Shin'ichiro Matsuo

Georgetown university and BGIN

Professor and Acting Co-chair BGIN

Description

Dr. Shin'ichiro Matsuo is a research scientist in cryptography and information security. He is working on maturing Blockchain technology from academia and presents research results on Blockchain security. He is acting co-chair of Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN), which is a multi-stakeholder discussion body for blockchain technology and operations. At Georgetown University, he directs blockchain research at CyberSMART research center and leads multi-disciplinary research among technology, economy, law, and regulation. He also leads international research collaboration on Blockchain as a co-founder of the BSafe.network, a global and neutral research test network to promote applied academic research in Blockchain technologies. He founded BASE (Blockchain Academic Synergized Environment) alliance with the University of Tokyo and Keio University. He is a part of many program committees on Blockchain technology and information security at IEEE S&B, ACM, W3C, CBT (Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology), SSR (Security standardization Research) and others, and was a program co-chair of Scaling Bitcoin 2018 Tokyo. He serves as the leader of a standardization project (ISO TR 23576) on Blockchain security at ISO TC307. Abstract After 11+ years from the invention of Bitcoin, blockchain's ecosystem is rapidly growing from payment without a trusted party to decentralized finance. Blockchain technology is a foundation of new digital trust in the new normal era. The new momentum after Bitcoin to the finance industry is that programming codes are becoming a part of our society's order. Though the direction facilitates innovations, it may create infringements against the order of our society. If we want to apply blockchain technology to enrich our everyday lives, good harmonization among relevant stakeholders is essential. It includes having common understandings and establish collaborations among all stakeholders. The Internet's success source is maintaining global-scale multi-stakeholder discussion places like ISOC, IETF, ICANN, and IGF. In 2019, G20 countries agreed to introduce the idea of multi-stakeholder dialogue to enhance a healthy ecosystem of decentralized finance based on a report by the Financial Stability Board (FSB). The agreement was described in the communique. After having this agreement, a group of Blockchain experts from all stakeholders, including engineers, regulators, business entities, civil society, and academia, agreed to establish a new multi-stakeholder discussion body, Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN), on March 10, 2020. This talk provides background and context of multi-stakeholder discussion for blockchain technology and operations, what BGIN is, how it is operated, and how to join the BGIN activities.