The Bitcoin Masterclass (London) Day 2

Dr Craig S. Wright, Chief Scientist at nChain, held another edition of his Bitcoin Masterclass series at an exclusive venue in London in April. 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, with potential use cases across several industries.

In the third session on day two, Dr Wright looked at the usage of nLocktime contracts in supply chains and services. He also held a workshop with attendees imagining different products and services that can be created using them.

Supply-chain management via blockchain

Wright began the session by noting that different food products have different lifespans which means that a catch-all supply-chain system often doesn’t work. He pointed to the fact that no consumer would want to drink six-month-old milk but that this line of thinking also applies to a range of other products including medicines, construction materials, electronics, and services like insurance.

An Internet of Things (IoT) sensor integrated into such products can dynamically adjust the nLocktime payment amount based on the product’s age or temperature exceeding a specific threshold. Some buyers may opt to pay a premium for fresher items, while others may prefer a slightly lower price for slightly older products. Similar choices are already observed in supermarkets.

This data can be reliably recorded and verified at each stage of the supply chain, with contract conditions updated through nLocktime and nSequence. Wright noted that the blockchain’s advantage lies in its transparent nature, allowing all parties to share information with access controls in place, and utilising compatible data formats to facilitate seamless data utilisation among different stakeholders.

Data access and privacy via blockchain

Dr Wright also tackled the issue of “big data” and whether bad actors (or even governments who are not acting in good faith) can use data collected from citizens and use it to benefit them.

Perhaps the best example of this is Google, which has developed a diverse range of captivating products to stimulate data generation from its users, which the company then transforms into valuable insights. These insights are then made available for sale through their B2B services, with AdSense being a prominent source of revenue, constituting a significant portion of Google’s overall earnings.

Wright noted that in these types of systems, it’s often more important to record who is accessing information and when than it is to restrict or encrypt it too much.

Workshop session

The session ended with the attendees encouraged to brainstorm various use cases across different industries and explore the accessibility of information. Some of the topics which were discussed include:

• Automating stock management in supermarkets;
• Electric cars;
• Witness protection;
• Farming supply-chains;
• Shared housing.