Finance 4.0: Design principles for a value-sensitive cryptoecnomic system to address sustainability

TL;DR

This paper proposes design principles for a value-sensitive cryptoeconomic system that promotes sustainability through multi-dimensional incentives, validated by user studies and offering new research and innovation opportunities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design science methodology with value-sensitive principles for socio-ecological cryptoeconomics, addressing sustainability challenges.

Findings

Validated software demonstrates relevance and usability.

Design principles reveal new research directions.

Opportunities for business innovation in sustainable cryptoeconomics.

Abstract

Cryptoeconomic systems derive their power but can not be controlled by the underlying software systems and the rules they enshrine. This adds a level of complexity to the software design process. At the same time, such systems, when designed with human values in mind, offer new approaches to tackle sustainability challenges, that are plagued by commons dilemmas and negative external effects caused by a one-dimensional monetary system. This paper proposes a design science research methodology with value-sensitive design methods to derive design principles for a value-sensitive socio-ecological cryptoeconomic system that incentivizes actions toward sustainability via multi-dimensional token incentives. These design principles are implemented in a software that is validated in user studies that demonstrate its relevance, usability and impact. Our findings provide new insights on designing cryptoeconomic systems. Moreover, the identified design principles for a value-sensitive socio-ecological financial system indicate opportunities for new research directions and business innovations.