Blockchain Smartnetworks

Amsterdam NL, 12 Sep 2016
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
Philosophy & Economic Theory
New School for Social Research, NY NY
melanie@BlockchainStudies.org
Blockchain Smartnetworks
The Future of Finance and the Automation Economy
Part of a Series on Cryptophilosophy
cryptophilosophy

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Smartnetworks 1
Melanie Swan, Blockchain Futurist
 Philosophy and Economic Theory, New School
for Social Research, New York NY
 Founder, Institute for Blockchain Studies
 Singularity University Instructor; Institute for Ethics and
Emerging Technology Affiliate Scholar; EDGE
Essayist; FQXi Advisor
Traditional Markets Background
Economics and Financial
Theory Leadership
New Economies research group
Source: http://www.melanieswan.com, http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf, http://blockchainstudies.org/Metaphilosophy_CFP.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewEconomies

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain
2
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

12 Sep 2016
Thesis Statement
Blockchain: a Singularity-class technology
 No other technology has the power to…
1. …uplift 2 billion people out of poverty
overnight
 intermediary-free international remittance
2. …produce a safe and orderly transition
to the automation economy
 humans and machines in collaboration,
friendly artificial intelligence enacted
3. …fundamentally transform the only
remaining sectors not yet re-
engineered for the Internet era:
economics and politics
3
Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

12 Sep 2016
Agenda
I. Blockchain technology: What is it?
 Automation economy
II. Singularity-class applications
 Farther-future
 Friendly AI
 Bio-cryptoeconomy
 Nanotech/Synbio
 Blockchains in Space
 Nearer-term
 Financial services, Energy, Logistics
 IOT, Health, Economic Development
III. Conclusion: our Singularity futures
4

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Technology: What is it?
5
 Blockchain technology is the secure distributed ledger
software that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin
 “Internet of Money” leapfrog technology; Skype is an app allowing
phone calls via Internet without POTS; Bitcoin is an app allowing
money transfer via Internet without banks; ‘decentralized Paypal’
Internet
(decentralized network)
Blockchain
Bitcoin
Application
Layer
Protocol
Layer
Infrastructure
Layer
SMTP
Email
VoIP
Phone
calls
OSI Protocol Stack:

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain (not Bitcoin) is the revolution
6
 Internet phase transitions
 Phase I: transfer information
 Modernize publishing, books, music,
news, information
 Phase 2: transfer value (money,
property)
 Modernize of economics and finance
 Providing the digital payments layer the
Internet never had
 Instantiating the qualitative good of
trust in the infrastructure

12 Sep 2016
Smartnetwork vision
Pushing more complexity through the Internet pipes
7
Information
Sci-fi inspiration: Accelerando, Lady of Mazes, Blindsight, The Golden Age, Glasshouse
Confirmation of Automated
Distribution of
Transfer of
 Growing classes of activities for smartnetwork execution
 I: Information; II: Money, finance, economics; energy; supply chain, logistics,
transportation; health; IOT; III: identity, preference, intangible resources
Value Identity Preference
Registration of
20161990 2025e 2050e 2075e
Automated
Propagation of
Voting
Policy
Opinion
Participation
GBI
Energy
Trust
Autonomy
Recognition
Economics Politics
Ideas
Health
Collaboration
opportunities
Instantiation
Upload integrity
Smart-
resources
Smart-
currencies
2090e
Internet Smartnetwork

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Smartnetworks 8
Currency
Property:
Assets
Inventory
Securities: stocks, bonds, government issue, futures and
options, FX contracts
Hard assets: cars, houses, global supply chain, medical
inventories; Intangible assets: IP
Money, digital payments, remittance
Programmable smartmoney
Fundamental enabling infrastructure
Economics
Governance
& Legal
Services
Global-scale
projects
Politics
Singularity
All contractual arrangements
Blockchain’s vast reach beyond currency
Financial instruments: mortgage, loans
Million-person genome banks, supply chain
management, autonomous driving fleets
Voting, identity, citizenship, civic services
Legal documents, contracts, wills, agreements

12 Sep 2016
Why is it called blockchain?
Blockchain: a chain of transaction blocks
 Every 10 minutes, the latest
block of submitted
transactions is validated (by
cryptographic mining) and
posted to a single distributed
ledger
 Each new block of
transactions calls the last
block, so that the
transactions are chained
together sequentially, hence
the word blockchain
9
Source: Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf, https://blockexplorer.com

