In 1694, a private institution was granted a royal charter to fund a war. It didn’t just lend money; it invented a new financial technology: a national bank note backed by gold. This institution was the Bank of England, and its model of managing a scarce reserve asset to issue trusted currency became the bedrock of modern finance. Over three centuries later, a new class of private institutions is emerging. They are not funded by royal charter but by open-source code. Their reserve asset isn’t...

In 1694, a private institution was granted a royal charter to fund a war. It didn’t just lend money; it invented a new financial technology: a national bank note backed by gold. This institution was the Bank of England, and its model of managing a scarce reserve asset to issue trusted currency became the bedrock of modern finance. Over three centuries later, a new class of private institutions is emerging. They are not funded by royal charter but by open-source code. Their reserve asset isn’t...