Periodic Reporting for period 4 - P2PMODELS (Decentralized Blockchain-based Organizations for Bootstrapping the Collaborative Economy)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2022-12-31
Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project
The Collaborative Economy (CE) is rapidly expanding through new forms of Internet labor and commerce, from Wikipedia to Kickstarter and Airbnb. However, it suffers from 3 main challenges: (1) Infrastructure: centralized surveillance that the central hubs of information exercise over their users, (2) Governance: disempowered communities which do not have any decision-making influence over the platform, and (3) Economy: concentration of profits in a few major players who do not proportionally redistribute them to the community contributors.
How can CE online platforms be implemented for solving these challenges? P2P Models has explored novel ways of building software for online platforms powered by blockchain and other peer-to-peer technologies, combined with social research, human-centered design and free/open source principles. This approach has enabled us to explore and experiment, in order to: (1) provide software pilots to transition to decentralized infrastructure for Collaborative Economy organizations, (2) enable democratic-by-design models of governance for communities, by encoding certain rules directly into the software platform, and (3) enable fairer value distribution models, thus improving the economic sustainability of both contributors and organizations.
Together, these three goals are helping bootstrap the emergence of a new generation of self-governed and more economically sustainable peer-to-peer CE communities. The interdisciplinary nature of P2P Models is opening a new research field around blockchain-supported commons-driven collaborative communities and their self-enforcing rules for semi-automatic governance and distribution of value.
The project has built pilots with two case study communities: the largest European co-op Smart Coop (http://smart.coop(opens in new window)) with a focus on the Spanish federated node (Smart Iberica); and the largest community for peer production of subtitles, Amara (http://amara.org(opens in new window)). Through our multidisciplinary approach, we worked with these communities, studying them with social research, doing co-creation workshops, co-design and development of software prototypes, and performing experiments with them. We validated hypotheses and provided the basis to improve their processes, while setting the foundations for a new, more fair and democratic Collaborative Economy.
Complementarily, the project has launched “Decentralized Science” (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) a new sub-project we established focused on increasing the transparency, decentralization and democratization of the scientific peer review process, currently dominated by a small oligopoly. This initiative has received broad attention until becoming its own spin-off enterprise, successful in attracting more than 300,000€ in independent funding. Moreover, due to its success, a second spin-off was launched, named Quartz Open Access (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)). This second spin-off revolves around supporting diamond open access journals, providing them with micro-donations and improving their sustainability.
In addition, the project used data science to study in-depth the current uses of blockchain communities, and in particular Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). In this line, we built a dashboard for over 5,600 DAOs, 42,000 members and $294.5B in crypto assets managed, as of Q4 2022 (https://dao-analyzer.science(opens in new window)) providing metrics and graphs of their different governance models.
The project has drawn multiple conclusions through its 5 years of interdisciplinary work and mixed methods, contributing to both the emergent literature and achieving practical impact on the field. The main concluding remarks are:
(1) We have contributed to the definition of what’s a DAO, defining them formally, and providing the first empirical studies of the DAO ecosystem, which clarify their problems and limitations.
(2) We have provided a theoretical framework for blockchain-supported governance of commons-based communities, based on Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom community governance principles. Thus, we have shown the potential of this technology for commons-based peer production. This line of work has achieved high impact in the field, moving it beyond the false dichotomy between centralized initiatives and market-driven ones.
(3) We have identified User Experience (UX) as the main challenge to adopt blockchain technology by mainstream users. Thus, even though the field keeps revolving around improving its efficiency, decentralization or security, the main barrier for adoption is usability. We provided design recommendations to improve interaction and adoption.
(4) We have studied in-depth how blockchain has potential for: collective governance, including commons-oriented; data activism, since some of its features may help anonymous reporting; decentralizing and rewarding several processes in Open Science
(5) We have mapped the “Blockchain for social good” ecosystem, showing its current state and the extent of its impact and potential. The field shows a large majority of vaporware, and a slower than expected pace of development. Still, there is a highly diverse minority of cases which are worth monitoring, with a large majority of them being open source.
(6) We have experimented with multiple technologies and methodologies, with the best results being obtained using mixed methods, human-centered design, and hybrid architectures, to empower communities and facilitate transition to web3 services.
How can CE online platforms be implemented for solving these challenges? P2P Models has explored novel ways of building software for online platforms powered by blockchain and other peer-to-peer technologies, combined with social research, human-centered design and free/open source principles. This approach has enabled us to explore and experiment, in order to: (1) provide software pilots to transition to decentralized infrastructure for Collaborative Economy organizations, (2) enable democratic-by-design models of governance for communities, by encoding certain rules directly into the software platform, and (3) enable fairer value distribution models, thus improving the economic sustainability of both contributors and organizations.
Together, these three goals are helping bootstrap the emergence of a new generation of self-governed and more economically sustainable peer-to-peer CE communities. The interdisciplinary nature of P2P Models is opening a new research field around blockchain-supported commons-driven collaborative communities and their self-enforcing rules for semi-automatic governance and distribution of value.
