"Building an On-chain Ecosystem" by Muneeb Ali, Blockstack | Fluidity 2019

BUILDING AN ON-
CHAIN ECOSYSTEM
Muneeb Ali, Blockstack

Building an Ecosystem for Decentralized
Apps
Muneeb Ali, CEO of Blockstack PBC

Twitter: @muneebDecentralized Computing Network
Disclaimer
LEGAL DISCLAIMER
The Blockstack Tokens are a crypto asset that is currently being developed by Blockstack Token LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, whose website can be found at www.stackstoken.com. This presentation does not constitute an
offer or sale of Stacks tokens or any other mechanism for purchasing Stacks. Any offer or sale of Stacks tokens or any related instrument will occur only based on definitive offering documents for the Stacks tokens.

This communication may be deemed “testing the waters” material under Regulation A under the Securities Act of 1933. We are not under any obligation to complete an offering under Regulation A. We may choose to make an offering to
some, but not all, of the people who indicate an interest in investing, and that offering might not be made under Regulation A. We will only be able to make sales after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has “qualified” the
offering statement that we have filed with the SEC. The information in that offering statement will be more complete than the information we are providing now, and could differ in important ways. You must read the documents filed with the
SEC before investing.

No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response, will not be accepted. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement filed by the
company with the SEC has been qualified by the SEC. Any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of acceptance given after the date of qualification. An indication
of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. Any person interested in investing in any offering of Stacks Tokens should review our disclosures and the publicly filed offering statement relating to that offering, a copy of which
is available at www.sec.gov. Blockstack is not registered, licensed or supervised as a broker dealer or investment adviser by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) or any
other financial regulatory authority or licensed to provide any financial advice or services.
SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This presentation contains forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following
words: “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “is designed to,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing,” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology,
although not all forward-looking statements contain these words.
These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from the information expressed or implied by these
forward-looking statements. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this presentation, we caution you that these statements are based on a combination of facts and factors
currently known by us and our projections of the future, about which we cannot be certain. Forward-looking statements in this presentation include, but are not limited to, statements about: Blockstack's plans for developing the Blockstack
network and ecosystem, the evolution and future of computing, and the potential completion of an offering under Regulation A of the Securities Act, as amended. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this
presentation will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, if the forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not
regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking
statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Blockstack: Full-stack
Decentralized Computing

Decentralized era
• No data-monopolies, data is user owned and
can be used in any app
• Universal, password-less authentication
• Apps run on user devices, explicit user opt-in
and increased security
Current era
• Data & trust breaches are causing
consumers to second-guess data silos
• Developers want more room for innovation
outside of current data-monopolies
• Developers want to reduce cost, overhead,
and liability of deploying apps
We are pioneering the
next era in computing

Have launched production apps on our
infrastructure in the past 6 months
100+App Teams
Have attended our global hackathons and
meetups in the past 4 months
3000 Developers

We make building blockchain
apps really easy for devs
We abstract the Blockchain complexity so app
developers can focus on building great apps:
1. Keep auth and smart contracts on-chain
2. Keep encrypted data off-chain
3. Wrap everything in an easy JavaScript API

Initial funding to complete R&D &
infrastructure phase
$50M+ raised from industry-leading investors.
Albert Wenger (USV)
Barry Silbert (DCG)
Blockchain Capital
Compound
David Lee
Digital Currency Group
Dorm Room Fund
Eric Kagan
Foundation Capital
Fred Wilson (USV)
Kal Vepuri
Kevin Rose
Knox Massey
Lux Capital
Meg Nakamura
Michael Arrington
Michael Yavonditte
Mihir Nanavati
Mo ElBibany
Naval Ravikant
NEST
Qasar Younis
Rising Tide
Shana Fisher (3KVC)
SV Angel
Union Square Ventures
Version One Ventures
Y Combinator
800+ more

Years of deep distributed
systems R&D for a solid
foundation
Founded by Princeton Computer Scientists
2 scientists with Presidential Career Awards
13,000+ research citations among whitepaper authors
Research published at USENIX ATC, DCCl
Nominated by Princeton for SIGCOMM dissertation award
Board: Mongo DB (IPO), Twilio (IPO), Etsy (IPO)

