Digital Currencies  & Blockchain

David Stancel

About me

• Researching crypto since 2012
• MSc in Digital Currencies
• CEO @Defineer
• Advisor to multiple crypto startups
• Member of working groups (MF,..)
• Founder Blockchain Slovakia
• Co-founder of Paralelna Polis
• exCTO @ Fumbi 
• Advisor @ Vacuumlabs
• Author of Coinstory

Contact:
david@defineer.io

History & Evolution of Digital Currencies

What is Bitcoin anyway?

Key Stats

Blockchain

• Looking for open, unstoppable, peer-to-peer payments, for reasons mentioned earlier.
   
• We need to agree about all transactions in the system –-> to reach a consensus about the state of the ledger.
   
• We need to get an agreement securely, expecting some participants to come and leave at any time, and expecting some will try to cheat. This can be achieved in basic form through proof-of-work, which is chaining blocks of transactions.
   
• Since proof-of-work is hard, it must be incentivized.
   
• Hence, Bitcoin and the concept of cryptocurrency is born.

So, why blockchain?

 A tamper-proof, shared digital append-only ledger that records transactions grouped into blocks in a decentralized peer-to-peer network.

The permanent recording of transactions in the Blockchain stores permanently the history of asset exchanges that take place between the peers.

Updating the ledger (usually) requires solving Byzantine Agreements (hash) with economically incentivized participation, secured by cryptography

What is Blockchain?

1. New TX is broadcasted
 

2. Each Node collects TXs
 

3. Randomly selected node gains the right to canonize "the truth" in the block
 

4. Other nodes accept/reject the block based on its validity
 

5. Acceptance is expressed by including block's hash into the following blocks

Blockchain - synchronization

Non-fungible tokens (NFT)

What is this? And how could it be relevant?

Virtual Worlds on Blockchain

CONVERGENCE

Traditional vs Decentralized Finance

Thank you!

david@defineer.io