Blockchain technology and internet governance – Edu 3 2017

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6 June 2017 | 17:00 - 18:30 | Room Tartu, Swissotel, Tallinn, Estonia | video record
Programme overview wiki | Programme overview EuroDIG web site

Session teaser

Come and learn what blockchain technology is and what it could mean to the future of the Internet and its governance! This educational session is meant to give a fun, interactive and informative introduction to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Some of the exciting yet largely misunderstood aspects of blockchain technology is smart contracts and decentralised apps (DApps). This interactive learning experience will get you enlightened and have you start thinking of how this rapidly growing technology may impact day-to-day online activities from social media networking to e-health and from online payments to e-banking.


BlockchainEurodig17, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Smart Contracts, Cryptocurrencies

Session description

This will be a general educational session to introduce the basics of blockchain technology, its evolution, current and potential uses as well as challenges. The aim is to equip attendees with enough knowledge about the subject matter to investigate and explore further in their own pace. The link between internet governance will then be concluded by giving examples of scenarios where Internet services are impacted by blockchain technology whether in terms of online services provided or the very way data is stored or verified online. Additionally, the session will open the door for discussion and critical assessment of the notion that blockchain technology is the next natural evolution of the Internet. The moderator will not have a normative view and will encourage participants to provide their own thoughts and positions on this suggestion. The spirit of the session will be educational in the sense that people will get to learn how the blockchain technology is being advocated for and suggested by some to be a new stage in Internet evolution and requires embrace by the internet governance community as well as present arguments against this assumption.


The session will be mostly interactive with the first part laying out the foundations of discussion and the second part would be an interactive and engaging role playing session where participants would take turn in groups to act as nodes in the blockchain network. Instead of a pure presentation style, the segment would include props and role playing so that to illustrate in a fun and engaging way what blockchain is and how it could contribute to the Internet's future. Throughout the interactive segments, there will be an opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussions openly and freely.

Further reading


Focal Point:

Subject Matter Expert (SME):


Remote Moderator:

Organising Team (Org Team):


Video record


  1. Despite the growing momentum and popularity of blockchain technology, there is need to clear some misunderstanding as some equate blockchains with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just one application of blockchains and there are other innovative applications such as “Open Bazaar” an e–commerce site, “FlightDelay” a disrupt air travel insurance service, and “Ripple”, a global money transfer system.
  2. The engaging interactive game used in the session helped participants understand the basics of blockchains by simulating blockchain operations (transaction, mining, block hashing, transaction fees and rewards).
  3. Blockchains operate on top of the Internet as decentralized and distributed systems that can bring new innovative startups to live. Permissionless blockchains are self-governed using the simple 51% majority. There were concerns that governments may impose restrictions on these technologies, which could have drawbacks and discourage innovation in this area.
  4. There is a heated debate on the direction to take when it comes to blockchain regulation. Since blockchain applications use transparent algorithms, they become self-regulatory and limit the need to trust intermediaries. However, finding regulatory frameworks for blockchains will take time and depends on the applications more than the technologies.
  5. It is recommended to develop blockchain standards for various applications since that will promote many positive use cases that could have a positive impact on society. However, blockchains so far do not have interoperability and while each blockchain does not require intermediaries to function, collectively, they lack standard methods to communicate with each other.
  6. Due to the complexity of the blockchains, a proposal was to build something like a DNS root server to sustain them. Another environmental concern was expressed by highlighting the need to limit that the enormous electricity consumption caused by the proof-of-work mining algorithms.


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>> WALID AL-SAQAF: Hello, everyone. Very much welcome to our blockchain and IG session. I believe we have started. Today's session is going to be quite entertaining, to tell you the least. We have chocolates here. I make insure we bring in local chocolates from Kalef. Is that the company here that is quite famous with chocolates? And we have stickers here. We have miners, that have been previously identified here. Anton, over here. And maybe we can be joined by other miners who wish to participate in the game.

Don't panic. Don't worry if you don't know math. This is not going to be a math test. It's not going to be too complicated. The aim here is to simply explain to you what the blockchain is all about in a more pragmatic, simple way, illustrating out hashing happens, and we'll be using a very simple logo for ours today. We call them yummy coins. Yummy. Like this. So, today is the yummy coin blockchain session. Based on that, then, after we have explained how blockchain works and how these, I think there are a couple of seats available, if you want. And once we explain what blockchain is about, then we move on to the more, let's say, hard cases of IG and why it's important to relate to that.

Without further ado, I would like to introduce the presenter who will be giving us a very brief presentation, about ten minutes. It's Ken Hansen. If you are familiar with the blockchain road show, have you been to the blockchain road show before? It was in Copenhagen. So he is joining us remotely. I believe we are having him connect with video as well. Obviously, of course, I didn't mention. My name is Walid Al Saqaf. I'm a Board of Trustees member, but I'm here in my capacity, I'm a blockchain enthusiastic and a person who would like to explain the technology.

So, if we have Ken, then we'll give him the floor so that he can present what blockchain is. So, it's your floor, Ken.

>> KEN HANSEN: Great. Thank you, Walid. And thank you to EuroDIG and all the attendees for the opportunities today. I'm going to take you very quickly through a high level overview of blockchain. I'm sure there are some of you in the room who know about blockchain in great detail. Don't worry, when we get to the next exercise, we're going to get into a lot of detail and we're going to make it fun, as well.

So, what is blockchain? If you ask ten people what blockchain is, you'll probably get ten different answers. There's a lot being written in the media about blockchain. But, let's take this definition. This is a definition from IBM, and there are several key terms that are mentioned in this definition that are fundamental to blockchain. One is the concept of a distributed ledger. And we're going to walk through what a distributed ledger is in just a moment, but essentially what it means is, there are notes, multiple notes. There are complete copies of the database and transactions in the block, and the entire history of the block in every one of the notes.

The records in a blockchain are what some call immutable. They're permanent and they're tamper proof. They cannot be changed. And they're time stamped as well. Blockchain is a peer to peer technology that doesn't require any centralized third party so I'll go into somewhat of a description as to what that should look like, but one thing to note is, there's no central party in the middle controlling everything with visibility to all the transactions.

