A "Social Bitcoin" could sustain a democratic digital world

TL;DR

This paper proposes a multidimensional financial system featuring Social Bitcoins, a digital currency incentivizing cooperation and diversity to foster a resilient, democratic digital society resistant to monopolistic control.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of Social Bitcoins as a new socio-digital currency to promote digital diversity and bottom-up value creation in a multidimensional financial system.

Findings

Social Bitcoins can incentivize cooperation and diversity.

A multidimensional currency system can enhance societal resilience.

Digital incentives may mitigate risks of totalitarian control.

Abstract

A multidimensional financial system could provide benefits for individuals, companies, and states. Instead of top-down control, which is destined to eventually fail in a hyperconnected world, a bottom-up creation of value can unleash creative potential and drive innovations. Multiple currency dimensions can represent different externalities and thus enable the design of incentives and feedback mechanisms that foster the ability of complex dynamical systems to self-organize and lead to a more resilient society and sustainable economy. Modern information and communication technologies play a crucial role in this process, as Web 2.0 and online social networks promote cooperation and collaboration on unprecedented scales. Within this contribution, we discuss how one dimension of a multidimensional currency system could represent socio-digital capital (Social Bitcoins) that can be generated in a bottom-up way by individuals who perform search and navigation tasks in a future version of the digital world. The incentive to mine Social Bitcoins could sustain digital diversity, which mitigates the risk of totalitarian control by powerful monopolies of information and can create new business opportunities needed in times where a large fraction of current jobs is estimated to disappear due to computerisation.