29.03.2024

This Non-Profit Company Wants to ‘Decentralize’ Crypto Keys Themselves

According to an announcement on Aug. 5, DAT can act as the custodian of a crypto-key, manage access to personal data or enable automated trading bots to access funds without having access to a full key.

A new proposal wants to take decentralization a step further by decentralizing the private keys themselves.

Tide, a non-profit privacy advocate, claims to have developed a decentralized technology, which gives rise to a trustless bot or Delegated Automated Trustee (DAT) on the blockchain.

Trusting trustless bot with your crypto private keys

Essentially, the key protecting the data or crypto-assets is divided into several pieces and split between a group of nodes. No single node has access to or knowledge of the whole key, or the authority to act on its own. This makes malicious access to your key virtually impossible.

However, the nodes can act in a swarm to perform functions utilizing the key. The user can specify the parameters upon which this authority can be given.

What’s DAT?

The trustless bot can manage access to personal data, perform decentralized authentication and password or key recovery. Business processes which require ongoing access to crypto-assets, can be granted such access immediately, as long as it falls within defined criteria.

Tide co-founder, Michael Loewy, gave Cointelegraph some examples of the form these criteria can take:

“In the context of the Tide ecosystem those instructions may be a set of rules determining which data fields I’m prepared to trade with certain types of organizations – for example, I don’t want any contact details traded with political organizations. That same concept can also be applied to advanced crypto trading – for example, social trading where my instructions may be to follow or mirror the trades or a peer or expert trader.”

Privacy as a service

Existing centralized solutions which address such situations can be vulnerable, and current automated trading bots require access to your private keys. However, the trustless DAT allows trading bots to run on decentralized exchanges without giving up this information, providing an extra level of security.

Maintaining the secrecy of your private keys is essential, as anyone discovering them can get access to your crypto. This is one of the issues facing parties wishing to act as cryptocurrency custodians. The DAT may well be one solution which keeps overall responsibility in the hands of the user, whilst maintaining access for approved functionality.

This Is What a Productive Congressional Blockchain Hearing Looks Like

For once, U.S. lawmakers had an informative conversation about blockchain technology without posturing.It was a sharp contrast from past Capitol Hill proceedings, when lawmakers took their entire allotted time to compare Libra to terrorist attacks or ask pointed questions about how Silicon Valley is biased toward one partisan slant or another. Rather, the small-business hearing saw only detailed questions about the legal or practical implications of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
The specific question at hand was how small businesses might be able to use blockchain technology for data storage or fundraising. Ranking member Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) asked if blockchain has any areas which need to be worked out prior to mass adoption. Protocol Labs’ Marvin Ammori answered that user interfaces are probably the key holdup. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) asked how blockchain can protect personal information and records. PopComm’s Dawn Dickson said an individual can more selectively grant access using blockchain.

Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) opened the hearing by saying that while cryptocurrencies are the obvious use case people associate with blockchain, it is not the only one.

“Much of the power of the internet is concentrated in a few multi-billion dollar companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon”, she said. “Blockchain technology can help small businesses compete on a more level playing field.”

The witnesses likewise focused on practical applications.

“Blockchain is not a silver bullet, but it can solve problems that small businesses face”, said Dickson, whose company provides software services to retailers.

Dickson told CoinDesk after the hearing she felt it was a positive experience, noting that she had been invited to testify as the operator of a small business.

Perianne Boring, who leads the Chamber of Digital Commerce trade group, said the hearing was a step forward in relations between Congress and stakeholders in the private sector.

“The next step is to create incentives for cooperation between companies that access and develop blockchain applications and government agencies focused on helping small businesses innovate and grow”, she said.

Jim Harper, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, described the hearing as another advance in Congress’s push to better understand cryptocurrency and blockchain.

“Agencies and committees are thinking through the details”, he said.

Taxation is probably the largest regulatory issue that needs to be tackled, however, Harper said. The Internal Revenue Service has not published much guidance around taxing crypto, particularly cryptocurrencies being used for spending.

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