The outbreak of the COVID-nineteen pandemic has profoundly impacted the earth both economically and socially, serving to aggravate political tensions while driving nationalist protectionism. Despite the full extent of the pandemic being not even so fully known, COVID-nineteen has reignited a conversation amongst media and academia regarding the fate of neoliberalism and globalization.

If nosotros were to extrapolate based on recent information, it would appear that de-globalization is accelerating. Major indicators of globalization, such as global trade and foreign straight investments, started plateauing a decade ago. Facing challenges of diminishing returns and an ever-widening wealth gap, various developed democracies seem to have started turning to protectionism, populism and nationalism in a paradigm shift away from the grand journey of globalization.

Nevertheless, if we were to take a step back, globalization is an upward cyclical path that embodies human evolution. Despite the current setback, we are confident that continued technological and societal development will further button the globe toward deeper integration and cooperation.

Moreover, short-term setbacks throughout human history have non managed to deadening downwardly technological advancements. Equally nosotros arroyo the digital economy of the hereafter, nosotros are already starting to understand and envision a new paradigm based on cut-edge infrastructure such as artificial intelligence, 5G, the Internet of Things and, of course, blockchain. Moving frontwards, I believe blockchain will be a core technological foundation for the next wave of globalization. With its intrinsic characteristics, blockchain is the natural solution to "trust" — a cardinal issue in global trade and cooperation that is of critical importance at this juncture.

Reflections on the history of globalization

Globalization is propelled by two primal and intertwined driving forces: technology and political-economic construction. It is sensible to examine the history of globalization through these two elements.

The history of globalization can be traced back to the Silk Route and Spice Routes, which continued the East and West through country and sea routes facilitating the merchandise of precious goods and ideas. Subsequently, advancements in navigation for engineering science-enabled explorers from Portugal, Spain, Great U.k. and the netherlands to travel farther created a more interconnected world during the Age of Exploration.

Presently later, the world'due south economic progress dramatically accelerated with the Industrial Revolution. Driven by transformative manufacturing methods and processes, productivity boomed while countries accumulated wealth exponentially, and transnational communication reached new heights. Since then, the earth has witnessed several waves of globalization, each empowered past advancements in technologies and ideologies. Along the way, every wave of globalization encountered setbacks due to alien interests besides every bit wealth imbalances.

If we follow the course of globalization over time, we can deduce some patterns:

  1. In the long-term, globalization has been a connected, upward cyclical growth
  2. Every wave of globalization is enabled past innovations in technological and political-economic structures
  3. Each wave has been less affected past setbacks due to the increasing importance of technology

Thus, while Globalization 3.0 is currently facing great resistance, I believe that nosotros are on the brink of the quaternary industrial revolution, which will once again transform how the world collaborates and produces, blurring physical, digital and biological boundaries.

An optimistic view on electric current setbacks

After the fiscal crunch in 2008, a backfire against globalization arose, prompting the rise of protectionism, populism and nationalism amongst developed countries. In an attempt to find a potential solution, we must beginning delve into the underlying dynamics.

One of the most noteworthy developments of the Globalization 3.0 phase is the establishment of a global supply concatenation network empowered past information engineering science. As a issue, global labor markets converged while labor costs flattened. Thus, this development was enormously beneficial for elites — that is, the owners of intellectual and concrete majuscule. Moreover, workers in developing countries also enjoyed growing incomes and social mobility. On the flipside, Globalization 3.0 resulted in heart-class stagnation besides as chore displacement for the working class in developed countries, resulting in negative social sentiments and increased tensions stimulating pivotal events such as Brexit and the United States–China trade state of war.

While these events may go far appear as if de-globalization is accelerating, a bird'south middle view would reveal that the grade of globalization and development has never run smoothly — rather, it advances in phases. Understood within this context, we can reinterpret electric current tensions and challenges as opportunities.

Moreover, the ever-growing importance of technology has not merely resulted in less disruptive setbacks just also promises to create a new global prototype. The digital revolution, characterized by the rapid maturation of technologies such as AI, 5G, IoT and blockchain, will profoundly transform our world in various ways by bolstering productivity while reshaping our political-economic structure to restore balance.

In these uncertain and divided times, cooperation that is built on trust is more necessary than always, and blockchain — equally a distributed, transparent, autonomous arrangement for exchanging value — volition serve every bit the cornerstone for the future.

