Web 2.5: Bridging the Gap - TOKEN2049 London 2022

nice so my name is Adi banari I'm a founder and CEO of a company called applied blockchain uh we're a web 3 development company and we're based just across this River in Canary Wharf at a place called level 39. we've been there since 2015. so we've been in this space for quite a while we've learned a few lessons and that's really what leads us and uh and drives Us in the way we build Solutions in the space we've also got a couple of products of our own that we've been developing and I'll take you through those here and they're really about Bridging the Gap between web 2 and web3 and I'll explain why uh before I start I want to relate to the events of the last couple of days uh I think it's uh it's a little bit hard to ignore and the main thing for me about these events is really to think about fundamentals right because I got into this space because when I looked at blockchain technology I saw technical efficiency I saw the ability to be able to transact and trade in a way that's technically very secure and efficient and I think that's something which is which we can really bring to the way we transact Buy sell pay and trade Assets in the world today and tomorrow but the technology itself is is underpinned by the way it's used and the fundamentals mean that it has to be decentralized so the platforms the nodes the validators the control of the of the blockchain itself has to be decentralized that's not just a buzzword it's not just a philosophy it's something that actually underpins the security of the the technology that you're using so I think it's uh it's very important when you look at the projects and when you look at some of the projects that are out there that are huge that have very very very big numbers behind them look at the fundamentals where's the value what are the tokens what are they actually worth what's behind them what's the technology how is it deployed uh and and look for really where the gaps are because there's a lot of things out there which really lack the fundamentals and if you ask me what's going to survive in the long term here it's the project and the technology that really sticks with those fundamentals okay so Bridging the Gap between web 2 and web3 so web 3 for me is really where we want to get to it's really about embracing that technical efficiency being able to trade and to have all our assets and our funds and be able to directly transact with each other in a secure and safe environment that's relatively cheap and fast with a minimum number intermediaries that's web three in order to get to web3 though we need to move on web 2. and web 2 today is where we exist right it's where we live it's where all of our identities and credentials and all of our data resides and it's also where all of the information about our assets resides right so before we get to everything being on web3 we have to take web 2 with us what now if you think about web 2 today we look at all the different systems that are out there social media platforms Banks and bank accounts Credit Agencies uh kyc checks that we might do and so on and what we explore doing and we do this with a lot of the companies that we work with who we've got solutions for is how do we Bridge the data right how do we understand and be able to verify and check things that exist in web 2 and allow that data and those checks to drive the activity and the movement of assets and funds in web3 and we we deal with things like uh invoices as an asset bank accounts where we we have historical information about about people that might be might be checked for credit uh obviously social media and that's part of people's identities uh and other credentials that are checked through kyc processes and so on so if you look throughout this conference you'll see lots of companies out there doing things like kyc checks but there's a big question about how do you take these web 2 checks and verify them and work three um and so the two main areas that we find that we look at uh that we need this information for one is tokenization of real world assets so how do we get the information Behind These real world assets and know that it's true in order to be able to automatically transact be able to transact and invest through defy and so on how do we verify those credentials and the same thing with identities and it could be identities of people or identities of businesses right and identities are multi-layered right it's not just is this the person who I think it is it's also what else do I know about them and how many parties can vouch for them and what sort of historical information might strengthen what I need to know or think about them before I make my decision in relation to them right so that could come from a from a whole range of sources and that's true for people for companies for assets now the way that this is done today in most cases in web 3 um in particular where private data is involved right so data that's in social media accounts bank accounts and so on is we still have an intermediary right the solutions where we have a standard web 2 application it talks to apis of third parties it pulls the data and then it sends it to the blockchain right now that looks fine the problem with that is that when the when the blockchain application when the web3 smart contract wants to verify something about that information it really has no way to know whether that information is valid or true right it's basically trusting this server and this server is just an application that's hosted by someone and it could be doing anything right it might not it might not even be going to that word through API so that web2 API right we have to trust that application and that basically means that we can't trust it and so we can't really move assets let alone valuable assets on that basis or we shouldn't be okay now if this is data that isn't sensitive or that isn't private then we would use an oracle right we do something like chain link and we could just query the data through chain link nodes and then the the web3 application will be able to make this decision on that basis but if this is information that's private sensitive held in web 2 accounts bank accounts social media accounts and other accounts that you wouldn't want to show other people then we need a different type of solution and that's what we built with silent data it's the silent data is a solution that connects with different web 2 apis pulls the data in in a way that it can't be seen and can't be manipulated by whoever's hosting it and then creates proofs