our alternative with instant finality using multiple legally binding signatures might offer a way out.
Second, if multiple parties are involved (I have to assume you mean more than just the needed 2 parties), wouldn't that mean you must be connected to a wider internet?
How does the business verify a transaction was successful? It seems like information only flows one way.
This is a fundamental issue I believe. If you have a stable legal ecosystem you can use the law of the land to ensure that double spending has real-world consequences. Preventing double spending is expensive. Guaranteed double spending _detection_ might also be sufficient and scales horizontally.
We have also performed scalability experiments on our nation-wide compute cluster to estimate the throughput of our distributed ledger. These experiments hint that our ledger is easily capable of handling 100.000+ transactions/sec.
The "your papers please" argument. It's true. If you live in a world where you are compelled to present an identity for any financial transaction, then there is no need for bitcoin, to prevent double spending.
I imagine there are some sticky legal questions to solve there - usually this kind of intervention in a person's life would require a court order or similar.
How traceable are transactions to the payer? Is there any anonymity?
You have SWIFT, which is general correspondence-based system for international transfers, of which SEPA is essentially a special agreement on how certain setup of SWIFT transfers are to be handled (essentially if you select certain transfer parameters you fall under agreement rules, otherwise not).
Intra-country transfer systems have more variability, unfortunately I can only speak about how UK and Poland did it, with UK having a very legacy numbering scheme where you only touch IBAN when you do international transfers (at least when I dealt with it last time in 2014), whereas in Poland all banking uses IBAN accounts (minus PL prefix) because that's what national interbank clearing system uses - and by extension paying for things by bank transfer are the norm, with widespread usage of the large "address space" of IBAN to create individual accounts even per contract (for example, if you take a loan, or pay for some service, you will usually pay to a bank account made just for that contract).
Ultimately, the difference is that there's effectively no extra cost for handling bank transfers in Poland, the clearing happens fast enough (usually max 1 business day, there are multiple clearing batches per day and it essentially depends on whether your transfer enters the system before the last batch of the day is calculated - with UK, I encountered multi-day wait times). Since there are no cheques, you essentially have three options - cash, bank transfers, and cards - and accepting bank transfers is the simplest approach outside of "cash direct in hand". An ecosystem of utilities to make it even simpler had grown out of making common simple & fast way of doing electronic transfers.
with Faster Payments local transfers in the UK happen instantaneously. this has been the case for more than a decade. all banks participate and makes transferring funds in the UK a breeze.
to give you an example as to how fast this payment system is: i press pay and the money is received on the other end before the “successful transfer” screen pops-up on my device :)
for international payments i’ve noticed that it takes less time to receive money from the UK than it is for the receiving party to do a local transfer :)
it’s mind boggling honestly.
https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...
Can you give a bit information about privacy side?
Specifications: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki/Hidden-Services-Spec...
Detecting double spend is easy as you said, but I am curious about the consequences.
Will this system will be somehow connected to real IDs? Who will in the network will have access to this data?
If so what is the process hiding my real ID from my identifier? I did shopping at the market, what will prevent them to see my all spending history?
If it is not connected to real ID somehow, what is preventing me to create a new identity?
Politicians and European Central Bank will decide on this soon. Delft University has tested out technology which could offer equal privacy as cash money. Will this be legal?
GNU Taller is developed without input by governments or existing legal frameworks. Christian Grothoff has done pioneering work for years. Its ideology driven, not government driven. We're different. We are trying to ensure compliance with very complex eIDAS regulations, GDPR, KYC, and AML. In partnership with governments and Brussels are trying to discover what is possible and desired.
Second, what do you tell your friends and family who ask if they should buy bitcoin? As a former owner, I've become ridiculously wary due to the shady individuals behind it. If the price is propped up with shady fiat money and imaginary exchange tokens, what guarantees that the bitcoin price reflects the true supply and demand?
I say "go ahead but don't put more than 5% of your portfolio on it, preferably 1% or less". Also, I'd recommend buying a crypto index fund instead of BTC directly.
Personally, I'm long term bearish. But the last decade has shown that "long term" may be reaaaaally long.
I think more important than putting the transfer of money in public hands is to put the monetary system itself in public hands.
The banks' boards and many employees are political appointees nominated by elected officials.
They are accountable to legislatures.
I'm not sure how, other than go for a "Swiss-style" direct election of directors (which, considering the complexities of macroeconomics, would be like shooting ourselves in the foot with a cannon), you could get more public than that.
For example, if I run a business which banks do not approve of, then they can block my account or make it impossible to make transfers. What good does it if the bank is "in public hands" in that case?
Also, 14 year terms makes them pretty unaccountable to anyone even the presidents who nominated them, much less to citizens.
As far as I can tell, this is programmable money backed by legal digital signatures.
For the first time since the whole blockchain hypetrain started I am actually interested in this.
The Netherlands doesn't 'need' cryptocurrencies, as our banking system already works very well. We can already easily transfer money for free using a mobile phone (apps known as 'Tikkie', and 'betaalverzoek'). We have a secure and instant online payment system (called 'iDEAL') since 2006, which works very well. We also have some pretty decent ways to do digital signatures (called 'DigiD' and 'e-Herkenning'). I believe that any blockchain tech would be a step back when it comes to cost, insurance and end-user convenience.
Seeing an alternative payment system that is programmable seems refreshing to me. I just wished they didn't use the word 'blockchain' in their marketing lingo.
Oh, I didn't get that from the article. You mean people can implement logic using smart contracts and such?
EURO is not something random people can use to promote their ponzi schemes
Just read the damn thing