The Third Web

Juan Benet and Jesse Clayburgh of Protocol Labs, and Ryan Zurrer of Polychain Capital, discuss the Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT). Inspired by Y Combinator’s “Simple Agreement for Future Equity”, the SAFT standardizes the legal framework surrounding token issuance and governs the nature of the transactions involved (i.e. the deployment of capital and distribution of tokens). The complex legal environment surrounding tokens, especially in the US, has led many entrepreneurs to choose to leave Silicon Valley because they can develop the technology better elsewhere. Those who remain in the US have had to compromise on the optimization of their models in order to comply with legacy regulatory frameworks. Recognising these limitations, and seeking to mature the ecosystem beyond such models, several interested parties (including Protocol Labs, AngelList and CoinCenter) have worked together to create standard legal agreements for this novel asset class. Essentially, a SAFT represents a promise for future

Juan Benet and Jesse Clayburgh of Protocol Labs, and Ryan Zurrer of Polychain Capital, discuss CoinList, a platform for token-backed networks to raise money through pre-launch token sales. While planning the Filecoin token sale, the team at Protocol Labs developed a method of accreditation for US investors in order to comply with securities law. Realising the importance of such a system for the whole ecosystem, they partnered with AngelList to develop this into a platform on which other projects can host their token pre-sales. The end result, CoinList, streamlines the complicated token launch process for developers and investors alike. By supporting a wide variety of sale mechanics, contracts, and pricing schemes within a standard set of requirements, the platform allows developers to focus on optimising their projects instead of spending time on convoluted compliance processes. Its focus on simplifying due diligence reduces complications for developers while “filtering out the signal from the noise”. With

David Sønstebø, co-founder of IOTA, discusses this next-generation post-blockchain platform designed to serve as the backbone for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). IOTA is a groundbreaking new open-source distributed ledger that does not use a blockchain. Its innovative new quantum-proof protocol, known as the Tangle, gives rise to unique new features like zero fees, infinite scalability, fast transactions, secure data transfer and many others. Because the Tangle uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) instead of a blockchain, users automatically act as validators, allowing transaction validation to become an intrinsic property of utilising the network. Each transaction requires the sender to verify two previous transactions, resulting in infinite scalability while avoiding the validation centralization that is common with existing consensus mechanisms. IOTA is also developing a novel standard for embedding minuscule ASIC chips in all IoT devices. These chips perform nominal proof-of-work hashes in order to preven

Xander Dunn and Richard Craib discuss Numerai, a new kind of hedge fund built by a network of data scientists. The Numerai platform crowdsources machine learning by releasing encrypted data sets to data scientists, incentivising them to develop machine learning algorithms to analyse the data. Scientists then bid their predictions to the hedge fund by staking funds, and are paid returns in Numeraire, the platform’s native cryptocurrency, for correct predictions. By abstracting its financial data to be only machine-readable, Numerai ensures that human biases and overfitting are overcome, and that short-term and long-term returns are equally weighted. With the ultimate goal of “owning all of the money in the world”, the Numerai hedge fund has high hopes for the future. numer.ai etherreview.info twitter.com/xanderai twitter.com/richardcraib https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In today’s discussion we look at the legality of raising money through token launches, the potential risks involved, and approaches to improving the safety of these new bearer assets. We also examine the term ICO in depth and find that terminology, while relevant is second to the nature of the offer and state of the project involved. Following the discussion is an interview With Peter Van Valkenburg recorded at Devcon2, applying the Howey test to The DAO.  weekinethereum.com etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

What?! Another Erik Voorhees podcast?!!! In this, the sixty seventh episode of The Ether Review, we set out to understand Prism, Shapeshift’s new non-custodial synthetic asset built on the Ethereum network. In reviewing this episode I feel I was unsuccessful in achieving this. However, the peripheral conversation about Erik’s view of the space is extremely enlightening, especially writ large in his positioning of Shapeshift. The Bitcoin scaling debate, the future of digital assets, the financial world’s response — it’s all here. Some of this interview was geared to fit Shapeshift’s messaging, not something you’ll hear on TER very often. None the less, it’s fun to hear such an astute thinker and communicator knock some soft ball questions out of the park. etherreview.info shapeshift.io https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees http://www.weekinethereum.com/ itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2 Letstalkbitcoin.com thebitcoinpodcast.com

