Blockchain Workshop Position Statement

Author: Jonathan Mohan

I am Jonathan Mohan, I have been full time in the bitcoin/ blockchain space for over three years with a focus on business development related activities.

I am involved multiple blockchain communities including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Factom, Hyperledger and recently ID2020. In New York I organize a meetup called BitcoinNYC which in its three years has grown to 3300 members and has held over 110 events on bitcoin and blockchain to the business community of New York and I also serve as a resource and sounding board to all the different projects in blockchain in the New York community. I have been involved in the ethereum community since its inception in January of 2014 as well as an advisor to Factom, a blockchain specific to notarization as well as a member of the Hyperledger’s Use Cases Group. Last week I began my engagement with ID2020, which is a new NGO that has partnered with the UN to look at resolving UN goal 16.9 for legal identity for all and specifically looking at how blockchain technology could enable a functional solution to that problem.

My interests in participation in theses different groups are use case focused with an emphasis on creating viable business models. I also like to relay information from these bodies to the community at large via my meetup and contributions to the podcast Let’s Talk Bitcoin, explaining the concepts to non technical people to the point of achieving a working grasp of the technology. I like to facilitate connections from different projects and would like to participate not only to speak on Use Case related issues but also to be a someone who could act as connector on the different conversations and threads of projects that will form through the weekend and assist in connecting those ideas with others so the momentum started at the workshop can continue and gain traction in the community.

A topic that I would like to address are optimal use cases for a blockchain. Specifically my premise is that an optimal area for a blockchain are in use cases where custody of the data is an issue, from a security standpoint but more importantly from a legal perspective. A unique proposition of a blockchain is it allows allows one to disintermediate being custodian of a specific set of data while simultaneously achieving a user experience nearly indistinguishable from being a custodian. One way to acheive this is through using a blockchain, then having a client side webwallet while the process is the same user side, the effect to the operator is they are no longer in custoy of the data, My goal will be to explain this concept, look at it through two specific implimentations of this philosphy by examining Shapeshift.io and Blockchain.info as case studies on the concept then further discuss other areas where custody is a liaibity not an asset and how a blockchian could be archeticted to reslove those issues such as in the case of health care records/HIPPA compliance or in the usecase of cloud storage of user data.

I can also address specific non financial use cases for utilizing a blockchain for notarization purposes and the characteristics of a problem that can be best addressed by this solution.

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