[ANN][NOTE]DNotes - Celebrating DNotes 3rd Birthday - Forum Now Open

[DNotes]

Interesting article on Coindesk covering privacy, secrecy, and cypherpunks in the cryptocurrency space. Bitcoin and the Rise of the Cypherpunks

[CryptoBroker79]

We are posting the DNotes story as the featured article today.

http://dcebrief.com/the-dnotes-story-an-unfolding-big-bold-idea-of-global-scale/

I highly suggest everyone take the time to read The DNotes Story. The story is a bit longer than usual DCEBrief articles, but well worth it.

[DNotes]

We are posting the DNotes story as the featured article today.

http://dcebrief.com/the-dnotes-story-an-unfolding-big-bold-idea-of-global-scale/

I highly suggest everyone take the time to read The DNotes Story. The story is a bit longer than usual DCEBrief articles, but well worth it.

Thank you CryptoBroker. I recommend sharing it on social media as well. The story makes what we are trying to accomplish with DNotes pretty clear. We need to push and get the word out. 

[RJF19]

We are posting the DNotes story as the featured article today.

http://dcebrief.com/the-dnotes-story-an-unfolding-big-bold-idea-of-global-scale/

I highly suggest everyone take the time to read The DNotes Story. The story is a bit longer than usual DCEBrief articles, but well worth it.

Wow! Excellent write up, super...

[CryptoBroker79]

We are posting the DNotes story as the featured article today.

http://dcebrief.com/the-dnotes-story-an-unfolding-big-bold-idea-of-global-scale/

I highly suggest everyone take the time to read The DNotes Story. The story is a bit longer than usual DCEBrief articles, but well worth it.

Thank you CryptoBroker. I recommend sharing it on social media as well. The story makes what we are trying to accomplish with DNotes pretty clear. We need to push and get the word out. 

Noted and shared on every social media site I have an account for.

[TeeGee]

I'm getting positive feedback for the article on my own social media fora - happy days.

Now to update LinkedIn so that it's more of an subtle advertisement of DNotes. You never know who might be reading it.

[Dyna]

I'm getting positive feedback for the article on my own social media fora - happy days.

Now to update LinkedIn so that it's more of an subtle advertisement of DNotes. You never know who might be reading it.

Very good feed back so far. It is about developing awareness and building credibility. I am very disciplined about not getting ahead of ourselves. We have been putting in huge efforts in building something of substance; I believe that we are there or very close to it. We can now take pride to share our story with the rest of the world. A lot of people can benefit from our hard work, both small and big investors. And the book provides an enormous source of knowledge and good advice for any entrepreneurs. We have a lot to be proud of as a group and I am personally indebted to all of you in different ways. Thank you all for your hard work, support, and confidence in DNotes. 

[DNotes]

http://dcebrief.com/recreating-bitcoins-reputation/

[kanus1113]

We are posting the DNotes story as the featured article today.

http://dcebrief.com/the-dnotes-story-an-unfolding-big-bold-idea-of-global-scale/

I highly suggest everyone take the time to read The DNotes Story. The story is a bit longer than usual DCEBrief articles, but well worth it.

Thank you CryptoBroker. I recommend sharing it on social media as well. The story makes what we are trying to accomplish with DNotes pretty clear. We need to push and get the word out. 

Noted and shared on every social media site I have an account for.

Fantastic! This is a great place to send people who want to learn about DNotes. When I try to send people to the forum, they give up, and it's difficult to explain everything, this is perfect.

[DNotes]

We are posting the DNotes story as the featured article today.

http://dcebrief.com/the-dnotes-story-an-unfolding-big-bold-idea-of-global-scale/

I highly suggest everyone take the time to read The DNotes Story. The story is a bit longer than usual DCEBrief articles, but well worth it.

Thank you CryptoBroker. I recommend sharing it on social media as well. The story makes what we are trying to accomplish with DNotes pretty clear. We need to push and get the word out. 

Noted and shared on every social media site I have an account for.

Fantastic! This is a great place to send people who want to learn about DNotes. When I try to send people to the forum, they give up, and it's difficult to explain everything, this is perfect.

