For me the missing link in OSHW is proving the microscopic circuitry we depend on is the same as the design published by the chip designer. It's a form of hashing for circuitry.

Chinese intelligence agencies are convinced NSA pits back doors in their CPUs and HDD, the NSA are convinced the Chinese are doing it to them. And every other intelligence agency just throws it's hands up.

This situation could easily spiral downwards to a Halton of chip improvements, and yet an "institution" such as verifiable open hardware could let everyone trust again.

Bitcoin is not the only one needing global trust.