Religion in today’s world irrespective of which religion one practices or the denomination they relate to is based upon a person accepting the traditions and interpretations of the past without understanding if these traditions and sources are authentic. Thus, the base for all religion has to do with belief in a higher power (God) and internalizing past traditions as part of the modern-day codicil of foundational religion. The existential problem with such a system is that the roots of our shared traditions are based on events and individuals that cannot be historically verified. In addition, the codex of traditions that formulate our beliefs (Torah, Old Testament and New Testament) and which we hold sacred today are not necessarily what they were or how they were written at the times of them being transcribed.

If we were to examine such truths, we would just have to go back to the biblical traditions of creation to see how we have no singular tradition, or in other words, no one chain of historical evidence and truth to track what came first and where our biblical traditions began. For example, in Chapter 1 of Genesis we read that the world was created in six days with God resting on the seventh day. Within this chapter there is an order of creation and within this order man is created last as seen in Genesis 1:27. However only a few verses later in Genesis chapter 2 we find a completely different tradition. For their man is created first, as evidenced in Genesis 2:8. These types of examples are numerous throughout our religious history and one only need to mention the two different versions of the 10 commandments as found in Exodus 20:1–14 and Deuteronomy 5:6–18 to further see this. In Exodus we are told to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” While in Deuteronomy we are told “observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.” As we can see there are differences between the words “remember” and “keep.” Furthermore, in Deuteronomy we are keeping the Sabbath because God freed us from Egypt and in Genesis, Egypt is not mentioned. Which is correct and authentic? Where is the genesis block of the genesis story and how can we build upon the blocks of our traditions without knowing which block or commandment came first?

These theological and chronological questions are not just an issue when looking back into our past traditional texts, but they are also one today. We can never be sure which interpretation of a commentary is authentic, came first or is the foundational genesis of the next interpretation. Even today with so much commentary out there we can never be sure as to what came first and is it authentic. In actuality, we can know all these things from today and moving forward if we were to implement a new technology that is slowly changing the way society interacts with each other and that is through the implementation of blockchain technology. I would like to show how this technology is not only beneficial to business applications but also how it can be applicable for the world of religion.

If we were to reach back to our example of the two different versions of the Ten Commandments –we could surmise that each commandment is built upon the one that comes before it. For example, you cannot worship another god’s until you state that there is only one God. Thus, the second commandment is built upon the first. The most important thing when considering the functionality of the commandments is the logic behind how they fit and the rules that they are bound to; Blockchains are very similar. A blockchain is like a single commandment that is put together with other commandments. What happens when they are put together? They become linked. In other words, they become The Ten Commandments instead of a single commandment. Now imagine if the name of the creator of these commandments, God, and the date of individual creation was printed on each commandment. Regardless of the order, pattern, or structure these commandments were received at Revelation you (or anyone who comes and looks at these texts) will be able to tell exactly who created each one and when. The verifiability and auditability brought about by this, now public info, printed onto the commandments allows us to ensure each piece we use is part of the original revelation at Mount Sinai. Now, once our structures get viewed or studied, nobody ever has any concern over which version of the commandments came first because with the public timestamp we would have totally auditable authenticity.

Now, with the concept of auditable authenticity in mind, let’s define the blockchain; A blockchain is a distributed ledger whereby every piece (commandment) holds the same information and all of them fit together one piece at a time. What differentiates the blockchain from our religious example is the ability for far more information than just a name and a date to be ‘inscribed’ onto every block. As a distributed digital ledger, all information written to the chain is made completely public and immutable (cannot be changed). Furthermore, since the ledger is completely distributed amongst all those who use or access the blockchain, authenticity can be confirmed by multiple people and nothing put on the ledger can ever ‘disappear’ or ‘go missing’, thus ensuring information accuracy through a complete lack of centralized trust.