Thanks Kanus, it is a great article to send people to find out more about DNotes. As well as the DNotes category on DCEBrief.

[Chase]

Has anyone seen this and if so, what do you think of it? I'm always looking for the easy way - lol.


Authy OneTouch Offers New Way to Use 2 Factor Authentication

https://news.bitcoin.com/authy-onetouch-new-2fa/

[CryptoBroker79]

What does everyone think of the recent price drop in Ethereum? They lost over 500 million from their market cap in less than a week.

In my opinion they've gotten way ahead of themselves (going against Alan's advice), and taken on more investment capital than they know what to do with. The only applications that have actually been produced are dice games, gambling apps, ponzi "businesses", pyramid "businesses"; The rapid ascension in price has certainly attracted some unsavory characters.

All this aside, the failure of an entire billion dollar currency at this point would be disastrous for our industry's reputation, so let's hope they can get back on track.

[DNotes]

Has anyone seen this and if so, what do you think of it? I'm always looking for the easy way - lol.


Authy OneTouch Offers New Way to Use 2 Factor Authentication

https://news.bitcoin.com/authy-onetouch-new-2fa/

Cool,  I've used authy before a long time ago and preferred authenticator.  But the new one swipe looks like it's worth a shot. 

One thing they pointed out is the cost of the easy to use "send me a text code" methods. Very expensive.

[DNotes]

What does everyone think of the recent price drop in Ethereum? They lost over 500 million from their market cap in less than a week.

In my opinion they've gotten way ahead of themselves (going against Alan's advice), and taken on more investment capital than they know what to do with. The only applications that have actually been produced are dice games, gambling apps, ponzi "businesses", pyramid "businesses"; The rapid ascension in price has certainly attracted some unsavory characters.

All this aside, the failure of an entire billion dollar currency at this point would be disastrous for our industry's reputation, so let's hope they can get back on track.

They are the closest to implementing on a large scale a sustainable cryptocurrency based on blockchain services.  The excitement got ahead of real demand for their services,  but I'm pretty confident they will continue to build and grow their development.  You are right,  if they lose their value to quickly it won't be good for our industry. 

[Dyna]

What does everyone think of the recent price drop in Ethereum? They lost over 500 million from their market cap in less than a week.

In my opinion they've gotten way ahead of themselves (going against Alan's advice), and taken on more investment capital than they know what to do with. The only applications that have actually been produced are dice games, gambling apps, ponzi "businesses", pyramid "businesses"; The rapid ascension in price has certainly attracted some unsavory characters.

All this aside, the failure of an entire billion dollar currency at this point would be disastrous for our industry's reputation, so let's hope they can get back on track.

They are the closest to implementing on a large scale a sustainable cryptocurrency based on blockchain services.  The excitement got ahead of real demand for their services,  but I'm pretty confident they will continue to build and grow their development.  You are right,  if they lose their value to quickly it won't be good for our industry.  

The market value at a $1 billion appeared rich at this stage, so a drastic price adjustment is not a big surprise. However, they are among the most promising in terms of smart contract applications, though I have yet to see solid use cases.

My reservations are that Ethereum will likely see competition and Ether is technically a utility token; not a currency. Having said that, I have a great deal of respect for what they have accomplished.

Industry wide, I am troubled by the huge participation and investment in anything "blockchain". Personally, I fear that the vast majority of them are going for a "wild goose chase". The most fundamental thing about Bitcoin and digital currency is that you can only spend it if you have it in your wallet. You can not create money out of thin air or write up IOUs. When an asset of value is committed to the blockchain to guarantee a certain value that amount must be of full and equal value. Anyway, this is only one example.

I don't want to get way ahead of the game, but what DNotes is doing is to understand all the issues and position ourselves to provide the most viable and best solutions. I am very comfortable that we have the solutions. We have been building for the solutions block by block. It takes a lot more than just being "me too."
 

[RJF19]

What does everyone think of the recent price drop in Ethereum? They lost over 500 million from their market cap in less than a week.

