How the blockchain—a system built on foundations of mutual mistrust—can become trustworthy.
The blockchain entered the world on January 3, 2009, introducing an innovative new trust architecture: an environment in which users trust a system—for example, a shared ledger of information—without necessarily trusting any of its components. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is the most famous implementation of the blockchain, but hundreds of other companies have been founded and billions of dollars invested in similar applications since Bitcoin's launch. Some see the blockchain as offering more opportunities for criminal behavior than benefits to society. In this book, Kevin Werbach shows how a technology resting on foundations of mutual mistrust can become trustworthy.
The blockchain, built on open software and decentralized foundations that allow anyone to participate, seems like a threat to any form of regulation. In fact, Werbach argues, law and the blockchain need each other. Blockchain systems that ignore law and governance are likely to fail, or to become outlaw technologies irrelevant to the mainstream economy. That, Werbach cautions, would be a tragic waste of potential. If, however, we recognize the blockchain as a kind of legal technology that shapes behavior in new ways, it can be harnessed to create tremendous business and social value.
Author(s): Kevin Werbach
Series: Information Policy
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: xvi+322
Contents
Series Editor’s Introduction
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Parable of the Tree
Buttonwood to Blockchain
Logically Centralized, Organizationally Decentralized
Law and Quantum Thought
The Path Ahead
I: A Revolution in Nine Pages
1. The Trust Challenge
Without Relying on Trust
A Crisis of Trust
Defining Trust
Trust Architectures: Peer-to-Peer, Leviathan, Intermediary
Trustless Trust
2. Satoshi’s Solution
Too Trusted to Fail?
In the Beginning, There Was Bitcoin
Nakamoto Consensus
The Significance of Cryptocurrency
3. More than Money
It All Started When They Nerfed the Siphon Life Spell
Permissioned Ledgers
Smart Contracts
The DAO Saga
4. Why Blockchain?
Beyond the Whoppercoin
The Enduring Value of Intermediaries
Decentralization
Shared Truth
Translucent Collaboration
Tokens of Value
II: Ledgers Meet Law
5. Unpacking Blockchain Trust
Something from Nothing
Distributed
Cryptoeconomic
Immutable
Transparent
Algorithmic
6. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Vision and Reality
Satoshi’s Error
The Limits of Decentralization
Not-So-Smart Contracts
Trusting the Token Issuers
Centralized Edge Providers
Rules of the Road
7. Blockchain Governance
Vili’s Paradox
The Power of Consensus
Governing the Governors
The Social Contract
Governance in Practice
8. Blockchain As/And Law
Vlad’s Conundrum
Things That Cryptoregulate
This Time It’s Different?
Ex Ante Design vs. Ex Post Dispute Resolution
Law as a Technology of Trust
Modes of Interaction: Supplements, Complements, Substitutes
9. We’re from the Government, and We’re Here to Help
We Need to Begin Somewhere
Regulatory Controversies
The Token Offering Test Case
Regulation and Innovation
A Framework for Regulation
III: Building the Decentralized Future
10. Connecting the Legal and the Technical
The Education of Nicholas Szabo
Making Law More Code-Like
Making Code More Law-Like
Fusions of Cryptogovernance
11. An Unpredictable Certainty
As Speculative as They Are Rich
Decentralization Cannot Hold
Overcoming the Trust Trade-Off
Blockchain as Spanning Layer
12. Conclusion
Mike Hearn’s Odyssey
A Matter of Trust
Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Index
