The blockchain is what we call a "trustless" architecture. It stands in for trust in the absence of more traditional mechanisms like social networks and co-location. It allows cooperation without trust [...] proof-of-work is not a new form of trust, but the abdication of trust altogether as social confidence and judgment in favor of an algorithmic regulation. [...] we might dispense with social institutions altogether in favor of an elegant technical solution.

This assumption [...] betrays a worrying politics--or rather a drive to replace politics (as debate and dispute and things that produce connection and difference) with economics. [...] The blockchain has more in common with the neoliberal governmentality that produces platform capitalists like Amazon and Uber and state-market coalitions than any radical alternative. Seen in this light, the call for blockchains forms part of a line of informational and administrative technologies such as punch cards, electronic ledgers, and automated record keeping systems that work to administrate populations and to make politics disappear.