Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

notification on your Fitbit or smartwatch

telling you that you have taken 19,963

steps today, thus encouraging you to

reach 20,000; the way that Fitbit and

smartwatch present information is a

demurrage mechanism that encourages

you to take action. Thus, health as a

demurrage currency can be used as a

design principle in developing

technology to facilitate action taking that

is in the interest of the agent.

The dynamic redistribution property of

the demurrage concept can also be

applied to many other contexts, such as

when resources are distributed across

networks. Networks are an increasingly

pervasive feature of the modern world.

A clear use case for the demurrage

dynamic redistribution feature is in the

case of resource allocation through

automatic networks or tradenets. Here,

more efficient, larger, more scalable,

more trackable systems are sought for

the distribution of consumable resources

like gas and electricity, transportation

quanta (i.e., Uber/LaZooz, self-driving

vehicles, or automated pod transport

systems envisioned in the farther future),

clean water, food, health-care services,

relief aid, crisis-response supplies, and

even emotional support or mental-

performance coaching (for individuals

permissioned in consumer EEG rigs).

This is the idea of using the demurrage

concept in other network systems to

dynamically, automatically redistribute

resources for optimization. The concept

is combining networks and demurrage

currency to enable new functionality like

dynamic automatic redistribution across

network nodes and enable the predictive

and on-demand smart clustering of

resources where needed. Some

examples are predicting and delivering

an increased load of Ubers and cabs to

the airport when more flights are due to

arrive, and preparing available

electricity units on hotter days and fuel

oil units on colder days. This is the idea

of automatic resource redistribution in

smart networks, possible using

demurrage as a design element.

There are other examples of deploying

the demurrage concept in smart

networks. Health is itself a network and

a demurrage currency; an earnable and

spendable commodity; a linked,

continually autoredistributing enabler

operating fractally at multiple

organizational levels, among synapses,

cells, organisms/humans, and societies.

We can start to see the body and brain as

a Dapp, DAO, or DAC where already

many systems are automatically

operating at the unconscious level, and

where more systems like cognitive

enhancement, preventive medicine, and

pathology treatment could be explicitly

managed with Dapp AI systems. This

concept combines a demurrage resource-

allocation system with a Dapp, enabling

the functionality of the automatic

redistribution of any resource

commodity within a system. This could

be useful, for example, in the case of

neural potentiation in a brain, increasing

nerve impulses along pathways, for

which systemwide resource

redistribution could optimize

performance. We want to redistribute

and equalize potentiation capability

among synapses in a physical brain with

our cognitive enhancement technology or

in an artificial intelligence or software-

simulated brain. Different kinds of

brain-based resources—such as

potentiation capability, optogenetic

excitation (manipulating living cells

with inserted genetically adapted

proteins and light), or transcranial direct

stimulation—could be the demurrage

currencies targeted for redistribution

across a brain or mindfile. Another

example of demurrage redistribution in

the health context could be for cellular

resources such as oxygen, waste

removal nanobots, and circulating lab-

on-chips as the physical enablement

currencies of the body. Likewise, ideas

could be the redistributable currency of

collaborative teams, and liberty, trust,

and compassion the currency of society.

Bitcoin is already effectuated as a

demurrage currency and smart network

resource allocation mechanism in the

sense of redistributing the currency of

liberty across society.

Chapter 6. Limitations

The blockchain industry is still in the

early stages of development, and there

are many different kinds of potential

limitations. The classes of limitations

are both internal and external, and

include those related to technical issues

with the underlying technology, ongoing

industry thefts and scandals, public

perception, government regulation, and

the mainstream adoption of technology.

Technical Challenges

A number of technical challenges related

to the blockchain, whether a specific one

or the model in general, have been

identified.

The issues are in clear sight of

developers, with different answers to the

challenges posited, and avid discussion

and coding of potential solutions.

Insiders have different degrees of

confidence as to whether and how these

issues can be overcome to evolve into

the next phases of blockchain industry

development. Some think that the de

facto standard will be the Bitcoin

blockchain, as it is the incumbent, with

the most widely deployed infrastructure

and such network effects that it cannot

help but be the standardized base. Others