Make your vote for US President count— Vote on the block!
Web3 innovation can help rebuild trust in our public institutions. 'Vote' for President on the block and show how easily we can validate IDs and keep voting data private and secure on the block!
We the People of the Web3 Parallel Universe…
In Order to inspire a more perfect Union, we ask you to join us in ‘voting’ for your candidate for President before 11 PM PST on November 5, 2024, on the Voting Block USA (VB USA) blockchain-based voting platform. This will help prove to our fellow US citizens that we can vote and conduct all our government agency business in a more private, secure, and efficient manner without the need to trust any human, institution, or centralized authority.
Trust in the US government and all major institutions (save the military, small businesses, and the police) remains in steep decline. Imagine if you were running a company and your 'customer trust rate' was as low as public schools (28 percent), television news (11 percent), or Congress (7 percent)—Yikes! We are living in a world of unsatisfied customers and failed mega businesses.
For Silicon Valley, pain points in the market represent economic opportunity. Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, an emerging legion of crafty Web3 entrepreneurs who have embraced the Bitcoin decentralized metaphor are now creating a new generation of AI and blockchain applications to solve our growing mistrust in centralized power. We project that the Web3 boom to rewrite the world again represents a $200 trillion new wealth creation opportunity over the next 20 years (i.e., 10x Web2).
The Voting Block USA app is yet another manifestation of the Bitcoin metaphor. By 'voting' on the VB USA app, you can join us in demonstrating the possibilities of this new paradigm shift that brings back the power and privacy to the People.
Vote for your dream candidate…
Once you register to vote on the VB USA platform, you will first have the opportunity to ‘vote’ in the Dream World Election, where you may choose from 24 currently popular candidates or, if your ideal candidate is not on the ballot, you can nominate the candidate of your choice.
Zoom back to reality…
Second, you will have the choice to ‘vote’ in the Real World Election, with your options limited to those who officially qualified for the real-world ballot.
Could you take our survey?
Finally, you can take our survey of ten Web3 innovation-oriented policy positions, which you may agree with or not.
Our initial target market and distribution are 500,000 technology entrepreneurs, investors, and supporting professionals who receive the Cryptonite Weekly Rap, but anyone who finds the site can vote. Much like the high-technology company workforce in Silicon Valley, we would guess the average age of our audience is between 38 and 42, and highly educated. We suspect that, as with the Silicon Valley business demographic, a higher percentage of our members are male and Asian/South Asian than the general population. We encourage everyone to spread the word so we get the broadest participation possible.
See how your Web3 peers are voting…
All the results for the Dream World and Real World elections and the surveys are available to registered voters in real time before and after the election.
Earn your crypto rewards and commemorative NFTs!
Through VB USA’s brand partnership with Cryptonite, all newly registered voters are rewarded a little pile of Cryptonite PRO coins (CPROs) and two NFTs—one memorializes your vote for President on the blockchain in 2024, and the other signifies your founding membership ID number for the soon-to-be-launched Cryptonite Web3 social network.
Once the Cryptonite network is up and running, members may use their CPRO coins to reward other members and purchase discounted products and services or (once public) trade on exchanges for other cryptocurrencies.
No human or institution can see you vote
All voter data is stored on the Arbitrum blockchain, a venture capital-backed Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum founded in 2018. Arbitrum ensures that only users can see their voting data by employing several privacy technologies, including Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), which allow users to prove the validity of a transaction without revealing any additional information.
Additionally, Arbitrum keeps private data secure from unauthorized access by storing only necessary data on-chain and processing the rest off-chain. The platforms also make use of optimistic rollups that batch multiple transactions into a single one, reducing the data footprint and obscuring individual transaction details.
3rd Party Voter ID validation
All VB USA knows is that it has a validated registered ‘voter’ who is of voting age (18 by November 5, 2024) and has a valid government ID that shows the state of their residency. To achieve this, VB USA has partnered with Persona, a venture capital-backed automated identity verification service founded in 2018. Their ID platform leverages machine learning, computer vision, and algorithmic checks and validates voters biometrically by matching government photo IDs and selfies.
While this function is excellent for identifying and validating qualified voters, it does not entirely pass the ‘Web3 test’ because our Persona app does hold profile data for 60 seconds before it is deleted, and we could theoretically change that setting to keep all the data—which we promised not to do ;)
"The same people who demanded you must have a vaccine ID to travel and eat out are demanding no ID to vote! Voting by mail has been recognized as an invitation to fraud throughout the world, and that’s why it is not allowed anywhere else."
—Elon Musk, September 2024, after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill (SB 1174) into law that prohibits local governments from requiring voter ID at polling places, including for municipal elections.
The ultimate ‘real world’ voter ID solution would be a government-approved persona-like blockchain-based platform that validates you as a qualified voter without providing any individual or institution (including the government) access to voter ID data. So, in a national election, the government and other voters would only see the vote counts by state and Congressional district.
Currently, fifteen states in the US do not require voters to present identification when voting in person, including California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. However, most developed nations require having a government ID to vote.
"The decentralized future is not just about creating new applications; it's about rethinking how we organize society. You shouldn't have to trust any single person, institution, or centralized organization to transact, vote, and get things done."
Join the noble cause!
As we kick off the VB USA platform and open for voting, we genuinely have no idea how the cards will fall. Our not-so-hidden hope, however, is that this project will show that while we may not all line up behind the same presidential candidates, we ultimately share the common Web3 vision of working hard to bring back our privacy, security, and power. Due to the legions of Web3 entrepreneurs leading the movement, there is no turning back. However, we do have the responsibility to help the world close the global knowledge gap between what we are up to and how it might impact almost every way we operate.
Join us in making history all over again by being one of the first to vote for the US President on the block!
Voting Block USA (VB USA) is a 501 c3 non-profit, nonpartisan, grassroots project dedicated to educating the public on how Web3 innovation—including blockchain, AI, crypto, robotics, metaverse, and Greentech—can help create a more private, secure, efficient, and sustainable private and public sector.
VB USA was started by Tony Perkins, founder & editor of Cryptonite and is supported by his lifelong friend and fellow Silicon Valley OG, Tim Draper, founder of Draper Associates and Draper University.
Do you want to partner with or license our voting platform? Contact us at: VBUSA24@cryptoniteventures.com.
Our Patrons
Our Technology Partners
The world of Web3 innovation is in full swing, making it more accessible, cheaper, and much more efficient to conceive, design, and create new decentralized. VB USA worked successfully with the following premiere Web3 technology partners.
Become a Voting Block USA Technology & Brand Partner
Our industry-exclusive Brand Partners represent the top technology and service firms operating in the global Silicon Valley. If your company fits this profile, we would be pleased to consider your participation in the Voting Block platform and our upcoming live event, Silicon Valley 25, Feb. 18-19, in San Francisco's Presidio Park.
Interested parties should contact Tom Smull at tom@cryptoniteventures.com or click the button below to fill out the simple form.