DeCom - Building the Infrastructure for Decentralized Commerce

Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 12:28 PM · 22:31

The cypherpunk dream wasn't just permissionless finance—it was freedom to conduct peer-to-peer commerce without gatekeepers. Silk Road offered the first glimpse of this world before its collapse shut down that vision along with the marketplace. Meanwhile, Web2 platforms built trillion-dollar empires by intermediating commerce, extracting 20-30% while controlling who can participate. My research fellowship at the Ethereum Foundation examines why blockchain has revolutionized finance but failed to disrupt commerce.