(Photo : The Future is Now)

The first cinematographic NFT series, The Future Is Now Film, which began documenting Bitcoin's eruption across the world  in late 2017, with Oneday Productions, has released two new episodes filmed in the Middle East's 'City of the Future', Dubai, as well as the heart of Germany's blockchain hub, Hamburg. The episodes cover complex topics like how to create a sustainable ecosystem for innovation and how decentralization will help economies around the world recover. Let's travel from East to West, from 2021 to 2022, with our roving crypto documentarist and decentralized futurist Miguel Francis-Santiago.

An episode called Transforming the Future takes the audience on a journey through AIBC Summit UAE 2021, one of the biggest gatherings in the blockchain community, which is organized by the Eman Pulis & SiGMA Group. The release shows how Dubai has become a Mecca for innovation under the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with a plethora of initiatives headed by the Dubai Blockchain Center and the work of its CEO, Dr. Marwan Alzarouni.

What Makes Dubai a City That Will Transform the Future?

In the episode, Tim Draper shares a recipe for an innovative soup, explaining why he thinks UAE's regulators should refrain from shackling the innovative spirit of its citizens. In his view, the Middle East is "starting to open up" to the idea of having a truly free market.

This mindset is another distinctive feature of this 'City of the Future'. One of the success factors is that money is not seen as a "problem for people" in Dubai, according to Tone Vays, who says he's been "quite taken" by the city in recent years. Adopting the right mindset has paved the way for a "tax free utopia" that can further accelerate the city's innovative potential, he says.

Brock Pierce, a 2020 US presidential candidate from the Bitcoin Foundation, explains how Dubai has benefited from this change and gives his take on the city's future, while revealing the reasons behind his presidential run:

"Why would I subject myself to such a thing if I was not committed to following all the way through... Let's say it was an exploratory mission. To understand the mechanics of the system, you need to go to the belly of the beast, to learn how to run a national campaign without any of the existing infrastructure... without any of the funding mechanisms that allow politicians to run for office, without a political platform... and to do it in the midst of the Covid. My basic training is complete."

Crystal Rose Pierce of Sense.Chat says that, while the future is definitely coming, the goal is not to simply replace the old with the new, but to create a bridge between them and explore how the interests of different people can be combined to promote mutually beneficial growth.

The episode would not be complete without exploring cases that demonstrate, in practice, how the reasons for success mentioned, or a combination thereof, indeed make it possible for decentralization to flourish. The report on the AIBC Summit includes coverage of projects and initiatives that will help cities and communities become regenerative and truly decentralized in the future.

Ripe Fruit and Farming the Future

One resident who launched a business in just a couple of years is Matthias Mende, who founded the Bonuz Market - an innovative marketplace that allows celebrities to engage with their fans like never before through NFTs and a MetaVerse platform.

Sergej Kunz has made 1inch Network the deepest liquidity aggregator in DeFi space. The platform has reached $200 billion in transaction volume since its inception by eliminating high entry barriers to using cryptocurrencies. This innovation also serves as a bridge between the crypto world and traditional finance, for example, by working with the innovative Sygnum Bank.

Salim Ismail of OpenExO, the former CEO of Singularity University, is giving "traditional experience" the chance to cross the bridge. In his view, successful companies in a centralized world cannot be innovative enough to go beyond their boundaries, while real breakthroughs can be made in the OpenExO community, whose ecosystem has launched successful pilot programs with giants like Procter & Gamble, Gucci, and KPMG. OpenExO's recently-established partnership with a biotech company is a vivid example of how science can take steps forward that were never imaginable before, like developing methods to preserve synapses in the human brain - that's right, we're talking about immortality.

Ilya Churakov, who represents a sustainable decentralized ecosystem dubbed Global Digital Club, emphasizes that bridges need to be built "in the right way" if big opportunities are to grow to scale quickly and become widely known. The endeavor includes a digital school where newbies can explore the cryptosphere, a digital bank that is being adopted at rapid speed, and a marketplace where online and offline goods can be exchanged within the ecosystem. 

Dubai also inspired Irina Litchfield of the Global Autonomous Network to conquer another frontier with a united network of futurists from all over the world. By bringing together entrepreneurs and connecting with the Earth, she hopes to "create new models of living through autonomous lands, agrotech and regenerative farming, blockchain, new space, and beyond," as well as innovative systems of governance for colonies on Mars. Why not start exploring our possibilities now, as part of living in the present?

How Will the Governments React?

The Aligning The Future episode, which wraps up 2021, takes the audience to Hamburg, one of Europe's largest ports, to check out Blockchance EU with the founder of the Blockchance Group, Fabian Friedrich. The show's host, Miguel Francis-Santiago, invites us to take a look at what the world will look like after the Global Economic Reset (The Great Reset) and see what initiatives might make the world more just and decentralized. These include TRON DAO, one of the most influential cryptocurrency protocols, and pioneers like GAMB from GLBrain, which is giving power back to the merchants.

