Imagine you are an art collector. You find a fantastic one-of-a-kind original painting that you value at $450. (I recommend “City on Stilts” by Michael Wilson.)
You buy the painting but later realize you don’t own the original. You own one of the 1,000 prints…and the artist is still printing them! At this point, the value of the painting dramatically lowers. Why should anyone buy this work from you for $450 when there are more than 1,000 other paintings that potentially could be sold for less? You’ve been duped, because you bought something for more than it was worth.
We value physical art based mainly on the authenticity of the work. If a painting is one copy out of a thousand, it isn’t original, can’t be authenticated and thus is low in value. With physical paintings, forensic scientists help us verify the authenticity.
We value physical art based mainly on the authenticity of the work. But what about digital content? How can we prove we have the only one?
But what about digital content? How can we prove we have the original file, the only one, the authentic original? Can an engineer prove which text file is the “first edition” of a book?
Walk into my virtual art studio
Welcome in. Take a seat. I just created a wonderful amazing looking digital work of art. I spent some time in Photoshop, I ran some filters and here I have a digital file that looks great and it’s a one-of-a-kind. How much will you pay for it? $5? $10? How do you know I won’t sell this artwork to the next person and lie that it is the original?
Here’s the answer to prove digital authenticity: Cryptocurrenty
Imagine if every artwork ever created had it’s own confirmation code, it’s own proof of authenticity.
Imagine that the one of a kind Ken Griffey Jr. bat you have was permanently authenticated as soon as he signed it- amost as if the bat has a small plaque on the side, proving it is real with a photo of Ken signing his name. As soon as anyone saw it, they would know- yep, that is an authentic Ken Griffey Jr. signed baseball bat. We wouldn’t have to ask “is that original?”, because we would know.
So, what is CryptoCurrency? Basically, it is a huge shared digital record of transactions across the world.
If I send someone money, that transaction is saved into the digital record. Because that digital record is shared, when the transaction is done, we all know the money was transferred. If I paid you with CryptoCurrency such as BitCoin, when you went to pay Thomas for coffee, he could look at the digital record and see the money has now been transferred to him.
Remember when you paid bills over the phone? After completing the payment, the gas company gives you a confirmation code. If your gas is shut off, you can call them and tell them: “Hey, I have a confirmation code here. You should be able look in your book of payments and confirmation codes and see that I made the payment before the due date.” But what if the gas company burns to the ground? All the records are lost. It is the same with credit cards- we depend on credit card companies to remember who paid what. But that money can be tracked, stolen and we lose our money. And what about people who the banks decide they aren’t allowed to have a credit card or a bank account? Just because of some bad choices, they can’t buy baseball bats with a credit card. CryptoCurrency solves this issue by encrypting the transactions and letting anyone transact.
Digital Paintings can have their own verification of authenticity plaque with CryptoCurrency.
There are several ways to authenticate files, but BTProof seems to be the main method. Even Universities are using BitCoin to verify college certificates. Monegraph.com is a startup that plans to allow people to sell the digital rights to an image stored in the Internet, but I am curious what happens when the file disappears off the Internet?
This entire post was inspired by the IDEO futures podcast with Chain.com founder Adam Ludwin. (Listen at Soundcloud or below)
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