Databases and the Blockchain
Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technologies have the potential to be as powerful and disruptive as the internet itself. Database systems need to evolve to leverage Blockchain capabilities.
The Blockchain represents a new type of database:
Public
Transactions on the Blockchain are public.
Distributed
Not controlled by any central party.
Tamper-proof
Transactions cannot be altered.
Immutable History
The full history of all transactions are preserved.
Immutability is revolutionary
They say history is written by the winners. In databases, history is written by the developer or the DBA. There's no practical way to detect back-dating or tampering with historical data, but there's no arguing with Blockchain data.
Once sealed on the Blockchain, historical data is immune from modification.
Wall Street Journal
"Trust is a foundational feature of the Blockchain as the data written into it is immutable, and can never be changed, modified or removed."
Hangzhou Internet Court (China)
"The usage of a third-party Blockchain platform that is reliable without conflict of interests provides the legal ground for proving the intellectual infringement."
Arizona Bill HB2603
"A signature that is secured through Blockchain technology is considered to be in an electronic form and to be an electronic signature."
National Conference of State Legislatures
"Blockchain legislation pending or passed in at least 18 US states."
2016 Vermont Statutes Title12
"A digital record electronically registered in a Blockchain shall be self-authenticating pursuant to Vermont Rule of Evidence 902."
Blockchain proofs and the law
The immutability of data within a Blockchain constitutes a revolution in computer science. For the first time, we have a way of storing data which cannot be altered and whose creation data and integrity can be cryptographically proven.
Data in a traditional database can be altered at any time by a database administrator or a privileged developer. In contrast, data in a public Blockchain is immutable. We now have an absolute mathematical proof of the veracity and provenance of a data item.
Blockchain cryptographic proofs are increasingly being recognized as legal proofs. We can foresee a day in which Blockchain records are held to the same evidentiary standards as DNA or fingerprint records.
Blockchain vs DBMS
Compared to a traditional DBMS, the Blockchain has many drawbacks:
High Latency and
Low Throughput.
Limited Data
Storage Capacity.
Transactions Are
Publicly Visible.
No Schema or
Data Model.
Expensive
Transactions.
Poor Developer
Productivity.
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Introducing ProvenDB
What is ProvenDB?
Immutability
By default, all versions of a data item are retained. Previous versions of a data item can be superseded, but original versions are never destroyed.
Tamper Resistance
Selected versions of the database are hashed upon the Blockchain. These versions can be proven to have been created at the specified time and can be proven to have been unaltered.
Point-in-time History
The state of a database at any point in time can be retrieved.
Data Provenance
The complete history of any item can be retrieved, showing its initial contents, and the changes made to the document at each point in time.
Why use ProvenDB?
Prove ownership of intellectual property
Prove timestamps for legal instruments
Prove that records have not been falsified or tampered with
Create a log of all document changes
Where is ProvenDB useful?
Regulatory Compliance
Establish a tamper-resistant digital store for critical compliance information.
Finance and Accounting
Render financial records immune from malicious tampering or backdating.
Intellectual Property
Prove the ownership and creation date of intellectual property and eliminate questions of authorship or prior art.
Legal Document Management
Prove the origin, integrity and ownership of wills, contracts, court papers, or any other legal document.
Government and Public Records
Eliminate counterfeiting and tampering for licenses, certificates, and public records.
Secure Systems
Build highly secure and tamper-resistant systems. Eliminate tampering or falsification of access logs and access control records.
Live demo
Play, debug, and share your queries right in your browser using ProvenDB's Playground.
Demo PlaygroundHow ProvenDB works
ProvenDB can prove multiple documents with a single hash using a Merkle tree. We don't need a whole tree to prove an individual document that is included in the final hash - we only need the "Merkle path." Thousands of documents can be included in a single Merkle tree - all anchored to a single Blockchain transaction.
What is a hash?
A hash is a mathematical "signature" of a document - a digital fingerprint. The chances of two documents having the same hash are infinitesimally small. Hashes are far, far more precise proofs of document identity than DNA or fingerprints.
Blockchain proofs
ProvenDB can generate proofs for a database version or a single document. Although only the hash for a complete version is anchored on the Blockchain, ProvenDB can supply a Merkle tree path which provides cryptographic proof that a given document was included within the Blockchain hash. In this way, users of ProvenDB may obtain proofs for individual documents that can be validated without the need to access any other documents within the database.
Architecture
ProvenDB presents a MongoDB compatible API to the database user. Every change to the database creates a new logical version within the database. The user can view the older versions at any time.
The database user requests a proof be placed on the Blockchain for a specific version. This proof can be used to prove the timestamp of the entire version or any document in that version.
Performance and Economics
Blockchain is sometimes called "the world's worst database"; it offers truly terrible transactional throughput and storage costs. For instance, the Ethereum Blockchain can process only 15 transactions per second with a storage cost of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per Gigabyte.
The architecture of ProvenDB results in a penalty on storage overhead and throughout. However, this overhead is trivial compared to that of the Blockchain. While ProvenDB might be marginally slower and more expensive than a traditional database server, it is massively faster and cheaper than the Blockchain. ProvenDB offers a perfect compromise between the two technologies:
Download Litepaper
Download PDFProvenDB Features
Document Model
- MongoDB compatible Database service.
- Data is represented as JSON documents.
- Documents contain metadata to track and manage version information.
Versioning
- ProvenDB keeps all versions of each document.
- An update to a document creates a new version of a document without modifying the previous version.
- A delete operation that marks the document as logically deleted without removing its content.
- The user can query directly against previous versions of the database.
Fast Bulk Load
- ProvenDB can be placed in a fast bulk load mode which only insert, and query operations are permitted.
- Inserts may be submitted without the overhead of creating a new database version.
Export
- ProvenDB can export the data and proofs for the entire database, a database version or individual documents.
- These exports can be independently verified against Blockchain proofs using open source tools, ensuring that your Blockchain proofs remain valid even if you no longer have access to ProvenDB.
Strict Consistency
- Serializable consistency ensures that versioning requests execute as if they had executed one at a time.
Right To Be Forgotten
- "forget" allows all data for a document to be purged without compromising any existing proofs.
- Forgotten documents are removed, but their hash value is retained.
- Proving or viewing a forgotten document is impossible; however other documents in the database version remain provable.
Compaction
- ProvenDB allows data between two proven versions to be compacted.
- This saves storage without compromising the integrity of any database proofs.
Full Database Proofs
- The entire state of the database can be established with a single Blockchain proof.
- Proofs can also be obtained for individual documents.
Document Management
ProvenDB allows you to prove your personal documents, by passing the database API. The integrity, ownership and creation date of your documents are reliably stored on the Blockchain. The content of the documents can be private or shared.
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