Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger joins Everipedia to put encyclopedias on the blockchain

One of the people who created Wikipedia, the digital encyclopedia and go-to source of knowledge online, has joined a startup that wants to create a similar source of knowledge using blockchain technology.

Larry Sanger, who founded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales and is credited with coming up with its name, has joined US startup Everipedia.

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“Blockchain technology is making exciting new things possible.” said Sanger.

“I’m delighted to join this team which is poised to innovate on the Wikipedia model just as Wikipedia innovated on the Britannica model almost two decades ago. In an era of misinformation, the world stands to benefit enormously from a transparent, immutable and decentralised protocol for accessing and sharing knowledge,” he added.

By using blockchain’s distributed ledger technology, Everipedia hopes it can widen the sources of knowledge for article subjects beyond particular types of editors – for example, more than 90 per cent of Wikipedia editors are male. Those who submit information will be rewarded with a digital token that also acts as a share of the platform.

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The site already has more than three million users at present, and will switch to a blockchain based platform early next year, according to Wired.

“The goal of the ecosystem is to democratise the traditional encyclopedia model and economically align the incentives of the value creators and value extractors,” said the company.