The enactment of the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025 represents a significant restructuring of the nationâs fiscal framework, aimed at capturing value within the borderless digital economy. This study provides a legal analysis of the updated "Significant Economic Presence" (SEP) rule under Section 17 of the Act, which shifts the taxable nexus from traditional physical presence (Permanent Establishment) to economic participation. By expanding the SEP framework, the NTA 2025 formalises the "digital shadow" of the workforce, explicitly including remote freelancers, digital consultants, and content creators within the tax net while mandating residency-based taxation on worldwide income. Additionally, the Act classifies profits from digital asset transactions, including cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as taxable income. The analysis also examines the institutional transition from the Federal Inland Revenue Service to the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), emphasising the deployment of automated technologies for real-time reporting and collection. Despite these advancements, persistent challenges remain, including infrastructure deficits, enforcement complexities in peer-to-peer transactions, and the need to align with global standards such as the OECDâs Two-Pillar Solution. Ultimately, the study concludes that although the NTA 2025 modernises the fiscal social contract, its effectiveness in optimising revenue depends on institutional capacity and clear regulatory guidance.
The decentralisation of authority and automated trust are the main reasons blockchain receives widespread praise. Token-based governance systems tend to maintain centralised control because early adopters and institutional stakeholders maintain most of the influence. Blockchain governance presents itself as an ethical and institutional problem instead of a technical issue. The paper uses deliberative democracy and democratic innovation theory to demonstrate that decentralised systems need to establish legitimacy through inclusive processes that combine reason and participation. The analysis evaluates Proof-of-Stake and DAOs as dominant governance models because they contain structural barriers and procedural weaknesses. The paper introduces design interventions such as sortition and quadratic voting, participatory panels and modular deliberation layers as potential solutions to embed democratic legitimacy into blockchain infrastructure. Blockchain technology enables the creation of new institutional frameworks which base their operations on democratic principles. The paper establishes that future governance needs to combine contestation and collective reasoning with consensus and coordination.
Academic, practitioner, and policy interest in digital labor platforms (DLPs)âbusinesses that use their digital infrastructure to intermediate transactions between workers and clients who need their servicesâis surging. While these transformational platforms have brought many benefits, there are growing concerns about the harms and entrepreneurial risks they create for workers. As such, there is a growing interest in problematizing the ownership and governance of DLPs. Our paper critically compares three increasingly common archetypesâCorporate DLPs, Cooperative DLPs, and Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) DLPsâto discern their likelihood of addressing or exacerbating platform workersâ exposure to harms and entrepreneurial risks. Our analysis identifies promising new opportunities for those interested in cultivating a digital solidarity economy by highlighting the merits and demerits of different alternatives to Corporate DLPs, as well as promising new hybrids like Cooperative DAO DLPs. Furthermore, it advances our understanding of factors that contribute to DLPsâ being structured in particular ways and how choices about DLPsâ structures, in turn, prompt the evolution of organizational archetypes. ⢠Calls for regulating a plurality of organisational archetypes in the digital economy to mitigate harms and risks to workers. ⢠Evaluates the harms and entrepreneurial risks of workers across 3 archetypes: Corporate DLPs, Cooperative DLPs, and DAO DLPs. ⢠Identifies two variants of DAO DLPs, the Non-Cooperative DAO DLP and the Cooperative DAO DLP. ⢠Furthers our conceptual understanding of the benefits, risks, and harms of the burgeoning digital solidarity economy.
Foundational results in machine learning establish that all human labor may in principle be automatable. Without deliberate intervention, this trajectory risks concentrating productive capacity in a handful of corporations, resulting in techno-feudalism: mass economic redundancy, surveillance-based control and dependence on corporate benevolence for survival. To avert this outcome, this paper introduces anarchist automation, a rigorously defined sociotechnical framework grounded in the 200-year anarchist tradition from Godwin through Kropotkin to Bookchin for ensuring that full automation is decentralized and oriented toward universal care. Specifically, I state five formal hypotheses and six research objectives, present a formal definition through analytical categories of interdependent spheres, and propose the Liberation Stack as a layered technical architecture with explicit preconditions and gate conditions for each layer, incorporating crypto-economic coordination tools appropriated from the crypto-anarchist tradition for commons financing and governance. Furthermore, I introduce Universal Desired Resources as a post-monetary design principle that eliminates the material basis of intersectional oppression, and address the Mises-Hayek economic calculation problem by arguing that AI-based distributed optimization and federated preference elicitation can substitute for market price signals under conditions of material abundance. I develop a framework for progressive state dissolution through incremental, reversible commons-building compatible with existing democratic institutions. Empirical evidence from Linux, Mondragon and contemporary commons initiatives confirms that commons-based systems already operate at scale. Finally, I conclude with a phased roadmap specifying explicit assumptions, hard constraints, gate conditions between phases, and detailed limitations.
