Blockchain sandboxes are not good enough.

https://www.blockchainlanguage.org/

ICO’s are gone. Most blockchains do not work because the sandbox does not work

Sandboxes are based upon testing. Testing can find one error. Maybe more, say 10. But how you are sure you found ALL errors? Old fashioned sandbox testing does not solve that problem.

The impact of using the wrong method is severe because

The blockchain is:

1. all about compliance & certification. Governments insist on finding all errors because it could be fraud as well.
2. Write-only, hence how to get rid of errors once made?
3. How to test in a write only environment?
4. Distributed, hence hard to remove distributed errors.
5. Distributed and you cannot make an easy copy for testing as you are used too.
6. Testing requires many programmers that are just not available.
7. Programmers are not well educated and got used to testing instead of formal verification.
8. Testing or work done manual in a digital environment causes “digitization asymmetry”. In this case It’s hard to keep up with the need for speed if it comes to ad hoc changes. For example in eHealth regulations change on a daily bases. In this post I describe how digitization asymmetry causes governmental tax losses. The culture of many short test-cycles is contributing to the congestion of sandboxes too. There is just too many quick code made and offered for testing. The testers do the job.

Blockchain sandboxes are everywhere.

Central banks or the EU and many others are using the wrong method. Even the Horizon2020 projects ask for testing instead of using formal verification.

The hackathon cult makes things worse. These events are based upon test balloons and sandboxes and the mystification of the self-made programmer using scripting. What is needed is formal proof based on mathematics and pure logic. Satoshi Nakamoto would not be happy when he would see this. His work only pure formal proof. That proof does not arrive by sitting together but from studding math, something society neglected. Is this the root-cause? Can someone link to a sustainable regulated sanbox environment?

Even Regulatory Sandboxes are getting in place or already in law. A costly disaster, because testing is normally half the cost of a project, but for blockchain and risk avoidance government it’s more.

Testing is by nature expensive. Half the cost of the project at least. A lot of governmental money is lost and the results are just not there. Of course the expected promise of the blockchain doesn’t arrive either.

The mistake of using sandboxes is logical. People are used to try things out, but for the blockchain it’s just not the right method. The academics involved should have known better.

What’s needed is formal verification or a proof strategy instead of testing.

The solution is another kind of “sandbox”. In this post I describe the method of formal verification that also has room for scenario’s and experimenting in another way, by other people. The Dutch blockchain knowledge foundation offers another type of “sandbox” based on formal proof or proof strategies for free.

© 2019 Arnoud Berghuis. www.blockchainlanguage.org