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 final session on day two, Dr Wright asked the attendees to think of ways to use nLocktime to make business easier for small to medium companies, such as by helping them raise money, sell bonds, and capture market data.

What is nLockTime?

nLockTime is a feature in the Bitcoin protocol that allows you to set a specific time or block height in the future, before which a transaction will not be considered valid by the network. It is essentially a way to delay the inclusion of a transaction in the blockchain until a certain condition is met, such as a specific date or a certain block height.

With nLockTime, you can create time-locked transactions, which means they cannot be added to the blockchain until the specified time has passed. This feature is useful for various purposes, including creating conditional payments, enabling time-sensitive contracts, and enhancing the flexibility of transaction handling.

By using nLockTime, you can enforce certain conditions on a transaction, ensuring that it is only executed when the predefined criteria are met.

nLockTime will bring gradual improvement

Dr Wright noted that while using nLockTime processes can benefit businesses in several ways, this change would be gradual and not happen overnight. For most enterprises, making a drastic change is not feasible. However, addressing specific challenges, like the “garbage-in, garbage-out” problem, which costs US firms an average of $12.9 million annually, is both achievable and highly beneficial, he said.

Wright added that one industry which can significantly benefit from nLocktime and delayed transactions is air travel. Airlines can offer conditional tickets, leveraging automated AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and flight information to eliminate errors and expedite boarding processes.

A rudimentary form of this concept is already in place in private charters, where everything is pre-screened, making it possible for travellers to walk in seamlessly. This approach can be extended to foster inter-airline cooperation, where travel documentation and information can be tokenised and efficiently shared across databases.

Moreover, last-minute empty seats could be tokenised and easily traded, enhancing overall operational efficiency and revenue opportunities.

Other benefits for businesses

In closing this masterclass, Wright asked the attendees to think of ways to use nLocktime to make business easier for small to medium companies. Some of the proposals included:

• nLockTime in bonds;
• Private futures contracts;
• Collateralisation of assets;
• IPO filing;
• Crowdfunding;
• Construction projects;
• On-chain termination agreements.