After a stunning token launch Gnosis has become a classic example of the hope for greater and more powerful decentralized applications. Founder Martin Köppelmann walks us through the projects genesis, growth, and road to success itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ethe…id899090462?mt=2 https://twitter.com/koeppelmann

In Brief: A walkthrough of the pressing legal issues in blockchain today.  Over the last few months a varying group of legal professionals from New Zealand, Australia, and the USA have been meeting to discuss current events, challenges, and peculiarities in the interaction between blockchain and law. As facilitator I suggested we might record the sessions. This is the first to be published. Attendees: Hannah Glass: Solicitor, King & Wood Mallesons Matt Corva: Law and Business, ConsenSys Alex Sims: Associate Professor, Head of Commercial Law, The University of Auckland Liesl Eichholz: Studying Master of Laws, University of Otago Arthur Falls: Host of The Ether Review, State Change, Director of Media, ConsenSys https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In Brief: Swarm City, once Arcade City, is one of the most ambitious, and controversial projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. Having shed their founder, the remaining team have made considerable development progress. More than just a would be ride sharing DApp, Swarm City aims to provide an exchange infrastructure for any two sided market. Swarm City Mayor Bernd Lapp and Architect Michael Thuy discuss the deeper intricacies of 2 sided market transactional infrastructure in a social setting. We also look at Swarm City’s stage of development and the rollout practices of the Swarm City team. Subscribe on iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

In Brief: Tokenizing fiat currency in a way that is compatible with our existing financial infrastructure and legislation is no easy feat. The consequences however reach across the entirety of industry, the economy, and society.  Nick Addison is the CTO of AgriDigital, an agricultural finance company first covered in episode 45 of TER. As part of his work at AgriDigital, Nick is researching ways to port the existing financial infrastructure into the blockchain age. It’s not easy, but as the inventory of tools grows, so do the number of possible solutions to the problems Nick has uncovered.  In this episode we look at a prospective architecture for a Digital Australian Dollar (DAD), the problems with implementing that architecture and the consequences of making such a transition. It’s a great tour through the solution space of today. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2

Matt Hale of Divvi is the first speaker in the second half of the conversation we began last week. Divvi is a Sydney based decentralized energy market startup. The huge scale of residential solar deployment makes Australia a uniquely appropriate environment for this kind of solution. We also look at the challenges of breaking into the highly regulated and cartel run infrastructure space. Secondly Luke Anderson, describes the dilemma of selecting blockchain as an appropriate solution to a problem.  The Sydney Ethereum community is huge, possibly the largest geographically concentrated group of Eth heads in the world. It’s a geographical location well worth paying attention to.

Last week I was honoured with the privilege of representing New Zealand at the inaugural ISO/TC-307 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies standards committee meeting. The event was hosted by the secretariat, Standards Australia. 18 nations attended. While at the meeting, blockchain legend Nick Addison wrangled together a who’s who of blockchain entrepreneurs for a round table discussion. We convened in the media room at the international convention center. The group grew piecemeal over the course of three hours during which we discussed everyone’s projects and the state of blockchain in Australia.  The attendees were: Tim Bass of Block 8 Bok Khoo of the Internet, and Bok Consulting Sam Brooks CTO of Veredictum Russell Mclernon of Rexmls Luke Anderson of Sigma Prime Sergei Sergienko of Chronobank Matt Hale of Divvi I’ve split the conversation into two episodes so the next will be coming up soon. Before we get stuck in, I want to draw your attention to the Blockchain NZ conference and the Auckland

Today we hear first from Joe Reed who won the Seattle IPFS / Ethereum Hackathon in February. His entry Matriarch expands on the ERC20 compliant Minime token, using it as a basis for crowdfunded MeDAOs. It’s an avant-garde idea and compliments his decentralized reddit project, Community. Then Gabriel Mitchell of ethereumclothing.com raises the subject of branding in cryptocurrency. These interviews have been buried in my content bank for months now and it’s fun to sometimes unearth gems. Short interviews with people from the Ethereum community are great in that they yield insights that would not otherwise percolate to the surface of popular discourse. Also, it’s fun to plug community merch while having a productive conversation. https://etherreview.info/

By now word of the Andreessen-Horowitz/Union Square Ventures investment in the digital asset hedge fund Polychain Capital was reached far and wide across the cryptoverse. Among other things, this interview with founders Olaf Carlson-Wee and Ryan Zurrer explores the questions that must be asked while establishing a long term crypto portfolio. Much of the discussion is especially pertinent in light of the recent ETH jump and fork concerns with Bitcoin.

