This article focuses primarily on what blockchain is, the role of DLT in a digital economy architecture, and a new layer of the Internet, formed of ecosystem-type architectures. They clarify how blockchain and DLT networks have been changing the way complex enterprises (which do not trust each other) can automate collaboration. An extensive discussion of smart contracts, including the use of custom user tokens and identity and dispute resolution, elucidates how blockchain-based solutions enable consensus. The authors introduce and explain a new building block of the digital economy: a new layer of the Internet intended to create communication, storage, and execution services among many external participants. “Blockchain” is merely one name for this layer, although the name, according to them, is inadequate.