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain crucial for the
Singularity-class project: Financial Inclusion
 Just as the Printing Press and
the Internet flattened access to
communicating information...
 …blockchains are giving the
power of the printing press to
banking, credit, and money
 Access to economic and financial
systems (credit) as a basic human
right (2 billion under-banked)
 Long-tail economics: any two
parties can transact on the
network (eBay of money)
10

12 Sep 2016
Issue: hierarchy is not scalable
11
Sources: What is Decentralization? http://futurememes.blogspot.com/search?q=datt.co,
http://blog.midem.com/2016/04/blockchain-broken-music-industry/
 Blockchains are a form of trust-making technology
 A system of checks and balances that is universal and
planetary-scale (Kardashev-level)
 New tiers of scalability are needed
 Million-genome repositories (largest is 3700 currently),
connectome databases to reveal brain structure

12 Sep 2016
Smartnetwork theme: design Optimality
 Optimal mix of centralized and
decentralized models
 Rethinking Coase’s firm size
 Manufacturing reorganization per
electricity; industries rethought per
decentralized networks
 Tighter supply chain integration
 Complexity design principles
 Decentralization here to stay
 Proven decentralized scalability
paradigm: Internet
 Bitcoin, blockchain, decentralization
12
Sources: Coase, RH, The Nature of The Firm, 1937, http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~jsfeng/CPEC11.pdf
Decentralization
Blockchain
Bitcoin

12 Sep 2016
Smartnetwork intelligence (technical)
 Network math
 Nodes, vertices, graph theory
 Information theory
 Discrete and continuous, syntactic and semantic
 Physics math
 Statistical dynamics, turbulence, >Schrödinger equation
 Machine-learning/deep-learning
 Recurrent neural nets, structural equation modeling, causal
graphical models
 Complexity math
 Power laws, fractals, nearest neighbor, fat tails, power laws, high
coefficients, degrees of correlation, fractal behavior
13
Source: Blocktime: Blockchain Temporality http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

12 Sep 2016
Smartnetwork intelligence (conceptual)
 Simultaneously global-local (crypto-synecdoche)
 Arbitrarily-many levels of detail drill-up/down (fiat currency: 20)
 Smoothest part of the curve (optimization)
 Where is a function most differentiable, integrable?
 Probability over causality
 Structural equation modeling, causal graphical models
 Fabrics, topologies, lattices, ecologies over point values
 Convexity, randomness, and fragility
 Markets, weather systems mostly behave normally
 But long-tail black swans are part of their nature
 Systems are evolving and dynamical
14
Source: http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/09/defining-blockchain-economy-what-is.html

12 Sep 2016
Economic Principles: not just for Economics
15
Economic and Financial
Principles
 Traditional Deployment
 Buy/sell transactions
 Financial markets
 Blockchain Deployment
 Any interaction is a discovery
and exchange process
 Decentralized models
supplement hierarchy
 Demurrage: incitatory potential
and resource redistribution
across network nodes
 Reciprocal mining communities
(smarthome IOT, brain BCI)
Blockchain technology is prompting
a rethinking of economic principles
and concepts (resources,
exchange, tokens, allocation,
pricing, distribution, markets) to
apply in non-monetary contexts

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Economics and Finance
Apparatus for constituting the present and the future
16
Bitcoin, Crypto-currencies Smart Contracts
Economics Finance
Spot, Cash Market Futures, Options
Market
Present Future
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-payment-systems, http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-financial-
networks, http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-temporality-smart-contract-timespecifiability-with-blocktime
Real-time payments Utility Settlement Coin
(USC) (8/24/16)
Temporality
Regime

12 Sep 2016
Decentralized Economics and Finance
Current mode is one kind of system for organizing access to resources
17
The organizing assumption of
economic systems has been
scarcity; an orientation to the
production and distribution of scarce
material goods. This no longer holds
in an era of digital services, non-rival
goods, and complementarity
Mindset Shifts:
1. Scarcity to Abundance
2. Labor to Fulfillment
3. Hierarchy to Decentralization
The organizing assumption of
financial systems has been the
control or at least prediction of
the future value of assets and
liabilities; finance = credit (credit
is really about trust). Also no
longer holding.
Mindset Shifts:
1. Access instead of Ownership
2. Topological Ranges instead
of Point Values
3. Assurity instead of
Insufficiency
Sources: http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/09/defining-blockchain-economy-what-is.html and New Economies and Finance at
the New School: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf
Economics Finance
Present FutureTemporality
Regime

