It doesn't matter what system you set up, there was always a need for a middleman, a managerial class, a custodian, a trustee, that would do things on behalf of the people appointing him.

And everyone had their ideas about how to achieve decentralization, but a theory is a theory, and when it came to practice, it always hit the same problem again: How to do it? And Who will do it?

So every action required a middleman to execute it. Nobody could solve this obvious organizational problem, which was haunting human development. Until one day a mathematical solution was given: Public-key cryptography

Public-key cryptography

This is the essential solution to the decentralization problem. This is how you can eliminate the middleman essentially. It might look like a complex mathematical concept, but it really isn't.

It's basically a cryptographic function where you have:

• 1 private key generated by the receiver, and a public key that is derived from the private key, but it can't be reverse engineered into the private key.
• The private key is secret and held by the receiver, the public key is public or can only be shared with people you want to (like an e-mail address or phone number).
• The private key can then be used to encrypt messages, which can be decrypted by the public key. Or vice versa encrypt with public and decrypt with private to have reverse communication. This enables 1 way communication, securely.

So this might not be obvious but this actually enables securely the following possibilities:

• Cryptographically enforced private property (including money) = You can actually hold private property sovereignly without the need of a state to defend it. Bitcoin is a form of money that can be held in your mind, your most private part.
• Anonymous & Secure Signatures = Paper signatures are horribly insecure and can be easily faked, but having a cryptographic signature and ID to prove your identity is very secure. Furthermore the identity itself can be anonymous, like a Bitcoin address, which is an identity itself, but doesn't necessarily have to be revealed who is behind it.
• Secure & Private Communication = Most communication channels are already surveilled, but having the option to have totally secure private communications, as mentioned above, is one way to eliminate the need of a trustee.
• Notarization with Privacy = The blockchain combined with cryptographic tools, allows us to definitely prove the identity or authenticity of something, but without the need of revealing the ownership behind it.
• and many more....

So essentially we can build a whole new world based on decentralization, just by implementing cryptography in our daily lives.

Here are a few possibilities:

• You don't need an accountant if blockchain can show you exactly your transactions and your balances.
• You don't need a notary if you can prove document authenticity and ownership just with hashes, and sign documents with public key cryptography tools, instead of paper signature (which is horribly horribly insecure).
• You don't need a government to defend your property if you can just hold most of your intellectual and online assets inside your mind (mnemonic memorization).
• You don't need a parliament to enact laws and be your "representative" if you can create a decentralized online direct democracy with secure blockchain based voting systems.
• You don't need a bank to store your money if you can store it yourself in your mind.
• You don't need a third party to guarantee the privacy of your messages (which they don't do) if you can just do it yourself via GPG or similar public key cryptography messaging systems.
• and many more....

There is literally no limit to how many innovations this system can give us, and it's all just math. Mathematics can solve the problem that humans have struggled with for thousands of years, namely the centralization of power due to the need for middlemen.

Concerns

One concern would be the issue that most mathematics is financed by governments, and many cryptographers consider that some of these algorithms might be backdoored or not as secure as they look like. Well this is indeed a problem, but just the mere concept of public-key-cryptography, I think it's right.

We will need many more research, as transparent as possible to demonstrate possible flaws in these algorithms and to invent more strong ones in the future. Especially quantum computer resistant ones.

So mathematics really need to be decentralized as well. Instead of having academic mathematicians who can be easily corrupted, we need more independent ones. Or maybe even an AI system that can solve math problems transparently.

Other problems are the basic security that hardwares and softwares provides us. Well after the Snowden leaks, we know that things are not as secure as they seem to be:

• http://www.computerworld.com/article/3147958/security/millions-of-routers-allegedly-backdoored-with-malware-that-can-t-be-removed.html
• http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/researchers-create-nearly-undetectable-hardware-backdoor/
• https://www.scmagazineuk.com/throw-your-backdoored-d-link-router-in-the-bin-urges-security-researcher/article/527622/
• https://popularresistance.org/new-intel-based-pcs-permanently-hackable/
• https://www.infowars.com/91497/
• http://wccftech.com/intel-possibly-amd-chips-permanent-backdoors-planted-nsa-updated-1/

This is obviously a huge problem, and it's very annoying that computer manufacturers are basically just shameless scumbags that allow this to happen.

This problem has to be solved first. And then, and only then we can deal with the other things. But in theory public key cryptography is very very useful, and after we solve these issues, we can really have a secure system in the future.

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