What is the blockchain? This nifty piece of the Bitcoin protocol has in the past year or two opened up an entire new field of innovation beyond cryptocurrencies and claims to be apowerful force of disintermediation - in other words, a technology that will destroy the evil middlemen that are taking their share and preventing us from truly achieving a decentralised society of horizontal sharing and collaboration. But what exactly is being dis-intermediated? And is there in fact an equally strong re-mediation taking place, where algorithms replace registrars and network consensus takes over from law?

In this workshop we look into the most important aspects of how blockchain technology works. Armed with a basic understanding we then tackle the how and why of decentralisation of power and its impact on traditional authority structures.

Jaya and Elias are actively engaged in the world of blockchain innovation and are in the process of establishing a think tank to contribute independent research to the broader community.