Blockchains：A New Social Order
区块链：一种新的社会秩序
By Kyle Samani
凯尔 萨马尼
Cryptographically bound peer-to-peer networks (henceforth called “crypto” for short) are going to be one of the defining technologies of our lifetimes. They enable fundamentally new forms of social organization.
These are bold claims. Once you “get” crypto, you’ll understand how crypto enables a new kind of social structure. I’ve tried to – and failed – to explain this concept to many people. Understanding the deepest and most profound implications of crypto can be difficult as crypto challenges many basic tenets of modern social structures and capitalism.
基于加密技术的P2P网络（以下简称为“加密技术”）将成为我们这个时代的决定性技术之一，它让新的社会组织形式从根本上成为可能。
这是比较大胆的想法。但实际上，一旦你了解加密技术以后，你就会明白我为什么这么说。我试图（但都以失败告终）向许多人解释这个概念，但想要真正理解其深刻内涵及深远意义非常困难，因为加密技术在某种程度上挑战了权威，它对现代社会结构和资本主义的基本原则具有颠覆性的影响。
Background 背景
Many of the best businesses in the world claim to be peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. These networks connect supply and demand in ways that was never possible before.
世界上很多顶级企业都声称自己是点对点（P2P）网络，它们以前所未有的方式维系着供应和需求关系。
Obvious examples include eBay, Uber, AirBnB, the New York Stock Exchange, and Facebook. But there many others: Apple connects developers to consumers, Amazon connects merchants with consumers, Google connects website owners to searchers, insurance companies and banks connect their customers through pooled capital.
eBay、优步、AirBnB、纽约证券交易所和Facebook就是很明显的例子。当然还有其他的：比如苹果公司将开发者与消费者联系起来，亚马逊将商家与消费者联系起来，谷歌将网站所有者与搜索者联系起来，保险公司和银行通过资金汇集将客户联系起来。
Networks that connect latent supply and demand are the foundation of the economy. These networks have created tens of trillions of dollars of economic value. These networks grow to be very large because of network effects. Once a network achieves critical mass, it becomes nearly unstoppable.
But there’s a problem.
连接潜在供求关系的网络是经济的基础。这些网络已然创造了数万亿美元的经济价值。而且这些网络由于网络效应会继续发展壮大，一旦它发展达到一定的临界值，它的影响力几乎无人可挡。
但是存在一个问题。
These networks aren’t really peer-to-peer, even though they claim to be. Rather, they are mediated by network operators, who levy a tax on network participants. Some of this tax is absolutely necessary. Someone has to pay for eBay’s servers, for AirBnb’s insurance offerings, for Amazon’s customer support, etc.
But one part of the tax isn’t necessary: profits (queue Uber jokes).
In time, all network operators become rent seekers. Most are from day one.
即使这些网络声称它们自己是点对点的，然而事实上并不是。相反，它们是由网络运营商运营的，这些网络运营商会向网络参与者收费。可能有些费用是必要的，因为的确需要有人为eBay的服务器、AirBnb的保险、亚马逊的客户支持等类似服务付费。
但是，有部分费用是没有必要收的，比如某些网络运营商的盈利部分（参考一系列的“Uber笑话”，Uber提供着极其糟糕的服务却仍能赚得利润，让大家争相吐槽。对大众来说，这部分费用根本没有必要支付）。
到最后，所有的网络运营商都会成为寻租者，其中他们大多数一开始就扮演者这样的角色。
When crypto libertarians talk about “trustless” commerce, they’re talking about cutting out the middlemen and rent seekers: the network operators. They’re talking about connecting network participants to one another – both businesses and consumers – without middlemen extracting rents.
当加密技术支持者谈论“去信任化”商业时，他们讨论的是如何阻止中间商和寻租者（即网络运营商）；讨论如何让网络参与者（包括企业及消费者）直接相互联系，杜绝中间商赚差价。
This can be hard to imagine. Without a network operator, whose going to build the app? Who’s going to run the servers? How are consumers going to connect together? Who defines the rules of the transaction? How do you ensure equitable payment? Who manages refunds, reviews, and customer service?
