If you are coming here to TARTLE you probably have at least a basic knowledge of blockchain. On the off chance you are new here, blockchain is most commonly associated with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It is a means of recording information that relies on unique lines of code that are copied on nodes around the world rather than on a centralized server. This makes it secure since the information exists in many copies at once and every transaction is recorded. Every time that your favorite crypto changes hands a record of that translation is made and copied. That means every blockchain node in the world contains a record of every owner going all the way back to its origin. If you think about it that is pretty cool. It’s like being able to take a dollar bill out of your wallet and instantly being able to see everywhere it’s been and everyone who has ever had it in their own wallet. As cool as this is, is it possible to use this same technology elsewhere?
The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. We’ve actually seen an example of what that looks like in pop culture just recently. There is a scene in The Mandalorian in which Boba Fett, after getting his armor back from Mando, shows him a chain code, showing everyone who has owned the armor from Boba back to the first one. That is literally an example of blockchain being applied to a material object in a mainstream science fiction show. Again, that’s pretty cool. It shows knowledge of blockchain is getting out in front of the regular population.
However, that’s still fiction. How might that work in the real world? Think about those guys who are selling knock off versions of high end things like Rolex watches or Gucci bags or maybe the real thing but heavily discounted. So discounted that maybe you go home and wonder if you just bought something that was stolen. How would you prove it? And even if you could, how could you make sure that it got back to whomever the rightful owner is?
If the manufacturer was making use of blockchain technology, it would be simple. There would be a code on the device, or even a chip within it that could transmit the code so anyone with a receiver could check it out. That code would then be checked against a blockchain registry demonstrating authorized chains of custody. If the person you bought that killer watch from isn’t on the registry, then yeah, you bought something stolen.
This can also be used for detecting inefficiencies in a supply chain. If a given shipment has been out of scanning range for longer than expected, it would send up a warning flag that either the system isn’t working the way that it is supposed to or that someone is trying to do something nefarious.
We’ve also made mention of how blockchain could be used to keep secure track of things like property titles, without the need for middle men like banks and title companies.
With blockchain already firmly established as the means through which cryptocurrencies are traded, it is only a matter of time before it starts breaking more into the mainstream. Given that many companies now accept various cryptos as valid means of payment, that crypto is regularly discussed on national news programs, and it has even begun to penetrate pop culture, this time is not far away. In just a few years, it is highly likely that you’ll be purchasing a new car, home, wedding ring, and a host of other things with a blockchain based chain of ownership.
This is the way.
If you are coming here to TARTLE you probably have at least a basic knowledge of blockchain. On the off chance you are new here, blockchain is most commonly associated with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to [TARTLEcast 00:00:08]. With your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:25):
Jason Rigby, chief conscious marketing officer of TARTLE. How are you this morning?
Jason Rigby (00:29):
Alexander McCaig. Doing well. We just had some coffee. We did an earlier podcast that was great.
Alexander McCaig (00:39):
Still a little bit of coffee left.
Jason Rigby (00:40):
I did a bunch of reading this morning.
Alexander McCaig (00:42):
That's good.
Jason Rigby (00:43):
And then I read on our articles this morning. I meditated. So I'm ready to go.
Alexander McCaig (00:48):
You're ready to rock and roll.
Jason Rigby (00:49):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (00:52):
Walking through New York city, you'll have those guys that are just unloading fake Gucci bags out of the back of vans?
Jason Rigby (00:59):
Yes, I love that. Why is there a part of me that loves the whole-
Alexander McCaig (01:05):
Hustling. People just hustling.
Jason Rigby (01:06):
Yes. Yes, I love that.
Alexander McCaig (01:07):
I do like it, right? And it's one of those, "Do you have a permit?" You know what I mean?
Jason Rigby (01:13):
Hey buddy, let me show you something I got here in my van. I just love that.
Alexander McCaig (01:17):
And they look really legit.
Jason Rigby (01:20):
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Alexander McCaig (01:21):
Right? And this fact of people creating these... I'm just putting my coffee down folks. These fake counterfeit bags, or even if it is a legitimate one, knowing if it came from the right factory, it was manufactured in Italy by some SPA. That requires history in tracking. But when you're buying those bags, you're like, "I don't know where it came from, but I am buying it at a discount. It looks pretty good" right? You know what I mean? When we look at what blockchain has done, the question is, can we apply that to things like manufactured items? Where is this legitimate? What is the chain of ownership on the manufacturing of this handbag? Or for instance, an Intel processing chip, can we put a blockchain on it to say, "Oh, it's been on this device only. No one's ever stripped it and reused it in a different device."
Jason Rigby (02:25):
It permanently records everything that goes on.
