Publishing something on an immutable public ledger has always made me somewhat uneasy.
A question I heard at a conference a few years ago has stuck with me.
“Data the new oil or the new asbestos?”
The earliest Blockchain technologies identified privacy as a potential barrier to using a public Blockchain to record financial transactions. Coins like Zcash, Dash and Monero have addressed this early on and and are continually evolving.
Web 3
Content based Blockchains like Hive still have not addressed this and it may be a key differentiator for Web3 based applications in the future.
Dont Give me your Data!
Today Aleo a Silicon Based Valley Startup, announced that they just raised $200m in Series B funding. They have built a technology based on Zero Knowledge Proof Cryptography which enables Users to interact with a Blockchain without losing control of their data. This is a really interesting project.
https://www.aleo.org/post/bringing-zero-knowledge-to-the-world
Zero Knowledge Cryptography
This is a branch of Cryptography which allows you to prove something without sharing your data. Data is fundamental to most apps and finding a way to process it without losing control would be a huge leap forward.
Beyond Satoshis use of Cryptography to chain transactions together (13 years ago), most of the developments in Crypto have been more around governance, and ecosystems around the Blockchains rather than Fundamental Technological Innovations.
Zero Knowledge Smart Blockchain Applications could be just the next big enabler for Crypto.
The Future of the Internet
An open question for me is What type of Applications could use it?. In Aleos blog they describe their vision for the future of the Internet.
"we can enjoy the internet’s benefits of global connection without paying the invisible cost of our privacy."
https://www.aleo.org/post/how-zero-knowledge-is-rebalancing-the-internet
How do you think this technology could be incorporated to a Web3 platform like Hive?
Will Privacy and Data be the new oil (for individuals) or the new asbestos for Blockchain Projects?
I listened to an interesting podcast/discussion the other day that proposed transparency as the answer to the world’s problem. The speaker referenced a professor in America who posed this question in the 1970s, how can a market economy promote peace instead of war. The professor then apparently ran a lot of computer simulations and determined that transparency was the answer.
Funnily enough, governments tend to want to impose full transparency on its citizens while remaining shrouded in secrecy, and citizens tend to make the same demands of their governments (we want governments to operate with transparency, but we don’t want them to trespass our rights by demanding transparency of us).
I wonder if transparency carried out both ways could be the answer. I also wonder what kind of role Web3 could play in working on such solutions.
There certainly are tradeoffs, full Transparency vs no Transparency. Technology will enable packaging up data and sharing it in a controlled way with people whom our social structures deem necessary. In a way and scale not seen before. There are huge opportunities here enabled by Blockchain and Cryptography.
I wont give an oponion on what the right balance is or what data should be shared but if the technology enables a new level of control which we can experiment with then we might find a good model to work with and the right balance to keep Governments happy and People safe and secure.
I imagine that one day we will all have a personal sub blockchain. Encrypted but being able to hand out keys for access to certain private information. Ie Medical recored, financial detail, favourite colour etc. Creating an immutable identity under your complete control. This would be the new oil that can be monitised by the individual.
I try to be careful what I post to the Internet in general. How many time have we seen famous people being cancelled because they typed something years ago that comes back to haunt then. Blockchain gets rid of the excuse that some time travelling hackers went back and typed that. This was something that some news ancor claimed.
Getting control of your own data is a double edged sword. With great power comes great responsibility.