The project has built pilots with two case study communities: the largest European co-op Smart Coop (http://smart.coop(opens in new window)) with a focus on the Spanish federated node (Smart Iberica); and the largest community for peer production of subtitles, Amara (http://amara.org(opens in new window)). Through our multidisciplinary approach, we worked with these communities, studying them with social research, doing co-creation workshops, co-design and development of software prototypes, and performing experiments with them. We validated hypotheses and provided the basis to improve their processes, while setting the foundations for a new, more fair and democratic Collaborative Economy.
Complementarily, the project has launched “Decentralized Science” (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) a new sub-project we established focused on increasing the transparency, decentralization and democratization of the scientific peer review process, currently dominated by a small oligopoly. This initiative has received broad attention until becoming its own spin-off enterprise, successful in attracting more than 300,000€ in independent funding. Moreover, due to its success, a second spin-off was launched, named Quartz Open Access (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)). This second spin-off revolves around supporting diamond open access journals, providing them with micro-donations and improving their sustainability.
In addition, the project used data science to study in-depth the current uses of blockchain communities, and in particular Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). In this line, we built a dashboard for over 5,600 DAOs, 42,000 members and $294.5B in crypto assets managed, as of Q4 2022 (https://dao-analyzer.science(opens in new window)) providing metrics and graphs of their different governance models.
The project has drawn multiple conclusions through its 5 years of interdisciplinary work and mixed methods, contributing to both the emergent literature and achieving practical impact on the field. The main concluding remarks are:
(1) We have contributed to the definition of what’s a DAO, defining them formally, and providing the first empirical studies of the DAO ecosystem, which clarify their problems and limitations.
(2) We have provided a theoretical framework for blockchain-supported governance of commons-based communities, based on Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom community governance principles. Thus, we have shown the potential of this technology for commons-based peer production. This line of work has achieved high impact in the field, moving it beyond the false dichotomy between centralized initiatives and market-driven ones.
(3) We have identified User Experience (UX) as the main challenge to adopt blockchain technology by mainstream users. Thus, even though the field keeps revolving around improving its efficiency, decentralization or security, the main barrier for adoption is usability. We provided design recommendations to improve interaction and adoption.
(4) We have studied in-depth how blockchain has potential for: collective governance, including commons-oriented; data activism, since some of its features may help anonymous reporting; decentralizing and rewarding several processes in Open Science
(5) We have mapped the “Blockchain for social good” ecosystem, showing its current state and the extent of its impact and potential. The field shows a large majority of vaporware, and a slower than expected pace of development. Still, there is a highly diverse minority of cases which are worth monitoring, with a large majority of them being open source.
(6) We have experimented with multiple technologies and methodologies, with the best results being obtained using mixed methods, human-centered design, and hybrid architectures, to empower communities and facilitate transition to web3 services.
Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far
This interdisciplinary project moved forward multiple research lines at once, with main results best being tackled by the different discipline areas. The major milestones achieved have been:
A) Social research:
Engagement with three case studies: Smart (http://smart.coop(opens in new window)) the largest EU co-op; Amara (http://amara.org(opens in new window)) the largest subtitle creation community; and Decentralized Science (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) together with Quartz OA (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)) both spin-off enterprises from the project related to improving the scientific process.
Qualitative and quantitative social research has been conducted on the Amara community, specifically on its Amara on Demand global freelance community. The data collection iterations comprised 26 semi-structured interviews, 16 months of fieldwork and documentary analysis. Besides, 9 focus groups and co-creation workshops were conducted to validate the proposed models with the community. In addition, data science was used to analyze the internal processes using community private datasets. In particular, we obtained a private dataset with 67K tasks concerning 30K video subtitles which were carried out by 300+ linguists. Quantitative univariable and multivariable analyses at different levels (e.g. tasks, workers and linguistic directions) were conducted over this dataset. The research and prototypes implemented shed light on different improvements to the task allocation system used in Amara.
Qualitative and quantitative social research was conducted on the Smart co-operative, specifically on the Smart Iberica node, covering Spain and Portugal. The methods used included participant observation, digital ethnography, interviews, surveys, data science and meetings. It resulted in 14 semi-structured interviews, 16 months of fieldwork and documentary analysis, and 5 focus groups and co-design workshops. In addition, a survey titled ‘Labor and precariousness in the Spanish cultural sector’ was carried out, with 66 Smart co-op members responding. Finally, a quantitative analysis of the community internal processes was carried out to validate the principal hypothesis detected in the qualitative study. The research and prototypes implemented provided insights on applications of blockchain-enabled data activism adapted to this community. User studies (12) were conducted with members of the Smart community to validate the prototype applications.
Mapping the “Blockchain for social good” ecosystem within Europe, in collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. This quantitative mapping included 131 projects with more than 30 data points each, in a public directory that may be interactively expanded by users. Besides, a more in-depth qualitative analysis was performed in 10 representative case studies. The outcome was published as a European Commission report.
