Deep Dive Israel vol.1
“Bitcoin Blockchain Interview“
(the latter volume)
Deep Dive Israel vol.1 “Bitcoin Blockchain Interview“
(the latter volume)
https://medium.com/startup-journey-in-israel/deep-dive-israel-vol-1-bitcoin-blockchain-interview-24f20deb89b0
Hori: True. So I think that, you know, in Israel, like also La’Zooz, for example like also ride-sharing, there was also a decentralized application like storage or something, the Zennet? It’s trending.
Ayal: Yes. Zennet. Tau-Chain and Zennet.
Ayal: Zennet also tries to develop something called a Tau-Chain.
Ofer: It’s the same person did it, Ohad. He started with Zennet and now he’s doing Tau-Chain.
http://www.idni.org/tauchain
Hori: It’s okay, I’m going to check it later. So what is the movement of the application in Israel? In Japan, honestly speaking, nothing trending in this type of — this type of decentralized application.
Ofer: Nothing?
Hori: Maybe very few, very few. So they are looking for what is the latest trend in Israel because a lot of things, new things, innovative things, like GetGems also, Bitcoin. There is very few, just the very few, minor.
Ofer: What is trending? Well you started talking about Tau-Chain. I think it’s an interesting concept. It’s basically — it’s hard to explain because it does everything. Everything is a bit too big but it gives you the ability to create routes and to reuse codes also.
Ayal: Recreate the Internet, the phonetic Internet, which is a concept, phonetic Internet —
Hori: Phonetic?
Ayal: Phonetic Internet is like — it’s like NameCoin but it’s more — okay. If you imagine that you have a block chain and you can store links in the block chain —
Hori: Link? Store link.
Ayal: — and these links are verified and you cannot you change — you know what the link is. So essentially, it’s almost like you can create these links that are verified, you can use them as buildings blocks to build a computer and there is another action, it’s like that you can verify that somebody else made a computation, the correct computation — what I mean is that I give you a computation, a code to run a program, I can know that you run this program exactly the way that I want it. So imagine if you have links and you can do computation, you can build a computer out of everybody, you know, just using these building blocks, you can use it to build a —
Ofer: Build a supercomputer.
Ofer: Supercomputer service, server, everything that you want throughout application.
Hori: Application? So this is an Israeli startup also? Tau-Chain?
Ofer: Yeah. It’s just a —
Hori: Theory?
[laughter]
Ofer: Ohad refers to it as a whole new thing. For Ohad, it’s a new thing but he started with Zennet. It’s the first thing he started with. With Tau, you can also reuse code.
Ofer: It can be also like a big the network will be like a big GitHub.
Hori: Oh, big GitHub.
Ofer: You just write “I want to do 1, 2, 3.” and then the network will know where to get the code from. It will know how much you need to pay for that code and if you want, it can be built already from code that exists, because when you write a new program, chances are someone else already thought about some of the parts of the program. So code reusability.
Hori: Really? So it’s also like to trace, how much from where to whom. It’s okay. Anyway, so we use a code, like Github, on a Tau-Chain.
Ayal: Ya, we don’t understand it ourselves perfectly so —
[laughter]
Ofer: Tau-Chain is a complicated idea. I admit I don’t fully understand all the capabilities. There are a lot of things it can do.
Hori: But this is a new trending in Israel?
Ofer: Yea, trending? Yeah. I mean I don’t know how popular it is on social network, if that’s what you mean.
Ayal: Another famous Israeli startup, I think, on Reddit, that got some attention, is Bitrated.
https://www.bitrated.com/
Ayal: Nadav, the guy who did it, he’s the first one to implement multisig on a very big scale.
Hori: Multisignature.
Ayal: So if for instance, if you have an OpenBazaar that wants to use their API for this, for instance, maybe. What they do — what his site do, Bitrated, it allows people like — because Bitcoin is a bit — when you make payment, and you don’t have any consumer protection, it allows me to send you money but Ofer will be the arbitrator.
Hori: Arbitrated? Okay.
Ayal: I cannot take the money, you cannot take the money and Ofer cannot take the money but when he says okay you can take the money.
Hori: So this is escrow function.
Ayal: Yes, distributed escrow function —
Hori: But do you know how to recognize from who to whom? Because block chain, we don’t understand from who to whom.
Ayal: All of us go on the site, VI API and we create a contract and this contract has three sides or can have five sides and have three sides, for instance, I’m the sender, you’re the –
Ayal: — you’re the receiver and you give me a service and he’s the arbitrator. He puts the conditions for arbitrating; he says, “I take 1%” or “I only — I don’t take any money but if there is arbitration, I take 5%. If I don’t work, I don’t take money.” or maybe “I always take 1%”. He can make the rules.
