Thinking Rationally

Author: Ashok Nag

  • Part 3: My Understanding of Blockchain

    Use cases of Blockchain- Beyond Crypto Currency

    Although Bitcoin, the pioneer cryptocurrency, and its multiple variants are the most talked about use cases of the blockchain technology, the conceptual framework of blockchain can be used in many areas without even adhering to the architectural framework of cryptocurrencies. In this 3rd part of the series on blockchain, I want to explore possible application of blockchain in various areas.

    P2P lending-: P2P lending is a way of fund flow from a lender to a borrower without an intermediary like bank.  Traditionally, financial intermediation by institutions like bank involves a number of subordinate processes like credit scoring, collateral verification, guarantor verification etc. As supplier of funds, depositors or lenders to the banks through instruments like debentures / CDs etc. are kept by the intermediaries at arms-length distance from the borrowers. So the fund providers to the intermediaries are at the mercy of the latter’s capability and honesty for safety of their funds.

    P2P lending is a way of lending and borrowing where lender(s) and borrower(s) are connected directly through a platform. The platform is a web based application that allows both potential borrowers and lenders to get registered on the platform. Although many P2P platforms have sprung up worldwide, it has yet to pose any challenge to the mainstream intermediaries

    The blockchain based P2P lending may address the potential trust deficit between lenders and borrowers meeting on current P2P platforms. One of the earliest such a platform is Lendoit (https://lendoit.com/faq/). The process followed by this P2P platform is briefly described below

    A registered borrower is first subjected to a credit scoring/verification process by third party companies before the loan application is published.  How the cost of verification is defrayed is not available on Lendoit’s website. A smart loan contract (SLC) containing loan details get created. Lenders can make an offer for each SLC. Once a borrower agrees to the terms and conditions of offer the SLC get executed and funds are transferred to the borrower. All subsequent processes of loan disbursements, payment reminders, crediting of repayments to lenders’ accounts etc. are managed by the SLC. A Smart Reputation contract (SRC), providing credit profile of the borrower, accessible to everyone gets created. A lender is protected through a Smart Compensation Fund where a percentage of every loan is stored in order to compensate for the defaulted ones.   All smart contracts are created on Ethereum platform

    Foreign Exchange Remittance:- It is well known that fiat money transfer across national boundaries has two channels – a legal one through banking system and another illegal one-through a network of agents. In both cases, money does not get transmitted physically but only through a messaging system between the participants in the process. 

    The legal system is dominated by SWIFT, a Belgian Cooperative society. Founded in 1973. “FT” in SWIFT stands for Financial Telecommunication, a clear indication to the effect that an efficient and trustworthy message flow management is the main function of the organization. SWIFT does not maintain any account of its clients and provides no guarantee of successful completion of any cross-border payments. Over the time SWIFT has extended its network to non-bank financial institutions also. Apart from money, exchange of securities is also being carried out on SWIFT platform.

    The illegal system, popularly known as hawala, also works largely as a messaging system between parties involved.  When A wants to transfer, say Dirham, from UAE to an Indian recipient B, A would deposit the money with an agent X at UAE, who would message the receipt amount and identity of the beneficiary to X’s counterpart Y in India. Then B would collect the money in INR in India from Y, after an agreed identification process.

    Both the systems work as messaging system. Wire transfer through SWIFT may take several days as the message passes through a number of banks/ other intermediaries in two or more countries. Rising to the challenge of making wire transfer faster and more secure SWIFT launched SWIFT global payment innovation (SWIFT gpi) in 2017. Today 90% of wire transactions are credited within 24 hours, including 40% credited within 30 minutes in SWIFT network..  Interestingly, SWIFT is also exploring the possibility of using blockchain to address security issues and for prevention of any financial crime through hacking.

    Ripple Lab is a software company which introduced XRP as a cryptocurrency to facilitate money transfer, particularly cross border one. According to Investopedia, Ripple functions as a digital hawala service. The only difference is that the pair (X,Y) forms  a trusted network amongst themselves and A must repose trust on the pair to deliver INR to B. 

    In the crypto world this trust is achieved by using cryptography and through a verification methodology known as consensus algorithm. A payment platform like Ripple has taken certain elements of cryptocurrency based payment system but not all.  First of all, all XRP coins, 100 billion in number, were generated at its inception. Unlike Bitcoin and similar other cryptos, no new XRP gets generated through a mining process. But like Bitcoin, there is no central authority to ensure validity of currency transactions.

    Instead of miners, Ripple has validators to validate transactions on Ripple network and record them in a block, called “ledger version” by Ripple.  The network also has a list of “trusted” validators called “Unique Node List”. These nodes are specifically configured to “participate actively in consensus, run by different parties who are expected to behave honestly most of the time.”  This pre-determined validators obviously makes consensus algorithm somewhat akin to correspondent banks who creates the bridge between sender’s bank and receiver’s bank. Having the transaction in a blockchain does not add much value to both sender and receiver.

