Research
International Standard Content Code
For the image-ID component of the ISCC – that is, the content ID of image files – we need a hash function which, for minor changes to the file, produces an identical hash, or rather one that is as similar as possible while producing a small number of false positive collisions. Read on
Blockchain Evaluations & Surveys
Blockchain technology is evolving rapidly and it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest technological innovations and breakthroughs. Our research into the space is intended to give us a deeper and more practical understanding of the current state of affairs from a technical viewpoint. For our first evaluations we selected a cross section of some of the more popular and promising open blockchain systems:
contract revolutionize_publishing_industry {
address great_team;
address exciting_possibilities;
function create_new_content_universe() {
exciting_possibilities = contentblockchain.output(great_team);
}
/* Function to recover the funds on the contract */
function transform() {
if (msg.sender == legacystuff)
selfdestruct(legacystuff);
}
}
Conclusion
The term “blockchain” is used very inconsistently and can mean very different things to different people. Trying to “combine” traditional project requirements like for example access permissions with blockchain technology simply does not work. Such efforts probably only lead to a very bad and slow kind of a distributed database while losing all the unique features that blockchains have to offer. So we came to the conclusion that the Content Blockchain Project must consider and deal with all the ingredients of truly open and public blockchains to leverage the full potential of these technologies. This includes controversial elements like native digital currencies, proof of work mining and censorship resistance.
Strategy
There are four overarching strategies how the Content Blockchain Project can work towards its goals in the long term:
- Using one of the established operational blockchain networks
- Launching a separate blockchain from existing source code
- Launching a separate blockchain by modifying existing code
- Creating and launching a purpose-built blockchain
We decided to first build the ISCC and Smart License prototypes in a blockchain agnostic way. We plan to test them against the Ethereum and MultiChain technology stacks in order to gain more experience before we decide about a long-term strategy.
