1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,360 It's possible to break all of our existing public key 2 00:00:03,560 --> 00:00:07,640 cryptography methods using a quantum computer built at scale. 3 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:13,000 The problem with Bitcoin and etherium, the demand has been 4 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,200 quite high against the supply, which means that there's an 5 00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:21,960 inflationary pressure. Let's not have Big Brother. 6 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:29,600 Let's not, let's not go there. This episode is sponsored by Sci 7 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:32,320 Summary. As researchers, we need to read 8 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:35,000 a lot of papers and more are being published every day. 9 00:00:35,520 --> 00:00:38,160 As a result, reading papers is becoming more or less like a 10 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:40,960 full time job, leaving us virtually with no time to do our 11 00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:43,520 actual jobs, which is doing research. 12 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:45,840 This is where SCI Summary comes in. 13 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:49,640 SCI Summary provides you with an AI based summary of the papers 14 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:53,080 you provide. However, SCI Summary is more 15 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:56,400 than just a summarizing tool. It effectively lets you chat 16 00:00:56,400 --> 00:00:59,280 with your papers. You can ask questions like what 17 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:02,080 materials and methods are being used, as can even provide you 18 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:05,360 with insights into potential avenues for future research 19 00:01:05,720 --> 00:01:10,440 based on the papers you provide. Furthermore, Sky Summary is 20 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:13,840 constantly evolving. They now have an amazing podcast 21 00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:16,160 feature. The podcast feature gives you a 22 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:20,040 nice audio experience of the papers you put in making paper 23 00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:22,520 podcasts for the researcher on the go. 24 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:25,640 If you want to try outside summary, you can click the link 25 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:31,360 in the description below or type in sisummary.com/AFP one and use 26 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:36,320 the coupon code AFP 1. AFP stands for Apple Finch 27 00:01:36,320 --> 00:01:40,800 Pudding One because you get one month SI summary for free. 28 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:43,920 Go check it out, see if it's something you like. 29 00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:48,440 If you do, please go for it. If you don't, no hard feelings. 30 00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:51,000 But for now, let's get back to the show. 31 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:55,000 Welcome to Up Finch Pudding, your gateway into the world of 32 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:57,000 science. Today's scientist is Bill 33 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,240 Buchanan, a professor at Edinburgh Napier University. 34 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:04,040 His work focuses on cryptography and blockchain technology. 35 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:08,520 Welcome, Bill. Hello, thanks for the invite. 36 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:11,720 Before we start, do you have a fun science fact for our 37 00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:14,840 listeners? So my fun fact is that the 38 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:20,600 security of the Internet is based on 2 little methods. 39 00:02:20,600 --> 00:02:23,360 Well, they're not little. They're really big, significant 40 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:28,040 methods and they were created nearly 5 decades ago. 41 00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:33,160 So, so really the Internet that we have is based on these 42 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:39,280 protocols that were made decades ago and, and we're still using 43 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:41,640 them. They've they've got better over 44 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:44,600 over time. But actually the people in the 45 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:50,080 1970s and 1980s are actually defining what we see now. 46 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:56,000 But I see unfortunately the methods have been ultra secure 47 00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:58,920 up to now. But the big risk that's coming 48 00:02:58,920 --> 00:03:03,440 along is quantum computers. And Peter Shore actually showed 49 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:07,000 that it's possible to break all of our existing public key 50 00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:12,360 cryptography methods using a quantum computer built at scale. 51 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:17,040 So we're at risk in the next decade or so. 52 00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:19,560 Maybe going on a leap, what does that mean? 53 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,560 That if we get a quantum computer that the Internet sort 54 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:26,520 of breaks down or isn't secure anymore. 55 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:28,920 A quantum computer isn't like a computer. 56 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:31,800 It only works with certain things. 57 00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:34,040 So it's almost like a physics computer. 58 00:03:34,640 --> 00:03:37,480 There are certain problems that you can solve with a quantum 59 00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:41,200 computer, but for most other things we still need classical 60 00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:44,320 computers with processors and registers and things like that. 61 00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:47,360 So we shouldn't follow into the chop that a quantum computer is 62 00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:52,040 going to change our computation, but for certain things and 63 00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:56,480 certainly for public key encryption for this discrete log 64 00:03:57,040 --> 00:04:02,240 roblem, the G to the X mod, we can solve that with a quantum 65 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:05,680 computer, but with classical computers just now, it would 66 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:10,320 consume too much energy. O the risk is there. 67 00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:14,920 And luckily people have been working on new standards to 68 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:19,640 replace these elliptic of Diffie, Hellman and RSA with new 69 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:22,560 methods. So we'll start to see what's 70 00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:26,160 called a hybrid approach to these things because we can't 71 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:27,840 just switch the Internet off now. 72 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,720 And tomorrow we have a new browser that has these what are 73 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:33,840 called post quantum cryptography methods. 74 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:37,560 So we'll have a hybrid where we're running the traditional 75 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:42,320 public key methods, the elliptic of Tufee Hellman, the RSA. 76 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:46,120 There's also an elliptic curve DSA method too. 77 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:49,480 It's not just RSA. And they'll be running and 78 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:52,840 they'll still be compatible for maybe 5 or 10 years. 79 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:57,000 But then we'll be integrating in these new post quantum 80 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,360 cryptography methods and we'll be running a hybrid Internet. 81 00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:05,880 That means that we'll have to upgrade all our servers, all our 82 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:09,880 browsers and so on. Google have already started to 83 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:13,080 integrate within Chrome these new hybrid methods. 84 00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:15,960 What we need to do is to make sure that all the servers that 85 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:19,160 we connect to can actually support them. 86 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:24,440 But then eventually within say 10 years, 2035, then we'll just 87 00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:29,000 switch off the old methods and we will only support the new 88 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:30,600 post. Quantum cryptography. 89 00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:34,360 Cryptography has always migrated quite happily. 90 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:39,400 We started off with really small key sizes when we used RSA, and 91 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:41,440 then we had to keep increasing them. 92 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,720 So that all happens in the background that you don't 93 00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:50,520 actually see this, but as a new threat occurs, then we generally 94 00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:56,520 migrate all of our systems from this old one that's maybe weak. 95 00:05:56,880 --> 00:06:00,000 We know within five years it might get cracked, so we 96 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:03,200 deprecate it. Deprecate, deprecate, deprecate. 97 00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:07,240 Which means that companies have got a while to fix the, the 98 00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:11,320 problem and then you, you actually end up with, with a new 99 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:16,280 method and, and generally we've just tried to improve BB steps 100 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:19,360 all the time. Academic research opens up 101 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:23,760 opportunities, finds new threats, new problems that then 102 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:27,680 feeds into the new methods and the new standards. 103 00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:30,880 So there's nothing to worry about for most people. 104 00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:35,960 But I think in 2026, most organizations will actually have 105 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:40,240 to start thinking about what their real, their cryptographic 106 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:44,800 real estate is and how they can migrate, which is the real 107 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:47,240 problem. Because you might have say a 108 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:51,360 blockchain solution that has transactions on it that goes 109 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:53,800 back 10 years. How are you going to migrate 110 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:56,600 that to this new was quantum era? 111 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,920 So certainly financial organizations are likely to be 112 00:06:59,920 --> 00:07:03,720 the first organizations that are likely to move because they're 113 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:09,120 using cryptography extensively. We now look at stable coins, 114 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:13,400 cryptocurrency, they're using distributed Ledger technology to 115 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:15,960 be able to record transactions and so on. 116 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:18,880 So it's likely that the finance industry will be one of the 117 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:23,360 first to really move and then try to make migrate towards this 118 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:28,240 post quantum cryptography. Well, it's actually brings us 119 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:32,240 almost seamlessly to blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. 