The Blockchain is a Safety Net
There have been a lot of theories and predictions regarding our unsustainable establishment. Dept-based economies cannot last forever. For every dollar that enters the economy, more than a dollar is owed back to the Federal Reserve. USD is also based on the petro-dollar and linked to oil. Oil is a limited resource and terrible for the environment. Every year the world is forced more and more to turn to renewable energy. None of this bodes well for the future of traditional government.
I used to worry about the collapse of the establishment. I thought the gigantic spikes in the gold market might be evidence that we are approaching a huge depression. However, now we have Gold 2.0 (Bitcoin) and every other altcoin that has spawned from the original blockchain. Now we have a safety net if traditional currency goes belly up.
The Blockchain is going to give the world a chance to decentralize economies and perhaps even governments. In the not-so-distant future we might all be producers and consumers. This would be a much more pure and ideal form of capitalism. Take http://opensourceecology.org/ for instance.
The mission of Open Source Ecology (OSE) is to create the open source economy.
An open source, libre economy is an efficient economy which increases innovation by open collaboration. To get there, OSE is currently developing a set of open source blueprints for the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a set of the 50 most important machines that it takes for modern life to exist – everything from a tractor, to an oven, to a circuit maker. In the process of creating the GVCS, OSE intends to develop a modular, scalable platform for documenting and developing open source, libre hardware – including blueprints for both physical artifacts and for related open enterprises.
They are also working on an open source 3D printer. When you combine open source ideas and technologies like this the world opens up to truly amazing possibilities. Humanity may be on the verge of a whole new way of life. Instead of focusing on copyrights, patents, and competition there may be a big shift to open source collaborative abundance. One can only hope.
I started saying years ago that the internet provided a return to a cottage industry situation. Mostly through content creation or running online stores and businesses. With 3d printing you could be your own manufacturer. Decentralization is mostly a good thing, it makes society nimble and adaptable.
I am mostly optimistic about the future. One pesky problem is access is still controlled by monopolistic entities (Teleco’s, Cable co’s). In many communities here in the US there is only one cable internet provider. We need more competition in that area to lower the cost of access.
I doubt that fiat based economies can collapse, being backed by the full force of Government and all. Actually, I fear that they won’t let millions being tied up in the value of crypto without wanting to tap it.
It's a long way off, but I think blockchain tech has the ability to decentralize the Internet. I think that governments will be forced to use it as well (likely starting with Ripple). Once more and more entities start using crypto to turn a profit everything will get decentralized. There are 1400 blockchains out there and the best ones haven't even been invented yet. Hopefully, this will always be the case; constant evolution.