America’s founders redefined the relationship between man and state with the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” By separating church and state, these words ushered in a new era of democratic governance, innovation, and human flourishing.

Is the next stage in the evolution of freedom to separate money from the state?

This radical idea lies at the heart of blockchain technologies like Bitcoin. By divorcing currency from the caprice of central banks, Bitcoin and competing crypto protocols aim to disrupt the global financial system by letting people opt into their own monetary policy—rather than having unelected bureaucrats decide it for them.

In the cryptographic future, an immutable public ledger (i.e., the blockchain) takes the place of traditional accounting. By removing middlemen from financial transactions—be they banks, credit card companies, or government agencies—crypto users can more freely exchange money, preserve capital, and protect themselves against inflation. Or so the theory goes.

But to what extent is this vision of the future even feasible?

Will Bitcoin and other blockchain applications write the next chapter of democracy and digital computing? Or will they collapse under the weight of their own promises?

Moreover, how can we expect governments and legacy banks to react to a technology that ultimately seeks to displace them?

The scenarios outlined in this report will attempt to grapple with these questions and many more. The goal is to sketch the broad contours of the U.S. blockchain industry in the year 2030 by building what Peter Schwartz—one of the pioneers of scenario analysis—called “myths of the future.”

Admittedly, imagining the future of an emergent industry characterized by theory, hype, and speculation is exceedingly difficult, even more so in the depths of crypto winter. But while blockchain technology may be new, human nature is not. And by looking at the past, we can catch glimpses of the future.

Indeed, historical precedents—especially as they pertain to U.S. national security, currency regulation, and the technological developments of the twentieth century—offer a firm foundation for scenario building. So, too, do existing trends. By incorporating both into our scenario analysis, we can construct plausible but imperfect visions of the future. These visions (and the drivers behind them) will help us imagine the state of blockchain in 2030, as if “see[ing] through a glass darkly.”

 Scenario 1: Crypto Cooperation

In this scenario, the United States expands its global financial hegemony through the adoption of blockchain-based stablecoins.

The founding vision of Bitcoin was to make fiat currency irrelevant. But the future may portend the exact opposite: a marriage between crypto and state. By patronizing private companies to develop stablecoins—cryptocurrencies pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar—the federal government will significantly grow global participation. The reign of the petrodollar gives way to its successor: the digital dollar. Simultaneously, the rapid expansion of U.S. dollar stablecoins challenges China’s digital yuan and cements the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency for the next decade.

This scenario would be driven by three factors:

Increasing Pressure to Adopt CBDCs. Central Bank Digital Currencies (or CBDCs) are stablecoins issued by a state’s central bank. At present, there are 105 countries conducting research to evaluate the benefits of launching their own CBDCs. Cumulatively, these countries comprise 95 percent of global GDP. Most prominent among them is the People’s Republic of China, which is slated to expand the use of its digital yuan next year.

Governments can assert much greater control over their monetary policy by launching CBDCs. CBDCs allow central banks to send stimulus money directly to citizens’ digital wallets without the use of an intermediary. They also allow governments to “program” money, turning it on and off when they see fit and allowing them to tie spending to certain sectors of the economy. Furthermore, CBDCs allow governments to surveil spending habits on an unprecedented level.

America’s Political Culture and Its Aversion to Centralized Authority. For all the above reasons, authoritarian states like China are keen to adopt CBDCs while privacy-minded states like the United States have deep reservations. Indeed, America’s unique political culture makes the prospect of the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) rolling out its own CBDC much more difficult. A Morning Consult poll finds that more than 80 percent of Americans are clamoring for Congress to do more to protect their online privacy. It is unlikely that this same constituency would be willing to surrender its privacy so readily to the Fed in exchange for a digital dollar.

At the same time, U.S. reticence to adopt a CBDC puts it at a disadvantage: CBDCs are expected to be much faster and easier to transact than traditional currencies, calling into question the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency if it doesn’t move to the blockchain.

Chinese Aggression toward the Petrodollar. On top of this, current trends show that the petrodollar system is not nearly as strong as it used to be—and China is intent on exploiting its weakness over the coming decade. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Saudi Arabia agreed to settle energy transactions with Russia in rubles and China in yuan. Historically, these energy trades have been transacted almost exclusively in dollars as part of Saudi Arabia’s agreement to uphold the petrodollar. But the country’s commitment to the petrodollar system has grown weaker in recent years as the Kingdom has expressed its openness to selling oil for yuan in the future.

But even in spite of China’s aggressive actions, the petrodollar faces significant headwinds over the next decade, not least of which is climate change. As global temperatures rise and extreme climate events become more frequent, international organizations will put more pressure on states to wean themselves off oil. As oil itself becomes less relevant, so too will the petrodollar, again calling into question the dollar’s strength as the global reserve currency.

In addition to weighing the drivers above, it is likewise necessary to take into account the relative certainties and uncertainties that could influence the proposed scenario. Below are a few factors to consider:

In Crypto Cooperation, the state and industry share a symbiotic relationship, not unlike the close ties between Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, today. Both to varying degrees benefit from the other and see their futures as interlinked.

To be clear, Cooperation does not describe an absence of tension between the state and industry but rather a healthy management of competing interests. As an example, consider the possible path forward for a government-sanctioned digital dollar. 

The unique pressures outlined above could combine to guide the federal government to a middle-way solution on stablecoins—one that lies between the Federal Reserve avoiding the crypto space altogether and developing its own CBDC.

By sponsoring (and appropriately regulating) the development of private stablecoins like U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC), the federal government can reap the benefits of having a digital dollar while avoiding the damages to privacy and freedom that would accompany the establishment of a CBDC. USDC is already the world’s fastest-growing and most-trusted stablecoin, and it has even worked closely with US government regulators in recent years.

For example, Circle—the company that issues USDC—recently collaborated with the U.S. Treasury Department and the Fed to send stablecoin funds to Venezuelan healthcare workers being oppressed by President Nicolás Maduro. If this trend continues, the Fed could sponsor and regulate select private companies to issue their own dollar-pegged stablecoins. As a historical precedent, this would be similar to the way the U.S. government has regulated utilities and railroads in the past, giving exclusive licenses to a few companies to serve the public at large.

With a well-regulated U.S. dollar stablecoin, the United States can directly compete with China’s yuan and other CBDCs without the surveillance strings attached. It is likely that foreign stablecoin users will be more inclined to use these stablecoins than digital yuan since: a) they offer greater privacy and b) they come with the security and stability already attached to the U.S. dollar. Even more importantly, the use of these stablecoins will expand the dollar economy to developing countries.

Eswar Prasad, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, has speculated as much: “It is possible that national currencies issued by their central banks, particularly currencies seen as less convenient to use or volatile in value, could be displaced by stablecoins—private cryptocurrencies issued by multinational corporations or global banks and usually backed by US dollars to maintain stability.” With high levels of global inflation being a real possibility over the next decade, citizens in developing countries can easily convert their savings to stablecoins, putting dollarization on a flywheel. The digitalization of the U.S. dollar will strengthen its standing as a global reserve currency, offsetting the negative effects of a weakening petrodollar.

Scenario 2: Crypto Kumbaya

In this scenario, the Federal Reserve recognizes Bitcoin and Ethereum as fast-growing digital Commodities; Congress crafts legislation to establish the United States as the global capital of Web 3.0.

Characterizing the early days of Silicon Valley was an anti-government, libertarian-loving ethos. Early innovators like Bill Gates looked down on federal agencies, believing tech—not government—was best suited to solve society’s greatest problems. That is, until those three-letter agencies came knocking on Gates’ door, deposing him in a multibillion-dollar antitrust case that garnered global attention in the late 1990s.

Today, Microsoft has a much different attitude toward the state. The company counts the federal government among its largest clients and has an army of lobbyists in Washington to boot. Microsoft is emblematic of the cultural transformation that has taken place within countless Silicon Valley companies over the last two decades as the government has sought to tame tech. For example, companies like Facebook—which once flaunted its anti-establishment bravado with the motto “move fast and break things”—now moves slowly and works with the government on a daily basis. In the end, the suits in Washington brought the hoodie-clad millennials to heel.

Could the government do the same with crypto and blockchain companies? This is the question that drives the Crypto Kumbaya scenario.

In Crypto Kumbaya, regulation waters down the original libertarian vision of many crypto organizations and early investors. But in exchange, the industry gets the stamp of government approval and no longer needs to operate in legal grey zones. In short, industry and government embark on a years-long courtship.

There is give and take on both ends of this relationship. The industry, for its part, recognizes the utility of regulation in eliminating the widescale fraud that has plagued the space almost from its inception. Some blockchain companies even partner with the government to crack down on money laundering and other illicit uses of cryptocurrency. Overall, the industry’s evolving attitudes toward the state mirror the attitudes of high-growth Silicon Valley companies in the 1990s and 2000s: initial hostility followed by reflexive resistance followed by gradual acceptance.

The government, for its part, recognizes the economic benefits (and substantial tax revenue) to be gleaned from the blockchain revolution. And so, it takes a light-hand approach to regulation, looking to the legislative frameworks that boosted tech in the 1990s as a model for regulating an emerging industry. By so doing, the United States establishes itself as the global capital of Web 3.0, ensuring its dominance over global tech in the twenty-first century.

This scenario would be driven by five factors:

Investors’ Need for Regulatory Clarity. From their inception, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies that followed have staked their identity in an anti-establishment narrative. The purpose of protocols like Bitcoin is, after all, to displace the government’s most powerful tool: fiat currency. But some Bitcoiners have softened their stance in recent years with the realization that institutional adoption is necessary to bring Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of widescale adoption to life. And to its credit, the U.S. federal government has opted not to ban Bitcoin outright but to weigh its potential benefits within the larger global economy.

To the surprise of both parties, industry and government appear to be meeting in the middle on blockchain regulation. In a congressional hearing in December 2021, the nation’s leading crypto CEOs even testified before lawmakers on the need for regulation to provide greater clarity to the industry. These same companies have also appealed to the SEC and CFTC to determine if Bitcoin and other cryptos are commodities or securities. Coinbase has even asked that the SEC create a new “digital asset security” classification to “allow for a more efficient and effective allocation of capital in financial markets and create new opportunities for investors.”

Imminent Classification of Bitcoin as a Commodity. While blockchain investors are still waiting for the regulatory clarity they have been clamoring for, all signs point to Bitcoin and possibly even Ethereum being regulated as commodities with greater regulatory guidance to come over the next few years. SEC Chair Gary Gensler even signaled his personal belief that Bitcoin is a commodity and should be regulated as such.

Regulatory Capture Deepens. Crypto companies have also done what some early Silicon Valley companies failed to do in their early years by mounting a strong lobbying effort to secure favorable legislation. Consider that crypto lobbying has more than quadrupled since 2018. And the results speak for themselves, having won over vocal champions of blockchain such as Senators Debbie Stabenow, Cynthia Lummis, John Thune, John Boozman, and Cory Booker. Blockchain companies have also developed close personal relationships with key officials in the SEC and CFTC, increasing the likelihood of blockchain-friendly legislation and regulation over the coming years.

Increasing Institutional and Mainstream Adoption. Once the fringe investment of internet hobbyists and cypherpunks, crypto has now found its way into the American mainstream. An NBC poll recently found that one in five Americans has invested in or used crypto. Moreover, major hedge funds, banks, and even publicly held companies have done the same: Tesla, Microstrategy, Blackrock, and Goldman Sachs are just a few examples among many. Privately wealthy individuals are also dipping their feet in the crypto markets. And Fidelity rolled out a crypto investment option last year as more investors consider allocating a small portion of their 401k to Bitcoin. With dozens of businesses and tens of millions of Americans invested in crypto, the government is much more likely to accept rather than ban it.

Need to Maintain America’s Global Economic Competitiveness. The United States today is the tech capital of the world. To secure that status in the coming decade, it has an economic incentive to establish itself as the global capital of Web 3.0. Web 3.0 describes the third generation of the World Wide Web—an internet that returns power to users through “decentralization, token-based economies and blockchain.”

China is arguably the United States’ closest tech competitor, but the United States has a natural leg up in the race for blockchain supremacy since China banned crypto in 2021. To pull further ahead of China in this sector, American regulators could craft blockchain-friendly policies to entice innovators to do business on U.S. shores. There is also already a deep well of tech talent in the United States that stands ready to transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 jobs, further securing America’s status as the global hub for blockchain enterprise.

The above drivers lead to our Crypto Kumbaya scenario—a laying down of arms by entrepreneurs and regulators alike to advance the interests of both parties involved. In short, industry and government opt to make love, not war.

