1. DACs, DAOs, AND DCOs
Building on cryptographic technologies, a new generation of radically distributed organizations will take three distinctive forms: Distributed Autonomous Corporations (DACs) will be self-incorporating programs designed primarily to generate profit for investors in crypto and standard stock exchanges. Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) will be nonprofit organizations set up to algorithmically accomplish public goals. Distributed Collaborative Organizations (DCOs) will algorithmically coordinate large groups of people.
By 2025, the organizational ecosystem will include a host of diverse networked organizations managed by computer programs.

2. WHAT’S DRIVING THIS FORECAST?
The emergence of second-generation block chain technologies such as smart contracts, open ledgers, and multi-signature transactions 
Rapid automation of diverse management processes under algorithmic control
A broad public and regulatory debate about the legality of cryptocurrencies, clarifying potential uses and abuses
Foundational efforts to encode law into physical objects and digital projects

3. COLORED COINS Image source: https://coins.assembly.com/
A host of platforms built on Bitcoin to help individuals, companies, and communities establish purpose-built coins for everything from fan-funding of artists to local community trade
SIGNAL: Assembly is an open protocol and API for building custom cryptocurrencies on top of the Bitcoin block chain
SO WHAT: Cryptocurrencies become a way to build and fund distributed communities based on very specific common interests
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4. SMART CONTRACTS Image source: ethereum.org
Cryptocurrency tokens embed a wide range of intentions in code that can be executed automatically for such applications as escrow services, data feeds, and voting rights
SIGNAL: Ethereum is a Swiss non-profit foundation developing block chain architectures to support secure, decentralized enforcement of smart contracts
Image source: ethereum.org  
SO WHAT: Smart contracts lay the foundation for a wide range of algorithmically executed functions to meet organizational goals

5. PROGRAMMATIC GOVERNANCE
Distributed organizational structures based on block chain technologies enable groups of strangers to make collective decisions
SIGNAL: SwarmSurge is a decentralized platform for venture investment in startups, where all the investors vote on the projects to be supported
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SO WHAT: Democratization of venture investment and quantification of collective intelligence gives investors more control over innovation

6. SWARM MANAGEMENT
Taking programmatic governance a step further, distributed collaborative organizations decentralize the administrative functions of an organization
SIGNAL: Swarmops is an organizational dashboard that allows distributed strangers to collaborate on administrative functions of an organization, including management of members, budgets, communications, expenses and payroll
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SO WHAT: Distributed collaborative organizations take the friction out of day-to-day management, increasing organizational competitiveness

7. THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
A host of new organizations test the practical, financial, and legal boundaries of decentralized organizations
A next generation of collaborative algorithmic platforms decentralizes the collaborative economy, displacing some of today’s leading platforms
A first generation of self-owning objects emerges as smart objects are incorporated as DACs or DAOs
As DACs provide alternative sources of investment income, DCOs lead early experiments in creating models for a basic guaranteed income

8. TEN-YEAR SCENARIO
By 2025, the ecosystem of economic and social organizations will expand to include hotpots of radically distributed autonomous and collaborative organizations, competing in the marketplace with more traditional corporations and even government institutions. The legal and regulatory boundaries between the human-owned organizations and an emerging set of self-owning, internet-connected objects begins to blur, creating opportunities for extreme innovation, extreme profits, and extreme crime. At the vanguard, people invest in shares of all kinds of self-managing objects—for profit, for access, and for the public good. This is an era of cultural and economic fever as humans reorganize themselves and the built environment for a more sustainable future.