The document discusses the evolution of finance from traditional monopolistic systems to a decentralized and autonomous model, highlighting the issues of privacy loss and high costs in current services. It proposes a new financial infrastructure powered by decentralized applications and community-controlled protocols which aim to provide equitable access to financial services. The potential of such a system includes global financial inclusion, innovative funding mechanisms, and new roles for engineers as decentralized financial intermediaries.

1. Finance: An Autonomous Future
Tom Ding

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Episode 1
From Internet 1.0 to 2.0

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Most powerful tech companies are sophisticated
networks & protocols
w/o offering service directly
}

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they out-compete with superior
network scale, cost-efficiency & user experience

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… while making themselves very rich via intermediary fees
AirBnB: $26b (15% fee)
Uber: $62b (28% fee)
eBay: $40b (10% fee)
Google: $500b+

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Yet we pay a huge price for this revolution:
1. Loss of privacy
2. Monopolistic pricing
3. Innovation deceleration cycle

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Traditional industry
= Greedy Human (+ Network)
Internet 1.0
= Greedy Human + Code + Network
What about Internet 2.0?

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Internet 2.0 = Decentralized & Autonomous
DAO
Company as a Protocol
Run by logic
Augmented by Human
Fully Transparent

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To achieve that, however, we need a
new computation architecture that makes …
Robots with a Soul

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THE WORLD
COMPUTER
POWERING
INTERNET 2.0

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A decentralized Cloud
powered by millions of
individual nodes

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This computer is
unstoppable , always
honest, and never
shutdown.

13. 1. Produce App ($$)
2. Fight regulation ($$$$)
3. Educate market ($$$$)
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Unbundling Uber

14. 1. App: startup + contributors ($)
2. Regulation: Converted (thanks to Uber) & Hard-to-
regulate P2P anyway
3. Market education: Done
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DAOify UBER

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Decoupling Operation, Control & Profit
Driver Passenger
open source,
developed by
contributors
controlled & profited by
voting token holders
Autonomous
Transportation
Protocol

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And soon not even drivers …
Autonomous
Transportation
Protocol
Autonomous Car Passenger
open source,
developed by
contributors
controlled & profited by
voting token holders

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Letting go of the control is the hardest but crucial bit
to reimagine new business model

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Episode 2 -
Reimagining Finance

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Yet Financial Access & Innovation remain
prohibitively expensive
We have 3 billion people connected online and
$4 smartphone available.

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Half of the world unbanked
2.5 billion with no access to savings,
interest, remittance, loan or investment.
And the remaining half …
vastly overpay for access or permission
to innovate
Latin America:
65%
2000 2005 2011
$5,000$500,000
$5,000,000
despite general technology cost dropped 100x
since 2000 …
East Asia &
Southeast Asia
59%
Central Asia &
Eastern Europe
49%
Middle East
67%
Sub-Saharan Africa
80%
High
borrowing
interest
Expensive
Banking
relationship
Outdated
Bank API
…
Cost of a technology startup

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Why can’t finance be a public infrastructure,
just like transportation or water?

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A parallel autonomous financial system
Decentralized
applications /
smart contracts
Ethereum
world
computer
autonomous
finance protocol
developed by string,
partners and contributors
controlled by
community

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TRADTIONAL FINANCE
D-BT
D-AAPL
LONDON:
BT
NASDAQ:
Apple
AUTONOMOUS FINANCE
D-EURO
D-GOLD
Synthetic asset tokens
Tokens whose values reliably “mirror”
those assets around world
Global financial programming layer
Enable low cost creation consumer finance,
business and risk management d-apps
Build
consumer
finance Dapp
Lock the price
of fertilizer
Create a
trading bot
Financial
programming
the easy way..

24. if autonomous finance becomes reality,
what happens?
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Micro
deposit/
withdrawal
Micro
investment Free
Remittance
A Freedom 251 smartphone, priced at 251 rupees (less than $4)
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Global Access to
Assets
For Free

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2
Getting back our deserved interest

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A Freedom 251 smartphone, priced at 251 rupees (less than $4)
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New form of organizations and funding
paradigm
Crypto bonds DAO BondsDAO Equity

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Venture capital highly centralized and not
much IPOs for the public
source: a16z
Under US Securities Act, startups can only solicit and take investments from
accredited investors ($1m+ net worth).
That excludes 97% of Americans from startup investing.

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Engineers become the new bankers

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Lesson for Decentralization:
Trade-off transactional inefficiency for
removal of rent-seeking