ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of some of the key characteristics of blockchain. A primary aim of evaluating blockchain therefore, is to see it as historically materialistic, that is, as a mode of production of political, economic, cultural and legal conduct, to interrogate the blockchain ecosystem as a site of ideological coalescence and consensus around the broader aims of neoliberalism. The telling of blockchain through definitions, descriptions, narratives and private and public discourse often presents the technology in convenient and recognisable material analogues, notably a ledger. 'Ledger' terminology and references are key to narrative constructions and a form of telling of blockchain already enmeshed in a logic of political economy. The accuracy of the recordkeeping facilitated by timestamping ought to make a network or system a highly reliable witness for particular data. The type of encryption in the public blockchain space involves so-called 'public-key' cryptography, where two keys, one public and one private, are used to validate transactions.
