On the need of tokenized business and computational models.

Inevitable to most natural style of designing a blockchain application is to imagine a kind of a token model as a basic working mechanism. For that however we would need both the missing theory and practice as well to work with tokenized models, like inventing tokanized business models and/or tokenized computational architectures. Examples include but not limited to:

- tokenized data flow
- tokenized Turing machine
- tokenized Neumann architecture
- tokenized accounting systems and tripple accounting
- tokenized business management
- tokenized business models
- tokenized business cooperation models
- tokenized machine learning
- tokenized AI
- ...

And last but not least we would need general frameworks to abstractly model and describe tokens and collaboration of tokens. 

How to create a voting algorithm on a public blockchain

Creating a decentralized voting system on the top of the blockchain is actually not as easy as it looks like. There are many problems that can be resulted in a wrong implementation. The problem is that blockchain is pretty much public, even if we speak on a consortium blockchain solutions, data and transaction is public at least to the consortium nodes that might be less privacy as needed. Some of the problems might be the followings:

- The identity of the voters should not be revealed: for such a purpose there might be the possibility to use a pseudonym voting solution, where instead of names, we simply use like an ethereum address. Certainly, here the major challenge is to distribute the pseudonym addresses and making sure that one person votes only once. 

- The actual votes should not be revealed during the voting because they could influence the result of the voting. One way can be to set the voting into two phase: in phase one, voters vote with a hash value of the vote and some random salt. In the next phase, there is only aggregation of the votes where the participants reveal the voted values and salts. Certainly, it is pretty much questionable how the algorithm exactly works, like what happens if the some actors vote but do not reveal the votes in the next round. 

- If both the votes and the identities should be 100% hidden, meaning that not even pseudonym information can be revealed than it is pretty much questionable if it can be solved technically at all. Probably specialized zero knowledge proofs can help with the situation. 

- General question is how the voting rights can be distributed in a decentralized way. Who or what should be able to vote and how they get that right to vote.  

Fabric composer tips and tricks - importing external javascript library

In Hyperledger Fabric Composer at smart contact development importing external javascript libraries are not really supported at the moment. What you can basically do:

1. use the extra functionality on the client and server side and not directly in the smart contract. Pay attention that the smart contract is executed and evaluated on each endorsement peers of the Hyperledger Fabric architecture. This security guarantee is not always possible for most of the logic. Sometimes you can reconstruct your business logic in a way that the functionality provided by the external javascript library is executed on the client side and only the result is presented on the smart-contract side. 

2. if the code of the external javascript functionality is not huge, you can try to integrate the javascript files as extra files in your business network archive file. The framework references automatically the added javascript files. Certainly, you added files can not have external references. 

Fabric composer tips and tricks - return value of a transaction

Unfortunately there isn't possible to return value from a transaction in Hyperledger Fabric Composer. What you can do however:

- Emitting an event, like

  let retValEvent = getFactory().newEvent(namespace, 'RetValEvent');
  retValEvent.RetValue = "value";
    emit(retValEvent);

- writing the return value into the variables of an asset or participants. For fine-tuning the access rules, it might be possible to define a separate asset containing only the return values of the different transactions:

  asset ReturnValueAsser identified by retId {

    o String retId

    o String retValTransaction1

    o String retValTransaction2

    --> RelatedAsset relatedAsset

 }

Top Blockchain applications making waves in commercial real estate

A guest article republished from RealAtom written by Karl Utermohlen.

What Is Blockchain?

Blockchain technology is a way to store and transfer information in an encrypted manner by distributing data instead of copying it in a central location. Blockchain does so through a cloud, peer-to-peer network that eliminates the need for a third party, which ultimately reduces transaction fees. A digital ledger is then created and updated with each financial transaction in blocks.

There are plenty of benefits to making transactions and transferring data using blockchain as the technology is not controlled by one central entity, such as a central bank. This means that breaching these blocks is extremely difficult, maintaining the sanctity and transparency of its transactions and data.Blockchain is the backbone of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which offer speedy and low-cost ways of sending and receiving money.

Faster Transactions

One of the most exciting ways blockchain is disrupting the CRE world is in the form of smart contracts. The industry currently relies on an inefficient system of old-school verification of property ownership by conducting research to ensure the property belongs to the party who is selling it.

Blockchain can reduce the speed in which the chain of custody regarding CRE properties takes place as a property’s title would be stored on a public ledger. This would remove the need for another central repository, thus reducing transaction, state, city and legal costs. The same principle would apply for leases that would be recorded via blockchain.

More Transparent Deals

Blockchain can also ensure that real estates assets are more liquid and the terms of the agreement are fully understood by both sides as every piece of data regarding a property would be stored publicly. This includes data surrounding former owners, construction done on the property, past maintenance costs and records regarding former inspections.