120 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,360 When people hear blockchain they are often think of 121 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:37,520 cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and stuff like that. 122 00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:41,920 But maybe at his core base, what is a blockchain? 123 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:45,360 With a blockchain, right. So there was a wonderful person 124 00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,960 called Ralph Merkel. He was just an amazing 125 00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:51,760 researcher around the same sort of time as Marty Hellman and and 126 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:55,920 Whitfield defeat. And I think he what he worked 127 00:07:55,920 --> 00:07:59,280 with with Marty Hellman. So he came up with a method 128 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:03,000 called the Merkel 3. So the medical tree is that 129 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:06,680 there's a method called hashing data. 130 00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:11,320 So I take any metadata and I can hash it, scramble up and squeeze 131 00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:15,560 it into a bundle. And then I can end up with with 132 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:18,400 that I think the digital fingerprint which which will 133 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:20,880 match to that data. So if I need to check the data 134 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:24,120 again, I should always create the same hash value. 135 00:08:24,800 --> 00:08:28,240 So what the Merkel tree does is if I take lots of transactions, 136 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:31,680 such as 1000 transactions, and then I hash them all. 137 00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:36,960 And then I take each two pairs at the bottom of the tree and I 138 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:41,440 hash them again into something up onto the leaves of the tree. 139 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:43,440 Appreciate the trees upside down. 140 00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:49,120 This is a computer science tree. Computer science trees go up to 141 00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:53,680 the top, and so with this tree you keep hashing, hashing, 142 00:08:53,680 --> 00:08:57,160 hashing up until you get what's called the Merkel route. 143 00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:02,600 And now you cannot change any of the transactions at the bottom 144 00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:04,960 anymore. If you go in and change a 145 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:10,560 transaction, I will not get the same route, Merkel route for 146 00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:13,800 that. So that now locks in these 1000 147 00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:19,200 transactions and then I can put in the Merkel route to store 148 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:21,960 those transactions. And then what I can do is I can 149 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:23,880 create what's called the Genesis record. 150 00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:27,400 So it's not, it's not like Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel. 151 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:32,520 And Genesis record is the first block that you produce within 152 00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:36,440 your blockchain. Bitcoin had it when Satoshi 153 00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:40,000 Nakamoto created the first Genesis record. 154 00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,880 And that's block 0. And then what I do is I've 155 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,280 create now block 1 again, that's got its own miracle root, but 156 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:53,000 then I link back to the first block to make sure that I can 157 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,680 link these two in a chain. And then every block that I 158 00:09:56,680 --> 00:10:00,840 create is now locked in with these miracle roots and that the 159 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,640 hashes and so on. So it will now be almost 160 00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:07,440 impossible for me to change any of the transactions that have 161 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:12,480 happened in the past because we have the chain and we also have 162 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:16,320 the Merkel root and hashing methods are super secure. 163 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:20,840 They'll be secure as long as we're alive, actually, hopefully 164 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:26,040 so they will last outlast us in terms of their actual security. 165 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:30,640 So this is interesting because if we have to have a Ledger and, 166 00:10:30,680 --> 00:10:33,880 and a Ledger and a bank, just as that, I have a Ledger and you 167 00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:38,040 have a Ledger and we can put all our transactions and we can 168 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:41,560 tally the ledgers up. And hopefully we know that some 169 00:10:41,560 --> 00:10:44,360 transactions have been transferred between menu and 170 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:48,200 vice versa and so on. So really blockchain is building 171 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:51,760 public ledgers that you can actually see all of the 172 00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:56,760 transactions like Ethereum. We can actually see exactly who 173 00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:00,320 has transferred A crypto asset from one person to another. 174 00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:03,520 There's no secret in that. Or we can create what's called a 175 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:06,800 permission blockchain, which is really private to us. 176 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:10,200 If we have some organizations who is to transact and keep a 177 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:13,120 Ledger together, then no one will see that that's not a 178 00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:15,720 public Ledger, that's a private Ledger. 179 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:20,120 And methods such as hyper Ledger does that permissioned approach. 180 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:24,040 You can't transact unless you have an account with a public 181 00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:26,800 Ledger. Me or you or anybody on the 182 00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:30,640 planet can instantly create a wallet and transact. 183 00:11:30,680 --> 00:11:34,000 I mean, how amazing is that, that you have the rights? 184 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:37,240 No one's stopping you from transacting on the Ledger. 185 00:11:37,240 --> 00:11:39,320 No one's stopping you to do anything. 186 00:11:39,520 --> 00:11:41,800 You can create a Ledger straight away. 187 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:45,960 That's version 1 blockchain, that's like Ford T. 188 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:50,080 So if you think about like a car that's like the Ford T of 189 00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:55,000 blockchain, it's old. What Satoshi Nakamoto came up 190 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:59,640 with was very, very basic. He created a proof of work, 191 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:06,160 which wasn't great, and they got all these miners to mine and 192 00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:10,280 determine hash values and so on. It consumed a lot of energy and 193 00:12:10,280 --> 00:12:13,640 it still does. That wasn't very good, but it 194 00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:15,560 works. I mean, it hasn't went down. 195 00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:19,400 It's still working. Bitcoin is worth so much more 196 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:24,600 every year and it's almost seen to be a safe haven. 197 00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:29,680 Don't quote me on that exactly, but gold is a safe haven. 198 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,720 And many people in finance say, well, perhaps Bitcoin could be, 199 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:38,080 but it could crash tomorrow. But perhaps it's it's it's less 200 00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:43,160 volatile than the US dollar, for example, where we keep printing 201 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:47,280 it again and again. Version 2 of block chain is when 202 00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:50,560 it becomes more interesting. With this, we get the concept of 203 00:12:50,560 --> 00:12:53,520 smart contracts. And computer scientists have 204 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:58,040 been negotiating that we could have the concept of smart 205 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:03,320 contracts and this would be the ability to actually create a 206 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:08,000 contract between me and you where the contract was enacted 207 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:11,160 without anyone else having any interaction to it. 208 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:13,360 So let's say I, I made a bet with you. 209 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,240 I don't know, Argentina are going to win the World Cup in 210 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:19,520 America. And then Argentina wins the 211 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:22,520 World Cup and it's fantastic. And I go, well, I'm not paying 212 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,560 you because the bet is null and void and didn't commit to this. 213 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:30,680 I'm not going to pay you. So who do you go to? 214 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:32,760 And then there's no one you can go to. 215 00:13:32,760 --> 00:13:36,160 You can, you can sue me, legal advice and so on. 216 00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:40,440 A smart contract and between between us would actually define 217 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:43,400 exactly Argentina winning the World Cup. 218 00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:46,640 So the smart contract would have an input that would actually 219 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:49,640 define the at the end of the game. 220 00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:52,880 Then that would be the evidence that would be fed into the smart 221 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:56,720 contract. We both had would have to commit 222 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,520 money in an escrow in the smart contract. 