The management of critical global resources – water, vegetation, fisheries and the internet itself – has been a key focus of our research over the past decade. When we use the word, blockchain, we mean stewardship, which involves collaborating, identifying common interests and creating incentives to act on them. We do not mean government, which involves legislating and regulating behaviour and punishing those who misbehave. Since the end of World War II, state-based instituti