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What it argues
William Mougayar's book was one of the first serious attempts to explain blockchain technology to a business audience rather than a technical one. Published in 2016, before the ICO boom and subsequent crash, it occupies an interesting position in the literature: more sober than the hype cycles that followed, and more strategically minded than the technical white papers that preceded it.
Mougayar's core argument is that blockchain is not primarily a financial technology — it is a trust technology. Traditional business relies on intermediaries (banks, lawyers, clearinghouses, registries) to establish trust between parties. Blockchain, he argues, can perform this function programmatically, removing the intermediary and the cost and friction it introduces. This insight is applied to supply chains, contracts, identity verification, financial settlement, and governance, all of which require parties to trust records they didn't create.
What it gets right
- 1.
Blockchain is primarily a trust technology: it replaces the need for intermediaries to verify transactions and records between parties who don't trust each other.
- 2.
The three layers of blockchain value are technology infrastructure, business applications, and economic tokens — and they must be evaluated separately.
- 3.
Smart contracts are self-executing agreements: code that runs automatically when conditions are met, removing the need for manual verification or enforcement.
What it covers
Who wrote it
William Mougayar is a Canadian entrepreneur, venture advisor, and writer focused on blockchain and decentralized technologies. He is a founder of Startup Management and has advised numerous blockchain projects and venture funds. The Business Blockchain, published in 2016, was among the first books to translate blockchain concepts for a mainstream business readership. Mougayar continues to write and speak on blockchain strategy and has been involved in the Ethereum ecosystem since its early years.