What you're looking at now is White Paper first published by someone called Satoshi Nakamura in 2008. This White Paper describes the concepts of a blockchain for the very first time. No one knows who Satoshi Nakamura is. He's completely anonymous to this day. He hasn't been identified. In 2009, he identified the first block that's referred to as the Genesis Block, and the value of the Bitcoin that he purchased in his transactions, he now owns 1 million Bitcoins. In today's Bitcoin value, that's worth over $2 billion. He's never withdrawn a single Bitcoin, and to this day, he's completely unidentified. But it's this White Paper that described how a blockchain would work. Primarily in the case of this White Paper, primarily in the concept of cryptocurrency. The major problem that this blockchain technology solved is a problem called double spend.

In the real world, if I give you ten U.S. dollars in paper money, I can't turn around and give the same ten dollars to another person. But in cryptocurrency, the problem that had been unsolved until this White Paper is if I give you some bits, some ones and zeros that represent money, currency, what is to prevent me from turning around and giving those same ones and zeros to someone else. That's called the double spend problem.

We'll go into how blockchain solves that double spend problem in a minute, but this is really what is behind the evolution and all the excitement behind blockchain. For clarification's sake, Bitcoin is not synonomous with blockchain. Bitcoin is an application that runs on blockchain. There are many applications that run on blockchain. Not all of them involve cryptocurrency. In fact, most of the application that run on blockchain don't involve cryptocurrency, and the other thing that I'd like to note is you often hear the media refer to "the blockchain." Well, there isn't the blockchain. There isn't one blockchain. There are many, many blockchains. At this point, I would estimate there are hundreds of blockchains. Maybe even a thousand or more blockchains. Because remember, blockchain is essentially a peer to peer technology. It's software. There's no centralized blockchain network.

So, what is a distributed network? A centralized network, everyone is connected to a centralized server. Then there's something called a federal decentralized network, then you have star networks, that are connected to one another. But a distributed isn't any one network. It's more like a mesh type architecture. So, how does a distributed open ledger work? First of all, there's no as I mentioned before, no centralized third party. So let's quickly walk through how a transaction works in a distributed open ledger. We're using Bitcoin as an example here, or cryptocurrency as an example here, but keep in mind, this can be anything of value. It can be ownership of land. It can be a bond. It can be anything that has value. It could be a shipment of services that are moving from a manufacturer to a retail store. But let's use Bitcoin as an example.

So let's say A wants to send five dollars to B. A has ten dollars. He sends five dollars of that to the B. What you'll notice is, every one of these notes has a copy of that transaction. A to B, five dollars. So there's a copy of that transaction in each of the notes. So then B sends three dollars to C, same thing. There's a copy in every single one of the databases. In the case of basis coin, for example, there are over 600 notes at the moment. So every single Bitcoin transaction that's ever taken place since 2009 is in every one of those 600 notes. So, then, C sends a dollar to D. So, that's a note as well.

Now, let's say A tries to send $15 to D. Now, all of the notes know that A no longer has $15, so that transaction will be rejected. Okay. So that's a very high level basic transaction. Now, in order for that transaction to take place, you have to have what's called validation or consensus agreement that the transaction is, indeed, a valid one. So, you've probably heard of something called Bitcoin mining, or mining mode. And in the case of Bitcoin, it uses a consensus method called proof of owner to validate transactions. So, within the Bitcoin blockchain, there are special modes called nodes called mining nodes. These nodes work to validate transaction before they enter the blockchain.

Now, let's walk step through step. A transaction is sent from any one of the nodes on the blockchain. The first thing that has to happen for that validation to take place is a mining node needs to solve a cryptographic puzzle. So that cryptographic puzzle is sent out to all of the mining nodes. The mining nodes work to solve that problem. In other words, to finds the key that solves that cryptographic problem.

Once one of the nodes finds the solution to the problem, it broadcasts that solution to all of the other nodes. All of the other nodes then add that block to the chain. So now you have a valid transaction. It's been synchronized or sent to all of the nodes, and now all the nodes will start looking for the next puzzle to solve. The nodes that solve the problem will receive a reward for being the node that validated that transaction by solving the problem. Because it takes a lot of power and a lot of electricity to solve the problem, and you need to incent the nodes to validate the transaction, they receive some Bitcoin as a reward as well as a transaction fee.

So that's kind of step by step how consensus works. This methodology of achieving consensus is called proof of work, but there are other methods of consensus as well. for instance, there's something called proof of stake, which is based on what percentage of the currency does a particular participant own. So that's what they set step by step transaction again, at a very high level. What are some of the use cases for blockchain. I said before in addition to cryptocurrency, there are many other potential use cases for blockchain so I've this is just a sample of some of the applications, and the first one on the top left is something called Open Bizarre. So, Open Bizarre is an e commerce application, somewhat like Amazon, but for bit purposes, there's no centralized party, no centralized marketplace in the middle.

So, each of the participants in this marketplace downloads the blockchain software on to the laptop or on to a computer. Once they've done that, they're able to list merchandise, products for sale, and sell it to other participants in the network. So they essentially open a store and can transact with anybody else who has the software on the computer. All payments are made in Bitcoin. Again, no centralized third party. So that's one application.

If you took a plane to attend EuroDIG, this next application will be of interest to you. This is an insurance application. Some would call it a betting application. And what this application does is it pays you a fee if your flight is late in arriving at its destination. So before you take your flight, you would buy this insurance and you would essentially bet my flight is going to be if my flight is 30 minutes late or more, I want to receive this payout of X amount of dollars. So you pay a fee that's of course lower than the payout, and when your flight lands, the blockchain has a third party feed that records the arrival time of that flight and if the flight was late more than 30 minutes, you would be paid the insurance payout for your flight being late. Notice a few things here.

The first, it's completely anonymous. So you don't need a credit card. You don't need to give them your name, your address. All payment is made in cryptocurrency, and it's automatic and irreversible. So once they enter into what's called a Smart Contract with you that says if your flight is late more than 30 minutes, we're going to pay this fee, when the fee indicates the flight is late, it automatically triggers the payment. So you can have confidence if your flight is late, you will receive a payment. That's something called a Smart Contract. Also a very important concept in blockchain. Essentially smart Contracts are code that reside in the block in the chain and there's a copy of that application in every single one of the blocks. I'll go through one more, which is something called ripple. Ripple is for international money transfer. We all know that international money transfer can take in today's environment, typically takes several days to complete and it can be expensive. Twenty five dollars, $30, even a hundred dollars for a transaction. Using blockchain to transmit from one country to another takes seconds and costs pennies. Ripple is providing this capability to banks who wish to provide their customers with fast, almost realtime money transfer at a very low fee.