Ever wished for a final login, a final app? The last user name you would ever need, the last thing you would ever need to download? The Ethereum mobile client Status promises just that and it’s release is just around the corner. Founders Jarad Hope and Carl Bennetts join us to explain. Nick Szabo’s blog Post: Money, Blockchains and Social Scalability https://medium.com/r/?url=http%3A%2F%2Funenumerated.blogspot.co.nz%2F2017%2F02%2Fmoney-blockchains-and-social-scalability.html etherreview.info

Charlie Shrem and Jason Granger explain the Mainstreet investment fund. A limited partnership which distributes it’s revenues to addresses associated with self verified token holders. A separate company, Intellisys, manages the fund. The intricate problem solving required to create a legal token on the Ethereum blockchain that is backed by traditional investments, is fascinating. Mainstreet started accepting funding on the 27th, so this episode is coming out a bit late. You can links to both Mainstreet and Intellisys in the episode notes. etherreview.info

In Brief: On today’s episode Kenny Rowe joins to discuss: Maker DAO Governance The decision making around forks DAOs in relation to stable value tokens The double token model of stable token platforms Community diversification as it relates to application development The serfdom of the attention economy Bitcoin on telephone poles Friction in fundraising rails The magic of technology Kenny Rowe has been a part of the Maker DAO team since shortly after its inception. Initially a community organizer, Kenny has become more involved in the governance of Maker. This is the second time he has appeared on TER, the first being in early 2016. If you would like to learn more about Maker check out this episode. The Steemit article “Help Emma fight cystic fibrosis” can be found here. Kenny’s good will and spirit of experimentation is infectious, and this is a particularly meandering and enjoyable conversation.    Content: Kenny Rowe, Arthur Falls etherreview.info

In Brief: Stas Oskin, Wings founder, explains how DAOs can be packaged for use by startups outside the blockchain space. Learning from others mistakes, the team at Wings are building a platform with the ability to vet, fund and launch DAOs based on input from its community. The idea of decentralized due diligence is powerful and if the mechanisms perform as expected, we may see a more refined crop or projects emerging as a result.  Especially interesting is Wings’ aspiration to use the ambitious RSK platform. While the project was delayed considerably, RSK intends to use Bitcoin’s blockchain and mining network combined with a group of trusted parties to secure sidechains. In particular, a sidechain operating the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Hopefully this will happen with the RSK launch this summer/fall, in the mean time, pressure from groups waiting to use the platform have resulted in an early launch on the Ethereum network. Content: Stas Oskin, Arthur Falls etherreview.info

In Brief: If there is one thing we learned in 2016 it’s that building a secure, stable, decentralized application is difficult. One of the responses to the problem has been the Open Zeppelin smart contract framework. Open Zeppelin is really a community of developers 300 strong. Collectively they have built the framework over time in a similar fashion to Truffle or Dapple. In addition to maintaining the Open Zeppelin framework, the community audits smart contract deployments like the Golem, First Blood, and Wings token launches. Content: Demian Brenner, Arthur Falls etherreview.info

In Brief: From better signature schemes for blockchains, to quantum preparedness, to novel cryptography like zero knowledge proofs and threshold signatures, Dan Boneh takes us on a tour of cryptography in our age. Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, Dan Boneh, has been working in the field of cryptography for over 25 years. During which time he has co-developed a signature scheme known as BLS Signatures. This was an opportunity to have some real questions answered, or more accurately, anticipated, by a master of the field. * Signature aggregation: http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/abstracts/aggsurvey.html * Verifying Bitcoin exchange solvency: http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/abstracts/provisions.html * Non-crypto applications of quantum computing: https://research.google.com/pubs/QuantumAI.html Post-quantum cryptography: https://www.amazon.com/Post-Quantum-Cryptography-Daniel-J-Bernstein/dp/3540887016/ Content: Dan Boneh, Arthur Falls https://medium.com/the-ether-review Subscrib