223 00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:04,720 So if that was what we agreed, let's say we we did $100 each, I 224 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:08,560 would have to set aside $100 that would be locked into the 225 00:14:08,560 --> 00:14:11,880 smart contract. You would have to commit your 226 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:15,120 $100. And then when the game was 227 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:19,160 finished, then the input would come from a trusted source, 228 00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:22,440 perhaps a consensus. So it would look at at 100 229 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:27,320 newspapers and see the result that was coming in to make sure 230 00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:32,440 that Argentina, maybe 95 of them said that Argentina won. 231 00:14:32,440 --> 00:14:36,920 And someone else said that let's see England, if it's the final 232 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:40,640 between England and Argentina, England won because they're fake 233 00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:45,480 news and so on. So a consensus trusted minors, 234 00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:49,400 and this can be AI here, can actually define what the 235 00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:52,360 consensus of the output actually is. 236 00:14:52,920 --> 00:14:56,640 Once that that consensus and we would both agree, we both agree 237 00:14:56,640 --> 00:15:02,200 that the New York Times and, and, and say the Herald and Post 238 00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:06,000 and so on were our trusted entities, then that would feed 239 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:08,480 into the smart contract and straight away it would trigger 240 00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:13,440 the payment of the money to you if you've actually won the bet. 241 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,080 So smart contracts are really interesting. 242 00:15:17,080 --> 00:15:21,360 Everybody can see how the mechanisms work and it really 243 00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:25,480 allows what you call a peer-to-peer type system to be 244 00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,800 created. But Vitalik Bhutanen, who was 245 00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:32,840 one of the creators of Etherium, took it one step forward. 246 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:35,560 He introduced what's called proof of Stake. 247 00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,280 So proof of stake moves away from proof of work. 248 00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:43,000 Proof of work means that I need you to do some work for me to 249 00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:46,080 earn so that you can actually create these blocks. 250 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:51,960 Proof of stake means that if I've done good work work for you 251 00:15:51,960 --> 00:15:54,480 in the past, then I'm trustworthy. 252 00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:59,640 Or if I've staked some money to be part of the blockchain 253 00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:04,320 infrastructure, such as $50,000, then I'm not going to go bad. 254 00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:06,560 I have a stake in the blockchain. 255 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:10,840 And if if someone finds that I'm doing fraud or doing bad 256 00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:13,680 transactions, then I'll get kicked off and I'll lose my, 257 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:18,640 I'll lose my stake in it. So Etherium moves much more 258 00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:23,160 towards this proof of stake idea where you can actually have a 259 00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:27,920 lot of trusted entities which are doing the the hard work of 260 00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:31,360 creating these blocks and checking the transactions so 261 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:33,680 that they're not fraudulent at all. 262 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,160 So Etherium is is one of the best examples for that. 263 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:41,520 And we're really starting to build an infrastructure across 264 00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:43,040 the world. With Etherium. 265 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:46,600 We define what's called layer one, which is the basic 266 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:51,040 blockchain layer with all these blocks and the transactions. 267 00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:55,200 By the way, Bitcoin creates a block every 10 minutes or so. 268 00:16:55,880 --> 00:16:58,480 So when you make a transaction, you might not see it for 10 269 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:02,320 minutes on the Ledger, but Etherium is less than a minute. 270 00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:05,240 So we'd create these small blocks, but someone's got to 271 00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:08,280 create these blocks and check all the transactions so that 272 00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:11,880 you're not double spending, it's not fraud, and so on. 273 00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:16,520 So that happens now what's called leader one, but where 274 00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:20,160 we're building these blockchain infrastructures and what's 275 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:24,319 called layer 2, layer two starts to build an ecosystem that you 276 00:17:24,319 --> 00:17:28,319 can actually have transactions which can process off the 277 00:17:28,319 --> 00:17:30,720 Ledger. So rather than burdening the 278 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,240 Ledger with new transactions and keeping it busy and smart 279 00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:37,280 contracts, layer 2 allows you to be able to have the 280 00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:40,440 trustworthiness of the layer one foundation. 281 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,960 But we can now create our data infrastructures, our 282 00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:48,920 transactions in this other layer that can actually do all the the 283 00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:54,000 proofs we use cryptographic proofs, Z key snarks at this 284 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:58,680 layer 2 and where all of these transactions can be checked just 285 00:17:58,680 --> 00:18:00,880 to see if there's no double spending and so on. 286 00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:04,320 And then they can be linked. So the block chains that we're 287 00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:08,400 building aren't like the old ones that are these layer one 288 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,120 foundation things like Bitcoin. We're actually building 289 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:17,400 infrastructures like ecosystems that build on top of those, and 290 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:22,720 the third generation is looking at almost instant consensus. 291 00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:28,320 Ledger such as IOTA allow you to be able to create different 292 00:18:29,040 --> 00:18:33,920 routes through your blockchain and get almost instant 293 00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,680 consensus. So you might have a certain 294 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,800 state. So let's say I've published a 295 00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:44,880 paper that defines a new method for cryptocurrency for example. 296 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:51,560 So someone else then publishes something on on the basis of my 297 00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:54,760 work. So they add a new widget onto 298 00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:57,320 it. And you can actually say that we 299 00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:00,800 have now moved into a new state on our Ledger where we can 300 00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:04,120 actually link that my paper to this next paper. 301 00:19:04,360 --> 00:19:08,160 And then someone else creates another widget on the top of 302 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:11,080 this other paper and you can actually trace that on. 303 00:19:11,560 --> 00:19:14,600 But there might be other people who are who are building on the 304 00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:17,480 paper to go on a different route to that. 305 00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:22,960 So these third generation block chains are actually looking at 306 00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:27,320 that complexity a little bit like GitHub actually does this. 307 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:30,720 It keeps track of everything and you can actually trace 308 00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:33,640 everything back. And imagine that you could do 309 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:38,200 that in in a real world where I could see for a patent, I could 310 00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:41,880 see exactly for this patent. I can trace it back to what Phil 311 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:47,040 Diffie and Marty Hellman and Rivest, Shamir and Edelman, and 312 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:50,320 then I can trace their work back to somewhere else. 313 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:53,800 This would give us a way that we can actually trace scientific 314 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:57,360 advancements. The way that we do patents just 315 00:19:57,360 --> 00:20:00,600 now just seems a bit of a shambles when you think about 316 00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:03,120 it. There isn't that linkage. 317 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:05,760 How does one patent lead to the other? 318 00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:07,640 Who invented what? How? 319 00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:11,360 How was the advancement of that? So I think much more in in 320 00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:15,160 science we need to understand. How we can actually trace 321 00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:18,240 advancements much better than using patents? 322 00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:22,160 And do you think that is one of the main future or maybe current 323 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,440 applications of blockchain technology for having that 324 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:28,880 traceability, for example in patents or in scientific 325 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:30,920 research? I think that's one application. 326 00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:34,360 I think the near future is like to be crypto assets. 327 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:40,240 So why can't I create a, a will that I leave on my money to 328 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:45,400 these people and I leave all my data to someone else? 329 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:50,400 Why can't we have a cryptographic trusted method of 330 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:54,480 creating these events that happen in our life? 331 00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,240 So there are things like that are major events. 332 00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:02,840 You retire, where are all your pensions and, and how can I get 333 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:06,560 access to them and so on. And we've really siloed a lot of 334 00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:10,240 the data that we actually have. So I think much more will be 335 00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:12,400 transacting in a cryptographic way. 336 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,000 We call it what's called tokenization. 