Wall Street Journals' 'The Accelerators' blog: "Weekend Read: The Imminent Decentralized Computing Revolution"

Nice summary of the major decentralization projects:

http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2014/10/10/weekend-read-the-imminent-decentralized-computing-revolution/

What this really means is that transactions, identity verification, trust, reputation and payments become quantifiable and programmable.

And it opens up a whole range of possibilities:

Decentralized voting (e.g. Agora), where voters pay using a crypto-currency into an account representing their choice, with the winning candidate being one with highest balance.

Decentralized Domain Name Registration (DNS) (e.g. Namecoin) would be based on a crypto-currency model, and operate independently of ICANN (so technically immune from Internet censorship). Namecoin uses the .bit top-level domain.

Decentralized storage (e.g. Maidsafe and Storj), where trustless nodes would work together (using crypto-currencies as means of payment) to exchange storage space and bandwidth.

Smart self-validating contracts for real-time revenue sharing (e.g. Secure Asset Exchange); helping artists secure and verify their digital artwork by logging it in the block chain (e.g. Monegraph); and even decentralized Twitter-like P2P asynchronous messaging platforms (e.g. BitMessage and Twister).

Document certification (e.g. Proof of Existence) is a clever use of the block chain as a publicly visible and authenticated timestamp.

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Yep, that’s a good one. The EU is getting ready to welcome that as well.

In a statement to the Dutch Newspaper Volksrant, the Ministrie highlighted ITOM as an attempt to target international illegal trade by partnering with countries across Europe. It vowed to take down dark markets, and also to focus on mail and logistics services as the delivery mechanism for illegal goods.
Source: European Prosecutors Launch Project to Combat Online Dark Markets

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