Crypto in Prisons

Nov 14, 2018

file this under stupid ideas

should start by noting that i personally believe that the fundamental solution to prisons is to abolish their current form totally. that’s a bit of a lofty goal so i’m going to try to articulate some ideas around how crypto could really fulfil its potential of building an open and inclusive financial system with prisons & ex-felons.

the general idea here came to me in a sociology class on race that explained how ex-convicts are effectively locked out of the financial system in the “outside world”. Crypto is meant to represent an alternative to the current financial system and, one actually impactful way this could happen would be to create well supported censorship-resistant markets to help people who are disenfranchised by the criminal justice system to participate in the economy on some removed degree.

2020: looking back on this idea, it’s much clearer that all the big money in crypto is going towards institutional solutions that require a lot of regulatory approval, which in turn makes it harder for crypto platforms to focus on solutions that *don’t just decentralize data but also decentralize power**