Science advocate for Google aims to expose how blockchains are being used

Allen Day, a science advocate for Google, has created a new tool called Blockchain ETL (extract, transform, load) with lead developer Evgeny Medvedev.

The tool aims to expose how blockchain technology is really being used, and by who.

Reportedly, Day and a small team of open source developers began work on the project last year by loading data from the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains into Google’s BigQuery – a big-data analytics platform.

Afterwards, Medvedev and Day created a software suite to help sift through the data.

Since starting work on the project, Day claims to have noticed a few “autonomous agents” transferring funds “in an automated fashion.”

He believes this is being conducted by artificial intelligence (AI) that could possibly be inflating the price of Ether, but he has yet to provide any substantial evidence to prove this.

Day states: “It’s not really just single agents doing things on their own. They’re forming with other agents to have some larger group effect.”

Day believes the significance of this project lies in its ability to determine “who it is you’re actually interacting with.”

However, this news is certain to attract controversy. While there is merit to having a tool which can decipher illicit transactions, it will also begin to strip away anonymity.

Blockchain ETL does have other uses though. For instance, Medvedev recently uploaded a Medium post showcasing the transaction throughput values of eight cryptocurrencies.

Amongst the data collected, it is noticeable that Bitcoin Cash can surprisingly handle 281 transactions per second. This number is even more surprising when the same post revealed that Bitcoin is only processing 22 transactions per second.

However, it should be noted that there is no reference to Layer 2 scaling solutions. With the Lightning Network, for example, Bitcoin can process a lot more than 22 transactions per second.

The Blockchain ETL tool on paper looks like a promising prospect. At its heart, it is a tool for extracting and analysing data, which is not inherently a bad thing.

But at the same time, if it can begin to unravel privacy, who knows what it could do in the wrong hands.

It will take time for the tool to be fully developed and finished, so only time will tell how the tool will impact the space going forwards.

Discover more about Layer 2 scaling solutions and whether they have solved scalability issues in the crypto space on Coin Rivet.