Introducing bSocial and the Block Post Network

Social networks are powerful tools for allowing people to communicate and share their thoughts, videos, and cat pictures. Various flavors of social networks have popped up, with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram among the most famous. Starting a social network is no easy feat, as the users are locked in hard to the current networks. Moving over to a new network is also not very easy, as all your old cat pictures do not move with you.

To solve this in a long-term and sustainable way, we introduce bSocial, a social network built on open protocols on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. All data on the network is posted and therefore owned by the users themselves. This includes all meta-data, including likes, follows, friend requests, reposts and comments. Even tipping and paywalls are integrated into the protocol, using the micro-payment capabilities of Bitcoin. Moving to a different site or app is not a problem anymore, all your data and meta-data moves with you.

Block Post Network

The first full implementation of this group of protocols in bSocial is implemented on the website https://blockpost.network/. All interactions on the website are stored on-chain in open protocols and are accessible to everybody to see and use.

Block Post is meant to be a full implementation of the bSocial protocol. A beta version has been launched with limited starting functionality.

Censorship

Especially in the US, censorship is a hot issue, since the first amendment is so strongly anchored in law. This, however, does not apply to commercial entities, like Facebook, Twitter, or Google. They are free to moderate or censor at will on their platforms, and this has arguably been done a lot in the recent years.

On a network built on open protocols and an open blockchain, it is extremely hard to completely censor any person or opinion. Any application that censors its users, risks losing those users to a competing application, as none of the data the user has posted is unique to that application. Moving to another application has almost no costs to the user and it should even be possible to use multiple different applications at the same time, with the same view of the data.

bSocial is aimed to be a completely open network that facilitates open dialogue and sharing of ideas, and cat pictures, of course.

Data integrity

One of the advantages of posting data on bSocial to Bitcoin, even if some data will be pruned in the future and it will only be available on indexers, is data integrity. Since the data is posted to Bitcoin in a transaction that is included in a block, the data integrity can always be validated with the block headers and an SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) proof.

This is of great value, especially to increase accountability and transparency of what was said in the past. It is not possible to rewrite history.

Identity

With no central authority on a decentralized social network, how do we identify unique users, even across applications? This is handled in bSocial with the Bitcoin Attestation Protocol (BAP), which allows any user to create an identity and use that on the network. This is completely permissionless and the blockchain is used as the only source of truth regarding keys and published information about the users.

The advantage of using BAP is that the identity is decoupled from keys or addresses and allows the user to rotate signing keys at will, as frequently as desired. It is also very easy to create a public profile, with attributes that are allowed to be seen by anybody, but the protocol also has built-in ways of verifying attributes by third parties through attestations. This allows decentralized “blue checkmarks” on users who want to use their real identities and it even allows for fully decentralized KYC (Know Your Customer) services.

An identity does not have to be managed by the application the user is using, although this is the easiest way to get started. A user can move the identity, and the management of keys for signing, to a separate dedicated (mobile) application. This makes it much easier for the user to migrate from one application to another, but also allows the user to use multiple applications at the same time, with the same identity. It is of course also easy for the user to create a large number of identities, to separate out private and public activity on the network.

Incentives

bSocial is built on top of Bitcoin. This means it is built on a foundation with a built-in token, and monetization is a first-world citizen. Any operator of a service on the bSocial network will want to be paid for the service they deliver to users. This could be in the form of advertising on the site, a paid subscription for accessing data, or a micro-fee for an interaction on the network. Site operators are completely free in finding the best model for themselves and their users and the protocol puts no requirements on site operators in this regard.

Block Post has decided to add a small fee to any payment transactions initiated on the Block Post Network to help pay for operation and development. Only tips and paywall payments are subject to this small fee, other interactions will only have to pay the transaction costs to the miners and are therefore extremely cheap. At the moment of writing this, a like or a small post costs around 0.03 cents. The most expensive transaction, an upload of a large image, could cost around 10 cents, but that depends on the size of the image.