Theoretical and experimental contributions to the literature on the potentials, applications and limitations on the use of blockchain-based tools to support the governance and distribution of value in commons-oriented communities. This line was carried out with the collaboration of Harvard University professor Yochai Benkler. This line of work has achieved high impact in the field, moving it beyond the false dichotomy between centralized initiatives and market-driven ones.
B) Design:
Design Research on the three case studies, applying Lean and Agile methodologies to identify and validate the community needs. Multiple needs were validated, and human-centered codesign facilitated by Design Thinking and co-creation workshops, enabled the implementation of different software prototypes.
Different improvements concerning the User Experience (UX) in blockchain prototypes. From a theoretical standpoint, improvements on UX were carried out by implementing progressive user interfaces depending on the degree of acquaintance with the technology.
In Amara, 3 workshops were conducted to define different models of task allocation, resulting in two alternative prototypes to the sequential fifo used currently (round-robin and reputation prototypes). In Smart, a total of 12 user tests and survey validations were conducted using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to validate the behavioral intention to use a prototype to report precariousness situation in the cultural sector visible. In Decentralized Science, we carried out a small survey on 36 researchers, 19 interviews to professional journal editors, usability sessions with two publishers and a system cost analysis, which is critical in blockchain.
C) Computer Science:
Comparative studies of blockchain technologies and frameworks, especially those concerning Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), such as Aragon (https://aragon.org(opens in new window)) DAOstack (https://daostack.org(opens in new window)) Colony (https://colony.io(opens in new window)) and Daohaus (https://daohaus.club(opens in new window)).
Implementation of multiple software prototypes based on the Aragon DAO platform. We can highlight: (1) a wiki collaborative tool to experiment with the possibilities of collaborative features in a DAO environment; (2) the “Committees” app focusing on DAO governance aspects, designed to delegate certain DAO operations on a subgroup of members in order to speed operations and decision-making; (3) the “Conviction Voting” app, which models a novel governance mechanism to allocate funds on proposals based on community conviction. It was developed by 1Hive, with whom we collaborated to build this app. (4) the “dAcademy” app, providing a marketplace for courses and educational resources related to blockchain. (5) The DAO-based although not Aragon-based Luce-DAO, a prototype to verify student participation in extracurricular university activities, enabling voting and promotion of new activities (which received funding from the UCM Student Observatory).
Implementation of blockchain-based software prototypes co-designed along the Amara community. The Amara prototypes are based on the current algorithm for task allocation of the translation jobs offered to workers on the platform. The prototypes have explored more democratic ways of distributing tasks (Round Robin algorithm, RR with calendar, Reputation-based) among users and therefore redistributing earnings while making user interaction easier and more efficient.
Implementation of blockchain-based software prototype co-designed along the Smart Iberia community. The Smart prototype is based on the current situation of the Spanish cultural sector. The prototype explored a collective approach to fight job insecurity by creating the collaborative platform: ‘Observatory of Spanish cultural job precarity’. The platform showcases a map of reported job abuses by companies, a dashboard to display the data in a meaningful way to the users, a form to report new cases and a contact page to connect users with entities that might help them in their cases and embrace participation. The platform uses the blockchain as a tool to enable uncensorship and decentralization. The cases reported (only non-sensitive data, GDPR compliant) are stored in blockchain and therefore the database is public and could be used by multiple platforms.
The development of “Decentralized Science” (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) a series of prototypes and pilots that focuses on the academic community and its peer-reviewing processes. This sub-project started as a bottom-up community case study exploring the scientific process and its reliance on online platforms controlled by a handful of powerful publishers. Thus, Decentralized Science aims to form a blockchain-enabled distributed Open Science publication system, with Open Access infrastructure, a reviewer reputation network, and transparent peer reviews. On top of several prototypes and scientific publications developed concerning this research line, this sub-project has been successful in attracting additional funding as a spin-off enterprise from P2P Models. Thus, the spin-off prototype was selected among a pool of 291 applicants as one of the winners of the European Commission Builder Programme (Ledger, https://ledgerproject.eu(opens in new window)) receiving first 150,000 € of funding, and later an extra 50,000 € for being selected among the best 8 projects of the Programme. In addition, it has just received another $100,000 in funding form the Grant for the Web program (http://grantfortheweb.org(opens in new window)) a program aimed to “boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in Web Monetization”, enabled my Mozilla, Creative Commons, and the blockchain company Coil. This additional funding allowed the exploration of an additional value proposition; the use of blockchain technologies to support the economic sustainability of independent and scholarly-led Open Access. This is developed within the second spin-off Quartz Open Access (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)) which offers new funding channels for the journals that do not charge to publish or read academic content (Diamond Open Access journals). This project has attracted journals and university libraries, as well as technology providers and Open Access organizations.
