Blockchain, but for real

8. Conclusion: future and further exploration

Distributed systems such as blockchain are at the cutting edge of a technological revolution, yet only considered by a handful of elites, institutions, developers, and opportunists. This breakthrough is observed by the majority of the population with legitimate contempt — often confusion or misconception related to a skewed perspective. Which means that these few people currently decide exclusively on its consequences and its upcoming impact on the entirety of the population.

I believe blockchain will quickly replace — or at least alter — a significant part of our digital infrastructure. This technology can be employed in a multitude of radically different ways, from the most hostile to freedom to the most emancipatory, and we can genuinely have an impact on the course of this evolution. Especially, to finally improve aspects of our existence on which we have far too often compromised, then given up.

I’d rather leave generic resources, as research ideas, than specific links to biased perspectives. It is a quite natural journey, although it must be initiated; you will find a multitude of articles, tools, and solutions suited to broad thematics, which can help understand — or even try out — through special interests and activities. There are already plenty of new perspectives in fields such as research, development, politics, art, social and environmental issues, culture… Here are just a few leads that I find interesting, in light of everything that has been mentioned in this article.

Open-source projects are marked with an asterisk (*). Two asterisks (**) are assigned to even more permissive projects (MIT license).

Digital wallet

• Rainbow*: a web extension/mobile application that facilitates the creation of wallets and interaction with blockchains (transaction preview, flagging potentially malicious interactions…).

Research and publication

• Arweave*: a protocol for permanent data storage — the “permaweb” — without third party and risk of censorship or unavailability.

  • Documentation.

  • Irys*: facilitates the use of Arweave for permanent data storage, and adds provenance, meaning the origin of the information.

• ResearchHub*: a scientific research platform where academics can publish, review, evaluate, and collaborate openly; optionally, offer bounties for reviews, and vote on the evolution of the platform.

  • Documentation.

  • Does the peer review process need blockchain? (18)

• Mirror**: a decentralized publishing and sharing platform, relatively similar to a blog infrastructure (e.g., Medium).

• Open Index Protocol*: an open-source system for publishing, archiving, and distributing content, while ensuring copyrights and facilitating remuneration in cases of reuse.

• Filecoin*: a distributed storage network, which guarantees storage and data accessibility by incentivizing peers to keep and return it untampered.

Community governance

• RadicalxChange*: a global movement that explores how blockchain can improve governance and reduce inequalities.

  • Concepts.

• Colony*: a platform for creating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) where members can collaborate on projects and be rewarded based on their contribution.

• Kleros**: a community platform for democratic dispute resolution, which can also be integrated on other protocols.

Public goods and crowdfunding

• Gitcoin Grants*: a platform that connects founders of early-stage projects — especially public goods — with contributors, through grants or “bounties”; see also Gitcoin Allo, which extends crowdfunding with collaborative tracking (proposals, voting, funding allocation…).

• Giveth*: a decentralized donation platform for social, environmental and humanistic impact projects.

• Commons Stack*: an infrastructure designed to help communities fund their projects and make collective decisions, while sustainably managing their shared resources.

Music

• Sound.xyz**: a platform/app for streaming and sharing music, as well as collecting tracks and directly supporting artists, without fees or third parties.

• Spinamp**: a streaming platform/app, which aggregates tracks from the leading music protocols (including Sound.xyz), along with their features (sharing, collection, curation).

Arts and culture

• Zora**: a decentralized protocol/platform for creating, buying, and selling digital art works (NFTs).

• Foundation*: a platform providing NFT creation and curation tools.

Social networks

• Lens*: a decentralized social media infrastructure, allowing creators to control their content and build direct relationships with their community; each content, each share, each comment, etc., is associated with the user’s wallet — so any app can integrate Lens in its own way.

  • Some examples of social networks integrating Lens (thus the data is shared, with a different interface and additional features):

    • Hey*: a social network accessible on the browser;

    • Orb*: a mobile application (Android & iOS).

• Skiff*: a privacy-focused email service with end-to-end encryption and transparent operation (also pages/notes, calendar, and private storage).

Programming

• Patrick Collins (video): a 32-hour course to learn how to program smart contracts in Solidity with JavaScript.

• Patrick Collins (video): a 27-hour course to learn to program smart contracts in Solidity exclusively.

• Alchemy University: a Solidity and JavaScript learning platform, with an integrated code editor.

Others

• Digital identity management, e.g., by verifying documents — official or not — without disclosing information to a third party; Polygon ID.

• Ticketing systems, e.g., for events; Guts, YellowHeart.