Thread by @pesa_africa

Here is a useful stack to think about blockchain/DLT/ "whatever you want to call it"

layer 1 - 4 : all the technical stuff for devs
layer 5: governance
layer 6 & 7 : what average person calls "use cases"

source: Financial Cryptography in 7 Layers by Ian Grigg 1998 1/

Right no, a lot of the activity is at the bottom layers 1 - 4

these are the chain wars POW vs POS vs DPOS vs "whatever else"
these are the "private" vs "public" / permissioned vs permissionless
these are the Bitcoin vs Bitcoin cash/ Ethereum vs EOS

technical jargon area 2/

Right now layer 5 is becoming a hot topic

How do we resolve issues that have nothing to do with logic? eg threat of theft or abuse exists from parties who are trusted to manage the system.? This problem can be overcome with a wide variety of techniques ie governance /3

Layer 6 and 7 are what the average folks call "use cases"

cryptocurrency payments
blockchain for land
blockchain for X (you name it)

this is the "hype" layer.

When people say blockchain is hype - this is the layer they mean 4/

It is quite possible that on this stack Layer 1 - 4 will be an open network.

NOT owned by IBM or ORacle or a single company.

Then competition will move to governance layer 5 - layer 7 5/

We can talk about use cases all day long!

But nothing happens until layer 1 - 5 is resolved IMO 6/

Financial Cryptography in 7 Layers
Ian Grigg
1998
iang.org/papers/fc7.html