It’s Saturday 7pm. A pretty airline hostess friend of mine was in San Francisco\u00a0for the night, wanting\u00a0to do drinks. What to do?<\/p>\n
I was knocking on the door\u00a0of\u00a0a home in Palo Alto that had\u00a0a\u00a0Guy Fawkes mask<\/a> on a Christmas reef. As for why, it was to attend the first ever\u00a0Decentralized Autonomous Society Meetup, an event with a minimal description other than a title “Let the revolution begin”. The event reads:<\/p>\n In the early 90s the cypherpunk movement held its meetup in Palo Alto, working through many ways in which cryptographic technology could be used to promote human freedom. Eventually Bitcoin was born.<\/p>\n Today we discuss how the second wave of blockchain innovation can enhance human freedom.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The house was packed. Hours earlier, TechCrunch had posted \u00a0Decentralise All The Things!<\/a>\u00a0and mentions Ethereum<\/a> and Maidsafe<\/a> who are leaders in\u00a0the movement. In my search to find a solution to a business challenge I have, I inadvertently\u00a0was now at a meetup where one of the speakers was a representative from Maidsafe and another speaker representing Ethereum. But not just that: I found myself after the talks talking to the globe trotting\u00a0Vitalik Buterin<\/a>,\u00a0the inventor\u00a0and chief scientist of Ethereum.<\/p>\n Although I had been tracking Bitcoin for a few years now and evangelising it behind closed doors to influential politicians, business executives and\u00a0my network, a frustration I had was that no one\u00a0understands the true impact. \u00a0This is\u00a0something that has been on my mind every since I\u00a0become aware of after a\u00a0talk by former Googler Mike Hearn in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n That changed a\u00a0few months ago, when I stumbled on Ethereum’s white paper <\/a>and found it the single best document describing the state of cryptocurrency and its potential beyond being simply a means of exchange as Bitcoin is known. Ethereum’s creator might only be 20, but with his former project being the Bitcoin magazine which has been an invaluable resource to understand Bitcoin, he comes across to me as\u00a0probably having one of the deepest understandings of cryptocurrencies, their potential — and weaknesses.<\/p>\n Both Vitalik and I hold a mutual\u00a0view that we don’t know what the future of Bitcoin is and if it will last. But after talking to him, I had in no doubt that I had met a genius that one day may be regarded like Tim Berners-lee who created the world wide web.<\/p>\n Separately, I was talking with one of the organisers, and he was excited I understood the potential of DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) and similarly remarked at his frustration that most investors in Silicon Valley don’t seem to get it. Given\u00a0silicon valley investors are beating the drum roll of Bitcoin’s world domination despite the rest of the world not getting it, you can take that to be\u00a0a sign this is pretty early days of the Decentralised Autonomous movement.<\/p>\n But let me get to the point of why I’m even writing this — both due to something Vitalik said to me and that I separately read yesterday\u00a0that he pointed me too. He referred me to a recent blog post\u00a0on secret sharing<\/a>\u00a0and where\u00a0he writes a money quote in the conclusion of the article explaining DAO’s as follows:<\/p>\n If the blockchain is a decentralized computer, a secret sharing DAO is a decentralized computer with privacy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a world where no one can really explain it yet, that explains DAO’s beautifully. But let’s back it up: blockchain, one of the four technologies underpinning Bitcoin (the others being PGP, Proof-of-work (such as mining which includes hash functions and Merkle trees ), and peer-to-peer)…is a computer? When I prodded Vitalik about what use-cases he was prioritising ahead the Ethereum 1.0 release later this year (March), he eventually responded: “It’s hard to prioritise one use case when you’re building a computer!”.<\/p>\n And that’s exactly what’s going on. This is all software, architecture and philosophical vision for a decentralised world, bringing the Internet back to its roots. In the process, this will enable a weak form of artificial intelligence. If hypertext is what underpins the web and has transformed the world of communications, then\u00a0cryptography is what underpins the blockchain and will be transforming our world starting with payments but beyond that such as any system where “trust” is needed like elections, contracts and more. The power being the computers manage the “trust” (no humans tampering with it) and can automate the enforcement.<\/p>\n 3D printing and Dones are two long term technologies that I regard as inevitable\u00a0and game changing. It just might take 20 years for us to fully realise it. Well, Bitcoin, blockchain and crypto-currencies is my other main trend — but the externalities of that trend\u00a0such as the Ethereum project and the ecosytem building around it, is something I think everyone should have on their radar that I think is akin to the web starting.<\/p>\n This year will see Ethereum 1.0 released<\/a>\u00a0(roadmap<\/a>)\u00a0with a chat application, a browser, as well as the ability for people to build their own applications with javascript — and we’ll also see the Bitcoin foundation be transitioning to a block-chain based voting system for its 2000 members which if it happens will become the highest profile example\u00a0of DAO principles in action,\u00a0beyond the Bitcoin network itself and the blockchain voting by the\u00a0Danish political party<\/a>.<\/p>\n Don’t get me wrong, this is not something that I’m early to identify rather it’s been in my face: at my business StartupHouse<\/a>, we host events for Bitcoin developers and its intrigued me in their grass roots support. Combined with my reading, once you begin to understand the value of a blockchain, the power of cryptography, and what you can do outside of currency — then maybe, just like me and thousands of grass roots community support in silicon valley and around the world, you’ll begin see the emergence of something. A something driven by a frustration to emerge from the world post the credit crunch induced recession, government abuse of power with people’s money, and inequality where the few are owning more of our society’s capital.<\/p>\n A vision that,\u00a0maybe, just might be a revolution in how the world operates that is as dramatic as what the world was like before the web. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n