Blockchain Success Stories

Introduction: Start with a Story

The opportunity of a technology like blockchain isn’t to free us from trust in our institutions; it should be described as an experiment in building new kinds of collective institutions that we can trust. Trust is the currency of civilization.¹

—Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media

Stories matter.

The human brain is hardwired for stories. Our earliest lessons come from children’s stories—fairy tales and fables—always with a great lesson, a moral to the story. From the story of Cinderella, we learn Beauty is skin deep. From the myth of Icarus, we learn Don’t fly too close to the sun. From practically every movie ever made, we learn Good will triumph over evil.

Stories are how we make meaning out of this funhouse ride called life. Stories are how we package up great human truths, then share them with future generations. Stories are how we get important concepts to latch on to the brain. Stories are sticky.

When your two authors were in business school, one of the most helpful methods of learning was the case study, which is a type of business story. In a case study, you’re dropped into a real-world scenario—maybe you’re the New York Times trying to go digital, or the CEO of Disney deciding whether to acquire Pixar. The case study ends at a point in time—like the end of a chapter—and you have to figure out what to do next. You have to continue the story.

Case studies are fun to read because they’re real-world stories. They’re interesting to analyze because, like business itself, there’s no right or wrong answer. They’re easier to remember because, instead of memorizing facts, you have a real-world example that will stick on to your brain like Velcro.

This is a book of stories.

They’re not just any stories; they’re stories of people who built successful blockchain projects. By reading these stories, you’ll learn how to build successful blockchain projects yourself. This is not a blockchain programming book—there are plenty of those—but a book on how to actually build billion-dollar blockchains.

If you’re new to blockchain, don’t worry. We’ll teach you the basics of this fascinating technology, using stories of the mysterious misfits who built the earliest blockchain projects. (Truth, you will see, is stranger than fiction.)

You’ll also hear firsthand from the entrepreneurs and dreamers who successfully built billion-dollar blockchains, from their first shaky steps to their glorious victory laps. We’ll bring their stories to life, from the roller-coaster highs to the death-valley lows. You’ll breathe the stories through their lungs: the opportunities and the mistakes, the heart-wrenching challenges and the adrenaline-fueled triumphs.

Everywhere we’ll tell you the moral of the story, in the form of best practices that you can take to your own technology project. These stories will stick.

Our audience for this book is the business leader of tomorrow. Whether you’re a young entrepreneur or a seasoned technology manager, whether you’re a student reading one of these stories in the classroom or a forward-thinking executive, we’ve written this as your reference guide. It’s the bible of business blockchain.

What You’ll Learn in This Book

We’re not academics; we’re entrepreneurs.

That means we’re down in the trenches of building our own blockchain business. This is the book that we wish we’d had when we started. It’s not just theory; it’s a practical, real-world view of how to build blockchains.

We do blockchain consulting work for businesses and governments (see Chapter 13), which puts us in close proximity to the executives, entrepreneurs, and investors who are driving the blockchain ecosystem. We are always on the lookout for successful blockchain projects—not just blue-sky ideas but real projects with real users. (Generating ideas is easy; generating users is hard.)

Typically, business technology leaders—our clients—will get excited about blockchain, then try to explain it to their colleagues. Forty-five minutes later, their coworkers will be fast asleep, while they keep excitedly chattering away about “Merkle trees” and “zero-knowledge proofs.”

Blockchain is exciting (if you’re not already excited, get ready), but we wanted to help business leaders convey their excitement without getting mired in the excrement. In these stories, you’ll get the broad strokes of the technology (enough to be dangerous), but more important, you’ll learn practical applications (enough to stay safe).

We carefully selected our stories to represent these different applications of blockchain: from reimagining the global economy (Chapter 5), to reinventing government (Chapter 7), to rebuilding developing nations (Chapter 8). These are big ideas, dreamed up by larger-than-life characters, from a viral hitmaker (Chapter 6), to a government power player (Chapter 10), to the cofounder of Napster (Chapter 4).

These stories were also infused with hard-won lessons from writing our best-selling guide, Blockchain for Everyone (Gallery Books, 2019); the businessperson’s guide, What Is Blockchain? (O’Reilly, 2019); and our industry overview, State of Blockchain (O’Reilly, 2020).

If you’re new to blockchain, get ready for a wild ride. And it all starts with the amazing origin story that you’ll read in the very first chapter.

How This Book Is Organized

In part 1 (Chapters 1–3), you’ll learn the story of blockchain as we explain the technology by using real-world examples of the people and projects who have built the industry today. They’re colorful characters, and you’ll enjoy reading about their brilliant ideas and innovations.

In part 2 (Chapters 4–13), we’ll cover real-world examples of blockchain being used in real-world businesses. You’ll learn how these businesses overcame obstacles, and how they reaped rewards from this new technology, with battle-tested principles that you can immediately put into action.

In part 3 (Chapter 14), we’ll lock in this learning with a set of blockchain best practices that will get you started on building your own blockchain success story.

After reading this book, you’ll be able to discuss blockchain confidently with your colleagues and not just keep them awake but keep them excited. You’ll understand how blockchain is fundamentally rewiring the world, and how to reposition yourself in this new world order. Finally, you’ll unlock a wealth of new ideas for how to generate new wealth.

Because this is a collection of stories, you can dip into the chapters that seem most relevant to you and your industry. However, because we build on key blockchain principles as we go along, you’ll get the most out of this book if you read (then reread) it from cover to cover.

If you want to learn about blockchain, then let us tell you a story...

 

—Sir John Hargrave and Evan Karnoupakis

July 2020

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¹ Tim O’Reilly, “Why America Slept,” Medium, From the WTF? Economy to the Next Economy, Mar. 17, 2018, wtfeconomy.com/why-america-slept-cbd403810add.