My research

My research focuses on global inequality and transnational law making through private actors in the digital economy. My current research project revolves around technologically-mediated valuations of ‘nature’, especially in blockchain-based Regenerative Finance projects (ReFi). I also co-founded the Dutch non-profit foundation 'Sovereign Nature Initiative' working at the intersection of ecology, technology and economics.

IAS fellowship

How is value coded in blockchain-driven Impact DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) and how can the practice of Impact DAOs be theorised and understood as a legal phenomenon?

Decentralisation through technology is increasingly recognised as a key strategy for promoting socio-economic transformation. The growing dominance of digital technologies controlled by a small number of large companies exacerbates the longstanding issue of inadequate participation of those most affected by global law and policy making.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) have emerged as a new digital institutional form that allows communities to design token structures and voting procedures that enable community members to better attend to their needs through autonomously governing their resources. There is a small but growing number of so called ‘impact DAOs’, dedicated to advancing a social or ecological cause.

Three features make Impact DAOs particularly interesting for social and environmental activism: (i) they rely on an autonomous architecture largely independent from existing institutional frameworks, (ii) they are designed around decentralised participatory governance; (iii) they rely on valuation practices as mode of interaction, thereby inherently connecting economic value to social and political values.

However, unlike many previous socio-political transformation projects which tried to put theory into practice, the challenge with DAOs is to theorise an ongoing practice. My project is dedicated to this challenge.