The development of a set of software tools to study the DAO ecosystem quantitatively, including scripts for data retrieval, API communication, and a dashboard to visualize graphs showing the DAOs metrics and evolution (https://dao-analyzer.science(opens in new window)). This has focused on governance aspects of DAOs, including metrics on reputation holders, voting activities, staking activities, and proposals, and the economically-related aspects such as crypto-assets managed by the DAO. Regarding metrics, it mainly focuses on aspects such as the participation of members in voting or proposing and rates such as positive votes cast, approved proposals, etc. The tool includes the main DAO platforms, namely, Aragon, DAOhaus and DAOstack and the DAOs deployed in Ethereum and other networks such as Gnosis chain, Polygon or Arbitrum. It manages information from over 5.6k DAOs, over 42k members and $294.5B in crypto assets managed, as of Q4 2022.
The expansion of an already developed dashboard to analyze collaborative communities (http://wikichron.science(opens in new window)) in order to compare traditional centralized online communities with DAO communities.
D) Communication:
Ongoing dissemination and communication efforts, which included scientific publications (https://p2pmodels.eu/publications/(opens in new window)) a blog (https://p2pmodels.eu/blog/(opens in new window)) and a Twitter account (~1600 followers, in https://twitter.com/p2pmod(opens in new window)) all regularly updated. Complementarily, the project has been presented in major venues in Paris, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Sydney, Berlin, Boston, New York and others, including MIT, several centers at Harvard University, or European Commission events.
A) Social research:
Engagement with three case studies: Smart (http://smart.coop(opens in new window)) the largest EU co-op; Amara (http://amara.org(opens in new window)) the largest subtitle creation community; and Decentralized Science (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) together with Quartz OA (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)) both spin-off enterprises from the project related to improving the scientific process.
Qualitative and quantitative social research has been conducted on the Amara community, specifically on its Amara on Demand global freelance community. The data collection iterations comprised 26 semi-structured interviews, 16 months of fieldwork and documentary analysis. Besides, 9 focus groups and co-creation workshops were conducted to validate the proposed models with the community. In addition, data science was used to analyze the internal processes using community private datasets. In particular, we obtained a private dataset with 67K tasks concerning 30K video subtitles which were carried out by 300+ linguists. Quantitative univariable and multivariable analyses at different levels (e.g. tasks, workers and linguistic directions) were conducted over this dataset. The research and prototypes implemented shed light on different improvements to the task allocation system used in Amara.
Qualitative and quantitative social research was conducted on the Smart co-operative, specifically on the Smart Iberica node, covering Spain and Portugal. The methods used included participant observation, digital ethnography, interviews, surveys, data science and meetings. It resulted in 14 semi-structured interviews, 16 months of fieldwork and documentary analysis, and 5 focus groups and co-design workshops. In addition, a survey titled ‘Labor and precariousness in the Spanish cultural sector’ was carried out, with 66 Smart co-op members responding. Finally, a quantitative analysis of the community internal processes was carried out to validate the principal hypothesis detected in the qualitative study. The research and prototypes implemented provided insights on applications of blockchain-enabled data activism adapted to this community. User studies (12) were conducted with members of the Smart community to validate the prototype applications.
Mapping the “Blockchain for social good” ecosystem within Europe, in collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. This quantitative mapping included 131 projects with more than 30 data points each, in a public directory that may be interactively expanded by users. Besides, a more in-depth qualitative analysis was performed in 10 representative case studies. The outcome was published as a European Commission report.
Theoretical and experimental contributions to the literature on the potentials, applications and limitations on the use of blockchain-based tools to support the governance and distribution of value in commons-oriented communities. This line was carried out with the collaboration of Harvard University professor Yochai Benkler. This line of work has achieved high impact in the field, moving it beyond the false dichotomy between centralized initiatives and market-driven ones.
B) Design:
Design Research on the three case studies, applying Lean and Agile methodologies to identify and validate the community needs. Multiple needs were validated, and human-centered codesign facilitated by Design Thinking and co-creation workshops, enabled the implementation of different software prototypes.
Different improvements concerning the User Experience (UX) in blockchain prototypes. From a theoretical standpoint, improvements on UX were carried out by implementing progressive user interfaces depending on the degree of acquaintance with the technology.
In Amara, 3 workshops were conducted to define different models of task allocation, resulting in two alternative prototypes to the sequential fifo used currently (round-robin and reputation prototypes). In Smart, a total of 12 user tests and survey validations were conducted using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to validate the behavioral intention to use a prototype to report precariousness situation in the cultural sector visible. In Decentralized Science, we carried out a small survey on 36 researchers, 19 interviews to professional journal editors, usability sessions with two publishers and a system cost analysis, which is critical in blockchain.
C) Computer Science:
Comparative studies of blockchain technologies and frameworks, especially those concerning Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), such as Aragon (https://aragon.org(opens in new window)) DAOstack (https://daostack.org(opens in new window)) Colony (https://colony.io(opens in new window)) and Daohaus (https://daohaus.club(opens in new window)).