Blockchain in a time of division and uncertainty

Today, we live in a world of distrust and uncertainties due to constantly shifting geopolitical and regulatory currents driving trends that lead to deglobalization. However, with blockchain, we can take a new path frontward — that is, achieving certainty without requiring trust.

Blockchain, at its core, is a distributed network based on mathematics and cryptography. The police force of lawmaking transcends disputes of differences and provides u.s. with a common language to communicate with certainty in a trust-costless fashion.

Facing a potential global economic recession, the world is desperately in need of a new productivity boom to bulldoze the digital revolution led by new engineering. Designed to be the key infrastructure of this aggregated engineering science stack, blockchain will function as a technology also as a methodology by which to transform the global political-economic prototype.

How volition blockchain drive the quaternary industrial revolution and enable the next wave of globalization?

A new technology-empowered international paradigm

Historically, international institutions have been playing an indispensable role in the procedure of globalization. However, traditional international institutions such equally the World Trade Organization, the World Wellness Organisation and the Paris Agreement under the United nations have all struggled to maintain their influence and relevance over the past decade.

At times of crisis, the lack of an unbiased, 3rd-political party enforcer will often hinder international collaborations as nationalist protectionism surges. For case, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.Due south. withdrew its sponsorship of the WHO while 80 WTO members have limited their exports of face masks and other supplies. In lite of such drawbacks, blockchain could get a new approach used to construct cooperative alliances.

Without the need for a trusted third political party or a leading power, utilizing blockchain engineering science, international organizations could evolve to become more than efficient while protecting multilateral values. For example, a blockchain-based carbon emissions agreement could build a membership system based on a consortium blockchain with tokenized carbon emission quotas. Inside this construct, carbon trading could be conducted in an open and fair public market on-concatenation, assuring the sustainability of the agreement while minimizing friction.

An agile and granular governance framework promoting social equality

We have witnessed waves of technological breakthroughs over the by few centuries, notwithstanding the development of a governance framework has lagged. There is an urgent need to incorporate novel technological aspects to elevate the agility and granularity of our social policy-making and execution processes in a earth changing rapidly.

As we continue digitizing assets, identities and activities, we are substantially building this comprehensive, continuous, real-time, socioeconomic hyper-database on a distributed network where privacy and ownership are protected past cryptographic algorithms. This network will represent the value of a spectrum of entities, from the world to a specific land, to every individual, across time. On the other hand, we will be equipped with a democratic policy-making framework to promote seamless civil participation as well as instruments to automatically execute policies in the finest granularity and accuracy. Through blockchain, information technology is possible to reach new heights in governance agility and social equality.

An open and efficient global financial arrangement anchoring trust

Two cardinal elements of the digital economy are native digital assets and a frictionless global market place, and blockchain is naturally the well-nigh suitable carrier.

Asset digitization is the very first step towards a digital economy. Blockchain-based digital assets work as value vehicles, allowing assets to flow freely between parties on this network. Utilizing a distributed network, the ownership and transaction of avails would no longer need to be validated by a trusted third party, thus providing a solution for global uncertainty and distrust. Furthermore, blockchain could sharply reduce transaction costs and friction, thus enabling significantly faster, cheaper and more open up cross-border remittance and payment settlement. Additionally, the tech would bolster asset liquidity while lowering barriers of entry for the unbanked. Overall, blockchain promises to sharply increment the efficiency of the fiscal organisation while reducing funding gaps.

Postlude

Overall, nosotros are confident in the connected global integration in the age of the digital economy. All the same, reconciling nationalism and globalism as well as the global wealth gap are integral elements to the solution. Blockchain, every bit a crucial component of the digital revolution applied science stack, would provide united states with value mobility, efficiency and — most chiefly — confidence in a time of division and distrust.

I would similar to end the piece with a quote from World Economical Forum founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab, who said:

"To be sure, pessimists will argue that political conditions are standing in the manner of a productive global dialogue near Globalization 4.0 and the new economy. Just realists will use the current moment to explore the gaps in the present arrangement, and to identify the requirements for a hereafter approach. And optimists will concur out hope that future-oriented stakeholders will create a community of shared interest and, ultimately, shared purpose."

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect or correspond the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Da Hongfei is most known for co-founding the blockchain-based "Smart Economy" network Neo with Erick Zhang in 2022. Da received his education at the Due south Red china Academy of Technology, receiving degrees in technology and English language. Da worked at a consulting firm until 2022, after which he learned how to lawmaking before founding Neo. Along with Zhang, Da also founded OnChain — a commercial blockchain firm that provides services to private companies.