这可能在现实世界很难想象。如果没有网络运营商，谁来创建应用程序？谁运行服务器？消费者如何聚集在一起？谁来决定交易规则？如何确保公正的支付方式？谁管理退款、评论和客服？
The short answer: trustless, cryptographically bound network protocols.
Huh?
Let’s walk through four increasingly abstract examples to illustrate this.
而现在有个很简单的答案：去信任化的基于加密技术的网络协议。
哈？
我们可以通过四个较为典型的例子来解释。
Decentralized Cloud 去中心化的云端
A significant majority of the world’s computing resources (compute, storage, bandwidth) are unutilized at a given point in time. Consumer and business hard drives lay mostly empty, and CPUs hum along at 3% utilization. Despite this, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc. continue to build new data centers. This is bonkers.
全球绝大部分计算资源（计算、存储、带宽）在某种程度上都没有被合理利用。个人用户和商业用户硬盘空间大多空置，CPU利用率也仅为3％。尽管如此，亚马逊、谷歌、微软、IBM等巨头仍在不断构建新的数据中心。这是很疯狂的。
Filecoin, STORJ, Sia, Swam, and SAFE are protocols that allow anyone to securely store files on other people’s hard drives. File owners can always retrieve files, and the people storing the files have no idea what they’re storing. At a high level, this is accomplished this in a remarkably simple way: using standard file encryption, Shamir sharding, and distributed hash tables for content-based addressing.
而Filecoin，STORJ，Sia，Swam和SAFE则是一些允许任何人将文件安全地存储在其他人硬盘上的网络协议。文件所有者可以随时检索文件，而且存储文件的人员并不知道他们所存储文件的内容。从技术层面来分析，这是以非常简单的方式完成的，即使用标准文件的加密技术、Shamir分片和基于内容寻址的分布式哈希表。
Each protocol creates a market in which people with unused storage space and bandwidth can compete to store other people’s files and generate income. Because these protocols leverage people’s excess storage capacity that would otherwise sit unutilized and generate $0 revenue, these protocols will offer storage that’s much less expensive than that offered by large data centers who buy storage with the intent to rent it out. I won’t dive into things like enterprise-grade support in this post, but it’s worth noting that these protocols are designed to allow organizations to compete on value-added layers such as support.
每个协议会创建这样一个市场：未使用存储空间和带宽的人们，可以相互竞争以存储其他人的文件从而创造收入。因为这些协议利用了人们的多余存储容量，否则这些存储容量会被闲置且毫无收入可言，而且这些协议提供的存储服务比大型数据中心提供的要便宜很多，那些大型数据中心都是意图垄断存储空间再以出租方式获取暴利。在这篇文章中，我不会深入讨论企业级技术支持等内容，但值得注意的是，这些协议是允许组织在诸如技术支持等增值层面进行竞争的。
Each of these protocols is truly peer-to-peer. You store your content on other people’s hard drives. You don’t have to care about who stores them. No one stands between you and your files. There is no middle man, no rent-seeker. You store your files on the network and you pay the network.
Golem and Elastic do basically the same thing but for compute rather than storage.
这些协议才是真正的点对点协议。你确实把自己的数据存储到了其他人的硬盘上，但你不必知道是谁存储了这些数据，也不需要担心存储人会不会泄露数据。你和你的数据之间没有任何中间人，也没有寻租者。你只是把文件存储在网络上并支付网络费用。
可能在计算方面，Golem和Elastic基本上是一样的，但它们在存储方面却截然不同。
For decentralized storage and compute, the mega opportunity is not “decentralized Dropbox.” Most people are on the free tier of Dropbox! The real opportunity for these protocols is in powering Internet applications. In time, most (maybe all?) apps – to do lists, note taking apps, chat apps, finance apps, etc. – won’t have to run in a private data center; rather, apps will run on the global mesh network of everyone’s computers.
