On September 1, Dr. Craig Wright joined a panel of experts to talk about IPv6, Bitcoin, and the future of the internet.
Dr. Wright joined Professor Latif Ladid, Pascal Thubert from Cisco, Thomas Graf from Swisscom, and Jean-Charles Bisecco from the French IPv6 Task Force. Watch the webinar here.
Latif Ladid opens the webinar
Ladid opens the conversation with a brief overview of where IPv6 is today and where it will go in the future. He says that, as of right now, 2.5 billion people use IPv6. Globally the technology has 40% penetration, with some countries like China and India far out in the lead with 67% and 70% penetration, respectively.
Ladid notes that governments around the world are pushing for IPv6 adoption. He says that when we reach 80% penetration globally, IPv4 will be abandoned. This will transform industries, including the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and many others.
He invites Dr. Craig Wright, Bitcoin’s inventor, to speak about how it can play a role in this new world.
IPv6 and Bitcoin are symbiotic
Dr. Wright begins his section of the webinar by pointing out that Bitcoin was designed to work with IPv6. He says the protocol was a “key, integral part of Bitcoin” and that IPv6 is essential to the future of any blockchain.
However, those who did not understand Bitcoin stripped out many of its original features, deeming them as security threats because they didn’t comprehend the grander vision and what it was designed for. Thankfully, the original Bitcoin protocol with all its capabilities has been restored as BSV.
A fully peer-to-peer system
The title of the Bitcoin white paper describes it as a ‘peer-to-peer electronic cash system.’ Dr. Wright elaborates on the nature of peer-to-peer transactions. He says that a true P2P system can only be achieved IP to IP over a distributed system. There should be no hops or nodes. Alice should transact or communicate with Bob directly in such a system.
“The nature of peer-to-peer is direct connectivity,” Dr. Wright says. He points out how this radically changes how the internet works. Whereas right now, the customers of various internet services are the product, thanks to the data harvesting and ad-based model it is based on, micropayments usher in a new world where direct interactions are possible. It is this, Dr. Wright says, that will enable the IoT and much more.
Hinting at Bitcoin’s true scaling potential, Dr. Wright explains that thanks to payment channels, it’s possible to have millions of peer transactions for a fraction of a penny. Using them, individuals can decide for themselves what information they need to share for the purposes of the transaction (e.g., delivery addresses, KYC/AML info, etc.)
How Bitcoin can revolutionize many industries
Speaking about how Bitcoin can revolutionize security first, Dr. Wright points out that peer-to-peer transactions eliminate problems like man-in-the-middle attacks.
Furthermore, the immutable Bitcoin ledger can allow products with RFID tags to be tracked and traced globally. This has huge implications for problems like theft, loss of goods, verification of authenticity, locating where something is in a supply chain, and much more.
This sort of world was outlined by Dr. Wright as far back as 2014 when he was interviewed in The Bitcoin Doco. Clearly, he understood Bitcoin’s potential to revolutionize everything from the outset and has been consistently saying the same things ever since.
Dr. Wright outlines some potential changes Bitcoin and IPv6 working in tandem could usher in. He mentions faster device interaction, automated contracts, distributed data storage and validation, key management, contractual features like licensing, better audits, access control, and automated payments as some of the things this technology can facilitate.
An exciting new world with IPv6 and Bitcoin
While Dr. Wright’s presentation in this particular webinar was short and sweet, it hit on the key themes that are important in understanding where this technology is headed.
Bitcoin and IPv6 were made for each other, and they have what Dr. Wright has previously described as a “symbiotic relationship,” complementing each other. Bitcoin’s micropayments allow many potential use cases of IPv6 to become commercially viable, and IPv6 facilitates the peer-to-peer nature of Bitcoin transactions.
Eventually, a world of billions of smart devices will be a reality, always connected and running on the world’s only scalable utility blockchain. This has profound implications for almost every industry, and those thinking ahead are already preparing for how the world will look in the coming years and decades.
To learn more about how Bitcoin and IPv6 work together, check out the following resources:
1. The start of Metanet by Dr. Craig Wright.
2. How Bitcoin and IPv6 were made for each other by Jon Southurst.
Watch: Latif Ladid’s keynote speech: IPv6-Based 5G/6g, IoT and Blockchain
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