    Bitwage is another interesting example of use of blockchain in cross-border money transfer business. The “wage” in the company’s name is a reference to the company’s main business of providing payroll services to employees or freelancers and the “Bit” part refers to the company’s use of Bitcoin as another payment medium apart from payment by local currencies. The company’s website  gives the following example of using a Philippine crypto exchange (coins.ph)  for money transfer in local currencies.

    1. Set up an account at coins.ph. This is a Bitcoin exchange, but you can automatically convert Bitcoin received from Bitwage into Philippine Pesos. There’s no need to know how to use Bitcoin at all. Make sure you do identity verification with coins.ph to have your account fully functional.
    2. Grab your peso wallet Bitcoin address from Coins. When Bitcoin is sent to this address, it will arrive in the form of pesos to your Peso Wallet.
    3. Add your Peso Wallet Bitcoin address to Bitwage as a Digital Currency Allocation and you’re all set.

    This apparent simplicity of the money transfer mechanism hides a significant amount of risk that a sender as well as the corresponding receiver would be exposed to. Apart from exchange rate risk, the settlement risk is extremely high in this scenario.  The following lines in user agreement with Betur Inc. the owner of Coins.ph is quite revealing:

    Your account with us is not a bank account. Our services are not financial instruments. No interest will be paid on any funds or currency you use to purchase or trade for any other currency, and such currency is not insured by the company or any government agency. (see here)

    Supply Chain Management (SCM):

    Supply chain management is a higher form of Enterprise Resource planning where the enterprise ecosystem includes a chain of independent companies, bound together in a hierarchy and participating in a coordinated manner to deliver final goods.  SCM differs from mere outsourcing of some components of a final product in respect of degree of coordination that it enforces on all participants in the chain.

    For example, Apple, being the owner of the brand “Apple” and its core technology, has to bear the ultimate responsibility for expected performance of its products. So while cost minimization objective can lead to outsourcing of some key components of the final product, tight monitoring of the decentralized production process is an essential pre-requisite to remain competitive and retain brand-equity. Apple has 785 suppliers located in 31 countries (see Clarke & Boesmar 2015). And to get the final products to points of sale, Apple “embeds” its” values into every detail”: “From the suppliers we choose to work with, to the materials in our products, to the processes and equipment we use to make them,”( see  Apple_SR_2022_Progress_Report )

    In today’s world, supply chain management of a global enterprise must take into account, apart from managing product life cycle, “safeguarding the rights, health, and safety of our employees, customers, and the people in our supply chain.” Meeting these objectives over and above the ones which are intrinsic to SCM, require information sharing by all the stakeholders in a given SCM network. It is in the interest of every participant to ensure that shared information is trustworthy and free from any manipulation and tampering. Blockchain technology is a potential solution to address these requirements. Some of these requirements are detailed below.

    Sustainability: Every SCM functions in a given social milieu, societal sensitiveness to environmental issues and legal framework for working conditions at different countries. Any failure at any part of the chain can not only be disruptive of the entire production process but can have serious legal and reputational consequences for the enterprise responsible for managing the supply chain.   For example, on April 24, 2013, a building in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, collapsed resulting in death of more than one thousand garment factory workers. Five factories located in this building produced garments for JC Penney; Cato Fashions; Benetton; Primark, the low-cost British store chain. The lessons learned from such accidents is that “buying firms must manage the uncertainty regarding the conditions in their supply chains as a crucial prerequisite for effective sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and their own economic performance” (

     Managing Information Processing Needs in Global Supply Chains). Information uncertainty also may cause bullwhip effect in a SCM where uncertainties at the lowest level of chain gets magnified as the information travels up the chain. For example, when a retailer misjudges a temporary and random surge in sale as an indication of rising demand and places order to the next distributor accordingly, and the distributor also in turn makes a wrong forecast, the error gets compounded and magnified at the manufacturer level. The final outcome could be sub-optimal decision making at various level like capacity expansion, planning for higher production, unexpected rise in inventory level etc. 

    Traceability:  FAO has defined traceability as the “ability to trace the history, application or location of an item or activity by means of recorded identification” (FAO-Traceability https://www.fao.org/3/i6134e/i6134e.pdf)https://www.fao.org/3/i6134e/i6134e.pdf) .The importance of traceability can be understood from a recent event of deaths of nearly 70 children in the West African nation of Gambia, due to suspected use of cough and cold syrups produced by an Indian company. The Indian pharmaceutical industry, one of the largest in the world by volume, face a huge reputational risk. [Gambia cough syrup scandal: Police investigate deaths linked to Indian medicine. ; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63191406 9th October 2022

    Provenance: The dictionary meaning of provenance is “origin” or “history of ownership” of a given object. In the context of SCM, provenance is important as customers of a product would be paying a premium when producer(s) of the product claims a certain origin of the product’s main ingredient. For example, the Evian is a premium brand of mineral water. It is sourced from a place near Evian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake Geneva. The provenance of the source of its water is a necessity for this brand to remain saleable.