This is just one example, but there are many, many more. So that's a basic overview of blockchain. Look forward to any questions you may have later but for now, I'll turn it back to Walid and the team and I know you're looking forward to the game, the exercise that you'll participate in later where you'll learn a lot more. Thank you very much.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you, Ken


So, are you ready? This is the moment of truth. Now, so as not to get too harsh on you, we have not really we are not going to assign volunteers randomly. We will ask you volunteer. So, we have asked colleagues of mine who are willing to volunteer, so what happens here is that, as you know, you might know in the blockchain world, traders. Traders meaning people who send and receive Bitcoin for blockchain coins, whatever they are. And then there are miners. Miners who are doing the proof of work, who do the verification of transactions. So, here, we have a number of colleagues. Each one, I ask them to introduce their wallet list. That is the location you send money to, or coins to. These are yummy coins. Each coin is one unit. We're making it simple. We have up to, I think, 120 coins in this.

What we'll do, if you volunteer, you will get free, from us, ten of these early from the beginning as a gesture because you've shown courage. So, we have Anton and Crishna. Anton is number 4.

>> Yeah, number 4. I put the names in the tables.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes, exactly. 4 is a wallet address, so you send coins to, if you want to. And number 1 is a miner, and the user is a miner. So, no, a trader. A trader, yes. So Crishna will be a trainer. Then, we have Fabian, who is number 9. You will start off as a trader and become a miner if you're interested. And then we have Arvin, number 2, and he is a miner. Exactly. So these are already here. But now, we have five more slots so I would like anyone to volunteer to become a trader or a miner, depending on the level of expertise he has. If you are willing to be a trader, it's very simple. All you need to do is simply say, I want to send yummy coins to number so. So any show of hands? There we go. One, two, three, four. Okay.

So, I'll be giving you your number. So basically, going back to the mic. Basically, what I've done is simply assigned the wallets, wallet address, which is the number, to yummy coins. So now you're a part of the network. Individuals who have numbers are now the blockchain, and their nodes are part of the yummy blockchain.

So what we'll do next, and maybe I'll use your help, to pass this around for every single node to get ten of these as the capital. Now, you will get ten yummy coins as your capital. What you can do is you can trade these just like you do in the real word, the blockchain, you trade your Bitcoins. Now you'll simply trade them by sending them, or you can receive Bitcoins from others. The fact that you are able, now, to help us construct the blockchain from scratch. Okay. Let's see. No, that's okay. Okay. So, now that you have your coins with you, the part will remain back here because that's where we will use the resources we have, the part, to send rewards to the the pot, to send rewards to the miners once they do verification. Okay. So we have two miners, apparently. Actually, is there anyone who is really interested in becoming a volunteer also?

You want to be a miner? Okay. So, I warn you, it's going to be competitive. So miners need to have equipment, but they need to be fast. And proof of work means that they have to guess the answers to questions very quickly. So I'll ask the miners to stand up and come over to the boards. All right. Let's see. I think we'll add your names. So who is not missing on this sheet? Yeah, you can add the names. I suggest that you remove this and put it somewhere here. You can tape it on the wall. Take it out and tape it. Come. The miners need to be active, no? You didn't know that? Now you are stuck. I'm sorry. But, it's every reward needs some risks. So you need to you don't know what you put yourself into.

So now we have a very good basic infrastructure. We have coins that have been distributed. We have miners in place here defined in this node here. Can I help? And you have traders. We have ten nine, I believe, because that's the limit we have for today. Otherwise, could have increased. And now the main exciting part is that any of the traders or miners would like to send to some other person on the blockchain some coins. So who is willing to send to whom?

All right. Then Fabian will be sending Okay. Just let us know how much it is and to whom. Okay. So now we have can you put rules on the so, there is a very simple rule. We create a transaction code. Transaction hash. This transaction hash is basically an illustration of what you have on the blockchain as an unverified transaction. So, the way it works is that at the very top right can you zoom to the very top right where it says transaction up there. So, we have the time stamp, and time stamp right now, can anyone tell us the minutes time stamp? What's the time? Twenty four. And then the sender is number nine. Recipient is number five, and the coins you send are how many? Three? And how much in transaction fee do you want to give, if you want to give zero or one or up to nine? How much do you want to give? One? Okay. That's stingy. But that's okay. Okay to start with. That's the first transaction. So, who else is willing to send money? We need at least three or four transactions to start working. Yes. How much will you send?

>> Five.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: So is it 24 or 25 now? Twenty five. And it's the number one. Two. Sending. Number six. And how much is it? Three five, you said? You'll send five yummy coins, and fee is two. All right. So we have two unverified transactions. Okay. It will help, my hand is aching. You know, I've been working all day to prepare for this, so bear with me P. so, what is happening right now is basically, we'll need to start the process multitasking. We need to start the process of what we call verifying transactions. Okay. If these are the transactions we have, we can start with them, but we have three miners. So that means basically, at least two miners will compete for the same transaction, which is good. So right now, these are unverified transactions. In blockchain and Bitcoin, you have people sending and then expecting the miners to verify these. So you have two unverified trans, as and you have the miners ready. There's okay. Now it's working. So, now the unverified transactions will begin. We need the miners to tell us which transactions they want to verify.

Okay. Come over and make sure that you let us know what you'll point to the one that you would like to verify. Maybe you can write your number on it as well, between brackets, so we know who is working on what. Okay. You can use the markers down there for clarity. All right. So can you explain to us your rationale, why you chose two?

>> Because it works for me as a miner. If I solve this, I can actually have two yummy coins.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Plus the reward. Excellent. So why did you decide on the first? Just want to make the blockchain work, right?

>> No, because I don't want to compete with the others.


>> WALID AL SAQAF: Wow. That's quite wise.

>> Who appear to know what they're doing.


