The Slow Death of the Firm

Blockchains are not simply about money. The modern-day alchemists who minted Bitcoin and other digital assets have animated a generation of technologists to reimagine how the financial and commercial world operates. The vision that these technologists aim to bring to fruition is not just about payment systems and other financial instruments. Large ... See more

In my opinion, a technological/economic/institutional architecture that can coordinate economic activity in a way that makes the firm superfluous, deconcentrates ownership and control over vital networks, and broadly distributes economic surplus to network participants according to transparent, fair and relatively fixed rules, is the killer app. Th... See more

The idea of a decentralized organization takes the same concept of an organization, and decentralizes it. Instead of a hierarchical structure managed by a set of humans interacting in person and controlling property via the legal system, a decentralized organization involves a set of humans interacting with each other according to a protocol specif... See more

“Instead of a hierarchical structure managed by a set of humans interacting in person and controlling property via the legal system, a decentralized organization involves a set of humans interacting with each other according to a protocol specified in code, and enforced on the blockchain,” Buterin wrote in 2014.