Is democracy the next big thing in investing?

The phrase, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” is an often quoted line from a speech Winston Churchill gave to the House of Commons in 1947. Seventy years later, with the age of the internet giving people more power, nearly unrestricted access, (sometimes false) information, and influence, we ask ourselves, is Democracy still the best way to go about things? Well, I’m no expert in parliamentary proceedings, but a new company believes that while democracy is still “the best of the worst” when it comes to forms of government, it might be the best of the best when it comes to investment management.

Crowdwiz, a new ethereum-based investment fund, believes that the people, and the concept of majority vote does indeed have the wisdom needed to make the smartest decisions. Their service, currently in pre-ICO and soon to be in beta, lets users open funds with various forms of management that will be managed completely democratically by the investors. Crowdwiz, aligned with the vision of blockchain, is offering an innovative, interesting and completely new structure to the traditional methods of investing, bringing decentralization to one of the most centralized-dependent industries.  According to the team at Crowdwiz, this differs from existing holding companies with multiple owners by one, key way- like in a true democracy, everyone gets one vote. From a technical standpoint, whenever a new fund is created the service generates a new token; whoever buys at least one token in the ICO, and after, as decided by the creator of the fund, gets voting rights. Any token you buy beyond that, might increase your returns and make you more invested in the fund, but it won’t give you any more power over the direction of the fund.

The company plans to launch its first crowdsourced fund at the launch of their beta, before actually allowing anyone to open a fund of their own. CrowdWiz will invite the public at large or specific, targeted, audiences to participate in their funds.

As of late, the financial blockchain world has hit a bit of a legal snag, with the People’s Bank of China deeming ICOs illegal, and Russian officials saying they might not be far behind. China and Russia were the strongest driving force behind ICO investment, as ICOs are illegal in the US and many other western countries. It remains to be seen how governments and institutionalized banks will feel about revenue obtained through a blockchain based investment device. While today it seems like there is no ban on blockchain in most countries, as China showed us just recently, these things can change in the drop of a hat.

The bigger question, though, might be whether or not democracy really is the best way to manage a financial fund- as most of them are currently run by either professional analysts, wealthy partners, or algorithms. Are the masses smart enough to invest their money wisely? We will soon find out, until then, we’ll stick to democracy as our form of government.