Are crypto currencies and decentralized tech revolutionizing the freelance industry?
Are crypto currencies and decentralized tech revolutionizing the freelance industry?
We are living through a movement to the sharing economy, driven by automation and technology. The 4th industrial revolution.
Let me begin by making a few assumptions (always a good idea). You’re aware and understand basic ‘buzzword’s’ like block chain, crypto, decentralized autonomous organizations, #’s and ‘gig’ economy. If not, google: let me google that for you?
The recent euphoria surrounding block chain promises to solve all our problems. First of all, it’s most successful use-case ‘Bitcoin’ can make you rich, really (didn’t you hear?).
Lets stop with the niceties. Block chain technology is NOT sexy, Bitcoin has made some people rich, solves a real world issue surrounding centralized currency issue and has store of value qualities not seen since the discovery of gold.
What we are interested in as the worker bee’s of the human world is how we protect ourselves from impending robot takeover, we have a unique opportunity to think proactively about how this technology could influence the way we work in the future. According to data found in [Freelancing in America] ~ by 2027 the projected workforce of America will reach over 50% concentration of freelance workers.
So what do we want our futures to look like?
- International payment’s that are (lightning) fast, reliable and safe.
- Low tax, fees and barriers to producing a reliable income
- Trusted platforms that take our work seriously, and dispute resolution that is not bias.
Crypto based payment methods are an excellent solution. The lightning network is currently testing 60,000 transactions per second (credit card speed territory). The ability to reduce centralized banks sticky fingers, reduces platform fees and provides a means to ‘program money’. The ability to ‘code’ what happens to money allows smart contracts that act like vending machines, waiting for per-described events to occur before releasing payment for services rendered. What a way to begin disrupting an industry based on fee’s.
Current platforms charge in a number of ‘artistic’ ways.
- 20% flat fees up to $501 plus money transmitter fees
- 20% for a $5 job, thats $1. Cheap, nasty and thousands of freelance ‘professionals’
- Restricting providers to a few that rate highly, keeping the platform ‘premium’ (AKA censorship)
- Sliding scale depending on the ‘real’ value of a job, again hide the money transmission fee.
These payment issues are solved with block chain based currencies such as Bitcoin, this is disruption of the international payments industry.
While writing of payments, a staggering 39% of the world is ‘un-banked’ [World Payments Report]. Open source projects such as ‘DigiTally’ are fast approaching a solution based around sim card modification that could begin unlocking some of these people yearning for an opportunity to engage the freelance work scene and receive payments. Another great example is Samsung, only in February 2019 launching a mobile device with built-in crypto currency wallets. This is disruption, can you smell it? (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~kabhb2/papers/DigiTally_SOUPS2017.pdf)
‘Peer-to-peer’ is beginning (again- #NapsterRises) to change the value of the middle man in transactions of value. The decentralized version of this coded communication reduces infrastructure costs by running code on the networks of the user’s rather than databases controlled by the behemoths (I think its safe to say, ‘AWS’ here). Through code and crypto currency the new age platforms are able to provide incentives to users doing ‘the right thing’. Slowly the community takes over and a platform becomes completely decentralized, requiring only changes in code that are voted up by the users themselves and unanimously approved. The value of the middle man is reduced and key functions (dispute resolution, user reviews etc.) are more efficient. This is disruption.
Crypto currencies and decentralized technology are disrupting, but what are the challenges?
- User and developer adoption
- Security
- Monetize, proper incentive schemes and governance models.
- Market consolidation, smaller companies sucked up by corporations
- Achieving true economy of scale to enable safe decentralized code
- Leveraging mass data to reduce user on boarding time
What we can do about these challenges, is be present. Fight for the future conditions we will endure as freelancers. Open source projects provide an amazing opportunity for collaboration on the future of these decentralized autonomous organizations. DAO’s aim to be a mechanism for ensuring compliance through code and incentives. The prerequisites for entering the system are simply running the approved software, that’s it. No more trust, and no more censorship (Google: ‘Voice-over Pete’). This is disruption.
In conclusion, we are witnessing a movement to platforms providing lower fees, high quality workers and faster more secure payment methods. The slick wheels of the well oiled corporations are becoming rusty. This is a revolution and open source technology is the instigator.
#CryptoFreelance #GigEconomy
