Blockstack: “The New Decentralized Internet”
~ by Kelli Lee on October 22nd, 2016
“Blockstack is a movement to build the decentralized web – a movement of hackers, designers, and entrepreneurs from around the world deeply committed to the future of the Internet as a bastion of innovation, freedom, and economic inclusion. Blockstack is about pushing power to the edges with decentralized applications and allowing users to be in control of their data, identities and software.”
Overview of Blockstack:
If you’re interested in an in depth technical read, here is a PDF published for the 2016 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC ’16) titled: Blockstack: A Global Naming and Storage System Secured by Blockchains. If you can make it to the end of that document it is well worth your time! The contributors of this document are: Muneeb Ali and Jude Nelson, Princeton University and Blockstack Labs; Ryan Shea, Blockstack Labs; Michael J. Freedman, Princeton University.
- How Blockstack Works
- Process of gaining targeted website traffic or specified traffic/ attention through social media sites
- Creating campaigns, articles, content aimed at specific groups/ individuals to attract attention and encouraging sharing of said content
- The Content Factory declares that depending on the experience level of the social media agency you hire, the size of your business, the suite of services you require, and a bunch of other factors, professional social media marketing can cost you anywhere from $1,000 per month to $20,000 per month.
- Companies compete to obtain accounts with small businesses and large corporations alike offering to launch new Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat accounts, handle social media marketing, creating and maintaining customer / potential customer interaction – managing a brand.
- Targeted advertisement uses second order proxies, such as tracking web activities both mobile and online, using a search word as implied interest, and more in order to collect, analyzing and interpret consumer demographics, creating targeted advertising.
- It’s not a coincidence that after you google something on your mobile phone related items, often products, appear in your social media timeline and sidebars as sponsored ads!
“Decentralization leads to innovation, freedom and economic inclusion. Decentralization means more experimentation and permission-less innovation. It means fewer control points & greater freedom for network participants. It means more developers can bring products to market & compete with the giants.” – Blockstack
Blockstack 101:
Blockstack is the name of free and open source software built on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain developed by a group of researchers, developers and engineers for all of us to use as we desire. Why the Bitcoin blockchain versus building a new blockchain or adopting one of the 500+ already available? This was my initial response which led me to discover the PDF referenced above from the 2016 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC ’16). That article does an impeccable job at detailing how these individuals decided, after trial and error, which route was the most reliable, structurally sound option for building on top of a blockchain. One blockchain does not necessarily equate to another blockchain, there are many factors that determine reliability, authentic decentralization, equal distribution of wealth & more.
“The web, once open, has been hijacked by the powerful few. The Internet was created as an open, permission-less, egalitarian frontier. It was a bastion of freedom and innovation. But over time, power on the Internet started consolidating and a few large companies gained control. This is not how it was meant to be.” – Blockstack
Blockstack Empowering Developers:
“Building great products shouldn’t require managing servers, databases & ID systems. Building software should be simple. With the decentralized app model, developers don’t have to manage servers or databases or build out user management systems. Software runs on user devices & clients exchange information.” – Blockstack
In May 2016 Microsoft announced collaboration with Blockstack Labs and ConsenSys along with other contributors in an effort to produce an open source blockchain based identity system. More than just an identity system though, it would allow users, products, businesses etc to operate across multiple Blockchains while also utilizing cloud based storage services.
An example of a blockchain based identity service currently available is Onename. Onename is built using Blockstack on the Bitcoin blockchain by Blockstack Inc. Well what can you do with Onename? The concept behind any blockchain based identity system is decentralization of content, a place where users own their data, users control their data and apps run on their devices.
In contrast to blockchain based identity systems are majority of popular social media sites today where sensitive customer/user data is handed over in order to achieve targeted advertisement campaigns.
If you have heard the terminology social media marketing and have not yet fully understood what that actually means it breaks down into a few explanations.
What Social Media Marketing means to your data:
Blockchain Identity as described by Blockstack:
“The main difference between blockchain identities and accounts on any other service is that blockchain-based systems have strong ownership. Blockchain identities can’t be confiscated by any service because the system defines ownership according to ownership of public-private keypairs, just like ownership of coins on Bitcoin. This is in direct contrast to Twitter or Facebook usernames, which could be confiscated or censored at any time by the respective companies that they belong to.”
The new Decentralized E-Commerce:
Blockstack is a powerful tool for developers to create server-less applications. The blockchain is utilized to maintain a cross-application identity system, securely mapping user IDs to usernames, public keys, and data storage URIs. At Pass The Piece were striving to collaborate, create, share and join decentralized e-commerce models built on blockstack due to the fact that blockstacks model enables merging from one blockchain to another at any given point in time, thus allowing adaptations as this technology continues to emerge and develop!
A current example of decentralized e-commerce is OpenBazaar, however it is not built on Blockstack or any blockchain. Instead OpenBazaar requires you to download and install a program on your computer, contrary to accessing a website. This application on your computer allows you to connect with other people looking to buy and sell goods or services. This is an example of a peer to peer network (much like the blockchain) that is not controlled by any single person, entity, company or organization, therefore decentralized.
“OpenBazaar is not a website, a company, or an organization. Most people are familiar with the standard ecommerce model. A company – such as eBay, Amazon, or Etsy – has a popular website where people buy and sell stuff. The company directly controls the trade on their own website. You don’t hear about illegal or immoral goods sold on these websites because the companies won’t allow it. They remove any such listings. This model is a centralized model, because there is one central authority that can make decisions and control what happens.” – OpenBazaar Blog
OpenBazaar is a decentralized marketplace using bitcoin as a medium of exchange, contributing to the decentralized nature of the platform. If you want to learn more about Bitcoin read our recent Blog: What is Bitcoin?
“What is important to note is we’re not like eBay or Etsy where we have control of the full stack. We’re a software development team who built an open source project. We created a tool. We encourage positive use, but it’s really up to the actors in the network to determine how it is used.” – OpenBazaar co-founder Brian Hoffman