>> WALID AL SAQAF: So what's going on right now is that we have two miners trying to verify this transaction because they will get rewarded two coins as a reward, yummy coins. And she'll get one if she solves the problem. So now we come to the exciting part of trying to know what questions. So there is a formula to this. This is basically to calculate which question you'll be getting. So I think that's what part, which step of it? Yeah, that's it. So what happens is they will get the reward. Each one will get it by calculating total digits of their transaction. Please take the digits, add those and you'll get the results. All right you're a good mathematician. Twenty five. You can verify. It's simple to verify. Correct? And the second one is 21. Correct? Okay. So what happens is based on the rules of this blockchain, the last digit since the number ends with number one and for you it ends with number four, so we will have to go for the colors. So the colors here, pink is number one, within the pink color as you can see in the table. So you'll have to get the first question from the pink side while the answer is four, so it's within the yellow, so you'll get a question from the yellow side.

So, I'd like now to have each one of you open up the question, and read it out loud. Read it together. Yeah?

>> Usually a guessing game, so that's why.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Okay. Your question.

>> What was the date in May 2017 when Bitcoin's domination of the cryptocurrency market went over 50 percent for the first time. And why is there a number at the end?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: The number is basically the range. I'm making it easy for you to estimate, so I've given them 11 to 16 for her, and you have from seven to 12 for them. So right now on your marks, get set, begin writing your guesses right now on the board one after the other. Right it in the mark so people can see. You got it? You got the answer. It was 15 here, so then you got it there and it was ten here. So what it means is that, in this case, Anton would you know and so we stop here. Anton won this particular block. Of course you're the only person who won your block. Congratulations.

So that means, what it happens is that he gets very quickly. So this was simple because there are just few to guess from, but what happens is as the time advances, the number of the scale or the number of guesses that you need to have is much more. So right now what will happen is we'll create the block, so they started first, so they will be the first block and yours will be the second block. That's how it works. Then what happens here is that we'll go to the next stage in which we have more blocks to mine.

So right now, this is the rule says that the mine hash is basically the miner's name. So you can write down the miner's name, your address. Your miner's address is number three. Did you put it somewhere?

>> I have it there.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: You should have it on you. Okay. So what happened now is that basically we have the first mine block. This is the first mine block of the blockchain. It's after the first very initial block, which is the Genesis Block. We call it Genesis Block because it's zeros. So this is based on the numbers here. You see that the winner is 4. That's the miner. And it's verified. Every single person within the blockchain has the same number and this is a transaction that has been verified. And you have, Okay. So what we can do now is we will give the chocolates to the winner of the reward. Plus the five chocolates. The ones that will be sent will be sent and they will be fees, giving it to the miner.

>> There's only one here.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes, and for you, you will get so if you remember here in this case, we had nine sending to five, three, and there was a transaction fee of one why am I using this? One, two, three. All right. And this is your reward for the block.

>> Why do I get this one?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Because this is the reward for block mining.

>> So any way, I get money for mining. Whether I do it right or wrong.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: No, no. You got it right. Eventually, you guessed the right number, which is 15.

>> Yes, but what if I didn't get it right?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: You will lose. Actually, if please.

>> I would like to complain. I should have received five, and I only received three.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: What was your number? Your number is five? So, nine sent to five, three coins. It's on the blockchain. All right. So you didn't get yours. You have to get yours. It's not an issue. People are watching. All right. So, now what happens is that we have finished the first block, so we need to put in the blocks color which is basically the total of the transactions. Did you calculate the total?

>> Not yet.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: So we need to calculate the totals. All right. So this will lead to the new hash, which is five. Okay. Yellow. And so, yellow is the new block so it will be on top and it has the hash. What's the hash?

>> The hash, has zeros. Number.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: So it's the same. Exactly. So what happens here is that every block has a hash number. All right? And the hash number is basically the block, the total of the block before it. And they are the first, so Genesis Block is zeros so it means they have this as their hash number, as the hash code. For you, you will be the second block. So what happens is that your hash will add to theirs. You need to add yours to theirs. The whole thing. The whole hash. You can copy this. This is their hash. Copy it. So. All right. Now, add these together. You will and I mean the total of all of these two digits together so that's what I said, I calculated a little. So, this is, to explain to you that if you have a new block on top of another block so it has to connect to the earlier block. So it means that the hash code for the new block is reliant, or dependent, on the hashtag of the earlier block.

And that's how the blockchain begins to become connected to each other. The other problem here is that you notice there's only one transaction per block. That means that's the speed. In reality, every block has several transactions. Bitcoin, for example, has one megabyte of transactions. So now we've got, the winners have theirs, we have the blocks one after the other. The total for that, what's the total for your hash so we can get the number? Twenty five. Five is yellow, so now we have, the second block is supposed to be yellow as well. So we can write down the number of blocks here. This is number 1. This is number 2. So, now we started creating the blockchain from the very beginning. Two transactions have been verified. Now what happens is new transactions need to come about, so more players willing to bring coin. Who is willing to send?

>> I sent three, seven.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Okay. So now we have new transactions. There will be a transaction from, your number is, five. Thirty eight is a time. Now, to whom, first? To whom will you be sending it? To number seven. And how many coins? Five. He'll be sending five coins. And what is the fee that you will p pay the miners? Two. All right. This is one transaction. Who else would like to send?

>> Can I send a transaction to the miner?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. You can. Of course.

>> I'm sending a transaction to number 2.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: All right. Okay. So now what happens is he is raising the fees so he can go first. What happens is if you lower the fees, miners are slower. If you do not send any fees, you might never get your transactions verified. Fees play a part. If the blockchain is so you only have one question. So if every block has room for one transaction so every single trainings action requires a new block, which means that it takes also, longer. So now we need more transactions at this time.


>> WALID AL SAQAF: I didn't get your question. Can you use the mic?

>> Is it possible to put multiple transactions notice same blockchain, and does it need multiple fees or it can take only one fee?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: No you need multiple fees. You can take as many transactions as you want as long as you have the money. It's not possible to send transactions that don't have coins to cover for.

>> So every transaction needs a fee?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Exactly. Of course. So we have here more transactions. Three transactions.

>> I don't have any more coins.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: You have lots of coins.

>> What's your number? I'll give you coins.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Do you want to send him coins?

>> Of course.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Time is now 41? Forty? Forty two is the minutes time stamp and your number is three, and his is two and you're sending how many coins? Three coins? And the fee is two. Okay. Quite a heavy fee compared to all right. So what will happen now, you should have gotten ten, actually. At the very beginning. All right. You should get ten because then he didn't start with the right capital. All right. So take the ten. Your ten should have been given to you.

>> I'm giving five.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Five in transaction?

>> I have many. Make sure it's ten. Count them.