    Use of blockchain to address many of the above issues is still work in progress. Some of the most promising ones are briefly discussed below.

    TradeLens is a supply chain solution developed by IBM and GTD Solution, a division of Maersk for global shipping industry, comprising shippers, freight forwarders, ports and terminals, ocean carriers, intermodal operators, government authorities, customs brokers etc.  The system uses IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology and IBM Cloud. It is a permissioned blockchain. According to IBM, five of the top six global shipping carriers are now integrated onto the platform contributing to the digitization of documentation and automated workflows.

    Trustchain is a blockchain based supply change management solution for Jewellery business. IBM, together with a consortium of leading diamond and jewellery companies from around the world are collaborating to build this application. Aa Forbes article has reported multiple blockchain initiatives by the diamond industry. The Gemological Institute of America now offers blockchain-enabled diamond grading reports, De Beers has unveiled a blockchain called Tracr, Everledger has partnered with Gübelin Gem Lab to create the Provenance Proof Blockchain. But diamond being a physical non-fungible article, the possibility of using blockchain is highly limited

    Healthcare is one industry which has an urgent need for a blockchain like technology. The healthcare related data of an individual patient may be kept with different healthcare providers, depending on the nature of services required by the patient. Seamless exchange of information between the service providers without compromising the privacy of the patient is of utmost importance to every stakeholder in the system. In most of the countries there is no central authority which collects, manages and disseminates all healthcare related data of individuals in a manner that ensures data integrity, data privacy and access legitimacy. General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR compliance is also an important requirement in European Union

    The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has enacted The Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) to enhance drug supply chain security by 2023. Under this act it should be possible to trace the supply chain for any packaged drug from the level of manufacturers, repackagers, wholesale distributors and dispensers (primarily pharmacies).   MediLedger Network is a blockchain based supply chain management application in medical industry “for data alignment, validation and transaction settlement between trading partners”. In June 2019, the MediLedger Project, a working group of 24 industry leading pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, retail chains, logistics partners and solution providers, was accepted by the FDA as one of their approved proposals. The working group’s purpose was to evaluate blockchain technology, like the MediLedger Network, in the track and trace of prescription medicines in the United State(see here). 

    Medicalchain is a blockchain enabled Electronic Medical Record management system  The application is linked into existing electronic medical record software and act as an overarching, single view of a patient’s record.( here}.

    IBM’s has created a blockchain based food traceability solution called FoodTrust. Walmart has implemented a food tracking program to collect environmental data from end-to-end, across the food supply chain using IBM’s FoodTrust. JD, a Chines e-commerce giant, Walmart, IBM, and Tsinghua University National Engineering Laboratory for E-Commerce Technologies launched the Blockchain Food Safety Alliance, which is designed to enhance food tracking, traceability and safety in China to achieve greater transparency across the food supply chain. 

    Refernces:

    Clarke Thomas • Martijn Boersma (2015).  The Governance of Global Value Chains: Unresolved Human Rights, Environmental and Ethical Dilemmas in the Apple Supply Chain. Journal of Business Ethics  

    Published online 30:July2015

    Dhia Zubaydi  Haider Dhia et al (2019)   Review on the Role of Blockchain Technology

    in the Healthcare Domain.  Electronics, 8, 679 available online at www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics

    Yang Guang , Chunlei Li Kjell E. Marstein (2019) . A blockchain-based architecture for securing electronic health record systems   Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience

  • RBI’s Concept Note on CBDC: A Review

    RBI has issued a concept note on CBDC on October 7, 2022. The stated objective for publication of this note is “to create awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the digital Rupee”.  Incidentally in February 2020 RBI bulletin had published an article on Distributed Ledger Technique. This article had discussed DLT initiatives of 7 central banks. Interestingly, the concept note does not even refer to this article.

    In 2020, another article documented in detail (Opare and Kim 2020), a large number of ongoing CBDC initiatives of many central banks and classified these experiments into 3 groups based on their year of initiation. The authors have listed 10 Central banks in the Early Adopter group, each of which began their CBDC experimentation between 2015-2016.  It was, therefore, expected that RBI would evaluate the lessons learnt from these projects and come out with a more detailed feasible plan for its envisaged CBDC journey.

    It may not be out of place to note here that in April 2022, Indonesia’s central bank and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub announced launching of a global hackathon on 3 potential areas of CBDC’s uses. These areas are: use of CBDCs as a medium of exchange; use of CBDCs in a central bank’s financial inclusion initiatives; and use of CBDCs in cross-border payment system.

    Coming to the main content of RBI note, I would like to dwell on certain aspects of CBDC implementation that would be relevant in the context of India, a country of 1.38 billion people and which have been either not dealt with or dealt with perfunctorily in the concept note.

