[Commlist] CFP: Emerging ownership models on the blockchain

*Emerging ownership models on the blockchain*

For a special issue published in the ‘Blockchain for Good’ series of the 
peer-reviewed journal /Frontiers in Blockchain/, we are inviting 
research articles, case studies, critical commentary, and other forms of 
original research contributions that resonate with the topic overview 
outlined below.

The aim of this special issue is to explore the emergence of more 
progressive implementations of blockchain technology, focusing in 
particular on applications and platforms that facilitate new, 
alternative, co-operative ownership structures, rather than perpetuating 
existing models.

Swartz (2017, p. 86) has identifies identified two ways of adopting 
blockchain technology: incorporative efforts to innovate within the 
existing system, and radical attempts to bring about a new 
techno-economic order. Much of the excitement surrounding blockchain 
technologies relates to incorporative applications: large corporations 
benefitting from increased efficiency related to transactions, value 
capture, or data storage. This special issue hopes to explore 
alternatives The aim of this special issue is to explore the emergence 
of more progressive implementations of blockchain technology, focusing 
in particular on applications and platforms that facilitate new, 
alternative, co-operative ownership structures, rather than perpetuating 
existing models.that follow the second approach outlined be Swartz.

The successes (and failings) of several projects examples can serve to 
exemplify such developments: Robin Hood Co-op, an ‘activist investment 
fund’ dedicated to ‘democratising finance on the blockchain,’ relies 
relied on a ‘parasitic' algorithm that mimics proprietary trading 
strategies, and returns profits to its members. The ongoing art project 
terra0 is a self-owning, self-managing, ‘technologically augmented 
forest’ launched by a group of developers, theorists and researchers 
using the Ethereum blockchain; the group has recently issues 
‘Flowertokens’ in an attempt to tokenise natural, physical assets 
inspired by CryptoKitties but applied to plants. Resonate, an ‘ethical 
music streaming platform,’ runs as a co-op and is built on blockchain 
technology; members not only share profits, but also vote on features 
and projects to develop, elect board members, and decide collectively on 
key policies and appropriate partnerships. A Finallyfinally example is 
offered by , there is Backfeed, an initiative that uses blockchain 
technology to encourage massive, open-source collaborations between 
peers without centralised control, through (transferrable) economic 
tokens and (non-transferrable) reputation scores. The result could be 
‘massive open-source collaboration without any form of centralised 
coordination’.

Extending the trajectory of decentralised, distributed, and co-operative 
experiments outlined in these examples, for this special issue we invite 
critical reflections, theoretical contributions, as well as and case 
studies that consider the following questions:
• What ideological, technological, social, or legal structures are 
needed to make alternative ownership models viable on the blockchain?
• Where will alternative ownership models on the blockchain be situated 
in relation to the leftist and the libertarian discourse that has so far 
dominated the debate?
• Will radically different ownership models be able to withstand 
cooption into existing commercial structures?
• What are the roles of artistic experimentation and activist 
organisation in advancing (or correcting) efforts to instrumentalise the 
blockchain in the creative industries?
• What, finally, is the conceptual and practical role of tokens in all this?

Deadline for articles: 31^st October 2019

For more info, please see here 
<https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/10083/emerging-ownership-models-on-the-blockchain> 
or email Marcus O’Dair ((m.odair /at/ arts.ac.uk) <mailto:(m.odair /at/ arts.ac.uk)>) 
or MartinZeilinger((mz12 /at/ anglia.ac.uk) <mailto:(mz12 /at/ anglia.ac.uk)>).


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