Blockchain technology is being developed in everything from financial technology companies to the GLAM industries . Some, such as Backfeed , are using Blockchain for decentralised coordination through smart contracts. As the recent attack on the DAO has revealed, Blockchain-based innovations can also create social harm by being difficult to fix when things go wrong. While it is likely that platforms such as Ethereum will evolve to deal with these risks, a further consideration is who will reap the benefits of Blockchain applications in the long term. To understand that, we need to consider the infrastructures on which these technologies are run and accessed, not just the code.
Originally developed to support bitcoin , Blockchain is essentially a public ledger. It’s like a giant spreadsheet for recording assets, which can be utilised for any form of exchange and which no individual entity controls. By providing a secure and distributed means of authentication and recording, Blockchain eliminates the need for intermediaries that pull information to verify transactions. The technology can therefore be used for autonomous machine-to-machine communications, taking the Internet of Things and the sharing economy to the next level (for instance, cars that manage their own rental and re-fuelling).
The benefits of Blockchain technology for developing economies have so far only been discussed in terms of remittance payments and providing an alternative currency in unstable fiscal environments.
However it could also be applied in sharing economies that are present in some developing communities, just like the one I observed during field work in the Kedaya Telang Usan area in Sarawak, Malaysia. The sharing economy of the Orang Ulu
In a sharing economy, people make use of their excess assets by charging others to access them – houses for holiday accommodation, garages for storage, cars (and their drivers) for rides.
During British colonial rule, […]
