Gavin Brown - Algorithms, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

Welcome to this book In Algorithms, Blockchain& Cryptocurrency: Implications for the Future of the Workplace, we are taking a long position on the eventual future effects of the combination of three (and the many more accompanying) technologies, which in our view will combine to produce a world of work entirely alien to what we currently recognise. In this world, we imagine considerable, if not total, platform-based self-employment facilitated by blockchain-based smart contracts and remunerated by global cryptocurrencies. We would hope that this does not become a simple race to the bottom, as history would prophesise, but in fact through a partnership with the state and unions, becomes a future where workers rights and conditions are improved and inequality decreases. A big ask considering historical precedent, but one that we believe is possible. However, ultimately excess profitability which arises from a new style of working, must be (mostly) reallocated to the worker, and this is where the state must come in.

In this book, we will provide a very general introduction to the key concepts including a working knowledge and understanding of the algorithmising process, the blockchain and cryptocurrencies. It must be remembered that the march of technological process continues to far outstrip our ability to pin down long-term definitions, so as a note of warning to the reader, please remember that as the concepts of algorithmising, blockchain and in particular cryptocurrency evolve in their application to the world of work, so our understanding of their effects is must. Indeed in the writing of this book, the understanding of the effect of cryptocurrency on the world of work and the worker has far outpaced the ability of regulators and interest groups to keep up.

When we first considered this book and developing our understanding of the effect of cryptocurrency, we were in effect dealing with what we know understand as first and second generation cryptocurrency. Cryptos which in effect attempted to become monies in their own right, but were fundamentally unable to fulfil the required monetary functions due to their price volatility, and then cryptocurrency which tokenised and quantified activity and behaviours, but which were not necessarily intended for use outside of bespoke and niche (though often grand in scope and imagination) areas. As the book progressed so did cryptocurrencies, the notion of a corporate cryptocurrency incorporating a stable price design came to the fore, this in particular begins to shake the very foundations of our current world of work, and much of the future of work in this book is facilitated by the idea of a stable global cryptocurrency. However, all things continue to change, and the latest developments at the time of writing suggest that this idea has stalled under intense regulatory scrutiny, with the future of money in this space, being a devolution in price stability but an increase in decentralisation with a move back towards first-generation cryptocurrency, or an increase in price stability with a decrease in decentralisation with a movement towards central bank digital currency. Ultimately though, we consider that whatever form the future of cryptocurrency takes, an eventual outcome will be a price stable widely accepted coins, and those coins will have a striking effect on the world of work.

In order to help understand this new world from the perspective of the worker, we overweight our analysis based on cryptocurrency, we consider that whilst they may eventually have a greater if not more subtle effect, the back-office functions of algorithms and blockchain, whilst they provide the structure and facilitation of a new world of work, they do not provide its face. The worker in this new world of work will interact with the platform and receive remuneration in a new currency (or currencies). In this future, the worker may well feel far more connected to their online world than the state. In this future, algorithms decide what work is needed, blockchain provides the security to the organisation and the worker and crypto facilitates payment.