devcon 2 / regulatory considerations for dapp development
Duration: 00:23:19
Speaker: Ming Chan, Peter Van Valkenburgh
Type: Talk
Expertise: Beginner
Event: Devcon
Date: Invalid Date
Regulatory Update and Look Ahead
Whether we like it or not, regulations often affect the projects we are launching and building on Ethereum. This session by Coin Center will give an update on regulatory developments over the past year that may affect Ethereum developers and will also look at what we can expect over the coming year.
How do we control the material world with smart contracts?
The long term vision for the Ethereum community has always been that car rentals, high finance and Cryptokitties would all co-exist on the same blockchain. However, some assets (like Cryptokitties) are purely digital whereas others are purely material (your house) and automatically subject to fiat regulation. How are we to manage fiat property using crypto tools? Vinay will present the results of several years of research in the practical legal technicalities of controlling fiat property from Ethereum smart contracts, with examples from a variety of real world use cases.
The Shape of Protocols to Come
Ethereum defies easy categorization—it blends aspects of money, nations, and more, yet doesn't fit neatly into any single category. To build better mental models for understanding Ethereum, we've spent the past two years stepping back and exploring the broader class it belongs to: Protocols. This talk explores the fundamental properties of protocols, strategies for navigating them, and how Ethereum can uniquely contribute to this emerging research field.
Cultivating the Understory : Building Resilient DAOs
Let's explore the overlooked "understory" of DAOs and teams: the human layer that forms the foundation of successful decentralized governance. While much attention is given to the technical and structural aspects of DAOs (the "overstory"), we'll dive into the cultural, social, and distributed leadership elements that are crucial for the longevity and effectiveness of anything we build. Themes: DAO Ecology, Decentralized leadership, Coding culture DNA, Biomimicry for Governance
Agreement Making in Solidity: A Legal Perspective
Bill Marino of Cornell Tech presents on Agreement Making in Solidity: A Legal Perspective.
Backfeed
Matan Field presents on Backfeed (http://backfeed.cc), which develops resilient technology and new economic models to support free, large-scale, systematic collaboration.
devp2p
Ethereum's Alex Leverington presents on "devp2p", Ethereum's networking protocol.
Lex cryptographica : the legal challenges of new blockchain-based lifeforms
Primavera De Filippi talks about the legal challenges of new blockchain-based lifeforms.
Weaving Cultural Fabrics With Tokens
Many people in the crypto ecosystem have long operated under the same assumptions that Satoshi operated under in his original white paper: that we should assume that there's no trust among actors within an ecosystem, and that they'll make purely rational decisions to benefit themselves. Since then, we've seen the flourishing of tokens, each of which has their own communities with individuals orbiting at various distances. What we've seen practically is that in reality these actors do end up trusting each other in various ways (such as the way that BTC holders all trust each other to enforce a 21M supply cap), and that similarly, actors don't always act rationally (the proof for this point will be left as an exercise for the reader). In light of these updates, it would serve us well to begin thinking of our protocol designs in a manner that not only incorporates the "hard" side (the one which treats actors like rational machines), but also the "soft" side: the one which takes into account human actors, their emotions, and the cultural fabric or "soft layer" which can sit atop the "hard layer" for a system to work in its entirety. This "soft layer" already exists informally-- on crypto-twitter, in telegram groups, through memes, and at the myriad of conferences which take place year-round in our space. However, there would be significant benefits for us as protocol designers to begin intentionally designing these soft layers alongside the hard layers (even though doing so will necessarily require the input of social scientists and not computer scientists).While many perceive extrinsic incentives (like reputation or value) as being at-odds with intrinsic incentives, this talk will illustrate (with examples) how the issuance and distribution of tokens can enable humans to connect with each other in a decentralized fashion, creating a force which unites them around a set of shared principles or goals. By using tokens not just for utility or fundraising but rather as focal points around which communities may organize, we may begin to intentionally weave these cultural fabrics, to be more successful in building new communities and protocols.
The paradox of centralized tools doing accounting for decentralized finance
This talk is going to be about a paradox that has been prevalent since the early days of Cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies were made to empower the individual, to be their own bank and to enable financial freedom without having to rely on centralized institutions. The paradox lies in the contradiction that when people want to do accounting or analytics for this new financial system they happily turn to centralized tools. This act enforces the status quo of finance being managed by centralized platforms and goes against the spirit of decentralization, undermining everything we are building. The talk will present multiple examples of this paradox in the world around us, from the way people do analytics (Blockfolio e.t.c.), to the way they do tax accounting (Bitcoin Tax e.t.c.). There will be some theorizing on why this is the case and underline why this is bad for the ecosystem and exceptionally dangerous for the people who utilize such services. Finally potential solutions to this problem will be presented, showing how a tool that performs decentralized financial analytics, accounting and tax reporting should look like in order to respect user's privacy and fit in this new era of decentralized finance we are now entering.