对去中心化的存储和计算来说，其巨大的机会并不意味着建立“去中心化的Dropbox”——让大多数人都在免费使用“Dropbox”服务！实际上，其真正前景在于去中心化的存储和计算为互联网应用提供了很大的支持。随着时间的推移，大多数（可能是所有？）应用程序（包括任务管理、备忘录、聊天应用，理财程序等等）都不必在中心化的数据中心运行; 相反，它们都能在由个人电脑组成的全球网络上运行。
Decentralized Prediction Markets 去中心化的预测市场平台
Augur is a decentralized prediction market. What does that mean? Let’s contrast it with a famous centralized prediction market: Las Vegas sports betting.
Vegas casinos take about 10% of total bet volume as a fee, called the take rate. They justify this fee by saying it’s necessary to arbitrate the outcome. You’re paying the casino 10% for three things: 1) to act as an escrow, 2) report who won the game, 3) and to distribute proceeds to the winner. This should not cost 10%. This is insanity.
Augur是一个去中心化的预测市场平台。这怎么理解？我们可以把它和著名的中心化预测市场（拉斯维加斯体育博彩）进行对比。
拉斯维加斯赌场会白白收取你所有赌注总额的10％，称之为手续费。赌场声称这笔费用是用来判定赌局结果所需。也就是说，在你支付的这10％费用中，包含了以下三项服务：1）赌资托管；2）判定输赢，3）分配赢利。就算有这些服务，也绝对不值10%的花费，这太荒谬了。
The problem with a decentralized prediction market is that if no one is in a room somewhere flipping a switch to say who won the game, how do you resolve the bet? You can’t just leave it up to a vote of market participants. If the odds on a bet are 9:1 and the 1 ends up winning, you don’t want the 9s to just outvote the 1s.
但去中心化的预测市场平台也存在问题：如果没有人在某个房间拍板决定谁赢了赌局，那么我们如何判定？ 你总不能只把它交给市场参与者投票，如果下注的赔率是9：1，并且1是获胜方，那么你肯定不希望因为市场参与者的投票最终9方胜出了1方。
What Vegas does for 10%, the Augur protocol will do for about 1%. Network participants in the Augur network, $REP holders, will be paid by the network to truthfully report event outcomes.
其实拉斯维加斯为所谓的10％做的事情，Augur协议用1％花费就可以做到。Augur网络中的参与者，即REP代币持有者，只需如实报告事件结果就能获得由网络支付的报酬。
How? 这怎么说？
The Augur network runs on smart contracts. In simple terms, smart contracts act as trustless escrow services that are bound by code (no human intervention) and release money based on some predetermined criteria. You will not stake bets in the Augur network using Augur’s native’s REP token. Rather, you’ll stake bets in other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether. Services such as Oraclize will automatically relay the outcome of the basketball game from nba.com to the Augur smart contract. With the score of the game, the smart contract will resolve the bet and distribute the funds to the winner.
因为Augur网络运行在智能合约之上。简而言之，智能合约提供由代码约束的信托服务（无人为干预），并根据某些预定标准发放奖金。你不能在Augur网络中用Augur本地的REP代币投注，相反，你可以使用比特币和以太币等其他加密货币。比如说，像Oraclize等提供服务的机构会自动将篮球比赛的结果从NBA官网传递给Augur智能合约。根据比赛得分，智能合约将判定输赢并给获胜者分配奖金。
If anyone who was on the losing side of the bet believes that nba.com was incorrect (e.g. it was hacked) or that Oraclize manipulated the data, they can challenge the outcome by staking more money. At this point, the Augur smart contract asks REP holders to vote on the outcome of the basketball game. If REP holders voerte in a way that overrules the challeng, the challenger loses the bond she put up to initiate the challenge. Additionally, REP holders who vote “incorrectly” – defined as those who vote against the majority of REP holders – also lose some REP. Thus, bet-losers are only incentivized to challenge the outcome reported by Oraclize if they believe a majority of REP holders will report a different outcome than that reported by Oraclize. The same is true of REP holders: they’re incentivized to vote in a way they believe all other REP holders will vote.
