Blockchain and the State: Vehicle or Vice?

As ultramodern as they may seem, cryptocurrencies and their underlying distributed ledger technology (commonly referred to as the blockchain), represent the intertwined evolution of two prosaic yet fundamental pillars of civilisation: money and accounting. From the earliest issuance of barter tokens, to coins of precious metal, paper notes, then digital strings of ones and zeros – and the single and double-entry ledger accounting methods used to record transactions and ownership by trading houses and the first banks – one feature of these two pillars has been ubiquitous and constant: centralisation.