337 00:21:15,360 --> 00:21:20,080 So if I want to sell my car to you and then I would give you a 338 00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:22,680 piece of paper. I don't know what it's like 339 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,040 where you live, but I will sign a little, I will tear a bit of 340 00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:28,680 paper off. I will give it to you and and 341 00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:33,200 then you will send it to whoever registers the cars. 342 00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:35,760 And that's a slow process and so on. 343 00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:40,640 So why can't we move to a world where I get a car and I have a 344 00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:44,040 cryptographic proof that that is my car? 345 00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:49,080 I have a private key from the previous person that that I know 346 00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:52,040 on this. I have a token and then I'm 347 00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,240 going to sell it to you. So we agree and we could do this 348 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,400 in the smart contract. So we could have a smart 349 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:01,120 contract for selling the car when it's delivered to you, you 350 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,440 do a check and then someone will verify so that my money wouldn't 351 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,560 get released until you had checked the car and everything 352 00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:11,640 was fine. And then I might have a 30 day 353 00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:15,280 something in the contract might say in 30 days I can take the 354 00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:17,920 money back. So again, it would put be put on 355 00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,360 hold for the 30 days we'd find that. 356 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:23,840 So if we could start to do that, we build a new world of smart 357 00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:27,840 contracts and everything becomes programmable and much more 358 00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,000 trustworthy. So when I sell you the car, you 359 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:34,560 use your private key instead of wallet or something, or you use 360 00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:37,960 your solicitor or something to do that signature for you, 361 00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,280 cryptographic signature. And then you will have a token 362 00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:44,440 that will say that you own that car now. 363 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:49,280 And I can now trace that I own the car for two years. 364 00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:53,360 It had this maintenance, it had these faults and so on. 365 00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,840 And then I handed it over to you and then you now owned it. 366 00:22:57,120 --> 00:22:59,520 Obviously the problem that we have here is now privacy. 367 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,520 So that's great. From a manufacturer point of 368 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,880 view, they could trace the car all the way to see that the car 369 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:08,920 lives for an average of 10 years. 370 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:13,760 It has 30 faults and the main fault is in the diesel engine or 371 00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:16,080 something like that. That's gives you that. 372 00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:19,640 But you don't want to be tracked all the time in your life. 373 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,120 So there are there are elements of this that we need to make 374 00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:26,560 sure that we have a privacy layer to make sure that that 375 00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:30,560 things aren't tracked. But sometimes for say for anti 376 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:34,960 money laundering, AML and KYC know your customer. 377 00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:37,880 We actually do need to reveal our identity. 378 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,200 So it doesn't do any good for a bank. 379 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:44,160 So the bank is but worried if you're money laundering, how do 380 00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,120 they check? If it was all private, they 381 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:50,080 wouldn't be able to see things. So there are certain times in 382 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:54,760 our lives that we need to make sure that our identity is shown, 383 00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:59,280 that we can actually see the transactions, but not publicly 384 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:01,960 overall. So that's one of the challenges 385 00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,200 within cryptography. How can we make sure that we 386 00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:09,960 have the trustworthiness, but to have the ability to be able to 387 00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:14,840 trace some things that we need in our lives, because eventually 388 00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,560 we do have to fit in with legal requirements. 389 00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,560 As I said, anti money laundering is a, is a big area. 390 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:27,080 So if we have complete privacy, everything is cryptographically 391 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,720 protected, then the banks won't be able to check for, for 392 00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,320 criminals doing bad things. And it's a, it's a tension that 393 00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:36,640 we've always had in cryptography. 394 00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:41,400 And the one hand, complete anonymity is what we really 395 00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,440 want, but on the other hand, we have bad people who do bad 396 00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:49,320 things and society needs to protect against those things. 397 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:51,880 So where does the balance actually lie? 398 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:57,400 I think that's one, like I said, that's a big problem also with 399 00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,080 cryptocurrency. We already talked a bit about 400 00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:04,000 cryptocurrency, but could you maybe explain what 401 00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:05,960 cryptocurrency is? Because I know it uses the 402 00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:09,760 blockchain, but we still have, for example, a Bitcoin. 403 00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,760 Is it, it's a new currency, it's an additional coin, like 404 00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:15,400 Etherium is also an additional coin. 405 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,000 But how does it that work exactly? 406 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:19,640 Yeah. So we have Fiat currency and 407 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,480 that's still based on pieces of paper. 408 00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,480 So the way it used to work is that a bank would have a whole 409 00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,000 lot of gold. The Bank of England would 410 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,000 actually in London. There are places. 411 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,240 I've been to them where gold is actually stored. 412 00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:38,080 So a bank in the past, before World War 2 I think it was, all 413 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:42,240 the central banks had money, had gold, so that if every single 414 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,960 person took their money back to the bank, they would get their 415 00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,680 gold equivalent. That was called the gold 416 00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:53,200 standard and worked really well because you knew that that if 417 00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:55,640 there was a run on the bank or something that you could always 418 00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:00,200 get your gold and your gold could be, could be transacted 419 00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:02,880 with someone else. So people will always want to 420 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,040 use gold. So rather than me selling me you 421 00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:10,080 my car with Fiat currency like dollars, I, I'm sure you'd be 422 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,120 quite happy if I gave you some gold instead. 423 00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,520 Sure. And then you can, you can always 424 00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,040 trade gold. You can always melt it down. 425 00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,360 It will be, it will always be there. 426 00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:25,320 It's a finite resource and people value it greatly. 427 00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,240 Unfortunately, we moved away from the gold standard after the 428 00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:32,600 war. Some of the the gold was moved, 429 00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:37,240 I think to the US I'm not an economics professor, so I hope I 430 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,160 don't get this wrong. But I think only Switzerland 431 00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:44,720 really kept that gold standard for for a while they had vaults 432 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,280 and they kept the gold and that's what made them a very 433 00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:50,200 trustworthy place for for finance. 434 00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:55,200 But what's happened is that countries, especially the 435 00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,520 dollar, it just gets printed and printed and printed and printed. 436 00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,520 And what should happen is that the more you print, the more 437 00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,680 inflation you get, because people have got more money. 438 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:08,680 And then every so often you take the money away, which deflates, 439 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,800 and you try to keep your economy stable and so on. 440 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,600 Sometimes you want to stimulate your economy and put more money 441 00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:17,680 into it. That causes inflation. 442 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,120 People want more money from their salaries, and then other 443 00:27:21,120 --> 00:27:23,920 times you want to take the money out of it. 444 00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:29,080 Unfortunately, once it's printed, then how do we trace 445 00:27:29,360 --> 00:27:31,720 where it's gone? How do we know how much currency 446 00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,760 is in there? We've just got to estimate where 447 00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,840 it is in the world. So if you have U.S. dollars, 448 00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:40,640 where are all the US dollars and who's using them and what the 449 00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:44,720 transactions are and can we, can we take the US dollar out? 450 00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,320 It's, it's a crazy world. And the biggest problem is that 451 00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,520 if one bank transfers money to another bank, then there are a 452 00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,600 whole lot of middle people along the way that are taking their 453 00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:02,000 cut and, and all of that. And it can take days for 454 00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,840 something that should take almost like a microsecond to go 455 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,400 from here to there. It can take a while for this 456 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,360 feat currency to go through because I've got to translate it 457 00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:13,720 into another currency, UK pounds. 458 00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:15,600 And then I've got to translate it. 459 00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,760 And then the markets are going up and down and so on. 460 00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,680 So cryptocurrency aims to overcome that by creating a 461 00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:26,920 token, because a piece of paper for AUS dollar is just a token, 462 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:28,920 but it happens to be a paper token. 