    1.  Financial Inclusion as one of the objective of CBDC (section 3.3.5 page 20 of the Note): CBDC is neither necessary nor sufficient for financial inclusion. Predominance of cash as medium of transaction is one indicator of a financial exclusion. The share of ”money in circulation “in M1 is 59% in India (end March 2022) while for USA it was only around 11% (end august 2022). For China, this figure was around 13% at the end of 2017. So financial inclusion is more of a function of formalization/ corporatization of economy and not of the form of money in circulation.

    2. [F]irst and fundamental question that needs to be answered is the choice of technology platform (section 5.1 page 31).:  Here lies the major confusion that RBI internal committee is plagued with. Once CBDC is designed as a platform based medium of payment like a bank account, it loses the main characteristics of paper money-that is instant settlement of a monetary transaction. One does not need an internet connection or a mobile connection for verification with a third party in case of a paper money mediated transaction. You should be able to make a cash payment and, therefore, payment with CBDC at the top of Everest or in a submarine at the bottom of Indian ocean.

    3. DLT could be considered for the indirect or hybrid CBDC architecture (5.2.2.2 page 32): The word “could” is somewhat equivocal.  In an “Indirect Model”, “consumers would hold their CBDC in an account/ wallet with a bank, or service provider.   …. The central bank would track only the wholesale CBDC balances of the intermediaries. ”(Section 4.3.2 page 24). It follows that the responsibility of maintaining DLT would lie with the intermediaries. It is not clear whether DLT would be blockchain based or not. If blockchain is not to be part of any solution, then the architecture of any DLT needs more clarification which is missing from the concept note. It is not clear who will bear the cost of maintaining DLT, if it is to be based on blockchain. Will it be a permissioned or permission-less?  If an intermediary issues a CBDC to its customers, can that customer use that CBDC in another place which is under the jurisdiction of another intermediary?  The concept note is silent on all these issues

    4. Further, systemic checks through third party validation should ensure that in case of a token system, only such tokens issued by the Central bank are circulating in the ecosystem. Additionally, a competent party should be able to verify identity information before a participant is allowed to join the CBDC network. (section 5.4, page 33). This requirement of RBI’s CBDC can be considered as the last nail on the coffin of RBI CBDC. RBI annual report of 2022 puts the total number of banknotes in circulation at 1305326 lac or 130.5 billion pieces. If each note participates at least one transaction in a year, at least 1 billion transactions need to be validated in one-year period. I left to the imagination of my readers about the feasibility and cost of such an exercise. Even verification of half a billion transactions will be a humongous task.  Furthermore, verification of identity information of a participant in CBDC network can be considered as a gross violation of privacy of a citizen.  The very purpose of issuance of bank notes will stand completely negated by this requirement.

    5. In offline mode, the risk of “double-spending” will exist because it will be technically possible to use a CBDC unit more than once without updating the common ledger of CBDC (5.6, page 34). I may humbly submit that I have proposed a detailed protocol by which the goal of preventing double –spending can be achieved (Nag 2021). My protocol tries to mimic all properties of paper note. The anonymity of transacting parties is largely achieved, although absolute anonymity cannot be achieved in a digital world.

    6. Indirect Model: The concept note has argued that this model is the most suitable for India. Under this model, “RBI will create and issue tokens to authorised entities called Token Service Providers (TSPs) who in turn will distribute these to end-users who take part in retail transactions.” It is like a customer of a bank withdrawing cash from ATM/bank counter and then spending it outside. In this case CBDC will be withdrawn.  But suppose the bank customer wants to pay CBDC to her maid who does not have a bank account, will it be possible?  If that bank customer withdraws the money from her account at Mumbai and wants to spend it in Kolkata, how the ledgers will get updated? If the CBDC paying wallet has been issued by a Bank A and the receiving wallet has been issued by bank B, how the shake hand will take place in the absence of internet connection?

    7.  China has started experimenting with CBDC since 2016 and has now started issuing e-CNY, which has now 260 million individual users. 

    References

    Fintech Department (October 2022).  Concept note on Central Bank Digital Currency

    https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/PublicationReport/Pdfs/CONCEPTNOTEACB531172E0B4DFC9A6E506C2C24FFB6.PDF

    Ashok K Nag (December 2021). A Proposed Architecture for a Central Bank Digital Currency for India. ORF Occasional Paper No. 340, Observer Research Foundation.

    https://www.orfonline.org/research/a-proposed-architecture-for-a-central-bank-digital-currency-for-india/

    Bhowmick Sayantika and S. Majumdar (February 2020).  Distributed:  Ledger Technology, Blockchain and Central Banks   RBI Bulletin

    https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Bulletin/PDFs/0BUL11022020FL847E8EFB34744BAEBB2E45E91759ACCD.PDF

    Opare Edwin Ayisi and Kwangjo Kim (June 2020) A Compendium of Practices for Central Bank Digital Currencies for Multinational Financial Infrastructures in IEEE Access

    https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9115606

  • Block Chain – for my own understanding:

    I have explored the definitional attributes of blockchain in part1 of this series. In this part 2, I want to delve into the database properties of the blockchain.

