Uniting blockchain, AI, and IPv6 on CoinGeek Roundtable

In the first CoinGeek Roundtable in 2024, Rebecca Liggero hosted IPv6 Forum President
Latif Ladid, Lawrence Hughes from Aptive Resources, and Mathieu Ducroux from nChain. Check out the video link below to view this lively discussion on how blockchain technology, artificial intelligence (AI), IPv6, and Web3 will come together and work symbiotically.

IPv6, Bitcoin Certified Addresses, and more

Regular CoinGeek readers will likely be familiar with Ladid. He kicks things off by telling us that IPv6 is booming. While Asia has two-thirds of the world’s deployment, the United Kingdom is in the top three in Europe. The end-to-end model allows devices to talk to each other. IPv6 will soon become the dominant protocol, and it’s necessary for the Internet of Things (IoT) to become viable.

Hughes explains that IPv6 is the replacement for IPv4. It restores the end-to-end model we lost when we deployed NAT and private addresses. He works with end-to-end direct messaging and has made a variant of TLS called PeerTLS. Both have client certificates and give true end-to-end encryption for mutual, strong authentication. It can only do this with no intermediary server because of IPv6.

Ducroux is a senior researcher at nChain. He looks at how blockchain networks can be enhanced with IPv6 and vice versa. He describes it as a mutually beneficial relationship between the two technologies. In his recent work on Bitcoins-Certified Addresses (BCAs), he shows how we can use the proof-of-work (PoW) computed by Bitcoin mining to enable hosts to generate highly secure IPv6 addresses tied to their public keys.

BCAs are generated from Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGAs). IPv6 addresses are then derived from the host public key, which is good for many hosts joining and leaving networks, such as mobile networks. By linking public keys and IPv6 addresses, you can prove ownership of an IPv6 address with digital signatures. This has many useful attributes, including protection against attacks involving address spoofing.

To generate CGAs, you must solve a small PoW like in Bitcoin. The binding between the two isn’t very strong, so attacking addresses is easy. The proposal for BCAs is to reuse the PoW done by Bitcoin miners to enable hosts to generate highly secure IPv6 addresses. With these, attackers will have to fight against Bitcoin nodes, and defeating them will be extremely costly. Since hosts don’t have to solve any PoW, address generation is highly efficient, he says. We can also use BCAs to communicate over the wider Internet, not just local area networks.

Business use cases for these technologies

Liggero notes that the conversation so far has been fairly technical. She wants to pivot to business use cases and potential applications.

Hughes explains that we have two classes of netizens because of the limited number of IPv4 addresses. However, with the significant number of IPv6 addresses, every device can become a server and connect directly to others. True peer-to-peer communication is possible.

In addition to this, it’s possible to make connections much faster since users aren’t going through NAT gateways. This has practical applications, such as reducing the connection time to websites where every millisecond counts. Many blockchain applications require peer-to-peer connections that are only possible with IPv6. Furthermore, it allows for true decentralization, reducing opportunities for hacking and spoofing that result from centralization.

Ladid highlights how IPv4 addresses have created monopolies, and those give control to privileged parties. We do not have a flat Internet where all peers are equal. He says that combined with blockchains, IPv6 enables a secure, flat Internet that protects all citizens. Cost reductions are the main thing businesses should be interested in.

What about the business use cases for BCAs? Using certificates linked to domains and the blockchain as a single source of truth, we can set up truly secure communications and do processes like certificate management, domain name resolution, etc. Blockchain is always the single source of truth—the data layer.

How will IPv6 link to AI, Web 3.0, and other new technology trends?

Ladid says that we must standardize blockchain technology and define Web 3.0 properly. Both must be standardized for worldwide implementation. We must also move blockchain away from ‘crypto’ to fix the brand.

Ducroux says that blockchain and IPv6 are crucial in the IoT. IPv6 enables two devices to communicate securely and directly, while blockchain enables the direct exchange of value.

Hughes highlights how the IoT is currently restricted to Local Area Networks because of the limitations of IPv4. With IPv6, it can become truly global. IPv6 streaming over multicast will dramatically change things, and new tools, such as indexers for the growing number of channels, will have to be built.

To hear more about Bitcoin mining, multicasting, IPv6, and how Bitcoin and IPv6 were made for each other, check out the CoinGeek Roundtable here.

Watch: IEEE Future Networks World Forum highlights: Point to point—that’s what IPv6 brings to the table