Had such technology existed thousands of years ago we would not be arguing over biblical authenticity and the authorship or time of the Bible being written. However, we can use this technology today to solve these issues when moving forward with new commentaries and interpretations. For if we were to build religious blockchains or codicils of commentaries we would know who wrote the commentaries, upon what information they were based, and which commentary preceded the other. Thus, proper credit would be given to the theologian who came up with original ideas or new commentaries. Nobody would be able to forge or claim credit for these new interpretations as they would all be immutably written down, public to all, never kept in one location and traceable always. Not only that but they would be placed in an order of when they were written and thus the link of traditions would be known and verifiable instead of being up for debate and questionable.

In the end, while blending modern theological writings and blockchain technology may sound strange, it is well worth adapting to this new technology, for if we do our traditions will remain known and sacred. Thus, allowing us to study our traditions instead of trying to figure out when they came into being and by whom.

The Author is an ordained Rabbi, Theologian and Certified Blockchain and Ethereum Expert.

Theology and Technology: How the Blockchain can influence Biblical Scholarship was originally published in The Jewish Examiner on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Poverty in Africa appears to be an insolvable problem that many have tried to wrestle with in the past and failed in their attempt to solve. While in various locations and populations schools have been built, wells for clean water dug, the sun harnessed through solar panels for electricity and the general living conditions have been raised, the issue of permanent poverty and a lack of upward mobility has not been eradicated. Matter of a fact, all these improvements that I mentioned have come through outside assistance, and while this has made life easier for some it has not raised those same individuals economic status. I believe there is a manner by which poverty in Africa and other third world countries can be partially alleviated and that is through the introduction of smart contracts and blockchain technology. This being especially true in the area of real estate, fractional ownership and micro transactions.

In Africa as in other villages and towns we can find villagers who have continuously inhabited their family homes for decades without interruption. Furthermore, dwellings of these families are often theirs both through inheritance and or tribal/village allocations. If this land is theirs by right and both they and the village are suffering financially, why shouldn’t they be able to sell micro fractions of their assets and ownership in the land to outside parties? Wouldn’t this allow for those families to receive the funds they need to raise themselves out of poverty? This private ownership model in my mind would be beneficial to both sides as well as allowing for future economic development once the village has risen out of poverty and upward in economic mobility.

A pilot program in Ghana has been up and running since 2016 under the guidance of Bitland with the express goal of “puts {ing} the human element back into the decentralization movement by bringing blockchain technology directly to the people, face to face.” (Ronny Boesing, CEO of CCEDK) The importance of putting the human element in the equation is an central first step as it pulls the transaction process out of the hands of the government and into the hands of the individual. When looking at the long-term future of micro investing in conjunction with the use of a smart contract we need only develop several models and rules to be developed in order for them to work. The uniformity of code within the smart contract would allow for the use of the contract and if the contract is originally written or translated into numerous languages then the possibilities would be endless.

Let’s imagine for a moment that Kevin owns a small house/hut in Swaziland and Kacey is an investor living in Melbourne and they want to enter into a micro fraction real estate transaction. The first step in their transaction would be making a decision on how to make this transaction while ensuring the rules of the agreement are followed. A smart contract would allow for this. There would also need to be a mechanism whereby it is impossible for the agreement to get lost or destroyed. In this case the immutability of the blockchain would ensure its permanence. Next upon agreement, payment itself could be made through virtual currency such as Bitcoin. This would alleviate the need for banks and government interference and allow the funds to go directly and be controlled solely by Kevin. This monetary control and the “if, then” rules written into the smart contract is important so that disputes don’t arise over time. The smart contract is of course build upon the blockchain. Thus the blockchain serves as the vehicle for the whole transaction and program.

While the possibilities for future and upward mobility are great, one challenge at this time must be overcome, and that is the fact that there are tribal and village lands that have no official title (ownership) registration. The record keeping in villages and small communities are not always accurate if they exist at all. Furthermore, government registries are always open to dispute due to numerous factors such as corruption and or lack of fact checking. This problem while great can be overcome through initial efforts of outside companies coming in and investigating the property ownership and filing those reports officially. This is being done in Ghana as we speak. Eventually, when the results are known they can be placed onto a blockchain so that no corruption or future confusion is possible.

