Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future

by Joichi Ito

To ensure that each bitcoin is wholly unique—that a user can’t, in effect, double-spend a bitcoin by making more than one purchase with it—the details of the transaction are broadcast across the network, where they are entered into the public ledger, the blockchain.

By making trust and authority the province of the network—a literal peer-to-peer solution—instead of a bank or a government, Satoshi created a milestone in our development as a society.

People with a wide range of weak ties therefore have more opportunities to pull resources from their networks.

But serendipity is not luck. It is a combination of creating a network and an environment rich with weak ties, a peripheral vision that is “switched on,” and an enthusiasm for engagement that attracts and encourages interaction.

We have to become comfortable with the idea that we are not in control, that we can’t anticipate or even know everything that is going on, but we can still be confident and courageous.