"Ethireum" or "ethereum", or pronounce it
however you want. The important thing
is that when you speak about blockchain,
you'll often hear about Ethereum.
What is this Ethereum? Because it's important.
How does it work? We'll talk about it in a bit
with our guest Thomas Bertani, director of Eidoo
and someone who knows a lot about the topic.
One, two. One, two. One, two, three.
First question for Thomas: what the hell is Ethereum?
Help us understand.
Ethereum is a second generation blockchain platform
that was developed around 2013 by Vitalik Buterin,
a Canadian-Russian-etc who was trying to figure out
how to create a platform that shares the characteristics
of bitcoin but with additional functionality
for building more complex applications. So,
the more complex applications in question could be
anything from decentralized insurance to new financial instruments.
Or some sandwich figurines that you don't need to trust
the issuer regarding their rarity for example.
In short, applications of, various types, gaming, gambling.
Finance, insurance, but also crowdfunding, just think
ICOs, which are developed on Ethereum
for the flexibility that it offers. So, Ethereum has this platform
that allows you to implement so-called "smart contracts".
These are autonomous contracts that live on the blockchain and allow you
to create new kinds of applications,
that don't need intermediaries, and that
take advantage of the classic characteristics of bitcoin but with a flexibility
that allows an average developer to interact
with the complexity of the blockchain and to research
new use cases.
Oh, by the way, this special is made in collaboration with Eidoo.
Eidoo is a company that has this ecosystem
of startups connected to the blockchain world and has two interesting
qualities I think. The first is that they try to do
innovative things, for example they're building an exchange
that is decentralized, which we should talk about
a bit because it could be an important thing to understand.
The second is that they're careful about the issue of regulation,
which we like. For example, I saw that they got a license
called VQF, or something like that, which is
anti-money laundering. Which is an important subject because, in a world
full of good-for-nothings, it's important to have someone
keeping an eye on the rules. Eidoo, you'll hear this name
a lot in the following videos so you should
have a look at them. But let's continue.
The magic word is smart contract,
let's talk more about this, Thomas, help us get to the heart of the matter.
How smart and how contractual are these smart contracts?
Well they're called smart contracts
but in reality we often say that they're
neither smart nor contracts. Because they're just a piece of code
a program for our computer, for our blockchain,
which of course cannot be smart, it's not intelligent,
it merely carries out what it's coded to do.
In particular, a smart contract on ethereum can carry
out very simple instructions, so it's not necessary to imagine
particularly complex logic but even more-or-less simple
logic. For example, you receive a payment
and you issue a service. The word contract, well,
definitely makes you think of legal contracts, but it doesn't have
anything in common with legal contracts. In particular a legal contract
lends itself to interpretation, while
a smart contract is a piece of code that gets carried out
in the same way every time, in a deterministic way,
on the blockchain. This allows you to achieve the same result each time
with the same inputs. Clearly, if we have an autonomous program,
a smart contract being executed on the blockchain
like Ethereum, we always want to get the same result
when the inputs are equivalent. So, when a payment is received,
I want to be sure to always provide
a certain service. So it's essential
to have this kind of property. So smart contracts
are definitely something very interesting,
even if the name is far from accurate.
So you can really do thousands of things with smart contracts
if you think about it. You can organize a service
like Uber or Airbnb or Mobike,
to rent your bikes, in a completely independent way.
If someone makes a certain type of order, then you release a certain type of bike,
and it's no longer available for others. In general,
this system, if you think about it, can lead us to
complete independence, autonomy, or automation
of some procedures that, today, require perhaps
manual inputs. In particular, another
application that could be built with smart contracts
is a decentralized exchange.
Thomas, tell us what a decentralized
exchange is, because it could be something
interesting, useful, important.
In the case of blockchain, exchanges are one of the
biggest points of centralization, which is creating problems of
trust for trading, funds, etc,
just think about the case of Mt. Gox, which was one of the centralized
exchanges. So exchanges are merely where you go to trade,
particularly in cryptocurrency.
You can exchange euro for bitcoin, bitcoin for ethereum, etc.
These centralized exchanges are places
that hold our funds and that we need to trust. Which means that,
as soon as these exchanges, for one reason or another,
disappear, well, you can simply lose all your funds.
They could run away with your funds or
provide an honest, transparent
cryptocurrency trading service. So,
this is why decentralized exchanges have an essential role.
