Blockchain Revolution

Chapter 8: Rebuilding Government and Democracy
1
. http://europa.eu/about-eu/countries/member-countries/estonia/index_en.htm;
http://www.citypopulation.de/Canada-MetroEst.html.
2
. In-person conversation between Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Don Tapscott at the World
Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council meeting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, October 2015.
3
.
www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi#data_table/countries/com6/dim1,dim2,dim3,com9,idr35,com6,idr16,idr34.
4
. https://e-estonia.com/the-story/the-story-about-estonia/. Estonia is very proud of its e-Estonia initiatives and has
published a lot of information on the Web. All of the information and statistics used in this section came from
the Government of Estonia Web site.
5
. “Electronic Health Record,” e-Estonia.com, n.d.; https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-health-record/,
accessed November 29, 2015.
6
. “e-Cabinet,” e-Estonia.com, n.d.; https://e-estonia.com/component/e-cabinet/, accessed November 29, 2015.
7
. “Electronic Land Register,” e-Estonia.com, n.d.; https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-land-register/,
accessed November 29, 2015.
8
. Charles Brett, “My Life Under Estonia’s Digital Government,” The Register,
www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/02/estonia/.
9
. Interview with Mike Gault, August 28, 2015.
10
. “Keyless Signature Infrastructure,” e-Estonia.com, n.d.; https://e-estonia.com/component/keyless-signature-
infrastructure/, accessed November 29, 2015.
11
. Olga Kharif, “Bitcoin Not Just for Libertarians and Anarchists Anymore,” Bloomberg Business, October 9,
2014; www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-10-09/bitcoin-not-just-for-libertarians-and-anarchists-anymore. To
be sure, there is a strong libertarian trend in the American population as a whole. According to the Pew
Research Center, 11 percent of Americans describe themselves as libertarian and know the definition of the
term. “In Search of Libertarians,” www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/25/in-search-of-libertarians/.
12
. “Bitcoin Proves the Libertarian Idea of Paradise Would Be Hell on Earth,” Business Insider,
www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-libertarian-paradise-would-be-hell-on-earth-2013-12#ixzz3kQqSap00.
13
. Human Rights Watch, “World Report 2015: Events of 2014,”
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf.
14
. Interview with Hernando de Soto, November 27, 2015.
15
. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann, 1983), 64.
16
. Interview with Hernando de Soto, November 27, 2015.
17
. Hernando de Soto, “The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism,” The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2014;
www.wsj.com/articles/the-capitalist-cure-for-terrorism-1412973796, accessed November 27, 2015.
18
. Interview with Hernando de Soto, November 27, 2015.
19
. Interview with Carlos Moreira, September 3, 2015.
20
. Melanie Swan, Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy (Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly Media, January 2015),
45.
21
. Emily Spaven, “UK Government Exploring Use of Blockchain Recordkeeping,” CoinDesk, September 1,
2015; www.coindesk.com/uk-government-exploring-use-of-blockchain-recordkeeping/.
22
. J. P. Buntinx, “‘Blockchain Technology’ Is Bringing Bitcoin to the Mainstream,” Bitcoinist.net, August 29,
2015; http://bitcoinist.net/blockchain-technology-bringing-bitcoin-mainstream/.
23
. Melanie Swan, quoted in Adam Stone, “Unchaining Innovation: Could Bitcoin’s Underlying Tech Be a
Powerful Tool for Government?,” Government Technology, July 10, 2015; www.govtech.com/state/Unchaining-
Innovation-Could-Bitcoins-Underlying-Tech-be-a-Powerful-Tool-for-Government.html.
24
. See for example www.partnerships.org.au/ and www.in-control.org.uk/what-we-do.aspx.
25
. Interview with Perianne Boring, August 7, 2015. See also Joseph Young, “8 Ways Governments Could Use the
Blockchain to Achieve ‘Radical Transparency,’” CoinTelegraph, July 13, 2015;
http://cointelegraph.com/news/114833/8-ways-governments-could-use-the-blockchain-to-achieve-radical-
transparency.
26
. www.data.gov.