463 00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,960 With cryptocurrency, we now have a cryptographic token. 464 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,640 And with Bitcoin, we only have 21 million of those tokens. 465 00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:42,240 So there's a finite supply. So we know exactly there are 21 466 00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:47,080 million and I think we've used up most of them just now. 467 00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:51,720 So it's like supply and demand. We know that we can't print any 468 00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:56,800 more bitcoins, for example, so they can become more and more 469 00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:00,760 rare, because at least we know that, see, the US government 470 00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,960 doesn't go ahead and print a whole lot of dollars tomorrow. 471 00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,680 We've bought lots of dollars and then they want to inflate the 472 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,840 economy. So they send lots of money into 473 00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:14,320 the into the market and now there's too much money and I 474 00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:19,120 lose my my investment overall. So all that's really happening 475 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,200 is that we go from this paper based approach where we print 476 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,120 something, send it out and we don't know where it's gone to 477 00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:31,080 approach where we can actually see we've created $1,000,000 478 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,960 today and we know exactly where that has gone. 479 00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,480 That's gone to here, there and and over there. 480 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,400 So we can now have a Ledger which actually records all of 481 00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,920 the transactions that are there. And for that, we can really 482 00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:51,640 start to find exactly what our economy is looking like, what 483 00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:56,840 our central banks are inflating or deflating and know exactly 484 00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,480 where we are. One of the big advancements has 485 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,480 been in what's called stable coins, because the problem with 486 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:07,040 Bitcoin and Etherium, the demand has been quite high against the 487 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:11,640 supply, which means that there's an inflationary pressure and 488 00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:17,560 that it's difficult in some circumstances because if you're 489 00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:21,320 paying for something, then tomorrow Bitcoin might be worth 490 00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,680 an, an extra $1000 or something like that. 491 00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,960 So I, I can't really, if I have a contract with you to sell my 492 00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:33,960 car in 30 days and I say it's 10 bitcoins, but then in 30 days 493 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:39,640 then that's 20 bitcoins equivalent to the UK pound, then 494 00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,840 I may have lost money there. So the concept of stable coins 495 00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:47,120 is really interesting. Now they try to balance supply 496 00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:51,240 against demand. So if the demand goes up, then 497 00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:56,400 the supply is increased and then when it goes down, they'll burn 498 00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,640 the tokens. It's like burning money when you 499 00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,400 think about it. You have a bonfire for for 500 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,840 money. You either mint it or you can 501 00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:08,920 destroy it. So cryptographically you can 502 00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,720 destroy. You send it to a digital wallet, 503 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,120 which doesn't exist, and it's called a bun wallet. 504 00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,520 So let's say lots of people want U.S. dollars and then you would 505 00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:25,160 mint some more, but then there's a reduction in the demand. 506 00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,680 Then you will take a whole lot of these crypto tokens and then 507 00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,160 on them, OK, so that they they are gone. 508 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:38,080 So really what's happening is that we're almost like mirroring 509 00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:42,440 exactly what we had with our Fiat currency in our 510 00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:46,800 cryptographic form. Now we digitally signed things. 511 00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:51,480 So we can know for sure that I have sent you some some money, 512 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,360 but how can you be sure that I sent you dollars in the post and 513 00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:57,960 that you received them and so on. 514 00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:05,280 So basically we're moving much more into a tokenized crypto 515 00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:10,520 asset world where we can actually have almost perfect 516 00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:16,200 validation that something was transferred from A to B and this 517 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,000 was the amount that it, that it was. 518 00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:23,240 So I, I see it very much as moving into the 21st century and 519 00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,440 move away from our paper based world. 520 00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,760 And it's not just going to be money and cryptocurrency. 521 00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:32,000 It will be all of our assets that will start to move towards 522 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,760 this tokenized approach. And it will make it easier for 523 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,880 us to be able to understand what assets that we actually own, 524 00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,400 because we'll have cryptographic proof that they'll be on these 525 00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:44,600 things. One of the things that that you 526 00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,640 said is also though we have cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and 527 00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:49,400 Ethereum, but we also have stable coins. 528 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,160 I don't stable coin. Is it for example like Tether, 529 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,000 like USDT? USDT yeah, yeah. 530 00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:56,200 Yeah. OK. 531 00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:02,280 So but USDT that's burned if there's too much and created if 532 00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:07,040 there's a high demand. So it it stays stable and 533 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,600 Bitcoin that's not the case, but we can create up to 21 million. 534 00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:14,560 Does that mean if we reach those 21 million, the price will 535 00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,320 increase because demand might keep going up? 536 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:24,880 Who knows, but it's like coming If there was 100 Mona Lisas in 537 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,640 the world, then the price of Mona Lisa would go down. 538 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,680 But there's only one Mona Lisa, so the price is likely to be 539 00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:34,200 high. I mean, it's all to do with 540 00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,920 supply and demand. If people want to buy Bitcoin 541 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:42,840 and put it away for a rainy day, people aren't transacting in 542 00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,040 Bitcoin like it was meant to. So what was meant to happen is 543 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,080 that we would buy a coffee with a Bitcoin. 544 00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,200 But that's not going to happen. We're not going to have our bank 545 00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,080 accounts and Bitcoin anytime in the near future. 546 00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:00,640 Most people are putting their their savings and and using it 547 00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:03,440 as an investment. Typically big banks that are 548 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:07,440 doing this, they're having a balanced approach to they'll 549 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,000 have some dollars, some UK pounds and then they'll have 550 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:16,280 some Bitcoin and have some Ethereum, ether, and then if 551 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,760 they need to transact, they might get some USTT and and so 552 00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:22,280 on. So I think most of what's 553 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:27,280 happening in in, in Bitcoin certainly is that that it's been 554 00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:32,600 used to store assets that that hopefully will increase, perhaps 555 00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,520 it's pension funds and things like that. 556 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:40,880 So if you can show that your Bitcoin has went up 10% and six 557 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,880 months, that's a lot better than investing in current other 558 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,760 currency. So Bitcoin is a bit different 559 00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:53,239 from from most other sort of areas because of this finite 560 00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,720 amount that that Satoshi Nakamoto defined. 561 00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:02,160 We've used up virtually all of our all of our coins. 562 00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,680 I think there's only something like a million or so, I can't 563 00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:07,760 remember, but there's not that much left. 564 00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:14,280 And every 10 minutes a new coin is is is is minted by these 565 00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:18,320 miners. Someone wins every 10 minutes 566 00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,400 and gets a gets a Bitcoin in the ward. 567 00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,160 So eventually the clock is ticking. 