Decentralized exchanges are simply
applications built like smart contracts,
often on ethereum, which allow users
to have full control over their own funds
but at the same time to exchange their assets
in the cryptocurrency of their choice, with other users
on the same network.
When you talk about crypto, about blockchain, bitcoin, ethereum,
etc, in general, it's always in reference
to their value, to finance, to cash.
The truth is that, out there, there's a giant world
alternatives, initiatives, and possibilities.
A particularly interesting trend that I wanted
to talk about with Thomas, is that of the so-called non-fungible
tokens. What's that about?
One of the hot topics, in the last few months,
has been non-fungible tokens. What's it about? Well,
we already know what tokens are. That is, when
we have an ICO, a crowdfunding event,
it's often to distribute these tokens,
these new assets, which live on smart contracts
(almost always on ethereum) and which allow you to access
various services on the blockchain. Non-fungible tokens
are a similar concept, so
an asset that lives on the blockchain,
but unlike fungible tokens, which we get with
an ICO, etc, non-fungible tokens are where each unit is different from the next.
Which means that, each token is unique, demonstrably so.
Why, what's the use of that? The use is to
represent unique pieces on the blockchain.
So that could be an artwork,
or it could be a sandwich figurine. It could be
anything. Essentially, it's a demonstrably scarce
token. So, it's not demonstrably scarce in the same sense
that bitcoin is, in the sense that we know that
there's a limited amount in circulation, but each unit
is essentially unique in itself, so we only have one token
of that type, which means that, the sale or exchange
of this token will have different dynamics.
It's not traded on an exchange but more likely on a platform
similar to eBay, where we can list our unique token for sale
which could represent a unique
work of art that possibly has someone out there
looking to buy it. So what does this do for us
in terms of art ownership beyond the traditional
arrangement? Well, for example, thanks to the guarantee provided
by the blockchain and to the flexibility of the instrument, the smart contract,
etc, we can easily possess
a certain shared token, so for example,
we can have a token that represents a very important
or desired artwork, which is owned by
ten different parties, and maybe one of these
owns 10% and wants to sell it or trade it on an exchange
and they can do it in a completely secure way, without needing
to disturb the other nine.
I think this subject of non-fungible tokens is really cool.
It's like saying that, soon each of us
could own a piece of the Mona Lisa,
if it were divided into enough pieces
so that each one wouldn't cost too much.
The last thing to mention about ethereum is its creator, Vitalik Buterin,
who is a crazy character. He's exactly my idea
of a mad genius. I read an interview with him in which
he says that he studied Chinese and a couple of other languages at the same time,
and his knowledge ranges from economic theories to
a thousand other things.
He's someone with a mind that races
at a thousand miles per hour, objectively.
He's not your average character. So then, the question is,
what I'm curious about, is how closely ethereum is connected
to Vitalik. Because if ethereum is completely connected to him,
it would be a mess, if tomorrow I decide to kidnap him,
seeing as how ethereum has become a protocol
of fundamental importance for humanity,
you can turn it on or off, you see? It's a mess.
Thomas, what do you think?
Vitalik is a pretty interesting character,
we could say he's kind of the mascot
of ethereum. For sure he's the original inventor
of ethereum but what's his role today?
Well technically, if I'm not mistaken, he's the lead scientist,
so his role is to guide research and development
efforts on ethereum.
What would happen today if Vitalik disappeared?
Well let's say that, whether you like it or not, today Vitalik
still finds himself in the position
of being the one to resolve any potential disputes
or questions that may not necessarily
be simple to resolve at the community level.
That being said, a blockchain in and of itself, based on how it works,
is a collective effort and it's necessary to arrive at a consensus
to make any changes at the protocol level. So that
means that Vitalik maybe can give his point of view
and can have a degree of influence in the community, but
he can't make decisions in an autonomous, arbitrary
way. So we can say that today Vitalik is a component
of the community like Satoshi could have been,
and clearly Satoshi was anonymous while Vitalik isn't, but this allows him to
continue to guide the project, which is still in it's first
evolutionary phase and which could potentially evolve and change
much more over time. What would happen if Vitalik disappeared?
There would probably be a bit of
of confusion but more because of the habit
of having Vitalik nearby than because of
true technical necessity.
With ethereum, the thing to keep an eye on is the constant evolution,
the constant change, that's the interesting thing to see.
Not how it is today, but in a year, two years, five years.
At the end of the day, that's the key.
What's the saying? Great companies
don't believe in excellence, but in constant improvement
and constant change.
Amen.
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