>> By the way, what has happened is called

>> WALID AL SAQAF: So now we have four transactions. Which transaction do you take? Of course. The last one. Gets the cost. So Anton will do so you want to mine? Okay. Crishna is going over to mine.

>> Can I?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: You can, but it's going to be complicated. You need to guess answers to multiple questions which doesn't make good sense. But you are free. You can do whatever you like. What do you want to do?

>> Because nobody wants to mine the others.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: All right. Which one will you go? You're going for the lower fee? That's not justified. You need okay. What about the third? It's also three. So why did you choose two over three. That doesn't make sense. All right. You're free to do whatever you like. In reality, this is not really rational because you don't know the transaction's whereabouts. There's no favoritism in the real game. You just go for the highest fee. In any case, you are taken to you can change your mind if you wish. Okay. And remove it from there. And this is a good lesson. If you have lower fees, you'll never get across.

So, now that person with unverified transaction will remain unverified for this round. So, add up the numbers quickly so we can go through the quiz. Everyone add their numbers. The miners need to start working. Nine, also. Get the total for the other 2. So the last digit is six. Go to the map. You see that eight is, nine are 15. So this means you have multiple questions to ask so the first question is by everyone.

>> How many proposals are rejected by the 2017 (?)

>> WALID AL SAQAF: So this is the question. Give us the range of answers.

>> From nine to 14.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: So, you have the first the fake question. Let's so that's the yellow. Come on, you're faster than I am. So where are you at? What's the range, again.

>> Nine to 14.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: And it's green? Yeah. You guessed everything, so we'll just see who got there first because all right. Yours is the first because it's 13. Salam, you have lost this transaction. They are the ones who won, and so now he gets to be the winner and now you have the new block with this transaction verified and the next block. So calculate the total. Get the number of the miners quickly. You lost, yeah. You can go home. So now, because we have a block, let him finish the block because he won. You lost. So that means this block is his so we wait until the next block gets mined. Now you don't return no, that's it. It's gone. This gets disposed because you failed to get anything by the time.

>> So are you saying that the network is going to be besides transaction. I thought blockchain network was everyone.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Blockchain was us and the nodes are the blockchain so there's really no central authority. So what happens here is because you don't win this round, the questions will be dropped and then we move on to a new question. So now if you want to do it again, you can do it again, any of these, and thin get the next more difficult question. Your time will be left. You have now eight and six. Eight is green and you can also have six. That's what I said. You can't do multiple things. It's difficult. But if you want to go for six, six is yellow and you can take the next yellow question. But let us finish, now, to be fair for them to get their block. What took you so long?

>> Number 2, that's me.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: 2 is the winner.

>> And 42 was the time.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Three. Two. Three. Five. Fantastic. So, this is the transaction after you add the winner. Now you multiply that and add that to the last hash. So there's your calculator. You need to add it to the last hash on the earlier you remember the last hash? No, it's this one. So this is the last number for if block. So you need to add that block, that new verified transaction to its old.

>> Walid? Ken is asking us if we have any questions for him before he drops.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Any questions or do you want to no. I think he can say good bye. Thank you. So we have the total here just remember as he adds these, this new block is dependent on the new block and the one earlier, so it's this intrinsic new link. So every new block is reliant on earlier blocks. So we learned several things. We learned that low fee transactions will not go through. You learned that the blocks are created by the winners. The winners are the ones who create it. So the total for these digits would be and in reality, anyone, and the node, will have to actually verify that the account is correct. I mean, this is in reality, of course. I feel not verifying. It's a number 8. Which is green. So now we have that new block in the blockchain, so this is your block and it's number three. So now the blockchain is continuing.

We have information about what happened in the network so now we finalized the transaction, which is giving the first award. One, two, three, four, five. This is yours. And then, she is getting

>> I didn't do anything.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Who is the sender?

>> No, me.



So, three.

>> So, yeah, so I have to give you.

>> Walid?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. Oh, time. Okay.

>> We're eight minutes until six.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: All right. So we will do one more block and then move on, just to explain that this is going on. So now what happens is that we have a transaction. So they need to compete, now, or if new transactions are sent, they will be verified. So any new transactions to send from the current, you'll be sending? Yes. We have eight. So six will be sending to eight. How many coins? Okay. So now what's happening is that number eight, Valentina, is sending five coins and the miner will get five reward coins as well. So that means that the miners will probably take that one right now. So who are the miners now? So I will start. Did you add the numbers? What happens is we'll add the digits to get the numbers. Ten. Eighteen. Thirty two. Fantastic. So two is the color pink so we'll go for the second question, and if you'll read out loud the question, please.

>> What percentage of this population died because of a hunger in the late 17th century?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Percentage of the population. Very quick. She got it! I don't know how fast. I saw her before you so I will give her credit. No, she got the 20 at the end. So.

>> So 20?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yeah. 20 percent. So that was some general knowledge for you guys.

>> Can you verify one thing?


>> So you said there was no central authority, but you're acting as the one.


>> WALID AL SAQAF: I'm simply implementing the rules. I'm the processor because otherwise, it's so in reality, obviously, the time stamps will be compared. Okay. So if anyone is interested, this is an interesting thing we can do. If the nodes there think that he won, you will then verify his block, even though I said that he won. This is still possible. In reality, blockchain, if you have two exact, two miners win at the same time or think at the same time, then voters will decide, the actual nodes will decide which block to extend, which block to use.

>> So in reality, I am running into a problem. My transaction should have been honored and it didn't. Now I have two questions. Either I leave it like that, or I increase. Can I do that?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. You can increase your transaction fee.

>> Can I increase the same or do I have to withdraw first and reenter.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: You can add a new transaction, send a new receiver and then use that to send.

>> But how do I notify the first one because I don't want to pay twice.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: I think there is a mechanism to do that on Bitcoin where you nullify one transaction if it's not verified.

>> So the blockchain is infinite? How many blocks are there in the blockchain today?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: As of now. It's a 200 gigabyte of data.

>> You have to specify which block.

>> Etherium.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Etherium is slower than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is about 200 gigabytes so you need to download all the blockchain.