    Part2: Blockchain as a database

    Storing a variety of objects in an organized manner is an art as well as a science. For example, when books are organized in a library, the classification of books is carried out using a hierarchical classification system known as the Decimal Classification system, which was first introduced by Melvil Dewey in 1873.

    When data about a class of objects is organized in a database, the science part of this organized data is related to data semantics, retrieval of data in a consistent manner subject to any constraints that may exist among the objects as well as amongst attributes of an object.  The data model encapsulates all these issues of data organization from the perspective of users of data. Historically, data models have evolved along with exponential growth in computing power and storage capability of computer hardware.   

    Currently, the relational data model is the pre-dominant data model used by enterprises.  E.F. Codd, while working as a computer scientist for IBM, first proposed the architecture of a relational data model in his 1970 paper titled “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks”. In his 1981 Turing Award lecture, he pointed out 3 main objectives that a relational database system tries to achieve. These are:

    1. data independence objective- database draws a sharp boundary between logical (i.e. business view of data) and physical view of data (i.e. machine storage or technical view of data).
    2. communicability objective- a simple intuitive way of organizing data so that business users can have a common understanding of data
    3. set-processing objective- application of the principles of set theory in the processing of two or more different datasets- a union of two sets, sub-setting of a set, a complement of a set, etc.

    Let us examine the extent to which a blockchain meets the above objectives. It would be in order to enter a caveat here. Blockchain was not designed to work as a distributed database but only as a distributed ledger. A ledger does not qualify as an enterprise-level database as we have argued in the part 1. So lacking any feature of a standard distributed database does not negate the usefulness of blockchain in many areas. However, my firm view is that cryptocurrencies as currently being offered by many blockchain platforms are destined to fail for their designed anonymity in monetary transactions.

    The first objective of data independence is clearly lacking in every blockchain data management framework.  The design of the data structure used by the Bitcoin platform or Ethereum platform is aimed at ensuring the integrity of all transactions and making the verification of the same through consensus algorithm by miner nodes as quickly as possible. For these reasons, search trees like Merkle Tree are used by Bitcoin and Merkle Patricia Tries by Ethereum (see Kamil Jezek(2020). As a result, from a business user perspective, the data structure is too complex and opaque for decision-making purposes. It may be said that transactional databases of cryptos were not designed to meet such requirements.

    As regards the third objective, the current implantation of blockchain technology for permission-less access to transactional data and the associated implementation of a consensus algorithm does not even aim at the segmentation of data by attributes of those undertaking transactions as well as transactions it selves. So this objective is absent by definition for cryptocurrency-oriented blockchains.

    But business use cases for blockchain need not be constricted to the worlds of cryptos. If we can take the definition of blockchain as a growing list of records, then it should be possible to marry blockchain with a proper relational database for deriving benefits of both the technology, immutability property of blockchain, and providing access to enriched transactional data for data analysis. A number of such applications have been created to query a blockchain data file.  Some of these applications are listed below.

    1.  Bitquery is an OLAP system built to provide business intelligence with regard to data stored in a blockchain. Data in this system is sourced from a blockchain using Graph Query Language and stored in multidimensional OLAP cube.  https://bitquery.io/

    2. Bitiodine is a tool, proposed by   Michele Spagnuolo et. al for analysing and profiling the Bitcoin network. The authors have suggested a methodology to “automatically parse the blockchain, cluster addresses, classify addresses and users, graph, export and visualize elaborated information from the Bitcoin network.”. The authors claim that their methodology can identify illegal or criminal use of cryptocurrency as in the case of “Silk Road” incident.   

    3. Chainalysis is another query tool developed on blockchain data for investigating cryptocurrency transactions. https://www.chainalysis.com/

    4. Nansen is another commercial software application to analyze on blockchain data. The software has built a repository of more than 70 million crypto wallets.  Like the applications described above, the ability to monitor flow of funds from one address to another is a key feature of this application.                      https://www.nansen.ai/about

    5. Abe is another software that reads “the Bitcoin block file, transforms and loads the data into a database, and presents a web interface similar to Bitcoin Block Explorer. Abe runs on PostgreSQL, MySQL’s InnoDB engine, and SQLite. Other SQL databases may work with minor changes.”

    https://github.com/bitcoin-abe/bitcoin-abe#readme

    6. Kondor and his associates of Eötvös Loránd University of Hungary have analysed Bitcoin data and created a Bitcoin Transaction Network that provides bitcoin transaction data as extracted with the bitcoind client. Data is provided in a tab-separated TSV file.

    https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.qz612jmcf

    It is important to note here that analysis of blockchain data involves analysis of graph data. Graph analytics has been extensively used in social network analysis. Such analysis can provide insight into the flow of money/ values from one node in a blockchain network to another node and identify addresses that relate to a particular wallet with a certain probability. The “Graph protocol” nicknamed “Google of the blockchains” has been created for indexing and querying data from blockchains, starting with Ethereum. Initially, it provided a hosted service for free but it has been now announced that the company will cease to provide the hosted services in 2023.

