Crypto Trust Issues — Introduction
By Michael Knip on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
In the humanities and social sciences, trust is viewed as a natural disposition in humans, traceable in the neurobiological activity and structure of our brains. Trust plays a significant role in human society; for example, trust through commerce, or trust in our institutions. Indeed, there is even an esoteric philosophy on trust, evident here in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Through ingenious computer programming, trust also underpins the technological revolution known as *blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT).
In Mastering Bitcoin (2017), author Andreas M. Antonopoulos writes about Bitcoin: “this isn’t money, it’s a decentralized trust network”. The Bitcoin core software operates as a decentralized consensus system, resulting in a trusted public ledger — that does not require a trusted third party (TTP) for it to function. It is this fact and the existence of the World Wide Web that makes blockchain/DLT a transformational technology. However, computer engineer and blockchain expert, Nick Szabo, who, among other things, lectures and writes on (his) concept of trust-minimization (i.e. reducing reliance on TTPs), holds that “there is no such thing as a fully trustless institution or technology.”
For most, blockchain/DLT is not easy to grasp, and to the extent that transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, for example, are trustless, there is a substantive learning curve required to use the technology. At its protocol layer (layer 1), Bitcoin has trust programmed into it that cannot easily be changed. The software is open source and viewable by all, but if you are not a computer scientist of sorts it still requires that you trust in the code. Further trust is then required to understand and learn how to use Bitcoin, likely requiring reliance on the product/service ecosystem (layers 2, 3, etc.) built around Bitcoin. It is in these ways that the technology begins to invite trust issues.
The purpose of this series is to highlight and educate on some of the trust issues that I have come across over the course of my involvement in crypto. My own educational background lies in the humanities and social sciences and not in computer sciences, thus my readers will enjoy my decidedly non-technical musings on crypto. My aim, as I pore over the work of Antonopoulos, Szabo et al. is to learn what I can of the tech side of blockchain/DLT, such that I can continue my work towards bridging the gap between crypto and humanity. It is only through education and knowledge that we can alleviate the trust issues of this trust-minimizing technology.
One last note, especially with regards to the aforementioned authors, is that of all the various tokens available in the crypto universe, Bitcoin is very much in a league of its own. This is not only the case through market share alone but, as I am beginning to see it, also through many other aspects of this technology’s original stated purpose. This is not to say that I am a Bitcoin maximalist per se, but rather that the ethos of Bitcoin certainly affects the way in which I think and write about this technology.
*To the chagrin of some and delight of others, I often use the term crypto to refer to the entire blockchain/DLT ecosystem — including all the various cryptocurrencies/ tokens/ and assets therein.
Series articles:
Crypto Fake News
more to come…
Disclaimer: My writing is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
