How blockchain and IPv6 will impact future online communities

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There’s a lot of knowledge floating around on the internet, but it’s not always easy to find, especially in the blockchain space. Even with Google, many gems get tucked away in Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts, or YouTube videos. As a result, many online communities share news faster than people can verify or even find, leading to many misunderstandings.

In early July 2022, user Ken Shishido transcribed a pertinent clip about IPv6 and blockchain from an interview with Latif Ladid, Founder and President of the IPv6 Forum. The transcript gives some insights into changes that impact everyone but mainstream misses:

I started the ipv6 forum back in 1999 when the ipv6 task force at the ITF(Internet Task Force) had released the draft of the IPv6 RFC(Request for Comments) 2460.

It was back in December 1998, and at that time that group had to be dissolved because the work had been finished. So the best way to continue the work is to start the IPv6 Forum in order to disseminate and promote IPv6 deployments around the world.

We knew that the address space back in 1992 was going to be depleted fast because the Internet was opened in 1991 by Al Gore. He basically opened the NFS net which became the first internet. And at that time, we already knew that the ipv4 address space was depleted by 40.

So the call for a new protocol was made by the ITF with an RFC. Then many proposals have been made such as IPv6, IPv7 IPv8 and IPv9. And after five years of work IPv6 was selected and then we started promoting the IPA section.

The first killer application was basically 3g. After 10 years, the ipv4 address space was depleted back in 2011. As a matter of fact on the 2nd of February 2011 and since that time we have run out of central address space.

But the registries and the ISPs still has some so they could still use it up to now but in the meantime we have deployed now IPv6 worldwide. About 45 percent in the world are using it without knowing it. And that’s the purpose of it.

We have the major organizations and the major ISPs and also some governments now are pushing for an IPv6 only by 2025 primarily U.S. governments or the U.S. government networks. They would like to achieve something like 80 IPv6 only by 2025.

After the first inflection point with 3g 4g 5g, blockchain is the next biggest one. Basically, blockchain is designed for IPv6 even people didn’t know that from the start.

It’s an end-to-end solution. There are not many end-to-end solutions on this planet. So some people will think you know it’s a peer-to-peer application. This is beyond peer-to-peer application.

So by using the address space as a source and destination you have the best model of the internet. This is how the Internet had started as an end-to-end model. And we have basically the telecom world made it as a telecom internet by using NAT(Network Address Translation) disrupting the end-to-end model.

IPv6 has restored it exactly for an application like blockchain because it needs the end-to-end model so you can do better job than just as an application you can do it by using the end-to-end model.

In this case, using the IPv6 address on both sides, you can route between the two of them and you don’t need anybody in between to tell you what you’re doing.

Blockchain will add fundamental approach how the internet should be functioning also by making small amounts very tiny amounts which can accumulate for many people that are doing transactions over the Internet.

Payment option was not included in the Internet at the beginning. And I think blockchain with BSV is kind of restoring what did not happen on the Internet at the beginning.

But we will have a lot of work to do you know to educate and to get best practices and push the right messages to governments, to regulators, to the ISPs and other industries.

Because blockchain is not one single solution so you’ve got so many competing solutions today and everyone is claiming victory and so on.

There is a bit of chaos in this area and we would like to support only the one that is going to be the winner with IPv6. And I think the BSV Blockchain is a good one.

BSV Association is very important you know to get the education out there. We have to explain what is BSV and what is blockchain along our common terms because as I mentioned earlier on there’s a lot of education because the confusion has already happened.

So we have to detach BSV Blockchain from all the crypto stuff and so on and so forth. We don’t want to be supporting a kind of royal casino for the entire planet. That’s not the purpose of this work. We want to get everyone to be involved.

Changes that occur without even knowing it

The reason for sharing the above is because a large majority of digital currency, Web3, NFTs, and even blockchain users are barely aware of the moves being made in the background. Especially when it comes to infrastructure upgrades of the internet itself, but that doesn’t stop users from taking advantage of all the benefits.

For the most part, average users don’t need to. However, if you are a builder in this space, it may be vital to understand what’s happening to have confidence in the foundation levels you are building. As this then impacts the communities you serve.

For “community-builders,” this means being aware of the platforms you choose to use if you want to be ‘Web3 native.’ Despite the hype and popularity of chains like Ethereum and Solana, they might not be around if IPv6 technology pairs with a blockchain like BSV.

In the earlier transcription, there’s a line that reveals the realities of the digital infrastructure implementation or upgrades, “About 45 percent in the world are using it [IPv6] without knowing it.” And it may very well be the case for blockchain implementation, regardless of the noise that surrounds all the competing projects on social media and mainstream news.

Blockchain sits one layer deeper than the subsequent application layers we’re used to hearing about—from Silicon Valley unicorns to any other large tech giant that’s made its money from an application.

When it comes to infrastructure, just think about plumbing and pipes. They are relatively unsexy concepts but are pivotal to describing how information flows across the internet via protocols.

Blockchain (and subsequently Bitcoin) serves a purpose in realizing the internet’s full potential, re-enabling true peer-to-peer (or IP-to-IP) communication that should’ve been there decades ago.

Communities & PII

When it comes to online communities, the pairing of IPv6 and blockchain technology means more reliable systems to support online communication (and more). Any resulting trust stems from a straightforward mechanism: transparency and immutability.

Right now, many communities suffer from associated platform hacks, leakages, and, subsequently, the selling of data (e.g., Personally Identifiable Information or ‘PII’). Although this activity is not unique to the internet, IPv6 and blockchain can help reduce such things and make it easier to track or incriminate.

Some may be against being ‘tracked’ because it feels very Orwellian. However, suppose everyone shares the same base layer (e.g., a single blockchain), can own personal data, and firewall their PII. In this case, you secure privacy while benefiting from a publicly shared ledger. It is similar to how we all use the same internet.

Anonymity & criminal behavior

According to Eric Roberts, a professor of Computer Science at Standford University, his research into anonymity and criminal tendencies have shown that anonymity almost always leads to criminal behavior. And the reason for this makes sense once you think it through to its completion:

Anonymity, because it inherently removes a person’s association with his actions, allows conduct without consequence, and therefore non-accountability; likewise, when fully identified, a person can be tracked down and punished for his behavior. If a member of a community is not accountable for his own actions, he can commit crime without consequence. It makes sense, then, that crime is more likely when punishment is not a risk. In the case of pseudonymity, even if punishment of the person is impossible, the reputation of the pseudonym within the community will suffer, as other members will know to avoid him.

And it is this distinction between anonymity and pseudonymity that people interchange unknowingly. While the idea of anonymity may sound like fun initially, research has shown that it eventually leads to harmful or destructive community behavior.

For communities to feel ‘safe,’ they need to know they can trust what they’re using. While trust comes in various forms, if the base technology layer is shaky, everything else contributes to an eventual distrust of the whole. You can see symptoms manifesting with the rise in cybercrimes, platform hacks, and various other issues.

Watch: Dr. Craig Wright’s keynote speech: A Better Internet with IPv6 and BSV Blockchain at the BSV Global Blockchain Convention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdhD4sRrHPs