In 2030, Bitcoin and other well-established cryptos make up a small portion of millions of Americans’ retirement plans. Some (like Bitcoin) are seen as a form of digital gold while others (like Ethereum) are seen as a form of digital oil, powering payments and authentication on the third generation of the internet known as Web 3.0. The United States has now established itself among the most crypto-friendly nations in the world.

So how did we get here?

The crypto economy made a powerful recovery after the Bitcoin halving of 2024 precipitated a new bull cycle. And in the year 2025, regulators looked at the investment landscape and recognized that crypto (similar to certain entities during the 2008 financial crisis) was simply “too big to fail.” Tens of millions of Americans—not to mention a growing number of banks, companies, and hedge funds—were already invested in digital assets. Therefore, banning them or issuing harsh regulations against them made little financial sense. Not wanting to draw the ire of their constituents, members of Congress lined up in bipartisan fashion behind legislation that finally offered regulatory guidance to the industry, classifying Bitcoin and Ethereum as commodities and other crypto tokens as “digital securities.”

Thanks to this regulatory clarity, the number of crypto investors grew exponentially just as it had in the decade prior. With clear regulation in place, major banks and corporations became more comfortable entering the space, thereby increasing institutional adoption. Following the US’ lead, other countries increased their adoption of crypto as well. Soon, Bitcoin became globally recognized as a digital commodity, with trillions of dollars in trading volume every day. Similar to gold, nation-states began seeking to stake a claim in this newly established asset class, sparking global competition to attract Bitcoin miners. The United States was an especially attractive destination, not only for miners but for blockchain entrepreneurs of all stripes.

Why? Because in 2025, Congress enacted the Writing Enterprise Blockchain Technology and Hiring Reputable Experts and Employees (WEB THREE) Act, watershed legislation that significantly expanded America’s H-1B visa program to bring more Web 3.0 workers to America’s shores. The legislation also contained provisions to strike the right regulatory balance on emerging blockchain technology, allowing for more innovation and greater investment in the space. As a model for regulating blockchain and building the infrastructure of Web 3.0, lawmakers looked to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its Section 230 provision, which gave room for new digital platforms to build the infrastructure of Web 2.0.

As a result of threading the regulatory needle, America is the “place to do business” for crypto entrepreneurs from all parts of the world in 2030. The United States remains on top of the global tech hierarchy and has far outpaced China, which failed to reap many of the economic benefits of blockchain after banning all crypto assets in 2021. The U.S. economy continues to grow thanks in no small part to the contributions of Web 3.0. Meanwhile, the federal government collects significant tax revenue from this multitrillion-dollar windfall, which farsighted regulators made possible. Crypto Kumbaya ushers in the next decade of American tech hegemony.

Scenario 3: Crypto Conflict

In this scenario, a new domain in cyberwarfare emerges as major powers weaponize crypto; revisionist states leverage digital assets to undermine the liberal international order.

New assets often lead to new conflicts. Take oil. The Middle East used to be a geopolitical backwater. Then, in the early twentieth century, Western industrialists discovered it was home to the largest petroleum reserve in the world, catapulting the region to global prominence. Oil played a pivotal role in determining the outcomes of World Wars I and II, as well as proxy conflicts throughout the Cold War. To this day, it remains among the primary drivers of trade and tension between nations.

As crypto becomes its own globally recognized asset class, what will be the impact on international relations?

Crypto Conflict imagines a scenario where digital assets open a new front in cyberwarfare. Revisionist states weaponize crypto to wage war on Western economies. Bitcoin experiences rapid global adoption but in all the wrong places—countries like Russia, China, and Iran. Increasingly isolated from the liberal international order and the dollar economy, these states choose to abandon SWIFT for the digital yuan—and they put substantial pressure on developing countries to do the same. Meanwhile, militaries across the world pour billions into bulking up their cyber capabilities. Much like militaries today are preparing for the possibility of conflict in the space domain, militaries in 2030 will be prepping for battle in the crypto domain. Billions are funneled into quantum research in hopes of breaking the blockchains of CBDCs.

