Outlier Ventures Daily Brief

Here’s a “Kodak” moment for the token economy. The 115-year-old company that saw its market dominance being wiped away with the rise of digital and mobile photography is embracing blockchains. Kodak’s CEO believes their use of blockchain technology will add real world value to content creators struggling to keep tabs on how their content is used. The photography company has recently announced the addition of a rights-management service which will be able to detect when work is distributed unregistered and help creators to collect compensation for their work. Kodak is one of many now shifting their perspective on blockchain technology, and Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan has since followed suit. The bank’s CEO has now retracted his statement that ‘bitcoin is a fraud’ and instead states the technology’s promising future. As more and more naysayers become advocates, financial institutions and corporate entities continue to move forward, taking the blockchain with them. It is becoming apparent now that blockchain is entering the world of mainstream adoption.

If we cast our gaze back over 2 millennia to Ancient Greece, we may remind ourselves of important lessons learned from past generations. It was here that thousands of Athenian citizens would meet at Pynx hill to voice their opinions on local issues, unknowingly birthing what is today known as direct democracy. Yet, as cities grew, thousands of citizens became tens of thousands, and those local systems became national systems, which in hand became a global mosaic stretching far beyond any one nation. Although we could take the core principles of democracy forward, direct democracy was no longer practical. Today, blockchain technology is once again reviving that ancient tradition. We previously spoke about how Brazil has recently made use of the Ethereum blockchain to cut out the complexities and allow it’s 145 million constituents to vote in an immutable way. The same is now happening in America, where Congress nominee Michael Allman has promised constituents that he will vote exactly as his voters choose using his blockchain-based petitioning website. The Republican candidate has offered this technology to other politicians willing to try it. If political systems continue to adopt blockchain technology in this way, we may see a rebirthed enthusiasm into systems long deemed ‘broken’ by millions of apathetic voters. Long live demos kratos.

Emergent industries can often be abuzz with jargon and little substance. Since frontier technologies like robotics, IoT and AI often peak reader’s interest, the media tends to hype what’s going on at ground zero. While indexes often track where an entire economy is headed, there are very few that to the same to track where an emergent sector is headed. The AI Index has been developed by a group of Stanford based thought leaders to provide a comprehensive baseline to the state of artificial intelligence. Named AI100, the index measures 18 independent vectors in academia, industry, open-source software and public sentiments towards that technology. Shoham, a key individual responsible for setting up of the index stated

The inaugural version of the index makes some interesting findings. For instance, the number of AI-based startups has increased 14 fold since 2000, while investments in the space have surged six times. Student enrolments in introductory AI related courses have surged 45 times at Stanford during the same period. For more interesting data from the emergent field and the index itself, I suggest you give this report a good read. 

Who would have ever thought an anonymous whitepaper written in 2008 would give birth to an ecosystem that is now worth over $700 billion in market cap? That is the power of technology and communities.  Blockchain’s ability to disrupt trust helps us ideate, transact and exchange with individuals from anywhere in the globe with minimal counterparty risk. The same can be used to solve real problems without having to donate capital towards a cause. A recent post on Hackernoon by Leah Stella Stephens sheds light on how different communities use Steem to build solutions for problems varying from art license to teaching girls how to code. Wish to reward individuals developing open source software? There’s Utopian. Are you working on STEM-related research? SteemStem is just what you need. More on the artsy side? Slothicorn might interest you. Price action aside, these communities are an important example of how tokens can incentivize creators around the globe to create a solution that would otherwise be unfathomed of. If you are sitting on capital gains from the recent run-up and wish to incentivize creators, we strongly suggest you explore the piece for communities of your taste. Read it here.