While an initial output of resources might be needed this issue can be solved through private equity, government contribution or fractional ownership agreements. Eventually the lands will become deeded and immutably listed on the blockchain title and once this is done and a smart contract is set up, these tools can be utilized by all and the ability to sell and buy small fractions will be up and running. Thereby allowing the owners to sell fractions of their land for their own benefit. In my view it would be important as part of the contract that a codicil be written into the rules stating that land owners can’t be forcefully moved off their land after selling a fraction of it.

These sorts of deals will allow for future investment in Africa, something which is good for the government, allows for the ability to utilize the land by the landowners for daily use and/or upward mobility. Future capitalization of resources and man power for development of African Nations will also assist these nations with their GDP and future economic growth. Thus, the use of blockchain technology will help create a chain reaction which benefits everyone. While this process may not be easy, it will help solve one of the issues that Africa has been trying to alleviate for years, and that is poverty in their countries. If this isn’t a goal worth investing in, then I don’t know what is.

Real Estate Made Easy and Efficient: How Blockchain Technology can change the way Real Estate Transactions are Made!

Adults and Children love to play games. The game of Monopoly has always been one of the most popular of those games. The goal of the game is to collect properties, build houses on them and through strategic placement of these houses and properties hope that your opponent loses all their money by rolling the dice and landing on your properties before you do the same. Landing on the right properties and building up equity throughout the game so that you can buy houses on your property is very time consuming, frustrating and full of ups and downs. Eventually you either win, lose or just give up after several hours of play.

Buying real estate today is much the same as playing monopoly. It is nerve racking, takes lots of planning, equity and can make a homebuyer or seller feel like winners, losers or ready to throw in the towel all together. In today’s real estate market there are approximately 11 major steps to buying a home. Commonly those 11 steps are; 1) starting your search, 2) determining how much house you can afford, 3) getting pre-qualified and pre-approved for a mortgage, 4) Finding a Real Estate Agent, 5) Looking for and settling on a home you like, 6) making an offer and hoping it gets accepted, 7) Setting up a home inspection, 8) choosing a mortgage based on the result of step number three, 9) Having the home appraised, 10) Coordinating paperwork (using a title company for example), and finally closing on the sale and receiving the key.

As we can see, there are numerous steps in the process of buying a home and if you thought that the game of monopoly was long winded, then you have seen anything, for the purchasing of a home can take anywhere between weeks and months. Additionally, there are so many intermediaries in the process (title companies, home inspectors, lawyers, mortgage companies etc.) that the cost of the actual house is inflated by thousands of dollars and completely based on the trust in the institutions mentioned above. If you are the buyer you end up paying more, and if you are the seller, you end up with less money in your pocket due to all these middlemen. In this real-life game of Monopoly everyone ends up on “the stop-go to jail and loose a turn” square. Surely there must be a more efficient and cost-effective way to buying a home.

The answer is of course there is, and it can be found through blockchain and smart contract technology. If we were to restructure the real estate process through blockchains and smart contracts the process itself would be streamlined, more secure and less expensive. How is this possible? Let me explain not only how it is possible but also preferable.

A blockchain can be defined as a distributed ledger whereby every block holds the same information and all of them fit together one piece at a time. Blockchains can hold unlimitable amounts of data which is both verified, and immutable. Furthermore, since the ledger is completely distributed amongst all those who use or access the blockchain, authenticity can be confirmed by multiple people and nothing put on the ledger can ever ‘disappear’ or ‘go missing’, thus ensuring information accuracy through a complete lack of centralized trust. As we can see, the information will always be accurate and thus numerous steps of verifying middlemen are taken out of the equation. We should be able to do the same in real estate transactions.

