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In the shadow of the 2008 global financial crisis, trust in the financial system was at a historic low. Banks had failed, markets had collapsed, and confidence in central institutions had been deeply shaken.

It was in this moment of uncertainty that an anonymous figure, Satoshi Nakamoto , published the Bitcoin white paper —a nine-page document that quietly introduced a radical new idea: a financial system that would not rely on trust in institutions at all.

Rather than banks or governments, transactions would be verified by a shared digital network run collectively by its users—a system that became known as blockchain . But blockchain was never just about technology—it was about rethinking mechanisms of trust, so it could be engineered rather than delegated.

Nakamoto's vision was made possible through a consensus mechanism known as "proof of work" (PoW), which required participants to solve complex computational problems to validate transactions.…