    Finally, it is quite clear that blockchain should be considered as a repository of transactions but not as a database proper. In this age of the internet when 2.5 quintillions (2X10^18) bytes of data is produced every day, it would be next to impossible to adhere to Codd’s objectives to store even petabytes (1 million GB) of data in a proper database.  For example, Hadoop which has been designed to handle Big Data is a framework that allows files of structured as well as unstructured data stored in multiple computers to be accessed, retrieved, and analyzed. So blockchain has its own uses but for an enterprise, all business data cannot be or rather should not be stored in a blockchain.  For example, Walmart Canada has successfully built a private blockchain to solve supply-chain challenges on Hyperledger Fabric, but resting it on top of a legacy system.

    References:

    Dinh Tien Tuan Anh et.al (2017),  Untangling Blockchain: A Data Processing View of Blockchain Systems,   DOI 10.1109/TKDE.2017.2781227, IEEE

    Jules Azad Emery, Matthieu Latapy(2021). Full Bitcoin Blockchain Data Made Easy. IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2021), Nov 2021, The Hague (virtual), Netherlands. hal-03443053

    Kamil Jezek(2020). Ethereum Data Structures. (August 2020), https://doi.org/10.1145/1122445.1122456

    Kate Vitasek, John Bayliss, Loudon Owen, and Neeraj Srivastava, How Walmart 92022) , Canada Uses Blockchain to Solve Supply-Chain Challenges in Harvard Business Review, January 2022

    Kondor D, Po´ sfai M, Csabai I, Vattay G (2014) Do the Rich Get Richer? An Empirical Analysis of the Bitcoin Transaction Network. PLoS ONE 9(2): e86197. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0086197

    McGinn D, D. McIlwraith and Y. Guo, Toward Open Data Blockchain Analytics: A Bitcoin Perspective In Royal Society Open Science,  
    https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1802.07523

    Spagnuolo, M., Maggi, F., Zanero, S. (2014), BitIodine: Extracting Intelligence from the Bitcoin Network” In: Christin, N., Safavi-Naini, R. (eds) Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2014. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), vol 8437.

    Xu Cheng , Ce Zhang, Jianliang Xu(2019), vChain: Enabling Verifiable Boolean Range Queries over Blockchain Databases in  2019 International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD ’19), June 30–July 5, 2019,,

    Yue Kwok-Bun,  Karthika Chandrasekar, and  Hema Gullapalli (2019),  Storing and Querying Bitcoin Blockchain Using SQL Databases  in  Information Systems Education Journal Vol 17(4)

  • Block Chain – for my own understanding:

    Part1: Definitional Issues

    I am trying to understand the concept and use cases of blockchain. I plan to put up a series of blogs on this subject as I navigate through the complexity of the subject. I will be more than happy to receive any response pointing out flaws in my understanding. Please write to me at ashok.nag@gmail.com.

    Definition of Blockchain:

    Bitcoin.org: The blockchain is a shared public ledger on which the entire Bitcoin network relies. All confirmed transactions are included in the blockchain. It allows Bitcoin wallets to calculate their spendable balance so that new transactions can be verified thereby ensuring they’re actually owned by the spender. The integrity and the chronological order of the blockchain are enforced with cryptography.

    Ethereum: A blockchain is a public database that is updated and shared across many computers in a network.

    Wikipedia: A growing list of records, called blocks, that are securely linked together using cryptography. The blocks are timestamped and chained with the previous block by incorporating a cryptographic hash of the previous block.

    IBM: Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network.

    Oracle: Blockchain is defined as a ledger of decentralized data that is securely shared. Blockchain technology enables a collective group of select participants to share data. With blockchain cloud services, transactional data from multiple sources can be easily collected, integrated, and shared. Data is broken up into shared blocks that are chained together with unique identifiers in the form of cryptographic hashes.

    Our definition: Blockchain is a digital record management system with the following properties:

    1. Records are grouped into blocks with a pre-defined limit for the size of a block. The size of a block determines the number of records of a given size that a block can include. Data in blocks can only be appended and not deleted or modified.
    2. The process of creating a new block and adding it to a given chain determines the type of blockchain. There are mainly two types of blockchain, namely permissionless and permissioned. The former one is called public blockchain as access to it is open to all. The latter type restricts access to authenticated users only and is also known as a private blockchain. 
    3. Blocks are mostly stored in a key-value database. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many other cryptocurrencies use LevelDB database of Google. Cryptographic hashes are used as identifiers for a block as well as its records. In other words, hashes are the keys and the data as the value.  
    4. The “chain” part in “Blockchain” refers to the fact that two consecutive blocks are linearly linked as a parent and a child. The block which has no parent is called the Genesis block of a particular chain.  The “chaining process” entails the incorporation of the hash value of a parent block in the header of the child block. A block’s header contains all the metadata of the block. This linking of parent and child through a hashing process ensures
    5. immutability of data of a child’s parent block and then all its ancestors up to the genesis block

    Before explaining the components of a blockchain in more detail, we need to clarify the term “distributed ledger” and its connection, if any, to the concept of “distributed database”.

