Without security, digital economies are not possible. This book shows that security in decentralised systems is not an end-state but the ongoing work of making insecurity legible. Through pre-agreed white hat rescue permissions, red-teaming drills, playbooks and incident command, communities govern what cannot be eliminated. Visibility of insecurity—via infrastructure for security responders to see, coordinate, and intervene—becomes the core lever for control. Anchored in a multi-year digital ethnography of the 'Security Alliance’ (SEAL), the analysis follows record-breaking blockchain hacks and incidents, as well as routine security hardening activities to trace how code, incentives and social norms interact under pressure. The contribution of this book is fourfold: (1) Reframing security as the socio-technical practices of legibility and coordination under persistent insecurity; (2) Mapping the blockchain security landscape; (3) Ethnographic case studies that surface the moral economies and boundary work of "white hat” hackers (4) Insight into the technical, social, legal, and economic security methods of decentralised technology communities. Treating insecurity as here to stay, the book challenges readers to re-think how security is conceptualised, practised, and governed in the digital era—and to consider how these lessons can inform more resilient digital systems.

This book is included in DOAB.