A thesis in 12 parts
Blockchain: Decentralization of Money, Power and the State
A History BA thesis on blockchain, decentralization and the state — published online in full.
This is the complete online publication of a History BA thesis written by Alessandro Oppo in the 2021–2022 academic year at the University of Turin, under the supervision of Professor Stefano Gulizia. It is published here for the first time as a 12-part series in August 2026.
The thesis examines blockchain technology not merely as a technical innovation but as a historical and political phenomenon: how the decentralization of money, information and trust reshapes power, the state, and the relationship between past and present. It is written for readers in the humanities and social sciences, and the prose is preserved verbatim from the original manuscript — only PDF-extraction artifacts (hyphenation, footnote formatting, page numbers) have been corrected.
The series is ordered to follow the original thesis structure. Each part links to the next and back to this index. Footnotes appear at the end of each part, and the full bibliography is collected on a separate references page.
The series
Blockchain and History
Why historians should study blockchain: how cryptography, digital currency and decentralization reshape power, money and the state — the introduction to a 12-part thesis.
What Are Blockchains? Collaboration, Forks and Peer-to-Peer
What blockchains are, from a human perspective: open source, digital collaboration, forks, peer-to-peer networks and the client-server paradigm explained for non-technical readers.
Cryptography, Blocks, Bitcoin and Ethereum
Cryptography, hash functions, blocks, Bitcoin and Ethereum smart contracts: the technical foundations of blockchain, from MD5 to Turing-complete decentralized computation.
Religions, Forks and the Digital Past
How blockchain forks resemble religious schisms, the betrayal of the digital, and why controlling the past — hashes, primary sources and the Internet Archive — controls the present.
Metaverses and the Politics of Software Updates
Centralized versus decentralized metaverses, and why software updates — soft forks, hard forks and 9/11 — are political acts that reshape blockchain ecosystems and society.
Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Power
How the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence concentrate power: sensors everywhere, data as the new gold, and why technological acceleration outpaces democratic oversight.
Centralization, CBDCs, Data and the Four Horsemen
Centralization of power through IoT, Central Bank Digital Currencies, the importance of data, and the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse — terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles and organized crime.
Internet of Value, Social Credit and Rewinding Time
Physical desecration and cryptography, the Internet of Value, social credit systems, and rewinding time: how blockchains could let us verify — or rewrite — the historical record.
Decentralized Violence, Mass Adoption and Revolution
Decentralized violence, mass adoption as revolution, planning the revolution, and the reaction of established power — what happens when blockchain undermines state monopolies on force.
Decentralized States: Governance, Traditions, Faith and Nations
Decentralized states: governance without central authority, digital traditions, the question of faith, gods and goddesses, the great legislators, and what will happen to the nations.
Anarcho-Capitalism, Node Hierarchies and Blockchain Security
Anarcho-capitalism and the invisible hand, hierarchies between node and full node, information security, backdoors, and the 51% attack — the security assumptions of decentralized systems.
Reversing the Paradigm: Final Considerations
Reversing the paradigm: blockchain as historical materialism, the separation of the three coins, the family, and final considerations on decentralization, democracy and open questions.
References and Bibliography
Acknowledgements and the complete bibliography and sitography for the 12-part Blockchain thesis series on decentralization of money, power and the state.