12 Sep 2016
Abundance Philosophy of Economics
Realization of decentralized economics and finance
18
Source: Swan, M. "Automation Economy: An Abundance Philosophy of Economics" In Emerging Technology and
Unemployment. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming.
 Phase I: transition to Automation Economy
 Phase II: transition to Actualization Economy
A
B
C
Trust, Autonomy,
Recognition

12 Sep 2016
Technological Unemployment
 Key singularity-class challenge: orderly transition to the
Automation Economy
 Half (47%) of employment is at risk of automation in the next
two decades – Carl Frey, Oxford, 2015
 Why are there still so many jobs in a world that could be
automating more quickly? – David Autor, MIT, 2015
19
Source: Swan, M. "Automation Economy: An Abundance Philosophy of Economics" In Emerging Technology and
Unemployment. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming.

12 Sep 2016
Agenda
 Farther-future
 Friendly AI
 Nanotech/Synbio
 Nearer-term
20

12 Sep 2016
Singularity-class Problems
(Kardashev-scale; impact 1 billion people within 10 years)
21
 Artificial Intelligence and deep learning
 Friendly AI and “What is consciousness?”
 Multi-species intelligence
 BCI cloudmind collaborations (>1 thinking)
 Virtual reality
 Integrating virtual and physical reality
 Nanotechnology and synthetic biology
 Space settlement
 Autonomous driving
 Medical nanorobotics
 Manufacturing and social robotics
BCI: brain computer interface

12 Sep 2016
Argument: Blockchain can help all
Singularity-class Problems
22
 Any significant future operation running on
digital smartnetworks, needing coordination
 Blockchain properties
 Secure, trackable, automated coordination of
large-scale projects with many items
 Automated system of checks and balances; all
transactions must confirm via smartnetwork
 Moves any sort of quantized/unitized packets on
the smartnetwork: energy, cars, synapse firings
 Fleet management
 Autonomous vehicles, IOT sensors, social
robotics, synaptic connections, deep-learners,
medical nanorobots, planet terraformers, synbio
agents, environmental cleanup bots

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain AI Apps
Enact Friendly AI (Artificial Intelligence)
23
 Digital intelligences running on
consensus-managed
smartnetworks
 Not in isolation
 Good reputational standing
required to conduct operations
 Transactions to access resources
(like fund-raising), provide services,
enter into contracts, retire
 Smartnetwork consensus only
validates and records bonafide
transactions from ‘good’ agents
Sources: http://cointelegraph.com/news/113368/blockchain-ai-5-top-reasons-the-blockchain-will-deliver-friendly-ai,
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20141117

12 Sep 2016
Basic Application
Deep-thinkers Registry
 Register deep learners with
blockchains
 Tracking
 Security
 Remuneration
 Examples
 Autonomous lab robots
 On-chain IP discovery tracking
 Roving agricultural bots
 Manufacturing bots
 Intelligent gaming
 Go-playing algorithms
24
Source: Swan, M. Blockchain Thinking: The Brain as a DAC. Neural Turing Machines: https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401.
IPFS (Benet): https://medium.com/@ConsenSys/an-introduction-to-ipfs-9bba4860abd0#.bgig18cgp

12 Sep 2016
Advanced Application
BCI Cloudminds and Chainbrains
 Cloudmind: cloud-based thinking
entity, comprised of >1 brains
 Problem: Safe collaboration of minds
 Joining a cloudmind
collaboration, blockchains
(cryptographic ledgers) to
administer cloudminds
 Line-item tracking and credit-
assignation (like Github, or
SVN/CVS for brainstorming)
 Privacy, security, remuneration
 Protect against personal identity loss
and absorption into a groupmind
25
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-cloudminds-humanmachine-pooledmind-dacs; Mind’ is generally
denoting an entity with some capacity for processing, not the volitionary action and free will of a consciousness agent