Alexander McCaig (02:28):
And that's the cool part about the blockchain, it looks at the provenance, and what that means is who's the original sole owner and origin of this thing, and how has it moved over the course of its life? So as it touches hands or becomes purchased, how do we take that and put it into the supply chain, so we can say that this isn't a counterfeit bag?
Jason Rigby (02:48):
Yeah. And I think we can run through the whole chain for people to fully understand this. Let's say it's a super secure server and it's a whole rack and it's going to a government agency and there's multiple components in there, and then you have this one company and they specialize in making these super secure quantum computer, top secret because each of them-
Alexander McCaig (03:15):
Don't get me amped up.
Jason Rigby (03:17):
Top secret computers that are in this rack with this huge cooling system and it's going to the CIA.
Alexander McCaig (03:22):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (03:23):
So how would this work with that?
Alexander McCaig (03:25):
Well, that's interesting. Because when you think about the supply chain, right? If data was in that supply chain, what it's saying is we can track when it leaves this area and a new owner or if it hits a new type of hard drive, it's going right that change of hands or geographic location to the blockchain.
Jason Rigby (03:43):
They can put on a DOM meter in there [crosstalk 00:03:45] GPS locator
Alexander McCaig (03:47):
Yeah. It's like a GPS locator. Yeah.
Jason Rigby (03:47):
Isn't that cool? It's like this was going 55 miles per an hour, so that they could track that rack unit that's in the back of that big truck to know that if it stopped... like, "Okay, this is going to see, "Hey, it was in North Carolina and it stopped for two hours. Why did it stop for two hours? Was there espionage going on here?
Alexander McCaig (04:04):
Was somebody messing with these things, like putting in something false? You know what I mean? That's sort of metadata. Metadata is just the descriptive extra data that comes with the original thing. That can be tracked in the smart contract. And this contract is something that is verified on the blockchain. So is this contract of information that talks about the genesis of this item? We can say that, "Oh, move from here to here. Why did it go over to the CIA? It was supposed to continue to go here, but somebody removed its location or the natural occurrence of how it was supposed to change [inaudible 00:04:41], and they were messing with it here. That would be recorded, which is interesting.
Alexander McCaig (04:45):
And so when you look at things to see if they are false or not, when you're talking about securing the supply chain, they spoke to the idea that identity is not enough. Saying, "Oh, here's the original object. Oh, it's still the original object when I received it." What happened in between? Something could've been manipulated and all you're receiving is the identity of it, but is the historical occurrence of how it continued to keep that identity safe and stable? I don't know. Let me go back into the blockchain that has been recorded and it's on a public ledger to make sure that nothing funky happened before I, as the end-user received it.
Jason Rigby (05:24):
Yeah. You remember the old school fears of taking your wedding ring to the jeweler and then them putting a cubic zirconian in there and taking the diamond away.
Alexander McCaig (05:35):
No. Like swapping the diamond out.
Jason Rigby (05:36):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (05:38):
So a couple of months ago, I recently got engaged and we'd brought the ring over to the jeweler, and obviously I bought the ring too big because I'm not intelligent, and I didn't think about a good way to get it sized while I was making it. But I'm like, "Are you going to give me that gold back that you're cutting out of that thing? I mean, this thing is pretty big." He said, "Oh, it just turns to dust." Well, give me all the gold dust. I know what you're doing in here. You've got a pile of gold dust, melting it down.
Jason Rigby (06:10):
If you have one of those every day. And I think with diamonds, blockchain would be even more important, and artwork, they're doing that.
Alexander McCaig (06:20):
You know what it reminds me of? Did you ever see blade runner?
Jason Rigby (06:23):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:24):
How the eyeball has a written serial manufactured code in it that has a genealogy of its manufacturing. It was like a half-baked idea of blockchain based in a blade runner.
Jason Rigby (06:39):
Yes, it was. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (06:39):
But that's an interesting concept because if we look at us as human beings in our own genealogy, we can trace that back. But we haven't done that for the products and services that we buy and interact with every single day. And an easy way for us to do that, to secure that supply chain is to put in a genealogy on items, whether it be a desk chair or the camera that's recording us, or these microphones or the processing chips within those microphones. Having that genealogy, that record of history verifies the identity and how we've moved or migrated. You can see the migration of us through our 23andMe to say, we move from here to here to here to here, right? Or we can do the same thing with whatever that object might be. It was made over here in Malaysia, manufactured, shipped here, gone here, touched this, did that, and now it's in my room. And I know for a fact that it's gone through these specific people and I can go back and check the blockchain to say, "I in fact, have a legitimate product."
Jason Rigby (07:32):
I love that. I want people to understand this. So the CIA computer... I'm going to harp on this [crosstalk 00:07:40]-
Alexander McCaig (07:40):
I love how you just rip on the CIA. It's fine. I don't care.
