How cryptocurrency helped the starfish beat the spider

Speaker: Austin Craig

The Starfish and the Spider was first published in 2006, outlining the properties of decentralized (or “starfish”) organizations. The idea of decentralized organizations was still fairly new, but becoming more common with the spread of the Internet, itself a decentralized network. Starfish organizations were almost always characterised by weaknesses hinging on a single factor: Money. Money or any other valuable resource had to be centrally managed. That is, until the invention of cryptocurrency. This presentation will highlight how cryptocurrency fundamentally changes the capabilities and possibilities of decentralized organizations. At Mainframe, we’re building a decentralized network for censorship resistant message routing and unstoppable applications. The decentralized management of scarce resources is critical to our success.

Institute of Cryptoanarchy