Clearmatics Stories
Hello from Clearmatics,
It’s great to have you with us.
Here at Clearmatics we spend a lot of time thinking and talking about blockchain technology and we want to share our thoughts and ideas with you. So, every fortnight we’ll be sending you our insights on blockchain and decentralised computing.
Since launching the company in 2015 we’ve worked hard to forge deep connections with clients, prospects, fellow entrepreneurs and developers globally.
This newsletter is a neat way to update our growing community on the progress we’re making. It’s also an opportunity to share our own in-house thought leadership as well as what we are currently reading.
With that in mind, please do check out our recent thinking on Devcon4, dFMI And The Issuance And Redemption of Tokenized Assets and Ion Stage 2: Cross-Chain Smart Contract Development (Part 4). More details below.
I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you.
Best regards,
Robert Sams
Founder & CEO at Clearmatics
An update from the team
Devcon4: A Debrief
In 2014, a group of intrepid developers assembled in Berlin for Devcon0. It was at this proto-conference that the first conceptualisations of Ethereum were presented and refined. Fast forward to 2018, and Ethereum is a global phenomenon, whilst Devcon has become the world’s preeminent conference for blockchain developers and entrepreneurs.
Two weeks ago, the spectacular city of Prague played host to Devcon4. The Clearmatics team was there, and in this blog post we share our experiences and some of our standout moments.
Recent blog posts from Clearmatics
dFMI And The Issuance And Redemption of Tokenized Assets
Previously in our series on dFMI, we discussed asset tokenization which allows for a new post-trade business model whereby participants can interact directly with one another without the need for an intermediary.
In this post, we examine some methods for creating tokenized assets on a blockchain and set out some of the necessary prerequisites.
Ion Stage 2: Cross-Chain Smart Contract Development (Part 4)
Parts 2 and 3 of this series explored how we’ve designed and constructed the Ion framework to facilitate a linkage and dependence on state and events between different blockchains and blockchain systems. The framework sets up the environment with all the data we need to make assertions regarding a transaction and its associated state transition providing a simple interface to make these proofs.
In this fourth and final part in our blog series we delve into the details of how to develop cross-chain interacting smart contracts that leverage the Ion framework.
What we’re reading
Ethereum 2.0 development update #16 From Prysmatic Labs
Ethereum 2.0 is officially being renamed to Serenity, a name fit for an upgrade that will transform the years of work put into turning a current, smart-contract enabled blockchain into a scalable world computer. It’s the culmination of years of work, research, and community conversations on how to completely overhaul an existing network. Well worth checking out this update from the team at Prysmatic Labs.
The economic incentives of staking in Serenity
Eric Conner, founder of EthHub, recently tweeted that he was seeing a lot of discussion about the technicals of Ethereum’s Casper PoS but not much discussion around the economics. He went on to jot down some thoughts on the current incentive structure. In this post, he formalises those tweets and calls for more discussion around the economics of staking.
Introducing the “Minimal CBC Casper” Family of Consensus Protocols
CBC Casper is a family of “correct-by-construction” consensus protocols that share the same proof of asynchronous, Byzantine fault tolerant consensus safety. In this paper, Ethereum researchers Vlad Zamfir, Nate Rush, Aditya Asgaonkar, Georgios Piliouras describe this family of protocols by defining their protocol states and protocol state transitions, before providing a proof of Byzantine fault tolerant consensus safety for the entire Minimal CBC Casper family of protocols.
Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake are regressive
A Hacker News piece, which argues that proof-of-work and proof-of-stake are economically regressive. Amber Cazzell writes, “Blockchain has been more than a wake-up call to the power of incentives in economic transactions. It’s also been a wake-up call about how easily incentives can defeat their own purpose. Let’s refuse to let the community become blinded by the allure of power and wealth at the expense of our original philanthropic intents.” Whether you agree or disagree, this is certainly a provocative read.
Why Blockchain immutability matters
Across the hundreds of articles and conversations around Blockchain, you’ll find the term “immutable” almost always present. Immutability is a definitive feature that blockchain evangelists highlight as a key benefit. This piece from Kevin Doubleday for Hacker News shows how immutability can transform the auditing process into a quick, efficient, and cost-effective procedure, and bring more trust and integrity to the data businesses use and share every day.
Fintech: Regulation trips Canada’s stock exchange blockchain test
Stock exchange operators from Shanghai to New York are looking at distributed ledger technology in hopes that it can make their computer systems more efficient, reliable, and secure. A pilot project in Canada suggests that these potential benefits will take time to realise, however, and that working around regulations will be a bigger hurdle than perfecting the technology itself.
Intro to Blockchain: how protocols work
Part two of series on blockchain technology from Roy Walker, strategic technology analyst and aspiring venture capitalist. In the first part of the series Roy discussed the historical context of the blockchain, providing a history of both the modern internet and blockchain networks. This second part focuses on how the technology works, including one post on how protocols work and another on ICOs, DAPPs and DAOs.
Food for thought
“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” — Henry Ford
Thank you for reading our newsletter. We hope you enjoyed it.
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Christophe MacIntosh, cmacintosh, Community & Communications Lead, Clearmatics