In my opinion they've gotten way ahead of themselves (going against Alan's advice), and taken on more investment capital than they know what to do with. The only applications that have actually been produced are dice games, gambling apps, ponzi "businesses", pyramid "businesses"; The rapid ascension in price has certainly attracted some unsavory characters.

All this aside, the failure of an entire billion dollar currency at this point would be disastrous for our industry's reputation, so let's hope they can get back on track.

I see it as the same instability and market volatility that most all ALT coins have. The difference is that if KitteCoin drops 50% you loose a cent or two but with Ether, you loose real money. I don't think they have failed, I think people expected too much from them too soon. Hype is a powerful enticement when it comes to separating you from your investable funds.  

That's one of the MANY reasons I invested in DNotes, stability.
 

[Dink]

Hi Dnotes community, I was looking for any material on how Dnotes will maintain price stability.  I think one of the biggest problems with alt coins (maybe even bitcoin) is the great fluctuations in price that affects an individual and his holdings.  Yes, ether is a good example.  I like what you are doing so far, it is a slow up hill climb, especially with the reputation of alt coins in general. 

[Dyna]

Hi Dnotes community, I was looking for any material on how Dnotes will maintain price stability.  I think one of the biggest problems with alt coins (maybe even bitcoin) is the great fluctuations in price that affects an individual and his holdings.  Yes, ether is a good example.  I like what you are doing so far, it is a slow up hill climb, especially with the reputation of alt coins in general. 

Hi Dink. Unfortunately, we do not have written material on DNotes price stability. Personally, I was a lot more confident that it was achievable until mid August last year when it broke the previous lower low. Until that point we were consistently generating higher highs and higher lowers. At that time it was reasonable for us to say that we had reliable long term appreciation which I believe is where DNotes is heading. We are slowly earning back that track record. With a new company and a revenue source (from the book) behind it, I believe we will make it happen. However, we are still subject to the forces of free market; very much dependent on supply and demand.

By virtual of the book we expect DNotes to gain significant awareness and credibility; hence increased demand. Expected to be a best seller as an entrepreneur book, it will open a lot of doors for us to the merchant business world. We believe that many business owners will find it attractive to supplement their under-funded retirement accounts with a small regular savings in CRISP For Retirement. Likewise, some of their employees could be given a bonus in the form savings for the CRISP For Employee Incentive Benefits savings accounts. In due time, these merchants will find it beneficial to start using DNotes as a medium of exchange. We are always systematic and strategic in every move we make. We are quite different than the rest of our industry.

I hope that you find this is helpful. Feel free to ask any other questions you may have.

[Dyna]

We have been hearing a lot about blockchain and smart contracts these days. Despite the fact that there is huge potential, it is greatly misunderstood by many who are blindly throwing a lot of money and resources at it. Gideon Greenspan is someone I greatly respect on this subject. Here is a lengthy but excellent article. I am posting it in two parts starting with my response - an easy to read intro:  

Response to: Beware the impossible smart contract:
by Gideon Greenspan

Quote From Dyna:

This is another outstanding article. Well, there isn’t anything Gideon wrote about blockchain that I didn’t like. He is amazingly skilled in telling it as it is in plain easy to understand language.

We are witnessing the early stage of a historic technology revolution that came to us in a package of three definable components; bitcoin the currency, global payment network system, and the underpinning blockchain technology.

This fundamentally changed every aspects of money, including its creation and the movement of money. It created a new payment system that would allow any two parties to send payments directly to one another without the need for banks or financial services. This innovation opened up the future potential for people to be their own bank, and neither hand over the security of their money to any third party, or pay fees for the privilege.

To gain a better understand of smart contract, it helps to understand the total package. The most innovative concept of the blockchain technology is the consensus-based system that is completely deterministic. The network will only confirm, record the transaction, and pay the block reward after 51% consent is reached. And, for all practical purposes, it is not reversible once confirmed.

It is essentially a decentralized ledger that follows very strict rules of confirmed or failed. The movement of funds is reflected as database entries showing deleted and newly created transactions. But the total amounts remained the same; just in different accounts or wallets. Hence, the “smart bond” smart contract may not be such a smart idea. Unlike the world we are used to, we cannot create money out of thin air or use IOUs to guarantee payments. If you know how, I certainly love to know. One fundamental difference here is that you cannot commit to the blockchain as a payment or a guarantee of what you don’t have. You can not spend more than what you have in your wallet.