Furthermore, smart contracts would enable us to forego the need for other intermediaries within our home buying process. A smart contract itself can be defined as, a computer written crypto contract embedded within the blockchain through ‘if, then’ format. These smart contracts are binding contracts that are fully auditable on the blockchain. Furthermore, they only execute after certain conditions are met. As such, the transfer of services, assets, money, or any other function of a contract is fully auditable and executed sans any trust or human action. The fact that all this is stored on a distributed ledger anonymously ensures the privacy of the contract and the impossibility of it being breached due to it being clear or followed through to the letter of the law.

Under these circumstances a person’s verified identity would already be written into the blockchain, the steps of how and under what circumstances the contract would be executed are already immutable and the monetary process of releasing money would also be predetermined. All that would need to be done would be the finding of a house. This too would be much easier as the information would be on blockchain technology and updated in real time. Furthermore, there would be no need to hire an inspector as all previous work done on the home would already be listed in the blockchain history of the house and anyone would be able to view this information. Furthermore, the house’s title would be able to be traced back to its original owners so that the ownership pre-sale would never be in question. As we can see, the possibilities of using blockchain and smart contract technology is endless when it comes to real estate and this is only the start. Once this technology is understood and implemented, the ramifications would be overwhelming and game changing for what is today a 200-billion-dollar industry in the United States alone.

The outcome of using this new technology, would include greater transparency, efficiency and a lack of need to trust the numerous middlemen along the way. This would lower real estate costs and allow us to buy our metaphoric hotels on Park Place and Broadway.

When one builds a house, there are different stages that go into building that home. The owners must possess a vision of what they want the house to look like, the architect must compose a plan to carry out the owner’s vision and the builders must pore the foundation for the home to stand the test of time. Just like in our “model home” all projects must originate with an idea and then be translated into finite steps so that the project can become a reality. The realization of any project begins with the foundation that allows all other parts of the project to build upon. In the world of Blockchains and technology the Ethereum platform serves as a combination of all these foundations.

The Ethereum platform has the capability of serving our “building” on numerous different levels. Ethereum itself is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts and applications that function based upon predetermined rules and codes without any possibility of going offline, being censored or changed due to hacking. Ethereum can achieve this because it is a decentralized ledger and immutable. Furthermore, these applications run on an individually built and designed blockchains which are unique to themselves and the individual smart contract, app or program that is being built and Ether serves as the gas which allows them to develop on the blockchain. Having said as much, we can understand that Ethereum has the capability of serving as a platform in numerous fields of business and education, but to understand this more we need to understand how a smart contract works in the Ehtereum ecosystem.

In general, a business or individual can connect to Smart Contracts in the Ethereum ecosystem in the following order;

• Connect to the Ethereum network (ethereum.org)
• Explore Ethereum’s blockchain use and decide if it is correct for your needs
• Learn which language you will build your smart contract with: solidity is the foundation language used in smart contracts. Hyperledger technology may also be utilized.
• Decide who, and for what, the contract is being built for
• Write the rules and parameters into the contract so that the entire agreement is clear. Once written and on a block, these conditions are immutable and cannot be changed.
• Set up a group (private or public blockchain) that will ensure that the contract is followed. This is normally done through a DAO and nodes. Nodes are pieces of software (think of individuals and their own personal computers) that connect to other nodes, thus participating in the formation of the network. A node stores the blockchain, and you can think of the nodes as the guards of the DAO
• Deploy your smart contracts and follow the parameters that were programmed into it in an ‘if’ ‘then’ manner
• Mine for new blocks
• Enjoy the complete process through the realization that your contract is immutable, automatic, trustless, and can be guaranteed as authentic across a wide network so that no party can challenge the validity of the contract itself.

As we can understand the smart contract is completely trustworthy as it isn’t based upon trust, but upon automation and computer language and you can feel confident that the contract will be fulfilled once the steps programmed into it are met. This factors out disputes and allows these contracts to be executed in real time without possibility of ever being offline. This being a huge advantage over the often disputed “normal and everyday” contract.

