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An Overview of Blockchain-Based Universal Basic Income Projects
Dani Grant – Jul 10, 2018
One of the applications of blockchain that we are very excited about is Universal Basic Income. While UBI has traditionally been imagined as a government subsidy, cryptocurrency gives us a way to implement UBI without the need for a government to implement it. We are intrigued by this possibility and are wondering about some key issues, such as the complexities around issuing new currencies and preventing fraudulent accounts. Read more
Streaks
Fred Wilson – Jul 10, 2018
My son told me he wanted to learn Japanese. I told him to check out our portfolio company Duolingo ‘s awesome language learning product of the same name. He told me that he has used Duolingo and likes it, particularly the [...] Read more
Honu – A CryptoKitty Charity Auction
Fred Wilson – Jul 9, 2018
I am excited by the potential of cryptocurrencies and cryptogoods to change, and hopefully improve, the way we raise funds for charity. Cryptogoods are particularly interesting as they are scarce and unique digital goods. AVC community member Arnold Waldstein tipped [...] Read more
World After Capital: Limits of Capitalism (Power Laws)
Albert Wenger – Jul 9, 2018
NOTE: Last week’s excerpt from World After Capital described how prices cannot exist for many of our most important attention allocation decisions. Today I describe how production functions with network effects result in power law distributions that have bad social [...] Read more
Governance
Fred Wilson – Jul 8, 2018
Software systems have largely been governed by the companies that operate them. The Washington Post reports that Twitter has been suspending more than a million accounts a day recently. That certainly is necessary given all of the fake accounts, bots, [...] Read more
Video Of The Week: How To Tell If Something Is Blockchain Native
Fred Wilson – Jul 7, 2018
In this video, AVC regular William Mougayar describes the fundamental properties of a blockchain native application. The key section starts at 4mins and goes for about two minutes. If you want to see the slides, which are not visible in [...] Read more
Credit Bureau Blues
Fred Wilson – Jul 5, 2018
Like many of you, I had an incredibly frustrating experience with a credit agency today. It was TransUnion but I’ve had equally frustrating experiences with Equifax and others since locking down our credit information in the wake of the Equifax [...] Read more
Fourth Feelings
Fred Wilson – Jul 4, 2018
I’m sitting here on a park bench outside my favorite coffee shop, where I’ve been writing my daily posts for the last week and a half on my phone, and I’m staring at our flag. Normally, a scene like this [...] Read more
Happy 4th of July: Climate Edition
Albert Wenger – Jul 4, 2018
Independence Day is a cheesy summer action blockbuster. And yet, after watching it one can’t help but feel good about humanity defeating an existential threat using courage, technology and science (and doing so under American leadership). The irony today is [...] Read more