Implementation of multiple software prototypes based on the Aragon DAO platform. We can highlight: (1) a wiki collaborative tool to experiment with the possibilities of collaborative features in a DAO environment; (2) the “Committees” app focusing on DAO governance aspects, designed to delegate certain DAO operations on a subgroup of members in order to speed operations and decision-making; (3) the “Conviction Voting” app, which models a novel governance mechanism to allocate funds on proposals based on community conviction. It was developed by 1Hive, with whom we collaborated to build this app. (4) the “dAcademy” app, providing a marketplace for courses and educational resources related to blockchain. (5) The DAO-based although not Aragon-based Luce-DAO, a prototype to verify student participation in extracurricular university activities, enabling voting and promotion of new activities (which received funding from the UCM Student Observatory).
Implementation of blockchain-based software prototypes co-designed along the Amara community. The Amara prototypes are based on the current algorithm for task allocation of the translation jobs offered to workers on the platform. The prototypes have explored more democratic ways of distributing tasks (Round Robin algorithm, RR with calendar, Reputation-based) among users and therefore redistributing earnings while making user interaction easier and more efficient.
Implementation of blockchain-based software prototype co-designed along the Smart Iberia community. The Smart prototype is based on the current situation of the Spanish cultural sector. The prototype explored a collective approach to fight job insecurity by creating the collaborative platform: ‘Observatory of Spanish cultural job precarity’. The platform showcases a map of reported job abuses by companies, a dashboard to display the data in a meaningful way to the users, a form to report new cases and a contact page to connect users with entities that might help them in their cases and embrace participation. The platform uses the blockchain as a tool to enable uncensorship and decentralization. The cases reported (only non-sensitive data, GDPR compliant) are stored in blockchain and therefore the database is public and could be used by multiple platforms.
The development of “Decentralized Science” (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) a series of prototypes and pilots that focuses on the academic community and its peer-reviewing processes. This sub-project started as a bottom-up community case study exploring the scientific process and its reliance on online platforms controlled by a handful of powerful publishers. Thus, Decentralized Science aims to form a blockchain-enabled distributed Open Science publication system, with Open Access infrastructure, a reviewer reputation network, and transparent peer reviews. On top of several prototypes and scientific publications developed concerning this research line, this sub-project has been successful in attracting additional funding as a spin-off enterprise from P2P Models. Thus, the spin-off prototype was selected among a pool of 291 applicants as one of the winners of the European Commission Builder Programme (Ledger, https://ledgerproject.eu(opens in new window)) receiving first 150,000 € of funding, and later an extra 50,000 € for being selected among the best 8 projects of the Programme. In addition, it has just received another $100,000 in funding form the Grant for the Web program (http://grantfortheweb.org(opens in new window)) a program aimed to “boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in Web Monetization”, enabled my Mozilla, Creative Commons, and the blockchain company Coil. This additional funding allowed the exploration of an additional value proposition; the use of blockchain technologies to support the economic sustainability of independent and scholarly-led Open Access. This is developed within the second spin-off Quartz Open Access (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)) which offers new funding channels for the journals that do not charge to publish or read academic content (Diamond Open Access journals). This project has attracted journals and university libraries, as well as technology providers and Open Access organizations.
The development of a set of software tools to study the DAO ecosystem quantitatively, including scripts for data retrieval, API communication, and a dashboard to visualize graphs showing the DAOs metrics and evolution (https://dao-analyzer.science(opens in new window)). This has focused on governance aspects of DAOs, including metrics on reputation holders, voting activities, staking activities, and proposals, and the economically-related aspects such as crypto-assets managed by the DAO. Regarding metrics, it mainly focuses on aspects such as the participation of members in voting or proposing and rates such as positive votes cast, approved proposals, etc. The tool includes the main DAO platforms, namely, Aragon, DAOhaus and DAOstack and the DAOs deployed in Ethereum and other networks such as Gnosis chain, Polygon or Arbitrum. It manages information from over 5.6k DAOs, over 42k members and $294.5B in crypto assets managed, as of Q4 2022.
The expansion of an already developed dashboard to analyze collaborative communities (http://wikichron.science(opens in new window)) in order to compare traditional centralized online communities with DAO communities.
D) Communication:
Ongoing dissemination and communication efforts, which included scientific publications (https://p2pmodels.eu/publications/(opens in new window)) a blog (https://p2pmodels.eu/blog/(opens in new window)) and a Twitter account (~1600 followers, in https://twitter.com/p2pmod(opens in new window)) all regularly updated. Complementarily, the project has been presented in major venues in Paris, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Sydney, Berlin, Boston, New York and others, including MIT, several centers at Harvard University, or European Commission events.
Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)
Methods
P2P Models follows a highly multi-disciplinary mixed-methods vision, beyond the purely technological (and techno-deterministic) approach typical in the blockchain ecosystem. The project’s novel approach combines:
- Lean UX, Human-centered Design and Design Thinking methods, widely used in the industry but rarely in Academia. This approach, heavily user-driven (and in our case community-driven), guides both social research and software development.
