Includes bibliographical references (pages 313-336) and index.

Part I: Say you want a revolution. 1. The trust protocol -- 2. Bootstrapping the future: seven design principles of the blockchain economy -- Part II: Transformations. 3. Reinventing financial services -- 4. Re-architecting the firm: the core and the edges -- 5. New business models: making it rain on the blockchain -- 6. The ledger of things: animating the physical world -- 7. Solving the prosperity paradox: economic inclusion and entrepreneurship -- 8. Rebuilding government and democracy -- 9. Freeing culture on the blockchain: music to our ears -- Part III: Promise and peril. 10. Overcoming showstoppers: ten implementation challenges -- 11. Leadership for the next era.

The Internet as we know it is great for collaboration and communication, but is deeply flawed when it comes to commerce and privacy. The new blockchain technology facilitates peer-to-peer transactions without any intermediary such as a bank or governing body. Keeping the user's information anonymous, the blockchain validates and keeps a permanent public record of all transactions. That means that your personal information is private and secure, while all activity is transparent and incorruptible--reconciled by mass collaboration and stored in code on a digital ledger. With its advent, we will not need to trust each other in the traditional sense, because trust is built into the system itself.