A good use case of smart contract is for transfer of wealth. Let us assume that I want to give 120,000 DNotes to my grand daughter but I want it to be released at an increment of 1,000 each over a period of 120 months when she turned 21. In another case, I want to donate 600,000 DNotes to a charity but have a concern that may it be dumped in the market negatively affecting the price. In either case, I must have those amounts of DNotes to begin with. Those amounts already resides in the blockchain and verifiable by address. Once I activate the transaction (contract) the amount is committed to the blockchain to be transferred to a different address. They are no longer mine and not reversible.

There will be many viable smart contract applications but I am seriously concerned that the “me too” phenomena of anything blockchain/smart contract is attracting plenty of “wild goose chase”.

****************************************

Beware the impossible smart contract
Apr 12, 2016

Gideon Greenspan
CEO and Founder, Coin Sciences Ltd

The three most common smart contract misconceptions

As the developers of a popular blockchain platform, we sometimes get asked whether Ethereum-like smart contracts are on the MultiChain roadmap. The answer I always give is: no, or at least not yet.
But in the hype-filled world of blockchains, smart contracts are all the rage, so why ever not? Well, the problem is, while we now know of three strong use cases for permissioned Bitcoin-style blockchains (provenance, inter-company records and lightweight finance), we’re yet to find the equivalent for Ethereum-style smart contracts.

It’s not that people lack ideas of what they want smart contracts to do. Rather, it’s that so many of these ideas are simply impossible. You see, when smart people hear the term “smart contracts”, their imaginations tend to run wild. They conjure up dreams of autonomous intelligent software, going off into the world, taking its data along for the ride.

Unfortunately the reality of smart contracts is far more mundane than all that:
A smart contract is a piece of code which is stored on an blockchain, triggered by blockchain transactions, and which reads and writes data in that blockchain’s database.

That’s it. Really. A smart contract is just a fancy name for code which runs on a blockchain, and interacts with that blockchain’s state. And what is code? It’s Pascal, it’s Python, it’s PHP. It’s Java, it’s Fortran, it’s C++. If we’re talking databases, it’s stored procedures written in an extension of SQL. All of these languages are fundamentally equivalent, solving the same sorts of problems in the same sorts of ways. Of course, each has its strengths and weaknesses – you’d be crazy to build a website in C or compress HD video in Ruby. But in principle at least, you could if you wanted to. You’d just pay a heavy price in terms of convenience, performance, and quite probably your hair.

The problem with smart contracts isn’t just that people’s expectations are overblown. It’s that these expectations are leading many to spend time and money on ideas that cannot possibly be implemented. It seems large companies have sufficient resources to travel a lengthy path – from the moment when senior management encounters a new technology, to when that technology’s advantages and limitations are truly understood. Perhaps our own experience can help shorten this time.

Over the past nine months, we’ve been pitched many smart contract use cases, and have found ourselves responding, time and again, that they simply cannot be done. As a result, we’ve identified the three smart contract misconceptions that are most commonly held. These ideas aren’t wrong because the technology is immature, or the tools are not yet available. Rather, they misunderstand the fundamental properties of code which lives in a database and runs in a decentralized way.
Contacting external services

Often, the first use case proposed is a smart contract which changes its behavior in response to some external event. For example, an agricultural insurance policy which pays out conditionally based on the quantity of rainfall in a given month. The imagined process goes something like this: the smart contract waits until the predetermined time, retrieves the weather report from an external service, and behaves appropriately based on the data received.

This all sounds simple enough, but it’s also impossible. Why? Because a blockchain is a consensus-based system, meaning that it only works if every node reaches an identical state after processing every transaction and block. Everything that takes place on a blockchain must be completely deterministic, with no possible way for differences to creep in. The moment that two honest nodes disagree about the chain’s state, the entire system becomes worthless.

