Your Device Doesn't Have to Trust Its Manufacturer

Duration: NaN:NaN:NaN

Speaker: Jork Leonhardt

Type: Talk

Expertise: Some familiarity with the topic

Event: Devcon

Date: Nov 2026

Most "smart" devices aren't autonomous: they depend on a manufacturer's backend to decide what's true, who's authorized, or what update to trust. That dependency is a centralization point inside otherwise decentralized systems, cutting against censorship and capture resistance. This talk covers four building blocks for devices that verify everything locally, using cryptographic proofs instead of backend trust: an SDK bringing stateless blockchain verification to constrained hardware, access control where a device checks its own on-chain authorization before unlocking, machine-to-machine payments where devices hold and spend value without a billing backend, and update verification that doesn't require trusting the vendor's server. The ideas trace back to slock.it's Universal Sharing Network. Verification is now light enough to run locally, and the same architecture applies just as directly to autonomous AI agents making decisions on hardware today.