Blockchain Empowers Social Resistance and Terrorism Through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

• Main Author: Armin Krishnan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Henley-Putnam University 2020-04-01
• Series: Journal of Strategic Security
• Online Access: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol13/iss1/3

The invention of the Internet has changed the way social resistance, revolutionary movements and terror groups are organized with new features such as loose network organization, netwars, social media campaigns, and lone wolf attacks. This article argues that blockchain technology will lead to more far-reaching changes in the organization of resistance to authority. Blockchain is a distributed ledger that records transactions using a consensus protocol, and when it meets objective conditions, it also enables smart contracts that execute transactions. Blockchain technology is not only a system for transferring value, but also it is a trustless system in which strangers can cooperate without the need for having to trust each other, as computer code governs their interactions. Blockchain will not only allow resistance/ terror organizations to easily receive donations globally, to have assets that a government can easily confiscate, and to disseminate censorship-resistant propaganda, but more importantly, to operate and cooperate across the world in a truly leaderless, coordinated, and highly decentralized fashion. Governments will need to be more proactive in the area of blockchain technology to mitigate some of the dangers to political stability that may emerge from it.