Two weeks ago at USV's annual CEO Summit, Muneeb Ali from OneName explained the blockchain in a way I hadn't heard before, and which I thought was really helpful: the blockchain is time.
That's a somewhat abstract way of saying it, so more concretely we could say that:
The blockchain is database of verified public timestamps.
Every bitcoin transaction is kept in a public ledger, and that ledger is verified and maintained by all of the computers participating in the Bitcoin network. This "chain" of transactions is known as the blockchain, and each transaction is essentially a public timestamp that can contain data.
The key aspects of the blockchain's timestamps are: decentralized (no one entity controls the database of timestamps, and everyone in the network confirms that timestamp has happened -- this is "mining"), immutable (once a timestamp has been verified and recorded, you can't un-do it), public (all of the timestamps are publicly visible, though some aspects of the data are encrypted), and programmable (you can write code against the blockchain -- for example, triggering some sort of action based on the details of a "smart contract" embedded in a timestamp).
Importantly, each of those timestamps contains a packet of data which can hold lots of things: details about a financial transaction, details about a contract between two or more parties, a hashed version of almost any document, etc.
One way I've described this is similar to the way people used to use postmarked envelopes to verify that something had happened at a certain time. For example, signing a will and putting it in an envelope, and mailing it to yourself -- the post office's postmark on the envelope, which has the date of the stamp, proves that whatever was put in the envelope was done so before the date of the stamp. IIRC, more than once, a mystery on Colombo was resolved using this technique, where a witness dramatically unseals a postmarked envelope before the judge.
The blockchain is essentially a digital, public, programmable version of that. Which we've never had before.
Previously, every app kept its own notion of time. So if I post something on Facebook, Facebook saves that post and timestamps it. We have to trust them to get that right, and not to change it ever in the future. This is fine for cat photos, but less fine for a financial transaction, or a deed to a house.
Here's that same idea in diagram form:
So in some sense, the Blockchain is a public database -- it has the effect of moving data that was previously kept within the walls of one or more apps out into a shared public database. But to get a little more specific, it's really a public database of timestamps -- a new ability for anyone to state, publicly and immutably, that a certain thing happened at a certain time.
Maybe that is obvious to folks who have been working in this space for a while, but I found it to be a really helpful way of thinking about things -- and of explaining it to people who are new to the idea. Thanks Muneeb!
Here's a slide from 2009, when we were convincing transit agencies to open up their data, and then later building MTA BusTIme:
And here's one from yesterday, from a talk I gave at the Shift Conference (blog post to follow w more on that):
"Workflow" apps hold so much promise. Whether it's a CRM, project management tool, to-do list, or some other tool, the promise in each case is to clean up our messy lives and help us be more organized and effective. The problem, though, is that getting people to adopt a workflow is really really hard. That's why there are so many to-do apps out there, each one with a slightly different user experience, and none of them "just quite right" for everyone. Workflow apps are like Goldilocks' porridge. Everyone is a little different, and it's hard to get people to change. A solution, then, is to take the "anti-workflow" approach. Make me more productive without shoehorning me into a new workflow. For example, Zander has been building a side project called Ansatz, which is the "anti-CRM". All you do is auth it into your email, and it builds intelligence your whole team can use, about who you know and how well. It's a CRM with out the CRM. And yesterday, I found out about Taco, which is the "anti-ToDo" app -- gives you a handle on all of the things you need to do (as defined by starred emails, github tasks, zendesk tickets, etc), and puts it right where you want it: on the Chrome new tab screen (side note: Taco should merge with Momentum, which I love). So now, I can track and prioritize what I need to work on, without having to adopt a to-do routine that I'm guaranteed not to stick to. Already, using this has helped me manage my inbox, as I know that I can archive starred emails knowing they'll show up in my todo list, where I can prioritize them and work on them later when I have time. Both of these examples build on perhaps the biggest productivity treasure trove: the inbox. For a long time, I've wondered why we don't see more and better email analytics tools (Rapportive was one of my favorites). My inbox knows pretty much everything about me, and it's really poorly organized. Maybe it's because entrepreneurs are afraid of Google Inbox (I suppose I would be). Regardless, it seems to me that there are countless ways to help me make my inbox more meaningful to me, and nearly all of them can accomplish that with an anti-workflow approach, which is a winning one IMHO.
