Edward DeLeon argues that properly designed cryptocurrency-based economic systems can eliminate the need for philanthropy by building basic sustenance (UBI) into protocol design. He explains how crypto enables microtransactions, access for unbanked users, and experimentation with mutually beneficial economies; he proposes funding UBI by sharing the economic value of individuals’ data, attention and engagement rather than relying on taxation.
Chapters
Any system that requires philanthropy to work is inherently flawed. Point blank, in a properly designed economic ecosystem, philanthropy wouldn't be needed because everyone would be sustained based on the system's design of whatever economy you were living in. So crypto allows for that. Crypto allows for us to rewrite the rules of the game in such a way where philanthropy is no longer needed. And it does so in a way in which every participant of that system gets to retain their dignity. So rather than waiting for some billionaire somewhere to deign to share some of his fortune with the less fortunate, we could simply design a system so that there is no such thing as the less fortunate, so that everyone's basic needs are looked after. I think that's part that's going to confuse a lot of people, is that you can wipe out poverty while also enhancing wealth. I think wealth is a great thing, and I think everyone should have the opportunity to pursue their ambitions around wealth, just not at the cost of everyone else. Not to such a degree that you're not that some people go hungry or are never allowed to own a home. If we design our systems properly, there's room for both. You can have tremendous wealth, in fact, wealthier than anyone is today, and at the same time wipe out poverty if you design systems that are more efficient and unlock value across the whole system instead of for a select few. I think people are going to be really surprised at the level of abundance that is made possible when you start designing systems properly. And cryptocurrency allows us to run the experiments necessary to find out what is the proper way to run an economy. And the good news is we have lots of data on this stuff. Economists have been talking about this sort of thing, universal basic income resource based economies, for generations. Crypto allows us to actually put that into practice. And it's my supposition that economies that are mutually beneficial and that share the wealth with all of its participants are going to be the ones that are most attractive and draw the most users to its ecosystem. And therefore, on a long enough timeline, I think these systems are inevitable. Not simply viable, but inevitable. The question is, when will you join individually? The moment you do, you'll discover that there is a wealth of possibility and a wealth of opportunity there waiting for you. And one of those opportunities is to end the need for philanthropy by making sure that no one lives below the poverty line as a de facto basis of the protocol that you're using to run the economy. You simply build it into the system's design and you could wipe out poverty forever. If you were trying to solve poverty in the existing system, it would mean you have to use the existing system's infrastructure to send money, moving money into developing nations is highly problematic. And the current banking system simply cannot service those users. In some cases, it's because there's no money in it for them to service them, and in other cases it's because those users cannot pass through the regulatory requirements necessary to to invite them into the system. And so in that regard, cryptocurrency becomes extremely useful. Cryptocurrency doesn't care about whether or not you have a driver's license or a passport. And cryptocurrency is very good at microtransactions. The current economic systems are terrible at microtransactions. In fact, trying to send anything less than 20 cents costs more than 20 cents. So if you wanted to send small amounts of money, what we call streaming money into developing nations, where it would do the most good doing so using the legacy financial system is simply not possible. And thanks to advances in cryptocurrency, though that is extremely possible and in fact is already working on a number of systems. There are some who would say that cryptocurrency is only for first world educated participants. There's this assumption that because people are poor, that they're not intelligent and that they won't be able to manage the complexities of the cryptocurrency markets when evidence suggests it's exactly the opposite. They are generally people from Latin America or Turkey or Southeast Asia. Those are the people that have the most reason to participate in the market. And that's why in developing nations, they have a much higher crypto adoption rate than we do in first world nations. Anyone who thinks that cryptocurrency is not for them, would it be a bit like saying, the telephone is not for me, or mobile phones are not for me, or personal computing is not for me, or the Internet is not for me. It's a technology that has such widespread use that everyone in the world can benefit from its use to some degree. UBI is shorthand for Universal Basic Income. It's an idea that's been kicked around for centuries at this point, and this is idea that simply by being born and by being a human being, that you deserve some economic consideration. Now, there are different rationales that have been used for creating a UBI or for suggesting UBI should be created. The most common one is land bases, because all the land in the world is already accounted for by the time you're born. It's A bit unfair. You don't get to go and just claim your piece of land. And as a result, people who do own land should pay a tax on that that goes towards every person in the world. That was one of the older justifications I've seen. Barring that, what can you own? Well, you certainly own your information, you certainly own your attention, and you own your engagement. And that is a tremendous resource that is producing some of the wealthiest fortunes on the planet. And I think that is probably the most viable avenue that we could create universal basic income that will be meaningful and long lasting. So when we talk about universal basic income, we simply mean that you probably deserve to have a little bit of money sent to you every day or every month and that that could be earth shatteringly good for civilization. That an entire sea change that would wipe out poverty overnight simply through direct giving. The problem of course, has been finding the political will and wherewithal to create a ubi. Usually it's based on taxes, which is inherently flawed. Specifically, that activity will become less appealing to people participating in it, so most likely will do less of it, which means the amount of money you're sharing becomes diminished. And it's also inherently unfair to take something from someone and give it to someone else. Right. There's a sense of robbery happening there. You're violating that person's rights too. So I believe that you can help this other person, the person that needs help, without violating another person's basic civil rights around ownership. In a truly sophisticated universal basic income system, you wouldn't base it off of taxes and instead you would base it off of healthy economic activity. And I think in the information age that means your attention, engagement and your information, which are all extremely valuable. And all I'm suggesting is that when organizations such as Facebook or Google sell your information or sell your attention, that you yourself should be the recipient of the value that that creates. Right? So if someone pays $2 for your set of eyeballs, you should probably at least get a dollar. Moving forward, we're going to see these socially owned social media platforms that do exactly that, that share value with the end user in a meaningful way. SA.