This study examines how Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) could be incorporated into municipal administration to improve citizen participation and transparency. As DAOs in governance are attracting growing academic and practical attention, this research uses scenarios to analyze the conditions for their application at municipal and regional levels. It takes a conceptual, scenario-based approach to develop a model for DAO-based e-participation, identifying key concepts and their relationships to explain how DAOs operate as self-regulated systems for digital participation. The research is structured into three phases: First, in the foundational phase, this study synthesizes existing research on DAOs and participatory governance models, contrasting blockchain-based and traditional processes to establish a framework for DAO integration. Second, the application phase uses illustrative scenarios to explore how DAO mechanisms might influence participation and decision-making in municipalities. Third, the evaluation and recommendation phase consolidates insights into a structured model for implementation, highlighting task characteristics, contextual conditions, and organizational capacities that shape DAO feasibility. The analysis suggest that DAOs may enable new forms of participation and more transparent procedures, but only when antecedent conditions such as digital literacy, administrative capacity, and infrastructure stability are sufficiently met. Future work should look at long-term effects, compare cases across municipalities, and examine the role of legal and regulatory frameworks.
Abstract This article examines how bitcoin has acquired religious significance among many techno-libertarians, who hold it as a symbol promising deliverance from a fallen world. Drawing on both participant observation at bitcoin meetups and the 2023 Bitcoin Conference, as well as digital ethnography on X, the article presents a thick description of how bitcoiners construct specific beliefs about the world and their place in it, as well as ritual practices that vivify these beliefs and sanctify those who hold them. These beliefs and practices constitute bitcoin, in turn, as a distinct moral community in which bitcoin is symbolized as an instrument of salvation from a failing institutional order. This Durkheimian analysis contributes to understanding how money in modern society carries with it religious meanings about the world and human history. And it also contributes to an understanding of the specific ideological formation driving techno-libertarianism as an ascendant political interest today.
This article builds upon previous research on the ethical tokenization of emotions and the concept of a âSentiment Exchange,â advancing it into a broader normative framework termed Emotional Economics 2.0. That initial contribution demonstrated how affective signals could be measured, exchanged, and governed to ensure dignity and fairness within digital economies. The present paper extends this framework into a broader theoretical model termed Emotional Economics 2.0, articulated through three normative laws. The First Law conceptualizes human attention as a conserved and finite resource, grounding emotional value in cognitive limitations rather than artificial scarcity. The Second Law introduces emotional flow as the basis of value creation, operationalized through a dual-channel system: a fixed universal allocation of 20 tokens per day to each individual and a variable issuance tied to the measurable emotional impact of registered entities. The Third Law formulates a global emotional sovereignty contract, envisioning emotional tokens as a universal right akin to a digital basic income embedded at the protocol level. The paper further explores Scenario 4, where emotional tokens function as a universal unit of account in a post-scarcity âpost-economy.â Illustrative examplesâsuch as housing, food, and luxury goods denominated in tokensâdemonstrate how this model reframes wealth, value, and redistribution. Legal challenges, governance mechanisms (Global Ethical-Scientific Committee and Decentralized Autonomous Organization), and risks of manipulation are addressed as integral to the modelâs design rather than as afterthoughts. By explicitly linking the original Sentiment Exchange proposal with the Three Laws of Emotional Economics, this work positions itself as a second step in an evolving research program. Rather than a predictive claim, it advances a normative horizon: an alternative to neoliberal scarcity logics that places dignity, emotions, and collective well-being at the center of economic thought.
