Public Lecture: Crypto, Blockchain and the Re-engineering of Ownership

The Blockchain and the Cryptoverse Research Group, Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) will hold a Public Lecture on “Crypto, Blockchain and the Re-engineering of ownership”.

This webinar is the official launch of IFK’s Blockchain and the Cryptoverse Research Group headed by Professor Steven Sidley. This research group will be dedicated to researching and understanding the many disparate strands of blockchain-driven technologies, applications, economic models, ecosystems and new governance structures that have arisen since the first blockchain, Bitcoin, was built in 2009. It will be the pinnacle of excellence and champion research, events and activities happening around blockchain and the cryptoverse.

In this webinar, Professor Sidley will present the research group and give a talk on the Crypto, Blockchain and the Re-engineering of Ownership. His focus will be on the background of cryptography and how it begat blockchain which begat Bitcoin and onto Ethereum and NFTs and Defi and web3 and DAOs and the rest. He will engage what is fuelling an explosion of applications across industries – secure, immutable and elastic ownership, and the implications of this to people like me and you.

Professor Sidley is co-author of Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralised Finance and the End of Banks.