Can Blockchain Save San Francisco?
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Blockchain Week returned to San Francisco on Halloween – the conference brought thousands of cryptocurrency developers and enthusiasts to the city – but who knows when they’ll be back.
In 2019, San Francisco was the beating heart of the crypto economy. The streets were full of talk about which coins to invest in – from Dogecoin to Litecoin there was money to be made.
But since the pandemic ravaged the bustling Bay Area scene and crypto markets went from boom to bust, Miami has become crypto’s new spiritual home.
“Don’t miss your chance to see your SF friends’ apartments one last time before they move to Miami,” reads a Blockchain Week event.
A decade ago, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin had some of his coding epiphanies in the Presidio, while Silk Road operator and notorious darknet drug lord Ross Ulbricht was apprehended at the San Francisco Public Library. The city was at the forefront of all things crypto.
But during Covid, Miami fought with the cryptocurrency crown from SF, and the largest cryptocurrency company, Coinbase, along with many other crypto companies, became completely remote.
Jesse Powell, CEO of another major cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken, said he closed the company’s global headquarters in San Francisco because the city is “not safe” and has spoken out against Diversity initiatives in Silicon Valley.
“Powerful way to solve problems”
Another startup features San Francisco prominently in its plans—but because the company intends to use cryptocurrency technology to solve the city’s notorious dysfunction.
The startup, Geo, is “building a global decentralized knowledge graph” using web3 technology. For the crypto uninitiated, it boils down to a site that will have a Reddit-like interface where users can submit and vote up ideas. But behind the scenes, the information on the website is stored using decentralized cryptocurrency technology.
In the first phase, executive director Yaniv Tal plans to ask the Geo community to vote on which of San Francisco’s biggest problems should be solved, along with proposed solutions. He will also hold personal talks in SF’s new crypto clubhouse, House of Web3.
“It could be anything from homelessness to public safety: there are a lot of things that San Franciscans would love to see the city improve on,” Tal said. “The city has made it difficult for people to be here, and that’s why I think we should try to solve these problems.”
Tal isn’t too sure how he would implement the proposed solutions and hasn’t spoken with any city officials yet, but says he envisions either working within the existing city programs, running ballot initiatives or creating new organizations.
“Cryptoprotocols are a very powerful way to solve problems,” he said. “You can design incentive systems in a way that can bring many participants, and align them with well-specified goals. It can be San Francisco tokens, or a token for each case.”
“Inept leaders”
But can waving blockchain’s magic wand really solve San Francisco’s problems?
A blockchain leader believes it’s a people problem, not a technology problem.
“SF’s problems are not the result of coordination problems, they stem from a group of inept leaders who implemented failed policies that made matters worse, not better,” said Asheesh Birla, board member of Ripple Labs, a large blockchain company based in San Francisco.
Another entrepreneur pointed out that blockchain has already tried – and failed – to solve problems such as bank transfer fees, organic food supply chain verification and voter validity.
“Billions of dollars later, we haven’t seen any meaningful progress on any of these,” said Kai Stinchcombe, CEO of Truelink Financial. “San Francisco’s problems with addiction, housing, transit and homelessness are certainly tougher problems than the problems that have so far been unsolved by blockchain.”
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