This scenario would be driven by three factors:

Growing State Adoption of Bitcoin. El Salvador triggered the ire of the IMF in 2021 when it purchased tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin and announced that the digital currency would now be recognized as legal tender. The bold move by El Salvador president Nayib Bukele was a small declaration of independence from a global financial system where the United States has outsize veto power. Following El Salvador’s example, The Central African Republic also declared Bitcoin as legal tender just a few months later. Small countries typically have a stronger incentive to adopt Bitcoin because it empowers them to bypass costly remittances that are part and parcel of the traditional financial system. That’s why more countries are expected to adopt Bitcoin in the years to come, with speculation that Paraguay, Cuba, Ukraine, and Panama could be next.

First-Mover Advantage of the Digital Yuan. No country has been more ambitious in its goal of implementing a central bank digital currency than China. China launched its digital yuan—officially known as the e-CNY—in 2021, and it was already in wide circulation as a currency by the time it hosted the Winter Olympics in February 2022. The currency has been integrated into China’s largest mobile networks, Alipay and WeChat.

Meanwhile, OECD countries are still in the research and development phase of their CBDC rollout. This discrepancy gives China a significant first-mover advantage in the CBDC wars, increasing the likelihood that the e-CNY could grow faster than digital currencies from other countries. In the long term, this could pose a risk to the dominance of the petrodollar, especially as China looks to buy and sell oil using its own currency.

Disillusionment with SWIFT and the Dollar Economy. After the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States froze Russian Central Bank assets and moved to exile Russia from SWIFT. For revisionist countries like China, the unprecedented move called into question the viability of the dollar as a pristine asset free from political tampering. In the aftermath of this decision, both China and Russia put renewed effort into growing their own versions of SWIFT. The Chinese international payments program is known as the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), while Russia’s is known as the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS). Because of its extensive network, CIPS is the most likely alternative for states alarmed by U.S. sanctions against Russia that are looking for refuge outside the US dollar.

In Crypto Conflict, blockchain would become a hotly contested domain in cyberwarfare. As CBDCs and stablecoins across the world would rely on the integrity of blockchains to process payments and settle transactions daily, they would naturally become a target for U.S. adversaries. Enormous investment in cybersecurity and quantum computing would be necessary to secure financial networks.

The race for the latter would be akin to the race for the atomic bomb in World War II. Whichever country achieves it first will have a weapon of mass financial destruction with the ability to take down CBDCs and entire economies. Whoever possesses this kind of weapon will have the power to reorder the global balance of power.

Accounting for Black Swans

 Robust scenario analysis must also take into consideration the potential for black swan or “wild card” events. By their very nature, black swans are nearly impossible to predict. But the drivers and historical precedents outlined in this report give us at least an indication of the form a black swan might take. Consider the following outlier possibilities:

American Weimar

In 2023, the developed world is coming off a decade of unprecedented quantitative easing. Simultaneously U.S. inflation recently hit a 40-year high, and for the first time ever, the national debt surpassed $31 trillion. Naturally, fears of stagflation are setting in. But these drivers could lead to something far worse in the near future: hyperinflation.

In the American Weimar scenario, the U.S. economy enters a deep recession over the next two years, forcing the Fed to make an impossible choice: either break the economy and enter a depression by raising interest rates further or turn the money printer back on. The Fed opts for the latter, and central banks across the world follow suit. This leads to a period of runaway inflation similar to the economic disaster facing the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. Americans see the value of their savings and retirement accounts fall by half in just a few short months.

Desperately searching for a hedge against inflation, Americans begin looking to Bitcoin as a lifeboat. The appeal is simple: as a decentralized monetary network, Bitcoin cannot be tampered with by central banks. It offers Americans a form of digital gold that is easier to move, verify, and transact than precious metals. The market capitalization of Bitcoin soon achieves parity with gold and then doubles it by 2030 as younger generations coming into financial maturity adopt it in higher numbers. Desperately searching for a reset, central banks across the world consider pegging their fiat currencies to an asset of globally recognized value. Some return to the gold standard while others adopt what comes to be known as “the Bitcoin standard.”

The Dollar Dethroned by Digital Yuan

As previously outlined in this report, the digital yuan has a first-mover advantage over all other CBDCs. Moreover, it is controlled by an authoritarian government that can make rapid updates to the currency without being slowed by legislatures or any other part of the democratic process.

