Writer: Charles Adjovu

Connecting Socio-technical Ecosystems: Ideas on how to connect Web 3 and Platform Cooperatives

How Platform Cooperatives can break the mold surrounding what is and isn’t a cooperative while creating new services

Ledgerback Digital Commons Research Cooperative

Published in

Digital Cooperative Research

8 min readDec 24, 2020

Connecting Web 3 with Platform Cooperatives

Some ideas below on how this connection can be accomplished.

For Decentralized Applications (DApps), using cooperative web hosting and servers to host DApps
OrgTech configuration package optimized for Co-operative governance, administration and/or operations (e.g., accounting configuration for internal member accounts and handling member and non-member transactions)
Common property regime for Web 3 technologies by utilizing a cooperative as an intellectual property holding entity
Consumer’s cooperatives offering a cash-back or rewards program for members in cryptocurrency
Platform cooperatives utilizing Web3 wallets for user identity, login/out and authentication
Cooperatives creating a mutual credit token to be exchanged among partner cooperatives
Cooperatives advising Web3.0 projects on applying democratic governance within their own communities
DeFi or OpenFi projects partnering with Credit Unions, CUledger, or even Filene Research Institute to test their products in real-world settings
Cooperatives acting as fiscal hosts for legally unincorporated p2p networks so that they can interact with traditional financial systems
Cooperatives accepting cryptocurrencies (or tokens) as a community currency to support the local economy, pursuant to principle seven.
Possible collaboration between Stocksy United and Creativechain to use the Creativechain blockchain and the Creary DApp for selling Stocksy United’s stock photos (primarily lesser value stock photos).
A cooperative-owned, privacy-preserving web browser that interacts with Web3 technologies.
A Cooperative developing a node operator on the Chainlink network for democratizing data oracles
Data Cooperatives using the blockchain to track changes in their datastore
Data Cooperatives using data platforms such as Ocean Protocol, Streamr, and SingularityNet
A platform cooperative developing intelligent assistants which are accessible on a blockchain
A platform cooperative offering data storage or pinning services on a distributed data storage provider such as the InterPlantery File System, Siacoin, and Filecoin.
WIR bank creating a DeFi product (specifically, a mutual credit network) that is accessible to individuals, cooperatives, or both, and a DAO to manage such a project (for multi-stakeholder considerations).
A cooperative-based custodian for cryptocurrency wallets (i.e., a crypto-custodian).
A cooperative offering a client for a blockchain protocol.
A cooperative federation creating a blockchain protocol and allowing cooperative members to create clients for the blockchain protocol.
A cooperative using a token bonding curve to offer membership shares to the general public.
A cooperative using a token curated registry to create a curated list of items in a multistakeholder model where requestors are members and curators are members.
A cooperative using OrgTech to handle their corporate governance matters.
A cooperative federation funding local cooperatives developing a search engine that can be paid for with cryptocurrency
A cooperative (e.g., Fairmondo or CoopExchange) developing a blockchain-based marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain with 0x.
A cooperative setting up a timebank exchange where people can trade services-for-services or simply monetary remuneration (a la Helsinki Timebank)[9].
A cooperative of freelancers developing a services market a la UpWork with the aid of blockchain and smart contracts.
A credit union or CUledger offering prize-linked savings accounts on the blockchain a la PoolTogether.
A cooperative for supply chain management that utilizes a blockchain for tracking and authenticating the lifecycle of parts.

New Platform Cooperative Models

Social Identity

Providing a social (data that intersects with others) digital (in cyberspace) identity layer to members as they traverse cyberspace so that they can prove who they are based on their interactions or relationship with other community members and thus democratizing and decentralizing digital identity.

Data Oracles and APIs

Expanding Data Cooperatives to also provide APIs for blockchain-based systems (and Web 3 overall) and provide a democratic data layer.

Freelancers Cybersecurity Cooperative

Providing a cooperative for open source developers (assuming the developers are freelancers) to handle the cybersecurity concerns associated with their software (like Smart Cooperative but for handling cybersecurity issues in open source software) because the task of managing security concerns can be too much of a hassle for developers individually (it would be easier to handle the risk mutually like insurance) and the risks of security issues can affect multiple individuals and organizations, thus such issues can have a major societal effect.

Market Data Cooperative

This idea is still under development

Developing a CrunchBase-like cooperative for industry market data on actors in counter-movements.

About LedgerbackØDCRC

Established in 2018, the Ledgerback Digital Commons Research Cooperative (LedgerbackØDCRC) is a nonprofit cooperative association and distributed p2p network for unifying the study of the internet and society and fostering collaboration between stakeholders to advance towards a global technological commonwealth.

Our research approach is an inter/cross-disciplinary approach, with the goal to eventually employ an anti/antedisciplinary approach as we continue to grow.

Global Technological Commonwealth

A global technological commonwealth (as summarized here) is a sociotechnical imaginary (i.e., a vision of the future) that “consists of post-capitalist society where communities of mutual interest cooperate in the construction of institutions of regenerative economic relations” [1]. The technological design principles include:

“incorporating planetary boundaries,
modelling on natural biological ecosystems,
enabling the redefinition of value,
enabling radically democratic coordination and governance, and
allowing for the growth of a cooperative commons as the desirable future” [1].

