Blockchain’s impact on the Earth has ecological, social and economical consequences. The distributed promise of blockchain relies on a network of miners established at a geographic point, moving along wires and crossing borders. As Gavin Bridge points out: “borders are imagined (and constructed) as places of abundant emptiness”. It is precisely these imaginary borders that are being used to legitimize crypto-colonialism – which in a second layer consists of experiments by companies and governments to extract economic benefits from those suffering the scars of historic colonial expansion in the Global South. (Howson, 2020).
Escudero’s proposal “An atlas to track Crypto-colonialism.” use “the atlas” as a method of understanding how crypto-colonialism affects life on a planetary scale. The objective is to investigate and visualize; a) relationships between planetary resources and energy consumption; b) the called “Blockchain for good ” and its surveillance consequences . The final outcome will be an online digital artistic atlas, (also in a free download .pdf.) Including interactive maps, diagrams, illustrations, data visualization and texts capable of depicting the ecological, economical, and social consequences of blockchain crypto-colonialism.