All the real action in computing has been out of our grasp for quite some time. Yes, that supercomputer in your pocket is better, faster, stronger than last year. But the thrust of its development has been to better acclimate it to the great nipple of computing power in the sky: The Cloud.

The Cloud, i.e. server farms, are where the real action is. These vast racks of processors in air conditioned rooms, under armed guard, run our apps, set the rules, process our transactions, and upgrade the operating systems of our slave clients. Unplugged from the cloud, your computer is nothing.

Blockchain is a buzzword that describes a rebellion in Sector 9. Blockchain apps run on decentralized networks — served and maintained by the computing devices of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. None of these people control the network. Each of them are rewarded individually with cryptocurrency for contributing their computing power towards its maintenance.

Bitcoin is the oldest blockchain and it is already three hundred thousand times more powerful than the world’s fastest supercomputer, at least 100 times more powerful than all of Google’s server farms combined.

The bounty of decentralized networks is the wide distribution of the spoils of innovation. On the Facebook-like Dapp (decentralized app) of the future, users will be rewarded if they grant access to their personal shopping habits; on the AirBnB-like Dapp of the future, the server farms won’t be able to increase their cut, and a true peer to peer marketplace will flourish.

A reckoning is coming, which is why you are starting to hear about blockchain in nervous corridors of power, among the disenfranchised and among the awake. Rebellions can be messy — the Bitcoin blockchain has been supplanted by Ethereum as the most decentralized network, the one less likely to ever be controlled by server farms. But all block chains are a step in the right direction.

Next week, at the Ethereum Devcon2 in Shanghai, thousands of developers from every corner of the world will gather. More than one hundred Dapps will be showcased, discussed, and considered. Will one of these be the killer Dapp that sets this rebellion in motion?