---
id: "papers-why-blockchain-2016"
type: "talk"
type_label: "Talks and presentations"
title: "Why BlockChain: The disruptive disintermediation of infrastructure with blockchain technology"
maintainer: "Samuel M. Smith"
authors:
  - "Samuel M. Smith"
date: "2016-07"
year: 2016
reading_level: "intro"
reading_level_label: "Introductory"
reading_level_meaning: "no prior knowledge of the suite"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "history"
roles:
  - "communications"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/presentations/BlockChain.pdf"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "smith-papers"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-15"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/papers-why-blockchain-2016/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/papers-why-blockchain-2016"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/papers-why-blockchain-2016"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/papers-why-blockchain-2016.md"
---

# Why BlockChain: The disruptive disintermediation of infrastructure with blockchain technology

A 37-slide deck by Samuel M. Smith, founder of ProSapien, on blockchain technology as diffuse trust and disintermediation. It covers distributed consensus types, platform business models, Byzantine agreement, modern cryptography (ECC, secret sharing, NaCl), RAET, smart contracts, and graph-based identity and reputation. It predates KERI.

Labels: reading level Introductory; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/presentations/BlockChain.pdf (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).