I just saw this item on CNBC's Website: it's important enough to share and add some comments.
"Richard Branson: Blockchain could create ‘economic revolution’ in emerging markets"
Blockchain technology could bring an "economic revolution" in many developing countries where proving ownership of assets or getting access to capital is difficult, Virgin Group founder and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson said on Monday.
Branson referenced the work of well-known economist Hernando de Soto, who recently announced a partnership with bitcoin mining company BitFury and the Republic of Georgia's National Agency of Public Registry, to trial a land titling program....
Now, Sir Richard Branson is a helluva name to drop! But I want to focus in on the other name, Hernando de Soto. He's been documenting the proliferation of the informal (underground) economy since the 1980s. He's also been battling for better recognition of property rights for the folks who've had to resort to the informal economy because their rights to their property have not been recognized by the governments they live under. (Trust me: it's "live under", regardless of what the officialdom would like us to believe.) de Soto has repeatedly said that recognition of these rights will unlock a huge amount of frozen capital - possibly trillions - and in so doing provide funding bases that could kick-start the next upward wave of globalization.
People who work in the informal economy - for example, a woman who sets up a teeny hairdressing shop in a room in her house to earn what she can, or a fellow who does jobs that we First Worlders would peg as under-the-table - are entrepreneurial. Since their earnings come from the underground economy, they pretty-much have to be. Leaving this point aside, they do have those entrepreneurial skills. Who know how much value they can add if they also have access to capital markets, which would require their property rights to be recognized enough to serve as collateral? Unleashing their creativity and work, I believe, would add a lot more value to Third World countries than yet another trade deal (although trade deals do tend to help.)
I can see two outcomes: us cryptonauts push the authorities into realizing one of de Soto's goals, or the authorities continue to drag their feet and we provide the unlocking platform and the informals build-up using the crypto-economy instead of the regular economy.
To be frank, the first option would be better for the Third World. We're part of the future, but the crypto-economy is still tiny and not growing all that hugely. (If you're a disappointed ex-evangelist, you know what I mean.) From the standpoint of the informals, we're a fallback. And because our reach is not (yet!) as big as officialdom, we'd be less potent a growth-stimulator.
But I think we cryptoneers will be the ones who help these folks out, because a lot of the corruption is tied to power that the Third World rulers will not give up. de Soto also rails against the overregulation that had the effect of pushing those poor folks underground into the informal economy; getting Third World governments to streamline their regs into something sensible is his other life goal.
However it plays out, blockchain technology will play a big part in the next wave of emerging-economy growth. It'll take a long time, but a generation from now the areas of the world stricken by dire poverty will shrink. And we folks, simply because we've gotten behind cryptocurrency, will have done our part to help it!