- In-depth exploration of case study communities through qualitative and quantitative social research, which facilitate finding points of intervention and experimentation which guide software development of prototypes. This facilitates considering the real needs, socio-cultural context, and social practices of the case studies' practitioners. It also maximizes the real impact on the communities.
- Agile software development of prototypes, created in response to community needs, and expected to be regularly modified and improved in subsequent iterations.
- Experimentation of software prototypes concerning collaboration and governance features which are central to community functioning.
- Continuous Deployment to shorten times between development and testing of the prototypes by the communities.
- In-depth documentation of software prototypes, open development with all the process public in the open, and free/open source licensing to embrace knowledge transfer and usability of the code by the community.
- Data science of the ecosystem of existing DAOs, empirically validating DAO governance models, and providing a dashboard for communities themselves to use.
- A novel approach to the research group collective governance, inspired by our own research and grassroots practices, publicly documented (https://p2pmodels.eu/handbook/(opens in new window)).
Social Research
The project has progressed beyond the state of the art in the following aspects:
- Providing empirical and theoretical contributions to the literature on the emerging field of blockchain-based forms of governance, by approaching it through a commons-based perspective which is, at the same time, critical with the hegemonic techno-determinist perspectives, but aware of the potentials of blockchain technologies to support and foster cooperative practices in these communities. This approach has been having a clear influence in the blockchain field. In the scientific literature, our works have received over 700 citations in just a few years, in a small field. In the industry, we have legitimized projects like blockchain-enabled Commons Stack, which has regularly cited our work – apart from our own 2 spin-offs.
- Providing empirical and theoretical contributions concerning the potentials, limitations and risks in the development and adoption of blockchain-based technologies for collaborative communities.
- We have studied both non-blockchain and blockchain communities and tools through a gender perspective, which considers forms of labor that have traditionally remained invisibilized.
- We have provided in-depth empirical analysis of practical uses of blockchain, both at governmental level (e-Estonia) and at grassroots level (DAO ecosystems). Besides, we have mapped 131 “blockchain for social good” initiatives in the EU, publishing an European Commission report on the matter.
- Employing mixed-methods, combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies, to identify the organizational tensions in collaborative communities and to measure the impact of the interventions with blockchain-based tools.
Design
- Overall, the blockchain ecosystem, and especially the DAO ecosystem, has serious deficiencies with respect to design and user experience. Thus, one of the project contributions is starting to create a Design Culture inside the blockchain/DAO community, contributing with Human-centered Design tools adapted to the technological ecosystem. The main goal has been to highlight the importance of imagining and designing ethical technologies that address citizens’ necessities in contrast with hegemonic and vertical mainstream platforms models.
- From a UX point of view, we have found multiple fields of contribution. Blockchain tools have mainly been created by and for highly-tech users, with barriers to entry and accessibility issues for the end-user. Since one of the goals of the project is to reach common users (in the Collaborative Economy communities), different contributions have been created to facilitate adoption in our pilots: (1) Progressive interfaces to make the technology transparent to the common user, as codesign workshops showed that crypto wallets (e.g. Metamask) were a serious barrier to adoption. (2) Facilitate the understanding of the prototypes and web3 through meticulous onboarding processes, creating specific tutorials with the intention of making the process much clearer and similar to traditional services. (3) Usability based on heuristic web standards (Nielsen): clear interfaces and functionalities reduced to the minimum in order to minimize confusion (one product, one thing).
Computer Science
- The experimentation with real off-blockchain case study communities and their transition to adopting blockchain-enabled systems, which has been a novel approach in the field. Thus, the project has experimented with multiple approaches, opting for (1) isolating the user from the currently too techy DAO platforms; (2) hiding the blockchain complexities to the final users to facilitate adoption, (3) using hybrid software architectures that allow backend services to work with both web 2.0 and web3 technologies. Therefore, the blockchain features such as decentralization, uncensorship, immutability and transparency are enabled through collective web3 accounts rather than individual accounts that typically create a DAO. This happens while keeping the user agnostic of the underlying technology, or through progressive adoption of web3 interfaces.
- Within its wide experimentation, the project has developed multiple novel software applications that go beyond the state of the art, including: (1) the first DAO wiki, which demonstrates the capabilities of Aragon DAO platform and IPFS for distributed online collaboration, similar to standard centralized wikis; (2) the Aragon app Committees, which experiments with new governance features beyond the basic voting mechanisms common in DAOs, enabling delegation of responsibilities and multiple roles. (3) the Aragon app Conviction Voting, which implements and facilitates experimentation of a novel blockchain-enabled governance model, guiding allocation of funds by the conviction of an organization users. (4) the Aragon app dAcademy, providing a marketplace for courses and educational resources related to blockchain. (5) The DAO-based although not Aragon-based Luce-DAO, a prototype to verify student participation in extracurricular university activities, enabling voting and promotion of new activities (which received funding from the UCM Student Observatory).
