Name: Insights: How to Regulate Blockchain
Uploaded: 2020-02-25
Duration: 2 min 14 s
Description: Early blockchain advocates envisioned a technology that operated beyond the control of governments. (June 2019)

 AARON WRIGHT: The reason, I think, you're hearing so much about blockchains, and cutting through a lot of the hype and noise that you may have heard about over the past couple of days or the past weeks and months, is that blockchains are really a novel data structure. And fundamentally they enable folks to coordinate social and economic activity, even though they're located all across the globe. And they enable folks to do that with less of a need for central intermediary. And this is pretty profound, right? Blockchains are tamper resistant data structures. They're networked, but they enable folks to reach consensus, to reach a common state, a common point in time, depending on the blockchain based network that you're a part of. And because of these characteristics, we've seen quite a bit about new digital assets that are being formed-- Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple. They're all using a blockchain as this backstop in order to keep track of who owns what at what point in time. And that's really, really interesting, and that's really profound. But I think the bigger picture and what we're really thinking about and talking about here is an analogy to the internet. When the internet really was born, it helped turn communications and other ways of communicating with one another into information, information that could get zipped across the globe. And when did that, we were able to effectively turn all this information into email. With blockchains, we're doing the same thing, but this time with assets using a related technology called the smart contract. Smart contracts are really important technology. They help us define the metes and bounds of these digital assets, rights, obligations, and the way that these assets can be owned and transferred. And because of that, and this is critical, we now have the ability to implement in the digital world something that's akin to property rights. We didn't have property rights online before the birth of blockchain technology, before the implementation of smart contracts, and now we have that. And lots of the problems that we see online are in part due to the fact that there is no property rights regime. And blockchains enable us to do that, and enable us to do that in a way that is not necessarily tied to one central government. And increasingly, the rules related to these assets are being defined by these blockchain based networks and by the code itself. So instead of only having to grapple with the rule of law at this point in time, we also are increasingly going to have to grapple with the rule of code. 

Insights: How to Regulate Blockchain

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It was intended to operate beyond government control.

How to Regulate Blockchain

Early blockchain advocates envisioned a technology that operated beyond the control of governments. (June 2019)

The reason I think you're hearing so much about Blockchain kind of cutting through a lot of the hype and noise that you may have heard about over the past couple days or the past weeks and months is that block chains are really a novel data structure, and fundamentally, they enable folks to coordinate social and economic activity even though they're located all across the globe. And they enable folks to do that with less of a need for central intermediary. And this is pretty profound. Block chains are tamper resistant data structures, their network. But they enable folks to reach consensus to reach a common state, a common point in time, depending on the block chain based network that you're a part of, and because these characteristics we've seen quite a bit about new digital assets are being formed Bitcoin the Syrian ripple they're all using a Blockchain is kind of a backstop in order to keep track of who owns what it will point in time, and that's really, really interesting, and that's really profound. But I think the bigger picture and what we're really thinking about and talking about here it's an analogy to the Internet when the Internet really was born, it helped turn communications and other ways of communicating with one another into information information that could get zipped across the globe. When we did that, we were able to effectively turn all this information into email with box chains were doing the same thing, but this time was at that, using a related technology called a smart contract. Smart contracts are really important technology. They help us define the meats and downs of these digital assets rights, obligations and the way that these assets could be owned and transferred. And because of that and this is critical, we've we now have the ability to implement in the digital world something that begins a property, right we don't We didn't have property rights online before the birth of Blockchain technology before the Implementation smart contract. And now we have that. And lots of the problems that we see online are in part due to the fact that there is no property rights regime and Blockchain enable us to do that and enable us to do that in a way that is not necessarily tied to one central government. Increasingly, the rules related to these assets are being defined by network and by the code itself. So instead of only having to grapple with the rule of law at this point in time, we also increasingly gonna have to grapple with the rules code.