Informational Report on Block Auth
This is a live document and will be updated based on most recent information.
The following report is NOT intended as advice to purchase software. This report is presented for purely informational purposes. ALWAYS conduct your own research before buying digital tokens associated with a software project during a crowdsale.
Block Auth https://blockauth.com/ is an open source project to build a competitive marketplace for developers to list authentication services (Registrars) such as for KYC, AML and the log in purpose for websites. The Block Auth system operates with a token and is beginning its crowdsale to members of the BitAngels.co starting July 14th at 7:00 p.m. U.S. central time. There will be segmented sales each few weeks for members of Angel.co, developers with Github or Bitbucket accounts, and then three segments open to the public. The team is headed up by Adam Brown based out of Austin, TX. This will be one of the first federated market places for authenticity services and relies on the Bitcoin and Master Protocols to function. The price of the tokens will increase during the period of the crowdsale based on the volume of coins that are purchased with bitcoins. See the crowdsale section of the website for details. BTC is the only currency accepted during the crowdsale. https://blockauth.com/#pricing
View presentation and Q&A at the following link:
https://drive.google.com/a/dappsfund.com/file/d/0B0Ibqr7Y2XcNeno4N09SQllRT3M/edit?usp=sharing
The Block Auth whitepaper is located here: https://github.com/BlockAuth/Planning/blob/master/Whitepaper.md
The Block Auth project is born out of the recent personal data security breaches of groups such as Target and Mt. Gox., which each lost personal data of their users due to bad practices and the lack of a multi key security infrastructure for authorizing a particular person’s access to their application.
Problem / Solution / Value Proposition
Existing way to authenticate users are fairly weak in that they create centralized points of failure in the system. Firstly each and every merchant having to store the data of each user creates a system that is only as strong as its weakest link.
The Solution Block Auth is proposing is:
Instead of having every merchant doing their own KYC / AML and user authentication the Block Auth solution is to have a marketplace where specialized Identity Registrars work to authenticate individual pieces of information. For example one Registrar may specialize in authenticating phone numbers, another at authenticating addresses, and yet another at authenticating passports each without knowledge of the other information relevant to the person they are authorizing.
For bitcoin exchange and many other websites the handing of their KYC / AML and even user log in processes over to a specialized service would serve as a great reduction in overhead to their operations and allow them to focus on their core products.
From the website: “From July 14th to Sept 7th, 2014, 5,000,000 BlockAuth Tokens are up for sale. If all 5 million aren’t sold, the remaining unsold tokens will be proportionally distributed to purchasers who participated in each phase of the sale.”
20,996,011 tokens will be generated over the years-to-come for core developers, third-party developers, and others providing value to the BlockAuth foundation.
The Block Auth is lead by Adam Brown who is based out of Austin, TX. Adam is a serial developer and has created a number of projects and code bases over the years.
See Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/deftnerd
See Github: https://github.com/DeftNerd
The economics of the tokens are fairly straightforward as they are required in order to access the Block Auth service from the Registrar and user perspective.
The main driver of demand for Block Auth coins will be the number of Registrar’s have join the Block Auth marketplace and the volume of requests that are processed by those authenticators.
The Block Auth system is built on the new Open ID Connect standard which is a combination of Open ID and OAuth systems that are popular for log in systems and API connections.
See this write up for details: http://openid.net/connect/
1. The Block Auth project relies on building acceptance from a number of existing open source communities and integrating into a variety of libraries (while not insurmountable getting consensus on the Block Auth approach will take time).
2. The Block Auth project will have competition from other KYC / AML providers who choose not to list their projects on the Block Auth marketplace (though this may be mitigated by lower or no fees for the Block Auth marketplace).
1. This is Not Stock or Equity
Participation in the Block Auth / Coin crowdsale will not provide you with a “security” or “equity” stake in this project. The digital token known as Coin is only useful for accessing the Block Auth software after its development is complete.
No refunds of BTC will be made to purchasers of Coin, should they change their mind at a later time, as the creation of the Coin tokens is locked in. Of course, once the purchaser receives his or her tokens after the crowdsale, they are free to send or sell them to anyone of their choice.
3. If You Send BTC From Coinbase You Can’t Claim Your Coins
If you send the Block Auth Crowdsale address BTC from a wallet that you do not control the private key for (example Coinbase), then you will not be able to claim the coins you purchased and the Block Auth will be unable to generate new ones for you.
4. Low Liquidity / Ability to Sell These Digital Tokens Will Be Limited
If you purchasing token XYZ in order to hold it as “a store of wealth or value” please understand that this project is in its early days of development and that the market for these tokens will be very shallow and thus make it will be harder to buy and sell these tokens without effecting the price on the market.
Email me when David A. Johnston publishes or recommends stories