Jason Rigby (07:44):
So let's say that there was a circuit board in one of those systems. And the article talks about this, that circuit board from the chips that are in the circuit board, each of those things can be recorded and validated.
Alexander McCaig (07:56):
That's exactly correct. So every component inside of your phone should have that validation. Because what if the CIA comes in and swaps something out, a device that's listening, like they've tapped your phone. Well, that's not legitimized. Where's the genealogy of this? This wasn't supposed to be in here. And you can know that ahead of time. So not only do you have the physical manipulation, right? From a security standpoint, you're preventing through putting things on the blockchain with these smart contracts, but think about manipulation of data.
Alexander McCaig (08:26):
So in medical trials and medical information, as doctors are sharing information between one another, no one can manipulate it like a game of telephone and say, "Oh, I can put my political ideologies and dogmas on this information and then share it to the person." We always have the genealogy, the progenesis of that data, the provenance of it that can be verified. And that's another beautiful thing about TARTLE, every time a piece of data is bought and sold on the marketplace, that's recorded on the blockchain. So you know where that was coming from in its progenesis. That's the beautiful part about it. So when someone begins to manipulate that raw information that was purchased. Well, that's crap. Because we know for a fact that it was truthfully purchased here, and these are the people that owned it and that was that raw data.
Jason Rigby (09:15):
Yeah. And there was a CTO, Logan Spears of Sixgill, and he talks about this, he said it's also useful in certain kinds of compliance environments. He said, "We have a pilot with a company that does clinical trials where there's a high incentive to mess with the data."
Alexander McCaig (09:27):
Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. With the medical standpoint. It prevents people from coming in and putting their biases on the information.
Jason Rigby (09:33):
And then a conclusion that you want to support you for... I need this for your phase three clinical trial that go through.
Alexander McCaig (09:40):
And I can kind of tweak the data so it's in my favor. But data is agnostic, data is non-dogmatic, data is strictly observational. So it keeps it in that raw, beautiful format of what data is. In its truthful state. That's the beauty about securing that supply chain.
Jason Rigby (09:57):
Supply chain management. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (09:58):
Whether it's supply chain of data or supply chain of a physical product.
Jason Rigby (10:00):
Right. No. And one of the things that they talk about, and I think is interesting is when they get into blockchain, is the forecast of what blockchain's going to end up being. And they talk about banking is 29%, process manufacturing is 11%, discreet manufacturing... Which I like that. What is it? I don't know. Is that blow up dolls?
Alexander McCaig (10:22):
I don't know with discreet. I don't know what they're talking about with discreet. Yeah.
Jason Rigby (10:25):
Discrete manufacturing, professional services, and then retail. Retail's 6%, professional... And then they have another 36%, but banking's got it.
Alexander McCaig (10:36):
Well yeah. Because banking requires identity. And you're talking about saying who holds the value of those assets, and we want to make sure that they're transferred and recorded properly. There's efficient way to do that without the reliance on a bank itself or a third party.
Jason Rigby (10:50):
But this just shows me so much growth. Let's use high-end bags. So let's say Louis Vuitton wants to have blockchain for their bags. Because if you're going to pay 2500 bucks, why not have a blockchain? And then you can know every process of that bag.
Alexander McCaig (11:04):
Yeah. Just put a low energy RFID chip inside the bag, just stitch it right in. So if someone scans it, you can go back and then verify that bag over time.
Jason Rigby (11:16):
Yes. Yeah. Exactly.
Alexander McCaig (11:17):
That's cool.
Jason Rigby (11:18):
Yes. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (11:18):
It's really cool.
Jason Rigby (11:19):
And you could also know exactly where it went and how it went from all the different... I mean, they could have a big device that is on the bag from the moment the bag is being created and who it's being created by.
Alexander McCaig (11:33):
Or even if it's being returned to a store, or when you're doing that initial purchase. I'd stand there and be like, if I'm going to spend $2,000 on a handbag, which I think is stupid in the first place, "Scan it for me. Prove to me. Prove it." Or if someone goes to return it, the store can be like, "Prove it. Prove you bought it from here." You know what I mean? And then that rids of receipts and all that other nonsense.
Jason Rigby (11:56):
Because 6% of retail, that says that blockchain is just in the very beginning.
Alexander McCaig (12:02):
I know. It's just kicking off. And people will begin to see the value of having that sort of decentralized network to trust and verify without having a person to say, "Oh, this is it." It's just everybody saying that this is it.
Jason Rigby (12:16):
Yeah. Supply chain management I think is, especially with sensitive items, big items, is going to be the way to the future.
Alexander McCaig (12:23):
Most definitely.
Jason Rigby (12:24):
Yeah. By far.
Alexander McCaig (12:25):
That was fun. Thanks. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Thank you for listening to TARTLEcast. With your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
Alexander McCaig (12:53):
[inaudible 00:12:56].
