GEDE Blockchain Topic Group

There is lots of interest in this technology and there are lots of publications on BCT - many of them simply being PR. As a consequence there are many assumptions not based on facts. Thus topic group wants to discuss possible application scenarios in science.

Indeed BCT plays an enormous role in scientific areas where it is about sensitive data and for example in interest, i.e. these are areas where one wants to exactly know who had access to data, who got a copy etc. - typical transaction information should be stored safely.

Another area which was reported was about linking Lab-Books with BC entries to document exactly when who made which experiments which may be important at a certain moment to get the credits for being the first to publish some results, etc. Also safely storing information about specific curation events could be of value.

There is also a price to be paid which is often been overlooked. Processes to find agreement between all nodes in distributed blockchain applications can require a large amount of computational capacity.

It is important now to get an overview about the kind of applications people have in mind in the different ESFRIs.

Procedure for a GEDE Blockchain Topic Group

1. Finding out which ESFRIs want to participate in this topic group
2. Planning two Webinars with good speakers about 1) what does BCT offer and what not? 2) which technology is out there and what are the costs?
3. Making a survey about views and planned applications.
4. Discussing these applications and the functionality of BCT to come to agreed statements.
5. Writing a report with agreed statements and examples to become ready around Easter 2019.

Below a few reports can be found:

- a recent report from NIST about blockchain technology

- an early note from Wolfgang & Peter where they simply tried to figure out what BCT actually is and which problems it might help solving

- the case statement of RDA colleagues working in the health domain

- two slide sets from Finish IT specialists looking at different aspects of BCT presented during the IoTWeek

The co-chairs of this activity are Wolfgang Kuchinke and Peter Wittenburg supported by Zsuzsanna Szeredi. In case of questions or comments please send an email to Zsuzsanna (zsuzsanna.szeredi@gmail.com).

Wolfgang, Zsuzsanna & Peter