Blockchain, the 8th Continent
An Unexpected Opportunity for Developing Economies
Let’s say you’re a country like Ghana with a per capita income of $4000 and a small population of 27 million. Or a country like Pakistan with a per capita income of $5000 and a population of 200 million.
What can you do to lift up your population to an income level like the USA ($58,000 pci) or Ireland ($69,000)?
Embrace Blockchain.
Surprisingly, you don’t even have to do the technological innovation to “leverage” this sea-change in how humans do business. You simply have to be at the forefront of “regulatory” innovation to make it work for your population.
Think of it as discovering a new continent — bigger than the known 7 continents combined. But there’s a catch: it’s in another dimension. You don’t have to go anywhere to get there. All you have to do is sit in a chair, eat a blueberry and hold your breadth for 90 seconds.
And voila, you’re on the new continent.
The 8th continent is virgin territory. While it is richer in land and resources than the other 7, no one owns any piece of it. Only a very small number of individuals have been there — maybe a million. One reason is that in order to reach the 8th continent, you have to eat the blueberry and hold your breath — but you also have to believe that you’ll get there. A lot of people who try fail because their mind can’t accept that another continent on a different dimension actually exists.
The rules of the 8th continent are clear: whoever goes there first can claim as much of it as they can. There’s a limitation though: the new continent has a layer of fog. You can’t claim foggy land.
Pieces of foggy land can be cleared by an Orchestra playing different tunes. People who have been to the 8th continent call this “unlocking a city”. Members of the Orchestra get a privilege for discovering a new city: they make the first claims on the land, but never more than 10% of the city.
Everyone else gets to buy a part of the city in an open, ongoing auction. You can also sell your piece in the auction and move your money to another city.
It’s an enormous “land grab” and its going to change the world. Prosperity will multiply, new resources will start flowing through the global economy and great new opportunities are being created as we speak.
Governments are not comfortable. Some of them are banning blueberries, some of them are forcing people to sell the land they have already bought and some are planning ways to stop people from buying land on the 8th continent.
Why?
It’s generally fear of the unknown. Instead of looking at the possibilities of what this humungous opportunity means for their citizens — they are worried about capital flight, legality of the wealth created on the 8th continent and tax evasion.
What will happen?
Countries that embrace the 8th continent will encourage their citizens to invest and explore this new territory. Their citizens will bring back some of the wealth they earn, their national economies will be intertwined with the riches of the new continent — and they will prosper.
What about the countries that ban blueberries and stop their citizens from participating?
They will stay back.
It’s the same as the Industrial Revolution.
“Developed” countries are the ones that industrialized first and fast. “Developing” are the ones that refused to change. The Blockchain Revolution won’t take a hundred years to come into full force. In less that 2 decades, the world will be overwhelmed by the wealth discovered on the 8th continent.
So what should a country do to succeed?
Make it easy to find blueberries, teach people how to hold their breath and to believe. To really truly believe and make the journey to the other dimension. Because the 8th Continent isn’t fiction — it’s here, it’s happening and it’s called the Blockchain.
