<nettime> The Blockchain: A Promising New Infrastructure for Online Commons?

[Ãrsan Åenalp <orsan1234@gmail.com>]

from the p2p-f blog, posted by David Bollier...


"The Blockchain: A Promising New Infrastructure for Online Commons

Bitcoin has taken quite a beating for its libertarian design biases,
price volatility due to speculation, and the questionable practices of
some currency-exchange firms.  But whatever the real or perceived
flaws of Bitcoin, relatively little attention has been paid to its
???engine,??? known as ???distributed ledger??? or ???blockchain??? technology.
Move beyond the superficial public discussions about Bitcoin, and
you???ll discover a software breakthrough that could be of enormous
importance to the future of commoning on open network platforms.

Blockchain technology is significant because it can validate the
authenticity of an individual bitcoin without the need for a
third-party guarantor such as a bank or government body. This solves a
vexing collective-action problem in an open network context: How do
you know that a given bitcoin is not a counterfeit? Or to extend this
idea: How do you know that a given document, certificate or dataset ???
or a vote or ???digital identity??? asserted by an individual ??? is the
???real thing??? and not a forgery?

...> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-blockchain-a-promising-new-infrastructure-for-online-commons/2015/03/12


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