 So hi, it's great to be in Berlin again, and I already kind of see the vibrations in the room are quite different To those I'm familiar with and more scientific context scientific conferences are a Little bit more different. So that's why I'm this I decided to make my talk a little bit more different and Yeah, just please feel free to ask any questions at uni you didn't talk if you don't understand something or So and yeah, so you can ask me to introduce you the core underlying technology of blockchain the distributed ledger technology and To show you the kind of most popular example of blockchain Bitcoin and I also would like to Say something about decentralization about the transformative impact such as technology has on us as individuals as organizations or even on a societal level so Where are we standing right now? Well, sometimes I think With blockchain we are right now somewhere. We were with the internet like 30 years ago So 30 years ago almost nobody was thinking that internet will become such a success story and This is what usually I'm kind of hearing if somebody talks to me about blockchain and What is actually blockchain? Well, I have a definition for it and I will introduce it in more detail later But it of course promises to be disruptive technology and disruptive technology means that you don't have a problem or a use case And you find a solution to but you have kind of a technology and then it is finding a solution There is bunch of examples for it and if you want to hear more on disruptive technologies let me know because I Was so lucky to spend some time in Boston at Harvard University where I kind of met Clayton Christensen who introduced the disruptive innovation theory. So I'm really familiar with that. Okay, so Probably most of you know blockchain because of Bitcoin and I will go quickly through this And I don't want to speculate about who kind of introduced it and who is actually the guy Satoshi Nakamoto but From the technological point of view we had distributed databases and even digital currencies a long time before Bitcoin or blockchain came into existence. So what was new? This guy or the organization behind this name or I don't know this guy solved two problems First he solved the so-called problem of double spending You could not spend the same digital currency the same token twice or more and second He introduced incentive mechanisms To participating parties. So why should somebody why should somebody? Provide computing and storage power to kind of run this database And this was the crucial thing. So what is actually blockchain? Blockchain is a so sorry I'm a professor. So I kind of like always like definitions blockchain is a Decentralized peer-to-peer database that consists of a network of computing nodes and This database stores an immutable chronologically ordered and transparent history of transactions and Transactions store the informations in a chain of block. That's why the name blockchain and This all is kind of This this this nodes they they kind of use a very clever consensus mechanism that is based on game theoretical thoughts to negotiate it what is actually included into the database and Here you see a Figure on how it is done with Bitcoin. So we have some Okay, you don't see it quite well We have some kind of nodes and they somehow decide on what is the current state of the database and if a new block is added it is always time-stamped what chronologically ordered and these Blocks refer to each other and every block consists of a number of transactions with a time stamp and Where's the e? hash values of The previous block and the current block. So I guess everybody's familiar with the hash function Matt Matt is really beautiful and Hash function is great. So you can do if you if you you can have any text any lands of any string any letters any numbers and with the hence function you can produce a kind of well and specifically defined length of a string and then you can make it more kind of Hard to Compute this function if you kind of say, okay, the first numbers of this Resulting hash value should have like three O's or so and I know that Ismael will give a talk Just after my talk and he will introduce the Kansas's mechanism more in detail. So I'll skip this Also skip the findings because this is what Ismael will talk about. I want to concentrate on different things And of course it uses Public key cryptography. This is also kind of math that every transaction Consists of the sender the receiver the Bitcoin value the timestamp and the protocol of the Bitcoin and it is signed with the public key Of the receiver and the receiver can kind of authenticate Himself that the transaction belongs to him or otherwise if somebody is sending the transaction It is signed with a known private key So everybody can really authenticate that it is coming from the right person And here you see everything in one figure the figures quite complicated But the most complicated figures are actually the best ones If somebody if you understand them so first this is the first step the green one It is validated that there was actually a registered sender receiver Then it's validated that somebody really has some tokens to kind of transfer them And if it's validated if the transactions validated it's coming in so-called memory pool Where the transactions are waiting to be? stored in a block and As soon as a new block is created the block is added to the blockchain and distributed all over the network So all the nodes have the same information and there is also a so-called unspent transactions So you may have some bitcoins that are not transferred to somebody else and they are Also stored in the blockchain in the list of such unspent transactions. So the core idea here is That algorithms rule So that's why we are speaking of the so-called zero trust That you don't kind of need any persons or organizations You trust you you trust an algorithm you trust in math and cryptography and It's becoming even more interesting with the so-called smart contracts. So if you have Processes that are well defined and that all participating parties agreed on and These processes are atomic. It means they don't need any human interaction Then they can be automatically executed upon fulfillment of specific conditions and this is great This is where the innovation is so we have a new way to store to process and to use information and You know for programmers out there Bitcoin is more maybe not the best example, but smart