Runaway train? Decentralised finance and the myth of the private platform economy

Abstract

ABSTRACT According to one view, the decentralisation of finance [‘DeFi’] is the next phase in the constitutionalisation of money, while others highlight the actual asymmetry between those who can benefit from the evolving technology and those who find themselves further descending into cycles of debt and self-exploitation. DeFi’s protagonists maintain that a non-hierarchical, access-controlled system of financial transaction, housed in technology rather than in institutions, will lead to universal inclusivity and transparency. Skeptics question DeFi’s alleged autonomy and point to the public nature of money and the financial system – while acknowledging its shortcomings for its most vulnerable users. Contextualising DeFi’s democratisation promise of platform money within broader contemporary contestations of democratic practices and the role of law in them, the paper critically interrogates DeFi’s ability to provide a framework not only for individual financial inclusion but for collective pursuit of transformative, democratic governance of economic and financial transaction.