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Author here. Yes, PeerReview is the most important piece of literature for us. We use a lot of similar concepts. Difference is that we're working for the past 18 years on getting this fully working, and deployed. Science is slowly making progress towards an "Internet-of-Trust".

- PeerReview assumes full network knowledge which is unrealistic in open p2p networks.

- PeerReview is built for full protocol replay and replication whereas TrustChain selectively replicates relevant information in the network. This significantly reduces storage and communication overhead, at the cost of fraud cases staying under the radar.

Latest work is our upcoming AAMAS 2021 publication, "Achieving Sybil-proofness in Distributed Work Systems", https://staff.science.uva.nl/u.endriss/aamas-2021/programme/...

> Amazon's Kindle has around 61% market share on all e-Book sales. > Royalties are 70% if your book is priced at $9.99 or below, but 30% if the book is above that price.

Clear market failure. Monopoly marketplace, bad for content creators.

Hopefully you still see this late reaction by IPv8/Tribler team. There is now Kotlin code, Android Trustchain app and expired IETF draft. On top of the pretentiously named IPv8 overlay, we now have tamper-proof accounting and trust function operational. Took a mere 20 years of my life:-)

[1] https://github.com/Tribler/kotlin-ipv8/ [2] https://github.com/Tribler/trustchain-superapp [3] https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-pouwelse-trustchain-01.html [4] https://dicg2020.github.io/papers/devos.pdf

Correct. The double spending is not solved technically, but critically relies on a functioning legal system.

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.

Its different mostly in the methodology and requirements.

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.

Yes, you need something against tampering. However, once you legally signed something, the contract/transaction is valid.

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...

That is the golden question. How anonymous will the upcoming digital Euro be?

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?

That is a lengthy story.. We basically forked the Tor protocol and decentralised it. This makes it Bittorrent friendly, offer end-2-end crypto, and would scale to Internet-wide usage. We're planning to port our deployed Python Tor-stack towards Kotlin for the Superapp and Trustchain.

Specifications: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki/Hidden-Services-Spec...

Distributed ledger would be a better fit indeed. However, nobody then understands what it is.

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.

Short answer: nobody knows yet. Its taking shape.

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...

Currently the only route is to: request permission from a Central Bank in Eurozone, download the Gateway code, and finally issue your own coins. (we got approval from our central bank)

Docs: https://github.com/Tribler/trustchain-superapp

Exactly. Using protocols to prevent double spending hurts performance and scalability. Detect fraudsters and ignoring them is cheap.

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.

Trustchain is a ledger which is consensus-free. Forget anything you know about chains and ledgers.

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

Responsible Professor here from Delft University, AMA.

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

Details and explanation in this expired IETF Internet Draft: https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-pouwelse-trustchain-01.html

Responsible Professor here. AMA. Sources: https://github.com/Tribler/trustchain-superapp

Its only a private draft: "No bill related to that topic has yet been introduced in the 2021 Legislature."[1]

There is a promise tracker of Gov. Steve Sisolak. [1] https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/re-introducing-the-...

Edit: Blockchain LCC seems to already own 67,000 acres of land. wow. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/blockchain-company-bu...

More gentle introduction to timeless concepts that stood the test of times.

Material from a university master course on distributed systems engineering. We developed our own university material in .ipynb format at Github. Should give you the basics in 5 days. Applies distributed systems theory in 5 steps. Most improvements in past decade are not due to hardware improvement, but algorithm and tooling advances I believe.

- Distributed systems. Overlays and communication network. Introduction to simulation framework https://github.com/grimadas/BlockchainEngineering/blob/maste...

- Gossip. Convergence of the transactions, information https://github.com/grimadas/BlockchainEngineering/blob/maste...

- Faults in distributed systems: crashes and disruptions https://github.com/grimadas/BlockchainEngineering/blob/maste...

- Malicious nodes, adversary model https://github.com/grimadas/BlockchainEngineering/blob/maste...

- Consensus and agreement despite malicious nodes https://github.com/grimadas/BlockchainEngineering/blob/maste...

