Imagine you are looking for a good auto mechanic. You don’t look at advertisements; instead, you call your best friend Petya. Petya says, “I don’t know anything about cars, but my brother Kolya fixes rides, and he swears that Uncle Ashot’s garage does honest work.” You go to Ashot because you trust Petya, and Petya trusts Kolya.
 
In IT, the “Web of Trust” is the digital version of this principle. Instead of a passport with an eagle or a ministry seal, your identity is a digital key. It is signed by friends, colleagues, and counterparties. A vast cryptographic web is formed. The more respected people who have vouched for you, the higher your weight in society. Now let’s look at the practical applications of this principle.  

1. Cadastre and property registry. Why do we need bureaucrats shuffling papers using our own taxes? In a WoT system, your property is linked to a digital key. Buying a house? The transaction is recorded in a distributed database (like a blockchain) and signed by you, the seller, and, say, five witness-notaries with impeccable ratings in the Web of Trust. After that, no one will be able to take away your property rights, as any “fake” signature will be rejected.
2. Transaction guarantees. Suppose you are buying a batch of goods from a stranger in another city. You transfer the money to a special account that will only open with two out of three keys (2-of-3 multisig). One key is yours, the second belongs to the seller, and the third belongs to a pre-selected Arbitrator. Did the goods arrive? You and the seller provide two signatures—the deal is complete. Did the seller send a brick instead of a laptop? You call the Arbitrator, he reviews the evidence, and uses his key to return the money to you.
3. Arbitration (“private courts”). One might ask: “What stops the Arbitrator from colluding with the seller and scamming me?” This problem is solved by reputation in the Web of Trust. A private arbitration agency survives only on the trust of the parties. If it is revealed that a judge took a bribe, independent auditors will lower their rating in the WoT column. The judge’s social capital will crash to zero, and no sane person will ever include them in a smart contract again.
4. The “free rider” problem. Suppose not everyone chipped in for the pavement in a village, but everyone uses it. How do you make free riders pay without a tax police? Using the Web of Trust! Didn’t pay your donation to the road fund? No one fines you; live as you did. However, the algorithm automatically resets your trust level with your neighbors. Upon approaching the village barrier, a smart sensor will simply say: “Your key is not serviced; make a voluntary contribution or stick to the dirt road.” Life without coercion, but with natural consequences!
5. Ostracism instead of prisons. Prisons are very expensive (we pay for them), and they don’t rehabilitate people; they turn them into professional criminals. Contractual ostracism would be much better. Someone scammed their partners for money and refused to pay compensation per a court decision? Authoritative arbitrators attach a crypto-tag to their public key: “Fraudster.” Their rating in the global web of trust hits rock bottom. Automatic protocols trigger: smart locks in car-sharing don’t open, supermarket checkouts reject their transactions, and private security companies deny them access to private territories. This is scarier than prison. Anyone in such a situation would go to work off what they owe.
6. Lending without banks. Imagine a microcredit system based not on whether a person officially works in an office, but on their history in the Web of Trust. Need funds to launch a business? Your guarantors are the nodes in the network you’ve interacted with over the last 5 years. People will lend to you or invest in your startup directly via P2P, seeing your crystal-clear profile in the Web of Trust.

 
For centuries, the state has convinced us that without the stick, we would slide back into the Stone Age and kill each other. But the truth is that technology already allows us today to build structures based on voluntarism, reputation, and mathematics. No sticks and no taxes—only mutual respect and responsibility for every digital handshake!

Voluntarist, Bitarch