Presentation given in San Francisco on 1st December 2016 on behalf for EWF seminar.

1. Living without Trust
- or -
The whats and
wherefores of
blockchain
Dr. Gavin Wood (@gavofyork, founder Ethereum, Parity)

4. Operation

5. Operation

8. CONTENTION

9. AUTHORITY

11. The old model

14. The new model

15. Blockchain solves the issue of multiparty contention without
having to involve a human.

16. Blockchain solves the issue of multiparty contention without
having to involve a human.
Trust is no longer needed to contentiously interact with a
third-party.

17. Blockchain solves the issue of multiparty contention without
having to involve a human.
Trust is no longer needed to contentiously interact with a
third-party.
This is the first ever instance of a technology which can do
such a thing.

18. Blockchain solves the issue of multiparty contention without
having to involve a human.
Trust is no longer needed to contentiously interact with a
third-party.
This is the first ever instance of a technology which can do
such a thing.
Practically speaking, we have just commoditized the rarest and
most delicate of all intangible assets: trust.

19. What is the Blockchain?

20. A Blockchain is...
A Byzantine-Fault-Tolerant decentralised
singleton fixed-function state-transition
system

22. It’s a type of Computing Machine
Slow
Code runs 5-100x slower that natively compiled
Expensive to use
Basic computation, memory and storage costs are ~1950s levels
Not always immediately decisive
(Trans-)Actions can sometimes be reorganised

23. Sounds. Awesome.

24. Actually, it is.
A Shared Singleton
One single computer among many
Cannot Break, Shut down or be Corrupted
Resistant to attack or coercion
Ubiquitous
No special or costly hardware required for access
Verifiable & Auditable
All transactions recorded, archived and replayable. Always.

25. So, Bitcoin?

26. And Ethereum?

27. And Smart Contracts?

28. So, Bitcoin would be...

29. Why?

30. Compared to connection-poor siloes
Innovation Turbocharger

31. Walled Gardens
Interoperability Difficult
Reliability, standards, trust, security collude to make it a nightmare
Increased Barriers
For integrating multi-party, multi-domain systems
Cumbersome
Servers are expensive to set up and maintain;
Blockchain always-on, always ready

32. Not to mention Security
Auditability
All results are readily auditable from their inputs
Security
Fewer servers and databases to hack
Authenticity
All interactions are cryptographically signed:
Unauthorised Interactions are Impossible

33. Ethereum
Platform for Reduced-trust Computing
for
identity management
smart contracts
interoperable infrastructure
permissions management
auditability

34. Permissioned vs Permissionless
Faster
Managed upkeep
Private membership
Trusted
Legal
Slower
Public ownership
Open & transparent
Trust-free
Allegal

35. PoW vs PoS vs PoA
Slower
Wasteful
Hardware
No-finality
Trust-free
Proven
Costly
Fastest
Efficient
Software
Finality
Trust-bound
Safe
Free
Faster
Efficient
Software
Finality (Possible)
Trust-free
Unproven
Less costly

36. What is Polkadot?

37. What does it provide?
Pooled security
all constituent chains of our community guaranteed
Trust-free transactions
constituent chains can send transactions to each other

38. How does it work?
Relay-chain
the top-level which coordinates consensus and
transaction delivery between constituents
Parachains
constituent chains which gather and process
transactions

39. Basics of the Relay-chain
No functionality
no external transactions, no smart contracts
Fees levied
fees paid for voting/movement of tokens between
parachains

40. Polkadot’s Relay-chain ensures that
transactions between the constituent
parachains get delivered and that
they are all operating correctly.
Parachains can take any form of
globally-coherent consensus system;
potentially even another relay-chain.
Enterprise-friendly encrypted, private,
proof-of-authority chains are
supported.
Bridges can exist to ferry
transactions between the relay chain
and existing, independent chains like
Ethereum.
Extensible, Scalable
and Flexible

41. Open parachains can be tightly integrated
into Polkadot, using Polkadot’s validators
to ensure their correct operation. They are
the easiest and cheapest form of
integration.
Closed parachains can be weakly
integrated into Polkadot, giving them the
freedom to manage validation internally
e.g. using a set of recognised authorities.
Bridged chains can be integrated into
Polkadot too. Bridges add complexity and
cost to integration, but allow the chain to
exercise its own means of consensus.
Polkadot network
Consortium parachain (EWF)
Authorities manage
parachain validation, access
controls &c.
Transactions and
inter-chain consensus

42. Polkadot
Connected consensus
@gavofyork @polkadotproject @polkadotnetwork
github.com/polkadot-io gitter.im/polkadot-io/Lobby