Trust, Finance and Cryptocurrencies

Abstract

This chapter aims to clarify the problem that cryptoanarchism aims to address and seeks to define cryptoanarchism as a distinct form of anarchism and examines the relationship between cryptoanarchism and cryptoanarchy. It introduces blockchain, a technology that produces distributed trust and automated value transfer with application beyond banking. In many business school textbooks, the exchange of value between people and organizations is understood to be a matter of trust and regulation. Cryptoanarchism is a movement which uses information technology in order to send and receive information free from surveillance and control by powerful institutions. The fundamental quality of technology, as far as cryptoanarchists are concerned, is the ability to ‘crypt,’ to allow people to communicate online anonymously and to protect themselves from surveillance by government and any other centralized authorities. Cryptoanarchists wish to demonstrate the irrelevance of government and other centralized powers, an aim that classical anarchists would doubtless agree with.