About
What is the Ledgerback Digital Commons Research Cooperative?
LedgerbackØDCRC is a community and research and education center for fostering collaboration between stakeholders and unifying the study of the internet and society (i.e., the network society). The LedgerbackØDCRC primarily conducts basic research on the internet and society.
You can also refer to LedgerbackØDCRC as a cooperative, association or institute.
History
LedgerbackØDCRC was started in 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada (Viva Las Vegas!).
Name
Ledgerback is the combination of "ledger" and "back." The word is dervied from combining back from greenback and ledger.
Ledgerback is a combination of "ledger" and "back." Ledger comes from the term Distributed Ledgers (which is often used interchangeably with blockchain). Back comes from the slang term "greenback."
The word is meant to recognize that we are currently in a transitory period and identifying the paradigm shifts needed to move our current system to blockchain-based systems (though, this can be expanded to the global technological commonwealth).
We chose "Ledgerback" based on the history of the slang term "greenback." Greenback as a term arose in the mid-1800s during the US Civil War as the US Federal Government started issuing paper money on green-colored paper (hence the name greenback). There was major uncertainty at the time over whether greenbacks would be recognized as banks as legal tender, how much one greenback equated to a piece of gold, and so on. Though this period caused some turmoil, it was a transitional period that has led to our current time where we accept paper money as money without a second thought. We believe we are going through a similar transitional period, where we are moving from paper (physical) to distributed ledgers (digital), or to ledgerbacked systems, (i.e., systems that are built on top of blockchains and are backed and secured by the blockchain's inherent properties and a society pushed by blockchain values and thinking), and even greater than that, a global technological commonwealth.
Logo
Our logo is of our mascot, Scout Stork.
Mascot
Scout Stork (the beautiful stork in our logo above and the visual representation of our cooperative) is our spiritual guide who helps guide us in finding the paths to flock together with industry, academia, movements, and citizens (or stakeholders and movements) to achieve the paradigm shifts needed to transition towards ledgerbacked systems (and towards a global technological commonwealth), and in making and disseminating knowledge to our members, interested parties, and the general public.
The name of our mascot, Scout Stork, comes from the fact we wanted an alliteration for the name, and that Scout can refer to someone who explores a new area to gain information, which we we are doing here at LedgerbackØDCRC within the network society.
Mottos
Where innovation meets community.
Flock together. Learn together. Change together.
Flocking the transformational change.
Amplifying collective action.
Always make new mistakes.
Innervating the Global Technological Commonwealth.
Brief History
Ledgerback Digital Commons Research Cooperative (formerly Ledgerback) was started as a Cooperative Association in 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The founding members wanted to tackle issues in the blockchain industry that they felt were distracting from the growth potential for the blockchain industry, and for greater community and local acceptance of blockchain applications:
lack of educational resources for understanding the blockchain industry
rise of scams, theft, and unsavory practices in the blockchain industry
lack of local discussions on the blockchain industry other than financial and payments use cases
On June 6, 2018, the founding members adopted the Cooperative Bylaws, the rules by which the Cooperative operates and conducts business under.
During the months of September and December, LedgerbackØDCRC published the first edition of its Amalgam magazine on Medium, and Ledgerback published its first blockchain market review, A Preliminary Review of Blockchain in the Music Industry, on Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and Scribd.
Principles and Values
LedgerbackØDCRC's principles and values are inspired by open communities and cooperative-like organizations.
The base principles and values that apply across the network are:
Decentralization is a spectrum, with our goal to continually decentralize our processes
We are in constant development
Transparency and Openness is the default
Complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity are natural occurrences
One-size fits all approaches are unlikely to be helpful
We strive for egalitarianism
The Commons (knowledge, documentation, tools, etc.) should be freely accessible to members
Our principles and will continue to evolve over time
Inspirations
Sensorica
ScienceAtHome
Jacob Friis Sherson
Ouishare
P2P Foundation
Nexus Mutual
Decred
Santa Fe Institute
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute
Tokens Agora Meetup Group (Defunct)
Russell Harkanson
Stephanie Asao
RChain
Resonate
MakerDAO
Althea Mesh
Matt Heck
Jessie J
CoinFlip
Ewa Fabian
Aragon
Cosmos
The Ready
The Co-oplaw
Enspiral
The Catalan Integral Cooperative
Nathan Schneider
Michael Bauwens
Backfeed
Elinor Ostrom
RadicalxChange
P2PModels
Max Planck Society
ConcourseQ
Mondragon Cooperative
Stanford Social Innovation Review
Morning Star
Open Source Drug Discovery
Stephanie Asao
Co-op Cincy
L'Atelier Paysan
UpSocial
FarmHack
Chôra Foundation
Citizen Cyberlab
Citizen Science Center Zurich
Co-operative College
Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) at Cornell University
Trustlines Network
Aleeza Howitt
MIDATA Cooperative
Corporation for Digital Scholarship
Coko
Radical Open Access Collective
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
Gridcoin
Structure
LedgerbackØDCRC has a board of directors (currently seven persons), elected by the members, who oversee the cooperative and manage the administrative activities, and a general assembly of members who conduct the core activities of the cooperative.
Documents
Our documents are our Bylaws and Articles.
Last updated
