Regulating Blockchain

As the distributed architecture underpinning the initial Bitcoin anarcho-capitalist, libertarian project, ''blockchain'' entered wider public imagination and vocabulary only very recently. Yet in a short space of time it has become more mainstream and synonymous with a spectacular variety of commercial and civic ''problem''/''solution'' concepts and ideals. From commodity provenance, to electoral fraud prevention, to a wholesale decentralisation of power and the banishing of the exploitative practices of ''middlemen'', blockchain stakeholders are nothing short of evangelical in their belief that it is a force for good. For these reasons and more the technology has captured the attention of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, global corporations and governments the world over.

Blockchain may indeed offer a unique technical opportunity to change cultures of transparency and trust within cyberspace, and as ¿revolutionary¿ and ¿disruptive¿ has the potential to shift glo