Brave New Browser

I have been using the Brave Browser for some time now. Initially it was just to play with, but as it gets more stable/robust I keep using it more and more. Advantages of Brave:

• Build in blockers for ads, trackers and other stuff. It saves you time because pages load faster without all that overhead in the back.
• It has a nifty rewards program that allows you to support your favourite websites and blogs using the Basic Attention Token.
• The BAT token also plays a role in rewarding you as a browser for viewing certain ads, though I have yet to experience that.

From a safety and user perspective, I can recommend this browser and it is on par with all the big alternatives. Go check it out!

Applying Blockchain

When companies start to explore blockchain, there is a large focus on getting use cases. For some it seems the more use cases that can be found, the better. I remember a report claiming to have found 200 use cases for blockchain within the energy industry, which caussed quite a stir. Looking into the details of these 200, a lot of them could be grouped together as a number of P2P cases. In all fairness, at an abstract level, only about 4-6 remain. Doing P2P for electricity or for some other product, is very 'same-same, but different'.

A recent post by Jesse Morris from EWF on North American Clean Energy has reduced the application of blockchain to three fields:

Over the next several years, we believe blockchain technology can unlock value through:

• transitioning analog or basic digital services to blockchain-based platforms to streamline accounting
• offering new services and products on top of deployed blockchain-based platforms
• enabling market participants to experiment with entirely new market models

I think this is an excellent observation and can even be applied in general across different industries.

Satoshi Radio

I was invited to discuss blockchain in the energy sector on Satoshi Radio! It is a Dutch podcast by two friendly and curious guys in the Dutch blockchain space; Bart Mol and Wijnand Luitjes. It was a great interview where they really probed on how the energy system (in The Netherlands) works and sometimes digging beyond what my level of understanding is.

If you want to listen to the 1,5 hour podcast, you can do so using your favourite podcasting app via Satoshi Radio.

It was fun to be a guest on this podcast, as this is something I have been pondering of starting on my own as well. Good to see the love, patience and grit required to keep up with a weekly podcast! If you have tips on how to start this, I’d love to hear more!

ABN - Blockchain & Energy Presentation

Last week I was invited by ABN to give a presentation explaining how blockchain can be applied in the energy industry. A nice session with a mix of people who are well versed in blockchain and some others who do not have a daily interaction with this type of technology.

I always enjoy a fresh perspective from the questions afterwards; it is interesting to see what questions come up from a bank’s perspective. This cross pollination across different industries can truly foster nice collaborations and learning experiences.

Interested to hear more on this or discuss what blockchain can do for your industry? Please do get in touch.

Privacy Commons?

As privacy online is an issue dear to me, I like to read from DuckDuckGo, Proton, Signal and various other tools on how to enhance your defenses. This piece on TechCrunch had an interesting angle. It debated if privacy would be a private matter, or a matter of the coPrivacy is a commonsmmons. On it being a private matter:

“The answer is: no, actually, not necessarily; not if there are enough of them; not if the commodification of privacy begins to affect us all. Privacy is like voting. An individual’s privacy, like an individual’s vote, is usually largely irrelevant to anyone but themselves … but the accumulation of individual privacy or lack thereof, like the accumulation of individual votes, is enormously consequential.” - TechCrunch “Privacy is a commons”

Also considering that the Conmons is a central theme in the upcoming Odyssey Hackathon here in the Netherlands, I can see this theme being applied a lot broader in an attempt to make the world a fairer place again.