The Blockchain Alternative: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Theory

Examine what would happen if we were to deploy blockchain technology at the sovereign level and use it to create a decentralized cashless economy. This book explains how finance and economics work today, and how the convergence of various technologies related to the financial sector can help us find solutions to problems, such as excessive debt creation, banks getting too big to fail, and shadow banking. The Blockchain Alternative offers sensible corrections to outdated and incorrect dogmas, such as the efficient markets hypothesis and rational expectations theory. You’ll also be introduced to universal basic income, the consequences of going cashless, why complexity economics needs to be understood and what kinds of tools and theories you'll need to redefine the existing definition of capitalism.

While the book does discuss technologies and methods that are primed for our future, a number of references are made to economic history and the works of great thinkers from a different era. You’ll see how the blockchain can be used to deploy solutions that were devised in the past, but which can serve as the antidote to our current economic malaises. You'll discover that what is required today is not an adaptation of the old theories, but a new methodology that is suited to this new era. Without undertaking such an endeavor, one will always be burdened with a definition of capitalism that is out of kilter with the evolution of our digital humanity.

What would this mean to monetary and fiscal policy, market structure and our current understanding of economics? More importantly would we need to change our current understanding of capitalism? And if we were to change our perceptions, what would the future version look like? This book answers these questions, and analyses some of the most pertinent issues of our generation.

What You’ll Learn

• Examine fractional banking, debt, and the financialization of assets
• Gain a firm understanding of the “too big to fail” theory, smart contracts, and Fintech
• Review economics and agent-based modelling
• Use the blockchain and complexity economics to rethink economics and capitalistic systems

Who This Book Is For

The primary audience is bankers and other finance professionals, policy makers, and students of finance and economics. The secondary audience is anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the current financial system, the blockchain, and the future of capitalism.

About the Author

Kariappa Bheemaiah is a researcher, visiting lecturer, and technology consultant based in Paris. His articles and interviews on the Blockchain and the effects of technological change on society have been published in Harvard Business Review, WIRED magazine and Les Echos, and elsewhere.

Kary is currently the head of research at Uchange, a digital transformation consultancy, a research associate with Cambridge Judge Business School, a visiting lecturer at ESCP Europe and GEM, and a mentor and blogger at StartupBootCamp. Prior to this, he worked as a market intelligence analyst and financial controller in a number of international companies and also as an economic researcher for an EU project.

He is also a public speaker and gave his first TEDx Talk, “The evolution of currency,” in 2014. He will be giving his second TEDx Talk, “Rethinking Capitalism with the Blockchain,” in May 2017.