Blockchain Papers

Judith Clifton, Leslie A. Pal

Blockchain is a new, emerging technology that is expected to have deep and “disruptive” effects on our economies and societies. It offers a new paradigm for the way in which information is registered, stored, and transacted. Blockchain is actually only one example of distributed ledger technology, which constitutes a physically decentralized and secure database, in the sense data are not held in one central site, rather they are held and updated simultaneously across several sites, theoretically making it more difficult to hack (Weiss and Biermann, 2020). Blockchain allows generated information to be stored in “blocks,” each of which is “stamped” and linked to the previous one, creating an unchangeable record of transactions (Cagigas et al., 2021). The process is conducted and verified via a predefined network protocol or “consensus mechanism” that specifies how the system is ruled. This permissions architecture can be used to determine whether, and to what extent, the blockchain itself will be largely left under the control of a centralized entity or authority or whether access and control of the blockchain will be shared among all those interested in participating. For example, depending on the permissions granted, participation in the verification process can be open and free or restricted to a group of users. In addition, the information registered in the blockchain can be more or less openly shared. At the most general level, then, blockchains are secure, immutable, anonymous, and decentralized digital records (or ledgers) of user-verified digital transactions. The first well-known blockchain product to emerge was Bitcoin, in 2008, which utilizes the technology for its most familiar usage—“cryptocurrency.” Today, there are thousands of cryptocurrencies that have been launched with different degrees of success.1 Since cryptocurrency became well known, there has been a second spike in public consciousness about blockchain around non-fungible tokens (NFTs), where one-of-a-kind digital assets are bought and sold every day. These NFTs can be as trivial as a “signed Tweet,” one of which was sold via auction in March 2021 for almost US$3 million.2 Yet, only 1 year later, the same product was put up for sale again, the highest bid being only US$280, inevitably questioning its intrinsic price.3 As a result, blockchain is sometimes associated with crypto-criminality, money laundering, or questionable frivolities in the digital art market. Despite these better-known commercial applications, blockchain can also be applied to the public sphere: government, public policy, and public services. Indeed, in recent years, governments and international organizations around the world have started to deploy blockchain in a growing number of services, including digital identity management, health, food and agriculture, land registry, public procurement, defense, aviation, value chains, logistics, and more.4 So, while the early hype and possibilities of blockchain were grossly inflated (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2016) and the “blockchain revolution” is still to come in the way that the portable computing, the internet, and cell phones did, there are significant implications to the technology, both as a target and as a tool of public policy and indeed as a possible new form of governance (Campbell-Verduyn, 2018). Among these implications are higher-order questions on the nature of money, law, and democracy—and even the state itself (Atzori, 2015). Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been issued outside of the traditional financial sector and have become a means of financial exchange and wealth-storage beyond the reach of governments—and among their more radical proponents, that is a feature, not a bug. Hence, states are already examining the issue of regulating cryptocurrencies not only because of their potential for being used in illegal transactions and money laundering but also for their potential threat to financial stability (FSB, 2021). It may be attractive too for financial interests to “tame” crypto and turn it into just another investment vehicle. The implications for the nature of law were first forcefully put forward by Lawrence Lessig: “code is law” (Lessig, 1999, 2006). This refers to a species of “algorithmic governance” where the routines and assumptions embedded in computer codes “govern” human behavior (Noble, 2018; Pasquale, 2015). More importantly, the code, for example, in the form of a smart contract, can trump the “law” in the sense of legislation or rules determined by state authorities. For example, remote services can be contracted in one part of the world, paid for through an app such as Satoshipay, and governed by a smart contract. The legal and taxation regimes within which those contracting parties reside become irrelevant. In both the arch-examples of currency and law, we see the potentially radical disintermediation that is either lamented or celebrated by promotors of blockchain technologies. Blockchain can go further and deeper in upending our conventional concepts of democracy and the state. For example, for most purposes, government-issued ID (passports, driver’s licenses, and birth certificates) are considered the foundation of one’s formal and legal identity. Indeed, a pioneer public case is currently being developed in the European Union (EU) within the realm of self-sovereign identity (SSI), namely the European Self-Sovereign Identity Framework (ESSIF).5 Moreover, there are also private initiatives: through Blockchain Helix, people can establish digital identities that give them an immutable record of who they are. The “national” passport could be eclipsed by the digital ID, which can then be used for borderless transactions. The point of these innovations is sometimes difficult to grasp since they seem to be only “added layers” to existing, secure, and accepted forms of ID. All current forms of ID can be counterfeited, hence the lengths that governments go to protect the security, for example, of a passport. We can see the problem more clearly in the case of academic or professional credentials. As labor markets go global, the barriers to “proving” one’s university or training qualifications (e.g., degrees, certificates, and CVs) rise considerably with requirements for attestation from various “official” bodies. Blockchain potentially upends this. The upending is moderate, a mere tilt, if governments (e.g., the ESSIF above) build the blockchain architecture. The upending is radical if individuals no longer need government and if their digital ID is blockchain-solid and accepted anywhere. The digital ID would supplant the government passport or other state-sanctioned ID. The current value of “citizenship” would be further debased. Another example is governance