Unchaining Collective Intelligence for Science, Research, and Technology Development by Blockchain-Boosted Community Participation

Frontiers in Blockchain, vol. 4

Abstract

Since its launch just over a decade ago by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) blockchain has followed a breathtaking trajectory into manifold application spaces. This study aper analyses how key factors underpinning the success of this ground-breaking “Internet of value” technology, such as staking of collateral (“skin in the game”), competitive crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and prediction markets, can be applied to substantially innovate the legacy organization of science, research, and technology development (RTD). Here, we elaborate a highly integrative, community-based strategy where a token-based crypto-economy supports finding best possible consensus, trust, and truth by adding unconventional elements known from reputation systems, betting, secondary markets, and social networking. These tokens support the holder’s formalized reputation and are used in liquid-democracy style governance and arbitration within projects or community-driven initiatives. This participatory research model serves as a solid basis for comprehensively leveraging collective intelligence by effectively incentivizing contributions from the crowd, such as intellectual property work, validation, assessment, infrastructure, education, assessment, governance, publication, and promotion of projects. On the analogy of its current blockbusters like peer-to-peer structured decentralized finance (“DeFi”), blockchain technology can seminally enhance the efficiency of science and RTD initiatives, even permitting to fully stage operations as a chiefless decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs).

Authors 13

1. Jens Ducrée corresponding

   Dublin City University

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Physical Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

2. Martin Etzrodt
   Affiliation as printed

   Akasha Foundation, Zug, Switzerland

3. Sönke H. Bartling
   Affiliation as printed

   Blockchain for Science GmbH, Berlin, Germany

4. Ray Walshe

   Dublin City University

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

5. Tomás Seosamh Harrington

   University of East Anglia

   Affiliation as printed

   Innovation, Technology and Operations Management Group, Faculty of Social Sciences, Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

6. Neslihan Wittek

   Ruhr University Bochum

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Biopsychology, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

7. Sebastian Posth
   Affiliation as printed

   Posth Werk BV, Leiden, Netherlands

8. Kevin Wittek
   Affiliation as printed

   Institute for Internet Security, Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

9. Andrei Ionita

   Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT), Sankt Augustin, Germany

10. Wolfgang Prinz Aachen Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology

    Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology · RWTH Aachen University

    Affiliation as printed

    Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Aachen, Germany

    Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT), Sankt Augustin, Germany

11. Dimitrios G. Kogias

    University of West Attica

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of West Attica, Egaleo, Greece

12. Tiago Paixão

    Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Rua da Quinta Grande 6, Oeiras, Portugal

13. Iosif Peterfi

    Max Planck Society · Max Planck Digital Library

    Affiliation as printed

    Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), Max Planck Society, München, Germany