>> 600 nodes have

>> WALID AL SAQAF: No, not 600. 600 of the individual nodes that are verifying that they are having the duplicates but it's not the number of blocks. The number of blocks is way more. Yes. They have the duplicates. Each one has 200 gigabytes of data on the device. Yes. 600. So, did you send and receive, reconcile everything? You know, I don't want to intervene because sorry? So the sender is yes. We verified one single transaction but yours, that was that's not Valentina. No, it's the you mean the new transaction. Yes, so it's still continuing. Yes. So the reward needs to be given. You get the reward, and now the transaction needs to be complete. So she did send you did she? You get the coins? All right. She needs someone to help her out. So what happens now is that we have one more block and this block is verified and we know the recipient to receive the coins. The sender sent the coins. The miner got their coins, and this blockchain is actually duplicated in every single node that exists in the network. So everyone now understands what happened in the history of the blockchain. Yes. So there's one thing, let's say you were about to receive and this happened. We were about to receive it. Excuse me, can I see this? Thank you very much. That's mine. And now I stole his private key. I stole his private key. He was reckless. He couldn't really protect it, so I simply went into his system and I stole the private key.

So, now I simply I mean, pretend to be him, and I actually can take his money. I can take his coins. But it's hypothetical, so don't worry. So I think that this more or less summarizes what we are about. This is how transactions take place. You have miners who compete to answering questions. We have nodes that will send and receive. We have the transactions that don't get fulfilled. They're quite slow sometimes because there are not many in one block and we have a process that makes sure every single new hash is reliant on the earlier hash so this keeps the network intact. This keeps the hashtags connected. Yes?

>> Is this slide available online for download?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. This will be in the report once we finish this workshop, and excuse us for any lapses. This was the first ever experience for us to do it live in such a fashion. So I thank you very much for participating in the game


And so each one of you will get the remainder of the coins. We will circulate so everyone gets one, a number of the cycles. While we do that, we will move on to the next stage, which is basically the discussion. Now we understand what blockchain is. How it works, how miners work, which is called proof of work. And now we will move to the actual IG discussions. Yes? (?) that's a good question. In reality, these are fabricated by me. But answering questions has basically been given a particular hash, a particular, say, code. And then you will be asked to get the original content that resulted in the hash. So that means that you'll have to go randomly through a huge number of guesses until you get the right hash. That's how mining works, and it gets more complex as more miners join. And so you will notice that complexity increases as more miners join. You can answer that one, yes.

>> So, the tones to make sure there's no algorithm finding this answer. The only way of finding this answer is trying the entire set of possible answers and then checking if its correct. Next one, next one, next one. And therefore, the only way to proceed with this kind of mining is to implement this algorithm in more and more efficient way, like in hardware and in some specific hardware. That's why we have a specific industry of specific hardware of mining Bitcoins.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. So I know that we are a bit behind schedule, but that is worth it, I hope. And you got chocolates, at least. So we move on to the next stage of discussing. Okay. Now that we understand technology looks like, it's self sustaining. It's peer to peer. Decentralized, distributed, and it involves proof of work. It involves verifying, et cetera. So now we would like to know, what are the implications on Internet Governance and how does this play out in the real world? So I believe we can begin with asking Anton, perhaps, giving us the perspective of how does blockchain technology enhance trust on the internet? So, you can take it from here for another five minutes. And you can introduce yourself, of course.

>> ANTON ZUENKO: My name is Anton. I work in SouthHub. We're trying to develop and distribute blockchain technology. I would say it's kind of confusing what blockchain is. As Ken mentioned from the beginning, if you ask ten people, they will give ten different answers. My concept of blockchain technology is decentralized system. The system would make sure there's some b (?). Cloud, decentralized like Google. Now the protocol is the protocol communication. There's no protocol of validation of data, something like this. So there's lots of similarities between blockchain technology and the internet itself in the sense of how it has been created.

I see that the internet has been borne as a system that is decentralized from the very beginning. That there's no single body that controls the entire internet, and the same is true for Bitcoin. The same is true for other blockchain. There's no single that could change entire blockchain just by wishing so. And therefore, this kind of similarities. That blockchain has been seen as the next, some people say that blockchain is the next iteration of the internet. I do not quite agree with that definition, but the truth is that blockchain is in very, very early stage of development. Many blockchain are not covered by any standards.

Probably in the next three years, the question will be how to make common standards of the data exchange between the existing blockchains. And probably, that should also be the initiative of internet community to take lead in solving this problem.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you, Anton. And so in some way, what is said now is that since there's really no intermediary, there's no third party involved. You have end users communicating with each other. That network does not require to trust the particular central authority. It doesn't require you to trust your bank anymore because transactions are done through math, peer math, that's verified by everyone on the network. That leads to more, instead of using trust of the network, you can become a network that requires no trust. No one needs to trust anyone else because everything is built on the code that is pure math. So that's perhaps the notion mentioned here. Yes, please. There's a mic that you can use. There's also one there.

>> Right in front of you. To the left. Right. Yeah. Your left.

>> Thank you. Is it working? I think, actually, you need trust because what you see today in. I remember reading about this genius miner who found out a way to mine more help me out, Anton. I know you know more about this.

>> ANTON ZUENKO: Bitcoin developer discovered a bug to claim some coins that should not have normally been claimed.

>> Yeah. So you have a really important miner, this Chinese who has the power to manipulate the transactions, what's going on. And if I know this correctly, he's one of the players that is stopping the transition from proof of work to proof of stake.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yeah, just because of time, what I can refer you to is the fact that every single code has a coder. So, eventually, if there are bugs in the code, then of course, the system might not work as expected. So there is an element of trust, but I'm referring to the potential that you have the source code being audited by everyone and everyone agrees with it and understands what it means, so at that point, it becomes trustless but there is a point in the very beginning when you actually write the code.

I think we have other participants on the line. I know that Hanane has been waiting, so perhaps we can give her the floor. So on the remote participation, Michael, is Hanane available?


>> WALID AL SAQAF: Let's see if we can see you on the screen.

>> HANANE BOUJERNI: Yes. My nose is a little bit blocked today. Thank you, Walid, for the very entertaining session on blockchain technology and how it's practically working. I think, I feel like I'm going to on the section because when we talk about lateral issues, it's always (?) and the standard here is that technology is quite ahead when it comes to implementing regulation. Now, the trend in Europe is that a lot of countries are trying to regulate blockchain in Russia which recently made a statement that by 2019 they will have a regulatory framework in place to monitor blockchain. The issue here is that nobody knows exactly what should be regulated, and I think we understand why the technology itself is not main stream. And we don't know yet what it can do, what it can achieve.