Dev teams are rethinking cloud era
applications
Blockstack is rethinking  
cloud era infrastructure

Most internet infrastructure is already decentralized: we focus on the parts
that are not.
Network Layer
(IP)
Transport Layer
(TCP, UDP)
Link Layer
(Ethernet, WLAN)
Application Layer
(cloud storage, auth, DNS, app stores etc)
{Decentralized

After 4 years of R&D, we’ve shipped v1 of our
decentralized computing platform
Blockchain
Stacks
Performant and secure consensus
based on Tunable Proof-of-Work.
Shipped 2018
Dev tools
Blockstack.js
Abstracts the complex blockchain
stuff and makes app development
fast/easy
Shipped 2017
File storage
Gaia
Decentralized, encrypted, and user-
controlled cloud storage for
Blockstack apps.
Shipped 2017
Auth
Blockstack Auth
Universal, password-less login for
all Blockstack apps.
Shipped 2017
App funding
App mining
Automated app ranking and
rewards for bootstrapping quality
app development
Shipped 2018
Discovery
Blockstack Browser
Desktop and mobile launchpad for
discovering apps and using
authentication.
Shipped 2017
Smart contracts
Launching Q2
Provably secure LISP smart
contracts language. Will enable
marketplaces and financial apps.
Launching Q2
Mining
Tunable Proof-of-Work
Incentivizing blockchain security
and performance through Tunable
Proof-of-Work.
Compliant launch

Many projects are trying to build a world computer: All
state, compute, and storage on-chain. This is
extremely hard/potentially impossible.
The Blockstack team has wisely chosen a full stack
approach with minimal logic on the blockchain and with
no scaling or security concerns in sight.
Our approach: Minimal logic on-
chain for scaling and security
Most current
approaches

Our approach: minimal logic on-chain for
scaling and security

Blockstack: full-stack decentralized computing
Stacks Blockchain
Performant and secure
consensus based on
Tunable Proof-of-Work.
Gaia storage
Decentralized,
encrypted, and user-
controlled cloud storage.
Blockstack Auth
Universal, password-
less login for all
Blockstack apps.

BlockstackAuth: universal, password-less login

Gaia Storage: user-controlled private data lockers
Gives performance of cloud storage but is decentralized and encrypted.

Most other approaches
- Minimal logic on-chain (full-stack approach; “light” blockchain) - Most logic needs to be on-chain (“heavy” blockchain).
- R&D first, peer-reviewed, production deployments. - Speculative scientific/engineering approaches.
- Non-Turing-complete smart contracts evaluated at publish time. - Turing-complete smart contracts evaluated at run-time.
- Most apps are NOT smart contracts. - Everything is a smart contract.
Blockstack design vs. others

Stacks token: fuel  
for a new economy
Register digital identities
Trade/transfer digital assets
Register apps
Charge customers for subscriptions
Create app tokens and appchains
Create in-app digital assets
Monetize data storage
Monetize new infrastructure
Receive mining rewards
Form mining pools/instruments
Treasury to support protocol
development
Capital investment
Staking to support apps
Stacks are consumed as “fuel” to register digital assets and
smart contracts. Stacks are the basic economic unit enabling
ecosystem members to transact and align incentives.
Stacks owners
App users

App Mining, an app growth engine,
is accelerating developer adoption
We worked with Princeton and NYU game-theorists to build funding
mechanism to incentivize app developers and catalyze an app-quality
flywheel. Only $100K flowing through pilot (10x increase soon).
77
65
54
48
37
20
Mar 2019Feb 2019Jan 2019Dec 2018Nov 2018 Apr 2019
programmatic app funding

Engagement in the developer
community is also accelerating
2,375 Developers attended our recent Decentralizing the
World tour which included 47+ meetups internationally and 3
larger events in NYC, London, and Hong Kong.

Blockstack is leading the way to a  
decentralized computing era

People are noticing the ugly underbelly of the cloud era
— there is light above the clouds.
Blockstack is leading the evolution
to decentralized computing.
Muneeb Ali, CEO of Blockstack PBC

"Building an On-chain Ecosystem" by Muneeb Ali, Blockstack | Fluidity 2019

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