World Wide Web

The Internet is likely the greatest invention of our time. We've connected the entire world together in a network of global information. We can communicate with anyone in seconds, and sites like Google and Wikipedia form a kind of universal intelligence that anyone with a connection can access. With the popularity of smartphones skyrocketing out of control we see more access than ever before.

This begs the question: How long before we become completely dependent on the Internet? We should constantly be asking ourselves: If the Internet crashed tomorrow for a day/week/month/year how bad would that be? The answer is already 'pretty bad' and it's only going to get worse as time goes on.

The Blockchain to the Rescue!

If the Internet was a structural foundation, I view The Blockchain as a magnificent construction that could be built on top of it. Not only can The Blockchain decentralize currency, it can also decentralize all aspects of digital life as we know it. It could even one day decentralize government. If all aspects of our lives are decentralized, there are no single points of failure, and the systems that we create will be very hard to bring down as a whole. There's only one problem. How do we get there from here?

Get Cryptocurrency Into Everyone's Hands

The more crypto that gets distributed to the world's population the more valuable, legitimate, and decentralized it becomes. The best way to get cryptocurrency to everyone is to give it away for no monetary investment. Steemit is already doing a great job of this. Anyone can make an account and start getting paid to work.

Another exciting revelation is Manna (formerly Grant Coin). Manna is a non-profit tax-exempt charity cryptocurrency. All new coins are equally distributed to every identity in the system. In effect, this creates a coin based on Universal Basic Income. I'll be doing a more in depth review on them later. In the meantime, use my referral link to sign up for an account. They have an aggressive affiliate program meant to make the coin go viral. There is a bonus pool and for every person you sign up you'll get +100% more coins from the bonus pool for one year. For just using my referral code you'll get +50% and your own referral code. There's only one catch: You'll have to trust them with your identity verification information (and email of course).

Coins like Golem are also going to help get crypto into the hands of anyone with a computer. By renting out your computer to the Golem supercomputer you'll receive GNT coins. Instead of just being able to use a graphics card to mine crypto, Golem will have people who will be wanting to buy CPU power as well, making it easier to get the coin (and possibly even make renting out phones worth it). In addition, competition to power the blockchain (Bitcoin's main centralization problem) should be greatly reduced. Why focus on ways to power the blockchain when you can focus on ways to capitalize on all that cheap computing power? It will create a great balance. Also, the software should be easier to install and use than it is to mine traditional cryptocurrencies, further lowering barrier to entry.

How else can we get crypto into Average Joe's hands?

Let's Print Paper Money

Now that cryptocurrency exists anyone can print their own money. I'd love to see some templates for this and maybe I'll even work on some myself. All you need to do is print the private key (QR code) on a piece of paper and BAM! That piece of paper is now worth whatever is in the wallet. It would even be nice to see a blockchain that was based off of this idea if there were any relevant changes to be made. A blockchain revolving around paper money trust and Internet outages could be very interesting. I could even see people covering their private key with UV ink like a lottery ticket. If you didn't trust the person giving you the note you'd simply transfer the contents of the wallet somewhere else. It would be nice if we all had a way to generate public keys offline and on the fly.

I know this is a stupid idea but people are stupid. Putting something solid in their hand makes it more real. If everyone is given cryptocurrency then it will become mainstream and we'll all go TO DA MOON!!!1