Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

Developers have been remedying these

issues. Other critics (as with Bitcoin in

general) point out how the key features

of decentralized DNS services (cheap

and anonymous domain name creation,

and a system that places domain names

out of the reach of central authorities)

enable bad players and illegality.78

However, an industry white paper

counters these claims with examples of

using the public traceability feature of

the blockchain ledger to apprehend

criminals, and points out that there are

many legitimate uses of this technology.79

Meanwhile, other decentralized name

services are in development, such as a

similar .P2P decentralized top-level

domain from BitShares. The project

points out how the decentralized DNS

model eliminates the certificate authority

as the third-party intermediary (which

can leave URLs vulnerable to attack),

and that a blockchain model can also be

more secure because you lose control of

your domain only if you share the private

key. 80 DotP2P has other features to

improve DNS registry, such as auction-

like price discovery to counter domain-

name squatting. Related to decentralized

DNS services is digital identity

confirmation services; in October 2014,

BitShares launched the KeyID service

toward this end. KeyID, rebranded from

Keyhotee, provides an identification and

email system on a decentralized

blockchain for secure messaging and for

secure authentication.81

Freedom of Speech/Anti-

Censorship Applications:

Alexandria and Ostel

Alexandria is one example of a

blockchain-based freedom-of-speech-

promoting project. It aims to create an

unalterable historical record by

encoding Twitter feeds to a blockchain.

Any tweets mentioning certain

prespecified keywords (like Ukraine or

ebola) are encoded into the Alexandria

blockchain using Florincoin, a

cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin and

Litecoin with quick transaction

processing (40 seconds) and a longer

memo annotation field (conceptually:

Memocoin). This method captures

tweets that might be censored out later

by takedown requests.82 Florincoin’s key

enabling feature for this is transaction

comments, a 528-character field for the

recording of both metadata and tweet

content. 83 The expanded commenting

functionality could be used more broadly

for many kinds of blockchain

applications, such as providing metadata

and secure pointers to genomic

sequences or X-ray files. Another

freedom-oriented application is Ostel’s

free encrypted Voice over IP (VoIP)

telephony service, because the United

States National Security Agency (NSA)

can listen in on other services like

Skype. 84 Ostel is a nice example of

David Brin’s bottom-up souveillance

counterweight85 to top-down NSA

surveillance (of both traditional

telephone calls and Skype86).

Decentralized DNS

Functionality Beyond Free

Speech: Digital Identity

Beyond its genesis motivation to enable

free speech and provide a

countermeasure to the centralized

control of the Internet, there are other

important uses of decentralized DNS

functionality in the developing

Blockchain 3.0 ecosystem. The

blockchain is allowing a rethinking and

decentralization of all Internet network

operations—for example, DNS services

(Namecoin, DotP2P), digital identity

(KeyID, and OneName and BitID, which

are discussed shortly), and network

traffic communications

(OpenLibernet.org, an open mesh

network communications protocol).

One challenge related to Bitcoin, the

Internet, and network communications

more generally is Zooko’s Triangle. This

is the problem encountered in any system

that gives names to participants in a

network protocol: how to make

identifiers such as a URL or a person’s

handle (e.g., DeMirage99)

simultaneously secure, decentralized,

and human-usable (i.e., not in the form of

a 32-character alphanumeric string).87

Innovations and maturity in blockchain

technology require having solutions to

the Zooko’s Triangle challenge.

Namecoin functionality might offer such

a solution. Namecoin is used to store

URLs, but it can store any information.

The core functionality of Namecoin is

that it is a name/value store system.

Therefore, just as Bitcoin has uses

beyond currency, Namecoin has uses

beyond DNS for storing information

more generally. Using the nondomain

namespaces of Namecoin, we can store

information that would otherwise be

hard to securely or conveniently

exchange. A prime application for this is

a resolution to Zooko’s Triangle,

allowing continuously available

Internet-based digital identity

confirmation of a public key (a 32-

character alphanumeric string) with a

human-usable handle (DeMirage99) as

digital identity services like OneName

and BitID allow.

Digital Identity Verification

OneName and BitID are examples of blockchain-based digital identity

services. They confirm an individual’s

identity to a website. Decentralized

digital verification services take

advantage of the fact that all Bitcoin

users have a personal wallet, and

therefore a wallet address. This could

speed access to all aspects of websites,

simultaneously improving user

experience, anonymity, and security. It

can also facilitate ecommerce because