We’ve known for a long time that bitcoin was really about blockchain and distributed trust. (See
EV 16 on blockchain as the future of the internet.)Blockchain fundamentally addresses the issue of how to establish trusted systems without the need for a single governing trust authority. In many ways, this is the one of the most pressing questions of many political systems and institutions: how to deal with questions of ownership and disputes thereof. In this sense, it is anti-establishment (not relying on centralised institutions) and capitalist (enabling contract enforcement).
✅ Mark Pesce, who I first encountered 20-years ago as he invented VRML, poses a scenario of the importance of distributed trust systems in a world of intelligent cars, networked devices and cyber-threat. It’s a quirky scenario with an unexpected twist, and I recommend you read all three parts. (Each is a quick read.)