Is It Time for a Blockchain Brexit?
Pindar Wong There is a crisis in governance. I’m not talking about bitcoin, but Brexit. Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) is not so much a technical crisis between a ‘hard fork’ and a ‘soft fork’ but a legitimacy crisis. Yet the solution to its core dilemma — politically deciding between a ‘Hard Brexit’ and a ‘Soft Brexit’ — may actually lay in harnessing blockchain technology’s great potential as an economic governance system for the digital age. One thing’s clear: the current system is failing. The impasse in Britain requires a radical rethink. Unless even more time is requested by the UK, and unanimously granted by all 27 member states of the EU, the default option is for the UK to chaotically crash out from the European trade bloc, by leaving without a legal agreement, on Friday, April 12. As laws have borders, this lack of ‘legal certainty’ is particularly troubling as it risks disrupting cross-border supply chain networks which would be ba...