- Following the more usable approach referred above, the prototypes integrate cutting-edge technologies such as (1) GraphQL schema stitching to federate API’s and thus enabling the use of (2) hybrid architectures (combining both web 2.0 and web3 technologies) as in the Smart prototype; (3) the implementation of task allocation algorithms on the blockchain enabling traceability and transparency to core business logic that directly impact platform workers, as in the Amara prototypes.
- The Decentralized Science sub-project (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) has made multiple contributions beyond the state of the art, focusing on blockchain-enabled sustainability models for academic reviewers, and innovating both within the scientific literature and as a spin-off startup in the industry. This has been additionally validated with its success attracting funding, as mentioned above. The success of launching this spin-off is an impact measure for the project, since its business model depends on the validation of P2P Models hypotheses that blockchain-enabled distributed and democratic models would enhance collaborative communities. Moreover, this research line also enabled a second spin-off, Quartz Open Access (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)) focused on a different use case, i.e. microdonations for diamond open access journals.
- In the same research line on blockchain-enabled open science, we launched the Blockchain Open Science Ecosystem, as a space for coordination for, initially, 17 nascent projects in this field (a Telegram channel https://t.me/osftw(opens in new window) and a set of collaborative documents). In fact, this led to the consolidation of DeSci (Decentralized Science) as a global movement widely recognized today (e.g. https://ethereum.org/en/desci/(opens in new window)).
- We have developed a web dashboard and analytical tools to quantitatively study the DAO ecosystem, including over 5,600 DAO communities and $294.5B in crypto assets as of Q4 2022 (https://dao-analyzer.science(opens in new window)). This is the only free/open source tool available to that effect. We have used these tools to empirically validate DAO governance models (e.g. holographic consensus) and studying DAO activity (e.g. in relation to the price needed to pay to vote).
- We have also expanded the web dashboard and analytical tools for collaborative communities Wikichron (https://wikichron.science(opens in new window)). This has been useful to better understand social dynamics in traditional online communities (e.g. wikis), and compare them to DAO communities.
- There have been several theoretical developments, such as a formal definition for DAOs (published just one year ago and already receiving 100+ citations), proposing an agent-oriented framework for peer-to-peer applications, or an analytical comparison of different DAO platforms.
P2P Models follows a highly multi-disciplinary mixed-methods vision, beyond the purely technological (and techno-deterministic) approach typical in the blockchain ecosystem. The project’s novel approach combines:
- Lean UX, Human-centered Design and Design Thinking methods, widely used in the industry but rarely in Academia. This approach, heavily user-driven (and in our case community-driven), guides both social research and software development.
- In-depth exploration of case study communities through qualitative and quantitative social research, which facilitate finding points of intervention and experimentation which guide software development of prototypes. This facilitates considering the real needs, socio-cultural context, and social practices of the case studies' practitioners. It also maximizes the real impact on the communities.
- Agile software development of prototypes, created in response to community needs, and expected to be regularly modified and improved in subsequent iterations.
- Experimentation of software prototypes concerning collaboration and governance features which are central to community functioning.
- Continuous Deployment to shorten times between development and testing of the prototypes by the communities.
- In-depth documentation of software prototypes, open development with all the process public in the open, and free/open source licensing to embrace knowledge transfer and usability of the code by the community.
- Data science of the ecosystem of existing DAOs, empirically validating DAO governance models, and providing a dashboard for communities themselves to use.
- A novel approach to the research group collective governance, inspired by our own research and grassroots practices, publicly documented (https://p2pmodels.eu/handbook/(opens in new window)).
Social Research
The project has progressed beyond the state of the art in the following aspects:
- Providing empirical and theoretical contributions to the literature on the emerging field of blockchain-based forms of governance, by approaching it through a commons-based perspective which is, at the same time, critical with the hegemonic techno-determinist perspectives, but aware of the potentials of blockchain technologies to support and foster cooperative practices in these communities. This approach has been having a clear influence in the blockchain field. In the scientific literature, our works have received over 700 citations in just a few years, in a small field. In the industry, we have legitimized projects like blockchain-enabled Commons Stack, which has regularly cited our work – apart from our own 2 spin-offs.
- Providing empirical and theoretical contributions concerning the potentials, limitations and risks in the development and adoption of blockchain-based technologies for collaborative communities.
- We have studied both non-blockchain and blockchain communities and tools through a gender perspective, which considers forms of labor that have traditionally remained invisibilized.
- We have provided in-depth empirical analysis of practical uses of blockchain, both at governmental level (e-Estonia) and at grassroots level (DAO ecosystems). Besides, we have mapped 131 “blockchain for social good” initiatives in the EU, publishing an European Commission report on the matter.
- Employing mixed-methods, combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies, to identify the organizational tensions in collaborative communities and to measure the impact of the interventions with blockchain-based tools.