568 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,400 What happens with Bitcoin is that every so often the reward 569 00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:32,040 for this mining process and finding a new block is reduced 570 00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:36,240 and reduced and reduced. So Satoshi built that and the 571 00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,600 the reward was one Bitcoin initially and then after a year 572 00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:46,520 or two it then dropped to half a Bitcoin and then 1/4 and so on. 573 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:51,520 So as we get nearer the 21 million, the demand to be able 574 00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:57,000 to mine will reduce because there isn't as much money in 575 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:00,240 this mining process. And then we'll hit the limit and 576 00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:02,200 then that's it. We can't create any more 577 00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,960 bitcoins after that. But everyone should remember 578 00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,800 that it could fall to 0. There's no gold that supports 579 00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,240 it. There's no bank that will say, 580 00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,880 I'm really sorry, you've lost all your bitcoins, here's your 581 00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,840 money back. It's a peer-to-peer transaction. 582 00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,240 There are some cryptocurrencies that are backed by gold. 583 00:36:22,720 --> 00:36:25,960 So obviously if you're really worried about this, then there 584 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,600 are crypto assets with some tokens that you can actually go 585 00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,840 to a bank in London or you can go to a place in London and 586 00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:37,240 exchange your cryptocurrency for real gold. 587 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,080 I don't know who verifies that, but there are some companies 588 00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:43,320 that is gold there for you. And if you have your 589 00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:48,040 cryptocurrency, we will cash it in for, for, for gold. 590 00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,880 That's probably the least risky. But can you be sure that that 591 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,160 company has actually put the gold aside for you? 592 00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,680 And can you go along and cut the gold up? 593 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:02,840 You might just have a slither of gold that you'd have to take 594 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,080 away. So that I mean that I mean, 595 00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,760 that's probably even better than a than a than a bank because a 596 00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,600 bank, as we found in the UK with Northern Rock that can be runs 597 00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,280 on banks and people can lose all of their money. 598 00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,200 Some of it is backed by the government. 599 00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:25,440 If there was to a bank was to crash in the UK, you will get 600 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,080 some money back. But actually if you could say 601 00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:34,360 that I have a guarantee of a crypto asset that is banked 602 00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:38,280 backed by gold that's stored that I can get the gold out, 603 00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:42,760 then that's probably even more secure than than than than 604 00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,600 having the normal bank approach. Yeah, I was just sort of going 605 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,960 to say this is not investing advice for anyone listening. 606 00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,320 No, no, I'm a, I'm a cryptography professor and I'm, 607 00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,520 I'm certainly not an economics professor. 608 00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,560 One thing that you also mentioned a few times is mining. 609 00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:03,360 So people put in work, whatever that means, and they get 610 00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:07,560 cryptocurrency in return. Could you explain what that work 611 00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:09,040 is exactly? What is mining? 612 00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,440 OK. So in the terms of of Bitcoin, 613 00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,920 you want to watch that someone doesn't control Bitcoin. 614 00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:21,840 So let's say I'm a bad actor and I want to take your transaction 615 00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,240 that you've just done for a cup of coffee and I want to change 616 00:38:25,240 --> 00:38:27,720 it in some way. I want to make sure that rather 617 00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:29,680 than the coffee shop getting it, I'll get it. 618 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,520 And you've also got to make sure that you go and buy 2 cups of 619 00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,160 coffee and you pay with you've only got 1 Bitcoin. 620 00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,240 Let's see, I know that that coffee isn't one Bitcoin, but 621 00:38:40,240 --> 00:38:43,160 you go to 1 coffee shop, 1 Bitcoin expensive coffee. 622 00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,000 That's right to be it. It happened. 623 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,160 Someone bought a pizza with their Bitcoin in the past. 624 00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:53,600 That was the most expensive pizza that was ever that was 625 00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:57,360 ever bought. But if you've only got 1 Bitcoin 626 00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,760 in your wallet, you go into the first coffee shop, you buy your 627 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,760 coffee, you go into the second coffee shop within 10 minutes 628 00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:09,240 and you buy another coffee. You've no double spent in there. 629 00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:15,040 So what we need are these miners to take all of the transactions 630 00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:18,320 that have happened in the last 10 minutes and do a quick check. 631 00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,000 You've, you've, you've that's fraudulent you, you've bought 2 632 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:27,640 cups of coffee and it's 2:00. I'm going to reject both of them 633 00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,520 and you'll have to do it all again, which is bad for the 634 00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:35,160 coffee shop to do that. That's a problem with Bitcoin. 635 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,960 You're hoping that everything is is fine, that you'll get the 636 00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:43,760 transaction eventually. But these miners are there to do 637 00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,760 the work that humans would do, like the checking that you 638 00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,240 haven't double spent and also that you have enough 639 00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:56,200 cryptocurrency in your wallet. So if you go in and buy a $2.00, 640 00:39:56,200 --> 00:40:01,200 a two Bitcoin cup of coffee and you only have one Bitcoin and 641 00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:05,480 you pay for it, then the miners are there to say, well, you 642 00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,200 don't have enough. You're now a -1 So you can't go 643 00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,560 into an overdraft and and Bitcoin, you can go to zero. 644 00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:17,440 You cannot go to -0.001. It's impossible for you to do 645 00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,960 that. So the miners are there to do 646 00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,080 that. And if it was only one miner, 647 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,560 then I could go to that miner and say, well, I'll give you, 648 00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:30,040 I'll give you $10,000 if I can do the mining for you. 649 00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,200 Can you just change this one transaction for me? 650 00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:36,480 So it's, it's, it would be inexpensive for me to, if it was 651 00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:40,600 just a few miners to be able to pay them some money and turn 652 00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:44,760 them because all I need is 50% of them to turn bad. 653 00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:49,400 And those 50%, the consensus would say that this transaction 654 00:40:49,720 --> 00:40:53,800 for the two bitcoins for the coffee is actually cracked. 655 00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:55,600 And these ones are going, no, no, it's not. 656 00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,040 But they, they get overruled by the consensus. 657 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,560 So with Bitcoin, we create thousands, millions of these 658 00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:08,200 miners across the world and it's going to be too difficult for us 659 00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:13,120 to be able to take over every one of those or at least 50% of 660 00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:17,680 those to turn them all bad. And we'll probably get detected 661 00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,000 if we do that. So in a consensus network, we 662 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:26,640 want as many good miners are good and honest, they're, 663 00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,640 they're going to get rewarded. We'll pay them, we'll pay, we'll 664 00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:32,680 give them money. And we hope that that that money 665 00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:37,360 will keep them good. But anytime if it was it was bad 666 00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,440 and there was more money to be made by by doing it 667 00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,240 fraudulently, then they'll flip to be bad. 668 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:47,640 But hopefully they'll not all flip at the same time and undo 669 00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,720 all the transactions. So very much the minors are 670 00:41:50,720 --> 00:41:54,160 there to do this work for us. If they do work, then we'll pay 671 00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,040 them for doing this, this work that they do. 672 00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,600 Etherium as, as I said, is different. 673 00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,200 And that we get what's called the proof of stake, meaning that 674 00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:07,680 if you're a good miner and you've done good work and you've 675 00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:12,560 been doing it for, for 10 years and you've never had a problem, 676 00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,920 you do your work fast, You build these blocks for us and you 677 00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:19,960 check the transactions. We'll, we'll pay you straight 678 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:21,720 away and we'll pay you straight away. 679 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,240 But if we find that you're doing bad work, then then you're off. 680 00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,680 You lose your deposit or you will not be allowed to to mine. 681 00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:34,600 So very much the miners are very much about doing the work that 682 00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,280 needs to happen. But we need a consensus in there 683 00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:42,760 to make sure that even bad actors are are are discovered. 