contracts can be very very powerful So you can you can you can build loops and Loops make fun for programmers all the software, you know Probably, you know all the software uses loops so it can be very very powerful You can you can automate any process out there if it does not know any kind of human interaction So what do we have next of course? We have databases Distributed databases blockchains and all of them have their advantages and disadvantages. I know that you are all familiar with kind of different Ways of kind of Designing a blockchain, but what I want to say is that? Blockchain is actually not a silver bullet, especially if you're thinking of open science and that's what I actually wanted to talk about today And I prepared this slide for it If you have an environment where all parties trust each other blockchain is probably Making no sense Blockchain does not solve the cap serum Cap serum says that a distributed database cannot achieve Consistency availability and partition tolerance at the same time so It is always a question and trade-offs like with the movie about fiction with Samuel L. Jackson The life of is full of trade-offs and the same is with blockchain. You know think of security It is always a trade-off between Availability and confidentiality In blockchain it is always a trade-off by designing in blockchain whether you want to have performance or Security whether you want to have an annuity or flexibility All these design characteristics. What cons is this mechanism am I going to use? What about? Scalability what about throughput? Guys even using so if you decide to go for distributed ledger technology even using a blockchain is a trade-off Because in a blockchain Every block has exactly one predecessor block and exactly one successor block But there is concepts of TLT where blocks may have multiple predecessor blocks or Multiple successor blocks or where you don't have blocks at all with transactions Directly refer to each other So it is not kind of you know, it is it is IT It enables us to do something and that is kind of the core of what I wanted to talk to you about about using this technology for Open science and for me. It's a question of two sites of system design and of participation system design We researchers often deal with sensitive data Think of life sciences medicine genetics. This is very personal data or think of I don't know Think of economics or social sciences. It may People work with sensitive business information Blockchain as a distributed database Retains benefits like reducing or having actually no single point of failures and improving Availability and integrity of the stored data. So it allows us researchers to store and to protect Sensitive data in terms of security and privacy better than even for It's not only a question of security actually how to keep data secured from unauthorized access It's also a question of what we call information privacy What information is stored? Where is this information stored? Who uses this information? Forward what purpose does one use this information? These questions have to be answered and blockchain may allows to do so why Because we scientists often rely even on Participants who share the information with us think of I don't know data donors in genetics With remember smart contracts with smart contracts these data donors are able are able to Determine it to decide What of their data is used for word purposes? So if a data donor cares about one disease Care is deeply about the one disease can decide to share own data with researchers who work on this disease and none of the donors data with others This is what Blockchain may enable us the so it will it will Lead to a higher involvement of research participants at the same time Blockchain is not designed to store kind of huge data You know big data, so I don't know if I stay with genetics think of omics data That's just tens of gigabytes of data Data size is a real problem with blockchain Nowadays we use kind of hybrid approaches so we restore data in a cloud and Blockchain allows us to control the access to this data This is of course a step into the right direction But there is still a long way to go Next we spoke about Open science environment Yes, our research culture nowadays Kind of forces us sometimes even to have data silos We really often have data silos and research Okay, it has something with Things to do that how we are as researchers are evaluated. How do we get our? Stuff published. How do we get funding and so on? but blockchain may lead to a real open science environment, so in its true in sense Because it is kind of you know through this decentralization. It leads to kind of democratization that the access to research and to Research data is kind of getting affordable So it is it will not be probably completely for free, but will be for sure cheaper and easier to access Okay, so and The core thing here is that we have to look beyond the IT value If we have a new way of store process and Use information it can lead to a completely new way of data and process management and This is something very very crucial This helps us to leapfrog to kind of a next decade of Using data and providing data in a scientific environment and No, I introduced my talk. I started my talk with the quote of Bill Gates regarding Internet Internet is nowadays criticized and It's criticized for some good reasons and blockchain Promises kind of to solve some of the problems that are criticized right now if people talk about Internet so What I want to point you to is this Transformative value of technology. So I actually don't care about technology. I love technology But I don't care what kind of technology it is if it's blockchain or something else I don't care as long as it affords me to do something and Transformation is a process and every process and Every process produces winners and losers So I think that what we should discuss in this room is how can we take care of this process? That it is run the right way and guys before I conclude my talk I Would like to say that if you want to use blockchain think of three things first if you have a decentralization if you have kind of Distributed notes Then you can go further second if you have kind of intermediaries or if you have somebody you don't trust to okay Then think of blockchain and third if you have Processes that are well defined everybody agreed on and that can be run automatically Automatically also think of blockchain. So if you guys