如果有哪个输家坚持认为 NBA官网的结果不正确（例如被黑客攻击）或者Oraclize的中心化组织操控数据，他们可以通过投入更多资金来挑战目前的结果。此时，Augur智能合约会要求所有REP持币人对篮球比赛的结果进行投票。如果持币人以少数服从多数驳回挑战者的提议，那么挑战者就会输掉所有本金。而且那部分支持挑战者的少数人也会输掉他们的REP代币。因此，输家只有在大多数持币人都相信他们投票的结果会和Oracle提供的结果不一样的情况下，才会发起挑战。REP持币者也是如此：他们会支持绝大多数持币人的选择。
This system works because REP holders are independent of market participants and because REP holders are global and pseudo-anonymous, making large-scale collusion nearly impossible. Bet-losers and REP holders cannot easily identify and try to coerce REP holders to collude to report a false event outcome. Even if REP holders did collude and intentionally misreported an event outcome, people would lose faith in the Augur network and the value of REP tokens would plummet, harming the colluders.
这个系统有效是因为REP持有者独立于市场参与者之外，并且REP持有者是全球性的和伪装匿名的，因此大规模的合谋几乎是不可能的。那些输家不可能认识所有持币人或者强迫持币人合谋报告虚假的事件结果。即使REP持有人真的串通并故意错误报告事件结果，这些人在Augur网络中会失信，REP的价格会大幅下跌，这样反而会损害合谋者们的利益。
All of this logic is handled by the Augur protocol, which lives on the Ethereum blockchain. No one in the world, including governments, can remove this smart contract or change the rules of the protocol. The protocol is like chemistry. You can’t break the laws of chemistry.
所有这些逻辑都由以太坊区块链上的Augur协议处理。这个世界上，包括人们认为权威的政府机构在内，任何人都无法取消这个智能合约或改变协议的规则。这些协议就像化学反应，你不可能违反化学规律。
Augur is a true P2P prediction market. Anyone can partake in any prediction market – politics, sports, asset prices, hurricane severity, economic forecasting, anything. No one can prevent you from participating in any market, and no one can manipulate the outcome. Liquidity pools are global, there’s no counterparty risk, and the fees are dramatically lower than centralized alternatives.
Augur是一个真正的P2P预测市场。任何人都可以参与任何预测市场（包括政治、体育、资产价格、天气预报、经济预测等一切事情）。没有人能阻止你，也没有人能操控结果。奖池是全球性的，不存在交易对手欺诈风险，其收费也远低于中心化的平台。
If you want to learn more about Augur, check out Multicoin’s Augur Analysis and Valuation. TLDR: we’re bullish.
想了解更多有关Augur的信息，请查看Multicoin发布的文章《Augur的分析与评价》 太长若不看请看这里，主要观点是：总之我们很看好。
Decentralized Record Keeping 去中心化的数据记录平台
Every company that’s regulated for compliance (financial services, pharma, food safety, oil and gas, supply chains, etc.) has to keep records. Occasionally, auditors ask these companies for their records. When this happens, the company has to find the relevant records, turn them over to the auditor, and prove to the best of their ability that they haven’t modified the records since they were generated (this is how Bernie Madeoff ran a Ponzi scheme for 20+ years; he modified records after the fact).
每个受合规监管的公司（金融服务、制药、食品安全、石油和天然气、供应链等）都必须保存相关记录。有的时候审计员会要求这些公司提供记录。这种情况下公司必须找到相关记录，将其转交给审计人员，并尽其最大能力证明他们从未篡改过源生数据（这也是伯尼马多夫如何能运行庞氏骗局20余年的原因：因为他在背后偷偷修改了记录）。
Factom has designed a blockchain that allows companies to commit hashed records to a public blockchain. You can’t see the contents of the document by reading the blockchain. The public can only see a cryptographic hash– a fingerprint of the record – on the blockchain.