processes, in both private and public spheres. The LiquidFeedback platform promises a “unique democracy software” to promote self-organization of units as small as an association or company or as large as municipalities. Bitnation goes further still and promises “a blockchain jurisdiction in which communities can be built, contracts made, disputes resolved, and agreements positively enforced through reputation. Within this jurisdiction, governance services such as peer-to-peer security, insurance and education can be accessed via third-party dapps.” You can even start your own “nation” if you like. Of course, this seems absurd—until we interrogate the core functionalities of the modern nation-state and consequently of “citizenship.” A contract between two parties who reside in the same “jurisdiction” is subject to adjudication and enforcement by that jurisdiction. When the parties are from different jurisdictions, the contract usually specifies which of the legal frameworks govern the agreement. Alternatively, there are provisions in international commercial law or treaties that will govern such agreements. Once again, blockchain upends this. A contract between parties in Montreal and Mumbai can be forged in blockchain, with its own self-executing provisions that have nothing to do with the jurisdictions within which the parties reside. Some analysts believe blockchain has libertarian and autarkic disintermediation in its DNA,6 but this has not stopped some governments from embracing the technology as the “next big thing” in governance and policy platforms; Dubai, for example, has a blockchain strategy that it claims will make it the “happiest city on earth.”7 This is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021, which aims to transform 50% of government transactions to blockchain.8 Its plan comprises a national system built around a unique digital ID for each citizen/resident, which they can then use to access government documents and services. The EU has a blockchain strategy, which includes the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure that is a joint effort of the EU states, Norway, Liechtenstein, and the European Commission.9 The overarching intent is to provide “legal certainty” and avoid “regulatory fragmentation.” Estonia has been the pioneer in digital governance, embracing e-government as early as 1997. It was the first government to use blockchain technology in 2012 with its Succession Registry, maintained by the Ministry of Justice. The blockchain platform now includes the following registries: health care, property, business, succession, digital court system, surveillance tracking information system: official state announcements, and the state gazette. Anarchists, drug cartels,10 financial institutions, and some governments (from the Baltics to Arab emirates) have embraced blockchain, but the policy research community is alarmingly late to the party. Debate and analysis on blockchain have been dominated by computing science and fintech, and more recently by legal scholars, even though the implications for policy science and public policy are potentially staggering. Even if we think of the implications only in terms of blockchain as a “tool” (something to be used in the delivery of public services) for public policy or as a “target” (threats to be managed), the list of services that could be disrupted by blockchain is significant. It is only in the recent period that the lack of attention to blockchain from the policy research community has started to change. This attention to blockchain can be quantified: a systematic review of the academic literature on blockchain in the public sector shows a sharp increase from 2015 onward (Cagigas et al., 2021). In parallel, there has been a significant increase in the number of policy documents on blockchain produced by international policy organizations, including the EU,11 the OECD,12 the United Nations (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and UNWOMAN), and the World Bank.13 From the perspective of government and policy, blockchain is being used as a tool, for example, in the following activities: Record-keeping (health records, land registries, and vehicle registration); identity attestation (passports, ID cards, birth certificates, marriage, and divorce) Payments and remittances (Rodima‐Taylor & Grimes, 2019) Central Bank Digital Currencies, mostly known by their acronym CBDCs (although very few are currently considering using blockchain in their final pilots14) Secure and transparent delivery of cash benefits and tokens Smart contracts Supply chain management (tracking) Traceability systems (food safety and conflict minerals) (Muirhead & Porter, 2019) Insurance contracts And, as regards policy targets (threats) associated with blockchain, the following lead the concern: Money laundering (e.g., Financial Action Task Force) Financial services regulation (and experimentation) Carbon footprint of cryptocurrency “mining” Cyber-threats and cyber-warfare Tax evasion It is now timely to bring together a collection of articles by leading international experts that focus on what blockchain might mean for the economy and society, the regulatory dilemmas it presents, and possible policy solutions. The articles selected for this special issue all focus on core characteristics or promises of blockchain technology from a societal perspective and contemplate the regulatory challenges and dilemmas therein. For example, at the most generic level, blockchain technology is expected to be disruptive, meaning it is expected that, after initially taking root in simple, specific applications, it will increasingly replace previous technologies and bring about profound changes in the ways in which processes are completed, bringing about increased efficiencies and greater transparency and data security. However, these potential advantages must be considered alongside blockchain’s high-energy consumption needs, processing speed and cost. Blockchain thus presents trade-off dilemmas for policymakers seeking to promote economic growth, innovation, and sustainability. At higher and more abstract levels, we should also contemplate the potential impact of blockchain on our received notions of state sovereignty, citizenship, and governance. A key question for policymakers today is how can and should blockchain be regulated? De Filippi et al. (2022) pose the question of how policy can be designed to regulate and legalize a technology like blockchain that is “alegal” by design. The public, permissionless version of blockchain was explicitly designed to be decentralized, anonymous, and beyond the control of government. Some of the uses to which it was consequently put were clearly illegal, but many are “alegal” in the sense that they are simply beyond the scope of government to regulate or even “see” and have a