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By Damon Nam
Web3 has (unsurprisingly) turned out to be quite the phenomenon that has disrupted numerous industries, including finance, law, education and so much more. Despite all that has already changed with Web3 rapidly becoming more mainstream, I’d say that we as a collective have still only seen the tip of the iceberg.
We’ve already heard of countless ways that artificial intelligence has transformed most every industry under the sun, so that may have taken some of the spotlight from how the blockchain branch of Web3 has also changed the face of many industries. But if anything, I’d arguably say that blockchain and cryptocurrency might actually have even more applications to it than artificial intelligence. It’s transformative in all the same industries and applications, and many more, such as community ownership.
Thanks to Web3, community ownerships these days have expanded far beyond the boundaries of yesteryear.
Community Ownership: Before and After Web3
As the name implies, community ownership refers to instances in which community members own an asset. It is traditionally associated with commercial properties and homes that have ties to the culture of the surrounding community. There are numerous benefits to this practice, which for individuals include lower rent/ownership costs, share of increases in asset value, lower maintenance costs and greater access to work and recreational spaces. For the community as a whole, the greatest benefit is the element of community preservation, which ties into protecting the social fabric, and the preservation of local control.
Web3 serves as the latest disruption in community ownership, which happens to transcend geographic barriers, and isn’t limited to housing or specific industries. Businesses can operate as co-ops as well.
The blockchain element naturally presents organizational structures that tie into community ownership models. As brilliantly stated on Noema, “This technology creates opportunities to enable shared ownership among users of a platform through digital tokens, and — depending on how the regulatory situation develops— token-based ownership could be simpler and more flexible for trans-national platform communities than conventional stock.”
Perks That Extend Beyond Ownership
Once blockchain becomes part of community ownership, it opens the doors to entirely new use cases that make community ownership without Web3 seem archaic.
Privé is a lifestyle brand that is using NFTs to allow access to a private membership network and ownership of its champagne brand that is handcrafted in Avize, France. New clubs like this are providing access to new investment models while fusing together digital and physical experiences and benefits for its members. The use of blockchain technology allows for companies to authenticate membership, easily buy and sell memberships, and offer distributed ownership and dividends to its community. Companies like Privé are creatively leveraging blockchain to disrupt corporate ownership and membership models with new use-cases that do not exist in Web 2 today.
Topco Associates serves as another example how groups can use blockchain technology. This large food co-op traces the provenance of produce, meat and seafood with the tech. In addition to the traceability element, doing so enables them to quickly recall products in the event of a possible health issue. In the case of other food co-op applications, such as champagne houses like Privé, blockchain can be used to track the distribution and authenticity of each individual bottle in an effort to prevent counterfeiting, an activity which is represented by 30 percent of alcohol sales annually.
There’s so much more to it than that. Blockchain can be used for everything from tracking logistics in supply chains to distributing profits fairly. The best part? It is all done with full transparency as the community is able to access data on financials and play an active role in business decisions through voting with a DAO participation tool such as Snapshot. The bottom line is that all data-related elements of community-owned business operations become significantly improved with blockchain, while other (financial) aspects of it become tokenized.
Overall, the concept of community ownership of businesses is hardly new. Back in 2016, there was a viral idea floating, suggesting that Twitter should be owned by its users. At the time, it was referred to as “platform cooperativism.” As time went on, the idea of organizations becoming cooperatives that are co-owned by their users became more mainstream, due to the ease of it actually being enforced with Web3.
In the increasingly connected world, we as a collective have yet to see what other new applications of community ownership will come about, thanks to the power and potential of blockchain technology.
About the author:
Damon Nam is a twenty-three plus year technology executive, Microsoft alumnus, and entrepreneur. After spending seventeen years at Microsoft, he has spent six years in the blockchain industry focused on decentralized finance as a founder for Coin and advisor at HODLVERSE. Damon is also a co-founder at PRIVÉ, a community-owned DAO for luxury lifestyle goods and services. Damon studied Information Technology and has a Bachelor of Science in Business at Southern Methodist University.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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