LIBnft: a Project in Search of a Purpose

LIBnft: a Project in Search of a Purpose

At first, I thought this was a parody.
LibNFT is an R&D initiative exploring the impact of blockchain and the digital asset economy on library archives.
—
LIBnft homepage
, 12-Dec-2022
However, it seems like a serious proposal that was presented today at a
CNI project briefing
.
I did not attend the project briefing; the only details publicly available are from the
whitepaper
. (Note: link to the whitepaper can’t be robustified—Dropbox is hostile to web archiving—but I have saved a copy of version I reviewed…
version 0.04 dated 4-Dec-2022
.)
From the details in the whitepaper, it is safe to say this project should be shelved until the need and purpose are better understood.
Why?
First, blockchain is the wrong technology; gallery-library-archive-museum (GLAM) institutions do not need a technology where participants are adversarial or trying to steal each other’s data.
Second, there is no utility in non-fungible tokens for GLAM governance or assets; it would be better (and certainly cheaper) to hold a meeting or write a typical contract.
Note!
The recording of the LibNFT project briefing is now up on YouTube, and I’ve
posted a follow-up
with additional thoughts.
Why Use Blockchain
As the LIBnft whitepaper points out, «in its simplest form, a blockchain is a communally maintained distributed ledger, or database, that reliably and immutably stores digital information» (summarizing a
New York Times glossary
).
The «database» term is crucial—blockchain is a technique for storing and retrieving information, much like one would do with a run-of-the-mill database.
This database has some interesting characteristics: data can’t be erased once it is written and there are copies of the database spread over the network.
Rather than «distributed», though, a blockchain database is «decentralized».
A USENIX article makes an important distinction between «decentralized» (which blockchain is) and «distributed» (emphasis added):
A
distributed system
is composed of multiple, identified, and nameable entities. DNS is an example of such a distributed system, as there is a hierarchy of responsibilities and business relationships to create a specialized database with a corresponding cryptographic PKI. Similarly the web is a distributed system, where computation is not only spread amongst various servers but the duty of computation is shared between the browser and the server within a single web page.
A
decentralized system
, on the other hand, dispenses with the notion of identified entities.
Instead everyone can participate and the participants are assumed to be mutually antagonistic, or at least maximizing their profit.
Since decentralized systems depend on some form of voting, the potential for an attacker stuffing the ballot box is always at the forefront. After all, an attacker could just create a bunch of sock-puppets, called “sibyls”, and get all the votes they want.
In a distributed system sibyls are…