Blockchain goes far beyond cryptocurrency. There are hundreds of possible applications for numerous blockchain technologies. And some of them could get a giant boost after the Russian-Ukrainian war. Blockchain can actually help rebuild Ukraine when the war is over.
Blockchain has become the foundation of cryptocurrencies, DeFi institutions, NFTs and Metaverse.
It is shaking the world financial sector with tons of distributed projects. Companies, cities and governments are already experimenting with issuing their own coins, NFTs, creating DAO, etc.
Leaders of the crypto world have high hopes with blockchain. For example, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sees blockchain as a futuristic technology that will change the modern world. With everything being automatic, decentralized, transparent, and, of course, profitable.
Even in some socio projects blockchain helps people to earn money. Artists, engineers, officials, or just ordinary citizens can benefit from the system working well. The system without corruption and with minimum impact of the human factor.
Developing countries need such systems to make a sharp leap in their growth. Especially countries like Ukraine, which would need to rebuild its infrastructure rapidly when the war with Russia is over.
So here it is – the blockchain technologies of the future that can make your city a kind of utopian settlement.
City coins
CityCoins.co platform offers to implement the concept of big cities getting profit from the crypto industry.
Generally, CityCoins provides an economic model that does not depend on any government support. Built on Stacks a blockchain it has unusual proof of transfer mechanism and its own native token STX.
This decentralized protocol uses smart contracts to generate value for participants and their cities. Users will get rewards for their efforts to keep the system working. And they can also generate funds for developing their cities.
The system is pretty similar to Ethereum staking: users have to lock up their digital assets in a smart contract for some period to earn rewards.
Actually, any community can create their city coin through Stacks Web Wallet. But you need to have at least 20 individuals send some amount of STX to the newly created smart contract to activate the mining process.
The STX revenues are distributed to existing city coin holders who stake their coins. 70% of the coin’s supply is generated by an ongoing sale mechanism, and the remaining 30% is available to the city government through the City Wallet.
City Coins projects are already running in Miami and New York. And other coin issuing projects developing in the cities like San-Francisco, Seoul, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon, Sydney, etc.
City NFT
NFT is all about content creation, and some cities already have used it to support local artists.
For instance, the government of Reno, Nevada in US started selling NFTs to fund local art. Firstly they created an NFT of the “Space Whale” sculpture in the middle of the city.
Additionally, there are RenoCoins issued to support local residents, helping them to get revenue from the government renting out properties, blockchain-secured lotteries, or blockchain voting.
The Korean city Busan is also hosting a government-backed conference exploring NFTs’ benefits for society.
Actually, you can find a lot of useful non-fungible token appliances like NFT passports or tickets, NFT real estate platforms, or even NFT health records.
And Ukraine already started experimenting with NFT as last summer local football club Dynamo Kyiv was about to become the first in the world to sell NFT-tickets for its games.
There are also new war-themed NFT projects that gather money for the army and support the patriotic society.
City Dao
There is one more ‘on land’ blockchain concept that can help organize different city processes through the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
The project utilizes the idea that the land on the blockchain is linked with a physical plot of land in the real world. Users can buy certificates to become citizens of that land and have the right to vote for its future.
The voting may be about policy changes, regulations, or any laws on the land. In perspective, the landowners would also be able to place buildings and structures on that land, which would give additional revenue to the DAO.
As of now, CityDao has acquired ownership of a plot of land in Wyoming, USA. The state government has approved the organization as a legal LLC. And there is even the Wyoming DAO law issued.
Within the Ethereum blockchain, citizenship in the CityDao costs 1ETH (roughly $2900 at the time of writing). The Founding citizenship costs 10 ETH and the First Citizenship is a little over 6 ETH.
Now you can find this Founding citizenship on the OpenSea NFT platform that’s supporting the CityDao project. Citizenship is on sale for 28 ETH.
And if you want to become the First Citizen with priority to name the lands, it will cost you nearly 1200 ETH.
According to Vitalik Buterin, this DAO is one of the progressive few that is avoiding coin voting governance. Instead, the governance is a voting scheme based on “citizen” NFTs, and ideas have been floated to further limit votes to one-per-person by using proof-of-humanity verification, Buterin explains.
As for Ukraine, this kind of “democracy” could be a decisive step away from the pre-war system of heavily corrupted government.
City air pollution
In the world’s biggest industrial regions air pollution affects millions of people. And the government can’t deal with it because of the lack of the instruments to find sources of the pollution. Or the corrupted industries, obviously.
The decision might lie in the blockchain again: new apps like The Tap allow to monitor air quality for a single household on a blockchain.
The concept is individuals or small businesses set up air pollution sensors and sell data to the market on the blockchain; companies buy this real-time data on the open market and report the polluting factories to the government for collecting fees; the government creates a harsh air pollution punishment.
With the transparency of the blockchain, governments can get access to all pollution sources through the public.
And businesses will have economic interests while protecting the environment, monitoring emission control, and using clean energy.
Future of blockchain cities
All in all, the blockchain concept can make the local government as efficient as it has never been.
Besides sustainable sources of revenue for the government due to native tokens issuing, blockchain can solve other urban problems. For example, mortgage payments, social activities, sustainable resources usage, subsidizing local businesses, improving the buildings’ aesthetics, etc.
Considering the traditional flaws of such a young country like Ukraine, it’s inevitable to implement the new blockchain-democracy technologies there.
Lately, the Ukrainian government already launched its digital economy concept, and right after the Russian invasion, Ukraine legalized crypto.
Having the biggest cities torn apart with hundreds of billions of damage, right now Ukraine has to think of ways to rebuild it.
And taking into account the ongoing world economic crisis, all the secure political voting, transparent resource allocation, new revenue sources, and social support require precision and care.
Thinking of people doing it you can always wait for some errors. But proper blockchain system, managed by the whole society, can exclude the possibility of any error or deception. It’s worth mentioning that Ukraine could also boost its stagnating economy by using one more blockchain technology. Simply put, Ukraine can launch its own cryptocurrency.
Sounds too utopian? Maybe. But if there is a technology that is capable of bringing true change to the world, it is definitely the blockchain.
Sources: Vitalik Buterin’s website, ConsenSys Media, CoinDesk, Liquid
