Discovering and Developing the Blockchain Cryptoeconomy

Abstract

Blockchain is an institutional technology to coordinate and govern distributed ledgers of information. This paper examines the economic problem facing blockchain entrepreneurs as they use blockchain for political exit to create new private institutions (i.e. crypto-secession). The analysis draws on the mainline economics of new development economics, and in particular focusing on the economic problem of institutional entrepreneurship. The economic problem for the blockchain entrepreneur is defined as discovering the complementary combinations of blockchains to form a new decentralised frontier society, the cryptoeconomy. This is a higher-order explanation for the current collaboration between blockchain entrepreneurs within hybrid privately governed organisations, such as Bitcoin Centres and hackerspaces (Allen 2017).

Keywords: Blockchains, cryptoeconomics, new institutional economics, new development economics, non-price coordination