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By Antonio Pasolini — Solar power is the first market to benefit from a new investment application called MyBit, an Ethereum blockchain platform that enables the crowdfunding of so?-?called "revenue generating machines", also known as Internet of Things (IoT) Assets.
The aim of the platform is to democratize investing, so anyone anywhere in the world can buy a percentage stake in a device that generates revenue and in return receive a portion of revenue the machine produces.
Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger or decentralized database that keeps records of digital transactions. The validated block of transactions is then timestamped and added to a chain in a linear, chronological order. The secure peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions are governed by smart contracts running on Ethereum, an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality.
This makes processes automated and more secure, doing away with middlemen, brokers and expenses. MyBit says this results in a 'new investment ecosystem' with more available opportunities and where investors can keep a larger portion of their money thanks to technological efficiency.
MyBit has chosen the solar market to get started as it is part of critical solutions the world needs to meet sustainability challenges. Clean energy is a growing market that has increased from 16 percent of the total primary energy supply in 2008 to 22 percent in 2013. It is expected to increase by 26 percent in 2020, according to IEA estimates.
Solar energy is the fastest growing renewable, although mostly on an industrial scale with large farms with thousands of solar panels. Those farms are owned by municipalities or large utility companies. However, in the coming three to five years, "the clear majority of new solar power will come from micro or nanogrids, small solar power systems," MicroBit says. Those are systems placed on top of residential and commercial buildings, owned by what it calls "prosumers" (producer and consumer) who can monetize their space to go grid-free and create new revenue streams.
“Enabling worldwide crowdfunding of revenue generating assets will be a game changer for everyone - eliminating financial barriers to entry, enabling new business models, accessing previously untapped capital and providing an extremely low cost, paperless and efficient capital market for the masses,' said MyBit founder Ian Worrall.
In a world with increasing energy demands, and an urgent need to make that demand be met sustainably, new disruptive technologies like MyBit are welcome accelerators of the clean, shared economy.
Image credit: MyBit