self-regulatory, non-state bounded character of simple facticity. Blockchain is neither legal nor illegal, it just is or at least it “just was” in the moment of its creation/design by Satoshi Nakamoto (possibly a person, possibly a pseudonym). It was a completely new economic and payment system that had not existed before and thus was beyond law. The article shows, with a brief example of the attack on The DAO (a decentralized investment fund deployed as a smart contract on Ethereum in 2016), how far beyond normal legal or governmental interventions it was. However, policymakers are not entirely impotent—they can still regulate intermediaries, commercial operators, or mining pools and establish arbitration regimes, and indeed governments in the USA and in Europe have imposed anti-money laundering regulations and blacklists. De Filippi et al. (2022) register the limits of these approaches and instead argue for the creation of “regulatory sandboxes” (already used by the financial industry) that would permit leading and regulatory and from regulatory that would still regulatory The article by and (2022) on another core question to of policy and public distributed ledger technology, and other systems are to be is on specific and such as and rather governance, or conventional transparency and of and even if they are not they are embedded in frameworks that their they are subject to public their can be and on & The of technologies in may to more public services but also to such with a technology that in of digital security. and (2022) focus on the following can public In the case of institutions, what is the way public with technologies or their we a architecture or a The the use of potentially the public sector and how this may in government. then several policy with a to protect in government even if some of the used to do et al. (2022) the potential of blockchain to governments and on stored data (e.g., birth and to for Indeed, this is a core of the state The rise of on blockchain technologies is potentially provide individuals with and control their data and them to their data with using a of people can of their identity data and control and how it is their As these data need to be to be they may become a more data for digital information and transactions the formal of identity by can be used for with These may potentially the between government, and et al. (2022) information and governance in the digital using In addition, the impact of on data in the digital world is that technology might in no greater control or and might in the only current the argue that regulation and a of centralized and decentralized governance are still to avoid and that the benefits of are Blockchain be into the public sector its The article by et al. (2022) the impact of blockchain and public sector their on digital services and may well avoid embracing the of blockchain in the public sector will to some on the by public in those where the technology might their and et al. (2022) a on the of blockchain for a digital identity in public services, different around a blockchain that is more or less the sense of to being to and on the The literature shows that public can have a of or the of blockchain, depending on impact on public sector and among other The article greater of blockchain by public the more public the blockchain is open and permissionless and access to information on the public The of the of of of public in the of that a blockchain with can system a higher of while can see information in the has no possibly because the benefits of transparency are by the of of public A of articles blockchain in in the world, and at different and Blockchain technologies are increasingly being up by international organizations and a of policy (2022) that the use of blockchain by international organizations questions in international law and the conventional of In these while blockchain has and it traditional and The article on the use of blockchain by international organizations such as in the The two most public sector are identity management and attestation and the of government For example, are to their documents to their identity (e.g., and other The and to the of the for to data on It is that 1 individuals lack official identity documents and blockchain can be one tool to secure digital which can then in turn be used to establish for cash in (2022) other from the economic such as the World Blockchain All of these are one of that behavior as a new of legal system, international organizations the of in the world of As international organizations to become entirely the of their states and to greater The of has been considered an of policy but that of actually creating law, as to regulations and Blockchain may The article by and (2022) a where at least to the hype is Estonia is to have embraced blockchain early and with after built the first national blockchain the blockchain that have been built by the government to and also as to whether these blockchain the promises of associated with claims by blockchain use approaches to several blockchain to the that have in argue concepts associated with and and used by different parties to mean different that the ways in which blockchain is and are leading a of of even though this is using the of Moreover, the concepts of transparency and could be in a of used in a as a of data that the of blockchain constitutes a with being to blockchain not in even while the around blockchain it is bringing about societal Blockchain has the potential to and the of people to in can this technology to forms of of services and of self-organization In their et al. (2022) a which uses blockchain as a tool to financial and the economy more It to do through a which allows to new of tokens on the blockchain in to the of and In the a specific of to and in the for information and technology and is In the point some advantages of as regards on As this an of blockchain, that can be in a new of the blockchain are further and For example, by the that were open to and new technologies. However, some was among about using a digital among of the In addition, can be on the part of public sector who training and The articles in this special issue provide on blockchain and some of its implications for policy, society, and governance. the digital has left the and policy and public is just up with legal and computing science not to the already with digital services, and beyond the of and are the and the Blockchain is designed to be It is designed to and decentralized, and non-state and For the and not to money and blockchain promises an from the of the state. In this blockchain is both a policy question and a to be up to the It is blockchain is a to be with and of key to public policy and public We these provide a first into a deeper of the potential and and even of blockchain in the public sector and in this to