Factom设计了一个区块链——允许公司提交哈希过的数据至公共区块链。但你不可能通过阅读该区块链查看文档内容，因为公众只能在区块链上看到一个加密的哈希数，它相当于数据的指纹。
When committing records to the Factom blockchain, companies will still store their private documents on services like Box, Google Drive, or any of the decentralized storage protocols listed above. When auditors ask for documents, companies will turn documents over in the same way they always have. Auditors will then use software to compare each document against its cryptographic hash on the Factom blockchain. If they match, auditors will instantly know, with 100% certainty, whether the company has retroactively modified any document.
When companies adopt Factom, auditing becomes orders of magnitude faster, cheaper, more accurate, and honest.
当向Factom区块链提交哈希过的记录时，公司也会将其私密文件存储在类似Box、Google Drive或上述任一去中心化的存储协议类的服务中。当审计人员要求提供文件时，公司仍按照他们以往的方式转交文件。然后，审计人员将使用软件将每个文件进行哈希，再与Factom区块链上的加密哈希数据进行对比。如果这两类数据匹配，审计人员就能100％确定该公司从未追溯修改任何文件。
一旦公司运用Factom后，审计变得更快，更便宜，更准确，更可信。
As companies adopt Factom, the world will become a much more honest place. Pharmaceutical companies won’t be able to hide evidence of poor clinical trial results, the title-insurance business will collapse, supply chains will become transparent, and much more. By decentralizing record keeping, the truth will flourish.
随着公司都运用Factom，世界也会变得更加可信。制药公司将无法隐藏临床试验结果不佳的证据，保险业务将崩溃，供应链将变得透明等等。这种去中心化的数据保存方法，使作弊和欺诈无处隐藏，让事实永远大白于天下。
If you want to learn more about Factom, check out Multicoin’s Factom Analysis and Valuation. TLDR: we’re bullish.
如果您想了解更多关于Factom的信息，请查看Multicoin发布的文章《Factom的分析与评价》 。太长若不看请看这里，主要观点是：总之我们很看好。
Decentralized Money 去中心化的货币
“I think the fact that within the Bitcoin universe an algorithm replaces the functions of [the government] … is actually pretty cool. I am a big fan of Bitcoin.”– Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States.
“在我看来，比特币的世界里的算法取代了【政府】的职能……这真的相当厉害。”我是比特币的超级粉丝。——美国前副总统戈尔。
Decentralized money is the holy grail of P2P networks. It’s money that’s free from government control: no inflation, no capital controls, no bank account freezes, no undisclosed fees, no multi-day clearing times. Your money. Purely your money. No one can tell you what you can do with it.
If you live in a country with a stable government, this may not seem like a big deal. What’s wrong with the USD? What’s wrong with Visa/Mastercard?
去中心化的货币是P2P网络的获胜宝典。它们是无政府控制的货币，也就没有通货膨胀、没有资本控制、没有银行账户冻结、没有隐性费用、没有多天的清算时间。你的钱就是你的钱。没有人能干涉你对这些钱的支配权。
如果你生活在一个政府稳定的国家，这可能不是什么大不了的事情。你们看，美元没什么问题吧？Visa / Mastercard没什么问题吧？都很好用吧？
But if you live in one of these countries, you might have a different perspective.
The countries in green have inflation between 10-20%. The countries in blue are >20%. These countries combined represent 780M people – more than 10% of the global population – and $2.1trillion of GDP.