Third party services

Since all the data in bSocial is open and available for all to see, it is possible for third parties to create services for the network, other than posting, liking, etc. These third-party services could be offering analytics, notifications, trend watching, and other services the social network sites do not offer directly. A completely open data network will open up a slew of new services we have not been able to see in the past.

The protocols

The protocols used in bSocial are B, MAP, AIP, BAP and BPP. The protocols have all been registered with Bitcoin Schema at https://bitcoinschema.org.

B

Bitcoin Data Protocol

B is a protocol to store arbitrary data on the Bitcoin blockchain. Files, text, video's or your cat pictures can be stored on-chain with the B protocol.

MAP - key / value protocol

Magic Attribute Protocol

A system for mapping arbitrary hypermedia to a global identifier. Basically a key, value pair protocol that is used to give context to all the data posted to the bSocial network.

AIP

Author Identity Protocol

A simple and flexible method to sign arbitrary data with Bitcoin digital signatures. AIP is used in bSocial to validate data and to associate each post to a certain user, thereby also confirming ownership for that user.

BAP

Bitcoin Attestation Protocol

The BAP protocol is used for managing identities in bSocial. Addresses and keys can be rotated at will and attestations allow to create a network of verified data and even KYC.

BPP

Bitcoin Paywall Protocol

The BPP protocol takes care of defining the way users can negotiate paywalls on the different sites on the bSocial network.

Indexers

Having the data on the Bitcoin blockchain is great, but not very useful for application developers. The data is not easily accessible. For accessing the data, an index needs to be created of the data stored on-chain and stored in a more accessible way for applications to access. This is accomplished with indexers that listen to the blockchain and will parse and store the data in real-time in a separate database.

At Block Post, we index the data using Bitbus and a dedicated indexer application called bsocial-planaria, powered by bmap. All the data is pulled from the Bitcoin blockchain, stored, parsed, and indexed in a MongoDB database for further processing and access by the applications. For the identity part, bap-planaria is used to make sure all the identity information is verified and correctly processed.

The indexers are all open source and available on GitHub.

Note on Illegal Content

When you post something to the blockchain, you also have to pay for the transaction with your data. This is why we say it is owned by you because you paid for it. The payment method can however be traced back to you by governments and law enforcement, so think carefully before posting anything illegal to the blockchain. The blockchain never forgets.

On OP_RETURN - a technical note

Creating a social network with a global state on Bitcoin is hard. Most applications being built at the moment are shying away from a global state of data and are only using the Bitcoin blockchain for hashing and timestamping data. We are fully aware of the potential problems and issues writing data on-chain has, but are committed to making it work. In the worst-case scenario, the data is validated, timestamped, and propagated through the Bitcoin network for all network participants to pick up and store. The data can also be validated through SPV in the future, even if the miners have pruned it from the blockchain.

At the time of writing this, writing data to the Bitcoin blockchain in OPRETURN outputs is the easiest and cheapest way to store data. In the future, this might change, especially when better tools around OPPUSHDATA become available. This might change the way the transactions for the different protocols are constructed and how data is stored. This should have no influence on the way the data is processed and used in applications, as the difference in parsing the on-chain data would be handled by the indexers and returned in the same format as before.

What's really happening under the hood in #crypto?

Let me start off by saying that there's a lot to look forward to in the world of #blockchain #crypto. However, what currently exists is not necessarily "innovative" in the truest sense of the world. And the reason for this has to do with how crypto has devolved.

Let me explain.

On the surface, there are a plethora of stories about how #DeFi helps democratize finance, bank the unbanked, and provide financial freedom. All noble messages.

Under the hood, however, billions of dollars are being moving around with ease but little to NO ACCOUNTABILITY. The rise in "privacy coins" and stable coins has allowed many with more devious motives to better hide their funds. Instead of enabling financial sovereignty, it's made the rich richer, and the average person more vulnerable (due to fiat volatility).

Former Monero (Privacy Coin) Maintainer ‘Fluffypony’ Arrested and to Be Extradited for Non-Crypto Crimes

As Stablecoin Rises, Tether Execs Under Investigation

Second, the "innovation" so far has come in the form of speculation. From traders, to exchanges, most of the crypto wealth is made by getting people to "invest" in the vision of a project, tell others, and then onboard them.

