Welcome to Part 18 of the Poverty Story, The Emerging Ownership Economy. Let’s start with your description.

OK - The Ownership Economy is a worldwide movement towards global participation that has grown from the ground up, person-to-person, computer to computer. It allows people from all countries to make friends, join communities, and even make a living across international and cultural borders.

It includes many interconnected marketplaces where people can earn, own, store, share or trade creative content such as games, music, videos, art and software, and shares or tokens in community projects they invest in or help build.

I assume that the Ownership Economy bypasses the system that profits from poverty.

Not only that - but it is also people-centric, and it shares the benefits.

It already includes millions of people who were historically excluded from ownership. Now these people have not just ownership but a say, however small, in the direction of projects and communities they co-create.

Where does the Ownership Economy fit with regard to your first 3 Gatekeepers and Apps which are:

• Employment: Level UP Employment App

• Housing: Level UP Housing Stability App

• Cost of Living: Level UP Fair Marketplace App

There’s a lot of cross-over. Historically ownership has been rationed to exclusive groups, but not available to all people.

Those days are numbered, and the Ownership Economy represents the future of ownership – including opportunities that go beyond much of what we can imagine today.

Can you say more about the Ownership Economy as it relates to ending poverty?

The Ownership Economy, as we define it, is one of the ways to share ownership and benefits. In addition, it attracts self-organizing teams that invent and share participation in projects that are inspiring to them. We can only guess what all these projects could be or become.

This movement towards global participation goes beyond government – but can include government evolution. It goes beyond schools but likewise includes them. It goes beyond social media because that enterprise is not founded on people-first and has its roots entangled in profit before people.

And most importantly for us, it allows the upswelling of social inclusion that will support systems based on enlightened self-interest in place of systems that perpetuate poverty.

Can you give examples of people participating in the Ownership Economy?

Web3 communities from 2015 to 2023 give an example of the Ownership Economy and view into new possibilities.

Can you briefly describe what Web3 is?

Ok. Well, firstly Web 2.0 includes most all internet and website developments between 1998 and 2023 and any website that represents a business or organization. It’s what everyone is familiar with and includes 99.9% of what you can access on your computer or smartphone today.

Web 3.0 or Web3 emerged around 2015 and grew rapidly. The driving force is primarily young mission-centric people who work together but geographically separately on projects that are interesting to them. Most often there is no financial compensation unless the project is successful. Some other characteristics of these projects include little or no mainstream support, projects growing and evolving with minimal regulation, and projects succeeding from nowhere based solely on community and camaraderie.

Web3 is not very stable, but it is highly creative. You can also access Web3 projects through your computer or smartphone. Many of these Web3 project websites end in dot io in place of dot com. All of them are decentralized – meaning they have no central authority – at least as much as the current technology allows.

Level UP has strong connections across Web3 Communities in part because these groups are young, idealistic, and ready to work on and present new ideas and opportunities that benefit humanity. Our Level UP Apps fall into this category.

Can you give an example of a Web3 project success?

Ok. Let’s take one that many people have heard about – Ethereum. For starters, Ethereum is a decentralized cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency is a digital token that has value and can be exchanged for value, similar to FIAT money. The cryptocurrency is supported by a vast digital and hardware infrastructure, including its own blockchain, that supports multiple economies.

Can we define some of these tech terms we are using so that people can follow us better?

Yes - that’s important because these concepts are part of everyone’s future.

And I will do that in the following section. For now, let’s complete our overview of the Ownership Economy.

OK.

Back to Ethereum. Ethereum is an “open access platform” that’s not owned by any specific group. In fact, its Ownership Economy, or ‘community that participates in its ownership’ is now over 200 million people.

While the project was started by a small group, the volunteer force that jumped in over the following years to help build more than 40,000+ linked projects, and many more that didn’t make it, tops One Million people worldwide.

Ethereum’s valuation today exceeds $200 billion.

That much value must have made it a target for the old-world systems that exploit for profit.

Yes, it has.

Likewise all of Web3 became a target, which is part of the reason we have seen such a slowdown in its growth. The System wants the profits.

We have discussed the System’s “evolution” from using slavery to using poverty to make profit, similarly, its monetary system evolved to maximize those profits.

The Ownership Economy also bypasses the traditional monetary system?

Yes. But it does tie in. That’s part of what’s happening in 2023. Expanding the Ownership Economy is a goal we share with thousands of organizations and millions of people.

I think I get it by now. A lot of your Level UP Apps are ultimately about ownership. And ownership includes participation and control.

Yes. That’s a great clarification of ownership.

Level UP is focused on ownership of our homes, our work lives, our workplaces, our retirement, our bodies, our health, our education, our creative output, our data... our world.

Does ownership go beyond these essential categories?

We believe it does.

Do you think that very wealthy people limit their ownership to just these categories?

No.

Then why should anyone else?

We all deserve these same opportunities in an expanding personal world – if we desire them.

We’ll expand from here – and include simple descriptions of modern tech in Part 19