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The writer is the co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Consensys, a blockchain software company
Modern financial systems undergo basic stress testing. Decades of globalization combined with increasingly vulnerable institutions have replaced periods of volatility characterized by inflation shocks, debt overflows and a decline in confidence in intensive authorities. Cross-border payments are inefficient, sovereign currencies face increasing scrutiny, and trust has long been combined by central banks and legal regimes – will become much more vulnerable in a fragmented world.
This is not a temporary crisis, but a signal of building fatigue.
Restructuring is required. In the 1990s, Global Information Systems undergoes their own architectural reset. New protocols like HTTP served as rules that determine how computers communicate across the network. They created a common foundation that allowed for coordination. The result was the internet. It’s an open network that no one owns and can be used by anyone.
The financial system has yet to experience this kind of revolution. However, a new category of financial infrastructure, blockchain-based systems, could encourage that.
At the core, blockchain networks such as Ethereum and Bitcoin enable the movement of value in the same way the Internet allows information to move. Store, send and manipulate real-world values in a global digital context and send them as easily as sending emails via blockchain transactions.
A new class of blockchain-based networks, including smart contract application platforms, allows for the movement and management of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, and the proof of identity and contract agreements without relying on traditional intermediaries.
Unlike payment networks, they are not operated by individual companies or governments, but are run by a decentralized network that uses encryption to reach consensus on the truthfulness of entries and ensure that recorded transaction history is tampered with.
Various institutions such as BlackRock, Apollo Global Management, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan already offer tokenized assets and payment processes on the blockchain. Technology is no longer speculative. It is operational.
Of course, early adopters involved in blockchain infrastructure know that continuous technological advancements are needed to expand and support global throughput and ease of use. Upgrading is complicated. Still, Ethereum has received more than dozens of major upgrades since its launch nearly a decade ago without downtime or compromise on on-chain assets. As a result, while still evolving, it is a technically resilient and, therefore, an increasingly reliable platform for institutions.
But beyond technical design, broader philosophical changes are also worth noting. Distributed systems reconfigure trust as something that can be embedded in infrastructure that is not granted by an institution.
Therefore, trust can be understood as a new kind of product, and decentralized trust is the highest octane word for that product, the gold standard. In a world where global coordination is becoming increasingly difficult, political consensus is fragile, and systems that minimize counterparty risk by design become more attractive.
This is not about exchanging national currency or abolishing banks. Rather, it is to create a layer of interoperable financial infrastructure that can coexist with existing systems, reduce friction, provide a path to wider access and greater resilience for the financial system.
Use cases are expanding beyond the capital market. Digital identities, intellectual property rights, payment railways for emerging economies, and even machine-to-machine trading with autonomous AI agents require infrastructure that can operate beyond border constraints. Much of the world does not work without the internet. Many future economies will not work without these blockchain-based networks.
Some perceptions of the cryptocurrency industry are undermined by speculative overload, price volatility and well-known obstacles. However, it is important to separate it from the infrastructure behind speculative assets. The underlying protocol is defined by the quality of the design and the ability to enable adjustment.
We are entering a multipolar world with a overlapping conflicted governance and regulatory regimes. In that environment, neutral and programmable infrastructure is no longer a luxury. it’s necessary.
Letter in response to this comment:
The code is like a Trump Castle / Peter J Bull, London SW3, UK