Design
- Overall, the blockchain ecosystem, and especially the DAO ecosystem, has serious deficiencies with respect to design and user experience. Thus, one of the project contributions is starting to create a Design Culture inside the blockchain/DAO community, contributing with Human-centered Design tools adapted to the technological ecosystem. The main goal has been to highlight the importance of imagining and designing ethical technologies that address citizens’ necessities in contrast with hegemonic and vertical mainstream platforms models.
- From a UX point of view, we have found multiple fields of contribution. Blockchain tools have mainly been created by and for highly-tech users, with barriers to entry and accessibility issues for the end-user. Since one of the goals of the project is to reach common users (in the Collaborative Economy communities), different contributions have been created to facilitate adoption in our pilots: (1) Progressive interfaces to make the technology transparent to the common user, as codesign workshops showed that crypto wallets (e.g. Metamask) were a serious barrier to adoption. (2) Facilitate the understanding of the prototypes and web3 through meticulous onboarding processes, creating specific tutorials with the intention of making the process much clearer and similar to traditional services. (3) Usability based on heuristic web standards (Nielsen): clear interfaces and functionalities reduced to the minimum in order to minimize confusion (one product, one thing).
Computer Science
- The experimentation with real off-blockchain case study communities and their transition to adopting blockchain-enabled systems, which has been a novel approach in the field. Thus, the project has experimented with multiple approaches, opting for (1) isolating the user from the currently too techy DAO platforms; (2) hiding the blockchain complexities to the final users to facilitate adoption, (3) using hybrid software architectures that allow backend services to work with both web 2.0 and web3 technologies. Therefore, the blockchain features such as decentralization, uncensorship, immutability and transparency are enabled through collective web3 accounts rather than individual accounts that typically create a DAO. This happens while keeping the user agnostic of the underlying technology, or through progressive adoption of web3 interfaces.
- Within its wide experimentation, the project has developed multiple novel software applications that go beyond the state of the art, including: (1) the first DAO wiki, which demonstrates the capabilities of Aragon DAO platform and IPFS for distributed online collaboration, similar to standard centralized wikis; (2) the Aragon app Committees, which experiments with new governance features beyond the basic voting mechanisms common in DAOs, enabling delegation of responsibilities and multiple roles. (3) the Aragon app Conviction Voting, which implements and facilitates experimentation of a novel blockchain-enabled governance model, guiding allocation of funds by the conviction of an organization users. (4) the Aragon app dAcademy, providing a marketplace for courses and educational resources related to blockchain. (5) The DAO-based although not Aragon-based Luce-DAO, a prototype to verify student participation in extracurricular university activities, enabling voting and promotion of new activities (which received funding from the UCM Student Observatory).
- Following the more usable approach referred above, the prototypes integrate cutting-edge technologies such as (1) GraphQL schema stitching to federate API’s and thus enabling the use of (2) hybrid architectures (combining both web 2.0 and web3 technologies) as in the Smart prototype; (3) the implementation of task allocation algorithms on the blockchain enabling traceability and transparency to core business logic that directly impact platform workers, as in the Amara prototypes.
- The Decentralized Science sub-project (https://decentralized.science(opens in new window)) has made multiple contributions beyond the state of the art, focusing on blockchain-enabled sustainability models for academic reviewers, and innovating both within the scientific literature and as a spin-off startup in the industry. This has been additionally validated with its success attracting funding, as mentioned above. The success of launching this spin-off is an impact measure for the project, since its business model depends on the validation of P2P Models hypotheses that blockchain-enabled distributed and democratic models would enhance collaborative communities. Moreover, this research line also enabled a second spin-off, Quartz Open Access (https://quartz.to(opens in new window)) focused on a different use case, i.e. microdonations for diamond open access journals.
- In the same research line on blockchain-enabled open science, we launched the Blockchain Open Science Ecosystem, as a space for coordination for, initially, 17 nascent projects in this field (a Telegram channel https://t.me/osftw(opens in new window) and a set of collaborative documents). In fact, this led to the consolidation of DeSci (Decentralized Science) as a global movement widely recognized today (e.g. https://ethereum.org/en/desci/(opens in new window)).
- We have developed a web dashboard and analytical tools to quantitatively study the DAO ecosystem, including over 5,600 DAO communities and $294.5B in crypto assets as of Q4 2022 (https://dao-analyzer.science(opens in new window)). This is the only free/open source tool available to that effect. We have used these tools to empirically validate DAO governance models (e.g. holographic consensus) and studying DAO activity (e.g. in relation to the price needed to pay to vote).
- We have also expanded the web dashboard and analytical tools for collaborative communities Wikichron (https://wikichron.science(opens in new window)). This has been useful to better understand social dynamics in traditional online communities (e.g. wikis), and compare them to DAO communities.
- There have been several theoretical developments, such as a formal definition for DAOs (published just one year ago and already receiving 100+ citations), proposing an agent-oriented framework for peer-to-peer applications, or an analytical comparison of different DAO platforms.