Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

remunerative appcoin more generally.

Charity Donations and the

Blockchain—Sean’s Outpost

Perhaps the world’s best-known

Bitcoin-accepting charity is Sean’s

Outpost, a homeless outreach nonprofit

organization based in Pensacola,

Florida. Capitalizing on the trend of

individuals receiving Bitcoin and not

having any local venues to spend it in or

otherwise not knowing what to do with

it, and Bitcoin startups needing to demo

how Bitcoin is sent on the Web, Sean’s

Outpost has been able to raise

significant donor contributions and

undertake projects like a nine-acre

“Satoshi Forest” sanctuary for the

homeless.137

Blockchain Genomics

The democratization and freedom-

enhancing characteristics of the

blockchain seen in many projects also

apply in the case of consumer genomics,

which is the concept of uplifting

organizations to the blockchain (to the

cloud in a decentralized, secure way) to

escape the limitations of local

jurisdictional laws and regulation. That

there is a need for this does not

necessarily signal illegal “bad players”

with malicious intent; rather, it indicates

a lack of trust, support, relevance, and

espousal of shared values in local

jurisdictional governments. Traditional

government 1.0 is becoming outdated as

a governance model in the blockchain

era, especially as we begin to see the

possibility to move from paternalistic,

one-size-fits-all structures to a more

granular personalized form of

government. Genomics can be added to

the list of examples of uplifting

transnational organizations to the

decentralized blockchain cloud like

ICANN, WikiLeaks, Twitter, Wikipedia,

GitHub, and new business registrations

as DACs. Transnational blockchain

genomics makes sense in the context of

the right to personal information (the

right to one’s own genetic information)

being seen as a basic human right,

especially given the increasing cost

feasibility per plummeting genomic

sequencing costs.

In one view, consumer genomics can be

seen as a classic case of personal

freedom infringement. In many European

countries and the United States,

paternalistic government policy

(influenced by the centralized strength of

the medical-industry lobby) prevents

individuals from having access to their

own genetic data. Even in countries

where personal genomic information is

used in health care, there is most often

no mechanism for individuals to get

access to their own underlying data. In

the United States, prominent genomic

researchers have tried to make a public

case that the “FDA [Food and Drug

Administration] is overcautious on

consumer genomics,” 138 and established

in studies that there is no detrimental

effect to individuals having access to

their own genomic data. 139 In fact, the

opposite might be true: in the humans-as-

rational-agents model, 80 percent of

individuals learning of a potential

genetic predisposition for Alzheimer’s

disease modified their life-style

behaviors (e.g., exercise and vitamin

consumption) as a result. 140 Other news

accounts continue to chronicle how

individuals are seeking their own

genomic data and finding it useful—for

example, to learn about Alzheimer’s and

heart disease risk.141

As a result of paternalistic purview, and

no clear government policies for the

preventive medicine era, US-based

consumer genomics services have

closed (deCODEme142), directed their

services exclusively toward a physician-

permissioning model (Pathway

Genomics, Navigenics), or been forced

to greatly curtail their consumer-targeted

services (23andMe143). In response,

blockchain-based genomic services

could be an idea for providing low-cost

genomic sequencing to individuals,

making the data available via private

key.

One of the largest current

transformational challenges in public

health and medicine is moving from the

current narrowband model of “having

only been able to treat diagnosed

pathologies” to a completely new data-

rich era of preventive medicine for

which the goal is maintaining,

prolonging, and enhancing baseline

health. 144 Such a wellness era is now

beginning to be possible through the use

of personalized big data as predictive

information about potential future

conditions. Personalized genomics is a

core health data stream for preventive

medicine as well as individuals as

knowledgeable, self-interested, action-

taking agents.145

In fact, as of November 2014, a

blockchain genomics project, Genecoin,

has launched an exploratory website to

assess potential consumer interest,

positioning the service as a means of

backing up your DNA. 146

Blockchain Genomics 2.0:

Industrialized All-Human-

Scale Sequencing Solution

At one level, there could be blockchain-

enabled services where genomic data is

sequenced and made available to

individuals by private key outside the

jurisdiction of local governments.

However, at another higher level, as a

practical matter, to achieve the high-

throughput sequencing needed for all

seven billion humans, larger-scale

models are required, and blockchain

technology could be a helpful

mechanism for the realization of this

project. Individuals ordering their

genomes piecemeal through consumer