Blockchains and the Web

A W3C Workshop on Distributed Ledgers on the Web

29–30 June 2016, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Fill out the expression of interest form or submit a position statement

W3C gratefully acknowledges MIT Media Lab for hosting this workshop.

Many projects and companies are looking at ways to use the Bitcoin blockchain or other public or private distributed ledgers, to record an immutable timestamped public record that can be independently verified by any stakeholder. What does this mean for Web technologies, beyond payments? What emerging capabilities could blockchains enable for the Web, such as distributed identity management? Conversely, should features be added to the Web Platform and to browsers to enable blockchain use cases, such as a JavaScript blockchain API to write to blockchain nodes? With the proliferation of different approaches and technology stacks (like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Hyperledger), is there a need for interchange formats, protocols, or APIs to share transaction data across services and stacks or between public and private networks? What will help Web developers to take advantage of blockchains? When we talk about blockchains as “part of the Web”, we face some specific questions: How does this fit into the same origin security model of the Web? What are the privacy implications, especially when talking about identity management? What part of the Web stack would be involved: client-side, server-side, protocols, interchange formats? What is the relationship to payments, including W3C's Web Payments work? What timelines make sense for looking at standardization for Web-centric aspects of blockchain technologies? Who are the key stakeholders (individuals, organizations, and industries) involved to make sense of the blockchain landscape? What are the next steps? How should we prioritize the radical innovations that are emerging around blockchains? What timelines make sense for looking at standardization for Web-centric aspects of blockchain technologies? Who are the key stakeholders (individuals, organizations, and industries) involved to make sense of the blockchain landscape? What are the next steps? How should we prioritize the radical innovations that are emerging around blockchains? These are questions this aims to answer, and we are seeking blockchain and Web experts to gather together to discuss what needs to happen to integrate blockchains into the Web. This is an exploratory workshop; our goal is to start the conversation in the context of features for the Web, and to review critical questions for incubation. We do not foresee immediate standardization work.

Want to learn more? Attend our weekly webinar! Leading up to the event, Media Lab's Dazza Greenwood is hosting a weekly video webinar with notable attendees, every Thursday at 3:00 PM EDT. You can also view past webinars, if you missed one. You can find more details on the dedicated page for the webinar.

Want to attend? Have something insightful to share? We currently have a limit of only 70 attendees at the workshop. We want to fill the room with deep knowledge about blockchain and the Web, with positive and productive energy, and with imaginative minds that can apply lessons learned about blockchain to the Web stack. We won't just be listening to presentations, but will be actively participating in topic breakouts and working discussions. If you want to participate, please fill out the expression of interest form or submit a position statement. Please note, expressions of interest and position statements are not presentation proposals. This is a workshop, not a conference, and any presentations will be short, with topics suggested by expressions of interest and decided by the chairs and program committee. Our goal is to actively discuss topics, not to watch presentations. Attendees are encouraged to read all accepted expressions of interest prior to the workshop, to facilitate informed discussion. Attendance is free for all invited participants, and open to the public, whether or not W3C members. Unfortunately, the workshop budget does not allow us to provide travel or lodging expenses to attendees. Workshop topics Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following: Core technical components of blockchains and their overlap with the Web, such as: Blockchain APIs, such as JavaScript or REST APIs Blockchain primitives such as transaction initiation, key signing, and wallet management Ledger interchange formats and protocols Smart contracts and conditional execution contexts

Application areas, such as: Identity systems, including privacy, security, and confidentiality factors Rights expression and licensing Decentralized processing, computing, and storage infrastructure

Other considerations, such as: Optimal use cases for blockchains Surveys of existing blockchain software systems Testing mechanisms to increase interoperability, robustness, stability, and confidence in blockchain systems

Out of Scope Payments: this topic is already thriving, and risks dominating the workshop, so we prefer discussions of payment only when they are yoked with other topics (e.g. browser-based wallets for handling both payments and identity)

Non-Web aspects: to keep the workshop focused and productive, we are only examining topics that directly intersect both blockchains and the Web, and especially client-side features that might be added to browsers or formats for interchange

Academic or research topics: the best standards emerge after extensive application development, testing, and real-world deployment; standards typically arise out of a need for interoperability between comparable systems; and implementations do not tend to adopt “speculative” standards that were produced as a result of academic or pure research without having also competed in the marketplace. This workshop will focus on pragamatic tried-and-true topics. Position statements A position statement is not required to attend (you can fill out the expression of interest form instead), but it does help set the topic discussions and to establish a particular point of view. If you wish, you can send us a at <team-blockchain-submission@w3.org>, by 9 June 2016. Our program committee will review the expressions of interest, and select the most relevant topics and perspectives. A good position statement should be a few paragraphs (between 500 and 1000 words) and should include: Your background in blockchain or Web technologies

What topic you would like to lead discussion on, including concrete ideas on how this topic relates directly to the Web or browser-facing features

Links to related supporting resources

Any other topics you think the workshop should cover in order to be effective

A focus on technical issues, not process or platform preference. We plan to talk about the what, not the how. Position statements must be in English, and HTML or plain-text format; images should be included inline in HTML using base64-encoded data URIs. You may include multiple topics, but we ask that each person submit only a single coherent position statement. All suitable submitted expressions of interest will be published and linked to from this workshop page. Who Should Attend Attendance is open to all, and our aim is to get a diversity of attendees from a variety of industries and communities, including: Representatives from the Bitcoin community, and related communities such as Hyperledger and Ethereum

Browser developers interested in adding support for blockchain APIs, identity systems, and other functionality

Digital currency projects

Security and privacy researchers

Financial institutions

Developers of blockchain systems who want to improve interoperability Standardization Counter-arguments There are a lot of voices and conflicting opinions in the blockchain communities. Are you skeptical that standardization should be discussed at all? We also welcome expressions of interest on issues that pose challenges to standardization, helpful to frame workshop topics and serve as a reality check. Please label these submissions “Standards Con” to distinguish them. Event Archive Policy: Video and Transcripts For posterity and for those unable to attend this workshop, we may be recording video and/or audio of the event, and will provide live notes (minuted in IRC) of the presentations and group discussion. Participants will be asked to sign a media waiver.

