Blockchain Revolution

Distributed Ownership and Investment
We’re moving into a period of human history whereby very large numbers of people
can become owners of wealth through distributed ledger technology. Enabling access
to the world’s financial markets and therefore the universe of investment
opportunities, from conventional investments to participation in mass collaborative
ventures, microlending schemes, blockchain IPOs, and reputation-based
microlending, will open access to capital. Already, crowdfunding is changing the face
of finance. In 2012, nonblockchain crowdfunding campaigns raised $2.7 billion
around the world, an 80 percent increase over the year before. With direct peer-to-
peer crowdsourced blockchain financings, these numbers are poised to grow
manifold. Individuals can contribute small amounts of money through crowdfunding
campaigns. Imagine a campaign that engages a million people each giving a dollar.
Call it distributed ownership. Not meaningful, you say? Augur, the prediction market
platform, raised millions of dollars in small increments from thousands around the
globe. The range of possibilities is vast. Blockchain IPOs not only can improve the
efficacy and efficiency of raising money, lowering the cost for the issuer, they can
also be broadly inclusive, allowing previously unimaginable groups of burgeoning
investors to participate. To date, the range of proposals to change income and wealth
disparity has not reached beyond higher taxes for the wealthy on the one end, or, at its
most extreme, outright expropriation by the state. Instead of redistributing and

---

expropriating wealth, let’s imagine how blockchain can create opportunities to share
more equally in the wealth created by society.