Overview:
• The article discusses privacy in different contexts and emphasises the importance of
the human element in privacy that can never be eliminated.
• Wright stresses the importance of political engagement rather than circumventing rules
through technology as a viable solution, as such technologies may ultimately be banned
or rendered ineffective.
• Transparency and open communication are essential for a free society, and anonymity
can hinder real conversation and create the illusion of agreement.
• The article also explains how blockchain scaling can enhance privacy by making it
difficult to sift through an overwhelming amount of data and how specialised services
can emerge to meet specific data storage demands.
• Bitcoin's Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) verification and 'provable deletion'
can verify the existence of a file at a certain time, even if the file itself has
been removed.

Dr Craig S. Wright, Chief Scientist at nChain, held the first edition in his Bitcoin Masterclass series at an exclusive venue in London in January. The two-day immersive 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 a session during the first workshop, Wright explained the true concept of identity and privacy concerning Bitcoin and digital cash systems. The second session of the masterclass focused on privacy and what it means in terms of blockchain. Dr Wright also discussed how privacy can be achieved when people exchange information on Bitcoin.

Humans will always be an element

Wright began his presentation by exploring what privacy means in different contexts and why it is only sometimes ideal for hiding information when transacting online. This widened into further discussion about the human element in privacy and why it cannot ever be eliminated.

Wright stresses the importance of political engagement for those with opinions on legal conditions. While it may be tempting to circumvent rules through technology, this is not a viable solution and such technologies may ultimately be banned or rendered ineffective.

Transparency is crucial to maintaining our rights and freedoms, and open communication is essential for a free society. However, voicing your opinion comes with the risk of facing opposition and is therefore only meaningful in the public sphere.

Anonymity can hinder real conversation and Wright frequently opposes it, as duplicate identities can be used to create the illusion of agreement and amplify arguments, as seen on Twitter.

How blockchain scaling helps with privacy

Wright explained that as more data is stored on the blockchain over time, scaling can actually enhance privacy. With an overwhelming amount of information, it becomes difficult to sift through all the data, but access to relevant private keys can still prove certain facts.

If specific data needs to be stored, specialised services will likely emerge to meet that demand. With Bitcoin’s Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) verification, it is possible to verify the existence of a file at a certain time, even if the file itself has been removed.

Additionally, the Bitcoin blockchain offers a way to ‘provable deletion’ if the keys to access the data are destroyed.