Having all this information available would give the investor a more comprehensive idea of the property they are investing in. Blockchain essentially ensures that everyone is on the same page and both sides are fully aware of what they’re getting into as every piece of information is out there for anyone to access.

Digital Paper Trail

Another challenge with the CRE industry is the fact that public records can be outdated, unreliable or not available. Following a property’s paper trail can be time-consuming and frustrating as a lot of this information is lost due to poor organizational skills from industry workers and legacy systems that lose data when updated.

With blockchain, every piece of information on a property would be available in the same place rather than in multiple physical and digital domains. Blockchain would also help to eliminate the type of fraud that sometimes exist in the industry as deeds and titles can be counterfeited easily.

Buying Property With Cryptocurrencies

As previously mentioned, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that relies on blockchain to complete financial transactions online in a matter of seconds. Some investors and real estate firms have started adding Bitcoin to the industry, including Ivan Pacheco, who bought a two-bedroom condominium in Florida for $275,000 in Bitcoin.

In the residential space, you can buy a condo on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with Bitcoin. Meanwhile, some apartments in New York City are allowing their tenants to pay for rent using Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies have been historically volatile and they’ve been on the decline since peaking in December 2017, but some investors believe that the future of real estate will be closely tied with Bitcoin and other digital coins.

Nevertheless, blockchain’s role in the CRE industry is becoming more prevalent each day. The technology’s potential to speed up transactions with smart contracts, its ability to add transparency to a deed or title and the fact that it dramatically decreases the chance for fraud suggest that more investors will flocks towards firms that use blockchain for CRE transactions.

Smart browsers: on web browser and crypto-blockchain integration

The next stage of the blockchain-crypto adaptation might be if we imagine strong integration possibilities between web browsers and the blockchain crypto space. One similar example is metamask that provides several useful functionalities that can be used with decentralized applications driven by ethereum. Metamask is however only a plugin for chrome. Web browsers should support blockchain - crypto applications in a native way. Actually, there should not be very much difference between a web browser and a crypto-wallet. Instead a new concept should be introduced, Web3 browser or perhaps smart browser, that integrates crypto-blockchain functionalities with classical web browser elements. As there are already initiatives in this direction, like Mist wallet, however Mist is pretty much a geek tool without having too much support for standard users. Successful smart browser, or Web3 browsers should be initiated by traditional browser providers.  

Identity is a scarce resource in consortium blockchain

To avoid a naive sibyl attack in most of the decentralized consensus protocols there is a scarce resources that needs to be use in order to take part in the consensus mechanism. This resource is computational power at proof of work and it is a kind of a cryptocurrency at proof of stake. Actually, consortium systems do not differ very much from this idea. In consortium systems, the scarce resource is the identity: only nodes with a special distributed identity are able to participate in the consensus. In this sense it works similarly as the public blockchain networks : the scarce guarantees that none with a huge bot network, but without the scarce resource can influence the consensus voting. 

Fabric composer tips and tricks - item with ID already exist but not visible

Sometimes if you work with the Fabric Composer online playground and you create an item from a transaction you get the error message that the given id already exist even if it is not directly visible in the asset list. This is actually a "feature" of the online playground, it happens if the old item with the old id already existed but it was deleted. For some reasons it is sometimes cached somewhere that can not be explicitly deleted. What you can do in such situations that you redeploy the business network archive file:

- Make sure that the latest version of the .bna (business network archive) is downloaded.

- Delete the existing business network in the online playground.

- Rdeploy the business network from the downloaded .bna file.

On the need of zero knowledge order book matching algorithms

There are many ideas for implementing a decentralized exchange protocol on blockchain. As it might be realized naturally with the help of a quorum consensus, it is not so much easy with a Nakamoto one. The problem is that in a Nakamoto consensus, a leader is choosen in each round to create and start propagating the next block. This leader will act as a dictator for the certain block, meaning that it can influence the transactions that will be minded into the block. It might be a DEX realization idea to create sell and buy orders and transactions and realize the matching algorithm with the help of mining, however it can be "gamed" very strongly in a Nakamoto consensus by the given miner. Hence, buying and selling orders can be "gamed" by the rest of the network, like the transactions themself can be delayed or censored. A solution to these problems might be the definition of zero knowledge order matching algorithms, where the creator of the order, and the exact amounts or other order details are hidden by cryptography. Certainly, it is an open question if efficient order book matching algorithms can be defined in such a way.    

Azure Workbench tips and tricks - error log

Azure Workbench is really cool, however if something goes wrong, you do not get too many information from the error details in an easy way. What you have to do, is to use the following  powershell script to download a detailed log and error information:

collectBlockchainWorkbenchTroubleshooting.ps1

The script downloads detailed logs and analytics both for the workbench itself and the underlying blockchain.