Rapport 15 Decentralized trust

Overview: The ecosystem around blockchain is developing rapidly among early adopters, which includes developers, activists, and technology enthusiasts. If this development could also be applied to core societal functions at an early stage, it could contribute to reducing information asymmetries and transactions costs, benefitting citizens directly. To enable the potential of the technology to be fully harnessed, businesses, entrepreneurs, government agencies, and individuals should be encouraged to follow the development of this new technology and to explore the new functions that it enables. The insights may contribute to better organized societal functions, more cost-efficient transactions, better protection of data, and innovations for nations and entities on the quest to stay globally competitive. The technology obviates the need for trusted intermediaries as well as the need to trust counterparties in economic transactions. Blockchain represents a breakthrough in computer science that enables a robust decentralized global system for the verification of actual transactions that are auditable by anyone in real time. If it continues to evolve similarly to the progress that has been witnessed for other Internet protocols, it will most likely be highly impactful for businesses and society