It was a question from the webinar audience that caught my attention: “What about the decentralisation of democracy? Do blockchain and decentralised finance offer solutions to the global failure of government?”
There are already thousands of DAOs in existence, created for different reasons. In 2021, a blockchain-based organisation called ConstitutionDAO raised $40-million worth of Ethereum to bid on a copy of the US constitution in a very traditional auction by Sotheby’s. Even though the organisation ultimately lost the bid, it gained worldwide attention. And for good reason. DAOs are changing the way we think about how organisations work, and how they may work in the future.
It is an exisitential threat, one that Dutch financial services firm ING compared to cloud computing in the 1990s – an interesting new innovation then, and the foundational deployment mechanism of the global internet now. It is a future that is coming at speed – in just 13 years since cryptocurrencies were introduced as a radical, fringe concept, they have moved closer to the mainstream of global finance, and now at least 80% of central banks are experimenting with digital currencies. Blockchain, non-fungible tokens, DeFi and many previously unheard-of terms are now entering the common lexicon. In their book, Sidley and Dingle chart this evolution and present future possibilities to readers.