Fersen Lambranho: Blockchain can be the path to total, general and unrestricted democracy in 2022

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The year 2021, which has passed, saw the world breathe again, after being “intubated” by a pandemic. The people, who took to the streets after living a forced hibernation, were no longer the same. The new habits developed were maintained, as well as an implanted chip, anticipating the human being 2.0 by years.

The virtual world has imposed itself for so long that we can no longer live without some of its facilities. We saw almost retired artists reborn in lives, people becoming — in a matter of months — influencers of tens of millions of people, the most valuable company in Latin America being an online sales platform for third parties, and so many other events.

The year 2021 marks a political, social and economic inflection point, whose roadmap is difficult to predict what it will be like. I believe, however, that it will lead us to a society in which power will be in the hands of the people, as never before. And one of the tools that can contribute to this is blockchain. His concept was introduced by an apocryphal text in 2009, giving as an example Bitcoin, its first practical application.

After 12 years, there are already 17,000 cryptocurrencies, a third of which were created in 2021. The concept, until then restricted to gamers, nerds and experts, is starting to reach the mainstream. Today, 7.5% of cryptocurrencies are in the hands of institutional investors and governments, up from 0.5% a year ago.

Evidently, everything new creates opportunities for crooks and malicious people. It has always been that way — just remember the beginnings of the capital market in the United States in the 19th century, the California gold rush, the American “capitalism of the Titans”, or the New Egypt of Cabo Frio.

This is how innovation goes in history and, as my most important mentor used to say, “first we create the ‘far west’ and then we call the sheriff” We are witnessing the beginning of the third wave of the internet, led by the use of blockchain. This wave has strange and counterintuitive concepts as its foundation: processing distributed on thousands of computers around the planet, developers who work collaboratively – above all – out of passion and in a network, algorithms with total transparency and, above all, public and immutable codes .

In the first wave of the internet, we had the availability of digital content replicating the shape of the physical world. In the second wave, which we are experiencing today, large companies impose their codes, making them available for everyone to create content. However, these big companies (Facebook and Google, for example) have complete control over the future of the algorithm, keeping people as dependents.

In this third phase, based on the blockchain, governance becomes the responsibility of the users and collaborators of the algorithms that, as they are open source, will make possible the dream sung in 1971 by John Lennon: “Power to the People”. Power will migrate from large organizations to developers spread across the planet, greatly reducing the hegemony that California has enjoyed until now. The year of grace 2021 began with small investors imposing huge losses on traditional investors.

These traditional investors had bet against the “GameStop” store chain, which gamers were passionate about. “GameStop” customers used the financial power of their network of “sardines” investors to, through the brokerage RobinHood, force the stock to rise and, thus, value what they considered a good deal, despite the contrary opinion of analysts and “Sharks” investors on Wall Street. There were a lot of market men going to cry at the American CVM, saying that such a move was unfair.

In November, to close the year, an event occurred that, perhaps, is the greatest proof that a silent revolution is beginning.

One of the 13 originals of the US Constitution was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York for an estimated value of between $15 million and $20 million. The American Constitution is considered the most concrete result of the waves of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It can be said, therefore, that it represents the greatest symbol of Western Democracy. A crowdfunding group, using blockchain in the so-called DAO (Autonomous and Decentralized Organization), raised $25 million in 24 hours and then $40 million in 72 hours through 17,400 donors.

At the end of the auction, a billionaire ended up taking the copy for $45 million. The people entered Sotheby’s for the first time, displacing billionaires and collectors, to secure possession of one of the greatest symbols of Democracy. They didn’t buy the original US Constitution, but priced it at twice the value expected by the establishment.

The web 3.0 revolution is just beginning, and it promises to change business, government, art and ways of living together. However, the most important thing is that, for the first time in history, we envision a solution to make democracy more effective, as it becomes possible to combine fixed rules, transparency, geographic decentralization and governance in the hands of user agents/tax payers. . We can dream of a world that is more equal in opportunities, and transparent at all levels.

In 2022, as we complete 200 years of Independence, we must turn our eyes to a declared manifesto, which can bring together all economic agents and people, in the quest to solve the problem of poverty and exclusion of our mass of 220 million brains. A great national project, whose main goal is to improve the living conditions of the population in a sustainable way, using all available technology.

​Web 3.0 is the great opportunity for all countries that missed the first and second waves of the internet to take a leap forward decades. The future will not wait for Brazil.

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