Transferring IP to blockchain is a form of technosolutionism---further harms marginalized communities and reproduces systems of land oppression

In this paper I argue that blockchains are being used to intensify commodification of housing and land, but contradictorily, in fewer cases, distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are also being proposed as tools to reimagine and computationally facilitate alternative housing and land futures.1 Certain digital marketplaces (STOMarket, 2023; Swarm, 2022) use tokenization to more covertly facilitate real estate investment for high net-worth accredited investors, reproducing racial property regimes (Bhandar, 2018) outside of mainstream planning efforts. With the mechanism of the security token offering (STO), crowdfunding and venture capital are combined with cryptocurrency to create a “tokenized venture capital fund” tied to tangible assets, such as ownership rights in housing, real estate, or land (SolidBlock, 2022). In the STO, distributed ledgers are proposed to be used as the technology underlying new forms of land/property documentation, ownership, and inhabitation – from conducting and recording land surveys and title creation to transference of land/property rights. This paper looks toward the means of contesting predatory formations around the spatial data financialization of housing and land, critically comparing distributed ledger projects that claim to inject equity in the system by extending purchasing power to marginalized people of color in the United States (EquityCoin), others that pose alternative housing models and economies such as cooperativism and commoning (DOMA), and still others that seek land rights (Daniel and Ifejika Speranza, 2020) and Indigenous data sovereignty (Rodriguez-Lonebear, 2016). This research is positioned alongside scholars critically analyzing the implications of distributed ledgers for urban governance and alternative economies (Gloerich et al. 2020).

In this paper, I show how DLTs can act as digital architectures of exclusion and as digital architectures of inclusion. This can mean inclusion in existing forms of capitalism, inclusion in access to the housing market, and inclusion in acknowledging informal land rights to receive state benefits. This paper is not meant as a definitive study of all DLT land and housing projects but rather proposes a framework for critically questioning and analyzing the promises/claims of a given STO/DLT project. I suggest that it is not the so-called disruptive potential (McKinsey, 2016) of blockchain technology at large that will ensure equitable outcomes, but rather the intentionally designed organization, ownership, and management models that the distributed ledger can computationally facilitate. Guideposts for the design of these models may connect with the platform cooperative and technological sovereignty movements. However, the limits of datafication and tendencies of digital technologies toward cooptation and appropriation must be acknowledged (Scott, 2020; Tenner, 1997). Critical scholars should challenge technosolutionist narratives and question the limits of digital technology on commoning or counter-hegemonic process that demand flexibility, negotiation, and interaction that exceeds computational bounds.

Methodology

Building on years-long ethnographic work on cryptocurrency and blockchain development in Puerto Rico and New York, I pair empirical research with literature reviews of articles and whitepapers for pilot projects proposing the use of distributed ledgers in housing and land markets, examining how distributed ledgers are currently being designed by, and used to benefit, different groups of people. I began this research in 2019 when a research collaborator and legal expert in Puerto Rico alerted me to the launch site for the Viejo San Juan Comunidad Re-Fund STO. STOs like Viejo San Juan Comunidad Re-Fund (STOWise, 2020) leverage Puerto Rico’s Act 60, tokenizing access rights and investment shares to an exclusive enclave of distributed residential, commercial, and even agricultural properties. Act 60 gives a wide range of tax breaks to outside blockchain developers and tech companies, as well as zero capital gains on crypto assets for individuals who move to Puerto Rico and establish bona fide residency. These same tax benefits are not eligible to existing Puerto Rican residents. As a result, Act 60 is cultivating crypto-oriented settlement in Puerto Rico, if not introducing new forms of crypto-colonialism on a land and people subject to over 500 years of colonialism. While there is an ongoing movement advocating the repeal of Act 60 by local Puerto Ricans (Atiles, 2022), an increasing population of decree holders is building political sway and engaging in exclusionary digital practices. The VSJ San Juan STO offered exclusive, privileged access to the prospective token holders/crypto-community, mainly venture capitalists from the United States (Crandall, 2019). Here, blockchain acts as a distributed insular network of exclusion that poses to further colonize a land that has been subject to serial colonization. While the VSJ San Juan STO did not reach its funding goal, this led me to question if STOs were being used in predatory ways in other global contexts.