As these words are being written the Ethereum Blockchain and Smart Contracts are already beginning to become part of the evolving tools that will carry business and educational transactions into the next stages of our ever-growing global world. Now is the time to learn how your business can use this technology to put you ahead of the curve.

***The Author is a Certified Blockchain and Ethereum Expert

Government and Conglomerates vs. DAO’s; The Battle for our Futures!

You sank my battleship! These words are part of our childhoods and even today you can find the game of Battleship on our phones and computers. Unfortunately, there are those around us who are trying to sink our battleships as we speak. These attacks are not coming from Iran or North Korea, rather the war I am speaking about is right around the corner and most of us aren’t even aware that it is here. The battle that we are in is a war on our individual freedoms. The attack itself is being perpetuated by centralized organizations. These centralized institutions can be defined as governments, large consortiums and centralized institutions just to name a few.

In our daily lives we are heavily regulated in almost everything we do. Our transactions are monitored, approved or declined by financial institutions, our physical identification cards are regulated by the government and the very air we breath is regulated through environmental regulations. We are not even able to read such an article as this one without having to go through numerous central organizations (like your internet provider, the website that you are now on etc.) before we can find what we are looking for. While this may not seem like a problem, it is a larger one then you think, for the control of information and behavior is not in our hands but in those of large centralized institutions. At this pace our freedoms and metaphoric battleships will be sunk.

So, what can we do to reclaim some of our freedoms? The foundation of reclaiming our rights can be seen in our own metaphoric Battleships. In our metaphor the battleships can be understood as DAO’s, while the ammunition are blockchains and smart contracts. A DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) can be explained as a predefined algorithmic computer program that takes out the need for a middleman due to it being predefined and without need of trusting a middleman. Furthermore, a DAO can also formalize multilateral relationships or transactions outside of traditional centralized architecture. In other words, we would be able to interact with one another directly without having to go through the middleman whose job is to control our actions instead of its original function which was facilitating our individual and communal freedoms.

Now that we know what our battleship looks like, let’s look at our ammunition. The first of the DAO’s armaments can be defined as a blockchain. A blockchain itself is a distributed ledger whereby every piece holds the same information and all of them fit together one piece at a time. Since the information is decentralized and open for all to see, there is no need for the oversight of information that central organizations control. How is that possible? It is possible since the information is immutable and can’t be forged. Since there are numerous authenticators who are spread throughout the world and don’t necessarily have any relationship with one and the other, we are safe in the fact that no information can be manipulated by any centralized organizations to determine a behavior or action. This is true because falsified information would be picked up by any number of the independent authenticators whose jobs are to validate information. This independence of falsehoods allows society to live in an atmosphere of no longer needing to abdicate our freedoms to centralized organizations to receive their “trusted” services. For now, there is no need to trust the “intentions” of any one entity.

If the blockchain is the “big gun” or main armament defending our Battleship (the DAO) then we can see a Smart Contract as its laser guidance system. A Smart Contract is, a contract that provides all the authentication necessary since all aspects of trust are removed from the equation. Thus, fraud or outsize control cannot occur. Written in an ‘if, then’ format, smart contracts are binding contracts that are fully auditable on the blockchain and can only be executed after certain conditions are met. As such, the transfer of services, assets, money, or any other function of a contract is fully auditable. In other words, they are free from the need of a centralized authenticator and controller. Consequently, centralized organizations who are waging war on our freedoms can no longer attack the very rights that they are supposed to be guarding.

While living in a world without governments and centralized organizations is unrealistic and, in many ways, unwise and unwanted, the abdication of our freedoms to centralization is not wise either. This encroachment on our freedoms can be mitigated through the application of DAO’s and while DAO’s business applications may be more exciting to contemplate the fact that we can reclaim our freedoms is in the end much more important. In other word’s “I sank your battleship!”

***The Author is a Certified Blockchain and Ethereum Expert