When you hear the name Hernando de Soto, the first person you might think about is the 16th-century Spanish conquistador who explored the southeastern U.S.
But right now what you should be thinking about is blockchains potential to remake the world economy.
Thats because the de Soto Im talking about is a Peruvian economist who has received multiple awards for his work in economics and even made Time magazines list of 100 most influential people in the world.
Now de Soto wants to shore up private property rights worldwide.
Bringing the Benefits of Property Rights to the World
In the United States, we take for granted how easily we can engage in the buying and selling of property.
We have an excellent registry system that makes it easy to establish who owns what and facilitate transactions we can be confident in.
Recording of other factors, such as prices when properties are sold, helps further create a more efficient, transparent market. We can quickly check what the value of comparable properties are in a market based on recent sales, informing us what the price for a particular piece of property should be.
These factors make it easier to obtain financing too. Banks and investors dont like to lend based on the value of something thats difficult to determine.
This is not always the case elsewhere. Many countries dont have such systems to determine ownership and the true value of a property can be difficult to determine.
Two similar pieces of property might sell at wildly different prices because theres no good way other than word of mouth to determine where the market is.
Nobody likes investing in something when the chain of title is dubious or when they cant properly figure out worth.
This holds back the people living in many nations. Its hard to have a free market with private property rights that are difficult or impossible to determine.
Tapping Into Trillions With Blockchain
De Soto wants to fix this. The goal: to create a blockchain-based global property registry.
Blockchain first came to light as part of the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Its a distributed ledger system that is changing the world of transaction processing.
Cryptocurrencies might be great for speculating, and some have made fortunes doing just that but in the long run, the blockchain technology itself is where real value will be created.
According to de Soto, About 80% of the worlds population is unable to enter into the modern global economy due to lack of visible and standardized property records. Billions of people have resources that cannot easily be transformed into productive capital. Blockchain is a powerful tool to solve these structural issues, which are some of the principal causes of poverty and conflict.
Blockchain can provide a transparent, immutable and globally distributed property registry.
According to one leading expert, theres $14 trillion in dead property belonging to the worlds poor in third-world countries.
A trustworthy registry could unlock a lot of value for these people as well as help facilitate a substantial increase in private investment.
Thats a massive opportunity sitting untouched that new blockchain technologies could easily tap into.
Once these floodgates are opened, the dollar implications become simply astounding. Even securing a small stake early in blockchain technologies could bank you huge windfalls in profits over the coming years.
There are plenty of profits to go around in blockchain tech.
For Tomorrows Trends Today,
Ray Blanco
Editors note: Blockchain isnt the only game-changing tech with BILLION-DOLLAR DISRUPTION potential.
One startup, with exclusive legal rights to their new satellite technology, could skyrocket from an estimated $1.2 billion to $251 billion as soon as February!
Theres no time to lose. Discover the full story here…