但是如果你住在这些国家之一，你可能会有不同的观点。
图中绿色标注的国家，其通货膨胀率在10-20％之间。蓝色标注的国家通货膨胀率超过20％。这些国家总计代表了7.8亿人口（超过全球人口的10％）以及2.1万亿美元的国内生产总值。
If inflation is 20% and you have $10,000, then after one year it’s as if you have $8,000. After two years, it’s as if you have $6,400. Inflation is awful. It destroys value. It prevents people from thinking long term.
如果通货膨胀率是20％，你拥有的10,000美元在一年后就等于8000美元，两年后只等于6,400美元。通货膨胀是很可怕的，它会破坏价值存在的意义，让人们不再喜欢从长计议。
That is the promise of Bitcoin. Bitcoin operates independently of governments. It is a true peer-to-peer money system, controlled by the people, for the people. In crypto, no politician can devalue your money.
比特币对此则另有承诺：比特币独立于政府运作，这是一个真正的人民自由控制的为人民服务的点对点货币体系。在这个体系中，没有任何政治因素会让你的钱贬值。
Challenging Capitalism挑战资本主义
It’s not intuitive to think that centralization is a problem that permeates so many disparate facets of the modern world. Most people don’t think that modern Internet infrastructure is woefully inefficient and unnecessarily expensive. Or that prediction markets are materially worse as a result of centralization. Or that modern record keeping practices create opportunities for fraud and deceit. Or that centralized governments destroy the value of money.
有人认为中心化会成为一个问题，这个问题会逐渐影响到当今世界的方方面面，这种观点已经不是杞人忧天了。而事实上，大部分人并不觉得现代互联网的基础设施效率低下且过于昂贵。或者说，他们并不觉得中心化会让预测市场变得更糟糕，也不觉得如今的数据保存方法实质上是为欺诈和欺骗创造了机会，甚至没有意识到集权政府正在摧毁金钱的价值。
But as a result of the entirely natural evolution of capitalism over the last few hundred years, middleman have come to wield enormous power. Middlemen levy taxes on most economic transactions. We as a society have become so used to this that we’re generally blind to it. Debates about tax reform are incredibly myopic relative to the global scope of network operators levying taxes on network participants.
但是，在过去几百年资本主义发展演进的过程中，中介垄断了巨大的资源。中介会对大多数经济交易收费。然而我们整个社会已经对此习以为常甚至早已麻木。与网络运营商对全球网络参与者征税的范围相比，人们关于税收改革的争论点则极其狭隘，真是令人难以置信。
Cryptographically bound networks will become more profound that anyone recognizes today. Consider the number and types of rent seekers. They’re everywhere:
• Governments
• Insurance companies
• Banks
• Social networks
• Internet service providers
• Marketplace operators
• Exchange operators
• Casinos
基于加密技术的网络对现代社会的影响，将远比现在人们看到的更为深远。想想如今寻租者的数量和类型有多少，几乎是随处可见：
• 政府
• 保险公司
• 银行
• 社交网络
• 互联网服务提供商
• 市场运营商
• 交易所运营商
• 赌场
Crypto is going to change money not only by challenging monetary policy of governments, but also by challenging the structure of society as we know it. Every industry listed above, and many others, will be radically transformed by cutting out middlemen and connecting individuals and businesses to one another via crypto. Not all corporations will transform into blissful P2P crypto cooperatives. Earth will not become some hippie utopia in which all rules and money are governed by cryptographically bound protocols.
加密技术对当今世界货币的挑战，不仅仅体现在对政府货币权威性的影响，更是有可能颠覆如今人们早已适应的现代社会结构。上面列出的每一个行业，包括其他各行各业都将发生翻天覆地的变化，它们都会由于加密技术的运用而从根本上阻断中介的介入，将个人和企业直接联系起来。当然，并不是所有的公司或组织都会真心地加入P2P网络协议社区。所以，整个世界也不会变成绝对理想的乌托邦，不可能所有游戏规则及货币政策都由加密技术加持的协议来决定。
Pooling capital and human labor will always exist. Not everything will become P2P. A P2P car factory doesn’t make sense. A lot of industrial processes won’t be directly impacted by P2P networks. Local service providers – dentists, barbers, etc – aren’t going anywhere. Crypto networks aren’t going to give you a massage, mow your lawn, or clean your house.