Davor Topalović

Diplomski rad predstavlja sintezu teorijskog i istraživačkog rada na temu poduzetništva i kriptovaluta. Utjecaj inovacija na poduzetništvo vidljiv je kroz povijest. Razvoj informacijskih tehnologija utjecao je na želju decentralizacije, bijega od nepotrebnih nameta i uklanjanje suvišnih posrednika, što je omogućila blockchain tehnologija. Decentralizirane platforme i kriptovalute plod su blockchain tehnologije i razvoja poduzetničkih aktivnosti vezanih za iste. Kriptovalute u posljednjih deset godina postavljaju nove postulate poduzetništva. Način plaćanja, decentralizirani prijenos imovine, anonimnost i visoka razina sigurnosti glavne su odlike kriptovaluta. U svrhu ispitivanja informiranosti građana Republike Hrvatske o kriptovalutama provedeno je istraživanje kojim je obuhvaćeno 250 ispitanika. Dobiveni rezultati anketiranih ispitanika pokazali su površno znanje o tehnologijama koje omogućuju uporabu kriptovaluta, no unatoč tome ispitanici imaju povjerenje u sigurnost kriptovaluta i trgovinu kriptovalutama. Utjecaj kriptovaluta na budućnost poslovanja nije upitna. Važno ih je uspješno integrirati u svakodnevni život i globalnu ekonomiju.

Koray Çalışkan

Electra was developed by an unknown man, Electra01. Following its emergence in cryptocurrency markets in 2018, its market capitalization briefly reached 136 billion USD, exceeding Bitcoin in value. The project’s community of 20,000 individuals, wrote its white papers, updated its blockchain, instituted a foundation, introduced a payment system, and voted to be the best crypto project in 2020 in the world by a global vote. Following a fundamental controversy in its community, Electra collapsed as the founder sold his hundreds of millions of Electras in November 2020, effectively killing the project. Within a short period, the community left the founder behind, and moved on to a new project, giving (re)birth to their community money, this time called Electra Protocol. Drawing on an empirical case study, this paper presents an analysis of how cryptocurrency communities emerge, mature and migrate as they make data monies.

