‘I want to make blockchain technology useful for society’

Individuals affiliate blockchain with bitcoin and the complicated cryptocurrency market.

Nevertheless, the start of blockchain and cryptocurrency was based mostly on revolutionary and freely philosophical reasoning.

Cypherpunks — advocating free transactions between people past the management and surveillance of the federal government, enterprise, and banks — had been the primary individuals who pushed for blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency are driving new capitalist needs. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s latest point out of dogecoin on Twitter shook the cryptocurrency market extensively. Wall Road and the monetary markets worldwide are debating whether or not the central banks ought to undertake digital foreign money.

Nevertheless, Blockchain Labs CEO Conrad Um raised considerations that the hype of cryptocurrency undermined growing blockchain know-how. Cryptocurrency, which used to maintain blockchain companies secure, has now come to the purpose of hindering the event of blockchain companies, he mentioned. Individuals who use blockchain are totally different from these use generate profits out of it, he added.

InfraBlockchain, developed by Blockchain Labs, requires no cryptocurrency. Armed with stability and extensibility, the platform targets social service suppliers, together with state-run establishments and companies, not the cryptocurrency market.

“The phrase InfraBlockchain took the primary letters from ‘infrastructure.’ We need to make blockchain know-how helpful for society,” Um mentioned, explaining the corporate’s start line and its aim, in an interview with Korea Biomedical Evaluate.

Blockchain Labs developed a certifying vaccination utility within the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Collaborating with the Korea Illness Prevention and Management Company (KDCA), the corporate supplied its know-how without spending a dime to develop a authorities vaccination certification app COOV. As a substitute, the corporate sought income from elsewhere.

“Vaccination impacts our each day lives immediately, and we are able to earn experiences of tens of tens of millions of individuals directly. With this mission, there ought to be a recognition that blockchain makes our lives higher. Then, the vitality of blockchain know-how will get stronger,” Um mentioned.

Query: Blockchain Labs got here to be recognized to the general public after the collaboration with the KDCA. Are you able to introduce your organization briefly?

Reply: As we do enterprise principally within the U.S., many Koreans regard us as a brand new firm, however we aren’t. We discovered the corporate in Silicon Valley in 2013. Initially, we supplied a P2P-based service. However in 2015, the general public blockchain Ethereum got here out. So, we made a platform for artwork and actual property asset buying and selling. The extra we supplied the service, the extra we thought we would have liked to develop an engine that doesn’t depend on cryptocurrency, to function a secure trade. So, we established a Korean subsidiary, Blockchain Labs. The native enterprise began in earnest final 12 months with the medical hemp administration enterprise in North Gyeongsang Province.

Q: Ethereum and bitcoin are each cryptocurrencies and blockchain platforms. What function does cryptocurrency play within the blockchain platform?

A: Cryptocurrency maintains the blockchain system no matter exterior strain or circumstances of inner members. Blockchain works by individuals’s voluntary participation. If somebody tells them to do volunteer work after they take part within the blockchain whereas spending their electrical energy payments on their computer systems, these individuals will flip off the pc and go away the system. Conversely, if nobody pays a utilization price, there’s a threat of attacking the system or overloading it. Nevertheless, if the precise foreign money is acquired as a price, the system will depend upon the nation issuing the foreign money. Due to this, individuals want their cryptocurrency.

Q: With the benefit of not needing cryptocurrency, InfraBlockchain set public establishments and corporations as the primary goal. Do you assume this affected the corporate’s cooperation with the KDCA for the digital vaccination certificates mission?

A: We might work with the federal government not as a result of we had the most effective know-how within the blockchain area however as a result of we had essentially the most appropriate kind for the federal government to make use of. InfraBlockchain has some great benefits of each private and non-private blockchains. It’s simpler for governments and firms to undertake as a result of it has enough extensibility and doesn’t require a cryptocurrency linked to the market.

We grant working rights to service customers, not customers who’ve many cryptocurrency or mining rights. Then, service customers and “miners” who had been separated turn out to be the identical customers. As well as, we strengthened stability by utilizing “secure cash” linked to fiat foreign money reasonably than present cryptocurrencies. When customers concern cash to pay for system charges, they deposit funds in a monetary establishment prematurely and get a fee assure with cash of the identical worth.

Based mostly on InfraBlockchain, we accomplished the prototype of the vaccination certification app in December and went to the KDCA to reveal it. As we mentioned vaccination certification enterprise with 4 to 5 international locations earlier, we thought there ought to be a requirement for this. We informed the KDCA {that a} digital vaccination certificates can be a should sooner or later and that we might develop our algorithm to implement the blockchain system the federal government wished. We didn’t get a direct response on the time, however a couple of months later, the KDCA contacted us for cooperation.

Q: The federal government launched COOV, the official digital vaccination verification app, not too long ago. Then, can we use it as a vaccine passport at an airport now?

A: I ought to take warning to discuss its function as a “vaccine passport.” For the vaccination certificates to perform as a passport, international locations want coverage agreements prematurely. Not like Korea, not many international locations have established vaccination databases systematically.

This type of concern ought to be dealt with with coverage. However I assumed finishing the know-how preparation and discussing its chance was primarily totally different from saying obscure hopes with none preparation. That’s why we centered on getting ready the know-how.

Q: When the federal government signaled the introduction of the COOV app, some individuals fearful about private data leakage or the federal government’s extreme monitoring of customers. Some even mentioned KDCA knowledge might be leaked after they had been moved by way of blockchain or QR codes. Are you able to touch upon this?

A: Individuals launched blockchain know-how to handle such considerations. In typical strategies, we have to get knowledge from the KDCA, request the unique proof, and hand over the knowledge on who will use this knowledge when, the place, and why. Like “Large Brother,” state surveillance on people might be attainable in these strategies.

Nevertheless, utilizing blockchain, it’s attainable to show the unique certification with out sending all the information to the middle. The blockchain comprises knowledge demonstrating that this certificates is the unique, untampered. Apart from the celebration to whom the vaccination certificates is exchanged, a 3rd celebration can neither break the blockchain nor interpret this knowledge. The identical goes for the QR code. Because it turns into extra widespread to depart entry information with QR codes, many individuals appear to affiliate QR codes with “monitoring.” The QR code utilized by COOV is sort of a secret passage by way of which knowledge flows. The QR code doesn’t include private knowledge.

Q: Do you assume that blockchain know-how can remedy the danger of information gathering in a single place?

A: Sure. However, the notion of “holding my knowledge and managing it myself” has not unfold a lot in our society. Establishments and corporations have additionally simply obtained person knowledge by way of varied free companies. However now, in areas the place knowledge centralization was taken with no consideration, equivalent to “machine studying,” persons are finding out knowledge distribution know-how like “federated studying.”

With the passage of three knowledge privateness legal guidelines in Korea final 12 months, most of the people was uncovered to ideas equivalent to “my knowledge enterprise” and “self-sovereign id.” Individuals can have a higher want to personal their knowledge and handle it immediately.

Firms and establishments, which used to earn knowledge use consent with a easy click on, must take into consideration the state of affairs the place customers ask these questions severely – “Why ought to I hand over my knowledge for the good thing about others” or “How can I belief that it’s secure at hand over my knowledge.” When our society tries to discover a solution to face an enormous social change, blockchain know-how would be the reply.