This paper examines the potential transformation of Venezuela into a significant IT offshore hub in the context of anticipated political regime change. Using a multi-dimensional analytical framework that integrates labor economics, financial technology adoption, enterprise software markets, and critical infrastructure security, we investigate how Venezuela's prolonged isolation has paradoxically produced unique conditions for technology sector growth. We identify four critical impact vectors shaping this potential transition: Remote labor arbitrage normalization â Venezuela's highly educated yet underemployed workforce, coupled with global remote work trends, creates a compelling labor cost advantage in international IT services markets. Cryptocurrency-native population as a fintech catalyst â Years of hyperinflation and sanctions have driven widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins as alternative financial infrastructure, positioning Venezuelans to lead in fintech innovation and digital payments integration. Technology infrastructure deficit as a SaaS expansion opportunity â Although national telecommunications and digital infrastructure lag regional peers, planned post-transition investment in fiber optics, 5G, and connectivity could accelerate Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) consumption and development. Cybersecurity challenges in legacy system modernization â Legacy systems and weak institutional cybersecurity create both risks and service demand, underscoring the need for secure IT modernization strategies in public and private sectors alike. We argue that Venezuela's forced technological experimentation during economic collapse â including informal digital payment systems and decentralized finance adoption â has unintentionally cultivated technological resilience and local digital proficiency unprecedented in Latin America. By situating Venezuela's tech transition within broader geopolitical disruption and global technology labor markets, this research contributes new frameworks for analyzing emerging offshore IT markets in post-crisis economies and highlights actionable pathways for stakeholders targeting digital services growth in transitional states.
Traditional Human Resource Management (HRM) systems are criticized for lacking transparency, being inefficient, and offering ample opportunities for fraud because of their centralized design and reliance on manual processes. This work proposes a blockchain-enabled framework for HRM that enhances the transparency, trust, and global mobility of talents by integrating distributed ledgers, consensus protocols, and smart contract networks into Human Resources (HR) functions. A four-layer theoretical modelâdata, consensus, smart contract, and application layersâis developed and comparatively examined against traditional HR systems to show how blockchain principles can be systematically mapped into HR processes. This study shows how blockchain-driven HRM can ensure tamper-evident employee records, automate contractual and payroll operations, and enhance auditability and compliance. By informing the framework with established technology adoption perspectives, this paper extends both the theoretical and managerial understanding of blockchain in HR. In comparison with previous studies that were limited to either recruitment or credential verification, this article presents an overarching, cross-layer synthesis that connects blockchain architectures with end-to-end HR functions, thus providing a clear conceptual foundation for its future enterprise adoption in the digital economy.
Digital systems execute at speeds that governance systems cannot match. This paper develops the concept of "institutional latency," the structural friction between algorithmic velocity and the response capacity of the legal, normative, and organizational systems required to govern it. Drawing on institutional economics, including North's rules-norms distinction, Williamson's governance form selection logic, Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development framework, and Bromley's volitional pragmatism, I analyze Bitcoin as an institutional phenomenon whose governance architecture generates characteristic friction points. I draw on the ongoing 2024-26 Core v30/Knots dispute over OP_RETURN relay policy defaults to illustrate how that dispute is conducted entirely within the informal norm layer. I argue that institutional latency is durable at the informal norm layer, that permissionlessness is a specific configuration of boundary rules, not their absence, and that Bitcoin's political-level transactional attributes generate demand for deliberative governance the protocol cannot supply. The computational knowledge versus volitional knowledge distinction specifies the mechanism: as computational knowledge and technological development expand rapidly, the volitional questions they generate proliferate faster than governance capacity to address them. While I use a Bitcoin example, the framework is designed to travel to AI governance and algorithmic governance more broadly.
Contemporary governance theory confronts a tripartite crisis that existing frameworks address only in isolation. First, algorithmic systems are systematically eroding the cognitive, affective, and epistemic conditions for individual personhood - what this paper terms the Personhood Atrophy Model. Second, recommendation-engine-driven fragmentation has dissolved the shared cultural and epistemic spaces upon which collective purpose and democratic deliberation depend. Third, the structural asymmetry between the pace of technological change and the operational tempo of democratic institutions has produced a compounding legitimacy crisis for the sovereign nation-state, increasingly outflanked by corporate platforms exercising sovereign-equivalent power without democratic accountability. Political theory and science and technology studies have addressed each of these dimensions in isolation. No integrated analytical framework currently exists that connects the micro-level erosion of selfhood, the meso-level collapse of shared meaning, and the macro-level transformation of sovereignty into a unified theory of algorithmic governance. This paper introduces the Republic of Code framework, drawing on the monograph by Shaik (2026), and proposes three original theoretical constructs: (1) the Wet Code/Dry Code distinction as a governance epistemology tool, formalizing the fundamental incompatibility between human-interpretable and machine-enforced law; (2) the Personhood Atrophy Model mapping algorithmic erosion of agency across cognitive, affective, and epistemic vectors; and (3) the Five Futures Matrix, a two-axis typology of possible political arrangements under algorithmic conditions. The paper concludes by proposing a suite of constitutional innovations - including Proof of Humanity (whose mechanism design infrastructure is formally developed in Shaik, 2026b), Zero-Knowledge Justice, and High-Fidelity Democracy - necessary for the reconstruction of democratic legitimacy in what it terms the Republic of Code. The analysis carries implications for legal scholarship, platform governance policy (including industrial cyber-physical systems, examined in Shaik, 2026e), and the updating of social contract theory for an era in which digital exit costs approach zero.
The Information Systems research discipline claims to build a cumulative Knowledge Base to inform practice, yet it is organised around a closed loop of self-referential simulation. We diagnose this state as hypernormalisation-a late-Soviet condition in which official rituals are meticulously performed despite a widespread recognition that they no longer map reliably onto lived reality. We identify four escalating mechanisms that sustain this institutional order: the Simulation of Accumulation, in which the journal article functions as a proof-of-work token; the Simulation of Relevance, in which "Implications for Practice" operate as rituals of displacement; the Simulation of Problem Solving, in which Design Science Research produces perpetual prototypes; and the Simulation of the Scholar, in which researchers inhabit a split subjectivity (Living Vnye). We argue that Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) constitutes the discipline's Glasnost moment. By automating the generation of methodologically fluent, theoretically compliant text at near-zero marginal cost, GenAI precipitates the collapse of the proof-of-work signalling economy not by attacking its institutions, but by exposing their performative nature. It renders the underlying logic visible, stripping the journal article of its value as a proxy for cognitive labour. Instead of offering renewal, this transparency forces a structural reweighting of epistemic authority: away from the mechanical production of form (Episteme), now inexpensive and abundant, toward judgment grounded in direct contact with reality (Phronesis) and exposure to consequence-a signal that cannot be sustained without the friction of the world.
In 2021, the Bank for International Settlements identified that blockchain-based finance was laboring under a âdecentralisation illusion,â because of âthe inescapable need for centralised governance and the tendency of blockchain consensus mechanisms to concentrate power.â In other words, notwithstanding that blockchain is a decentralized technology, it cannot live up to its promotersâ promises that it will disperse economic control. This Chapter surveys accumulated evidence that supports and underlines the importance of that conclusion. This Chapter also argues that individualsâ continuing susceptibility to narratives about the decentralizing potential of blockchain technology reflects, at least to some degree, their normative priors about the degree to which concentration of economic power is acceptable. In other words, blockchain-based finance can serve as a Rorschach test for attitudes towards the normative goal of âcompetition.â
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are typically explained as governance experiments that failed due to poor design-wrong mechanisms, insufficient incentives, inadequate participation tools. This article argues that something more fundamental is at work: DAO governance failures follow predictably from a systematic mismatch between the participant model encoded in governance arrangements and the actual cognitive and social architecture of human actors. Drawing on secondary empirical evidence from five major protocols (The DAO, MakerDAO, Compound, Uniswap, Beanstalk) and existing governance datasets, the article documents five recurrent dimensions of failure: voter apathy, governance as performance, the code is law paradox, cognitive plutocracy, and voter fatigue. Each dimension follows from a specific mismatch between the assumptions built into governance design and how people actually behave under conditions of complexity and limited attention. Across all five dimensions, formal decentralization produces functional recentralization-power concentrating among those with the cognitive and financial resources for sustained participation. The article further argues that DAO governance does not simply suffer from participant limitations: through autopoietic reproduction, it actively produces the type of subject it requires. Attempts to eliminate politics through protocol design reproduce politics in new infrastructural forms. The findings matter beyond blockchain. DAOs function here as an unusual kind of natural experiment: a governance system that stated its assumptions explicitly, left a detailed public record, and failed in ways that are theoretically traceable. The patterns documented here speak to broader questions about institutional design, the limits of technocratic coordination, and what happens when governance systems are built for a participant who does not quite exist.
The dissertation studies how privacy and trust are shaped by digital technologies: how individuals value privacy over personal data, how AI alters trust and disclosure, and how decentralised blockchains can sustainably replace trusted intermediaries. Chapter 1 argues that the 'privacy paradox' --- that individuals claim to value privacy, yet readily disclose personal data --- arises because privacy is treated as monolithic, when it is multidimensional. I develop a framework that distinguishes voluntary disclosure from involuntary data diffusion, reconciling the paradox by showing that disclosures reflect contextual trade-offs. Using a discrete choice experiment, I provide estimates of privacy valuations across both institutional and social contexts. I find that privacy has substantial value when exposure results in harmful consequences, such as socially revealing data reaching close contacts. I also document an AI privacy puzzle: individuals are less concerned about privacy from AI assistants than from the firms that develop them. Chapter 2 examines this AI privacy puzzle. Using a survey experiment, I replicate the finding from Chapter 1 specifically for firms in the AI industry, highlighting the privacy gap that arises despite the clear product--firm relationship. An information treatment that explicitly links AI assistants to their firms increases concern about both, but does not significantly reduce this gap. Instead, the gap also reflects the anthropomorphic features of AI assistants, aversion to the commercial nature of firms, and the trust and perceived control consumers attach to each. However, when respondents evaluate real-world AI assistant--firm pairs, brand familiarity is the strongest predictor of where privacy concern is attributed. Chapter 3 considers decentralised trust in blockchain systems, in which consensus mechanisms replace trusted intermediaries. I propose a 'proof of quiet quitting' consensus mechanism that reduces the excessive energy consumption of proof of work while retaining the decentralisation that proof of stake can compromise. By introducing a participation lottery with unrestricted entry and an endogenous cutoff, the mechanism separates maximum effort capacity from the probability of winning, inducing participants to exert no more than the minimum effort required in equilibrium.
When Ethereum (ETH) shifted from a Proof of Work (PoW) protocol to a Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol, not all users were enthused. We use Ethereumâs shift from PoW to PoS as a case study for the broader question of whether developers of a blockchain owe its members certain fiduciary or fiduciary-like duties. We argue that if done properly, in accordance to the rules governing the blockchain, then developers do not necessarily owe fiduciary responsibility to other members of the chain, but they nonetheless may owe fiduciary-like responsibilities to users inadvertently and negatively impacted. We argue these users may be entitled to an oppression claim akin to what minority shareholders may be entitled to in the corporate law context.
Existing scholarship often employs metaphors that depict platforms as fixed, bounded spaces. This paper introduces the concept of âliquid platformsâ, inspired by the metaphor of liquidity, to critically examine the fluid, layered and contested nature of contemporary digital economies. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with non-fungible token collectors and industry leaders based in Hong Kong, I demonstrate how these actors enact a form of âmakeshift decentralisationâ through the manipulation of fluid platform boundaries, labour-intensive âgrindingâ practices and visualisation tools, all aimed at imbuing non-fungible tokens with liquidity. Despite these efforts to manufacture price stability, platforms remain susceptible to structural liquidity corrections. The analysis highlights the increasingly important role that platforms â both as infrastructural and sociotechnical systems â play in generating liquidity. The âliquid platformâ metaphor offers a valuable framework for understanding the ever more complex, unstable dynamics that shape modern digital economies.