kind of have an idea But don't know how to realize I realize it come and talk to me if you know how to realize it You could code, but you don't have an idea come and talk to me If you have the money and you want to do something good in your life And they will become more richer come and talk to me. Thank you very much Thank you very much for this great talk and I That questions You had your two colored blocks and one was participation. You really didn't articulate what that new participation was and what? Peer-to-peer or blockchain could maybe do that. It doesn't do today for science Sorry, sorry. So with participation. I meant that Through blockchain we make gay get even more data to do research so that participants are encouraged To share their data with us because they know what happens with the data First and second participation. What about the creating a real open science environment that the it is Encouraged to share their own data with others through blockchain because you can get some intensive mechanism for it So even for people who are kind of sharing their data for research That's what actually all the blockchain in genomics platform coming from res are doing You actually can get money for it. Okay What I didn't mention it raises of course a lot of ethical and regulatory issues So there there is that's why I was talking about beyond it. Well, it's not only an IT question, but you know with regulatory They always need some time. So first we had cars and then we designed we designed and to find rules How to move them and so on and so on what is allowed and whatnot. So they always need some time That's what I meant with participation The the raw data used in science as well as the science results are Big enough to store in blockchain usually and you just said that we are going to Store them somewhere else and use blockchain To give access to but usually where we store those datas are going to be a place Which is we're gonna be central Authority like Google or Amazon who's gonna Store these in their hard drives somewhere. So how do we ensure that in this workflow the decent pure Decentralization happens and then somebody just gets the idea of the dataset and the poll blockchain process is out and then we'll just log in and get the data or I'm trying to Get the link. Yeah. So unfortunately, I can't predict the future. I wish I could I can't so I don't know if you'll be right but Yeah, right now we are using hybrid approaches. Yes, because you know if these are really huge datasets They are stored in the cloud and as I told you before blockchain kind of is Giving you control who is allowed to assess this data So the future research will be for sure about how to make it possible What kind of designs of a blockchain of distributed later technology make it possible always a trade-off to deal with Bigger datasets and maybe sometime in the future. We will have such e Setting where even kind of huge data may be stored in in blockchains You know, it's not always a question of computing and storage power This is actually not a question the question is how can all these nodes? Decide and how can this database be really distributed and stored on different nodes, but we will do this I don't I don't I don't really Kind of worry about this because we guys we it guys will will not only have to do for the next years But I think we will find some answers on this problems to these questions, but you know You mentioned kind of these big companies that kind of rule internet This is the way it goes, you know, they used a niche So as introduced as internet was introduced and internet is not only kind of a worldwide web internet has more service It's email. It's ftp. It's voice of IP name it Internet wasn't so let me let me let me start different. I talked about this yesterday evening There were countries in Africa that didn't have a function in banking system for decades Because I didn't have a bank on every corner or not such an infrastructure. We have in Europe But with mobile phones and not even smartphones, you know, they through SMS they could transfer money and Then they got a function exist. So internet was not designed for e-commerce stuff or for Digital currencies But this is what disruptive innovations that but people learned how to use technology for new cases. So With big ones, you know, do you remember a company named Nokia? They were quite small and then the guys The guys were very smart. They decided to move on from, I don't know shoes to refrigerators and from refrigerators to phones And then it's not so as easy, you know, Apple was also not doing very well for quite a time and Microsoft was not very popular Kind of a decade ago, you know a decade ago all my students wanted to go to Google Nowadays Google is the evil. So it it changes. I I on my own celebrated research gate a couple of years ago And now it's on the dark side if you're talking about open science So, you know, I don't know what the future will come But that's what I want to point you to we if not we who should take care of this process It's transformative process because we understand IT and you guys understand the world outside So if we connect I think we have quite a good chance to do something Yeah, I have a question which I think builds very much on what you just said there because I see the word decentralization in the title talk which sort of I am always missing the sort of elephant in the room, which is the main property of blockchains which emerges from that and that is Uncensored ability because two of the five properties of blockchains are immutability and decentralization And the emergent property of that is uncensored ability, which means blockchains cannot be censored And this is something which I frequently miss in these kind of discussions. So what about the implications of something being not censorable Can you speak to that? Well, I can but it's like, you know Just my thoughts that's nothing which is It's a little bit like with a printing press in the Catholic Church Because they wanted to censor the printing press and couldn't and it was of the devil The so I must be careful. We're speaking about religions So, you know, if you if actually if you if you want to get really really rich I wouldn't even go for a kind of blockchain stuff just to kind of Found establishing your religion. That's probably the way to get very rich the So about decentralization so for blockchain as I told you it's a question of design So there is also permission