However you take his words, I would never say that "Hobbes was dead wrong" - he lived and wrote almost 400 years ago, for God's sake! 😄 He was likely right in 1651, also because, among other things, blockchain had not been invented yet! 😄
As you point out too, in "Understanding blockchain's social impact" I argue that it's more useful to talk not about "the state" of society, but rather to integrate the time dimension and see society as a dynamic flow - like riding a bicycle. For some periods the centralising "Power", i.e. Hobbeses Leviathan pushes harder, and during other historical periods the "state of nature" has the upper hand.
We are at a delicate juncture in history. Since the late 60-ies (probably the "free-est" period in the history of human society) the "Power" has continuously increased its grip and took away more and more freedoms.
Decentralization has become more and more necessary indeed, as has competition between hierarchies of power.