Primavera De Filippi, Morshed Mannan, Wessel Reijers

Abstract Similar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.

Oluwaseun Kolade, David Adepoju, Abiodun Adegbile

Against the backdrop of debates and rising public sentiments against “Big Tech,” this paper takes a conceptual approach to explore the possibilities for blockchain technologies to disrupt the governance of the sharing economy value chains. Unlike centralized trust systems employed by multisided digital platforms, blockchains employ a decentralized, open-source system. Data can be shared, verified, and monitored using a consensus mechanism across multiple nodes. We bring insights and discussions from the extant literature to elucidate two guiding principles of the sharing economy value chains: resource optimization and data monetization. Against this backdrop, we propose a conceptual framework that compares traditional digital platforms' governance mechanisms and value drivers with block-chained enabled platforms, where resource optimization and data monetization are driven by decentralized platform co-owners rather than single platform owners. We offer case illustrations to explicate this framework and how it signposts a new, disruptive model for the governance of the collaborative economy, especially in developing countries.

Katrin Becker

This article focusses on the social and legal implications that blockchain technology brings about, not only due to its ideological framework, but also, and especially, due to the concept of law it inaugurates. Thus, this article claims, that, by interlocking technological and legal structures, blockchain technology initiates a profound displacement of legal symbolics and imaginaries. It shows how blockchain law, by emancipating itself from three essential dimensions of law-language, territory, and the body-implies a profound disruption of how we perceive law and its legitimacy. Starting with an overview of the technological details of blockchain, the paper then addresses its ideological context and traces the underlying ideas, values and functions and their relation with-and impact on-the general perception of law and legal issues. By critically assessing the claim that blockchain will liberate the subject from any heteronymic constraints, this paper analyses to what extent this technology has social and legal implications that reach far beyond its virtual, purely blockchain-related scope of applications-and why this technology should matter to us all.

León Vollerigh

León Vollerigh analysiert verschiedene Aspekte von Blockchain Governance im Hinblick auf zentrale Prinzipien des modernen Rechtsstaats und seine Durchsetzungsfähigkeit in digitalen und dezentralen Kontexten. Dabei werden zunächst relevante Prinzipien und Veränderungen moderner Staatlichkeit herausgestellt sowie die Funktion und Entwicklung von Blockchain und Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) betrachtet. Diese Grundlagen münden in die Analyse der „On-Chain Governance“ im Hinblick auf Modi der Konsensfindung. Inwieweit moderne Staatlichkeit in einer durch Internationalisierung und Privatisierung geprägten Welt durch autonome und digitale Formen von Governance herausgefordert wird und wie Governance der digitalen und dezentralisierten Welt aussehen kann, wird schließlich untersucht.

León Vollerigh

León Vollerigh analysiert verschiedene Aspekte von Blockchain Governance im Hinblick auf zentrale Prinzipien des modernen Rechtsstaats und seine Durchsetzungsfähigkeit in digitalen und dezentralen Kontexten. Dabei werden zunächst relevante Prinzipien und Veränderungen moderner Staatlichkeit herausgestellt sowie die Funktion und Entwicklung von Blockchain und Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) betrachtet. Diese Grundlagen münden in die Analyse der „On-Chain Governance“ im Hinblick auf Modi der Konsensfindung. Inwieweit moderne Staatlichkeit in einer durch Internationalisierung und Privatisierung geprägten Welt durch autonome und digitale Formen von Governance herausgefordert wird und wie Governance der digitalen und dezentralisierten Welt aussehen kann, wird schließlich untersucht.

