ABOUT

Is blockchain overhyped? Will it find a growing number of uses over time? The answers are yes and yes.  Exactly how and the degrees to which blockchain will impact the world are still early in playing out.  Will ideals of decentralization, and greater agency and equality of some green and social-oriented blockchain projects, help to counter IT-amplified systemic inequality and algorithmic biases?  How will policies and regs on the creation, maintenance, and use of blockchain, crypto (Bitcoin, Ethereum), smart contracts, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) shape social/ethical possibilities? How do intersections of blockchain and AI amplify opportunities and ethical challenges? Offering a Blockchain and Society essays blog, annotated bibs, (best crypto books and top social equity books), and a crypto timeline, the site contributes to critical blockchain, cryptocurrency, and Web3 studies.

MISSION: Blockchain and Society: Political Economy of Cryptocurrency seeks to inform visions of the future through prisms of the past. It has a crypto long-form essays Blog; annotated booklists; Crypto Historical Timeline; Blockchain Historical Timeline; and glossary. It promotes critical inquiry on decentralized governance, privacy, gender, race, & ethics.

Jeffrey Yost, MA, MBA, Ph.D., is Principal of Blockchain and Society. He is Dir. of the Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) for Computing, Info., & Culture & HSTM Prof., U. of Minnesota. Author of 6 books, including Making IT Work (MIT P.) & co-edits Computing and Culture book series for JHU Press. He's been PI of 6 major NSF proj,. Co-org'd Just Code. Twtr: @JustCodeCulture Mastodon: @mastodon.online/@JustCode