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35 This is also known as interoperability.
36 There are, of course, a number of broader technical and other issues relating to DLTs and their inter alia advantages
and disadvantages, as well as their legal, regulatory, security, privacy, and commercial implications. They are noted or
discussed briefly but are generally beyond the scope of this paper and will not be detailed in depth.
37 Mappo (2019) Blockchain Governance 101, available at http:// bit .ly/ 2XYLLgP
38 Hsieh, Y; Vergne, J & Wang, S (2018) The Internal and External Governance of Blockchain-based Organizations:
Evidence from Crypto-currencies, available at http:// bit .ly/ 32zdKHn

39 See the Bitcoin Core ‘Bitcoin Improvement Proposals’ voting process. Ibid.. See also WhaleCalls (2017) Fact or
FUD — ’BlockStream , Inc is the main force behind Bitcoin (and taken over)’, available at https:// bit .ly/ 2Urfyhl
40 Individuals have been passed the torch of leadership from a founder or foundations created by interested stakeholders
may influence funding and development efforts. See Van Wirdum, A (2016) Who Funds Bitcoin Core Development?
How the Industry Supports Bitcoin's 'Reference Client', https:// bit .ly/ 2tTcPlf; Lopp, J (2016) Who Controls Bitcoin
Core?, available at https:// bit .ly/ 2IX90Wt; See also the Bitcoin Foundation at http:// bit .ly/ 2LshRQi
41 Oracles can become a major problem as they can gang up and become a cartel.
42 Blockchain Hub (2018) Blockchain Oracle, available at http:// bit .ly/ 2JIgWb2
43 Oracles can also be divided into machines (‘sensors that generate and send digital information in a smart-contract-
readable format’) and users (a large group of humans reporting on an event who may be compensated with digital
assets such as crypto-currency.)
44 Aeternity (2018) Blockchain Oracles (2018), available at http:// bit .ly/ 2NYOc3g
45 ‘The trusted execution environment, or TEE, is an isolated area on the main processor of a device that is separate
from the main operating system. It ensures that data is stored, processed and protected in a trusted environment. TEE
provides protection for any connected ‘thing’ by enabling end-to-end security, protected execution of authenticated
code, confidentiality, authenticity, privacy, system integrity and data access rights.’ Hayton, R (2018) Trusted execution
environments: What, how and why?, https:// bit .ly/ 2Hjb21B; See also Global Platform (2018) Introduction to Trusted
Execution Environments, https:// bit .ly/ 2ObgLHr; Sabt, S; Achemlal, M & Bouabdallah, A (2015) Trusted Execution
Environment: What It Is, and What It Is Not, available at http:// bit .ly/ 2XNvaS1
46 See also http:// bit .ly/ 2YgwrQO
47 For example, Nakamoto for Bitcoin and Buterin for Ethereum.
48 Adapted from http:// bit .ly/ 2YgwrQO
49 Like any POW system, Ethereum is heavily dependent on the hashrate of their miners. The more the miners, the more
hashrate, and the more secure and faster the system.
50 A mainnet may become so loaded that the gas required to write a block soared in cost. This occurred in April 2019 with
ETH. This is a major problem since the more load on a main-net, the higher the block cost, thus limiting throughput and
lowering the usage. This is a game theory restriction that by-design keeps the usage of the infrastructure low. To power
many more transactions in the future, Ethereum though will not rely on a single mechanism but rather on a series of
innovations in sharding, Plasma, Casper, and state channels – all set to be activated in the multi-phase Serenity upgrade
in which Casper style POS consensus will be rolled out first to secure a new ‘Beacon Chain.’ The non-profit developer
group Fuel Labs in the meantime launched its ‘Fuel’ sidechain, which specifically takes aim at lowering the gas costs for
stablecoin payments. See Blockonomi (2019) Meet "Fuel": Toward Scaling Ethereum in the Here and Now, available at
https:// bit .ly/ 34uQeeX
51 There is no fixed price of conversion. It is up to the sender of a transaction to specify any gas price they like. On the
other side, it is up to the miner to verify any transactions they like (usually ones that specify the highest gas price). The
average gas price is typically 20 Gwei (or 0.00000002 ETH). The point though is that fees for transaction processing
may vary wildly, disrupting the economics of running a DLT.
52 A transaction sent to the EVM costs some discrete amount of gas (e.g. 100 gas) depending on how many EVM
instructions need to be executed.
53 Put in link – game theory
54 This can increase during times of high network traffic as there are more transactions competing to be included in the
next block. See http:// bit .ly/ 30GTdyZ
55 Meaning that – as Alan Turing predicated - it can undertake an infinite number of computational permutations until a
solution is reached.

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