Lawyers spend their entire careers working within a framework of rules. Laws are written, courts interpret them, and if someone breaks those rules there are systems in place to enforce them.

That’s how most rule systems in our world operate.

There are rules, and there are rulers. Someone writes the rules, someone interprets them, and someone enforces them.

While having a conversation with a lawyer I realized something interesting.

Bitcoin has very strict rules, but unlike the legal system, Bitcoin doesn’t have rulers. There are no judges, no regulators, and no central authority deciding how those rules should be applied.

And yet the rules are still followed.

That realization stuck with me, because it suggests something deeper about how systems can work.

For most of human history we assumed that rules required rulers. If a rule existed, someone had to enforce it. A government, a court, an institution, or some form of authority.

Bitcoin challenges that assumption.

It introduces a system where the rules exist, the rules are followed, but no one is in charge.

...read more at bitcoinwell.com