Identity is probably one of the most important constructs in our society. In our modern world, protecting one’s identity has become complex, as we no longer rely solely on governments to prove who we are. In addition, most identity sources can be easily compromised. Credit cards and social security numbers weren’t developed with the Internet in mind, and other identifiers such as logins and passwords aren’t well suited truly secure authentication and authorisation. We’re joined by Tim Pastoor, Founder of 2way.io, to discuss how we can improve control of our identities using concepts borrowed from Bitcoin. Tim walks us through how people could better manage different identities and build reputation networks using Identifi, a global address book protocol invented by Martti Malmi, one of the very first Bitcoin users. We also talk what role this system could play in the future as autonomous agents and artificial intelligence become more prevalent. Topics covered in this episode: The history of identity systems and how traditional identity systems are broken How the invention of Blockchain technologies changed the way we think of identity The Identifi protocol and how it works How we can build reputation through Webs of Trust (WoT) The future of identity and how Identifi could provide ID for IoT, robots, autonomous agents and artificial intelligence 2Way.io and what the company is trying to achieve Episode links: 2Way Identifi protocol Identifi service This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/109

Gideon Greenspan, a computer scientist and CEO/Founder of the Israeli startup Coin Sciences, joined us for a discussion of their private blockchain platform MultiChain. Besides diving into the popular question of what’s the point of a private blockchain, we covered his earlier colored coins implementation as well as his view that blockchains are best understood as a novel database paradigm. Topics covered in this episode: How Gideon got involved in the blockchain space Their colored coins implementation MultiSpark and why it failed to get traction Why he saw a market for an open-source private blockchain platform and started MultiChain What mining diversity is and how it is used for consensus in MultiChain How permissions work in MultiChain The issues of privacy in blockchains and why you can’t have auditability and privacy How private blockchains differ from regular distributed databases The five criteria to decide if a project needs a blockchain The problem he sees with smart contract blockchains Episode links: Multichain website Multichain Whitepaper Colored coin protocol CoinSpark Avoiding the pointless blockchain project Private blockchains are more than 'just' shared databases Smart contracts: The good, the bad and the lazy This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/107