Goals The goal of the workshop is exploratory. One of the primary outcomes is to bring different voices and perspectives together. While we hope to identify opportunities and possible timelines for standardization, we do not anticipate that W3C will form a Working Group as a direct result of this workshop. Instead, if we do identify areas that need Web standardization, our aim would be to incubate and refine these ideas, to make sure that the right steps are taken at the right time for the key stakeholders involved. What is W3C? W3C is a voluntary standards consortium that convenes companies and communites to help structure productive discussions around existing and emerging technologies, and offers a Royalty-Free patent framework for Web Recommendations. We focus primarily on client-side (browser) technologies, and also have a mature history of vocabulary (or “ontology”) development. W3C develops work based on the priorities of our members and our community.

Logistics W3C's Blockchain Workshop is located on the 6th floor of the MIT Media Lab. The is the Human Dynamics Lab at MIT Media Lab. Organizations interested in becoming are encouraged to contact the organizers. Venue MIT Media Lab 75 Amherst St Room E14, 6th floor Cambridge, MA 02139 United States 8:00–17:00 Social Media and Remote Participation Tweets and other social messages are encouraged to use the hashtag #blockchainweb. Please be respectful and accurate when quoting others. We may have a live video stream… details will follow.

Schedule The workshop will focus around several topics identified by the expressions of interest. Each topic will be introduced by one or more related lightning talks, and will be explored more in-depth by discussion breakouts, conlcuded with joint summaries of the breakouts. The goal of the discussion is not be to resolve the technical issues of the topic, but to determine its relevance and priority to standardization. This schedule may change based on discussions with the program commitee. Day 1: 29 June 08:00–08:30 Registration 08:30–08:45 Opening remarks by Doug Schepers 08:45–09:00 Keynote: “Intro to W3C standards” Wendy Seltzer, W3C. 09:00–09:45 Intro Exercise: Collaboration Stories (3 phases: small breakout, merged breakout, report out “Secret Sauce”) 09:45–10:00 Break 10:00–10:30 Keynote: Arvind Narayanan, “Blockchains, decentralization, and standards” 10:30–11:00 Lightning Talks on Identity, including reputation, personal data, KYC (4–5 talks) 11:00–12:15 Exercise: Identity (3 phases: breakout, report out, group discussion) 12:15–13:30 Lunch, Birds of a Feather Topic tables 13:30–14:00 Lightning Talks on Provenance, including licensing of IP , assets, and services (4–5 talks) 14:00–15:00 Exercise: Provenance (3 phases: breakout, report out, group discussion) 15:00–15:30 Break (includes self-organizing evening plans) 15:30–16:00 Lightning Talks and open group discussion 17:00–17:15 Closing statements 18:30–24:00 Self-organized evening plans Day 2: 30 June 08:00–08:30 Registration 09:00–09:45 Lightning Talks on Blockchain Primitives & APIs and The Kitchen Sink, including all other topics 09:45–10:00 Break 10:00–12:00 Exercise: Blockchain Primitives & APIs and The Kitchen Sink (3 phases: breakout, report out, group discussion) 12:00–12:15 Exercise: Passions & Commitments 12:15–13:30 Lunch, Discussions of Passions & Commitments 13:30–13:45 Personal Exercise: “Propose what would you like to see W3C or this community work on together” 13:45–14:00 Exercise: Dot Voting on proposals 14:00–14:45 Facilitated Discussion: Emerging Priorities for W3C & Community 14:45–15:00 Break 15:00–15:30 Close: Recap by Bailey Reutzel, Actions Items, & Commitments 15:30–17:30 Demos and Open Discussion Speakers Arvind Narayanan is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Princeton. He leads a research team investigating the security, anonymity, and stability of cryptocurrencies as well as novel applications of blockchains. He co-created an online course and textbook on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies. He also leads the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability project to uncover how companies collect and use personal information. He other research interests include decentralization, information privacy and security, and technology policy.

MIT Media Lab For details on the available sponsorship opportunities for this workshop, see our Sponsorship Packages. W3C Workshops, meetups, and other events bring you into direct contact with leading Web technology experts: representatives from industry, research, government, and the developer community. Whether your interests are focused on a particular topic being discussed by a Working Group, or you wish to reach a diverse international audience setting W3C's strategic direction, sponsorship helps your organization reach W3C's engaged participants. Sponsorships offset a portion of our meeting costs, so W3C welcomes multiple sponsors for each event. All proposals for sponsorship are subject to W3C approval. If you're interested in being a sponsor of the W3C Blockchains Workshop, please contact J. Alan Bird, Global Business Development Leader, at <abird@w3.org> or +1 617 253 7823. For additional information, please visit the W3C sponsorship program.