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27
. www.data.gov.uk.
28
. Ben Schiller, “A Revolution of Outcomes: How Pay-for-Success Contracts Are Changing Public Services,”
Co.Exist, www.fastcoexist.com/3047219/a-revolution-of-outcomes-how-pay-for-success-contracts-are-
changing-public-services. Also see: www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/11/20/building-smarter-more-efficient-
government-through-pay-success.
29
. R. C. Porter, “Can You ‘Snowden-Proof’ the NSA?: How the Technology Behind the Digital Currency—
Bitcoin—Could Stop the Next Edward Snowden,” Fortuna’s Corner, June 3, 2015;
http://fortunascorner.com/2015/06/03/can-you-snowden-proof-the-nsa-how-the-technology-behind-the-digital-
currency-bitcoin-could-stop-the-next-edward-snowden/.
30
. Elliot Maras, “London Mayoral Candidate George Galloway Calls for City Government to Use Block Chain
for Public Accountability,” Bitcoin News, July 2, 2015; www.cryptocoinsnews.com/london-mayoral-candidate-
george-galloway-calls-city-government-use-block-chain-public-accountability/.
31
. Tapscott, The Digital Economy, 304.
32
. Al Gore, speech to the We Media conference, October 6, 2005;
www.fpp.co.uk/online/05/10/Gore_speech.html.
33
. Ibid.
34
. “The Persistence of Conspiracy Theories,” The New York Times, April 30, 2011;
www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01conspiracy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
35
. www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/upshot/when-beliefs-and-facts-collide.html?
module=Search&mabReward=relbias:w;%201RI:6%20%3C{:}%3E.
36
. “Plain Language: It’s the Law,” Plain Language Action and Information Network, n.d.:
www.plainlanguage.gov/plLaw/, accessed November 30, 2015.
37
. https://globalclimateconvergence.org/news/nyt-north-carolinas-election-machine-blunder.
38
. http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~clark/papers/2012_fc.pdf.
39
. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-662-46803-6_16.
40
. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/29/scientists-in-greece-design-cryptographic-e-voting-platform/.
41
. http://nvbloc.org/.
42
. http://cointelegraph.com/news/114404/true-democracy-worlds-first-political-app-blockchain-party-launches-
in-australia.
43
. www.techinasia.com/southeast-asia-blockchain-technology-bitcoin-insights/.
44
. Ibid.
45
. www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-
impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/.
46
. www.eac.gov/research/election_administration_and_voting_survey.aspx.
47
. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/most-americans-dont-vote-in-elections-heres-why.html.
48
. Interview with Eduardo Robles Elvira, September 10, 2015.
49
. www.chozabu.net/blog/?p=78.
50
. https://agoravoting.com/.
51
. Interview with Eduardo Robles Elvira, September 10, 2015.
52
. http://cointelegraph.com/news/111599/blockchain_technology_smart_contracts_and_p2p_law.
53
. Patent Application of David Chaum, “Random Sample Elections,” June 19, 2014;
http://patents.justia.com/patent/20140172517.
54
. https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/08/21/introduction-futarchy/.
55
. Federico Ast (@federicoast) and Alejandro Sewrjugin (@asewrjugin), “The CrowdJury, a Crowdsourced
Justice System for the Collaboration Era,” https://medium.com/@federicoast/the-crowdjury-a-crowdsourced-
court-system-for-the-collaboration-era-66da002750d8#.e8yynqipo.
56
. http://crowdjury.org/en/.
57
. The entire process is described in Ast and Sewrjugin, “The CrowdJury.”
58
. A brief description of the jury selection process in early Athens is described at
www.agathe.gr/democracy/the_jury.html.
59
. See full report and recommendations here, including a description of models worldwide:
www.judiciary.gov.uk/reviews/online-dispute-resolution/.

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60
. http://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/overwatch/.
61
. Environmental Defense Fund, www.edf.org/climate/how-cap-and-trade-works.
62
. Swan, Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy.
63
. Interview with Andreas Antonopoulos, July 20, 2015.