Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

economics as a feature in any system. In

the genomic sequencing and storage

context, the economics feature could be

used in numerous ways, such as

obtaining more accurate costs of

research (blockchain economics as

tracking and accounting) and to

remunerate data contributors (whether

institutional or individual) with

Genomecoin or GenomicResearchcoin

(blockchain economics as micropayment

remuneration). The economic/accounting

tracking features of the blockchain

further allows now other foreseen

capabilities of the blockchain, such as

attribution as an enabler for large-scale

human projects (like attribution at the

GitHub line item of committed code or

digital asset IP-protected ideas).

Attribution is a crucial feature for

encouraging individual participation in

large-scale projects.

Blockchain Health

In the future, there might be different

kinds of blockchains (ledgers) for

recording and tracking different kinds of

processes, and exchanging and providing

access to different kinds of assets,

including digital health assets.

Blockchain health is the idea of using

blockchain technology for health-related

applications.149 The key benefit behind

blockchain health is that the blockchain

provides a structure for storing health

data on the blockchain such that it can be

analyzed but remain private, with an

embedded economic layer to

compensate data contribution and use. 150

Healthcoin

Healthcoin could more broadly be the

coin or token for health spending,

forcing price discovery and

rationalization across health services.

Services in national health plans could

be denominated and paid in Healthcoin.

This could help to improve economic

inefficiencies rife within the health-

services industry. Price transparency—

and a universal price list—could result,

such that every time a certain health

service is performed, it costs 5

Healthcoin, for example, instead of the

current system (in the United States)

where each consumer might pay a

different amount that is a complex

calculation of the multipayor system

connecting different insurers and plans.

EMRs on the Blockchain:

Personal Health Record

Storage

Personal health records could be stored

and administered via blockchain like a

vast electronic electronic medical

record (EMR) system. Taking advantage

of the pseudonymous (i.e., coded to a

digital address, not a name) nature of

blockchain technology and its privacy

(private key access only), personal

health records could be encoded as

digital assets and put on the blockchain

just like digital currency. Individuals

could grant doctors, pharmacies,

insurance companies, and other parties

access to their health records as needed

via their private key. In addition,

services for putting EMRs onto the

blockchain could promote a universal

format, helping to resolve the issue that

even though most large health services

providers have moved to an EMR

system, they are widely divergent and

not sharable or interoperable. The

blockchain could provide a universal

exchangeable format and storage

repository for EMRs at a population-

wide scale.

Blockchain Health Research

Commons

One benefit of creating standardized

EMR repositories is exactly that they are

repositories: vast standardized

databases of health information in a

standardized format accessible to

researchers. Thus far, nearly all health

data stores have been in inaccessible

private silos—for example, data from

one of the world’s largest longitudinal

health studies, the Framingham Heart

Study. The blockchain could provide a

standardized secure mechanism for

digitizing health data into health data

commons, which could be made

privately available to researchers. One

example of this is DNA.bits, a startup

that encodes patient DNA records to the

blockchain, and makes them available to

researchers by private key. 151

However, it is not just that private health

data research commons could be

established with the blockchain, but also

public health data commons. Blockchain

technology could provide a model for

establishing a cost-effective public-

health data commons. Many individuals

would like to contribute personal health

data—like personal genomic data from

23andMe, quantified-self tracking

device data (FitBit), and health and

fitness app data (MapMyRun)—to data

research commons, in varying levels of

openness/privacy, but there has not been

a venue for this. This data could be

aggregated in a public-health commons

(like Wikipedia for health) that is open

to anyone, citizen scientists and

institutional researchers alike, to

perform data analysis. The hypothesis is

that integrating big health data streams

(genomics, lifestyle, medical history,

etc.) and running machine learning and

other algorithms over them might yield

correlations and data relationships that

could be helpful for wellness

maintenance and preventive medicine. 152

In general, health research could be

conducted more effectively through the

aggregation of personal health record

data stored on the blockchain (meaning

stored off-chain with pointers on-chain).

The economic feature of the blockchain

could facilitate research, as well. Users