Definition of "trustless"

In the trustless cryptocurrency world, you can still trust the cryptocurrency community and its mechanisms to ensure that the blockchain contains an accurate and immutable—unchangeable—record of cryptocurrency transactions.

2019, Peter Kent, Tyler Bain, Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, page 30

This article draws from the extensive academic discussion on the concepts of “trust” and “confidence” to argue that blockchain technology is not a ‘trustless technology’ but rather a ‘confidence machine’.

2020 August, Primavera De Filippi, Morshed Mannan, Wessel Reijers, “Blockchain as a confidence machine: The problem of trust & challenges of governance”, in Technology in Society, volume 62

If it becomes cheaper to use a TTP to verify the transaction than some cryptographic or other automated mechanism, then the benefit of being “trustless” becomes an illusion.

2021, Shin'ichiro Matsuo, Nat Sakimura, editors, Blockchain Gaps: From Myth to Real Life, Springer Nature, page 34

And the system would be “trustless” — that is, it would not rely on a trusted party, such as a bank or government, to arbitrate transactions.

2022 June 7, Siobhan Roberts, “How ‘Trustless’ Is Bitcoin, Really?”, in The New York Times‎

But thinks it not that […] the voice which the spirit uttereth when he is gone from man […] is a voice proceeding from the spirit which is in earthly, ignorant, and overclouded man; and therefore a trustles and not to be-believed voice?

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]