Setting the stage for token engineering. We reference and explain Foundations of Cryptoeconomics. How tokens represent digital value that can be accounted for and exchanged through distributed ledgers. How token networks, constructs of smart contracts, enable sharing of value globally without borders - gradually underminig the theory of the firm, and creating a more equitable vision of the future beyond the gig economy. How token networks naturally integrate with cyber-physical systems, in some sense monetize these systems.
Taking the reader to the lookout point to see the interconnecitivity of the buzzwaves of the past two decades: From Coase's Pneguin and The Wealth of Networks to Uberization to [digital organizations](https://www.placeholder.vc/blog/2020/5/7/aragon-daos] - noting how through each wave the ebb and flow of decentralization and centralization is visible, and how with each wave the technology and social layers become more intertwined, more accessible to mainstream and more representative of digital native generations.
In 2020, however still too many stakeholders are trying to squeeze these new types of organizations and value creation into templates that we have outgrown: Such as the Business Model Generation, humongous spreadsheets, or human-centered design that somehow ends up centered around a giant paper wall with hundreds of scribbled postits with zero involvement of the people that the designs will affect. Somehow still too many clinge to the comfy national, corporate boundaries between business, technology, finance, legal - which in token economies of Information Societies do not exist. Bootstrapping a profitable networked organizations open source that are liquid, is against all existing frames of references.
This introductory chapter gives roots in the foundations of cryptoeconomics and wings to fly over the grounds we want to cover in following chapters: Application Domains, Cryptoeconomic Patterns, Token Model Generation, Privacy-preserving, Participatory Architectures, and SecDevOps in Token Networks. Finally, we provide a Chapter dedicated to Online Resources, which will be kept up-to-date here; as well as an overview of the Token Model of this Book in the Appendix, which will have all the revisions from inception to "perfection" documented here.