Tokenized Commons — Tragedy No More
The year is 2022 and the shared common spaces of the world are no longer tragic.
A rural mushroom farmer in Sichuan province is looking for an investment for his newly acquired .004 Ether (about $20 usd). He browses the New York neighborhood bundles on Binance with his phone and sees there are many to choose from. He could buy $20 worth of Brooklyn, or get more granular and put his money into some tokenized neighborhoods between 78th and 79th avenues in Queens.
He decides to buy $20 worth of Queens block #304 (symbol NYQ304 on Coinmarketcap), which is comprised of 4 apartment complexes and approximately 4000 residents (median salary of $65 K, 1.4 children and 0.65 dogs per capita). According to the investment bio, NYQ304 also has a common grassy patch which looks brown and pockmarked.
He chooses this investment because it’s an obvious fixer upper with good upside potential. The token price should benefit from a restored common space: New grass, a playground for the families, and an off-leash dog area for all the pet owners in the surrounding complexes.
Having only $20 worth of tokens to stake won’t sway the vote much, but he is confident other token holders will also vote for a restored common space, as it is the easiest way for everyone to see quick and impactful improvements to the block and subsequent appreciation of the token price. Early signaling by token whales backs up his thesis.
The farmer ends up being satisfied with his investment. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he could own a piece of New York City.
We are happy for him. However, the bigger picture here is the shared patch of grass in Queens block #304 is no longer a hyper local concern with very few benefactors.
The number of weeds on this small patch of grass is now also the concern of a mushroom farmer on the other side of the globe. That’s huge. Tokenized bundling has created enough economic overlap to rescue the common space of NYQ304 from its tragic history…
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When the world becomes tokenized, fractional ownership of previously illiquid or indefinable assets becomes commonplace, liquid, and more importantly, geographically distributed.
Widespread economic cross-stitching between people and places is a good thing. It sets the rules for a game in which we all have something to lose when things go awry.
