As cryptocurrencies go mainstream with exorbitant valuations, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) enable new markets for the ‘creator economy’, we wonder: is blockchain technology neoliberalism's new best friend? It certainly accelerates the tendency to turn attention, reputation, influence, decisional power, even art, into assets and trade them for a price.
But instead of dismissing this as only a further step in the relentless financialisation of everything, we should explore the ways in which the technology redefines assets – and how it may expand the possibilities for organising economically, politically and socially beyond the current extractive frameworks.
To assess the extent to which assets have pervaded daily life, look no further than the current web, where data assets play a crucial role within the business model of platform capitalism. Not only do tech platforms generate profit through the services they provide, but their financial valuations are largely amplified by the perceived value of the data that they generate and capture. As Van Doorn and Badger (2020) explain: “This value derives in part from data’s expected or actual practical utility in operational processes (i.e. achieving functional goals and systems optimisation). Yet captured data also attracts venture capital and grows financial valuations, to the extent that investors expect data-rich platform companies to achieve competitive advantages.” The combination of data-centric businesses and the profit-driven interests of investors constitutes a huge obstacle for workers' agency in the ‘sharing economy’ and it also hinders the ability of creators, artists and knowledge workers to be fairly rewarded for their work, as the end value of their creations is largely determined by the logic of ‘The Feed’ within social media platforms, extracting rent and forward-looking value from their users.