    A ledger, primarily an accounting term, is a date-wise summary of all transactions of values, details of which are kept in a supporting book called “journals”. The word” ledger” was used in the blockchain context because its first use case was in the creation of a decentralized currency system. Since a ledger is also a record-keeping system, the term has persisted.  But the question remains whether a ‘distributed ledger” is conceptually and practically equivalent to a “distributed database”. The answer is a big No.

    Let us first demystify the term “distributed”. Oracle has defined a distributed database as “a set of databases stored on multiple computers that typically appears to applications as a single database. Consequently, an application can simultaneously access and modify the data in several databases in a network”. 

    Ozsu and valduriez have defined a distributed database and database management system as a “    Collection of multiple, logically interrelated databases distributed over a computer network. A distributed database management system (distributed DBMS) is then defined as the software system that permits the management of the distributed database and makes the distribution transparent to the users” (page 3). It is important to note that a distributed database system must also have an associated database management system to enable end users to access, query ,and generate user defined reports. Although a key-value database is also called a database, it provides limited support for data manipulation to discover patterns within the database and, therefore, the DBMS associated with it is very rudimentary.

    Let us now look into the ledger aspect of blockchain-based databases. What does a business ledger look like? IBM, while highlighting the deficiencies of current business ledgers, has given the following example.

    Source:     https://developer.ibm.com/tutorials/cl-blockchain-basics-intro-bluemix-trs/

    IBM states that the current business ledgers are “inefficient, costly, and subject to misuse and tampering.” If this is the “reality”, then all the balance sheets and P&L accounts of IBM itself are faulty, and cannot be trusted by investing public as well as any tax authority”. Be that as it may, it is undoubtedly true that no enterprise will maintain its transactions only in a blockchain database although the immutability property of blockchain may have its own use.

    For pedagogical purpose, let us consider the following example of an accounting database model

    Source: https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-build-an-accounting-system-using-sqlite-2ce31f8b8652

    Obviously, a proper industry standard accounting information system (AIS) software will require a much more complex database. For our limited purpose, it suffices to note that a ledger book database cannot be a list of transactions only. A number of complex rules must be enforced on the database to create a proper double-entry accounting system.  For example, a bank reconciliation process that matches a company’s bank statement with its cashbook balances is automated in many accounting information systems(AIS).  The participants in this process must be authorized and cannot be anonymous validators. A blockchain-based database cannot be a solution for such essential requirements of an AIS, although underlying transactions can be stored in a private blockchain for future auditing requirements (see the article: Blockchain as the Database Engine in the Accounting System).

    Let us consider the information management issues in regard to the Letter of Credit (LC), the most important banking document for facilitating international trade. In general, there are 5 five parties involved in an LC-based international payment settlement process. They are- importer, exporter, issuing bank, advising bank, and confirming bank. Today, banks use the SWIFT platform’s category 7 message type for sending and receiving messages between these parties. It is eminently possible to use a permissioned blockchain platform for sending and receiving LC-related messages. But it is impossible to use a public blockchain platform for this purpose. Furthermore, such a blockchain must rest at the top of a standard relational database to enable payment settlement and recording of underlying credit flow.

    The moot point is that a blockchain-mediated database is extremely useful for record-keeping purposes and not for enabling contestable transactions involving values between a network of legally connected parties. For enforcement of any contract between two parties, the foremost requirement is the identification of the parties involved. It is immaterial whether the parties are connected in a network managed by a centralized authority or not. The anonymity of transacting parties should be considered the weakest part of a blockchain-based transaction system and not its strongest one.  As we know a chain is as strong as its weakest part.  

    References:

    References:

    Musa Aujara Shamsuddeen (April 2019) , Documentary Letter of Credit Discrepancy and Risk Management in the Nigerian: Crude Oil Export; Ph.D Thesis submitted to University of Central Lancashire

    Özsu  M. Tamer & Valduriez   Patrick (2011)  Principles of Distributed Database Systems; 3rd Edition 2011

    Tan Boon Seng , Kin Yew Low (2019) Blockchain as the Database Engine in the Accounting System in  Australian Accounting Review No. 89 Vol. 29 Issue 2

  • Indo-Pacific Economic Framework- A surrogate NATO for South and East Asian Countries?

    To understand the driver of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework(IPEF) that has been launched on 24 May by 13 countries of South-East Asia including 4 members of the QUAD group and most of the ASEAN countries, we need to understand the interplay of regional and global aspirations of and challenges faced by these countries. 