León Vollerigh

León Vollerigh analysiert verschiedene Aspekte von Blockchain Governance im Hinblick auf zentrale Prinzipien des modernen Rechtsstaats und seine Durchsetzungsfähigkeit in digitalen und dezentralen Kontexten. Dabei werden zunächst relevante Prinzipien und Veränderungen moderner Staatlichkeit herausgestellt sowie die Funktion und Entwicklung von Blockchain und Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) betrachtet. Diese Grundlagen münden in die Analyse der „On-Chain Governance“ im Hinblick auf Modi der Konsensfindung. Inwieweit moderne Staatlichkeit in einer durch Internationalisierung und Privatisierung geprägten Welt durch autonome und digitale Formen von Governance herausgefordert wird und wie Governance der digitalen und dezentralisierten Welt aussehen kann, wird schließlich untersucht.

León Vollerigh

León Vollerigh analysiert verschiedene Aspekte von Blockchain Governance im Hinblick auf zentrale Prinzipien des modernen Rechtsstaats und seine Durchsetzungsfähigkeit in digitalen und dezentralen Kontexten. Dabei werden zunächst relevante Prinzipien und Veränderungen moderner Staatlichkeit herausgestellt sowie die Funktion und Entwicklung von Blockchain und Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) betrachtet. Diese Grundlagen münden in die Analyse der „On-Chain Governance“ im Hinblick auf Modi der Konsensfindung. Inwieweit moderne Staatlichkeit in einer durch Internationalisierung und Privatisierung geprägten Welt durch autonome und digitale Formen von Governance herausgefordert wird und wie Governance der digitalen und dezentralisierten Welt aussehen kann, wird schließlich untersucht.

Martin Tremčinský

The dissertation thesis analyzes Bitcoin as a socio-technical phenomenon by focusing on its prevalent socio-technical imaginaries and exploring these imaginaries into their contradictory consequences. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Czech and Slovak Bitcoin communities and following Lana Swartz's and Nigel Dodd's respective theories of Bitcoin, four imaginaries are identified: commodity, relation, ideology and money. Each of these imaginaries is explored in its own chapter. Bitcoin approached as a commodity explores the process of Bitcoin mining through the lens of the Marxist labour theory of value combined with Negri's theory of the socialized worker. The chapter explores how Bitcoin mining reproduces class antagonisms between miners and investors while also creating a new mode of production based on control via labour. The second chapter focuses on Bitcoin as a relation via the theories of kinship and knowledge developed by Marilyn Strathern. The chapter explores particular analogies of Bitcoin and kinship and how these analogies serve to develop relationless persons and personless relations. The following chapter analyzes Bitcoin as an ideology while utilizing theories of immaterial labour developed by Italian autonomists. It focuses on symbolic labour carried out in order to...

Cristina Poncibò

The smart contract is a computer program that facilitates the automation of processes related to human bargaining. e topic is receiving some attention in doctrine perhaps by virtue of its curious name and perhaps because the concept is closely linked to the idea of the automation of law, a hotly debated topic. Having said that, it is not clear whether this innovation will be fully applied in the next few years in the field of consumer mass bargaining. On the one hand, the issue lends itself to an initial reflection on the evolution of the standardisation of consumer contracts in the global and digital economy. Our hypothesises is the smart contract constitutes a form of 'extreme standardisation' of consumer contracts, or rather, of their total or partial execution. is form is immediately very particular and critical for the interpreter, since it is intimately linked to the technological medium (i.e. Blockchain technology) and straddles the digital world and the real one. On the other hand, the paper considers whether the automation process, which is fully realised by the smart contract after the advent of electronic commerce and digital platforms, will be an opportunity to reduce the costs of justice in consumer disputes, or, on the contrary, will constitute a risk to consumer freedoms.

Ronit Levine‐Schnur, Moran Ofir

No abstract is available for this record.

Cindy Lu

In the current era of digital transformation, technological advances have altered the landscape of information transmission and human interaction. In particular, the rapidly expanding adoption of blockchain technology has introduced the idea of decentralization, with the goal of making systems more equitable and efficient. In the cryptocurrency and digital finance space, this means replacing a centralized authority with pre-coded smart contracts that community members may vote to alter, aiming to further democratize systems of governance. However, the social contract that traditionally informs the way in which governments rule societies today is called into question when the agreement is not between the physical entities of the state and the individual; instead, the hypothetical contract is made between the individual and the smart contract that the individuals have created to govern them. I intend to explore whether or not a successful and sustainable social contract can be found within a decentralized smart contract system that governs the digital world. Through analyzing advantages and disadvantages of decentralized governance and illustrating a working protocol in my case study of Tezos, I dive deep into the digital voting process and how participants interact with it. Additionally, I introduce the relatively new model of quadratic voting that has the potential to improve the governance process and eliminate weaknesses. Finally, I argue that decentralized governance by smart contracts works, and is ultimately sustainable due to its ability to adapt and upgrade in tandem with human participation.

