Research Talks

A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a new form of Central Bank money accessible to the general public, accepted as a means of payment, legal tender, safe store of value by all citizens, businesses and government agencies. Theoretically, a CBDC should enable the cheap, secure and real-time transfer of value, be accessible without a bank account and be built on an open infrastructure to foster competition and innovation. Last April, after several years of work, the Chinese Government announced the starting of the tests of DCEP (“Digital Currency Electronic Payment”) in four major cities (Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xiong’an). The tests are currently being extended to more areas, such as Hong Kong, where last December 4, Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority (HKMA) Chief Executive Eddie Yue announced that the HKMA and the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) are discussing the technical pilot testing of using the Digital Yuan for making cross-border payments, However, even though China is leading the CBDC race in Asia, there are many other pilot projects about to start in 2021, such as the digital won´s tests in Korea and the digital yen´s tests in Japan, as well as the recently finished UAE´s and Saudi Arabia´s Project Aber.

There is a news story almost every day about how individuals’ personal data are being harvested, shared with and used by third parties without their consent and in ways that have real potential to cause harm. The result is an erosion of user trust and a reluctance to use services that gather sensitive information. This remains true for a significant percentage of individuals even if they could greatly benefit from receiving a personalized health service that they can use to understand their health risks and maintain or improve their overall health. Individuals’ reluctance may stem from uncertainty about how health data services will store and use their data over time. Recent revelations about how Facebook, 23&Me, and other platforms use individuals’ sensitive personal data validates concerns that consumers’ data may be shared with third parties without their informed consent. This presentation discusses how the' Personal Health Wallet Project, a collaboration between Molecular You, the University of British Columbia, StonePaper, and the Digital Technology Supercluster is addressing these concerns by enabling self-sovereign health records management. Information on the project is available.
 

Regardless of the specific application, the common theme of all blockchain technology is establishing trust across multiple independent parties. That is also the mission of digital identity technology, and over the past three years digital identity and blockchain technology have come together into a new decentralized identity model known as self-sovereign identity (SSI). As SSI has matured, it has spawned a four-layer interoperability stack very much like the TCP/IP stack that enabled that enabled the Internet. This talk will trace the origins of the Trust over IP (ToIP) stack, describe the purpose of all four layers (blockchain is only the first layer), explain why it is a “dual stack” of both technology and governance, and finally it will examine the business, legal, and social impacts of enabling a trust layer for the Internet.

Title: Incentives in Blockchains
By Jianyu Niu- Ph.D. student at School of Engineering, University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus)

Abstract:

Selfish mining in Bitcoin has been well studied with various mining strategies proposed and numerous defenses mechanisms suggested. In sharp contrast, selfish mining in Ethereum has not received much attention. Ethereum differs from Bitcoin in that it provides the so-called uncle and nephew rewards in addition to the (standard) block rewards used in Bitcoin. This complicates the analysis. In this talk, we will cover the selfish mining attack in Ethereum to understand its potential threat. Specifically, we will develop some new methods to compute the long-term average mining rewards of the selfish miner. We find that the threshold of making selfish mining profitable in Ethereum is lower than that in Bitcoin. In other words, selfish mining poses a more serious threat to Ethereum due to the presence of uncle and nephew rewards.

Title: Applying technological innovations to respond to COVID-19 Challenges: Orienting Perspectives on public health and privacy for enabling policy decisions
By Anisha Dhillon- Dual Master of Archival Studies and Master of Library and Information Studies student at the UBC School of Information

Abstract:

The COVID-19 Witness Webinar project addresses the focal question: "Can governments respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic with technological innovations, including blockchain, and respect citizen privacy?" The paper and project outcomes represent results of a "Witness Webinar” held on May 5, 2020 that brought together a diverse range of global experts to discuss the focal question and includes an environment scan presenting supplemental research on technologies and approaches being adopted in different countries around the world (including Canada) to address the challenges associated with COVID-19.

Title: Bits Under the Mattress: Understanding Different Risk Perceptions and Security Behaviors of Crypto-Asset Users
By Artemij Voskobojnikov- Ph.D. student at the Department of Computer Science. University of British Columbia

Abstract:

Crypto-assets are unique in tying financial wealth to the secrecy of private keys. Prior empirical work has attempted to study end-user security, from both technical and organizational perspectives. However, the link between individual's risk perceptions and security behavior was often obscured by the heterogeneity of the subjects in small samples. This paper contributes quantitative results from a survey of 395 crypto-asset users recruited by a novel combination of deep and broad sampling. The analysis accounts for heterogeneity with a new typology that partitions the sample in three robust clusters - cypherpunks, hodlers, and rookies, - using five psychometric constructs. The constructs are found in established behavioral theories with items purposefully adapted to the domain. We demonstrate the utility of the suggested typology in better understanding users' characteristics and security behaviors. These insights inform the design of crypto-asset solutions, guide risk communication, and suggest recommendations for future central bank digital currencies.

Title: Blockchain for Climate Foundation: Multidisciplinary Design for an Ethereum Prototype
By Chelsea Palmer- Masters student in Library Science at the UBC School of Information

Abstract:

This presentation will give an overview of a product design collaboration between the presenter (Chelsea Palmer) and Vancouver's Blockchain for Climate Foundation, in which the Foundation's dedicated research and development for "Putting the Paris Agreement on a public blockchain" was crystallized into the scope and specifications for a platform prototype. Chelsea will discuss the diverse toolkit utilized in this collaboration, adapting a "user story"-centred Agile methodology to the multidisciplinary needs of a use case within international climate change coordination. We'll then cover a few higher level points: why the Foundation finds it crucial to position this prototype on the Ethereum blockchain, the importance of privacy-by-design in the decentralized development space, and the deep value our small team found in employing Lemieux & Feng's (2020) "Question-Led System Design Framework" to drive our generative design conversations forward.