Drupal and the Ethereum Blockchain

#DrupalEthereum @digitaldonkey09

About me

• 20 years ​​web development  
• 10 years with Drupal
• 1.5 years in Ethereum 
• Developer at ConsenSys 

Overview

• What is a Blockchain
• Why use Ethereum Blockchain
• Applications for decentralized web
• Drupal Ethereum Module & Roadmap

Blockchain gets popular

• Banks trying to improve their interbank settlement
• Governments exploring paperless e-government and registries
• Healthcare - sharing evidence, verified prescriptions
• Law - investigating the legal side of "smart contracts"
• Energy - incentivizing energy efficiency and trading
• IoT - Internet of things, sensors, appliances
• NGOs - transparency in international aid & outcomes

Who cares about Blockchain?

Blockchain's promises

"Sharing Economy" of
Uber, Airbnb, Spotify

Centralized User Data,
Facebook, Google

Reduce
Middlemen

Self-sovereign
user identity

Internet of
Information

Don Tapscott: "How the Blockchain is changing money and business"

Internet of
Value & Trust

Blockchain

Imagine the Blockchain as a
"Decentralized Consensus  Database"

"0xd62e7da1d30af2abed70f0ec677fefe0a0db5774  owns 5 Bitcoin"

agree

agree

agree

agree

Ethereum Blockchain

Decentralized
P2P consensus

No central authority
 

Any state change requires a cryptographically signed Transaction

Global ledger with immutable records

Programmable money:
Smart Contracts

Ethereum

• Public Ethereum Blockchain & Private chains
• Ether is the currency in Ethereum:
    Anti-spam and incentive to run the network 
• Data changes to Blockchain gets a immutable audit trail
• Code is deployed to the blockchain

Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality

Smart Contracts in Ethereum

• can run automatically when certain conditions are met
• Addressable, can handle money / escrow, Turing-complete
• Crowd founding as a Smart Contract:

Contract crowdFound
 if (account_balance) > $10,000
   move account_balance to founded_account
 else
   move donation_account to original_donor

(pseudocode)

Smart contracts are applications with a state stored in the blockchain

Blockchain "write" requires

• the private key of the from address to sign the transaction
• Some little fee for computation/data storage (public chains)

time

Blockchain Challenges

• Young and nerdy technology
• Ethereum Blockchain currently requires more than 65GB+ of disc space (about +1 GB per month)
• Hard to set up and use for non-developers
• Address  ⇔ Identity.
  Who is 0xd62e7da1d30af2abed70f0ec677fefe0a0db5774 ?
• Decentralized file storage immature (IPFS) 

Transaction Signers

• Mist browser   (Full Blockchain)
• Metamask   (Browser extension)
  Coming up: MetaMascara (browser independent)
• uPort   (Identity provider)
• MyEthereumWallet   (Online or Offline browser)
• Jaxx (Mobile App & Browser extension)
• Hardware based signing (Ledger wallet)

Ethereum wallets, Identity providers ... 

Drupal Ethereum Module

• Founded and abandoned in 2014
• New approach in 2016
• Ethereum PHP library
• POC release recently

Drupal Ethereum Module

a few potential use cases

Current web

Ideal decentralization

How to connect Drupal and Ethereum?

Semi-decentralization

Client side signing using Transaction-signers

Server just pulls data

(no private key on Server)

State and Roadmap

Current: POC

• Identity
  User connector connects Ethereum accounts and user profiles
• Limited Transaction-signers 
• Potential Ethereum paywall
  See Video https://youtu.be/Y5Sa7QtpXSE

Roadmap for MVP

• Finish PHP library for complex data types
• Make Transaction-signers pluggable & add more 
• Create a UI for a deployable Login Contract
• Contract management & deployment from Drupal backend

Drupal Ethereum module

Challenges and Outlook

Challenges

• Availability and acceptance of TX signers for all browsers
• Identity attestation

Next scopes

• Evaluate voting / Field based voting
• Create IPFS Field module (decentralized file storage)
• Read & mirror TX content into Drupal entities

Why should Drupal care about Blockchain?

• Blockchain technology provides a new trust layer to the internet
• Drupal can provide Identity in the context of limited user groups
• Implement enterprise level workflows, required for Document signing, Asset tracking ...
• Explore new ways of NGO founding, budgeting, voting.
• Drupal can be a bridge to end-user communities

Thank You

• Evaluate use cases, join discussion
  https://groups.drupal.org/ethereum
• Tweet about #DrupalEthereum
• Join BOF tomorrow: 1pm at Room 312

thorsten.krug@consensys.net
       @digitaldonkey09

The development of Drupal Ethereum Module
Has been sponsored by ConsenSys
       @ConsenSysLLC

https://consensys.net

slides.com/digitaldonkey/drupal-ethereum