The Bitcoin Masterclass (Zürich) Day 2
Dr Craig S. Wright, Chief Scientist at nChain, recently held the third edition of his Bitcoin Masterclass series at an exclusive venue in Zürich, Switzerland. The Masterclass course forms part of a monthly series aimed at helping attendees understand the fundamentals of Bitcoin and the technology behind it.
The Bitcoin Masterclass series will give you a comprehensive overview of Bitcoin’s history, theory and design. Wright discussed the future of Bitcoin and the unbounded scalability of nChain’s blockchain solutions, focusing on accounting and mapping transactions on-chain.
Dr Wright began the second day by discussing the monitoring of transactions across multiple systems and linking these to a single user. Wright also explained what on-chain receipts could look like – and how these can be private, with the data not visible to just anyone on the public blockchain.
Multi-system transaction monitoring via blockchain
Recording and tracking receipts on-chain
Wright noted that it will be extremely valuable for companies to be able to attribute their purchases directly to the blockchain instead of having to track and keep all receipts for tax purposes.
‘Anyone who is running a sales team will want their salespeople to keep their notes. So when you fill out the sales pipeline, those notes now become a record. You can’t cheat your manager, you can’t cheat the tax office or any area where this information is stored and available.’ He added that this data is not only valuable for auditing purposes but is ultimately foundational to any business as it acts as a record for all transactions.
Where a direct transfer of value can be inextricably linked, blockchain smart contracts are beneficial. It provides parties the ability to conduct rule-based transactions and agreements without the need for third parties and digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance.
Proving control with UTXOs
Wright also discussed using UTXOs to prove control when transacting. The BSV blockchain operates on the foundation of the original Bitcoin protocol, which is structured based on the concept of Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs). In this model, transactions mimic the behaviour of physical cash, as users possess unspent outputs containing tokens, each with its own transaction history.
These outputs can be combined or divided into smaller units, surpassing the limits of traditional notes and coins. Moreover, any remaining amount from a transaction, after deducting a transaction fee for the block miner, is calculated and returned to the spender as part of the payment process.
Other topics covered by Wright during this session included:
- Independent artwork;
- Expense claim accounts;
- Disputing an invoice;
- Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs);
- Linking to users;
- nLocktime.