that can be verified by word free applications by smart contracts okay and the data isn't shared with the blockchain and it isn't shared with the validators right and it's got and it's a cryptographic audit trial so the smart contract knows where the data's come from it can be validated it knows how the data was queried yeah and so we have all of the proof cryptographically verified um we we connect with different types of data sources we've implemented this for D5 so in D5 we might have investors who might need to be verified for kyc for Amo reasons uh we might have borrowers who again those borrowers need to be verified in order to know whether we can whether the protocol should lend to them on an uncollateralized basis so what information do we need in order to be able to lend without holding collateral and again we could plug into all this type of information which is too sensitive to be shared through a public Oracle but could be shared through this type of solution um and and why is this unique and why is it safe so it verifies the web 2 data for web3 applications um it does it in a confidential way so the data again isn't shared with anyone it'll work with any blockchain because all the blockchain smart contracts need to do is handle the cryptography in order to verify the proofs and the the the the certification and we can use it for real world assets and real world identities and so on we've tested this implementation we've tested it with Intel because we're using their technology for secure enclaves so there's a hardware secure technology here which is where the data gets processed Intel rotor paper published a paper about silent data and how it can be used to secure bank account data and to allow it to be queried privately without revealing it we've worked with the FCA in a digital sandbox EU and so on a whole bunch of organizations obviously we've had security audits on the likes of kadelski and we worked very closely with a blockchain called algorand as well as other blockchains as well um so that that's silent data another product we've been working with uh where again we're sticking to the the technology fundamentals and the cryptography and making sure everything is done correctly from the ground up is a bridge right it's called London Bridge because we're based here and we look out the window and that's what we see um and the the bridge itself is initially between the algorand and ethereum blockchains and it's a trustless bridge all right trust this bridge we think of this as Bridge Bridges 2.0 so it's very different to the types of bridges that are out there today where you have a middleman who's effectively watching something on one chain and on that basis doing something else on another chain and that middle man can be hacked compromised and walk off with the funds of all intents and purposes with a trustless bridge the cryptography is strung together end to end between the two blockchains and the validators the bridge operators in the middle can't interfere okay they don't have the power to Mint on their own or to interfere with the with the transactions and so the validation happens on both sides end to end the way we achieve this is again using secure Enclave technology so we validate the blockchains inside a securing clave using a tested code that we can't modify and we can't access and the blockchain on the other side can then verify that's been the case and that the verifications are all correct and then mint on the new chain on that basis so this is an end-to-end Solution that's based on uh on on trustless cryptography um so those are the two products London Bridge and Silent data and apply blockchain as a company as I mentioned we're a team of 100 developers 100 100 strong team based in London and in Portugal we have an office in Porto as well we've worked with a whole range of companies including some of the ones on here and partners we did a recent piece of work for Ledger implementing an ethereum EIP into the The Ledger products and we've worked with a lot of these companies doing various protocols D5 protocols nft Solutions marketplaces wallets and so on so a lot of experience a lot of deep experience going into building what we think are a solid Solutions okay thank you very much [Applause] you're always so efficient with your time you know what I mean you're always on point yeah I'm really interested just to kind of know particularly this year with everything that's been going on in crypto you know how does it actually affect apply blockchain are you guys just continuing to build out and execute on your products and not being too worried about what's currently happening on the price and volatility of the markets you know how do you run your business um especially in a year that we've had yeah so as I mentioned at the beginning we've been around since 2015.

I know oh this isn't the first crypto winter I know and as well as building um you know resilient and and good applications you know we've learned how to make the company resilient as well yeah um so we're you know going through one crypto winter was very very painful we only just survived it and this time around we we grew substantially in you know in the last two years of the room at the moment people are still building a lot right so we're still getting more and more projects coming in and we're growing the team um going forward depends how the market pans out right because some of our projects come from existing Industries some come from crypto obviously it's all you know it's all interlinked and how do you find being based here in London since 2015 I mean surely you guys could have gone out to Asia or you could have gone maybe to the Middle East yeah no obviously reasons to stay here in London yeah so first of all our customers are all over yeah so half our customers in the US funny enough well we don't have a presence yeah um a lot of our customers are UK London's obviously a tremendous business Hub right you just need to look around to to to see that our developers are spread but they're mostly London Portugal um and uh yeah I mean it's really because there's an ecosystem here there's so many companies to work with there's so many people to meet uh and so many people pass through here as well but it's just a great place to to be based well it's great to see you doing what you're doing you've got a booth here as well right so if anybody wants to know more just just down there uh you can meet Anna Sean Miguel they'll be happy to to chat to any of you Addie thanks so much man appreciate everything that you do doing a great job