    The first quarter of the present century has seen a quantum leap in humanity’s progress in science and technology creating the possibility of bringing an end to the childhood of humanity. A possibility but not a certainty. On the contrary, a more than even chance is emerging about a nuclear armageddon bringing an end to human civilization as we know it now. The 9/11 terror attack, the financial crisis of 2007-08, America’s war on terror and its exit from Afghanistan, the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on developed countries and now the Ukraine war -all are pointers to an irreconcilable conflict of interests among nations states of today which can be resolved only in a theater of war and destruction. Globally, there are two conflicting intertwined players- a declining but still globally dominant power, both economically and technologically, and a rising power with the ability to challenge the dominant one on both these fronts.

    The genesis of IPEF can be traced back to a 2018 document – declassified in January 2021- on Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework prepared by the United States National Security Council(USNSC). The foremost security challenge faced by the USA, as identified by the USNSS is: “How to maintain US strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence, and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity?”.

    The document emphasizes the threat posed by China’s rise as a technology superpower. “China seeks to dominate cutting-edge technologies, including Artificial Intelligence and Bio-genetics, and harness them in the service of authoritarianism. Chinese dominance in these technologies would pose profound challenges to free societies.”

    This 2018 strategy document also underpins India’s pivotal role in containing as well as counterbalancing China’s aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific region. The document is quite candid about USA’s objective in regard to India- 

    “Accelerate India’s rise and capacity to serve as a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner; solidify an enduring strategic partnership with India, underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with the United States”.

    The Indo-Pacific Strategy document issued in February 2022 by the US government espouses the same line of thought articulated by the 2018 document. The word “economic” is added to provide a veneer of creating a trading block like it was envisaged in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement(TPP).  TPP did not take off as US Senate failed to ratify it.  Being a trade agreement, ratification by congress was a necessity. By making IPEF a framework document, a kind of declaration of intent, it should be possible to avoid the requirement of any legislative approval by all signatories. The word Economic is also slightly problematic since there are already two agreements for facilitating trade among countries of this region. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade agreement (FTA) among 11 countries including Canada, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. The CPTPP was concluded on 23 January 2018 in Tokyo, Japan, and signed on 8 March 2018 in Santiago, Chile. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) is another free trade agreement between ASEAN countries and Australia, China, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. India was a member of the drafting committee of RCEP but eventually did not join it because it would put India in a disadvantageous situation vis-à-vis China in a free trade regime. It is interesting to note that 3 ASEAN countries having close relationships with China, namely Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar kept them away from IPEF.

    Four areas of cooperation have been identified in the joint statement issued by the 11 signatory countries to IPEF. In each of them, it is difficult to see a convergence of interest of all signatory countries. For example, let us consider the Clean Energy, Decarbonization, and Infrastructure component of IPEF. Although India is a signatory to the Paris agreement that requires all countries to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2050, the Indian prime minister promised to cut its emissions to net-zero by 2070 only.  China has committed to reaching net-zero status by 2060 while US and EU have committed to reaching the target by 2050.  India’s overriding national interest of poverty eradication by maintaining its growth momentum over a longer time will not allow it to toe its de-carbonization policies to that of developed countries who are already enjoying a lifestyle that has led to a much higher per capita carbon emission than is the case with India.

    As regards the Trade component of the framework, the declarative statements are as general as possible. Out of 13 participating countries in the IPEF framework, only USA and India are not part of another regional free trade agreement, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP. China is a member of the RCEP trade block. India was a member of the RCEP drafting committee since the committee began its work in 2011 and just before the signing date of the agreement, in November 2019, it opted out. As a result, India would be out of two existing trade blocks that cover almost all important counties of the region- RCEP and CPPTP. So it is difficult to envisage what new terms and conditions can IPEF will bring in to assuage India’s concerns.

    As regards the Supply Chain component of IPEF, the statement says:” ensure access to key raw and processed materials, semiconductors, critical minerals, and clean energy technology”. Among the manufactured products only “semiconductors” is mentioned. The most important omission is Artificial Intelligence related products which represent the cutting-edge technologies of today.

    To conclude, on the high table of the 13 signatory countries of IPEF, the USA is bringing nothing substantial to offer. It is more of a taker than a giver. IPEF may turn out to be more of a hubris of a declining power.

  • Bear Hug

    A daughter is crying on her cell

    Oh my dearest mom

    Believe me, believe me

    The bombs are falling all around.

    The mother from Muscovy laughs aloud

    Are you awake, my sweetheart

    A hallucination, a nightmare no doubt.

    My bear is a polar one, eager to hug you all

    Proselytization is not Jesus’s call.

    My dear child

    Nothing to fear

    The winner will not take it all.

    The daughter cries out

    Mom, my dearest mom

    I love you

    I love you most.

    When no more call reaches to you

    Believe then, believe then

    That your Bear has taken me out.

    Ferocity, deception, and sheer arrogance

    Will prevail

    The winner will take it all.

    @apology to Abba for the line “winner takes it all”