Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

example, the bioethical nuances of

delegated medical decision making

articulated in the book Deciding for

Others, by Allen Buchanan, could be

implemented in Liquid Democracy

structure. 118 This could improve health

care–related decision making, and

enable a system of decentralized

advocacy, as many individuals do not

have adequate informed advisors on

hand to act on their behalf. In the farther

future, cultural technologies such as the

blockchain could become a mechanism

for applied ethics.

Liquid Democracy is also a proposition

development platform. Any member can

propose a new idea. If enough other

members support the proposition, it

moves on to a discussion phase, at

which point it can be modified and

alternatives put forward. Of the

proposals that are offered, those with

enough support are put up for a vote. A

vote is made using the Schultz method of

preferential voting, which ensures that

votes are not split by almost identical

“cloned” proposals (like double-spend

problem for votes). All of this is

coordinated in the online platform. The

voting system can run at different levels

of transparency: disclosed identity,

anonymity, or a hybrid system of

authenticated pseudonymity. An

unresolved issue is how binding

decisions made by the Liquid

Democracy system might be and what

enforcement or follow-up mechanisms

can be included in the software. Perhaps

initially Liquid Democracy could serve

as an intermediary tool for coordinating

votes and indicating directional

outcomes.

Ideas for a more granular application of

democracy have been proposed for

years, but it is only now with the Internet

and the advent of systems like

blockchain technology that these kinds of

complex and dynamic decision-making

mechanisms become feasible to

implement in real-world contexts. For

example, the idea for delegative

democracy in the form of transitive

voting was initially proposed by Lewis

Carroll (the author of Alice in

Wonderland) in his book The Principles

of Parliamentary Representation.119

Random-Sample Elections

In addition to delegative democracy,

another idea that could be implemented

with blockchain governance is random-

sample elections. In random-sample

elections, randomly selected voters

receive a ballot in the mail and are

directed to an election website that

features candidate debates and activist

statements. As articulated by

cryptographer David Chaum, 120 the idea

is that (like the ideal of a poll) randomly

sampled voters would be more

representative (or could at least include

underrepresented voters) and give voters

more time to deliberate on issues

privately at home, seeking their own

decision-making resources rather than

being swayed by advertising.121

Blockchain technology could be a means

of implementing random-sample

elections in a large-scale, trustable,

pseudonymous way.

Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy

with Voting + Prediction

Markets

Another concept is futarchy, a two-level

process by which individuals first vote

on generally specified outcomes (like

“increase GDP”), and second, vote on

specific proposals for achieving these

outcomes. The first step would be

carried out by regular voting processes,

the second step via prediction markets.

Prediction market voting could be by

different cryptocurrencies (the

EconomicVotingCoin or

EnvironmentalPolicyVotingCoin) or

other economically significant tokens.

Prediction market voting is

investing/speculating, taking a bet on one

or the other side of a proposal, betting

on the proposal that you want to win.

For example, you might buy the “invest

in new biotechnologies contract” as

what you think is the best means of

achieving the “increase in GDP”

objective, as opposed to other contracts

like the “invest in automated agriculture

contract”). As with random-sampling

elections, blockchain technology could

more efficiently implement the futarchy

concept in an extremely large-scale

manner (decentralized, trusted,

recorded, pseudonymous). The futarchy

concept is described in shorthand as

“vote for values, bet on beliefs,” an idea

initially proposed by economist Robin

Hanson, 122 and expounded in the

blockchain context by Ethereum project

founder Vitalik Buterin.123 This is a

quintessential example of the potential

transformative power of blockchain

technology. There is the possibility that

voting and preference-specification

models (like futarchy’s two-tiered voting

structure using blockchain technology)

could became a common, widespread

norm and feature or mechanism for all

complex multiparty human decision

making. One effect of this could be a

completely new level of coordinated

human activity that is orders of

magnitude more complex than at present.

Of course, any new governance structure

including futarchy has ample room for

abuse, and mechanisms for restricting

coercion and outright results hacking are

incorporated to some degree but would

need to be improved upon in more

robust models.

For the agreed-upon consensus

necessary to register blockchain

transactions, there could be at least two