In a world where artificial intelligence is quickly creating a situation where the average user can no longer trust the authenticity of the images, files, programs, and content they see online, the Bitcoin network may hold the key to providing a data provenance layer for the 21st Century. Jeff Garzik, co-founder and CEO of Bloq, recently sat down with Cointelegraph to discuss how Bitcoin can solve the problem.
The CEO began the conversation by explaining that there is currently a lot of AI “noise” relevant to signal—meaning that there is a lot of AI-driven data and AI-generated content on the internet that tends to crowd out trusted, authentic sources of information. This problem of knowing whether or not a piece of data is authentic or comes from a trusted source will only accelerate with time.
According to Garzik, data provenance will play an even bigger role in a future where AI agents are widespread. The Bloq co-founder gave one example of an AI agent that would autonomously manage and trade crypto assets on behalf of a human investor, requiring only minimal input from the human user for confirmation.
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The Bitcoin network as a data anchoring layer
The Bloq co-founder proposed “anchoring” data—a process of using a blockchain network to authenticate the origin of data by recording it onchain—to the Bitcoin network as a remedy to this growing problem. Garzik explained why Bitcoin has an advantage over other networks in this regard:
"The Bitcoin blockchain is most likely to be there in the next ten years—the most secure blockchain on the planet, bar none. That's where you want to be anchoring your data."
Garzik argued that many blockchain networks with high transactions per second “prune” the ledger data after some time—making them poor solutions for data provenance, which requires that anchored data remain permanent.
Research from MIT, Harvard, and Media Lab highlights the need for data provenance in the AI age. Source: Marketchpost
Avoiding network congestion by using a layer-2 solution
Anchoring data directly to the Bitcoin base layer might cause Bitcoin transaction fees to skyrocket due to network congestion. The mania surrounding Bitcoin Runes and Ordinals mints earlier this year has driven calls for layer-2 solutions to alleviate network congestion.
Hemi—a Bitcoin layer-2 network spearheaded by Garzik and Bloq’s team—mitigates the problem of network bloat because Hemi is handling the vast majority of the network traffic while leveraging the Bitcoin base layer’s security and decentralization to achieve final settlement. The CEO provided a clever analogy for why layer-2 solutions are crucial:
"The analogy I have is the champagne waterfall that you see at hotels, the champagne waterfall that you see at wedding receptions. The L1 is that champagne glass at the very top, and you start pouring champagne and eventually, it will spill over."
Garzik concluded by stating that this interaction between Bitcoin L2s and the Bitcoin base layer would benefit Bitcoiners by reducing transaction fees while preserving the base layer's high-security features.
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