Hori: Really?
Ofer: I take everything.
[laughter]
Hori: Yea, you take everything, right? Wow.
Ayal: It’s completely decentralized, which is great because you build it with no trust. Like you don’t need trust, I mean people yes — but in the server, in the arbitrage.
Hori: This type of services have already, alright?
Ayal: This works, yes —
Ofer: You can go to bitrated.com, I guess.
Hori: I’m going to check it. But you know, very cool.
Ofer: You can see my profile, choose me as an arbitrator.
Hori: I see, I see.
Ofer: I think I don’t have face.
Ayal: We’re running notes and — so these scripting language allows for all the new protocols and it allows for you to do some things on Bitcoin without using a new protocol like multisig or something like that. So you can store information on the block chain, you can use multisig and what else, quite a lot of things, Hashlock, Timelock and you can have some sort of contract only on Bitcoin called cross-chain swap.
Hori: Cross-chain swap? Yes, yes.
Ayal: So all these are doing on the Block chain without any change.
Hori: Like a side-chain? Cross-chain? How about side-chain?
Ayal: Side-chain, yes — Cross-chain, what I mean is, and they use it in side-chain, is if you want to change Bitcoin to Dogecoin and I want to make a transaction with you, but I don’t know you, you don’t know me, so we don’t trust each other. We can make a transaction in Bitcoin and Dogecoin and only when you take the Dogecoin, I can get the Bitcoin. The transaction is either 1 or 0, if it does not happen, nobody loses money so it’s cross-chain because there is one block chain called the Bitcoin block chain and another block chain called the Dogecoin block chain; we cross the chains. You understand what I mean?
Hori: Understand, understand. What is the startup to provide the —
Ayal: No, no, this is all —
Ofer: You can do it yourself.
Ayal: This is all possible in the Bitcoin scripting language.
Hori: Scripting language. Okay.
Ofer: I guess you can make a website and maybe charge money for it.
Hori: I see. I think our developer can do that, because my developer is very familiar with this type of scripting languages.
Ayal: We’re really proud of everybody. We did some hackathons here, we did four hackathons already.
Ofer: Four already?
Hori: What are you focusing the new idea by Tel Aviv hackathons? Any idea?
Ayal: In the hackathon?
Hori: In the hackathons, yes.
Ayal: First hackathon, the winner was La’Zooz.
Hori: La’Zooz, ya.
Ofer: No, there was a hackathon before that, on April 2013.
Ofer: April 2013. It’s not La’Zooz that won it, it was BuyTheWay.
http://www.buytheway.co.il/
Hori: BuyTheWay?
Ofer: It’s buy, as in to purchase something. Buy-The-Way. I won second place.
Hori: You won?
Ofer: I was in that hackathon but there were only two teams, so there was first place and second place was last.
Ayal: You were second place. But second hackathon was already very serious because the first team, which was La’Zooz, won tickets to Texas to join the hackathon, all the team — and the prize of half a million dollars for this hackathon but they won second prize which was two hundred thousand dollars in MasterCoin. Not so nice.
http://lazooz.org/
Ofer: Not so nice.
Hori: Not so nice.
Hori: So what is the status of the La’Zooz? I think it’s a like-sharing platform?
Hori: Decentralized, P2P in Israel. And this is working in Israel?
Ayal: No, what the idea is, it’s also complicated, I hope I don’t complicate it. They say we have two problems; one, regular touring, because they don’t allow Uber everywhere, it’s kind of a problem. Second problem is bootstrap. You know what bootstrap means?
Ayal: — but you need a lot of users because if you want to share a ride, I need to know that I will be able to take the ride in the morning. I need enough users. So there is not enough users. So they think that if they make coin, that will give advantage to people who will start early, like Bitcoin. More users will arrive and they can make critical mass.
Hori: Critical mass. Yeah, I understand. Cool. So what is regulation in Israel, like Bitcoin, Block chain, decentralized type of application?
Ofer: Currently, I don’t think there is any formal regulation.
Ofer: They are considering it. We don’t know yet.
Ayal: Okay, the central bank and anti-laundering — and everybody made a statement saying Bitcoin can be dangerous. Let’s say not dangerous but problematic for non-professional users. You have to be careful because you are not protected, not by the country.
Ofer: You don’t have insurance.
Hori: When I went to here two days ago, junior high school students or primary school students buy block chain there, it’s legal? It’s okay?
Ayal: Yeah, it’s legal.
Ayal: In Israel, things are legal and here they are not. Oh it’s time!
[laughter]
Hori: It’s okay. Thank you very much.