12 Sep 2016
Nanotech Grey Goo and runaway Synbio
26
 Worry: Grey Goo (unchecked
nanotech proliferation), DNA-
printed synthetic bio-plague
 Science fiction examples: Blood
Music, Prey
 Solution: signing logged to
blockchains
 As physical-world engineers sign
the bridges they build, likewise
synbio engineers sign DNA and
nanotech designs
 Unavoidable “signing” per
detectable origins

12 Sep 2016
 Medical nanorobotics as the coming-
onboard repair platform for the human
body
 Vision: a nanorobot in every cell
 Bio-Nano Repair DACs
 DAC: Decentralized Autonomous
Corporation (packages of smart contracts)
 Bio-cryptoeconomic principles
 High number of agents and “transactions”
 Secure automation is obvious requirement
 Bio-Nano Repair DACs for secure,
trackable automation and coordination of
medical nanorobotics for cellular repair
27
Sources: Bio-Cryptoeconomy: Nanorobotic DACs for Cell Repair and Enhancement
http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/08/bio-cryptoeconomy-nanorobotic-dacs-for.html
Bio-cryptoeconomy
Medical nanorobotic DACs to coordinate cell repair

12 Sep 2016
Spacechains: Blockchains in Space
28
 Advances in space
 Launch: microsats, small rockets, commercial
launch (reusability, rocket design), regular
Mars launches planned each 26 months with
large-cargo drops, communications networks,
 Light sail and optical propulsion
 Asteroid mining, space settlement, transport
 Exoplanet discovery in habitable zones (Alpha
Centauri, TRAPPIST-1)
 Singularity-class blockchain functionality
 Secure, trackable, automated coordination of
high numericity and dimensionality at scale
 Autonomous entities, Bitsat backup network

12 Sep 2016
Blockchains and Singularity-class Problems
 Argument: smartnetworks thesis that
complex future operations will involve
automated coordination via
smartnetworks, using some kind of
technology like blockchains
 Blockchain smartnetwork properties:
 Asset registry and fleet coordination of
items (registry, ownership and transfer of
“quantized” units)
 Security
 Trackability
 Automation
 Coordination
29

12 Sep 2016
Crypto-Enlightenment
30
“One ought to think
autonomously, free of the
dictates of external authority”
- Immanuel Kant
Kant, I. "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (German: Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?). 1784.

12 Sep 2016
 Level 1: the new literacy: digital literacy
 Manage private key access
 Back-up your money
 Manage digital identity, EMR health wallet
 Level 2: self-authority taking
 Designing personalized long-tail economic,
political, and social systems
 Civic project participations (P2P micropolis),
provide peergrid resources
Digital Cryptocitizen Sensibility
31
Source: Swan, M. Crypto Enlightenment: A Social Theory of Blockchains http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/the-crypto-
enlightenment-social-theory-of-blockchains; EMR: electronic medical record; P2P: peer-to-peer
Sense of duty in serving the republic
Civic Duty Civic Collaboration
Greek Statesman Cryptocitizen
Sense of meaning in sustaining community

12 Sep 2016
Agenda
 Farther-future
 Friendly AI
 Nanotech/Synbio
 Nearer-term
32

12 Sep 2016
Financial Services
 Distributed ledger
 Instant transaction validation
 Settlement, clearing, audit
 Simpler, more secure, less
expensive financial services
 Use case applications
 Industry-wide collaboration
 Securities asset registries
 Value chain efficiency:
custody, titling, insurance
 Financial-inclusion
addressable market
 Digital identity, banking
33
Source: https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/financial-services-corporate-blockchain-investments

12 Sep 2016
Energy grid smartnetworks
 Concept: the power grid of every
continent is an energy Internet
 “Quantized units” are energy:
kWh/kWm
 Use case applications
 Automatic markets: off-hour and
lowest cost demand fulfillment
 Smart grid management
 Energy price and trade validation
 Resource self-pricing
 Source fungibility: wind, solar power
 P2P microgrid infrastructure
34
Sources: Rifkin, J. The Zero Marginal Cost Society; https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079334-blockchain-based-
microgrid-gives-power-to-consumers-in-new-york/
Cryptosustainability Micropolis Example:
Peer-to-peer Microgrids

