Blockchain Enlightenment and Smart City Cryptopolis

Abstract

This paper articulates the notion of the cryptocitizen who thinks freely of the traditional dictates of authority. The analysis looks beyond the immediate economic benefits and risks of blockchain technology to consider the broader implications for the individual and society. The possibility of creating and participating in different and multiple self-determined political and economic systems could mobilize how we instantiate ourselves as individuals and societies. Blockchain technology invites the possibility of making a social world with greater prominence of the values we apparently care about: freedom, trust, and dignity. There is a need for social structures that ensure and promote coexistence among diverse individuals and groups, particularly looking ahead to the possibilities of machine intelligence and space settlement. The hidden novelty and benefit of blockchain technology is serving as a tool for the design of smart city cryptopolises and cryptocitizen social structures. The bigger stakes of blockchain technology are the possibility of having new modes of social organization.