blockchains and they are running quite well. So think of hyper ledger fabric or so No, so they they they don't have such problems with throughput or energy efficiency like Bitcoin has But they are not scalable. So it's always a trade off. It's always a trade off so with the definition of blockchain as you decentralization is a core idea and your point is actually The same as what people speak about that you reduce intermediaries that because you know, this this kind of it's a core feature unsensorability Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah Thank you for your presentation which you started with Bill Gates and Many times you come across papers and people who say and claim blockchain could be the next generation of internet in a sense and Linking to that point, I would like to hear your perspective In what ways could blockchain be this sort of second generation and what could it offer? What the what the general internet we're using now is lacking from So I could speak about this for hours. So, you know, actually it is not a new internet We are still using internet technologies So if you if we kind of have a common sense what internet technologies are that we rely on them and blockchain lies in them but what what introduce the internet kind of introduced are these big parties that are They got big because they had access to data and they kind of store it in a certain way and that's what actually Blockchain is about that this will decentralize it. But of course there will be parties Who run who kind of run this database, you know, not only in permissioned in in kind of open blockchain So for Bitcoin and all there is intensive mechanism But that's not kind of that everybody of us runs a computing node for it But the core idea is that we kind of move from this internet of information That's what people are speaking about to internet of value that you not only kind of store information But that's information has value like in Bitcoin, you know, there is kind of this digital currency But it's not endless. It's a predefined set of bitcoins available out there That's why it's getting value Because there is an end you can't kind of just print more dollars, you know print more bitcoins That's that's algorithm. You if you trust in it that that's that's what algorithm Provide but with this under this tokens you can kind of hide values and it's not only Bitcoin So there is kind of you know Other ideas you can even kind of Give it token a value of your house or something, you know So there is there is there is for sure and that's what I told you told you before there is for sure a lot of opportunities and possibilities for us also as researchers to Shape the future in the way how we use this information Which is becoming value in the future and so we will see what use cases will arise Concerning of this this for sure a new way as I told you a new way to store the process and to use information Which is also value Fantastic Yeah, fantastic talk. Um, I just wanted to pick up on what you were saying about giving people control of their their own data So I work in sort of human Like cognitive science human human research and one of the issues that we find talking to patients in our research is that You know there are concerns about open science real concerns about open science because currently if you take part in research you have to Consent right so you either essentially give consent for your data to be shared and then it's open And you know anyone can have access to it or you don't share it at all So there's this sort of tension between the rights of people taking part in research And and open science and you know if we can find way to solve that by giving people control of that of their own data So they can say I want my data to be used in this But I don't want to be using that because you know, I'm concerned about the consequences of it Oh, I think that could be huge Yeah, the most interesting part is here that if you kind of can control who is able to assess your data You can change Your mind and you can kind of you know, you sometimes we don't know what technology will be able to do in 10 years Even with the omics data. So if you right now are okay to share kind of your genome data with somebody but in five years, you know, oh This is maybe Something I don't want to have not only because of me because of my fellow you can change this Control and coming back to the question of data size and the blockchain. There is there is research on you know There's also so in in science. I don't know in medicine Zonke is a physician. He's probably knows best They are kind of obligated by law and to be compliant with all this stuff They have to store some you know pictures and all for 30 years This is what I mean with open sharing because you know after 30 years You can you can there is research on that you this Genesis block the very first one that every is everybody decides on The state of the new Genesis block because you know the information after 30 years You don't need it. Then you can kind of Decide any kind of in you provide a new Genesis block and start from you and then it reduces data size And if we speak about open science, I see that there is a lot of cases in here. So it's about data sharing It's also about how we are evaluating ourselves as researchers, you know all this age indices and so on It is also about how to get people participating in science It is also about publishing and all this publishers and intermediaries. So and these use cases are quite different Because it's you know the problem the real problem is always kind of a detailed question So it's it's quasi. It's it's it's quite it's quite it's quite it's quite easy for me right now to talk on this level But if we start really to do so and we do it Then it's become complicated because then you see it's small problem Which is a detailed question. We are not thinking right now. So and what am I talking about this? It's always a trade-off and it's always a design question before you kind of start building a house Think of how many windows you want to have whereas the door should be and so on how should be the fun? Please talk to us because we observe a lot of solutions out there that kind of Say we're blockchain. They are not watching at all if you take a look if you take a deeper look or they are taking the wrong design for the wrong For the context so it is very very very tricky here. Be careful Thank you very much. Thank you and Thanks, we're moving on