684 00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,600 And certainly in Bitcoin, we don't want everyone company to 685 00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:51,200 dominate the mining process. If that ever happens, say like a 686 00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,280 nation state decides to take over all the mining, then they 687 00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,800 can flip the Bitcoin Ledger to make sure that they reverse all 688 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,800 the transactions and they get all all the money. 689 00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,720 And generally it's been successful because Bitcoin has 690 00:43:06,720 --> 00:43:10,840 such a big consensus network and it would cost you trillions of 691 00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:15,040 dollars to try and take over. So it wouldn't really be worth 692 00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:16,920 that. And by which time you would be 693 00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,600 detected and you would be kicked off the the network. 694 00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:25,120 So if you mine, you do some of the work and then you get like a 695 00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,280 fraction of a Bitcoin, but the number of bitcoins is limited to 696 00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:30,880 21 million. So once we get there, people 697 00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,600 will not get paid anymore to do mining or how does that? 698 00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,160 Work. So the consensus mechanism will 699 00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:41,240 move over from being this proof of work which is consuming a lot 700 00:43:41,240 --> 00:43:43,680 of energy towards more of a proof of stake. 701 00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,720 There are other proofs of something doesn't have to be 702 00:43:46,720 --> 00:43:49,400 proof of stake. It can be proof of time. 703 00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,160 So I can prove to you I can do transactions with a certain 704 00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,720 amount of time. So, but proof of stake seems to 705 00:43:56,720 --> 00:43:59,680 be the one, that's the one that Aetherium actually uses. 706 00:43:59,960 --> 00:44:03,320 So we'll actually start to move away from the consensus network 707 00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:06,520 that we have with Bitcoin, which has been successful, but it's 708 00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:10,720 consuming too much energy overall to do this. 709 00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:14,640 Based on everything we've discussed, cryptocurrency is 710 00:44:14,720 --> 00:44:17,400 uncertain. It can crash to 0 on any given 711 00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,800 day, but it is quite safe and it's distribution. 712 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,560 Do you own cryptocurrency? No, no, no. 713 00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:31,920 I would be trusted as a, as a cryptographer if I was lecturing 714 00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:36,360 on Bitcoin and Etherium that I had a vested interest. 715 00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,920 If I said to my students, Bitcoin is the best thing ever 716 00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:45,080 and I love it, go and buy it tomorrow, then that's not really 717 00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:47,680 good because the price will go up. 718 00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:51,280 So I think as an academic and as a researcher, you've got to have 719 00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,440 integrity in what you what you have. 720 00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,320 So I like Athenian because I like it technically. 721 00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:01,680 I like writing smart contracts and, and and so on. 722 00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:06,400 So I don't like it because I would make money from it. 723 00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,640 I think there are lots of problems in terms of tax 724 00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,040 overall. I did buy a small amount of 725 00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:16,280 Etherium because I wanted to register my domain name. 726 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:20,840 So you'll find Bill Buchanan dot ETH has been registered to me. 727 00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:25,080 So it gives me an identity within the blockchain so that 728 00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:29,360 that's the only ether you, you can trace it on the Ledger. 729 00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:33,680 I, I bought something like $10.00 of Ether and I bought my 730 00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,160 ENS. It's an Etherium naming service. 731 00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:41,000 So if you wanted me to sign a transaction, I could prove to 732 00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:45,640 you that I have the private key that relates to my ENS domain. 733 00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:50,560 So I think is it really important that you're not 734 00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,200 promoting something for your own benefit, that you're actually 735 00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:59,280 doing something because you think it's, it's right and and 736 00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,000 from a research point of view, you're always pushing the 737 00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:07,640 boundaries of what's possible. How do you see the future of 738 00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,960 cryptocurrency, but also blockchain technology in 739 00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,640 general? And if you look at this now, the 740 00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:17,320 UK is going for a digital ID system. 741 00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,400 Finally, we're going to have a driving license in the UK. 742 00:46:21,720 --> 00:46:25,120 That's a digital one. I travelled through Europe just 743 00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:30,560 a few days ago and you can see that it's becoming much more 744 00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,480 digitally focused. There's more checking. 745 00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:38,400 The passports you can see are going to go sometime soon and 746 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,080 everything is going to be digital. 747 00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:43,720 There'll be a linkage to your biometrics and and and so on. 748 00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:50,520 So the EU is rolling out Eid and eidas to Eid will give every 749 00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,920 European citizen a unique digital identity which will be 750 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,800 linked to a blockchain called EBSI. 751 00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:01,400 So the public key will be stored there and citizens will be able 752 00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,200 to link to that. And organisations, if you think 753 00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:09,120 the best examples is that a university can now sign digital 754 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,200 awards with their digital identity and then I can hold 755 00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:16,640 that in a digital wallet. So if you want to see my 756 00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,480 academic credentials, I can send you my digital form. 757 00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,480 It's been signed by a trusted university. 758 00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:25,760 You can check that's been signed. 759 00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:28,880 There's so many fake certificates around just now 760 00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:31,080 that that that will improve with that. 761 00:47:31,720 --> 00:47:35,680 So we'll actually start to see the rise of digital identity and 762 00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,880 digital signing EI DAS 2 in Europe allows for a legal 763 00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:41,880 certainty for a digital signature. 764 00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,880 For the first time, we can now have legal certainty. 765 00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:51,680 If I signed my car over to you and I use an EI DAS 2 signature, 766 00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:56,960 then that's now legally binding in the same way that my 767 00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,640 signature, my wet signature would have been in the past. 768 00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,000 So you don't want to harmonize across the borders. 769 00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,880 So it wants to make sure that people can move across the 770 00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,760 borders easier without having different systems and different 771 00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,960 ID and different rights and so on. 772 00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:17,480 So we see that harmonization and we see the opportunities to be 773 00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:21,040 able to build on a digital signing. 774 00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,960 So rather than having paper contracts and so on, we can 775 00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:29,240 actually have these smart contracts and also we can have a 776 00:48:29,240 --> 00:48:34,880 digitally signed assets that that would be legally binding. 777 00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:40,600 So there there's a, a real move towards digital identity. 778 00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:44,600 And but many debate whether it should be a centralized identity 779 00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,880 such as your government owns your identity or whether it 780 00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:52,280 should be decentralized where I could create just like I did 781 00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,320 with ENSI can create my own identity on Etherium. 782 00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,280 And it's up to you whether you trust or not. 783 00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:04,080 If I've existed for 10 years on Etherium and I've proved myself 784 00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,400 and you probably trust that identity more than you would 785 00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:10,120 some other ones. So we have that spectrum of 786 00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:15,000 centralized identities owned by governments and we need things 787 00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:20,000 like healthcare identities. We have government identities 788 00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:25,520 and identities to be able to to travel and and then get 789 00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:27,640 entitlements for benefits and so on. 790 00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:32,080 So governments typically want to merge all those identities into 791 00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:37,040 one thing, which means that everything can be traced. 792 00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:41,640 If you can see your GP, then there is a pinpoint of you 793 00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:44,000 seeing your GP with the identity. 794 00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:48,440 And if you pay your HMRC, your tax return, it goes back to that 795 00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:52,400 identity again, which means that it's possible for governments in 796 00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:56,840 the public sector to be able to trace you what you're actually 797 00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,880 doing. And that brings in a Big Brother 798 00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:05,440 type 1984 approach that that governments can start to observe 799 00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:10,160 that Bill has went to Prague. Bill has bought something from a 800 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:14,000 coffee shop with his digital identity and then was rejected 801 00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,200 at customs because he didn't have the right passport or 802 00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,880 something like that. And that's that's possible. 