The Era of Digital Colonialism

Alibaba, Facebook, Tencent and Google will be the new version of the Dutch East Company.

• As in the time of Christopher Columbus there is a New World.

• This is a map of the ever-expanding digital world.

Internet map 2016

• This new world is extremely rich in one commodity: Data.

• As the discovery of America redefined many social and economic institutions, the discovery of Internet is completely changing our civilization. 

• I am not talking about the normal S innovation pattern (cars, computers, mobiles, etc.). I am talking about a big leap from a nomadic to an agrarian society. 

• Our new world is digital. That implies 3 important objects are associated with every single individual- a) Digital Identity, b) Digital Property and c) Digital Assets.

  Tech advanced governments are creating different institutions to manage their digital colonies. 

  There are at least three experiments:

  • The Orwellian, where the Chinese Government has control of the data of millions of people that use the various platforms of Alibaba and Tencent. 

  • The Crony Technologism,  where the American Government has to make a tradeoff between aggressive antitrust laws and the need for powerful, tech companies to compete against the Chinese. 

  

  • Decentralized Democracies, where many entrepreneurs will be angered by the control of big, central governments and tech corporations. This will boost the development of decentralized blockchains in order to protect their identity, store wealth and invest.

  

• The credit score system in China, the Libra Stable Coin, Bitcoin and Ethereum are evidence that these experiments are happening right now. 

• We are living in the era of digital colonialism.

• The good news is that we can profit from this giant transformation by being ahead of the curve. 

• Bitcoin is not just a cryptocurrency but the first version of digital property.

Sincerely,

July 5th, 2019