Cyberpunks begat Cryptophunks and there’s a war in the metaverse. Blockchains are many things, but ultimately they are virtual digital computers that operate on consensus. There is a digital state, rules to transition that state, and a consensus mechanism to agree that the state transition rules are being followed correctly. In the ruleset, public-key cryptography is used to enforce an accounting system, namely: only the holder of a secret private-key can spend the funds associated with a pub...

Cyberpunks begat Cryptophunks and there’s a war in the metaverse. Blockchains are many things, but ultimately they are virtual digital computers that operate on consensus. There is a digital state, rules to transition that state, and a consensus mechanism to agree that the state transition rules are being followed correctly. In the ruleset, public-key cryptography is used to enforce an accounting system, namely: only the holder of a secret private-key can spend the funds associated with a pub...