Some countries have used the crisis as a chance to finally make their own economic decisions and embrace the future via blockchain. In September 2021, amid the pandemic crisis, El Salvador became the world's first nation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. El Salvadoran congressman William Soriano explains how cryptocurrencies can help countries not only achieve economic freedom and repay external debt, but "bring the country to the next level of prosperity." He even poses the question: Is it possible to have cities with no capital gains, property, or payroll taxes? It sure is, as that is President Bukele's vision for a Bitcoin City that is currently in the works in El Salvador.

Obviously, not all governments are happy with the potential loss of centralization. Veronika Kuett, who works on autonomous systems with Tripolis Corp., compares centralized entities to dying animals that aggressively try to hold onto power before losing it completely. In her view, progressive thinkers ought to build new autonomous and sustainable cities that will govern themselves, rather than waste time trying to change or destroy old systems that are bound to die anyway. She says it's necessary to think about how these new cities will be governed.

How Can We Bridge These Two Worlds?

One of the ideas behind BLOCKCHANCE EU is to bring innovative decision makers together to remove fear and create chances for a better future by fostering dialogue and finding practical solutions, according to Fabian Friedrich. In fact, Fabian Vogelsteller, co-founder of ERC20 Protocol, has already communicated with regulators and made some progress.

An outstanding proponent of decentralization bridging the gap to the centralized economy is the founder of TRON, which recently surpassed Tether's ERC-20 protocol and turned into the largest stablecoin protocol in the world, His Excellency Justin Sun became ambassador to the World Trade Organization on behalf of Grenada. In the episode, he shares his vision of how countries and governments could deal with new economic realities through competitive digital currencies issued by central banks. He also talks about the factors that will determine whether the adoption of CBDCs will constitute a step towards progress or cause governments to lose credibility. In addition, he explains why "traditional plutocrats" like Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk could turn out to be 'allies' in crypto's struggle to gain mass adoption.

Another way to achieve this was discussed by Wolfgang Pinegger of GAMB. In his view, European society is deeply hierarchical and centralized, and cryptocurrencies are the only way to escape this pyramidal structure. He sees growing demand for this, especially amongst the younger generation, which doesn't want to be part of the old world. In order to facilitate mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, GAMB has provided a merchant solution with zero transaction fees, thus eliminating one of the most concerning obstacles in the world of digital currencies.

Is Blockchain a Green Business?

Another topic addressed in the episode is the green agenda and how blockchain actually contributes to promoting it. Marc Buckley, an SDG advocate at the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, shares his vision for a fair decentralized future and explains why there is no time to waste. He asks a very important question: Can blockchain be adapted to meet sustainability requirements? In H.E. Sun's opinion, the answer is 'yes':

"Blockchain business is way more green than most of the financial infrastructure... As long as we are pushing blockchain technology revolution, we are also contributing to today's green agenda."

Fabian Vogelsteller sees blockchain technology as a vehicle that can finally make the green agenda "very transparent and executable." William Soriano explains how this can be done in practice, providing insight on El Salvador's volcano bonds project, which aims to direct the country's geothermal energy towards Bitcoin mining and distribute the gains among the population via a UBI type of bond system. Veronika Kuett points out the environmental costs inflicted by the traditional financial system and provides examples of how taking an ecosystemic approach can help solve ecological problems in the long term.

What Does the Future Hold?

Who is right? Only time will tell... and new episodes of the #TheFutureisNowFilm. To see a retrospective on everything Bitcoin has already achieved, watch the documentary trailer due to appear on Netflix and Amazon Prime that sums up the series' 5 years covering 20 gatherings around the world. The 19 episodes already filmed for The Future is Now Film explore over 15 countries to show you the future that Bitcoin will bring to the world. As Miguel Francis-Santiago put it:

"From the beginning, our goal was to inspire the masses while connecting the crème de la crème of our industry around the planet. I always envisioned something that I would feel absolutely aligned with in terms of wielding the power of cinema and storytelling. This film has led me to embark on working with Brock Pierce on his 2020 presidential campaign visuals, and then I realized this is it. If there was ever a message I wanted the world to hear, then this is it, and the time is now."

Currently, the TFIN DAO team is producing new episodes with the support of an NFT-vehicle. This new method of financing and decentralizing cinematography is set to reach new horizons and be featured on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, according to the founder and show's creator, Miguel Francis-Santiago. 

Join the conversation and become a part of the community by supporting the TFIN DAO. Be part of the #TheFutureisNowFilm movement on Website | Telegram | Twitter 

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