12-29, 17:30–18:00 (Europe/Berlin), CDC Mini Stage
Crypto commons are decentralized systems that harness blockchain technology to enable collective stewardship of shared resources. While offering innovative mechanisms for scaling commons governance, these systems introduce critical tensions between individual utility-maximization and the communal values foundational to managing shared resources. This talk examines the political economy of crypto commons communities, focusing on how internal social norms and crypto-economic mechanisms interact with external market pressures. By critically analyzing the promises and limitations of blockchain-based governance for scaling equitable resource management, this presentation introduces an often overlooked subculture in crypto that offers an alternative perspective on the (f)utility of blockchain for post-capitalist systems design.
This talk is based on six years of doctoral research in political sciences that covered two distinct crypto communities, the Token Engineering Commons and Regenerative Finance, with qualitative empirical inquiry for over three years.
Held by the founder of the Crypto Commons Association, it also heavily draws on experiences made in organizing four years of gatherings and unconferences on the topic, which have since led to consolidation of the Crypto Commons Community, which, for the first time, participates in 38C3 as its own Assembly.
Founder and former Chair of Crypto Commons Association, currently building the Commons Hub as an experimental playground for post-capitalist systems design in the Austrian Alps. While pretty illiterate in code and IT, I nerdbroflex with cryptoeconomics and governance design.