Visions of Blockchain Magazine S01E02 | Page 60

Megaphone If you’re a real estate listing portal or property data company then you’ll likely create a private blockchain system for your country of origin to store data and run closed-source dapps. You’ll create fancy features that allow real estate agents, lawy- ers, buyers and sellers to interact and transact (for a fee). You’ll then form consortiums with other indu- stry players to develop private Block- chains for managing things like land and property titles. Meanwhile a lone coder develops a public Blockchain protocol which stores all global property data with completely free and universal ac- cess. She also develops open-source smart contracts which enable buy- ers/sellers to securely transact and transfer land or property deeds with a single click. This runs perfectly as coded, every time. She charges a tiny, zero-profit fee to cover the computa- tional costs (gas). Anyone with an internet connection can access and use the protocol freely, without regi- stering or asking permission. Business models which operate on artificial scarcity simply cannot exist alongside a reality of public block- chains. If a group did deploy a for- -profit protocol on a public block- chain, trusted smart contract code is opensource and thus it’s trivial to copy the code, lower the fee and then redeploy. Public blockchains are owned by no- body, controlled by nobody and can never be shutdown. Smart contracts can be owned by nobody, control- led by nobody, and execute as coded every time. The result is a blockchain commons; a universal common resource which renders old-world business models obsolete, and ushers in a new foundational paradigm on which to create value for all of humanity.