I need to come back and write up a clear article on this, but i’ve been digging deep into Bitcoin. Not the cryptocurrency part, but the actual protocol behind it. The think i’m curious about: What else could we apply the blockchain concept to. That is, what kind of decentralization can happen when there is a secure, transparent, open, scriptable, public ledger holding the system together.

Lots more to think about,  but here’s a couple important articles for my own future reference:

• The original Bitcoin paper 
• Marc Andreeson: Why Bitcoin matters (via NYT) and “In 20 Years We’ll Be Talking About Bitcoin like The Internet” 
• Backstory on Bitcoin (via Wired)
• High level explanation of how the blockchain works (via Stackexchange)
• How the Blockchain works (video from Khan Academy)
• The Scripting language on top of the Blockchain is “expressive”
• Namecoin: The Blockchain concept applied to internet names
• A bit more on the opportunities possible via the decentralized protocol
• Albert Wenger from USV making it clear: Bitcoin as a Protocol