Gradually I’ve had to accept a simple fact - I am not the norm. “Ordinary” people don’t sit around in the early morning, drinking organic earl-grey tea and thinking about the impossible things they’d like to accomplish, by pooling the funds of millions of strangers around the world. Or do they?I had a simple epiphany last week - what’s the largest example of social finance on the planet?(Hint: you’ll never guess.)

The stock market.

Oh, sure, no one thinks about it that way. But it’s true - millions of strangers, of disparate backgrounds and resources, pooling funds to drive forward the projects that they believe in. Now, their belief is a simple, one-sided thing: they believe the projects will make money. But that’s a good start, don’t you think?

What lessons could we draw upon from the history of the stock market, that might prove useful in moving forward the World’s first open “stake market”? According to wikipedia, trading was first institutionalized to manage the debts of agricultural communities, and then later extended to government debts as well. However, it was not until the Dutch East India Company issued the first corporate stocks and bonds in 1602, that the current form of the stock market was established, whereby common shareholders had interest in a share of the profits (or losses) of the business venture.

IANAH (I am not a historian), but this looks to me like a simple pattern of trust and reputation, extending from transactions with known and trusted locals, to the implicitly trusted “government” and then eventually to the anonymous “corporations”, lured by possibilities of greater returns.

Now here’s a subtlety that I may have been mistaken about when we first set out on this grand adventure - the Stock Market is driven by the sellers. In fact, the reality is that any newly launched security needs a “market maker” to create demand for it - literally, manufacturing interest. And so far, this has been proven out at BountyUp as well - our most active and successful early bounties have all been reverse bounties, started by those who intend to close them - in essence, driven by the sellers.

As much as this disappoints my philosophical desire to see buyers rise up and draw from the market, the goods that they truly want, I’m pragmatic enough to call a spade a spade. Expect to see more robust support for reverse bounties in the near future.