12 Sep 2016
Supply chain & logistics grid smartnetworks
 Tamper-proof record-keeping
 Register assets and inventory
 Assure provenance, custody
 Track quantity and transfer of assets
(pallets, trailers, containers) moving
through supply chain nodes
 Track purchase orders, change orders,
receipts, shipment notifications
 Assign and verify custody and product
certification
 Link physical goods to serial numbers,
bar codes, RFID tags
 Virtual reality rapid simulation and
event-history keeping (>transactions)
35

12 Sep 2016
Autonomous Driving
 Fleet coordination of “quantized
units” of km/miles and vehicles
 Autonomous passenger cars
 Singapore self-driving taxis - 8/24/16
 Uber’s first self-driving fleet arrives in
Pittsburgh – Aug 2016
 Commercial trucking
 “Autonomous Driving Long-Distance
Trucks within Ten Years” - 2014
36
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/hail-progress-singapore-launches-worlds-first-self-driving-taxi-
service, http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/autonomous-driving-long-distance-trucks-will-be-a-reali-1603746933
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain IOT
37
Sources: http://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-of-things-market-to-hit-7-1-trillion-by-2020-idc/,
http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491
 Blockchain-based IOT connected objects
 M2M/IOT Bitcoin payment network to
enable the machine economy
 IOT 2020: 26 bn devices in a $7 tn market
 The economic layer the web never had
 Smarthome IOT networks
 Self-mining ecologies
 Privacy orchestration: devices, robotics, digital
personal health assistants
 Blockchains: economic principle-driven
large-scale resource allocation and
coordination mechanism Smartcity Connected
Car Coordination
Smarthome IOT and
Personal Robotics
Coordination

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Social Robotics
 Personal voice assistants, social
robotics
 Implication: voice interfaces, all apps
become voice-activated and
interactive; “My Dad, the App”
 Requirements: security, financial
transactability, liability tracking
 Cross-cloud interconnection (IOT
smarthome, connected car, smartcity)
 Fleet coordination functionality
 Automated, secure, tracking/logging,
remuneration, transaction coordination,
apps/processes (smart contracts),
coordination (updates), audit log
38
Source: Swan, M. Philosophy of Social Robotics: Abundance Economics. Sociorobotics, 2016.
http://www.melanieswan.com/documents/SocialRobotics.pdf.

12 Sep 2016
1. EMRs (electronic medical records)
 Personal health record access and administration
 Users key-permission doctors into records
2. Health insurance billing chains
 Blockchain-based health insurance claims processing:
automated proof of identity and insurance; claims payment
 Enable ahead of time service price-quoting
3. Digital health wallet
 Private key identity + EMR (medications) + health insurance info
+ payment data + basic income health plan administration
 Doctor vendor RFP services; preventive longevity treatments
4. Health Data Research Commons
 Biobanks, QS (DNA.bits), genome and connectome files
39
Source: http://futurememes.blogspot.fr/2014/09/blockchain-health-remunerative-health.html
Blockchain Health

12 Sep 2016
Bitcoin MOOCs
Long-tail of learning
 Blockchain-based “Kiva for literacy”
 Long-tail peer-to-peer learning contracts
 Literacy beyond reading
 Technical, agricultural, vocational literacy
 Blockchain-based personal development
contracts
 QS-biometric utility function imputation and tracking
 Maslow chains, subjectivation and actualization chains
 Development Economics 2.0: CoinDrops
 Literacy contracts, remittances, blockchain-tracked
aid, microcredit, decentralized credit bureaus
 Open-source FICO scores
 Peer-vouched reputation
40

12 Sep 2016
Politics: Legal services and Governance
41
 High impact, low current activity
 Local government RFPs for title registries
 Legal services: IP, contract registry, attestation
 Register contracts, agreements, wills, IP
 Functionality: hash + timestamp + blockchain record
 Voting: electronic ballot, identity confirmation
 Futarchy, delegative democracy, random sample
elections
 Opt-in personalized governance services
 Composting vs education; digital identity system,
voting, dispute resolution, basic income distribution,
public document registry
 Blockchain weddings (Bitcoin, Ethereum)
Sources: http://merkle.com/papers/DAOdemocracyDraft.pdf, http://www.proofofexistence.com/, https://bitnation.co/ , World’s First
Blockchain Marriage: David Mondrus and Joyce Bayo, 10/5/14, ConsenSys wedding : Kim Jackson and Zach LeBeau, 11/2/15

