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Sky Otter's avatar

Wonderful, broad based summary of what's going on with crypto. Thanks,Daniel. I agree wholeheartedly, especially your inclusion of "the distinctions between autocracies and open societies remain real ones." This is the key to whether in 5-10 years we can even read what you have to say(!)--the rabble rouser you are :) Furthermore as another commenter implied, the ability to start using NFT's or similar to buy and sell real "stuff," especially services is where blockchain goes from fantasy speculation to real reality :) --- and, potentially, as you point out a medium for ecologically and socially regenerative activity.

Finally, you say: "Since political and economic systems aren’t really separate, it is highly likely this will impact all of our legacy institutions, from banks to companies to national governments, in ways we will find difficult to fully anticipate as of yet." I find this terribly exciting. As with the rest of what is going on, we humans, whether we know it or not, are always on the knife edge of life, death, and change. Through the tremendous flux and uncertainty of crypto, we have yet another opportunity for life-affirming evolution.

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Susan Weis-Bohlen's avatar

Hello Daniel,

Susan and Larry, here, from breathe books in Baltimore. Enjoyed your piece on crypto, today.

An idea for potential exploration is facilitation by crypto of new types of sharing economies. In most of the examples, below, the “tokenomics” are based on sharing of things that have real-world value:

- Theta token with over 130,000 people sharing bandwidth and underused home computer processing power receiving micropayments in return. This helps to avoid construction of new centralized cloud data centers and makes more efficient use of already manufactured computer equipment which most people leave powered up ‘round the clock but idle most hours.

- PlanetWatch token rewarding people for maintaining a distributed network of air quality monitoring devices that, through decentralization, far exceed the capacity of any government institution to provide real-time high resolution air quality data

- Helium network with over 360,000 people relaying data through home-based LoFi transmitters (and, potentially worrying, adding 5G). They are sharing both their unique geographical locations as well as bandwidth. Some of the highest paid participants live in rural areas where traditional data coverage is weak and average incomes are lower.

- Dent token creating the possibility for people to be paid for unused cellular phone minutes

- PowerLedger investing initial funds into renewable energy projects and cycling revenue from energy generation to build more projects as well as reward token holders

- AxieInfinity paying people for their time invested in a globally popular video game. Apparently, in the Philippines, many have earned living wages to participate in building multiplayer video game environments. Alas, this has a dark, “Black Mirror” potential to enlist thousands of people in the developing world into a feudal-type arrangement with rich game players.

There are probably many more examples now and in the future where crypto’s ability to facilitate micropayments and swiftly build large decentralized networks will create new sharing economies. Whether these are equitable or not, will depend on their initial architecture and user governance. Many will depend on voluntary assembly of people through their self-interest in ways that most companies and governments would find challenging to organize through their existing centralized structures.

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