Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, revealed at this year’s Blockchain Summit that he is mining Ethereum with his son. He also weighed in on the potential of zero-knowledge proofs – Zcash’s underlying privacy option.
Blockchain is “Extraordinary”
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and current president of its parent company, Alphabet, spoke at the Blockchain Summit – an annual event hosted by Sir Richard Branson – on July 8. Brin, whose estimated net worth is roughly around $52 billion, revealed that he is mining Ethereum with his son.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a last minute addition to the #BlockchainSummit panel on emerging technologies. Says he is mining ethereum with his son. Via @ForbesCrypto pic.twitter.com/vcp8qa0mcD
— Michael del Castillo (@DelRayMan) July 8, 2018
Brin, who was a last-minute addition to the summit, said that has been mining Ethereum with his 10-years old son.
A year or two ago, my son insisted that we needed to get a gaming PC. […] I told him, ‘Okay, if we get a gaming PC, we have to mine cryptocurrency.’ So we set up an Ethereum miner on there, and we’ve made a few pennies, a few dollars since.
Apart from casually mining the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, Brin admitted that he doesn’t know a lot about cryptocurrencies. Yet, he referred to their underlying technology and its potential as “extraordinary”.
Interestingly enough, the former drummer of Guns ‘n’ Roses, Matt Sorum, also spoke on the panel, highlighting the potential of blockchain to defend the intellectual property (IP) rights of artists. He reiterated on unauthorized and, therefore, unpaid usage of IP and urged for a solution, which could be provided by blockchain-based technology.
A user should be able to own content in a way that rewards the artist. When the blockchain came along, I said, this can happen. And the way it will work is through smart contracts.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs are “Mindboggling”
Google’s co-founder also touched on one of the main privacy settings behind Zcash 00 – zero-knowledge proofs. He said that he finds them “mindboggling”.
Simply put, these proofs could be used in order to validate a transaction as accurate without being required to reveal the transaction to the main chain’s nodes. This is one of the major differences between the privacy provided by Zcash and Monero, which acts to conceal transactions instead.
Brin wasn’t the only one fascinated by this technology, as Neha Nerual also found them quite impressive. The Director of the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative provided a fairly simple explanation of zero-knowledge proofs.
Basically, you will be able to prove that something is true, without revealing the reasons for why it’s true. So to prove you’re 21, you don’t have to show the official documentation that you’re 21. Zero-knowledge proofs are going to be very transformative in the next few years.
What do you think of zero-knowledge proofs? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
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