Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have become widely familiar, but the open-source blockchain technology that supports them is less well known and understood. It’s unfortunate because the disruptive potential of blockchain technology goes far beyond Bitcoin.

My friend and futurist colleague Melanie Swan, of the Institute for Blockchain Studies and Singularity University, is doing an excellent job of explaining the wider potential of the blockchain approach in transforming the models underlying much of our economic and socio-legal infrastructure.

Melanie recently delivered this excellent lecture on the basics and potential of Bitcoin and Blockchain at the University of San Francisco. Here is a video of her lecture:

Also, if you’d like to read along, here are Melanie’s slides:

Finally, I highly recommend Melanie’s book Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy.