The emergence of blockchain technology created an entire industry of innovative new digital assets--or tokens--and diverse new fields of expertise founded on ideological aspirations of a new World Wide Web that reimagines digital value transfer through decentralization and disintermediation. Experimentation in the so-called "Web3" industry produces rich new fields of ethnographic study revealing the experiences of diverse individuals navigating novel technological capabilities which give way to new avenues of identity formation, community building, and ecosystem creation. These exciting new endeavors come with difficult challenges threatening the realization of ambitious visions for digital futures. Ethnographic research conducted through discourse analysis, participant observation, and formal and informal interviewing identified three key challenges stemming from Web3 builder experiences creating ecosystems through token-economic design: the prevalence of scams impedes productive development and mainstream perception, tokenomics--the design and study of token-based economies forming much of the Web3 industry--is highly complex and under-developed as a field lacking sufficient expertise to meet demand, and regulatory uncertainty prohibitively raises costs and risk for builders. As the industry continues to grow more social science research and interest is needed to shed light on human experiences with these novel technologies.
Blockchain technology provides a promising solution for collaborative economy systems by offering a decentralized, transparent, and secure platform. This is mainly accomplished through smart contracts, which are self-executing computer programs that facilitate, verify, and enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Digital tokens, on the other hand, are used to represent assets or currencies in these systems. Despite the benefits of Blockchain-based collaborative economy systems, significant security concerns are associated with them. These include the possibility of fraud, risk assessment, bugs in smart contracts, and cyber-attacks. For instance, attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in smart contracts to perform reentrancy and infinite loop attacks, leading to significant financial losses. To address these security challenges, this paper proposes integrating artificial intelligence models to prevent vulnerabilities in smart contracts and detect anomalies. Specifically, Graph Neural Networks models can be utilized to safeguard Blockchain-based collaborative economy platforms from attacks such as reentrancy and infinite loop attacks. According to the findings, this approach can accurately identify both normal and abnormal traffic and classify specific types of attacks. The framework's performance is further evaluated using various metrics to ensure its effectiveness in detecting anomalies, thereby providing an additional layer of security for Blockchain-based collaborative economy systems.
One of the most intriguing discussions concerning blockchain technology revolves around its potential to ‘do good’. Consequently, numerous projects and institutions are showing interest in the capacity of blockchain to impact the social sphere positively. However, so far, very little literature has addressed the fundamental notion of ‘good’ that underlies its implementation or explores its connection to social justice theories. This article aims to analyse the narratives that surround the use of blockchain for social good and to compare them with traditional concepts that are significant in social justice theories, such as distribution and recognition. Results show that the selected informants involved in the blockchain scene tend to frame social good in rational, mathematical, and often competitive terms. This tendency contributes to the reinforcement of a neoliberal imaginary that neglects to address structural inequalities as relevant issues. Instead, it envisions social justice as an avenue for generating value, enhancing meritocracy, and ensuring technical accountability, echoing Silicon Valley's aspirations to ‘change the world’.
Abstract This commentary explores the feasibility of blockchain technologies (and cryptocurrencies) in contesting the power of centralized, corporate platforms. While proponents of blockchain and cryptocurrencies regularly proclaim their power to decentralize and counter corporate power, I am much more constrained in my assessment and note the significant challenges facing open blockchain approaches in competing with platforms. From this, I highlight three key areas in which blockchains may complicate platform operations, albeit in indeterminate ways. These include (i) closed, state-based blockchain systems focused on making back-office processes more efficient, (ii) the use of cryptocurrencies for platform-based transactions and (iii) providing digital objects with an element of “uniqueness” that makes them tradable in new ways. In the end, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are technologies like any others, providing affordances for some kinds of action over others but ultimately their embeddedness in practice and space shapes how they impact the organization and geography of economies, societies and regions.
Blockchain technologies are of great interest to marketers uncovering opportunities in the context of the sharing economy. The novel appeal of blockchain is that it provides an immutable audit trail of digital tokens and contracts via a peer-to-peer (P2P) network without the need for a market intermediary. It thus enables digital exchange without the need for a trusted central authority or third party, affording an infrastructure for a variety of applications. We assess how blockchain technologies facilitate sharing beyond its role as a technological protocol and how it instead operates as a social machine. We explore these implications for marketing philosophically through the lenses of assemblage and pharmakon. We identify two contradictions for marketers: (1) how marketing with blockchain technologies in the sharing economy challenges past institutional roles of marketers and seeks to eradicate them, and (2) how these technologies produce a new notion of capitalized sociality devoid of trust.
Expatriates, or migrant workers, are employees who work outside their home country and reside in a foreign country for the purpose of work. They are often subject to job fraud, employment contract violations, and poor working conditions. These calamities are mainly due to language barriers, limited legal protection, and feeling inferior in their host countries. Many reports have indicated that minimum working and living standards for expatriates are not as adequately enforced as those for domestic employees. These issues may be elevated with the presence of an employment contract framework, which would enable better enforcement and wider visibility for both workers and employers. Thus, we propose a blockchain-powered framework to represent expatriate employment contracts as digital assets managed by smart contracts. It enables employers to create contracts to which employees agree in a decentralized, tamper-proof, transparent, and traceable manner. This framework facilitates auditability, tracking, and enhanced visibility of expatriate employment contracts and job history verification for both workers and employers. We provide a prototype implementation using the Hyperledger Fabric platform and analyze the framework qualitatively from scalability, efficiency, security, and privacy perspectives.
Adah-Kole Emmanuel Onjewu, Nigel Walton, Ioannis Koliousis
Longstanding assumptions underlying strategic alliances, such as agency theory, are actively being revoked by dynamics in the new economy. The mechanism of inter-firm cooperation is increasingly being altered by radical developments in blockchains and artificial intelligence among other technologies. To capture and address this shift, this review takes a problematisation approach and focuses wholly on the pertinence of agency theory. First, it begins by acknowledging the established corpus in the area before, second, appraising the seven long-held assumptions in the principal-agent relationship encompassing (1) self-interest, (2) conflicting goals, (3) bounded rationality, (4) information asymmetry, (5) pre-eminence of efficiency, (6) risk aversion and (7) information as a commodity. Third, to add a fresh perspective, the review proceeds to proffer seven assumptions to advance a novel ‘Blockchain Agency Theory’ that would better describe new attributes and relaxed agency behaviour in blockchain alliances. These counter assumptions are (1) common interests, (2) congruent goals, (3) unbounded rationality, (4) information symmetry, (5) smart contracts, (6) mean risk and (7) information availability. In the fourth part, the prior audience of principals and agents is appraised and this culminates into, fifth, a consideration of a new audience of blockchain agency in algocratic environments. Altogether, the seven new assumptions extend and provoke new agency thinking among scholars and blockchain practitioners alike.
The future iteration of the internet is often branded as Web3, claimed to be a decentralising phase of its evolution, a reaction to the centralisation in the Web 2.0 era. This upcoming version of the internet, afforded by distributed ledgers and blockchain technologies, is sometimes also called the "Web of Value". It highlights the expectation that as much of the content and services on the internet get “tokenised”, which enables their trade and related operations of ‘value creation’. It is claimed that as the value of everything on the internet becomes more salient, conditioning new kinds of economic activities, relationships and forms of organising. In this article we discuss these expectations as imaginaries, the implications of which vary based on how they are framed or interpreted by different economic theories. More specifically, the article discusses the interpretations deriving from neoclassical economics, classical economics, heterodox economics and public value theory. We demonstrate significant differences between these interpretations and how they are offering competing imaginaries on the future internet.
Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) have been widely endorsed in various areas and by numerous entities. With the promises of decentralisation, taking out the middlepersons and cost-efficiency, DLT-implementations seem desirable in various fields, from finance and copyright to health. However, all pros come with cons. DLTs’ architecture may by nature run counter to some data protection principles; this could limit or even halt innovation. Moreover, there is a tendency for (re)centralisation contesting the very nature of DLTs and risking having centralised systems serving the economic interests of the few big players, instead of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the many. Last, contemporary forms of DLTs, allowing for smart contracting, appear to challenge traditional contract laws. This contribution aims to address the above challenges. It argues that data protection laws, dynamically interpreted, could raise security thresholds and promote the development of user-friendly and decentralised DLTs, thus avoiding (re)centralisation; and that, while smart contracting appears suitable in various situations, it can be avoided where traditional legal contracts can better satisfy the individual needs and desires of the parties. Finally, the concluding section recommends that regulators wait for scientific advances in the field and carefully balance the fundamental rights and freedoms at stake before introducing DLTs in the public sphere. Keywords: Distributed Ledger Technologies | Decentralisation | Pseudonymisation | Smart Contracts
E-diasporas are networks driven by human agency, connecting digital citizens to their home countries and diasporic fellows through digital tools. In contrast, Hyperconnected Diasporas (HD) are data-driven networks engaged in extractive activities, often employed for government (para)diplomacy, heavily relying on social media extractivist data-opolies or Big Tech platforms. This article examines the impact of disruptive technologies on e-diasporas in the context of data extractivism, particularly stemming from HD. The article pursues a dual objective: (i) reviewing existing literature and comparing five disruptive technologies—Blockchain, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Data Cooperatives, Metaverse, and ChatGPT—in sustaining e-diasporas as networks driven by human agency, and (ii) scrutinizing associated opportunities and risks, including challenges to institutional trust and data privacy arising from HD. The study seeks to elucidate how these technologies may either hinder or exacerbate the impacts of HD on e-diasporas, characterized by their human-driven nature. The article begins with an introduction to HD, followed by a literature review on e-diasporas. Methodologically, it presents a comparative analysis of the five disruptive technologies concerning the research question and discusses their implications for e-diasporic communities, concluding with final remarks.
Abstract Much like traditional credit scoring, decentralized credit scoring calculates a borrower's creditworthiness, but the fully automated process is executed on the blockchain by Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms. Originally, DeFi emerged as an alternative to the centralized traditional finance (TradFi) system; however, decentralized credit scoring combines DeFi data and traditional data that include a wide range of information sources, from traditional credit reports to social media information. Despite their fairness‐oriented narrative, an examination of the business models of the protocols and entities operating in this space reveals that these hybrid scores are subject to the same algorithmic distortions that have been observed in traditional and alternative credit scoring models. Moreover, decentralized credit scores present their own distinctive set of fairness issues. Particularly, both upgrade to smart contracts and their reliance on external algorithms, known as oracles, which feed outside data, introduce heightened potential for error and bias in the credit scoring process. These “black box 3.0” issues can result in opaque automation of biased processes and perpetuate social injustices, requiring regulatory intervention to strengthen the linkage points between DeFi and TradFi and better protect consumers from the black box 3.0 consequences of decentralized credit scores.
Shengnan Li, Florian Spychiger, Claudio J. Tessone
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) variants provide an energy-efficient alternative to Proof-of-Work (PoW). However, it is not clear whether practical PoS implementations are fair with respect to wealth, stake, and reward distribution. In this paper, we analyse the fairness of the four wellknown PoS platforms Tezos, Polkadot, Cardano, and Casper through a data-driven approach. For this, we collect data on stakes and rewards for all the four platforms over several years. We then apply four measures to study the fairness along different dimensions. We calculate the Gini coefficient to explore the wealth inequality, the Nakamoto coefficient to investigate the degree of decentralization, and the expectational and robust fairness of the stake-reward proportions, i.e., if the validators receive their fair share of the rewards given their stake share. We can show that there are dynamics of high wealth inequalities and stake centralization in all the systems with Polkadot being the exception. With respect to stake-reward fairness, the platforms differ in the distributions of deviations from the fair share, i.e., in Cardano and Tezos, the differences have a lower magnitue as many small validators participate. However, by examining specific outcomes, we can show that platforms with a limited validator set such as Polkadot and Casper tend to be fairer regarding the reward payoffs, but it is not possible for smaller validators to participate. This mechanism sheds light on a trade-off that the platforms face: the more inclusive (open) the validation process is designed, the unfairer the reward distribution tends to be. Our results allow us to conclude that the way of how PoS is implemented matters greatly for its fairness.
Maria Elisabete Gomes Ramos, Ana Azevedo, Deolinda Meira, Mariana Curado Malta
Digital Transformation (DT) has become an important issue for organisations. It is proven that DT fuels Digital Innovation in organisations. It is well-known that technologies and practices such as distributed ledger technologies, open source, analytics, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) enhance DT. Among those technologies, AI provides tools to support decision-making and automatically decide. Cooperatives are organisations with a mutualistic scope and are characterised by having participatory cooperative governance due to the principle of democratic control by the members. In a context where DT is here to stay, where the dematerialisation of processes can bring significant advantages to any organisation, this article presents a critical reflection on the dangers of using AI technologies in cooperatives. We base this reflection on the Portuguese cooperative code. We emphasise that this code is not very different from the ones of other countries worldwide as they are all based on the Statement of Cooperative Identity defined by the International Cooperative Alliance. We understand that we cannot stop the entry of AI technologies into the cooperatives. Therefore, we present a framework for using AI technologies in cooperatives to avoid damaging the principles and values of this type of organisations.
Alan Moreira Lopes, Jurandir Peinado, Fernando Ressetti Pinheiro Marques Vianna, Francis Kanashiro Meneghetti
This article seeks to identify the main factors in adopting smart contracts and the way these factors are known and taken into account by Brazilian companies. Thus, we conducted 30 interviews among Brazilian businesses. Results confirmed the existence of an alignment among the perspectives of the characteristics, benefits and adoption factors for smart contracts. Also, it was possible to conclude that the practice of smart contracts is still incipient in Brazil, and the prospects for applying them in companies have been spurred by the health restrictions put in place by the combat against COVID-19.
Kamilla Marchewka-Bartkowiak, Michał Litwiński, Karolina Nowak
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way people operate in all fields of their activity – individual, social, economic, cultural, civic, to name the most essential spheres. Personal tokens are a kind of digital tokens based on blockchain technology, more widely referred to as distributed ledger technology (DLT). Gig workers are conceptualised in the broadest terms as workers who perform and complete short-term on-demand work for various employers. The professional group in which interesting axiological differences arose was the one offering financial services. A personal token seems to be an appropriate tool for valuation of services offered online. Token owners seem to be driven by the additional motive – acquiring a network effect. In the context of the axiological dimension of the ways issuers value their services, the dominant values represented axiological areas related to the sphere of individual cognitive activity and emotional experience.
This paper asks: how does smart-contracting think through the knotted relation between freedom and captivity expressed in contract? Contrary to the transcendental register of universalist humanity and right contemporary imaginations of justice deliriously describe, this paper triangulates between contract, free will, and the slave to consider how the time of slavery persists in and as the exchange protocols encoded on blockchain platforms. The stakes here concern a need to track the deep continuity of anti-Blackness, white supremacy and their associated legal constructs as they replicate within the “extra-legal” field of digital exchange protocols, before ending with a challenge to the grammar of credit, labor and right the slave’s emancipation is always forced to rhetorically work through.
George Cristian Lăzăroiu, Korhan Kayışlı, Mariacristina Roscia, Ilinca Andreaa Steriu
Managing electricity effectively also means knowing as accurately as possible when, where and how electricity is used. Detailed metering and timely allocation of consumption can help identify specific areas where energy consumption is excessive and therefore requires action and optimization. All those interested in the measurement process (distributors, sellers, wholesalers, managers, ultimately customers and new prosumer figures - producers / consumers -) have an interest in monitoring and managing energy flows more efficiently, in real time.Smart meter plays a key role in sending data containing consumer measurements to both the producer and the consumer, thanks to chain 2. It allows you to connect consumption and production, during use and the customer’s identity, allowing billing as Time-of-Use or Real-Time Pricing, and through the new two-way channel, this information is also made available to the consumer / prosumer himself, enabling new services such as awareness of energy consumption at the very moment of energy use.This is made possible by latest generation devices that "talk" with the end user, which use chain 2 and the power line for communication.However, the implementation of smart meters and related digital technologies associated with the smart grid raises various concerns, including, privacy. This paper provides a comparative perspective on privacy policies for residential energy customers, moreover, it will be possible to improve security through the blockchain for the introduction of smart contracts.
In this paper I employ a mixed methods approach in an effort to study a novel family of case studies in human collectivization - DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). Born out of the blockchain ecosystem and the sociology of the internet, these organizations greatly overlap with common pool resource systems and common goods systems studied in traditional literature. Under this lens, DAOs are found to overcome problems of cooperation by utilizing algorithmic governance. Six case studies are discussed, and specific designs are examined with regards to the tendency of the members to free ride. Ultimately, DAOs are found to be an immature - yet promising, blueprint for the future of human cooperation, fully compatible and relevant to the work of Samuel Olson and Elinor Ostrom.
본 연구는 암호화폐, 대체불가토큰으로 융기된 블록체인 경제에서 자본-노동의 새로운 지형들을 조망한다. 노동이 암호화되고 자본이 탈중앙화되는 크립토자본주의 국면에서 임금을 매개로 교환되지 않는 노동, 상품을 매개로 하지 않는 이윤, 스스로 분산플랫폼이 되는 기술 등 초자본주의적 축적 징후가 나타난다. 블록체인의 P2P 네트워크 기반 분산처리와 암호화는 탈중앙화 기술체계를 광범위한 영역에서 하나의 자본주의적 명령으로 나타난다. 이는 사용가치와 교환이 부재한 노동생산물을 금융화의 신항로로 유도하는 특이한 양상을 보인다. 이에 따라 노동과정 또한 탈중앙화되고, 개별 노동은 신체와 신체 간의 분업으로 분할되는 것이 아니라 노드, 피어 단위의 P2P 분업으로 분산된다. 반면 축적은 금융적 물신 위에 쌓아올려진 산 노동의 지층 위에서 가동된다. 이 글은 미디어 정치경제학 비판의 프레임워크를 통해 크립토자본주의의 동학을 크게 두 가지 방향에서 분석한다. 첫째, 암호화폐와 NFT 기반 블록체인 경제에서 어떤 작업과 분업이 동반되는가? 둘째, 블록체인의 탈중앙화 기술체계는 어떤 로직으로 다양한 비임금 노동을 수탈하는가? 이를 통해 본 연구는 크립토자본주의적 축적의 자본-노동-기술 회로도를 그려내고자 한다.
This article develops a sociolegal analysis of the legislation and tax policies implemented by the US and Puerto Rico (PR) governments to incentivize venture capitalists and cryptocurrency investors to relocate to PR. Specifically, the article looks at the role that Act 60 of 2019 played in attracting blockchain proponents and cryptocurrency investors to PR. By analyzing this tax policy and the governmental official discourses, this article demonstrates that the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors have contributed to the transformation of PR into an offshore financial center or tax haven. Furthermore, the article shows how grassroot movements, among them Abolish Act 60, have organized against this transformation. Thus, the article demonstrates how the slogan “The Paradise Performs” is largely embedded in legal practices, tax evasion, and fraud.
This article aims to demonstrate that blockchain technology is the most optimal solution to tackle the significant challenge that Value Added Tax (VAT) non-compliance poses to the European Union (EU). VAT non-compliance, particularly evasion and fraud, is a complex and costly challenge to EU tax authorities and nations as a whole. Current compliance mechanisms fail to sufficiently ensure the collection of VAT in an effective and truly secure manner, leaving VAT and associated data open to misreporting and exploitation, posing a risk to both individual and national security. Focusing on the design aspects of security, transparency, and efficiency, it will be argued that blockchain provides the opportunity to tackle non-compliance whilst achieving a balance in both taxpayer’s wants and tax authorities’ needs. Utilizing current examples of blockchain implementation, as well as a specific VAT Coin proposal, it is demonstrated that a blockchain solution can come in many forms; be it a public, private or consortium blockchain, with each type respectively achieving compliance whilst prioritizing different aspects of data security and privacy. Ultimately, it is indicated that a blockchain-based VAT system has the potential to enable a significant reduction in the risk of non-compliance, whilst streamlining taxpayer obligations and protecting valuable datasets. blockchain, VAT, tax, cryptocurrency, MTF, VATCoin, fraud, non-compliance, security, EU