Everything decentralized - A short story about life in thirty years

The year is 2050 and after turbulent years, full of innovations and upheavals, the world seems to have settled down a bit. We did it! Climate change, the most significant problem of our generation, has been solved. But this achievement was not possible through politics or social restructuring, but through innovation. For a long time now, we have not been driving around with combustion engine ; for a long time now, we have not been mining coal; and for a long time now, 95% of the world's population has been eating Beyond Meat, no real meat. Additionally, Elon Musk has built with SpaceX, the first space airport in Arizona, which allows people to fly around the earth. Jeff Bezoz is busy building the first resort on the moon; he retired a long time ago from Amazon activities.

Meanwhile, I am on my way to the airport. But the journey to Frankfurt Airport is very different from the way I went there decades ago with my parents. Now, I'm on my way to the airport only about an hour before boarding, not four or five hours as before. All traffic now is computed on a blockchain, so in 99% of all cases you arrive at your destination exactly on time. I don't drive myself because cars drive completely autonomously; so traffic accidents are virtually non-existent. People also don't own cars anymore because you can call them with your app at any time. You can choose whether you want to be picked up in a standard car, a luxurious SUV, a sports car or any other imaginable car. I chose the SUV and work comfortably in the back seat of the car with my laptop. I am thinking about my children and I smile. They constantly make fun of my programming skills. What I had painstakingly acquired and learned over years, my children learned within two years at elementary school. "You can't really call this programming, Dad!", my oldest son often jokes. Every year, the tenth grade goes on a trip to the old buildings of the European Central Bank. "People believed at the time that paper money could have value. People believed they could print money endlessly. The gap between rich and poor grew continuously," can be read in various history books. My children often ask me how life was like back then. They grew up in a completely decentralized financial system, in which money can only be created through consensus-based rules. Nor do they know of any institutions that determine which entities receive money and which do not. When I look into my children's faces, I see similar expressions to my own when I asked my great-grandparents how millions of people could consider National Socialism as normal or desirable. 

I arrive at the airport after just a 20 minutes ride. There, too, the atmosphere has changed. For example, there are no more money exchange offices. When I was still traveling alone through Africa in 2019, I needed ten different currencies in ten different countries, and I had to pay fees every time I exchanged currencies. Since the establishment of Uniswap, Kyber Network and Co., all of this is no longer necessary. Meanwhile, the tokens you pay with at stores are automatically exchanged into the desired currency; – simple, inexpensive, and executed within seconds. 

I like to travel often. Nowadays, flying is emission-neutral and even less dangerous than before. The heavy mechanical parts of the plane are created by a 3D printer; the planes are also no longer powered by kerosene but by electricity from renewable energy sources, and the traffic runs, here too, on a blockchain. Pilots and air traffic controllers still exist sporadically, but actually only to give conservative people in the population a safer feeling. Soon these professions will probably no longer exist. 

The travel itself is mainly financed by liquidity protocols and staking. Most of my assets are in staked tokens, for which which I receive regular returns. This allows me to finance a carefree life for myself.

I can lend my tokens, invest directly in promising projects through ICOs and much more. In addition, with protocols such as Aave, I can look for arbitrage opportunities in the market from the comfort of my sofa and trade in ways that the former Wall Street brokers could never have imagined even in their wildest dreams. 

In general, the term "work" has changed significantly. Most people work from home, either as a freelancer, or have a variety of ways to make money from bed. Now that everyone has access to the financial system and can interact independently with other participants in any way, the world's prosperity has grown incredibly. Moreover, the difference between the richest and the poorest has been significantly reduced, as there is hardly any currency depreciation. The countries that were once the poorest in the world are now among the richest. Countries like Zambia, Congo, etc., which had been exploited by the West for centuries, have made themselves completely autonomous through a new, decentralized financial system, and can trade resources at actual market prices without having to expect sanctions from Europe. 

Before I go through the gate, I quickly buy a cup of black coffee at an airport bar. For this, I scan the QR Code, that the employee hand me. I pay the bill with my eBay tokens, which I had received after selling an antique on eBay. However, due to the integrated Kyber protocol, they are exchanged for Fraport tokens, the tokens of Frankfurt Airport. A few seconds later I receive an e-mail from the airport confirming the settlement. In addition, I can transparently follow the course of the coffee I am drinking at the moment. Is it really fair-trade coffee from Ecuador as promised? As a matter of fact, it is. Since a Blockchain offers such transparency to the customers, exploitation or environmental sins are virtually non-existent. 

When I arrive at the gate, I get on the plane. How much has the world changed in recent years! For more than ten years, there have been no wars at all. People have come to the conclusion that wars are not profitable and eat up resources. I can now travel to any country in the world because there is hardly any political tension or poverty. Decentralized Finance has distributed our money and resources fairly, through supply and demand, in a very natural way. 

We have been able to solve the world's unnecessary problems through innovation. This brought the central financial system to its knees, and people, even the most conservative ones, now care about their environment. Not because they are interested in keeping it, but because they are rewarded for living sustainably in environment tokens.

We have not yet reached the end of all development; humanity will not until its last day. But we are now dealing with other, much more exciting topics. Are we alone in space? Can we slowly, in very small steps, start colonizing Mars in the next few years? My children are excited about the future, and they have so much hope in it.

The plane takes off. I look down on the earth, and I have to smile again. If only my grandparents and parents could see this. We did it: The world has become a beautiful place again!

The short story "Everything decentralized - A short story about life in thirty years" deals with the possibilities that could become reality in the future. With DeFi protocols and other blockchain technologies, it surely is. It is a pure vision of the future, but it is not possible to say for sure whether the world will really look like this in thirty years. Nobody can. The story is intended to stimulate the readers' imagination and give them a feeling of the possibilities in the blockchain era. Over the next few weeks and months, we will tell you all about the protocols mentioned in this story and explain how they work. We hope you enjoyed this story and you are looking forward to a decentralized future!