Host: Dave McGimpsey
Guest: Katrina Donaghy | Founder | Civic Ledger
Category: 🌐 Digital
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[24:40] “A ledger holds […] an asset […]. It gives you an understanding of a company. How is it performing? […] So ledger […] holds a record, but it’s this triple entry accounting, or tripling entry bookkeeping. Whereby I have my ledger, you have your ledger, but we have certain data points in each other's ledger's that we agree upon, that we share in a third place.”
[25:20] “When you think about water, water is basically something that we account for. It goes into a big water resource system and then it's divided up […] to urban water, agriculture water, mining water, environmental water, so everybody has to account for how much they're using in that water resource system. The challenge is that different legislation, different regulation, different departments, different organizations, different utilities, all have pieces of data that's related to that one resource system. And as a result, we can never tell in real time, how much water is in the system, how much water is being used, how much water has been shared.”
[26:08] “Blockchain technology allows us to tokenize what resource systems for us to account for how much water is in the system. And then we can ledger who has what, according to which business rules, […] according to which legislation. […] And then what happens is that everybody can agree on its state. So therefore, we can reduce the cost associated with managing water, because we're not putting intermediaries in the middle of building their own data systems trying to account for all of this.”
[28:44] “The utility who issues you your water actually bills you for that water. […] There's no independent system of record to verify whether your usage has been accounted for correctly.”
[35:52] “It's time that we talk […] about the price of water and how we value water. And […] some people […] say, water should not be considered as a commodity, it's a human right, so we should just leave it where it is. The problem is that we have this thing called the tragedy of the commons. And if we don't understand what price is, what is value, we have some people taking more than their fair share. […] Water is a shared public resource. And it needs to be managed in a way that has public interest at heart, but we've also got to put it to economic use. How do we get that balance?”
[41:35] “Blockchain technology allows us to have democracy of information. There's five core pieces of information that a market needs, regardless of water, gold, or any type of commodity. It needs to know that whoever is in that market has the authority to be in that market, that they've met some obligations, whether it be a license or a regulation or law. We also need to know that that person or that entity has the underlying property rights […] [to] trade, or sell that asset. […] Then you need to know, what was the last traded price of water in my scheme? […] Then I need to know what's the liquidity of the market? […] And then the last thing is history. I need to know the history of those transactions, so I understand what the past was, so I can actually understand the future. If I have those five pieces of information, what we have is a much more efficient market that costs less to participate in, it removes so many barriers for people to participate, but also gives a public window to the markets.“
[44:34] “Blockchain technology allows us to […] actually bring into a system of record that cannot be changed that is providing information in real time. So we can all agree on the value of water. And that is a very different proposition, because it shifts the market from the regulator point of view or the government perspective and moves it and centers around the farmer. And that's what we're doing […] in Australia, […] building markets from the bottom up using Blockchain technology that a grower led. […] Because […] water is local, and growers and people who use this for know best on how to manage water.”
Rating: 💧💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify | Google
🕰️ 51 min | 🗓️ 03/15/2021
✅ Time saved: 49 min