Christos Makridis, Gordon Liao

There is a large body of empirical and theoretical literature on the effects of technological change on individuals, labor markets, and overall economic activity. Theories of skill-biased technical change (SBTC) suggest that technology increases the earnings power of skilled workers, but substitutes for less skilled workers. Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) provide a new context for examining and understanding the impact of technology change on labor, competition, and economic outcomes. This paper explores the theoretical frameworks through which DLTs could enhance economic mobility and provides examples from several areas, including: i) the creation of new jobs and higher value-added jobs, and the modularization of complex tasks; ii) improvements in the way people learn and acquire human capital; iii) increased competition in the marketplace; and iv) more inclusive access to financial services with fewer intermediaries.

Tim Corballis, Max Soar

Digital organizations form part of the new wave of blockchain technologies, following Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. “Utopia of Abstraction” offers an analysis of the utopian promise of digital organizations through a reading of one such project, Colony. We provide a critique of the ideology of Colony's white paper, supplemented by readings of pages from its website, as a member of a genre of texts that promote their products through seemingly neutral, technical descriptions. Colony's texts suggest an abstract, contextless and scaleless organizational solution—powered by smart contracts on a blockchain—that, according to its proponents, might be applied to any social situation, from small firm to state-level governance. For its users, this organization combines a promise of sovereignty removed from that of the state, as well as implied financial returns. Our reading of Colony echoes the critiques of scholars arguing that cyberlibertarianism is a dominant politic of blockchain technologies. Furthermore, drawing on critiques of code as law and the elision of the social in smart contracts, we argue that Colony's vision presents a model of technical organization that substitutes for the state in the context of waning popular sovereignty. We ultimately suggest an understanding of digital organizations reminiscent of the settler colonial situation: the assumption of an empty social space to be filled, and the promise of sovereignty and riches for those occupying it. Analysis of these logics is relevant as hype increases around non-fungible tokens, Web3, and the corporate metaverse as well as data practices more widely.

Huirou Ma

Consensus algorithms are getting more and more attention. It can help the majority of nodes in the blockchain to agree on the determination of new blocks. Proof-of-Work is a relatively mature consensus algorithm, which plays an important role in improving the security of Bitcoin. In addition, Proof-

Olivier Jutel

The humanitarian sector has emerged as a powerful mechanism of legitimation for blockchain technology. Platform developers in the aid sector have been eager to showcase the promise of decentralization and encrypted blockchain data as the inheritance of the world's poor and developing nations. This article claims that humanitarian blockchain projects are inextricably linked to the politics of the crypto-economy, proprietary platforms, and a class of solutionists championing Silicon Valley's cultural values. Blockchain humanitarianism has emerged through a private-public partnership (PPP) model in the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector that embraces tech disruption and innovation. Ethically sound blockchain humanitarian projects are precluded by the inherent obscurantism of the technology, the inability to transpose blockchain's governance logic in the social realm, and inextricable ties to the political economy of cryptocurrencies. Projects in the developing world have thus embodied a colonial logic of techno-experimentation for platform developers and imbricate the NGO sector into the PR logic of blockchain solutionism.

Martin Tremčinský

No abstract is available for this record.

Inês Faria

This paper is based on research among blockchain communities in the Netherlands and online terrains. Through an empirical example, it explores tales produced by projects based on the blockchain protocol and on the premise that cryptocurrencies are money and that money has generative potential for social and economic change. By unpacking the pragmatics of a particular project – Bitnation and Pangea – I argue that despite tales of decentralisation through the moneyness of cryptocurrencies, and the distributed and automated character of the blockchain protocol, these currencies, and projects, are deeply entangled with fiat and mainstream economies and markets. This is visible by looking at the ups and downs of cryptocurrency pricing and on the effects this volatility has on (certain) projects. The lack of a sustainable community of trust in cryptocurrencies as money – particularly visible in initiatives following more libertarian and utopian tales, detached from everyday life realities – and the way these retain attention mainly due to speculation, have very real effects for blockchain based projects. No matter how radical their tales for decentralisation and socioeconomic revolution are, utterances for these tales to become real have to be there, and seem absent.

