Much has been made of the potential for blockchain technologies to open up new vistas for business and society. But is there a way for this revolutionary technology to empower the rich and poor alike? We argue that, like previous revolutionary ideas, blockchain has the potential to help developing nations leapfrog more-developed economies.
How Blockchain Could Help Emerging Markets Leap Ahead
It could be applied to government, finance, and law.
May 17, 2017
Summary.
Developing nations have renewed potential to leapfrog developed economies with the emergence of blockchain technology. Leapfrogging happens when nations that are building infrastructure go directly to the latest systems, rather than starting out at the beginning and working forwards. Most discussions of leapfrogging for sustainable development focus on physical infrastructure, like solar-driven power grids. But what if leapfrogging could be applied to government, finance and law, building the digital future today? In such a future, the transaction costs of economic activity are drastically reduced in much the same way that the web reduced the transaction costs of publishing and communication, resulting in the explosion of ideas we associate with the internet today. The usefulness of blockchain has similar promise.