Blockchain from Technology, Economics, Business, Legal and use cases perspective. Discussed at Stanford University.

1. Blockchain
Tech & Use Cases
Ali Ayyash
CEO of Lumeos | Blockchain Advisor

2. About
● Ali
○ Amazon / Google
○ ETH - Beetoken
○ EOS - Lumeos.io
● Lumeos
○ Social Surveys
○ Ownership
○ Privacy
○ Monetization

3. Topics
1. Technology
2. Economics
3. Business
4. Legal

4. 1. Technology

5. Blockchain Background
● Bitcoin
○ Money without 3p
● Ethereum
○ Programmable Blockchain
● IPFS
○ Decentralized File System
● EOS
○ Fast Scalable Decentralized Apps

6. Blockchain Tech
● New Technology
● Web 3.0
○ Decentralization
○ Anti-monopoly
○ Sharing value
○ Trust + Privacy + GDPR

7. Web 3.0 vs Web 2.0
Web 2.0
● Centralized
● Business Logic
● Data
● Algorithms
● Google/Facebook
Web 3.0
● Decentralized
● Trustless Trust
● Temper Proof
● Smart Contracts
● IPFS/Steemit...

8. What is Blockchain?
● Set of computers - distributed database
● Broadcasted transactions
● Verify transactions (via consensus)
○ Trustless
● Gather verified transactions into blocks
● Link blocks into chains
● Longest chain → Blockchain
○ Permanent + Immutable

9. Blockchain Features
● Public
● Programmable
● Permissionless
● Immutable
● Anonymous
● Decentralized
● Distributed

10. What is Blockchain really?
● Blockchain - Growing Merkle Trees
● Bitcoin - Hashes of Transactions
● Ethereum - Hashes of EVM State

11. Hashes
● Arbitrary input
● Unique same-length
output
● One way
● Changes can’t go
undetected

12. Merkle Trees
● Hashes of hashes
● Cheap to prove changes

13. Blockchains
● A growing merkle tree
● A distributed, immutable data structure

14. Bitcoin
● Hashes of transactions
● Consensus: Proof of work

15. Ethereum
● Hashes of virtual computer state
● List of state changes
● You sign each transaction & pay gas
● Programmable states via smart contracts

16. Blockchain Consensus
● Consensus over
○ Content of blocks
○ Order of blocks
● Permissionless - Sybil Attacks

17. Blockchain Consensus
● Proof of Work
○ Mine
● Proof of Stake
○ Deposit to validate
● Delegated Proof of Stake
○ Vote
● Others

18. Proof of Work
● Mitigates sybil attack by requiring
validator to prove they spent money on
signing a block
● Drawbacks: Wasteful, carbon footprint,
slow

19. Proof of Stake
● Mitigate sybil attack by allocating voting
power based on currency ownership
(stake)
● Cheaters lose their collateral
● Drawbacks: hard to engage all stake
owners

20. Delegated Proof of Stake
● Same as proof of stake
● Small number of validators
● Validators get voted in by stakeholders
● Drawbacks: compromises
decentralization

21. Smart Contracts
● Operating system of blockchain
● Term coined in 1994 by Nick Szabo
● “incorporating contract law practices into the design
of electronic commerce protocols operating between
strangers across the internet.”
● Facilitate transactions transparently
without middlemen
● dApps

22. Smart Contracts
● Special account
● Created by initializing a txn with no “to” field
● The payload → immutable executable code
● Txns:
○ User account -> User account
○ User account -> Smart Contract
○ Smart Contract -> User account
○ Smart Contract -> Smart Contract

23. 2. Economics

24. Cryptocurrency
● Tokens/coins for usage
● Value Created
○ Scarcity
○ Demand
○ Quality
○ Uniqueness
● Medium of Exchange
● Store of Value

25. Cryptoeconomics
● Coins can be minted or mined
● Supply can be
○ Fixed (most ICOs)
○ Predetermined schedule (BTC, ETH)
● Mining also creates distribution
● Minting enables funding through ICOs

26. Tokenomics
1. Is the token tied to a product usage?
2. Does the token grant a governance / voting?
3. Does the token enable the user to contribute to a
value-adding action for the network?
4. Does the token grant an ownership?
5. Does the token result in a monetizable reward?
6. Does the token grant the user passive income
based on sharing or disclosing something?