Imad Antoine Ibrahim, Jon Truby

Abstract Nations worldwide have sought to capitalize on the benefits of distributed ledger technology (DLT) including Blockchain, but struggled to strike a balance between encouraging investment and innovation in the technology while addressing the challenges and uncertainties through regulation. Through its FinTech (Financial Technology) Strategy, Qatar has sought to embrace DLT, but its regulatory approach also remains cautious. Trade Finance is an ideal business process to be disrupted through the benefits of DLT and especially Blockchain technology, since its processes remain antiquated, inefficient and lack digitization. Blockchain as a form of DLT particularly offers the Trade Finance process not only more rapid, secure, cost-effective and efficient procedures, but importantly completely assures trust between importers and exporters and removes the requirement to place such trust in third-party intermediaries. Qatar can reap considerable economic benefits through the enhancement of its Trade Finance regulations enabling the adoption of such Blockchain technology. As such, the authors propose a roadmap and manual for the governance of the Trade Finance Blockchain ecosystem in Qatar. The authors propose multi-layered governance approach to the regulation of Blockchain in Qatar by (1) embracing international regulations and standards; (2) replicating foreign regional and national rules that are appropriate and innovative; and (3) applying sandbox regulations to Blockchain products and services.

Guillaume Beaumier, Kevin Kalomeni

Next to artificial intelligence and big data, blockchains have emerged as one of the most oft-cited technologies associated with the digital economy. Leading technology companies have recently contributed to making the technology used more widely by developing integrated blockchain offerings. The emergence of such services yet strikingly clashes with the original stated goal of the technology to remove any form of central political authority, such as the one companies behind these new services can represent. How should we then understand the embrace of blockchains by companies that this technology was notably supposed to displace? Using the concept of infrastructure from Science and Technology Studies, we argue that these companies are not merely adopting the technology but actively promoting a new assemblage of socio-technical devices to reassert their authority over how information is exchanged online. Based on a comparative analysis of the technical documentation of Ethereum and Amazon Web Services (AWS) blockchain services, we highlight how actors contributing to building digital infrastructures regulate their users' behavior by affording them different capacities and constraints. We moreover show how by pursuing its commercial interest, AWS supported a corporate form of governance historically promoted by the United States to oversee the digital economy.

Pietro Sirena, Francesco Paolo Patti

The contribution focuses on the different ways in which blockchain could govern private relationships. In this framework, the main features of smart contracts will be outlined in order to explain how contractual automation plays a key role in understanding the advantages and the drawbacks of technology. In fact, one of the main characteristics of a smart contract is its self-executing character, which is allegedly expected to eliminate the possibility of a breach by a contracting party. On this regard, blockchain and smart contracts may produce an excess of privatization through innovative self-help mechanisms and the application of dispute resolution systems, which can be depicted as ‘alternative’ insofar as they present themselves as independent from courts and other national state authorities. Through some examples, it will be demonstrated that blockchain and smart contracts could be amenable to achieve public goals as well.

Matthew Dylag, Harrison Smith

This paper contributes to emerging discussions of blockchain governance through an analysis of dispute resolution platforms that reimagine justice. We focus specifically on Kleros, a blockchain-enabled dispute resolution platform, that promises to secure, authenticate, and democratize access to justice for the twenty-first century. We advance the concept of cryptocourts whereby jurors, incentivized by accumulating cryptocurrency, rapidly mobilize using principles of on-demand crowdsourcing to resolve disputes. We critique the broader social imaginaries that cryptocourts such as Kleros will result in a more open, trustworthy, transparent, and democratic systems of justice. These platforms instead pose important questions concerning their potential impact on civil dispute resolution practices by embedding it within an economy of cryptocurrency speculation. This ostensibly results in a legal infrastructure founded on principles of financial acquisition that positions jurors as economic agents seeking to profit from disputes, and courts as computational systems that merely authenticate and secure the distribution of evidence and verdicts.