In this scenario, domestic politics in America makes it impossible to create a CBDC. All the while, Congress and the SEC drag their feet in providing regulatory clarity vis-à-vis stablecoins until well into the 2020s. By this time, China already has a years-long head start over the US in rolling out its digital currency. China has even expanded its currency regime through a digital Belt and Road Initiative, sending digital “stimulus checks” to Ethereum wallets in developing nations. (In crypto terms, this is known as an “airdrop,” where newly launched protocols send free tokens to digital wallets in hopes of increasing its adoption).

Meanwhile, the United States is hamstrung in competing with the digital yuan by not having its own CBDC. And to complicate matters further, the United States is experiencing deep stagflation similar to the economic headwinds it faced in the 1970s. These factors combined shake global faith in the US dollar. The dollar essentially gets “Blockbustered” by a more digitally savvy competitor—the e-CNY. The final nail in the coffin is Saudi Arabia’s abandonment of the petrodollar, a decision it makes out of pure business expedience with the yuan showing remarkable strength over other currencies.

Crypto Coup D'etat: Bitcoin and Ethereum Replaced by Newcomer

 In the 1990s, it appeared the likes of AOL and Yahoo would rule the World Wide Web for decades to come. But today, these platforms are shadows of their old selves—and used more often as punchlines than actual web services.

Could the same fate befall Bitcoin and Ethereum?

Blockchain is an industry still in its infancy, and its early protocols may not be any less prone to disruption than the tech giants of yesteryear. While Bitcoin and Ethereum have the benefit of first-mover advantage, their original code makes these blockchains exceedingly difficult to scale. For example, Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus system requires exorbitant amounts of energy to transact even small amounts of value on the network. In terms of environmental impact, Bitcoin could be even worse for the planet than beef as its adoption grows over the next decade. If Bitcoiners fail to find a way to make the protocol more green-friendly, they could face serious obstacles to adoption, not the least of which is environmental regulation. Ethereum, meanwhile, consumes significantly less energy than Bitcoin—but it too faces serious challenges in scalability.

These factors could lead to the Crypto Coup D’etat scenario, where a new cryptocurrency—perhaps one that hasn’t even been invented yet—overtakes Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of market cap and global usage. This crypto would have the advantage of learning from Bitcoin and Ethereum’s mistakes in the initial design process, allowing software engineers to build a blockchain that is faster, more scalable, and more secure than both. This token gaining market dominance would be the crypto equivalent of Google overtaking Yahoo as the world’s preferred search engine of choice.

The fallout from this scenario could be immense for the millions of investors across the globe who have placed their bets on Bitcoin and Ethereum. It could even lead to digital currency competition between nation-states, depending on the levels of crypto adoption at the time. Even so, the new and improved crypto offers a faster, more secure blockchain than its competitors. And the appeal of building on this blockchain could further expedite the transition from traditional currency to CBDCs.

Conclusion: Plotting the Best Path Forward

“What a year this week has been.” This is a common refrain within the crypto industry. It captures the breakneck pace of change and development within the space as new organizations are born and old incumbents die. Predicting the state of blockchain six months out is no small feat, much less several years from now. But this report doesn’t shrink from the task. Our analysis seeks to paint a general picture of the blockchain industry in 2030 not by making wild-eyed predictions based on pure speculation but by probing historical antecedents and current trends that could lead to each potential future.

In the final count, two primary actors and the dynamic between them will determine the state of blockchain at the end of the decade—the government and the industry itself. With these two actors in a near-constant state of tension, game theory offers them two choices: cooperate in pursuit of relative gain or compete in pursuit of absolute gain. The path of cooperation appears to be the better path forward, both for the country and the world.

Admittedly, the interactions between industry and government could yield a wide variety of scenarios, even beyond Cooperation, Kumbaya, Conflict, or the black swans contemplated in this analysis. Whether any of these scenarios comes to pass is a question left to time and time alone. But no matter the outcome, engaging with these “myths of the future” in the present is a worthwhile exercise—one that could direct our attention to new opportunities in blockchain and prepare us for the challenges ahead.

Sam Lyman works at the intersection of policy and innovation. He is the policy director at the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation and an MPP candidate at Princeton University. He previously served as the chief speechwriter to Senator Orrin G. Hatch and as the speechwriter to the President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Image: Shutterstock/Parilov.