When it comes to the European union, they've adopted a more balanced approach where they really want to know what blockchain technology can do before they introduce regulation. Both approaches have facts. We would like to foster innovation and make sure that blockchain can realize its full potential without getting regulation as a first step. I mean, it's becoming, now, more natural for governments to try to regulate technology in general, but in this case of blockchain, the full potential of this specific technology is not yet known, so it's very hard to speak of any at the moment which puts regulatory framework at the forefront.

So we need to know, are we going to regulate? According to the users, or are we going to regulates what we call the private blockchain? Because anybody can develop blockchain so the predictions that there might be some kind of due diligence that is needed to, people would like to develop private blockchains. But to the extent it's going to enhance the technology itself, it's not yet known. So there are a lot of question marks here. My preference is to have more of an open like you just did the game. (?) Very much needed. Financial transactions. History, as we've seen earlier. Blockchain technology is being used. Of course, it's cost effective, so it's very hard to try to focus now on regulation where we don't know, exactly, the full potential of this technology. Now, I think that regulators don't have a lot of options at the moment because nobody, as I said earlier, understands, let's say the borders of this technology. I'm doing research on this topic, and it's really, really hard to find any kind of solid references on the regulatory framework.

They are all predictions. Only assumptions. Now, to what extent these assumptions are going to be reality, I think it will take a few years until we see that this framework is regulated. In my view, it shouldn't be because it's very hard to pin people down according to restrictions. The prime concern that I have personally, what Walid mentioned earlier, is about trust and security. I think these two concerns are much more important than implementing regulations that will eventually drag us back because the idea is to innovate and create technology to help services in general. So, yeah. So I believe, this is what I've found so far with regards to the link between blockchain, IG, and policy and regulation.

There isn't much going on. By the end of my research, I should be able to feed you with more information about the, not about the future, but what's going on.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you, Hanane. The bottom line is that the subject is so fresh and so new that not many people know how to deal with it legally and technically. Yes, we have a question from the floor. Feel free to ask or comment any time. There's a mic that can be used. Yes.

>> As the last person commented, there's a lot of misunderstanding about blockchain. I think if we are talking about your concerns about regulation and governance, I think it mostly has to do with things that carry value in a financial transaction. I would like to talk to you a little bit about an application that we're developing where we are working with cooperating routers in an internet scenario with software defined networking. And here, it's important that we can use a blockchain application because we have a number of independent actors who must cooperate to configure a network. And the question is, how do these actors trust each other? And here, we have a model where we don't need to have a central point of trust that is, for instance, a central certificate authorization or distribution agency. But each node can, using this blockchain technology, cooperate to validate and, shall we say, come up with a new router or a new network configuration technology so I don't like to confuse its matter more, but we can use blockchain technology where it's not a matter of government deciding. There are applications for this blockchain technology and a trusted model which can have very much answers.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you very much for the comment. We have another intervention here. So if we can get the mic.

>> Thank you. I'm from the Netherlands. And my question is, could blockchain be a solution for fake news?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Interesting. I'm not sure if many people are ready to answer, but it's a good thought to consider. We have participants as well, I believe.

>> So, this is from Nadira, and she is also on the organizing team for the session. Nadira writes, blockchain algorithms has its own embedded regulations through its coding and encryption techniques. This coding system enforces its own rules and regulations. I also think these set of rules do not actually comply with the existing legal frameworks. Taking Bitcoin as one of the blockchain applications, and my understanding, some might classify Bitcoin as a commodity and others as an e currency. Based on this, where do governments discuss regulating Bitcoin? Do they discuss them under the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Commerce, for instance?

The same logic goes for other blockchain applications. Is the trend to leave the coding to regulate itself?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you, Nadira. Thank you, Mike. We do have a speaker who has asked to speak, Arvin. I'll give him the floor for now and then resume around questions.

>> ARVIN KAMBERI: Thanks, Walid. I'm Arvin from the foundation, and working to develop the blockchain.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: And a very professional miner.

>> ARVIN KAMBERI: Unfortunately, I'm not an early adapter, but I was an early promoter. Just one small thing. Blockchain, as we know it, it was an initial Bitcoin intervention. It was invented in 2008 after the financial crash in investing world, and actually was kind of a rebellion. We kind of lost trust in our society, and we wanted to mathematically solve this in an elegant way. So, this is how it was invented. It is an original blockchain intervention, so original Bitcoin intervention needs to have that in mind. Through this convenient time stamping, we have one record which everyone can see. These are common years on the internet, and there are open standards. Bitcoin's blockchain is an open blockchain, and we can other blockchains can include permissions blockchains. Which work in the system, can add additional layer of security. Add additional layer of scalability. But those will be, actually, centralized blockchains. So we do have this promise of decentralization of blockchain in the manners, in the questions which we asked ten years ago the internet. Do we need standardization? So, then we realized we don't need standards for pushing the internet and we decided to go to the open networks, open standards, best effort, et cetera. So, this notion of distributed trust is really something new. So how does the change occur in this blockchain?

It is by majority. Like 51 percent of network is agree they're going somewhere, they're going somewhere. That's it. So it's an emerged consensus. It's the idea of emerged consensus which is not clear in which point it shows up, but it moves things forward. So if we thought ten, 15 years ago that for internet, we need multistakeholder advisory group, for example, can we have something like that for the blockchain? But open blockchains? I understand that foreseeing the power of this new technology, many institutions, others have started to create their own versions. We heard one. We heard from many other applications of blockchains. But those distributed ledgers are quite different from this Bitcoins blockchain and quite different from everything started. Now, this is a direction of which we take. So this is one clarification. We see that many of you don't quite understand. Is it one blockchain? But this initial blockchain, Bitcoin's blockchain, was made on an open network which are standards everyone used every day. Thanks.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you. We have another question.

>> This is just to take technology which can be used in different sectors so any regulation needs to be done in the future, in the light of the respective legislation. Taking Bitcoin is something clearly which has to do with financial sector, so if it has an impact there, it should be regulated, but not as distributed ledger or Bitcoin technology but as a product afterwards, Bitcoin and any other cryptocurrency. And we also know that there are large companies having internal projects where it is not at all actually open peer to peer. That is a very closed circuit thing and has nothing to do with legislation in our literal sense.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you very much. You wanted to add?

