Shared by @CorujaTejedora in FRP-32: Socioeconomic effects of cryptocurrency redistribution in the Costa Rican rural town of Tinamastes.
Statement: Stuit et al. (2022) present the findings of their research focused on the views on success, market, and transformation of 27 blockchain initiatives seeking conservation causes.
Description: According to Stuit et al. (2022), blockchains both provide new ways of effecting change while also replicating the same hierarchical relationships of power that lead to inequality, extractivism and violence.
Comments: Stuit et al. (2022) clearly demonstrate and highlight the reproduction of global power structures by identifying blockchains, not as a fully disruptive economic system, and being swallowed by capitalist behaviour leading to its use for greed, buyers choice (that is to say - buyers determine change and not local communities in need, or environments in need of caring), and commodification of nature. While not all impacts are off, their integrated approach to the problem allows us to perceive the complexities of visualizing blockchains’ promise to the world - decentralized, transparent, deviant.
Evaluations: This article clearly assesses our fears in regards to the reproduction of Global Inequality in the use of Blockchain technology, as well as identifying the commodification of nature and nature conservancy projects present in our research in Tinamastes Costa Rica.
Key Words: Commodification of nature, blockchain capitalism, neoliberal conservation.