因为资本和劳动力的聚集永远都会发生，所以并非一切都需要成为P2P，比如一个P2P的汽车工厂并没有意义。很多工业流程都不会直接受到P2P网络的影响，还有一些当地服务提供者，像牙医、理发师等等，对他们来说没有什么改变。加密网络不是直接为你提供按摩、修剪草坪、打扫卫生等服务的。
Finding Truth In Fiction 在故事中寻找真相
In Sapiens, Yuval Hurari argues that the defining characteristic of homosapiens vs all other species on Earth is homosapien’s ability to tell and believe in abstract and shared stories. He calls these shared stories “fictions” to make the point clear. All of the foundations of modern society are shared fictions: money, law, religion, and corporations, to name a few.
在《人类简史》一书中，尤瓦尔胡拉里认为人类和地球上其他物种相比，最大的区别在于，人有编造故事并让所有人相信故事的能力。为了更清楚地阐述，他把这些故事统称为“虚构作品”。现代社会就是构建于这些虚构的作品之上：金钱、法律、宗教和公司等等。
People are bound by chemistry and physics. Corporations are not. They are purely abstract, and exist only within the confines of laws, which are themselves fictions. Green pieces of paper connote value only because the federal government tells us that green pieces of paper connote value.
人类会由一些化学或物理的元素维系着，但公司不是的。公司是相当抽象和直接的，而且它们只存在于人类自己虚构的法律界限之内。比如说，如果你认定一张绿纸片不值钱，那是因为你所相信的权威政府告诉你，这张绿纸片不值钱，而实际上这张纸到底价值何在，我们无从判断。
Corporations have produced nearly all of the incremental value for society in the last few hundred years. These corporations – these shared fictions – were absolutely necessary for the development of modern society. The Walmart corporation has created tremendous value for society by creating a shared fiction called Walmart that coordinates the actions of 1,000,000 employees who would be otherwise autonomous and independent. Each of these people understands their role within the broader Walmart fiction from the front-door greeter to the CEO.
在过去的几百年里，公司几乎为社会创造了所有增量价值。这些公司（或理解为虚构的组织）是现代社会发展的必然产物。比如，沃尔玛公司创建了一个叫沃尔玛的虚构组织，这个组织将100万名原本各自独立工作的员工联系在一起，展开大规模协作为社会创造了巨大价值。从前台到CEO，这个组织内的所有人都明晰他们在这个组织中的角色，各司其职。
We finally have a way to coordinate large numbers of disparate parties trustlessly across the globe in real time through the use of economic incentives. This can be done without a shared fiction. This is possible for the first time because of crypto.
而如今我们终于找到一种新方式，可以使用经济激励手段让全球各地的独立成员实时进行“去信任化”合作。这种实现方式不是之前提到的 “虚构作品”，而是今天的加密技术，它让一切成为可能。
Cryptographically bound P2P networks provide a new mechanism for social organization. These networks are bound purely by protocols, which are themselves bound by math. Network participants can engage in protocol governance, as defined by the protocol. Through these protocols, billions of people will transact with one another for the first time in human history, they’ll do so without believing in any shared fiction other than the shared fiction of money itself.
基于加密技术的P2P网络为社会组织提供了一种新的机制。这些网络纯粹由基于数学的网络协议维系。网络参与者可以参与由网络协议制定规则的治理活动。通过这些网络协议，数十亿人将首次在人类历史上实现直接的相互间交易，且无需将信任寄托于任何虚构的组织，甚至不需要再相信本身就是虚构的货币。
Everything that can be decentralized, will be decentralized. – Johnston’s Law.
任何可去中心化的事物，终将去中心化。 ——约翰斯顿法则。