Blockchain and History

Part 1 of 12 — Blockchain: Decentralization of Money, Power and the State Originally written as a History BA thesis, academic year 2021–2022. Published online August 2026. Series index → · References & bibliography →

Introduction: blockchain and History

Technological innovations are not exclusive to our age, nor to the industrial age: but the speed with which they are now propagating and the power-or overbearingness-with which they are going to affect our society require a deeper understanding of how they work. Just as has happened in the past, this technological revolution will also erase trades and create new ones: if the digital revolution we are witnessing can make one feel very distant from what we were up to the middle of the last century, what is coming is likely to overwhelm society without sufficient critical mass. Many different branches have emerged from the technological revolution, which have developed more or less independently to the present day, such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and blockchain. It is precisely the latter that represent the point of union between the historian's work and new technologies. They represent what are among his main subjects of study, namely time and power. They are not only the bearers of technological innovation; they may represent the new conception of History as the bearers of information about the economic, and therefore social, life of the world to come. These changes are taking place right now, and the effects are propagating so quickly as to bewilder even the most careful scholars. What was once a source, and later a file, that is, a document, an image, a video, in short, a source contained in an archive and useful for being able to reconstruct history, or a story, is on its way to becoming something else. From these sources, whether they belong to the past or are created in the present day, it will be possible to obtain information that was unthinkable until recently: big data and the processing of these through artificial intelligences will blur some concepts we thought we knew. New religions see the light, such as Dataism¹ : from data it will be possible to study humans as never before.

Contracts, which used to be written on paper, are now about to change form: not only are they being digitized, but, thanks to information technology, they are coming to life and executing themselves, since a contract is not that different from a machineexecutable code.

Digital currency exists, it is a reality, and it has been talked about for quite some time. It has been since the early 1990s, with the discovery of asymmetric cryptography, that a movement with the curious name: 'Cypherpunk' was created: those who were part of it sensed how the exchange of secure and unheard information between private individuals undermined the foundations of established and centralized power. People like Julian Assange claim to have been part of the first mailing lists where the problems and possibilities offered by this new weapon were discussed. In fact, cryptography is considered a weapon by governments, which prohibit the export of cryptographic formulas to foreign countries that are considered enemies. ² The fluidity of the Internet and the ease with which information exchanges take place has made it very difficult for governments to prevent the spread of these technologies and, more importantly, these ideas. Institutions' initial distrust of cryptography and the free exchange of information was set aside as banks and institutions also began to offer online services, which required secure, untapped connections. One of the fields of study of the cypherpunk movement and, therefore, of application of cryptography was precisely that of digital currency. It was clear from the beginning how it could lead to new kinds of societies, to which anonymous transactions, freedom from a central power and programmability of currency contributed. The technology of the 1990s made it possible to devise a digital currency, but in order to have a fully decentralized one, a number of problems had to be solved: one of these is the debated problem of double spending³ , that is, how to prevent one person from selling or exchanging the same asset (i.e., the same currency) multiple times and to different people. At the moment it is enough to know that in the absence of a central authority, the problem was: who guarantees that the transactions are valid? The moment there is an authority (the state) it can guarantee the actual value of the currency: but how to do so in the absence of authority?

One important thing to know is that the process leading to the conceptualization of digital currency has been a slow one, consisting of several stages which certainly start from the invention of a currency in human history and then result in the present, where the first prototypes begin to circulate. It is intuitable how in the processes of political centralization and unification of monetary, measuring and linguistic systems there is an elimination of so-called "dead time," that is, a bureaucratic simplification that allows for acceleration and simplification of human processes and relations. Among the many possible examples one is that of Napoleon, who carried out a process of territorial and social unification, also involving the various units of measurement and currency. Also very important was the simplification at the level of borders and, therefore, customs.

A major revolution in the intangible world was the invention of computers and the Internet, a network that made it possible to do what the printing press did, which was to spread ideas, but with a speed and economy that exceeded all expectations. Ideas spread over the network and, in the course of a few years, new languages were born: they are technical, procedural, sequential languages with which solutions to complex problems can be written. There are some similarities between those who write about ideas and those who write code: the former is read, understood and eventually executed by people, while the latter is simply executed. In the past and present so many struggles, clashes and terrible wars, have arisen from the spread of certain ideas. Already we smell the first fumes of what may be the subject of conflict and oppression in the near future. In some states of the world it is not legal to own, use or contribute in any form to the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Those who transgress do so by hiding in the shadows of the Internet, not too unlike those who fled from the power of religious, or political, authorities during the religious conflicts of the 16th century.

Why this stubbornness in wanting to curb the spread of ideas and knowledge, be they religious, ideological or computer-based? Is it perhaps the same drive that is behind it, dictated by human fears and lusts for power? How much of what happens in this second world of ideas, into which the digital has disruptively entered, is opposed by the ruling class, and how much is shaped by it? There is so much confusion in this new world, just a few years ago in its infancy, which now promises to be the foundation on which the physical, material one can be built. The two worlds are inverted, blending even more, until they become indistinguishable from each other, and everything changes shape, starting with power: the state, law, and money.

Note to reader:

What has been attempted in this thesis is to provide food for thought so as to provide a key for further study and investigation. Examples and reflections that sometimes seem to go against each other have been given to make it clear how complex this world is: not everything described is desirable, what was intended to be explained is what is possible, that is, what the technique allows.

The writer believes that decentralization can take our society in more democratic directions, although there are still many open questions that would need further study.

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