Overstock founder Patrick Byrne pitches radical transformation of government services via blockchain
Aaron Hankin, 12 February 2019
Even Venezuela can easily be fixed, Byrne claims: ‘We could step into Venezuela with six laptops and create not only a functioning society but arguably one with the most advanced government systems in the world’
Never one to shy away from a big bet, crytpo evangelist Patrick Byrne has some bold plans for his company in the distributed-ledger field.
The founder and CEO of Overstock.com OVER, +7.51% and the chairman of tZero, a subsidiary of Medici Ventures, is going all-in on blockchain technology, having concluded its capacity to overhaul traditional financial services is even greater than many staunch proponents believe.
Byrne, one of the earlier promoters of cryptocurrency and the technology that underpins them, said government services are ripe for a shake-up, and the answer, in his view, is blockchain.
“I am focusing on the idea of building government-as-a-service, a set of applications and companies that, between them, can bring blockchain to different services that governments provide,” Byrne told MarketWatch. “It will make government superefficient, inexpensive and incapable of being bribed.”