Now recall that smart contracts are executed independently by every node on a chain. Therefore, if a smart contract retrieves some information from an external source, this retrieval is performed repeatedly and separately by each node. But because this source is outside of the blockchain, there is no guarantee that every node will receive the same answer. Perhaps the source will change its response in the time between requests from different nodes, or perhaps it will become temporarily unavailable. Either way, consensus is broken and the entire blockchain dies.

So what’s the workaround? Actually, it’s rather simple. Instead of a smart contract initiating the retrieval of external data, one or more trusted parties (“oracles”) creates a transaction which embeds that data in the chain. Every node will have an identical copy of this data, so it can be safely used in a smart contract computation. In other words, an oracle pushes the data onto the blockchain rather than a smart contract pulling it in.

When it comes to smart contracts causing events in the outside world, a similar problem appears. For example, many like the idea of a smart contract which calls a bank’s API in order to transfer money. But if every node is independently executing the code in the chain, who is responsible for calling this API? If the answer is just one node, what happens if that particular node malfunctions, deliberately or not? And if the answer is every node, can we trust every node with that API’s password? And do we really want the API called hundreds of times? Even worse, if the smart contract needs to know whether the API call was successful, we’re right back to the problem of depending on external data.

As before, a simple workaround is available. Instead of the smart contract calling an external API, we use a trusted service which monitors the blockchain’s state and performs certain actions in response. For example, a bank could proactively watch a blockchain, and perform money transfers which mirror the on-chain transactions. This presents no risk to the blockchain’s consensus because the chain plays an entirely passive role.

Looking at these two workarounds, we can make some observations. First, they both require a trusted entity to manage the interactions between the blockchain and the outside world. While this is technically possible, it undermines the goal of a decentralized system. Second, the mechanisms used in these workarounds are straightforward examples of reading and writing a database. An oracle which provides external information is simply writing that information into the chain. And a service which mirrors the blockchain’s state in the real world is doing nothing more than reading from that chain. In other words, any interaction between a blockchain and the outside world is restricted to regular database operations. We’ll talk more about this fact later on.

Enforcing on-chain payments
Here’s another proposal that we tend to hear a lot: using a smart contract to automate the payment of coupons for a so-called “smart bond”. The idea is for the smart contract code to automatically initiate the payments at the appropriate times, avoiding manual processes and guaranteeing that the issuer cannot default.

Of course, in order for this to work, the funds used to make the payments must live inside the blockchain as well, otherwise a smart contract could not possibly guarantee their payment. Now recall that a blockchain is just a database, in this case a financial ledger containing the issued bond and some cash. So when we talk about coupon payments, what we’re actually talking about are database operations which take place automatically at an agreed time.

While this automation is technically feasible, it suffers from a financial difficulty. If the funds used for coupon payments are controlled by the bond’s smart contract, then those payments can indeed be guaranteed. But this also means those funds cannot be used by the bond issuer for anything else. And if those funds aren’t under the control of the smart contract, then there is no way in which payment can be guaranteed.

In other words, a smart bond is either pointless for the issuer, or pointless for the investor. And if you think about it, this is a completely obvious outcome. From an investor’s perspective, the whole point of a bond is its attractive rate of return, at the cost of some risk of default. And for the issuer, a bond’s purpose is to raise funds for a productive but somewhat risky activity, such as building a new factory. There is no way for the bond issuer to make use of the funds raised, while simultaneously guaranteeing that the investor will be repaid. It should not come as a surprise that the connection between risk and return is not a problem that blockchains can solve.

Continued: Part Two – next post

[Dyna]

Part Two:

Beware the impossible smart contract


Hiding confidential data
As I’ve written about previously, the biggest challenge in deploying blockchains is the radical transparency which they provide. For example, if ten banks set up a blockchain together, and two conduct a bilateral transaction, this will be immediately visible to the other eight. While there are various strategies for mitigating this problem, none beat the simplicity and efficiency of a centralized database, in which a trusted administrator has full control over who can see what.

Some people think that smart contracts can solve this problem. They start with the fact that each smart contract contains its own miniature database, over which it has full control. All read and write operations on this database are mediated by the contract’s code, making it impossible for one contract to read another’s data directly. (This tight coupling between data and code is called encapsulation, and is the foundation of the popular object-oriented programming paradigm.)