12 Sep 2016
Agenda
 Farther-future
 Friendly AI
 Nanotech/Synbio
 Nearer-term
42

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain downside and risks?
ISSUE
43
Satoshi Roundtable #3: Scaling Bitcoin Milan
Oct 8-9, 2016
Hacking Scandals
Mt Gox, Ethereum DAO, Bitfinex
Silk Road, drug dealers,
terrorists, criminals
Scalability, evolution
Block size, sidechains
Mining Centralization
RESPONSE
Centralization temporary; wide-spread at higher-
scale; move to 16 nm, solar/hydro-powered chips
Building resilient system constantly under open
attack 24/7 (remember early Internet DNS attacks)
Blockchains are a universal technology available to
all; non-criminal activity predominates
Early Internet: “this will never scale, insecure, not resilient;” Yahoo, AltaVista down for days due to DNS attacks
Source: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-scaling-conference-italy
Technology Risk
Perception Risk
Regulatory Risk, Economic Risk
National government
regulation, bans
Governments modernizing economic infrastructure
with blockchains too; licensing, open dialogue

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Strategies
Leadership Edge
 Blockchain is not a separate industry as
much as a new underlying technology
with applications in every industry
 New kind of more sophisticated Internet
technology for transferring value
 Multiple blockchains by industry with different
classes of encryption and mining paradigms
 Money and financial assets
 Energy, health, IOT, transportation fleets
 Developing a blockchain strategy
 Learn, including via industry user groups
 Engage with consulting firms
 Prototype, test, launch applications
44

12 Sep 2016
Blockchain Strategies
Leading with New Applications
 Re-invent value chain, identify…
 Digital value transfer opportunities
 Network intermediaries and coupling points
 Automation possibilities and new markets
 Example: banks targeting larger customer base
through blockchain-based eWallet solutions
1. Revenue-generating, customer-facing
 Offer blockchain-based services to clients
 Lead industry-wide blockchain initiatives: “Better EDI,”
single-ledger, supply chain inventory management
 Digital billing customer interface, tokenized interaction
2. Internal cost-savings, efficiency-improvement
 Quality assurance, test, audit, compliance, sales RFQ
 Finance, treasury, accounting, expense management
45

12 Sep 2016
Conclusion
46
Beyond digitalizing money, payments,
economics, and finance, and governance,
blockchains are a singularity-class technology
that enables the secure, trackable, automated
coordination of planetary-scale projects
The implications could be an orderly transition
to the automation economy and trust-rich
human-machine collaboration in the digital
smartnetwork societies of the future

12 Sep 2016
Thesis Statement
Blockchain: a Singularity-class technology
 No other technology has the power to…
1. …uplift 2 billion people out of poverty
overnight
 intermediary-free international remittances
2. …produce a safe and orderly transition
to the automation economy
 humans and machines in collaboration,
friendly artificial intelligence enacted
3. …fundamentally transform the only
remaining sectors not yet re-
engineered for the Internet era:
economics and politics
47

12 Sep 2016
Decentralized Economics and Finance
Blockchain academic collaboration
 New Economies and Finance at the New School
 Mission statement: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf
 Join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewEconomies
 CFPs: books, special journal issues, conferences
 Decentralized Blockchain Economics and Finance
 http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/09/defining-blockchain-
economy-what-is.html
 “Blockchain Philosophy” 4,000 words, Wiley and Sons,
Metaphilosophy
 http://blockchainstudies.org/Metaphilosophy_CFP.pdf
 Events: NY and CA
 Rethink/ECONOMICS, Thursday, September 15, 7-9 pm
 http://www.meetup.com/NYC_Ethereum/events/233643675/
48
Sources: http://blockchainstudies.org and http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf

12 Sep 2016
Spinoza and Crypto-Conatus
49
Conatus: perseverance as our “vital [life]
force” in interacting with the environment
we encounter, our “actual essence,”
where as individuals, we strive to sustain
and increase our power of acting in the
world, to “affect and be affected by”
Source: Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, 1985, Ethics, IVP18S, IVP35c2
Spinoza, Dutch
Philosopher
1632-1677

Amsterdam NL, 12 Sep 2016
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
Philosophy & Economic Theory
New School for Social Research, NY NY
melanie@BlockchainStudies.org
Blockchain 101: the Automation Economy and the Future of Money
Part of a Series on Cryptophilosophy
cryptophilosophy
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