803 00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:24,240 So I think as a society, we need to understand how our identity 804 00:50:24,240 --> 00:50:27,720 is actually used, where where we should have it and what 805 00:50:27,720 --> 00:50:31,560 identities are important for certain applications. 806 00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:35,440 But things like the driving license, it just seems so 807 00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:40,560 obvious that I shouldn't carry around a little plastic card. 808 00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,160 I mean, when was the last time you signed your signature or 809 00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:48,280 against your bank card? I use my phone all the time, so 810 00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:51,920 my phone is really my whole life almost. 811 00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:56,560 I still carry my wallet, but I hardly ever use it anymore. 812 00:50:56,560 --> 00:51:00,240 I don't. I don't use paper cash at all. 813 00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:05,200 Everything that I do is stored on on my phone and increasingly 814 00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,600 will be using digital wallets to be able to store all of our 815 00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:10,640 identities. And I think we need to 816 00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:14,160 understand whether that needs to be a government wallet or 817 00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:18,520 whether it should be multiple wallets that I have a wallet 818 00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:24,960 that can integrate with my my UK identity and I can create my 819 00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,480 other things like my academic qualifications or whether we 820 00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:33,480 have a government national identity that that stores 821 00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,560 everything that the governments can actually watch. 822 00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:40,120 So I think we need to be very careful and especially we need 823 00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,040 much more public engagement about the debate. 824 00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,600 And it's opening up in the UK just now and it's quite scary 825 00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:51,360 because there's no real details about the cryptography, about 826 00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:55,480 the privacy. For me, I should get an identity 827 00:51:55,480 --> 00:52:00,440 from the government that will see my date of birth, where I 828 00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:04,560 live, my identity, my number and so on. 829 00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,720 If I need to prove just my date of birth, then I shouldn't have 830 00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:12,520 to show you all my credentials on my identity card. 831 00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:17,320 I should be able to take off the one bit that shows I'm over 18 832 00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,640 safe and give it to you. So there are cryptographic 833 00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:24,760 methods that allows us to be able to take off parts of our of 834 00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,000 the identity and mask off other parts. 835 00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:30,560 But you can still know that's been signed by the UK 836 00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:33,080 government. And I just hope that the UK 837 00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:38,200 government doesn't fall into the trap of really not looking after 838 00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:42,720 privacy and trying to own, because we've been here before. 839 00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:46,800 In 2001, the Tony Blair government, I think it was 840 00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:51,680 trying to try to introduce this identity in the UK and it was 841 00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:55,200 killed by one blog post that says the government wants to spy 842 00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:57,880 on you. Don't trust the system at all. 843 00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:03,240 But how do we move into a modern economy, which is completely 844 00:53:03,240 --> 00:53:07,320 digitized, that I don't have to take along, I don't know, a 845 00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:11,880 utility bill to my bank, which can be easily faked to show my 846 00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,760 identity as zero trust. I go, I vote, and I still have 847 00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:21,120 to take along a piece of paper. I'd still have to take along my 848 00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,240 driving license and so on. So can we start to be able to 849 00:53:24,240 --> 00:53:28,680 use better methods to be able to prove ourselves, but still trust 850 00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:30,800 them? And for a lot of people that 851 00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,720 ends up on a on a mobile smartphone and that that will 852 00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:38,200 really be where our digital identities really exist in the 853 00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:40,200 future. Bill, I want to thank you for 854 00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:44,760 this amazing conversation and a lot of information, but before 855 00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,960 we close, do you have a take home message for our listeners? 856 00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:50,320 Yeah. So let's not have Big Brother. 857 00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:55,120 Let's not, let's not go there. Anybody who's read the book in 858 00:53:55,120 --> 00:54:01,440 1984 will know that we, we do not want a, a state that 859 00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:05,200 actually starts to spy on their their citizens and control them 860 00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:06,600 in some sort of way. And I don't just say 861 00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:09,800 governments, I say big multinationals. 862 00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:16,640 The Googles and the Jenny I companies are including recently 863 00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:19,800 holding our data are tracking us. 864 00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:25,360 So it's not just governments, it's large companies are 865 00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:30,200 harvesting our data. Typically for Jenny, I usage the 866 00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,640 stripping off intellectual property whatever they can 867 00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:38,560 without making any payments. I think it was Mehta who scanned 868 00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:41,920 in all of the books that have been published ever, without 869 00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,440 asking any of the authors if that was possible. 870 00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:50,400 So we really need to understand what's happening just now with 871 00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:54,440 our data, and we should have some rights to consent. 872 00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:59,800 Overall, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human 873 00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:03,760 Rights defines that privacy is a fundamental right for every 874 00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:08,880 citizen on on the planet. But we've got to keep citizens 875 00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:12,360 safe in some way against nasty people. 876 00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:17,880 So as a society, we need to balance this aspect of privacy 877 00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:21,560 and rights and intellectual property and so on against the 878 00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:25,800 rights of society and business to to thrive. 879 00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:28,880 One thing I know is that we're going to be increasingly 880 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:33,760 dominated by large companies, typically on the West Coast of 881 00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:35,920 the US. They have been very successful 882 00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:39,280 in creating companies that have scaled like nothing. 883 00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:42,160 There are worth trillions of dollars now. 884 00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:46,760 So I think we all need to worry about the dominance of just a 885 00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:50,880 few companies and A and a few governments of the world. 886 00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:56,160 And the, the people who pay for the taxes for your kids to go to 887 00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:59,200 school are typically the businesses in your area. 888 00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:05,920 And if we don't allow innovation to, to thrive, then really we 889 00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:12,680 will not be getting the, the tax dollars money that we need to be 890 00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:15,080 able to support our, our local communities. 891 00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:19,160 So I said to anybody, let innovation thrive and, and, and 892 00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:24,040 really support small businesses to, to really grow and, and, and 893 00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:26,800 thrive. But I'm really worried that that 894 00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:31,800 we are going to be dominated by large, increasingly large and 895 00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:36,040 powerful organisations who will only become larger the more 896 00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:40,040 powerful they be, they become. Ingenii is really driving that 897 00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,880 like never before. The stripping of intellectual 898 00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:48,480 property has been nothing like it has been in the, in the past. 899 00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:53,440 I mean, in these past seven years since the LLMS 900 00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:59,320 Transformers paper, we have, the whole world has been stripped 901 00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:04,080 of, of intellectual property without any, any consent. 902 00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:08,920 And that puts so much power into the hands of just a few, a few 903 00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:13,240 companies in, in the world. So I I guard against a Big 904 00:57:13,240 --> 00:57:16,400 Brother world and I think we've got to make sure that privacy 905 00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:19,800 becomes a, a fundamental part of our lives. 906 00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:24,760 I think that's a very important point and for people who didn't 907 00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:28,080 read the book 1984 by George Orwell, it's an amazing book. 908 00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:31,000 I recommend it to everyone. This was apple Finch pudding. 909 00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:33,440 I want to thank Bill Buchanan for the information. 910 00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,400 Let's meet again for the next episodes of Apple Finch Pudding.