So if one smart contract can’t access another’s data, have we solved the problem of blockchain confidentiality? Does it make sense to talk of hiding information in a smart contract? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Because even if one smart contract can’t read another’s data, that data is still stored on every single node in the chain. For each blockchain participant, it’s in the memory or disk of a system which that participant completely controls. And there’s nothing to stop them reading the information from their own system, if and when they choose to do so.

Hiding data in a smart contract is about as secure as hiding it in the HTML code of a web page. Sure, regular web users won’t see it, because it’s not displayed in their browser window. But all it takes is for a web browser to add a ‘View Source’ function (as they all have), and the hidden information becomes universally visible. Similarly, for data hidden in smart contracts, all it takes is for someone to modify their blockchain software to display the contract’s full state, and all semblance of secrecy is lost. A half-decent programmer could do that in an hour or so.

What smart contracts are for
With so many things that smart contracts cannot do, one might ask what they’re actually for. But in order to answer this question, we need to go back to the fundamentals of blockchains themselves. To recap, a blockchain enables a database to be directly and safely shared by entities who do not trust each other, without requiring a central administrator. Blockchains enable data disintermediation, and this can lead to significant savings in complexity and cost.

Any database is modified via “transactions”, which contain a set of changes to that database which must succeed or fail as a whole. For example, in a financial ledger, a payment from Alice to Bob is represented by a transaction that (a) checks if Alice has sufficient funds, (b) deducts a quantity from Alice’s account, and (c) adds the same quantity to Bob’s.

In a regular centralized database, these transactions are created by a single trusted authority. By contrast, in a blockchain-driven shared database, transactions can be created by any of that blockchain’s users. And since these users do not fully trust each other, the database has to contain rules which restrict the transactions performed. For example, in a peer-to-peer financial ledger, each transaction must preserve the total quantity of funds, otherwise participants could freely give themselves as much money as they liked.

One can imagine various ways of expressing these rules, but for now there are two dominant paradigms, inspired by Bitcoin and Ethereum respectively. The Bitcoin method, which we might call “transaction constraints”, evaluates each transaction in terms of: (a) the database entries deleted by that transaction, and (b) the entries created. In a financial ledger, the rule states that the total quantity of funds in the deleted entries has to match the total in those created. (We consider the modification of an existing entry to be equivalent to deleting that entry and creating a new one in its place.)

The second paradigm, which comes from Ethereum, is smart contracts. This states that all modifications to a contract’s data must be performed by its code. (In the context of traditional databases, we can think of this as an enforced stored procedure.) To modify a contract’s data, blockchain users send requests to its code, which determines whether and how to fulfill those requests. As in this example, the smart contract for a financial ledger performs the same three tasks as the administrator of a centralized database: checking for sufficient funds, deducting from one account, and adding to another.

Both of these paradigms are effective, and each has its advantages and disadvantages, as I’ve discussed in depth previously. To summarize, Bitcoin-style transaction constraints provide superior concurrency and performance, while Ethereum-style smart contracts offer greater flexibility. So to return to the question of what smart contracts are for:

Smart contracts are for blockchain use cases which can’t be implemented with transaction constraints.

Given this criterion for using smart contracts, I’m yet to see a strong use case for permissioned blockchains which qualifies. All the compelling blockchain applications I know can be implemented with Bitcoin-style transactions, which can handle permissioning and general data storage, as well as asset creation, transfer, escrow, exchange and destruction. Nonetheless, new use cases are still appearing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some do require the power of smart contracts. Or, at the very least, an extension of the Bitcoin paradigm.

Whatever the answer turns out to be, the key to remember is that smart contracts are simply one method for restricting the transactions performed in a database. This is undoubtedly a useful thing, and is essential to making that database safe for sharing. But smart contracts cannot do anything else, and they certainly cannot escape the boundaries of the database in which they reside.

Source:  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beware-impossible-smart-contract-gideon-greenspan?trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_ARTICLE_POST