For more information on the global technological commonwealth (and to get some background), we recommend reading Dr. Sarah Manski’s article, Distributed Ledger Technologies, Value Accounting, and the Self Sovereign Identity.

Areas of Interest

Our areas of interest include, without limitation:

Web 3 technologies (blockchain, pubs, secure scuttlebutt, fediverse, smart contracts, etc.)
Collaborative economy (platform ecosystems, business models, platform capitalism, platform cooperativism, ownership economy, p2p/commons, digital labor, social contracts, etc.)
Future of work (open value accounting, peer production, self-management practices, digital organizations, etc.)
Digital Infrastructure (internet service providers, hardware, mesh networks, machine-to-machine economy, Internet-of-Things, etc.)
Data science and ethical AI (AI/ML, human-in-the-loop AI, data analytics, algorithmic policy, algorithmic governance, etc.)
Information privacy and security (data stewardship, cybersecurity, privacy-by-design, zero knowledge proof, cryptography, etc.)
Knowledge Commons (notetaking tools, knowledge repositories, decision-making models, decision analysis, collective intelligence, swarm intelligence, EdTech, etc.)
Metascience (open science, citizen science, science funding, bibliometrics, publishing, etc.)
Personal Data or Digital Identity economy (data stewardship, data monetization, self-sovereign digital identity, decentralized identifiers, digital identity, decentralized identity, data privacy, data cooperatives, data trusts, etc.)
Open Finance (e.g., alternative currencies, timebanking, community currencies, decentralized finance, prize-linked savings accounts)
Complex systems (game theory, mechanism design, dynamic systems, simulation, cryptoeconomics, etc.)
Cryptoeconomics (bonding curves, cryptoprimitives, complex systems, peer prediction, schelling points, tokenization, etc.)
Sustainability (circular economy, renewable energy, community-owned utilities, etc.)
Science and Technology (how science and technology interact with society positively and negatively, and how the relationship between them can be changed for the social good)

Problem Statements

Some example problem statements we are investigating are described in the following articles:

Creating an alternative ed-tech by Fathom
Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud by Inkandswitch
A Preliminary Review of Blockchain in the Music Industry by LedgerbackØDCRC
OpenStreetMap is Having a Moment by Joe Morrison
AI needs to face up to its invisible-worker problem by Will Douglas Heaven

Currently, LedgerbackØDCRC is run by volunteers (and we thank them for all their effort!).

Membership Benefits

Our primary stakeholders or intended beneficiares of our membership are investigators (scholars, researchers, academics, activists, makers, technologists, etc.), practitioners, citizens, and our staff (the people who make LedgerbackØDCRC run!) .

The benefits we provide or plan to provide to our members includes:

online portal (email included)
cloud infrastructure and interactive computing infrastructure
combining resources
mapping, data analytics, knowledge tools
grantwriting support
fundraising support
sharing experiences
publishing support
research assistance
networking offline and online
informing members of opportunities
providing resources

We do not have a membership fee (no need to pay $2,500.00 to join our community) but we do have annual fees ($50.00/year or provide 40 hours of time to cooperative-directed activities) to keep the cooperative operational.

Join us via the form below or send an email to ledgerback@gmail.com.

Describing LedgerbackØDCRC

The LedgerbackØDCRC is best understood as multi-purpose cooperative (we don’t fall neatly into a category 😖) that can better be described by its functions (or really a mix of a foundation, ecosystem and a research institute):

Research Institute: We produce original research (basic, applied, empirical) and analyses on the internet and society, formulate models, tools, and designs and practices, grow a body of knowledge on the internet and society with an emphasis on how to transition towards a global technological commonwealth, develop prototypes, open source software and proof-of-concepts, and run citizen science projects.
Data Cooperative: We produce and analyze datasets, trends, and other areas of interest by collecting publicly available data or curating data from our members or participants in our projects, and offer our analyses and datasets to the general public and interested parties.
Foundation: we support efforts to advance towards a global technological commonwealth, hosting events and workshops, hosting distributed communities, and acting as a host for the greater Ledgerback ecosystem.
Observatory: We monitor progress among the many sociotechnical ecosystems
Academy: We produce open source educational materials and help others find and take courses on the internet and society, and develop the skills needed to cause transformational change towards a global technological commonwealth.
Distributed community: We work together with people all across the world online to build a knowledge commons and provide resources to those who need them.

Supporting the LedgerbackØDCRC

You can support us in many different ways including:

Becoming a member (best way to do it)
Making a direct donation (donations are not tax deductible for now but we are working on it!)
Getting involved with one of our cooperative research projects as an investigator or citizen
Volunteering to help take on our core or administrative activities
Connecting the LedgerbackØDCRC with other individuals and organizations working in similar areas
Sending us your feedback on our articles, podcasts, and other media
Mentioning to others who we are and what we are doing
Taking our ideas and models and putting them into practice (with attribution 😆)
Send us a message asking for problems to solve.