Two weeks ago at USV's annual CEO Summit, Muneeb Ali from OneName explained the blockchain in a way I hadn't heard before, and which I thought was really helpful: the blockchain is time.
That's a somewhat abstract way of saying it, so more concretely we could say that:
The blockchain is database of verified public timestamps.
Every bitcoin transaction is kept in a public ledger, and that ledger is verified and maintained by all of the computers participating in the Bitcoin network. This "chain" of transactions is known as the blockchain, and each transaction is essentially a public timestamp that can contain data.
The key aspects of the blockchain's timestamps are: decentralized (no one entity controls the database of timestamps, and everyone in the network confirms that timestamp has happened -- this is "mining"), immutable (once a timestamp has been verified and recorded, you can't un-do it), public (all of the timestamps are publicly visible, though some aspects of the data are encrypted), and programmable (you can write code against the blockchain -- for example, triggering some sort of action based on the details of a "smart contract" embedded in a timestamp).
Importantly, each of those timestamps contains a packet of data which can hold lots of things: details about a financial transaction, details about a contract between two or more parties, a hashed version of almost any document, etc.
One way I've described this is similar to the way people used to use postmarked envelopes to verify that something had happened at a certain time. For example, signing a will and putting it in an envelope, and mailing it to yourself -- the post office's postmark on the envelope, which has the date of the stamp, proves that whatever was put in the envelope was done so before the date of the stamp. IIRC, more than once, a mystery on Colombo was resolved using this technique, where a witness dramatically unseals a postmarked envelope before the judge.
The blockchain is essentially a digital, public, programmable version of that. Which we've never had before.
Previously, every app kept its own notion of time. So if I post something on Facebook, Facebook saves that post and timestamps it. We have to trust them to get that right, and not to change it ever in the future. This is fine for cat photos, but less fine for a financial transaction, or a deed to a house.
Here's that same idea in diagram form:
So in some sense, the Blockchain is a public database -- it has the effect of moving data that was previously kept within the walls of one or more apps out into a shared public database. But to get a little more specific, it's really a public database of timestamps -- a new ability for anyone to state, publicly and immutably, that a certain thing happened at a certain time.
Maybe that is obvious to folks who have been working in this space for a while, but I found it to be a really helpful way of thinking about things -- and of explaining it to people who are new to the idea. Thanks Muneeb!
Here's a slide from 2009, when we were convincing transit agencies to open up their data, and then later building MTA BusTIme:
And here's one from yesterday, from a talk I gave at the Shift Conference (blog post to follow w more on that):
"Workflow" apps hold so much promise. Whether it's a CRM, project management tool, to-do list, or some other tool, the promise in each case is to clean up our messy lives and help us be more organized and effective. The problem, though, is that getting people to adopt a workflow is really really hard. That's why there are so many to-do apps out there, each one with a slightly different user experience, and none of them "just quite right" for everyone. Workflow apps are like Goldilocks' porridge. Everyone is a little different, and it's hard to get people to change. A solution, then, is to take the "anti-workflow" approach. Make me more productive without shoehorning me into a new workflow. For example, Zander has been building a side project called Ansatz, which is the "anti-CRM". All you do is auth it into your email, and it builds intelligence your whole team can use, about who you know and how well. It's a CRM with out the CRM. And yesterday, I found out about Taco, which is the "anti-ToDo" app -- gives you a handle on all of the things you need to do (as defined by starred emails, github tasks, zendesk tickets, etc), and puts it right where you want it: on the Chrome new tab screen (side note: Taco should merge with Momentum, which I love). So now, I can track and prioritize what I need to work on, without having to adopt a to-do routine that I'm guaranteed not to stick to. Already, using this has helped me manage my inbox, as I know that I can archive starred emails knowing they'll show up in my todo list, where I can prioritize them and work on them later when I have time. Both of these examples build on perhaps the biggest productivity treasure trove: the inbox. For a long time, I've wondered why we don't see more and better email analytics tools (Rapportive was one of my favorites). My inbox knows pretty much everything about me, and it's really poorly organized. Maybe it's because entrepreneurs are afraid of Google Inbox (I suppose I would be). Regardless, it seems to me that there are countless ways to help me make my inbox more meaningful to me, and nearly all of them can accomplish that with an anti-workflow approach, which is a winning one IMHO.
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