DAO, Blockchain and Cryptography
A conversation with Quinn DuPont
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v7i3.594Keywords:
blockchain, Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO), cryptocurrency, tokens, cryptographyAbstract
In Classical Athens, as well as in our modern digital era, governance has been achieved through tokens. Tokens enabled voting on projects, representation, and belonging. The Distributed Autonomous Organisation (DAO) launched on the basis of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology was conceived as a form of algorithmic governance with applications in the organisation of companies. The visionaries of the DAO envisaged, among other things, a new form of sociality, which would be transparent and fair and based on a decentralised, unstoppable, public blockchain. These hopes were dashed when the DAO was exploited and drained of millions of dollars' worth of tokens within days after launching. The conversation published in the present article is conceived as an interdisciplinary discussion about the phenomenon of the Decentralised Autonomous Organisation and its impact on perceptions of sociality. Topics include the idea of the DAO as an algorithmic authority, the lessons learned when the project failed, the revolutionary beginnings of cryptocurrency technology and its potential in voting technologies, as well as the changing notions of cryptography in light of cryptocurrency technologies.
Exchanges Discourse Podcast
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Mairi Gkikaki, Clare Rowan, Isaac Quinn DuPont
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), which permits use and redistribution of the work provided that the original author and source are credited, a link to the license is included, and an indication of changes which were made. Third-party users may not apply legal terms or technological measures to the published article which legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
If accepted for publication authors’ work will be made open access and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license unless previously agreed with Exchanges’ Editor-in-Chief prior to submission.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. (see: The Effect of Open Access)