This paper applies public choice theory to the governance of proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain systems, treating consensus mechanism design as constitutional political economy. The argument proceeds in two stages. The first establishes a feasibility constraint: under four conditions characterising permissionless systems-anonymity, permissionlessness, Sybil resistance, and oracle independence-identity-based governance is structurally infeasible, and any viable mechanism must weight participation by a costly, rivalrous signal (Propositions 1 and 2). The second establishes the normative content of that constraint. Through five constitutional axioms derived from Buchanan and Tullock (1962) and Brennan and Buchanan (1985), we prove that dynamic legitimacy-governance authority proportional to current productive commitment-is the uniquely required standard (Proposition 3). In a scaled PoW system, governance authority is structurally inseparable from productive participation: a miner cannot govern the network without running it. Proof of stake violates the temporal non-persistence axiom at the protocol level, creating the rent-seeking structure Krueger (1974) identifies, which regulatory capture dynamics documented by Stigler (1971), Peltzman (2022), and Fitzgerald (2024) then entrench endogenously. The paper derives five testable predictions and situates PoW governance within the constitutional economics and rent-seeking traditions of public choice theory.
This Article examines how platforms such as OnlyFans have transformed pornographic content creation and complicated the legal landscape for online sex workers. The COVID-19 pandemic, remote work, unemployment, celebrity influence, and shifting cultural attitudes toward sex work contributed to a dramatic increase in the use of subscription-based adult content platforms. At the same time, emerging technologies, including cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, have reshaped how pornographic content is created, monetized, distributed, and exploited. This Article argues that the growth of online sex work raises urgent intellectual property, privacy, and safety concerns that should not be dismissed because of the stigma surrounding sex work. Content creators face copyright infringement, unauthorized distribution, fake profiles, deepfakes, harassment, cyberstalking, privacy breaches, and exploitation, while existing platform protections and legal remedies remain incomplete. The Article further considers how AI and blockchain-based technologies may both empower creators and create new vulnerabilities. This Article calls for a more serious legal response to online sex work, one that recognizes pornographic content as protectable creative labor. Ensuring safe online sex work requires culturally competent legal representation, stronger education about intellectual property rights, thoughtful information policy for AI, and legal reforms that protect creators without undermining free expression or the safety of trafficking victims.
This article examines whether blockchain-based decentralization poses challenges to the legal order amenable to incremental regulatory adaptation, or with structural inadequacies in its very foundations. Legal orders presuppose the identification of subjects â natural persons, legal entities, public authorities â to whom rights and obligations are attributed. Attribution unfolds across three constitutive dimensions: territory, language, and embodied legal subjectivity. Blockchain technology and autonomous decentralized systems â Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, Decentralized Finance protocols â destabilize each, operating without identifiable centres of accountable authority. The challenge is therefore structural, not regulatory: as centres of attribution recede, legal categories lose the referent that grounds their meaning. Regulatory responses â the MiCAR Regulation, US enforcement actions â vest accountability in identifiable subjects. Integrating decentralized technologies thus brings to light the need to reconstitute identifiable centres of attribution: not a mere adaptation of the existing normative framework, but an exercise in institutional innovation.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represent a novel organizational form enabled by blockchain technology, characterized by decentralized governance, token-based incentives, and automated execution via smart contracts. This paper conceptualizes DAOs as entrepreneurial firms, examining their governance structures, incentive mechanisms, and failure dynamics. Drawing on emerging empirical studies and organizational theory, the paper argues that while DAOs reduce traditional agency costs and enhance transparency, they introduce new coordination challenges, participation inefficiencies, and systemic vulnerabilities. The analysis reveals that governance concentration, misaligned incentives, and low participation rates contribute significantly to DAO failure rates. The paper proposes a hybrid governance framework integrating decentralized mechanisms with adaptive institutional controls to improve DAO sustainability. This study contributes to entrepreneurship literature by positioning DAOs as a new frontier in digital firm formation and entrepreneurial finance.
For most of the last decade, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles and the world of Bitcoin and Web3 have existed on opposite sides of the corporate conversation. ESG represented the rise of responsible capitalism â a commitment to sustainability, stakeholder accountability, and ethical governance that traditional institutions were being pressured to adopt. Bitcoin and Web3, meanwhile, were seen by many critics as antithetical to those ideals: energy-hungry, unregulated, ungoverned, and speculative. That characterisation is now rapidly becoming outdated.