Abstract Body

Cryptourbanomics puts forward the idea that there are forces and capital in our society that cannot be dismissed or neglected but that the System (understood as the Establishment or Status-quo) has failed to acknowledge or been unable to address. These social forces have strong ideological, cultural, or identity components, sometimes related to an unrealized Right to the City (as defined by Lefèvre, 1968). The social capital behind those forces are often citizens who gave up—the so-called drop-outs because they lost their faith in the System and prefer living in their own world. Blockchain is the technology that empowers these unheard social forces and capital. However, blockchain will remain as an Anti-System technology until it finds a fit within the Establishment, until the Status-quo acknowledges and ushers it.

Cryptourbanomics is a novel method that brings into the blockchain those societal challenges that the System left unsolved. And because today’s societal challenges mostly take place in urban environments and are due, not to the lack of resources but to the inneficiencies of their flows, the Cryptourbanomics method focuses on the overall urban circularity and analyses it with a blockchain lens. The Cryptourbanomics method includes an array of blockchain tools to tackle legacy societal challenges yet unsolved by the System with a more decentralised, distributed, transparent and disintermediated approach.

A use case on Energy Transition has been chosen to show how the Cryptourbanomics method can help deliver on urban circulariy by shifting powers, from the Establishment to Communities. Moreover, this use case has been put forward by the Catalan Government, proving not only that blockchain technology is not Anti-System but that it can become an ally technology for governments who want to empower their citizens on issues that are best managed and delivered by communities themselves.