Glossary

There is no one set definition for the phrase “ad hoc networks”. The term refers to the ability for members of a network to establish a network connection between devices. Yet, ad hoc networks pertain to both the technical domain of network infrastructures, the social, political and economic modes of self-organisation they enable, and the regulatory and policy settings that enable them.

Blockchain governance can be regarded as the integration of norms and culture, the laws and the code, the people and the institutions that facilitate coordination and together determine a given organisation.

Blockchain-based technologies can be understood as a distributed network of computers, ideally organised in a decentralised way, mutually agreeing on a common state while tolerating failures (incl. malicious behaviour) to some extent.

A glossary entry that defines consensus as a cultural technique and advocates for its potential as a democratic tool for common understanding, rather than distributed decision-making.

A cryptocurrency system can be understood as a system intended for the issuance of tokens which are intended to be used as a general or limited-purpose medium-of-exchange, and which are accounted for using an often collectively-maintained digital ledger making use of cryptography to replace trust in institutions to varying extents. Against such a backdrop, the singular term cryptocurrency can mean a token, intended to be used as a general or limited-purpose medium-of-exchange, issued via a cryptocurrency system.

Cryptoeconomics describes an interdisciplinary, emergent and experimental field that draws on ideas and concepts from economics, game theory and related disciplines in the design of peer-to-peer cryptographic systems.

Cypherpunk refers to social movements, individuals, institutions, technologies, and political actions that, with a decentralised approach, defend, support, offer, code, or rely on strong encryption systems in order to re-shape social, political, or economic asymmetries. ​

Data commons are more than data sharing arrangements. They bring up issues relating to the kind of communities they uphold, their relationships with third parties (such as other commons), data capitalism, and various dimensions of sustainability.

Data cooperatives are a type of data intermediary using long established cooperative models and global regulatory affordances to manage data with or on behalf of members (data producers) for the benefit of members or for trade with external queriers (data users).

Data intermediaries entail data governance measures for ensuring that data is only processed as appropriate, giving stakeholders some degree of confidence that their rights and interests are properly respected.

The rapidly evolving blockchain technology space has put decentralisation back into the focus of the design of techno-social systems, and the role of decentralised technological infrastructures in achieving particular social, economic, or political goals. In this entry we address how blockchains and distributed ledgers think about decentralisation.

Decentralised content moderation describes and potentially advocates for moderation infrastructures in which both the authority and the responsibility to moderate are distributed over a plurality of actors or institutions.

The idea of decentralising social media is driven by historical concerns over centralised power structures and the more contemporary issue of content moderation policies.

A DAO is a blockchain-based system that enables people to coordinate and govern themselves mediated by a set of self-executing rules deployed on a public blockchain, and whose governance is decentralised (i.e., independent from central control).

Digital Scarcity is a credibly maintained limitation, imposed through software, of digital information, goods or services that may be accessed and used entirely digitally.

Digitally-disadvantaged languages face multiple inequities in the digital sphere, with their speaker communities frequently experiencing the duality of digital neglect and surveillance. These languages suffer from gaps in digital support, and when support does exist, it often makes speaker communities vulnerable to surveillance and gaps in content moderation.

Hacktivism represents a dynamic intersection of technology and activism, where individuals or groups leverage digital tools to advance social or political causes.

The term independently-hosted web publishing refers to websites that have been made available online through infrastructure primarily controlled by the website’s owners, enabling decentralisation.

This glossary entry presents a topology of interoperability layers and presents some of the key economic and socio-technical concerns faced by interoperable systems.

In the context of blockchain networks, mining describes a permissionless process intended to ensure the global consistency of a decentralised ledger. Mining requires the consumption of a costly computational resource to participate in a probabilistic competition that confers specific privileges to a node. These privileges typically relate to the proposal of a new block, including the identity and order of transactions contained within. Mining is incentivised via an algorithmically regulated provision of rewards, usually in the form of newly generated coins and/or transaction fees.

Blockchain-based NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are uniquely identifiable digital representations of physical or digital items.

A “non-user,” as the name suggests, refers to an individual who does not use a given product or system. Critical work on non-use elaborates a range of applications for the term we consider here. The variations of non-use under discussion encompass both voluntary and involuntary cases of non-use.

Openness is contextual. Open implies access to resources or participatory mode of production that can be otherwise closed or restricted in degrees. Openness does not necessarily lead to inclusiveness or equity, even though it may be used to invoke such ideals.

“Permissionlessness” is a term often used in association with public blockchains. This glossary entry explores the origins, evolution, and coexisting uses and meanings of the term “permissionless” to contextualise it.

PIMS typically employ technical, legal and organisational measures for enabling users to manage and control their data.

Protocol has become a common term in a huge variety of technical and societal fields. This entry traces its proliferation from Antiquity to blockchains and points out its organisational properties and powers.

Reputation in a blockchain-based system is a digital representation of an entity’s standing or status in a specific domain.

The concept of self-sovereign identity (SSI) describes an identity management system created to operate independently of third-party public or private actors, based on decentralised technological architectures, and designed to prioritise user security, privacy, individual autonomy and self-empowerment.

A smart contract is code deployed in a blockchain environment, or the source code from which such code was compiled

The social appropriation of new technologies refers to technological and social processes of mediation in the interaction between social actors and technological devices.

The article explores the concept Web of Value from the perspectives of different economic theories, demonstrating the competing imaginaries on the future of the internet. ​

This glossary entry explores traceability which is an increasingly prominent research topic in decentralised technosocial systems in fields as diverse as health, sustainability, finance, and supply chain management and relates to the ability to trace something or someone.

Trust can best be understood as a relational attribute between (1) a social actor and other actor(s) (interpersonal trust) and / or (2) actors and institutions (institutional or systemic trust) and (3) institutions and (trusting) actors (trust as shared expectations), where institutional frameworks define the nature and strength of trust relationships between different actors.

Web monetisation is the conversion of user traffic into revenue. This glossary entry provides an overview of the concepts of web and content monetisation, discusses aspects arising out of their interaction, and addresses three main issues currently associated with the term: the interoperability of social media infrastructures, the interoperability of content and web monetisation, and the moderation of content monetised decentrally.