Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

would be, for example, if there were to

be corresponding Bitcoin prediction

markets contracts for events in the

couple’s life, such as having children,

purchasing real estate, and even

potentially filing for divorce (which

would also be logged on the

blockchain), and the inevitable social

science research to follow showing that

blockchain marriages last longer (or not)

than their religious or civil

counterparts.

Figure 3-2. World’s first Bitcoin wedding,

David Mondrus and Joyce Bayo,

Disneyworld, Florida, October 5, 2014

(image credit: Bitcoin Magazine, Ruben

Alexander)

Blockchain-based governance systems

could offer a range of services

traditionally provided by governments,

all of which could be completely

voluntary, with user-citizens opting in

and out at will. Just as Bitcoin is

emerging as a better alternative to fiat

currency in some situations (cheaper,

more efficient, easier to transmit,

immediately received, and a superior

payments mechanism), the same could be

true for blockchain-based governance

services. The same services a traditional

“fiat” government carries out could be

delivered in a cheaper, distributed,

voluntary way by using blockchain

technology. The blockchain lends itself

well to being a universal, permanent,

searchable, irrevocable public records

repository. All government legal

documents such as deeds, contracts, and

identification cards can be stored on the

blockchain. Identity systems such

as blockchain-based passports would

need to achieve critical mass adoption in

order to be recognized, just as Bitcoin

does in the case of being recognized and

being widely usable as money. One

project that provides the code for a

blockchain-based passport system is the

World Citizen project. 112 The project aims to create world citizenship through

affordable decentralized passport

services by using available

cryptographic tools (Figure 3-3).

Figure 3-3. The World Citizen Project’s

Blockchain-based passport (image credit:

Chris Ellis)

A key point is that anyone worldwide

can use decentralized government

services; just because you live in a

particular geography should not restrict

you to certain government services and

mean that you have only one government

provider. Governments have been a

monopoly, but with blockchain

government services in the global

Internet-connected world, this need not

be the case any longer. The possibility of

global currencies like Bitcoin and global

government services bring up important

questions about the shifting nature of

nation-states and what their role should

be in the future. A country might be

something like a hometown, where you

are from, but not in sharp relief in day-

to-day activities in a world where

currency, finance, professional

activities, collaboration, government

services, and record keeping are on the

blockchain. Further, Bitcoin provides a

transition to a world in which

individuals are increasingly mobile

between nation-states and could benefit

from one overall governance system

rather than the host of inefficiencies in

complying with multiple nation-states.

As is standard with cryptocurrency

code, decentralized governance

software, too, would be open source and

forkable, so that anyone can create his

own blockchain nation and government

services in this collaborative platform

for DIYgovernance.

In the area of titling and deeds, as

Bitcoin is to remittances, decentralized

blockchain government services is to the

implementation of a property ownership

registry, and could be the execution of

the detailed plans set forth by

development economists such as

Hernando de Soto. 113 Decentralized

blockchain-based government services

such as public documents registries and

titling could be a useful tool for scaling

the efforts already in place by

organizations such as de Sotos’s Institute

for Liberty and Democracy, or ILD,

which has programs to document,

evaluate, and diagnose the extralegal

sector and bring it into alignment with

the legal system. A universal

blockchain-based property registry

could bring much-needed ownership

documentation, transferability,

transactability, value capture, and

opportunity and mobilization to

emerging markets where these structures

do not exist or are nascent (and

simultaneously, potential business for its

blockchain service cousin, dispute

resolution). As some countries in Africa

were able to leapfrog directly to cellular

telephone networks without installing

copper wire infrastructure (and some

countries might be able to leapfrog

directly to preventive medicine with

personalized genomics114), so too could

emerging-market countries leapfrog

directly to the implementation of

blockchain property registries. Other

blockchain government services could

facilitate similar leapfrogging—for

example, speeding Aadhar’s (the

world’s largest biometric database115)

efforts in issuing national ID cards to the