Blockchain for Social Good @ Bruxelles, 21 giugno 2016

The workshop is organised by EPSC (European Political Strategy Center), DG CONNECT (Communications Networks, Content and Technology Directorate-General), DG FISMA (Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union Directorate-General), DG GROW (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Directorate-General) and the JRC (Joint Research Centre).

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is not just Blockchains and Blockchains is not just Bitcoin. Experts are saying that the Internet will come to be seen as the background technology that made distributed ledger applications possible. Will DLT really bring a more profound change to our societies over the next ten years than the internet has over the past ten?

The event aims at tacking stock of existing activities in this emerging field, considering their regulatory and standardisation implications, as well as at defining a roadmap of how the European Commission can contribute to these developments, in particular through Horizon 2020 actions.

Provisional Agenda:

9:30 Introduction by the hosts (Committee of the Regions, DG Connect)

9:40 "DLT Beyond financial applications", by Primavera De Filippi, CNRS, Research Fellow at Berkman Center For Internet & Society

An overview of existing as well as potential applications of DLTs

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Roundtable: Strengths and limitations of distributed ledgers technologies for social applications – concrete examples

Sharing experiences and recommendations for impactful research on distributed ledgers. What has worked and what has not? What are the main roablocks?

Aaron van Wirdum, Bitcoin Magazine
Brett Scott, Alternative Finance Explorer, University of the Arts London
Vinay Gupta, Hexayurt Shelter Project
Jessi Baker, blockchains for tracing provenance
Amor Sexton, Adroit Lawyers, specialist digital currency legal practice (tbc)

12:30 Lunch Break

14:00 Roundtable: Decentralising governance (Chair: Robert Madelin)

What could the EU / EC bring? What is necessary to promote practical use cases and governance? Do we need any standardisation/regulation?

Jakob von Weizsäcker, Member of European Parliament
Philippe Dewost, Caisse Des Dépôts, France
Philip Boucher, Policy analyst, European Parliamentary Research Service
Pindar Wong, Cyberport, HK, Scaling Bitcoin
Markku Markkula, President of European Committee of Regions (tbc)
Francesca Bria, NESTA, Digital Social Innovation project (tbc)

15:30 Coffee Break

16:00 All: Defining a roadmap for EU research on Blockchains for Social Good

What has the EC done insofar? Brief summary of ICT call on "distributed architectures for decentralised data governance" (DG CNECT) and DG FISMA activities

Open discussion and conclusions

17:00 Closing

Attend The World’s First Bitcoin Sporting Event @ O2 London, 5th April 2014

On the 5th April, at the O2 London, we are bringing the bitcoin community and the martial arts world together, for an 8 man K-1 rules kick boxing tournament. Attend The World’s First Bitcoin Sporting Event We love Bitcoin and the power it gives ordinary people to achieve their financial independence. We are also passionate about combat sports, which is why we are proud to bring you the Bitcoin Fighting Championship. On the 5th April, at the O2 London, we are bringing the bitcoin community and the martial arts world together, for an 8 man K-1 rules kick boxing tournament. The winner of the tournament will receive £5000 in Bitcoin and become the first ever Super-middleweight Bitcoin Fighting Champion. We will also see some world class thai boxing bouts from some of the top fighters in the UK and Europe. (????? ObCap says: Oh my gosh!!)

Adam Rothstein: Bitcoin and the Speculative Anarchist @ Rhizome mag, 18feb2014

When I tell my close friends—who know of, and share, my anti-capitalist anarchist views—that I own some cryptocurrency (my current holdings equal something under 10 USD) I get the same sort of looks that I did when I told them in 2009 that I used Twitter. "How can you support that libertarian bullshit?"

BTC is not entirely straightforward, and falls into a new category of the economic uncanny. But basically, it is a peer-to-peer database that lists a number of units of value, or coins, by unique addresses, and assigns them to personal owners by more unique addresses. The database makes sure that only the right coins are assigned to the right owners by keeping a single list of who owns what, called the blockchain. It also makes sure that the blockchain cannot be falsified, by placing the transactions between pieces of a complicated code, which are called the proof of work. Since every computer on the network is simultaneously generating the proof of work (and is rewarded for doing so by being given a fraction of new BTC according to the amount of work they are doing, in what is called mining), it would take a computer that is more powerful than all the others combined to mess  up the record. So, through this peer-to-peer verification system, the record stays legit, without needing the need for a centralized bank to be in charge.

It may sound arcane, but if Bitcoin was a commercial beta release, it would be a runaway success. Even with recent fluctuations, the total value of the cryptocurrency is still over eight billion USD, it has spawned many third-party startup firms attempting to offer products to use with Bitcoin, and there have been more copycat cryptocurrencies, "altcoins," than anyone can count. And at least we know why Bitcoin is valuable, unlike most social media startups: People pay money for it. It's as simple and old fashioned as that.

But bitcoin is supposed to be about something more than just money. There is an ideology that is part of the Bitcoin service; one can not help but download it along with the electronic wallet. However, this ideology is not exactly what it is often made out to be. Bitcoin is supposed to be the killer app of a libertarian dream—it is purportedly 1) a digital currency, 2) a means for conducting anonymous transactions, and 3) an egalitarian, peer-to-peer economic system that will render obsolete the need for fiat currencies, cash, wire transfers, bank accounts, and any other current financial framework that happens to be unpopular. And it fails to live up to all these promises.

Bitcoin isn't quite a currency; it's a wholly new sort of financial instrument, functioning differently than anything with which we are familiar. A currency is a tool for the circulation of value, which through the force of the market becomes the only way that the vast majority of people can offer their labor in exchange for the necessities of life. If businesses start paying their employees in BTC then it might be a currency; until that time it is more like day trading, or stamp collecting. At the same time, it is entirely intertwined with conventional currencies, banks, and legal structures. Cryptocurrencies rely on the ubiquity of expensive graphics processing cards produced by capitalist companies under state-negotiated international trade laws.  Thus, they simply cannot be the lynchpin of anti-government sentiment they are made out to be.

Even in the blackest markets of the internet, there are many early-adopters, but no fully-adopteds, no one who can claim to have entirely disengaged from fiat currencies and infrastructures, or from mainstream capitalism. Bitcoin might have benefits, but currency still has other benefits. People like their financial transactions to have authorities to whom they can appeal in times of crisis. They may buy pizzas with Bitcoin or stake disposable amounts on arcane, high-risk investments, but their 401k is in dollars. 

Read more @ Rhizome