> Specifically, we request that you remove or disable access to the infringing Project’s repositories referenced herein in accordance with either 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii) (DMCA “representative list” provision), 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(1)(A) (DMCA “repeat infringer” provision), and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, ...

So such dual-use technologies are now under pressure. This is quite a step towards banning certain mass-dissemination protocols in general. See "inducement rule" [1] in the US.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule

This shows it is really hard to make a product in this space. Real decentralisation and zero-server architectures are hard. Also, scientific publications in this field died up, due to lack of popularity.

(disclaimer, leading a team in this field)

"Electing the Doge of Venice: Analysis of a 13th Century Protocol", https://doi.org/10.1109/CSF.2007.21

"This paper discusses the protocol used for electing the Doge of Venice between 1268 and the end of the Republic in 1797. We will show that it has some useful properties that in addition to being interesting in themselves, also suggest that its fundamental design principle is worth investigating for application to leader election protocols in computer science."

Helpful. May I suggest altering the title to reduce the click-bait or false alarm rate.

Simply add at the end: " (non LGPL)"

> "trustlessly replicated to other Vapor nodes"

Instead of using central web servers, it is replaced with a network of Vapor nodes. I don't see this solving any problem. Just because HTTP requests have a Bitcoin signature, that does not solve any web-of-trust issues.

> record authenticated HTTP requests and replay them anywhere.

This is confusing, either identities cost real Bitcoin or you have a Sybil attack problem (numerous fake identities). If you need real Bitcoins, it requires lots of effort to use Vapor. As it is written, this is not going to work.

> Next, identity. If grandpa can post, so can the bots

Yes, protection against a million fake accounts is the key scientific problem to solve (Sybil attack).

Our university lab has worked on this problem for 15+ years, its hard. Early indications are that ActivityPub and federation are not going to scale. Bot attacks are too ferocious for amateur admins. Big instances attract more people, however a single instance fails to scale.

Nobody knows how to build trustworthy self-organising systems with "self-governance". Somehow you need to deduce the reputation of others from their signed interaction history. Their privacy needs to be protected, but you can still calculate a reputation score. After 20 years of scientific progress around "distributed reputation systems" with 100+ scientific articles they have one thing in commons: they don't protect from the Sybil attack.

Server federation is not going to help if there is no trust fabric to build upon. The effortless onboarding plus mobile-first requirement of today means you even need to have smartphones talking to eachother directly, P2P-style. <plug> thankfully students in our lab now have carrier-grade NAT traversal operational between Android devices. Google: "Technology Stack for Decentralized Mobile Services" (quotes required).

"A Truly Self-Sovereign Identity System", our academic work with Tor-like privacy[1].

This goes beyond owning your identity. Has government sponsorship. The EU is currently taking the lead in this area, search terms: "ESSIF: The European self-sovereign identity framework".

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.00415

> Even the most basic printed publications can include illustrations.

Streaming video is probably here to stay. /s

Within this context: "drain water heat recovery unit" for a Google search. Upcoming building codes within Europe might make this common I believe.

See "Central Bank Digital Currency" report and details by an actual central bank in the Eurozone[1]. "Cash is no longer king" and this indeed could go mainstream. But it is far far away from self-organisations. Finance (like aviation) is quite a regulated industry.

[1] https://www.dnb.nl/en/news/news-and-archive/dnbulletin-2020/...

Indeed, as a professor who studies these systems for a living I also had to think. Will this scale? Big step forward if we get something like this finally to 1 million people. Who owns the server infrastructure? How are these miners paid? The usual token-based incentive? Where do I buy these with real Euros or Dollars?

Incentive alignment is key. We known since Bittorrent tit-for-tat that creating a micro-economy is a hard problem. I hope they get some sort of token and micro-economy going, but this is a known hard problem.

Key bits; almost ready; then Corona came: "To date, the Company has successfully launched 74 satellites as part of its constellation, secured valuable global spectrum, begun development on a range of user terminals for a variety of customer markets, has half of its 44 ground stations completed or in development, and performed successful demonstrations of its system with broadband speeds in excess of 400 Mbps and latency of 32 ms."