My work investigates how blockchain technology is a means by which communities can collaborate.
Blockchain underpins Bitcoin; a digital currency where you transfer value by providing an electronic signature, a process similar to signing a cheque.
But blockchains also have applications aside from Bitcoin. That’s because a blockchain is a very capable distributed database, a prized quality in our present Information Age, where data is King (unless, of course, you’re Cambridge Analytica).
Blockchains are formed by blocks of information based on a chain of transactions - hence the name. The technology is independent of any controlling entity because nodes on its network are equally privileged. They also include numerous security measures; properties that result in a system ideally suited for trusted cooperation.
My work demonstrates that potential in three key areas. The first is financial technologies, where I wrote a paper discussing a distributed currency exchange, which the Indian Government, in its drive to digitise their economy, could have used to exchange Rupees into Bitcoin, thereby banking the unbanked.
The second area is provenance. My article on Fake News describes a photo that a prominent supporter of Donald Trump claimed showed the Clinton Campaign doctoring votes. The New York Times went to great lengths to prove the picture was fake; I create a scenario where the paper is saved a lot of bother because the photographer uses my blockchain app’ to establish the origins of her snap.
Finally, I am developing a blockchain app’ for humanitarian aid. People criticise foreign aid because they claim corrupt regimes use the money fraudulently. Fortunately, it’s possible to address those concerns by recording the whole funding process on the blockchain, thereby increasing transparency.
Those applications demonstrate that blockchains are the technical means by which you and I can freely collaborate. However, my thesis also discusses significant barriers towards the technology’s wide-scale adoption because blockchain’s flat (non-hierarchical) architecture is not necessarily how Capitalist Society organises itself.
So I’ll finish with a call to arms. My dear audience, if like me, you believe we solve inequality by opposing traditional hierarchies, then, just as the #metoo campaign has begun to undermine an elitist patriarchy, I challenge you to refute established top-down power structures - enough is enough! Go and create, participate and collaborate with your peers. Show that flat and cooperative is best, and Be the Change You Wish To See in the World.