Vitalik Buterin shares positive vision for building crypto cities

[ad_1]

In a blog post published on Sunday, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed support for using the cryptocurrency phenomenon to serve the interests of local governments and their citizens.

Specifically, Buterin discussed the formation of city tokens and decentralized autonomous organizations, known as DAOs. DAOs are stand-alone organizations where users write and enforce rules themselves, such as voting on protocol changes based on the amount of underlying crypto tokens they hold.

The idea is still in its infancy. Nonetheless, Buterin claimed that city tokens should meet at least three of the following five goals:

Act as a sustainable source of income for the government Facilitate economic cooperation between residents and the city Promote savings and wealth creation for all stakeholders Encourage social initiatives at city level Reduce wealth inequalities

Regarding the last point, Buterin proposed that the vast majority of newly issued city tokens go to residents as a form of universal basic income. The Ethereum co-founder criticized current economic mechanisms as favoring “the rich over the poor”.

The most prominent crypto city project featured in the blog post is CityCoins, which is built on the Stacks (STX) blockchain. Stacks is a layer one solution that enables smart contracts on the Bitcoin Network (BTC). The protocol allocates 30% of the BTC mining revenues transferred to STX holders in a wallet reserved for each city.

Theoretical uses include discounts and perks offered by local businesses to CityCoin holders. The group has already launched such a type of city token, the MiamiCoin. Miami Mayor Francis Sanchez publicly endorsed it, saying it could “revolutionize the way governments are funded.”

Socio-economic effects aside, Buterin also praised the potential of city tokens to improve existing governance:

“21st century digital democracy through real-time online quadratic voting and funding could possibly do a much better job than 20th century democracy, which in practice appears to have been largely characterized by rigid building codes and obstruction of planning and authorization hearings. And of course, if you are using blockchains to secure voting, doing so with new, sophisticated voting types seems a lot safer and more politically feasible than reinstalling existing voting systems. ”

[ad_2]