Report on "PlasmaCon" featuring Vitalik and others

On July 31, INTMAX, which develops Ethereum Layer 2 solution "INTMAX zkRollup", held "PlasmaCon" as an official event of Japan Blockchain Week and a side event of Ethereum development conference "EDCON Tokyo 2024".

This event focused on Ethereum's Layer 2 solution Plasma, and included sessions on Ethereum's scalability and use cases, with a particular focus on "the importance of privacy".

The Iolite editorial team, who participated as a media partner, will report on the day's events, focusing on the noteworthy sessions of PlasmaCon.

"Cryptography guru" talks about the importance of privacy

In the session titled "Disrupting money, mobile and id with compelling use cases," Elixxir's David Chaum, known as one of the "cryptography gurus," took the stage.

Chaum claims that the evolution of information technology can bring about disruptive innovation in three areas: money, communication, and identity. He said that one of the technological innovations is being able to manage these things ourselves by utilizing Web 3.0.

Chaum then stated that the future of civilization depends on the development of privacy technology. One of the reasons for this is that social media has caused great damage to civilization so far.

Chaum argues that in the future, people will be required to control information technology themselves, and that the use of AI is the key to this.

Chaum pointed out that while large companies have tracked users' movements up until now, in the future, AI will enable people to obtain optimal services and information. This is because AI itself will not be misled by exaggerated advertising, and this will lead to the protection of privacy and personal information.

He also said that money will need to be digitized to protect privacy, and that the same is true for mobile phones, which are tools for communication. Furthermore, he said that there is a risk of database vulnerabilities in existing methods such as registering fingerprints when it comes to identity, and explained the importance of individuals managing it themselves in the future.

Finally, Chaum argued that the various voices that AI will replace all jobs are "clearly wrong." He said that this is because it is humanity that will protect humanity from being dominated by people who use AI, and that it is humans who will make the final decision.

Ethereum co-founder talks about the advantages of Plasma

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin took the stage for the session that began as "Return of Plasma." As this was Buterin's session, a leader in the Web 3.0 field, many participants gathered at the venue.

Buterin spoke about the history and specifications of Plasma, which he proposed in 2017 together with Joseph Poon, who proposed the Lightning Network, and its future impact.

In November last year, he argued in his blog that "Plasma should be reevaluated." This is because the emergence of "ZK-SNARKs" that utilize zero-knowledge proofs has increased the possibility of solving the issues that Plasma has while being used as a more convenient layer 2 solution.

Buterin said about Plasma, "It has an interesting mechanism for proving token ownership, etc.", and expressed the view that considering its use from the perspective of protecting privacy would be one way to do so.

He also concluded by saying, "Ethereum needs scalability. At the same time, we need to focus on how much security risk we can reduce. Plasma can increase security by overlaying existing systems."

Areas that will grow in the next 20 years with privacy in mind

In "Privacy is normal," in addition to Buterin and Chaum, Zkmail co-founder Suegami Sou and INTMAX co-founder Hioki Reona took the stage as moderator. A discussion was held about the evolution of privacy.

First, in response to Hioki's question about whether awareness of privacy in society is declining, Buterin pointed out, "It seems that measures (regarding this issue) are not progressing. A lot of things on the Internet are not protected, and privacy is declining."

Chaum also stated that, in light of the current situation in which AI is catching up with humanity, "we are at a critical moment," and that there is a possibility that particularly big changes will occur in the aforementioned areas of "money," "communication," and "identity."

Like Buterin and Chaum, Suegami stated that issues surrounding privacy in the real world are becoming bigger day by day, but that "using encryption technology makes it possible to protect privacy."

In addition, there was a discussion on issues that humanity has been dealing with infringement of privacy and the state of payments.

In particular, in response to the question, "Will privacy have improved in 20 years?", all participants answered, "It will have." In particular, with regard to payments, there are issues such as what information should be shared with the other party when a private transaction is made, but they all agreed that this will be an area that will grow more in the next 20 years.

Concerns about creating use cases for social implementation

The final session, "Dapps on Plasma," was moderated by Hioki, and featured Deloitte consulting partner Kuniyoshi Mabuchi, PlattHome CEO Tomoyasu Suzuki, and 3AM JAPAN's Yohei Nishikubo. In this session, the background to the use of Plasma was discussed.

The three cited improvements in scalability and its suitability for providing products to a large number of users as reasons for deciding to use Plasma.

In addition, Mabuchi cited "creating use cases for social implementation" as what he expects from Plasma in the future. Suzuki then pointed out, "When considering use cases, the reality is complicated. We need to think about how to solve them and move forward, but Plasma has made a breakthrough."

At the end of last month, Platt Home announced a business partnership with INTMAX to commercialize a general-purpose token protocol for RWA (Real World Assets), including "Things." In light of these developments, he emphasized that he will continue to actively use Plasma in the future.

On the other hand, Nishikubo prefaced his remarks by saying, "This is not limited to Plasma," and stated, "We are concerned about the privacy issues in the current blockchain when creating use cases." He also stated that one of the challenges is that there are currently few people discussing privacy and quantum computers.

After this discussion, Hioki commented, "Privacy is an issue that many of the speakers on stage today are concerned about. At the same time, privacy should also be a need of users and the market." He expressed his enthusiasm to continue accelerating efforts to address the major issue of privacy.

A valuable opportunity to show the future of technology

That concludes our report on the day of PlasmaCon, focusing on the notable sessions.

The event was a valuable opportunity for well-known players in the industry to once again discuss the sensitive topic of privacy, and to show the future of technology.

In addition, since many technical sessions on Ethereum were also included, it was likely to be a meaningful time for developers and various users.

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