It’s not what you think it is. A few weeks ago, I led my connections to a single-question survey, asking what the currently most utilized distributed consensus algorithms is. This isn’t the largest group in the world, but it’s also a fairly mixed bunch: a majority is in the tech industry, but almost as many are not. Some or old guard, some entered the field only a while ago. Some are more research inclined, some more practically oriented.

Figure: “Bazaar, Cairo, Oct-2011” by maltman23 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Or how Blockchain gets consensus wrong. Over twenty years ago, Eric S. Raymond wrote an essay that changed the software development world. Titled The Cathedral and the Bazaar, it outlined his experience in trying to understand and emulate the success of the Linux operating system kernel. The essay set down some observations in rules that other projects should follow for similar success.

A nightmare of capitalism, that is, not a nightmare for capitalism. Let me explain. Throughout its history, Bitcoin has been lauded as a currency that can set us free. It seems as if every other week, someone discovers bitcoin’s decentralized nature, and concludes that this makes it the most democratic currency possible. Here's one very recent such story. It’s not that these views are completely wrong. On the surface, they’re quite correct.