>> Hi, I'm from internet and jurisdiction. Thank you very much for the session because it's illuminating for people like me who are not familiar at all with how it works. Two things. What I understand from the last type of discussion is that Bitcoin is one type of blockchain implementation, and that there are several implementations of blockchains under the label of distributed ledgers. That's just a clarification that is useful for me.

The second thing is, the whole debate about decentralization, I think when you look at the internet, what we call the internet today is actually the emergence of those extremely large platforms that are providing a certain number of services. What I found interesting at the end of the presentation, at the beginning, before the game that was done, is the administration of the large number of applications that can be done.

Do you anticipate that on top of this technology or leveraging the application, going along the lines of what was said before, it's actually going to be a range of applications and players that will use the blockchain or distributed ledger underlying technology to create dominating platform in one sector or the other. Is this going to be the main governance challenge rather than the regulation of the technology, and is that the right way to frame the problem?

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. Let me answer first and then let Arvin continue. It looks like, we sometimes think that the internet is isolated from us. The internet blockchain, all of these are purely human nature. They are a reflection of what we are. So, there will always be very strong powerful entities that call for control. Keeping things in check. For example, governments would be concerned. One example is the incident where we recall recently the attacks that happened and the hackers actually used Bitcoin as a way for them to extort money because it's not possible for them to trace where they are. So this is an example where governments would say, this needs to be centralized. This needs to be regulated. But it's not new. This has happened all the way from the beginning of the internet when the internet emerged decentralized system. The governments didn't take it seriously. But after a while, they realized, now there's need to control or at least to regulate. The same iteration, the same cycle is now happening for the blockchain. So, totally think of it in the light of the human nature and how powerful entities would not want to lose power. We want to maintain some sort of checks and balances as they see fit whether to protect national security, protect citizens, et cetera. So we are still at the very beginning of this stage. I'd say we are around early 90s of the internet today when it comes to the blockchain.

So the real momentum will start right now and it's going to continue. So Arvin, like to add?

>> ARVIN KAMBERI: As in early stage of internet, this is going to be exactly as you described. It's going to be additional layers of this, yes? So that's it.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. We have remote, earlier comments.

>> If I could just follow up because it's directly related to that. In terms of dominance, it's also not only dominant within the application, but lots of big chains are standing on blockchain as a service. All the major Cloud providers are moving to this space as well, so that will be quite interesting to see how that plays out. What's also interesting is you see the big four auditing consulting firms suddenly trying to also offer technology as a service where they hadn't done before so I think that those underpinning platforms would be quite interesting because then people are building answers on top and that bring ups a whole bunch of different concerns.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Yes. Certainly. Thank you very much. Michael, you have your own intervention on this subject, yes?

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: Yes, and if anybody knows me, they should know where I'm going with this. One aspect of governance we also need to maintain over time is the sustainability of blockchain because right now, for instance, the Bitcoin Wiki, they address the ecological aspect of Bitcoin, the sustainability in terms of internet use. But when you're talking about blockchain, and that is that there can be so many different blockchains and over time, they're going to constantly in 20 years, you'll go back and be able to find the first Bitcoin. If you multiply that by many, many, many more blockchain applications, it could potentially end up using a lot of the energy.

So the point is that I don't think energy is necessarily addressed whenever blockchain was first created, but as we move forward, this should be something that we incorporate as much as possible into the discussion. It's not to say that, you know, by eliminating paper or by not using paper, we're saving elsewhere. It's not about net savings or anything. It's more about making it part of the discourse, period.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you, Michael. And there will always be questions or complications when it comes to environmental impacts of technology. But it looks like there are various groups that call for, let's say, protecting the underlying infrastructure so that it doesn't go too far astray and move away from the principals. Others called for various changes to the infrastructure of the original design of the Bitcoin. So there are various groups, as you might have heard. Bitcoin unlimited is asking to expand the block size indefinitely so as to speed up the process of transaction verifications. Others acts as segue, which is the core protocol for reducing the size of the transactions that fit to the block. So there are many ways in which they want to reduce the cost, but it's still an ongoing process. Yes?

>> Yes. Fabian Stalin from Sweden's biggest exchange for Bitcoin. BTCX. And I want to point out that there are actually many in the field of cryptocurrencies, there are much more cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin as well. And also regarding environmental and sustainable blockchains and so forth, we actually have a company in Sweden that has built a big mining center and they are using this to also like the heat that is generated through the mining centers also put into heat up buildings and stuff like that. So I think there are very much like interesting applications of these kinds of services.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Thank you. It looks like we are running out of time unless there's some pressing comment? Or question? Yes?

>> Just one very quick question. Given the way I understand the chain works, why is it necessary to keep the whole chain from day 1 instead of stopping it and overlapping? I suppose it's a very classical question.

>> Very easy to address. How can one system know exactly what is happening? They both can see everything which has ever happened. So just like that. Just full control, full transparency forever. Everyone would be able to know whatever happened in this ledger. So, this is just a ledger of things. That's why.

>> I mean, in other words, he would like to invent a way in which you can generate the whole blockchain from scratch, from very beginning. You can use it, have it already at your computer so you know from the first genesis all the way to now. Because if you take, let's say, the last ten days, then the last hash that you get for the last ten days would be retrieved from someone. How do you trust if that stored data is correct or not? So that brings up the question of trust again.

>> Perhaps we need root service for blockchain. No, really.

>> WALID AL SAQAF: Looks like we're really running out of time. Some people have appointments. Some others what I invite you to do is, let's keep the discussion going. There's a Wiki page open for members to discuss. The Wiki page of the session is actually open. So you can actually propose ideas, send us thoughts. Before ending, I would like to thank very much the organizing team. Without them, this would not have been possible. Anton, I'd like to thank you very much. He's one of the ones who generated the algorithms, the designs, the graphs. Arvin has been very helpful from the very beginning, throughout the design. Michael Oghia, of course, has been quite fabulous. Then we have people who are not with us like Hanane, Nadira, who are unable to make it. Their names are on the Wiki. I'd like to thank you all for coming. And of course, Ken Hansen, how can I forget? Ken Hansen and myself.

We all thank you for coming. I hope it didn't really disappoint. The next time, it will be much more organized. Maybe longer. And I'd like to invite you to learn more about this world of the blockchain. Thank you very much

