“A collective of decentralized marketplaces and communities” — this already has my system-centric brain enticed as blockchain and cryptocurrencies essentially re-create the world we know today, but in a more decentralized manner.

Above is the District0x White Paper abstract — I’m not a super-techie, but does it not seem like District0x is working to create a virtual, friction-free economy?

Voting rights are utilized to come to a consensus on everything ranging from a district’s branding and design decisions, to what functionality is added to the district via auxiliary modules, to the appropriate settings for any adjustable parameters of these modules, to the means in which any revenue collected by a district is to be distributed, and beyond.

You might already be catching onto what District0x is truly doing here — creating an environment where the creation and operation of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) is better facilitated. What is a DAO? The Wikipedia Gods:

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), sometimes labeled a decentralized autonomous corporation (DAC), is an organization that is run through rules encoded as computer programs called smart contracts.[1] A DAO’s financial transaction record and program rules are maintained on a blockchain.[1][2][3] There are several examples of this business model. The precise legal status of this type of business organization is unclear.[4]

Wow. Revolutionary really, isn’t it? There may be evidence that this is the ultimate direction in which entrepreneurs and business shift. More below.

CSR, Impact Investing, & Now The DAO

Smog was first heavily noticed by workers in Los Angeles during the 1950’s. In the 1980’s and 1990's, businesses truly started implementing a phrase known as “corporate social responsibility” or CSR. To my knowledge, this is the time when society really started focusing on the negative affects of business — negative externalities — due to the Los Angeles Smog Crisis.

I believe corporate social responsibility was used as a psychological tactic by businesses to spin what they were doing, making it more acceptable to society. Entrepreneurship has always been about creating solutions and earning profits — supply and demand. Well, simply doing business stopped benefiting society more than the negative externalities created by the act.

Los Angeles pollution started around the 1950’s, but did not start really hurting residents until the 1990’s. Pollution became a dinner table conversation — families and children were really beginning to get damaged by the polluted environment. This became a reality when

“ Lung autopsies on more than 1,100 young people who died in accidents or were victims of homicide find that 27 percent had severely damaged lungs.”

Businesses were killing us! So the government stepped in, created some laws to restrict pollution, and businesses realized the psychological effect of CSR.

Next comes Impact Investing — this term has been used since the 1990’s, but has been really picking up since 2015. The term can be found all over the largest investment media outlet articles. Why? Because impact investing is not just about earning a profit — it’s about earning a financial AND social return. Meaning, if I invest in a company that makes it a point to and creates positive societal impacts, I made an impact investment. The ability to fix the negative societal problems with entrepreneurship and investing. Fixing the world AND earning a return on investment! Pretty powerful, right?

Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact Investments go together like peanut butter and jelly, but Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are the bread. THIS is what District0x is working to facilitate the creation of. With DAOs, nobody has to worry about a greedy CEO or CFO trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Instead, trustless contracts known as smart contracts are used to dictate DAOs. They are programmed a certain way and do what they are programmed to do within the set parameters.

So instead of a Walmart corporation TELLING US they are using CSR and impact investing — investors can take their money, invest in a DAO-focused company like District0x, and then use those tokens received from the investment to operate within the DAO environment.

Hope this bit was insightful to you and maybe stimulated you to think about some other aspect of investing and technology! Feel free to share this with your network to help grow our decentralized, cryptocurrency community!

Until next time fellow cryptocurrency enthusiasts! d[^_^]b

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