27. Tokenomics1.
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7. Is buying/selling part of the business model?
8. Can users create a new product or service?
9. Is the token required to run a smart contract?
10. Is the token required as a security deposit to
secure some aspect of the blockchain’s operation?
11. Is the token used to pay for some usage?
12. Is the token required to join a network or other
related entity?
13. Does the token enable connection between users?

28. Tokenomics
1.
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10.
11.
12.
13.
14. Is the token given away for product trial or usage?
15. Is the token used as internal currency?
16. Does your blockchain autonomously distribute
profits/benefits to token holders?
17. Is there a related benefit to your users, resulting
from built-in currency inflation?

29. 3. Business

30. Do you need blockchain?
● Think your users
● Lack of trust
● Exclude third parties
● Highest level of security
● Data decentralization

31. Blockchain use cases
● IOT - register connected devices
● Data - distributed storage
● Identity - verify individuals identity
● Proof of Ownership
● Legal - Smart contracts
● Crowdfunding
● Marketplaces - trading assets
● Voting

32. Case Study - Identity
● Fake accounts
● One user - one account
● Verified users

33. Case Study - Beetoken
● Payment
● Reputation
● Arbitration

34. Case Study - Lumeos
● Data Ownership
● Data Privacy
● Data Monetization

35. 4. Legal

36. Howey Test
● Is it an Investment of money?
● Is there an expectation of
profits from the investment?
● Is the project a “common
enterprise”?
○ Investors pool fund to
invest in a project

37. Utility Tokens
● Future access to a product or service
● Not designed as investment
● “Future digital coupon”
● Easy access to exchanges
● Crowdsale through ICO
● Opinion letter or No Action SEC letter

38. Security Tokens
● Subject to securities regulation
● Share in company
● Accredited investors
● 12 months lock up

39. Q/A
Ali Ayyash
ali@lumeos.io
t.me/lumeos

40. Appendix

41. 1. Governance
Ethereum
● PoW/PoS
● Sharding later
EOS
● DPoS
● 21 BPs

42. 2. Scalability
Ethereum
● ~15 tps
● Block confirmation -minutes
● Tps based on network
● Gas prices based on network
EOS
● 1000 tps (yet to be seen)
● Can scale to millions
● Devs stake to power dApp
● 0 txn fees
● Block confirmation -seconds

43. 3. Development Complexity
Ethereum
● Solidity
○ Newish transactional lang
○ Keeps being updated
○ Much better today than
last year
● Difficult code updates
EOS
● C++ with limitations
○ Some libs don’t compile
○ Transactional -no segfault
● Other langs later
● Updates easier to be pushed

44. 4. Timeline
Ethereum
● Currently biggest ICO
platform
● Biggest developer
community
● Scalability updates a year
or more away
EOS
● Launched last month (June)
● Launch issues:
○ RAM cost
○ Constitution rewrite
○ Greedy BPs
● Give it a 2 months to stabilize
● Small/weak dev community

45. 5. Design Philosophy
Ethereum
● Application Agnostic
● Intentionally featureless
● “We have no features”
● The people can create
missing protocols
EOS
● Role-based permissions
● Toolkit for interface
development
● Self-describing DB schemes
● Permission scheme

46. 6. Adoptability
Ethereum
● Pay per transaction
● Losing keys catastrophic
● Not grandma friendly
(dApps design patterns
improving a lot though)
EOS
● Human readable addresses
● No fees (devs stake instead)
● Key recovery

47. 7. Market Position
Ethereum
● First mover advantage
● Lots of developers
● Huge community
● Lots of $$
EOS
● Largest ICO - billions of $$
● EOS VC for dApp devs
● Growing dev community

48. 8. Current State
Ethereum
● Congestion attacks
● Very expensive at times
● Most dApps are centralized
EOS
● Constitution update
● Volatility of RAM prices
● No dApps on mainnet

49. Blockchain & CAP Theorem
Consistency
● Consensus
● All nodes have
same data
eventually
Availability
● Performance
● Read and writes
eventually
succeed
Partitioning
● Decentralization
● System continues
to function
despite message
loss/failure