How Blockchain Can Build Trust—and Reduce Government's Power

Blockchain, the decentralized, incorruptible ledger system that undergirds bitcoin, "gives you an actual power to affect change in the world," says hacker Lauri Love. "It's gonna scare the shit out of some very powerful people."

Love is one of the people featured in actor and filmmaker Alex Winter's new documentary, Trust Machine, which explains how blockchain works and how businesses are using it to reinvent power grids, music distribution, and even grocery stores. For today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with Winter, whose previous documentaries include Downloaded, which looked at how Napster and other file-sharing services disrupted the music industry, and Deep Web, a sympathetic portrait of Silk Road and similar websites, about the potential for blockchain to change how governments—and corporations—go about their business.