From cryptocurrencies to cryptocourts: blockchain and the financialization of dispute resolution platforms. Issue 2 (25th January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dylag, Matthew; Smith, Harrison
• Is Part Of: Information, communication & society. Volume 26:Issue 2(2023)
• Page Start: 372
• Page End: 387
• Publication Date: 2023-01-25
• Subjects: Cryptocourts -- blockchain -- online dispute resolution -- access to justice -- financialization; Information technology -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Economic aspects -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Political aspects -- Periodicals; Internet -- Periodicals; World Wide Web -- Periodicals; 303.4833
• DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2021.1942958
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1369-118X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper contributes to emerging discussions of blockchain governance through an analysis of dispute resolution platforms that reimagine justice. We focus specifically on Kleros, a blockchain-enabled dispute resolution platform, that promises to secure, authenticate, and democratize access to justice for the twenty-first century. We advance the concept of cryptocourts whereby jurors, incentivized by accumulating cryptocurrency, rapidly mobilize using principles of on-demand crowdsourcing to resolve disputes. We critique the broader social imaginaries that cryptocourts such as Kleros will result in a more open, trustworthy, transparent, and democratic systems of justice. These platforms instead pose important questions concerning their potential impact on civil dispute resolution practices by embedding it within an economy of cryptocurrency speculation. This ostensibly results in a legal infrastructure founded on principles of financial acquisition that positions jurors as economic agents seeking to profit from disputes, and courts as computational systems that merely authenticate and secure the distribution of evidence and verdicts.