If we look at say Bitcoin, and what it was originally setup to do (e.g. enable micropayments), very few applications are leveraging this to its full potential.

But why is that?

Scale (read my other post about this).

Which blockchains truly scale?

Despite the fervor, a lot of blockchain projects still fail to scale on-chain. As a result, they've resorted to side-chains and other hacks. No different to how our current financial systems works and operates. From an end-user perspective, it may not matter much in the short-term (because most people want something that "just works") but, in the long run, it may matter greatly. The reason for this can be found in instances where popular chains like Ethereum experience issues relating to high gas fees and/or network congestion.

By design, Ethereum (as it stands) may never truly be able to scale on-chain. There are many intelligent people working on the problem, but the issue may have more to do with the flaws of a Proof-of-Stake model (as a scaling solution) than anything else. You can't build a sturdy house on weak foundations.

CryptoKitties craze slows down transactions on Ethereum

Cats cause chaos on Ethereum again as Mila Kunis’ project sells out in 35 minutes

Despite this, it surely won't stop people from trying. However, there's one particular project that's surprisingly resilient, and proving Bitcoin's scaleability:

New world record 1 gigabyte blocks mined on the Bitcoin SV blockchain

BSV proves that Bitcoin scaling works; surpasses BTC blockchain in accumulated data size

I suppose what's popular isn't always what's true?

Law will most likely determine the success of "crypto"

The other wild card to all this is law. Because we're dealing with new financial avenues, if such digital cash systems can circumvent existing powers, you can guarantee such powers will do everything they can to regulate it. And the reason is simple - you can't control what you don't see. Blockchain makes transactions more transparent, and could potentially save governments billions of dollars, while simultaneously increasing revenue through better tax collection.

While some may see this as a bad thing, it's not necessarily.

For the average person, it may actually make things more efficient. With triple-entry accounting possibilities, accounts may be reconciled automatically, without needing too much intervention from your end. This would save everyone a lot of time.

Brokers & Securities Law

The other legal issues projects like BTC, ETH (and subsequent chains, ICOs, etc. that have been built on top of it) may face have to do with brokerage definitions and securities law. While some jurisdictions are trying to amend laws to fit the ever-changing crypto space, some outliers have maintained that any good blockchain should function perfectly fine within already existing laws - and should.

The Senate just rejected the compromise crypto tax amendment to the infrastructure bill

Based on what was just passed in the US Senate regarding crypto confirms that the definition of a "broker" may certainly impact many who deal with the passing of transactions through their technologies. If you think about it, it's no different to what happened with the whole Panama Papers fiasco. But instead of using offshore bank accounts, people are using "offshore crypto accounts." If any blockchain project seeks to make transactions completely anonymous, they'll most likely get taken down (and have).

In my opinion, this is why Satoshi's design of Bitcoin was brilliant in terms of making the distinction between pseudonymous vs anonymous. In order to make the transparency of transactions useful, accountability comes in the form of identity needing to be known somewhere, which is why "keys" denote possession, not necessarily ownership.

Moving slow, then fast

I think the mistake some make in crypto is equating freedom with the shirking of responsibility. I think the crypto space "thrived" the way it did (so far) because it moved faster than government was able to keep up with. However, as slow as government may be, they do eventually catch up. And if crypto wants any chance of true mainstream adoption, they will require the stamp of approval from governments en masse. Only then will average people "trust" such new means of exchange. And despite the optimism, my personal opinion is that we are still a few decades away from seeing true mainstream adoption of all these new technologies. Technology moves fast, but people still take time to adapt.

It is my sincere hope that governments around the world do indeed come to a global consensus on how to treat these new "digital assets". I would love to see money move around more freely, especially at a micro-level, but true freedom requires responsibility and discipline. Otherwise, we get recklessness and entitlement. For now, we will have to wait and see how the public and private sectors work together before the real innovations can really take off. Kudos to everyone who is being patient!