It's a net positive for technology entrepeneurs, certainly.
What's less obvious is whether it's a net positive for everyone, e.g. if that "access to capital" comes in the form of naive investors pouring money into projects that are likely to fail (i.e. have been arguably a poor use of capital / a net negative).
Almost all projects are likely to fail. The key tenet of venture investment is investing in 500 companies, and have 499 fail, while one would give a 1000x return.
A "retail" investor is likely not able to follow this strategy, so people who would invest in a few apparently great projects via blockchain technologies may be in for disappointment.
But I don't see why small-scale venture investment via an appropriate technology could not work. Invest $10 in 500 companies, get $10k back... eventually.
Fair point. Where I said "likely to fail" what I meant was "so likely to fail that they represent a poor use of capital" (for even a large investor and also for society as a whole).
As you've pointed out, there's a distinction between poor use of capital for the individual and a poor use of capital for society, and other groups in between.
I'm not proposing that this is the case about any particular investment it just seemed worth pointing out that such a type of investment does exist.
What's less obvious is whether it's a net positive for everyone, e.g. if that "access to capital" comes in the form of naive investors pouring money into projects that are likely to fail (i.e. have been arguably a poor use of capital / a net negative).