Blockchain Technology – Autonomy for the IT-elite, new vulnerabilites for the rest?

Abstract

The blockchain enticingly promises to make intermediaries of social interactions superfluous. At the moment, these have to be trusted, which produces dependencies, as the banking crisis painfully proves. Notaries and banks would become unnecessary through the blockchain. But the power of actors is not dissolved in the blockchain, rather it shifts towards new and most importantly illegitimate and uncontrolled centers of power. As interesting as the blockchain is from a technological standpoint, it is not a substitute for classical political action and the regulation of power. In his lecture, Rainer Rehak discusses the ideas behind blockchain and autonomy.