This talk will provide a gentle overview of blockchain technology (cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, consensus algorithms, DAOs, etc), and explain the significance for economists of this new institutional technology. Using the analytic lenses of new institutional economics, information economics, contract theory, and multisided markets the talk will present economic models of blockchain in terms of the economic implications of the industrialisation of trust on industrial organisation and economic coordination.

It will specifically focus on consequences of the adoption of blockchain technology for agriculture and health, supply chains and trade, and economic infrastructure and public finance, including market regulation.

Jason Potts is Professor of Economics at the RMIT University, Director of the Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT, and Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne.