We have been thinking of Bitcoin as a new currency and/or a new class of asset, and its underpinning technology – the blockchain – as a shiny new type of payments system that will eventually eliminate the need for intermediaries such as central banks. But the technology potentially takes us much, much further than that. Recent developments take us towards new forms of law, new types of democracy, even – perhaps – the redefinition of what we mean by a “nation”. It may sound extreme to say this, but some blockchain aficionados are even talking about complete reordering of society. Welcome to the Brave New BitWorld.
Or rather, the EtherWorld. For in this piece, I am not talking about Bitcoin, but its rival Ethereum . LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 08: Founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin during TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 – Day 2 at Copper Box Arena on December 8, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images for TechCrunch) The opening paragraph of Vitalik Butarin’s White Paper about Ethereum says this (my emphasis): There has been a great amount of interest into the area of using Bitcoin-like blockchains, the mechanism that allows for the entire world to agree on the state of a public ownership database, for more than just money. Commonly cited applications include “colored coins”, the idea of using on-blockchain digital assets to represent custom currencies and financial instruments, “smart property”, physical objects such as cars which track a colored coin on a blockchain to determine their present legitimate owner, as well as more advanced applications such as decentralized exchange, financial derivatives, peer-to-peer gambling and on-blockchain identity and reputation systems. Perhaps the most ambitious of all is the concept of “autonomous agents” or “ decentralized autonomous corporations ” – autonomous entities that operate on the blockchain […]
